Maeve Binchy - Tara Road

Ria knew not to push it. 'Fine. When the weather gets better I'll drive her down to see them, we might both go.'

'What? Yes, great.' She knew he wouldn't. He had separated himself from them a long time ago, they were no longer part of his life. Sometimes Danny and his single-mindedness were a mystery and a slight worry to Ria.

'Would you like to drive down to the country with me to see Danny's parents?' Ria asked her mother.

'Well, maybe. Would Annie be carsick?'

'Not at all, doesn't she love going in the car? Will you make them an apple tart?'

'Why?'

'Oh Mam, out of niceness, that's why. They'll be apologising about everything. You know the way they go on. And if I bring too much they get sort of overwhelmed. You bringing an apple tart is different somehow.'

'You're very complicated, Ria. You always were,' said Nora, but she was pleased to make one, and did a lot of fancy lattice-work with the pastry. .

Ria had written well in advance and the Lynches were expecting them. They were pleased to see little Annie, and Ria took a picture of them with her to add to the ones she had already framed and given to them. They would be part of Annie's life and future in spite of their distance and reserve. She had resolved this. They never saw their other grandchild in England . Rich didn't come back. It was hard, they said. Ria wondered why it was hard for a man who was meant to be doing well in London to come home even just once and show his son to his own parents.

Rosemary had said she should leave them to it and be glad that she didn't have nagging in-laws. But Ria was determined that they stay involved.

They had cold ham, tomatoes and shop bread, which was all they ever served. 'Will I warm up the apple tart, do you think?' Mrs. Lynch asked fearfully, as if faced with an insuperable problem.

How had these timid people begotten Danny Lynch who travelled the country with Barney McCarthy, confident and authoritative, talking to businessmen and county families that would have had his parents doffing their caps and bending their knees?

'And you were down here a few weeks ago and never told us,' Danny's father said.

'No indeed I was not. I think Danny may have been near by, but of course he would have to stay with Barney McCarthy all the time.' Ria was annoyed. She had known that somehow it would get back to them. He had only been a few short miles away, why couldn't he have come over for an hour?

'Well, now, when I was in the creamery there, Marty was saying that his daughter works in the hotel and that the pair of you were there.'

'No, it was Barney who was with him,' Ria said patiently. 'She got it wrong.'

'Oh well, fair enough,' said Danny's father. The incident had lost any interest for him.

Ria knew what had confused the girl; Barney McCarthy had brought Polly with him on the trip. So that's where the mistake lay.

In September 1987, shortly before Annie's fourth birthday party, they were planning a party for the grown-ups in Tara Road.

Danny and Ria were making the list, and Rosemary was there as she so often was.

'Remember a few millionaires for me, I'm getting to my sell-by date,' Rosemary said.

'Oh that will be the day,' Ria laughed.

'Seriously though, has Barney any friends?'

'No, they're all sharks. You'd hate them, Rosemary,' Danny laughed.

'Okay, who else is on the list?'

'Gertie,' said Ria.

'No,' said Danny.

'Of course, Gertie,' said Ria.

'You can't have a party and not have Gertie,' Rosemary supported her.

'But that mad eejit Jack Brennan will turn up looking for a fight or a bottle of brandy or both,' Danny protested.

'Let him, we've coped before,' Ria said. There were the bedsitter tenants, they'd be in the house anyway, and they were nice lads. They would ask Martin and Hilary who would not come but would need the invitation. Ria's mother would come just for half an hour and stay all night. 'Barney and Mona obviously,' Ria said.

'Barney and Polly actually,' Danny said.

There was a two-second pause and then Ria wrote down Barney and Polly.

'Jimmy Sullivan, the dentist, and his wife,' Ria suggested. 'And let's ask Orla King.'

Both Danny and Rosemary frowned. 'Too drinky,' Rosemary said. 'Unreliable.'

'No, she's in AA now. But still too unpredictable,' Danny agreed.

'No, I like her. She's fun.' Ria wrote her down.

'We could ask Colm Barry, the fellow who's going to open a restaurant in the house on the corner.'

'In his dreams he is,' Danny said.

'He is , you know, I'm doing the invitations to the first night.'

'Which may easily be his last night,' Danny said.

Rosemary was annoyed at the way he dismissed Colm, even if it was exactly her own feeling about it all. She decided to say something to irritate Danny. 'Let's ask him anyway, Ria. He has the hots for Orla King, like all those fellows who see no further than the sticky-out bosom and bum.'

Ria giggled. 'We're all turning into matchmakers, aren't we?' she said happily.

Rosemary felt a great wish to smack Ria. Very hard. There she stood, cosy and smug in her married state. She was totally confident and sure of her husband and it never occurred to her that a man like Danny would have many people attracted to him. Orla King might not be the only player on the stage. But did Ria do anything about it? Make any attempt at all to keep his interest and attention?

Of course not. She filled this big kitchen with people and casseroles and trays of fattening cakes. She polished the furniture they bought at auctions for their front room upstairs, but the beautiful round table was covered with catalogues and papers. Ria wouldn't think in a million years of lighting two candles and putting on a good dress to cook dinner for Danny and serve it there.

No, it was this big noisy kitchen with half the road passing through and Danny's armchair for him to fall asleep in when he came home from whatever the day had brought. She looked at Danny and admired his handsome smiling face. He stood there in the kitchen of his big house holding his beautiful daughter in his arms while his wife planned a party for him. A man so confident that he could take a girlfriend to within a few short miles of where his own mother and father lived. And in front of Barney McCarthy too. Rosemary had heard the laughing tale of how Ria's father-in-law had got the wrong end of the stick as usual. Why was it that some men led such lucky lives that nobody would blow a whistle on them? Things were very, very unfair.

Ria baked night and day to have a great spread for the party. Twice she had to refuse invitations from Mona McCarthy and remember not to tell her why she was so busy. She hated doing this to the kind woman who had shown her such generosity. But Danny had been adamant. This was a do that Polly would enjoy. The party would not be mentioned to Mona.

Ria's mother knew the score and would not say anything untoward. Living now so close to Ria meant that she was a constant visitor and aware of everything that went on in the household. Nora Johnson never came to Number 16 Tara Road for an actual meal, she was not a lunch guest or a dinner guest. That way you made yourself unpopular, she always said. Instead she was a presence just before or after every meal, hovering, rattling her keys, planning her departure and next visit. It would have been vastly easier had she come in properly and sat down with everyone else. Ria sighed over it but she put up with her mother. It was comforting, too, to have someone around who knew the whole background to things. Like the Barney McCarthy saga.

'Close your eyes to it, Ria,' she advised on several occasions. 'Men like that have their needs, you know.' It seemed unusually tolerant and forgiving on her mother's part. Usually people's needs were dismissed with a sniff. But Nora Johnson was a very practical person. She said once to Ria and Hilary that she would have forgiven her late husband much more if he had had his needs and dealt with them rather than doing what he did, which was failing to provide her with an adequate life insurance or pension.