It Was Only Ever You (3 page)

Rose had pretended to drown because she had wanted to find a way to make Patrick touch her. She knew she was pretty but she also knew he would never look at her. She was his sister’s friend, younger than he was. Rose was the doctor’s daughter, and she also knew that put her out of bounds, not just to Patrick, but to all the boys in the town. Rose was considered ‘posh’ and she hated that. Apart from Sinead, all the other girls thought her standoffish and strange, because she preferred to paint and draw than to talk to people. Sinead said they were just jealous of her because she was beautiful, but Rose didn’t think she was especially beautiful. She knew she looked ‘different’ from the other girls, with her ash-blonde hair and pale, delicate skin. She longed to be earthy and ‘ordinary’ in the just plain pretty way that the boys liked. She wanted to be teased and tickled and danced with, but it seemed that the local boys were somewhat shy of approaching her and the girls just ignored her. Sinead said not to mind them. She said that Rose’s drawing was a special talent. She understood people with special talents because her brother was able to sing like John McCormack. Sinead said that her brother found it hard because people didn’t always understand how important singing was to him. Patrick once confided that the only time he was truly happy was when he was singing. Sometimes, he told Sinead, he dreamt of having enough money to go to America and become a big star, but he was afraid of saying it to people in case they laughed at him.

Rose could not imagine Sinead’s older brother worrying about anything. But then, no one could imagine Rose Hopkins, the doctor’s daughter, being worried about anything either. She was the girl who had everything, and Patrick was the boy who had everything. Yet Sinead had told her that Patrick, too, had that strange space inside him: the space she could only fill when she was drawing.

That was what had started Rose off looking at Patrick Murphy in a different way. Up to then he had just been the good-looking bad-boy in town. Now, it seemed, he was a sensitive artist, like her. An unlikely soulmate. Rose had followed him that day, hoping she might draw him away from his friends and, perhaps, strike up a conversation. She had not banked on the bull. Frightening as it was, the encounter with it had worked to her advantage. She had certainly got Patrick’s attention.

Underneath his blather, she knew that Patrick was not the type to put his hands on a girl uninvited, especially not his little sister’s friend. Which was why she slid into the water and put herself at risk of drowning.

She had known he would save her. When she felt his strong arms lift her up towards the air again, towards breath, towards light, she felt the thrill of being saved as acutely as if she had actually fallen to her death.

Patrick put his hand under her torso and swam the few strokes to the edge of the jetty and then told her to hold on to the wooden stilt. He should have asked her why she had done such a stupid thing. She might have got tangled in weeds, he might not have been able to see her in the dense lake water. He should have been angry that she had recklessly put them both in such a dangerous situation. But when he looked at her face and her glistening wet skin, her eyes glittering with the reflection from the lake, with the excitement of simply being alive, he was flooded through with a painful desire. Reaching out, he ran his thumb along her bottom lip and as her eyes half closed, he kissed her, his naked body folded around her, keeping her afloat.

In that moment, the fierce cold and the adrenalin rush dropped away and all Rose could feel was him.

‘His clothes are here, he’s after going in without us... Murphy! Where the feck are you?’

They had not heard the lads coming down the jetty until they were on top of them.

‘Shite,’ Patrick whispered.

Rose wasn’t worried about getting caught. Nothing in the world mattered to her except being kissed by Patrick Murphy. Nonetheless, she was glad to see that he was worried for her reputation.

He whispered at her, ‘Follow my lead.’ Then, ‘Down here, lads!’ he called out. ‘She fell in – she can’t swim so I came in after her.’

Neither of the boys commented on the fact that he had stripped before diving in for this daredevil rescue, or asked why Rose Hopkins came down to the jetty with a swim bag when she was unable to swim. Either they didn’t think of it, or they were too shocked to believe that their friend was forward enough, or stupid enough, to go after the doctor’s daughter.

For the rest of that afternoon Rose lay on the jetty with the three lads playing and talking around her; jumping in and out of the water, showing off their smooth, strong bodies. They were kind and respectful towards her, feeding her sweet biscuits and allowing her a taste of their poitin – which burnt her lips. She lay on the jetty, her clothes drying on her skin. When the others were in the water she and Patrick looked across at each other. His blue eyes gazed at her with something she could not name but which made her feel as if her limbs might dissolve with longing. Rose turned on her side and felt the hot sun bake her damp dress. The secret kiss and the passion of her rescue seemed to burn into her very soul over the course of that afternoon. She longed to kiss him again, and again, and to never stop kissing him, but she knew that could not happen while the others were watching. They would have to wait, and Rose knew her life from then on would be spent counting the moments until she saw Patrick Murphy again.

Yonkers, New York, 1958

A
VA
BROGAN
was doing the jitterbug, zigzagging with her unnaturally long legs and large feet, and flicking her arms out to her sides in time to the Jack Ruane Band. The dance floor of the Emerald Ballroom in Yonkers was packed tonight, but Ava’s limbs were so long that the other dancers left a wide circle around her in case she gave one of them a dig. Another person might have been more self- conscious about flinging herself around like that, but, despite her height and build, Ava was a good dancer, and she knew it. The only place where she had confidence in how she looked was on the dance floor. It didn’t matter if she was pretty or not, or that she was wearing pants and a sweater instead of a dress, when she was dancing, it was just her and the music.

Tonight she was mostly dancing with Jamsey Collins, an Irish guy who cleaned windows in her father’s office where she and Myrtle worked in the typing pool. Even though Ava was the boss’s daughter, she had no airs and graces. Her father was a self-made man, Irish himself, and didn’t mind who his only daughter dated as long as she was happy. Her mother was a different story. She didn’t think Ava should be working in an office at all, or wasting her time learning to dance when she should be busying herself finding a good husband. Ava shrugged off her mother’s concerns but in truth she was hoping that one might lead to the other.

Ava and Jamsey had just done two jives, a cha-cha, the stroll and now the jitterbug – back to back. She could tell he was ready to stop after that crazy jive to ‘Rip It Up’, but she had challenged him to two more. At one point he had her laughing so hard, messing about during their stroll, that she thought she might have to stop and be sick! Jamsey was a funny-looking guy, gangly, and even taller than she was. He wasn’t a looker but he was a charmer all right, what the Irish called ‘great craic’. Ava liked him but, more than that, she thought she might be in with a chance – none of the girls in the typing pool was interested in him and so she felt they had that in common. Perhaps he knew what it was like to be left out too.

When they were done, Ava threw herself down into the banquette next to her friend Myrtle, exhausted.

‘You are one hell of a dancer young lady,’ Jamsey said, panting. ‘You have me worn out.’ Ava laughed. She felt her face redden with a flush of hope, and was glad to have the excuse of the dancing to cover it. ‘Can I get you ladies a drink?’ he asked. But as he stood up, the slow set started with a smoochy waltz. Jamsey held out his hand and said, ‘May I?’

Ava blushed and was about to accept when she saw that he wasn’t holding his hand out to her, but to Myrtle. This had obviously been his intention all along: being friendly with Ava in order to get close to her prettier friend, who would never have looked at him otherwise. It hurt.

Ava flinched then gathered herself before Myrtle sensed her disappointment.

‘Do you mind?’ Myrtle mouthed as she hopped behind him, her hand in his.

Ava shook her head and made a funny face. Jamsey turned and gave her a friendly wink, as if Ava were one of the boys.

‘I’ll go and get the drinks,’ she said, then called after Myrtle, ‘Watch his hands – he’s cheeky!’

She felt a stab of rejection, and then shook it off by reminding herself it was always the same.

Ava was the most popular girl in the room for the fast dances, but she never got asked up for the slow set. Even the boys that nobody else liked weren’t interested in her. It wasn’t their fault. How any boy could take a girl of her height and build seriously, especially, as her mother was constantly at pains to point out, since she insisted on wearing ‘those dreadful pants’ instead of a dress.

She went up to the bar and ordered two coffees for herself and Myrtle. Jamsey could buy his own drink. Ava was sore, but she was no pushover. He hadn’t meant to be cruel but even so, it was a nasty game he had played getting to Myrtle through her. There was no need to reward his cunning with a drink.

She stood looking out at the vast wooden dance floor. The resident band was playing a medley of old-fashioned Irish waltzes. Couples clung to each other. The older men wore suits and ties, only taking their jackets off to dance, draping them on the backs of the chairs. The younger men wore the smart-casual look that was all the rage – slacks and collared sweater-shirts. Many of the younger girls were wearing tight pencil skirts that had just come into fashion. Myrtle was poured into one, which showed off her full bottom and wasp-waist to full effect.

Despite her friends cajoling her to embrace fashion, Ava disliked dressing up. Everything she put on seemed only to draw attention to her height and broad build. As a teenager in those innocent years when she did not realize quite how unattractive she was, she had experienced the humiliation of being left out. So now, during the slow sets, while the other girls sat prettily smoking, waiting for their turn to be asked up to dance, Ava always went straight to the bar. She got asked up occasionally, but only ever by the desperate or the drunk.

Kind-hearted by nature, Ava had endured being fondled and stepped on by the very worst the Irish-American dance-hall scene could throw at her. One night, about two years ago, after a particularly treacherous waltz with a man who had more hair growing out of his ears than on his head, she was slapped on the bottom and told she was ‘a fine big heft of a thing that would be a welcome addition to one of the biggest cattle farms in Mayo’. The girls in the typing pool were in stitches when she relayed her ordeal the following morning during coffee break, but as she reached twenty-two, Ava could feel that the self-deprecating humour and her plucky nature had begun to fail her.

She watched the couples on the dance floor. The older married ones gliding in the old-fashioned style, the younger ones with their bodies pressed against each other, shuffling slowly in search of intimacy. A murmured suggestion, a breathless request, might be given permission to slide outside and canoodle in a car before being dropped home. Some girls would be left on their parents’ doorstep with the promise of new love. Others would go home alone, carrying with them the hope that next Saturday the handsome prince would find them. But that was never how it was for Ava. Not tonight, or any night.

The Emerald Ballroom was where the Irish came to find love. When immigrants stepped off the boat from Ireland it was the first place they came. The huge dance hall had four bars and was a Mecca not just for the Irish immigrants, but for the children who had been born here. The Irish showbands were just taking off. They took the music that had shaken America – the rock and roll of Bill Haley and Elvis Presley – and were feeding it back to the dance-crazy Irish. While conservative priests preached about the moral dangers of rock and roll, the Irish carried on going to mass and courting each other in dance halls, as they had done since the 1940s.

The New York Irish showbands scene was like a home-from-home for Ava. She and her friend Myrtle were here every Saturday night, without fail. Ava knew most of the staff and many of the band members. The resident band comprised, largely, classically trained musicians. Dating back to the old Glenn Miller days, they kept the regulars busy waltzing and foxtrotting throughout the week. On weekends, the visiting Irish showbands came to town and shook things up; with their sparkly suits and cheeky, cheery grins, they toured a circuit that ran from London, Leeds, across all of Ireland, then to Boston, Chicago and New York. Many of these dance halls were owned by Iggy Morrow – a Kerry man and entertainment mogul who was friendly with Ava’s father, Tom Brogan.

Jack Ruane and his lads had cleared the stage and the resident band was playing an old-time waltz. The jiving was over. The rest of the night would be given over to romance.

Ava looked across the crowded floor to see how Myrtle was getting along. With a bit of luck her friend would have shaken off Jamsey and would be ready to go home.

‘Worn yourself out, Ava?’ the barman quipped as he slid her two coffees.

Ava smiled but found herself at a loss to think of a smart comeback.

It was not that she particularly liked Jamsey, only that she had been foolish enough to think that he had liked her when he hadn’t.

‘On the house,’ the barman said.

Did he feel sorry for her? Ava didn’t even mind – she was feeling a little sorry for herself, if truth be told.

As she was walking back to the booth she spotted Myrtle and Jamsey in amongst the mash of couples. Jamsey whispered something into Myrtle’s ear and she threw her red curls back and laughed. A wave of sadness washed over Ava as she felt that moment would never belong to her.