Tara Road (66 page)

'Will he not be sleeping with you, Mam, in the same bed?' Brian asked. There was a pause. 'Sorry,' he said. 'I didn't mean to say that.'

Danny was packing his things in the office when the phone rang.

'Rosemary Ryan?' The girl raised her eyebrows questioningly.

'Put her through,' Danny said.

'I hear that you're going out to America,' she said.

'You could hear the grass grow, sweetheart.'

'I didn't hear it from you,' she said crisply, 'when we were last talking. In bed.'

'I gather you're not in the office,' he said.

'You gather right, I'm on my mobile in my car very near your office. I'll drive you to the airport.'

'There's no need, honestly.'

'Every need,' she said. 'Ten minutes' time I'll be parked outside.'

He came out of the building where he would probably never work again. The offices would be repossessed on Monday. Danny carried the grip bag he was taking to Westville, and two large carrier-bags, the contents of his desk. 'Do you know what would be wonderful? If you could keep these for me until I come back, save me going out to Bernadette and dropping them at home. And I can't leave them in Tara Road; that Kamp Kommandant will hardly let me past the door.'

'It was actually she who told me you were going to America,' Rosemary said as she negotiated the traffic along the canal.

'Did she now?' He wasn't pleased.

'Yes, I met her this morning in Tara Road and she asked me whether I had heard anything of your plans. I told her she could call Ria to check. She said she didn't want to make waves. That was her expression.'

'Was it?' he grunted.

'You don't think she could know about us do you, Danny?'

'I certainly didn't tell her.'

'No, it's just that she looks at me coldly and says things like "your good friend Ria"GCa with what sounds like heavy sarcasm. Did she say anything to you?'

'She said something aboutGCa you've never done anything that would make me think you weren't trustworthy, have you? It seemed a bit odd at the time, I'm trying to remember the words. ButGCa no, I think we're only imagining things.'

'Why are you going, Danny?'

'You know why I'm going. I have to tell Ria face to face.'

'It won't make it any better for either of you, it's a wasted journey.'

'Why do you say that?'

'Even if you do tell her she still won't believe that it's going to happen. Ria doesn't believe unpleasant things. She's going to say "Never mind, it will all turn out fine".' Rosemary put on a childish voice to imitate the way Ria might speak.

Danny looked at her. 'What did Ria ever do to you to make you despise her so much? She never says anything except good things about you.'

'I suppose she let me walk off with her husband under her nose and didn't notice. That's not a clever way to be.'

'Most people don't have to be so watchful of people that they think are their friends.' Rosemary said nothing. 'I'm sorry, that was smug and hypocritical.'

'I never loved you for your fine spirit, Danny.'

'It's not easy, what I'm going to do, but fine spirit or no fine spirit, I think she deserves to hear it from me straight out.'

'Did you tell her what you were coming out for?'

'No.'

'She probably thinks you're going back to her,' Rosemary said.

'Why on earth would she think that? She knows it's over.'

'Ria doesn't know it's over. In twenty years she still won't believe it's over,' said Rosemary.

At the airport Danny met Polly Callaghan.

'Fleeing the country?' she asked him.

'No, going out to discuss the whole sad tale with Ria. And you? Deserting the sinking ship?'

'No, Danny.' Her eyes were cold. 'You know better than that. I'm giving Barney a little space with Mona for the weekend, he needs it. You're not the only one with a long sad tale to discuss.'

'Polly, I have spent the morning apologising to people for things. I'm upset, I lash out. Forgive me.'

'People will always forgive you, Danny. You're young and charming and you have a whole life still ahead of you. You'll be forgiven and you'll start again. Barney may not be so lucky.'

And she was gone before he could say any more.

The taxi drew up outside the carport. Danny stared up at the house where his family was spending the summer. It was much more splendid than he had imagined. He wondered would he have liked Marilyn Vine under more normal circumstances. Possibly. After all, she had remembered him from a chance meeting half a lifetime ago. They might well have been friends, business associates. And now he was walking into her home.

He could hear Brian shouting: 'He's here!' and his son hurtled down the slope to meet him and hug him.

A boy with a ball and a baseball cap on backwards stood watching closely. Brian's new friend no doubt. Annie, slim and tanned in her pink jeans, was right behind him. The hug was as warm as when she was four years of age. At least he hadn't lost them.

Danny had tears in his eyes when he saw Ria. She had come out too to meet him but she didn't run to him as she would have done in times gone by. She stood there serene, pleased to see him, a big smile all over her face. This was the Ria who hadn't realised that the marriage was over, the Ria who had lost all dignity and control the night before she left for America and who had begged him to leave Bernadette. But she was a different woman now surely. Confident and aware of the real world for the first time.

'Ria,' he said and stretched out his arms to her. He knew the children were watching.

She hugged him as she would have hugged a woman friend, and her cheek was against his. 'Welcome to Westville,' she said.

Danny let his breath out slowly. Thank God Rosemary had been wrong. All during the flight he had been wondering had he given the wrong message to Ria on the phone. But no, he knew that she saw him coming just as a friend. What a tragedy that he would have to change this mood entirely when he told her about Tara Road.

There was no opportunity to tell her the first night. Too much, far too much happening. There was a swim in the pool, a couple of neighbours or friends dropping in. Trust Ria to have got to know everyone. Admittedly these people didn't stay long, they were introduced, Heidi, Carlotta, two cultured gay men who ran a business in the town, a student who obviously had great designs on Annie. They had all dropped by, they said, to say Hi to Annie and Brian's father. He wasn't being presented in some cosy way as a current husband, Danny noted with relief. A glass of wine and club sodas in the garden and a platter of smoked salmon, then they were gone and there was a family barbecue beside the pool.

Danny learned that the children were going to stay with the Maines the following night. Ria must have realised that they needed to talk alone and she was packing them off there on a bus. He looked at her with admiration. She was handling it all so much better than he could ever have hoped. All he had to do now was to give her some realistic options about the very bleak financial future that lay ahead of them, something that wouldn't make her believe that her whole world was ending.

'It's eleven o'clock for us but four a.m. for your dad, I think we should let him go to bed,' Ria said, and they all carried the dishes back down to the house.

'Thank you for making it so easy, Ria,' he said as she showed him into the guest room.

'It is easy,' she smiled. 'I've always been delighted to see you, so why not now and in this lovely place?'

'It's worked well for you then?'

'Oh very much so.' She kissed his cheek. 'See you in the morning,' she said and left. He was asleep in under a minute.

Ria spent much of the night in her chair staring out into the garden. She saw a little chipmunk run across the grass. Amazing that she had never seen an animal like this before she came to America. There were squirrels in the trees, and Carlotta had a racoon which she was trying not to feed because you shouldn't encourage them, yet he had a lovely face. Brian was going to smuggle one home, he said, and start a chipmunk shop in Dublin.

'You'd need two if you were going to breed them,' Annie had said. 'Even you should know that.'

'I'm going to bring a pregnant one,' Brian said.

Ria forced herself to think about things like this rather than about the man who was sleeping in the room next door. Several times during the evening she had had to shake herself to remember the events of the past few months. They had seemed such a normal happy family, the four of them. It was almost impossible to believe that he had left them.

Surely he realised that it had all been a terrible mistake. That was the only reason he could be here. Ria wondered why he hadn't said it straight out. Asked her to forgive him and take him home. He had already thanked her for making things easy for him. She must continue in the same manner, rather than throw herself into his arms and tell him that nothing mattered any more. It was like some kind of game, you had to play it by the rules. Danny was coming back to her and this time she was going to keep him.

Mona McCarthy listened to the story without interrupting. Her face was impassive as she heard the events unfolding.

'Say something, Mona,' he said eventually.

She shrugged her shoulders slightly. 'What is there to say, Barney? I'm sorry, that's all. You put so much into it I'm sorry that in the end you won't be able to sit back and enjoy it.'

'I was never one for sitting back,' he said. 'You haven't asked how bad it is.'

'You'll tell me.'

'This house is in your name, that's one thing anyway.'

'But we can't keep it surely?'

'It's all we have, Mona.'

'You're going to let all those people lose their jobs, all those suppliers go without payment and Ria Lynch lose her home and expect me to live in this mansion?'

'That's not the way it is.'

'What way is it then?' she asked.

He couldn't answer. 'I'm sorry, Mona,' he said.

'I don't mind being poor, we've been poor before, but I won't be dishonest.'

'It's business. You don't understand, you're not a businesswoman.'

'You'd be surprised,' said Mona. 'Very surprised.'

Early next morning Ria took Danny a cup of coffee to his room.

'We usually have a swim before breakfast, will you join us?'

'I didn't bring any swimming trunks.'

'Now that was bad, if you'd only made one of my listsGCa' she mocked herself. 'IGCOll get you something from Dale's room.'

'Dale?'

'Their son.'

'Will he mind?'

'No, he's dead.' Ria went off and found him a pair of swimming shorts.

'Dead?' Danny said.

'Killed. That's why Marilyn wanted to get away from here.'

'I thought her marriage broke up,' Danny said.

'No, I think her marriage is fine actually.'

'But isn't he in Hawaii? That doesn't look very fine to me.'

'I think he's on the way to Ireland this weekend,' Ria said.

'Can't you stay longer, Dad?' Brian asked.

'No, I have to go on Monday night, but I have three full days here,' Danny said as they came down from the pool to the omelettes that Ria had made for breakfast.

'What did you come for really?' Brian asked.

'To see you all. I told you that.'

'It's a long way,' Brian said thoughtfully.

'True. But you're worth it.'

'Mam said your visit had to do with your work.'

'In a way yes.'

'So when will you do it? The work part?'

'Oh it will get done, don't worry.' Danny ruffled his son's hair affectionately.

'Dad, what would you like me to be when I grow up?'

'I don't mind. What would you like?'

'I don't really know. Mam says I might be a journalist or a lawyer because I have an enquiring mind. Annie says I should be bouncer in a casino. Would you like me to be an auctioneer and work in your office with you?'

'Not really, Brian. I think people should choose their own line of work, follow their own star.'

'What did your parents want you to do?'

'I think they hoped I'd marry a rich farmer's daughter and get my hands on some land.'

'I'm glad you didn't. But suppose I did want to be an auctioneer I could, couldn't I? Then I could see you every day in the office, even if you didn't come home to live again.'

'Sure, Brian, I'd love to see you every day, we'll work something out. GCO

'And even when Bernadette's baby comes you'll still have time for us?' Brian's face was anxious.

Danny couldn't find the words to speak. He gripped Brian's shoulder very hard. When he did speak his voice was choked. 'IGCOll always have time for you and Annie, Brian, believe me. Always.'

'I knew you would, I was just checking,' said Brian.