Maeve Binchy - Tara Road

'It's been hell in here.'

'So I read in the papers and hear everywhere,' she said.

'It's okay now, we're out of the fire.'

'Says who?'

'Says Barney. He's saying it from Spain, rather alarmingly.'

Rosemary laughed and Danny relaxed.

'We have to meet. There are a few things we must talk about.'

'Very difficult, sweetheart.'

'Tonight I'm going to one of Mona's dreary charity things with the woman who's living in your house.'

'Marilyn?'

'Yes. Have you met her?'

'I don't like her, she's a real ball-breaker.'

'Come round after ten,' Rosemary said and hung up.

Somewhere Danny found the courage to ring the bank. He must sound cheerful and confident.

'Hi Larry, Danny Lynch here. Is the red alert over? Can we come out of the bunkers?'

'Yes, some last-ditch Mafia money turned up.'

Danny went weak with relief but he pretended to be shocked. 'Larry, is that any way to talk to respectable property people?'

'There are some respectable property people, you and Barney aren't amongst them.'

'Why are you being so heavy?' Danny was startled.

'He left a lot of small people who could ill afford it without their cash, and then when it started to get ropey he went down to the Costa del Crime and got some laundered drug money from his pals.'

'We don't know that, Larry.'

'We do.'

Danny remembered hearing that Larry's son was in a de-tox centre. He would have very strong feelings about money that might have been made through the sale of heroin.

Greg called Marilyn. 'No reason. Just to chat. I miss the e-mails.'

'So do I, but I gather Ria's making great progress on my little laptop. She sent an e-mail to Rosemary Ryan, a woman here—I'm going out to a fashion show with her shortly—and one to her ex-husband's office. They nearly collapsed.'

'Oh I know, she sends them to me too.'

'She does? What about?'

'Oh this and that… arrangements for the alumni weekend… Andy will be coming up too, and her children will be there, so it will be a full house.'

'Yes.' Marilyn couldn't quite explain why this slightly irritated her, but it did.

'Anyway, she seems to be getting on very well, she's cooking in John and Gerry's a couple of hours a day.'

'She's not!’

'Yes. Isn't she amazing? And Henry told me that he and Heidi were at a dinner party round there…'

'Round where?'

'In the house. In Tudor Drive. There were eight of them apparently and…'

'In our house? She had eight people in our house? To dinner?'

'Well, she knows them all pretty well now. Carlotta comes in for a swim every morning, Heidi's round there for coffee after work. It didn't take her long…'

'It did not ,' said Marilyn grimly.

Mona McCarthy was on the committee. She sat smiling at the desk and had their tickets ready for them when they went in. People often wondered how much she knew about her husband's activities both in business and in his private life. But they would never learn from Mona's large face. There were no hints there. A big serene woman, dull even, constantly raising money for good causes. It might have been trying to put something back in order to compensate for the many sharp deals where Barney might have taken too much out.

'And a glass of champagne?' she offered.

'I'd love one,' Rosemary said. ' And I have a chauffeur.' She introduced Marilyn.

Marilyn was being unusually silent tonight as if she were thinking about something miles away.

Mona's face lit up. 'And little Ria's out in your house at the moment, isn't she?'

Marilyn nodded with a bright smile. She was wondering what percentage of the population of Westville was now installed in Tudor Drive tonight. Oh no, it was just after lunch back home, maybe a buffet party for thirty at the swimming pool. But she had to say something pleasant. 'Yes, I gather she's having a good time, settling in well.'

Mona was pleased. 'She really needs that, how wonderful you were able to provide it for her.'

'She's even got a job, I hear, in our local gourmet shop.' Marilyn wondered whether there was a tinny note in her voice, and she wondered further why there should be.

'Ria should have got a job years ago,' Rosemary said. 'That's why she lost everything she had.'

'She didn't lose everything,' Mona said quietly. 'She still has the children.'

Rosemary realised it had not been the right remark to make in front of the stay-at-home wife of Barney McCarthy who was in the south of Spain with his mistress. 'Yes, of course. That's right, she has the children, and of course the house.'

'Do you think that Danny Lynch's liaison, for want of a better word, is… permanent?' Marilyn wondered.

'No way,' Rosemary said.

'Not at all,' Mona said at the same time.

'And would Ria have him back when it does end, do you think?' Marilyn couldn't believe that she was asking these personal questions. Marilyn who was legendary about her reserve had changed entirely in this country, she had become a blabbermouth and busybody in a matter of weeks.

'Oh, I think so,' Mona said.

'No question of it,' said Rosemary.

If everyone seemed so sure… if it were all going to end with everyone back in their own boxes as they had been… then what a terrible amount of pain and hurt for the whole summer! And what would happen to the baby that was waiting to be born?

As they drove back through the warm Dublin night Marilyn talked easily to Rosemary. She spoke about Greg out in Hawaii. At no stage did she give any explanation why he was on one side of the earth and she was on the other.

"When Marilyn stopped the car outside Number 32 Rosemary thanked her for the lift. 'It was wonderful, it meant I could have four glasses of champagne. And I loved them. I would ask you in for coffee but I have such an early start… I thought I'd give the plants in the garden a drink of water and then go to bed.'

'Heavens no, and I want to get an early night too.'

Marilyn drove back and parked the car outside Number 16 .

Just then she remembered that she had left the signed programmes she had got for Annie in Rosemary's purse. Annie and her friend Kitty were mad about two of the models. Marilyn had gone to the trouble to get the right ones, now she had stupidly left them in Rosemary's elegant black leather bag. She looked at her watch. Rosemary wouldn't be in bed yet. She had only left her two minutes ago, she would be watering the garden. Marilyn would just run up the lane, it would be quicker. They didn't lock their back gate in Number 32.

It was such a pleasant neighbourhood, this, in ways; she had been very lucky to find it. She looked up at the sky, slightly rosy from the lights of the city, a big moon hidden from time to time by racing black clouds that looked like chariots hastening across.

She wished that she didn't feel so mean-spirited about Ria's antics in Westville, but it was really most unfair of her. She was setting up precedents, establishing patterns which could now not be broken. Marilyn didn't want Carlotta's voluptuous figure diving into her swimming pool, she didn't need Heidi coming for coffee every day. And she felt absurdly jealous of what Ria would do for everyone at the alumni picnic.

She was at the back gate of Number 32 now and she pushed it open. She expected to see Rosemary in her bare feet, having taken off her expensive shoes, directing the hose towards the beautifully planted herbaceous border.

But there was nobody there. She walked quietly across the grass and then she heard two people talking in the summerhouse. Not so much talking, she realised as she got nearer, more kissing. Rosemary had indeed taken off her expensive shoes and also her expensive rose silk dress, the one she had got from Polly Callaghan in exchange for a printing job. She lay in a coffee-coloured silk slip across Danny Lynch and she had his face in her hands.