Maeve Binchy - Circle of Friends

"I'll be getting your breakfast from now on. Mrs. Hegarty is feeding you like fighting cocks so you get bacon and egg and sausage every day and scrambled eggs on a Friday. But I have a nine o'clock lecture three days a week so I was wondering if you could help me clear and wash those days, and the other days I'll run round after you like' a slave..

pouring you more cups of tea and buttering you more toast.

They went along with her good-naturedly, and they did more than she asked. Big lads who wouldn't have known where the hoover was kept in their own homes were able to lift it out for Eve on a Tuesday before they went to catch the train to college. They wiped their feet carefully on the hall mat. They said they never again wanted to risk anything like the reception that they got when they had accidentally walked some mud in on top of a carpet that Eve had cleaned. They kept the bathroom far cleaner than they had ever done before Eve had come on the scene. Kit Hegarty told her privately that if she had known how much the presence of a girl would smarten the lads up, she might have had a female student years ago.

"Why didn't you? They'd have been easier."

"Don't you believe it, always washing their hair, wanting the lavatory seat put down, drying their stockings over chairs, falling in love with no-hopers.." Kit had laughed.

"Aren't you afraid of any of those things happening with me?" Eve asked. They got on so well now they could talk easily on any subject.

"Not a chance of it. You'll never fall for a no-hoper.

Hard-hearted little hannah that you are."

"I thought you said I was like you?" Eve was making bread as she spoke. Sister Imelda had taught her to make soda bread when she was six. She had no idea of the recipe, she just did it automatically.

"Ah, you are like me, and I didn't fall for a no-hoper, there was lots of hope in Joseph Hegarty. It's just that as time went on it didn't seem to include me." She sounded bitter and sad.

"Did you make any attempt to find him, you know, to tell him about Frank?"

"He didn't want to know about Frank when there was something to tell like when he learned to swim, or when he lost his first tooth, or when he passed his Inter. Why tell him anything now?"

Eve could see a lot of reasons, but she didn't think it was the time or the place.

"Suppose he came back," Eve asked. "If Joe walked in the door one day.."

"Funny, I never called him Joe, always Joseph. I'm sure that tells us something about him or me. Suppose he came back? It would be like the man coming to read the meter. I gave up looking at that gate years ago. "And yet you loved him? Or else thought you did?"

"Oh, I did love him. There's no use denying it just because it wasn't returned and didn't last."

"You're very calm about it."

"You didn't know me years ago. Let me see. Around the time you were one or two, if you'd known me then you wouldn't have said I was calm!"

"I've never loved anybody," Eve said suddenly. "That's because you were afraid to."

"No, the nuns were much more liberal than people think They didn't fill me with terror of men."

"No, I meant afraid to let yourself go.."

"I think that's right.

I feel things very strongly, like resentment. I resent those bloody Westwards. I hate asking them for money. I can't tell you how much it took to make me walk up there that Sunday. And I feel very protective too. if anyone said a word against Mother Francis or Sister Imelda I'd kill them."

"You look very fierce with that knife. Put it down, for God's sake."

"Oh." Eve laughed, realising she was brandishing the carving knife which she had used to put a cross on the top of the soda bread. "I didn't notice. Anyway it wouldn't harm anyone. It's as blunt as anything. It wouldn't cut butter. Let's get one of those budding engineers inside there to take it into the lab and sharpen it up for us."

"You will love somebody one day," Kit Hegarty said. "I can't imagine who." Eve was thoughtful. "For one thing he'd have to be a saint to put up with my moods, for another I don't see many good examples, where love seems to have worked out well."

Have you anything planned on Sunday?" Dr. Foley asked his eldest son.

"What am I letting myself in for if I haven't?" Jack laughed.

"Just a simple answer. If you're busy I'll not bother you."

"But then I might miss something great. "Ah, that's what life is all about, taking risks."

"What is it, Dad?"

"You are free then."

"Come on, tell me."

"You know Joe Kennedy, he's a chemist in the country: He wants to see me. He's not well, I think. We go back a long way. He wondered if I'd come and call on him."

"Where does he live?"

"Knockglen."

"That's miles away. Don't they have doctors there?"

"They do, but he wants a friend more than a doctor."

"And you want me to come, is it?"

"I want you to drive me, Jack. I've lost my nerve a bit."

"You can't have."

"Not altogether, but just for a long wet drive, slippery roads. I'd be very grateful."

"All right," Jack said. "What'll I do while you're talking to him?"

"That's the problem. I wouldn't say there's all that much to do there, but maybe you could,go on a drive or sit in the car to read the Sunday papers.

Jack's face brightened. "I know. There's a girl that lives there.

I'll give her a ring."

"That's my boy. Only a couple of months at university and already there's a girl in every town."

"She's not a girl in that sense. She's just a nice girl," Jack explained. "Have you the phone book? There can't be that many Hogans in Knockglen."

Nan was very excited when Benny said that Jack Foley had rung her.

"Half the girls in college would give anything to have him coming to call on them, let me tell you. What'll you wear?"

"I don't think he's coming to call, not in that sense. I mean it's not something to get dressed up for. I won't wear anything," Benny said, flustered.

"That should be a nice surprise for him when you open the door," Nan said.

"You know what I mean."

"I still think you should get dressed up, wear that nice pink blouse, and the black skirt. It is a party when a fellow like Jack Foley comes to call. If he was coming out to Maple Gardens I'd dress up. I'll get you a length of pink ribbon and a black one and you can tie them both round your hair to hold it back.

It'll look great. You've got gorgeous hair."

"Nan, it won't look great on a rainy Sunday in Knockglen. Nothing looks great there. It'll just look pathetic."

Nan looked at her thoughtfully. "You know those big thick brown bags, the ones they sell sugar in. Why don't you put one of those over your head and cut two slits for eyes? That might look right."

Annabel Hogan and Patsy planned to make scones, and queen cakes and an apple tart. There would be bridge rolls first with chopped egg on one plate and sardines on the other.

"Maybe we shouldn't overdo it," Benny suggested. "There's nothing overdone about a perfectly straightforward afternoon tea for your friend." Benny's mother was affronted at the notion that this might not have been their normal Sunday afternoon fare.

They were going to light a fire each day in the drawing room to heat it up for the occasion and after tea had been leared away Benny's parents would withdraw to the breakfast room, leaving the young people the run of the good room on their own.

"There's not any question of having the run of the place," Benny had begged, but to no avail. "He's only coming here because he has to kill the time," she pleaded. They wouldn't hear of it, a nice young man telephoning courteously several days in advance to know if he could call. It wasn't a matter of killing time. There was a rake of things he could do in Knockglen. Personally Benny could think of very few.