Maeve Binchy - Circle of Friends

He had seen that look on the faces of mother ducks when they took their little flock down to the river for the first time.

If he had been walking out with any other girl in service in the town they could have stayed in on a wet night and talked by the kitchen range, but with the Hogans hovering around he had to bring Patsy out into the rain.

"Would you not like to take your ease indoors on a bad night like this?" Mrs. Hogan had said kindly.

"Not at all, Mam, a nice fresh walk would be grand," Patsy said with little enthusiasm.

For a long time Annabel and Eddie Hogan sat in silence. "Maurice said that we're not to worry about a thing," Eddie said eventually.

Maurice Johnson obviously realised who were the real patients in the house. He had uttered more words of advice to them than to the girl he was meant to be treating. "It's easy for Maurice to say that. We don't worry about his children," Annabel said.

"True, but to be fair he and Grainne don't worry much about them either."

Kit Hegarty lay in her own narrow bed and heard the fog horn and the town hall clock, heard the occasional sound of a car going past. The sleeping tablets hadn't worked. Her eyes were wide open.

Everyone had been so kind. Nobody had counted the time or the trouble.

The boys in the house, ashen-faced at the shock, had offered to leave.

Their parents had telephoned from the country.

And that little Mrs. Hayes next door, who she hardly knew, had been a tower of strength, sending her sister in to cook and keep the place going. And the priests in Dunlaoghaire had been great, in and out all evening, three or maybe four of them saying nice things and talking to other people, making it seem somehow more normal, drinking cups of tea.

But she had so wanted to be left alone for a while.

The only thing that stuck out in a day that seemed to have been a hundred hours of confusion was that nun. The aunt, possibly, of a girl who had been injured in the accident. She had understood that Frank had to have the bike. Nobody else appreciated that.

Fancy a nun being able to realise it. And she had been insistent in her invitation. Kit thought that she would go and see her in that convent. Later, when she was able to think.

Judging from all the chatter, everyone in UCD must have got to know each other pretty quickly, Benny thought as she went up the steps the following morning. The main hall was thronged with people standing in groups, there were shouts of laughter and people greeting each other.

Everyone had a friend of some sort.

On another day it might have worried Benny, but not today.

She walked down a stone staircase to a basement where you could hang your coat. It smelled faintly carbolic, like school. Then up to the ground floor again and into the Ladies' Reading Room. This was not at all like school. For one thing nobody seemed to think that a reading room was a place where you were meant to read.

There were girls fixing their make-up at a mirror over the mantelpiece, or scanning notices on the board - items for sale, extra tuition offered, rooms to share, sodalities to join.

A very confident group laughed and reminisced about their summers abroad. They had been in Spain, or Italy, or France.. the only thing in common was how little of the language they had learned, how monstrous the children they had had to mind had been, and how late everyone ate their meals in the evening.

They were happy to be back.

Benny soaked it all up for Eve. She would visit her again at lunch time. This morning she had been pale, still, but cheerful as anything.

Mother Francis was going to sort it out. There would be no recriminations.

"I'm going to try to get to college, Benny," she had said, her face blazing with the intensity of it. "I'll only be a few weeks late.

I'll get a job, really I will. So you just watch out for everything for me, and take notice, so that I'll catch up.

"Are you going to ask the Westwards?"

"I'm not going to rule it out."

There were always a great many students who took English as a subject in First Arts. The lectures were held in a big hall, confusingly called the Physics Theatre. Benny streamed in with the others. It was so different to the classrooms at school. More like an amphitheatre, with rows of seats in semicircles high up at the back. There were some young student nuns already in place, they were in the front rows, eager and anxious to miss nothing.

Benny walked slowly up towards the high seats at the back where she thought she might be more inconspicuous.

From her vantage point she watched them come in: serious-looking lads in duffle coats, earnest women in glasses and hand-knitted cardigans, the clerical students from the religious seminaries in their black suits all looking remarkably cleaner and neater than the other males not bound for religious life. And the girls, the confident, laughing girls.

Could they really just be First Years, these troupers in brightly coloured skirts, flouncing their hair, aware of the impression they were creating? Perhaps they had spent a year abroad after they left school, Benny thought wistfully. Or even had a holiday job during the summer. Whatever it was, it didn't bear the hallmark of life in Knockglen.

Suddenly she saw Nan Mahon. Nan wore the smart navy coat she had worn yesterday, but this time over a pale yellow wool dress. Tied loosely around the strap of her shoulder bag was a navy and yellow scarf. Her curly hair was back from her face more than yesterday, and she had yellow earrings. As she walked in, flanked by a boy on each side, each competing for her attention, Nan was the object of all eyes. Her eyes roamed the banks of seats, deciding where to sit. Suddenly she saw Benny.

"Hallo, there you are!" she cried.

People turned round to see who she was waving at. Benny reddened at the stares, but Nan had left the two admirers and was bounding up to the back row. Benny was taken aback. She felt sure that Nan would know everyone in UCD in days. It was surprising to be singled out.

And so warmly.

"Well, how did it go?" she asked companionably. "What?"

"You know, you sent the young man packing and he more or less said you'd rue the day. I haven't seen anything so dramatic for years."

Benny was dismissive. "You couldn't get a message through to him.

Mercifully he didn't turn up at home. I thought he'd be there, with big cow's eyes.

"He's probably more madly in love with you than ever, now." Nan was cheerful, as if this was good news.

"I don't think he has a notion of what love is. He's like a fish. A fish with an eye to the main chance. A gold-digging goldfish."

They giggled at the thought.

"Eve's fine," Benny said. "I'm going to see her at lunch time."

"Can I come too?"

Benny paused. Eve was often so prickly even when she was in the whole of her health. Would she like seeing this golden college belle at her bedside?

"I don't know," she said at last.

"Well, we were all in it together. And I know all about her, and the business of Mother Clare and Mother Francis."

For a moment Benny wished she hadn't told the story in such detail.

Eve certainly wouldn't like her business being discussed as she lay unconscious.

"That got sorted out," Benny said. "I knew it would."

"Do you think you could come tomorrow instead?"

CHAPTER 6

The body of Frank Hegarty was brought to the church in Dunlaoghaire.

Dr. Foley attended the prayers and the Removal service with his eldest son.

Also in the church was Mother Francis, who had found it necessary to spend a little longer in Dublin than she had hoped, sorting things out with Mother Clare. Peggy had offered to collect her later. She knew there was some kind of trouble, but didn't ask what it was. She had given her own kind of encouragement to Mother Francis.