Maeve Binchy - Tara Road

But when was all this healing process going to start? Sometimes during the day Ria would stop whatever she was doing with a physical sense of shock as she remembered something else that had been a lie. That coloured shirt that he had bought in London. The girl had chosen it for him, hadn't she? Bernadette had been in London with him. Ria had to sit down when she realised that. Then the bill for the mobile phone. Almost every call was to her number, the number that was his now in case of emergencies. The duty-free perfume, a guilt present from a trip with Bernadette. The day when they were all at the zoo, just going into the lion house, and he got a call to go back to the office. That wasn't the office, that had been Bernadette. There were so many times and Ria had never suspected. What a fool, what a simple trusting fool she had been. Then she would argue that view. Who wanted to be a gaoler watching every move? If you loved someone you trusted him. Surely it was as simple as that.

And everyone knew, of course they did. When she telephoned him at work they must have raised their eyes to heaven, in sympathy as well as irritation. The staid stay-at-home wife who didn't know her husband had another woman. Even Trudy, the girl who answered the phone, must have put Bernadette through as often as Ria. Possibly Bernadette knew her name too, and asked about her diet which was a way of getting into her good books.

And then of course there was Barney McCarthy coming to this house praising Ria's delicious food. He had been out many, many times with Danny and Bernadette. In Quentin's where Ria went once a year on their wedding anniversary, that nice Brenda Brennan who ran the place would have known too. She must really have pitied Ria, the once-a-year mousy wife who suspected nothing.

And Polly knew, and of course she must have scorned, not pitied, Ria, because she was in exactly the same position as Mona. Mona? Did she know? Ria had spent so long deceiving Mona and hiding Polly's existence and all the time Mona might have been doing just the same about Bernadette.

It would be funny if it were not so terrible. And when you thought about it, if all these people knew, didn't Rosemary know? She knew everything that happened in Dublin. But no, Ria had to believe that her performance could not have been an act. And a true friend would have told her. If Rosemary and Gertie had known they would have had to give Ria some warning and not allow her world to be blown apart. From time to time Ria wondered if Rosemary had been giving her warnings. Was all this advice about clothes and getting a job some kind of hint that all was not well?

The Sullivans obviously knew. Frances had been brisk and supportive. 'It's probably a passing thing, Ria. Men approaching forty behave very oddly. If you can sit it out then I'm sure it will all be for the best.'

'Did you know?' Ria had asked her directly.

The answer had not been equally straightforward. 'This is a city full of rumours and stories. You would be addled in the head if you listened to them all. I have enough problems of my own trying to keep Kitty on the rails.'

Colm Barry probably hadn't known. Danny wouldn't have been so foolish as to take that child to a restaurant a few doors from his own house. But so many others did know. It was humiliating to think just how many. Taxi-drivers would have known, the man in the petrol station, Larry the bank manager, he probably knew. Maybe Bernadette had moved her account to Larry's branch for togetherness.

The window-cleaner asked about Danny. 'Where's himself?' he enquired. It was a day when she felt in a mood to talk.

'He's gone, he left me for a young one as it happens.'

'He always had a bit of a roving eye, your man had, you're well rid of him,' the window-cleaner had said. Now why had he said that? Why ?

Why did people in the charity thrift shop press her hand and say that she was a great woman? Who had told them? Had they always known? Oh how she wished she could get away from all these people who knew. People who pitied her, patted her on the head and talked about her. She knew it would end when he gave up Bernadette and came home, but how long would she have to wait while all these people smiled indulgently as if Danny had a dose of the flu?

And of course she had to cope with the children. Annie's mood- swings went the whole way from blaming her mother to blaming herself. 'If you'd only been a bit more normal, Mam, you know, if you'd stopped yacking and cooking he wouldn't have gone away.' The next day it might be, 'It's all my fault… he called me his princess but I didn't spend any time with him, I was always in Kitty's house. He knew I didn't love him enough, that's why he went and found someone else not much older than me.'

Once or twice she asked Ria if they might write a letter to Dad saying how lonely they were without him. 'I don't think he knows,' Annie wept.

'He knows.' Ria was stony.

'If he knows why doesn't he come back?' Annie asked.

'He will, but only when he's ready. Honestly Annie, I don't think we can hurry him up.' And for once she noticed Annie nodding as if on this rare occasion she agreed with her mother.

Brian had his views as well. 'It was probably all my fault, Mam. I didn't really wash enough, I know.'

'I don't think that was it, Brian.'

'No, it could have been, you know the way Dad was always washing himself and wearing a clean shirt every day and everything?'

'People do that, you know.'

'Well, could we tell him that I wash more now. And I will, I promise.'

'If Dad left just because you were filthy he'd have left ages ago, you've been filthy for years,' Annie said gloomily.

Then Brian decided that his father had left on account of sex. 'That's what Myles and Dekko say. They say that he went off to her because she's interested in having sex night and day.'

'I don't think that's right,' Ria said.

'No, but it might be part of it. Could you telephone him and say you'd be interested in having it night and day too?' He looked a bit embarrassed and awkward to be talking to his mother about such things, but he obviously felt that they had to be said.

'Not really, Brian.' Ria was glad that Annie wasn't in the room.

Annie was in the room however when Brian came up with his trump card. 'Mam, I know how to get Dad back,' he said.

'This should be interesting,' Annie said.

'You and he should have a baby.' The silence was deafening. 'You could,' Brian went on. 'And I wouldn't mind, I've talked about it with Myles and Dekko, it's not as bad as you'd think. And we could babysit, Myles, Dekko and myself. It would be a great way of getting pocket money.' He looked at his mother's stricken face. 'Or listen, Mam, if Dad came back, I'd do it for nothing. No charge at all,' he said.

Wouldn't it be wonderful, Ria thought, if she could be miles away from here, not to have to reassure people that she was fine, and that everything was fine, when in fact the whole world was as far from fine as it would ever be. She put off going out because of the people she would meet, yet she knew it was dangerous to hole up in Tara Road and be the reclusive, betrayed wife.

She heard a sound at the hall door and her heart lifted for a moment. Sometimes Danny used to run back during the day. 'Missed you, sweetheart, have you a cuddle for a working man?' And she always had. When had it stopped? Why had she not noticed? How could the sound of a leaflet being pushed through a hall door still make her think that he had come back? She must make a big effort today to live in the real world. Like knowing what she was doing and what time it was. She looked at the clock automatically when she heard the Angelus bell ringing. Everyone did that, it was almost as if you were checking whether the church had got it right. At the same time the telephone rang.