Joan looked startled.
‘Well it will hardly be Geraldine,’ she said.
‘Why not, she’s coming to lunch tomorrow, isn’t she?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Joan was firm.
‘I swear Dan said . . .’
‘Kevin is coming all right. But not with Geraldine.’
‘You mean he’s not with Geraldine anymore?’
‘I gather not,’ Joan said.
‘Well, God Almighty! What happened?’
‘Ask Dan, he sees Kevin all the time.’
‘Ask Dan? Ask Dan? I’d have a better chance of asking the Pope or the Queen of England! Dan doesn’t do questions and answers. He says, “Don’t fuss”.’
‘Ah now.’ Joan was being a peacemaker.
‘Ah now nothing, Joan. He won’t talk, he’s spending money like water. We don’t have the kind of money he’s spending.’
‘His clients do, and he gets a percentage of what they make. And they’re all mad about him. And why should you complain, Amy, Dan is spending it on you and the girls.’
‘Spending much too much.’
‘Don’t be such a puritan. If we had it we’d spend it, believe me.’
‘I don’t think you would, I think you might believe in saving just a little for a rainy day.’
‘I don’t know that I would. I think I’d believe the economists and the politicians who say the rainy day hasn’t come yet.’
‘I’m a proper pain; take no notice of me. Maybe I do fuss as Dan says.’
‘Maybe you’re broody.’
‘No, I’m not,’ Amy said with spirit.
‘Dan thinks you are, he told Martin.’
‘Well, he thinks wrong.’
‘Stranger things have happened,’ Joan said.
‘They would have to be very strange things, like the collapse of the pharmaceutical industry,’ Amy looked shifty.
‘You’re never taking the pill, Amy Moran.’
‘Why do I feel like a criminal telling you that I am. It’s my body.’ Amy was defensive.
‘Yes, but it’s meant to be a joint decision having children, isn’t it?’
‘I haven’t made a joint decision with Dan for as long as I can remember.’
Joan pulled the conversation away from this uneasy area.
‘Right, are we going to make that knockout Moroccan salad for tomorrow?’ she asked.
‘Yes, but it’s better made on the day. I have all the stuff: oranges, carrots, sultanas, cinnamon.’
‘Too good for them, I say. Tell me again who’s coming.’
‘Let me see, there’s Kevin and Geraldine, sorry . . . Kevin on his own, then there’s Declan, his new bank manager, only a youngster but according to Dan very supportive. And this Sally Anne that they all lusted over when they were young, she’s back in Ireland apparently. Mr Hayes from the solicitor’s: fussy little man, never says anything straight out. My cousin Donal, who’s a journalist. You and Martin. That will be ten altogether or nine without Geraldine . . .’
‘Unless he brings someone, of course . . .’
‘He wouldn’t, we’d run her out of here.’
‘No we wouldn’t, we’d accept the inevitable and offer her a drink.’
‘Okay, that’s what we’d do, but we wouldn’t mean it.’
Joan laughed at her. ‘You never change, Amy. By the way, why did you say it’s a heavy lunch party, it sounds fine to me.’
‘I never said it was heavy, Dan has said it over and over. It makes me uneasy for some reason. Normally he’s telling me not to fuss.’
‘And so we won’t. We’ll just do the meringues and the little pastry boat for the asparagus and then we’ll go inside and drink wine and relax.’
‘I wish you lived here all the time, Joan.’
‘No you don’t. You’d want to murder me if I were here for a week,’ Joan said and between them they had finished the preparations and taken the chicken from the Aga just as Martin and Dan came back from the new billiard room.
‘You should see the new room!’ Martin was beaming with admiration and pleasure. ‘It’s a full-size table, Joan, I mean the real thing. And heavy brass fittings. It’s really top of the range.’
Dan stood there basking in the praise. He didn’t see anything inappropriate about it, that his friend Martin, a chauffeur, who would never own a toy like this even after a lifetime of saving, should be invited to celebrate.
And as they sat down to eat, as the old friends they were, Amy wondered was she the one out of step. Joan and Martin were enjoying it all and talking to the girls about birds and how to identify a goldfinch from a bullfinch. Nobody was in the least uneasy except herself. She made a conscious effort to be part of things and good tempered. When Joan praised their lovely house again and how well it was kept, Amy heard herself saying, ‘Well, Dan is so generous and he gets us everything under the sun,’ without adding that all these washing machines, dishwashers and microwaves were destroying the ozone layer. She had not mentioned Sasha and Sophie’s homework once, even though she knew it wasn’t finished.
Instead she joined in the speculation about whether it would be fine enough tomorrow to eat out of doors. Joan did all the washing-up and set the table for breakfast, then they yawned and went to bed.
As they reached their bedroom Dan whispered in Amy’s ear, ‘Let’s make a little boy tonight.’
‘Why not?’ she said, going into the bathroom, brushing her teeth and taking her pill. This time because she was tired, Amy didn’t wrap up the package and secrete it in a zipped compartment.
He was never going to hunt through her cosmetic bag looking for something. That way madness lay.
Next morning there was the wonderful smell of toast, and because Joan was in the house Amy knew that Dan and the girls hadn’t used all her expensive organic bread that she had bought yesterday from Larry with the green eyes.
‘This place is paradise,’ Joan said as Amy came to the table. Dan was pleased.
‘It’s simple but it’s home,’ he said unconvincingly.
Outside in the garden the girls had the bird book and were squabbling happily over whether they had identified a Reed Bunting or a Coot.
‘Which is it?’ Amy asked Martin.
‘It’s neither. It’s what Joan would call a common bird,’ he said.
‘He mocks me but there are birds that you should not spend any time identifying because as soon as you have found out what they are they’re gone and there are another hundred around the place which look almost the same. You’d lose your sanity.’
‘Never you, Joan.’ He patted her hand and Amy felt a surge of envy. They were true friends those two, and she couldn’t put it down to their being childless. What kept Dan and herself apart had nothing to do with Sophie and Sasha. Nothing at all.
Dan was like the captain of a ship drawing up plans and duties. He loved making a roster.
They would need deckchairs out under the apple tree and the folding dining chairs as well. These were all kept in the boathouse. ‘Let’s get the girls to pick some flowers—oh and could Amy put covers on the food in case Sally Anne brought her little dog. She said she had a King Charles Spaniel that she was lost without, so he might be coming.’
And would Joan remember to talk to old Mr Hayes because Joan was good at talking to awkward people. What with working in a bookshop, she met a lot of them. And would Martin ask Donal just casually if there was any news on that new hotel project down the river. Because if it were going ahead, they really had to buy up some land around it. It would go through the roof when the hotel was announced. Journalists often got a sniff of things before other people but Dan didn’t like to be seen to ask.
He didn’t know what Declan’s interests were. Amy was to draw him out a little, get the feeling for what he was interested in. If it was operas, she might suggest that he join them for one of their evenings. It was better, he said, if the invitation came from her.
‘What will we do to pleas
e Sally Anne?’ Amy asked. ‘Joan and I are dying to meet her, part of your wicked past.’
‘In our dreams,’ Martin said ruefully. ‘Sally Anne had barely time to say hello to the likes of us.’
‘Even Kevin? He was the real Romeo?’ Amy probed.
‘Not even Kevin,’ Dan said. ‘Though God knows it wasn’t for the want of trying. Kevin never gives up.’
‘Maybe he’ll finally score with her today,’ Amy said.
‘No, he’ll have his work cut out for him doing what he’s doing.’
Amy caught Joan’s eye but nothing more was said.
The girls returned with glorious flowers in jam jars.
‘Something a bit more classy than that, I think.’ Their father was frowning. They found four little vases and arranged them on the table.
Amy was taking the table napkins out to the garden.
‘How many again? Ten? Nine?’ she asked Dan.
‘You know there are ten, darling, try to focus.’
‘I am focused, sweetheart. It’s just you said that Geraldine might not be coming.’
‘I did?’
‘Last night,’ she lied.
‘Ah well, I don’t know what I said last night.’ He tickled her neck in remembrance.
The girls watched, disgusted.
‘Ugh! Daddy’s about to sing “Amy, Wonderful Amy”, I know he is.’ Sophie said.
Sasha was even more disapproving. ‘You look silly when you do things like that, Daddy. You’re better just fighting.’
‘We never fight,’ Dan said, hurt.
‘No, but you know, yucky stuff.’ Sasha defended her stance.
‘I see someone coming,’ Sophie shouted.
A small red sports car was coming up the lane.
‘Hardly Mr Hayes,’ Amy said.
‘Not Kevin,’ Martin said.
‘Hardly the new bank manager—a bit pacey.’ Dan squinted.
‘Not my cousin Donal,’ Amy said, then they all realised.
‘It must be Sally Anne,’ they all said at once.
She must have been the same age as the boys if she had been at school at the same time. That meant she was forty-three or thereabouts.
But there was no way Sally Anne looked it.
She looked at least fifteen years younger.
She wore a crisp white shirt and some very well-cut black pants. Her sunglasses were holding her very carefully streaked hair back and she had a really expensive designer silk scarf with the label showing. She was the goods.
And as she got out of her car she carried a decorated gift bag with a bottle of wine and a tub of very up-market ice-cream.
‘Just fling it into the freezer, someone,’ she said, with a big smile from ear to ear. ‘It’s probably turned into a chocolate milkshake by now.’
Every cubic inch of the freezer was in use but you would never know that from Amy’s reaction.
Amy noted with some relief that she didn’t seem to have brought the dog with her. She was able to cope with everything else.
‘What a thoughtful present, Sally Anne. I’m Amy, by the way, and these are Sasha and Sophie, our children.’
Sally Anne looked at the girls without much pleasure. ‘Lovely,’ she said vaguely.
Dan’s mouth was open. ‘Come here to me, Sally Anne. Let me give you a hug,’ he said and then he lifted her off her feet and swung her around. ‘Lord, don’t you look wonderful? No cares and woes, no signs of ageing.’
‘Hard work, believe me, Dan. And haven’t you done well for yourself! This is a gorgeous place. How on earth did you find it?’
If Dan was disappointed that she didn’t stress how young he was looking, he gave no sign. Instead he was about to hold forth on his wisdom in picking up the old farmhouse for a song before the real demand hit.
Suddenly Amy knew that he must not be allowed to start. It would set the mood for the whole day. So she interrupted.
‘I’m actually from this part of the world. I was able to tell Dan about every stick and stone of the place . . .’
Sally Anne had lost interest already.
‘Martin, I would have known you anywhere. Aren’t you marvellous?’
‘Oh I’m not at all, Sally Anne. And this is my wife Joan.’
‘How are you?’ Her interest was slight. ‘And where are your children?’
‘We don’t have any, Sally Anne.’
‘Clever old fox,’ she chucked Martin admiringly under the chin.
Amy wanted to slap her very hard. If she could have known the months and years of trials, tests and endless speculation. Would she have said anything so casually cruel? Probably.
‘And where’s lovely Kevin, the most likely lad of you all?’ Sally Anne.
‘There’s his car,’ Sophie called.
And indeed the low-slung Citroën came up the lane.
‘That’s not Geraldine,’ Sasha said in a voice clear as a bell.
Out of the car stepped a girl of nineteen. She had long, curly red hair and a very short emerald-green skirt. She wore high white boots, more suitable for a skating rink in winter than for high summer at a country farmhouse.
She was maybe three years older than Kevin and Geraldine’s eldest daughter. This was so horrible, so humiliating to Geraldine, who had been part of their circle for sixteen, even seventeen, years.
Amy longed for the kind of courage or possibly sheer rudeness and bad behaviour that would allow her to say that the girl’s presence was totally inappropriate. But at that very moment she saw her cousin Donal’s motorbike come up the lane closely followed by Mr Hayes in his sedate Volkswagen and Declan the new bank manager in a very new Volvo which looked as if it had come straight from a car wash.
So it was showtime.
Introductions and drinks for everyone and gasps of admiration at the house, the view, the river, the wonderful insight Dan Moran had shown in getting a place like this well ahead of the posse.
So it was a good fifteen minutes, including five minutes’ serious arm-wrestling with the freezer to make room for Sally Anne’s bloody ice-cream, before she was properly introduced to the child that was now Kevin’s travelling companion.
Her name was Silver.
Yes. Silver O’Sullivan.
Silver smiled at everyone except Sally Anne. She knew there was no point in smiling in that direction. She may have been young and not very bright but there were some things she understood instinctively.
Silver followed Amy and Joan into the kitchen and picked at the canapés.
She told them she was terribly interested in business and she hoped to get a degree in business studies. Meantime she was studying the Art of Make-up.
Make-up was so important, didn’t they think? She looked from Joan to Amy and back to Joan again.
It made such a statement. That’s what make-up did.
Joan said that as a bookseller there were very few statements she wanted to make. Amy said that as a teacher there were even fewer, but Silver shook her head sadly.
‘I don’t think you have faced the facts, to be honest. You see, of course, what happens without a proper beauty routine is that the poor face is left ragged and beyond all repair,’ Silver explained, patiently looking from what must to her have seemed one ragged face to another.
Joan recovered the power of speech before Amy.
‘You are so right and maybe this is what might be known as a wake-up call. We should all be much more careful. And if you have any time to advise Amy and myself we would be just delighted,’ she said.
Amy looked at her open-mouthed.
‘Well, of course if there’s time I’d love to,’ Silver said graciously. ‘I’m not sure what the plans are. Kev was a bit cagey. He said it could all go one way or the other.’
‘As indeed it could,’ Amy said grimly.
But Joan was in control. ‘There’ll be plenty of time. This is a wonderfully relaxed home. You’ll be delighted with your lunch here today.’
‘Oh good. Thank you s
o much. I was sort of afraid I mightn’t be totally welcome, you know, what with Geraldine and all that.’
‘Life moves on,’ Joan said blandly.
‘Indeed it does. And Kev is such a poppet. I don’t think he ever had much fun before. It’s great to see him having a good time now.’
‘Isn’t it,’ said Joan, and eased the girl out of the kitchen. She came back and wiped her brow.
‘I think you are mad,’ Amy said.
‘Yes, I could be, but at least this way we’ll have something to tell Geraldine when we see her.’
‘You’ll tell Geraldine you sucked up to that awful little person? Never!’
‘No, of course not, but we’ll be able to tell her what a clown she is. Geraldine will like that. If we went your way half those cars would be down the lane by now. What would Dan think of that?’
‘I don’t care what he thinks anymore. This is all nonsense.’
‘I don’t know what you have against Dan. He loves you and his family and his home. Suppose he was like Kevin, who spends it all on silly little girls with bare middles and snorting coke up his nose.’
‘Kevin? Kevin does that?’ Amy was astounded.
‘Well, yes. Yes he does.’
‘And Martin told you this?’
‘In a roundabout way, yes.’
‘I envy you, Joan. Martin and you are friends.’
‘Well what about you and Dan? What are you?’
‘Strangers.’
‘That’s nonsense. Maybe Martin sees more of Kevin, feels a greater loyalty to him. Dan only sees Kevin as someone to drive to places. It’s a different relationship.’
‘Joan, will you take a plate of those asparagus boats outside and help me pass them round?’
‘You’re just putting on an act.’
‘I’ve been doing that for years,’ Amy said and headed toward Mr Hayes.
‘Mr Hayes, we never see you these days. Delighted you could make it.’
‘Well, of course I see your husband a lot, Mrs Moran.’
He must be the only person left in the western world who would call a much younger woman ‘Mrs’. Dan hadn’t mentioned that he met him a lot. He had only said it was good to keep old fuddy-duddy Hayes on board. On board what? Amy wondered.