Tara Road

She looked at their new music centre. Only last Christmas, less than six months ago, he had spent hour after hour testing where the speakers would be best. He had bought her so many compact discs, all the Ella Fitzgeralds she had loved, and she had got him the big band sound he liked, the Dorsey brothers, Glenn Miller. The children had groaned at their taste. Perhaps the youthful Bernadette played the strange music that Annie and Kitty liked. Perhaps Danny Lynch pretended he liked it too. Soon he would be home to tell her things like this.

Ria saw Colm Barry in the garden. He was turning the soil but in a desultory way, as if he weren't really there to dig vegetables but to look after her in case she needed it.

Gertie phoned Rosemary at seven o'clock. 'I just rang to say… well, I don't know why I rang,' she said.

'You know why you rang, you rang because it's seven o'clock and we're both mad with worry.'

'Are the children there?'

'Yes, that bit worked anyway. I nearly had to give my body to get that video but I got it.'

'That'll keep them entertained. Do you think they'll patch it up?'

'They'll have to,' said Rosemary. 'They've too much to lose, both of them.'

'But what about the baby? The girl who's pregnant?'

'That's probably what they're talking about this minute.'

'Do you say prayers at all, Rosemary?'

'No, not these days. Do you?'

'No, I do deals, I suppose. I promise God to do things if Jack stops, whatever.'

Rosemary bit her lip. It must have cost Gertie a lot to admit this. 'Do they work, these deals?'

'What do you think?'

'No, I suppose not all the time.' Rosemary was being diplomatic.

'I've done a deal today. I've told God that if he gets Danny back for Ria, I'll well… I'll do something I've been promising to do for a long time.'

'I hope it's not to turn the other cheek again or anything,' Rosemary said before she could stop herself.

'No, quite the contrary as it happens,' Gertie said and hung up.

At seven o'clock Ria turned down the volume control on the answering machine. She didn't want to be disturbed by any more drunken messages from her mother and sister who appeared to have become legless at the restaurant where they had lunch. There were also messages from other people. A query from her brother-in-law Martin to know where Hilary was. Dekko's mother to say that there would be a babysitting opportunity for Brian at the weekend. The hire shop confirming the rental of the sanding machine for next weekend. A woman organising a class reunion lunch who wanted addresses of others who had been at school with them.

Ria would not have been able to talk to any one of them today. What did people do without answering machines? She remembered the day they had installed it and how they had laughed at Danny's attempts to record a convincing message. 'We have to face it, I'm just not an actor,' he had said. But he had been an actor, a very successful one for months. Years maybe.

She sat down and waited for Danny Lynch to come back to Tara Road.

He didn't call out as he usually did. There was no, 'Yoo hoo, sweetheart, I'm back.' He didn't leave his keys on the hall table. He looked pale and anxious. If things were normal she would have worried, wondered if he was getting flu, begged him to take more time off from the office, to relax more. But things were not normal so she just looked at him and waited for him to speak.

'It's very quiet here,' he said eventually.

'Yes, isn't it?'

They could have been strangers who had just met. He sat down and put his head in his hands. Ria said nothing. 'How do you want to do this?' he said.

'You said we must talk, Danny, so talk.'

'You're making it very hard for me.'

'I'm sorry, did you say that I am making it hard? Is that what you said?'

'Please, I'm going to try to be as honest as I can, there will be no more lies or hiding things. I'm not proud of any of this but don't try and trip me up with words and phrases. It's only going to make it worse.' She looked at him and said nothing. 'Ria, I beg you. We know each other too well, we know what every word means, every silence even.'

She spoke slowly and carefully. 'No, I don't know you at all. You say there'll be no more lies, no more hiding things. You see, I didn't know there had been any lies or any hiding things, I thought we were fine.'

'No, you didn't. You can't have. Be honest.'

'I am, Danny. I'm being as honest as I ever have been. If you know me as you claim you do, then you must see that.'

'You thought that this was all there was?'

'Yes.'

'And you didn't think it had all changed. You thought we were just the same as when we got married?' He seemed astounded.

'Yes, the same. Older, busier. More tired, but mainly the same.'

'But…' he couldn't go on.

'But what?'

'But we have nothing to say to each other any more, Ria. We make household arrangements, we rent a sander, we get things out of the freezer, we make lists. That's not living. That's not a real life.'

'You rented the sander,' she said. 'I never wanted it.'

'That's about the level of our conversation nowadays, sweetheart. You know this, you're just not admitting it.'

'You're going to leave, leave this house and me and Annie and Brian… is that what's happening?'

'You know it's not the same any more, like it was.'

'I don't, I don't know that.'

'You can't tell me that for you everything's perfect?'

'It's not totally perfect, you work too hard. Well, you're out too much, maybe it's not work after all. I thought it was.'

'A lot of it is,' he said ruefully.

'But apart from that I thought everything was fine, and I had no idea that you weren't happy here with us all.'

'It's not that.'

She leaned over and looked him right in the eyes. 'But what is it, Danny? Please? Look, you wanted to talk, we're talking. You wanted me to be calm, I'm being calm. I'm being as honest as you are. What is it? If you say you weren't unhappy then why are you going? Tell me so that I'll understand. Tell me.'

'There's nothing left, Ria. It's nobody's fault, it happens all the time to people.'

'It hasn't happened to me,' she said simply.

'Yes it has but you won't face it. You just want to go on acting.'

'I was never acting, not for one minute.'

'I don't mean in a bad sense, I mean playing Happy Families.'

'But we are a happy family, Danny.'

'No, sweetheart, there's more, for both of us. We're not old people, we don't have to ruin ourselves and put up with the way it all turned out.'

'It turned out fine. Don't we have the most marvellous children and a lovely home? Tell me, what more do you want?'

'Oh Ria, Ria. I want to be somebody, to have a future and a dream and to start over and get things right.'

'And a new baby?'

'That's part of it, yes, a new beginning.'

'Will you tell me about her, about Bernadette? About what you and she have that we don't have, I don't mean glorious sex of course. Calm I may be but not quite calm enough to hear about that.'

'I beg you, don't bring bitter accusing words into it.'

'I beg you to think about what you say. Is there anything bitter and accusing about asking you in a totally non-hysterical way why you are suddenly ending a life that I thought was perfectly satisfactory? I just asked you to tell me what you are going to that's so much better. I'm sorry I mentioned sex but you did tell me that you and Bernadette are going to have a child and so forgive me but there must have been some sex involved.'

'I hate you to be sarcastic like this. I know you so well and you know me, we shouldn't be talking like this. We shouldn't truly.'

'Danny, is this just something that's happened to us, something that we might sort of get through like people do? I know it's serious and there's a child involved, but people have survived such things.'

'No, it's not like that.'

'You can't feel that it's all over. You got involved with somebody much younger, you were flattered. Of course I'm furious and upset but I can get over it, we all get over things. It doesn't have to be the end.'

'All day I said to myself… please may Ria be calm. I don't expect her to forgive me but may she be calm enough for us to discuss this and see what's best for the children. You are calm, I don't deserve this but it's the wrong kind of calm. You think it's just a fling.'

'A fling?' she said.

'Yes, remember we used to go through all the degrees of relationships, a whirl, a fling, a romance, a relationship, and then the real thing.' He smiled as he said this. He was looking at his wife very affectionately.

Ria was bewildered. 'So?'

'So this is not a fling, it's the real thing. I love Bernadette, I want to spend the rest of my life with her, and she with me.'

Ria nodded as if this was a reasonable thing for the man she loved to be saying about somebody else. She spoke carefully. 'During the day when you were thinking please let her be calm, what else did you think? What did you think would be the best end to this discussion?'

'Oh, Ria, please. Don't play games.'

'I have never felt less like playing games in my life. I mean this utterly seriously, how do you want it to end?'

'With dignity I suppose. With respect for each other.'

'What?'

'No, you asked me, you asked what did I hope for. I suppose I hoped you'd agree that what we had was very good at the time but it was over and that… we could talk about what to do that would hurt Annie and Brian least.'

'I've done nothing at all to hurt them.'

'I know.'

'And you didn't think there was anything that you and I could talk about which would get us back together the way it used to be—well, used to be for you.'

'No, love, that's over, that's gone.'

'So when you said talk, it wasn't talk about us, it was talk about what I am to do when you go, is that it?'

'About what we both do. It's not their fault, Annie and Brian don't deserve any hardship.'

'No they don't. Do I, though?'

'That's different, Ria. You and I fell out of love.'

'I didn't.'

'You did, you just won't admit it.'

'That's not true. And I won't say I did to make you feel better.'

'Please.'

'No, I love you. I love the way you look and the way you smile, I love your face and I want to have your arms around me and hear you telling me that this is all a nightmare.'

'This isn't the way it is, Ria, it's the way it was.'

'You don't love me any more?'

'I'll always admire you.'

'I don't want your admiration, I want you to love me.'

'You only think you do… deep down you don't.'

'Don't give me this, Danny, trying to make me say that I'm tired of it all too.'

'We can't have everything we want,' he began.

'You're having a pretty good stab at it though.'

'I want us to be civilised, decide what we'll do about where we all live…'

'What do you mean?'

'Before we tell the children we should be able to give them an idea what the future is going to be like.'

'I'm not telling the children anything, I have nothing to tell them. You tell them what you want to.'

'But the whole point is not to upset them…'

'Then stay at home and live with them and give up this other thing… that's the way not to upset them.'

'I can't do that, Ria,' Danny said. 'My mind's made up.'

That was the moment she believed that all this was actually happening. Up to then it had all been words, and nightmares. Now she knew and she felt very, very weary. 'Right,' she said. 'Your mind's made up.'

He seemed relieved at the change in her. He was right, they did know each other very well, he could see that somehow she had accepted it was going to happen. Their conversation would now be on a different level, the level he had wanted, discussion of details, who would live where. 'There wouldn't be any hurry to move and change everything immediately, disrupting their school term, but maybe by the end of the summer?'

'Maybe what by the end of the summer?' Ria asked.

'We should have thought of what will happen, where we'll all live.'

'I’ll be living here, won't I?' Ria said, surprised.

'Well, sweetheart, we'll have to sell the place. I mean it would be much too big for…'

'Sell Tara Road?' She was astounded.

'Eventually, of course, because…'

'But Danny, this is our home. This is where we live, we can't sell it.'

'We're going to have to. How else can… well… everybody be provided for?'

'I'm not moving from here so that you can provide for a twenty-two-year-old.'

'Please Ria, we must think what we tell Annie and Brian.'

'No, you must think. I've told you I'm telling them nothing, and I am not moving out of my home.'

There was a silence.

'Is this how you're going to play it?' he said eventually. 'Daddy, wicked monster Daddy, is going away and abandoning you, and good saintly poor Mummy is staying…'

'Well that's more or less the way it is, Danny.'

He was angry now. 'No, it's not. We're meant to be trying to be constructive and make things more bearable for them.'

'Okay, let's wait here until they come home and let's watch you making it bearable for them.'

'Where are they?'

'At Rosemary's, watching a video.'

'Does Rosemary know?'

'Yes.'

'And what time will they be back?'

Ria shrugged. 'Nine or ten, I imagine.'

'Can you ring and get them back sooner?'

'You mean you can't even wait a couple of hours in your own home for them.'

'I don't mean that, it's just if you're going to be so hostile… I suppose I'm afraid it will make things worse.'

'I won't be hostile. I'll sit and read or something.'

He looked around wonderingly. 'You know I've never known this house so peaceful, I've never known you sit and read. The place is always like a shopping centre in the city with doors opening and closing, people coming in and out and food and cups of coffee. It's always like a beer garden here, with your mother and the dog and Gertie and Rosemary and all the children's friends. This of all times must be the very first time in this house that you can hear yourself think.'

'I thought you liked the place being full of people.'

'There was never any calm here, Ria, too much rushing round playing house.'

'I don't believe this, you're just rewriting history.' She got up from the table and went over to the big armchair. She still felt this huge tiredness. She closed her eyes and knew that she could sleep there and then in the middle of this conversation that was about to end her marriage and the life she had lived up to now. Her eyelids were very heavy.

'I'm so sorry, Ria,' he said. She said nothing. 'Will I go and pack some things, do you think?'

'I don't know, Danny. Do whatever you think.'

'I'm happy to sit and talk to you.'

Her eyes were still closed. 'Well do then.'

'But there's nothing more to say,' he said sadly. 'I can't keep on saying that I'm sorry things turned out like this, I can't keep saying that over and over.'

'No, no you can't,' she agreed.

'So maybe it would be better if I were to go up and pack a few things.'

'Maybe it would.'

'Ria?'

'Yes?'

'Nothing.'

For a while she could hear him upstairs moving from his study to the bedroom. And then she fell asleep in the chair.

She woke to the sound of voices in the kitchen.

'Usually it's Dad fast asleep,' said Brian.

'Did you have a nice time?' Ria asked.

'It's not even in the cinemas for another three weeks.' Brian's eyes were shining.

'And you, Annie?'

'It was okay. Can Kitty stay the night?' Annie asked.

'No, not tonight.'

'But Mam, why"? Why do you always make life hell for everyone? We told Kitty's mother that she'd be staying.'

'Not tonight. Your father and I want to talk to you and Brian about something.'

'Kitty can talk too.'

'You heard me, Annie.' There was something about her voice. Something different. Grudgingly Annie escorted her friend to the door. Ria could hear muttered remarks about people who spoiled everything.

Danny had come downstairs. He looked pale and anxious. 'We want to talk to you, your mother and I,' he began. 'But I'll do most of the talking because this is about… well, it's up to me to explain it all really.' He looked from one to the other as they stood alarmed by the table. Ria still sat in her armchair. 'It's very hard to know where to start, so if you don't think it's very sentimental and slushy I'll start by saying that we love you very, very much, you're a smashing daughter and son…'

'You're not sick or anything, Daddy?' Annie interrupted.

'No, no, nothing like that.'

'Or going to gaol? You have that kind of voice.'

'No, sweetheart. But there are going to be some changes, and I wanted to tell…'

'I know what it is.' Brian's face was contorted with horror. 'I know. It was just the same in Dekko's house when they told him, they told him they loved him. Are we going to have a baby? Is that it?'

Annie looked revolted. 'Don't be disgusting, Brian.'

But they both looked at Ria for confirmation that this wasn't the problem. She gave a funny little laugh. 'We're not, but Daddy is,' she said.

'Ria!' He looked as if she had hit him. His face was ashen. 'Ria, how could you?'

'I answered a question. You said we should answer their questions.'

'What is it, Daddy? What are you saying?' Annie looked from one to the other.

'I'm saying that for some of the time I won't be living here any more, well, for most of the time really. And that in the future, well, we'll all probably move house, but you will have a place with me and also with Mummy for as long as you like, always, for ever and ever. So nothing about us will change as far as you're concerned.'

'Are you getting divorced?' Brian asked.

'Eventually yes. But that's a long way down the line. The main thing to establish is that everyone knows everything and there are no secrets, nobody getting hurt.'

'That's what your father wants to establish,' Ria said.

'Ria, please…" He looked hurt and annoyed.

'And is Mam making it up about you having a baby? That's not true, is it, Dad?'

Danny looked at Ria in exasperation. 'That's not the point at the moment. The point is that you are my children and nothing can change that, nothing at all. You are my daughter and my son.'

'So it is true!' Annie said in horror.

'Not a baby!' Brian said.

'Shut up, Brian, the baby's not coming here. Dad's going away to it. Isn't that what's happening?' Danny said nothing, just looked miserably at the two stricken young faces. 'Well, is it, Dad? Are you going to leave us for someone else?'

'I can never leave you, Annie. You're my daughter, we'll never leave each other.'

'But you're leaving home and going to live with someone who's pregnant?'

'Your mother and I have agreed that we are not the same people we once were… we have different needs…'

Ria gave a little strangled laugh from the armchair.

'Who is she, Daddy? Do we know her?'

'No, Annie, not yet.'

'Don't you care, Mam? Won't you stop him? Won't you tell him you don't want him to go?' Annie was blazing with rage.

Ria wanted to leap up and hold her hurt angry daughter to her and tell her just how bad it all was, how unreal. 'No, Annie. Your father knows that already, but he has made up his mind.'

'Ah, Ria, we agreed, you promised that this shouldn't be a slanging match between us.'

'We agreed nothing, I promised nothing. I am not telling my children that I have different "needs". It's just not true. I need you and want you at home.'

'Oh Mam, everything's ending, Mam.' Brian's face was white. He had never heard his capable mother admitting that she was adrift.

'Brian, it's all right, that's what I'm trying to say to you. Nothing's changing. I'm still Dad, still the same Dad I was all the time.'

'You can't leave Mam, Dad. You can't go off with some other one, and leave Mam and us here.' Brian was very near tears.

Annie spoke. 'She doesn't care, Mam doesn't give a damn. She's just letting him go, she's letting him walk out. She's not even trying to stop him.'

'Thank you very much, Ria, that was terrific.' Danny was near to tears.

She found her voice. 'I will not tell the children that I don't mind and that it's all fine. It is not all fine, Danny.'

'You promised…' he began.

'I promised nothing.'

'We said we didn't want to hurt the children.'

I'm not walking out on them, I'm not talking about selling this house over their heads. Where am I hurting them? I only heard about your plans last night and suddenly I'm meant to be all sweetness and light. Saying this is all for the best; we're different people with different needs. I'm the same person, I have the same needs. I need you to stay here with us.'

'Ria, have some dignity please,' he shouted at her.

They seemed to realise that the children hadn't spoken. They looked at the faces of their son and daughter, white and disbelieving and both of them with tears falling unchecked. They were beginning to realise that their life in Tara Road was over. Nothing would ever be the same. An eerie stillness settled on the kitchen. They watched each other fearfully. It was always Ria who broke a silence, who made the first move, who jollied people along. But not tonight. It was as if she were more shocked than any of them.

Danny spoke eventually. 'I don't know what to do for the best,' he said helplessly. 'I wanted it told differently but maybe there's no good way of telling it.' They said nothing. 'What would you like me to do? Will I stay here in the study tonight so things will be sort of normal, or will I leave and come back tomorrow? You tell me and I'll do what you say.'

It was obvious that Ria was going to say nothing.

He looked at the children. 'Go,' said Brian. 'Stay,' said Annie.

'Not if you're going to leave anyway, go now,' Brian said. They all looked at Annie. She shrugged. 'Why not?' she said in a small hurt voice. 'If you're going to leave tomorrow, what's the point of hanging about?'

'It's not goodbye, sweetheart…' Danny began. 'Can you understand that?'

'No, I can't, Daddy, to be honest,' she said, and she picked up her school bag and without a backward glance went out the kitchen door and up the stairs.

Brian watched her go. 'What's going to happen to us all?' he asked.

'We'll all survive,' Danny said. 'People do.'

'Mam?' Her son looked at her.

'As your dad says… people do, we will too.' The look that Danny gave her was grateful. She didn't want his gratitude. 'The children have said they'd like you to go, Danny. Will you, please?'

He went quietly and the three of them heard him starting his car and driving down Tara Road.

Ria had a little speech ready for them at breakfast.

'I wasn't much help last night,' she said.

'Is it all really going to happen, Mam? Isn't there anything we can do to stop it?' Brian's face was hopeful.

'Apparently it is going to happen, but I wanted to tell you it's not quite as sad and awful as it seemed last night.'

'What do you mean?' Annie was scornful.

'I mean that what your father said was quite true. We both do love you very much and we'll be here, or around if not here, whenever you need us until you get bored with us and want lives of your own. But until then I'm not going to shout at your father like I did and he's not going to sneer at me. And if you want to be with him, at a weekend say, then that's where you'll be and if you want to be with me, then I'll be here or wherever and delighted for you to be with me. That's a promise.' They didn't rate it much. 'And what I suggest is that you ring your dad at the office today and ask him where he'd like to meet you tonight and talk to you and tell you about everything.'

'Can't you tell us, Mam?' Brian begged.

'I can't really, Brian. I don't know it all and I'd tell it wrong. Let him tell you then you won't feel worried and there won't be any grey areas.'

'But if he tells us one thing and you tell us another?' Annie wanted to know.

'We'll try not to do that any more.'

'And does everyone know about it?'

'No, I don’t think many people do.'

'Well, do they or don't they?' Annie was abrupt and rude. 'I mean does Gran know, Aunty Hilary, Mr McCarthy—people like that?'

'Gran and Hilary don't know, but I expect Mr McCarthy does. I didn't think of it before but I imagine he knows all about it.' Her face was like's^one.

'And are we to tell anyone? Do I tell Kitty what's happened or is it all a terrible secret?'

'Kitty's your friend. You must tell her whatever you want to, Annie.'

'I don't want to tell Dekko and Myles, they'd tell the whole class,' Brian said.

'Well don't tell them then, for goodness' sake.' Annie was impatient.

'Do you get custody of us, Mam, or does Dad?'

'I've told you we won't fight over you, you'll be welcome with both of us always. But I would think you would probably live with me during the week in term-time.'

'Because she wouldn't want us, is that it?' Annie was instantly suspicious.

'No, no. She knows your father has two children, she must want to welcome them.'

'But she's having her own,' Brian grumbled.

'What's her name?' Annie wanted to know.

'I don't know,' Ria lied.

'You must know, of course you know,' Annie persisted.

'I don't. Ask your father.'

'Why won't you tell us?' Annie wouldn't let go.

'Leave Mam alone. Why do you think she knows?'

'Because it's the first thing I'd have asked, that anyone would ask,' said Annie.

Danny used to laugh at the way Ria made a list of things to do. She always headed it List. Old habits die hard. She headed it List and sat at the table when the children had gone. Their hugs had been awkward but some pretence at normality had been restored. The tears and silences of last night were over. The list covered many phone calls.

She must ring her mother first and prevent her coming anywhere near the house, then ring Hilary, then at ten o'clock when the charity shop where she was meant to be working opened she would ring and cancel her shift. She would ring Rosemary at the printing company and Gertie at the launderette, and Colm to thank him for minding her.

And lastly she would ring Danny. Beside Danny's name she wrote firmly: Do not apologise.

Nora Johnson started to explain about the lunch. 'There may be a question on the bill at the restaurant. They said we could have three Irish coffees. In fact, Ria, they more or less insisted. But if there's any dispute…'

'Mam, could you stop talking please?'

'That's an extraordinary tone to take with your own mother.'

'Listen to me please, Mam. This is not a good day for me. Danny and I are going to have a trial separation. We told the children last night. It didn't go well.'

'And has he moved out?' Her mother sounded very calm.

'Yes. We haven't decided what to do about the house yet but he has moved out for the moment.'

'Keep the house,' her mother said, in a voice like a trap closing.

'Well, all that has to be discussed. If you don't mind I don't feel much like talking about it now.'

'No, but talk to a lawyer and keep that property.'

'Ah, Mam, that's not the point. The point is that Danny's leaving. Aren't you sorry? Aren't you upset for me?'

'I suppose I saw it coming.'

'No, you couldn't have seen it coming.'

'He has very small eyes,' said Ria's mother.

'Can I speak to Mrs. Hilary Moran?'

'Jesus, Ria, think yourself lucky you didn't use that voucher, I have such a hangover.'

'Listen, can you talk?'

'Of course I can't talk. I can't think and I certainly can't be in a school with all these screeching voices but this is where I am, and where I have to stay until four thirty. God, you don't know how lucky you are having nothing to do all day but sit in a big house…'

'Hilary, shut up and listen to me…'

'What?'

'Danny has another woman, a girl he got pregnant.'

'I don't believe it.'

'It's true. I wanted to tell you before Mam did, she's possibly trying to ring you at this minute.' Ria felt her voice tremble a little.

'I'm very sorry, Ria, more sorry than I can say.'

'I know you are.'

'And what happens now?'

'We sell the house, I suppose. He goes his way, I go mine. I don't know what happens now.'

'And the children?'

'Like weasels of course. In total shock, as am I.'

'You didn't know or suspect anything?'

'No, and if you tell me he has small eyes like Mam did I'll go round and kill you.'

They giggled. In the middle of it all they were able to laugh at their mother.

'I could tell them I'm sick and come round to you?' Hilary was doubtful.

'No, honestly, I have a million things to do.'

'I hope one of them's getting your hands on the deeds of that house,' Hilary said before they hung up.

Frances Sullivan, who was married to their dentist Jimmy, ran the charity shop. 'Ria… of course… we'll find someone else for this morning, don't give it a thought. Going anywhere nice?'

'No, bit of a family crisis, something I want to work out.'

'You do that. Is it Annie and my Kitty?'

'No, why do you say that?' Alarm bells sounded in Ria's head.

'Nothing.' Frances was backing off.

'Go on, Frances. I'd tell you it if I knew.'

'It's probably nothing, it's just that Kitty let out that she and Annie were going off on a motor-bike rally on Saturday next. I wondered had you found out.'

'Not next Saturday surely? They have another Careers Forum.'

'I think not,' said Frances Sullivan. 'But you didn't hear it from me.'

Rosemary's secretary put her through at once. 'Is it a good time, Rosemary?'

'Is he giving her up?' Rosemary said.

'No, not a chance.'

'And the children?'

'Took it very badly, of course. Danny and I made a real mess of it.'

'Are you all right, Ria?'

'I am at the moment, I'm on autopilot. And thank you so much for all the things, I forgot to thank you for anything.'

'Like what?'

'The hairdo, the lunch for Mam and Hilary—they got pissed there by the way, the bill might be a bit more than we thought.'

'Oh, for heaven's sake, Ria.'

'And for coming around, and all the encouragement. That's the best bit, I'm sorry for not making a better go of it.'

'You and he'll be back together.'

'No, it's not likely.'

'You're still in Tara Road, aren't you?'

'Yes, for the moment.'

'Stay there, Ria. He's not going to leave that house.'

'Gertie, I truly appreciated your coming round, I knew it wasn't such a good day for you.'

'And you sorted it all out, didn't you?'

'No, I'm afraid not.'

'Listen, there's nothing I don't know about family rows, he'll be as sorry as anything, he'll put it right. He'll let your one, whoever she is, have her baby or an abortion or whatever. You and he are… well, I know you don't like the example but, you're like Jack and myself. Some people are meant for each other.'

'I know you think this is helping, Gertie, but…'

'Listen, can you ever imagine either of you living anywhere on earth but Tara Road? You're made for that house, that's a sure guarantee it will work out all right.'

'Colm? It's Ria Lynch.'

'Ah yes, Ria.'

'You were very kind to me. I realised I never thanked you.'

'There's no need for thanks between friends, it's assumed.'

'Yes, but we don't want to take friends for granted either.'

'You wouldn't do that.'

'I don't know. I seem to have been a bit spaced out.'

'There's days we're all like that,' he said.

'Thank you for not enquiring if it sorted itself out.'

'These things take time.' He was so soothing, making no demands that she tell him. After all the others that she had talked to this was very restful.

'Danny?'

'It was awful,' he said. 'I'm so sorry.'

Ria looked at her little piece of paper. Do not apologise, it ordered her. She had wanted to cry and say she was sorry, that they were not the kind of people who snarled at each other like that. She wanted him to come home and wrap her in his arms. Do not apologise, she read, and she knew she had been right to write it down. Danny was not coming home to her. Ever.

'There was hardly any way it couldn't have been awful,' she said in matter-of-fact tones. 'Now let's see what we can salvage. I've told the children to call you today and that maybe you could meet them one evening on some neutral ground. Tell them about things, tell them what it's going to be like. The summer and everything.'

'But it's all still so up in the air, you and I have to…'

'No, you must tell them what they can expect. Whether you'll be able to cook dinner for them, have them to stay for weekends. You see they know they'll be welcome here, they don't know what you can offer them.'

'But you won't want to let them…?'

'Danny, they're ten and fifteen. Do you think I'm going to try to tell people of that age where they can go to see their father and where they can't? Nor would I want to. They must hear as much good news from you as possible.'

'You sound very calm.' He was impressed.

'Of course I'm not calm. But you will let them know they're welcome with you wherever you go, not just phrases, actual plans?'

'Plans?'

'Well, you do have a place to live, I imagine?'

'Yes, yes.'

'And would it have enough room for them to stay?'

'Stay?'

'When they go to see you.'

'It's just a small flat at the moment.'

'And is it near by?' She kept her voice interested and without any emotion.

'It's in Bantry Court, you know, the block… that we… that Barney developed a few years back?'

'I do,' Ria said. 'That was handy, your being able to get a flat in Bantry Court.' She hoped the bitterness wasn't too obvious in her voice.

'No, it's not mine, it's Bernadette's. She got it from her father when she was eighteen. You see, it was an investment.'

'It certainly was,' Ria said grimly.

'He's dead now,' Danny said.

'Oh, I see.'

'And her mother's sort of worried about the whole situation.'

'I imagine so.'

'She rang you that time, you know, the woman that didn't give her name? She was sort of checking up on me, I suppose.'

'But she knew you were married, I presume?'

'Yes.' He sounded wretched.

Ria continued to speak brightly. 'And you're getting a house soon, is that right?'

'Yes, you know, a house. For everybody.'

'For everybody. Quite.'

There was a silence. He spoke again. 'You know it will take time' to get everything sorted out.'

'I think they'd love to know some immediate sort of plans so that they'll know they haven't lost you.'

'But won't you…?'

'I'll have them lots. And the same about summer. Tell them the weeks you can take them away. Remember you once talked of renting a boat on the Shannon?'

'Do you think they'd like that? I mean, you know, without you?'

'Without me? But they're going to have to learn that it will be without me from now on when it's with you. We all have to learn that. Let them learn it soon before they panic and think that you have gone away.'

At no stage did Ria mention Bernadette's name or the child that she was carrying. It was clear that she expected that Annie and Brian would be part of the new household. She wanted only that he would close no doors on his daughter and son.

'Another thing. Do your parents know about… about all this?'

'Lord no,' he said, startled at the very idea.

'Don't worry. I'll tell them in time,' she said.

'I don't know what to say…' he began.

'Oh, and Barney and Mona and Polly and people… do they know?'

'Not Mona,' Danny Lynch said quickly.

'But Barney is up to date?'

'Yes, well he helped us to get a house, you see.'

'Like he helped to get us this one,' Ria said. A wave of irritation about Barney McCarthy swept over her. She realised she had never liked him. She had liked both of his women but not him. How odd that she hadn't known this before. She decided to change the subject. 'Children are easily distracted, be sure to emphasise holidays to them.'

'But what would you do? If we all went away?'

'I'd go on a holiday myself maybe.'

'But sweetheart… where would you…?'

'Danny, can I ask you not to call me that?'

'I'm so sorry. Yes, you did ask me, but you know it means nothing.'

'I know now it means nothing. I didn't always.'

'Please, Ria.'

'Okay, Danny. We'll say goodbye now.'

'Where will I take them, McDonald's, Planet Hollywood?'

'I don't know. It might be a bit difficult to talk in those places, but decide all of you.'

They hung up.

It had been less upsetting than she had thought. Funny how annoyed she was about Barney's complicity. It wasn't unreasonable to be annoyed. After all she and Danny had kept Barney's secret for years. They had never told Mona McCarthy where her husband really was on the night that little Annie Lynch was born.

CHAPTER FOUR

Ria lost all sense of time. Sometimes when she went to bed she awoke thinking it was morning and realising that she had only been asleep for half an hour. The empty side of the bed seemed an enormous vast space. Ria would get up and walk to the window, hugging herself as if to try and ease the pain. Just after midnight and he was asleep in some apartment block wrapped around this child. It was too much to bear. Perhaps her mind would give up under the strain. That's what happened to people. As she sat long hours staring out the window while stars disappeared and dawn came, Ria thought that perhaps her mind had actually broken down already without her noticing it. Yet she appeared to function during daylight hours. The house was cleaned, the meals were cooked, people came and went. She spoke normally, she believed, to those who spoke to her.

But it was all totally unreal. And she couldn't remember anything at all from a day just over. Was it today that Myles and Dekko had brought three frogs to play in the bath—or was that yesterday or last week? Which was the day that she had the huge row with Annie about Kitty? And how had it started? Had Hilary come with six parsnips and a request that Ria make a parsnip soup to take home with her, or had Ria just imagined this?

He was going to come back of course, that was obvious. But when? How long did this humiliating, hurtful, waiting period have to go on before he threw his keys on to the hall table and said, Sweetheart, I'm home. Everyone has a silly fling and mine is over, now will you forgive me or will I have to walk on my knees?

And she would forgive him immediately. A great hug, a holiday maybe. The name of Bernadette would not be mentioned for a while and then it would come into the conversation as a kind of risque joke.

But when was all this healing process going to start? Sometimes during the day Ria would stop whatever she was doing with a physical sense of shock as she remembered something else that had been a lie. That coloured shirt that he had bought in London. The girl had chosen it for him, hadn't she? Bernadette had been in London with him. Ria had to sit down when she realised that. Then the bill for the mobile phone. Almost every call was to her number, the number that was his now in case of emergencies. The duty-free perfume, a guilt present from a trip with Bernadette. The day when they were all at the zoo, just going into the lion house, and he got a call to go back to the office. That wasn't the office, that had been Bernadette. There were so many times and Ria had never suspected. What a fool, what a simple trusting fool she had been. Then she would argue that view. Who wanted to be a gaoler watching every move? If you loved someone you trusted him. Surely it was as simple as that.

And everyone knew, of course they did. When she telephoned him at work they must have raised their eyes to heaven, in sympathy as well as irritation. The staid stay-at-home wife who didn't know her husband had another woman. Even Trudy, the girl who answered the phone, must have put Bernadette through as often as Ria. Possibly Bernadette knew her name too, and asked about her diet which was a way of getting into her good books.

And then of course there was Barney McCarthy coming to this house praising Ria's delicious food. He had been out many, many times with Danny and Bernadette. In Quentin's where Ria went once a year on their wedding anniversary, that nice Brenda Brennan who ran the place would have known too. She must really have pitied Ria, the once-a-year mousy wife who suspected nothing.

And Polly knew, and of course she must have scorned, not pitied, Ria, because she was in exactly the same position as Mona. Mona? Did she know? Ria had spent so long deceiving Mona and hiding Polly's existence and all the time Mona might have been doing just the same about Bernadette.

It would be funny if it were not so terrible. And when you thought about it, if all these people knew, didn't Rosemary know? She knew everything that happened in Dublin. But no, Ria had to believe that her performance could not have been an act. And a true friend would have told her. If Rosemary and Gertie had known they would have had to give Ria some warning and not allow her world to be blown apart. From time to time Ria wondered if Rosemary had been giving her warnings. Was all this advice about clothes and getting a job some kind of hint that all was not well?

The Sullivans obviously knew. Frances had been brisk and supportive. 'It's probably a passing thing, Ria. Men approaching forty behave very oddly. If you can sit it out then I'm sure it will all be for the best.'

'Did you know?' Ria had asked her directly.

The answer had not been equally straightforward. 'This is a city full of rumours and stories. You would be addled in the head if you listened to them all. I have enough problems of my own trying to keep Kitty on the rails.'

Colm Barry probably hadn't known. Danny wouldn't have been so foolish as to take that child to a restaurant a few doors from his own house. But so many others did know. It was humiliating to think just how many. Taxi-drivers would have known, the man in the petrol station, Larry the bank manager, he probably knew. Maybe Bernadette had moved her account to Larry's branch for togetherness.

The window-cleaner asked about Danny. 'Where's himself?' he enquired. It was a day when she felt in a mood to talk.

'He's gone, he left me for a young one as it happens.'

'He always had a bit of a roving eye, your man had, you're well rid of him,' the window-cleaner had said. Now why had he said that? Why?

Why did people in the charity thrift shop press her hand and say that she was a great woman? Who had told them? Had they always known? Oh how she wished she could get away from all these people who knew. People who pitied her, patted her on the head and talked about her. She knew it would end when he gave up Bernadette and came home, but how long would she have to wait while all these people smiled indulgently as if Danny had a dose of the flu?

And of course she had to cope with the children. Annie's mood- swings went the whole way from blaming her mother to blaming herself. 'If you'd only been a bit more normal, Mam, you know, if you'd stopped yacking and cooking he wouldn't have gone away.' The next day it might be, 'It's all my fault… he called me his princess but I didn't spend any time with him, I was always in Kitty's house. He knew I didn't love him enough, that's why he went and found someone else not much older than me.'

Once or twice she asked Ria if they might write a letter to Dad saying how lonely they were without him. 'I don't think he knows,' Annie wept.

'He knows.' Ria was stony.

'If he knows why doesn't he come back?' Annie asked.

'He will, but only when he's ready. Honestly Annie, I don't think we can hurry him up.' And for once she noticed Annie nodding as if on this rare occasion she agreed with her mother.

Brian had his views as well. 'It was probably all my fault, Mam. I didn't really wash enough, I know.'

'I don't think that was it, Brian.'

'No, it could have been, you know the way Dad was always washing himself and wearing a clean shirt every day and everything?'

'People do that, you know.'

'Well, could we tell him that I wash more now. And I will, I promise.'

'If Dad left just because you were filthy he'd have left ages ago, you've been filthy for years,' Annie said gloomily.

Then Brian decided that his father had left on account of sex. 'That's what Myles and Dekko say. They say that he went off to her because she's interested in having sex night and day.'

'I don't think that's right,' Ria said.

'No, but it might be part of it. Could you telephone him and say you'd be interested in having it night and day too?' He looked a bit embarrassed and awkward to be talking to his mother about such things, but he obviously felt that they had to be said.

'Not really, Brian.' Ria was glad that Annie wasn't in the room.

Annie was in the room however when Brian came up with his trump card. 'Mam, I know how to get Dad back,' he said.

'This should be interesting,' Annie said.

'You and he should have a baby.' The silence was deafening. 'You could,' Brian went on. 'And I wouldn't mind, I've talked about it with Myles and Dekko, it's not as bad as you'd think. And we could babysit, Myles, Dekko and myself. It would be a great way of getting pocket money.' He looked at his mother's stricken face. 'Or listen, Mam, if Dad came back, I'd do it for nothing. No charge at all,' he said.

Wouldn't it be wonderful, Ria thought, if she could be miles away from here, not to have to reassure people that she was fine, and that everything was fine, when in fact the whole world was as far from fine as it would ever be. She put off going out because of the people she would meet, yet she knew it was dangerous to hole up in Tara Road and be the reclusive, betrayed wife.

She heard a sound at the hall door and her heart lifted for a moment. Sometimes Danny used to run back during the day. 'Missed you, sweetheart, have you a cuddle for a working man?' And she always had. When had it stopped? Why had she not noticed? How could the sound of a leaflet being pushed through a hall door still make her think that he had come back? She must make a big effort today to live in the real world. Like knowing what she was doing and what time it was. She looked at the clock automatically when she heard the Angelus bell ringing. Everyone did that, it was almost as if you were checking whether the church had got it right. At the same time the telephone rang.

It was a woman with an American accent. 'I do hope you'll forgive me calling a private home, but this was the only listing I could get for a Mr Danny Lynch, realtor and estate agent. Enquiries didn't have a commercial listing.'

'Yes?' Ria was lacklustre.

'Briefly, my name is Marilyn Vine and we were in Ireland fifteen years ago. We met Mr Danny Lynch and he tried to interest us in some property…'

'Yes, well do you mind if I give you his office number, he's not here at the moment…?'

'Of course, but if I could take one more minute of your time to ask you is this something he might do. There isn't really any money in it.'

'Oh, then I doubt it very much,' Ria said.

'I'm sorry?'

'I mean he only cares about the value of this and the price of that nowadays—but then I'm just a little jaundiced today.'

'I beg your pardon, did I get you at a bad time?'

'There aren't going to be any good times from now on, but that's neither here nor there. What exactly was it that you wanted Danny to do for charity?'

'It wasn't that precisely. He was such a pleasant, personable young man I wondered did he know anyone who might like to do a house exchange this summer. I can offer a comfortable and I think pleasant home with a swimming pool in Westville—it's a college town in Connecticut—and I was looking for somewhere within walking distance of the city but with a garden…'

'This summer?' Ria asked.

'Yes. July and August. I know it's not much notice… but I really felt that I wanted to be there last night. I couldn't sleep and I thought I'd make this call, just in case.'

'And why did you think of Danny?' Ria asked in a slow, measured voice.

'He was so knowledgeable and he was my only contact. I felt sure he might put me on to someone else if it wasn't his particular scene.'

'And would it be a big house or a small house you'd want?' Ria asked.

'I don't really mind, I wouldn't be lonely in a large place and anyone coming here to Westville would have a house with plenty of room for four or five people. They could have the car too, of course, and there are very attractive places to go.'

'And aren't there agencies and things?'

'Yes of course, and I can go through the Internet… it's just that when you actually met a person all those years ago, and remembered a friendly face, it seemed a little easier. He wouldn't remember me, us, at all. But just at the moment I don't feel like talking to strangers much, negotiating with them. I guess it does sound a little odd.'

'No, oddly enough I know exactly how you feel.'

'Am I talking to Mrs. Lynch?'

'I don't know.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'We are going to get separated, divorced. There's divorce now in Ireland, did you know that?'

'This really was not a good time to ring. I can't tell you how sorry I am.'

'No, it was a great time. We'll do it.'

'Do what?'

'I'll go to your house, you come to mine, July and August. It's a deal.'

'Well, I suppose we should…'

'Of course we should, I'll send you a photo of it and all the details. It's lovely; you'll love it. It's in Tara Road, it's got all kinds of trees in the garden and lovely polished wooden floors and it's got some old stained-glass windows, and… and… and… the original mouldings on the ceilings and… and…' She was crying now. There was a silence at the other end of the line. Ria pulled herself together. 'Please forgive me, Marion is it?'

'Marilyn. Marilyn Vine.'

'I'm Ria Lynch and I can't think of anything I'd like to do more than get away from here and go to a quiet place with a swimming pool and nice drives. I could take my children for one month and the other month I could spend on my own, thinking out my future. That's why I got a bit carried away.'

'Your house sounds just what I want, Ria. Let's do it.'

You mightn't have known from her voice that she was standing in her kitchen looking out of her white wooden house and tears were running down her face also. When Marilyn Vine at last put down the telephone on her kitchen counter, she went out into her garden with her cup of coffee. She sat by the pool where she had swum earlier. Fifteen lengths morning and afternoon; it was as routine now as brushing her teeth. It was ten minutes past seven in the morning. She had just agreed to exchange houses with an extremely agitated woman going through some kind of life crisis. A woman whom she had never met who lived three thousand miles away. A woman who might well not have the right to exchange houses, whose property could well be under some kind of legal review pending divorce.

All Marilyn knew was that it was very foolish to make early-morning, spontaneous, spur-of-the-moment decisions. It was so unlike her to make a telephone call like that at this hour of the morning. And even less like her to go along with the plans of the hysterical woman at the other end of the line. She would never do anything remotely like this again. The only question now was whether she should call back and unpick the entirely impractical arrangement before it had begun to take root in this woman's mind, or just write a letter?

She could call immediately, it might be a cleaner break, and say the home exchange was no longer possible from her end, that she had family duties which she could not ignore. Marilyn smiled wryly at the thought of her being someone with family responsibilities. But Ria in Ireland wouldn't know this. It would be easier to write or send an email—anything not to have to hear the disappointment in that voice. But there was no technology in Tara Road and Ria Lynch would not have had access to her husband's office where presumably such things existed.

She had sounded gutsy and lively as well as slightly unhinged. Marilyn tried to work out how old she was. That good-looking young estate agent must be about forty now, this woman was probably the same age. She mentioned having a daughter of fourteen and a son who was almost ten. Marilyn's face hardened. So her marriage was ending, but she hated her husband: that much was obvious—she spoke about him so disparagingly to a total stranger. She was going to be much better off without him.

Marilyn would not allow herself to brood. Very soon now she would need to go to work. She would drive up to the college campus and take her place in the car park. Then, greeting this person and that, she would walk to the Alumni Office where she worked, cool and self-sufficient in her crisp lemon-and-white suit.

They would look at her with interest. How strange she hadn't gone to Hawaii with her husband. Greg Vine's visiting lectureship had seemed exactly what the couple needed. But Marilyn had been adamant she would not go, and had been equally resolute in giving no explanation to her colleagues and friends. By now they had stopped enquiring and trying to persuade her. She knew she was an object of interest and speculation. Their interest was genuine but so was their mystification that she would not go to a sunny island with the urging of a loving husband and the support of a caring department in the college that would hold the job open for her until her return.

What would they say if they knew what an extraordinary alternative she had been contemplating? To exchange homes for two months with a woman who owned, or claimed she owned, a four-storey Victorian house in Dublin. They would say it was a foolish decision, and must under no circumstances be allowed to go ahead.

Marilyn finished her coffee, straightened her shoulders and squared up to what she had done. She was an adult woman, very adult indeed. She would have her fortieth birthday this summer, on the first of August. She would make whatever decisions she felt like making. Who else was going to tell her what was best for her?

She nodded towards the telephone as if affirming the conversation she had made on it earlier. She looked at her reflection in the hall mirror. Short auburn hair, cut so that she could swim and leave it to dry naturally, green anxious eyes, tense shoulders but otherwise perfectly normal. Not at all the kind of person who would have decided something so unbalanced.

Marilyn picked up her keys and drove to work.

Ria sat down and held on to the table very tightly. Not since she was a teenager had she been abroad alone. And with Danny very few times. Well, at least she had a passport and a few weeks to get everything organised at this end.

Marilyn had said she was perfectly happy to feed Annie's cat. The children would love a trip to America, a house with a swimming pool. Marilyn said it was easy to learn to drive on the wrong side of the road because the place was so quiet. Ria had warned Marilyn against any such foolhardy courage in Dublin, which was filled with traffic hazards and mad drivers.

Marilyn had said she would prefer to walk anyway.

From force of habit, Ria got a piece of paper, wrote the word List and underlined it. As she began to write down what she had to do, her chest tightened. Was she completely mad? She knew nothing about this woman. Nothing at all except they had both cried on the telephone. When you paused to think about it, wasn't it very odd that she should approach the business of exchanging her house this way? There were agencies, firms specialising in such things. There was the whole Internet waiting for the opportunity to match people together, find them the ideal house-swap.

What kind of a person would remember Danny's handsome face from years ago and try to track him down? Perhaps she had fancied him all that time ago; he was a striking-looking man after all. Maybe she had in fact been closer to him than she was saying; it might have been a fling, a whirl or whatever. This whole idea of taking his house could be a ploy, a ruse to get involved in his life.

Ria had seen so many movies where mad people sounded totally plausible, where innocent trusting folk admitted them willingly into their lives. These could be the first hours of a nightmare that could wreck them. She must try and be rational about all this and work out what she wanted. Why did it seem such a good idea? Was it only so that she wouldn't have to look at Hilary, her mother, Rosemary, Frances and Gertie and see the sympathy in their eyes? Was there any other reason that was taking her across the Atlantic Ocean?

I might half forget him out there, Ria told herself. I might actually not see his face everywhere I look. Suppose she was sleeping in a strange bed in America she might not wake up at four o'clock frightened, thinking he was very late, could he have been in a car crash, and then with the even more sickening realisation that he was not coming back at all. America might cure that.

And the awful belief that there may have been other Bernadettes. People always said that the man doesn't leave on the first affair. There could have been other people entertained in this house, even that had slept with her husband. How great to go to a place where nobody had met Danny, heard of him, and certainly not slept with him.

But still it was a very sudden decision to have made. Promising a total stranger that she could live here in Tara Road. In normal times she would not have done anything so wildly lacking in caution. But these were not normal times, they were times when two months in America might actually be what was needed. And it was idiotic really to think that this woman Marilyn might be a serial killer.

Ria remembered that Marilyn had not wanted this house in particular, and it was Ria who had pushed Tara Road. Marilyn had sounded apologetic and had tried several times to end the conversation, it was Ria who had made all the running. She had said she would send photographs and banker's references, and Ria would do the same. Of course she was above-board and normal. She wanted to escape and have time to get her head together; that was American-speak for exactly what Ria wanted to do. It wasn't so outrageous a coincidence that two people with identical needs should meet accidentally at the right time.

Why do I want it so much? Ria asked herself. When I got up this morning I hadn't a notion of going to a house in Connecticut for the summer. Is it for the children so that I'll be able to offer them something the equivalent of their father's trip on the Shannon? Is it that I want to be somewhere where Danny Lynch isn't the centre of the world and we are all waiting for what he will do next so that we can react?

She felt the answer was a mixture of all these things, but she still wasn't sure that she had the strength to go ahead with it. Should she talk to Rosemary about it? Rosemary was so clear-headed she cut straight to the chase on everything.

But Ria firmed up her shoulders. She was a strong person despite a lot of evidence to the contrary. She would not allow circumstances to turn her into one of those dithering women she despised so much when she served them at the charity shop. The ones who couldn't make up their mind between a blue tablecloth and a yellow one; they'd have to talk to a husband, a daughter, a neighbour about it all before they came back and paid three whole pounds.

She liked the sound of Marilyn; this woman was not a psychotic, deranged killer coming over to waste the neighbourhood of Tara Road. She was someone who had appeared just when she was needed. With bleak determination Ria applied herself to the list.

The meal with Annie and Brian was not going well.

Danny had taken them to Quentin's which he thought would be a treat for them, but was turning out to be a great mistake. For one thing they weren't dressed properly. Any other young people having an early dinner there with parents and grandparents were elegantly turned out. Brian wore scruffy jeans and a very grubby T-shirt. His zipped jacket had a lot of writing on it, the names of footballers and dead pop stars; he looked very like a young tearaway who might have been harassing tourists in Grafton Street, Annie was also in jeans, far too tight in Danny's opinion. Her blonde hair was not washed and shiny, it was greasy and pushed behind her ears. She wore an old sequinned jacket to which she was inordinately attached. It belonged to some old lady in St Rita's and was described as a genuine fifties garment if you commented on it at all.

'Would you look at the prices!' Brian said, astounded. 'Look what they charge for steak and kidney pie. Mam makes that for free at home.'

'Not for free, you eejit,' Annie said. 'She has to buy the steak and the kidney and the flour and the butter for the pastry.'

'But that's all there already,' Brian protested.

'No, it's not. It doesn't grow in the kitchen, you fool. That's so typical of a man. She has to go out and pay for it in the shops and then there's the cost of her labour; that has to be taken into consideration.'

Danny saw that in a way Annie was trying to justify the cost of the expensive meal that he was treating them to, but as a conversation it was going nowhere. 'Right, now do we see anything we like?' He looked from one of them to the other hopefully.

'What are porcini, is it roast pork?' Brian asked.

'No, it's mushrooms,' his father explained.

'Eejit,' Annie said again, even though she hadn't known either.

'I might have a hamburger but I don't see it on the menu,' Brian said.

Danny hid his annoyance. 'Look here, they say ground beef served with a tomato and basil salsa, that's more or less it,' he pointed it out.

'Why don't they call it a burger, like normal places?' Brian grumbled.

'They expect people to be able to read and understand things,’ Annie said dismissively. 'Do they have vegetarian things, Dad?'

Eventually the choice was made and Brenda Brennan, the suave manageress, came and took their order personally.

'Pleasure to see you with your family, Mr Lynch,' she said, showing not an iota of displeasure at the fact that the children were dressed like tramps.

Danny smiled his gratitude.

'Is that her?' Brian whispered when Brenda Brennan had gone.

'Who?' Danny was genuinely bewildered.

'The one, the one who's going to have the baby, the one that you're going to live with?'

'Don't be ridiculous, Brian.' Annie's patience was now exhausted. 'She's as old as Mam, for God's sake. Of course she's not the one.'

Danny felt the time had come to reclaim the purpose of the evening. 'Your mother and I have had a very good conversation today, very good. We had none of those silly fights that have been so upsetting for us and indeed specially for you.'

'Well, that makes a change,' Annie grumbled.

'Yes it does make a change, these have been a bad couple of days for us all, but now we're all able to talk again.'

'Are you coming back?' Brian asked hopefully.

'Brian, this is what your mother and I were talking about. It's a question of what words we use. I've not gone away, I haven't left you two, of course I haven't. I'm going to be living in a different place, that's all.'

'What kind of place?' Annie asked.

'Well it's only a flat at the moment, but it will be a house very soon and you'll come to stay there as often as you like. It's got a lovely garden, and it will be your home too.'

'We've got a lovely garden in Tara Road,' Annie said.

'Yes, well now you'll have two.' He beamed with pleasure at the thought of it.

They looked at him doubtfully.

'Will we each have our own room?' Annie asked.

'Yes, of course. Not quite immediately, not the day we move in, but there'll be alterations done. Mr McCarthy's people will divide a room for you. In the meantime when you come to stay one of you can sleep on the sofa in the sitting room.'

'Doesn't sound much like a second home to me, sleeping on the sofa,' Annie said.

'No, well it's only temporary and then it will be sorted out.' He kept his smile bright.

'And how many days will we stay there, in the house with the divided room?' Brian asked.

'As many as you like. Your mother and I talked about that very thing today. You'll be delighted when you go home and discuss it with her, we both agree that you are the important people in all this…'

Annie cut across his speech. 'And could one of us stay in one place, and one in the other? I mean I don't have to be joined at the hip to Brian or anything?'

'No, of course not.'

Annie looked pleased by this.

'And when the baby comes if it's crying arid annoying us, can we go back to Tara Road?' Brian asked.

'Yes, of course.'

'Well that's all right then.' Brian seemed satisfied.

'And will she be like Mam and say keep your room tidy and you can't come in at this hour?'

'Bernadette will make you very welcome. She's so looking forward to meeting you. When will we arrange that, do you think?'

'You didn't say if she'd be making rules and regulations,' Annie persisted.

'You'll be as courteous and helpful in this new house as you are in Tara Road. That's all that's expected of you.'

'But we're not helpful in Tara Road,' Brian said, as if this was something his father had misunderstood.

Danny sighed. 'Suppose we decide a time and place to meet Bernadette?'

'Does she have a big bump? Does she look very pregnant?' Annie wanted to know.

'Not particularly. Why do you ask?'

Annie shrugged. 'Does it make any difference where we meet?' Danny felt a tic of impatience; this was much harder than he had expected it would be. 'Do we have to meet her?' Annie asked. 'Wouldn't it be better to wait until the baby's born and everything, get all that out of the way?'

'Of course you'll meet her,' Danny cried. 'We're all going away on a boat on the Shannon for a holiday, all of us. We want to meet together long before that.'

They looked at him dumbfounded.

'The Shannon?' Annie said.

'All of us?' Brian asked.

'Can Kitty come too?' Annie put in quickly. 'And don't even think of asking about Myles and Dekko, Brian, don't think of it.'

'I don't honestly think Mam would like a holiday with… you know, her coming too,' Brian said slowly.

Annie and her father exchanged glances. It was the one moment of solidarity in a nightmare meal. At least his daughter understood some of the problems ahead. Annie said nothing about Brian being brain-dead. Instead they both began to explain to the boy who was, after all, only ten years of age, that his mother would not be coming with them on this long-planned, much discussed holiday.

In Marilyn's office there was much talk of the annual alumni picnic in August. They had to get a list of accommodation addresses ready. Hotels, guest houses, dormitories, private homes where the past students could stay. Many of them looked forward to this weekend as the high spot of the year. It was a highly successful fund-raiser for the college and maintained close contacts between present and past.

It had always been a tradition that those who worked in the Alumni Office would offer hospitality in their own homes. Marilyn and Greg had hosted many a family in 1024 Tudor Drive. Pleasant people all of them. They had always been delighted with the pool in the hot August weather and many had kept in touch over the years. The Vines had invitations in return to stay in Boston, New York City and Washington DC any time they liked.

The plans for the picnic were under way, the wording of the appeal in the first notifications, the details of tax deductions in any gift made to an alumni library and arts centre. They would have to debate the nature of the entertainment, the number of people allowed to address the gathering, the need to keep the speeches even shorter than they were. Soon work would be apportioned. Marilyn knew she must speak before then. She would not accept any tasks and projects which she would be unable to carry through.

She cleared her throat and addressed the Professor of Education who was taking the meeting. 'Chair, I must explain that I will not be here during the months of July and August. I have accepted the leave of absence so kindly offered to me by the college. I leave at the end of June and will be back after Labor Day, so can I ask you to give me maximum input to the early preparation work in the knowledge that I will not be here for the event itself?'

A group of faces looked up, smiling. This was good news. The taut, tense Marilyn Vine was finally giving in. At last she was going to join Greg, her bewildered husband, in Hawaii.

Almost two months before she left. That would give Ria plenty of time. And she wouldn't tell anybody anything until she was ready. The list had been invaluable. She couldn't understand why Danny had laughed at her, ruffled her hair and said she was a funny little thing. It was what people did, for heaven's sake. All right, if they were at work or in an office they used computers, personal organisers, filofaxes. But basically the process was the same. You wrote down what had to be done, and you clutched it to you. That way you didn't forget anything.

It would take a week at least before she got the documents from Marilyn. She didn't want to spring this on everyone without being able to show them something to back up that this was a good idea. She had prepared a little dossier of her own, which she would send off today or tomorrow. She had photographs of the house both inside and out and cuttings from the Irish Times newspaper's property section showing the kind of place that Tara Road was. She put in a map of Dublin, an up-to-date tourist guide to the city, a restaurant guide, a list of books Marilyn might like to read before she came. She gave the address of her bank, the name, telephone number and fax of their bank manager. Also a terse and unemotional note to say that the house was owned jointly between her and Danny; its ownership was not in dispute. He would look after the children for the month of July and later she would send a list of friends and contacts that would be of help to Marilyn when she arrived.

Perhaps a week was too optimistic; she might have to keep her secret for a little longer than she had hoped. She imagined that the whole business could even take as long as ten days. But Ria had reckoned without the speed of the United States and the existence of courier firms. A Fedex van turned up the very next day at her house with all of Marilyn's details. Hardly daring to breathe she looked at the pictures of the swimming pool, the low white house with the flowers in the porch, the map of the area, the local newspaper, and the details of the car, shopping facilities and membership of a leisure centre and club which could be transferred to Ria while she was in residence. There were golf, tennis and bowling near by, and Marilyn also said she would give her a list of contacts with telephone numbers for any emergency that might occur.

In a note as terse and unemotional as Ria's own letter Marilyn explained that she needed some space to think out her future. She had not joined her husband on a short sabbatical in Hawaii, because there were still matters she had to think through. With her bank details she also added that she had not yet told her husband about the exchange but that there would be no problem and she would confirm this within twenty-four hours. She didn't like to call him and tell him it had been organised just like that. Some things need a little diplomacy, as she was sure Ria would understand.

Ria understood. She still had to tell Danny. Did they all know in his office, she wondered again, as she rang and asked to be put through to him? It was very, very hard to dial the office now. As Danny's wife she had had some kind of automatic status in their eyes, now what had she? It was easy to read sympathy, scorn or embarrassment into the voice of the receptionist. Perhaps it was none of these things.

'Can you come around and collect your things soon, Danny? I want to try and organise the place a bit.'

'There's no huge hurry, is there?'

'No, not from my point of view, but for the children… they really should get used to knowing that your things are where you stay.'

'Well, as I said, the flat's a bit small at the moment.'

'But didn't you say Barney was organising you a new house?'

'Finding us one I said, not buying one, Ria.'

'Sure I know that, but doesn't it exist?'

'It's not in great shape yet.'

'But it's probably in good enough shape to hold your golf clubs, your books, the rest of your clothes… you know, the music centre, that's yours.'

'No, sweet… No, it's not mine, it's ours. We're not down to dividing things up item by item.'

'We have to some time.'

'But not… no, not this minute.'

'Come today if you can, with the car. And there are a few other things I want to talk to you about anyway. Come before the children get back, won't you?'

'But I'd like to see them.'

'Sure, and you can any time, but it's not a good idea to see them here.'

'Ria, don't start laying down rules.'

'But we agreed not to confuse them; they're to be equally welcome in each home. I'm not going to be over in your place when they visit you, and it makes sense for you not to be in my place.'

There was a silence.

'It's a bit different.'

'No it's not, there'll be no sign of me or all my make-up and clothes and sewing machine dotted around in Bernadette's house, so why should all your things be here?' 'I’ll come over,' Danny said.

Heidi Franks could hardly wait for the alumni picnic meeting to be over so that she could talk to Marilyn. She was overjoyed to know that the woman had finally seen sense. She would offer to go and keep an eye on her garden for her. She knew it was Marilyn's pride and joy and that the neighbours were not green-fingered. But this decision had been long in the making. Heidi would not rush in with cries of delight; she would take it as casually as Marilyn herself. That announcement at the meeting had been deliberately cool and unfussy, even in an environment where she knew they were all very interested and concerned about her plans.

'I'll be so happy to drop in and adjust the sprinklers for you,' she said as soon as they had a moment to talk.

'You're too good, Heidi, but truly they are totally automatic; they work themselves.'

'Well, just to make sure that there are no little bugs or aphids attacking all your lovely beds.'

'No, actually there'll be someone there, that's why I couldn't offer any accommodation for the picnic.'

'Really, someone to house-sit? That's a good idea, who's going to do it?'

'Oh you wouldn't know her, she's from Ireland—Ria Lynch.'

'Ireland?' Heidi said.

'I know. I expect she'll find it very different here. I must rush, Heidi, I have to hand this lot in. I'll talk to you later and tell you all about it.' She had left the office.

Heidi smiled fondly after her. Greg would be so pleased. He had been distraught when Marilyn wouldn't accompany him to Hawaii. He had moved heaven and earth to get the position and the professorial exchange; once it had been achieved he couldn't go back on it. Now Marilyn was going to join him at last.

Ria had never used a courier service before. It was surprisingly easy; they just came around and took the package. How foolish she had been, thinking that people used ordinary mail any more when things were important. She had a lot to learn. But maybe this summer would teach her quite a few of them.

She saw Colm in the garden being watched through sleepy eyes by Clement the cat that he had given to Annie when it was a little kitten. He worked so hard and was always so even-tempered and pleasant. She yearned to invite him in for coffee and tell him her plans.

But she couldn't, not until she had spoken to Danny. Danny, who was going to go through the roof when he heard how she intended to spend the summer. Danny, who had obviously had a disastrous evening with the children in Quentin's… what a stupid place to have taken them in the first place. They hadn't told her it was bad but they didn't have to, it was written all over their faces.

Heidi picked up the telephone on Marilyn's desk.

'Good afternoon, Marilyn Vine's phone, Heidi Franks speaking… Oh, Greg, nice to talk with you, no you've just missed her. She'll be back in ten minutes. Can I take a message? Sure, sure. I'll tell her. Oh and Greg, we're all thrilled she's going out to you. It's a great decision. Today. At the meeting. Yes, for July and August. No? You don't? Could it be a surprise or anything? Oh I'm really so sorry I spoke. No I don't think I got it wrong, Greg. She says there's an Irish woman coming to house-sit up in Tudor Drive while she's out with you. Listen, better let her talk to you about it. I know, Greg. Things do get confused.' Heidi replaced the receiver slowly and turned around.

At the door stood Marilyn listening with a white face. Why had she told the faculty before she had told Greg? She was such a fool. It was partly because of the time-difference between here and Hawaii, partly because she had been considering what to say. Now things would be worse than ever.

Danny didn't even lift the envelope of pictures, brochure and maps. He just looked at Ria, astounded.

'This is not going to happen. Believe me, this is so mad that I can't even take it in.'

Ria was calm. On her list she had written: Don't plead, don't beg. It was working, she was doing neither.

'It's only going to cost our fares, and I've been on to the travel agency. They're not crippling.'

'And what exactly would you call crippling, might I ask?' he said with a sneer in his voice.

'The price of a meal in Quentin's for two children who only wanted a burger and a pizza,' she said.

'Aha, I knew something like this would come up, I knew it,' he said triumphantly.

'Good, it's nice to be proved right,' Ria said.

'I beg of you don't get all silly and smug on me. We're trying God damn it, we're trying for the kids' sake not to make them into footballs. You sounded fine on the phone. Why have you changed?'

I'm still fine. I haven't changed. I am thinking of the children. You're going to be able to hire a lovely cruiser on the Shannon for them; I don't have the money for that. In fact I don't know what money I'll have so I've arranged a grand holiday for them in a place with a lovely pool. Look at it, Danny, at no cost except the fare. We'll just go out to the grocery and I'll cook there instead of here. I thought you'd be pleased.'

'Pleased? You thought I'd be pleased to let a madwoman that none of us know into my house…'

'Our house…'

'It's not on, Ria, believe me.'

'We've arranged it.'

'Then unarrange it.'

'Will you explain to the children that there'll be no holiday for them with me, no chance to see the United States? Will you look after them for two months instead of one? Well, will you Danny? That's what this is about.'

'No, it's not about this, it's about you putting a gun to my head, that's what it's about.'

'I am not doing that, I am trying my very best to pick up all the pieces that you broke. I was perfectly happy to go on here for ever and ever. You weren't. That's what it's all about.' She was as flushed as he was.

His voice was calmer now, and she noticed that he wasn't calling her 'sweetheart' any more. That much had sunk in anyway. 'We don't know anything about this person, Ria, even suppose for a moment that I thought it was a good idea. Running away is never a good idea.' She looked at him quizzically, her head on one side. 'I didn't run away, I made a decision about life and I told you openly and honestly,' he blustered slightly.

'Yes, I forgot. Of course you did.' She was totally calm now.

'So now will you agree that maybe some year we could talk about your doing this, you know, organising a house exchange to the States. It's a big market actually, and safer than time share. Barney was only talking…'

I'm going on July the first, she's coming that day. The children can come out to me on August the first. I've checked the flights, there are seats available, but we need to book soon.' Her voice was very steady and she seemed very sure of what she was saying.

Danny reached out and unwillingly dragged Marilyn Vine's envelope to him to look at the contents. That was the moment when Ria knew she had won and that the trip was on.

Marilyn sent a very short e-mail to Greg at the University in Hawaii:

Very much regret not getting in touch about my summer plans. Please call me at home tonight at any time that suits you and I will explain everything. Again many sincere regrets,

Marilyn

He called at 8.00 p.m. She was waiting and answered immediately.

'It must be about three o'clock in the afternoon there,' Marilyn said.

'Marilyn, I didn't call to discuss the different time zones, what's happening?'

I'm truly very sorry and Heidi is distraught over it all, as you can imagine. Another hour and I would have e-mailed you asking you to call.'

'Well I'm calling now.'

'I want to get away from here. I find it very stifling.'

'I know, so did I. That's why I arranged for us to come here.' His voice was uncomprehending. He had been so sure she would go to Hawaii with him, so devastated when she had said she wasn't able to face it.

'We've been through all that before, Greg.'

'We have most certainly not been through it as you say. I am sitting out here six thousand miles away without any understanding of why you are not here with me.'

'Please, Greg?'

'No, you can't just say "Please Greg" and expect me to understand, be somehow inspired. And what are your summer plans as you call them? Am I going to be told about them or must I wait for more conflicting messages from half the faculty to tell me that you're joining me here or not?'

'I can't apologise enough for that.'

'Where are you going, Marilyn?' His voice was cold now.

'I'm going to Ireland on July the first.'

'Ireland? he said.

She could see his face, lined and sun-tanned, and his glasses pushed up on his forehead, his hair beginning to thin a little in the front. He would be wearing a pair of faded chinos and maybe one of those very bright primary-colour shirts which looked just fine in the glare and heat of the islands but looked overdone and touristy anywhere else.

'We were there years ago together. Do you remember?'

'Of course I remember, we were on a conference for three days and then three days touring the west, where it rained all the time.'

'I'm not going for the weather, I'm going for some peace.'

'Marilyn, it's very dangerous in your state of mind to go and bury yourself in some cabin on the side of a mountain there.'

'No I'm not doing that. It's a big suburban house actually, in a classy part of Dublin, old Victorian building. It looks lovely, four storeys altogether and there's a big garden. I'll be very happy there.'

'You can't be serious.'

'But I am. I've arranged an exchange with the woman that owns it, she's coming here to Tudor Drive.'

'You're giving our house to a total stranger?'

'I've told her that you may possibly come back, that it's not likely but that work may bring you back, she quite realises that.'

'Oh, very generous of her, and will her husband be coming back from time to time to visit you possibly?'

'No, they're separated.'

'Like us I suppose,' he said. 'For all the phrases we wrap it up in, we are separated, aren't we, Marilyn?' He sounded very bleak.

'Not in my mind, we're not. We are just having time apart this year; we've been through that a hundred times. Do you want to hear about Ria?'

'Who?'

'Ria Lynch, the woman who's coming.'

'No, I don't.' Greg hung up.

Heidi Franks was so upset at having opened her mouth to Greg Vine in Hawaii that she had to go to the rest room and have a weep at her own stupidity. She had obviously created a very awkward situation. And yet how was she meant to have guessed that the husband knew nothing of the wife's plans?

They were an immensely compatible couple, and nobody thought for a moment that this temporary separation while Greg was in Hawaii meant any rift in the marriage. For one thing he called and sent e-mails regularly, and also sent postcards to various faculty members always reporting some little bit of news he had learned from Marilyn. So how could anyone be blamed for assuming that Greg knew his wife's plans?

Still it was very upsetting, and that grey drained look on Marilyn's face as she realised that Heidi had been blabbing away on the telephone would be hard to forget. Heidi dabbed her eyes; her face looked blotchy and dry. Her hair was a mess. Oh, how she wished that Marilyn were the kind of person that she could apologise to properly. And maybe they might even both be a bit tearful together. Then Marilyn would tell her what it was all about, swear her to secrecy over whatever it was that was happening, and Heidi would be totally diplomatic. Because the maddening thing was that normally she actually was discreet. But this would not happen. Marilyn was stoic and unbending. Nonsense, she had said. Please don't mention it, it was a matter of timing. Then the subject had been closed.

Heidi felt wretched. Tonight there was a cocktail party to say farewell to a lecturer in the Mathematics Department. Henry had said he would like her to go. These were occasions when the older wives always dressed up to kill. Heidi looked once more with displeasure at her flaking skin and bird's-nest hair. It would take more than cold eye-pads to restore those sad red eyes to anything approaching elegance. She made a sudden and rare decision to take the afternoon off and go to Carlotta's Beauty Salon out in Westville. Carlotta, who specialised in 'treatments for the maturer skin', would look after her.

It was wonderful to lie back and let Carlotta get on with the repair job. Heidi felt herself relaxing and feeling better by the moment. Carlotta, with her big dark eyes, was both attractive and motherly-looking at the same time. She was immaculately groomed, a perfect advertisement for her own salon. She had come to live in Westville from California over ten years ago and opened a very smart and successful salon, employing six local women.

She had been married, it was rumoured at least three times, in her youth. Children were not spoken of. There was no husband around at the present time. But everyone knew that if Carlotta wanted one, one would appear. One might even detach himself from where he was already meant to be secured. She was a very exotic, charming, not to mention financially secure, woman. Whichever side of forty she was, and this was often debated in Westville, Carlotta would have few problems in finding husband number four when she set out to look for him.

She suggested a herbal facial for Heidi, and a scalp massage. Nothing too rushed, nothing too expensive. Heidi vowed that she would come to this restful place regularly. She owed it to herself. Henry had his golf; it was only fair that she should have something relaxing also. As the firm capable hands massaged her throat and neck Heidi began to forget the sad, strained face of Marilyn Vine who had planned to take two months off travelling somewhere without informing her husband.

'How is Marilyn getting along these days?' Carlotta asked unexpectedly.

Carlotta lived next door to the Vines. Heidi had totally forgotten. But she was not going to be caught twice in one day. This time she would say absolutely nothing about Marilyn's plan and intentions. 'I do see her from time to time in the office, but I don't really know how she's getting along. She keeps herself very much to herself. You know her much better than I do, Carlotta, living so near and everything. Do you see much of her?'

Carlotta spoke easily about everyone but she never actually gave out any detailed information. She spoke in warm generalities. They were wonderful neighbours, she said. You couldn't live beside better people than the Vines. And they kept their property so well. Everyone else on Tudor Drive had begun to smarten themselves up since Marilyn got going. She just loved those trees and flowers.

'Does she come to the salon?' Heidi asked.

'No, she's not really into skin care.'

'Still, this would be such a treat for her,' Heidi said.

'I'm glad you feel it relaxing.' Carlotta was pleased. 'But anyway, even if I were thinking about it, this isn't the time with her trip and everything.'

'Her trip?'

'Didn't she tell you? She's going to Ireland for two months, exchanging homes with a friend of hers there or something.'

'When did she tell you this?'

'This morning when we were putting out the trash. She had just fixed it up, she seemed very pleased. Longest conversation I've had with her for a long time.'

'Ireland…' Heidi said thoughtfully. 'What on earth is taking her all the way to Ireland?'

'America!' said Rosemary. 'I don't believe it.'

'I hardly believe it myself,' Ria admitted.

'And what does everyone say?' Rosemary wanted to know.

'You mean what does Danny say?'

'Yes I suppose I do, to be honest.'

'Well, he's horrified of course. But mainly I think because of having the children for a month, that doesn't suit the little love-nest at all.'

'So what's he going to do?'

'Well, he is going to have to work that out. I'll be at Kennedy to meet them on August the first. July is his business.' She sounded much stronger, more resourceful somehow.

Rosemary looked at her with admiration. 'You really have thought this through, haven't you? You'll have the whole place sussed out by the time the children get there, you'll know where to take them, how to entertain them and everything. You'll really need a month to get it together.'

'I need the month to get myself together. This month is for me, they'll find plenty to do when they get there. Here, let me show you pictures of the house.'

Rosemary was as fascinated with the change in her friend as she was with the pictures of a beautiful garden and a swimming pool in a small town in Connecticut. It might be just false energy but Ria certainly looked as if she had some life in her. Up to now she had been like somebody sleep-walking.

'I'm not going,' Annie said.

'Fine,' her mother replied.

This startled Annie. She had expected that she would be persuaded and coaxed. Things were certainly changing round here.

Brian was looking at the photographs. 'Look, they have a basket beside their garage, I wonder do they have a ball or should we bring one?'

'Of course they have a ball,' Annie said loftily.

'Look at the pool, it's like something in a hotel.'

Annie reached for the picture again. But her face was still mutinous. 'It's ridiculous us going out there,' she said.

Ria said nothing in reply, she just continued to set the table for breakfast. She had moved the big chair with the carved arms where Danny used to sit. Not a big public statement, she had just put it in a corner with a pile of magazines and newspapers on it. She always sat at different parts of the table herself trying to vary things, trying not to leave the yawning gap where the children's father used to sit.

It was surprising how she still expected him to come in the door saying: 'Sweetheart, did I have one awful day, it's good to be home.' Had he said that on the days when he had been making love to Bernadette? The thought made her shiver sometimes. How little she had known him and what he wanted in life. Ria found it almost impossible to concentrate on the trip to America at times, there was so much buzzing around in her head. Those times he had been working late, she had been so understanding and planned food that wouldn't be dried up when he came back. All those nights when he fell asleep exhausted in the big chair, perhaps it was exhaustion from making love to a young girl.

Weeks of waking with a shock at 4.00 a.m. in her empty bed and trying to remember the last time they had made love there, and wondering what he thought as he was planning to leave her and live in another home.

If she lived on her own Ria knew that she would almost certainly be quite mad by now. It was having to put on a face for the children that kept some hold of her sanity. She looked at them as they sat at the table, Brian looking at the pictures of a big basketball net fixed to a wall and the swimming pool with its tiled surrounds, Annie pushing the cuttings and pictures around sulkily. A wave of pity for them came over her. These were children who were having to face an entirely different summer than the one they had a right to expect. Ria would be very gentle with them.

She answered Annie thoughtfully. 'Yes, I know it sounds ridiculous to go there, but it has a lot going for it as well. It would be a new experience for us all to see America and no hotel bills to pay. And then of course there would be someone who would come here and mind this house for us all, that's important.'

'But who is she?' Annie groused.

'It's all there in the letter, love. I left it for you to read.'

'It doesn't tell us anything,' Annie said.

And in a way she was right. It didn't tell all that much. It didn't say why Marilyn wanted to leave this paradise and come to Dublin, and whether her husband would come too. It didn't speak of any friends or relations in Westville, nothing about a circle of people she knew, just an emergency list of locksmiths, plumbers, electricians and gardeners.

Ria's list had been much more people-orientated. But nothing would please Annie anyway so this wasn't relevant. She was still shuffling the papers around on the kitchen table, her face discontented.

'Has Dad fixed up the date of the Shannon trip?' Ria asked them.

They looked at each other guiltily as if there was something to hide.

'He says the boats are all booked,' Brian said.

'Ah, surely not?'

'That's what he says,' Annie said.

'Well, there must have been great demand for them then,' Ria said, pretending not to notice the disbelief.

'But he may be making it up,' Brian said.

'No, Brian, of course he wouldn't make it up, he's dying for a trip on the Shannon.'

'Yeah, but she wasn't,' Annie said.

'We don't know that now.' Ria struggled to be fair.

'We do actually, Mam.'

'Did she tell you to your faces?'

'No, we haven't met her yet,' Brian said.

'Well then…'

'We're meeting her today,' Annie said. 'After school.'

'That's good,' Ria said emptily.

'Why is it good?' Annie would fight with her shadow today.

'It's good because if you're going to be spending July with her, then the sooner you meet Bernadette the better. So that you'll get to know her.'

'I don't want to know her,' Annie said.

'Neither do I.' Brian was in rare agreement with his sister.

'Where are you all meeting?'

'Her flat, well, their flat.' Annie said. 'For tea, apparently.' She made it sound like the most unusual and bizarre thing to offer in the afternoon.

Part of Ria was pleased to see the resentment against the woman who had taken their father away. Yet another part of her knew that the only hope of peace ahead was if the children were co-operative. 'You know it would be nice if…' she began. She had been about to say that they should take a little potted plant or a small gift. It would break the ice and please Danny as well. But then she stopped herself. This was ridiculous. She would not make smooth the path of the meeting between her children and their father's pregnant mistress. Let Danny do it whatever way he wanted to.

'What would be nice?' Annie sensed a change of heart.

'If all this hadn't happened I suppose, but it has so we have to cope as best we can.' She was brisk.

She scooped up the contents of Marilyn's envelope.

'Are you putting those away?' Annie asked.

'Yes, Brian's seen them, you're not coming with us so I'll just keep them with my things. Okay?'

'What will I do while you're there?'

'I don't know, Annie. Stay with Dad and Bernadette, I suppose. You'll work it out.' She knew it was unfair, but she just wasn't going to go down the road of pleading and begging.

Annie would go to Westville when the time came, they all knew that.

Bantry Court, the apartment block that Bernadette lived in, had been developed by Barney about five years ago. Danny had sold many of the flats. Perhaps this was how he had met Bernadette. Ria had never asked. There were so many questions she had not asked. Like what she looked like. What they talked about. What she cooked for him. If she held him and stroked his forehead when he woke with a nightmare and his heart racing.

She had coped by pushing these things out of her mind. But today her daughter and son were going to this woman's apartment for tea. Somehow it was important that she had to see Bernadette first. Before Annie and Brian did.

As soon as they left for school Ria got into her car and drove there. She noticed that it took fifteen minutes. On the many nights when he came home so late, Danny must have driven this route. Had he hated coming back to Tara Road all that time or was he happy to keep both lives going? If this girl had not become pregnant would it have just gone along like that for ever? Bantry Court, Tara Road, two different compartments of his life?

She parked in the forecourt and looked up at the windows. Behind one of those sat Bernadette who was going to entertain Danny's children to tea this afternoon and get to know them, tell them about the new half-sister or brother that would be born. Would she call Danny darling or even sweetheart? Would she upset them by putting her hand on his arm?

They weren't going to like her no matter what she did. There was no way she could get it right. Annie and Brian wanted what they could never have because Bernadette existed. They wanted things to be the way they were.

Her name was Bernadette Dunne. That much Ria did know. The children had told her. The name was stuck there at the back of her mind. Like a weight, a very heavy object.

Ria went to the list of bells. There it was. Dunne, Number 12, top floor. Would she press it? What would she say? Suppose Bernadette let her in, which she very probably would not, what on earth would Ria say? She realised that she hadn't thought it out at all, she had come here purely on instinct.

So she paused and moved back a little and while she did a woman came along and went up to the row of bells. She pressed Number 12.

A voice answered. 'Halloo!' A thin young voice.

'Ber, it's Mummy,' the woman said.

'Oh good.' She must have pressed a buzzer because the door snapped open.

Ria shrank back.

'Are you coming in?' The woman was pleasant and a little puzzled at Ria dithering and hovering there.

'What? Oh no, no. I've changed my mind. Thank you.' Ria turned to go back to her car but first she looked hard at Danny's new mother-in-law. Small and quite smart, wearing a beige suit and a white blouse, and carrying a large brown leather handbag. She had short well-cut brown hair, and copper-coloured high-heeled shoes. She looked somewhere between forty and forty-five. Not much older than Ria and Danny. And she was Bernadette's mother.

Ria sat in the car. It had been very foolish to come here and upset herself. Now she was too shaky to drive. She would have to sit in this car park until she felt calm enough to move. What had possessed her to come and realise that Mrs. Dunne visiting her pregnant daughter was of their generation, not an older woman like her own mother or Danny's mother?

How did Danny rationalise this to himself? Or was he so besotted that he didn't even notice? She had not got very far along this road of thought when she saw the woman coming out of the big glass doors of Bantry Court. This time she was with her daughter. Ria strained forward to see. The girl had long straight hair, shiny and soft like an advertisement for shampoo. Ria felt her own hand go automatically to her frizzy curls.

She had a pale, heart-shaped face, and dark eyes. It was the kind of face you might see on the front of a CD of some folk singer. It was a soulful face. She wore a long black velvet sweater and a short pink skirt and childish black shoes with pink laces in them. Ria knew that Bernadette Dunne was twenty-two going on twenty-three and that she was a music teacher. She looked about seventeen and being marched to school by her mother who had found her playing truant. They got into a smart new Toyota Starlet and Bernadette's mother backed expertly out.

Ria found her strength and her car key, and followed them as they drove out of Bantry Court. She simply had to know where they were going, nothing else mattered. The two cars went slowly in the morning traffic through the crowded streets, and then the one in front indicated and stopped. Bernadette leapt out and waved as her mother went to find a parking place. She didn't look remotely pregnant yet, but possibly the big floppy sweater hid that. Ria noticed where she was going. A big, well-known delicatessen. She was buying the supper for her future stepchildren. She was going to make a spread for Annie and Brian Lynch tonight.

Ria ached to park her car on the footpath, leaving its hazard lights on, and run into the shop. Then she would point out the vegetarian pate that Annie would like, the little chorizo sausage that was Brian's current favourite, and nice runny Brie with bran biscuits for Danny. Or else she could just stand there and get drawn into conversation with this girl, as people do in shops.

But it was dangerous. Possibly Bernadette had seen a picture of Ria and knew what she looked like. And anyway her mother would be back shortly to help and advise about the purchases. She would recognise Ria as the dithering woman outside Bantry Court. What kind of a mother was she anyway, encouraging her daughter in breaking up another man's family, having a baby with a married man? Some help and example she must have been to Bernadette if this was the way things turned out.

But then Ria realised that it could not have been what that woman wanted for her daughter either. Possibly she had been horrified by it all, as Ria would be horrified if her own Annie were to get involved with a middle-aged married man. Possibly the mother hadn't been told that Danny was married at the start. And had then become suspicious.

Suddenly Ria remembered the woman who had telephoned her, the voice demanding to know if she were Mrs. Danny Lynch. This was the woman. Danny had concocted some cock-and-bull story at the time, but had later admitted it. Ria would have done the same if Annie were to be involved with a married man. She would have called the house to check if his wife really existed. To speak to the enemy. This woman probably loved her daughter too. She would have wished for a boyfriend who was young and single. But who could know what a daughter was going to do?

Was seeing Bernadette better than not seeing her? She sat in the car biting her lip and wondering. Possibly better. It meant that now there was no more imagining. It had cleared that area of speculation from her mind. It didn't make it any more bearable that she was so young. Or forgivable.

There was a knock on the car window and Ria jumped. For a mad moment she thought Bernadette and her mother were about to confront her. But it was the anxious face of a traffic warden. 'You were not even thinking about parking here, were you?' she asked.

'No, I was thinking about men and women and how they want different things.'

'Well, you chose an extraordinary place to sit and think about that.' The warden looked as if she were itching to take out her notebook and issue a ticket.

'You're right,' Ria agreed. 'But these thoughts come on you suddenly. However I'm out of here now.'

'Very wise.' The traffic warden put her notebook away regretfully.

At noon Ria telephoned Marilyn.

'Nothing wrong, is there?' Marilyn's voice sounded anxious.

'No, I just wanted to check that it's all still on track at your end, that's all. I'm sorry, is it too early? I thought you might be up.'

'No, no. That's fine, I've just had a swim, this is a good time for me. So you're making all your plans?'

'Yes, yes I am indeed.' Ria's voice sounded very down.

'Nothing's changed, has it?'

'No, it's just something not connected. I saw the woman my husband is leaving me for today; she's just a child. It was a bit of a shock, you see.'

'I'm so sorry.'

'Thank you. I wanted to tell someone.'

'I can understand that.'

Ria's eyes filled with tears: it was as if this woman genuinely understood. She must reassure her that she wasn't going to be an emotional drain on her. 'I'm not cracking up or anything,' Ria began. 'I don't want you to get that impression, I just wanted to reassure myself that it's all going to happen, this business of going to Westville. You know, I wanted something to hang on to.'

'Sure it's going to happen,' Marilyn said. 'Because if it doesn't then I'm going to crack up also. I've had the most awful telephone conversation with my husband, such coldness, and bitter things we said… and I don't want to tell anyone about it here because they'd pat me down and say it didn't matter. But it did.'

'Of course it did. How did it end?'

'He hung up.'

'And you couldn't call him back because it would only be more of the same.'

'Precisely,' Marilyn said.

There was a silence between them. Neither of them offered a consolation.

'What kind of a day are you going to have?' Ria asked.

'A busy one, I'm filling up every moment of time. It may not be healthy but it's all I can do. And you?'

'Almost exactly the same, no point in sitting down to have a rest, taking it easy as they all say. The pictures keep coming back to your mind if you start taking things easy, I find.'

'Yes, I find that's exactly what they do,' Marilyn agreed.

There was no more to say. They said goodbye easily, like old friends who have shorthand between them.

Ria made good her promise to have a busy day. She would clean out cupboards first; it was an ideal opportunity for some hard physical work. Now that a stranger was coming to live in her house all those long-promised clearances would be made. Most of Danny's things were gone already, but she would get the last lot out now. There would be no sentimental pausing to remember when times were better. It would be as if she were part of a removals business.

She began with the big airing cupboard in the bathroom. There were still some of his pyjamas, socks and old T-shirts. She was not going to look after them; let Bernadette find the space for them now. All were neatly folded and placed in one of the specially bought carrier bags with handles. Danny could not say that she had flung them into a garbage bag, they were as carefully arranged as if he were taking them on a vacation. She included old sports towels of his, a winter dressing gown, a shabby track suit and some very out-of-date swimming trunks. He would not thank her for these things but still he could not fault her.

Then she telephoned her mother and asked her to come for lunch.

'Have you got over this nonsensical idea of emigrating to the USA?' Nora Johnson asked.

'Two months' holidays, Mam, a rest, a change, it's exactly what I need. Do me all the good in the world.'

'Well, it's certainly cheered you up a bit,' her mother admitted unwillingly.

'Come up to me, Mam, I need your help. I'm sorting out the kitchen cupboards, it needs two.'

'You're mad, Ria, you know that, clinically mad. Imagine tidying the kitchen cupboards at a time like this.'

'What would you prefer, that I get Danny arrested for not loving me any more? That I lie on a long sofa and weep?'

'No.'

'All right, I'll make us a great energy-giving soup and we'll have it as a reward after an hour-and-a-half's work.' Ria was killing two birds with one stone. Her mother would need explanations and reassurance that this was not a mad endeavour. What better time to do it than while they were sorting out her kitchen?

She was utterly exhausted when it was over. But at least her mother was placated, reassured of the sanity of the enterprise, cordially invited to come out and visit Westville and also had helped in the clearing out of kitchen cupboards.

But still Ria would not stop, she wanted to wear herself out. She didn't want to lie wakeful in that big lonely bed tonight and think of Danny and that child asleep in Bantry Court. She wanted to fall straight into a weary sleep the moment she got there. So after her mother had left Ria called Gertie. She was another who needed a one-to-one explanation of what Ria was doing. Better by far to do it while they were working. 'Gertie, I know I sound like the Diary of a Mad Housewife but I don't suppose that if you could get away you could give me two hours this afternoon? It would be such a help. I need to polish all the silver, wrap it up and put it into the bank. Marilyn doesn't want the responsibility of having it around when she comes. And anyway I suppose I'll have to divide it with Danny later so it's no harm that it's all put away.'

'I'd love to, because I want to talk to you about something else, and it's fairly quiet here just now. I could come up now, straight away?'

'Great, and listen, Gertie, I can give you twenty quid. It's worth that to me, honestly.'

'You don't have to…'

'No, this is a professional agreement; you're doing me a service.'

Gertie came, pale as ever, eyes darting anxiously round her. 'There's nobody here, is there?'

'No one but me.'

'You know what I wanted to tell you. This place you're going to, I looked it up on the map. It's only about thirty miles away from where Sheila lives.'

'Sheila? Your sister? Isn't that marvellous.' Ria was delighted. 'I'll be able to see her.'

Gertie wasn't so pleased. 'You'd never tell her, would you, Ria? You'd never let anything slip?'

'About what?'

'About me and Jack. You know, about the situation?' Gertie's eyes were haunted-looking.

Ria felt such a wave of pity for her friend that she could hardly speak. 'Of course I wouldn't, Gertie, you know that.'

'It's just that you being out on your own there and a bit low and everything after all you've been through, you know the people confide…?'

'No, Gertie, I wouldn't confide, believe me.'

'It's hard to say this, Ria, but you see it sort of keeps me going that Sheila envies me; nobody else does. It's nice to hold on to the fact that my smart sister who went out to the United States thinks that I have a great life back here, handsome husband, terrific family, great friends and all.'

'But in many ways you do have all that, Gertie,' Ria said. And was rewarded by the old smile, the smile Gertie used to have when she worked in Polly's.

'I do,' she said. 'You're quite right. I do have all that, depending on how you look at it.'

Together they polished the silver, and kept off topics that would hurt either of them. When it was done Ria handed over an envelope.

'I hate taking this because I've enjoyed it so much. This is a lovely happy house, that man is so stupid. What can he get from her that he can't have here?'

'Another crack at being young, I think,' Ria said. 'That's all I can make of it.'

'You're tired, Ria. Aren't you going to have a lie-down before the children come home?'

'No, I'm not tired and anyway they're with their father this evening.'

'Is he taking them to Quentin's again, I wonder?'

'No. He's taking them to meet their new stepmother as it happens,' Ria said in a dangerously calm voice.

'She'll never be that, mark my words. That will all be blown over long before there's any question of marriage, divorce referendum or no divorce referendum.'

'That doesn't help any, Gertie. Really it doesn't,' Ria pleaded.

'It wasn't meant to help, it's just a fact, it's what's going to happen. Polly met her apparently, she says she gives it three months.'

Ria hated the thought of Polly talking about her, but not nearly as much as she hated the thought of Barney and Polly having met Bernadette socially. Probably many times, as a foursome. It made Ria want to do some very hard work indeed, until her brain stopped functioning. She wondered would she scrub the kitchen floor when Gertie went, or was that going over the top entirely?

As a compromise she went into the front room and sat at the circular table looking around. What would the American woman make of this old-fashioned room? Her place seemed to be so modern and open-plan. She would possibly consider this a fusty, silly room with its heavy framed pictures and the over-formal sideboard. But these pieces had been bought with love and care at auction rooms over the years. She remembered the day that each of them had been eased through the doors. They were polished regularly by Gertie, when she came to earn Jack's extra drinking money. Surely Marilyn would like them. And feel happy in this room.

Ria opened the drawers of the sideboard. It would be interesting to know what they should contain. Possibly this was the place for table napkins, corkscrews, salad servers. But then, since they had their meals in the kitchen, what was the point of stacking things you needed where you didn't eat? Ria wondered what the drawers actually did contain.

The answer was in fact everything that had no place there. There were children's drawings, a broken watch, pencils, an old calendar, a knitted beret that her mother had made, sticky tape, a torch without a battery, a restaurant guide, a tape of Bob Marley songs, some cheap plastic toys from Christmas crackers, an old diary of Annie's, a couple of receipts, and a picture of Ria and Hilary when they were in their teens. Ria put everything on a tray and cleaned out the drawer with a damp cloth. She would put nothing back in again; none of these things belonged there.

Idly she picked up Annie's diary; the funny slanted writing was small and crowded so that she could fit more in. Ria smiled over the lists of hit singles, the Top Ten, the names and birth dates of various singers. Then there were bits about school and the fact that Annie wasn't allowed to sit beside Kitty because they talked too much. Some of the teachers were hateful, some weren't too bad but a bit pathetic. It was exactly the kind of thing that Ria used to write herself. She wondered where her old diaries were and whether her mother had ever read them.

Then she came to Brian's birthday party that time they had a barbecue for him. The writing was very small and crabbed here, as if every word was important and it must all be included. It was very hard to understand as well as to read.

Ria felt no compunction at all about reading the private diary. She had to know what had occurred that day. Annie wrote about it in veiled terms. Whatever it was it had happened in the lane and nobody knew and it was truly the most horrifying thing in the world. She wrote that it most definitely was not her fault. All she had been doing was looking for the kitten. There was no crime in that.

I don't care how marvellous Kitty says it is, I don't care what these feelings are. I don't believe them. Her face was all screwed up as if she was cross about something. I wouldn't tell Kitty because she'd laugh, and of course I couldn't tell Mam because she wouldn't believe me or she'd make some awful remark. I nearly told Colm. He's so nice, he knew something was wrong. But I couldn't tell him. He has too many things to worry about anyway and it's not a thing you could tell anybody. There aren't words to tell it. It was something I wish I'd never seen. But I did and I can't unsee it now. I didn't know that's the way it was done, I thought you did it lying down. And her of all people. I never liked her, and I like her less now. In fact I think she's disgusting. There's ways I'd like her to know I saw, have some power over her, but that's not right either. She'd just laugh and be superior about it as she is about everything.

Ria caught her breath. What could Annie have seen? Who was it? And where? It couldn't have been Kitty since she was mentioned in other contexts. The memory of the day of Brian's birthday came back to Ria. Annie had come home after a fall outside Colm's restaurant. Could she have seen Colm Barry and that publican's wife? No, she mentioned Colm as a nice person, and it was the woman she resented, someone superior, someone scornful. Possibly it was Caroline. Could she have stumbled across that strange withdrawn sister of Colm and her big ignorant husband? Or even Caroline and someone else? Would there be any clue?

Ria read on.

I don't care how marvellous they say Love is, I'm not going to have any part of it. I wish Daddy would stop saying that one day some man will come and carry away his little Princess. It's not going to happen. Sometimes I wish I had never been born.

Ria sat down suddenly at the table that was strewn with all the clutter from the sideboard. She would have to return it all to where it came from. Annie must have stuffed the diary away hastily one time and meant to collect it later. Annie must never know that her mother had seen this diary.

Marilyn looked around her house with an objective eye. How would it appear to someone who lived in a house that was over a hundred years old? The items of furniture pictured in Ria's home looked as if they were all antiques. That Danny Lynch must have done very well at his business. This house had been built in the early 1970s. Tudor Drive was part of an area developed for the increasing number of academics and business people who wanted to enjoy a quiet and deliberately simple lifestyle. The homes all stood in their own grounds; the lawns and frontage were communally looked after. It was an affluent neighbourhood. Here and there small white wooden churches dotted around made it look like a picture postcard saying Welcome to Connecticut. But it would all look very new and recent to someone who came from a civilisation as old as the one that Ria was leaving.

In one of the books about Dublin that she was reading Marilyn saw that they recommended an outing to see where Saint Kevin had lived the life of a hermit on a beautiful lake south of Dublin. That was in the year six something, not sixteen something but the actual seventh century, and it was on their doorstep. Marilyn hoped that Ria and her children wouldn't think that they had seen everything that Westville could offer in the first half-hour and would then wonder how to spend the rest of the time.

Marilyn was tired from her constant clearing out of closets and leaving things ready for the new family. There would be plenty of room for them all. Ria would sleep in the main bedroom, and there were three other bedrooms. The people who designed this house must have had a more sociable and hospitable family than the Vines in mind.

The guest rooms had hardly ever been used. They had been so content on their own that they rarely invited visitors. Family came at Thanksgiving, and they put up people for the alumni picnic but that was all. Now two Irish children would sleep in these rooms and play in the garden. The boy was ten. Marilyn hoped he wouldn't throw a football or anything on to her flower-beds, but it wasn't something you could actually make rules about. It would be suggesting to Ria that she thought the boy would be out of control. Better to assume perfect behaviour rather than try and legislate for it.

Marilyn paused with her hand on the door of one room. Should she lock it? Yes, of course she should. She didn't want strangers in here amongst these things. They wouldn't want to see it either. They would respect her for keeping her private memories behind a locked door. They would not feel excluded. But then wasn't it odd somehow to lock a room in the house which was meant to be these people's home?

Marilyn wished there were someone she could ask, someone whose advice she could seek out and take. But who could she ask? Not Greg, he was still very cold and hurt. Mystified by her decision to go to Ireland, irritated by Ria coming to Tudor Drive, and unable to talk about any of it.

Not Carlotta next door who had been forever anxious to come in and be part of their lives. Marilyn had spent a long time carefully and courteously building up a relationship based on distance and respect rather than neighbourly visits. She could not ruin it now by asking advice on a matter so intimate and personal that it would change everything between them.

Not Heidi at the office. Whatever she did she must not encourage Heidi who was always asking Marilyn to join this or that, Beginners' Bridge, Feng Shui groups, embroidery circles. Heidi and Henry were so kind they would have come around to Tudor Drive every single evening and picked her up to take her somewhere if she had allowed them to. But they had never really known what it was like to feel so restless. They had both been married before and now found contentment in a mature second marriage. They were always entertaining in their home and attending the college functions. They couldn't understand someone who wanted to be alone. Marilyn thought she might lock the room but leave the key somewhere for Ria so that it didn't look so like an action of exclusion. She wouldn't decide now, she'd see how she felt the morning she left.

And the time raced by. Summer came to Tara Road and Tudor Drive. Ria marshalled her troops well in advance and encouraged them to welcome Marilyn and invite her into their homes. That's what Americans liked, visiting someone's home.

'Even mine?' Hilary was unsure.

'Particularly yours. I want her to meet my sister and get to know her.'

'Isn't she getting enough? Do you know what someone would pay for the use of that fine house for two months? Martin and I were saying that if you let it in Horse Show week alone you'd get a small fortune.'

'Sure, Hilary. I wish you'd come out to see me there, we could meet Sheila Maine and have great times.'

'Millionaires can have great times certainly,' Hilary said.

Ria ignored her. 'You will keep an eye out for Marilyn, won't you?'

'Ah, don't you know I will.'

And all the others had promised too. Her mother was going to take Marilyn to visit St Rita's; she might enjoy meeting elderly Irish people with lots of memories. Frances Sullivan would ask her to tea and possibly to come to the theatre one night. Rosemary was having a summer party, she would include Marilyn.

Polly Callaghan called unexpectedly. 'I hear there's an American woman coming to stay here; if she wants any chauffeuring around at weekends tell her to get in touch.'

'How did you know she was coming?' Ria asked.

'Danny told me.'

'Danny doesn't approve.'

Polly shrugged. 'He can't have it every way.'

'He mainly has, I think.'

'Bernadette's not going to stay the distance, Ria,' Polly said.

Ria's heart leapt. This was what she so desperately wanted to hear. Someone who knew them all and could make a judgement on who would win in the end. Someone like Polly who would be in her corner and tell her what was going on in the enemy camp. Ria was about to ask her what they were like together. Was it true that Bernadette didn't talk at all but sat with her hair falling over her face? She yearned to know that Danny looked sad and lost and like a man who had made a wrong turning.

But she pulled herself together sharply. Polly was Barney McCarthy's woman, she was in their camp when all was said and done. Ria must not give in to the need she felt to confide. 'Who knows whether it will last or not? Anyway, it's not important. He wants her, we're not enough for him, so be it.'

'All men want more than they can have. Who knows that better than I do?'

'Well you went the distance, Polly. You and Barney lasted, didn't you?' It was the first time Ria had ever mentioned the relationship and she felt a little nervous at having done so.

'Yes, true, but only unofficially. I mean, I'm still the woman in the background; that's all I'll ever be. Mona is the wife, the person of status.'

'I don't think so actually, I think Mona is a fool,' Ria said. 'If he loved you then she should have let him go to you.'

Polly pealed with laughter. 'Come on, you know better than that, he didn't want to leave her, he wanted us both. Just like Danny possibly wanted you both, you and the girl as well.'

Ria played that conversation over in her mind many times. She didn't think that Polly was correct. Danny had been anxious to leave, to start again. And of course times were so different now to what they were when Barney McCarthy and Polly Callaghan had fallen in love.

She was surprised to get a telephone call from Mona wishing her luck in the States and offering her a loan of suitcases. 'You have great courage, Ria. I admire you more than I can say.'

'No, you don't, Mona, you think I'm running away, making a feeble gesture—that's what most of Danny's friends think.'

'I hope I'm your friend too. I didn't know one thing about this other woman, you know, I wasn't part of any cover-up.'

'No, I'm sure that's true, Mona.' Ria felt guilty then. For years she herself had been part of a cover-up.

'And Ria, I think you are quite right to take a strong stand, I wish I had done that years ago, I really do.'

Ria could hardly believe this conversation was taking place. All the taboos with Polly and Mona suddenly broken after all the years. 'You did what was right then,' she said.

'I only did what made less -waves, it wasn't necessarily what was right,' Mona said. 'But great good luck to you out there and if I can take your American friend anywhere just ask her to call me.'

Yes, they were all going to rally round when Marilyn arrived.

Gertie was going to come and clean for her. Colm had said he would invite her to the restaurant, introduce her to a few people.

'Colm, can I ask you a strange question?'

'Anything.'

'It's ages ago now, but Annie had a fall outside your restaurant, it was on the day of Brian's birthday and you cleaned up her knee for her.'

'Yes, I remember.'

'And you made her a nice drink called a St Clement's, and that's why she called the cat Clement.'

'Yes?' He looked wary.

'It's just that… well, do you think Annie was upset by anything else that day? Not just the fall. Like some incident or something?'

'Why do you ask all this, Ria?'

'It's hard to say. Something came to my notice as they say, and I was just wondering if you could throw any light on it.'

'Well, couldn't you ask her yourself?'

'No.' There was a silence. 'It came to my notice reading her diary,' Ria admitted.

'Ah.'

'You're shocked,' she said.

'Not really, a little maybe.'

'Every mother does, believe me.'

'I'm sure you're right. But what did you learn?'

'That she saw something that upset her, that's all.'

'She didn't tell me. And I hope you don't think that I upset her?' He looked stern now.

'God no. I've made a desperate mess of this. No, no of course I don't think that. She said in her diary that you were so kind and helpful and she was going to tell you about it but couldn't. I just wondered did she see anything here?'

'Here?'

'She fell outside your restaurant, didn't she?'

Colm remembered that Annie had fallen in the back lane. But that was her secret which he had kept. One she obviously had not shared with anyone except what she thought was her private diary.

'No,' Colm said thoughtfully. 'There was nothing upsetting she could have seen here. Nothing at all.'

Ria pulled herself together. 'I feel very cheap admitting all this but you'll have to forgive me. I'm saying goodbye to the children for a month tonight. It's a bit emotional.'

'They seem to be coping very well, you are too.' He admired her.

'Oh, who knows how people cope?' Ria said. 'When my father died years and years ago I used to keep searching the house in case he had left us some treasure and then my mother would stop going on about him and how badly he had provided for us. But to the outside world people thought I had got over it fine.'

'I know,' Colm was sympathetic. 'Caroline and I had a very drunken father, and I used to wish that there was some kind of magic potion that we could give him and that he would stop drinking and be a real dad. But there wasn't.' His face was empty as he spoke.

Ria had never known this about his background. 'We do let our children down, we read their diaries, we lose their fathers… we're hopeless! I think I'll be able to make their world all right just by having a barbecue in the garden for them tonight.' She gave a little laugh.

'No, it will be fine. I'll leave over some vegetables for Annie, she's still into that, isn't she?'

'She is, Colm. Thank you, you've been a great friend through all this.'

'I'll miss you.'

'Maybe Marilyn will be a dish and you and she will be a number when I get back.'

'I’ll let you know,' he promised.

And Ria went home to face the evening when she would say goodbye to her children.

They had told her little or nothing about their meeting with Bernadette. Ria had been longing to know every detail but wouldn't ask. She must not make them feel that they had to report back from one camp to another. She learned only practical things like that the holiday on the Shannon cruiser was back on course, that the new house had been hurried on—Barney McCarthy's men were there night and day finishing the renovations and it was now finally ready. Smelling of paint but ready; they would sleep there tomorrow night.

Ria learned that there would be two beds in Annie's room and there was a bunk bed being installed for Brian in a sort of outhouse that was once going to have appliances, whatever they were.

Washing machines, dryers, Ria had explained. Brian was disappointed; he thought they might be scientific things.

And they had met Bernadette's mother who was all right really and would drive them to a swimming pool for a course of six lessons. It was so that they could get themselves ready for the one in America. Ria felt she knew everything and yet nothing about the life that her children would live without her. It was an uncanny feeling, as if she had died and was hovering overhead like a ghost, again anxious to intervene but unable to speak because she didn't have a body.

They had supper in the garden, kebabs, with sausages for Brian and lots of little vegetables that Colm had left in a basket for Annie. Clement seemed to know they were going; he came and looked at them all reproachfully.

'I hope she'll play with him you know, entertain him a bit,' Annie said. 'Clement is not a cat who should be left to brood too much; it doesn't suit him.'

'Well, you can come and visit Marilyn and tell her about his personality, can't you?' Ria suggested.

'This isn't our house any more, not after tomorrow morning when you go,' Annie said.

'No, that's true, but on the other hand it will be lived in by someone whose own house you are going to visit and it would be nice to introduce yourselves to her.'

'Do we have to?' Brian saw tedious conversations with adults ahead.

'No of course not, it might be nice, that's all.'

'Anyway, Colm will keep an eye on Clement, Colm loves him as much as I do,' Annie said, cheering up.

There was no point whatsoever in hoping for any confidences from Annie. And she must never in a million years confide what she had read. Any possible trust that might grow between them would have been destroyed if that were ever known.

They talked on easily in the warm night about plans.

Rosemary had offered to drive the children to Danny's new house tomorrow morning so that Ria would have time to leave the house unfussed. Most of their things were there already. Ria had taped to the inside of their suitcases lists of clothes that they were to pack for the boat-trip. They were to check these carefully before they left.

'She said you were very organised,' Brian said.

'Bernadette said that?' Ria tried not to sound too interested.

'When she saw the suitcases, and Dad said you were the Queen of the Lists.' Brian looked at her eagerly hoping she would be pleased. But Annie, who was sharper, knew that her mother would not like to hear of this discussion.

'And so I am, your dad's right,' Ria said with a brightness she certainly didn't feel. She hated the thought of Danny mocking her list-making activities with this child Bernadette.

'Dad's coming round here later to say goodbye, isn't he?' Brian's face was still hoping for some reassurance that things were normal.

'That's right, when you've gone to bed, there are a few last-minute things we have to discuss.'

'You won't have awful fights or anything?' Annie checked.

'No, we don't do that any more, you know that.'

'Not in front of us you don't, but you obviously drive each other mad,' Annie pronounced.

'I don't think that's so at all, but then we all look at people's lives differently. I often think that your gran is crazy to spend so much time with those old people in St Rita's instead of with people of her own age but she's as happy as a songbird there.'

'Well, that's because they depend on her there, they need her. And she's only a young thing up in St Rita's, not an old bag as she is with other people,' said Annie as if it were dead simple to understand.

Ria told them she would telephone every Saturday and they could ring any time because there was an answering machine. But not to waste Dad and Bernadette's money on long calls.

'I don't think she has much money,' Brian said. 'I think it's mainly Dad's.'

'Brian, you have the brain of a flea,' Annie said.

Danny arrived at ten o'clock. With a shock Ria realised how physically attractive he still was to her and would always be. Nothing had changed very much since those first days when she had met him at the estate agency and the heady discovery that he had eyes for her rather than for Rosemary. The line of his face had something about it that made you want to stroke him. She had to control herself before she stretched out a hand to touch him. She must behave calmly, he must not know how much power he had to move her.

'We'll go out to the garden in a minute, it's so peaceful. But first what would you like? Tea? A drink?'

'Any lager?'

'Sorry, no. Is that a new taste?'

'I’ll have tea,' he said.

'Do we drive each other mad?' Ria asked companionably as she put on the kettle.

'No, I don't think so. Why do you ask?'

'The kids think we do.'

'What do they know?' he grinned.

'They say the new house is very nice,' she said.

'Good, good.'

'Can I ask you to keep a sharp eye on that Kitty? All right, so we know I never liked her, but she is a little madam and she really could lead Annie astray.'

'Sure, anything else?'

'Brian is by nature filthy, I mean truly filthy. You wouldn't believe it, it could be very unpleasant in close quarters like a boat. You might just insist on clean clothes every day, otherwise he'll wear the same things for a month.'

Danny smiled. 'I'll note that.'

'And is there anything for me to look out for when they come to Westville? Is there anything you don't want them to do?'

He looked surprised to be asked. And pleased. 'I don't know. The traffic I imagine, to warn them that it will be coming from a different side when they cross the road.'

'That's very sensible, I will warn them all the time.'

'And maybe they could do some educational things there, you know, museums or art galleries. Things that would help them at school.'

'Sure, Danny.'

They brought their mugs of tea out to the garden and sat on the stone bench. There was a silence.

'About money,' he said.

'Well I bought my air ticket, you've bought theirs. The rest is just as if we were here, isn't it? I mean the same household expenses except I'll be paying them there.'

'Yes.' His voice seemed a bit flat.

'That's all right, isn't it?'

'Yes, of course.'

'And the electricity, gas and phone are all paid by banker's order here…"

'Yes,' he said again.

'So that's money sorted out, is it?' Ria asked.

'I suppose so.'

'And I hope you all have a lovely time on the Shannon. Are you going south or north when you get on the boat?'

'South to Lough Derg. Lots of lovely little places to moor, it would be fabulous if we got the weather.'

They were talking like two strangers.

'I'm sure you will, the long-range forecast is good,' Ria said cheerfully.

Another silence.

'And I hope this place works out very well for you too,' he said.

'I'm sure it will, Danny, thank you for accepting it all. I appreciate that.'

'No, no it's only fair,' he said.

'I've left your telephone number for Marilyn.'

'Good, good.'

'And perhaps you might bring the children round here to meet her one day?'

'What? Oh yes, certainly.'

'Probably best to ring in advance.'

'Indeed.'

There was nothing left to say. They walked up the stairs and stood awkwardly in the hall which had been full of crates and boxes and bicycles on the day they had vowed to make it a great home for ever and ever.

Now the polished floor with its two good rugs glowed warmly in the evening light. The door to the front room was open. There on their table was a bowl of roses that Colm had picked to welcome the American guest. They reflected in the wood, the clock on the mantelpiece chimed and the wind moved the heavy velvet curtains.

Danny went in and looked around him. Surely he was full of regret not just for these pieces but for the time and energy and love that had gone into gathering them. He seemed to be swallowing as he looked around. He was very still. None of his usual quick movement and almost quivering approach to the world. He was like a photograph of himself.

Ria knew she would never forget him standing here like this, his hand on the back of one of the chairs. He looked as if he had just thought of the one final thing that this room needed. Maybe a grandfather clock? Possibly another mirror to reflect the window. His face had that kind of look. He did not look like a man about to go away from all that he had built up here to stay with a pregnant girl called Bernadette. He looked like someone about to put down his car keys and say he was home and that it had all been a ridiculous mistake. It would be too late now of course to stop Marilyn but they would find her another place to stay and everything would be as it was. And they wouldn't wake the children now to tell them, let them find out tomorrow. That was the kind of look he had and the aura that surrounded him.

Ria said nothing; she stood holding her breath as if waiting for him to begin to rebuild the dream. It was very important not to say the wrong thing now. She had been brilliant so far this evening, calm and undramatic. She knew he had valued it. His smile was warm, not strained. He had laughed aloud when she told him how smelly and dirty his son was, his arm had brushed against hers on the stairs and he had not flinched away as he had done during all their prickly conversations.

He stood almost transfixed in this room, Ria didn't know for how long; it felt like a long time. The room was working a magic of its own. He would speak, he would say it was madness, all of this total madness, he was so sorry that he had hurt so many people. And she would forgive him, gently and soothingly, and he would know that he had come back home where he belonged.

Why was he taking so long to find the words? Should she help him, give him a pointer in the right direction? And then he looked at her directly and she saw he was biting his lip, he really was struggling to say what was almost too huge to be said. How could she let him know how great would be her forgiveness and understanding, how much she would do to have him home with her again?

Words had been her undoing in the past apparently; he had thought she was babbling and prattling. Horrible, horrible phrases when she thought she had been talking, confiding. She knew that whatever the temptation she must say nothing. Their whole future depended on this.

She moved very slightly towards him, just one step, and it seemed to have been enough. He came and put his arms around her, his head on her shoulder. He wasn't actually crying but he was trembling and shaking so heavily that she could feel it all through his body.

'Ria, Ria, what a mess, what a waste and a mess,' he said.

'It doesn't have to be.' She was very gentle into his ear.

'Oh God I wish it had all been different. I wish that so much.' He wasn't looking at her, still talking to her hair.

'It can be. It can all be what we make it,' she said.

Slowly, Ria, slowly, she warned herself. Don't gabble; don't come out with a long list of promises and resolutions and entreaties. Let him do the asking and say yes. Stroke his forehead and say that it will all be all right in the end; that's what he wants to hear. He moved his face from her neck and he was about to kiss her.

She must respond as the old passionate Ria would have. She raised her arms from his shaking shoulders and almost clenched him around the neck. Her lips sought his, searching and demanding. It was so good to hold him again. She felt herself carried away in what could only be called a flood of passion, and didn't realise for an instant that he was tugging at her hands behind his neck.

'Ria, what are you doing? Ria, stop!' He seemed shocked and appalled.

She pulled away, mystified. He had reached for her; he had laid his head on her shoulder and said it was a waste, a mess. He had said he wanted to undo it, hadn't he? Why was he looking at her like this?

'It will be all right,' she said, flustered now but sure that her role must still be one of making smooth his homecoming. 'I promise you, Danny, it will be all right, it will all sort itself out. This is where you belong.'

'Ria!' He was horrified now.

'This is your room, you created this. It's yours, like we are your family, you know that.'

'I beg you, Ria…'

'And I beg you… come back. We won't talk about it now, just stay, it will all be as it was. I'll understand you have responsibilities to Bernadette and even affection…'

'Stop this…'

'She'll get over it, Danny. She's a child, she has her whole life ahead of her, with someone of her own age. She'll look back on it as something foolish, wonderful but foolish… and we'll just accept it into our lives the way people do.'

'This is not possible… that you should… I don't know, suddenly change like this.' He did look bewildered.

But this was madness. He was the one who had reached out for her. 'You held me. You told me it was all a mess and a mistake and a waste and you were sorry you did it.'

'I didn't, Ria. I said I was sorry, but I didn't say the other things.'

'You said you wished it hadn't turned out like this, I'm saying come back. I won't ask you where you are if you stay out late, I swear I won't. Please, Danny. Please.' The tears were pouring down her face now and he was standing there horrified. 'Danny, I love you so much I'd forgive anything you did, you know that. I'd do anything on earth that it takes to have you back.' She was gulping now and she stretched her arms out to him.

He took her hands in both of his. 'Look, love, I'm going now. This minute. You don't mean any of this, not a word of it. You meant all the things we talked about for half an hour in the garden. You meant about wishing us all a good holiday on the Shannon and I meant about hoping it goes well for you in America.' He looked at her hopefully, as if praying that his nice practical soothing words would stop her tears and prevent the danger of her clutching him again.

'I'll always be here waiting for you to come back, just remember that.'

'No you won't, you'll be in America having a great time.' He tried to jolly her along. 'A strange woman will be here trying to make head or tail of our funny ways.'

'I'll be here, this room will always be here for you.'

'No, Ria, that's not the way things are, and I'm going now but I want you to know how…'

'How what?' she asked.

'How generous it would have been of you to make that offer, if there had been any question of it. It would have been a very unselfish thing to do.'

She looked at him in amazement. He didn't see that there was no unselfishness or generosity involved. It was what she ached for. He would never realise that, and now she had made a total fool of herself on top of everything else.

The weeks of planning and driving herself and discipline had been thrown away. Why had they come into this room anyway? If she had not seen that look on his face she might not have seen a possible lifeline. But she had seen it; she had not imagined it. That's what she would hug to herself always.

'Yes, it's late, of course you must go,' she said. The tears had stopped. She was not the calm Ria who had walked up the stairs from the kitchen with him, her face was too tear-stained for that. But she was in control again, and she could sense his relief.

'Safe journey,' he said to her on the steps.

'Oh yes, thank you, I'm sure it will be fine.'

'And we did make a lovely house, Ria, we really did.' He looked past her back into the hall.

'Yes, yes indeed, and two marvellous children,' she said.

On the steps of the house they had spent so long creating, Danny and Ria kissed each other cautiously on the cheek. Then Danny got into his car and drove away and Ria went into her home in Tara Road and sat for a long time at her round table, staring sightless in front of her.

CHAPTER FIVE

'They didn't fight,' Annie said to Brian as she helped him I close his suitcase. 'How do you know?'

'I listened for a bit at the bathroom window, they talked about holidays.'

'Oh good,' Brian said.

'She said to Dad that you were filthy, though.'

Brian looked surprised but unconvinced. 'No she didn't, she wouldn't say that about me. What would make her say that?' His face looked round with worry.

Annie took pity on him. 'No, I made it up,' she lied.

'I knew.' Brian's faith in his mother was restored.

'I wish she weren't going,' Annie said.

'So do I.'

It was such a rare thing for the brother and sister to be joined in any emotion that it startled them. They looked at each other uncertainly. These were very troubled times.

Rosemary arrived earlier than expected. Ria handed her a cup of coffee.

'You look fine,' Rosemary said approvingly.

'Sure.'

'I came early to leave you less time for tearful farewells. Where are they anyway?'

'Finishing their packing.' Ria sounded very muted.

'They'll be okay.'

'I know.'

Rosemary looked at her friend sharply. 'Was it all right last night with Danny and everything?'

'What? Oh yes, very civilised.' Never in a million years would anyone know how it had been last night with Danny. Ria would not allow it to be spoken of even in her own heart.

'Well, then that's good.' There was a silence. 'Ria?'

'Yes?'

'You know they'll never see Bernadette as anything… as anything except what she is.'

'I know, of course.'

'They won't bond with her or anything like that. Can you imagine what she feels like having to replace you for a month? What a task that would be for anyone let alone a dumb kid like that.' There was no reply so Rosemary just carried on. 'You know, I did think this whole jaunt to America was mad, but now I think it's the cleverest thing you could have done. You're really much sharper than anyone gives you credit for. Hey, here come the kids. What do you want, lingering or brisk?'

'Brisk, and you're wonderful,' Ria said gratefully.

In minutes Ria was waving goodbye as Rosemary drove the children to stay in a strange house for the month of July. Who would ever have believed that any of this could happen? And what was even more incredible was that Rosemary actually thought that Ria had been somehow clever to engineer this situation.

Bernadette's mother was sitting at the kitchen table in the new house. 'Well, she's a fine hard-hearted-Hannah, isn't she, sweeping off to the United States and leaving you to look after her children.'

'I know, Mum, but in a way it's for the best.'

'How is it for the best?' Finola Dunne couldn't see any silver lining.

'Well, I suppose she won't be there in Tara Road any more as a kind of centre for him, you know.'

'She wasn't much of a centre for him when she was there, judging from the amount of time he spent with you.' Bernadette's mother always managed to sound disapproving of her daughter's affair with a married man while equally proud that the matter had been so satisfactorily sorted out.

'It was his home for sixteen years, it still has a great draw for him, the place.'

'This place will too in time, child. Wait till it gets a bit more settled.' Finola Dunne looked around the luxury fitted kitchen which Barney McCarthy's men had installed at double speed. This was an expensive house in one of the more fashionable southern suburbs of Dublin. It must have cost a packet. It was a sheltered avenue, a good place to bring up a new baby, and a lot of other young couples around.

Finola Dunne knew that Danny Lynch was a hot-shot estate agent. But she felt that the sooner he sold the Tara Road house, realised his money and got some small, more suitable place for his first wife, the better. The boy worked hard, she gave him that, and he obviously adored Bernadette, but he would wear himself out unless he sorted out his finances. He had left this morning for a meeting at 6.00 a.m. to avoid the traffic.

'Any mention of his selling Tara Road?' she asked.

'No, and it's not something I ask about. I think he was more attached to that house than to any woman. It gives me the shivers,' Bernadette said.

'No time for that, they'll be here any minute and a long summer of entertaining them begins.'

'Only thirty days, and they're not too bad,' said Bernadette with a grin.

Ria's children were very quiet in Rosemary's car.

'What kind of things will you do all day, do you imagine?' Rosemary asked brightly.

'No idea,' Annie shrugged.

'They don't have cable television,' Brian said.

'Maybe they'll take you out to places?' Rosemary was optimistic.

'She's very quiet, she doesn't go to places,' Brian said.

'Is she nice, I mean interesting to talk to?'

'Not very,' Brian said.

'She's okay, just you know nothing much to say,' Annie said.

“I prefer her mother actually,' Brian said. 'You'd like her, Rosemary, she's full of chat and more your age.'

'I'm sure I would,' said Rosemary Ryan who could cope with any boardroom committee meeting or television discussion, but was finding this conversation very hard going indeed.

At Dublin airport Ria looked around. So many people heading off in so many directions. She wondered whether any of them could be travelling in such a confused state of mind as she was. In the line next to her she saw a good-looking man with the collar of his raincoat turned up. He had fair hair that fell into his eyes. She looked at him wildly. For an instant she thought it was Danny, racing out to stop her leaving, a last-minute plea that she change her mind. She remembered with the feeling of a shower of cold water that this was the last thing on earth he would do. She could still feel him tugging at her hands which she had clasped around his neck. Her face burned at the shame of it.

She walked through the duty-free shop wondering what she should buy. It seemed such a pity to waste the value that was there on all those shelves. But she didn't smoke, she drank little, she didn't need anything electronic, Marilyn's house would be full of more equipment than she would ever learn to use. She stopped by the perfumes.

'I want something very new, something I've never smelled before, which will have no memories,' she said.

The assistant seemed used to such requests. Together they examined the new scents, and settled on one that was light and flowery. It cost £40.

'It seems rather a lot,' Ria said doubtfully.

'Well it is, but then it depends. Do you have that kind of money to spend on a good perfume?' The girl clearly wanted to move on.

'I don't know whether I do or not,' Ria spoke with wonder. 'Isn't that odd? I actually don't know what my financial situation will be. I never thought about it until this minute. I might be the kind of person who could afford this and more, or I might never be able to buy anything remotely like it in my whole life.'

'I should take it then,' said the sales assistant, quickly trying to head off too much philosophy.

'You're right, I will,' said Ria.

She fell asleep on the plane and dreamed that Marilyn had not left Tudor Drive after all but was sitting waiting for her in the garden. Marilyn had brown hair and copper shoes and was wearing a beige suit just like Bernadette's mother had worn. She spoke with a cackle when Ria arrived. 'I'm not Marilyn, you stupid woman, I'm Danny's new mother-in-law. I've got you out here so that they can all move into Tara Road. It was all a trick, a trick, a trick.' Ria woke sweating. Her heart was racing. It was an extraordinary sensation to be on a plane thousands of feet up in the air, people around her eating lunch.

The air hostess was concerned. 'Are you all right? You're as white as anything.'

'Yes… I had a bad dream, that's all.' Ria smiled her gratitude for the concern.

'Have you anyone meeting you at Kennedy?'

'No, but I know the bus to take. I'll be fine.'

'A holiday, is it?'

'Yes, I think it is, I'm sure that's what you'd call it, what I call it. It will be certainly a holiday.' Ria saw the nervous smile of the courteous girl in her stewardess uniform. Really, she must stop this habit of analysing what she was doing. It was just that simple questions caught her unawares.

She lay back and closed her eyes. How ridiculous of her subconscious to have made Marilyn look like Bernadette's mother when of course she looked totally different. Ria opened her eyes suddenly in shock. She had no idea whatsoever what Marilyn looked like. She knew the measurements of her swimming pool, the voltage of her electricity, the weight of laundry that the drier could handle, the times of church services in Westville and the days of the week the garbage was collected. She had the names and phone numbers of two women called Carlotta and Heidi. She had photographs of the rock garden, the main bedroom, the swimming pool and carport.

She knew that Marilyn would have her fortieth birthday while she was in Ireland but she did not know whether she was fair or dark, tall or small, thin or fat. Extraordinary to think that an entirely unknown woman had set out for Tara Road last night and nobody knew what she looked like.

The flights to Dublin were at night and there was a coach service to Kennedy Airport from a nearby town. Marilyn accepted Heidi's offer to drive her there. She closed the door and left the keys and an envelope of instructions with Carlotta. Ria would call to collect them when she arrived in the early evening. She had left her house in perfect order. Clean, freshly laundered linen and towels everywhere, food in the icebox, flowers on the table and the breakfast bar.

She decided about locking the room only when she heard Heidi's car pull up outside the house. She left the door closed but not locked. Ria would understand; she would treat it appropriately. She would probably dust it and open the windows during the two months. There were some things you didn't need to say or to write down.

Heidi chattered and asked questions all the way to the coach terminal. Did Ria play bridge by any chance? Would Marilyn take any courses in Trinity College while she was in Dublin? What was the weather going to be like? And casually, very casually, Would Greg be joining her there at all? Or might he be coming back to Westville during the vacation? To none of these questions did Marilyn give any satisfactory reply. But she did hug her friend Heidi just before she got on the coach.

'You're very generous, and I do hope to be generous myself one day, when I come out of this forest, this awful forest.'

Heidi looked after the bus as it pulled out of the station. Marilyn sat there, bolt upright and reading a letter. Her eyes were very bright. It was the nearest that Marilyn had come to being human for a long time.

Marilyn read the letter she had written to Greg again and again.

She had put as much of her soul into it as she could and she realised that she was still holding back a lot. It was as if there was some kind of brake refusing her permission to explain too much. Or maybe there was no more to explain. It was quite possible that she had lost the capacity to love and care any more and that this is how she was going to be for the rest of her life.

She took out the little wallet of pictures that Ria had sent. Every one of them had people in them. And little notes on the back. Annie doing her homework in our front room. Brian serving a pizza in the kitchen. My mother and sister Hilary. Me with my friend Gertie who also helps with the cleaning, hanging out the washing. Our friend Rosemary who lives up the road. Colm Barry who runs a kitchen garden at the back of our house and a restaurant at the corner of Tara Road. The best picture of the house itself also showed a family of four squinting into the sun. On the back Ria had written The Happier Times'.

Marilyn studied Danny Lynch carefully. He was handsome certainly. And very unchanged from the boyish enthusiastic salesman she had met all those years ago. Then she looked at Ria, small, dark and always smiling. Her whole face was lit up with goodwill in every single snapshot. Very different in a lot of ways to the voice she talked to on the phone. There Ria sounded tense and anxious. Anxious to please, that her house should be good enough, anxious to reassure that her children were going to be no trouble when they came to Westville.

And most of all anxious that Marilyn would be swept immediately into this huge group of family friends and acquaintances. Never had anything been a more unlikely starter. Marilyn Vine who kept herself so withdrawn from colleagues, family, friends and neighbours that they all called her a recluse. Marilyn Vine, unable to talk to her own husband and tell him why she was making this strange journey. She would be polite to these people, of course, but she didn't want anything at all to do with their lives.

'Can I ask Kitty to supper please, Bernadette?' Annie asked.

Bernadette raised her eyes from the book she was reading. 'No, sorry, your father said no.'

'She always comes at home. When Dad was at home he liked her.'

'Well he must have gone off her.' Bernadette was not very concerned.

'Will Mam be in America yet?' asked Brian.

'Don't go on about Mam,' Annie corrected him with a hiss.

'It's okay,' Bernadette shrugged. She was back in her book. She really didn't seem to mind.

'Well, will she?' Brian wanted his question answered.

Bernadette looked up again perfectly pleasantly but they felt she would have preferred there to be silence in the house. 'Let me see, it takes about five or six hours. Yes, I'd say she'd be there now, on a bus to wherever the place she's going is.'

'Westville,' Annie said.

'Yes, that's right.' Bernadette was reading again.

There didn't seem to be any more to say. Dad wouldn't be home until eight o'clock. It was a long sort of an evening. Out of sheer desperation Annie took out Animal Farm, one of the books that her mother had given her to pack. I don't think I'd like it, Annie had said at the time, but surprisingly she did, very much. And Brian read his book of soccer heroes.

So when Danny came home tired and apprehensive he found them all sitting in armchairs reading peacefully. Annie looked up and saw the pleasure in her father's face. This was so different to Tara Road. But he must miss it all there, surely he did, even if he didn't love Mam any more, and preferred Bernadette and all that. There was no bustle of dinner being prepared here, Bernadette would take out two frozen dishes shortly and put them in the microwave. There was no endless stream of people passing through. No Gertie coming and going. No Rosemary popping in and out, no Kitty, no awful Myles and Dekko, no Gran with Pliers or Colm with his basket of vegetables. Surely Dad must miss all that very much.

But as Annie looked at her father she knew with a great certainty that he preferred things like this. He laid his keys in a long oval dish. 'I'm home,' he said and everyone sprang into action to welcome him. When he said he was home in Tara Road there was so much going on that nobody seemed to notice.

All the instructions had worked like a dream. The bus was where Marilyn had said it would be, the fare was exactly as she had described. The weather was warm and sunny, much hotter than back in Dublin. The noise, and the variety of people everywhere was extraordinary. Yet despite it all Ria felt well able to cope, she had expert guidelines and the whole system seemed to be working perfectly.

The first coach driver told her when they got to the big town where to find the next and smaller bus to Westville. Ria took a deep breath when the saw the sign for Westville coming up. This was going to be her home now. She almost wanted to look at it unobserved for a while, so she took her two suitcases into an ice cream parlour and sat down to get her bearings. The menu was exotic—Marilyn would find the range of ice-cream sodas, floats and specials so much less extensive in Dublin. Still, she wasn't going there for ice cream. Ria watched the people come and go. A lot of them knew each other. The woman behind the counter seemed a real personality, wisecracking with the customers just like they did in the television comedies.

She was in America now, she would not start comparing and contrasting everything with the way it was at home. She would even try to think in dollars rather than converting it back to pounds all the time. From her window seat in the Happy Soda House, Ria could see Carlotta's Beauty Salon. It looked elegant, and a discreet sort of place where a woman might go in and, behind those heavy cream-coloured curtains and all that gold lettering, get good advice about keeping old age at bay and keeping your man at home. She wondered what Carlotta herself looked like; there had been no pictures, no pictures of any person at all.

Steeling herself Ria crossed the road, her dark green travelling outfit of jumper and skirt and her two suitcases looking out of place here. Everyone else seemed to wear Bermuda shorts or crisp cotton dresses. They all looked as if they had been to other beauty salons already. Ria felt travel-stained and tired. She pushed the door and went in. Carlotta was the tall, full-bosomed, almost Mexican-looking woman at the desk. She excused herself from the client she was talking to and came over at once.

'Ria, welcome to the United States, I hope you're going to love Westville. We are just delighted that you're here.' It was so warm, so genuine and so utterly unexpected that Ria felt a prickle of tears in her eyes. Carlotta was looking at her with an expert eye. 'I was keeping an eye out for those buses, they come in every twenty minutes but I guess one must have come now without my noticing it.'

'I went into the Happy Soda House,' Ria confessed. She realised it was a dull and indeed ungracious thing to say in response to all this welcome and kindness. And Ria did want to respond. This woman was so outgoing compared to Marilyn who had sometimes been a little terse on the telephone. Carlotta was making such overtures of friendship that Ria was appalled at her own inability to find the proper words. 'You'll have to forgive me, I seem to be sort of shell-shocked. I'm not used to long flights… and things…' Her voice trailed away.

'Do you know what I was going to suggest to you, Ria? Suppose you relax here, have a nice shower, a relaxing aromatherapy massage, Katie doesn't have a client at the moment, then you go and have a lie-down in a dark room and I come and wake you up in a couple of hours and we go back home? Or would you prefer if I drove you straight out to Marilyn's home? Either is fine with me.'

Ria thought that she would love to stay in the salon.

Katie was one of those women who made no small talk and asked no questions. Ria felt no need to apologise for her tired neglected skin, for the lines appearing around her eyes, for the chin that was definitely more slack than it used to be. The healing soothing oils were gently and insistently massaged into the various pressure points, temples, shoulders, scalp. It felt wonderful. Once before Ria had gone for this aromatherapy with Rosemary as a treat, and Ria had promised it to herself every month. Twelve times a year. But she never had. It was too expensive and there were always things she wanted to buy for the children or the house. Her mind started to go down that channel again about what she could afford from now on but she forced it back. Anyway, here in this cool dark place with that wonderful rhythmic massage of her shoulders and back, with that intense satisfying smell of the oils, it was easy to banish worries and to fall into a deep sleep.

'I hardly liked to wake you up.' Carlotta was handing her a glass of fruit juice. 'But otherwise your sleeping pattern will go astray.'

Ria was now her old self again. She got up from her relaxation bed in the pink cotton robe that had been provided and came out to shake Carlotta's hand. 'I can't thank you enough for this terrific welcome. It was exactly what I needed and I didn't know. You couldn't have arranged anything that I would have liked more.'

Carlotta knew genuine appreciation when she saw it. 'Get your clothes on, Ria, and I'll take you home. You're going to have a great summer here, believe me.'

Ria was about to leave when Katie handed her a piece of paper. She wondered if it was some advice about future skin care that she would study later, but she looked at it anyway. It was a bill for an amount of money that Ria would never in her whole life have spent in a beauty salon. She had thought it was a complimentary treatment. How humiliating. She must show no hint that she was surprised.

'Of course,' she said.

'Carlotta wanted you to have a fifteen per cent discount so that's all built into the check and service is included,' Katie said.

Ria handed over the money with a sickening feeling that she was a great fool. Why should she have thought that this woman was giving her a free treatment? She was living amongst people who took beauty salons as a matter of course. Possibly if she had done so years ago she might not be in the position she was in now.

Gertie had arranged to be in Tara Road when Marilyn arrived. Ria had said that there just had to be someone here to open the door. It was a high priority.

'Suppose, just suppose, Gertie, that there's any crisis or anything, you will make sure that my mother's installed here instead of you, won't you?'

'Crisis?' Gertie had asked as if such a thing had never occurred in her life.

'Well you know, anything could happen.'

'Listen, there's going to be someone to meet her.' Gertie spoke very definitely. And just as Gertie was leaving her house to head to Ria's she got the message that Jack was in hospital. There had been a fight somewhere last night and Jack had only recovered consciousness now. Gertie ran down the road to the little house where Nora Johnson lived but she wasn't at home. Possibly gone to St Rita's, her neighbour didn't know. Gertie damned Danny Lynch to the pit of hell. All her anger was directed at him. If he hadn't abandoned his wife for some pale-faced child none of this would be happening. Gertie would not be running from house to house looking for someone to open Ria's door and greet some American woman. Jimmy Sullivan said that Frances was at the thrift shop and wouldn't be able to get away.

Gertie ran to the restaurant. Please, please let Colm not have gone to a market or anything. Please, God, if you are there, and really I know you are there, let Colm Barry be at home. He's fond of the Lynches, he'd do it. And he'd be nice to the woman. Please.

Gertie never prayed to God to ask him to make Jack behave like a normal man. Some things were too big even for the Almighty to undertake. But something like Colm being in could happen. And did happen. 'Let me drive you somewhere first, Gertie. She won't be in for another half-hour.'

'No, no, I couldn't let Ria down.'

'We know she's going to come in to the city, look around for a few hours and then come here at twelve, that's the arrangement.'

'She might come early. Anyway I can go on the bus.'

'I'll drive you. Which hospital?'

As they sat in the car Gertie twisted a handkerchief in her hands, but there was no conversation. 'You're very restful, Colm, really you are. Anyone else would be asking questions.'

'What's there to ask?'

'Like why does he do it?'

'Why ask that question? I did it for so long myself, people were possibly asking that question fairly uselessly about me all over the shop.' He was very reassuring, just what she needed. She stopped tearing at the piece of cotton in her hands.

'Maybe people would ask why I stay with him?'

'Oh well, that's easy. He's very lucky, that's all.'

'How do you mean?'

'I had nobody to stay with me, no one to cushion things, so eventually I had to face it, what a lousy life I had.'

'Well, doesn't that mean being on your own might have made you strong?' Gertie's face was anguished. 'That's what my mother's always telling me. She says give him up and he'll come to his senses.'

Colm shrugged. 'It could work, who knows. But I'll tell you one thing, coming to my senses was no bloody fun at all because all I came to was a hollow, empty life.' He left her at the gate of the hospital and drove back to welcome Ria's American.

Marilyn told herself that Ria's instructions about what to do on arriving in Dublin had been excellent. They had agreed not to meet, since it would be a rushed, hopeless meeting, with one arriving and the other leaving. Marilyn's overnight plane would be in by seven o'clock, Ria advised that she should get a bus to the city, leave her bags and walk up to have breakfast in a Grafton Street coffee shop. This way she would pass O'Connell Bridge on the River Liffey, the entrance to Trinity College, and she would see the various bookshops and gift stores which she might like to explore later. After breakfast she should go up and walk around St Stephen's Green. A few statues and points of interest were listed and a gentle itinerary, ending up at a taxi rank where she should take a cab, pick up her luggage and head for Tara Road. One of the people already mentioned would be there to welcome her in and show her around. It had all gone extremely well. The city began to fall back into place for Marilyn; she had not properly remembered the whole layout from the brief visit before. It had certainly changed and become much more prosperous in the intervening years. The traffic was much denser, the cars bigger, the people better dressed. Around her were foreign accents, different languages. It was not only the American tourists who came to the craft shops nowadays, the places seemed full of other Europeans.

Around eleven thirty her feet were beginning to feel tired. Ria would be boarding her plane just about now. It was time to find her new home. The taxi-driver told her a long complicated tale of woe about there being too many taxis allowed on the streets of the city and not enough work for them. He said that most people were on the take all the world over, that he was sorry that he hadn't emigrated to America like his brother who now had a toupee and a German wife. He said that Tara Road was the fastest-moving bit of property in Dublin. A regular gold-mine.

'If your friends own that house, ma'am, they're sitting on half a million,' he said confidently as he drove in the gateway and drew up at the foot of the steps.

The door was opened by a dark, good-looking man in his early forties. He came down the steps, hand stretched out. 'On Ria's behalf you're very welcome to Tara Road,' he said, while Marilyn frantically searched for his name from the cast of thousands she had been presented with. Somehow she had thought it would be the sister Hilary, or one of the two women friends. 'I'm Colm Barry, neighbour and friend. I also dig the back garden but I use a back gate so I'll be no intrusion in your time here.'

Marilyn looked at him gratefully. He seemed to tell her what she needed to know and not too much. He was courteous but also he was cool in a way that she very much liked. 'Indeed, the man who runs the restaurant,' she said, placing him at last.

'The very one,' he agreed. He carried her cases up the granite steps.

Ria's photographs had not lied. The hall was glorious with its deep glowing wooden floor, and elegant hall table. The door to a front room was open, Colm pushed it slightly. 'If it were my house I would never leave this room,' he said simply. 'It runs the whole depth of the house, windows at each end. It's just lovely.' On the table was a huge bowl of roses. 'Ria asked me to leave those for you.'

Marilyn felt a gulp in her voice as she thanked him. The place was so beautiful and these rich pink and red roses on such a beautiful table were the final touch.

He carried her bag upstairs and showed her the main bedroom. 'I expect this is where you'll be, I'm sure all the details were written out for you. Ria's been getting ready for weeks. I know she's gone to huge trouble.'

Marilyn knew it too. Her eyes took in the immaculate white bedcover, brand new, must have been put on this morning, the folded towels, the shiny paintwork and the empty closet. This woman had worked at getting her house ready. Marilyn hoped guiltily that hers would match up. They went down to the kitchen and at that moment the cat flap opened and a large ginger cat came in.

'This is Clement.' Colm introduced the cat formally. 'An excellent cat, he has a little weakness sometimes of killing a perfectly innocent bird for no reason, and then he'll bring it back to you as a trophy.'

'I know, I have to say well done Clement how lovely,' Marilyn said with a smile.

'Good, just so long as you know the drill. Anyway Clement isn't very competitive, usually he just opens one eye and looks at the birds, then goes back to sleep.' Colm continued his tour of the kitchen, opening the fridge. 'Ah, she's left you some basics I see, including a soup made from vegetables grown in that very garden. Shall I take some out for you to heat up? You've had a long journey, you'll want to settle in.' And he was gone.

What a restful pleasant neighbour, Marilyn thought, exactly the person she would like to live near. There would be no problem in keeping someone like Colm Barry out of your life. He would never be like Carlotta, aching to come over the fence and get involved. And he was right, she did want to settle in. She was pleased that it had been this man rather than one of the women she had expected. He was a fellow spirit, a soul mate. He somehow understood that she wanted to be alone. She was glad he had been there to welcome her.

She wandered slowly about the house that would be hers until September. The children's rooms had been tidied, pictures of soccer players on Brian's wall, pop stars on Annie's. Plastic models of wrestlers on Brian's window-sills, soft furry toys on Annie's. Two well-kept bathrooms, one with what looked like genuine Victorian bathroom fittings. And one empty, lifeless room, a lot of shelving on the wall but nothing on display. This must have been a study or office that belonged to Danny in what Ria would have called happier times.

A warm, almost crowded kitchen, shelves of cookbooks, cupboards full of pans and baking dishes, a kitchen where people baked, ate and lived. A house full of beautiful objects but first and foremost a home. There was very little wall space that did not have pictures of the family, mainly of the children but some which included the handsome Danny Lynch as well. He had not been cut out of their lives because he had gone away. Marilyn looked at his face for some clues about this man. One thing she knew from being in his home: he must love this new woman very much or have been very unhappy in his marriage to Ria to enable him to leave all this without a backward glance.

'I wonder should I go and call on her?' Nora Johnson said to Hilary.

'Ah, isn't she perfectly all right where she is. Hasn't she a valuable house worth a fortune to sit in all summer for nothing?' Hilary sniffed.

'Yes, well, she still might be a bit lonely, and Ria said…'

'Oh Ria said, Ria said… there's many people she could have given that house to, to mind, if she had wanted to.'

Nora looked at her elder daughter with a flash of impatience. 'Listen to me, Hilary, if you're suggesting that you could have looked after the house and fed that very dim cat for Ria…'

'Yes, or you could have, Mam. She didn't have to go and get a perfectly strange American.'

'But Hilary, you great silly girl, the whole point of it was that Ria wanted to go to America. She didn't want to exchange houses with me down the road, and you across the city.'

Hilary listened, feeling very foolish. Somehow in her flurry of resentment she had forgotten this fact. 'We should give her tonight and tomorrow to rest anyway and maybe we might get in touch then,' she said.

'I'd hate her to think she wasn't welcome,' Ria's mother said. While Ria's sister hid the sniff she had been about to indulge in.

Carlotta pointed out all the amenities as she drove Ria to Tudor Drive.

Ria marvelled as they passed all the houses with their communal lawns in front. 'No fences,' she noticed.

'Well, it's neighbourly I guess,' Carlotta said.

'Is it like that in Tudor Drive?'

'Not our part, no, it's more closed in.'

Carlotta told her the names of streets and drives that would become familiar in the next days and weeks. She pointed out the two hotels, the club and the library, the good gas station, the one where the guy was a pain in the butt, the two antique shops, the florist, the okay deli, the truly great deli. And of course the garden centre, Carlotta gestured triumphantly.

'Oh well, that's not going to be of much interest to me, I barely know flower from weed.’

Carlotta was puzzled. 'But I thought you were crazy about gardening, that that's how you got to know each other.'

'Not at all, the reverse in fact.'

'Well, well, well. Just goes to show how you can get things wrong. It's just that Marilyn doesn't have any other interests, so I just assumed…'

They were nearly there.

'Look, I'd love you to come in and have something to eat and drink with me in my place, but you're here for the summer, you'll want to get into your own place, and see what it's like.' Carlotta took out the envelope with the keys in it and prepared to hand them over.

'But aren't you going to come in with me?' Ria was surprised.

'Well, no, honey, not really. I mean this is your house, Marilyn and Greg's house.'

'No, come in please, I'd love you to come in and show me around, won't you?'

Carlotta bit her lip in indecision. 'I don't really know where their things are…' she began.

'Oh please do, Carlotta. I'd feel much more at home if you showed me everything. And Marilyn said she was going to leave me a bottle of wine in her fridge. I left her one in mine. So it would be a lovely start for me.'

'I wouldn't want her to think…"

But further protest was useless. Ria was already out of the car and looking up at her new home. 'Do we go in this little gate or round by the carport do you think?'

'I'm not sure.' The previously suave and confident Carlotta looked flustered.

'But which way is the front door?'

'Ria, I've never been in this house in my life,' said Carlotta.

The pause was minimal. Then Ria spoke. 'So, it will be a new experience for both of us,' she said.

And taking a suitcase each they went in to explore Number 1024 Tudor Drive, home of the Vines.

'Heidi? It's Greg Vine.'

'Oh hallo, Greg. And how are you?' Heidi was so relieved that he was still speaking to her after her indiscretion to him on the telephone some weeks back she didn't even pause to wonder why he had called.

'Well, I'm basically okay, Heidi, but a little confused. You did see Marilyn off to the airport, didn't you? I mean, she did go?'

'Yes, yes of course. And you do have her number there? She said you did?' Heidi's voice was rising a little anxiously.

'Sure, I have all that. I was just wondering if this person… has arrived in Westville? You know, the one who's going to be living in our home.'

'I'm not sure of all the details, but I think she should have got there an hour or two ago, Greg.' Heidi wasn't saying so but it had been like drawing teeth out of Marilyn getting any information whatsoever about the arrival of Ria.

'I see.'

'Was there anything?'

'No, not really.' He sounded very bleak. Despairing almost.

Heidi's heart went out to him. She tried hard to guess what he might want to know. 'You'd like to know if she arrived safely and got in, is that it?'

'In a way, I suppose,' he said.

'So would you like me to call and see is she there?'

'It's going to be on the answering machine apparently for the first week with our message on it, and then if this person wants to change it she may.' He sounded very bitter and hurt.

'You want to know if she has arrived and what she's like, what kind of a person she is, Greg? Is that it?'

'Well, I think it's more it than anything I've come up with so far,' he said. And there was a wry near-laugh in his voice.

'I'm not sure if I should drive by, she may be asleep. But if I call and then it's only the machine…?'

'Look, whenever you can, Heidi, that's all. I feel so helpless out here, it's so strange, things sort of multiply in your mind.'

'I know.' She was sympathetic.

'I don't think you do. You and Henry can talk about anything and I think we used to once also. But now we can talk about nothing without upsetting each other…" He broke off.

'It'll get better, Greg.'

'I'm sorry, I sound like someone on the Oprah show.'

'Is that so bad?'

'No, it's just not the way I am. Listen, I don't want to upset any kind of confidence between you and Marilyn, believe me I don't.'

'There is nothing to upset, just give me the numbers to call and I'll get in touch as soon as I have something to report.'

'Call collect, Heidi.'

'No, I will not do that, but you buy me a nice bright-coloured muu-muu to wear at the alumni picnic.'

'Oh God, I'd forgotten that.'

'You'll be back for it, Greg. You've never missed one yet. We rely on the History Department.'

'But where would I live even supposing I did come back for it?' He sounded totally bewildered.

'Listen, Greg, that's not for weeks yet. Let me report on the situation in Tudor Drive before you make any decisions.'

'You're a real friend, Heidi.'

'We all were and all will be, the four of us, mark my words,' she said with no conviction whatsoever.

Carlotta and Ria toured the house.

'Everything is so beautiful and she had no help coming in, she must have had contract cleaners,' Carlotta said admiringly.

They moved from the big open-plan living room with its coloured rugs on the floor, also three white leather sofas circling an open fireplace, into the huge kitchen with its breakfast bar and dining table, into Greg's study room lined with books from ceiling to floor on three walls and with a red leather desk and big black swivel chair under one window. There was no room for pictures on the walls but three tables stood around, all of them with little sculptures, ornaments, treasures of some sort.

'What a beautiful room,' Ria said. 'If you could see my husband's study now… it's like, well it's like a shell.'

'Why is that?' Carlotta asked reasonably.

Ria paused and looked at her. 'Sorry, he's my ex-husband, and he's just moved out so his study's empty. But it was never like this, not even in our heyday. Should we tour the garden, do you think?'

'The garden will be there tomorrow,' Carlotta said.

'Then let's hit Marilyn's bottle of Chardonnay,' Ria suggested.

'If aromatherapy can cope with jet lag the way it's working with you, we're only in the foothills of discovery,' Carlotta said and they went into the kitchen.

Just at that moment there was a knock on the door. Carlotta and Ria looked at each other, and went together to answer it. A woman in her forties stood there carrying a gift-wrapped bottle.

'I'm Heidi Franks, I work with Marilyn and I wanted to welcome you… well, hallo Carlotta, I didn't know you'd be here…'

'Ria insisted that I came by.' Carlotta seemed to be apologising, as if she had been discovered intruding.

'Come on in, Heidi,' Ria said. 'You arrived at a great time, we were just about to have a drink.'

'Well I don't really like to…'

Ria wondered what made them both apologise for coming into this home. Americans were meant to be legendary for their friendliness and their ease yet both Carlotta and Heidi seemed to be looking over their shoulders in case the shadow of Marilyn Vine might fall on the place and they would have to run away.

She put away the fanciful thoughts and ushered them back into the kitchen.

Marilyn unpacked everything and had her soup. And a glass of the expensive French wine that Ria had left her. Then she lay for a long time upstairs in the claw-foot bath and soaked away the hours of travel followed by hours of walking around Dublin.

She thought she might sleep, but no, all during the long afternoon her eyes were open and her mind was racing. Why had she come to this house, full of the past and the future? This was a Victorian house, for heaven's sake. Marilyn didn't know exactly what date it was, but people could well have lived here when the Civil War was taking place, when Gettysburg was being fought!

There was hope in this house, which there was never going to be in 1024 Tudor Drive. Two sunny children smiled out of photographs in every room in Tara Road. A boy with a grin as wide as a water melon, and a girl who would be almost the same age as Dale.

Marilyn lay under the white bedspread in the master bedroom of this house which had everything, and thought of her life which had nothing.

There was a small sound and the anxious face of the great marmalade cat came around the door. With a leap he landed and laid himself on the bed beside her. He had a purr like the engine of a small boat on the lakes in Upper New York State. Marilyn neither loved nor hated cats, she approved of all animals in a vague way. But Clement was a knowing sort of cat. He seemed to understand that she was not happy. He nestled in beside her, purring louder and louder. Like some kind of lullaby or a mantra it sent Marilyn Vine to sleep and when she woke it was twelve midnight.

In Westville it must be seven o'clock in the evening. She would call Ria and thank her for this restful home. The arrangement was that Ria would pick up if she wanted to answer the call. Marilyn dialled the number. After three rings she heard her own voice respond. 'It's Marilyn,' she said. 'It's midnight here and everything's wonderful. I just wanted to thank you.'

Then Ria's voice came on the line. 'It's only twilight here, but it's even more wonderful. Thank you very, very much.'

'You found the Chardonnay?' Marilyn asked.

'Yes indeed I finished it, and you found the Chablis?'

'Sure I did. I haven't finished it yet but I will.'

'And Gertie let you in?'

'I got in fine and I love the place. You have one beautiful home. And Carlotta gave you the keys and everything?'

'She did, it's a dream house, you undersold it.'

There was a little pause. Then they both said goodnight. Marilyn did not know why she had pretended Gertie had been there. Ria had no idea why she did not say to Marilyn that her friends Carlotta and Heidi were about to open a third bottle of wine. If anyone had asked them they would have been hard put to explain.