Maeve Binchy - Circle of Friends

"Well, Mother.. ." Benny felt as if she were eight yearsof age again, instead of almost eighteen. "It's a bit awkward.." It was partly to do with Mother Francis calling her "Bernadette'. It put her straight back in the classroom, in her gym slip again.

"Yes, I'm sure, but the best thing is if I know everything then I can judge how much has to be said to Mother Clare." The nun's voice was smooth. Surely she couldn't be planning to go along with the lies.

Benny risked it. "I think she thinks that Eve is sort of in hospital already. I think that's what Eve would have been telling you had she been able to give you a ring.."

"Yes, of course, she would. Please stop fretting, Bernadette. I am much more concerned that Eve gets well and is aware that we have all made things easier. Can you giv me more details . . . ?"

Biting the corner of her lip Benny haltingly told a tale of mythical blood tests. It was noted crisply.

"Thank you, Bernadette. Now can you put me on to someone qualified to tell me about Eve's injuries?"

"Yes, Mother."

"Bernadette?"

"Yes, Mother?"

"Ring your father at work first. Say you couldn't get through to your mother. It's easier to talk to men. They fuss a lot less."

"But look at you, Mother, you don't fuss at all."

"Ah, child, I'm different altogether. I'm a nun," she said. Benny gave the phone to the Sister, and sat down with her head in her hands.

"Was it awful?" Nan was sympathetic. "No, like you said, it was easy.

"It always is, if you do it right."

"Now, I have to ring my parents. How do I do that right?"

"Well, what are you hiding from them?" Nan seemed amused.

"Nothing. It's just that they'll make such a fuss. They think of me as in nappies."

"It all depends on how you begin. Don't say "Something terrible happened"."

"What do I start with, then?"

Nan was impatient. "Maybe you should be in nappies," she snapped.

Benny felt her heart sink. It was probably true. She was a big baby, soft in the head.

"Hallo, Father," she said into the phone. "It's Benny. I'm absolutely fine, Father, I was trying to ring Mother but there was something wrong with the number. Wouldn't it be great to have the automatic exchange?"

She looked across at Nan, who was giving the thumbs-up sign.

"No, I'm not actually in the college, but I'm just beside it.

These people here are very over-careful you know, they just like to cover every eventuality so they asked us all to ring our families even though there isn't a thing wrong.." Sean Walsh ran through Knockglen to tell the news to Annabel Hogan. Mrs. Healy saw him running as she looked from her bow window and knew that something must be amiss. That young man always moved very correctly. He didn't pause as Dessie Burns called out to him from the hardware shop, he didn't notice Mr. Kennedy looking over his glasses at all the bottles and apothecary jars in the window display of the chemist's shop. He ran past the chip shop where he had had coffee with Benny only last night, past the newsagents', the sweet shop, the pub and Paccy Moore's cobbler's shop. Up the short avenue to the Hogans' house; the ground was wet and covered with leaves. If he owned his house, he thought to himself, he would give it a good coat of paint, put a smart gate on It.

Something more imposing than the way the Hogans had it.

Patsy answered the door. "Sean," she said, without much enthusiasm.

Sean felt his cheeks redden slightly. If he were master of the house, no maid would address a senior employee of the master's by his Christian name. It would be Mr. Walsh, thank you very much, or sir.

And she would wear something to show that she was a maid, a uniform, or a white collar and apron anyway. "Is Mrs. Hogan at home?" he asked haughtily. "Come in, she's on the phone," Patsy said casually.

"The phone? It's working again?"

"It never wasn't." Patsy shrugged.

She led him into the sitting room. He could hear Mrs. Hogan in the distance talking to someone. They had the phone in the breakfast room off the kitchen. He wouldn't have had it that way. A telephone should be on a half-moon table in the hall. A highly polished table under a mirror, perhaps a bowl of flowers beside it reflecting in the table.

Sean had always looked around him when he went into people's houses.

He wanted to know how things should be done. For when the time came.

The sitting room had shabby chintz furniture, and faded curtains in the long window alcove. It could have been a very smart room, Sean thought, mentally ticking off the changes he would make. He hardly noticed Patsy, who had come back in.

"She says you're to come out to her."

"Mrs. Hogan isn't coming in here?" He didn't want to be telling the news in the territory where the maid could be involved, but followed obediently to the shabby breakfast room.

"Ah, Sean." Annabel Hogan was polite to him even if her maid wasn't.

"I'm very sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but there's been an accident," he said in the sepulchral tones of an undertaker.

"I know, poor Eve, Mother Francis was on to me about it."

"But Mrs. Hogan .. Benny was involved in it.."

"Yes, but she's not hurt at all, she was talking to Mother Francis and to her father.

There was some fault on the phone here or else I was on the phone myself talking to Father Rooney about the Station."

"She got scratches and a sprained ankle." Sean couldn't believe this calm acceptance. He had expected to be the deliverer of the news and then the great consoler, but Mrs. Hogan was making light of it. It was incomprehensible.

"Yes, but she's perfectly all right. She's going to sit there in the hospital, and they'll keep an eye on her and someone will put her on the evening bus, just as she planned. It's only the shock, Mother Francis says. Better to let her sit calmly there with people who know all about it."

Sean felt all his thunder being stolen from him. "I had thought I would drive to Dublin to collect her," he said. "Ah, Sean, we couldn't ask you to do that."

"She might not like hanging around hospital, you know, sick people, smells of disinfectant.. it's early closing and I was going to ask Mr. Hogan for a loan of the car." Annabel Hogan looked at Sean Walsh's concerned face and at a stroke all the careful, calming work of Mother Francis was destroyed.

"You're very kind, Sean, but maybe if it's as bad as that my husband would want to go himself.."

"But Mrs. Hogan, if I might presume, it's very hard to find a place to park the car in the centre of Dublin. Mr. Hogan hasn't been used to driving in the city traffic of recent years, and I had planned to go to Dublin to collect the samples of material.

You could ask them till kingdom come to put them on the bus, but they never do.."

"Will I come with you, do you think?" Sean Walsh's mind did a slow careful calculation, then he came to a decision. "I'll go on my own, Mrs. Hogan, if that's all right. Then you can make all the preparations here."

It had been the right thing to say. Annabel saw herself in the role of getting ready to welcome the invalid home. Sean smiled as he left the house. This time he didn't run up the main street of Knockglen. He walked on the other side of the road. He nodded to Dr. Johnson, who was coming out of his surgery. He glanced in the window of Peggy Pine's women's outfitters and saw with distaste the pastel colours that Benny had admired last night. Benny was such a big girl, she could hardly have wanted them for herself. Still, it was good that she sought his advice.

He saw that Monsieur Hulot's Holiday was coming to the cinema this weekend. That was good. Benny wouldn't be well enough, and Sean didn't like foreign-language films. They put him at a disadvantage.

He held his shoulders back. There was no reason for him to feel at a disadvantage. Things were working out fine.