Always You (22 page)

‘I didn’t say that,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s possible something else happened to the letters, isn’t it?’

‘Like what? And who else could’ve taken the phone call?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said glumly, and looked at the palms of her hands.

‘Are you forgetting just how much your father hated me back then, Sarah? And probably still does. Even decent, moral men can be corrupted by hate.’

Her stomach was a ball of nerves, like tangled Christmas tree lights. ‘I don’t believe my father is one of those men. I don’t believe he would lie to me.’

‘I feel as if you’re choosing them over me. Again.’

‘That’s not true!’ she cried and her bottom lip quivered. ‘I’m here now, seeing you, aren’t I, against their wishes? Do you have any idea how hard that is for me?’ She took a deep breath and said sadly, ‘I don’t have the answers, Cahal. All I know is that they’re telling the truth. Please don’t be angry with me.’

‘I’m not angry with you, darling. I’m angry with them. For breaking us up in the first place.’

‘But they didn’t, Cahal, did they?’ A single tear slid down her right cheek. ‘I did that all by myself.’

‘Don’t cry, Sarah,’ he whispered, wiping the tear away with his forefinger. He pulled her to him and held her tight. ‘You were only a girl. It was expecting too much asking you to stand up to them.’

‘But it was my fault, Cahal,’ she said into his chest. ‘It was my fault I lost you.’

It was June 1992. Sarah sat on the bus headed for Ballyfergus with her head full of the promises she’d made to Cahal – and her heart full of fear. She’d persuaded him that breaking the news of the engagement to her family before the exams was a bad idea. The ensuing uproar would be too much of a distraction.

‘I’ll tell them as soon as the exams are over. I promise,’ she’d said, clinging to him in the darkness of the night. In her heart she knew she could put it off no longer. She knew he was hurt and his rising resentment was pushing them apart, a dark cloud over their happiness.

And now the exams were finished and she had no more excuses. Only the dread that grew with every mile the bus travelled, bringing her closer to Ballyfergus. She stared out the window and tried to calm her frazzled nerves. It had rained on and off all day but now the clouds had broken up and late afternoon sun bathed the lush green fields and the white-washed cottages, lending everything a golden hue.

Cahal had offered to come with her but, in anticipation of her father’s reaction, and her aunt’s, she turned him down. This was something she must do alone. Cahal made telling them sound so simple but she knew it would change her relationship with them forever.

She’d tried to tell them before, but this time it was different. The Claddagh ring she’d worn constantly on her ring finger for the past six weeks filled her with courage and reminded her that she was an adult now, free to make her own choices in life. So why, by the time the bus pulled into town on Friday teatime, did she feel so nervous she thought she might vomit?

Aunt Vi had gone to a lot of trouble. ‘I’ve made your favourite, Sarah,’ she said, wiping her hands on her apron. ‘Homemade chicken and leek pie.’

They all sat round the small square table, Dad and Aunt Vi facing each other, Sarah facing Becky. Sarah feigned relish as she forced down the food, each mouthful tasting like mud, her right temple pulsing with pain. She asked Becky about her week at school and enquired after Mrs Riley and smiled tolerantly when Aunt Vi complained about a new recruit to the choir who couldn’t sing. No one listening would’ve known that her heart beat so fast her ears were ringing with it. Or that her stomach felt like it had been turned inside out. When they were all finished eating and the plates had been scraped clean, Sarah knew this was the moment. She opened her mouth to speak but the muscles in her jaw refused to co-operate.

‘Can I go and watch
Brookside
?’ said Becky.

Sarah grabbed a glass and took a long drink.

Aunt Vi, sitting on Sarah’s left, tutted. ‘You know we don’t like you watching that rubbish, Becky. It’s not suitable for a girl your age.’

‘Maybe we can find something suitable for everyone to watch,’ suggested Dad. He put his hands on the table and started to ease himself out of the chair.

‘I’ve made apple crumble for afters,’ said Aunt Vi.

‘Oh, thanks Aunt Vi! Can we have it in front of the TV?’ said Becky hopefully.

‘You know we eat at the table, love, not in front of the TV,’ said Aunt Vi, not unkindly.

Sarah dug her nails into her palms and almost shouted, ‘Actually, I’ve something to tell you all.’

‘Oh?’ said Dad and he eased himself back into the chair. Aunt Vi pushed her plate away.

Sarah glanced at Becky for support but, bored already, she was idly kicking the table leg with the toe of her plimsoll. She was only a kid.

Sarah tried to recall the preamble she had so carefully prepared on the bus journey home. But staring into her father’s calm blue eyes, her mind went blank. Time passed and she felt Aunt Vi tense. She always anticipated bad news, and this time she would not be disappointed. ‘What is it, love?’

Sarah turned to look at her aunt’s grey eyes, magnified behind the wire-framed glasses perched on her nose. Then she looked back at her father and remembered what Cahal had said to her boarding the bus. ‘Remember how much I love you, Sarah. And no matter what anyone thinks or says, we are meant to be together. Don’t ever forget that.’

Her heartbeat slowed and she felt a growing warmth in her stomach. ‘I’m engaged to Cahal Mulvenna.’

Becky’s eyes opened wide and she clapped her hands and cried out, ‘Oh, Sarah’s going to get married. And I’m going to be a bridesmaid!’

Sarah smiled thinly. But the silence that followed this outburst was the most deafening she had ever heard. Aunt Vi clasped her hands together on the table and bent her head. Her knuckles went white. Dad stared at his sister, then touched his right eyebrow with his index finger, the muscles on his face all working at once. Becky, sensing the awful atmosphere, stared at the table and bit her bottom lip.

The warmth in Sarah’s stomach turned to ice. She tried to recall Cahal’s image and feel his touch, knowing that it would give her strength. But she could not bring to mind his face and all she felt was fear.

Dad spoke first. ‘Becky, go and watch the TV.’

She slid off the chair. ‘Don’t I have to help clear up the dishes first?’

‘Not tonight,’ he snapped, without looking at her. She gave Sarah a woeful glance and slipped quietly from the room. Sarah’s heart sank as the door closed behind her little sister. With her only ally gone, she felt like a lamb to the slaughter.

‘How long have you been engaged?’ said Dad, his head quivering as if he had a touch of Parkinsons.

She lifted her chin. ‘Six weeks.’

‘Where’s the ring, then?’ said Dad scornfully, with a sharp glance at Sarah’s left hand.

‘In the pocket of my jacket.’ She’d slipped it off before the bus reached Ballyfergus. That had been a mistake. It made her look like a coward and undermined her credibility.

Aunt Vi blew air out of her nose, lifted her head and gave Sarah a filthy look. ‘I can’t believe you’ve done this. And without even telling us, David. What kind of man would enter into an engagement without asking for your father’s permission first?’

Sarah steeled herself. ‘Why do you think he didn’t ask? We knew you’d never agree to it.’

Aunt Vi went on, addressing Dad, ‘He hasn’t even got the decency to come here and face us himself.’

‘He wanted to come but I told him not to. Do you think I’d ask him to sit here and listen to you two denigrate him and his family, just because they’re working-class Catholics?’

‘Sarah, please,’ said Aunt Vi, softening. ‘You’re too young to understand.’ She glanced at Dad. He lowered his eyes and Aunt Vi said, ‘If you marry him, it will be a disaster for you and your family.’

‘No it won’t. I love him and he loves me. And it’ll only be disaster for you and Dad if you refuse to accept him.’

‘Sarah,’ said Aunt Vi sadly, ‘we can never accept him into our family.’

Sarah fought back the tears. ‘Yes, you can. Just give him a chance. I promise you, if you get to know him, you’ll like him. No one could help but like him. Cahal’s parents have met me. Why can’t you meet him?’

Aunt Vi’s face went red and Sarah said, ‘Dad?’

‘Ian Aitken doesn’t like him,’ he said, sitting upright in his chair, his rigid physical posture akin to his moral one.

‘What’s this got to do with Ian?’

Dad inclined his head a little. ‘He’s a trusted family friend, Sarah. He’s simply trying to look out for you. And I consider his judgement very sound.’

‘He’s trying to break me and Cahal up,’ said Sarah angrily. ‘Not because he’s concerned about me, but because he wants us to get back together.’

‘You could do a lot worse,’ said Aunt Vi.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ snapped Sarah. ‘Why are we talking about Ian?’ Taking a moment to compose herself, she ran a hand through her hair. The anger made her both brave and surprisingly calm, in spite of the way her left leg jiggled under the table and a muscle in her cheek twitched uncontrollably. ‘You’ve both made your feelings perfectly clear. I’m sorry that you can’t be happy for me. But we’re going to get married this summer and there’s nothing you can do to stop us.’

She stood up. Her legs felt like jelly and, though the room was only a few paces wide, the kitchen door seemed like a long way away. She started to move towards it, praying she would make it to her room without collapsing. She was shaken but she’d stood her ground. Cahal would be proud of her. The sooner she and Cahal were married the better. ‘Sarah,’ said her father’s voice, freezing her to the spot.

She turned and stared at him. She should’ve known he would not let it go at that. ‘Come and sit down.’ His voice was quiet and, unnervingly, utterly devoid of emotion.

She obeyed, as her heart sank into the boots she’d travelled home in and still not taken off.

Once she was seated at the table again, he stared straight ahead. ‘I’m not going to discuss this with you, Sarah.’

‘There’s nothing to discuss. I’ve made my mind up.’

He dismissed her comment with a blink of his eyelids and carried on as if she had not spoken. He still treated her like a child and, infuriatingly she still acted like one sometimes. ‘As long as I’m paying for your education and you’re living under this roof, you’ll do as I say. You are to break off this engagement and promise never to see Cahal Mulvenna again.’

She opened her mouth in astonishment. How could he do that to his own daughter? He couldn’t possibly be serious. ‘You can’t do that.’

‘Don’t think for a minute that I don’t mean it. If you don’t do as I ask, I’ll throw you and all your possessions out of this house and we’ll see how long you last on your own.’

She felt empty inside as if her guts had been hollowed out. Her own father would do this to her? She stared at his square jaw and rigid back and realised that he meant every word. But she would not let him blackmail her. She thought of the long hours Cahal spent working in The Anchor bar, the awful digs he lived in, how he had to be so careful with money. But if he could do it, so could she. Her cheeks burned with indignation. ‘I’ll get a job to supplement my grant. Lots of people do it. I don’t need your money.’

He stared at her coldly. ‘Do this, and I will make sure you never see your sister again.’

Appalled by this, she hesitated, glanced at her aunt’s unreadable face and said, ‘You can’t stop me seeing her.’

‘So long as she’s a minor, I can stop her doing anything I want.’

Sarah gasped. Becky, whom she loved as much as Cahal, was just twelve years old. How could she bear not seeing her for years to come? She stared at the door through which Becky had just exited, but it wasn’t Becky she saw in her mind’s eye. It was her mother in that hospital ward and the words of her promise rang inside her head. Much as she loved her father, he had never been a hands-on Dad and he left the raising of his children to Aunt Vi. She did her best, but she was too strict and old-fashioned and she got more and more paranoid with each passing year. Without Sarah to moderate her aunt’s controlling tendencies, Becky’s life would be hell.

Hot tears sprang to her eyes and curses sprang to her bloodless lips. ‘You evil bastard,’ she cried. Aunt Vi put her hands to her mouth and Sarah stood up knocking her chair over in the process.

‘Don’t you dare use that –’ began Aunt Vi but Dad shook his head, and that was enough to silence her.

She stared at her father’s immovable face, her legs almost buckling beneath her, and waited. But he just sat there implacable as a cow chewing the cud and said nothing more. Sarah’s gut felt like it was spilled. Her dreams fell about her in tatters, all her brave words and heroic plans crushed to smithereens under the boot of his ultimate authority. Her situation was impossible.

Three weeks later she stood on the Nun’s Walk, a dramatic cliff path on the southern edge of Portstewart Bay. Cahal put his arms around her shoulders and pulled her close, but his embrace gave her no comfort, no respite from the torment that was tearing her apart. She shivered involuntarily though she wore a jacket and the June evening was warm and pleasant.

Far below the safety railing the sea crashed against the rocks throwing up furls of white froth and a light breeze blew in from the west. Behind them the white walls of the Dominican convent rose straight into the sky, as forbidding as any fortress.

‘I love you, Sarah,’ he said into her hair, as the setting sun, orange as a glowing ember, touched the edge of the horizon.

‘I love you too,’ she said but her voice sounded disconnected, unreal, and her heart was numb.

He released her and took a step back. ‘Don’t do this, Sarah. Don’t hold back on me.’

He was wearing his waiter’s uniform of black trousers and white shirt, his leather jacket on top. Now that his exams were over, he’d started a second job waiting tables in the Strand Hotel and worked fifteen hours a day. He said he could go without sleep, so long as he had her.

‘We’ve been over this a hundred times,’ he said, his tone somewhere between irritation and despair. ‘You can’t let him blackmail you. Even if he means it now – and I’m betting it’s just a bluff – he’ll mellow once we’re married and he realises there’s nothing he can do about it.’