Maeve Binchy - Tara Road

'I knew you'd be reasonable. What about the Sunday after Christmas Day?'

'No, that's the McCarthys. We can't miss that.'

'Right, the Monday then, no one will have gone back to work. It will be stay-at-home Ireland . Will we ask your mother and father?'

'What for?' Danny asked.

'They can see Annie, see all that we've done to the place, meet these Americans, you know.'

'They'd be no good, and honestly I don't think they'd enjoy it,' Danny said.

Ria paused. 'Sure,' she said. And, after all, she had won over Gertie's sister.

Sheila Maine and her husband Max had not been in Ireland for six years. Not since their wedding day. They now had a son Sean, the same age as Annie. Sheila seemed astounded at how well Ireland was doing, how prosperous the people were, and how successful were the small businesses she saw everywhere. When she had left to go to America to seek her fortune at the age of eighteen, Ireland had been a much poorer country. 'Look what has happened in less than ten years!'

Ria felt that, not unlike her own sister Hilary who seemed to rejoice in bad news rather than good, Sheila Maine was not entirely pleased to see the upturn in the economy. What Sheila really seemed to resent was the great social life that people had in Dublin . 'It's not at all like this in the States,' she confided on the evening before Christmas Eve when there was a girls' dinner out in Colm's new restaurant. 'I can't imagine all these people laughing and talking to each other at different tables. It's all changed a great deal from my time.'

Colm had been having a series of rehearsals, inexpensive meals where friends would try out the recipes and the ambience at a very reduced cost. This way they could iron out some of the wrinkles before the restaurant opened officially in March. Only those who were within his group were allowed in. Colm's beautiful and silent sister Caroline worked with him, serving and acting as hostess. 'Smile a little more, Caroline,' they heard him urging her from time to time. She was a nervous girl, she might never be seen as fronting a successful restaurant for her brother.

Sheila was thrilled with it all. And on Christmas Eve they were going in to Grafton Street where a live radio broadcast was done on The Gay Byrne Show . Perhaps she might even be called upon to speak as a returned emigrant. Anything was possible in the Ireland of today. Look at all Gertie's smart friends, with their good jobs or their beautiful houses. Gertie herself was not particularly well off; her launderette was at the less smart end of Tara Road. And her husband Jack, though charming and handsome, seemed vague about his prospects. But they had a business, and a two-year-old baby boy. And everyone was so confident. Sheila Maine's sigh was so like Hilary Moran's sigh that Ria could hardly wait for the two women to meet at lunch in her house.

And indeed they did get on very well. Gertie and Ria stood back and watched them bonding together. The quiet husband, Max Maine, who came from a Ukrainian background and knew little or nothing about Ireland , seemed ill at ease. Only Danny of course was able to draw him out with his warm smile and his interest in everything new. 'Tell me about the kind of houses you have out there, Max. Are they all that whiteboard we see pictures of?'

Max was frank and explained that in the part of Connecticut where he and Sheila lived, there weren't many dream houses standing in their own grounds. Danny was equally frank and expanded on how they had managed to get a big house like this one in Tara Road by being in the right place at the right time, and by having three of their rooms occupied by youngsters who helped to pay the rent. Visibly Max relaxed with half a bottle of Russian vodka which they sipped from small glasses. Ria watched as Danny captivated her friend's brother-in-law. He hadn't wanted them to come and yet he was now giving his all. Jack, having been frightened into some kind of truce, sat drinkless and wordless in a corner.

Afterwards, as they washed up, Ria gave Danny a hug. 'You are marvellous, and weren't you rewarded in the end? He is a nice man, Max, isn't he?'

'Sweetheart, he hasn't a word to throw to a dog. But you're so good to people when they come here for me, I thought I'd be nice to him for you, and for poor Gertie, who isn't a bad old stick. That's all.'

Somehow Ria felt cheated. She had really believed that Danny was enjoying his conversation with Max Maine. It was upsetting to realise that it had all been an act.

Sheila wanted to know was there a good fortune-teller around before she went back home. A lot of her neighbours in America went to psychics, some of them very powerful, but they wouldn't know you like an Irish woman would. 'I'll take all you three girls … my treat,' she said. You couldn't not like Sheila. Bigger and much more untidy than Gertie, she had the same anxious eyes and the edges of her mouth turned down in sadness to leave this place where everyone was having such a good time.

Ria longed to tell her that they were all putting on a show for her, but that would have been to let Gertie down.

'Come on, let's all go to Mrs. Connor,' Gertie suggested.

'She didn't get things right for me years back, but I hear she's red-hot at the moment. Why not, it's an adventure, isn't it?' Rosemary agreed. The last time they had been there, Rosemary had said nothing about what had been predicted, just that it was not relevant to her life plans. Maybe it would be different now.

'Well, she did tell me my baby would be a girl. I know it was a fifty-fifty chance but she was right. Let's go to her,' Ria said. She had stopped taking the pill back in September. But as yet the time had not been ripe to tell Danny. She was waiting for the proper moment.

Mrs. Connor must have had five or ten people a night coming to her since they were there last. Hundreds of eager faces watching her, thousands of hopeful hands held out, and many more thousands of paper banknotes crossing the table. There was no evidence whatsoever of any increased affluence in her caravan. Her face showed no sign of any contentment in having seen the futures of so many people.

She told Sheila, having heard her accent, that she lived across the sea possibly in the United States , that she was married reasonably happily, but that she would like to live back in Ireland .

'And will I live back in Ireland ?' Sheila asked beseechingly.

'Your future is in your own hands,' Mrs. Connor said gravely, and somehow this cheered Sheila a lot. She considered the money well spent.

To Gertie, with her anxious eyes, Mrs. Connor said that there was an element of sadness and danger in her life and she should be watchful for those she loved. Since Gertie was never anything but watchful for Jack this seemed a good summing-up of affairs.

Rosemary sat and held out her hand, marvelling as she looked around her at the squalor of the surroundings. This woman must take in, tax-free, something like a hundred thousand pounds a year. How could she bear to live like this? 'You were here before,' the woman said to her.

'That's right, some years back.'

'And did what I saw happen for you?'

'No, you saw me in deep trouble, with no friends, no success. It couldn't have been more wrong. I'm in no trouble, I have lots of friends and my business is thriving. But you can't win them all and you got the others right.' Rosemary smiled at her, one professional woman to another.

Mrs. Connor raised her eyes from the palm. 'I didn't see that, I saw you had no real friends, and that there was something you wanted which you couldn't get. That's what I still see.' Her voice was certain and sad.

Rosemary was a little shaken. 'Well, do you see me getting married?' she asked, forcing a lightness into her voice.

'No,' Mrs. Connor said.