Silver Wedding V

Deirdre's mother Eileen worries about her daughter as well, telling her that she thinks she failed her. She allowed Deirdre to live a superficial life, trying hard to keep up with the Joneses, and never finding reality. Deirdre had been a bright student, but she gave up studying and the idea of working when she got married. She dedicated herself to trying to make out that Desmond was doing as well as Frank Quigley. She tells her mother that at home her parents seemed obsessed with social standing and getting on, and that she felt inferior to her sister who married a rich man. Eileen says that while Sophie, Maureen's mother and some of their friends were indeed obsessed by social ranking and appearances, she honestly just wished for her children to be happy. And now she fears that Deirdre is so fixated on superficial things that she will never learn to be happy. Deirdre continues to fuss about the whole issue of the wedding anniversary and the day finally arrives. Frank Quigley comes and so does Maureen. He talks to Helen and she seems calmer and more rational; she has given up the idea of being a nun.. He says that he knows of a woman who has a small child. She is a career woman, and needs someone to take care of him, and would she like the job? Helen gets on well with children and she says it might be easier than what she had been trying to do so she agrees to take it on for a while. Des is occupied with his new work as Mr Patel's partner, and does his best to tolerate Deirdre's fixation on the party. He is happy with the new shop, but it does not look as if his marriage will ever be a very close one. He knows that he has disappointed his wife, by the fact that they had to get married and then lost their baby who was the reason for the marriage.. and that his lack of success in big business made her unhappy. At the party, Fr Jim, who is still depressed about his nephew's misbehaviour, thinks that Desmond and Deirdre are still not really happy- they seem to him to be playing at being husband and wife.. As a priest, he should be glad that the marriage has lasted 25 years but it still does not seem real to him. But the party goes fairly well. Frank tells everyone that he and his wife Renata are going to adopt a child, from South America. Brigid the nun has helped him arrange it. So he has found a new centre for his marriage. Maureen is happier too because she has found her father, now a widower, and is thinking of opening a shop in the UK near where he lives. Anna who broke up with her boyfriend a few months ago, has a new admirer and is happy. Brendan is glad that he made the effort to come back for his parents but he prefers Ireland. Helen hopes her new job will work out and Eileen hopes that her daughter will be happy now that she has celebrated 25 years of marriage, but is glad to be with her new beau.

Silver Wedding Part IV

Mr Patel who runs the little shop near the station in Desmonds suburb is relieved when Des offers to take over running the business while he is recovering from his injuries. Des finds that he enjoys being involved in a small hands on business much more than having a vague managerial position in a big firm. He and Mr Patel talk a lot and finally he decides to ask for redundancy and buy into the Patel business. Deirdre is not at all happy. She is still focussed on her preparations for the Silver Wedding, still worrying that people wont admire their party giving abilities and see how well she and her family have done. And she very much dislikes Desmond giving up being a manager to run a corner shop. Anna who is the helpful one in the family tries to soothe her and tell her that it doesn't matter that Brendan works on a farm, and that Helen seems to have no direction in her life. Brendan agrees to come back to London for the anniversary party, though he has always hated having to pretend that the family is doing much better than they really are. Deirdre tries to make the best of things, but she's not happy with all the changes in her family's life. Fr Jim had wondered when she told him she wanted to get married quickly, that she might be pregnant, and she denied it. But it turns out that she was pregnant, and went through a fairly speedy marriage, but she lost the baby early in the pregnancy, and her next child Anna was born a respectable time after the wedding. But Deirdre will never admit to this, to being less than perfect.

Doris Langley Moore Born 1902.

Doris was a writer and historian, who was passionately interested in fashion and items like furniture. She was born in Lancashire but was educated in South Africa; her father was a newspaper editor. She went to university and then in the 1920s she began to write books. She married and had a daughter. She had an interest also in art and theatre, and was the founder of a Fashion Museum in Bath. She also wrote several biographies, she was something of an authority on Byron and wrote biographies of him and his daughter. She also produced several novels, including one called Not At Home, which Ive just read. It is set in London just after the war, and is a wry comedy about Miss Farren, a middle aged woman who is not very well off and has a house which she is renting.. She is trying to reduce expenses and decides to let some rooms in the house. There is a terrible shortage of housing in England because of the war damage and people are desperate to find any place. She settles on a younger married woman who is married to an American journalist who is in the Forces. The lady has 2 children who are in the US, and tells Miss Farren that she will be a very careful tenant and no trouble at all.. However, it doesn't work out as she had hoped. Mrs Banks the new tenant is a silly childish woman who is both selfish and dishonest. She moves in and continually has guests staying and she creates a lot of work for Miss Farren's servant. She then cajoles her friends into helping out with the housework, to the point that she drives some of them away. She breaks things and lies about it, and is reluctant to pay for damages. Her husband comes to stay on leave and he is a sensible kind man who gets on well with Miss Farren. She can't understand how he tolerates his wife's silly selfish personality.

Silver Wedding Part III

Helen, Desmonds second daughter is a difficult girl. She is living in a convent which is just an inner city house with women who mostly find her hard to make sense of. They think she's running away from ordinary life and she has a knack of causing problems and getting things wrong. She is it turns out running away from an unhappy sexual experience. While she was still at school, Desmond lost his job in Frank's firm, and Helen clumsy as always tries to find a way of getting it back for him. She flirts with Frank and makes out that she's older and more experienced than she really is. He seduces her, and she freaks out. He realises that she is not very stable and that she is young and he should never have touched her. He gives Des his job back and avoids the family as much as he can, and when Helen is a bit older, she goes to try to find a place in the convent. In the months leading up to the Silver Wedding, Helen meets Renata, Frank's wife, who wants to adopt a child. She visits the convent and gets talking to Helen and again Helen makes a crazy attempt to do some good. A girl whom the nuns visit has a baby, in her bathroom and is so out of her mind on drugs that she doesn't really know what happened. Helen takes the baby and calls an ambulance for her, telling the ambulance people that she did not see a baby. Then she brings the newborn child to Renata who is horrified. A major fuss erupts and the baby is given to a foster carer and Helen realises that she has messed up again. Frank talks to Brigid, one of the older nuns who tells him that she might be able to help him find a child for adoption who would be legally theirs. The nuns feel that this episode is really the last straw and proves that Helen is not suitable for the religious life... so they tell her that after the Silver Wedding she has to make up her mind to leave and find her own path in the world. We also learn about the life of Fr James, the priest who performed the wedding ceremony. He lives in Ireland and is happy with his life as a priest, and he has always had his doubts about Desmond and Deirdre as a couple. He felt that they were putting up a front of being a loving happy couple because that is all they can do... they particularly Deirdre, are facade people. In his personal life, he has had his own troubles. He has a sister who married late in life and had one son. Gregory was a charming boy and studied law, then moved to Dublin to practice. Fr Jim is fond of his nephew till one night he gets a phone call very late. Gregory tells him that he was drink driving, and that he hit a cyclist who came out suddenly. He didn't stop and is afraid to go to the police. His uncle agrees to help him, but when he gets to the accident he finds the cyclist, a young woman student is dead. He covers up for his sister's sake, getting the car repaired and saying nothing. He feels that while Gregory has shown emotion, it is largely selfish fear, not remorse. Gregory tells him that he has given up drinking, and that he is giving money to charity to try to make up for his sin, and Jim wants to believe him. But he soon realises that the non drinking resolution did not last very long, and that Gegory is returning to his bad old ways. He tries to avoid his nephew, and time passes. Then he is visiting his sister when Gregory comes to stay but he is in a sulk because his parents dont want to lend him money. He goes off on his own and Fr Jim decides to go and fetch him from the pub. Gregory is drunk and refuses to let him drive; he takes the wheel, drives too fast. They crash into a traveller family with a cart, and Gregory begs his uncle to take the blame. Fr Jim looks after the travellers and ignores his request to lie for him. He knows this time he has to call the police.

Silver Wedding Part II

We begin to learn the secrets of the lives of the people who are attending the Silver wedding. Maureen's mother dies, and in sorting out her papers she finds that her father is not dead as she thought. He was working in South Africa when she was a child, and he had fallen in love with another woman. He asked his wife for a divorce, but she refused and told him that if he wanted out of the marriage he would have to disappear from their lives and she would tell her Dublin friends that he had died in Africa. Maureen starts hunting around and finds that her dad is still alive and is now living in a home in England. She is hurt and shocked that her mother deprived her of a father, because of her snobbery. She gets in contact with her father and likes him, and she tries to feel sorry for her mother who had only her social standing in Dublin society to live for. She was herself in love with Frank, Desmond's friend and now his boss, and thought of marrying him but her mother was against the idea and Frank took a dislike to her mother and their relationship fizzled out. Meanwhile Brendan, Desmond's son, has settled in Ireland where he can lead a peaceful unpretentious life, working on a farm, and not having to live up to his mother's social standards. He does not want to go back to London. Desmond is getting increasingly fed up with his wife's life which consists of putting on a show of perfection for her family and neighbours.. and he realises that he is never going to get any further in his job. He becomes friends with Mr Patel, the owner of a small local shop and when Mr Patel is injured by burglars, he offers to take over and run the business till he is better. Deirdre is horrified.

Silver Wedding By Maeve Binchy

Silver Wedding is another of Binchy's novels which has a series of chapters covering each character's point of view. It is set mainly in London in the present day, about a couple who are about to celebrate their Silver Wedding Anniversary. Deirdre Doyle, the wife, is a dissatisfied woman, who has little in her life to occupy her. She is disappointed that her husband Desmond has never been as successful as she hoped he would be. He has a managerial position in a food firm but he has not done as well as his friend Frank, who came over from Ireland with him years ago and who married the boss's daughter and became head of the firm. Deirdre and Desmond have 3 children.. Anna who works in a bookshop and who has found her boyfriend is cheating on her, Helen who is an odd girl who can't seem to settle to any work, and who has recently been living in a convent in London hoping to become a nun and Brendan who has left London and gone back to the small family farm in Ireland to work with his uncle. Maureen Deirdre's best friend was bridesmaid at the wedding, and she is now a middle aged successful businesswoman who owns a dress shop in Dublin... Deirdre makes a terrible fuss over planning for the anniversary, because that is all she has to think about. Desmond is very depressed because he is not sure he can hold onto his job as a manager and his marriage is an empty shell. Deirdre is busy with early preparations for the wedding party, when her mother suddenly arrives in London and asks her to come into town and meet her. When she gets there, she finds her mother Eileen, who is a widow, seems very lively and attractive, and is going on a cruise. She feels depressed by this. Then she is horrified to learn that her mother is going with an elderly beau, Tony who seems to be loud and vulgar and she can't understand how her mother, who always seemed obsessed with matters of class and status, would be seen in public with him. She also feels jealous that her elderly mother seems to be having much more fun than she is.

Evening Class Part V

Aidan realises that his marriage is over and he learns that Nell was having an affair, and he knows now that he is in love with Nora and wants to be with her. Nora has by now recovered from Mario's death and has fallen in love with Aidan. They set off for Rome, and the adventure begins. Connie decides to go though it is not the kind of fancy holiday she is used to. She is depressed that her marriage is a failure, and that Harry has ended up in prison for fraud. But he got a light sentence and will soon be out. When she arrives in Rome, she gets a message threatening her, and she begins to worry that it might be Siobhan, Harry's mistress who is angry that his wife reported him to the Fraud squad and that when he gets out of prison he will probably need to go to England to make a new life. But Connie cannot feel sympathy for Harry, since she found out that he demanded large payments from clients who had borrowed money from him, and one of the victims was Gus, Laddy's nephew who looks after him. Gus and his wife had a small hotel, and they had to pay a large sum to Harry's company which left them very close to losing the business and they were only saved by Connie getting involved. Nora is happy to be back in Italy, but she gets a big surprise when she finds that Alfredo, one of Mario's sons is now living in Rome, running a restaurant. She gets a warmer welcome from him than she expected and he tells her that Gabriella, Mario's wife, is dead.. she died of cancer only a few months after her husband. Nora is shocked. Then Alfredo tells her that although they didnt have much to do with her in the village, the children were all aware of her affair with their father and they respected her for keeping the affair discreet and for giving her father good advice. He now suggests that she could come back to Sicily and help in the family business. She doesn't know what to do. She lived there so long, and although she has made a new home in Ireland she is a little tempted by the idea of returning to Sicily. Connie goes out walking alone and finds that she is indeed being followed.. by Siobhan. She is terrified, but tries to keep cool. Siobhan has followed her into a cafe and she is forced to talk to her. Siobhan berates her for turning Harry in to the police. Connie remains calm though she is terrified, and tells Siobhan that she never hated her and was glad that Harry had just one woman - though she knows he also had other affairs. She then tells her that she has left a letter for her solicitors, in case she were to die suddenly in Rome. Siobhan is flummoxed by how cool Connie is being and seems to give up fighting. Connie hopes that when Harry comes out of prison he may go to the UK and take Siobhan with him.. but she is just relieved to have escaped the mistress's vengeance. Siobhan leaves her and she goes back to her hotel. The party go to visit the Italian family whom Laddy thought had invited him to come and see them. They remember him and feel a bit guilty that they inadvertently led him to think that he was to be a guest of theirs, but now they make up for it by welcoming him and his friends. He is delighted. As they plan to return to Ireland, Aidan tells Nell that he loves her and if she goes to Sicily it will break his heart. She tells him she will stay with him and Aidan will get a divorce and sell his house and buy a small flat. She has finally found love and respect from a man... and the group go back to Ireland.