It Was Only Ever You (27 page)

Iggy took a deep breath. Sometimes you had to take a risk.

‘It doesn’t matter what you wear and it doesn’t matter if we don’t go out to dinner.’

Nobody had ever been that straight up with Sheila before. Nobody had ever been that straightforward, that honest in their intention. She didn’t know what it meant, and she didn’t care what it meant either.

She just walked straight across the room, took the cigar out of his hand, stubbed it out on the polished mahogany desk then kissed him. Iggy stood, steady but utterly powerless as she pulled her sweater over her head. She clambered up on his desk and whispered, her voice heavy with desire, ‘You don’t own me.’ Knowing as she said it, in some part of her, that it wasn’t true.

T
HE
CONVENT
was in a large old house in the Upper West Side. It was clean and warm and the nuns were friendly and many of them were quite young. The building itself was jolly, for a religious institution, with fancy wallpaper as a backdrop for all the religious statues. The girls slept in dormitories, with a tall locker each where they could hang a small number of clothes. There was a curfew of ten p.m., but apart from that, and a short morning mass at eight a.m., the girls could come and go as they pleased. Rose was put to work cleaning and cooking in the convent itself. For the first few weeks, it was decided, the nuns would get the measure of what her capabilities were before they tried to get her a job out in ‘the real world’. Tom had told the mother superior, Sister Augustine, that Rose was escaping ‘an unnamed abuse’ at the hands of her parents, back home in Ireland. The nun did not prod for more information. These things were best left unspoken. Propriety would be recovered, in time, through prayer, good food, hard work and kindness. Sister Augustine put Rose in a small dormitory with two other Irish girls: Eileen from Cork and Una from Connemara. Eileen was twenty-three, and at secretarial school. She had been unable to find either a husband or a job in Ireland so she had been packed off here to New York to live with an ancient aunt who had died while she was en route by boat. The nuns had offered to sponsor her secretarial training and she would pay them back after she started working. Una was still recovering after giving up a baby for adoption at another convent, where she had been so brutally treated that kindly Sister Augustine had taken her in.

Her room-mates were good fun and she liked them but Rose was not in the humour for making friends.

‘So, what brought you to New York?’

It was the first question they asked, but Rose felt too foolish to say why she was here, so she smiled and said, ‘A new start, you know?’ She felt lost. Everyone here knew where they were going. Even poor Una had dreams of training in a hair salon as soon as she felt well enough to re-enter the world. Rose had no plans. Her plan had been to find Patrick and live happily ever after. It had failed. Now what? There was nothing. Just a void. So, she just kept her head down and did as the nuns told her. Rose was happy for them to tell her what to do because she felt broken. Lost. She had no spirit left in her. Sister Augustine had a soft spot for the beautiful girl who looked so much like the film star. Grace Kelly was a good Catholic and, even if this young girl did not seem particularly devout, she looked the part at least, even though she did not feel Rose belonged in New York. Rose decided to simply sleepwalk through her chores and try her very best to forget about Patrick Murphy until something else presented itself. Although she did not have much confidence that anything would. Without Patrick, her life was over.

A few days after her arrival at the convent, Rose went back to her room after her morning chores were finished to find Una and Eileen plotting a night out.

‘They won’t be on stage until nine, and sure we have to be back here by ten. It’ll take us an hour to get home from Yonkers. We can’t do it!’

‘How about if we get a taxi?’

‘That takes nearly as long,’ Una complained.

‘You’re “in” with Sister Augustine, Rose. Ask her for a special dispensation.’

‘What for?’

‘Urgh – you are so not with-it, Rose,’ said Eileen, thrusting a leaflet into her hand. ‘The Dolly Butler Band are playing the Emerald in Yonkers on Saturday. They are the biggest thing back home in Cork – I have to be there...’

But Rose wasn’t listening. She was staring down at the leaflet as if she had just seen a ghost. On the left-hand corner of the page, in the black-and-white picture of smiling Dolly sitting in the middle in front of her all-male seven-piece band in their smart sweaters, was a small picture of Patrick. His hair was different, set into a quiff like Elvis, but it could not be anyone but him. Next to it the caption said, ‘Supported by the Emerald’s popular resident singer, Patrick Murphy.’

Rose was beside herself and it took every inch of energy she had to maintain her composure. Although she was fit to explode with excitement, she didn’t want to share her personal business with these strangers.

‘What is a resident singer?’ she asked, keeping her voice as light as she could.

Una snatched the leaflet off her.

‘Patrick Murphy – he’s a dish, all right. Resident singer means he is there all the time.’

‘You mean during the day as well?’ Rose said.

Una looked at her sideways; their new room-mate was a strange fish.

‘Actually, I think he probably is. Doesn’t Patrick work behind the bar there sometimes, Eileen?’

‘Never mind that – Rose, will you clear Saturday curfew with Sister Augustine?’

‘I’ll do it now,’ Rose said, flying from the room, grabbing her purse and jacket as she left.

She didn’t go and see Sister Augustine. She ran straight out the door and grabbed a taxi for the Emerald in Yonkers.

The place was all locked up, and she banged and banged and banged on the door until, finally, a man came and answered it.

‘I need to see Patrick Murphy,’ she said.

‘Who are you?’ Gerry asked. A mad fan? Lucky Patrick. She was a looker. Anyway, he couldn’t let her in. Iggy and Sheila were in conference with Patrick, and Gerry had been put under strict instructions to keep everyone out of their way for the afternoon.

‘I’m a friend from home. I need to see him urgently.’

That was another poster of Patrick up outside the door. It was him! It was really him! And now he was a big singer, and she had found him, and everything would be as it should be! Rose could hardly believe this was happening.

‘Afraid he’s not here. Have you tried him at home?’

Gerry was sure Ava would be back at their apartment. Great girl, Ava. Patrick was one lucky guy. She would entertain this girl for Patrick. No better woman.

‘I left his address in my other purse,’ she lied, scrabbling for a scrap of paper and a pen in her bag. ‘Could you give it to me again?’

Gerry jotted down Patrick’s apartment details and Rose hopped straight back in another taxi into town. All these taxis, all this money. It didn’t matter a damn any more.

Soon they would be together and he would hold her in his arms and everything would be all right again.

P
ATRICK
WAS
on a high when he got home from the Emerald that evening. He had learned so much about himself as a performer during the afternoon. Those few hours in the company of Sheila had been more productive than all the weeks he had been singing on stage and, indeed, the twenty-five years he had been singing before that, thinking he knew what it was all about. He knew nothing. But he didn’t mind one bit because Sheila was going to show him how to do it right. Sheila was going to make him a star. It was late, but there was still time to take Ava out for that spaghetti dinner. She would be angry with him for staying away for so long, but once he started to tell her about the day he had had, and all the wonderful things that were ahead for him, and, of course, them, she would certainly forgive him.

As soon as he got in, Patrick ran straight into the bathroom and put the shower on. Back out in the hall he started to strip off his clothes so that by the time he was in the kitchen, his shirt was on the floor behind him, and he was already pulling his vest over his head, saying, ‘I know, I know I’m late, Ava, but I’ve got so much news. You would not believe the day I’ve had but I can just tell you that everything is going to start happening for us now. All the dreams we ever had are about to come true...’

He had unbuckled his belt and was scrunching his vest up into a ball for the laundry basket when he walked into the kitchen and saw her. It took everything in his power to stop himself from letting out a yelp of shock and shouting out her name. For a second, although it felt like an hour, Patrick just stood there, unable to move. The sun-kissed-blonde hair, the piercing blue eyes looking across at him, pleading. Rose. From Foxford. Sitting in his kitchen, talking with Ava. Could this really be happening? It was like he was in some kind of a weird nightmare. And yet, she
was
here. The questions how and why could barely form themselves out of the intrusion of her just being here. Even so, Patrick could feel his body begging him to go across the room and embrace her. He kept his arms firmly by his side and tried to hold his face as naturally as possible.

‘Darling,’ Ava said, smiling at first, and then laughing at the ridiculousness of her husband, accidentally stripping in front of another woman. He would be so embarrassed, especially when he saw it was somebody from home.

Ava and Rose had become great friends in just a few hours. At first, Ava had been taken aback by this breathtakingly beautiful young woman arriving at her door saying that she knew her husband. Her nervous manner had made Ava feel uncomfortable. However, she was only in Rose’s company for a few moments when she realized there was nothing for her to fear. Rose had such a delicate, open face and her manner was so gentle and sweet, so lady-like, that Ava instantly took to her. Rose had not known Patrick very well, she assured Ava. She had led such a sheltered life – it was more that Patrick’s name was known to her as a young man from her village who had gone to New York.

‘I just wanted to meet someone from home. Not having any family here. I am staying in a convent.’

Rose was keen to wait until Patrick got back from work. Ava explained she was in the middle of some chores and asked if she would like to help her sort through some clothes for a charity package. It was so nice to have another woman to talk to. These days, Ava saw very little of Myrtle, who had a job and spent her evenings and weekends in the Emerald. Ava got the feeling that Myrtle was annoyed that her plain friend had got married before she did. There was not a hint of that kind of nastiness from Rose. She was a real lady. All charm and smiles as she helped Ava pick out the clothes to keep until after her pregnancy. She was particularly taken with Ava’s Sybil Connolly suit and discussed the Foxford Woollen Mills tweed with her at great length. She reassured Ava that she would fit back into the suit after her pregnancy, and helped her pick out other clothes that would be suitable to send back to Ireland.

‘How do you send them?’ Rose asked.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘My mother organizes it.’

As soon as she said it, Ava realised she sounded rather pathetic, especially to this brave young woman who had travelled across the world to rescue a new life. Ava determined, in that moment, that she would write to her mother and ask advice about where to send the package. An olive branch. Life was too short.

After they had sorted out the clothes and discussed Ava’s plans for the nursery and the baby, the young women prepared supper together and waited for Patrick to come home. And here he was. Although he looked somewhat discombobulated.

‘Of course, you know Rose?’

‘Oh yes. Hello,’ he managed to say.

Patrick could not have been more thrown. Immediately, he checked Ava’s face for signs of anger or upset. How much had Rose told her about them? Ava looked quite happy so it couldn’t have been much. More importantly, what the hell was Rose doing here?

Ava was disappointed that he seemed unimpressed to the point of being rude. Really, he was so caught up with work all the time, he could think of nothing else.

‘Rose has come to stay with us for a while...’

‘Good – erm...’

Ava was so embarrassed by her husband’s behaviour she couldn’t even look at Rose. Sometimes she wondered if she would not have been better off marrying a gentleman, someone with proper manners. Dermot flashed into her head and Ava quickly reminded herself that you could teach a man good manners but passion was something that could not be learned.

‘You remember Rose? Of course you do!’ Ava kept her voice sunny.

‘Yes’ was all he could manage.

Throughout the meal Patrick’s strange, dark mood continued. Ava was secretly fuming, trying to draw conversation out of him on the subject of his new manager and work but with little success. Ava was mortified. She liked Rose and Patrick was making things positively uncomfortable. He might not have known her well, but Rose was the first person who knew Patrick from Ireland that she had met, including his family.

After they had eaten supper, Ava decided to go across to the ice cream parlour to get some dessert. Perhaps if Patrick was left alone with Rose for a few moments, he might find his manners!

As soon as Ava was gone, Patrick turned on Rose.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’

Rose immediately burst into tears. This was not how she had imagined their reunion would be. She had come all the way across the world, only to find that the love of her life had married somebody else. That was bad enough, but it might almost have been accepted for the disastrous mishap that it was. In the hours that had passed since she got this terrible news, as she was nodding to his wife, talking about charity clothes and being as brilliant an actress as she could be, covering her horror with charm and polite chit-chat, Rose had thought of every possible scenario to justify his betraying her. He must have been lonely and believed that she didn’t love him any more. But when his first words to her were so cruel and cold, Rose could not bear it. It simply wasn’t possible that she had come all this way for nothing. It wasn’t possible that Patrick did not love her any more. It was unthinkable.