The Beach Book Bundle: 3 Novels for Summer Reading: Breathing Lessons, The Alphabet Sisters, Firefly Summer (178 page)

“How do you know they’re moral folk?” she said, surprised.

“You just told me there’d be no talk of mistresses in your house,” Ken said.

“Too, true, they’d be very disappointed to know that I was one myself,” Anna said.

“So would I.” Ken seemed serious.

“Oh, stop that.” She laughed at him. “It’s always easy to pay compliments to someone you know is tied up, much safer. If I told you I was free and on the rampage, you’d run a hundred miles from me instead of offering me a drink.”

“Absolutely wrong. I left your bookshop to the last specially. I was thinking all day how nice it would be to see you. Don’t you accuse me of being fainthearted, hey?”

She patted his knee companionably. “No. I misjudged you.” She sighed deeply. It was easy to talk to Ken, she didn’t have to watch what she said. Like she would when she got to Salthill in Rosemary Drive. Like she would when she got back to Joe later on.

“Was that a sigh of pleasure?” he asked.

With Joe or with Mother or Father she would have said yes.

“Weariness: I get tired of all the lies,” she said. “Very tired.”

“But you’re a big girl now, surely you don’t have to tell lies about you life and the way you live it.”

Anna nodded her head glumly. “I do, truly I do.”

“Maybe you only think you do.”

“No, I do. Like the telephone. I’ve told them at home that my phone has been taken out, so that they won’t ring me. That’s because there’s a message on the answerphone saying “This is Joe Ashe’s number.” He has to have it, you see, because he’s an actor and they can’t be out of touch.”

“Of course,” Ken said.

“So naturally I don’t want my mother ringing and hearing a man’s voice. And I don’t want my father asking what’s this young man doing in
my
flat.”

“True, he might well ask that, and why he hadn’t a machine of his own and number of his own,” Ken said sternly.

“So I have to be careful about not mentioning things like paying the phone bill, I have to remember I’m not meant to
be
on the phone. That’s just one of the nine million lies.”

“Well, is it all right at the other end, of the line, I mean you don’t have to lie to this actor chap?” Ken seemed anxious to know.

“Lie? No, not at all, what would I have to lie about?”

“I don’t know, you said all the lies you had to tell everywhere. I thought maybe he was a jealous macho fellow, you couldn’t tell him you went for a drink with me. That’s if we ever get anywhere near a drink.” Ken looked ruefully at the tailbacks.

“Oh no, you don’t understand, Joe would be glad to think I went for a drink with a friend. It’s just …” Her voice trailed away. What was it just? It was just that there was an endless utterly endless need to pretend. Pretend she was having a good time in the odd (club place) where they went. Pretend she understood this casual relationship with his mother, his wife, his children. Pretend she liked these fringe theaters where he played small parts. Pretend she enjoyed lovemaking every time. Pretend she didn’t care about this heavy family business ahead of her.

“I don’t lie to Joe,” she said, as if she were speaking to herself. “I just act a bit.”

There was a silence in the car.

“Well, he
is
an actor, I suppose,” Ken said, trying to revive the conversation a little.

That wasn’t it. The actor didn’t act at all, he never pretended to please anyone else. It was the actor’s girlfriend who did all the acting. How odd that she had never thought of it that way before.

They sat and talked easily when they eventually found a pub.

“Do you want to phone your people to say you’ve been delayed?” Ken suggested.

She looked at him, surprised that he should be so thoughtful.

“Well, if they’ve bought steak and everything …” he said.

Mother was touched. “That was nice of you, dear. Father was beginning to look out for you. He said he’d walk down to the station.”

“No, I’m getting a lift.”

“Is it that Joe? Joe Ashe, the actor?”

“No, no, Mother, Ken Green, a friend from work.”

“I don’t think I got enough steak.…”

“He’s not coming to supper, he’s just driving me there.”

“Well, ask him in, won’t you? We love to meet your friends. Your father and I often wish you brought friends back here more often. That all of you did over the years.” Her voice sounded wistful, as if she were looking at her wall of pictures and not getting a proper charge from them.

“I’ll ask him in for a moment then,” Anna said.

“Could you bear it?” she asked Ken.

“I’d like it. I can be a beard.”

“What on earth is that?”

“Don’t you read your gossip magazines? It’s someone who distracts attention from your real love. If they get to meet upright fellows like me, they won’t get the wind of evil, sensual actor lovers who have their answering machines tied to your phone.”

“Oh, shut up.” She laughed. It was easy laughter, not forced.

They had another drink. She told Ken Green about the anniversary. She told him briefly that her sister was a nun, her brother had dropped out and gone to work on the farm of her father’s eldest brother, Vincent, a small rundown place on Ireland’s west coast. Feeling a little lighter and easier already, she told him that this was why she was having supper with her parents. For the first time in a long while she was going to come right out in the open, ask them what they wanted, tell them the limitations. Explain the problems.

“Don’t go too heavily on the limitations and problems, if they’re like you say. Dwell more on the celebratory side,” he advised.

“Did your parents have a silver wedding?”

“Two years ago,” Ken said.

“Was it great?” she asked.

“Not really.”

“Oh.”

“When I know you better, I’ll tell you all about it,” he said.

“I thought we knew each other well now.” Anna was disappointed.

“No. I need more than one drink to tell the details of my whole life.”

Anna felt unreasonably annoyed that she had told him all about Joe Ashe and about how he had to be kept a secret at home.

“I think I talk too much,” she said contritely.

“No, you’re just a nicer person. I’m rather buttoned up,” Ken said. “Come on, drink that back and we’ll head for the Saltmines.”

“The what?”

“Isn’t that what you said your house was called?”

Anna laughed and hit him with her handbag. He made her feel normal again. The way she had felt a long time ago when it was great to be part of the Doyle family, instead of walking through a mine field, which is what it was like these days.

“Reading one of Maeve Binchy’s novels is like coming home.” –
The Washington Post

Books by Maeve Binchy

Fiction

Light a Penny Candle

Echoes

London Transports

The Lilac Bus

Firefly Summer

Silver Wedding

Circle of Friends

The Copper Beech

The Glass Lake

This Year It Will Be Different

Evening Class

The Return Journey

Tara Road

Scarlet Feather

Quentins

Nights of Rain and Stars

Whitethorn Woods

Heart and Soul

Non-Fiction

Aches & Pains

The Maeve Binchy Writers’ Club

About the Author

MAEVE BINCHY
lives in Dublin, Ireland, with her husband, Gordon Snell.