It Was Only Ever You (19 page)

For a full week Ava wrestled with herself. She could not sleep and barely ate. On the Thursday afternoon she excused herself from work. She had made several mistakes in an important document she was typing up for her father and he had noticed how preoccupied she seemed. And sad. Unlike herself.

Nessa, too, had noted her daughter’s nocturnal wanderings and the loss of her normally hearty appetite that week. Her instinct told her there was something very wrong.

‘There is no need to be nervous about the wedding, darling, everything is under control,’ she said over dinner.

Ava threw her fork down on her plate and shouted, ‘I wish you would just shut up about this stupid wedding,’ and ran upstairs to her room.

‘Think you might be overdoing it a bit on the arrangements, dear,’ Tom said to his wife, but deep down he feared it was more than that.

Alone in her room, Ava felt she could not take another step in her life until she had sorted out the terrible mess that was in her head and her heart.

She knew what she had to do.

She went to her bureau, took out her best notepaper and wrote a short note which she then put into an envelope and addressed. Then she went downstairs, put on her coat and took her father’s keys from the hallstand. She would not need to tell him she was taking the car – she hoped she would not be more than an hour.

Her stomach was in knots as she drove along the Hudson Parkway. The sun was sinking behind the dusty trees along the riverbank and the water was glimmering with orange and purple reflections and shadows. Its extravagant beauty made Ava feel all the more ashen inside.

Dermot opened the door, surprised at her unannounced arrival. He gave a big smile and stepped back. Ava stayed on the doorstep. Determined not to humiliate him with explanations or apologies, she took a deep breath and simply pushed out the words, ‘I’m calling off the wedding, Dermot, I’m sorry. I just don’t love you.’

Dermot felt the whole world collapse beneath him.

‘I see.’ He nodded. The words just came out automatically. As they did when somebody delivered terrible news at work, and he needed time to gather his thoughts before responding. Except there was no response to this. There was no solution. What came out of his mouth next was as automatic as the last. A type of negotiation to see if the deal was sealed.

‘Is there somebody else?’

Ava was wrong-footed. She felt like lying. Dermot was such a good man. A solid man. A good friend. She didn’t want to hurt him. But she owed him the truth. As much of the truth as he could stand anyway.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘there is.’

Of course there is, thought Dermot. He knew who it was too. That young Irish singer, Patrick. The lad was handsome, full of romance. Ava loved music and dancing; it suddenly seemed like the most natural thing in the world that she would want to be with somebody like him, instead of with a stuffy lawyer. Dermot thought of the first time he had seen her jiving wildly at the fundraiser, full of energy and life. And then her face as she had listened to the ballad. He had brought Patrick into her life that evening as a gift to express his love for her, but she had fallen in love with him instead. Dermot’s world was shaken to the core, but he could not blame her for it. She was, as some part of him had always known, too free, too beautiful a spirit for a mundane man like him. It hurt. It hurt more than he could possibly say out loud, but what hurt most of all was that it also made perfect sense.

‘I expect it’s that young singer Patrick? I could see you were keen.’ Perhaps he shouldn’t have said that last bit. But Dermot couldn’t help himself. He was only human.

The pity and guilt Ava had been feeling disappeared. Not only was Dermot not going to plead or fight for her, but he seemed to know that she was carrying on with Patrick and had done nothing to discourage her!

Furious, she said, ‘Well goodbye then!’

On the way home she drove to his parents’ house and left the short note of apology she had written in her bedroom, then she went home to face her own parents.

In the time she had been gone they had speculated, and guessed, where she had been and what she was doing. Her mother had sensed Ava’s reservations about getting married from the start of her engagement but had put it down to nerves and inexperience with men. Although neither Nessa nor Tom said it out loud, they had both instinctively recognized her fancy for the young Irish lad. Tom had an impulse to confess that he had placed Patrick as barman in the Emerald Ballroom, Ava’s favourite dance venue. Nessa was furious.

‘You stupid, stupid man – you haven’t the brains you were born with! The last thing Ava needs now is a distraction like that. If she breaks off this engagement, Tom, it will be entirely your fault.’

‘But if she doesn’t love him—’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Dermot is a good boy from an excellent family. He will make her happy.’

‘Maybe the other lad would make her happy too?’

‘Do you know nothing? Look around. This comfort is what Ava is used to. Dermot can give her all this and more.’

‘Comfort isn’t everything, Nessa.’ Tom was worried he might have gone too far but he loved his daughter and it was important he had his say. Tom had really liked Dermot. He was a fine young man and personally, he had found him easy company. He reminded him a lot of himself as a younger man. Dermot was steady, honest and hard-working.

However, he was concerned only for his daughter. Nessa had no such compunction. She was determined to get her way and see her daughter married well.

She roared at him, ‘That’s easy for you to say. Have you forgotten what life was like before we came here? Four children sleeping top to tail in one bed? Stepping out into the yard littered with cow dung? No running water in the house? No electricity...’

‘It wasn’t so bad.’

‘You have a short memory, Tom Brogan – you couldn’t wait to get out of the place.’

‘We were happy growing up in Ireland...’

‘We are happier now.’

Tom raised his eyebrows.

‘I had nothing when you fell in love with me.’

‘You had prospects,’ she said, ‘an education – a middle-class uncle to sponsor you coming here...’

‘I made a success of things because I had your support, Nessa – not anybody else’s. My labour bought all this but I was only able to do it because of your love...’

‘Love!’ Nessa spat the word out. ‘Love doesn’t put food on the table. Love doesn’t pay the bills.’

Tom knew it would not only be pointless contradicting her, but hurtful. The Brogan family had a bigger farm than Nessa’s family, who were dirt-poor. His own mother had been disappointed when he married Nessa, and although it was never mentioned, Nessa knew it. That was why she worked so hard to elevate herself socially.

‘If she breaks off with Dermot she’ll never meet somebody else as good as him.’ Nessa closed her eyes and breathed in on her panic. ‘But we are worrying too soon. She loves him. Everything will be fine.’

Then they heard the front door open, and Ava came into the kitchen.

‘I have broken off my engagement to Dermot,’ she said and ran out again. Nessa wasted no time chasing her up the stairs.

Ava was already seated at her dressing table, applying make-up and fixing her hair.

‘I know where you’re going,’ Nessa said, ‘and I think you’re making a very big mistake.’

Ava had suffered enough in the last week wrestling with her conscience; she would not be bullied by her mother.

‘I don’t love Dermot, Mom. It would be wrong to marry him.’

‘And I suppose you think you love this other lad?’

Ava got a fright. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about – I’ve arranged to meet Myrtle at the Emerald.’

Nessa softened her voice.

‘Don’t do this, Ava. Dermot loves you.’

‘I don’t think he really does, Mom, I—’

‘Of course he does. Telephone him now – tell him you’ve made a mistake. It’s pre-wedding nerves. He’ll understand. It’s not too late.’

Now it was Ava’s turn to get angry. ‘I am not marrying Dermot. It’s done. That’s final, you’ll just have to get used to it.’

‘You’ll never meet anyone as good as Dermot...’

‘Perhaps I already have.’

But Nessa was ready for her.

‘You think this young man loves you, Ava? Really?’

Of course Ava did not know if Patrick loved her. But she was certain, after kissing him, that she did not love Dermot and that she could not marry him. She also knew the only place she had wanted to be the last week was back in Patrick’s arms and she owed it to herself to try. To at least see if he felt something of the same for her.

‘Just you remember,’ Nessa continued, ‘that Dermot Dolan was the first boy that ever showed any interest in you.’ Her voice was hard and clipped. ‘You seem to have forgotten your tremendous good fortune, meeting someone upstanding, someone who could have anyone he wanted and yet he chose you. You could trust a man like that. You could trust him to his word...’

‘What is that supposed to mean?’ Ava said.

‘You are very naïve, Ava,’ her mother said. ‘Most girls your age have more sense because they have more experience with men. This – Irish boy – this person...’

‘Patrick.’

‘Whatever – who is to say you can trust him? He comes over here from Ireland, penniless, then he meets you, with your important father, and your comfortable life...’

‘What are you saying?’

‘I am saying, Ava, that men like that cannot be trusted. They will make you feel as if you are the most beautiful girl in the world but...’

Ava felt a bubble of hurt rise up through her chest.

‘But what, Mother? I’m not beautiful, is that what you are trying to say? Because I know that... I know what I look like.’

Nessa held back from comforting her. This was too important. Ava needed to understand what she was giving up.

Who knows what she would be letting herself in for if she ran off with this unknown gouger from Ireland? Nessa was suddenly furious with her husband for dragging all these needy young men into their lives. Nessa knew Patrick’s type well. A charmer, with his singing and his black hair and twinkling Irish blue eyes – typical chancer. That whole romantic ‘croppy-boy’ nonsense was irresistible to the second-generation New York girls, but that didn’t fool Nessa for a moment. If her daughter hooked up with him, she would be signing up for a lifetime of poverty. Ava would spend the next fifty years of her life waiting for that waster to come home from the pub. Nessa Brogan hadn’t supported her husband while he worked his fingers to the bone making a life in America for her daughter to throw it all away on some foolish notion. The girl was ‘in love’. Nessa had been in love a dozen times before she settled on sensible Tom Brogan. She loved her daughter and could not let her make the biggest mistake of her life.

Ava’s face was full of defiant anguish as she blurted out, ‘I know I am too plain to get a man, Mother, and yet here I am – with two of them after me!’

Nessa did not lose her temper, but took a deep breath, looked Ava steadily in the eye and said, ‘That young man is after your money, Ava. You are too naïve to see it, but I’ve met chancers like him before in Ireland. He has no education and no qualifications—’

‘Patrick is not a chancer, he is a singer and you don’t need qualifications to sing.’

‘I am sorry to say this, truly I am, but you are simply his ticket to an easy life.’

‘Well,’ Ava said, holding her mother’s gaze, ‘I don’t care if he is after my money, I intend to be with him anyway. I love him that much and there is not a goddamn thing you can do about it.’

Nessa finally lost her temper.

‘If you’re happy knowing that he’s simply after your money, there is nothing I can do about that. Just don’t come crying to me when it all goes wrong!’

‘I won’t!’ Ava shouted as Nessa slammed the door behind her.

Tom heard the shouting from downstairs. He sat at the table with his head in his hands, wondering how two women could cause one man so much trouble.

A
FTER
HER
mother had left, Ava fought back the tears and checked her face in the mirror. She had been crying, so her face was blotchy and her eyes were red. She took out her panstick and began the transformation. Eyeliner, mascara, rouge, lipstick – weapons she had recently discovered to help transform her appearance. She quickly smoothed down her bob.

‘You are beautiful,’ she said to the reflection in the mirror. It felt pointless and slightly mad to be talking to herself in this way but Ava was determined to prove her mother wrong. The feeling she had for Patrick was real. With Dermot, there had been no question of anything ‘happening’ before they were married. And yet both she and Patrick had been unable to help themselves. Kissing each other in that reckless way that they had was as immediate and natural and inevitable as rain on an April day. You didn’t feel that kind of passion towards somebody unless the love was real. She had doubted her feelings for Dermot, but she would not doubt her feelings for Patrick. She would not. No matter what her parents thought of him, Patrick was the real thing.

Ava opened her wardrobe and picked out her rose suit. It was her talisman now, her lucky-in-love suit.

She teamed it with a tight silk blouse in sky blue.

The tailored outfit was entirely unsuitable for dancing, but then Ava did not intend to do any dancing that night.

She was going in search of an altogether different kind of excitement.

*

Ava sat to the side of the Emerald’s dance floor, in a banquette facing the bar, for almost the whole evening. Men came and asked her to dance but she dismissed them all, waving them away with a cool detachment that was, her regular dance partners observed, most unlike her. Instead, she simply sat smoking, nursing a single coffee, and looking over at Patrick. She did not smile brightly across, signal for his attention or acknowledge him in any particular way. As the evening wore on and she did not move from her spot, Patrick realized that she was waiting for him. Not to see him sing, dance with him, or engage him in conversation. She had come for him. She smoked, and stared, mostly into the middle distance. He had thought a lot about her since their last encounter. To be singing on stage and then to come off and engage in an endless kiss with a beautiful woman had felt like the perfect moment. Patrick had been unable to stop himself imagining she was his darling, Rose. He had believed that he would never kiss another girl that way again. With that urgent feeling in the pit of his stomach, rising up through him, making him feel strong and confident, warm and weak – all at the same time. But as soon as it came the moment passed as the taste of this new girl came to him. Patrick had thrown himself into the kiss with Ava and, in that glorious moment, had felt as true to her as ever he had to Rose.