Circle of Friends Read Online Free PDF Page B

that he didn’t feed. Dr. Johnson was of the view that there were a lot of mouths, especially in the families with thirteen children, that God had forgotten to feed.
    Benny didn’t know that Peggy Pine was an old friend of Mother Francis, that they had been girls years ago and that when she came to the convent she called Mother Francis Bunty.
    Eve hadn’t known that Birdie Mac who ran the sweetshop had a man from Ballylee who had been calling for fifteen years, but she wouldn’t leave her old mother and the man from Ballylee wouldn’t come to Knockglen.
    It made the town far more interesting to both of them to have such insights. Particularly because they knew these were dark secrets not to be shared with anyone. They pooled their knowledge on how children were born, and hadn’t any new enlightenments to offer. They both knew that they came out like kittens, they didn’t know how they got in.
    “It’s got something to do with lying down one beside the other, when you’re married,” Eve said.
    “It couldn’t happen if you weren’t married. Suppose you fell down beside someone like Dessie Burns.” Benny was worried.
    “No, you have to be married.” Eve knew that for certain.
    “And how would it get in?” It was a mystery.
    “It could be your Little Mary,” Benny said thoughtfully.
    “What’s your Little Mary?”
    “The bit in the middle of your tummy.”
    “Oh, your tummy button is what Mother Francis calls it.”
    “That must be it,” Benny cried triumphantly. “If they all have different names for it, that must be the secret.”
    They practiced hard at being reliable. If either said she would be home at six o’clock then five minutes before the hour struck and the Angelus rang she would be back in place. As Eve had anticipated, it did win them much more freedom. They were thought to be a good influence on each other. They didn’t allow their hysterical laughing fits to be seen in public.
    They pressed their noses against the window of Healy’s Hotel. They didn’t like Mrs. Healy. She was very superior. She walked as if she were a queen. She always seemed to look down on children.
    Benny heard from Patsy that the Healys had been up to Dublin to look for a child to adopt but they hadn’t got one because Mr. Healy had a weak chest.
    “Just as well,” Eve had said unsympathetically. “They’d be terrible for anyone as a mother and father.” She spoke in innocence of the fact that Knockglen had once thought that she herself might be the ideal child for them.
    Mr. Healy was much older than his wife. It was whispered, Patsy said, that he couldn’t cut the mustard. Eve and Benny spent long hours trying to work out what this could mean. Mustard came in a small tin and you mixed it with water. How did you cut it? Why should you cut it?
    Mrs. Healy looked a hundred but apparently she was twenty-seven. She had married at seventeen and was busy throwing all her efforts into the hotel since there were no children.
    Together they explored places where they had never gone alone. To Flood’s, the butchers, hoping they might see the animals being killed.
    “We don’t really want to see them being killed do we?” Benny asked fearfully.
    “No, but we’d like to be there at the beginning so that we could if we want to, then run away,” Eve explained. Mr. Flood wouldn’t let them near his yard so the matter didn’t arise.
    They stood and watched the Italian from Italy come and start up his fish-and-chip shop.
    “Weel you leetle girls come here every day and buy my feesh?” he said hopefully to the two earnest children, one big, one small, who stood watching his every move.
    “No, I don’t think we’ll be allowed,” Eve said sadly.
    “Why is that?”
    “It would be called throwing away good money,” Benny said.
    “And talking to foreign men,” Eve explained to clinch matters.
    “My Seester is married to a Dublin man,” Mario explained.
    “We’ll let people know,” Eve said