Maeve Binchy - Tara Road

It was a woman with an American accent. 'I do hope you'll forgive me calling a private home, but this was the only listing I could get for a Mr Danny Lynch, realtor and estate agent. Enquiries didn't have a commercial listing.'

'Yes?' Ria was lacklustre.

'Briefly, my name is Marilyn Vine and we were in Ireland fifteen years ago. We met Mr Danny Lynch and he tried to interest us in some property…'

'Yes, well do you mind if I give you his office number, he's not here at the moment…?'

'Of course, but if I could take one more minute of your time to ask you is this something he might do. There isn't really any money in it.'

'Oh, then I doubt it very much,' Ria said.

'I'm sorry?'

'I mean he only cares about the value of this and the price of that nowadays—but then I'm just a little jaundiced today.'

'I beg your pardon, did I get you at a bad time?'

'There aren't going to be any good times from now on, but that's neither here nor there. What exactly was it that you wanted Danny to do for charity?'

'It wasn't that precisely. He was such a pleasant, personable young man I wondered did he know anyone who might like to do a house exchange this summer. I can offer a comfortable and I think pleasant home with a swimming pool in Westville—it's a college town in Connecticut—and I was looking for somewhere within walking distance of the city but with a garden…'

'This summer?' Ria asked.

'Yes. July and August. I know it's not much notice… but I really felt that I wanted to be there last night. I couldn't sleep and I thought I'd make this call, just in case.'

'And why did you think of Danny?' Ria asked in a slow, measured voice.

'He was so knowledgeable and he was my only contact. I felt sure he might put me on to someone else if it wasn't his particular scene.'

'And would it be a big house or a small house you'd want?' Ria asked.

'I don't really mind, I wouldn't be lonely in a large place and anyone coming here to Westville would have a house with plenty of room for four or five people. They could have the car too, of course, and there are very attractive places to go.'

'And aren't there agencies and things?'

'Yes of course, and I can go through the Internet… it's just that when you actually met a person all those years ago, and remembered a friendly face, it seemed a little easier. He wouldn't remember me, us, at all. But just at the moment I don't feel like talking to strangers much, negotiating with them. I guess it does sound a little odd.'

'No, oddly enough I know exactly how you feel.'

'Am I talking to Mrs. Lynch?'

'I don't know.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'We are going to get separated, divorced. There's divorce now in Ireland, did you know that?'

'This really was not a good time to ring. I can't tell you how sorry I am.'

'No, it was a great time. We'll do it.'

'Do what?'

'I'll go to your house, you come to mine, July and August. It's a deal.'

'Well, I suppose we should…'

'Of course we should, I'll send you a photo of it and all the details. It's lovely; you'll love it. It's in Tara Road, it's got all kinds of trees in the garden and lovely polished wooden floors and it's got some old stained-glass windows, and… and… and… the original mouldings on the ceilings and… and…' She was crying now. There was a silence at the other end of the line. Ria pulled herself together. 'Please forgive me, Marion is it?'

'Marilyn. Marilyn Vine.'

'I'm Ria Lynch and I can't think of anything I'd like to do more than get away from here and go to a quiet place with a swimming pool and nice drives. I could take my children for one month and the other month I could spend on my own, thinking out my future. That's why I got a bit carried away.'

'Your house sounds just what I want, Ria. Let's do it.'

You mightn't have known from her voice that she was standing in her kitchen looking out of her white wooden house and tears were running down her face also. When Marilyn Vine at last put down the telephone on her kitchen counter, she went out into her garden with her cup of coffee. She sat by the pool where she had swum earlier. Fifteen lengths morning and afternoon; it was as routine now as brushing her teeth. It was ten minutes past seven in the morning. She had just agreed to exchange houses with an extremely agitated woman going through some kind of life crisis. A woman whom she had never met who lived three thousand miles away. A woman who might well not have the right to exchange houses, whose property could well be under some kind of legal review pending divorce.

All Marilyn knew was that it was very foolish to make early-morning, spontaneous, spur-of-the-moment decisions. It was so unlike her to make a telephone call like that at this hour of the morning. And even less like her to go along with the plans of the hysterical woman at the other end of the line. She would never do anything remotely like this again. The only question now was whether she should call back and unpick the entirely impractical arrangement before it had begun to take root in this woman's mind, or just write a letter?

She could call immediately, it might be a cleaner break, and say the home exchange was no longer possible from her end, that she had family duties which she could not ignore. Marilyn smiled wryly at the thought of her being someone with family responsibilities. But Ria in Ireland wouldn't know this. It would be easier to write or send an email—anything not to have to hear the disappointment in that voice. But there was no technology in Tara Road and Ria Lynch would not have had access to her husband's office where presumably such things existed.

She had sounded gutsy and lively as well as slightly unhinged. Marilyn tried to work out how old she was. That good-looking young estate agent must be about forty now, this woman was probably the same age. She mentioned having a daughter of fourteen and a son who was almost ten. Marilyn's face hardened. So her marriage was ending, but she hated her husband: that much was obvious—she spoke about him so disparagingly to a total stranger. She was going to be much better off without him.

Marilyn would not allow herself to brood. Very soon now she would need to go to work. She would drive up to the college campus and take her place in the car park. Then, greeting this person and that, she would walk to the Alumni Office where she worked, cool and self-sufficient in her crisp lemon-and-white suit.

They would look at her with interest. How strange she hadn't gone to Hawaii with her husband. Greg Vine's visiting lectureship had seemed exactly what the couple needed. But Marilyn had been adamant she would not go, and had been equally resolute in giving no explanation to her colleagues and friends. By now they had stopped enquiring and trying to persuade her. She knew she was an object of interest and speculation. Their interest was genuine but so was their mystification that she would not go to a sunny island with the urging of a loving husband and the support of a caring department in the college that would hold the job open for her until her return.

What would they say if they knew what an extraordinary alternative she had been contemplating? To exchange homes for two months with a woman who owned, or claimed she owned, a four-storey Victorian house in Dublin. They would say it was a foolish decision, and must under no circumstances be allowed to go ahead.

Marilyn finished her coffee, straightened her shoulders and squared up to what she had done. She was an adult woman, very adult indeed. She would have her fortieth birthday this summer, on the first of August. She would make whatever decisions she felt like making. Who else was going to tell her what was best for her?

She nodded towards the telephone as if affirming the conversation she had made on it earlier. She looked at her reflection in the hall mirror. Short auburn hair, cut so that she could swim and leave it to dry naturally, green anxious eyes, tense shoulders but otherwise perfectly normal. Not at all the kind of person who would have decided something so unbalanced.