Maeve Binchy - Tara Road

'You're not interested in clothes, Mam, you hate clothes.'

'What did you buy?' Ria hissed at her daughter.

'Pink jeans and a navy-and-pink shirt.'

'Sounds great,' Ria said.

'Mam, are you in a bad mood at me over something?'

'Should I be?'

'I don't think so, I'm having a shitty summer to be honest, everyone's upset the whole time. I'm not allowed to see my friend Kitty. Granny's going to live in an old people's home. Mr McCarthy's gone off somewhere without letting Dad know where. Rosemary Ryan is like something wired to the moon looking for Dad to give him urgent messages. Brian has Dekko and Myles back in tow again roaring and bawling and driving everyone mad. Dad had some kind of row with Finola and she's not around any more. Bernadette's asleep most of the time. Aunt Hilary's lost her marbles and keeps looking up into trees. Clement was coughing up fur balls and he had to go to the vet. Colm took him. It's not serious… but it was very frightening at the time. And then I ring you and you're in a snot with me about something that I don't know about. And honestly if it weren't for Marilyn I'd go mad.'

'She's helpful, is she?'

'Well, at least she's normal. And she recommends me books to read. She gave me To Kill a Mockingbird . Did you ever read it Mam?'

'I love you, Annie.'

'Are you drunk, Mam?'

'Of course I'm not drunk. Why do you ask?'

'I asked you did you read a book and you said you loved me. That's not a conversation.'

'No, but it's a fact.'

'Well I suppose, thank you, Mam. Thanks anyway.'

'And you? Do you perhaps love me?'

'You've been too long in America, Mam,' said Annie.

Danny Lynch was standing on the steps ringing the doorbell of what used to be his own house.

Marilyn, kneeling under the huge tree inside the gate, was invisible to him as he stood fidgeting and looking at his watch. He was a handsome man with all that nervous energy that she remembered from years back but now there was something else, something she had seen in the restaurant that night. Something anxious, almost hunted. Then he took out some door keys and let himself in. Marilyn had been about to get up and approach him but now she moved very sharply from her planting and ran lightly up to the house and followed him inside.

He was standing in the front room looking around. He called out: 'It's only me, Danny Lynch.'

'You startled me,' she said with her hand on her chest, pretending a great sense of alarm and shock. After all if she had come in without knowing he was inside she would have been very shocked.

'I'm sorry, I did ring the bell but there was no answer. And you're Marilyn. You're very welcome to Ireland.' Despite his restlessness he had great charm. He looked at her as he welcomed her. He was a man who would look at every woman he talked to and make them feel special. That's why she had remembered him, after all, when she had forgotten so many other people.

'Thank you,' she said.

'And you're happy here?' He looked around the room, taking it all in as if he were going to do an examination on its contents.

'Very. Who wouldn't be?' She wished she hadn't said that. Danny Lynch had obviously not been happy enough to stay here. Why, out of courtesy, had she made that stupid remark?

He didn't seem to have noticed it. 'My daughter says you've been very kind to her.'

'She's a delightful girl. I hope she and Brian will enjoy visiting my home as much as I like being in theirs.'

'It's a great opportunity for them. When I was Brian's age I had only been ten miles down the road.' He was very engaging.

And yet she didn't like the fact that he had let himself in. 'I didn't actually know that there was another key to the house out. I thought Gertie and I had the only two.'

'Well, it's not exactly having a key out ,' he said. 'Not my having one surely?'

'No, it's just I misunderstood, that's all. I didn't realise that you come and go here, Danny. There were very precise notes about Colm having a key to the back gate and everything. I'll tell Ria that she forgot to tell me about you and how I thought you were an intruder.' She laughed at the silly mistake but she watched him carefully at the same time.

He understood what she was saying. Carefully he took the key to Tara Road off his key-ring and laid it on the table beside the bowl of roses. 'I don't come and go actually. It was just today I needed something and since you weren't in I thought… well you know, old habits die hard. It was my front door for a long time.' His smile and apology were practised but none the less genuine.

'Of course.' She was gracious, she could afford to be. She had won in this little battle, she had got Ria's doorkey back too. 'And what was it you wanted?'

'The car keys actually. Mine has packed up so I need to take the second car.'

'Ria's car?'

'The second car, yes.'

'For how long? I'd need it back in an hour.'

'No, I mean take it, for the duration,'

'Oh that's impossible,' she said pleasantly.

'What do you mean?'

'I mean I paid the insurance company an extra premium to cover my driving that car for eight weeks. Ria will be driving your children around Connecticut in my car. My husband can't suddenly appear and claim the car from her …' She paused. The rest of the sentence hung there unspoken.

T'm sorry, Marilyn, very sorry if you'll be inconvenienced but I have to have it. You don't need it, you're here all day digging in the garden. I have to go out and make calls on people, earn a living.'

'I'm sure your company will provide you with another car.'

'It suits me to have this one, and since you don't need…'

'Excuse me, you don't know what I need a car for. Today as it happens I'm meeting Colm to arrange that some organic fertiliser for your garden be delivered, and the nursery where we are meeting is not on a bus route. I am driving your first mother-in-law and three old ladies from St Rita's to a bridge tournament in Dalkey. Then I'm picking up your daughter and son and driving them to meet your second mother-in-law, with whom you have apparently had some quarrel, for swimming lessons. Then I meet Rosemary Ryan, who has been trying to get in touch with you urgently by the way, and she and I are going to a charity fashion show. I agreed to drive.' He looked at her open-mouthed. 'So can we now agree that regretfully there isn't a question of my giving you Ria's car?' Marilyn asked.

'Danny?'

'Jesus, Barney, where are you?'

Barney laughed. 'I told you, a business trip.'

'No, that's what we tell the bank, the suppliers, other people, it's not what you tell me.'

'That's exactly what I'm doing, on the business of raising money.'

'And tell me you've managed to raise some, Barney, because otherwise we're going to lose two contracts this afternoon.'

'Easy, easy. It's raised.'

'Where are you?'

'It doesn't matter, ring Larry at the bank and check. The money's there.'

'It wasn't there an hour ago.'

'It's there now.'

'Where are you, Barney?'

'I'm in Malaga,' Barney McCarthy said and hung up.

Danny was shaking. He hadn't the courage to ring the bank. Suppose Larry said he knew nothing of any money. Suppose Barney was in the south of Spain with Polly and wasn't coming back. It was preposterous of course but then people did that sort of thing. They left their wives and children without a backward glance. Hadn't he done it himself?

'Ms Ryan on the line for you, again ,' the secretary said to him, rolling her eyes to heaven, pleading with him to take the call this time.

'Put her through. Sweetheart, how are you?' he said.

'Five calls, Danny, what's this?' Her voice was clipped.