Maeve Binchy - Tara Road

'You believed me.' She looked both anxious and triumphant at the very same time.

'Not until I saw your eyes when I threw it out. Then I knew it was there all right.'

'Self-righteous prick,' she said.

'Hey Colm, are you going to stand there looking down the singer's tits all night, or serve us our steaks ?' Monto called from his table.

A few people laughed nervously. Others looked away.

Orla got up, and taking her microphone with her began to wander around the room. 'I'd like to do requests for people,' she said. 'I think this is what makes a night out special. But so often people don't always quite know exactly what they want to hear. So I thought that possibly tonight I could choose songs for people, something that could be appropriate. And sing a few bars at each table.'

People were laughing and encouraging her. To the customers who didn't know her, Orla King was an attractive, professional singer. Now she was doing something a little more personal, that was all there was to it. But many people in the room froze and they watched her edgily.

First she came to Rosemary's table. 'We have three lovely ladies here,' she said. 'Feminists, oh definitely. Lesbians? Very possibly. Anyway, no men. My grandmother used to sing a song called "There Were Three Lovely Lassies from Bannion". But it's a little too old even for this group. Suppose I were to sing "Sisters" for them…?'

'Did I do anything except help you all your life?' Rosemary asked, with the mask of a frozen smile on her face.

'You had your reasons,' Orla said. She judged that a few bars were enough and moved to Monto's table. 'Six men, powerful men, rich men. Nothing pouffy about these men, believe me, I know.' She smiled radiantly around the room. 'Now what song should we choose for them? Oh I know, there was one they all sang at this stag night, they asked me to perform and they loved it. No, it was not "Eskimo Nell", everyone knows that. No, it was "The Ball of Kirriemuir". "Four and twenty virgins came down from Inverness and when the ball was over there were four and twenty less."' She smiled and moved to the Lynches' table.

At the same time Colm Barry was at Monto's table, whispering feverishly. 'Well well, what a wonderful family group. Let me see.' She smiled at them all, playing them like little fishes on a line. 'What would you like?'

Only Brian thought it was a real question. He chose a Spice Girls song. 'Do you know "Whaddya Want, Whaddya Really Want"?' he asked eagerly.

His innocent face halted her in her tracks. Just for one moment, but for long enough to throw her. 'What about "Love and Marriage"? No, that's not permanent enough. What about that nice song "She Was Only Sixteen"? No, she must be older than that. This is your new wife, isn't it, Danny?' She was just turning to point to Finola, but as she turned Monto and one of his henchmen had lifted her bodily and were carrying her to the door. 'Don't think people don't know, Danny. They know what you and I had, just as they know what Monto's wife had… and still has…'

Her voice was no longer heard. She was outside the restaurant. If Colm had hoped that he could get by with the help of some of his friends he was disappointed. The embarrassed silence that fell on the restaurant seemed to last for ever. Rosemary, usually so quick to know what to do in a crisis, sat white-faced and furious at her table, with the new American woman from Ria's house confused and bewildered beside her. And with them was Gertie, terrified to see yet again at first hand the damage drink could do.

Monto's party were more triumphant and hilarious than could be imagined, imitating some of Orla's more drunken lurches.

Jimmy and Frances Sullivan, entertaining some guests up from Cork, embarrassed at the turn the evening had taken. Two fellow restaurateurs that Colm knew who had come in specially to see how his business was getting on. A party of two families getting to know each other before a wedding at the weekend. His sister Caroline standing stricken by the accusations that had been made. And Danny Lynch's party he didn't even dare to look at. All of them upset by that destructive little Orla King. Why had she done it? Because she was unhappy.

But we're all unhappy, he told himself. Why should she have the luxury of throwing a scene and upsetting everyone else? He saw his waiters looking at him as if waiting for a lead. It could only have been seconds, he realised, since Orla's struggling body had been carried out of his restaurant. It felt like a lifetime. Colm straightened his shoulders, indicated by a gesture that one table should he cleared, that the wine bucket should be placed nearer to another. He touched Caroline's shoulder and looked at the kitchen, and zombie-like she walked towards it.

Then he approached Rosemary Ryan's table. 'Well well,' he said, looking directly at Marilyn Vine. 'You can't say we don't show you life in the fast lane in Dublin.'

'No, indeed.' Her face was impassive. He wished she didn't have to be so po-faced. She was the guest, she should have said something warm-hearted and funny to show that she was a good sport, to show that it didn't matter. But she didn't.

'I'm embarrassed that this should have happened the first time you come to my place,' he said. Marilyn nodded her head as if accepting his apology. He felt a dark flush of annoyance at being dismissed so regally.

'She'll never work again, Colm,' Rosemary said, but not with the solidarity he might have liked. There was a hint that he might have known this would happen, that the fault was partially his.

'It was all a bit like a cabaret really,' said poor Gertie, trying to put some favourable gloss on it.

At the Lynch table they hadn't quite recovered either. 'Sorry about the cabaret.' Colm had decided to play it low key, he wasn't going to crawl to these people.

'Was it something she ate, do you think?' Brian Lynch asked with interest.

'I very much hope not, speaking as a restaurant owner.' Colm forced a smile.

'More like something you gave her to drink.' Danny Lynch's voice was cold.

'No, Danny, you know I wouldn't do that. Like myself, Orla can't drink like all you people can, but she was upset by something and she had hidden vodka in the flower vase.'

Bernadette clapped her hand over her mouth to stop the giggle. 'The flower vase? It must have tasted awful ,' she said.

'I hope it did.' Colm smiled at the strange girl that he had thought he would never speak to. She really was only a child, more a friend for Annie than for Annie's father. What a nightmare for Ria to take on board. 'Anyway, you'll have to rely on conversation rather than music,' he said.

'That's better in a way,' Annie said. 'You can hear music anywhere, we'd rather chat as it happens.'

'Yes, we were asking Bernadette whether the baby inside her had webbed feet,' Brian said. 'And we were wondering was that the American? You know, Mam's friend Mrs. Vine, over there with Rosemary and Gertie?'

'Yes, that's Marilyn Vine,' Colm said.

'Some welcome to Tara Road for her,' Danny said.

'That's what I told her, she thought it was very funny,' Colm lied and moved on to placate the next table.

Somehow the night ended for everyone. Monto and his friend came back.

'Where exactly?' Colm hated having to talk to this man.

'We thought of a lot of places, but settled on an Out-Patients' in a hospital eventually,' Monto said with a smirk.

'She'll leave, she'll come back. Close the door of the restaurant.'

'No, we gave a folding note or two to someone there who will make sure she doesn't.'

'Thank you, Monto, I owe you for tonight.'

'You owe me for a lot more than just tonight and you know that. So you'll never tell me again that your restaurant is full.'