Maeve Binchy - Tara Road

'Of course that's where he is, Ria.' Danny had joined in patting her down.

'Was it a nice night?' Annie asked her father. Not because she wanted to know but because she wanted to punish her mother.

'Lovely. No fussing, no rushing around.'

'Um.' Even in her present mood of doing anything to annoy her mother Annie couldn't appear to see much to enthuse about there.

Ria decided not to notice the angry resentment that Annie felt about everything these days. Like so many things she let it pass. 'Well, I suppose you'll both want to go to bed now. Is Kitty staying the night?'

'It's Saturday, Mam. You do realise there's no school tomorrow.'

'We still have some sit-ups to do.' Kitty's voice was whining, wheedling as if she feared that Mrs. Lynch might strike her a blow.

'You girls don't need sit-ups.' Danny's smile was flattering but yet couldn't be accepted. He was after all a doting and elderly father.

'Oh Dad, but we do.'

'Come here, let's see what does she tell us to do.'

Ria stood with a small hard smile and watched her husband doing a ridiculous exercise to flatten his already flat stomach with two teenagers. They all laughed at each other's attempts as they fell over. She would not join them, nor would she leave them. It was probably only ten minutes yet it felt like two hours. And then there was no warm chat in the kitchen, and no chance of loving when they went upstairs. Danny said he needed a shower. He was so unfit, so out of training these days, a few minutes' mild exercise nearly knocked him out. I'm turning into a real middle-aged tub of lard,' he said.

'No you're not, you're beautiful,' she said to him truthfully, as he took off his clothes and she yearned for him to come straight to bed. But instead he went to shower and came back in pyjamas; there would be no loving tonight. Just before she went to sleep Ria remembered how long it had been since there had been any loving. But she wasn't going to start worrying about that now on top of everything else. It was just that they were busy. Everyone said that's what happened to people for a while, and then it sorted itself out.

On Sunday Danny was gone all day. There were clients looking at the new apartments. They were aiming for a young professional kind of market, Danny had said. The developers had asked why bother having a health club and coffee bar attached unless the young singles could meet similarly-minded people there. He had to go and supervise the whole sales approach. No, he wouldn't be back for lunch.

Brian was going to Dekko's house; there was a christening. Dekko wasn't going to go at all but there would be his grandmother and people from his mum and dad's work there, and apparently it was essential that he be there. For some reason. Anyway it had been agreed that if Myles and Brian and he wore clean shirts and passed round the sandwiches, they would get five pounds each.

'It's a lot of money,' Dekko said solemnly. 'They must be mad investing fifteen pounds in us all being there.'

'I would have thought normal people would have paid us fifteen pounds for us all not to be there,' Brian said.

'Nobody's normal in a house where there's a baby,' Dekko had said sagely and they all sighed.

Annie said that she and Kitty were going to the Career Forum at school and that of course they had told everyone this ages ago, over and over. It was just that nobody ever listened.

'You didn't go to any of the other Career Forums,' her mother protested.

'But those were only about the bank, and insurance and law and awful things.' Annie was amazed that it wasn't clear.

'And what is it this week that you have to go?'

'Well it's real careers, like the music industry and modelling and things.'

'What about your lunch, Annie? I defrosted a whole leg of lamb and now it seems there'll be no one here.'

'Only you, Mam, would think that an old leg of lamb was important compared to someone's whole future.' She banged out of the room in a temper.

Ria rang her mother.

'No, don't be ridiculous, Ria, why would I drop everything and come to eat huge quantities of red meat with you? Why did you defrost it anyway until you knew whether your family was going to be there to eat it? That's you all over, you never think about anything.'

Ria rang Gertie. Jack answered. 'What?'

'Oh… um… Jack, it's Ria Lynch.'

'What do you want? As if I didn't know.'

'Well I wanted to talk to Gertie.'

'Yeah, with a load of feminist advice, I suppose.'

'No, I was going to invite her to lunch, as it happens.'

'Well we can't go.'

' She might be able to go.'

'She's not able to go, Mrs. Burn-your-bra.'

'Perhaps she and I could talk about that, Jack.'

'Perhaps you'd like to go and take a…' There was the sound of a scuffle.

'Ria, it's Gertie… sorry I can't go.'

'You can't go to what?'

'To whatever it is you're asking me to… thanks but I can't.'

'It was only lunch, Gertie, just a bloody leg of lamb.'

There was a sob at the other end. Then, If that's all it bloody was, Ria, why on earth did you ring me and cause all this trouble?'

'This is Martin and Hilary's answering machine, please leave a message after the bleep.'

'It's nothing, Hilary, it's only Ria. If you're not there on a Sunday at ten o'clock in the morning then it's not likely you'll be there at lunch-time… heigh ho, no message.'

Ria rang Colm Barry at the restaurant. He was often there on a Sunday, he had told her that he took advantage of the peace and quiet to do his accounts and paperwork.

'Hallo.' Colm's sister Caroline always spoke so softly you had to strain to hear what she said. She said that Colm wasn't there, he had gone out to do something, well he wasn't there. Caroline sounded so unsure that Ria began to wonder whether Colm was actually standing beside her mouthing that he wouldn't take the call.

'It doesn't matter, I was just going to ask him if he'd like to come to lunch, that's all.'

'Lunch? Today?' Caroline managed to make both words contain an amazing amount of incredulity.

'Well yes.'

'With your family?'

'Here, yes.'

'And had you asked him? Did he forget?'

'No, it was a spur of the moment thing, you too of course if you were free.'

Caroline seemed totally incapable of taking in such a concept. 'Lunch? Today?'

She said the words again and Ria wanted to smack her very hard. 'Forget it, Caroline, it was just a passing idea.'

'I'm sure Colm will be very sorry to have missed the invitation. He loves going to your house, it's just that he's… well he is… well he's out.'

'Yes I know, doing something, you said.' Ria felt her voice had sounded unduly impatient. 'And you're not free, Caroline, yourself? You and Monto?' She hoped fervently that they were not free. And she was in luck.

'No I'm very sorry, truly I am, Ria, I can't tell you how sorry I am but it's just not possible today. Any other day would have been.'

'That's fine, Caroline. It was short notice, as I said.' Ria hung up.

The phone rang and Ria answered it hopefully. 'Ria? Barney McCarthy.'

'Oh, he's already gone to meet you there, Barney.' 'He has?'

'Yes, up at the new development, the posh flats.' 'Oh, of course, yes.' 'Are you not there?'

'No, I was delayed. If he calls back tell him that. I'll catch him up along the way.'

'Sure.'

'And you're fine, Ria?'

'Fine,' she lied.

Would she cook the lamb anyway, and have it cold with salad when they all came home? Gertie said you could refreeze things if they hadn't thawed completely. But what did Gertie know? Colm would know but he was out somewhere doing something, according to that dithering sister of his. Rosemary would know but Ria hated having to ask her. Was she in fact becoming very boring, as Annie had said? Was she as thoughtless as her mother had suggested? Ria knew now why people who lived on their own found Sunday a long lonely day. It would be different when they had a new baby… then there wouldn't be enough hours in the day.