Maeve Binchy - Tara Road

'We must have plenty of soft drinks,' Ria said to Danny on the morning of the party.

'Sure, with people like Orla and Colm off the sauce,' he agreed.

'How did you know she was in AA?' Ria asked.

'I don't know, didn't you or Rosemary say? Someone did.'

'I didn't know; I won't say anything,’ Ria said.

'Neither will I,' Danny promised her.

As it happened it was a night when Orla lapsed from her rule. She had arrived early, the first guest in fact, to find Danny Lynch and the wife that he had said meant nothing to him in a deep embrace in their kitchen. The home where Danny Lynch claimed he felt stifled was decorated, warm and welcoming, and about to fill up with their friends. The little girl in a new dress toddled around. She would be four shortly, she told everyone, and she thought that this was her party. She was constantly trying to hold her daddy's hand. This was not the scene that Orla had expected. She thought she might have one whiskey.

When Colm arrived she was already very drunk. 'Let me take you home,' he begged.

'No, I don't want anyone to preach at me,' Orla said, tears running down her face.

'I won't preach, I'll just stay with you. You'd do that for me,' he said.

'No I wouldn't, I'd support you if your fellow was behaving like a shit. If your fellow was here and behaving like a hypocritical rat I'd have a whiskey with you, that's what I'd do, not a rake of sanctimonious claptrap about Higher Powers.'

'I don't have a fellow.' He made a weak joke.

'You don't have anything, Colm, that's your problem.'

'Could be,' he said.

'Where's your sister?'

'Why do you ask?'

'Because she's the only one you give a tuppenny damn about. I expect you're sleeping with her.'

'Orla, this isn't helping you and it isn't hurting me.'

'You've never loved anybody.'

'Yes I have.' Colm was aware that Rosemary was beside them. He looked at her for help. 'Should we try and find whoever this fellow is that she thinks she loves?'

'No, that would be singularly inappropriate,' Rosemary said.

'Why?'

'It's the host,' she said succinctly.

'I see.' He gave a grin. 'What do you suggest?'

Rosemary wasted no time. 'A further couple of drinks until she passes out.'

'I couldn't go along with that, I really couldn't.'

'Okay, look the other way. I'll do it.'

'No.'

'Go, Colm. You're not helping.'

'You think I'm very weak,' he said.

'No, I don't for Christ's sake. If you're in AA you're not meant to get a fellow member to pass out. I'll do it.' He stood aside and watched Rosemary pour a large whiskey. 'Go on, drink it, it's only tonight, Orla. One day at a time, isn't that what they say? Tomorrow you need have none. But tonight you need one.'

'I love him,' wept Orla.

'I know you do, but he's a liar, Orla. He takes you to Quentin's; he takes you down the country to hotels with Barney McCarthy and then he plays housey-housey with his wife in front of you. It's not fair.'

'How do you know all this?' Orla was round-mouthed.

'You told me, remember?'

'I never told you. You're Ria's friend.'

'Of course you told me, Orla. How else would I know?'

'When did I tell…?'

'A while back. Listen, come up here and sit in this alcove, it's very quiet and you and I'll have a drink.'

'I hate talking to women at parties.'

'I know, Orla, so do I. But not for long. I'll send one of those nice boys who lives in this house up to talk to you. They were all asking who you were.'

'Were they?'

'Yes, everyone is. You don't want to waste your time on Danny Lynch, professional liar.'

'You're right, Rosemary.'

'I am, believe me.'

'I always thought you were stuck up, I'm sorry.'

'No you didn't. You always liked me deep down.' Rosemary went to find the boys who rented the rooms in Danny and Ria's house. 'There's a real goer up in the alcove on the stairs, she keeps asking where are the good-looking men she met when she came in.'

Colm moved out of the background. 'You should be in the United Nations,' he said to Rosemary.

'But you don't fancy me?' she said archly.

'I admire you too much, I'd be afraid of you.'

'Then you'd be no use to me.' She laughed, and kissed him gently on the cheek.

'I don't sleep with my sister, you know,' he said.

'I didn't think you did for a minute. Don't I know you're having a thing with that publican's wife?'

'How do you know that?' he was amazed.

'I told you it's a small forest and I know everything,' she said with a laugh.

Nora Johnson said afterwards it was amazing how much drink they put away, young fresh-faced people. And wasn't it extraordinary that young, very drunk, girl shouting at everyone. And she had gone into one of the boys' bedsitters. And what a funny chance that someone had opened the door and they had been seen in bed. Danny had said he hadn't thought that any of it was funny. Orla was obviously unused to drink and had reacted badly. She hadn't meant to go to bed with one of those kids. It was out of character for her.

'Oh come on, Danny. She's anybody's, we all knew that back when we worked in the agency,' Rosemary said in her cool voice.

'I didn't know.' He was clipped.

'Oh she was.' Rosemary listed half a dozen names.

'I thought you said that nice man Colm Barry fancied her,' Ria said.

'Oh I think he did a bit back a while, but not after last night's performance.' Rosemary seemed to know everything.

Danny glowered about it all.

'Didn't you enjoy last night?' Ria looked anxiously at him.

'Yes, yes of course I did.' But he was absent, distracted. He had been startled, frightened even, by Orla's behaviour. Barney had been unexpectedly cold and asked him to get her out as quickly and quietly as possible. Polly had looked at him as if he had somehow broken the rules.

That wet Colm Barry had been no help at all. The kids who rented the rooms had been useful at the time but why, oh why, had someone left the door of a bedroom open? Only Rosemary Ryan had been of any practical use, shepherding people on and off stage as if she knew everything that was going on. Which of course she couldn't have.

A couple of weeks later, Hilary arrived with a birthday present for Annie; the first thing she wanted to know was if Barney McCarthy had been wiped out in the stock-market crash.

' I don't think so; Danny never said a word.' Ria was surprised at such a thought.

'Martin said that fellows like Barney who make all their money in England always keep it there, that he'd have lost his shirt,' Hilary said grimly.

'Well he can't have done because we'd have known,' Ria said. 'He seems to be doing just as much if not more.'

'Oh well, that's all right then,' said Hilary.

Sometimes Ria felt that Hilary would have been pleased if there was bad news—she and Martin, who had no money at all, watched the ebb and flow of the stock market with so much interest.

Gertie had been quiet and watchful during the party at Tara Road. Jack was with her, dressed in his one good suit. They had a babysitter and they couldn't stay late. Jack drank orange juice. Gertie's sister Sheila was going to come home from the United States this Christmas. It had never been made clear to Sheila and her American husband Max the extent of the problems with Jack Brennan.

Sheila was inclined to be boastful of her life in New England. Their wealth and status was always treated to an impressive show in her letters home. The fact that Gertie had married such an unstable man had never been mentioned in her own letters or phone calls. Gertie was hoping that the three-week visit could hold without one of Jack's moods.

It depressed her to see that pretty girl Orla behaving so badly. If someone like that could lose control, what hope was there for her Jack? But against all the odds he remained sober. Restless and anxious, but sober. There was a God after all, Gertie confided to Ria as she helped her serve the hot spicy soup and pitta bread.