Dublin 4 by Maeve Binchy

course and the dessert too. That would take two mornings in the bookshop reading therecipes. She was going to have a facial twice a week … oh, over on the North side of the city where she wouldn’t be known … she would take the bus. She was going to spend two mornings shopping for her shoes. She had the dress already; the very good black dress which she had bought when Anna was 21 five years ago. She had worn it that evening … the first time … that first time when she had discovered about Dermot and the other girl … the time she had got so upset. She had never worn it again. But this time she would wear it and it would look magnificent. She would be much thinner … she was going to lose a stone this month. Her hair would be much more attractive … that man in Grafton Street who had done Ethel’s hair was going to put highlights in for her a week before the party. She had telephoned and asked him what would be the best time. She had even told him she was a middle-aged lady, not a dollybird. ‘I like coiffing mature ladies,’ he had said.
    Coiffing. It had sounded vaguely suggestive.
    And there were so many other things to do. Window cleaners to come in. That firm which came and shampooed your carpet in the house. And her notebook to fill in.
    She had written down anything anyone said about successful entertaining, like that thing Ethel had mentioned about the prawn cocktails and the roast beef.
    She remembered Anna once talking about a house she had visited. They had fresh flowers in thebathroom, Mother, in the bathroom!’ That had been included in the notebook. She had read an interview with a famous hostess who had said that the whole secret of successful entertaining was to have plenty of highly-polished glass and thick damask napkins on the table. That was noted, beside the advice about having a lot of salts, peppers and butterdishes so that people didn’t have to keep passing them from one end of the table to the other.
    Happier than she had been for a long time and armed with a list of the better cookery books, she started off for Donnybrook. At the hall door she met Anna.
    ‘Oh dear! Why didn’t you let me know you were coming, dear? I’m just off,’ she said, regretfully but firmly pulling the door behind her.
    ‘Hey, that’s very welcoming,’ Anna said, surprised. ‘I bring your only grandchildren to visit you and that’s what we get shown … the door.’
    ‘Hallo Cilian … hallo Orla …’ she waved at them through the window.
    Cilian struggled with his harness. ‘Grandmama, Grandmama,’ he called.
    ‘Ah look, he wants to come to you,’ Anna said.
    ‘I’m sorry, darling, Granny’s got to go out. Hallo Orla, blow Granny a kiss.’
    ‘You might just ask us in for a cup of coffee.’ Anna sounded huffed. ‘We drove all the way in from Sandycove to see you.’
    ‘Oh, I am sorry,.’ Carmel was on her way to the gate.
    ‘But where are you going to, Mother?’
    ‘I’m going out dear, I have things to do. Will you still be in town this afternoon? Bring them in then and we’ll have afternoon tea. Wouldn’t that be nice?’
    ‘Yes, but Mother, I wanted to have a little chat …’
    ‘Grand. We’ll have a little chat this afternoon.’
    She was gone. Walking purposefully off towards the main road and the good brisk invigorating stretch towards the shops.
    Anna looked after her, bewildered. Normally Mother was almost pathetically grateful for a visit, and fussed and ran about like an overgrown puppy. Here she was, striding off with no explanation. She looked after her, and Mother, as if she felt her eyes, turned and waved before she went around the corner. It was funny how people looked much younger when they moved quickly. Mother didn’t look bad at all in her navy jacket and her check skirt. She didn’t look fifty or fifty-one or whatever she was. Sometimes when she sat in that chair looking out into the back garden she looked seventy. Poor Mother, wasn’t Dad awful to be