Tara Road

'Why don't you sign up with a marriage agency?' Ria said unexpectedly.

'You have to be joking me! Now you've joined them all.'

'No, I mean it. At least you'd meet the right kind of person, someone who wants to settle down.'

'You're daft as a brush, Ria,' Rosemary said.

'I know, but you did ask me what I thought.' Ria shrugged. It seemed perfectly sensible to her.

Rosemary met Polly Callaghan at several gatherings. Their paths would cross at press receptions and the openings of art galleries or even at the theatre. 'Did you ever think of a marriage agency? No, I'm not joking, someone suggested it to me as a reasonable option and I wonder is it barking mad?'

'Depends on what you want, I suppose.' Polly took the suggestion seriously. 'You don't look like the kind of woman who wants to be dependent on a man.'

'No, I don't think I am,' Rosemary said thoughtfully.

But it would be nice to have someone to come home to in the evening. Someone who was interested and in your corner, someone who would fight your battles. Somehow Rosemary had always thought he would turn up. But this was ridiculous, why should he? Business opportunities didn't fall into your lap, you had to make them.

Good dress sense wasn't just guesswork, you had to consult experts. Rosemary was on first-name terms with all the buyers in the smart Dublin shops. She told them exactly how much she could spend and discussed what she needed. They enjoyed doing the research for her, an elegant woman like that who paid them the courtesy of recognising that they were indeed experts in their field.

So why shouldn't she go to a marriage agency?

She approached it in her usual businesslike way and went to meet her first introduction. He was handsome in a slightly dishevelled way, came from a wealthy family but it took her forty minutes to realise that he was a compulsive gambler. With her practised charm she managed to manoeuvre the conversation far away from the actual reason why they were meeting—possible marriage. Instead she discussed stock markets, national hunt racing, the greyhound track. Then at the coffee stage she looked at her watch and said she had to have an early night; it had been delightful and she hoped they would meet again. She left without having given him her address or phone number but also without his having asked for it.

She was pleased that she had handled it so well, but annoyed that she had wasted a night.

Her second introduction was to Richard Roche, the head of an advertising agency. She met him in Quentin's and they talked about a wide range of subjects. He was pleasant, easy company and she felt that he found her attractive. Nothing prepared her for the way it ended.

'I can't tell yo' when I've enjoyed a meal as much,' he began.

'I feel the same,' she smiled warmly.

'So I do hope we remain friends.'

'Well, yes.'

'You're not at all interested in getting married, Rosemary, but we can regard this dinner as a happy accident. All friends have to meet somewhere.' His smile was equally warm and sincere.

'What do you mean, I'm not interested in getting married?'

'Of course you're not, you don't want children, a home, anything like that.'

'Is that what you think?'

'It's what I can see. But as I say it was my good fortune to meet you and as I continue my search I'm sure I'll be unlikely to have such an elegant and charming dinner companion again.'

He was saying he didn't want her. Men didn't do that to Rosemary Ryan. 'You're playing hard to get, Richard,' she said, looking at him from under her eyelashes.

'No, you're the mystery woman. You must have a thousand friends and yet you chose to have dinner with a stranger. I'm what I say I am, a man who wants a wife and children, you are the puzzle.'

He was serious. He didn't want to continue. Well, she would get out with dignity if it killed her. 'It makes life a little adventurous, don't you think, to dine with a stranger?' She would not let him see how humiliated she felt, she would end the evening with style.

She nodded at Brenda Brennan to get her a taxi, and somehow got herself home.

She sat shaking in her small apartment. How dare he treat her like that! Damn him to hell. She had been prepared to go a bit of the distance with this Richard Roche. What made him think he could tell her she didn't want marriage and children?

She resolved to watch the paper for news of his eventual wedding plans and she would manage to circulate the story that he had found his bride through a marriage agency. She would let his colleagues know; she would wipe this night of embarrassment and failure from her mind. She would get a new apartment, somewhere elegant where she could relax. Nobody was going to treat Rosemary Ryan like this.

A year later she did see a gossip column item about him. He was going to marry a glamorous widow with two small children. They had met in Galway apparently with mutual friends. Rosemary didn't write to his colleagues or the wedding guests. The rage and hurt had long died down. She had taken up no further introductions after that night but instead concentrated on looking for somewhere new to live.

Colm's restaurant started very slowly. He devised the menus and did most of the cooking himself; and he had a sons-chef, a waiter, a washer-up and his sister Caroline to help him. But it didn't take off as he had hoped it would. This was 1989, a lot of new restaurants were opening in Dublin . Rosemary invited as many influential people as she could rustle up to come to the opening.

Ria was disappointed that Danny would not try to do the same. 'You know an awful lot of people through Barney,' she said pleadingly.

'Sweetheart, let's wait until it's a success, then we'll invite lots of people there.'

'But it's now he needs them otherwise how else will it be a success?'

'I don't suppose for a moment that Colm is expecting the charity of his friends. In fact he'd probably find that just a little patronising.'

Ria didn't agree, she thought it was small-minded and overcautious of him. Don't risk getting your name associated with something that might fail. It was a shabby attitude, out of character with Danny's cheerful optimistic approach to life, and she said as much to Rosemary.

'Now don't be so quick to attack him. He may be right in a way. Much more useful to take business people there for meals when it's up and running.' Rosemary spoke soothingly but in reality she knew very well why Danny Lynch didn't want to go to the opening and why he forced Ria to go to a business dinner that night.

Danny knew that Orla King was going to sit at a piano in the background and sing well-established favourites. She would not have a spotlight but if the place was successful she would have a platform.

Orla had worn a demure black dress and sipped a Diet Coke through the many rehearsals. But she had proved herself once to be a very loose cannon on the deck, and unpredictability was the last thing Danny Lynch wanted around him. Especially since Barney McCarthy's finances had taken such a battering recently and there were heavy rumours of much speculative building to try and recoup the losses.

Rosemary went to Colm's opening night and reported that it had been very successful. A lot of the customers had been neighbours; it boded well for the future.

'This really is a great area, you two were very lucky to come in here when you did,' Rosemary said approvingly.

Ria wished that she didn't sound so surprised, as if she hadn't expected it of them.

'Not lucky, just far-seeing,' said Danny, who must have felt the same.

'Not a bit of it. The secret of the universe is timing, you know that,' Rosemary laughed. She wasn't letting them get away with anything except random good fortune. 'Isn't it a pity that there aren't any proper apartments or little mews flats around here? I could become your neighbour!'

'You could afford a whole house on the road the way you're going,' Danny said.

'I don't need a whole house. I don't want to be worrying about tenants. What I need is a house just like the one your mother has, Ria, a little mews like that.'

'Oh that's a one-off,' Danny explained. 'Holly was certainly in the right place at the right time. You see she looked after the old trout who lived in the big house and then, when she went to her reward, the family sold Holly the little mews. It's so valuable now you wouldn't believe it.'

'Would she like to sell and move in with you?' Rosemary wondered.

'No way,' Ria said. 'She loves her independence.'

'And we want ours too,' Danny added. 'Much as I love Holly, and I do love her, I wouldn't want her here all the time.'

'Well, if there are no more of those around perhaps something like a penthouse for want of a better word, something with a nice view.'

'Not too many of those in a Victorian road.'

'But there are a lot of conversions happening.' Rosemary knew the property scene as well as anyone.

'Indeed there are, expensive but you'd always see your money back. Two bedroom?' Danny was into sales mode now.

'Yes, and a big room for entertaining, I could have a lot of functions there. A roof garden I'd like if possible.'

'There's nothing like that around here at the moment, but a lot of the upcoming sales are going to want to do huge renovations,' Danny said.

'Keep an eye out for me, Danny; it doesn't have to be Tara Road, somewhere near by.'

'I'll get it for you,' Danny promised.

In three weeks Danny came back with news of two properties. Neither owner was willing to build. It would be a question of Barney McCarthy buying the building, his men doing the renovation and, subject to planning permission, getting a penthouse-style apartment custom built for Rosemary. They could start drawing up plans as soon as she liked.

Danny expected Rosemary to be very pleased but she was cool. 'We are talking about an outright buy not just renting? And I could see the titles for all the other flats in the house?'

'Well yes,' Danny said.

'And my architect and surveyor could look at the plans?'

'Yes, of course.'

'And inspect the building specifications and work throughout?'

'I don't see why not.'

'What's the word on a roof garden?'

'If there's not too much heavy earth brought up there the structural engineers say that both houses could take the load.'

Rosemary smiled one of her all-embracing smiles that lit up the whole room. 'Well, Danny, that's great, lead me to the properties,' she said.

Ria was shocked that Rosemary had been so ungracious about it all. 'Imagine her interrogating you like that!' she said, outraged, to Danny.

'I didn't mind,' he said.

'But you're a friend, you went out on a limb for her, persuaded Barney to buy a place.' Ria was still stunned by the ingratitude.

'Nonsense, Ria, Barney doesn't do things just for friendship; it's a business thing for him too, you know.'

'But the way she said it, saying she'd have to inspect Barney's building methods and everything… I didn't know where to look when she said it.'

Danny laughed. 'Sweetheart, Barney has been known to cut corners with the best of them. Rosemary would know that. She's just thorough, covering everything. That's what has her where she is.'

Hilary sniffed when she heard that Rosemary was coming to live in Tara Road. 'That's the final seal of approval, if she's coming to live in the area,' she said.

'Why don't you like her? She never says a word against you,' Ria complained.

'Did I say a word against her?' Hilary asked innocently.

'No, but it's the tone of voice. I think Rosemary is quite lonely, you know. It's all very well for you, you have Martin, and I have the children… and Danny too when I see him, but she doesn't have anybody.'

'Well, I'm sure she's had offers,' Hilary said.

'Yes, I'm sure she has, and so had you and I in a way when we were young, but they were no use if they were from eejits like Ken Murray.'

'Rosemary could get better than Ken Murray interested in her.’

'Yes but she hasn't found the right one, so isn't it grand that she's coming to live here halfway between Mam and ourselves? All we need is for you to come and live here too then we'd have taken over.'

'Where would Martin and I get the repayment on a house in Tara Road?' Hilary began.

Ria moved off the subject. 'Gertie's mother's being difficult.'

'All mothers are difficult,' Hilary said.

'Ours isn't too bad.'

'That's because she babysits for you all the time,' Hilary said.

'No, very rarely, she's got far too busy a life. But Gertie's mother won't take the children any more, she says if she'd wanted a late family she'd have had one.'

'What will Gertie do?'

'Struggle like she always has. I told her they could come here for a while but…' Ria paused and bit her lip.

'But Danny wouldn't like it.'

'He's afraid Jack Brennan will come round looking for them and for a fight and that it would frighten Annie and Brian.'

'So what happens now?'

'I go up and take them out for the day for her, but you see it's the nights are the really bad times. That's the time she wants them out of the house.'

'What a desperate mess,' Hilary said, her face soft in sympathy and quite unlike the envious Hilary who normally talked about how much everybody earned.

'You'd never take them for this weekend, you and Martin, just till their grandmother comes round again, or that lunatic breaks his skull with drink and has to go to hospital again? I know Gertie would die with gratitude.'

'All right,' said Hilary surprisingly. 'What kind of things do they eat?'

'Beans and fish fingers, chips and ice cream,' Ria said.

'We can manage that.'

I'd love to have them myself,' Ria apologised. She did in fact sound wistful.

Hilary forgave her. 'I know you would but it just happens that I'm married to a much more generous man than you are, that's the way things turn out.'

Ria paused to think of the spontaneous, loving Danny Lynch being considered less generous than the amazingly mean, penny-pinching Martin Moran. Wasn't it wonderful the way people saw their own situations?

'So Lady Ryan is going to grace us with her presence on the road,' Nora Johnson said. She had come to introduce the new element in her life, a puppy of indeterminate breed. Even the children, who loved animals, were puzzled by it. It seemed to have too many legs yet there were only four, its head looked as if it were bigger than its body but that could not possibly be so. It flopped unsteadily around the kitchen and then ran upstairs to relieve itself against the legs of the chairs in the front room. Annie reported this gleefully and Brian thought it was the funniest thing he had ever known.

Ria hid her irritation. 'Does it have a name, Mam?' she asked.

'Oh it's just 32, no fancy name.'

'You're going to call the dog Thirty-Two?' Ria was astounded.

'No, I mean where Lady Ryan's penthouse is being built. The dog is called Pliers, I told you that.' She hadn't but it didn't matter. 'They all know she's coming to Tara Road, everyone's heard of her.'

'That's good, anyway they'd know her from visiting.'

'No, they read about her in the papers. There's as much about her as there is about your friend Barney McCarthy.' Nora didn't approve of him either so there was another sniff.

'It's extraordinary, Rosemary being so famous,' Ria said. 'You know, her mother thinks of her still as a thirteen-year-old and says she should be more like me. Rosemary of all people.'

Rosemary Ryan was featuring now in the financial pages as well as the women's pages. The company was going from strength to strength, and had taken on several foreign contracts in recent months. They printed picture postcards for some of the major tourist resorts in the Mediterranean, they had successfully tendered for sporting events as far afield as the West Coast of America. She had bought shares in the firm and it was only a matter of time before she would take it over entirely. The man who had employed her as a young girl to help in a very small print shop looked in amazement at the confident poised woman who had transformed his business. He was more interested in lowering his golf handicap nowadays than taking the early-morning train to Belfast , having two meetings and a lunch, and coming back on the afternoon train with a signed contract for work worth more than he ever dreamed possible.

Rosemary saw no reason at all why people in Northern Ireland should not have their printing done in the South, if the service was professional, the price was right and the quality high. She had long ago persuaded the company to change its name from Shamrock Printing to the more generally acceptable if equally meaningless Partners Printing.

And still no man. Well, there were plenty of men but no one man. Or at least no one available man. She puzzled people, so attractive, flirtatious even. It was not that she was frigid, she quite enjoyed dalliances and encounters on the few occasions that she allowed them to develop. People thought she had a much more adventurous and colourful sex life than she had. And Rosemary allowed this view to be widely held.

For one thing it discouraged people from thinking that she was lesbian like her sister. 'Would that be so terrible if they thought you were?' Eileen had asked.

'No. And don't get all sensitive and prickly on me, of course it wouldn't. It's just that if I'm not, then there's no point in having to carry all the defensive stuff that goes with it. You and Stephanie can do that because it's part of your life, it's not my cause.'

'Fair enough,' Eileen said. 'But I don't see what you're so hot under the collar about. It's not the 1950s for heaven's sake, you're free to do your own thing.'

'Sure. It's people's expectations that annoy me.'

'Maybe you've met him already and didn't know.'

'What do you mean?'

'Maybe Mr Perfect is out there under your nose, and you just didn't recognise him. One night you'll fall into each other's arms.'

Rosemary considered it. 'It's possible,' she said.

'So who do you think it might be? It can't be anyone who rejected you because nobody could, Ro. Maybe someone you never started with… can you think of anyone?'

Rosemary had told nobody about Richard Roche, her date from the introductions agency whom she had since met briefly at various gatherings. It had been so hurtful when he claimed to read in her face that she had no interest in finding a life mate. 'I did fancy that Colm Barry a bit, you know, the one who has the restaurant. But I don't think he's the marrying kind.'

'Gay?' Eileen said

'No, just messy, complicated.'

'I'd leave it, Ro, honestly. Stick to doing up this palace and building the business.'

'I think I will,' Rosemary agreed.

When Gertie had another accident her mother gave in and took the children back to live with her. 'You think I'm doing this for you, but I'm not, I'm doing it for those two defenceless children that you and that drunken sot managed to produce.'

'You're not helping me, Mam.'

'I am helping. I'm taking two children out of a possible death house. If you were a normal woman instead of half crazed yourself you'd be able to realise that what I'm doing is helping you.'

'I have other friends, Mam, who would take them when Jack's upset.'

'Jack is upset every day and every night of the week these days. And decent though that Moran pair are, the odd weekend is all they'll manage.'

'You're very good, Mam, it's just that you don't understand.'

'You can say that again! Indeed I don't understand, two terrified little children who jump at the slightest sound, and you won't get a barring order and throw that lout out of their lives.'

'You're the religious one, you believe in a vow, for better for worse. We'd all stay when it's for better, it's when it's for worse it's harder, you see.'

'It's harder on a lot of people all right.' Her mother's mouth was a thin hard line as she packed John and Katy's things for yet another trip to their granny's in their disturbed young lives.

Rosemary came round to Danny and Ria several evenings a week. There were always plans to be discussed, reports to be given. She never stayed long, just long enough for everyone to know she was on the case and that no shoddy workmanship would escape her sharp eye. Ria tried to give her supper but she always said she had eaten a gigantic lunch and couldn't possibly swallow another thing. Ria knew this was not true. Once a week Rosemary went to Quentin's, the rest of the time she had low-fat yoghurt and an apple at her desk. Business meetings that had a social side to them would involve a wine and soda spritzer in the Shelbourne Hotel. Rosemary Ryan didn't remain greyhound slim without an effort of will. Sometimes Ria wondered why on earth she did it, why she pushed herself so hard. The gym and a swim before work, the jogging at the weekends, the permanent diet, the early nights, the regular hair appointments. What was it all for?

Rosemary would say it was for personal satisfaction, if she asked her. But it seemed such an odd and even a lonely answer that Ria didn't ask any more. It was like the way they didn't talk about sex these days. Once they had talked of nothing else. That was way back, before Ria had slept with Danny, but now they never mentioned the subject at all. Ria never said how Danny still had the power to thrill her just like in the early days. And Rosemary didn't tell of her numerous conquests. Ria knew that she was on the pill and she had a lot of lovers. She had seen the plans for the large bedroom in Rosemary's apartment with its luxurious bathroom, Jacuzzi and twin hand-basins. This wasn't the bathroom of a woman who went to bed too often on her own. Ria longed to ask but didn't. If Rosemary wanted to tell her she would.

'It's all taking longer than we thought,' Rosemary said.

'Look at the contract, you'll see there are contingency clauses,' Danny laughed.

'You covered your back, didn't you?' She was admiring.

'No more than you did.'

'I just insured against shoddy workmanship.'

'And I just insured against wet weather, which indeed we had,' he said.

Ria was cutting out pastry shapes at the kitchen table with the children. Brian just wanted them round, Annie liked to shape hers.

'What are they talking about?' Brian asked.

'Business,' Annie explained. 'Daddy and Rosemary are talking business.

'Why are they talking it in the kitchen? The kitchen's for playing in,' Brian said loudly.

'He's right,' said Rosemary. 'Let's take all these papers up to the beautiful room upstairs. If I had a room like that I wouldn't let it grow cold and musty like an old-fashioned parlour, I tell you that for nothing.'

Good-naturedly Danny carried the papers upstairs.

Ria stood with her hands floury and her eyes stinging. How dare Rosemary make her feel like that? In front of everybody! A woman who had let an upstairs parlour get musty. Tomorrow she would make sure that that room was never again allowed to lie idle.

'Are you okay, Mam?' Annie asked.

'Sure I am, of course.'

'Would you like to be in business too?'

For no reason Ria remembered the fortune-teller, Mrs. Connor, prophesying that she would run a successful company or something. 'Not really, darling,' Ria said. 'But thanks all the same for asking.'

The next day Gertie came. She looked very tired and had black circles under her eyes.

'Don't start on at me. Please, Ria.'

'I hadn't a notion of it, we all lead our own lives.'

'Well, that's a change in the way the wind blows, I'm very glad to say.'

'Gertie, I want us both to tidy the front room, air it and polish it up properly.'

'Is anyone coming?' Gertie asked innocently.

'No,' Ria answered crisply. Gertie paused and looked at her. 'Sorry,' said Ria.

'Okay, you're kind enough not to ask me my business, I won't ask you yours.'

They worked in silence, Gertie doing the brass on the fender, Ria rubbing beeswax into the chairs. Ria put down her cloth. 'It's just I feel so useless, so wet and stupid.'

'You do?' Gertie was amazed.

'I do. We have this gorgeous room and we never sit in it.' Gertie looked at her thoughtfully. Someone had upset Ria. It wasn't her mother; Nora Johnson's stream of consciousness just washed over her all the time. It was hardly Frances Sullivan, the mother of Annie's friend Kitty; she wouldn't upset anyone. Hilary talked about nothing except the cost of this and the price of that; Ria wasn't going to get put down by her own sister. It had to be Rosemary. Gertie opened her mouth and closed it again. Ria would never hear a word against her friend; there was nothing Gertie could say that would be helpful.

'Well, don't you agree it's idiotic?' Ria asked.

Gertie spoke slowly. 'You know, compared to what I have this whole house is a palace, and everyone respects it. That would be enough for me. But on top of all that you and Danny went out and found all this beautiful furniture. And maybe you're right… you should use this room more. Why not start tonight?'

'I'd be afraid the children would pull it to bits.'

'No they won't. Make it into a sort of a treat for them to come up here. Like a halfway house to bed or something. If they're beautifully behaved here they can stay up a bit longer. Do you think that might work?' Gertie's eyes were enormous in her dark haunted face.

Ria wanted to cry. 'That's a great idea,' she said briskly. 'Right, let's finish this lot in twenty minutes then we'll go downstairs and have hot currant bread.'

'Barney's coming round for a drink before dinner this evening, we'll go to my study,' Danny said.

'Why don't you go to the front room instead, I'll leave coffee for you there. Gertie and I cleaned it up today and it looks terrific. I tidied away a lot of the rubbish. The table's free for you to put your papers.'

Together they went up to examine the room. The six o'clock sunshine was slanting in through the window. There were flowers on the mantelpiece.

'It's almost as if you were psychic. This isn't an easy discussion so it's good to have it in a nice place.'

'Nothing wrong?' She was anxious.

'Not really, just the perpetual Barney McCarthy cash-flow problem. Never lasts long but it would give you ulcers while it's there.'

'Is it best if I just keep the kids downstairs out of the way?'

'That would be terrific, sweetheart.' He looked tired and strained.

Barney came at seven and left at eight.

Ria had the children tidy and ready for bed. When they heard the hall door close they came up the stairs together, all three of them, the children slightly tentative. This room wasn't part of their territory. They sat and played a game of snakes and ladders. And possibly because they were overawed by the room Annie and Brian didn't shout at each other. They played it carefully as if it were a very important game. When the children were going to bed, for once without protest, Danny hugged them both very tight.

'You make everything worth while, all of you,' he said in a slightly choked voice.

Ria said she would be up to see that they had brushed their teeth, 'Was it bad?'

'No, not bad at all. Typical Barney, must have it now. Must have everything this minute. Overextended himself yet again. He's desperate to make Number 32 a real show house, you know. It's going to be his flagship, people will take him seriously with this one. It's just that it's costing a packet.'

'So?'

'So he needed a personal guarantee, you know, putting this house up as collateral.'

'This house?'

'Yes, his own are all in the frame already.'

'And what did you say?' Ria was frightened. Barney was a gambler; they could lose everything if he went down.

'I told him we owned it jointly, that I'd ask you.' . 'Well, you'd better ring him straight away and say that I said it's fine,' she said.

'Do you mean that?'

'Listen, we wouldn't have ever had this place without him; we wouldn't have had anything without him. You should have told me earlier. Ring him on his mobile. So that he'll know we're not debating it.'

That night after they had made love Ria couldn't sleep. Suppose the cash-flow problem was serious this time. Suppose they lost their beautiful home. Danny lay beside her in an untroubled sleep. Several times she looked at his face and by the time dawn came she knew that even if they did lose the house it wouldn't matter just as long as she didn't lose Danny.

'Come on, Mam, we'll have our tea in the front room,' Ria said to her mother.

'It's far from a place like this you were reared.' Nora Johnson looked around the room which Ria had now resolved to use properly. She still smarted slightly from Rosemary's remark, yet in a way her friend had done her a favour. Danny didn't fall asleep when he sat here, he looked around him with pleasure at the treasures they had managed to gather. The children were quieter and kept their games neatly in one of the sideboard drawers rather than leaving them strewn around the place. Gertie enjoyed cleaning the place, she said it was like stepping into the cover of a magazine. Hilary went through the cost of every item of furniture and pronounced that they had made a killing.

Even Ria's mother seemed happy to sit there, although she would never admit it. She compared it to rooms in other houses where she ironed and said it was much more elegant. She wouldn't allow the dog to come into this territory and so Pliers slept glumly in a basket in the kitchen. When Rosemary called she always admired the room. She had probably forgotten her cruel words saying it had been kept like a musty front parlour that no one used. Instead she saw virtue in its high ceiling, its two tall windows, its lovely warm colours. It was a real gem, she said several times over.

Ria realised that there was great satisfaction in having lovely possessions. If you couldn't have a streamlined figure, flawless make-up and exquisite clothes, then having a perfect room was a substitute. For the first time she knew why people bought books on style and decoration and period furniture.

It was interesting however to see that Rosemary's own design plans were as different from the room she admired so much in Number 16 Tara Road as could possibly be. Number 32 had been gutted entirely and the long top-floor apartment had a wraparound roof garden with a view stretching out towards the Dublin mountains. At night it would look magnificent with all the city lights in between. The interiors were cool and spare, a lot of empty wall space, pale wooden floors, kitchen fittings that were uncluttered and minimalist.

It was about as unlike Ria's house as anyone could imagine. Ria fought to like the clean lines seen in the artist's impressions, and as the project proceeded she visited the site often and forced out words of praise for a place that seemed to her like a modern art gallery.

Danny spent a lot of time on Number 32. Sometimes, Ria felt, too much time. There were other properties out there, this was only one of them.

'I told you, if we get the right kind of tenants in here Barney's home and dry. He's into the prestige end of things not the Mickey Mouse conversion. We need a good write-up in the property pages, and Rosemary can organise that. We need a politician, a showbiz person, a sports star or something to buy up the other flats.'

'Can you pick and choose?'

'Not really, but we want the word to get about. I asked Colm to tell the nobs who come into his restaurant.'

'And has he?

'Yes, but sadly his ignoramus brother-in-law Monto Mackey is the only one who came enquiring.'

'Monto and Caroline want to live in a flat in Tara Road?'

'I didn't think he'd have the cash but he does. And cash is what he offered, you know, suitcases of it.'

'No!' Ria was astounded. Colm's beautiful but withdrawn sister was married to an unattractive car dealer, a large florid man interested more in going to race meetings than in his wife or his business. He seemed the last kind of person to buy a property like this.

'Barney was delighted, of course, always a man for the suitcase of money, but I convinced him to watch it, that it was quality we wanted here, not dross like Monto Mackey.'

'And did he listen? Are things all right with him these days?' Ria never actually said aloud that she was anxious about the guarantee they had given to Barney, but it was always there.

'Don't worry, sweetheart, the bailiffs aren't at the door. Barney's fine, just has to be steered away from quick money without the small annoyance of tax.' Danny seemed amused and quite unimpressed by his boss. They had a very relaxed relationship.

When Rosemary spoke in front of Barney about getting some garden furniture he offered an introduction to a friend. 'No need to trouble the VAT man at all, pay cash and everyone's happy,' Barney had said.

'Not everyone.' Rosemary had been cool. 'Not the government, not the people who have to pay VAT, not my accountant.'

'Oh pardon me,' Barney had said. But nobody had been embarrassed. You met all sorts in this world. That's what business was about.

'Is Lady Ryan having a housewarming party? She might like me to take the coats for her.' Nora wanted to know every last detail of it all.

'Don't stir up trouble, Holly.' Danny was affectionate to his mother-in-law. 'You only call her Lady Ryan to get a rise out of Ria. No, I didn't hear of any party. She didn't say anything to you, did she, sweetheart?'

'She's going to wait until she has a proper roof garden apparently,' Ria explained. 'She says the place will look nothing until she has lighting and tubs of this and trellises of that. She's such a perfectionist.'

'How long will that take her? It took me three years to get anything to grow in my place,' Nora Johnson said.

'Oh Holly, we're just not in Rosemary Ryan's world. The garden will be ready in three weeks, that's part of the schedule.'

'It can't be,' Nora gasped.

'Yes it can if you hire good nurseries and have everything in containers.'

'I wonder could I clean for Rosemary do you think?' Gertie asked Ria.

'Gertie, you run a business, you haven't time to go out cleaning for people. You don't have to either.'

'I do.' Gertie was short.

'But who's looking after the launderette?'

'I told you it looks after itself; your mother's dog Pliers could run it. I have kids in there doing it for me, I make much more per hour cleaning than I pay them.'

'That's ludicrous.'

'Has she got anyone already to clean?'

'Ask her, Gertie.'

'No, Ria, you ask her for me, will you? As a friend?' said Gertie.

'Of course I won't have Gertie cleaning for me. She should be managing that run-down washeteria of hers for a start, and minding her own children for another thing.'

'She'd like the hours.'

'You give her the hours then.'

'I can't. Danny wonders what on earth I do all day that I then have to go and pay Gertie.'

'Yes. Quite.'

'Rosemary, go on, you need someone you can trust.'

'I’ll have a firm, contract cleaners twice a week.'

'But they're total strangers, they might steal everything, root around amongst your things.'

'Oh Ria, please. How do you think these places survive? They have to employ honest people, you're absolutely guaranteed that. Otherwise they go out of business.'

And that was it as far as Rosemary was concerned. She was now much more interested in creating her garden. The trellis arrived and was erected immediately. Days later the instant climbers in containers were carried upstairs.

'Lots of roses, of course,' Rosemary explained to Ria. 'Bush Rambler, that's a nice pink here on this side and Muscosa and Madame Pierre Oger, all on this side. What else do you think?' she consulted Ria as if she wanted her view.

'Well, I see you have Golden Showers, that's nice.' Ria picked the only name she recognised.

'Yes, but that's yellow. I thought I'd go for blocks of colour, more dramatic to look out at.'

Rosemary never once said that it would look well or tasteful or dramatic for other people, it was always for herself. But surely she'd want other people to admire it too, Ria thought. She wasn't sure. She wasn't sure of anything about Rosemary sometimes. Ria knew for a fact that Rosemary hadn't known one flower from another three months ago and here she was helping the men from the nurseries to trail the honeysuckle, the jasmine, the wisteria as if she had been doing nothing else all her life. It was amazing the grasp she had of anything she touched.

She did indeed have a housewarming. Ria knew hardly anybody there; Danny and Barney knew a few. Polly was in attendance that night, so Ria had to be sure not to mention the party to Mona. Colm had hoped that he might tender to do the catering but Rosemary had chosen some other firm. 'Clients, you know,' she said lightly as if that covered everything.

Gertie had asked her directly did she want any help at all during the function and Rosemary had answered equally directly that she didn't. 'I can't risk having Jack turn up looking for his conjugal rights or his dinner or both,' she said.

Rosemary's mother and Eileen and Stephanie were there. 'Do you know any of this crowd?' Mrs. Ryan asked her daughter querulously.

'No, Mother. I only know lawyers these days and protesters, and Rosemary is in business.'

'I don't think they come from anything, you know.' Mrs. Ryan sighed. Rosemary was passing behind her mother. She mouthed the phrase at her sister that she knew was hovering on her mother's lips. 'Jumped-up people, you know.' Eileen and Stephanie burst out laughing. Mrs. Ryan was startled. 'Look, you two are eccentric enough already, don't be drawing attention to yourselves.'

'At least we didn't wear our boiler suits, Mrs. R,' said Stephanie who was willowy with long chestnut hair and quite gorgeous.

'Or our bowler hats,' giggled Eileen.

Mrs. Ryan sighed again. Nobody had her problems, nobody at all.

For all this wealth and style there wasn't a whisper of a husband for Rosemary anywhere in sight. There were photographers there, however, and Rosemary was photographed with a politician. Barney and Danny were taken with an actress, out on the roof garden with a bank of flowers and a panoramic view in the background. Rosemary was on the financial pages, the others on the property pages. Enquiries about Number 32 Tara Road came flooding in. Everyone was happy.

Because she was now such a near neighbour Danny and Ria saw a lot more of Rosemary. She often called in around seven in the evening for an hour or so and they would all have a glass of wine mixed with soda in the front room. Ria made hot cheese savouries, or bacon slices wrapped around almonds and prunes. It didn't matter that Rosemary waved them away; Danny would have a few, she and the children would eat the rest, and anyway it gave her a chance to bring out the Victorian china that she had bought at auctions.

The children stayed down in the kitchen, with strict warnings not to fight and not to touch anything on the stove. Ria found herself fixing her hair regularly and putting on some make-up. She really couldn't face the elegant Rosemary night after night without making some effort.

'Dressing up for Lady Ryan!' her mother scoffed.

'You always dress nicely, Mother, I note,' Ria said.

Her mother had taken to wearing little pillbox hats like Audrey Hepburn's headgear. She bought these in thrift shops. Danny had commented on them with huge admiration. 'Now you dare tell me, Holly, that you don't look like Audrey Hepburn, you could be her younger sister.'

Gertie was also disapproving of Rosemary's visits. 'You wait on her as if you were her maid, Ria,' she said.

'I do nothing of the sort, I don't go out to work like they do, that's all. Anyway, it's nice for me to have a room to show off and everything.'

'Sure.' Gertie had gone off Rosemary. It would have been a handy few quid just down the road, and she would like to have seen the inside of a place that had featured in the newspapers. Even as a cleaner. 'Is it lovely above there in Number 32?' Gertie asked Ria. It would be nice to tell the customers in the launderette about it, even second hand.

Ria didn't often take Brian up to Rosemary's apartment. He was three now; he upset the calm of this place with his endless noise and perpetual toddling and constant sticky hugs and demands for attention. Annie wouldn't have wanted to come. There was nothing to entertain her at Rosemary's and too many areas that seemed off limits.

'You must bring the children with you,' Rosemary would insist. But Ria knew that it was easier not to. She loved them so much that it would kill her to apologise for what she considered their totally natural behaviour. So instead she left the children with her mother on one of the many Saturday afternoons that Danny was working and walked up to see Rosemary on her own. It was so peaceful and elegant, as if she hadn't unmade a bed, cooked a meal, or done any washing since the day it had been shown off at the housewarming. Even the roof garden looked as if every flower had been painted into place.

Despite the smart surroundings, Rosemary was in so many ways exactly the same as she had been years ago when they had started work at the estate agency. She could still laugh in the same infectious way about the things that had made them laugh back then, Hilary's obsession with money, Mrs. Ryan's fear of jumped-up people, Nora Johnson's living her life through the world of movies.

Rosemary had told Ria about some of the problems at work, the girl who was excellent at everything and would have been a superb personal assistant but had such bad body odour she had to let her go; the man who had changed his mind at the last moment and cancelled a huge print job and Rosemary had to take him to court; charity leaflets she had printed for nothing for a function which turned out to be a rave where everyone was on Ecstasy and the police were called.

They would sit on the terrace with their feet up, and the heavy scent of the flowers all around them.

'What's that lovely green one with the gorgeous smell?' Ria asked.

'Tobacco plant,' Rosemary said.

'And the big purple one a bit like lilac?'

'Solatium crispum.'

'How on earth do you know them all, and remember them, Rosemary? You have so many other things in your mind as well.'

'It's all in a book, Ria. There's no point in having these things if you don't know what they are.' Rosemary's voice was slightly impatient.

Ria knew how to head impatience off at the pass. 'You're absolutely right. I've got plenty of books, next time I'll talk just as authoritatively as you do.'

'That's my girl.' Rosemary was approving. The moment of irritation was over.

Maybe if their place was less untamed and wild, she and Danny could sit like this on a Saturday afternoon and watch the children play. Maybe they could just talk to each other, read the papers together sometimes. It had been so long since they sat in their garden.

'Is there a lot of work keeping all this the way it is?'

'No, I have a man once a week for four hours, that's all.'

'And how do you know what to tell him to do?'

'I don't. I hired him from a garden centre, he knows what to do. But you see the whole trick was in making it labour-saving. It was the builders who did it all. Once you don't have sprawling herbaceous borders that would break your back weeding them you're fine. Just nice easy-care bushes and shrubs which sort of bring themselves up.' It always seemed so effortless when Rosemary described things.

As she walked down Tara Road Ria thought about it. Brian was old enough now, she could get a job, but Danny didn't seem to want her to. 'Sweetheart, isn't it wonderful for me to know you are here and in charge of everything…' he would say if she brought the subject up. Or else he would frown with worry and concern. 'Aren't you happy, love? That's terrible. I suppose I'm very selfish, I thought your life seemed very full, lots of friends and everything… but of course we'll talk about it.'

That wasn't what she wanted either.

It was a particularly lovely road just as the summer was starting. The cherry trees were in bloom everywhere, their petals starting to make a pink carpet. She never stopped marvelling at the variety of life you could find in Tara Road—houses where students lived in great numbers in small flats and bedsitters, their bicycles up against the railings just as they had been outside their own house until this year when Danny and Ria had been able to reclaim all the rented rooms for themselves. If she turned right outside Rosemary's house the road would go past equally mixed housing, high houses like their own, lower ones half hidden by trees, then on past the small lock-up workshop where the road changed again into big houses in their own grounds until it came to the corner with a busy street. And round the corner to where Gertie lived and worked, where the handy launderette had plenty of clientele among the bedsitterland around, and Gertie and Jack lived their mysterious life where you were considered a much better friend if you asked no questions at all.

Her mind full of gardens, Ria noticed that almost every house had made more effort than they had. But it was so hard to know where to start. Some of that undergrowth really needed someone with a saw to cut it down, and then what? She didn't want to be one of those women who, leaving a friend's house, immediately wanted new kitchen work surfaces or a change of curtains, but it seemed ludicrous that she and Danny had managed to close their eyes somehow to a huge aspect of the life they could have together.

Ria didn't want to admit it to herself but she knew that she had got out of the habit of initiating things. When they were first married she would go down to the main road, buy two pots of polish and the scullery would be immaculate when Danny got back from work. Now perhaps he had higher standards. He bought and sold and therefore got to know the houses of the rich and those with taste and style. She would never go ahead on her own with any plan. Yet if Danny didn't see that their garden was dragging the place down perhaps it was up to her to make the move.

Barney McCarthy was just parking his car in their cluttered driveway. It wasn't an easy manoeuvre, he had to negotiate it in beside their car, Annie's bicycle, Brian's tricycle, a wheelbarrow that had been there for weeks, several crates that had been ignored by the dustmen but had never been taken to the dump.

'You look lovely, Ria,' he said as he got out. He was a man who admired women but he never paid an idle compliment. If he said you looked well he meant it.

Ria patted her hair, pleased. 'Thank you, Barney. I don't feel lovely, actually I feel a bit annoyed with myself. I think I'm getting rather slovenly.'

'You?' He was amazed.

'When you think that we have lived here for nearly nine years and it's still a bit like a building site.'

'Oh no, no,' Barney murmured soothingly.

'But it is, Barney. And I'm the one who's around here all the time. I should be doing something about it, and I'm going to, I've decided that. Poor Danny shouldn't have to take that on as well as everything else. Already he works all the hours God sends…' She thought Barney looked at her sympathetically.

'Ria, you can't go talking like that, there's years of undergrowth there.'

'Don't I know it? No, I meant maybe you could tell me how much it would cost to get your men to come in and clear the place out, then we could arrange what to plant… Just tell me what it will be, don't bother Danny at all, and I'll build it into the household expenses. At least that's something I'd be able to do.'

'I think we should bring Danny in on this, ask him what he wants.'

'But he'll say: "In time, in time", and we'll never get it done. Let's just clear it, Barney, and then we can decide what we should plant and how to decorate it.'

Barney stood stroking his chin. 'I don't know, Ria, there's a lot to be thought of before you bring in the diggers. Suppose you wanted to build here, for example. It would be silly to have put in a lot of fancy flower-beds and suchlike, which would only have to be taken out again.'

'Build?' Ria was astonished. 'But what would we want to build? Haven't we a huge three-and-a-half-storey house already! We haven't any furniture in some of the tenants' rooms yet. We're going to make a bigger study for Danny and maybe a sort of playroom for the children, but we don't need any more space.'

'You never know how people's plans change as the years go on,' Barney said.

She felt a chill. She didn't want things to change, only get better. She took a sudden decision. She was not going to discuss it any more with this man. Much as he liked and admired her he thought of her only as Danny's little wife. Pretty, possibly a good mother and homemaker, tactful and always ready with the right kind of food when they needed it, equally pleasant to his wife and his mistress. He did not consider her a person who would be able to make a decision about the home she lived in.

'You're absolutely right, Barney, I don't know what got into me,' she said. 'Will I make a little snack for you and Danny? Iced tea maybe and a tomato sandwich on wholemeal bread?'

'You're a genius,' he said.

Ria's mother was in the kitchen with the children. 'Oh there you are, back from Lady Ryan's place.' Nora Johnson had never liked Rosemary.

Ria had now forgotten where the resentment began and why. She had long ceased to try and convince her mother of Rosemary's worth. 'Yes indeed, and she was asking for you too, Mam.'

'Huh,' snorted Nora Johnson. 'Was that Barney I heard you talking to?'

Ria was bending over to see the picture that Annie had been painting, there was water all over the kitchen. 'I painted a picture of you, Mam,' she said proudly. A creature like a golliwog stood surrounded by saucepans and frying pans.

'Lovely,' said Ria. 'That's really beautiful, Annie, you're so clever.'

'I'm a clever boy,' Brian insisted.

'No, you're a very stupid boy,' Annie said.

'Annie, really! Brian's very clever too.'

'I don't think he has a brain in his head,' Annie said seriously. 'If you don't give him any paints he screams and if you do he just makes big splashes.'

'Rubbish, Annie. He's just not as old as you are, that's all. Wait until he's your age and he'll be able to do all the same things.'

'When you get older will you be as clever as Gran?' Annie asked.

'I hope so,' Ria smiled.

'Never in a million years,' her mother said. 'I expect you'll be whipping up some little delicacy for that adulterer upstairs.'

'It's a word I don't use really in general conversation myself,' Ria said, flashing her a look.

Annie was learning new phrases all the time. 'What a dutterer?' she asked.

'Oh, a dutterer is like a sort of drain, you know, another word for a gutter,' Ria said quickly.

Annie accepted this and went back to her painting.

'Sorry,' her mother said a little later.

Ria patted her on the arm. 'It doesn't matter, I agree with you as it happens. Then I would, wouldn't I? Wives always do. Can you get me those big iced-tea glasses please, Mam?'

'Mad idea this, you should either have a nice cold gin and tonic or a nice hot cup of tea, I say, not mixing the two up. It's not natural.'

Later that evening Ria said to Danny that they should really try to do something with the wilderness of the garden.

'Not now, sweetheart,' Danny said, as she knew he was going to.

'I'm not going to nag, let me do it, I'll ask Barney for a price.'

'You already did,' Danny said.

'That's because I was trying to take things off your shoulders.'

'Sweetheart, don't do that, please. He'd only do it for nothing, and it's not necessary.'

'But Danny, you're the one who says we must keep up the value of the property.'

'We don't know what we're going to do with it yet, Ria.'

'Do with it? We want a place for people to park their cars when they come to see us, for us to park our car without it being like an obstacle race… we want it to look like a home where people are settling down for their life. Not some kind of a transit camp.'

'But we haven't thought it through… what the future may bring.'

'Now don't start talking like Barney about building here.' Ria was very cross.

'Barney said that?'

'Yes, and I don't know what the hell he was talking about.'

Danny saw her red angry face and her confusion. 'Listen, if there is any building to be done, it's way way down the road yet. You're right. We must do something… a sort of patch-up job on it.'

'But what do we need to build?'

'Nothing yet, you're quite right.'

'Yet? Haven't we got a huge house?'

'Who knows what the future will bring?'

'That's not fair, Danny. I must know what you think the future will bring.'

'Okay then, I'll tell you what I mean. Suppose, just suppose we fell on hard times, we wouldn't want to lose this house. If we had a chance to build in the garden, maybe a small unit, two self-contained flats, little maisonettes they used to be called, or town houses, there would be room…'

'Two flats in our garden? Outside our front door?' Ria looked at him as if he were mad.

'If we left the possibility of doing so then it would be like an insurance policy.'

'But it would be terrible.'

'Better than losing the house if that were the choice. It's not, but suppose it were.'

'Why should I suppose any such thing? You're always looking on the bright side, so why are we looking at doom and gloom and building horrible flats in our garden in case we're poor? If there's something you're not telling me then you'd better tell me now. It's not fair to leave me not bothering my pretty little head. It's not fair and I won't stand for it.'

Danny took her in his arms. 'I swear I'm not hiding things from you. It's just in this business you see so many people who believed that the future was going to be fine and that everything would go on slightly upwards each year… and then something happens, some swing in the market, and they lose everything.'

'But we don't have any stocks and shares, Danny.'

'I know, sweetheart, we don't.'

'What does that mean?'

'Barney does, did, and our fortunes are very much tied up with his.'

'But you said that the whole business of the guarantee was over, that once he had made his money on Number 32 he'd got out of that worry.'

'And he has.' Danny was soothing. 'So he's more cautious now.'

'Barney was never cautious in his life. He had a heart attack and he still smokes and drinks brandy, and anyway why does it mean that we should be cautious and edgy?'

'Because our fortunes are tied in with his. Barney knows that and he wants the best for us, so that's why he likes to think there's a chance of our building… suppose things go badly for him… of us getting more bricks and mortar, the only thing that's definitely going to keep its value. Do you see?'

'Not really, to be honest,' Ria said. 'If Barney's business collapsed couldn't you work in any estate agent in town?'

'Yes, I suppose I could,' Danny said with that quick bright smile that Ria had learned to dread. It was the kind of smile he had when he was showing somebody a doubtful property. When he was anxious to close on something, when he had a completion date but not an exchange date, when he was afraid that the chain wouldn't hold and somebody somewhere along the line wouldn't get their loan and so it would all collapse like a house of cards.

But there was no more to be discovered or discussed or gained. A patch-up job and a legacy of worry for the future. That was what had come out of the conversation.

Sheila Maine wrote from America to say that the papers were full of the great opportunities in Ireland , and the numbers of people who were relocating there. She wondered if any of the girls she knew in Dublin would advise her. She had so much enjoyed meeting them all when she had been there. And hadn't that been a fun day when they had gone to the psychic in her caravan? Mrs. Connor had told Sheila that her future was in her own hands and really and truly this was very sound. Everywhere she looked now she read the same advice, the same counsel. Why hadn't they known it years ago when they were just swept along with what everyone else thought, and did what other people did?

Sheila wrote that her son Sean who was Annie's age was learning Irish dancing at a nearby class, and her daughter Kelly who was a very demanding three-year-old would join the babies' class in it next year. She was determined that the children would not grow up ignorant of their Irish heritage. She copied the letter to her sister Gertie, to Rosemary, to Ria and to Hilary. Sheila had particularly liked Hilary during her visit to Ireland and she urged her to come out to visit her in the school holidays.

'How could I do that? She must be mad, they've no idea of money over there.' Hilary showed the invitation.

'I don't know, Hilary.' Ria sometimes felt that she spent her life assuring her sister that some things actually were within her reach. 'Suppose you were to book three months in advance, you'd get a great reduction and Sheila says it would cost you nothing out there.'

'But what about Martin?' Hilary always had an argument against everything that was suggested.

'Well, he could go with you if he'd like two weeks out in Connecticut which he very well might, or else go home and see his parents in the country. You know he says he wants to go back there more than you do.'

Hilary frowned. It made sense only if you were as rich as Ria and Danny with no financial worries at all. Life was very strange the way the cards were dealt, she said again.

Ria's patience was limited that day. Mona McCarthy had been around wondering would Ria help at a coffee morning, which was fine except that it meant she would have to ask someone to look after Brian for her. She couldn't ask her mother. Nora Johnson had such a network of social and professional activities that you had to book her days in advance. Today she would be ironing in one place, delivering leaflets about the Bring and Buy sale in aid of the animal refuge, visiting some of the old ladies in St Rita's. She couldn't break into all that.

Gertie said it wasn't a good morning to leave Brian at the launderette for a couple of hours, because… well let's say… it wasn't a good morning. Gertie's own children were with her mother. That said it all. And never in a million years would Ria ask a neighbour like Frances Sullivan to look after him. It would be admitting that even as a non-working wife she couldn't organise her life. If only that pale wan Caroline, the strange sister of Colm in the restaurant, was more together then she could be drafted in for a couple of hours, but it always took her about three seconds too long to understand what you were saying, and Ria hadn't the time for it today.

Hilary sat there turning the letter this way and that. Ria decided to take the chance. 'I'm going to ask you a favour, say no if you want to. I am very anxious to go up to Mona McCarthy's house for a variety of reasons.'

'I'm sure you are,' Hilary sniffed.

'None of them like you think, but it would suit me greatly if you minded Brian for me for three hours, then I'll come back and make you a huge gorgeous lunch. Yes or no?'

'Why do you want to go there?'

'That's a "no", I suppose,' Ria said.

'Not necessarily. If you tell me why you want to go, then I'll stay.'

'All right I will. I'm worried that the McCarthys might be in some kind of financial trouble. I want to see what I can find out, because if they are then it will affect Danny. Now that's the truth ~ take it or leave it. Yes or no?'

'Yes,' said Hilary with a smile.

Ria phoned a taxi, put on her good suit, her best silk scarf, took a freshly baked walnut cake from the wire tray where it was cooling and headed off to the McCarthys' large house six miles from Dublin. The drive was filled with smart cars and the sound of women's chatter was loud as she approached the door. It was touching to see Mona's face light up when she came in. Ria slipped out of her jacket and began to help with the practised smile of one who had been to many coffee mornings. It was all about making sure these comfortably off and often fairly lonely women had a good time and were warmly welcomed into a group. Their ten-pound entrance fee was not in itself so important as making them feel they belonged. This way they could later be persuaded to part with much larger sums of money at fashion shows, at glittering dinner dances, at film premieres.

An elegant woman was introduced to Ria as Margaret Murray. 'You may know my husband, Ken. He's in the property business,' she said.

Ria longed to tell her that Ken Murray was the first boy she had ever kissed many years ago, when she was fifteen and a half. That it had been horrible and he had told her she was boring. But she thought that Margaret Murray might not find this as funny in retrospect as she did, so she said nothing but had a little giggle to herself.

'You're in good form,' Mona McCarthy said approvingly.

'Remind me to tell you why later. This is all going very well, isn't it?'

'Yes, I think they like coming here as a curiosity,' Mona said.

'Why so?'

'Well they speculate a lot, you know, about whether we are still solvent or not. Rumours around the place have us in the workhouse.' Mona looked remarkably calm as she refilled the coffee-pot from the two percolators.

'And aren't you worried about this?' Ria asked.

'No, Ria, if I worried every time that I hear something about Barney I'd be a very worried woman indeed. We've been poor before, and if it happens I imagine we could cope with it again. But I don't think it will happen. Barney is always a contingency-plan person, I feel sure there are a lot of safety nets along the way.' She was serene, almost like a ship as she sailed back into the room full of women whom she knew to be rather overinterested in what kept this extravagant lifestyle afloat.

Colm Barry called when Ria and Hilary were having the promised enormous lunch. 'Well you two don't stint yourselves, I'm glad to see.' He seemed happy to accept their invitation to join them.

'Oh, Ria can afford to buy the best cuts of meat,' Hilary said, reverting to type.

'It's what she does with them that's so delicious.' Colm appreciated the cooking. 'And the way they're served.'

'It's hard to get good fresh vegetables round here,' Ria said. 'They're very tired up at the corner and nowhere else is in a pram's walk really.'

'Why don't you grow your own?' Colm suggested.

'Oh Lord no. It would be such hard work digging it all out back there. Even to get the front tidied up was a major undertaking. Neither Danny nor I have the souls of gardeners, I'm afraid.'

'I'd do it for you at the back if you like,' Colm offered.

'Oh you can't do that,' Ria protested.

'I have an ulterior motive. Suppose I was to make a proper kitchen garden out there and grow all the things I want for the restaurant in it, then you could have some too.'

'Would it work?'

'Yes, of course it would, that is if you don't have plans to have velvet lawns, water features, fountains or pergolas out there.'

'No. I think we can safely say those aren't on the agenda,' Ria laughed easily.

'Great, then we'll do it.'

Ria noted with pleasure that Colm hadn't said they should wait to consult Danny. Unlike Barney McCarthy he seemed to regard her as a responsible adult capable of making a decision on her own. 'Will it be very heavy work, preparing the soil?'

'I don't know yet.'

'It's such a wilderness out there we have no real idea how much awful stuff there might be buried with old roots and rubble.'

'But I need the exercise anyway so it's going to be something that benefits everyone. We all win, no one loses.'

'Very few of those deals about, let me tell you,' Hilary said.

And from that time on Colm became part of the background in their house in Tara Road. He let himself in silently through the wooden door that opened on to the back lane; he kept his gardening tools in a small makeshift hut at the back. He dug an area half the width of the house and the whole length of the garden. This left plenty of space for the children to play in. And as the months went on he erected a fence and covered it with a plant he called Mile a Minute or Russian vine.

'It really looks rather nice you know,' Danny said thoughtfully one day. 'And the whole notion of mature kitchen garden at rear is a good selling-point.'

'If we were to sell, which we're not going to do. I wish you wouldn't frighten me saying things like that, Danny,' Ria complained.

'Listen, sweetheart, if you worked in a world where hardly anything else is discussed then you'd talk in auctioneer-speak too.' He was right, and what's more he was good-tempered and happy. He was very loving to Ria sometimes, dashing home from work saying he thought of her so much and deeply that he couldn't concentrate on anything else. They would go upstairs and draw the curtains. Once or twice Ria wondered what Colm working in the garden might think.

They didn't talk much about it but she knew that in Gertie's case it was a nightmare, usually only attempted by Jack when drunk. For Hilary it had almost ceased to exist. Martin had once said the only real reason for a man and woman to mate was the hope of producing a child, and that the urge and impetus just weren't there otherwise. He had only said it once, and afterwards confessed that he had been a bit depressed at the time and didn't really mean it, Hilary confided. But somehow it was there always in the air.

Ria didn't know any details of Rosemary's sex life. But she was sure it must be very active in those perfect surroundings that she had created for herself. Everywhere she went men were attracted by her. Ria had sometimes seen Rosemary leave parties with men. Did she take them home, upstairs to that apartment which had featured in so many magazines? Probably. Rosemary wouldn't live like a nun. Still, it must be very unsettling to have to get to know different people in that way. To learn the intricacies and familiarities of another body instead of knowing exactly what worked for you. And for Danny. Ria knew that she was very, very lucky.

The anxiety over the McCarthy finances seemed to have subsided. Danny didn't work so late at night. He took his little princess, Annie, out on walks and visits to the sea. He held the hand of his chubby son Brian as the child changed from stumbling to waddling and eventually to running away ahead of them.

The back garden changed slowly and laboriously. Ria knew that it was much easier to learn the names of twenty plants for containers on a roof terrace than to understand Colm's discussion about double cropping and pest-proof barriers. She tried to sympathise when his sprouts all failed, when his great bamboo bean supports blew down in the wind and when the peas that he had tried to grow in hanging baskets produced hardly anything at all.

'Why didn't you grow them in the ground?' Ria had asked innocently.

'I was trying to make it nice for you to look out on. You know, a lot of hanging baskets on the back wall. They looked good, I thought.' He was very disappointed.

She wished she could share his enthusiasm but to her it was back-breaking and unyielding and there were mountains of healthy sprouts and peas in the shops. Still, he battled on and he even gave the children little tubs where they could grow tomatoes and peppers. He was good with Annie and Brian, and seemed to understand the age difference between them well. Brian got a simple tomato plant which just had to be watered, Annie was encouraged to grow lettuce and basil. But mainly he didn't take part in their lives, he kept to himself on his side of the huge Russian vine fence.

On the other side there was a swing, a garden seat and even a home-made barbecue pit. At the front of the house the area had been tarmacadamed by Barney's men, and what had been described as a patch-up job had blossomed well. People admired the coloured heathers that grew in the makeshift flower-bed.

'I don't know where the heathers came from, honestly,' Ria said once.

'You must have planted them, sweetheart. Little and all as I know about gardening I know that flowers don't appear by magic! And anyway don't you have to have special soil for heathers?'

Colm was there as they spoke. 'That's me, I'm afraid. I bought a bag of the wrong kind of soil, you know ericacious, lime hating.' They didn't know but they nodded sagely. 'So I had to put it somewhere and I dumped it there. Hope it's all right.'

'It's great.' Danny approved. 'And did you plant the heathers too?'

'Someone gave me a present of them. You see, because I put in the menu that all vegetables are home grown, the customers think I have a great deal of land behind my place. They often give me plants instead of a tip.'

'But we should pay you for those…' Ria began.

'Nonsense, Ria. As I told you both I have a very good deal being able to use your garden and honestly the vegetables are a huge success. I have rows of courgettes planted this week, the trick is to come up with some clever recipes for them now.'

'You're doing better these days?' Danny was interested.

'Much better and we got a great review. That helped a lot.' Colm never complained even when times were slack. 'I was wondering if you'd consider a small greenhouse an eyesore? I'd disguise it well, you know, build it up against the back wall…'

'Go ahead, Colm. Do you want a contribution?'

'Only the right to use a bit of electricity for it, it won't take much.'

'Oh, would that all business deals could be like this!' Danny said, shaking Colm's hand.

Brian was seven in the summer of 1995. Danny and Ria had a barbecue for his friends. They only wanted sausages, Brian said. People didn't eat other things.

'Not lovely lamb chops?' Danny said. He liked the idea of standing with an apron and chef's hat turning something a little more ambitious than sausages.

'Ugh,' Brian said.

'Or those lovely green peppers Colm grew, we could thread them all on a skewer and make kebabs.'

'My friends don't like kebabs,' Brian said.

'Your friends have never had kebabs,' Annie said. She was close to being twelve, only three months away from it. It was really hard having to deal with someone as infantile as Brian. Very strangely it seemed that her mother and father appeared as delighted with his babyish ramblings as they were with anything she said.

The arrangements for his party were very tedious. Annie had suggested giving Brian two pounds of cooked sausages and letting all his friends heat them up. They'd never know the difference and all they cared about was lots of tomato ketchup.

'No, it must be right. We had a great party for your seventh birthday, don't you remember?' her mother said.

Annie didn't remember, all the birthdays had merged into one. But she knew tha' they must have made a fuss over it like over all celebrations. 'That's right, it was terrific,' she said grudgingly.

'You are beautiful, Annie Lynch, you're an adorable girl.' Her mother hugged her until it hurt.

'I'm awful, look at my desperate straight hair.'

'And I spend my life saying look at my frizzy hair,' Ria said. 'It's a very annoying part of being a woman, we're never really satisfied with the way we look.'

'Some people are.'

'Oh all the film stars your gran goes on about, all these beauties, I expect they're happy with themselves, but nobody we know.'

'I'd say that Rosemary is okay with the way she looks.'

Rosemary Ryan had refused to be called Aunty by her friends' children, she said she was quite old enough already without any of that sort of thing, thank you. 'She's super-looking I know, but she's always on this diet or that diet so maybe in her heart she isn't totally satisfied either.'

'No, she's very pleased with the way she looks, you can see it the way she looks at herself in mirrors.'

'What?'

'She sort of smiles at herself, Mam. You must see it, not only in mirrors, but in pictures, anywhere there's glass.'

Ria laughed. 'Aren't you a funny little article, Annie, the things you see.'

Annie didn't like being patted on the head. 'It's true, isn't it, Dad?'

'Totally true, Princess,' said Danny.

'You didn't hear what was said,' they both accused him.

'Yes I did, Annie said Rosemary smiles at her reflection in mirrors and indeed she does, always has. Years ago in the old agency she was at it.'

Annie looked pleased, Ria felt put out. It was such a criticism of her friend and she had never been aware of it. 'Well, she's so good-looking she's entitled to admire herself,' she said eventually.

'Good-looking? I think she's like a bird of prey,' Annie said. 'A handsome bird of prey, though,' Danny corrected her. 'Mam looks much better,' Annie said.

'That goes without saying,' Danny said, kissing each of them on the tops of their heads.

It was a very sunny day on Brian's birthday. The preparations went on all morning. Nora Johnson was there fussing, Gertie had come to ask could she help. She looked as if she hadn't slept for a month.

'Only if you stay for the party properly, if you go home and get the children,' Ria said.

'No, not today.' She was so strained it almost hurt to look at her.

"What's wrong, Gertie?'

'Nothing.' The word was like a scream.

'Where are the children?'

'With my mother.'

'Who's running the launderette?'

'A sixteen-year-old schoolgirl who wants a holiday job. Have you finished the interrogation, Ria? Can I get on with helping you?'

'Ah hey that's not fair, it's not an interrogation.' Ria looked upset.

'No, sorry.'

'It's just you don't look too well. Why do you want to help here?'

'Why do you think?'

'Gertie, I don't know. Truly I don't.'

'Then you're as thick as two short planks, Ria. I need the money.'

Ria's face paled. 'You're my friend, for God's sake. If you want some money ask me, don't come round expecting me to be inspired. How much do you want?' She reached for her handbag.

'I won't take money from you, Ria.'

'Am I going mad, didn't you just ask for it?'

'Yes, but I won't take it as charity.'

'Well, all right. Pay it back to me some time.'

'I won't be able to do that.'

'So, it doesn't matter then.'

'It does. I want to earn it, I want to scrub and clean. I'll start with the oven, then I'll do all the kitchen surfaces and the bathrooms. I need the tenner.'

Ria sat down with the shock of it all. 'You must have ten pounds. You must have that much, Gertie. You run a business, for God's sake.'

'I have to keep the float in the shop, he knows that. I told him I'd be back with ten pounds before lunch, he won't go near the shop.'

'Jesus Christ, Gertie, take the ten pounds. Do you think I'm going to watch you for two hours earning this.'

'I won't take it.'

'Well, get out then.'

'What?'

'You heard me. You're my friend, I'm not going to pay you five pounds an hour for sloshing about in my kitchen, and putting a brush down my lavatories today. I'm sorry but that's it.' Ria's eyes were blazing.

Gertie had tears in her eyes. 'Oh Ria, don't be full of principle, have a little understanding instead.'

'I have plenty of understanding… why don't you have a little dignity?'

'I'm trying to, you're taking it away from me.' Gertie looked as if a puff of wind would blow her over. 'You're very upset.'

'Of course I am upset. Now will you please take the ten-pound note and if you try to give it back to me or lift one hand towards any cleaning whatsoever I'll ram the bloody money down your throat.'

'You have no reason to be upset with me or with anyone, Ria. You have a charmed life. I don't envy you it, you deserve it and you work hard for it, and you're nice to everybody but everything's going right for you. You might just think about how hard it might be when everything's going wrong.'

Ria swallowed. 'It's my son's seventh birthday, the sun is shining, of course I'm happy. I'm not happy every day, nobody is. Listen, you are my friend. You and I know everything about each other.'

'We don't know everything about each other,' Gertie said quietly. 'We're not schoolgirls any more, we are women in our mid-thirties, grown-ups. I thought that if I did the work somehow we'd be quits. I'm sorry. And I'm also sorry for upsetting you on Brian's birthday.' She turned to leave.

'If you don't take the ten pounds you'll have really upset me.'

'Sure. Thank you, Ria.'

'No, not coldly. With a bit of a hug anyway.' There was a stiff little hug. Gertie's thin body was like a board. 'You know what would be the best? If you were to come back later with the kids. Would you do that?'

'No thank you. But not because of sulking or anything. Just no.'

'Sure. Right.'

'Thanks again, Ria.'

'You're full of dignity, you always have been.'

'You deserve all you have, and even more. Enjoy the day.' She was gone.

Nora Johnson came into the kitchen from the garden. 'I've been tying the balloons to the front gate so that they'll know where the party is and I see Lady Ryan coming down the road wearing a designer outfit. Coming to help no doubt. Where's Gertie got to? She said she was going to clean some of those old baking tins for the sausages.'

'She had to go home, Mam.'

'Well honestly, talk about helpful friends when you need them! If you hadn't Hilary and myself you'd be lost.'

'Haven't I always said it, Mam?'

'And will Annie help to entertain them when they get here?'

'No, I don't think a dozen seven-year-old boys is Annie's idea of a good summer afternoon, she'll keep her distance. Danny has a whole lot of games planned for them.'

'He's not off about His Master's Business then, is he?' Nora sniffed.

'No, Mam, he's not.'

'You look a bit pale, are you all right?'

'Never better.'

Ria escaped in relief to greet Rosemary who had come to count the numbers. She had bought a great amount of individually wrapped chocolate ice creams which were at home in her freezer. 'I’ll come back in an hour so you don't have to bother putting them into the freezer. Was there a problem with Gertie?'

'Why do you ask?' Ria wanted to know.

'She ran past me on the road crying and she didn't see me, she genuinely didn't.'

'Oh nothing more than the usual problem she has.' Ria looked grim.

'Roll on the divorce referendum,' Rosemary said.

'You don't think that's going to make the slightest difference in Gertie's way of thinking, do you?' Ria asked. 'I mean, if there was divorce introduced into this country tomorrow morning you don't think she'd leave Jack. Abandon him? Give up on him, like everyone else has? Of course she wouldn't.'

'Well, what's the point of having it on the statute-books at all if people are going to react like that?' Rosemary wondered.

'Search me.' Ria was at a loss. 'The two families we know who should avail themselves of it won't go near it. You don't think Barney McCarthy is going to disturb his nice comfortable little situation if divorce is introduced, do you?'

'No I don't indeed, but I didn't know that you would see things so clearly.' Rosemary laughed almost admiringly—sometimes Ria could be very surprising—and went back to Number 32 to change into something more suitable for a children's party.

The party guests had begun to arrive. Very soon they were punching each other good-naturedly. All of them. There didn't seem to be any reason for this, no real aggression or gangs or hostility, that was the way boys behaved. Annie's friends were much gentler, she said to her mother as they separated one pair of warring boys before they crashed into Colm's vegetable garden, locked into their fight.

'Where is Annie by the way?'

'In her room, I think. There's no point in dragging her down to join them. She's too old for them and not old enough to find them funny. She'll come when she hears there's birthday cake.'

'Or sausages. Two to one she gets the smell of sausages and she's down like a greyhound out of a trap,' said Nora sagely.

Annie was not in her room as it happened, she had gone out the back gate and was walking up the lane that ran parallel to Tara Road. She had seen a small thin ginger kitten there the other day. It might not belong to anyone. It had looked frightened, not as if it were used to being petted. Perhaps it was abandoned and she might keep it. They would say no of course, as people said no to everything. If she could get it into her room for a few days without anyone noticing, give it a litter tray and some food, then they wouldn't have the heart to turn it out. Today would be a good day to smuggle it in, nobody would notice. There was so much fuss about Brian and all his brain-dead friends, shouting and pushing and shoving around the garden. You could bring a giraffe upstairs today and no one would notice. Annie tried to remember which was the back gate where she had seen the little kitten. It wasn't as far up the road as Rosemary's. It was hard to identify them from the back.

Annie Lynch stood in the lane in her blue check summer dress squinting into the afternoon sun, pushing her straight blonde hair out of her eyes. Perhaps she could peep through the keyholes of these wooden doors. Some of them were quite rickety and it was easy to see through the cracks anyway. One of the back gates was a smart painted wooden door you couldn't see through at all. Annie stood back a little. This must be Number 32 where Rosemary Ryan lived.

She had a very posh garden upstairs on the roof but there was a garden with an ornamental pool and a summerhouse at the back. This might well be where the poor kitten had wandered in to have a look at the fish in the pond.

Annie knelt down and looked in the keyhole. No sign of a cat. But there were people there in the summerhouse. They seemed to be fighting over something. She looked more carefully. It was Rosemary Ryan struggling with a man. Annie's heart leapt into her throat. Was she being attacked? Should Annie rattle at the gate and shout, or would the attacker come out and hurt her as well? Rosemary Ryan had her skirt right up around her waist, and the man was pushing at her. With an even greater shock than the first one Annie realised what they were doing. But this wasn't the way it was done. Not what she and Kitty Sullivan had giggled about in school. Not what people almost did at the cinema and on television. That was different. They kissed each other and lay down, it was all gentle. It wasn't like this, all this shoving and grunting. Rosemary Ryan couldn't be making love with someone. This isn't the way it was meant to be. The whole thing wasn't possible!

Annie pulled back from the keyhole, her heart racing. She tried to make sense of the situation. To be honest, nobody could see them unless they were actually looking through the keyhole of the back gate. The summerhouse faced away from the main house and towards the back wall.

Annie couldn't see who the man was; he had his back to her. All she had seen was Rosemary's face. All screwed up and angry, upset.

Not dreamy like it was in the movies. Maybe she had got it totally wrong, this mightn't be what they were doing at all. Annie looked once more.

Rosemary's arms were around the man's neck, her eyes were closed, she wasn't pushing him away, she was pulling him towards her. 'That's it, yes, yes, that's it!' she was crying out.

Annie straightened up in horror. She couldn't believe what she had seen. She started to run down the lane. When passing Number 16 she could hear the noise coming from Brian's party. But she didn't stop. She didn't want to go in knowing what she knew now. She couldn't bear them all expecting her to be normal. Things would never be the same again and she could never tell anybody. On she ran, tears blinding her eyes until, just as she was getting to the main road and back to normality, she fell, one of those unexpected falls where the earth just jumped up to meet you with a thud.

It winded her totally and she had trouble in getting her breath. When she struggled to stand she saw she had grazed both knees which were bleeding as well as her arm. She leaned against the wall of the end house and sobbed as if her heart would break.

Colm heard the noise and came out. 'Annie, what happened?' No reply, just heaving shoulders. 'Annie, I'll run and get your mother.'

'No. Please don't. Please, Colm.'

Colm wasn't like other grown-ups, he didn't always automatically know what was best for you. 'Okay, but look at you… you've had a horrible fall, let me see.' He held her arm gently. 'No, it's only the skin, what about your knees? Don't you look at them, I'll examine them without touching, and I'll report to you.'

Annie stood there while he knelt down and studied them. Eventually he said, 'Lots of blood but I don't think you need a stitch. Let me walk you home, Annie.'

She shook her head. 'No. Brian's having a party, I don't want to go home.'

Colm took this on board. 'If you like you could come into my house, into the bathroom and wash your poor knees. I'll be in the restaurant out of your way but there if you need me, and you could come in and out and I'll give you a nice lemonade or whatever you like.' He smiled at her.

It worked. 'Yes, I'd like that, Colm.'

Together they went in, and he showed her the bathroom.

'There's a whole lot of face-cloths there, and if you put a little Dettol in the water…' She seemed helpless, unsure of how to start. 'If you like I could dab them for you, take any grit out?'

'I don't know…'

'Yes, sometimes it's easier if you do it yourself. Would I stay here on this chair while you do it, and tell you if I see more bits that need to be done?'

He got the first smile. 'That would be great.' He watched while the child touched her knee tentatively with the diluted disinfectant, and wiped away all the grit and earth. It was only a surface scratch, the bleeding was slight. 'I can't reach my elbow, will you do that, Colm?'

Gently he cleaned her arm and handed her a big fluffy towel. 'Now, pat it dry.'

'There might be spots of blood on the towel.' She looked anxious.

'All the more work for Gertie's launderette then,' he smiled.

They went into the cool dark bar of his restaurant. At the bar there were four high stools. He gestured her to one of them. 'Now, Miss Lynch, what's your pleasure?' he said.

'What do you think is nice, Colm?'

'Well, they say that in times of shock something with a lot of sugar is good. In fact they always recommend hot, sweet tea.'

'Ugh,' said Annie.

'I know, that's my view too. I'll tell you… what I always have is a St Clement's. It's a mixture of orange and lemon. How does that sound?'

'Great. I'd like that,' said Annie. 'Do you not drink real drinks then?'

'No, you see they don't agree with me. Something to do with my personality or metabolism or whatever… it's not clear exactly what causes it but they don't suit me.'

'How did you find out they didn't suit you?'

'I got a few little hints like once I started I couldn't stop.' He smiled wryly.

'Like drugs?' Annie asked.

'Just like drugs. So I had to stop altogether.'

'Do you miss not being able to drink real drinks, at parties and things?' Annie was interested.

'Do I miss it? No. I don't miss the way I was, which was out of control, I'm very glad not to be like that. But I suppose I wish I was the way other people are—you know, having a nice glass of wine or two of an evening, a couple of beers on a summer day. But I'm not able to stop after that so I can't start.' Annie looked sympathetic. 'However, there are lots of things I can do that others can't,' Colm said cheerfully. 'I can make wonderful sauces and great desserts that would take the sight out of your eyes.'

'Brian's awful friends want ice creams in silver-paper wrappers! Imagine!' Annie said disparagingly.

'I know. Isn't it disgusting!' Colm said, and they both began to laugh. Annie's laugh had a slightly hysterical tinge in it.

'Nothing happened out in the lane to make you fall, did it?' Colm asked.

The child's expression was guarded. 'No. Why?'

'No reason. Listen, will I walk home with you now?'

'I'm all right really, Colm.'

'Of course you are, don't we know that? But I have to go for a walk every day, all chefs must, it's a kind of rule, stops them getting big stomachs that keep falling into their saucepans.'

Annie laughed. It wasn't possible to think of Colm Barry having a tummy like that. He was nearly as slim as Dad. They set off together. Just as they came to the gate they saw Rosemary Ryan unloading the ice creams in a cool-bag from the back of her car. Annie stiffened. Colm noticed but said nothing.

'Heavens, Annie, what a terrible cut! Did you fall?'

'Yes.'

'She's okay now,' Colm said.

'It looks dreadful, where did it happen?'

'On the road in front of Colm's restaurant,' Annie said quickly.

Colm was surprised.

'And Colm came to your rescue.' Rosemary always smiled at Colm flirtatiously though it never did her any good.

'Exactly. I can't have people falling down in front of my premises. Bad for business,' he joked.

'You were lucky you didn't fall in front of the traffic.' Rosemary had lost interest in it, now she was hauling out the boxes of ice creams. They could hear the shouting and screaming of Brian's friends from the back garden. 'My public is waiting for me and the ice cream,' Rosemary laughed. 'I think we know which they are waiting for more.' She moved ahead of them through the basement and out to the back.

'Thanks, Colm.'

'Don't mention it.'

'It's just that it's… well, it's nobody's business really where I fell, is it?'

'Absolutely not.'

She felt he was owed some kind of explanation. 'I was looking for a cat, you see. I thought if I got a kitten and sort of kept it secretly for a bit… you know?'

'I know.' Colm was grave.

'So thanks for all the St Clement's and everything.'

'I'll see you round, Annie.'

Gran was terrific, she had kept sausages for Annie. 'I couldn't find you so I put them in the oven to keep warm.'

'You're great. Where are they all?'

'They're about to have the cake, Lady Ryan arranged sparklers.'

'Mam hates it when you call her that.' Annie giggled and then she winced at the pain in her elbow.

Her grandmother was full of concern. 'Let me wash that for you.'

'It's okay, Gran, it's done, Dettol and all. Look at Aunty Hilary with all those awful boys.'

'She loves them, she's brought a big dartboard where you throw rings on. There's fierce competition.'

'What's the prize?'

'Oh some game, Hilary knows what electronic games children of that age want from being up at the school, you know.'

'Why didn't Aunty Hilary have any children, Gran?'

'The Lord didn't send her any, that's all.'

'The Lord doesn't send children, Gran, you know that.'

'No not directly, but indirectly He does, and in your Aunty Hilary's case He just didn't.'

'Maybe she didn't like mating,' Annie said thoughtfully.

'What?' Nora Johnson was at a loss for words, which was very unlike her.

'Maybe she decided not to go through the whole business of getting them, like cats and rabbits you know. There must be some people who just don't like the thought of it.'

'Not many,' her grandmother said drily.

'I bet that's it, you could ask her.'

'It's not the thing you ask people, Annie, believe me.'

'I do, Gran, I know you couldn't ask her. There are some things you don't talk about at all, you just put away at the back of your mind. Isn't that right?'

'Absolutely right,' her grandmother said with enormous relief.

Later on the parents of Brian's friends came to collect their sons, and they stood in the warm summer evening in the back garden of Tara Road while the boys played and pummelled on, tiring themselves and each other out for bedtime. Annie watched her mother and father stand there in the centre of the group, passing around a tray of wine and little smoked salmon sandwiches. Dad's arm was around Mam's shoulder a lot of the time. Ria knew from the girls at school that parents still want to be with each other and make love and all that, even when they didn't want children. It seemed such an unlikely thing to want to do. Horrible even.

There was much sympathy about the grazed knee, and when she went to bed, Mam came into her room. She sat in Annie's big armchair, moving the furry toy animals out of the way.

'You've been very quiet all afternoon and evening, Annie. Are those knees all right?'

'Fine, Mam, don't fuss.'

'I'm not fussing, I'm just sorry for your poor old knees and your elbow too. Like you would be if I fell.'

'I know, Mam. Sorry. You weren't fussing, but I'm fine.'

'And how did it happen?'

'I was running, I told you.'

'It's not like you to fall, you're such a graceful girl. When Hilary and I were your age we were falling all the time, but you never do. I think it's because your dad calls you a princess you decided to behave like one.'

Her mother's look was so fond and warm that Annie reached out for her hand. 'Thanks, Mam,' she said, eyes full.

'I was so exhausted out there today, Annie, with those tomboys. Honestly they're like young bullocks head-butting each other, not like children at all. When I think what an ease it's always been to have your friends, but that's the difference between the sexes for you. Would you like a hot drink? You've had a bad shock today.'

'What do you mean?' Annie's eyes were wary.

'The fall, it jars the system even at your age.'

'Oh that. No, no I'm fine.'

Ria kissed her daughter's flushed face and closed the door. She had spoken only the truth, it had been a killing day. But then wasn't she so well off compared to everyone else? Her mother going home alone with that absurd little dog. Hilary crossing the city with her dartboard in a big carrier bag to a man who wouldn't hold her in his arms any more because they couldn't make children. Gertie facing who knew what horrors in the flat above the launderette. Rosemary alone in that marble palace of a penthouse.

While she, Ria, had everything she could ever have wanted.

CHAPTER THREE

Sometimes they saw mothers and daughters together in the shops. Talking normally, holding up a skirt or a dress. Nodding or frowning but concerned. Like friends. One going into a cubicle to try something on, the other holding four more outfits outside. Perhaps they weren't real people, Ria told herself. Maybe they were actresses or from advertising. Judging from the eleven confrontations she had had with her own daughter in an hour and a half it was very hard to believe that any teenager and her mother would go shopping together from choice. These other people were only playing at being Happy Families. Surely?

Annie had this gift token from her grandmother. It was for more money than she had ever spent before on clothes. Up to now Annie had only bought shoes, jeans and T-shirts on her own. But this was different, it was for something to wear for all the parties this summer. It had seemed normal for Ria to go with her and help her choose. It had even seemed like fun. That was some hours ago. Now it seemed like the most foolish thing either of them had ever done in their lives.

When Annie had looked at something with leather and chains, Ria had gasped aloud. 'I knew you were going to be like that, I knew it in my bones,' Annie cried.

'No, I mean, it's just… I thought…' Ria was wordless.

'What did you think? Go on, Mam, say what you thought, don't just stand there gulping.' Annie's face was red and angry.

Ria was not going to say that she thought the outfit was like an illustration in a magazine article called 'Sado-Masochistic Wardrobe Unearthed'. 'Why don't you try it on?' she said weakly.

'If you think I'm going to put it on now that I've seen your face, and let you make fun of me…'

'Annie, I'm not making fun of you. We don't know what it looks like until you put it on, maybe it's…'

'Oh Mam, for God's sake.'

'But I mean it, and it's your token.'

'I know it is. Gran gave it to me to buy something I liked, not some awful revolting thing with a butch tartan waistcoat like you want me to wear.'

'No, no. Be reasonable, Annie, I haven't steered you towards anything at all, have I?'

'Well, what are you here for then, Mam? Answer me that. If you have nothing to suggest, what are you doing? What are we doing here?'

'Well, I thought we were looking…'

'But you never look. You never look at anything or anyone, otherwise you wouldn't wear the kind of clothes you do.'

'Look, I know you don't want the same clothes as I do.'

'Nobody wants the same clothes as you do, Mam, honestly. I mean, have you thought about it for one minute?'

Ria looked in one of the many mirrors around. She saw reflected a flushed angry teenager, slim with straight blonde hair, holding what appeared to be a bondage garment. Beside her was a tired-looking woman with a great head of frizzy hair tumbling on to her shoulders, and a black V-neck sweater worn over a flowing black-and-white skirt. She had put on comfortable flat shoes for shopping. This was not a day when Ria had rushed thoughtlessly out of the house, she had remembered the mirrors that came on you suddenly in dress shops. She had combed her hair, put on make-up and even rubbed shoe cream into her shoes and handbag. It had all looked fine in the hall mirror before they had left Tara Road. It didn't look great here.

'I mean, it's not even as if you were really old,' Ria's daughter Annie said. 'Lots of people your age haven't given up.'

With great difficulty Ria forced herself not to take her daughter by the hair and drag her from the shop. Instead she looked thoughtfully back into the mirror. She was thirty-seven. How old did she look? Thirty-five? That's all. Her curly hair made her young, she didn't look forty or anything. But then what did she know?

'Oh Mam, stop sucking in your cheeks and making silly faces, you look ridiculous.' When had it happened, whatever it was that made Annie hate her, scorn her? They used to get on so well.

Ria made one more superhuman effort. 'Listen we mustn't talk about me, it's your treat, your gran wants you to get something nice and suitable.'

'No she doesn't, Mam. Do you never listen? She said I was to get whatever I wanted, she never said one word about it being suitable.'

'I meant…'

'You mean anything that would look well on a poodle at a dog show.' Annie turned away with tears in her eyes.

Near by a woman and her daughter were looking through a rail of shirts. 'They must have a pink one,' the girl was saying excitedly. 'Come on, we'll ask the assistant. You look terrific in pink. Then we'll go and have a coffee.'

They seemed an ordinary mother and daughter, not just a couple sent over by central casting to depress real people. Ria turned away so that nobody could see the tears of envy in her eyes.

Danny had organised the people to deliver the sander at eleven o'clock. Ria wanted to be home to greet them. It was such a peculiar idea, to take up their carpets and bring out the beauty of the wooden floors. They didn't look a bit beautiful to her, full of nails and discoloration. But Danny knew about these things, she accepted this. His work and his skill was selling houses to people who knew everything, and these people knew that exposed wooden floors and carefully chosen rugs were good, while wall-to-wall carpeting was bad, and obviously concealed unmerciful horrors beneath. You could rent a sander for a weekend and walk around behind it while it juddered and peeled off the worst bit of your floor. That was what lay ahead today and tomorrow.

Would Annie think she was sulking if she left her now? Would she be relieved? 'Annie, you know your father arranged that this sanding machine come today?' she began tentatively.

'Mam, I'm not spending the weekend doing that, it's not fair.' 'No, no, of course not, I wasn't going to suggest it. I was going to say I should go home and be there when they arrive, but I don't want to abandon you.' Annie stared at her wordlessly. 'Not that I'm much help, really. I'm inclined to get confused when I see a lot of clothes together.’ Ria said.

Annie's face changed. Suddenly she reached out and gave her mother an unexpected hug. 'You're not the worst, Mam,' she said grudgingly. From Annie this was high, high praise these days.

Ria went home with a lighter heart.

Ria had just got in the door of her house in Tara Road when she heard the gate rattle and the familiar cry: 'Ree-ya, Ree-ya'. A call known all over the area, as regular as the Angelus or the sound of the ice-cream van. It was her mother and the dog, the misshapen and unsettled animal Pliers, a dog never at ease in Ria and Danny's home in Tara Road, but because of circumstances forced to spend a lot of his disturbed life there. Ria's mother was always going somewhere where dogs weren't allowed, and Pliers pined if left at home alone. Pliers yowled in Ria's house, but for some reason this was not regarded as pining and was considered preferable.

Ria's mother never came in unannounced or uninvited. She had made a great production out of this from the time she had moved to the little house near them. Never assume that you are automatically welcome in your children's homes. That was her motto, she always said. It seemed a loveless kind of motto and also totally inappropriate since she called unannounced and uninvited almost every day at Ria and Danny's house. She thought that this shout at the gate was somehow enough warning and preparation. Today reminded Ria of being back at school when her mother would come to the playground or to the park where her pals had gathered, always calling 'Ree-ya'. Her school friends used to take up the cry. And now here she was, a middle-aged woman and nothing had changed, her mother still calling her name as if it were some kind of a war cry.

'Come in, Mam.' She tried to put a welcome in her voice. The dog would worry at the sanding machine when it arrived and bark at it, then he would set up one of his yowls so plaintively that they would assume his paw had been trapped in it. Of all days to have to babysit Pliers this must be one of the worst.

Nora Johnson bustled in, sure as always of her welcome. Hadn't she called out from the gate to say she was on her way? 'There was a young pup on the bus, asked me for my bus pass. I said to him to keep a civil tongue in his head.' Ria wondered why her mother, such a known dog lover, always used the word pup as a term of abuse. There were pups everywhere these days, in shops, driving vans, hanging about.

'What was so bad about him asking you that?'

'How dare he assume that I am at the age to have a bus pass? There's no way that he should think with only half a look out of his slits of eyes that I am a pensioner.' Of course Ria's mother despite her lemon-coloured linen suit and black polka-dot scarf looked exactly the age she was, the young pup on the bus had just been thoughtless. At his age he assumed everyone over forty was geriatric. But there was no point in trying to explain any of this to her mother. Ria busied herself getting out the tray of shortbread she had made the night before. The coffee mugs were ready. Soon the kitchen would be full of people, the men with the sanding machine, Danny wanting to learn how it worked, Brian and some of his school friends; there was always something on offer to eat in the Lynches' kitchen, unlike their own. Annie might be back with some amazing outfit and Kitty Sullivan whom she had met in the shopping mall.

Rosemary always came in on a Saturday, and sometimes Gertie escaped from the flat over the launderette. Gertie came twice a week to do the cleaning, it was a professional arrangement. But she could drop in socially on a Saturday. There would always be an excuse, she had left something behind or she wanted to check the times for next week.

Colm Barry might come in with vegetables. Every Saturday he brought them in armfuls of whatever he had collected. Sometimes he even scrubbed big earth-covered parsnips and carrots, or trimmed spinach for them. Ria made soups and casseroles with the freshest produce possible, all grown with no effort a few feet away from her own kitchen.

Other people came and went. Ria Lynch's kitchen was a place with a welcome. So unlike the way things had been when Ria was young herself and nobody was allowed out to their kitchen, a dark murky place with its torn linoleum on the floor. Visitors weren't really encouraged to come to her mother's house at all. Her mother and, from what she could remember, her father also were restless people, unable to relax themselves and incapable of seeing that others might want to.

Even when her mother visited her here in Tara Road she hardly ever settled, she was constantly rattling keys or struggling out of or into coats, just arriving or about to leave, unable to give in to the magic of this warm, inviting place.

It had been the same in Danny's family. His mother and father had sat in their very functional farmhouse kitchen drinking mug after mug of tea and welcoming no disturbance. Their sons grew up out of doors or in their own rooms, and lived their own lives. To this day Danny's parents lived that kind of life; they didn't mix with neighbours or friends, they held no family gatherings. Ria looked around with pride at her big cheerful kitchen where there was always life and company, and where she presided over everything at its heart.

Danny never noticed Nora Johnson's key rattling, nor was he irritated by the way she called from the gate. He seemed delighted to see his mother-in-law when he came into the kitchen and gave her a big hug. He wore a blue sports shirt that he had bought for himself when he was in London . It was the kind of thing that Ria would never have chosen for him in a million years, yet she had to admit it made him look impossibly young like a handsome schoolboy. Perhaps she was the worst in the world at choosing clothes. She tugged uneasily at the floppy black top that Annie had mocked.

'Holly, I know why you're here, you came to help with the sanding,' Danny said. 'Not only do you give our daughter a small fortune for clothes but now you're coming to help us do the floors.'

'I did not, Daniel. I came to leave poor Pliers with you for an hour. They're so intolerant down at St Rita's, they won't allow a dog inside the door, and isn't it just what those old people there need, four-legged company! But those young pups of doctors say it's unhygienic, or that they'd fall over animals. Typical.'

'But it's our gain to have Pliers here. Hallo, fellow.' Could Danny really like the terrible hound, about to open his mouth and drown everything with his wail? Pliers' teeth were stained and yellow, there were flecks of foam around his mouth. Danny looked at him with what definitely seemed like affection. But then so much of Danny's life depended on being polite to those who wanted to buy or sell property, it was hard to know when he was being genuinely enthusiastic or faking it. His was not a world where you said what you thought too positively.

Ria's mother had downed her coffee and was on her way. She had become very involved in the whole life of St Rita's, the retirement home at Number 68. Hilary was convinced that their mother was actually ready to book herself in as a resident. Nora had taught Annie to play bridge and sometimes took her granddaughter along to St Rita's to join in the game. Annie said it was marvellous fun, the old people were as noisy as anyone at school and had just the same kind of feuds and squabbles. Annie reported that everyone in the home held Granny in high regard. Of course, compared to them Granny was very young.

Nora said it was only sensible to examine the options about ageing. She dropped many hints that Ria should do the same; one day she too would be old and on her own, she would be sorry then that she hadn't given more time to the elderly. It wasn't as if she had any real work to go out to like other people, she had plenty of time on her hands.

'You must drive the old fellows mad down in St Rita's, a young spring chicken like yourself in lemon coming in to dazzle them,' Danny said.

'Go on with your flattery, Danny.' But Nora Johnson loved it.

'I mean it, Holly, you'd take the sight out of their eyes,' Danny teased her. Pleased, his mother-in-law patted her hair and bustled out again, smart and trim in her suit. 'Your mother's wearing well,' Danny said. 'We'd be lucky to look as spry at her age.'

'I'm sure we will. And aren't you like a boy rather than a man free-wheeling down to forty,' Ria laughed. But Danny didn't laugh back. That had been the wrong thing to say. He was thirty-seven going on thirty-eight. Foolish Ria, to have made a joke that annoyed him. She pretended not to have noticed her mistake. 'And look at me, you said that when you met me first you took a good look at my mother before you let yourself fancy me—women always turn into their mothers, you said.' Ria was babbling a lot but she wanted to take that strained look off his face.

'Did I say that?' He sounded surprised.

'Yes, you did. You must remember?'

'No.'

Ria wished she hadn't begun this, he seemed confused and not at all flattered by her total recall. 'I must ring Rosemary,' she said suddenly.

'Why?'

The real reason was so that she didn't have to stand alone with him in the kitchen with a feeling of dread that she was boring him, irritating him. 'To see is she coming round,' Ria said brightly.

'She's always coming round,' said Danny. 'Like half the world.' He seemed to say that in mock impatience but Ria knew he loved it all, the busy, warm, laughing life of their kitchen in Tara Road, so different to the loveless house where he had grown up in the country, with the crows cawing to each other in the trees outside.

Danny was as happy here as she was: it was the life of their dreams. It was a pity they were so tired and rushed that they had not been making love as often as they used to, but this was just because there was so much happening at the moment. Things would be back to normal soon enough.

Rosemary wanted to know all about the shopping expedition when she arrived. 'It's wonderful seeing them coming into their own,' she said. 'Knowing what they want, and defining their style.' She didn't sit down, she prowled around the kitchen picking up bits of pottery and looking at the name underneath, fingering the strings of onions on the wall, reading the recipe taped to the fridge, examining everything and vaguely admiring it all.

She clutched her mug of black coffee with such gratitude you would think that nobody had ever handed her one before in her life. Naturally she waved away the shortbread, she had just stood up from a disgustingly huge breakfast she said, even though her slim hips and girlish figure showed anyone that this was unlikely to have been the truth. Rosemary wore smart well-cut jeans and a white silk shirt, what she called weekend clothes. Her hair was freshly done, the salon's first client every Saturday morning week in week out. Rosemary always sighed enviously over those people who could go any day of the week, lucky people like Ria who didn't go out to work.

Rosemary now owned the printing company. She had won a Small Business Award. If she were not her longest-standing best friend Ria could have choked her. She seemed to be the actual proof that a woman could do everything and look terrific as well. But then, she and Rosemary went back a long way. She had been there the very day Ria had met Danny, for heaven's sake. She had listened to all the dramas over the years, as Ria had listened to hers. They had very few secrets.

In fact Gertie was the only subject where they really differed.

'You're only encouraging her to think her lifestyle is normal by giving her tenners for that drunk.'

'She's not going to leave him. You could put all kinds of work her way, I wish you would,' Ria pleaded.

'No, Ria, can't you see you're making the situation worse? If Gertie thinks you go along with this business of her head being like a punchbag and her terrified children living up in her mother's house, then you're just making sure the whole scene goes on and on. Suppose you said one day "Enough is enough", it would bring her to her senses, give her courage.'

'No it wouldn't, it would only make her feel she hadn't one friend left on earth.'

Rosemary would sigh. They agreed on so much, the sheer impossibility of mothers, the problems with sisters, the wisdom of living in the lovely tree-lined Tara Road. And Rosemary had always been incredibly supportive to Ria, about everything. Too many other women told Ria straight out that they would go mad if they didn't have a job to go to and money that they earned themselves. Rosemary never did that, any more than she would ask Ria, like other working wives often did, 'What do you do all day?' especially in front of Danny.

For the last five years of course Annie and Brian didn't need as much minding, but somehow the thought of a job outside the home had not really been a serious one. And anyway, realistically, what job could Ria have done? There was no real training or qualification to fall back on. Better far to keep the show on the road here. Ria rarely felt defensive about being a stay-at-home wife, and she genuinely felt that it must be a good life if Rosemary, who had everything that it was possible to have in life, said she envied her.

'Well go on, Ria, tell me, what did she buy?' Rosemary really thought it had been fun and that Annie and she had agreed and bought something.

'I'm no good at knowing what to look for, where to point her,' Ria said, biting her lip.

She thought she saw a small flash of impatience in Rosemary's face. 'Of course you are. Haven't you all the time in the world to look around shops?'

Then the van containing the sander arrived and the men who delivered it were offered coffee, and ten-year-old Brian, looking as if he had been sent out as child labourer digging in a builder's site instead of having just got out of bed, came in with his two even scruffier friends, scooping up cans of Coke and shortbread to take upstairs. And Gertie, with her big anxious eyes and some rambling explanation about how she hadn't cleaned the copper saucepan yesterday, began to scrub at its base which meant that she needed a loan of at least five pounds.

Pliers whined and there on cue was Ria's mother back unexpectedly from St Rita's. They hadn't told her that there was a funeral there that morning so she wasn't needed after all. And Colm Barry knocked on the window to show Ria that he was leaving her a large basket of vegetables. She waved him in to join the group and felt the customary surge of pride at being the centre of such a happy home. She saw Danny standing at the kitchen door watching everything. He was so boyish and handsome, why had she made that silly remark about him approaching forty?

Still he had got over it, it had passed. His face didn't look troubled now, he just stood there watching almost as if he were an objective observer, as if he were an outsider, someone viewing it all for the first time.

They all took turns at doing the floors, and it wasn't as easy as it looked. Not just a matter of standing behind a machine that knew its own mind, you had to steer it and point it and negotiate corners and heavy objects. Danny supervised it, full of enthusiasm. This was going to change the house, he said. Ria felt an unexpected shiver in her back. The house was wonderful, why did he want to change it?

Ria's mother wouldn't stay for lunch. 'I don't care how many tons of vegetables you say that Colm left out for you, I know what troubles result from people moving in on top of other people. Sit down with your own family, Ria, and look after that husband of yours. It's a miracle that you've held on to him so long. I've always said that you were born lucky to catch a man like Danny Lynch when all was said and done.'

'Now, Holly, stop giving me a swollen head, I'm a very mixed blessing let me tell you. Here, if you really won't stay let me get you some of Colm's tomatoes to take with you. I can just see you serving delicate thin tomato sandwiches and vodka martinis to gentlemen callers all afternoon.'

Nora Johnson pealed with laughter. 'Oh, chance would be a fine thing, but I will take some of those tomatoes to get them out of your way.' Ria's mother could never take anything that was offered to her graciously, she would only accept something if there was an air of doing you a favour about it.

Rosemary was disappointed that there were no clothes to examine. She wondered had they caught sight of the gorgeous scarlet outfit in the corner window just where the two streets joined? No? Absolutely heavenly, no good for people of our age, Rosemary said, patting her own flat stomach, but great for someone like Annie who had a figure like an angel and wasn't getting droppy and droopy like the rest of us. Rosemary must have known that she wasn't getting droppy and droopy. She must have.

Brian and his friends Dekko and Myles had a problem. They had been going to watch a match on cable television up in Dekko's house but there was a new baby and so the television couldn't be put on.

'Can't you watch it here?' Ria had asked.

Brian looked at her, embarrassed. 'No. Do you not understand anything? We can't watch it here.'

'But of course you can. It's your home as much as Dad's and mine, you can take a tray into the sitting room.'

Brian's face was purple trying to explain. 'We don't have it here, Ma, we don't have cable like Dekko's family.'

Ria remembered. There had been a long argument some months ago, she and Danny had said the children already watched too much television.

'Not that it's any good having it now,' Dekko said glumly. 'Not if we can't turn it on because of the awful baby.'

'Come on, Dekko, a little brother can't be awful,' Ria said.

'It is, Mrs. Lynch, it's disgusting and embarrassing. What on earth did they have to have one for after all these years? I'm ten, for heaven's sake.' The boys shook their heads and began to debate the possibilities of getting an extension lead to add to the flex. If they moved it twelve feet outside the house and kept the sound down lowish, would that do? Dekko was doubtful. His mother had gone ballistic about this desperate baby.

This was not good news for Ria. She had been thinking long and hard about their having another child. The estate agency was now going from strength to strength. Danny had been made Auctioneer of the Year. They were still young, they had a big house; another baby was just what she had been hoping they might consider.

The copper saucepan was gleaming. Gertie showed it proudly to Ria. 'You could look at your face in it, Ria, and it would be better than a mirror.'

Ria wondered why anyone would want to lift a huge saucepan to look at a reflection but didn't say so. Neither did she say anything about the bruise down the side of Gertie's face, a dark mark that she was trying to hide with her hair. 'My goodness, it's shining like gold. You are so good to come in on a Saturday, Gertie.' The routine was that Ria would now offer the money and Gertie would refuse, but then take it. It was a matter of dignity, and that was the way they played it now.

But not today. 'You know why I did.'

'Well, I mean it's still very good of you.' Ria reached for her handbag, surprised by the directness.

'Ria, we both know I'm desperate. Can I have ten pounds, please? I'll work it all off next week.'

'Don't give it to him, Gertie.'

Gertie held back her hair until Ria could see the long red scab of a cut. 'Please, Ria.'

'He'll only do it again. Leave him, it's the only thing.'

'And go where, tell me that? Where could I go with two kids?'

'Change the locks, get a barring order.'

'Ria, I'm on my knees to you, he's waiting on the road.'

Ria gave her the ten pounds.

From the hall Ria could hear Annie speaking to her friend Kitty. 'No, of course we didn't get anything, what do you think? Just standing there gasping, eyes rolling up to heaven, you're not going to wear this, you're not going to wear that… no, not actually saying it but written all over her face… It was gross I tell you. No, I'm not going to get anything at all, I swear it's the easiest. It's not worth the hassle. I don't know what I'll tell Gran though, she's so generous and she doesn't mind what I wear.'

Ria looked for Danny. Just to be with him for a moment would make her feel better, it might mean a return of some of the strength and confidence that seemed to be seeping out of her. He was bent slightly over the sanding machine, his body juddering with it as it ground through to the good wood he wanted to expose. He was totally involved in it and yet there was something about him that seemed as if he were doing it for somebody else. As if he had been asked by one of his clients to improve a property.

Ria found her hand going to her throat and wondered was she getting flu. This was a marvellous Saturday morning in Tara Road. Why was everything upsetting her? Ria wondered what would happen if she were to write to a problem page? Or talk to a counsellor? Would the advice be that she should go out and get a job? Yes, that would on the face of it be a very reasonable response. Outside people would think that a job took your mind off things, less time to brood, might make you feel a bit more independent, important. It would seem like nit-picking to explain that it wasn't the answer. Ria had a job. There was no sense in going out somewhere every morning just for the sake of it, to make some point. And Danny had often said that a working wife would play hell with his tax situation. And there were ways that the children needed a home presence more than ever at this stage.

And her mother needed her to be there when she came in every day. And Gertie did, not just for the few pounds she earned from cleaning but for the solidarity. And who would do the charity work if Ria were to have a full-time job? It had nothing to do with smart fund-raising lunches like some middle-class women spent their time organising. This was real work, serving in a shop selling things to make money, turning up at the hospital to mind the toddlers whose mothers were being told they had breast cancer. It was collecting old clothes, storing them in the garage then getting them dry-cleaned at a cheap bulk rate, it was finding containers and making chutneys and sauces, it was standing outside the supermarket for four hours with a flag tin.

And the house itself needed her. Danny had said so often that she was a one-person line of defence, rooting out woodworm, fighting damp, dry rot. And suppose, just suppose that getting a job was the answer, what job would she do? The very mention of the Internet sent a chill through Ria. She would have to learn basic keyboard skills and how to work office machinery before she could even ask for a job as some kind of receptionist.

Perhaps the empty anxious feeling would go. Maybe the solution had nothing to do with looking for a job. The answer could be as old as time. It was simply that she was broody.

She wanted another baby, a little head cradled at her breast, two trusting eyes looking up at her, Danny at her side. It wasn't a ridiculous notion, it was exactly what they needed. Despite the scorn and ridicule from Brian and his friends, it was time to have another baby.

They were having dinner with Rosemary. Tonight it was not a party, there were just the three of them. Ria knew what would be served: a chilled soup, grilled fish and salad. Fruit and cheese afterwards, served by the big picture window that looked out on to the large well-lit roof garden.

Rosemary's apartment, Number 32 Tara Road, was worth a small fortune now, Danny always said, and of course immaculately kept. With the success of Rosemary's company there was no shortage of money and even though she was not a serious cook like Ria, Rosemary could always put an elegant meal on the table without any apparent effort.

Ria would know of course how much had come directly from the delicatessen, but nobody else would. When people praised the delicious brown bread Rosemary would just smile. And it was always arranged so well. Grapes and figs tumbling around on some cool modernistic tray, a huge tall blue glass jug of iced water, white tulips in a black vase. Stylish beyond anyone's dreams. Modern jazz at a low volume on the player, and Rosemary dressed as if she were going out to a premiere. Ria was constantly amazed at her energy and her high standards.

She walked with Danny along Tara Road. Sometimes she wished he didn't speculate so much about what the retail value of each house was. But then that was his business. It was only natural. As they had said to each other so often, this road stood out alone in Dublin . Any other street was either up-market or down-market, this was the exception. There were houses in Tara Road which changed hands for fortunes. There were dilapidated terraces, each house having several bedsitters where the dustbins and the bicycles spelled out shabby rented property. There were red-brick middle-class houses where civil servants and bank officials had lived for generations; there were more and more houses like their own, places that had been splendid once and were gradually coming back to the elegance that they had previously known.

There was a row of shops down by the launderette on the corner where Gertie lived, the shops getting gradually smarter as the years went by. There was Colm Barry's smart restaurant in its own grounds. There were little places like her mother's which defied description and definition.

Every time Ria came in the gate of Number 32 she marvelled at how elegant the whole front looked. Her thought processes went in exactly the same well-travelled channels. She would love their house to have a big expansive welcoming area like this, a place where more than one car could park, where everything seemed to sweep up towards the door, flowers getting taller and turning into bushes as they approached the granite steps. As if the house was some kind of temple. In their own house there was no air of permanency. It was as if the whole place could be dismantled in minutes. True, a few years back Danny had agreed to some small rockeries and a basic tarmacadam on the surface. But compared to Number 32 theirs was absolutely nothing.

Nobody would imagine that anyone in Number 32 would ever build flats or anything in their drive, but that could easily happen in the Lynch establishment the way it looked now. Danny had said several times that this just added to the charm, mystery and value of their property. Ria had said the money value of your property was only important when you came to sell it, otherwise the value was surely only what made you feel good while you lived there. They talked about this from time to time but it was one of the rare subjects where Ria had never been able to communicate how strongly she felt about it all. This business of wanting to make a more definite permanent entrance to the house always sounded superficial. It came out as nagging or envying what someone else had just for the sake of it.

Ria liked to think that she was able to know what was really important and what wasn't. She would use all her powers of persuasion in suggesting that Danny should be a father again. A garden was much lower on the list of priorities and she didn't want to hassle him about everything. He had been looking tired and pale lately. He worked too hard.

Ria looked around her as Rosemary went out to get them their drinks. This was a truly perfect setting for her friend. No sign whatsoever that the owner was a shrewd businesswoman. Rosemary kept all her files and work at the office. Tara Road was for relaxing in. And it looked as pristine as the day she had moved in. The paintwork was not scuffed, the furniture had not known the wear and tear of the young. Ria noticed that there were art books and magazines arranged on a low table. They wouldn't remain there long in her house, they would be covered with someone's homework or jacket or tennis shoes or the evening newspaper. Always Ria felt that Rosemary's house didn't really feel like a home. More like something you would photograph for a magazine.

She was about to say that to Danny as they walked home along Tara Road, peering in at the other houses as they passed by and, as always, congratulating themselves on having been so clever as to buy in this area when they were young and desperate. But Danny spoke first. 'I love going to that house,' he said unexpectedly. 'It's so calm and peaceful, there are no demands on you.'

Ria looked at him walking with his jacket half over his shoulder in the warm spring evening, his hair falling into his eyes as always, no barber had ever been able to deal with it. Why did he like the feel of Rosemary's apartment? It wasn't Danny's taste at all. Much too spare. It was probably just because it was valuable. You couldn't spend all your working day dealing with property prices and not get affected by those kinds of values and standards. Deep down Danny wanted a house with warm colours and full of people.

If they had been having Rosemary to dinner tonight it would have been seven or eight people around the kitchen table. The children would have come in and out with their friends. Gertie might have come to help serve and eventually joined them at the table. There would be music in the background, the telephone ringing, possibly Clement the inquisitive cat would come in and examine the guest-list, people would shout and interrupt each other. There would be large bottles of wine already open at each end of the table, a big fish chowder filled with mussels to start, and large prawns, and thick chunky bread. A roast as main course and at least two desserts. Ria always made a wonderful treacle tart that no one could resist. That was the kind of evening they all enjoyed. Not something that could have been part of a tasteful French movie.

But it was a silly thing to argue about and it might seem as if she were trying to praise herself so Ria, as she did so often, took the point of view she thought would please him. She tucked her arm into Danny's and said he was right. It had been nice to be able to sit and talk in such a relaxed way. Nothing about thinking that Rosemary had dressed and made up as if she were going to a television interview rather than to welcome Danny and Ria, probably the people closest to her.

'We're lucky we have such good friends and neighbours,' she said with a sigh of pleasure. That much she meant. As they turned in to their own garden they saw that the light was on in the sitting room.

'They're still up.' Danny sounded pleased.

'I hope they are nothing of the sort, it's nearly one o'clock.'

'Well, if it's not the children then we have burglars.' Danny sounded not at all worried. Burglars would hardly be watching television and waiting for the occupants to return.

Ria was annoyed. She had hoped that tonight she and Danny could have a drink together in the kitchen and they might talk about the possibility of another baby. She had her arguments ready in case there was resistance. They had been close tonight, physically anyway, even if she would never understand his pleasure in that cool remote home of Rosemary's. Why did the children have to be up tonight of all nights?

It was Annie, of course, and her friend, Kitty. There had been no mention of Kitty coming around, no request that they could take Ria's bottles of nail varnish to paint each other's toenails or borrow her fitness video which was blaring from the machine. They looked up as if mildly annoyed to see the adults returning to their own home.

'Hi, Lynch,' said Kitty, who rarely acknowledged other women but smiled broadly at any man she saw. Kitty looked like something in a documentary television programme about the dangers of life in a big city. She was waif-thin and had dark circles under her eyes. These were a result of late nights at the disco. Ria knew just how many because Annie had railed at the unfairness of not being able to get similar freedom.

Danny thought she was a funny little thing, a real character. 'Hi Kitty, hi Annie, why look you've painted each toenail a different colour. How marvellous!'

The girls smiled at him, pleased. 'Of course there isn't a great range,' Annie said apologetically. 'No blues and black or anything. Just pink and reds.' Kitty's frown of disapproval was terrible to see.

'Oh I am sorry,' Ria said sarcastically, but somehow it came out all sharp and bitter. She had meant it to be exasperated funny but it sounded wrong. The unfairness of this annoyed her. It was her make-up drawer they had ransacked without permission, and she was meant to be flattered but also to feel inadequate at not having a technicolour choice for them. The girls shrugged and looked at Danny for some kind of back-up. 'Brian in bed?' she asked crisply before Danny said anything that would make it all worse.

'No, he's taken the car, and he and Myles and Dekko have gone out to a few clubs,' Annie said.

'Annie, really.'

'Oh Mam, what do you expect? You don't think Kitty or I know where Brian is, or care, do you?'

Kitty decided to rescue it. 'Now, please don't worry about a thing, Mrs. Lynch, he went to bed at nine o'clock. He's all tucked up and asleep. Really he is.' She managed to cast Ria in the role of a fussing geriatric mother who wasn't all there in the head.

'Of course that's where he is, Ria.' Danny had joined in patting her down.

'Was it a nice night?' Annie asked her father. Not because she wanted to know but because she wanted to punish her mother.

'Lovely. No fussing, no rushing around.'

'Um.' Even in her present mood of doing anything to annoy her mother Annie couldn't appear to see much to enthuse about there.

Ria decided not to notice the angry resentment that Annie felt about everything these days. Like so many things she let it pass. 'Well, I suppose you'll both want to go to bed now. Is Kitty staying the night?'

'It's Saturday, Mam. You do realise there's no school tomorrow.'

'We still have some sit-ups to do.' Kitty's voice was whining, wheedling as if she feared that Mrs. Lynch might strike her a blow.

'You girls don't need sit-ups.' Danny's smile was flattering but yet couldn't be accepted. He was after all a doting and elderly father.

'Oh Dad, but we do.'

'Come here, let's see what does she tell us to do.'

Ria stood with a small hard smile and watched her husband doing a ridiculous exercise to flatten his already flat stomach with two teenagers. They all laughed at each other's attempts as they fell over. She would not join them, nor would she leave them. It was probably only ten minutes yet it felt like two hours. And then there was no warm chat in the kitchen, and no chance of loving when they went upstairs. Danny said he needed a shower. He was so unfit, so out of training these days, a few minutes' mild exercise nearly knocked him out. I'm turning into a real middle-aged tub of lard,' he said.

'No you're not, you're beautiful,' she said to him truthfully, as he took off his clothes and she yearned for him to come straight to bed. But instead he went to shower and came back in pyjamas; there would be no loving tonight. Just before she went to sleep Ria remembered how long it had been since there had been any loving. But she wasn't going to start worrying about that now on top of everything else. It was just that they were busy. Everyone said that's what happened to people for a while, and then it sorted itself out.

On Sunday Danny was gone all day. There were clients looking at the new apartments. They were aiming for a young professional kind of market, Danny had said. The developers had asked why bother having a health club and coffee bar attached unless the young singles could meet similarly-minded people there. He had to go and supervise the whole sales approach. No, he wouldn't be back for lunch.

Brian was going to Dekko's house; there was a christening. Dekko wasn't going to go at all but there would be his grandmother and people from his mum and dad's work there, and apparently it was essential that he be there. For some reason. Anyway it had been agreed that if Myles and Brian and he wore clean shirts and passed round the sandwiches, they would get five pounds each.

'It's a lot of money,' Dekko said solemnly. 'They must be mad investing fifteen pounds in us all being there.'

'I would have thought normal people would have paid us fifteen pounds for us all not to be there,' Brian said.

'Nobody's normal in a house where there's a baby,' Dekko had said sagely and they all sighed.

Annie said that she and Kitty were going to the Career Forum at school and that of course they had told everyone this ages ago, over and over. It was just that nobody ever listened.

'You didn't go to any of the other Career Forums,' her mother protested.

'But those were only about the bank, and insurance and law and awful things.' Annie was amazed that it wasn't clear.

'And what is it this week that you have to go?'

'Well it's real careers, like the music industry and modelling and things.'

'What about your lunch, Annie? I defrosted a whole leg of lamb and now it seems there'll be no one here.'

'Only you, Mam, would think that an old leg of lamb was important compared to someone's whole future.' She banged out of the room in a temper.

Ria rang her mother.

'No, don't be ridiculous, Ria, why would I drop everything and come to eat huge quantities of red meat with you? Why did you defrost it anyway until you knew whether your family was going to be there to eat it? That's you all over, you never think about anything.'

Ria rang Gertie. Jack answered. 'What?'

'Oh… um… Jack, it's Ria Lynch.'

'What do you want? As if I didn't know.'

'Well I wanted to talk to Gertie.'

'Yeah, with a load of feminist advice, I suppose.'

'No, I was going to invite her to lunch, as it happens.'

'Well we can't go.'

'She might be able to go.'

'She's not able to go, Mrs. Burn-your-bra.'

'Perhaps she and I could talk about that, Jack.'

'Perhaps you'd like to go and take a…' There was the sound of a scuffle.

'Ria, it's Gertie… sorry I can't go.'

'You can't go to what?'

'To whatever it is you're asking me to… thanks but I can't.'

'It was only lunch, Gertie, just a bloody leg of lamb.'

There was a sob at the other end. Then, If that's all it bloody was, Ria, why on earth did you ring me and cause all this trouble?'

'This is Martin and Hilary's answering machine, please leave a message after the bleep.'

'It's nothing, Hilary, it's only Ria. If you're not there on a Sunday at ten o'clock in the morning then it's not likely you'll be there at lunch-time… heigh ho, no message.'

Ria rang Colm Barry at the restaurant. He was often there on a Sunday, he had told her that he took advantage of the peace and quiet to do his accounts and paperwork.

'Hallo.' Colm's sister Caroline always spoke so softly you had to strain to hear what she said. She said that Colm wasn't there, he had gone out to do something, well he wasn't there. Caroline sounded so unsure that Ria began to wonder whether Colm was actually standing beside her mouthing that he wouldn't take the call.

'It doesn't matter, I was just going to ask him if he'd like to come to lunch, that's all.'

'Lunch? Today?' Caroline managed to make both words contain an amazing amount of incredulity.

'Well yes.'

'With your family?'

'Here, yes.'

'And had you asked him? Did he forget?'

'No, it was a spur of the moment thing, you too of course if you were free.'

Caroline seemed totally incapable of taking in such a concept. 'Lunch? Today?'

She said the words again and Ria wanted to smack her very hard. 'Forget it, Caroline, it was just a passing idea.'

'I'm sure Colm will be very sorry to have missed the invitation. He loves going to your house, it's just that he's… well he is… well he's out.'

'Yes I know, doing something, you said.' Ria felt her voice had sounded unduly impatient. 'And you're not free, Caroline, yourself? You and Monto?' She hoped fervently that they were not free. And she was in luck.

'No I'm very sorry, truly I am, Ria, I can't tell you how sorry I am but it's just not possible today. Any other day would have been.'

'That's fine, Caroline. It was short notice, as I said.' Ria hung up.

The phone rang and Ria answered it hopefully. 'Ria? Barney McCarthy.'

'Oh, he's already gone to meet you there, Barney.' 'He has?'

'Yes, up at the new development, the posh flats.' 'Oh, of course, yes.' 'Are you not there?'

'No, I was delayed. If he calls back tell him that. I'll catch him up along the way.'

'Sure.'

'And you're fine, Ria?'

'Fine,' she lied.

Would she cook the lamb anyway, and have it cold with salad when they all came home? Gertie said you could refreeze things if they hadn't thawed completely. But what did Gertie know? Colm would know but he was out somewhere doing something, according to that dithering sister of his. Rosemary would know but Ria hated having to ask her. Was she in fact becoming very boring, as Annie had said? Was she as thoughtless as her mother had suggested? Ria knew now why people who lived on their own found Sunday a long lonely day. It would be different when they had a new baby… then there wouldn't be enough hours in the day.

Brian had been sick at the christening. He said it was bad enough to let him off school. He was pretty sure that Myles and Dekko would have kinder, more understanding families who wouldn't force invalids to go out when they were feeling rotten. Annie said that it was just a punishment since they had all been drinking champagne and obviously they were sick. Brian, red-faced with annoyance, said that she had no proof of this at all. That she was only trying to make trouble to take attention away from the fact that she and Kitty had been out so late and caused such alarm.

'I was talking about my career, about the future, jobs and things, something a drunk like you will never have,' Annie said coldly to Brian.

Ria tried to keep the peace, looking in vain for any support from Danny who had his head stuck in brochures and press releases about the new apartment blocks. He had been tired when he came back last night. Too tired to respond when she had reached out for him. It had been a long day, he said. For Ria too it had been a long day, pushing a heavy sanding machine around the floor, but she hadn't complained. Now they were back in familiar territory, a big noisy breakfast, a real family starting the week together in the big bright kitchen.

And everything had simmered down by the time they were ready to leave. Brian said he thought he could face school, possibly the fresh air would do him good and there was no proof that a court of law would accept that any alcohol had been taken. Annie said that possibly, yes, she should have telephoned to say that it was all going on longer, but she hadn't thought that anyone would be waiting. Honestly.

Danny dragged himself out of the world of executive apartments. 'You couldn't give away anything with carpet wall to wall nowadays,' he said. 'Everything has to have sprung oak floors or they won't consider it. Where did all the money come from in this society? Tell me that and I'll die happy.'

'Not for decades yet, I have great plans for you first,' Ria laughed.

'Yes, well none for tonight, I hope,' he said. 'There's a dinner, investors, I have to be there.'

'Oh, not again!'

'Oh yes, again. And many times again before we're through with this. If the estate agents don't go to the promotions then what confidence will they think we have in it all?'

She made a face. 'I know, I know. And after all it won't be for long.'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, eventually they'll all be sold, won't they? Isn't that what it's about?'

'This phase… but this is only phase one, remember we were talking about it on Saturday with Barney?'

'Did Barney get you yesterday?'

'No, why?'

'He got delayed, I told him he'd find you at the development.'

'I was with people all day. I expect someone took a message. I'll get it when I get into the office and ring him then.'

'You work too hard, Danny.'

'So do you.' His smile was sympathetic. 'Look, I brought home that sander and you had to do most of it as it turned out.'

'Still, if you think it looks nice?' Ria was doubtful.

'Sweetheart, no question. It adds thousands to the resale value already and that's only in one weekend. Wait till we get those children of ours working properly, nice bit of slave labour, and do the upstairs as well. This place will be worth a fortune.'

'But we don't want to sell it,' Ria said, alarmed.

'I know, I know. But one day when we're old and grey and we want a nice apartment by the sea or on the planet Mars, or something…' He ruffled her hair and left.

Ria smiled to herself. Things were normal again.

'Ree-ya?'

'Hallo, Mam. Where's Pliers?'

'I see. You have no interest in seeing your own mother any more, only the dog.'

'No, I just thought he'd be with you, that's all.'

'Well he's not. Your friend Gertie's taken him for a walk, that's where he is. Gone for a nice morning run down by the canal.'

'Gertie?'

'Yes, she said that she heard dogs like Pliers needed a run now and then to shake them up. And of course though I have been able to keep myself reasonably trim, I'm not really able to do anything like that for Pliers any more, so Gertie offered,' Ria was astounded. Gertie didn't run, she barely walked these days, living in such dread of her drunken husband. Ria's mother had lost interest in the conversation. 'Anyway I only came in because I was passing to tell Annie that it's seven o'clock tonight.'

'What is?'

'They're coming down to St Rita's with me this evening, Annie and her friend Kitty. We're teaching Kitty bridge.'

Ria's mind was churning. 'But that will be during supper.'

'I suppose they manage to think that some things are more important because they're nice and normal and they actually like people,' said Ria's mother. She sat at her daughter's table waiting for coffee to be served to her, her face thunderous with the heavy implication that Ria was neither nice nor normal and positively hated meeting people.

The washing machine had just begun to swirl and hum when Rosemary rang. 'Oh Lord, Ria, how I envy you, relaxed in your own home while I'm stuck at work.'

'That's the way things are.' Ria knew there was an edge to her voice. She was becoming sharp with people for no reason. She rushed on to take the harm out of her words. 'We all think the grass is greener in the other place. Often when I'm picking up things from the floor here I envy you being at work and out of the house all day.'

'No, of course you don't.'

'Why do you say that?'

'Because, as I keep telling you, if you did feel like that, cabin fever and everything, then you'd get a job. Listen, what I rang to say is that I saw Jack being taken off in a Garda car this morning, some disturbance outside a pub. I thought you'd want to know. If you have nothing to do you might check whether Gertie's in bits or anything.'

'Gertie's not in bits, she's out walking my mother's dog.' 'You're not serious, aren't people amazing?' Rosemary sounded pleased at this surprise news. 'She didn't ask for a dog-walking fee, did she?'

'No, I don't think so, my mother would have said.' 'Oh well, that's all right then. It's not as if she's doing it to get a couple of quid to buy him more drink when the fuzz lets him go.'

'Mrs. Lynch?'

'Yes, that's right.' All day odd things had been happening,

'Mrs. Danny Lynch?'

'Yes?'

'Oh, oh I'm sorry. No, I think I may have the wrong number.'

'No, that's who I am, Ria Lynch.' The phone went dead.

Her sister Hilary rang just then. 'You sounded like the Mother of Sorrows on the answering machine,' she said.

'No I didn't. I just spoke and said it didn't matter. We both say that people who don't leave messages should be hanged.'

'I keep saying that the answering machine was a sheer waste of money. Who ever calls? What messages are there that you'd want to hear?'

'Thanks, Hilary.'

Hilary was unaware of any sarcasm. 'What was it you wanted to talk about anyway? Mam, I suppose?'

'No, not at all.'

'She's really going loopy you know, Ria. You don't see that because you don't want to. You always want to believe that everything's fine in the world, there's no famine, no war, politicians are all honest and mean well, and the climate's great.'

'Hilary, did you ring up just to attack me in general or is there anything specific?'

'Very funny. But going back to Mam, I worry about her.'

'But why? We've been over this a dozen times, she's fit and healthy, she's busy and happy.'

'Well, she should feel needed by her own family.'

'Hilary, she is needed by her family. Isn't she in here every single day of her life, sometimes twice a day? I ask her to stay to meals, I ask her to stay the night. She is out with Annie and Brian more than I am…'

'I suppose you're saying now that I don't do enough.'

'I'm not saying anything of the sort, and she's never done talking about you and Martin and how good you are to her.'

'Well, that's as may be.'

'So what is it really that's worrying you?'

'She's trying to sell her house.'

There was a silence. 'Of course she's not, Hilary, she'd have talked to Danny about it.'

'Only if she was selling it through him.’

'Well, who else would she go to? No, Hilary, you've got this all wrong.'

'We'll see,' said Hilary and hung up.

'Sweetheart?'

'Yes, Danny?'

'Was anyone looking for me at home, any peculiar sort of person?'

'No. Nobody at all, why?'

'Oh, there's some crazy ringing up about the apartments, she says she's being refused as a client… total paranoia. She's ringing everyone at home as well.'

'A woman did ring, but she didn't leave any message. That might have been her…'

'What did she say?'

'Nothing, just kept checking who I was.'

'And who did you say you were?'

Suddenly Ria snapped. It had been a stressful weekend, filled with silly unrelated things that just didn't make sense. 'I told her that I was an axe murderer passing through. God, Danny, who do you think I told her I was? She asked was I Mrs. Lynch and I said I was. Then she said she had the wrong number and hung up.'

'I'm telling the Guards about it, it's nuisance calls.'

'And did you say that in the office… you know who she is?'

'Listen, honey, I'll be late tonight, you know I told you.'

'A dinner, yes I know.'

'I have to run, sweetheart.'

He called everyone sweetheart. There was nothing particularly special about it. It was ludicrous but she would have to make an appointment with her husband to discuss having a baby, and a further appointment to do something about it if he agreed that it was a good idea.

Ria had a mug of soup and a slice of toast for her supper at seven o'clock. She sat alone in her enormous kitchen. The blustery April wind blew the washing on the line, but she left it there. Brian had gone to Dekko's house to do his homework. Annie was going to have a pizza with her gran after bridge at St Rita's, hugely preferable to spending any time at all with her mother obviously. Even sharing space with an unwelcome baby seemed like a better bet for Brian than his own house. Colm Barry had waved to her from the vegetable garden before he left for his restaurant. Her friend Rosemary was at home no doubt cooking something minimalist. Her other friend, Gertie, had been avoiding a drunken husband by walking that ridiculous dog all day, or so Ria's mother said. How had it happened… the empty nest? Why was there nobody at home any more?

They all came back together when she least expected it. Annie and her grandmother, laughing as if they were the same age. There was over half a century between them and yet they were relaxed and easy together. The ladies had been great fun, Annie said. They were going to lend her some genuine fifties clothes, even one of those fun fake furs. Some of them had come with them to the Pizza House.

'They're allowed out?' Ria said in surprise.

'It's not a prison, Ria, it's a retirement home. And people are very lucky who can get in there.'

'But you're too young to go to a place like that, much too young,' Ria said.

'I was speaking generally.' Her mother looked lofty.

'So you're not planning to go in there yourself?'

Her mother looked astounded. 'Are you interrogating me?' she asked.

'Oh Mam, for heaven's sake don't always cause a row about everything,' Annie groaned.

Brian came in. He seemed pleased but not surprised to see his grandmother. 'I saw Pliers tied to the gate, I knew you were here.'

'Pliers? Tied to the gate?' Ria's mother was out of the house like a shot. 'Poor dog, darling Pliers. Did she abandon you?'

They heard the sound of a car. Danny was home. Early, unexpected.

'Dad, Dad, do you know where we'd find the colours of the flags of Italy and Hungary and India? Dekko's father doesn't know. It would be great if you knew, Dad.'

'That friend of yours is even more scattered than you are, Ria.' Nora Johnson was still smarting over the dog. 'Imagine, Gertie left poor Pliers tied to the gate. He could have been there for hours.'

'He wasn't there when we came in a few minutes ago, Gran,' Annie reassured her.

'No, I saw Gertie running up Tara Road. It could only be a couple of minutes at the most.' Danny was reassuring too. 'Hey, where's supper anyway?'

'No one came home.' Ria's voice sounded small and tired. 'You said you had a business dinner.'

'I cancelled it.' He was eager, like a child.

Ria had an idea. 'Why don't we go to Colm's restaurant, the two of us?'

'Oh well I don't know, anything will do…'

'No, I'd love to, I'd simply love to. It would be a treat for me.'

'It would be a treat for anyone to go to Colm's,' Annie sniffed. 'Better than a pizza.'

'Better than sausages in Dekko's,' Brian grumbled.

'Wish I'd been able to go out to four-star restaurants when I didn't feel like cooking,' said her mother.

'I'll phone him and book a table.' Ria was on her feet.

'Honestly, sweetheart, anything… a steak, an omelette…'

'It wouldn't do you at all. No, you deserve a treat too.'

'I eat out too much, being at home's a treat for me,' he begged.

But she had the phone to her ear and made the booking. Then she ran lightly upstairs and changed into her black dress and put on her gold chain. Ria would have loved the time to have a bath and dress properly but she knew she must seize the moment. This was the very best chance she would have to talk to her husband about future plans. Ria moved swiftly before she could be sabotaged by either her mother or daughter putting sausages and tinned beans in front of Danny.

They walked companionably down Tara Road to the corner. The lights of Colm's restaurant were welcoming. Ria admired the way that it was done. You couldn't really see who was inside but you got the impression of people sitting down together. She was glad that Colm seemed to have tables full on a Monday night. It would be so dispiriting to cook for people and have shining glassware and silver out there and then for nobody to turn up. That was one of the reasons she would never like to run a restaurant, you would feel so hurt if people didn't come to it.

'Very few cars outside,' said Danny, cutting across her thoughts. 'I wonder how he makes any kind of living.'

'He loves cooking,' Ria said.

'Well, just as well that he does because there can't be much profit in tonight's takings from the look of the place.' She hated it when Danny reduced everything to money. It seemed to be his only way of measuring things nowadays.

Caroline took their coats. She was dressed in a smart black dress with long sleeves and she wore a black turban covering her hair. Only someone with beautiful bone structure could get away with something as severe, Ria thought to herself. 'You look so elegant tonight, the turban's a new touch.' Was she imagining it or did Caroline's hand fly to her face defensively?

'Yes, well I thought that perhaps…' She didn't finish her sentence.

She had been so odd on the telephone yesterday Ria had wondered if there was anything seriously wrong. And even tonight, despite the serene way she smiled and seemed to glide across to show them to their table, there was something tense and pent-up there. They were a strange pair, the brother and sister: Caroline with her overweight husband Monto Mackey, always in a smart suit and an even smarter car; Colm with his discreet relationship. He was nowadays involved with the wife of a well-known businessman, but it was something that was never spoken of. Colm and Caroline seemed to look out for each other, as if the world was somehow preparing to do one of them down.

Ria would have liked that kind of loyalty. Hilary was a complicated sister; she blew hot and cold, sometimes envious and carping, sometimes surprisingly understanding. But there was never this united front that Colm and Caroline wore.

'You're miles away,’ Danny said to her.

She glanced at him, handsome, tired-looking, boyish still, puzzling over the menu. Wondering if he would go for the crispy duck or be sensible about his health and have the grilled sole. She could read the decisions all over his face. 'I was just thinking about Hilary,' she said.

'What has she done now?'

'Nothing, except get the wrong end of the stick about everything as usual. Burbling on about you and about Mam wanting to sell the house.'

'She told you that?'

'You know Hilary, she never listens to anyone.'

'She said I wanted to sell the house?'

'She said Mam wasn't even asking you, that she wanted to sell it herself.'

'I don't understand.'

'Would anyone? The whole thing is nonsense.'

'Your mother's, house! I see.'

'Well you see more than I do, it's totally cracked.'

Colm came to the table to greet them. He made a point of spending only forty seconds and putting a huge amount of warmth and information into that time. 'There's some very nice Wicklow lamb, and I got fish straight off the boat down in the harbour this morning. The vegetables as you know come from the finest garden in the land, and if you're not sick of eating them yourselves, I suggest courgettes. Can I give you a glass of champagne to welcome you? And then I'll get out of your way and let you enjoy your evening.'

Colm had once told Ria that too many restaurant owners made the great mistake of believing that the guests enjoyed the Mine Host figure spending a lot of time at the table. He always felt that if people had come out to dine then that's what they should be allowed to do. Tonight she valued it especially.

She chose the lamb and Danny said that because he really was as fat as a fool these days he must have plain grilled fish with lemon juice and no creamy sauce. 'You're not fat, Danny, you're beautiful. You know you are, I told you the other night.'

He looked embarrassed. 'A man can't be beautiful, sweetheart,' he said awkwardly.

'Yes indeed he can, and you are.' She reached out and touched his hand. Danny looked around. 'It's all right, we're allowed to hold hands, we're married. Now that couple over there, they're the ones who shouldn't be caught.' She laughed over at a couple where the older man was being very playful with his much younger companion.

'Ria?' Danny said.

'Listen, let me speak first. I'm delighted your dinner was cancelled tonight, delighted. I wanted you on your own without half the country being in our kitchen and all joining in.'

'But that's what you like,' he said.

'Yes, it's what I like a lot of the time but not tonight. I wanted to talk to you. We don't have time to talk these days, no time to do anything, not even make love.'

'Ria!'

'I know. I'm not blaming either of us, it just happens, but what I wanted to tell you was this… and I needed time and space to tell you… what I wanted to say was…' She stopped suddenly, unsure how to go on. Danny was looking at her, confused. 'You know how I said you look young, I mean it. You are young, you are like a boy, you could pass for someone in his twenties. You're just like you looked when Annie was a baby, with your hair falling into your eyes, unable to believe that you could be a father. You have that look in your eyes.'

'What are you saying? What in God's name are you saying?'

'I'm saying that honestly, Danny, I can see these things. It's time for another baby. Another start of a life. You're more sure and comfortable now, you want to see another son or daughter grow up.' A waiter approached them with plates of figs and Parma ham, but something about the way they sat facing each other made him veer away. These were cold starters, they could wait a little. 'It's time for you to have another child, to be a father again. I'm not thinking of myself only but of you, that's all I'm saying,' Ria said, smiling at the strange shocked look on Danny's face.

'Why are you saying it like this?' His voice was barely above a whisper. His face was snow-white. Surely he couldn't find it such a staggering idea. On and off she had been saying this over the years.

Only this time she had phrased it in terms of fatherhood rather than her own need or their joint life with a new baby.

'Danny, let me explain…'

'I don't believe you're saying this. Why? Why this way?'

'But I'm just saying that it's the right time. That's all. I'm thinking of you and your future, your life.'

'But you're so calm… this isn't happening.' He shook his head as if to clear it.

'Well of course, I want it too, you know that, but I swear I'm thinking of you. A baby is what you need just now. It will put things into perspective, you won't be rushing and fussing about developments and market share and everything, not with a new baby.'

'How long have you known?' he asked.

It was an odd question. 'Well, I suppose I've always known that with the other two grown-up almost the day would come.'

'They'll always be special, nothing would change that.' His voice was choked.

'Well don't I know that, for heaven's sake, this would be different, not better.' Ria sat back from her position hunched up and leaning over the table. The waiter seized the opportunity and slid in their plates without any comment. Ria picked up her fork but Danny didn't move.

'I can't understand why you're so calm, so bloody calm,' he said. His voice trembled, he could hardly speak.

Ria looked at her husband in astonishment. 'I'm not very calm, Danny my darling, I'm telling you I think it's time we had another baby and you seem to agree… so I'm very excited.'

'You're telling me what?'

'Danny, keep your voice down. We don't want the whole restaurant to know.' She was a little alarmed by his face.

'Oh my God,' he said. 'Oh God, I don't believe it.'

'What is it?' Now her alarm was very real. He had his head in his hands. 'Danny, what is it? Please? Stop making that sound, please.'

'You said you understood. You said you'd been thinking about my future and my life. And now you say that you want another baby! That you do, that's what you were talking about.' He looked anguished.

Ria was going to say that the way it normally happened was that the woman had the baby but something stopped her. In a voice that came from very far away she heard herself ask the question that she knew was going to change her life. 'What exactly were you talking about, Danny?'

'I thought you had found out and for a mad moment I thought you were going along with it.'

'What?' Her voice, impossibly, was steady.

'You know, Ria, you must know that I'm seeing someone, and well, we've just discovered she's pregnant. I am going to be a father again. She's going to have a baby and we are very happy about it. I was going to tell you next weekend. I thought suddenly that you must have known.'

The noise in the restaurant changed. People's cutlery started to clatter more and bang loudly off people's plates. Glasses tinkled and seemed about to smash. Voices came and went in a type of roar. The sound of laughter from the tables was very raucous. She could hear his voice from a long way off. 'Ria. Listen to me, Ree-ah.' She can't have said anything. 'I wouldn't have had this happen for the world, it wasn't part of any plan. I wanted us to be… I didn't go looking for something like this…'

He looked boyish all right, helplessly boyish. This was too much to cope with. It wasn't fair that she should have to cope with something like this. 'Tell me it's not true,' she said.

'You know it's true, Ria sweetheart. You know we haven't been getting on, you know there's nothing there any more.'

'I don't believe it. I won't believe it.'

'I didn't think it would happen either, I thought we'd grow old together, like people did.'

'And indeed like people do,' she said.

'Yes, some do. But we're different people, we're not the same people who married all those years ago. We have different needs.'

'How old is she?'

'Ria, this has nothing to do with…'

'How old?'

'Twenty-two, not that it matters… or has anything to do with anything.'

'Of course not,' she said dully.

'I was going to tell you, maybe it's better that it's out now.' There was a silence. 'We have to talk about it, Ria.' Still she said nothing. 'Aren't you going to say anything, anything at all?' he begged.

'Seven years older than your daughter.'

'Sweetheart, can I tell you this has nothing to do with age.'

'No?'

'I don't want to hurt you.' Silence. 'Any more than I already have hurt you and honestly I was wondering could we be the only two people in the whole world who'd do it right? Could we manage to be the couple who actually don't tear each other to pieces…?'

'What?'

'We love Annie and we love Brian. This is going to be hell for them. We won't make it a worse hell, tell me we won't.'

'Pardon?'

'What?'

'I said, I beg your pardon. What am I to tell you? I didn't understand.'

'Sweetheart.'

Ria stood up. She was trembling and had to hold the table to keep upright. She spoke in a very low carrying voice. 'If you ever… if ever in your life you call me sweetheart again I will take a fork in my hand, just like this one, and I will stick it into your eye.' She walked unsteadily towards the door of the restaurant while Danny stood helplessly at the table watching her go. But her legs felt weak, and she began to sway. She wasn't going to make the door after all. Colm Barry put down two plates hastily and moved towards her. He caught her just as she fell and moving swiftly he pulled her into the kitchen.

Danny had followed them in and watched, standing uncertainly as Ria's face and wrists were sponged with cold water by Caroline.

'Are you part of the problem, Danny? Is this about you?' Colm asked.

'Yes, in a way.'

'Then perhaps you should leave.' Colm was perfectly courteous but firm.

'What do you mean…?'

'I'll take her home. When she's ready and if she wants to go, that is.'

'Where else would she go?'

'Please, Danny.' Colm's voice was firm. This was his kitchen, his territory.

Danny left. He let himself into the house with his front-door key. In the kitchen Danny's mother-in-law, her dog and the two children were watching television. He paused in the hall for a minute considering what explanation to make. But this was Ria's choice, not his, how to tell and what to tell. Quietly he moved up the stairs. He stood in the bedroom, uncertain again. After all, she might not want him here when she returned. But suppose he went elsewhere? Might not this be another blow? He wrote a letter and left it on her pillow.

Ria, I am ready to talk whenever you are. I didn't think you'd want me here so I've taken a duvet to the study. Wake me any time. Believe me I'm more sorry about all this than you'll ever know. You will always be very, very dear to me and I want the best for you.

Danny

He reached for the phone and made the first of two calls.

'Hallo Caroline, it's Danny Lynch. Can I speak to Colm?'

'I’ll see.'

'Well, can you ask him to tell her that I've said nothing to the children and I'm in the study at home. Not the bedroom, the study, if she wants to talk to me. Thank you, Caroline.'

Then he dialled another number. 'Hallo, sweetheart, it's me… Yes I told her… Not great… Yes, of course about the baby… I don't know… No, she's not here… No, I can't come over, I have to wait for her to get back… Sweetheart, if you think I'm going to change my mind now… I love you too, honey.'

In the kitchen of Colm's restaurant the business of preparing and serving food went on around them. Colm Barry gave Ria a small brandy. She sipped it slowly, her face blank. He asked her nothing about what had happened.

'I should go,' she said from time to time.

'No hurry,' Colm said.

Eventually she said it with more determination. 'The children will worry,' she said.

'I’ll get your coat.'

They walked from the restaurant in silence. At the gate of the house she stopped and looked at him. 'It's like as if it's happening to other people,' Ria said. 'Not to me at all.'

'I know.'

'Do you, Colm?'

'Yes, it's to cushion the shock or something. We think first that it's all happening to someone else.'

'And then?'

'I suppose then we realise it's not,' he said.

'That's what I thought,' Ria said.

They could have been talking about the vegetables or when to spray the fruit trees. There was no hug of solidarity or even a word of goodbye. Colm went back to his restaurant, and Ria went into her home.

She sat down in the kitchen. The table had crumbs and some apple cores in a dish. A carton of milk had been left out of the fridge. There were newspapers and magazines on the chairs. Ria saw everything very clearly, but not from where she was sitting. It was as if she were way up in the sky and looking down. She saw herself, a tiny figure sitting down there in this untidy kitchen in the dark house while everyone else slept. She watched as the old clock chimed hour after hour. She didn't think about what to do now. It was as if it hadn't sunk in that it was happening to her.

'Mam, it's the drill display today,' Annie said.

'Is it?'

'Where's breakfast, Mam?'

'I don't know.'

'Oh Mam, not today. I need a white shirt, there isn't one ironed.'

'No?'

'Where were you, were you at the shops?'

'Why?'

'You're in your coat. I could iron it myself, I suppose.'

'Yes.'

'Has Dad gone yet?'

'I don't know, is his car there?'

'Hey Mam, why isn't there any breakfast?' Brian wanted to know.

Annie turned on him. 'Don't be such a pig, Brian. Are you too drunk to get your own breakfast for once?'

'I'm not drunk.'

'You were yesterday, you stank of drink.' They looked at Ria, waiting for her to stop the fight. She said nothing. 'Put on the kettle, Brian, you big useless lump,' Annie said.

'You're just sucking up to Mam because you want her to do something, make you sandwiches, drive you somewhere, iron something. You're never nice to Mam.'

'I am nice to her. Aren't I nice to you, Mam?'

'What?' Ria asked.

'Aw here, where's the iron?' Annie said in desperation.

'Why have you your coat on, Mam?' Brian asked.

'Get the cornflakes and shut up, Brian,' Annie said. Ria didn't have any tea or coffee. 'She had some before she went out,' Annie explained.

'Where did she go?' Brian, struggling with cutting the bread, seemed puzzled.

'She doesn't have to account to you for her movements,' Annie said. Her voice sounded very far away.

"Bye Mam.'

'What?'

'I said, goodbye Mam.' Brian looked at Annie for reassurance.

'Oh goodbye love, 'bye Annie.'

They went round to get their bicycles. Usually they did everything to avoid leaving the house together but today was different.

'What is it, do you think?' Brian asked.

Annie was nonchalant. 'They could be drunk, they went out to Colm's restaurant, maybe the pair of them got pissed. Dad's not up yet, you'll note.'

'That's probably it all right,' said Brian sagely.

Danny came into the kitchen. 'I waited until the children left,' he said.

'What?'

'I didn't know what you'd want to say to them. You know? I thought it was better to talk to you first.' He looked anxious and uneasy. Danny's hair was tousled and his face pale and unshaven. He had slept in his clothes. She still felt the strange sense of not being here, of watching it all happen. That feeling hadn't gone during the long wakeful hours of night. She said nothing but looked at him expectantly.

'Ria, are you all right? Why have you your coat on?'

'I don't think I took it off,' she said.

'What? Not even to go to bed?'

'I didn't go to bed. Did you?'

'Sit down, sweetheart…'

'What?'

'I know, I'm sorry, it doesn't mean anything. It's just something I call you. I meant sit down, Ria.'

Suddenly her head began to clear. They were no longer little matchstick figures way down below, people she was watching from far away. She was here in this messy kitchen wearing her coat over her good black party dress. Danny her husband, the only man she had ever loved, had got some twenty-two-year-old pregnant and was going to leave home and set up a new family. He was actually trying to tell her to sit down in her own house. A very great coldness came over her. 'Go now, Danny, please. Leave the house and go to work.'

'You can't order me out, Ria, and take this attitude… we have to talk. We have to plan what to do, what to say.'

'I will take whatever attitude I like to take, and I would like you not to be here any more until I am ready to talk to you.' Her voice sounded very normal from inside. Possibly to him too.

He nodded, relieved. 'When will that be? When will you be… ready to talk?'

'I don't know, I'll let you know.'

'Do you mean today? Tonight, or… um… later?'

'I'm not sure yet.'

'But Ria, listen sweet… listen Ria, there are things you have to know. I have to tell you what happened.'

'I think you did.'

'No, no. No, I have to tell you what it was about and discuss what we do.'

'I imagine I know what happened.'

'I want to explain…"

'Go now.' He was undecided. 'Now,' she said again.

He went upstairs and she stood listening to the sound of a quick splash wash, and his opening drawers to get clean clothes. He didn't shave, he looked hangdog and at a loss. 'Will you be all right?' he asked. She looked at him witheringly. 'No, I know it sounds a stupid thing… but I do care and you won't let me talk. You don't want to know what happened, or anything.'

She spoke slowly. 'Just her name.'

'Bernadette,' he said.

'Bernadette,' she repeated slowly. There was a long silence then

Ria looked at the door and Danny walked out, got into his car and drove away.

When he had gone Ria realised that she was very hungry. She had eaten almost nothing since lunch-time yesterday. The figs and Parma ham had not been touched last night. She cleared the table swiftly and got herself a tray ready. She would need all her strength for what lay ahead, this was no time to think about diets and calories. She cut two slices of wholemeal bread and a banana. She made some strong coffee. Whatever happened now she would need some fuel to give her energy.

She had just begun to eat when she heard a tap at the back door. Rosemary came in carrying a yellow dress. It was something they had discussed the other night. Was that only Saturday night? Less than three days ago? Rosemary always dressed for work as if she were going to be on prime-time television, groomed and made up. Her short straight hair with its immaculate cut looked as if she had come from a salon. The dress that she had brought to lend to Ria was one she had bought but hardly ever worn. She didn't have the right colouring, she had said, it needed someone dark.

Rosemary held the dress out as if she were in a dress shop convincing a doubtful buyer. 'It looks nothing in the hand but try it on, it's absolutely right for the opening of the flats.' Ria looked at her wordlessly. 'No, don't give me that look, you think it's too wishy-washy but honestly with your dark hair and say a black scarf…' Rosemary stopped suddenly and looked at Ria properly. She was sitting white-faced, wearing a black velvet dress and gold chain, and eating a huge banana sandwich at eight thirty in the morning. 'What is it?' Rosemary's voice was a whisper.

'Nothing, why?'

'Ria, what's happened? What are you doing?'

'I'm having my breakfast, what do you think I'm doing?'

'What is it? Your dress…?'

'You're not the only one who can get dressed in the mornings,' Ria said, her lip trembling. Her voice sounded to her a bit like a mutinous five-year-old. She saw Rosemary look at her face, aghast. Then it was all too much. 'Oh God Rosemary, he has a girlfriend, a girlfriend who's pregnant. She's twenty-two, she's going to have his baby.'

'No!' Rosemary had dropped the dress on the floor and come over to embrace her.

'Yes. It's true. She's called Bernadette.' Ria's voice was high now and hysterical. 'Bernadette! Can you imagine it! I didn't know they still called people of twenty-two that. He's left me, he's going to live with her. It's all over. Danny's gone. Oh Jesus, Rosemary, what am I going to do? I love him so much, Rosemary. What am I going to do?'

Rosemary held her friend in her arms and muttered into the dark curly hair, 'Shush, shush, it can't be over, it's all right, it's all right.'

Ria pulled away. 'It's not going to be all right. He's leaving me. For her. For Bernadette.'

'And would you have him back?' Rosemary was always very practical.

'Of course I would. You know that.' Ria wept.

'Then we must get him back,' said Rosemary, picking up a table napkin and wiping Ria's tear-stained face just as you would a baby's.

'Gertie, can I come in?'

'Oh Rosemary, it's not such a good time. I wonder if I could leave it to another time… it's just…' Rosemary walked past her. Gertie's home was a mess. That was nothing new but this time there actually seemed to be broken furniture. A lamp was at a rakish angle and a small table now in three pieces stood in the corner. Broken china and glass seemed to have been swept to one side. There was a stain of spilled coffee or something on the carpet.

T'm sorry, you see…' Gertie began.

'Gertie, I haven't come here at nine o'clock in the morning to give your home marks out of ten. I've come for your help.'

'What is it?' Gertie was justifiably alarmed. What kind of help could she possibly give to Rosemary Ryan who ran her life like clockwork, who looked like a fashion model, had a home like something from a magazine and a successful job? Something terrible must have happened if she had come to Gertie for help.

'You're needed up in Ria's house now. You have to come, I'll drive you. Come on, get your coat.'

'I can't, I can't today.'

'You have to, Gertie. It's as simple as this, Ria needs you. Look at all she does for you when you need her.'

'No, not now. You see, there was a bit of trouble here last night.'

'You do surprise me.' Rosemary looked around the room scornfully.

'And we made it all up and I said to Jack I wouldn't go running to the two of you any more.’ Gertie lowered her voice. 'He said that it was the women friends I had who were coming between us… making the problems.'

'Bullshit,' Rosemary said.

'Shush, he's asleep. Don't wake him.'

'I don't care if he wakes or not. Your friend who has never once asked you a favour in her whole life wants you to come round to her house and you're bloody coming.'

'Not today, tell her I'm sorry. She'll understand. Ria knows what the problems are in this house, she'll forgive me for not coming this once.'

'She might, I won't. Ever.'

'But friends forgive and understand. Ria's my friend, you're my friend.'

'And that big ignorant bruiser in a drunken sleep is not a friend, we have to assume? Is that what you're telling me? Get sense, Gertie, what's the worst he can do to you? Another couple of teeth? Maybe you should have them all out next time you go to Jimmy Sullivan. Make it easier. Just whip out your dentures as soon as lover boy starts looking crooked.'

'You're a very hard, cruel woman, Rosemary,' Gertie said.

'Am I? A moment ago I was a sympathetic understanding friend. Well, I'll tell you what you, are, Gertie. You are a weak, selfish, whining victim and you deserve to get beaten up as much as you do, and possibly more because you haven't a shred of kindness or decency in you. If someone told anyone else on God's earth that Ria Lynch needed them they'd be there like a shot. But not you of course, not Gertie.'

Rosemary had never been so angry. She walked to the door without even looking back to see how Gertie was taking it. Before she got to her car she heard steps behind her. Out in the daylight she saw the marks on Gertie's face, bruises that had not been visible indoors because of the dim light in the house. The women looked at each other for a moment.

'He's left her. The bastard.'

'Danny? Never! He wouldn't.'

'He has,' said Rosemary, starting up the car.

Ria was still sitting in her party dress. That, more than anything, underlined the seriousness of it all. 'I haven't told Gertie anything except that Danny says he's moving out. I don't know any more anyway, and we don't want to, or have to. All we want is to help you get through today.' Rosemary was completely in charge.

'You're very good to come, Gertie.' Ria's voice was small.

'Why wouldn't I? Look at all you do for me.' Gertie looked at the floor as she spoke, hating to catch Rosemary's eye. 'So where do we start?'

'I don't know.' The normally confident Ria was at a loss. 'It's just that I couldn't bear to talk to anyone else except you two.'

'Well, who might come in on top of you? Colm?'

'No, he stays in the garden. He knows anyway, I fainted in the restaurant last night.'

Rosemary and Gertie exchanged quick glances. 'So who else is likely to come?' Rosemary asked and then with one voice she and Gertie said, 'Your mother!'

'Oh sweet Jesus, I couldn't face my mother today,' Ria said.

'Right,' Gertie said. 'Do we head her off at the pass? I could do that. I could go and thank her for lending me the dog, tell her I'm sorry I tied him up at the gate.'

'Why did you want him?' Ria asked.

It was no time for disguises. 'For protection. Jack's a bit afraid of dogs. He was very upset yesterday what with being taken in by the Guards.'

'But not kept in, unfortunately,' said Rosemary.

'Yes, but what kind of gaols would they need if you took in every drunk?' Gertie was philosophical. 'I could tell your mother you had flu or something.'

Rosemary shook her head. 'No, that would be worse than ever. She'd come over like Florence Nightingale with potions and try to book you into that geriatric home of hers. We could say you'd gone out shopping, that there'd be no one at home. Or would that be an odd sort of thing to say?'

Ria didn't seem to know. 'She might come round to see what I bought,' she said.

'Could you say you have to go out and meet someone?'

'Who?' Ria asked. There was a silence.

Rosemary spoke. 'We'll say that there's a free voucher in Quentin's, that you and I were meant to be going there today but now we can't. And since it's only valid today your mother and Hilary are to go instead. How about that?' She was crisp and decisive, as she must be at work, looking around to see how the suggestion was received.

'You don't know how slow they are,' Ria said. 'They'd never do anything unexpected like that.'

'Hilary would hate to miss the bargain, she'd go just to get value. Your mother would love to see the style. They'll go. I'll book it.'

Gertie was reassuring. 'Anyone would get dressed up and go to Quentin's. I'd even stir myself for that, and that's saying something.' She managed a watery smile from her poor bruised face.

Ria felt a lump in her throat. 'Sure, sure they'll go,' she said.

'I'll pick up Annie and Brian from school and take them back to my place, to have supper and watch a video.' Rosemary saw the look of doubt on Ria's face about this and said quickly, 'Ill make it such a good video that they won't be able to refuse, oh and I'll invite the awful Kitty as well.' Ria grinned. That would do it. 'And lastly, Ria, I'll also book you a hair appointment in my place, they really are very good.'

'It's too late for hairdos and makeovers, Rosemary. We're way beyond all that. I couldn't do it, it would be meaningless to me.'

'How else are you going to fill in the hours until he comes home?' she asked. There was no answer. Rosemary made two brisk phone calls to busy professionals like herself. No time was wasted in long, detailed explanations. To Brenda at Quentin's who heard that a Mrs. Johnson and a Mrs. Moran would be going as her guests, and were to be treated royally as winners of a voucher, given everything they asked for. Then to the hairdressing salon, where she booked Mrs. Lynch in for a style cut and shampoo and also a manicure.

'I'm not usually so feeble, but I don't think I have the energy to explain all this about Quentin's to my mother and Hilary,' Ria began.

'You don't have to, I will,' Rosemary said.

'The house is a mess.'

'It won't be when you get back,' promised Gertie.

'I don't believe any of this is happening,' Ria said slowly.

'That's what happens, it's nature's way of coping. It's so you can get on with other things,' said Gertie who knew what she was talking about.

'It's like an anaesthetic, you have to go on autopilot for a while,' said Rosemary, who had an explanation for everything but would have had no idea what it felt like to see a huge pit of despair open in front of you.

Ria didn't really remember the visit to the hairdressing salon. She told them she was very tired and hadn't slept all night, they would have to excuse her if she was a little distracted. She tried to show an interest in the hot oil treatment for her thick curly hair, and tried to make a decision about the shape and colour of her nails. But mainly she let them get on with it, and when it came to paying they said that it was on Rosemary Ryan's account.

Ria looked at her watch. It was lunch-time. If everything had gone according to plan her mother and sister would be sitting in one of Dublin's grandest restaurants having a meal they believed to be free. It was yet one more extraordinary aspect to this totally unreal day.

In Quentin's Hilary and her mother were offered an Irish coffee after their lunch. 'Do you think it's included on the voucher?' Mrs. Johnson hissed. Emboldened by the excellent Italian wine Hilary decided to be assertive. 'I rather think it is. A place like this wouldn't stint on little extras.' It turned out to be very much included, the elegant lady who ran the place told them, and a second was brought to the table without their having to decide.

While they waited for the taxi, they were asked as a favour to taste a new liqueur that the restaurant was thinking of putting on the menu; they needed some valued customers' views before they made a final decision. The taxi journey back to Nora Johnson's house was something of a blur. She was relieved to have been told by that bossy Rosemary that Ria wouldn't be at home. Otherwise she might have felt she should call around and give a report on how the lunch had gone. She would telephone instead, when she had had a little rest.

There were two more hours before Danny came home. Ria had never known time pass so slowly. She walked aimlessly around the house touching things, the table in the hall where Danny left his keys. She ran her hand over the back of the chair where he sat at night and often fell asleep with papers from work on his lap. She picked up the glass jug he had given her for her birthday. It had the word Ria engraved on it. He had loved her enough last November to have her name put on a jug and yet in April another woman was pregnant with his child. It was too much to take in.

Ria looked at the cushion she had embroidered for him. The two words 'Danny Boy'. It had taken her weeks of unpicking the stitches to finish it. She could remember his face when she gave it to him. 'You must love me nearly as much as I love you to do something like that for me,' he had said. Nearly as much!