'Are you, Colm? Where are they sending you?'

'I'm brave as a lion. I'm leaving the bank altogether,' he said.

'Now that is brave. Are there farewell drinks or anything?' She could have bitten off her tongue.

'No, but I'll tell you what there will be. I'm going to open a restaurant in Tara Road. And as soon as I get started I'll send you an invitation to the launch.'

'IGCOll tell you what I'll do, I'll print the invites for you as a present,' she said.

'It's a done deal,' he said, and they shook hands warmly. He had a lovely smile. What a pity he was such a loser, Rosemary thought. He would have been a very restful man to have teamed up with. But a restaurant in Tara Road? He must be out of his mind. There was no catchment area there, no passing trade. As an enterprise it was doomed before it began.

Danny and Barney McCarthy were going to look at property very near Danny's old home.

'Will we all go together and take Annie to see her grandparents?' Ria suggested.

'No, love. It's not a good idea this time. I'm going to be flat out looking at places, and making notes, meeting local fellows who are all mad to make a quick killing. There's going to be nothing but meetings and more meetings in the hotel.'

'Well, you will go and see them?'

'I might, I might not. You know the way it's more hurtful to go in somewhere for five minutes than not to go at all.'

Ria didn't know. 'You could drive down a couple of hours earlier.'

'I have to go when Barney goes, sweetheart.'

Ria knew not to push it. 'Fine. When the weather gets better I'll drive her down to see them, we might both go.'

'What? Yes, great.' She knew he wouldn't. He had separated himself from them a long time ago, they were no longer part of his life. Sometimes Danny and his single-mindedness were a mystery and a slight worry to Ria.

'Would you like to drive down to the country with me to see Danny's parents?' Ria asked her mother.

'Well, maybe. Would Annie be carsick?'

'Not at all, doesn't she love going in the car? Will you make them an apple tart?'

'Why?'

'Oh Mam, out of niceness, that's why. They'll be apologising about everything. You know the way they go on. And if I bring too much they get sort of overwhelmed. You bringing an apple tart is different somehow.'

'You're very complicated, Ria. You always were,' said Nora, but she was pleased to make one, and did a lot of fancy lattice-work with the pastry. .

Ria had written well in advance and the Lynches were expecting them. They were pleased to see little Annie, and Ria took a picture of them with her to add to the ones she had already framed and given to them. They would be part of Annie's life and future in spite of their distance and reserve. She had resolved this. They never saw their other grandchild in England . Rich didn't come back. It was hard, they said. Ria wondered why it was hard for a man who was meant to be doing well in London to come home even just once and show his son to his own parents.

Rosemary had said she should leave them to it and be glad that she didn't have nagging in-laws. But Ria was determined that they stay involved.

They had cold ham, tomatoes and shop bread, which was all they ever served. 'Will I warm up the apple tart, do you think?' Mrs Lynch asked fearfully, as if faced with an insuperable problem.

How had these timid people begotten Danny Lynch who travelled the country with Barney McCarthy, confident and authoritative, talking to businessmen and county families that would have had his parents doffing their caps and bending their knees?

'And you were down here a few weeks ago and never told us,' Danny's father said.

'No indeed I was not. I think Danny may have been near by, but of course he would have to stay with Barney McCarthy all the time.' Ria was annoyed. She had known that somehow it would get back to them. He had only been a few short miles away, why couldn't he have come over for an hour?

'Well, now, when I was in the creamery there, Marty was saying that his daughter works in the hotel and that the pair of you were there.'

'No, it was Barney who was with him,' Ria said patiently. 'She got it wrong.'

'Oh well, fair enough,' said Danny's father. The incident had lost any interest for him.

Ria knew what had confused the girl; Barney McCarthy had brought Polly with him on the trip. So that's where the mistake lay.

In September 1987, shortly before Annie's fourth birthday party, they were planning a party for the grown-ups in Tara Road.

Danny and Ria were making the list, and Rosemary was there as she so often was.

'Remember a few millionaires for me, I'm getting to my sell-by date,' Rosemary said.

'Oh that will be the day,' Ria laughed.

'Seriously though, has Barney any friends?'

'No, they're all sharks. You'd hate them, Rosemary,' Danny laughed.

'Okay, who else is on the list?'

'Gertie,' said Ria.

'No,' said Danny.

'Of course, Gertie,' said Ria.

'You can't have a party and not have Gertie,' Rosemary supported her.

'But that mad eejit Jack Brennan will turn up looking for a fight or a bottle of brandy or both,' Danny protested.

'Let him, we've coped before,' Ria said. There were the bedsitter tenants, they'd be in the house anyway, and they were nice lads. They would ask Martin and Hilary who would not come but would need the invitation. Ria's mother would come just for half an hour and stay all night. 'Barney and Mona obviously,' Ria said.

'Barney and Polly actually,' Danny said.

There was a two-second pause and then Ria wrote down Barney and Polly.

'Jimmy Sullivan, the dentist, and his wife,' Ria suggested. 'And let's ask Orla King.'

Both Danny and Rosemary frowned. 'Too drinky,' Rosemary said. 'Unreliable.'

'No, she's in AA now. But still too unpredictable,' Danny agreed.

'No, I like her. She's fun.' Ria wrote her down.

'We could ask Colm Barry, the fellow who's going to open a restaurant in the house on the corner.'

'In his dreams he is,' Danny said.

'He is, you know, I'm doing the invitations to the first night.'

'Which may easily be his last night,' Danny said.

Rosemary was annoyed at the way he dismissed Colm, even if it was exactly her own feeling about it all. She decided to say something to irritate Danny. 'Let's ask him anyway, Ria. He has the hots for Orla King, like all those fellows who see no further than the sticky-out bosom and bum.'

Ria giggled. 'We're all turning into matchmakers, aren't we?' she said happily.

Rosemary felt a great wish to smack Ria. Very hard. There she stood, cosy and smug in her married state. She was totally confident and sure of her husband and it never occurred to her that a man like Danny would have many people attracted to him. Orla King might not be the only player on the stage. But did Ria do anything about it? Make any attempt at all to keep his interest and attention?

Of course not. She filled this big kitchen with people and casseroles and trays of fattening cakes. She polished the furniture they bought at auctions for their front room upstairs, but the beautiful round table was covered with catalogues and papers. Ria wouldn't think in a million years of lighting two candles and putting on a good dress to cook dinner for Danny and serve it there.

No, it was this big noisy kitchen with half the road passing through and Danny's armchair for him to fall asleep in when he came home from whatever the day had brought. She looked at Danny and admired his handsome smiling face. He stood there in the kitchen of his big house holding his beautiful daughter in his arms while his wife planned a party for him. A man so confident that he could take a girlfriend to within a few short miles of where his own mother and father lived. And in front of Barney McCarthy too. Rosemary had heard the laughing tale of how Ria's father-in-law had got the wrong end of the stick as usual. Why was it that some men led such lucky lives that nobody would blow a whistle on them? Things were very, very unfair.

Ria baked night and day to have a great spread for the party. Twice she had to refuse invitations from Mona McCarthy and remember not to tell her why she was so busy. She hated doing this to the kind woman who had shown her such generosity. But Danny had been adamant. This was a do that Polly would enjoy. The party would not be mentioned to Mona.

Ria's mother knew the score and would not say anything untoward. Living now so close to Ria meant that she was a constant visitor and aware of everything that went on in the household. Nora Johnson never came to Number 16 Tara Road for an actual meal, she was not a lunch guest or a dinner guest. That way you made yourself unpopular, she always said. Instead she was a presence just before or after every meal, hovering, rattling her keys, planning her departure and next visit. It would have been vastly easier had she come in properly and sat down with everyone else. Ria sighed over it but she put up with her mother. It was comforting, too, to have someone around who knew the whole background to things. Like the Barney McCarthy saga.

'Close your eyes to it, Ria,' she advised on several occasions. 'Men like that have their needs, you know.' It seemed unusually tolerant and forgiving on her mother's part. Usually people's needs were dismissed with a sniff. But Nora Johnson was a very practical person. She said once to Ria and Hilary that she would have forgiven her late husband much more if he had had his needs and dealt with them rather than doing what he did, which was failing to provide her with an adequate life insurance or pension.

'We must have plenty of soft drinks,' Ria said to Danny on the morning of the party.

'Sure, with people like Orla and Colm off the sauce,' he agreed.

'How did you know she was in AA?' Ria asked.

'I don't know, didn't you or Rosemary say? Someone did.'

'I didn't know; I won't say anything,GCO Ria said.

'Neither will I,' Danny promised her.

As it happened it was a night when Orla lapsed from her rule. She had arrived early, the first guest in fact, to find Danny Lynch and the wife that he had said meant nothing to him in a deep embrace in their kitchen. The home where Danny Lynch claimed he felt stifled was decorated, warm and welcoming, and about to fill up with their friends. The little girl in a new dress toddled around. She would be four shortly, she told everyone, and she thought that this was her party. She was constantly trying to hold her daddy's hand. This was not the scene that Orla had expected. She thought she might have one whiskey.

When Colm arrived she was already very drunk. 'Let me take you home,' he begged.

'No, I don't want anyone to preach at me,' Orla said, tears running down her face.

'I won't preach, I'll just stay with you. You'd do that for me,' he said.

'No I wouldn't, I'd support you if your fellow was behaving like a shit. If your fellow was here and behaving like a hypocritical rat I'd have a whiskey with you, that's what I'd do, not a rake of sanctimonious claptrap about Higher Powers.'

'I don't have a fellow.' He made a weak joke.

'You don't have anything, Colm, that's your problem.'

'Could be,' he said.

'Where's your sister?'

'Why do you ask?'

'Because she's the only one you give a tuppenny damn about. I expect you're sleeping with her.'

'Orla, this isn't helping you and it isn't hurting me.'

'You've never loved anybody.'

'Yes I have.' Colm was aware that Rosemary was beside them. He looked at her for help. 'Should we try and find whoever this fellow is that she thinks she loves?'

'No, that would be singularly inappropriate,' Rosemary said.

'Why?'

'It's the host,' she said succinctly.

'I see.' He gave a grin. 'What do you suggest?'

Rosemary wasted no time. 'A further couple of drinks until she passes out.'

'I couldn't go along with that, I really couldn't.'

'Okay, look the other way. I'll do it.'

'No.'

'Go, Colm. You're not helping.'

'You think I'm very weak,' he said.

'No, I don't for Christ's sake. If you're in AA you're not meant to get a fellow member to pass out. I'll do it.' He stood aside and watched Rosemary pour a large whiskey. 'Go on, drink it, it's only tonight, Orla. One day at a time, isn't that what they say? Tomorrow you need have none. But tonight you need one.'

'I love him,' wept Orla.

'I know you do, but he's a liar, Orla. He takes you to Quentin's; he takes you down the country to hotels with Barney McCarthy and then he plays housey-housey with his wife in front of you. It's not fair.'

'How do you know all this?' Orla was round-mouthed.

'You told me, remember?'

'I never told you. You're Ria's friend.'

'Of course you told me, Orla. How else would I know?'

'When did I tellGCa?'

'A while back. Listen, come up here and sit in this alcove, it's very quiet and you and I'll have a drink.'

'I hate talking to women at parties.'

'I know, Orla, so do I. But not for long. I'll send one of those nice boys who lives in this house up to talk to you. They were all asking who you were.'

'Were they?'

'Yes, everyone is. You don't want to waste your time on Danny Lynch, professional liar.'

'You're right, Rosemary.'

'I am, believe me.'

'I always thought you were stuck up, I'm sorry.'

'No you didn't. You always liked me deep down.' Rosemary went to find the boys who rented the rooms in Danny and Ria's house. 'There's a real goer up in the alcove on the stairs, she keeps asking where are the good-looking men she met when she came in.'

Colm moved out of the background. 'You should be in the United Nations,' he said to Rosemary.

'But you don't fancy me?' she said archly.

'I admire you too much, I'd be afraid of you.'

'Then you'd be no use to me.' She laughed, and kissed him gently on the cheek.

'I don't sleep with my sister, you know,' he said.

'I didn't think you did for a minute. Don't I know you're having a thing with that publican's wife?'

'How do you know that?' he was amazed.

'I told you it's a small forest and I know everything,' she said with a laugh.

Nora Johnson said afterwards it was amazing how much drink they put away, young fresh-faced people. And wasn't it extraordinary that young, very drunk, girl shouting at everyone. And she had gone into one of the boys' bedsitters. And what a funny chance that someone had opened the door and they had been seen in bed. Danny had said he hadn't thought that any of it was funny. Orla was obviously unused to drink and had reacted badly. She hadn't meant to go to bed with one of those kids. It was out of character for her.

'Oh come on, Danny. She's anybody's, we all knew that back when we worked in the agency,' Rosemary said in her cool voice.

'I didn't know.' He was clipped.

'Oh she was.' Rosemary listed half a dozen names.

'I thought you said that nice man Colm Barry fancied her,' Ria said.

'Oh I think he did a bit back a while, but not after last night's performance.' Rosemary seemed to know everything.

Danny glowered about it all.

'Didn't you enjoy last night?' Ria looked anxiously at him.

'Yes, yes of course I did.' But he was absent, distracted. He had been startled, frightened even, by Orla's behaviour. Barney had been unexpectedly cold and asked him to get her out as quickly and quietly as possible. Polly had looked at him as if he had somehow broken the rules.

That wet Colm Barry had been no help at all. The kids who rented the rooms had been useful at the time but why, oh why, had someone left the door of a bedroom open? Only Rosemary Ryan had been of any practical use, shepherding people on and off stage as if she knew everything that was going on. Which of course she couldn't have.

A couple of weeks later, Hilary arrived with a birthday present for Annie; the first thing she wanted to know was if Barney McCarthy had been wiped out in the stock-market crash.

'I don't think so; Danny never said a word.' Ria was surprised at such a thought.

'Martin said that fellows like Barney who make all their money in England always keep it there, that he'd have lost his shirt,' Hilary said grimly.

'Well he can't have done because we'd have known,' Ria said. 'He seems to be doing just as much if not more.'

'Oh well, that's all right then,' said Hilary.

Sometimes Ria felt that Hilary would have been pleased if there was bad newsGCoshe and Martin, who had no money at all, watched the ebb and flow of the stock market with so much interest.

Gertie had been quiet and watchful during the party at Tara Road. Jack was with her, dressed in his one good suit. They had a babysitter and they couldn't stay late. Jack drank orange juice. Gertie's sister Sheila was going to come home from the United States this Christmas. It had never been made clear to Sheila and her American husband Max the extent of the problems with Jack Brennan.

Sheila was inclined to be boastful of her life in New England. Their wealth and status was always treated to an impressive show in her letters home. The fact that Gertie had married such an unstable man had never been mentioned in her own letters or phone calls. Gertie was hoping that the three-week visit could hold without one of Jack's moods.

It depressed her to see that pretty girl Orla behaving so badly. If someone like that could lose control, what hope was there for her Jack? But against all the odds he remained sober. Restless and anxious, but sober. There was a God after all, Gertie confided to Ria as she helped her serve the hot spicy soup and pitta bread.

'I know, Gertie, I know. Every time I look at Danny and little Annie I know this.'

Gertie winced slightly because she had heard one of the girls who worked for her at the launderette say that the good-looking Danny Lynch who lived at the posh end of Tara Road had a fancy woman just like his boss Barney McCarthy had a fancy woman. Gertie had so much wanted it not to be true, she had refused to listen or enquire anything at all about it.

Barney McCarthy never mentioned again the behaviour of Orla King at the party in Tara Road. He had assumed that the relationship would now be at an end. And he had assumed correctly. Danny called to Orla's flat to tell her so. He spoke very directly and left no area for doubt.

'You don't think you're going to get rid of me like that,GCO Orla cried. She had indeed managed to stay sober after the upsetting events of the night in Tara Road, but this news was not helping her resolution.

'I don't know what you mean,' Danny said. 'We both went into this knowing the limitations, I was never going to leave Ria for you, we agreed that it would be fun and would hurt nobody.'

'I never agreed to that,' Orla wept.

'Yes, you did, Orla.'

'Well I don't feel that way now,' she said. 'I love you. You're treating me like shit.'

'No, that's not true, and if anyone is treating anyone like shit, it's you. You come to my house, you get as pissed as a fart, you insult my boss, you go to bed with at least one and possibly two of my tenants in full view of everyone. Who's treating whom badly, may I ask?'

'You've not done with me, Danny Lynch. I can still make trouble for you,' Orla said.

'Who'd believe you, Orla? After your behaviour in our house, who'd believe I touched you? Even with a forty-foot pole?'

'Hallo, Rosemary? Orla King here.'

'Hi Orla. Feeling okay again?'

'Yes, I didn't go back on the drink.'

'There. I knew you wouldn't. I told you, didn't I?'

'Yes, you did. I'm not a good judge of people as it turns out. I didn't know you were so nice.'

'Come on, of course you did.'

'No I didn't. Danny Lynch is a cheat and a liar and I'm going round to his house to tell his wife what he's been up to.'

'Don't do that, Orla.'

'Why not, he is a liar. She should know.'

'Listen. You've just agreed I'm your friend, so listen to the advice of a friend.'

'Okay. What is it?'

'Danny's very dangerous. Suppose you did that, he'd hit back. He'd get you sacked.'

'He couldn't do that.'

'He could, Orla, he really could. He could tell your bosses that you photocopied stuff for him, gave them details of deals that were coming up.'

'He wouldn't.'

'What has he to lose? He's secure with Barney. Barney doesn't owe you any favours for what you said to him about that trip to the country.'

'Oh God, did I?'

'Yes I'm afraid you did.'

'I don't remember.'

'That's the problem, isn't it. Listen, believe me, I haven't steered you wrong. You're going to give yourself nothing but grief if you go round to Tara Road with the story. Danny will go for you bald-headed. You know how determined he is. You know how ambitious, how much he wants to get ahead, he won't let you stand in his way.'

'So what do you thinkGCa?'

'I think you should let him know you'd like to cool it a bit, men love that sort of thing. Agree to keep it on the back burner, some phrase like that, and once he knows you won't be any problem he'll start coming round to see you again and it will all restore itself to where it was.'

Rosemary could hear the tears of gratitude in Orla's voice. 'You're really so helpful, Rosemary. I don't know why I thought you were stuck-up and difficult. That's exactly what I'll do. And of course he'll come round when he knows there's going to be no drama.'

'That's it, it may take a bit of time of course,' Rosemary warned.

'How much time do you think?'

'Who knows with men? Maybe a few weeks.'

'Weeks?' Orla sounded horrified.

'I know, but it's for the best in the end, isn't it?'

'You're right.' Orla hung up.

Nora Johnson had been to bridge lessons. She was greatly taken by the game and somewhat inclined to tell lengthy tales about some hand that was dealt, called and played. She seemed to have the same kind of recall for bridge as she had about every film star she had ever seen on the screen.

Ria had refused absolutely to learn. 'I've seen too many people get obsessed by it, Mam. I'm bad enough already, I don't want myself spending five hours every afternoon wondering are all the diamonds out or who has the seven of spades.'

'It's not like that at all,' Nora scoffed. 'But it's your loss. I'm going to suggest that I get some games going for them up in St Rita's.'

And it was a huge success. There were demon bridge sessions in one of the residents' lounges at the retirement home, often with as many as three tables playing. Nora Johnson played there almost every afternoon wherever they needed to make up a four. There were not enough hours in the day for her.

And as well as organising their games she organised the lives of the residents, advising them, cajoling and contradicting them. She was never happier than laying down rules and making decisions for other people. Including her daughter Ria.

'I wish you'd pray to Saint Ann ,' Nora Johnson told her daughter.

'Oh Mam, there's no Saint Ann ,' Ria said exasperated.

'Of course there's a Saint Ann ,' said her mother scornfully. 'Who else do you think was the mother of Our Lady. And her husband was Saint Joachim. Saint Ann's feast is the 28th of July and I always pray to her for you then, and say that basically you're a good girl and you'll remember your name-day.'

'But it's not my name-day. We're not in Russia or Greece , Mam, we're in Ireland and my name is Ria anyway, or Maria. Not Ann.'

'You were baptised Ann Maria, your own daughter is called Ann after the mother of Our Lady.'

'No, it's because we like the name.'

'There!' her mother was triumphant.

'But what should I be praying for, even supposing she was there listening? Haven't we got everything?'

'You need another child.' Her mother spoke with pursed lips.

' Saint Ann could do it. You may think it's superstitious but believe me it's true.'

Ria knew that if she stopped taking the contraceptive pill that would do it too. Something she had been thinking about a lot, and must discuss with Danny. He had seemed preoccupied about business recently, but maybe this was the time to bring the subject up.

'I might pray to Saint Ann,' she said gently to her mother.

'That's the girl,' said Nora Johnson.

Gertie's sister Sheila came home for Christmas.

'I must have her to a lunch here,' said Ria.

'Oh God no,' Danny said. 'Not over Christmas. Not that fellow with his fists here over Christmas, please.'

'Don't give a dog a bad name, Danny. Wasn't he great now at the party?'

'Well, if standing like a block of wood was great then he was.'

'Don't be an old grouch, it's not like you.'

Danny sighed. 'Sweetheart, you're always filling the house with people. We get no peace.'

'I am not.' She was hurt.

'But you are, this is one of the few times there's just us and Annie here. There are people coming and going all the time.'

'That's the meanest thing I ever heard. Who's here more often than Barney? He's here about four times a week, and with Polly one day or Mona another. Now I don't ask them, do I?'

'No.'

'So?'

'So it's not very restful, that's all.'

'Forget Gertie's sister then,' Ria said. 'It was just an idea.'

'LookGCa I don't meanGCa'

'No, I said forget it, we'll be restful.'

'Ria, come hereGCa' He dragged her towards him. 'You are the world's worse sulker,' he said and kissed her on the nose. 'All right, what day will we have them?'

'I knew you'd be reasonable. What about the Sunday after Christmas Day?'

'No, that's the McCarthys. We can't miss that.'

'Right, the Monday then, no one will have gone back to work. It will be stay-at-home Ireland . Will we ask your mother and father?'

'What for?' Danny asked.

'They can see Annie, see all that we've done to the place, meet these Americans, you know.'

'They'd be no good, and honestly I don't think they'd enjoy it,' Danny said.

Ria paused. 'Sure,' she said. And, after all, she had won over Gertie's sister.

Sheila Maine and her husband Max had not been in Ireland for six years. Not since their wedding day. They now had a son Sean, the same age as Annie. Sheila seemed astounded at how well Ireland was doing, how prosperous the people were, and how successful were the small businesses she saw everywhere. When she had left to go to America to seek her fortune at the age of eighteen, Ireland had been a much poorer country. 'Look what has happened in less than ten years!'

Ria felt that, not unlike her own sister Hilary who seemed to rejoice in bad news rather than good, Sheila Maine was not entirely pleased to see the upturn in the economy. What Sheila really seemed to resent was the great social life that people had in Dublin . 'It's not at all like this in the States,' she confided on the evening before Christmas Eve when there was a girls' dinner out in Colm's new restaurant. 'I can't imagine all these people laughing and talking to each other at different tables. It's all changed a great deal from my time.'

Colm had been having a series of rehearsals, inexpensive meals where friends would try out the recipes and the ambience at a very reduced cost. This way they could iron out some of the wrinkles before the restaurant opened officially in March. Only those who were within his group were allowed in. Colm's beautiful and silent sister Caroline worked with him, serving and acting as hostess. 'Smile a little more, Caroline,' they heard him urging her from time to time. She was a nervous girl, she might never be seen as fronting a successful restaurant for her brother.

Sheila was thrilled with it all. And on Christmas Eve they were going in to Grafton Street where a live radio broadcast was done on The Gay Byrne Show. Perhaps she might even be called upon to speak as a returned emigrant. Anything was possible in the Ireland of today. Look at all Gertie's smart friends, with their good jobs or their beautiful houses. Gertie herself was not particularly well off; her launderette was at the less smart end of Tara Road. And her husband Jack, though charming and handsome, seemed vague about his prospects. But they had a business, and a two-year-old baby boy. And everyone was so confident. Sheila Maine's sigh was so like Hilary Moran's sigh that Ria could hardly wait for the two women to meet at lunch in her house.

And indeed they did get on very well. Gertie and Ria stood back and watched them bonding together. The quiet husband, Max Maine, who came from a Ukrainian background and knew little or nothing about Ireland , seemed ill at ease. Only Danny of course was able to draw him out with his warm smile and his interest in everything new. 'Tell me about the kind of houses you have out there, Max. Are they all that whiteboard we see pictures of?'

Max was frank and explained that in the part of Connecticut where he and Sheila lived, there weren't many dream houses standing in their own grounds. Danny was equally frank and expanded on how they had managed to get a big house like this one in Tara Road by being in the right place at the right time, and by having three of their rooms occupied by youngsters who helped to pay the rent. Visibly Max relaxed with half a bottle of Russian vodka which they sipped from small glasses. Ria watched as Danny captivated her friend's brother-in-law. He hadn't wanted them to come and yet he was now giving his all. Jack, having been frightened into some kind of truce, sat drinkless and wordless in a corner.

Afterwards, as they washed up, Ria gave Danny a hug. 'You are marvellous, and weren't you rewarded in the end? He is a nice man, Max, isn't he?'

'Sweetheart, he hasn't a word to throw to a dog. But you're so good to people when they come here for me, I thought I'd be nice to him for you, and for poor Gertie, who isn't a bad old stick. That's all.'

Somehow Ria felt cheated. She had really believed that Danny was enjoying his conversation with Max Maine. It was upsetting to realise that it had all been an act.

Sheila wanted to know was there a good fortune-teller around before she went back home. A lot of her neighbours in America went to psychics, some of them very powerful, but they wouldn't know you like an Irish woman would. 'I'll take all you three girls GCa my treat,' she said. You couldn't not like Sheila. Bigger and much more untidy than Gertie, she had the same anxious eyes and the edges of her mouth turned down in sadness to leave this place where everyone was having such a good time.

Ria longed to tell her that they were all putting on a show for her, but that would have been to let Gertie down.

'Come on, let's all go to Mrs Connor,' Gertie suggested.

'She didn't get things right for me years back, but I hear she's red-hot at the moment. Why not, it's an adventure, isn't it?' Rosemary agreed. The last time they had been there, Rosemary had said nothing about what had been predicted, just that it was not relevant to her life plans. Maybe it would be different now.

'Well, she did tell me my baby would be a girl. I know it was a fifty-fifty chance but she was right. Let's go to her,' Ria said. She had stopped taking the pill back in September. But as yet the time had not been ripe to tell Danny. She was waiting for the proper moment.

Mrs Connor must have had five or ten people a night coming to her since they were there last. Hundreds of eager faces watching her, thousands of hopeful hands held out, and many more thousands of paper banknotes crossing the table. There was no evidence whatsoever of any increased affluence in her caravan. Her face showed no sign of any contentment in having seen the futures of so many people.

She told Sheila, having heard her accent, that she lived across the sea possibly in the United States , that she was married reasonably happily, but that she would like to live back in Ireland .

'And will I live back in Ireland ?' Sheila asked beseechingly.

'Your future is in your own hands,' Mrs Connor said gravely, and somehow this cheered Sheila a lot. She considered the money well spent.

To Gertie, with her anxious eyes, Mrs Connor said that there was an element of sadness and danger in her life and she should be watchful for those she loved. Since Gertie was never anything but watchful for Jack this seemed a good summing-up of affairs.

Rosemary sat and held out her hand, marvelling as she looked around her at the squalor of the surroundings. This woman must take in, tax-free, something like a hundred thousand pounds a year. How could she bear to live like this? 'You were here before,' the woman said to her.

'That's right, some years back.'

'And did what I saw happen for you?'

'No, you saw me in deep trouble, with no friends, no success. It couldn't have been more wrong. I'm in no trouble, I have lots of friends and my business is thriving. But you can't win them all and you got the others right.' Rosemary smiled at her, one professional woman to another.

Mrs Connor raised her eyes from the palm. 'I didn't see that, I saw you had no real friends, and that there was something you wanted which you couldn't get. That's what I still see.' Her voice was certain and sad.

Rosemary was a little shaken. 'Well, do you see me getting married?' she asked, forcing a lightness into her voice.

'No,' Mrs Connor said.

Ria was the last to go in. She looked at the fortune-teller with sympathy. 'Aren't you very damp here? That old heater isn't great for you.'

'I'm fine,' Mrs Connor said.

'Couldn't you live somewhere better, Mrs Connor? Can't you see that in your hand?' Ria was concerned.

'We don't read our own hands. It's a tradition.'

'Well, somebody else mightGCa'

'Can you show me your palm, please, lady. We're here for you to know are you pregnant again?'

Ria's jaw fell open in amazement. 'And am I?' she said in a whisper.

'Yes, you are, lady. A little boy this time.' Ria felt a stinging behind her eyes. No more than her mother's famous Saint Ann , dead and gone for two thousand years, Mrs Connor barely alive in her caravan couldn't know the future, but she was mightily convincing. She had been right about Annie, remember, and right about Hilary having no children at all. Possibly there were ways outside the normal channels of knowing these things. She stood up as if to go. 'Don't you want to hear about your business and the travel overseas?'

'No, that's not on. That's somebody else's life creeping in on my palm,' Ria said kindly.

Mrs Connor shrugged. 'I see it, you know. A successful business, where you are very good at it and happy too.'

Ria laughed. 'Well, my husband will be pleased, I'll tell him. He's working very hard these days, he'll be glad I'm going to be a tycoon.'

'And tell him about the baby that's coming, lady. He doesn't know that yet,' said Mrs Connor, coughing and drawing her cardigan around her for warmth.

Danny was not really pleased when he heard the news. 'This was something we said we would discuss together, sweetheart.'

'I know, but there never is time to discuss anything, Danny, you work so hard.'

'Well, isn't that all the more reason we should discuss things? Barney's so stretched these days, money is tight, and some of the projects have huge risk attached to them. We might not be able to afford another baby.'

'Be reasonable. How much is a baby going to cost? We have all the baby things for him. We don't have to get a cot, a pram or any of the things that cost money.' She was stung with disappointment.

'Ria, it's not that I don't want another childGCoyou know that -it's just that we did agree to discuss it, and this isn't the best time. In three or four years we could afford it better.'

'We won't have to pay anything for him, I tell you, until he is three or four.'

'Stop calling it him, Ria. We can't know at this stage.'

'I know already.'

'Because of some fortune-teller! Sweetheart, will you give me a break?'

'She was right about my being pregnant. I went to the doctor next day.'

'So much for joint decisions.'

'Danny, that's not fair. That's the most unfair thing I ever heard. Do I ask to be part of all the decisions you make for this house? I do bloody not. I don't know when you're going to be in or out, when Barney McCarthy will come and closet himself with you for hours. I don't know if we are to see his wife or his mistress with him each time he turns up. I don't ask to discuss if I can go out to work again, and let Mam look after Annie for us, because you like the house comfortable for you whatever time you come home. I'd like a cat but you're not crazy about them, so that's that. I'd like us to have more time on our own, the two of us, but you need to have Barney around, so that's that. And I forgot to take the pill for a bit and suddenly it's a matter of joint decisions. Where are the other joint decisions, I ask you? Where are they?' The tears were running down her face. The delight in the new life that was starting inside her seemed almost wiped out.

Danny looked at her in amazement. His own face crumpled as he realised the extent of her loneliness and how much she had felt excluded. 'I can't tell you how sorry I am. I truly can't tell you how cheap and selfish I feel listening to you. Everything you say is true. I have been ludicrous about work. I worry so much in case we'll lose what we've got. I'm so sorry, Ria.' He buried his face in her and she stroked his head with sounds of reassurance. 'And I'm delighted we're having a little boy. And suppose the little boy's a little girl like Annie, I'll be delighted with that too.'

Ria thought about telling him what the fortune-teller had said about her having a business of her own one day, and overseas travel. But she decided it would break the mood. And it was nonsense anyway.

'I know you're pregnant again, Ria. Mam told me,' Hilary said when she came to call.

'I was about to tell you. I forgot what a bush telegraph Mam is. It's probably being broadcast on the midday news by now,' Ria said apologetically.

'Are you pleased?' Hilary asked.

'Very. And it will be good for Annie to have someone to play with, though she'll probably hate him at first.'

'Him?'

'Yes, I'm pretty sure. Listen, Hilary, it's hard for me to talk about this with you. You never want to talk about, well, about your own situation, and there was a time when we could talk about anything, you and I.'

'I don't mind talking about it.' Hilary was offhand.

'Well, have you thought of adopting a baby?'

'I have,' Hilary said. 'But Martin hasn't.'

'Why ever not?'

'It might be too expensive. He thinks that the cost of educating and clothing a child is prohibitive these days. And suppose it went to third-level education, well, you're talking thousands and thousands over a lifetime.'

'But if you'd had your own you'd have paid that.'

'With difficulty you know, and the other way there'd be the feeling we're doing it for someone else's child.'

'Oh there wouldn't. Of course there wouldn't. Once you get the baby it's yours.'

'So they say, but I don't know.' Hilary nodded doubtfully over her mug of tea.

'And is it easy to adopt?' Ria persisted.

'Not nowadays, they're all keeping their kids, you see, and getting an allowance from the State. I'd put an end to that, I tell you.'

'And have them terrified out of their lives, like when we were young.'

'It didn't terrify you,' Hilary said as she so often did.

'Well, I mean the generation before us then. Remember all the stories, girls committing suicide or running off to England and everything, never knowing what happened. Surely it's much better the way it is?'

'Easy for you to say, Ria. If you saw that little rossie up at the school, with her stomach stuck out in front of her, and now it appears that her mother doesn't want to bring it up, so there's more drama.'

'Maybe you and MartinGCa'

'Live in the real world, Ria. Could you imagine us working in that school, bringing up that little tinker's baby, paying through the nose for everything for it? Right pair of laughing-stocks we'd be.'

Ria thought that Hilary found the world too harsh and unloving a place but then she was in a poor position to try and console her sister. Ria had so much and in many ways Hilary really did have so little.

Orla King was back at her AA meetings again. Colm was as friendly to her as ever. But she felt awkward, particularly with imperfect recollection of the party in Tara Road. Finally she brought the subject up.

'I meant to thank you for trying to help me that night, Colm.' It wasn't easy to find the words.

'It's okay, Orla. We all go through it, that's why we're here. That was then, this is now.'

'Now is a bit bleak though.'

'Only if you allow it to be. Try something different. I've felt so tired since I left the bank, trying to set up this restaurant business, that I haven't had time to miss the drink and fell sorry for myself.'

'What can I do except type?'

'You said once you'd like to be a model.'

'I'm too old and too fat, you have to be sixteen and look half-starved.'

'You don't sing badly. Can you play the piano?'

'Yes, but I only sing when I'm drunk.'

'Have you tried it sober? It might be more tuneful and you'd remember the words.'

'Sorry to be so helpless, Colm. I'm like a tiresome child, I know. But suppose I could get a few songs together, then where would I try for a job?'

'I could give you the odd spot when my place opensGCa not real money, but you might get discovered. And of course Rosemary knows half of Dublin . She might know people in restaurants, hotels, clubs.'

'I don't think Rosemary's too keen on me these days. I did fool around with her best friend's husband.'

Colm grinned. 'Well, at least that's all you're describing it as now, fooling around, not the great love affair of the century.'

'He's a shit,' Orla said.

'He's all right really, he just couldn't resist you. Very few of us could.' He grinned at her and she thought again what an attractive man he was. Since he had left the bank he wore much more casual clothes, open-necked shirts in bright colours; his black curly hair and big dark eyes made him look slightly foreign, Spanish or Italian. And he was a rock of sense too. Handsome, single, sensible.

Orla sighed. 'You make me feel much better, Colm. Why couldn't I fall in love with someone normal like you?'

'Oh I'm not normal at all, we all know that,' Colm joked.

A look of unease crossed Orla's pretty round face. She hoped that when she had been drunk she had said nothing about the over-protectiveness Colm always had about his silent beautiful sister. No, surely bad and all as she had been that night she'd never have hinted at anything as dark as that.

Brian was born on the 15th of June and this time Danny was beside Ria and holding her hand.

Annie said to everyone that she was quite pleased with her new brother, but not very pleased. This made people laugh so she said it over and over. Brian was all right, she said, but he wasn't able to go to the bathroom on his own, and he couldn't talk and he took up a lot of Mum and Dad's time. Still, Dad had assured her again and again that she was his little princess, the only princess he would ever have or want. And Mam had said that Annie was the very best girl not only in Ireland , or Europe, but on Earth and quite possibly the planets as well. So Annie Lynch didn't have anything to worry about. And Brian was going to take ages before he could do anything like catch up on her. So she was very relaxed about the whole thing.

Gertie's baby Katy was born just after Brian, and Sheila Maine's daughter Kelly around the same time.

'Maybe they'll all be friends when they grow older.' The future was always happy and filled with people for Ria.

'They might all hate each other, you can just see Brian saying she wants me to be friends with these awful peopleGCa They'll make their own friends no matter what you say.'

T know, it's just that it would be nice.'

Rosemary showed her irritation. 'Ria, you're amazing, you're so into never changing things, never moving on. It's ridiculous. You're not friendly with the children of your mother's friends, are you?'

'Mam didn't have any friends,' Ria said.

'Nonsense, I never met anyone with more friends, she knows the whole neighbourhood.'

'They're only acquaintances,' Ria said. 'Anyway, there's nothing wrong with my hoping that friendships will continue into the next generation.'

'No, but not very adventurous.'

'When you have children won't you want them to be friends with Annie and Brian?'

'They'll be far too young if they ever materialise, which is unlikely,' Rosemary said.

Annie had been listening carefully; these days she understood a lot of what was going on. 'Why don't you have children?' she asked.

'Because I'm too busy,' Rosemary said truthfully. 'I work very hard and it takes up a lot of time. You see, all the time your mummy spends on you and Brian? I don't think I could be unselfish enough to do that.'

'I bet you'd love it if you tried it,' Ria said.

'Stop it, Ria. You sound like my mother.'

'I mean it.'

'So does she. So does Gertie, for God's sake, she was trying to get me broody the other day. Imagine the Brennan family being held up to anyone as an example of domestic bliss!'

Gertie didn't bring her two children to Tara Road. They lived over the launderette not far away, and she always felt that they would be discontented if they saw how others lived. Also the atmosphere in Ria's house was so different from their own. A big kitchen where everyone gathered, something always cooking in the big stove, the smell of newly baked cinnamon cakes, or fresh herb bread.

Not like Gertie's house where nothing was ever left out on the gas cooker. Just in case, just in case it might coincide with one of the times that Jack was upset. Because if Jack was upset it could be thrown at anyone. But Gertie came on her own to Number 16 from time to time and did a little housework for Ria. Anything that would give her the few pounds that Jack didn't know about. Just something that might tide them over when there was trouble.

Rosemary's business was now very high profile. She was often photographed at the races, gallery openings or at theatre first nights. She dressed very well and she kept her clothes immaculately. Whenever she visited, Ria had taken to offering her a nylon housecoat to wear in case the children smeared her with whatever they had their hands in.

'Come on, that's going a bit far,' Rosemary laughed the first time.

'No it isn't. I'm the one who'd have to spend six years apologising if they got ice cream or pureed carrots all over that gorgeous cream wool. Put it on, Rosemary, and give me some peace.'

Rosemary thought they could have more peace if they went upstairs to that magnificent front room and drank their wine there rather than being in what was like a giant playpen with children's toys and things all over the floor and Ria leaping up to stir things and lift more and more trays of baking out of the oven. But it was useless to try and change her ways. Ria Lynch believed that the world revolved around her family and her kitchen.

Danny saw her in the pink nylon coat and was annoyed. 'Rosemary, you don't need to dress up to play with the children.'

'Your wife's idea,' Rosemary shrugged.

'I didn't want them messing up her lovely clothes.'

'Wait till she has kids of her own,' Danny said darkly. 'Then we'll see some messed-up clothes.'

'I wouldn't bet on it, Danny,' Rosemary said. Her smile was bright, but she felt that she was being put under a lot of pressure from all sides. It wasn't enough apparently to look well, dress well, and run a successful business. No, not nearly enough. Apparently there was no such thing as a private life in this city. Rosemary resented the excessive interest people had in marrying others off. Why was she not allowed to have a lover that no one knew of, or indeed a series of them? She was successful and glamorous but so what? You had to find a mate and breed children as well, otherwise it counted for nothing in people's eyes. She was getting it everywhere, but particularly on her weekly visits to her mother's house.

Mrs Ryan was becoming intolerable. Rosemary was now in her late twenties and with no marriage prospects. Her sister Eileen was no consolation to her. Just be yourself, be free. Don't listen to the old voices, Eileen would say if ever Rosemary grumbled about their mother. Which was fine for Eileen living as she did with the powerful Stephanie, a lawyer, and working for her as her clerk. They had an apartment where they had a regular Sunday afternoon drinks party. It was almost like a salon where everyone was welcome, men and women, but Rosemary felt they despised her for dressing so well. The term 'frocky' was used a lot as a derogatory description for women that Eileen and Stephanie thought were dressing just to please male egos.

Yet in ways Rosemary envied them. They were sure and happy in their lives and they wished her well. 'I'm demented with Eileen and Stephanie producing soulful ladies for me, my mother despairing that I'm a lost cause, and every customer that I'm nice to thinking I'm about to perform every known kind of sexual favour to keep his business.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'I feel the same,' she smiled warmly.

'So I do hope we remain friends.'

'Well, yes.'

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

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

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

'Is that what you think?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Well yes,' Danny said.

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

'Yes, of course.'

'And inspect the building specifications and work throughout?'

'I don't see why not.'

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

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

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

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

'I didn't mind,' he said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'All mothers are difficult,' Hilary said.

'Ours isn't too bad.'

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

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

'What will Gertie do?'

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

'But Danny wouldn't like it.'

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

'So what happens now?'

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

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

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

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

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

'We can manage that.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'What do you mean?'

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

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

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

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

'Gay?' Eileen said 'No, just messy, complicated.'

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

'I think I will,' Rosemary agreed.

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

'You're not helping me, Mam.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'No more than you did.'

'I just insured against shoddy workmanship.'

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

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

'What are they talking about?' Brian asked.

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

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

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

Good-naturedly Danny carried the papers upstairs.

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

'Are you okay, Mam?' Annie asked.

'Sure I am, of course.'

'Would you like to be in business too?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Is anyone coming?' Gertie asked innocently.

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

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

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

'You do?' Gertie was amazed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Nothing wrong?' She was anxious.

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

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

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

Barney came at seven and left at eight.

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

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

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

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

'So?'

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

'This house?'

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

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

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

'Do you mean that?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Can you pick and choose?'

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

'And has he?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'It can't be,' Nora gasped.

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

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

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

'I do.' Gertie was short.

'But who's looking after the launderette?'

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

'That's ludicrous.'

'Has she got anyone already to clean?'

'Ask her, Gertie.'

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

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

'She'd like the hours.'

'You give her the hours then.'

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

'Yes. Quite.'

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

'IGCOll have a firm, contract cleaners twice a week.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Or our bowler hats,' giggled Eileen.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Tobacco plant,' Rosemary said.

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

'Solatium crispum.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That wasn't what she wanted either.

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

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

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

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

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

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

'You?' He was amazed.

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

'Oh no, no,' Barney murmured soothingly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'You're a genius,' he said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'I hope so,' Ria smiled.

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

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

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

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

Annie accepted this and went back to her painting.

'Sorry,' her mother said a little later.

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

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

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

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

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

'You already did,' Danny said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Barney said that?'

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

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

'But what do we need to build?'

'Nothing yet, you're quite right.'

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

'Who knows what the future will bring?'

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

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

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

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

'But it would be terrible.'

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

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

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

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

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

'What does that mean?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Why do you want to go there?'

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

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

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

'Yes,' said Hilary with a smile.

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Why so?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Would it work?'

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

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

'Great, then we'll do it.'

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

'I don't know yet.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'But we should pay you for thoseGCa' Ria began.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Ugh,' Brian said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Some people are.'

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

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

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

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

'What?'

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

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

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

'Totally true, Princess,' said Danny.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What's wrong, Gertie?'

'Nothing.' The word was like a scream.

'Where are the children?'

'With my mother.'

'Who's running the launderette?'

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

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

'No, sorry.'

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

'Why do you think?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'So, it doesn't matter then.'

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

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

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

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

'I won't take it.'

'Well, get out then.'

'What?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Sure. Thank you, Ria.'

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

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

'Sure. Right.'

'Thanks again, Ria.'

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

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

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

'She had to go home, Mam.'

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

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

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

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

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

'No, Mam, he's not.'

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

'Never better.'

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

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

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

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

'Roll on the divorce referendum,' Rosemary said.

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

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

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

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

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

'Where is Annie by the way?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'I don't knowGCa'

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

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

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

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

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

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

'What do you think is nice, Colm?'

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

'Ugh,' said Annie.

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

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

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

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

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

'Like drugs?' Annie asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'I'm all right really, Colm.'

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

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

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

'Yes.'

'She's okay now,' Colm said.

'It looks dreadful, where did it happen?'

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

Colm was surprised.

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

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

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

'Thanks, Colm.'

'Don't mention it.'

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