Maeve Binchy - Tara Road

'I have nothing to say to you drunk or sober,' Ria's mother said with some spirit. 'I have never met your wife without telling her that she should leave you. I'll bid you good-day.'

He moved on to Rosemary's house. 'Swear to me on a stack of bibles that Gertie never cleaned for you or anyone.'

'Oh get the hell out of here before I call the Guards,' Rosemary said, and pushed past him.

Next he stopped at the dentist's house. Jimmy Sullivan saw him from the window and answered the door himself.

'Tell me.'

'I'll tell you nothing, Jack Brennan, except that I fix your wife's teeth every time you hit her and I'm not in a mood to do so again.'

Then he went and knocked loudly on Marilyn's door. 'Did you give Gertie a whore's dress?'

'Did she say I did?'

'Stop being Mrs. Clever with me.'

'I think you should go, Jack.' She slammed the door and looked out the window to see where he went. She saw him run across the road to the bus stop.

Polly Callaghan had everything ready. Today she was moving to rented accommodation. An unfurnished flat so she could take her own things with her. Those at least had not been seized by that woman, Barney's mouse-like wife, who had been stacking away thousands upon thousands.

Last night Polly had gone to dinner with a pleasant man who had long been pestering her for a date. It had been a deadly dull evening. She dreaded to think of a lifetime without Barney. She wished she could hate him but she couldn't. She just hated herself for having taken the wrong decision so long ago.

The furniture vans had arrived. Polly sighed and began to give the directions that would dismantle a large part of her life. The phone was disconnected but her mobile was still in operation. It rang just at that moment.

'Poll, I love you.'

'No you don't, Barney, but it doesn't matter.'

'What do you mean it doesn't matter?'

'It doesn't,' she said, and clicked off.

She was going to drive ahead of the van to direct them to the new address. One final look and she was ready to close the door. Polly sighed. It was hard to say to Barney that it didn't matter, but she must be practical. She had always known Barney for what he was. He was like Danny Lynch, although as far as she knew Danny had never had any strong partner-figure like herself. Barney would always remain married to a safe-haven person like Mona. Danny had moved from his safe haven, the faithful, loving Ria, to safe, compliant Bernadette. There had been some little dramas in between like that wild Orla King and one or two others. But that's the way things were. Polly did not think she had been fooled or betrayed. She had always known the score. And there was plenty of life ahead.

She gave one last glance out the window at the removal van.

Everything was packed now, she only had her hand luggage to take. There were sounds of shouting, some drunk was yelling abusively. Polly couldn't quite see what was happening. Then there was a thump, an impact followed by a screech of brakes. There were screams from everywhere. The boy who was driving was being helped from his seat.

'I couldn't help it, he threw himself, I swear,' he was stammering.

It was Jack Brennan. And he was dead.

CHAPTER NINE

The launderette was busy when they arrived. The shirt-ironing service had been a big success, and Gertie had got orders from several business concerns as well. Colm had been high in his praise of her and personal recommendation was always very important. She looked up when she saw Polly Callaghan coming in and her hand flew to her throat when she saw that Polly was followed by two Guards.

'Jack?' she cried in a strangled voice. 'Has Jack done something? He was grand last night, very quiet, not a word out of him. What did he do?'

'Sit down, Gertie,' Polly said. One of the Guards had organised a glass of water from amongst the inquisitive staff and clientele. 'There's been an accident. It was very quick, he didn't feel a thing,' Polly said. 'The ambulancemen said it would have been over in a second.'

'What are you saying?' Gertie was white-faced.

'We would all be lucky to go so quickly and painlessly, Gertie, honestly, when you think of the length it takes some people to die.'

The young Guard handed her the glass of water. She had only been in uniform for a week. This was the first occasion when she had been sent to break bad news to someone about an accident. She was very glad that this Miss Callaghan had come with them. The poor woman who ran the launderette looked as if she were going to keel over and die herself.

'But Jack can't be dead,' Gertie kept saying. 'Jack's not even forty, he has years of good living ahead of him, ahead of both of us.'

'Mrs. Vine, Marilyn, we met briefly. I'm Polly Callaghan. I'm with Gertie Brennan now.'

'Yes?'

'There's been a most awful accident. Gertie's husband Jack was killed and of course she's devastated, I'm here with her now, and they're getting her mother and everything… but I do have to go to let people into a new apartment and I was wondering…'

'Would you like me to come to the launderette?' Marilyn asked.

'If you can, please.'

Marilyn heard the urgency, almost desperation, in the voice. 'I’ll come right away.' She called out to Colm in the garden, I'm going out to Gertie, Jack had an accident.'

'Nothing trivial, I hope?' Colm said.

'Fatal, I believe,' Marilyn said tersely.

To her surprise Colm threw down his fork and rushed into the house. 'Jesus, what a stupid remark to make, I'll come with you,' he said. 'But I'll run on ahead and tell Nora Johnson, she'd want to come too.'

Marilyn thought to herself, not for the first time, that these really were extraordinary people. The very time when you wanted to be left alone with your grief they started assembling half the country around you. She tried to take it in. Jack Brennan who had called at this door under two hours ago was dead ? Her last words to him had been, 'I think you should go.' Suppose she had asked him in for coffee, suppose she had tried to reassure him, would he be alive now? But Marilyn had been down that road before: she wasn't going to travel it again. What had happened to Gertie's husband was not her fault. She would no longer take on the guilt and responsibility of the universe. She would go and see what could be done for the living.

Ria's mother was exactly the right person to have alerted. She knew precisely what to do. She encouraged the launderette staff to continue working. It's what Gertie would want if she were able to speak, Nora Johnson said. No, it wasn't at all heartless to keep the business going, in fact it was only fair to customers. But if the staff would all like to give her fifty pence each she would go out now and buy a big bunch of flowers and a card so that they could be seen to be the very first to sympathise. They rooted in their apron pockets and Nora came back with a bouquet, which had cost three times what she had collected.

'What exactly would you write in a case like this?' one of the girls asked.

'Suppose you say: "For Gertie with love and sympathy", would that cover it?' Nora Johnson knew that none of them, any more than herself, could bear to mention the name Jack on a card. Only a couple of hours ago she had shouted at him herself and said that she had always urged Gertie to leave him. Nora didn't regret it at all, it was what she had always felt. Not of course that there would be any need to say anything like that now to Gertie.

Marilyn watched in amazement as the little flat above the launderette filled with people. A buffet table was set up with cold ham and pate which came from Colm's restaurant. Jimmy and Frances Sullivan had sent a crate of wine, and bottles of soda. Hilary had sent a message saying she'd come over after work and bring a bag of black clothes which Gertie could borrow. The children John and Katy had arrived, stunned, confused and taken from the summer course where their grandmother had paid for them to have some kind of normal holiday. Gertie's mother was there, her mouth a thin hard line, but her words kind as she went along with the general fiction that Gertie had tragically lost a great man, a loving husband and devoted father.