Tara Road (16 page)

'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.