Maeve Binchy - Circle of Friends

She wanted no more of these buzzings in her mind.

The house looked beautiful. It had been well worth it to have Mossy give the door a coat of paint. And the garden was a tribute to Heather's and Eve's hard work. Heather was inside in a white chef's hat made for her by Clodagh, and a butcher's apron. It seemed excessive for passing plates of savouries, but she felt important in it. The dusk was turning to darkness. The stars were coming out in the clear sky. Figures came up the path to the party. Teddy Flood, Clodagh Pine, Maire Carroll and her new fiance, Tom, the medical student that Rosemary had such ferocious designs on. A few more from college who were just coming for the night rather than making a whole weekend out of it. Aidan was explaining that tomorrow was called Low Sunday and that this was probably prophetic. With the amount they had eaten, drunk and danced, low would be exactly how they would feel.

"Keep the drink moving will, you?" Eve said. "I have to carve this beast."

They had a huge joint of pork boned and rolled by Teddy Flood for them.

He said you'd be able to cut it like butter. Honestly, it would be like carving a swiss roll. But Eve didn't want to make a mess of it.

She closed the door behind her so that she could be on her own in the kitchen.

And as she prepared the place for herself, the huge carving dish, something that Benny had found in the shop, the plates that were heating in the bottom of the range, she was concentrating so hard that she didn't hear the door open and two extra guests arrive.

Carrying bottles of wine and cans of beer, in came Jack and Nan.

Rosemary was the nearest to the door and therefore the first to see them. She let her arm drop from Tom's shoulder where it had rested all evening to mark clearly lines of possession.

"My God," she said.

Jack smiled his easy smile. "Not exactly. Just his deputy," he said.

Carmel was nuzzling Sean on a bench close by. "You didn't say they were coming," she accused Sean in a whisper.

"I didn't bloody know," Sean hissed back.

Johnny O'Brien was doing a complicated tango step with Sheila.

"Hey, it's the black sheep," he called happily. Sheila whirled around to see if she could see Benny. She was just in time to see Benny look up from where she and Bill Dunne were sorting out records. And to see the colour go out of Benny's face as she dropped three of the EPS straight from her hands.

"Thank God for the passing of the seventy-eights," said Fonsie, whose record collection would have been the loser.

"There's a surprise," Bill said.

Even though the music of "Hernando's Hideaway" was thumping and thudding itself all round them, Nan and Jack must have felt the silence and the chill.

Jack's legendary smile came to his rescue. "Now, come on, did you think I'd forgotten I said I'd get the drink?" he laughed. He had put it down on the floor, his hands were wide apart, being held out helplessly in the little gesture Benny knew and loved.

It must have been a dream. All of it, and now that he was back it was over.

She felt herself smiling at him. And he saw the smile. All the way across the room. "Hallo, Benny," he said.

Now everyone could feel the silence. Everyone except the Johnson Brothers, who were singing "Hernando's Hideaway'. Clodagh had dressed Benny in black and white for the party. A big black corduroy skirt, a white blouse with a black velvet trim. She looked flushed and happy at the moment that Jack saw her.

He was walking over to her.

"How's your mother and the shop?"

"Fine, going great. We had a party there last night." She spoke too quickly. She looked over his shoulder. Aidan Lynch had taken the bottles of wine from Nan and laid them on the table. Clodagh was trying to explain to Fonsie out of the corner of her mouth.

Johnny O'Brien, who could always be relied on to say something, if not the right thing, came over and punched Jack warmly on the arm.

"It's great to see you. I thought you were barred," he said.

Aidan poured Jack a drink. "Jack the lad!" he said. "Like old times."

"I thought it would be silly to act as if there was a feud or something." Jack looked only mildly anxious that he had done the right thing.

"What feud would there be?" Aidan asked, looking nervously over at where Nan stood beside the door, hardly having moved since she came in.

"Well, that's what I thought. Anyway I couldn't make off with all the money for the jar."

They both knew it had nothing to do with the drink. "How are things?"

Aidan asked him. "~e. A bit unreal."

"I know," said Aidan, who didn't know and couldn't possibly imagine it.

He thought it safer to move to different waters. "And your uncle's office?"

"Crazy. They're all so petty, you wouldn't believe. . ." Jack had his arm upon a tall chest of drawers and was talking easily.

Benny had moved slightly away. She felt very hot and then very cold.

She hoped she wasn't going to faint. Perhaps she could get some air.

Then she realized that Eve didn't know they were here. She must go into the kitchen and tell her.

Aidan had realized this at the same time. He had moved Fonsie in to talk to Jack and headed Benny off at the kitchen door.

"I'll do it," he said. "Come in to rescue me if I'm not out in an hour and there's no sign of supper."

She gave a watery smile.

"Are you all right?" he asked, concerned.

"I'm okay." For Benny that was like saying she was terrible.

Aidan looked around him and caught Clodagh's eye. She moved over to join them.

As Aidan went into the kitchen, Clodagh said, "She can stand there at the bloody door all night. She's got some nerve coming here, I tell you. She got short shrift from me."

"What?"

"She said, "Hallo, Clodagh", nice as pie. I looked through her.

She said it again. "Do I know you?" is what I said." Clodagh was pleased with her repartee.

"People will have to speak to her."

"Let them. I'm not going to." And indeed Nan did seem curiously isolated, while Jack was the centre of his mates.

Benny looked across the room. Nan's face, serene and beautiful as ever, looked around her in that interested, slightly questioning way.

She gave no sign that she might feel unwelcome, ungreeted.

She looked perfectly at ease standing just where she had come in, when Aidan had removed the wine bottles from her arms.

Benny looked at Nan as she had done so often, admiringly. Nan knew what to say, how to behave, what to wear. Tonight she was in yet another new outfit, a very flowery print, all mauve and white. It looked so fresh, you'd think it had come straight off a shop rail five minutes ago, not from a long car drive.

Benny swallowed. For the rest of her life, Nan would drive in a car with Jack, sit beside him sharing all the things that she had once shared. Tears of disappointment came into her eyes. Why had she not done as he asked, taken off her clothes and lain down beside him, loved him generously and warmly, responded to him, instead of buttoning herself up and moving away and saying they should be going home? If it were Benny who was pregnant, surely he would have been pleased and proud.

He would have explained to his parents, and to her mother as he had done for Nan. Big tears welled up in her eyes at her own foolishness.

Nan saw and came towards her. "I haven't been avoiding you," Nan said.

"No."

"I was going to write to you, but then we never wrote each other letters, so that would be artificial."

"Yes."

"And it's hard to know what to say."

"You always know what to say." Benny looked at her. "And you always know what to do."

"It was never intended to be like this. I assure you."

There was something in Nan's voice that sounded phony. Benny realized with a shock that Nan was lying. Perhaps it was intended to be like this. That this was exactly the way Nan had planned it.