Maeve Binchy - Circle of Friends

"Lads?"

"She keeps students, you see. This was her boy's first day at college.

The nun's face was sad. Beside them, the anguished figure of Kit Hegarty rocked to and fro.

"You see, Sister, Mother, I'm the worst one for her. I have everything. A husband, and a family, and Kit has nothing now. She doesn't want to be with the likes of us. She doesn't want anything nice and normal and safe. It's only reminding her of what she hasn't got."

Mother Francis looked at the women with appreciative eyes.

"You're obviously a very good friend, Mrs. "Hayes, Ann Hayes.

Mother Francis was kneeling down beside Frank Hegarty's mother.

She reached out and held the woman's hand.

Kit looked up, startled.

"In a few days, when the funeral's over, I want you to come and stay with me," she said softly.

The ravaged face looked at her. "What do you mean? Who are you?"

"I'm someone like you. I've lost my child, in a sense. I could tell you about it, maybe you could advise me. You see, I'm not a real mother. You are.

"I was." Kit smiled a terrible twisted grimace. "No, you are, you still are, you'll always be his mother, nobody can take that away from you. And all you gave him, all you did for him."

"I didn't give him much. I didn't do much for him. I let him have that bike." She clawed at Mother Francis's hand as she spoke.

"But you had to. You had to give him freedom. That was the greatest gift, that was what he would have wanted most. You gave him the best he could want.

Nobody had said anything like this to Kit all day. Somehow she managed to take a proper breath, not the little shallow gasps she had been giving up to now.

Mother Francis spoke again. "I live in the convent in Knockglen.

It's simple and peaceful. And you could spend a few days there.

It's different, you see, that's the main thing. It wouldn't have memories."

"I couldn't go. I can't leave the house."

"Not immediately, of course, but whenever you're ready. Ann will look after things for a few days. Ann Hayes and her sister."

Somehow her voice had a hypnotic effect. The woman had become less agitated.

"Why are you offering me this?"

"Because my heart goes out to you. And because my girl was hurt in the same crash .. she's going to be all right, but it's a shock seeing her so pale in a hospital bed.."

"She's going to be all right." Kit's voice was flat. "Yes, I know. I know you would accept your son to have any injury if you thought he was going to come out."

"Your girl, what do you mean.. ?"

"She was brought up in our convent. I love her every bit as much as if she were my natural daughter. But I'm no use as a mother. I'm not out in the world."

Through her tears Kit managed something like a real smile.

"I will come, Mother. The convent in Knockglen. But how will I know you? Who will I ask for?"

"I'm afraid you won't have any difficulty in remembering the name.

Like your son, I was called after St. Francis."

Mario looked at Fonsie's yellow tie with disapproval.

"You're going to frighten them away. "Don't be an eejit, Mario.

This is the way people dress nowadays."

"You no call me eejit. I know what eejit means."

"It's about the only word of English you do know."

"You no speak to your uncle that way."

"Listen, Mario, pass me those biscuit tins. If we put the player on top of something tinny it'll sound a bit more like real music."

"Eet soun horrible, Fonsie. Who will come to hear things so very, very loud?" Mario put his hands on his ears. "The kids will."

"The kids have no money.

"The old ones wouldn't come in here in a fit anyway." The door opened and Sean Walsh walked in. "Now do you see!" Fonsie cried.

At the very same moment Mario said, "Now, what did I tell you!"

Sean looked from one to the other with distaste. It was a place he rarely went, and now he had been twice in twenty-four hours; last night with Benny, and tonight because he was so late and fussed getting back from his useless journey to Dublin. He had not been able to buy himself provisions, both grocery shops were closed. Normally Sean Walsh divided his custom. One day he might patronise Hickey's, beside Mr. Flood; other days he would go to Carroll's, immediately next door to Hogan's. It was as if he were preparing for the day he would be a big man himself in this town and wanted everyone on his side, wanted them all to think of him as a customer. If he had been a drinking man he would have had a half pint in every establishment. It was the way to get on. But tonight there had been no time to get the cheese or sardines or cold ham that made his evening meal; Sean never liked to cook in his bedsit above the premises of Hogan's lest the smell of food linger and be deemed offensive. He had thought that he might slip in for a quick snack that would keep body and soul together before he went back to his room to brood about the situation that he had handled so badly.

Now it appeared that Mario and his halfwit nephew were making fun of him.

"He's old and he's come in here two times," Mario was saying.

"He's not old, and the word is twice, you gobdaw," the unappealing Fonsie said.

Sean wished that he had gone down to Birdie Mac's and knocked on the door for a bar of Kit-Kat, anything rather than face these two.

"Are you serving me food, or am I interrupting some kind of talent contest?"

"How old are you, Sean?" Fonsie said. Sean looked at him in disbelief: the huge spongy soles making him four or five inches taller than he really was, the hair slicked intto waves with some filthy oil, his narrow tie and huge mauve-coloured jacket.

"Are you mad?"

"You tell how old you are." Mario looked unexpectedly ferocious.

Sean felt the whole world had tilted. First Benny had turned her back on him in public and told him to go home without her after he had driven up especially to collect her. Now both men in the chipper. It was one of the rare occasions in his life when Sean Walsh spoke without calculation.

"I'm twenty-five," he said. "Since September."

"There!" Fonsie was triumphant. "No!" Mario was equally sure he was right. "What is this?" Sean looked angrily from one to the other.

"Mario thinks the place is for old people. I say it's for young fellows like yourself and myself," Fonsie said.

"Sean is not a fellow, he is a businessman."

"Oh, Jaysus, does it matter? He's not on two sticks like most people in the town. What do you want, Sean? Rock salmon or cod?"

Patsy had gone for a walk with Mossy Rooney.

He had waited wordlessly in the kitchen until the daughter of the house had been soothed and put to bed. Mossy, a little like Sean Walsh, would have wished that the kitchen and living quarters of the Hogan household were more separate. Then he would have been able to sit down at the table, loosen his shirt collar, his shoelaces, and read the evening paper until Patsy was ready. But the Hogans lived on top of you when you went to that house. There was the master, a man of importance in the town that you'd think would want a house properly run for himself. And the mistress, much older by all appearances than her husband, who fussed too much over that great big daughter.

There had been a great deal of fussing tonight. The doctor had come and given her two tablets to take, he had said there wasn't a thing wrong with her that wouldn't be wrong with any red-blooded girl who had seen a fatal accident. She was shocked and upset and what she needed most was to be allowed to rest, alone.

Mossy Rooney, a man who, though he spoke little, noticed a lot, saw the look of relief pass over Benny Hogan's face, as she was sent to bed with a hot-water bottle and a cup of hot milk. He saw also the way the Hogans looked after her as she left the kitchen.