Silver Wedding by Maeve Binchy Read Free Book Online Page A

praise.
    Brendan grinned to himself, thinking how differently things would have been run back in Rosemary Drive.
    He didn't miss them; he wondered could he ever have loved them, even a little bit? And if he hadn't loved them did that make him unnatural? Everything he read had love in it, and all the films were about love, and anything you heard of in the papers seemed to be done for love or because someone loved and that love wasn't returned. Maybe he was an odd man out, not loving.
    Vincent must have been like that too, that's why he never wrote letters or talked to people intensely. That's why he liked this life here in the hills and among the stony roads and peaceful skies.
    It was a bit unnatural, Brendan told himself, to become twenty-two all by yourself, without acknowledging it to another soul. If he told Vincent, his uncle would look at him thoughtfully and say 'Is that a fact?' He would offer no congratulations nor suggest a celebratory pint.
    Vincent was out walking the land. He would be back in by lunch. They would have that bacon cold, and plenty of tomatoes. They would eat hot potatoes with it because a dinner in the middle of the day without a few big floury potatoes would be no use to anyone. They never ate mutton or lamb. It wasn't out of a sense of delicacy to the sheep that were their living, it was that they had no big freezer like some of their neighbours who would kill a sheep each season. And they couldn't bear to pay the prices in the butcher's shop for animals that they had sold for a greatly smaller sum than would warrant such a cost by the time they got to the butcher's cold store.
    Johnny Riordan the postman drove up in his little van.
    'There's a rake of letters for you, Brendan, it must be your birthday,' he said cheerfully.
    'Yes it is.' Brendan had grown as taciturn as his uncle.
    'Good man, will you buy us a pint later?'
    'I might do that.'
    The card from his father was one with a funny cat on it. Quite unsuitable from an estranged father. The word 'Father' was written neatly. No love, no best wishes. Well, that was all right.
    He sent an automatic card to Father with just 'Brendan' on it each year too.
    Mother's was more flowery, and said she could hardly believe she had such a grown-up son, and wondered whether he had any girlfriends and would they ever see him married.
    Helen's card was full of peace and blessings. She wrote a note about the Sisters and the hostel they were going to open and the funds that were needed and how two of the Sisters were going to play the guitar busking at Piccadilly station and how the community was very divided about this and whether it was the right way to go. Helen always wrote with a cast of thousands assuming he knew all these people and remembered their names and cared about their doings. At the end she wrote, 'Please take Anna's letter seriously.'
    He had opened them in the right order. He opened Anna's slowly. Perhaps it was going to tell him some bad news, Father had cancer, or Mother was going to have an operation? His face curled into a look of scorn when he saw all the business about the anniversary. Nothing had changed, simply nothing, they had got trapped in a time warp, stuck in a \vorld of tinsel-covered cards, meaningless rituals. He felt even more annoyed about the whole thing because of Sister Helen's pious instruction to take Anna's letter seriously. Talk about passing the buck.
    He felt edgy and restless as he always did when drawn into family affairs. He got up and went outside. He would walk up the hills a bit. There was a wall he wanted to look at. It might need a bit more work than just rearranging the stones like they did so often.
    He came across Vincent with a sheep that had got stuck in the gate. The animal was frightened and kicking and pulling so that it was almost impossible to release her.
    'You came at a good time,' Vincent said, and together they eased the anxious sheep out. She bleated frantically and looked at them with her