Maeve Binchy - Tara Road

'You don't have to…'

'No, this is a professional agreement; you're doing me a service.'

Gertie came, pale as ever, eyes darting anxiously round her. 'There's nobody here, is there?'

'No one but me.'

'You know what I wanted to tell you. This place you're going to, I looked it up on the map. It's only about thirty miles away from where Sheila lives.'

'Sheila? Your sister? Isn't that marvellous.' Ria was delighted. 'I'll be able to see her.'

Gertie wasn't so pleased. 'You'd never tell her, would you, Ria? You'd never let anything slip?'

'About what?'

'About me and Jack. You know, about the situation?' Gertie's eyes were haunted-looking.

Ria felt such a wave of pity for her friend that she could hardly speak. 'Of course I wouldn't, Gertie, you know that.'

'It's just that you being out on your own there and a bit low and everything after all you've been through, you know the people confide…?'

'No, Gertie, I wouldn't confide, believe me.'

'It's hard to say this, Ria, but you see it sort of keeps me going that Sheila envies me; nobody else does. It's nice to hold on to the fact that my smart sister who went out to the United States thinks that I have a great life back here, handsome husband, terrific family, great friends and all.'

'But in many ways you do have all that, Gertie,' Ria said. And was rewarded by the old smile, the smile Gertie used to have when she worked in Polly's.

'I do,' she said. 'You're quite right. I do have all that, depending on how you look at it.'

Together they polished the silver, and kept off topics that would hurt either of them. When it was done Ria handed over an envelope.

'I hate taking this because I've enjoyed it so much. This is a lovely happy house, that man is so stupid. What can he get from her that he can't have here?'

'Another crack at being young, I think,' Ria said. 'That's all I can make of it.'

'You're tired, Ria. Aren't you going to have a lie-down before the children come home?'

'No, I'm not tired and anyway they're with their father this evening.'

'Is he taking them to Quentin's again, I wonder?'

'No. He's taking them to meet their new stepmother as it happens,' Ria said in a dangerously calm voice.

'She'll never be that, mark my words. That will all be blown over long before there's any question of marriage, divorce referendum or no divorce referendum.'

'That doesn't help any, Gertie. Really it doesn't,' Ria pleaded.

'It wasn't meant to help, it's just a fact, it's what's going to happen. Polly met her apparently, she says she gives it three months.'

Ria hated the thought of Polly talking about her, but not nearly as much as she hated the thought of Barney and Polly having met Bernadette socially. Probably many times, as a foursome. It made Ria want to do some very hard work indeed, until her brain stopped functioning. She wondered would she scrub the kitchen floor when Gertie went, or was that going over the top entirely?

As a compromise she went into the front room and sat at the circular table looking around. What would the American woman make of this old-fashioned room? Her place seemed to be so modern and open-plan. She would possibly consider this a fusty, silly room with its heavy framed pictures and the over-formal sideboard. But these pieces had been bought with love and care at auction rooms over the years. She remembered the day that each of them had been eased through the doors. They were polished regularly by Gertie, when she came to earn Jack's extra drinking money. Surely Marilyn would like them. And feel happy in this room.

Ria opened the drawers of the sideboard. It would be interesting to know what they should contain. Possibly this was the place for table napkins, corkscrews, salad servers. But then, since they had their meals in the kitchen, what was the point of stacking things you needed where you didn't eat? Ria wondered what the drawers actually did contain.

The answer was in fact everything that had no place there. There were children's drawings, a broken watch, pencils, an old calendar, a knitted beret that her mother had made, sticky tape, a torch without a battery, a restaurant guide, a tape of Bob Marley songs, some cheap plastic toys from Christmas crackers, an old diary of Annie's, a couple of receipts, and a picture of Ria and Hilary when they were in their teens. Ria put everything on a tray and cleaned out the drawer with a damp cloth. She would put nothing back in again; none of these things belonged there.

Idly she picked up Annie's diary; the funny slanted writing was small and crowded so that she could fit more in. Ria smiled over the lists of hit singles, the Top Ten, the names and birth dates of various singers. Then there were bits about school and the fact that Annie wasn't allowed to sit beside Kitty because they talked too much. Some of the teachers were hateful, some weren't too bad but a bit pathetic. It was exactly the kind of thing that Ria used to write herself. She wondered where her old diaries were and whether her mother had ever read them.

Then she came to Brian's birthday party that time they had a barbecue for him. The writing was very small and crabbed here, as if every word was important and it must all be included. It was very hard to understand as well as to read.

Ria felt no compunction at all about reading the private diary. She had to know what had occurred that day. Annie wrote about it in veiled terms. Whatever it was it had happened in the lane and nobody knew and it was truly the most horrifying thing in the world. She wrote that it most definitely was not her fault. All she had been doing was looking for the kitten. There was no crime in that.

I don't care how marvellous Kitty says it is, I don't care what these feelings are. I don't believe them. Her face was all screwed up as if she was cross about something. I wouldn't tell Kitty because she'd laugh, and of course I couldn't tell Mam because she wouldn't believe me or she'd make some awful remark. I nearly told Colm. He's so nice, he knew something was wrong. But I couldn't tell him. He has too many things to worry about anyway and it's not a thing you could tell anybody. There aren't words to tell it. It was something I wish I'd never seen. But I did and I can't unsee it now. I didn't know that's the way it was done, I thought you did it lying down. And her of all people. I never liked her, and I like her less now. In fact I think she's disgusting. There's ways I'd like her to know I saw, have some power over her, but that's not right either. She'd just laugh and be superior about it as she is about everything .

Ria caught her breath. What could Annie have seen? Who was it? And where? It couldn't have been Kitty since she was mentioned in other contexts. The memory of the day of Brian's birthday came back to Ria. Annie had come home after a fall outside Colm's restaurant. Could she have seen Colm Barry and that publican's wife? No, she mentioned Colm as a nice person, and it was the woman she resented, someone superior, someone scornful. Possibly it was Caroline. Could she have stumbled across that strange withdrawn sister of Colm and her big ignorant husband? Or even Caroline and someone else? Would there be any clue?

Ria read on.

I don't care how marvellous they say Love is, I'm not going to have any part of it. I wish Daddy would stop saying that one day some man will come and carry away his little Princess. It's not going to happen. Sometimes I wish I had never been born.

Ria sat down suddenly at the table that was strewn with all the clutter from the sideboard. She would have to return it all to where it came from. Annie must have stuffed the diary away hastily one time and meant to collect it later. Annie must never know that her mother had seen this diary.