Free Whitethorn Woods by Maeve Binchy Page B

wedding and some eejit had spilled an Irish coffee over it. Was there any way of getting the stain out completely? Her sister was totally crazy about most things but in particular about clothes that would be described as ruined.
       "And you wouldn't mind, only that's what I do, solve problems for a living, I write an advice column in the newspaper and I don't even know how to face my own sister."
       I did a deal with her there and then, I'd get the manager on the case, we'd get the stain out, if she could solve my problem. I told her about Vera and Nick, who loved each other but hated each other's possessions, and about Glenn and me, who wanted to get into the rat-filled basement and live there.
       She asked how many bedrooms were in the house. Four, I explained.
       "Far too many for them, they're not going to be hearing the patter of tiny feet at their age. Give them a study each, get your fellow to put up shelves and things for all the paint tubes in one and the pressed flowers in the other. Do up the basement, tell them you'll mind the house, scare away the burglars, give Rotary the cat a bowl of something and fresh water when they go on holidays, and look after them when they're old. It's obvious, isn't it?"
    And amazingly it was.
       And even more amazingly there was some kind of terrifying solvent that got the stain out of the borrowed dress.
       Glenn and his uncle shelved the two studies in no time, and it turned out that Vera and Nick had no objection to sharing bedroom, bathroom, sitting room or kitchen as long as their precious belongings were safe.
       Then they attacked the basement, with Rotary looking on loftily as some rodents were removed. Rotary was the kind of cat who didn't exert himself unnecessarily. Why attack something big and menacing when you had humans who could do it for you? And I asked Vera about St. Ann's private life, and she said that St. Ann was married to a fellow called Joachim.
       Happily? I asked.
       "No better or worse than anyone's marriage, I'd say," said Vera, who had never tried marriage at all.
       I think she saw I was disappointed at that. I wanted a better ending.
       "Oh, go on, then," Vera said grudgingly. "Happily, I'd say. If there had been any sacrificing the children or pestilence, we'd have heard about it."
       There was plenty of room for us in the basement. It was just gorgeous, so we made a grand little nest for ourselves. Mam gave us some old saucepans from home and some cleaning materials that she came across when doing the offices in the early mornings. Glenn's mam gave us some curtains. My dad gave us a lawn mower so that he would never have to use it again, not that he had ever used it much. Glenn's dad gave us a tip for a greyhound, which won at five to one.
       Nick gave us his bed, since he would be sharing Vera's now. Alma gave us a bunch of flowers and a lecture about there being No Good in Men. Todd had gone his way.
       Glenn is terrific when he comes up to my parents' house, once called Chez Sharon. He gives my dad a hand with all the work my dad didn't do during the week. Glenn and I are getting married next year, when we have enough saved to have a nice wedding day. Vera said if it was in the summer we could have it in the garden and she could be my bridesmaid. She said she only meant it as a joke but I said that it would be great, I'd love it. I said I could be her bridesmaid, maybe at St. Ann's Well when she and Nick finally got it together. But she laughed at the very idea of it.
       She and Nick aren't going to get married at all, apparently. That's oldies for you. And people laugh when we say we met Vera and Nick on a singles holiday.
       "You are funny, you and your fancy tales," they say. As if you could make up something like that.

Friendship

    Malka

    I met Rivka Fine, let me see, oh, it was years and years ago now, back in the 1960s. We were on a kibbutz in the Negev Desert for the summer. I