Maeve Binchy: Circle of Friends

"Not a word out of that dog to let me know you were coming," her mother said crossly.

"He shouldn't bark at me, I'm family," Benny defended him.

"The day Shep barks for anything except his own amusement there'll be white blackbirds. Tell me did you have a nice day at school, did they make a fuss of you?"

"They did, Mother."

"That's good. Well they won't know you when they see you this afternoon."

Benny's heart soared. "Will I be getting dressed, like in anything new, before the party?"

"I think we'll have you looking like the bee's knees before they come in."

"Will I put it on now?"

"Why not?" Benny's mother seemed excited about seeing the new outfit herself. "I'll just lay it out for you above. Come up and give yourself a bit of a wash and we'll put it on.

Benny stood patiently in the big bathroom while the back of her neck was washed. It wouldn't be long now.

Then she was led into her bedroom. "Close your eyes," said Mother.

When Benny opened them she saw on the bed a thick navy skirt, a Fair Isle jumper in navy and red. A big sturdy pair of navy shoes lay in their box and chunky white socks folded nice and neatly beside them.

Peeping out of tissue paper was a small red shoulder bag.

"It's an entire outfit," cried Mother. "Dressed from head to foot by Peggy Pine.." Mother stood back to see the effect of the gift. Benny was wordless. No velvet dress, no lovely soft crushed velvet that you could stroke, with its beautiful lacy trim. Only horrible harsh rough things like horse hair. Nothing in a misty pink, but instead good plain sensible colours. And the shoes! Where were the pumps with the pointed toes?

Benny bit her lip and willed the tears back into her eyes.

"Well, what do you think?" Her mother was beaming proudly. "Your father said you must have the handbag and the shoes as well, it would make it a real outfit. He said that going into double figures must be marked."

"It's lovely," Benny muttered.

"Isn't the jumper perfect? I'd been asking Peggy to get something like that for ages. I said I didn't want anything shoddy ..

something strong that would stand up to a bit of rough and tumble."

"It's gorgeous," Benny said. "Feel it," her mother urged.

She didn't want to. Not while she still had the velvet feel in her mind. "I'll put it on myself, Mother, then I'll come and show you," she said.

She was holding on by a thread.

Fortunately, Annabel Hogan needed to go and supervise the shaking of hundreds and thousands on the trifle. She was just heading off downstairs when the telephone rang. "That'll be your father." She sounded pleased and her step was quicker on the stair.

Through her sobs which she choked into the pillow, Benny heard snatches of the conversation.

"She loved it, Eddie, you know I think it was almost too much for her, she couldn't seem to take it all in, so many things, a bag and shoes, and socks, on top of everything. A child of that age isn't used to getting all that much at once. No, not yet, she's putting it on.

It'll look fine on her.."

Slowly Benny got off her bed and went over to the mirror on the wardrobe to see if her face looked as red and tearstained as she feared. She saw the chunky figure of a child in vest and knickers, neck red from scrubbing, eyes red from weeping. She was not a person that anyone would ever dream of putting in a pink velvet dress and little pumps with pointed toes. For no reason at all she remembered Eve Malone. She remembered her small earnest face warning her not to think about the dress from Dublin too much.

Perhaps Eve knew all the time, maybe she had been in the shop when Mother was buying all this .. all this horrible stuff. How awful that Eve knew before she did. And yet Eve had never had anything new, she knew that whatever dress she got for today would be a reject. She remembered the way Eve had said "They got you something new anyway'.

She would never let them guess how disappointed she was. Never.

The rest of the day wasn't very clear to Benny because of the heavy cloud of disappointment that seemed to hang over the whole proceedings.

For her anyway. She remembered making the right sounds and moving like a puppet as the party began. Maire Carroll arrived wearing a proper party dress. It had an underskirt that rustled. It had come from America in a parcel.

There were games with a prize for everyone. Benny's mother had bought cones of sweets in Birdie Mac's shop, each one wrapped in different-coloured paper. They were all getting noisy but the cake had to be delayed until Mr. Hogan returned from the shop.

They heard the angelus ringing. The deep sound of the bells rolled through Knockglen twice a day, at noon and at six in the evening, great timekeepers as much as reminders to pray. But there was no sign of Benny's father.

"I hope he wasn't delayed rameishing on with some customer today of all days," Benny heard her mother say to Patsy.

"Not at all, Mam. He must be on his way. Shep got up and gave himself a good stretch. It's always a sign that the master is heading home to us."

And indeed he was. Half a minute later Benny's father came in full of anxiety.

"I haven't missed it, we're not too late?" He was patted down and given a cup of tea and a sausage roll to bolster him up while the children were gathered and the room darkened in anticipation.

Benny tried not to feel the rough wool of the jumper at her neck.

She tried to smile a real smile at her father, who had run down the town to be here for the big moment.

"Do you like your outfit .. your first entire outfit?" he called over to her.

"It's lovely, Father, lovely. Do you see I'm wearing it all." The other children in Knockglen used to giggle at Benny for saying "Father'. They used to call their fathers Daddy or Da. But by now they were used to it. It was part of the way things were. Benny was the only one they knew without brothers and sisters, most of them had to share a Mam and a Dad with five or six others. An only child was a rare occurrence. In fact they didn't know any, except for Benny. And Eve Malone of course. But that was different. She had no family at all.

Eve was standing near Benny as the cake came in. "Imagine that's all for you," she whispered in awe. Eve wore a dress that was several sizes too big for her. Sister Imelda, the only nun in the convent who was good with the needle, had been in her sick bed so a very poor job had been done on taking up the hem. The rest of it hung around her like a curtain.

The only thing in its favour was that it was red and obviously new.

There was no way that it could be admired or praised, but Eve Malone seemed to have risen above this. Something about the way she stood in the large unwieldy garment gave Benny courage.

At least her horrible outfit fitted her, and though it was far from being a party dress, let alone the dress of her dreams, it was reasonable, unlike Eve's. She put her shoulders back and smiled suddenly at the smaller girl.

"I'll give you some of the cake to take back if there's any left over," she said.

"Thanks. Mother Francis loves a slice of cake," Eve said. Then it was there, the blurry light of the candles and the singing Happy Birthday and the big whoosh .. and the clapping, and when the curtains were open again Benny saw the thin young man that her father had been shaking hands with. He was far too old for the party. They must have brought him back to tea with the grown-ups who would come later. He was very thin and pale, and he had a cold hard stare in his eyes.

"Who was he?" Eve asked Benny on Monday.

"He's the new assistant come to work with my father in the shop."

"He's awful, isn't he?"

They were friends now, sitting on a schoolyard wall together at break.

"Yes, he is. There's something wrong with his eyes, I think."