It Was Only Ever You (13 page)

Meeting Ava again at that wedding, and wooing her, had been the greatest night of his life. The fact that she had been more sophisticated, and somewhat more elegant, than he had remembered her just made Dermot feel all the more pleased with himself for having successfully secured a second date. Now he just had to make sure he could keep hold of her long enough to get her to marry him. He had no doubts. Ava Brogan was the girl for him. She was funny and clever and seemed to have the same steady outlook on life as himself. He could not say that she was beautiful, or not beautiful – only that when he looked in her bright, interested face, he understood beauty in a way he had not done before. From that first afternoon, Dermot felt a warm glow of recognition in his heart that told him they were meant to be together.

By the end of their second date, he felt that he might be starting to win Ava over. And, to a certain extent, he was.

The food in the restaurant was excellent, and Ava did love her food. She ordered spaghetti and Dermot watched, delighted, as she scraped up every last piece of the tomato sauce with her bread.

‘What?’ she said, blushing slightly as she noticed him gazing across at her with his chin in his palm. ‘Am I making a show of myself? It’s just so delicious.’

‘I’m just thinking that’s the most satisfying two dollars I’ve spent in a long time. I love hearing you laugh, and I love watching you eat. Is that strange?’

‘Yes,’ she said, waving a piece of bread at him. ‘Very!’

She shook her head, smiled and kept eating. She noted that she felt as comfortable as if she was eating at home with her own family, and wondered if that was a good thing.

After the meal they drove up to a parking spot he knew. It was half an hour from the city, so she realized that he must have planned it. He took the roof down on his car and they sat and looked down on to the city lights.

Ava sat and waited to be kissed. Properly this time. But first he asked her if she would like a boiled sweet, he had some in the glove compartment. She was so irritated by the suggestion that she nearly exploded, but just then he leaned across and kissed her tenderly on the mouth. It was different from the kiss on her parents’ porch. That had, really, just been pretend. This kiss was soft, and sincere and full of feeling. It was not the passionate, earth-shattering experience she had been expecting (and perhaps rather hoping for), but rather a gentle heart-melting. After they had kissed for a while, he took a small rug off the back seat and laid it over her legs, saying, ‘To stop the night chill troubling your knees, m’lady.’ In actual fact, he needed to cover up her lusciously long legs to keep his desires in check.

On the way back to Yonkers, Ava rested her head on his shoulder. She felt warm, safe and thoroughly happy. She was with a nice man who liked her and had kissed her. Life was good, better than she could have dreamt it would be.

When Dermot dropped her home, he kissed her again, more passionately, with an urgency that suggested he would have liked to go further. Ava felt reassured and flattered by his desire. They made an arrangement to meet again the following weekend. Then midweek for a movie, then the following weekend for dinner again, and another midweek movie.

Six dates in a row meant that they were now officially sweethearts.

On their seventh date, as he was leaving her on the doorstep of her parents’ house, Dermot turned back and said, ‘Ava, I want you to know that I’m serious about my intentions towards you.’

Ava smiled, and then bowed her head modestly, although in truth she was smiling inside at his formal use of language. ‘Thank you, Dermot,’ she said. She knew what he was driving at. ‘Serious intent’ was the precursor to marriage. Her mother would be thrilled. So would her father, even though he was less anxious to see her settled and away from home.

Dermot put his hands on her shoulders and patted them reassuringly.

‘You know, this is not a casual affair for me. It is no fling.’

‘Oh, kiss me like you mean it!’ she said. Then he laughed, and did.

Once inside, Ava thought about Dermot’s use of the word ‘fling’. She did not feel particularly ‘flung’, to be honest, and doubted he had ever had a such a thing in his life, although, of course, neither had she. They were not ‘flinging’ types. And the realization that she was dating a man who was as pragmatic and unromantic as she was made her feel slightly sad, for a moment. Was this, really, what love was like? Even their dates were becoming routine, starting at the same time, and ending in the same way, with a single kiss on her parents’ porch.

No question of anything more than a kiss either. Dermot’s hands were always firmly on her waist when he kissed her. He was as reserved and controlled as his conservative, Catholic background had taught him. Ava was bound by the same religious and social conventions, but she understood too that such rules were to be broken. If one didn’t feel like breaking the rules, what was the point of them at all?

Only Dermot knew how much he truly wanted Ava. How he ended each date deliberately early with a demure kiss in order to spare her the full force of his desire. Only he knew how much he longed for them to be married so he could take her in his arms each night and make a true, natural woman out of her.

‘How are you and Dermot getting on?’

When Ava got in after their seventh date, Nessa ambushed her in the kitchen. She had finally cracked. Tom had repeatedly warned her not to say a word, but the tension had got too much for her.

Ever since she had ruined her first kiss, Ava was getting beyond irritated by her mother’s meddling.

‘He says he has “good intentions” towards me, Mom. I assume that means he wants to marry me.’

‘Now, Ava, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It’s early days yet. But you seem to like each other and that’s the most important thing. Just relax and enjoy being in love.’

Ugh. Typical of her mother to try and use reverse psychology tactics.

‘Thank you, Mom. You’re full of good advice.’

‘You’re welcome, darling,’ she said with a false calm. ‘Sleep tight.’

From the kitchen, Ava saw her mother do a little dance at the bottom of the stairs then leap up them two at a time to tell her father the good news.

But Ava was feeling flat. Was this what falling in love was supposed to feel like? She did enjoy being with Dermot. He was very funny and kind, and it was lovely to get the attention from a man. She liked going out for dinner, and getting dressed up – but in truth, Ava enjoyed her nights out at the Central Ballroom with Myrtle too. She was beginning to wonder if perhaps it wasn’t a very good idea, after all, to fix up with the first man who fancied her.

D
ERMOT
PLANNED
the proposal as if he was preparing for a case.

He found it hard treading that fine line between respecting Ava as a lady and showing her his true feelings. Coming off all manly wasn’t the way to go, but he feared, at times, that his acting the perfect gentleman had made him appear mundane. He knew Ava was intrigued by his connections to the underworld and that she loved it when he told her about some of the criminals he had defended. One of his clients, Joe Higgins, had been nagging him to come and have a night out in his club in Hell’s Kitchen. It was a risky option, but Dermot wanted to make this evening memorable. Also, Joe Higgins was a silent partner of the golf club in Westchester, where they had first met, and Dermot had an idea about that too.

Dermot called for Ava at seven p.m., as usual. Ava decided to wear her Sybil Connolly suit.

As he opened the car door for her to get in, Dermot said, ‘Oh, you’ve worn your suit. That’s nice.’

Ava immediately felt irritated. Then he looked at her oddly and said, ‘It’s a strange thing to wear for dinner. Any particular reason for it?’

Sometimes, he could just be so infuriatingly blunt.

‘Shall I go and change?’ she said. ‘I can go put on something more suitable.’

He did not seem to notice the sarcastic tone in her voice but said, ‘No, it’s fine. Actually, I’m taking you somewhere a bit different tonight. We’re going over to the bad end of town. One of my clients has a club there and he’s always on at me to visit. It might get a bit rowdy.’

Ava could not help herself from thinking, I certainly hope so.

She had once asked him, ‘Don’t you feel awful – getting these gangsters off from their crimes?’

‘I’m not getting them off, darling. Everyone has a right to be defended properly in court. It’s how democracy works. Only the very best, thoroughly moral lawyers get chosen to work with the very worst criminals.’

Ava remembered his saying that and how stupid and a little pompous she had thought it was. Sometimes, it seemed as if Dermot thought he knew it all. Like her father.

Dermot drove the car towards the city. Ava looked out the window at the Hudson glimmering over on her right. As she sank back into the comfortable leather seats of Dermot’s Corvette and watched the evening sun dropping down behind the water, she realized how fortunate she was. It was wrong of her to be bored with Dermot. He was a good man. He was respectful and thoughtful and had perfect manners. He opened the car door for her and presented her with small gifts of flowers and chocolates on their dates. If he did want to marry her, she wouldn’t find anyone better. She certainly wouldn’t find anyone that would make her parents happier.

They drove through Manhattan and into the area that Ava knew to be Hell’s Kitchen. This was where the Irish mob – the Westies – operated. She had been there once or twice over the years, accompanying her father in his charitable work. Nobody ever bothered Tom Brogan down here. He was a solid Irishman, a devout Catholic and had a good name across the whole community – including the criminal fraternity. The Westies did not approve of Tom Brogan’s do-gooding any more than he approved of their money-laundering and strong-arming, but they nonetheless maintained a healthy respect for each other.

Tom negotiated with Westie bosses to get fairer rents for Irish tenants, with some success, and tried to win back lost souls, with less success. He had seen how easy it was for young men to come straight off the boat to the Irish- centric village where they knew their muscle and drinking and Irish bravado would be welcome. Within weeks the best of them would fall into bare-knuckle boxing, gambling, or some other such criminal activity. What nobody told them was that you couldn’t move on from the Westies. Once you were in, you were in for life. The gangster code was unbreakable. Tom tried to make sure young Irish men arriving in New York stayed as far away from Hell’s Kitchen as possible, and to settle them into the more suburban areas of the Bronx. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.

Dermot drove them down a quiet street in what seemed to be a particularly seedy area. As he opened the car door for her, he said, ‘I hope you don’t mind slumming it tonight, my darling. There is no need to worry. I’ve kept the owner out of jail so many times, he owes me. We’ll be looked after.’

He handed the keys of his Corvette to a huge, rough- looking man who nodded deferentially. Ava felt a small thrill as she realized that her sweetheart was able to command the same respect from these gangsters as her own father.

Inside the door they walked up a narrow staircase into the nightclub. It was a small, dark, seedy room, already filled with cigarette smoke and the chatter of Irish drinkers. This was a very different part of Irish New York to the dance halls: people didn’t come here to dance, they came here to drink and to gamble and, very probably, fight. The stage was backed with silver and green tinsel and a paper shamrock banner. There were heavy green drapes on every window, the carpet was green and even the small tables at the front of the stage were covered in green baize. It was like being in a green womb. Dermot and Ava were shown to a table at the front of the stage and a rather shabby-looking waiter brought them a bottle of champagne.

‘Courtesy of the management,’ the waiter said and Dermot nodded his approval. Everything was going to plan. The waiter poured the champagne; he wondered if perhaps now was the moment. No. He would hold off. Wait for the romantic surprise he had planned.

‘This is nice,’ Ava said. In truth it was thrilling to be here. She looked up hopefully at the small dance floor in front of the stage.

‘I thought you’d like to come somewhere a bit different,’ Dermot said. Then he leaned across and whispered, ‘I know how interested you are in my contacts in the criminal fraternity, so I thought you’d like to see what a proper joint looked like. I hope the food is decent.’

Ava smiled and said, ‘I doubt it – but it is certainly unusual.’ She sipped her champagne and looked around, fascinated.

‘How was your week?’ Dermot asked.

As he was looking across the table at her Ava thought that perhaps she could talk to him about her doubts. Confide in him that she was worried that things were moving too fast. His eyes looked so concerned, so enquiring, so kind – she felt she could tell Dermot anything. As she was thinking this through, the lights dimmed and a man who was as round as he was tall, wearing a cheap tuxedo, came out on the stage and announced, ‘Ladies and gentleman – we have a special guest in for you this evening to get the entertainment started. All the way from the county of Mayo, would you please put your hands together for Mr Paa-trick Murphy!’

This is it, thought Dermot. The moment had come. He watched Ava, waiting for her reaction as he slipped his hand into his pocket to reach for the ring.

There was polite applause as the young man came out on stage. Ava immediately recognized him as the boy from the wedding.

She felt her stomach lurch as he began to sing ‘The Rose of Tralee’. Ava knew all the Irish ballads. This particular one meant nothing to her, but the way he sang it... his voice... his face... He drew something out of her she had not known was there. He sang with such passion that it was as if he was reaching inside her and making every part of her sing alongside him. With every word he sang, and every breath he took, Ava felt herself being transported to another place. She did not know this person and yet through his singing she felt as if she knew him absolutely.