Maeve Binchy - Tara Road

'I hate you to be sarcastic like this. I know you so well and you know me, we shouldn't be talking like this. We shouldn't truly.'

'Danny, is this just something that's happened to us, something that we might sort of get through like people do? I know it's serious and there's a child involved, but people have survived such things.'

'No, it's not like that.'

'You can't feel that it's all over. You got involved with somebody much younger, you were flattered. Of course I'm furious and upset but I can get over it, we all get over things. It doesn't have to be the end.'

'All day I said to myself… please may Ria be calm. I don't expect her to forgive me but may she be calm enough for us to discuss this and see what's best for the children. You are calm, I don't deserve this but it's the wrong kind of calm. You think it's just a fling.'

'A fling?' she said.

'Yes, remember we used to go through all the degrees of relationships, a whirl, a fling, a romance, a relationship, and then the real thing.' He smiled as he said this. He was looking at his wife very affectionately.

Ria was bewildered. 'So?'

'So this is not a fling, it's the real thing. I love Bernadette, I want to spend the rest of my life with her, and she with me.'

Ria nodded as if this was a reasonable thing for the man she loved to be saying about somebody else. She spoke carefully. 'During the day when you were thinking please let her be calm, what else did you think? What did you think would be the best end to this discussion?'

'Oh, Ria, please. Don't play games.'

'I have never felt less like playing games in my life. I mean this utterly seriously, how do you want it to end?'

'With dignity I suppose. With respect for each other.'

'What?'

'No, you asked me, you asked what did I hope for. I suppose I hoped you'd agree that what we had was very good at the time but it was over and that… we could talk about what to do that would hurt Annie and Brian least.'

'I've done nothing at all to hurt them.'

'I know.'

'And you didn't think there was anything that you and I could talk about which would get us back together the way it used to be—well, used to be for you.'

'No, love, that's over, that's gone.'

'So when you said talk, it wasn't talk about us, it was talk about what I am to do when you go, is that it?'

'About what we both do. It's not their fault, Annie and Brian don't deserve any hardship.'

'No they don't. Do I, though?'

'That's different, Ria. You and I fell out of love.'

'I didn't.'

'You did, you just won't admit it.'

'That's not true. And I won't say I did to make you feel better.'

'Please.'

'No, I love you. I love the way you look and the way you smile, I love your face and I want to have your arms around me and hear you telling me that this is all a nightmare.'

'This isn't the way it is, Ria, it's the way it was.'

'You don't love me any more?'

'I'll always admire you.'

'I don't want your admiration, I want you to love me.'

'You only think you do… deep down you don't.'

'Don't give me this, Danny, trying to make me say that I'm tired of it all too.'

'We can't have everything we want,' he began.

'You're having a pretty good stab at it though.'

'I want us to be civilised, decide what we'll do about where we all live…'

'What do you mean?'

'Before we tell the children we should be able to give them an idea what the future is going to be like.'

'I'm not telling the children anything, I have nothing to tell them. You tell them what you want to.'

'But the whole point is not to upset them…'

'Then stay at home and live with them and give up this other thing… that's the way not to upset them.'

'I can't do that, Ria,' Danny said. 'My mind's made up.'

That was the moment she believed that all this was actually happening. Up to then it had all been words, and nightmares. Now she knew and she felt very, very weary. 'Right,' she said. 'Your mind's made up.'

He seemed relieved at the change in her. He was right, they did know each other very well, he could see that somehow she had accepted it was going to happen. Their conversation would now be on a different level, the level he had wanted, discussion of details, who would live where. 'There wouldn't be any hurry to move and change everything immediately, disrupting their school term, but maybe by the end of the summer?'

'Maybe what by the end of the summer?' Ria asked.

'We should have thought of what will happen, where we'll all live.'

'I’ll be living here, won't I?' Ria said, surprised.

'Well, sweetheart, we'll have to sell the place. I mean it would be much too big for…'

'Sell Tara Road?' She was astounded.

'Eventually, of course, because…'

'But Danny, this is our home. This is where we live, we can't sell it.'

'We're going to have to. How else can… well… everybody be provided for?'

'I'm not moving from here so that you can provide for a twenty-two-year-old.'

'Please Ria, we must think what we tell Annie and Brian.'

'No, you must think. I've told you I'm telling them nothing, and I am not moving out of my home.'

There was a silence.

'Is this how you're going to play it?' he said eventually. 'Daddy, wicked monster Daddy, is going away and abandoning you, and good saintly poor Mummy is staying…'

'Well that's more or less the way it is , Danny.'

He was angry now. 'No, it's not. We're meant to be trying to be constructive and make things more bearable for them.'

'Okay, let's wait here until they come home and let's watch you making it bearable for them.'

'Where are they?'

'At Rosemary's, watching a video.'

'Does Rosemary know?'

'Yes.'

'And what time will they be back?'

Ria shrugged. 'Nine or ten, I imagine.'

'Can you ring and get them back sooner?'

'You mean you can't even wait a couple of hours in your own home for them.'

'I don't mean that, it's just if you're going to be so hostile… I suppose I'm afraid it will make things worse.'

'I won't be hostile. I'll sit and read or something.'

He looked around wonderingly. 'You know I've never known this house so peaceful, I've never known you sit and read. The place is always like a shopping centre in the city with doors opening and closing, people coming in and out and food and cups of coffee. It's always like a beer garden here, with your mother and the dog and Gertie and Rosemary and all the children's friends. This of all times must be the very first time in this house that you can hear yourself think.'

'I thought you liked the place being full of people.'

'There was never any calm here, Ria, too much rushing round playing house.'

'I don't believe this, you're just rewriting history.' She got up from the table and went over to the big armchair. She still felt this huge tiredness. She closed her eyes and knew that she could sleep there and then in the middle of this conversation that was about to end her marriage and the life she had lived up to now. Her eyelids were very heavy.

'I'm so sorry, Ria,' he said. She said nothing. 'Will I go and pack some things, do you think?'

'I don't know, Danny. Do whatever you think.'

'I'm happy to sit and talk to you.'

Her eyes were still closed. 'Well do then.'

'But there's nothing more to say,' he said sadly. 'I can't keep on saying that I'm sorry things turned out like this, I can't keep saying that over and over.'

'No, no you can't,' she agreed.

'So maybe it would be better if I were to go up and pack a few things.'

'Maybe it would.'

'Ria?'

'Yes?'

'Nothing.'

For a while she could hear him upstairs moving from his study to the bedroom. And then she fell asleep in the chair.