Maeve Binchy - Tara Road

Danny was as happy here as she was: it was the life of their dreams. It was a pity they were so tired and rushed that they had not been making love as often as they used to, but this was just because there was so much happening at the moment. Things would be back to normal soon enough.

Rosemary wanted to know all about the shopping expedition when she arrived. 'It's wonderful seeing them coming into their own,' she said. 'Knowing what they want, and defining their style.' She didn't sit down, she prowled around the kitchen picking up bits of pottery and looking at the name underneath, fingering the strings of onions on the wall, reading the recipe taped to the fridge, examining everything and vaguely admiring it all.

She clutched her mug of black coffee with such gratitude you would think that nobody had ever handed her one before in her life. Naturally she waved away the shortbread, she had just stood up from a disgustingly huge breakfast she said, even though her slim hips and girlish figure showed anyone that this was unlikely to have been the truth. Rosemary wore smart well-cut jeans and a white silk shirt, what she called weekend clothes. Her hair was freshly done, the salon's first client every Saturday morning week in week out. Rosemary always sighed enviously over those people who could go any day of the week, lucky people like Ria who didn't go out to work.

Rosemary now owned the printing company. She had won a Small Business Award. If she were not her longest-standing best friend Ria could have choked her. She seemed to be the actual proof that a woman could do everything and look terrific as well. But then, she and Rosemary went back a long way. She had been there the very day Ria had met Danny, for heaven's sake. She had listened to all the dramas over the years, as Ria had listened to hers. They had very few secrets.

In fact Gertie was the only subject where they really differed.

'You're only encouraging her to think her lifestyle is normal by giving her tenners for that drunk.'

'She's not going to leave him. You could put all kinds of work her way, I wish you would,' Ria pleaded.

'No, Ria, can't you see you're making the situation worse? If Gertie thinks you go along with this business of her head being like a punchbag and her terrified children living up in her mother's house, then you're just making sure the whole scene goes on and on. Suppose you said one day "Enough is enough", it would bring her to her senses, give her courage.'

'No it wouldn't, it would only make her feel she hadn't one friend left on earth.'

Rosemary would sigh. They agreed on so much, the sheer impossibility of mothers, the problems with sisters, the wisdom of living in the lovely tree-lined Tara Road. And Rosemary had always been incredibly supportive to Ria, about everything. Too many other women told Ria straight out that they would go mad if they didn't have a job to go to and money that they earned themselves. Rosemary never did that, any more than she would ask Ria, like other working wives often did, 'What do you do all day?' especially in front of Danny.

For the last five years of course Annie and Brian didn't need as much minding, but somehow the thought of a job outside the home had not really been a serious one. And anyway, realistically, what job could Ria have done? There was no real training or qualification to fall back on. Better far to keep the show on the road here. Ria rarely felt defensive about being a stay-at-home wife, and she genuinely felt that it must be a good life if Rosemary, who had everything that it was possible to have in life, said she envied her.

'Well go on, Ria, tell me, what did she buy?' Rosemary really thought it had been fun and that Annie and she had agreed and bought something.

'I'm no good at knowing what to look for, where to point her,' Ria said, biting her lip.

She thought she saw a small flash of impatience in Rosemary's face. 'Of course you are. Haven't you all the time in the world to look around shops?'

Then the van containing the sander arrived and the men who delivered it were offered coffee, and ten-year-old Brian, looking as if he had been sent out as child labourer digging in a builder's site instead of having just got out of bed, came in with his two even scruffier friends, scooping up cans of Coke and shortbread to take upstairs. And Gertie, with her big anxious eyes and some rambling explanation about how she hadn't cleaned the copper saucepan yesterday, began to scrub at its base which meant that she needed a loan of at least five pounds.

Pliers whined and there on cue was Ria's mother back unexpectedly from St Rita's. They hadn't told her that there was a funeral there that morning so she wasn't needed after all. And Colm Barry knocked on the window to show Ria that he was leaving her a large basket of vegetables. She waved him in to join the group and felt the customary surge of pride at being the centre of such a happy home. She saw Danny standing at the kitchen door watching everything. He was so boyish and handsome, why had she made that silly remark about him approaching forty?

Still he had got over it, it had passed. His face didn't look troubled now, he just stood there watching almost as if he were an objective observer, as if he were an outsider, someone viewing it all for the first time.

They all took turns at doing the floors, and it wasn't as easy as it looked. Not just a matter of standing behind a machine that knew its own mind, you had to steer it and point it and negotiate corners and heavy objects. Danny supervised it, full of enthusiasm. This was going to change the house, he said. Ria felt an unexpected shiver in her back. The house was wonderful, why did he want to change it?

Ria's mother wouldn't stay for lunch. 'I don't care how many tons of vegetables you say that Colm left out for you, I know what troubles result from people moving in on top of other people. Sit down with your own family, Ria, and look after that husband of yours. It's a miracle that you've held on to him so long. I've always said that you were born lucky to catch a man like Danny Lynch when all was said and done.'

'Now, Holly, stop giving me a swollen head, I'm a very mixed blessing let me tell you. Here, if you really won't stay let me get you some of Colm's tomatoes to take with you. I can just see you serving delicate thin tomato sandwiches and vodka martinis to gentlemen callers all afternoon.'

Nora Johnson pealed with laughter. 'Oh, chance would be a fine thing, but I will take some of those tomatoes to get them out of your way.' Ria's mother could never take anything that was offered to her graciously, she would only accept something if there was an air of doing you a favour about it.

Rosemary was disappointed that there were no clothes to examine. She wondered had they caught sight of the gorgeous scarlet outfit in the corner window just where the two streets joined? No? Absolutely heavenly, no good for people of our age, Rosemary said, patting her own flat stomach, but great for someone like Annie who had a figure like an angel and wasn't getting droppy and droopy like the rest of us. Rosemary must have known that she wasn't getting droppy and droopy. She must have.

Brian and his friends Dekko and Myles had a problem. They had been going to watch a match on cable television up in Dekko's house but there was a new baby and so the television couldn't be put on.

'Can't you watch it here?' Ria had asked.

Brian looked at her, embarrassed. 'No. Do you not understand anything? We can't watch it here.'

'But of course you can. It's your home as much as Dad's and mine, you can take a tray into the sitting room.'

Brian's face was purple trying to explain. ' We don't have it here, Ma , we don't have cable like Dekko's family.'

Ria remembered. There had been a long argument some months ago, she and Danny had said the children already watched too much television.