It Was Only Ever You (41 page)

‘There is no other woman in the world like you, Ava. You are the only one for me and you always will be. Please. Let me make you happy.’

Dermot knew he should stop there but, uncertain he had fully got his point across, he decided to drum his message home with a quote he had recently come across, although he was not sure where from. ‘Ava, my darling – you know that “it was only ever you” I could love. Will you give me another chance?’

Ava’s stomach did a sideways turn. Dermot was setting himself up in direct competition with Patrick. Using the title of her husband’s song to woo her. What an outrageously confident thing to do. No wonder he was considered one of the best lawyers in the country! She was impossibly torn. On the one hand was Patrick, with whom she was passionately in love, and on the other was stalwart Dermot, although, it seemed, that had all changed. In fact, standing here in Dermot’s arms, with the heat of the jive still pumping through her, Ava could feel the same powerful stirrings Patrick had brought out in her. Plus, Dermot said Ava was the ‘only one’ but she saw the way Myrtle had been gripping him during that jive. Imagine if Dermot ended up with Myrtle Milligan. Her mother would go half mad. Then, Ava realized with something of an emotional jolt, so would she.

She had to act fast.

She brought her voice down to a breathy whisper, and leaned into his ear and asked, ‘Have you got your car outside, Dermot?’

Taken aback, and somewhat disappointed at the change of subject, he answered, ‘Yes.’

‘Good,’ she said, reaching for his hand, ‘because I want you to take me for a drive.’

Dermot was delighted that Ava wanted to leave with him, alone, and not stay on to hear her wretched husband sing his silly song, whatever it was. However, he was slightly confused about the car. Where was it she wanted to go? What on earth could she mean by ‘drive’? Not... Oh now, surely not. How could he even dare think of anything so unseemly of Ava? Not that he had never thought about it but... No, it simply wasn’t possible.

Ava dragged her new lover silently across the dance floor and out of the Emerald. She smiled to herself as she thought about the thrills that were ahead of them that night and how shocked Myrtle would be to think what she was up to, especially after she had set her sights on him.

She did not know that Myrtle was with Dermot’s brother Niall in a corner booth, engaged in a determined kiss.

P
ATRICK
HAD
never been more nervous in his life. There was about an hour to go until he was due on stage and he had just read the note that Sheila had left in his dressing room.

It said she was leaving town for a while and would be basing herself in Boston, ‘for the next few months, at least, maybe longer’. She would be forwarding her phone number within the next two days, and, in the meantime, his gig schedule was all set through Mr Morrow’s venues, and Iggy’s secretary would be in touch to firm up any queries.

Patrick could not believe that Sheila had abandoned him in this way. How could he manage without her? He had no wife to look after him, no family to fall back on. Over the past few weeks Sheila had become everything to him. If she were younger, he might even have fallen in love with her. That evening, when he had taken a fall for her, he had thought that perhaps he already had. However, he knew that the warm feelings he had towards her were more gratitude than anything else. Without the help she had given him since he got here, he would be nothing. He owed her as much as, if not more than, he owed Ava.

He looked up at his mirror where Sheila had pinned the words of ‘It Was Only Ever You’. He felt a sting of regret for Rose but quickly pushed thoughts of her aside. That was what he always did. He had sung the song so many times now that he had almost forgotten why he had written it. Almost.

He picked up the Max Factor panstick and dabbed a little over his skin as Sheila had taught him to do, covering up any small blemishes on his face. Then he picked up the Brylcreem and comb and began to set his hair into a quiff. There was a time when, looking in the mirror like this, he would have felt secretly proud of how handsome he was. Perhaps, even, thrown himself a charming smile, trying it on for the audience. But tonight he was not in the mood. When he looked in the mirror all he saw was the empty room behind him. A space that should be filled with a wife or a lover. To lose both of those things in one year had been careless and stupid of him. Now, his manager had abandoned him as well. He struggled to hold his hand steady to put the last strand of his quiff in place, his big blue eyes staring angrily back at him. They were glittering with fear. He would not be able to do this tonight. Not alone. He needed someone else there to bolster him, to egg him on. Sheila had been the last one who could offer him the support he needed to get on stage. This was the biggest night of his life, he could not go through it alone.

Through the heavy walls Patrick heard the thump of the visiting showband starting up. He couldn’t sit there any longer fizzing with nerves. He had already drunk the two beers that had been left backstage for him and he needed another. He could try to sneak over to the bar, as he would do on a normal night, but this was his big debut and it would be bad form for him to be seen out front with the punters. Patrick decided to go to the heavy fire door that led from the office area to the dance hall. He could try and get the attention of one of the waitresses. Staff were trained to make sure the door was closed at all times, so if it was ajar somebody would notice him peering out. As he looked through the door, he half expected to see Sheila flying around the room in her black hipster garb, bossing people about. However, even if she had been, the huge room was so thronged with people he would have been hard pushed to find her. It was early for it to be so crowded, even for a Saturday night. With a rising wave of nausea Patrick remembered that all of these people were there to see him. He was shaking and badly needed another drink to calm his nerves. He narrowed his eyes and searched the crowd until he saw Gerry serving somebody at a booth. Waving frantically, his eyes moved to the booth itself and with a shocked jolt he saw Ava sitting there. He could hardly believe it. Had she come to see him? Was it possible? Why else would she be there? Again, Patrick waved frantically at Gerry, trying to get his attention, but Gerry walked away without seeing him. Patrick was considering sneaking over to her himself when Ava got up from the booth and moved across to the dance floor. Where was she going? He couldn’t see from where he was, and he could not follow her into the crowd, so Patrick ran backstage to look through the side curtain from where he would get a bird’s-eye view of the whole floor.

A small ray of hope opened inside him at the thought that, despite everything, perhaps his wife was returning to him. Perhaps he would not be alone this evening, after all. But then, as he looked out, Patrick saw that Ava was dancing a wild jive with some man. He vaguely recognized him, but could not say who he was. As the jive stopped and the music slowed down to a waltz, Patrick said a small prayer that Ava would move away from the dance floor to come and find him. But she didn’t. As they waltzed, the man’s arms wrapped around Ava. Ava was smiling as she leant into the man’s ear and said something. Hot tears poured down Patrick’s cheeks as the man’s face came into view and he saw it was Ava’s ex-fiancé. The man she had jilted to be with him. He had known that she was gone to him before tonight, but this seemed like a special, cruel reminder of all he had lost. After a few moments, Ava and her partner left, hand in hand.

Patrick felt all the old hurt flooding through him. Weakening him, poisoning his desire to sing. He had known that Ava did not love him any more, but the fact that he had hoped, made him feel impossibly sad. Nobody loved him. He had taken everybody’s love and ruined it. Abandoning Rose, betraying Ava and finally, he knew, clinging to Sheila like a child – needing more than she was willing to give.

Patrick wanted to run away, out the door, back on to the streets of New York, down to the docks and on to a boat back to Ireland. Back to his Saturday-night gigs in Ballina town hall, squabbling with his siblings over the leg of the Sunday chicken, gathering hay with his father, and those secret summer assignations with sweet, blonde Rose. He began to cry at the very thought of how his life had failed him, and he was just calculating if he had enough money to make a run for it when he heard Sheila’s voice in his head: ‘Stop crying, Patrick! You’re streaking that panstick. Just get out there and sing.’

Patrick wiped his hands across his face just as he heard Gerry bash his door shouting, ‘You’re on!’

There was still time. He could run past Gerry, through the back exit and leave it all behind.

*

Walking back to the office that afternoon Rose knew that she had to see Patrick again. She could not move on with her own life until she had resolved what had passed between them. She was no longer certain if she truly loved him any more. She only knew that the madness that had taken her recently had left her, and that she needed to apologize to Patrick for all that she had done.

The client meeting went well, but Rose was unable to get the need to see Patrick out of her head. Since hearing that song on the radio earlier, it was as if he was calling to her.

The image of Patrick, as he had been to her once, kept floating into her mind. His jet-black curls falling into his eyes, singing her some sweet love song as they lay on the grass at the back of her parents’ field. Those sharp blue eyes softening with desire, as he pulled her up to the surface of the lake that day. Rose did not need to be rescued any more. In the past two months she had learned to rescue herself, but she felt terrible about all that had happened in the past few months, and needed to, somehow, make amends. As much as she had pursued him before, Rose now felt the need to see Patrick to apologize, face to face, for all of the hurt she had caused him, and Ava. Only then would she be free to get on with her life properly. Perhaps, she thought, Patrick too needed her to set him free? Whatever the case, it was time to, literally, face the music.

Rose finished work at six and got straight on the subway to Yonkers. In all likelihood, Patrick would have moved on from the Emerald Ballroom by now. Certainly, if he had a record on the radio he would be hitting the big time. However, wherever he was, and whatever he was doing, the Emerald would be the best place to start her search.

*

‘Come on, Patrick.’

Gerry had been warned by Sheila that Patrick might get a fit of nerves. Without Patrick knowing it, Gerry had kept a close eye on him all evening. There was no way Gerry was going to give his charge more than two drinks or bring his estranged wife over to cause him a load of emotional upset before going on stage. Aside from anything else, Sheila would kill him if tonight didn’t run smoothly. Gerry felt bad for betraying her when he told Iggy about the Joe Higgins incident. He felt sure that was what had chased her out of town on what should have been her big night, as well as Patrick’s. It was up to him to make sure that kid got on stage and sang like a pro.

So, when there was no sign of Patrick, Gerry did what he thought Sheila would have done. He opened the door, grabbed Patrick by the arm and dragged him up on to the stage, literally giving him a sharp kick on the behind to propel him in front of the band.

Patrick had no time to question if he wanted to be here. The band had played the opening bars and he had to start singing. As he held the microphone to his mouth, he was aware of the audience, hundreds of people looking up at him, expecting something brilliant. Expecting entertainment, emotion, the evoking of love. ‘It Was Only Ever You’ was coming out of him automatically. He had sung it so many times before that as soon as the music came on he would start singing, despite himself. He crooned and moved the microphone backwards and forwards and swayed and made all of the right movements. But he wasn’t feeling it. As he went through the motions Patrick was actually glad that Sheila was not there to see him giving such a lacklustre performance. Halfway through the first verse he remembered Sheila once advising him to, ‘find a pretty girl in the audience and sing the song for her’.

So, Patrick looked out into the crowd.

There, like a vision – and Patrick believed that it was only a vision – in the middle of the dance floor, stood Rose Hopkins.

Could it be true... could it really be you... the one I search for in a song and waited for so long... was it only ever you?

As he sang to his ‘vision’ of Rose, Patrick began to feel the power of his voice. He remembered the first day he had fallen in love with the doctor’s daughter and how his song had stopped a bull from charging. His voice had saved a life and started a love story so great it had crossed an ocean.

Then, as he sang the words, ‘I tell myself you are the very reason I exist’, Patrick realized the whole truth of his life lay in that sentence he had written. It was not about Rose, after all. He did not need Rose or Ava or even Sheila to make him sing. He had been singing before he met any of them and he would be singing long after every lover, wife or manager had ever left him.

Music was his first love. It was ‘only ever’ about the music. Music had been the lover that had ruined his life. The promise of a career had lured him away from Rose. The stability and security he needed to build that career had been given to him by Ava. Sheila had elevated him from singer to star. Of all of them, Sheila understood him the best. He was an artist. His art would always come before human love. ‘It’s the way you’re made,’ Sheila had once told him. ‘Put the music first, life later,’ had always been her advice.

Patrick had only known one other person like that in his life. Someone who could get so lost in their work, so lost in their art, that it was as if nobody else existed. Somebody who seemed heedless of the feelings of others when in pursuit of something they loved.

That person was Rose. The song was not about the love he had for Rose, but the thing they shared in common – their love of music and art.