Maeve Binchy - Circle of Friends

"We should have a rehearsal - you know, go up for a couple of days ahead of everyone else so we won't look like eejits." Eve was hopeful.

"It's hard enough to get up there when we have to. There's no point in asking to go up there in order to waltz around a bit.

Can you see them agreeing to that for me at home?"

"We wouldn't call it waltzing around," Eve said. "We'd call it something else."

"Like what?"

Eve thought hard. "In your case, getting books listed or timetables there's endless things you could say." Her voice sounded suddenly small and sad.

For the first time Benny realised properly that they were going to live separate lives though in the same city. Best friends from the age of ten, now they would go down different roads.

Benny was going to be able to go to University College, Dublin, to study for a BA degree because her parents had saved to pay for her.

There was no money in St. Mary's convent to send Eve Malone to university. Mother Francis had strained the convent's finances already to provide secondary education for the daughter of Jack Malone and sarah Westward. Now she would be sent to a convent of the same order in Dublin where she would do a secretarial course.

Her tuition fees would be waived in exchange for some light housework.

"I wish to God you were coming to college, too," Benny said suddenly.

"I know. Don't say it like that, don't let your voice get drippy or I'll get upset." Eve spoke sharply, but without harshness.

"Everyone keeps saying that it's great, we have each other, but I'd see more of you if you were still in

Knockglen," Benny complained. "Your place is miles across the city, and I have to come home on the bus every night, so there'll be no meeting in the evenings."

"I don't think there's much of the night life planned for me either," Eve said doubtfully. "A few miles of convent floor to polish, a few million sheets to hem. A couple of tons of potatoes to peel."

"They won't make you do that!" Benny was horrified. "Who knows what light housework means? One nun's light could be another nun's penal servitude."

"You'll need to know in advance, won't you?" Benny was distressed for her friend.

"I'm not in much of a position to negotiate," Eve said.

"But they never asked you to do anything like that here." Benny nodded her head up in the direction of the convent at the end of the town.

"But that's different. This is my home," Eve said simply.

"I mean, this is where I live, where I'll always live."

"You'll be able to get a flat and all when you get a job." Benny sounded wistful. She didn't think she would ever see freedom.

"Oh yes, I'm sure I'll get a flat, but I'll come back to St. Mary's, like other people come home from flats on holidays," Eve said.

Eve was always so definite, Benny thought with admiration. So small and determined with her short dark hair and white elfin face. No one had ever dared to say that there was anything different or even unusual about Eve living in the convent, sharing her life with the Community.

She was never asked about what life was like beyond the curtain where the nuns went, and she never told. The girls also knew that no tales would be told of their own doings. Eve Malone was nobody's spy.

Benny didn't know how she was going to manage without her. Eve had been there for as long as she remembered to help her fight her battles.

To deal with the jibes of those who called her Big Ben. Eve had made short work of any one who took advantage of Benny's gentle ways. They had been a team for years: the tiny wiry Eve with her restless eyes never settling long on anything or anyone; the big handsome Benny, with her green eyes and chestnut-brown hair, tied back with a bow always, a big soft good-quality bow a bit like Benny herself.

If there had only been some way they could have gone in the doors of University College together and come home on the bus each night, or better still got a flat together, life would have been perfect. But Benny had not grown up expecting life to be totally perfect. Surely it was enough to have got as much as she had.

Annabel Hogan was wondering whether to change the main meal of the day to the evening. There were a lot of arguments for this and a lot against.

Eddie was used to his dinner in the middle of the day. He walked back from the shop and the plate of meat and potatoes was put in front of him with a regularity that would have pleased an army officer. As soon as Shep started his languid stroll out to meet the master at the turn of the road, Patsy began to heat the plates. Mr. Hogan would wash his hands in the downstairs cloakroom and always profess pleasure at the lamb chops, the bacon and cabbage, or the plate of cod and parsley sauce on a Friday.

Wouldn't it be a poor thing to have the man close his shop and walk back for a kind of half-hearted snack. Maybe it might even affect his work and he wouldn't be able to concentrate in the afternoon.

But then think of Benny coming back from Dublin after a day in the university: wouldn't it be better if they saved the main meal for her return?

Neither husband nor daughter had been any help. They both said it didn't matter. As usual the burden of the whole house fell on herself and Patsy.

The meat tea was probably the answer. A big slice of ham, or grilled bacon, or a few sausages, and they could put a few extra on Benny's plate in case she felt the need of it. Annabel could hardly believe that she had a daughter about to go to university.

Not that she wasn't old enough - she was well old enough to have seen a family through university. She had married late, at a time she had almost given up hope of finding a husband. She had given birth at a time when she thought miscarriages would be all she ever knew.

Annabel Hogan walked around her house: there was always some little thing to be done. Patsy was in the big, warm kitchen, the table covered with flour and crockery, but it would all be swept away and scrubbed by meal time.

Lisbeg was not a big house, but there was plenty to do in it.

There were three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. The master bedroom looked out over one side of the front door and Benny's bedroom was on the other. At the back of the house, the dark spare room and the big, old-fashioned bathroom with its noisy pipes and its huge woodsurrounded bath.

Downstairs if you came in the front door (which people rarely did) you would find a large room on each side. They were hardly ever used. The Hogans lived in the back of the house, in the big shabby breakfast room that opened off the kitchen. There was hardly ever a need to light a fire in the breakfast room because the great heat of the range came through. There was a big double door kept permanently open between the two rooms, and it was as comfortable a place as you could imagine.

They rarely had visitors, and if ever anyone was expected the front drawing room in its pale greens and pinks with damp spots over the wall could be aired and dusted. But in the main, the breakfast room was their home. It had three big red plush armchairs, and the table against the wall had three dining chairs with plush seats as well. A huge radio stood on the big sideboard, and shelves of ornaments, and good china and old books were fixed precariously to the wall.

Now that young Eve had becom~such a regular guest in the household, a fourth chair had been found, a cane chair rescued from one of the sheds. Patsy had tied a nice red cushion to it.

Patsy herself slept in a small room beyond the kitchen.

It was dark and had a tiny window. Patsy had always told Mrs. Hogan that it was like being dead and going to Heaven to have a room of your own. She had always had to share with at least two other people until the day she came to Lisbeg.