Whitethorn Woods

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Authors: Maeve Binchy
was some old one on the radio going on about how we have to make our own luck, that it doesn't come by magic and she had known people whose lives turned out fine—they had got whatever they wanted. So I said to Glenn that's what we'd have to do. Make something happen.
       I wish I could say that he was full of ideas—but then neither was I.
       I asked Vera, did she think this holy-well thing in Rossmore might work? She said it wasn't very likely. If there was a St. Ann, and St. Ann was listening, which was more problematical still, then she might be slow to bring about a situation where a couple could live in sin. I said that I was desperate and might try it so Vera said she'd come with me to point me to the Whitethorn Woods and go and visit her hatchet-faced cousins.
       It was a lovely walk up to the well but once I got there I felt kind of ashamed. I mean, it's not as if I knew who this St. Ann was or went to Mass or anything. And there were nearly a hundred people there. Some of them had children in wheelchairs or on crutches and some didn't look in good shape at all. And they were all asking desperately for favors. I felt I couldn't ask for a place for Glenn and me to . . . well . . . it didn't seem right.
       So I sort of said, "If you get a chance and the matter comes up it would be nice. But to be fair maybe you should deal with these people first . . ."
       And I told Vera this on the way home and she said I might well get what I want because I was far nicer than lots of people, including herself.
       I asked her about the cousins, and she said they were like weasels. Weasels with small minds, pointed teeth and horrible voices. All they could talk about was the price of land and what compensation people would get when their homes were disturbed. When we got off the bus Glenn and Nick were waiting for us, Glenn with his motorbike and Nick with his little car.
       "We missed you girls," Glenn said, and I hoped that St. Ann was listening. Glenn was so decent, any old saint would want you to be living with him. I must look St. Ann up and see what kind of a private life she had herself.
       I asked Glenn what kind of things he and Nick had talked about when the four of us went out for a pint together. Apparently it was all about the basement in Vera's house.
       Nick said he thought that despite the looming presence of Rotary the ginger cat, there might well be an r-a-t in it, and Glenn had said there were probably dozens of them. Nick wondered, was it the kind of place that could ever be done up to live in, and Glenn said he'd ask his uncle to look at the place and give an estimate.
       So I realized that they were still mulling over the possibilities of it all. But that crashed to the ground eventually because apparently it would cost a small fortune to get it done up right and Vera didn't really like the notion of Nick living below stairs and they were both droning on about being so old and maybe needing someone to look after them in even later years. When they got older still.
       God, they'd make you sick. The two of them have twenty times more life in them than people half their age and now suddenly they start talking like geriatrics. It was the thought of change that had done it, they were fine as they were with their old paint tubes and books of pressed flowers.
       It's only the thought of the merger that has unhinged the pair of them. The waste, the sheer waste of it all.
       And there, looking us all in the face, was a perfectly good ratfilled basement that Glenn and his uncle could clean up in three weekends for us to live in. We wouldn't be picky—we'd do it up in time.
       It was hard to concentrate on work in the dry cleaner when there were so many things churning through my head. I realized that this woman was going on and on about something and I hadn't been paying any attention at all. It was about this outfit she had borrowed from her sister to wear to a

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