Maeve Binchy - Tara Road

'He's not off about His Master's Business then, is he?' Nora sniffed.

'No, Mam, he's not.'

'You look a bit pale, are you all right?'

'Never better.'

Ria escaped in relief to greet Rosemary who had come to count the numbers. She had bought a great amount of individually wrapped chocolate ice creams which were at home in her freezer. 'I’ll come back in an hour so you don't have to bother putting them into the freezer. Was there a problem with Gertie?'

'Why do you ask?' Ria wanted to know.

'She ran past me on the road crying and she didn't see me, she genuinely didn't.'

'Oh nothing more than the usual problem she has.' Ria looked grim.

'Roll on the divorce referendum,' Rosemary said.

'You don't think that's going to make the slightest difference in Gertie's way of thinking, do you?' Ria asked. 'I mean, if there was divorce introduced into this country tomorrow morning you don't think she'd leave Jack. Abandon him? Give up on him, like everyone else has? Of course she wouldn't.'

'Well, what's the point of having it on the statute-books at all if people are going to react like that?' Rosemary wondered.

'Search me.' Ria was at a loss. 'The two families we know who should avail themselves of it won't go near it. You don't think Barney McCarthy is going to disturb his nice comfortable little situation if divorce is introduced, do you?'

'No I don't indeed, but I didn't know that you would see things so clearly.' Rosemary laughed almost admiringly—sometimes Ria could be very surprising—and went back to Number 32 to change into something more suitable for a children's party.

The party guests had begun to arrive. Very soon they were punching each other good-naturedly. All of them. There didn't seem to be any reason for this, no real aggression or gangs or hostility, that was the way boys behaved. Annie's friends were much gentler, she said to her mother as they separated one pair of warring boys before they crashed into Colm's vegetable garden, locked into their fight.

'Where is Annie by the way?'

'In her room, I think. There's no point in dragging her down to join them. She's too old for them and not old enough to find them funny. She'll come when she hears there's birthday cake.'

'Or sausages. Two to one she gets the smell of sausages and she's down like a greyhound out of a trap,' said Nora sagely.

Annie was not in her room as it happened, she had gone out the back gate and was walking up the lane that ran parallel to Tara Road. She had seen a small thin ginger kitten there the other day. It might not belong to anyone. It had looked frightened, not as if it were used to being petted. Perhaps it was abandoned and she might keep it. They would say no of course, as people said no to everything. If she could get it into her room for a few days without anyone noticing, give it a litter tray and some food, then they wouldn't have the heart to turn it out. Today would be a good day to smuggle it in, nobody would notice. There was so much fuss about Brian and all his brain-dead friends, shouting and pushing and shoving around the garden. You could bring a giraffe upstairs today and no one would notice. Annie tried to remember which was the back gate where she had seen the little kitten. It wasn't as far up the road as Rosemary's. It was hard to identify them from the back.

Annie Lynch stood in the lane in her blue check summer dress squinting into the afternoon sun, pushing her straight blonde hair out of her eyes. Perhaps she could peep through the keyholes of these wooden doors. Some of them were quite rickety and it was easy to see through the cracks anyway. One of the back gates was a smart painted wooden door you couldn't see through at all. Annie stood back a little. This must be Number 32 where Rosemary Ryan lived.

She had a very posh garden upstairs on the roof but there was a garden with an ornamental pool and a summerhouse at the back. This might well be where the poor kitten had wandered in to have a look at the fish in the pond.

Annie knelt down and looked in the keyhole. No sign of a cat. But there were people there in the summerhouse. They seemed to be fighting over something. She looked more carefully. It was Rosemary Ryan struggling with a man. Annie's heart leapt into her throat. Was she being attacked? Should Annie rattle at the gate and shout, or would the attacker come out and hurt her as well? Rosemary Ryan had her skirt right up around her waist, and the man was pushing at her. With an even greater shock than the first one Annie realised what they were doing. But this wasn't the way it was done. Not what she and Kitty Sullivan had giggled about in school. Not what people almost did at the cinema and on television. That was different. They kissed each other and lay down, it was all gentle. It wasn't like this, all this shoving and grunting. Rosemary Ryan couldn't be making love with someone. This isn't the way it was meant to be. The whole thing wasn't possible!

Annie pulled back from the keyhole, her heart racing. She tried to make sense of the situation. To be honest, nobody could see them unless they were actually looking through the keyhole of the back gate. The summerhouse faced away from the main house and towards the back wall.

Annie couldn't see who the man was; he had his back to her. All she had seen was Rosemary's face. All screwed up and angry, upset.

Not dreamy like it was in the movies. Maybe she had got it totally wrong, this mightn't be what they were doing at all. Annie looked once more.

Rosemary's arms were around the man's neck, her eyes were closed, she wasn't pushing him away, she was pulling him towards her. 'That's it, yes, yes, that's it!' she was crying out.

Annie straightened up in horror. She couldn't believe what she had seen. She started to run down the lane. When passing Number 16 she could hear the noise coming from Brian's party. But she didn't stop. She didn't want to go in knowing what she knew now. She couldn't bear them all expecting her to be normal. Things would never be the same again and she could never tell anybody. On she ran, tears blinding her eyes until, just as she was getting to the main road and back to normality, she fell, one of those unexpected falls where the earth just jumped up to meet you with a thud.

It winded her totally and she had trouble in getting her breath. When she struggled to stand she saw she had grazed both knees which were bleeding as well as her arm. She leaned against the wall of the end house and sobbed as if her heart would break.

Colm heard the noise and came out. 'Annie, what happened?' No reply, just heaving shoulders. 'Annie, I'll run and get your mother.'

' No . Please don't. Please , Colm.'

Colm wasn't like other grown-ups, he didn't always automatically know what was best for you. 'Okay, but look at you… you've had a horrible fall, let me see.' He held her arm gently. 'No, it's only the skin, what about your knees? Don't you look at them, I'll examine them without touching, and I'll report to you.'

Annie stood there while he knelt down and studied them. Eventually he said, 'Lots of blood but I don't think you need a stitch. Let me walk you home, Annie.'

She shook her head. 'No. Brian's having a party, I don't want to go home.'

Colm took this on board. 'If you like you could come into my house, into the bathroom and wash your poor knees. I'll be in the restaurant out of your way but there if you need me, and you could come in and out and I'll give you a nice lemonade or whatever you like.' He smiled at her.

It worked. 'Yes, I'd like that, Colm.'

Together they went in, and he showed her the bathroom.

'There's a whole lot of face-cloths there, and if you put a little Dettol in the water…' She seemed helpless, unsure of how to start. 'If you like I could dab them for you, take any grit out?'