Maeve Binchy - Evening Class

Almost against his will he approached them. 'This looks very nice,' he said in his usual easy manner. 'My son surrounded by the clergy and the law on his christening day, what more does he need as a start in life in Holy Ireland?'

They smiled and Connie spoke. 'I was just telling Father O'Hara and Mr. Murphy here that you should be a happy man today. I was telling them what you said eight days after we were married.'

'Oh yes, what was that?'

'You said you wanted a honeymoon baby that would be able to take over your business when you were fifty-five, and a family that would be there for you when you needed it.' Her voice seemed pleasant and admiring enough to the others. He could hear the hardness of steel in it. They had never discussed that conversation again. He had not known she would recall the words which, he remembered thinking at the time, were untempered. He had never believed it possible that she would repeat them to him in public. Was it a threat?

'I'm sure I said it more lovingly than that, Connie,' he smiled. 'It was the Bahamas, we were newly-weds.'

'That's what you said, and I was just pointing out to Father O'Hara and Mr. Murphy that I hope it doesn't seem like tempting fate, but it does seem to be more or less on course so far.'

'Let's just hope that Richard likes the insurance business.'

It was some sort of threat; he knew it but didn't realise where it was coming from.

It was months later that a solicitor asked him to come to a consultation in his office. 'Are you arranging a corporate insurance plan?' Harry asked.

'No, it's entirely personal, it's a personal matter, and I will have a Senior Counsel there,' the solicitor said.

In the office was T. P. Murphy, the friend of Connie's father. Smiling and charming, he sat silently as the solicitor explained that he had been retained by Mrs. Kane to arrange a division of the joint property, under the Married Women's Property Act.

'But she knows that half of mine is hers.' Harry was more shocked than he had ever been in his life. He had been in business deals where people had surprised him, but never to this extent.

'Yes, but there are certain other factors to be taken into consideration,' the solicitor said. The distinguished barrister said nothing, just looked from one face to the other.

'Like what?'

'Like the element of risk in your business, Mr. Kane.'

'There's an element of risk in every bloody business, including your own,' he snapped.

'You will have to admit that your company started very quickly, grew very quickly, some of the assets might not be as sound as they appear on paper.'

God damn her, she had told these lawyers about the group that was dodgy, the one area that he and the partners worried about. They couldn't have known otherwise.

'If she has been saying anything against our company in order to get her hands on something for herself she'll answer for it,' he said, letting his guard drop completely.

It was at this point that the barrister leaned forward and spoke in his silky voice. 'My dear Mr. Kane, you shock us with such a misunderstanding of your wife's concern for you. You may know a little of her own background. Her father's own investments proved insufficient to look after his family when…'

'That was totally different. He was a cracked old dentist who put everything he got from filling teeth onto a horse or a dog.' There was a silence in the law office. Harry Kane realised he was doing himself no good. The two lawyers looked at each other. 'Decent man by all accounts, all the same,' he said grudgingly.

'Yes, a very decent man as you say. One of my closest friends for many years,' said T. P. Murphy.

'Yes. Yes, of course.'

'And we understand from Mrs. Kane that you and she are expecting a second child in a few months' time?' the solicitor spoke without looking up from his papers.

'That's true, yes. We're both very pleased.'

'And Mrs. Kane of course has given up her successful career in Hayes Hotel to look after these children, and any more you and she may have.'

'Listen, it's a goddamn receptionist job, handing people their keys, saying have a nice stay with us. It's not a career. She's married to me , she can have anything she wants. Do I deny her anything? Does she say that in her list of complaints?'

'I'm really very glad that Mrs. Kane isn't here to listen to your words,' said T. P. Murphy. 'If you knew how much you have misrepresented the situation. There is no list of complaints, there is a huge concern on her part for you, your company and the family you wanted so much to create. Her anxiety is all on your behalf. She fears that if anything were to happen to the company you would be left without the things you have worked so hard for, and continue to work so hard for, involving a lot of travel and being away from the family home so much.'

'And what does she suggest?'

They were down to it now. Connie's lawyers wanted almost everything put in her name, the house and a certain high percentage of the annual pre-tax profit. She would form a company with its own directors. Papers were shuffled, obviously names were already in place.

'I can't do that.' Harry Kane had got where he was by coming straight to the point.

'Why not, Mr. Kane?'

'What would it mean to my own two partners, the men who set this thing up with me? I have to tell them "Listen lads, I'm a bit worried about the whole caboodle so I'm putting my share in the wife's name so that you won't be able to touch me if the shit hits the fan"? How would that look to them? Like a vote of confidence in what we do?'

Harry had never known a voice as soft and yet effective as T. P. Murphy's. He spoke at a barely audible level and yet every word was crystal clear. 'I am sure you are perfectly happy for both of your partners to spend their profits as they wish, Mr. Kane. One might want to put all his into a stud farm in the West, one might want to buy works of art and entertain a lot of film and media people, for example. You don't question that. Why should they question that you invest in your wife's company?'

She had told them all that. How had she known anyway? The wives at the Wednesday evenings… Well, by God, he'd put an end to this.

'And if I refuse?'

'I'm sure you won't do that. We may not have divorce on the statute book but we do have Family Law Courts, and I can assure you that anyone who would represent Mrs. Kane would get a huge settlement. The trouble, of course, would be that there would be all that bad publicity, and the insurance business is so dependent on the good faith and trust of the public in general… ' His voice trailed away.

Harry Kane signed the papers.

He drove straight back to his large comfortable home. A gardener came every day, he was wheeling plants across towards a south-facing wall. He let himself in the front door and looked at the fresh flowers in the hall, the bright clean look of the paintwork, the pictures they had chosen together on the walls. He glanced into the large sitting room which would host forty easily for drinks without opening the double doors into the dining room. There were cabinets of Waterford glass. Only dried flowers in the dining room, they didn't eat there unless it was a dinner party. Out to the sunny kitchen where Connie sat feeding baby Richard little spoonfuls of strained apple and laughing at him, delighted. She wore a pretty flowered maternity dress with a white collar. Upstairs there was the sound of the vacuum cleaner. Soon the delivery van from the supermarket would arrive.

It was by any standards a superbly run home. Domestic arrangements never bothered him nor intruded on his life. His clothes were taken and returned to his wardrobe and drawers. He never needed to buy new socks or underpants, but he chose his own suits and shirts and ties.