Maeve Binchy - Circle of Friends

"We're going to get married," he called out, his face pink with pleasure.

"Thank God I'm going off to the wilds of Kerry, I'd never be able to come in here again," said Kit, acknowledging the smiles and handshakes and even cheers of the other diners at the tables around them.

Simon Westward wondered could his grandfather possibly have known how inconvenient was the day he took to die. The arrangements with Olivia were at a crucial stage. He did not need to be summoned to a sick bed.

But on the other hand, he would be in a better position to talk to her once he was master of Westlands in name as well. He tried to feel some sympathy for the lonely old man. But he feared that he had brought a lot of his misery on himself.

So, it mightn't have been easy to welcome Sarah's ill-matched husband, a handyman, to the house, but he should have made some overtures of friendship to their child.

Eve would have been a good companion for all those years. Petted and feted in the Big House, she would not have developed that prickling resentment which was her hallmark as a result of being banished.

He didn't like thinking about Eve. It reminded him uncomfortably of that terrible day in Westlands when the old man had lashed out all around him. And it reminded him of Nan.

Somebody had sent him a cutting from the Irish Times, with the notice of her engagement. The envelope had been typed. At first he thought it might have been from Nan herself, and later he decided that it was not her style to do that. She had left without a backward glance. And as far as he could see from his statement, had not cashed that cheque.

He didn't know who had sent the newspaper cutting. He thought it might have been Eve.

Heather asked Mother Francis, would Eve be coming to their grandfather's funeral?

Mother Francis said that somehow she thought not. "He used to be very nice once, he got different when he got old," she said.

"I know," Mother Francis said. Her own heart was heavy. Mother Clare was going to be sent to Knockglen. It was all very well for Peggy Pine to urge Mother Francis to take the whip hand, and to show her who was master, and a lot of other highly unsuitable instructions for religious life. It was going to disrupt the Community greatly. If only there was some kind of interest, some area she could find for Mother Clare to be hived off.

"Are you in a bad humour, Mother?" Heather asked. "Oh, Lord, child, you really are Eve's cousin. You have exactly the same way she had of knowing when anything was wrong. The rest of the school could tramp past and never know anything."

Heather looked at her thoughtfully.

"I think you should put more faith in the Thirty Days Prayer.

Sister Imelda says it's never been known to fail. She did it for me when I was lost, and look at how well it turned out."

Mother Francis sometimes worried about how Heather had latched on to some of the more complicated aspects of the Catholic faith.

Nan asked Jack to meet her.

"Where would you like?" he asked. "You know Herbert Park. It's quite near you."

"Is that not too far from you?" They were curiously formal. If anyone saw this handsome couple walking there they would have assumed that this was another summer romance, and smiled at them.

There was no ring to give back. There were very few arrangements to unpick.

She told him that she was going to London. She hoped to do a course in dress designing. She wanted to be away for a while. She didn't really know exactly what she did want, but she knew what she didn't want.

She talked flatly, with no light and shade in her voice. Jack fought down the guilty, overwhelming surge of relief, that he was not going to have to marry this beautiful dead girl and spend the rest of his life with her.

When they left the small park with its bright rows of flowers and the pit-pat of people playing tennis they knew that they would probably never see each other again.

The day dawned bright and sunny for Patsy's wedding. Eve and Benny were there to help her dress. Clodagh would be down to see that those two clowns didn't get anything wrong.

Paccy Moore was going to give her away. He had said that if she wanted someone with a proper leg he wouldn't be a bit insulted, and he might make a bit of clatter with the iron going up the church, but Patsy would have no one else.

His cousin Dekko was going to be the best man, and his sister Bee the bridesmaid. It gave the appearance of a family.

The best silver was out despite Patsy saying that a couple of Mossy's cousins might be light fingered. There was chicken and ham, and potato salad, and a dozen different types of cake, and trifle and cream.

It would be a feast.

Clodagh had plucked Patsy's eyebrows and insisted on doing a make-up.

"I wonder would there be a chance that my mother might see me up in Heaven?" Patsy said.

For an instant, none of the three girls could find an answer.

They found it too moving to think that Patsy would need the support of a mother she had never known, and her easy confidence that this woman was in Heaven.

Benny blew her nose loudly.

"I'm sure she can see you, and she's probably saying you look lovely."

"God, Benny, don't blow your nose like that in the church. You'd lift half the congregation out of their seats," Patsy warned.

Dr. Johnson was driving the party up to the church.

"Good girl, Patsy," he said, as he settled Paccy and the bride into the back of his Morris Cowley. "You'll tear the sight out of the eyes of that old rip above."

It was exactly the right remark, the partisan response to show Patsy that she was on the winning team, that Mossy's mother wouldn't even be a starter in the race.

Dessie Burns had abandoned moderation that morning. He tried to wave a cheery greeting at them from his front door, but it wasn't easy with a bottle in one hand and a glass in the other. He somehow went into a spin and fell down. Dr. Johnson looked at him grimly. That would be his next call, stitching up that eejit's head.

It was a great wedding. Patsy had to be restrained several times from clearing up or going to the kitchen to bring out the next course.

They were waved away at four o'clock.

Dekko was going to drive them to the bus, but Fonsie said he had to drive to Dublin anyway, so he'd take them to Bray.

"Fonsie should be canonized," Benny said to Clodagh. "Yes, I can see his statue in all the churches. Maybe they'd even make this a special place of pilgrimage for him. We'd outsell Lourdes."

"I mean it," Benny said.

"Don't you think I don't know?" A rare look of softness came into Clodagh's face.

That night Mother asked Benny if she'd mind if they sold Lisbeg.

She knew she mustn't appear too eager. But she said thoughtfully that it was a good idea, there'd be money to build up the shop.

It was what Father would have liked.

"We always wanted you to be married from here. That's the only thing."

The signs of Patsy's wedding were still everywhere, the silver ornaments from the cake, the paper napkins, the confetti, the glasses around the house.

"I don't want to get married for a long, long time, Mother. I mean that." And oddly she did.

All that pain she had felt over Jack seemed much less now. She remembered how she had ached all over at the very thought of him and how she had wanted to be the one leaving to walk up the church to a smiling Jack Foley. That ache was a lot less painful now.

Rosemary said that they should have a party in Dublin just to show that it wasn't only the socialites in Knockglen who could organize things.

A barbecue maybe, the night their exams were over, down by White Rock, on the beach, between Killiney and Dalkey.

They'd have a huge fire, and there'd be sausages and lamb chops and great amounts of beer.