It Was Only Ever You (29 page)

While Iggy counted the days until he would see Sheila again, he was grateful for the incessant travelling because it enabled him to keep control over himself. If he gave in to his feelings, he would have spent every day and every night in her company and let his great empire crumble to the ground. The fact that he could never let that happen was, he believed, his saving grace. To allow such romantic instincts would be dangerous, particularly with a woman like Sheila, so independent, so cool, so reserved, so very much like himself. He knew what level of detachment he was capable of and he believed she was capable of the same. However, when he was with her, he found he was unable to help himself from wanting more. Not more sex and more amusement, but more of the thing he could never admit to wanting: the intimacy of love.

‘I thought we might eat in the city tonight?’

Sheila was furious. Furious at him for creeping up on her like that, furious at herself for her impulsive, shocked reaction which made her seem foolish, but mostly furious with the irrational impulse she was now feeling, to simply grab Iggy by the collar, kiss him, then make love to him in the office in the middle of a working day.

‘Well – I can’t tonight,’ she said coolly. ‘I’m busy.’

She could tell by the look on his face that he didn’t believe her. She had half a mind to lie and tell him she was seeing another man. He would believe that. Sheila knew she had that much power over him at least.

‘I promised to have dinner with my aunt and uncle.’

For the first time in her life, Sheila was aware of using her family as a kind of trophy. Iggy had no family. He had told her about his life in the orphanage. She had never confided in him about her parents and brother. How could she? She had never spoken about anyone. And yet, here she was, triumphantly proclaiming what little family she did have. What was this impulse to be cruel that he brought out in her? We are both orphans, but at least I have some family.

‘Why don’t we bring them with us? I would love to meet them.’

As soon as he had said the words, Iggy knew that he had gone too far.

Sheila blushed and coughed. She seemed as awkward as it was possible for a person of her cool demeanour to be. Her smile was apologetic, pained.

‘I don’t think that’s such a good idea. Do you?’ she said.

At once, it seemed like a dreadful, hurtful thing to say to him. At the same time, she did not see what else she could possibly say. The idea of her lover meeting her family, her precious aunt and uncle, was anathema to her. He must have known, as much as he seemed to know her at all, that she was not the marrying kind. She had never brought anyone home to meet them before, and to do so would be making a statement so broad, so sweeping, she could not possibly justify it.

Iggy felt the knock-back as a kick of rejection.

‘I suppose not,’ he said. He was back on the sports pitch of the orphanage, in the sidelines of the football game, nursing a bloody leg, waiting for the jeering in the changing rooms. He left there promising himself he would never be slapped around again. And yet here he was, having his heart and his ego bruised by this woman. Letting her do it because, underneath it all, he believed she was as sweet as he was.

As he turned his back on her, pretending to tackle the papers on his desk, he hoped it was true.

‘How is Patrick going along?’ he asked without looking at her.

‘To be honest,’ she said, ‘I think he would be better if he was working with some new material.’

‘Original material?’ Iggy said, his eyes resolutely on his paperwork.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He’s got real potential. I’d love to try and get a recording contract.’

I bet you would, thought Iggy. Then the pair of you would fly out of here in five minutes. He resolved to get proper contracts drawn up on his next trip to Boston to see his lawyers.

‘Well,’ he said, ready to look up at her now, ‘when the audience out there get sick of hearing every song in the hit parade, here and in Ireland, come back and have a talk with me then.’

He was angry and she had bruised his ego, Sheila knew that. All the same, she was annoyed that he rejected her suggestion so quickly, and annoyed with herself for not being more coy and manipulative in her timing.

Iggy began fiddling around with his paperwork again and as Sheila left, saying, ‘I’ll see you later,’ he barely grunted a reply, and did not look up from his desk, although he did hear her mutter, ‘If you’re still here...’ She closed the door rather sharply behind her.

Heading back into the ballroom, Sheila paused at the door for a cigarette. As she was lighting it her attention was caught by a heated argument that appeared to be happening at the side of the stage. It was Patrick and his simpering fan. Fascinated and not wishing to be seen, she lowered her cigarette and eavesdropped.

‘You said you loved me!’ the girl shouted at him.

‘Shhh – somebody will hear us!’

Too late, somebody already has, thought Sheila to herself, smiling.

She stood stock-still, so she wouldn’t get caught in her hiding place.

‘I don’t care who hears me, Patrick. I love you and I know you love me! We can make it work.’

Silly girl, thought Sheila. Still, the kid was a dark horse after all. She didn’t know he had it in him. Although he was handling it very poorly. He seemed very agitated. The colour in his cheeks rising, his hands opening and closing as if hoping to release his anger.

‘How many times do I have to tell you, I am married to Ava now. We have a child on the way. Things have changed. This is going nowhere.’

‘I know it’s a terrible situation, Patrick. You know your marriage was a mistake. At least if you can admit it we can move on. Nothing is impossible. We can work it all out—’

‘There is no “we”! You have to stop talking like this. It’s over. Please, Rose, stop acting crazy!’

The girl was enraged now. ‘What about this?’ she screamed at him. She waved a sheet of paper in his face, and then started to read from it.

‘“There’s nothing in this world that makes me feel the way I feel—”’

‘Stop it! Stop it, I’m telling you...’

‘“When I’m with you because I know this love I have is real...”’

He reached out to grab the page from her. Tears were streaming down the girl’s face. This is all too dramatic, thought Sheila. Two children having a lovers’ tiff. It all seemed rather overblown and silly to her. In fact, she began to wish it would end, so she could come out of her hiding place and light her cigarette.

‘I suppose none of this means anything to you, I suppose I never meant anything to you...’ Then she scrunched up the piece of paper and threw it dramatically aside. ‘Perhaps it was all lies, Patrick. Maybe it was always just your plan to get to America. Maybe you just tricked my father into giving you money and were delighted to get away from me? Is that how it is?’

Patrick closed his eyes in frustration, seeming to gather himself for a few seconds before opening them again. And when he did, from her hiding place it seemed to Sheila that he was looking straight at her, although, in fact, he was looking straight through her. Back into a past when it was just the two of them, kissing, in a field.

‘You know that’s not true, Rose. You know how much you meant to me.’

In the young singer’s eyes Sheila saw a passionate pleading look. If only he could put on that look when he’s singing, she thought.

‘Then there
is
hope for us, Patrick.’

Sheila raised her eyes to heaven. If this nonsense didn’t come to an end soon she have to go out and stop it herself.

‘No, Rose,’ he said again, storming off with the crazy pretty girl in close pursuit.

Sheila came out from behind the curtain, shaking her head in a mixture of amusement and frustration at what she had just seen. Patrick really was a hopeless case. For such a good-looking, talented and ambitious kid, he was still such an ingénu. If he was going to sleep round on his wife, well, he needed to learn to lie a bit better than he was doing. And not just to his wife, but his lover too.

She lit her cigarette and walked across to where they had been standing to pick up the piece of trash that Rose had thoughtlessly thrown on the floor. She looked around quickly before opening the crumpled page, to amuse herself by reading the love letter that seemed to have caused all this trouble.

Immediately, she saw that it was not a love letter, but a handwritten poem. Her eyes quickly scanned the words.

It was a love song.

Sheila smiled, carefully folded the paper and put it in her pocket.

At last, she had struck gold.

A
COUPLE
OF
days after Rose came into their lives, Ava had received a reply from her mother in the post. It was a mass card, presumably to pray for the recovery of her sullied soul, getting pregnant before marriage etc. However, Ava was nonetheless glad to get the peace offering. In the past week Ava had become aware that there was a life growing inside her. She was only just beginning to show, but she had begun to feel that she was pregnant, and not simply fat. The awareness that she would be a mother soon made her conscious of her own mother’s love for her, and Ava felt softer towards her. And she began to understand that Nessa’s anger had been based only on the worry, fear and betrayal she would no doubt someday feel as a parent.

The letter contained a formal introduction to an Irish priest in Manhattan with whom Nessa had volunteered her to do some charitable work. Her own priest had told her that Father Moran, who worked in Hell’s Kitchen, was looking for a respectable woman to help coordinate a ‘Parcels to Ireland’ programme. Nessa had suggested Ava as she had some volunteering experience in their own Yonkers parish. Also, she was her ‘father’s daughter’ when it came to such things. Reading between the lines, Ava felt the note itself was acknowledgement that she was now living an independent life. If Nessa did not wholly delight in her marriage, she was, perhaps, coming to accept it. The note was also a not very subtle assurance that the continuance of Ava’s good Catholic habits would help bridge any gaps in her mother’s approval.

The church was in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen. The last time Ava had been to this part of town was with Dermot, the night he had proposed. The night she had first met Patrick. She brushed the thought aside as she pulled the car up and parked it on the sidewalk at the bottom of the church steps, so that she would not have far to carry her heavy bags of clothes. She felt curiously independent and brave coming to this part of town on her own. However, the experience of helping Patrick’s friend Rose get on her feet with a job in the Emerald had made Ava see that, like her father, her mission in life was to make herself useful to other people. Ava had taken it upon herself to contact Gerry at the club and ask if he could get Rose a job. He had said they were always in need of reliable Irish girls and had passed the message on to his new boss, and Patrick’s new manager, Sheila, who had given Rose a few hours cleaning during the day, and occasional work covering the cloakrooms. The next visit she made was to Sister Augustine to see if Rose could be allowed to come home late on certain evenings, if her new job required it. The nun was very accommodating, and impressed with the pragmatic, pregnant young woman, especially when she learned she was Tom Brogan’s daughter. When she told Ava that it was her father who had brought Rose to the convent in the first place, Ava was taken aback. Had he not known that Rose was a friend of Patrick’s? The nun also explained, on the quiet, that it had been some ‘awful’ experience with her father that had sent the girl chasing halfway across the world to escape them. Ava could not imagine what that terrible thing would be, but the information just made her feel even more warmly towards the young woman. It made Ava feel even more fortunate to be in the position she was in. She was married to a good man with a baby on the way. Although their life was modest, they loved each other. Despite Patrick’s great aspirations for fame, Ava did not feel she needed much more than they already had, except perhaps more of her husband’s time. Although, she determined, if she were to spend her own time more usefully, doing good deeds, she might miss his company less. One had to make sacrifices in life and getting pregnant out of wedlock had been a dreadful sin. So, it seemed only right that Ava should make amends by helping people who were less fortunate than herself. Helping Rose had given her a small start and today, volunteering for the church, could be the beginning of a new, positive phase in her life.

The church was quiet for a Saturday, with a dozen or so people occupying the pew opposite the confessionals. Ava was irritated with herself for not having remembered Saturday-morning confessions would probably be underway at this time. She really had been very remiss in her religion of late. The feeling of sadness flooded over her briefly as she thought how far she had fallen from her faith in the past few months. However, she reminded herself she was here now to make amends to God, her church, her parents and herself. She wondered if Patrick felt the same way. She had noticed him moving away from her in the bed lately. She was hurt, but she could understand it. Her body had changed and no man would want to make love to a woman knowing there was a child inside them. She still had the same urges surging through her body despite the fact that she was pregnant. If anything, they were stronger than ever. That, Ava now believed, was God’s gentle way of punishing her for not keeping a check on her passions. So, she didn’t bother Patrick, had a cold shower every morning and had now resolved to be the best person she could possibly be.

Knowing that Father Moran would be in a hurry, Ava left her two heavy bags at the door and hurried up to the sacristy to catch him before confessions began.

*

Dermot was having a wretched morning. First of all, he had been unable to find a clean shirt. His ironing service had not delivered the day before, so he had been forced to wear yesterday’s crumpled and slightly stained one. This was just one of many small domestic disasters that he had been having of late. Work had been busy and he had not had time to do all the chores that, if he were a proper man, he would have a wife doing for him. Dermot did not mind doing his own laundry and, as a matter of fact, he was rather a good cook. However, at the age of thirty, he felt the failure of his bachelor status more sharply now than ever before. Before he met Ava, Dermot had been resigned, if not entirely satisfied, to being on his own. There had been a rhythm about keeping the apartment tidy, a routine in putting the trash out, going to the grocery store, leaving money out for the cleaning woman. However, the very moment he and Ava got engaged, with the promise of marriage, Dermot allowed his entire domestic routine to fall apart. No woman wants to be married to a fuss-budget of a man. A decent woman will want a man she can take in hand. So instinctively Dermot began to let his domestic life go to pot. It seemed the right thing to do. Even though the engagement went on for only a matter of weeks, he had been unable to recover his meticulous, organized home life. Ava had been the love of his life. Losing her had meant losing everything. If his life went back to the way he was before he met her, to the man he was before he met her, surely that would make the loss even greater because it would be as though she had never happened.