It Was Only Ever You (38 page)

She threw some dollars on the counter and ran out. It had been a terrible shock, hearing his voice like that. What did it mean? She had known that his manager had been planning to release it as a record, but it seemed inconceivable that it had actually happened. Emotion pumped through her, fear, excitement, shame, shock, but underneath all of them emerged the untrammelled thrill of having been loved by him; of being the woman he had written those words for. It was wrong, so wrong, but she could not help it. Would this cursed feeling ever go away? The feeling of being in love with somebody who cannot love you back.

Rose found she had been wandering aimlessly in the opposite direction to the office. Afraid she might be lost, she stopped to check where she was, and saw she was standing outside a church. She had not been to mass since she had come to New York. She stood for a moment, looking up at the imposing building, its ornate steeple reaching up into the grey, Manhattan skyline, competing with the office buildings either side of it, and thought that perhaps her loss of religion had contributed to her wayward behaviour. She had not given a thought to the right or the wrong thing to do in her pursuit of love. She had been too single-minded, too passionate. Perhaps if she talked to a priest and confessed her sins, Rose might get some relief.

She had forty minutes before she had to be back at the meeting at two, so she climbed up the steps. Inside, the church seemed much bigger and grander than on the outside. She immediately regretted the idea of finding a priest and making her confession in such a large, intimidating place.

Then, walking towards her, she saw a familiar face. She struggled to remember who it was before finally recognizing him as the priest who had taken her out to the Bronx. A friend of Donnie and Marisa. Father...? She smiled and walked slowly towards him, desperately trying to remember his name.

He remembered her, though, and marching determinedly towards her he barked, ‘I hope you’re here to do a confession, young lady.’

Rose started. How did he know? She remembered, he knew Tom Hogan – but it was too late to turn back. He had her in his sights.

‘After all the trouble you caused. You should be ashamed of yourself...’

Rose did feel ashamed of herself. She was about to tell him as much when he continued.

‘...coming over here, chasing after some man you think you’re in love with. I have never heard of such nonsense...’

As he continued, Rose said, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Father...’

Perhaps it was because of the way that she had found herself saying ‘Father’, even though she was simply addressing a priest, but Rose was taken back to that moment in her father’s study where she had seen the letters that Patrick had written her. The letters that her father had hidden. The words of ‘It Was Only Ever You’ that she had heard earlier in the café. And Rose realized she wasn’t sorry for having followed Patrick to New York. She was sorry about what had happened since she got here. And she was sorry that her parents had been worried, she was sorry that she had pursued Patrick when he had not wanted her to, she was sorry that she had kissed him when she had known he was married to somebody else. She was sorry that she hadn’t simply told Ava the truth and then walked away, and she was deeply, deeply sorry for having betrayed a nice woman who had been nothing but kind to her.

However, when she looked into the face of the angry old priest, Rose realized that she was not sorry for having loved. She would not apologize for having been true to her heart, and she never would.

S
ITTING
ON
the stairs of her aunt and uncle’s house in Riverdale, Sheila clung to Patrick. She was so raw and emotional that, for a moment, she thought she had fallen in love with him. Then, the shock passed and, as she saw the faces of her aunt and uncle she realized that the love she felt was the all-encompassing love she had felt as a child. The love of life itself and everyone around her. Standing in their hall, shattered with shock, the old couple looked into the face of their niece and immediately recognized that something significant had happened to her. The light in her that Hitler had extinguished was back. It was as intangible and mysterious as love itself. As the couple embraced her after the ordeal, they both felt it in the softened commitment of her arms around them and heard it in a barely discernible mellowing of her voice. Anya saw it first: the child had returned to Sheila’s dark, once impervious eyes. The transformation felt as instant and as shocking to Anya as hitting the man’s skull with the pot. Why such a terrible event should have had such a positive, transforming effect none of them could guess. Except that an old, sharp edge that had been twenty years in the making had been hit with a hammer and a soft curve left in its place.

Over the coming weeks Sheila polished that curve by encouraging and nurturing Patrick’s talent.

Nothing developed between them, except for, on her part at least, a warm sense of sisterhood and mentorship. However, her caring for Patrick did go some way to filling the gap Iggy had left behind.

Her lover had pulled away from her. They had not slept together in weeks and Iggy’s attitude towards her had reverted to a respectful employer–employee arrangement. No confrontation took place, just a quietly created distance separated them physically, and emotionally. Professionally, they remained in close touch. Sheila felt that Iggy had come to respect her way of doing things. Under her management, the Emerald was making more money than ever, and he had relinquished all control over Patrick’s career and was letting her get on with it. Iggy resumed his rigorous travelling schedule. As he spent more and more time away, into that space emerged an assumption, with Sheila, that it was over. Once, in the office, she had picked up the phone to a woman. An air hostess, the girl had been keen to tell her. It hurt. But Sheila, for all her new vulnerability, could not give in to it. She had to keep herself moving forward, more now than ever. So she focused on her career and channelled that hurt into Patrick.

Iggy had allocated Sheila a budget to spend in whatever way she saw fit. The usual way of doing things for a manager was to engage the interest of a producer and then let them deal with the record company. Sheila had decided that she wanted to retain as much control as possible. Iggy, having set up the recording deal, allowed Sheila to go directly to the record company, setting herself up as producer, even though she had no track record. Sheila approached Malcolm, the songwriter, and asked if he had a young producer in his coterie who might be looking for a break. Declan was a year older than Malcolm, Irish, a technical music buff, bursting with talent and zero cash.

Sheila hired them the biggest, best studio in New York for the day.

‘I want big!’ she told Declan. ‘A big, big sound. When the chorus comes, I want it to be like an avalanche of music. Like Mount Everest collapsing...’

Sheila filled the studio with musicians. They brought in the resident band, and bumped them up to a half-orchestra with some of Malcolm’s rock and roll buddies, and Sheila’s old friend Frankie and his friends provided some extra wind. She even invited Iggy along so he could see where his money was being spent.

She didn’t expect Iggy to come, but he did. She did not notice him arrive and when she did spot him, sitting in his unobtrusive way at the back of the room, watching them all from a distance, Sheila felt a shot of pity for him. He seemed so out of place, so formal, in his straight-from-the-airport suit. She nodded at him and he nodded back, solemnly. He seemed sad and she longed to go over and talk to him. But she pushed the longing aside, reminding herself that they were no longer lovers, or even friends – simply business associates. She had work to do and he was here to make sure that she did it. She was determined not to have him distract her. However, when she looked around for him an hour later, and saw the grey office seat left empty, her heart sank.

Patrick, in contrast, was in his element. He had the song nailed. Every inch the star, he knew every line so well that, at one point, Sheila caught him singing it backwards to try and impress one of the guitarists.

Sheila told him that she needed him to put his heart and soul into every single take. As the day progressed, he did not let her down, as she strove to get the very best recording.

Past lunchtime and into the evening, Sheila cajoled the tired musicians into yet another take as Declan layered the sounds on the complicated deck. The young producer was in his element, sliding and pressing all the knobs and buttons, waving instructions and smoking frantically as coffee cups and bottles of beer gathered all around the edges of his deck. With the intensity of a true composer he altered treble and bass, building and building the sound until the ballad fell gently into heartbreaking, cavernous valleys and rose up in yearning crescendos. As Declan managed the sound, Sheila made Patrick reach, reach, reach for those high notes. She wanted so much emotion in this recording that it would draw tears from a stone.

By six o’clock, everyone believed that the song was in the bag. Except Sheila.

‘I’ve got a half-dozen usable takes here, Sheila, at least two outstanding ones. We’re done,’ Declan said.

‘One more time,’ she pleaded.

She felt there was some small thing missing. She could not put her finger on it but she was sure she could get to it, if they would just try one more time.

Tired and hungry, everyone went for one last shot at it.

Sheila sat down, for the first time that day, next to Declan at the producer’s bench. She leaned back and closed her eyes, allowing herself to get lost in Patrick’s voice.

As his smooth baritone caressed each word, Sheila felt as if she was hearing the lyrics for the first time.

I ask myself are you the one who filled me with desire

Are those the eyes that once searched mine and set my soul on fire

Then, when he came to the crescendo, ‘it was only ever you’ Sheila suddenly felt it. The feeling she had been waiting for. It was as if her heart had been punctured, and whatever was inside released. A truth came flooding out of her. It was beautiful, certain and yet terrifying, because she had been neither wanting nor expecting to feel it. She loved Iggy. That strange, remote man was her other half, after all. The only man that could ever truly understand her. She had never met another like him and she knew she never would again.

She realized, too, that she had known she loved him all along but had been afraid to face up to it. Because, running alongside the certainty that she loved him ran the knowledge that he was utterly unavailable to her. He would, could, never love her back in the same way. Iggy was a lone wolf. He had never promised her anything different. He had got involved with her because she had been as cold, as hard as he was. When she had started to get close, he had backed off. Now that her heart was open, she could never be with him.

As the band came down on the last note, Sheila wiped away her tears. Everyone assumed she was crying for the song.

‘It’s a wrap, boys,’ she said, clapping. ‘Well done – we’ve got a hit on our hands!’

Sheila seemed happy, smiling and smacking everyone on the back and congratulating them. Inside, though, a bleak feeling had taken hold. Once ‘It Was Only Ever You’ hit the charts, it would be time for Sheila to move away. Joe Higgins would be back, as he had promised, and to stay any longer would be to put her family and Patrick in jeopardy. Patrick was on the road now. He did not need her any more, not in the same intense way he had needed her up to now. In any case, the kid was becoming way too dependent on her. He needed to stand on his own two feet. She was his manager, not his mother, and the quicker he came to terms with that the better.

More importantly, Sheila still had enough pride not to hang around New York yearning for a lover who did not want her.

*

Iggy had been hoping to get in and out of the Emerald within the hour. He had one or two things to tie up with Gerry before leaving on a more extended trip.

He needed some time away to think things through.

That day in the recording studio had opened his eyes to just what a great businesswoman Sheila was. Her handling of Patrick’s career had really impressed him. She was, much like himself, a trailblazer, arranging this recording of ‘It Was Only Ever You’ in a completely different way from any that had been done before. Later that evening, the record would launch at the Emerald. Patrick would sing in New York while the single itself would be played simultaneously in each of Morrow’s clubs across America, Ireland and Britain. They had been advertising it for weeks and each club would be packed with punters ready to spread the word. As soon as the record had been cut, Sheila had gone out there and bribed all the right DJs to give it airtime. Most of her upfront money had gone into ensuring the right DJs were in her pocket. Iggy had never had the stomach for paying people off, but Sheila had no such qualms. Decca would make a number of the records available in each venue for sale on the night. Sheila had brokered the deal. Record shops were up in arms at the bold move, but she asked Iggy to assure them they would not be making a habit of selling records in this way again. It was a promotional tactic. A way of getting Patrick’s name out there in an aggressive, one-shot manner that would lead to greater sales down the line.

Iggy admired Sheila. She was not like anyone else he had ever met. She was creative and dynamic and she got things done. He even thought her to be a lot like himself, but when he saw her in the studio that day, the way that she handled the musicians, and her devotion to Patrick, he realized she was more than him. Sheila was an unknown entity to him. He felt she was extraordinary but there was an edge to her that he felt he didn’t know. Could, maybe, never know, and the not knowing made him feel uncomfortable.

To Iggy, discomfort was the opposite of love. He knew that unsettled feeling from his boyhood. Not knowing where you are going or what you should be doing. It was a feeling he had been chasing away all of his life with his meticulous scheduling and his secretive ways, keeping everything so close to his chest that nobody else could get in. Iggy had organized his life so that he remained always separated from other people. He kept himself safe in his quiet isolation. The safety of solitude. Now this uncomfortable feeling was back. Sheila had brought a disquiet, an uncertainty with her.