It Was Only Ever You (16 page)

‘And tell to me the very reason, why I am slighted so by thee.’

Bridie was transported back to her father’s knee at the Irish homestead in Ireland she had left behind over twenty years ago; Kitty remembered the day she had married her late husband; Jean thought of the boy she had loved in college. How many years since she had lost him, pretending she didn’t mind being on her own? But most struck of all by this young man was Italian socialite, Donna Dolan. She had never cared much for Irish music; her husband’s love for fiddle music over classical violin irritated her. However, this young ballad singer had genuine soul and for the first time in her life she began to understand and enjoy the romance of the John McCormack records her husband was always playing. After a while Donna found she was leaning back in her chair, smiling. As the wine and the music began to mingle, she found herself humming along. What a lovely afternoon she was having. It sure beat making small talk with this slightly common woman and her friends. Nessa, seeing Donna’s newly blissful demeanour, calmed down somewhat, although as the afternoon wore on, she began to feel uncomfortable about Ava, who seemed more taken with this young man than she ought to be.

She was very relieved when Tom arrived home earlier than expected.

‘What’s going on here?’ he said.

Patrick was leading the guests through a somewhat raucous rendition of ‘Home Boys Home’.

‘...and it’s home, boys, home’ – clap-clap – ‘home I’d like to be...’ The women had all had a few drinks by now; even Donna was pink-cheeked and clapping along to the chorus.

Tom threw off his hat and joined in – ‘...home I’d like to be – home far away in me own country...’ – until the song was finished, and the older women laughed and patted their hair, and began to gather themselves together.

‘Hey – seems I’ve missed quite a party here...’

Ava went straight over to her father and gave him a hug, saying, ‘Pop, this is Patrick – he needs your help.’

‘Well now, I don’t know about that. This young man looks as if he is doing just fine by himself.’

Patrick walked across the room holding out his hand. ‘I’m very pleased to meet you, Mr Brogan. I have heard a great deal about you and your kindness from Ava.’

‘I wouldn’t believe a word this young lady tells you. She’s a desperate blagger altogether!’

‘I don’t doubt it, sir,’ the young man said. His eyes flicked across to Ava and he grinned. Tom saw the way the boy’s eyes softened when he looked at his daughter. He also noted the expression of barely contained fury on his wife’s face.

‘Well, Patrick,’ Tom said, putting his arm around the young man’s shoulder and taking him off into the kitchen, ‘perhaps you and I should go out and see if we can find you a job and let these ladies get on with their party?’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Patrick said. ‘I’ll just collect my bag from the kitchen.’

‘No need,’ Nessa jumped in, nodding for Daisy to hand him his knapsack and jacket, before herding the two of them out to the car.

‘Perhaps I should go with you?’ Ava said.

Nessa looked as if she might explode, so her husband said, ‘No, Ava, you stay here and entertain your guests, my dear.’

This whole wedding thing really was bringing out the very worst in his wife. At the same time it was wisest to go along with her, so he gave her a reassuring nod as he put his arm around the young man and led him out through the front door.

As the door was closing Nessa remembered her manners and called out, ‘Thank you for the singing!’

Nessa felt relief that this would be the last they ever saw of that wretched young man.

O
N
THE
morning after the party Ava asked her father about Patrick, but he put her off, saying, ‘I think it’s just best for you to concentrate on your wedding plans, Ava.’

She knew that was because her mother was there, so she tried to talk to him about it again later but he simply said, ‘Patrick is in gainful employ and living in the city, you’ll be glad to hear,’ then went back to his paper.

Her father was always eager to talk about his work and Ava was hurt by this rejection. That aside, she was anxious to know what had happened to her protégé. Where was he working and what was he doing? Bartending or washing dishes? Was he singing? If he told her that, then maybe she might be able to ask her father what he thought of Patrick. He had seemed to like him. What had they talked about in the car that day? Did Patrick ask about her? But the subject was not up for discussion and Ava didn’t push it. She knew why Tom didn’t want to elaborate and he was right. It was disloyal of her to be showing any interest in another man. Thinking about Patrick was the height of silliness. It was wrong. She was engaged to Dermot and things were all set. Dermot was a good, kind man and she wanted to marry him. The church was booked for three months’ time and the reception was to be a grand affair in the Waldorf. She was having her dress made by Sybil Connolly, with her first fitting that very weekend. Almost every moment of her spare time since the engagement had been taken up going to see florists, and hat designers, and choosing stationery for the invitations with her mother. Dermot had been very busy with his work and so they had barely seen each other since the engagement. He seemed happy to let her mother, and his, make all the decisions. She didn’t mind one way or the other about the arrangements, and she supposed this relaxed indifference was a sort of love. Although it felt like the opposite of passion, not minding one way or the other was easy. But was an easy life what she should aspire to?

Every now and again Ava could not help but think about that afternoon. Even if Patrick had wanted to kiss her, perhaps it meant nothing. Boys kissed girls all the time these days. Dermot had asked her to marry him and she had said yes. That was the promise she had to keep now.

*

‘You do realize we haven’t even been dancing for eight weeks?’ said Myrtle, when Ava called to ask if her friend wanted to come to the dress fitting with her.

‘I’m engaged, Myrtle,’ she said. ‘Why would I be going dancing with you? I’m not looking for a man any more.’

‘Well I am.’

‘Nonsense – you’ve too many of them after you, that’s your problem.’

‘You were never looking for a man anyway,’ said Myrtle. ‘You just loved dancing...’

‘Love dancing...’

‘Well it doesn’t feel like it – all the gang are asking where you are.’

‘Dermot hates dancing,’ she said.

‘You can say that again,’ Myrtle said. ‘I danced with him once, at Patsy Kenny’s wedding. He took me round and round in one direction, over and over again. It was like carrying a tree trunk from one end of the dance floor to the other. An endurance test – I thought it was never going to end!’

Ava didn’t like Myrtle saying what a dreadful dancer her fiancé was. Dermot may well be a klutz on the dance floor, but he was a good man and she didn’t like him being laughed at.

‘Come on,’ Myrtle said, ‘you come dancing this Thursday and I’ll come to your wedding dress fitting on Saturday, even though I shall be sick with envy.’

‘You could click your fingers and have any man you wanted, Myrtle. Not like me...’

‘And yet you’ve ended up with Dermot, and the prize of a fancy lawyer husband.’

Dermot was nice, but he didn’t feel like a prize. Ava pushed the thought aside and agreed to meet her friend.

*

After an hour on the dance floor Ava took a break at the bar, for the slow set. It wasn’t like before; this evening it was by choice. It seemed that news of her engagement, as well as her change in style, had transformed the menfolk at the Emerald Ballroom. At least three of her regular dance partners had asked her to save a slow dance for them. One of them had even followed her back to the booth and made a lunge at her ear. While she quickly put him off, Ava was enjoying the attention, although part of her felt sad that her time as one of the pretty, popular single girls would be coming to an end before it had properly begun.

‘Hello, stranger,’ Gerry said. ‘I hardly knew you with the new style.’

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Slumming it tonight?’

Gerry was the manager here and only tended bar on quiet nights or if they were short.

‘Training in a new guy – he’s on a break. What can I get you? Still on the coffee?’

‘Thanks. How’s business? No showband in tonight?’

‘Cancellation – Big Tom and the lads got caught in Chicago for an extra night – bit of a mix-up with dates.’

‘Bad luck. The resident band looks a bit short too.’ It felt good to be having this conversation; like coming home.

‘Singer has flu. Leo is normally on drums...’

Ava looked towards the stage where a bulky man in a tuxedo was making a very poor job of ‘All I Have to do Is Dream’.

‘God love him,’ Ava said, ‘he’s doing his best.’

‘He makes a reasonable fist of it usually, but I think he has a touch of the flu himself tonight— Ah, here comes the new boy. Excuse me, Ava...’

Wearing the staff uniform, a green waistcoat and bow tie, was Patrick.

Of course he worked here, of course, why had she not thought of that? This was the first place her father brought all new arrivals to look for work. Perhaps he had assumed Ava would have known that and come here looking for him anyway? Ava found herself completely thrown; her head was spinning, her stomach in knots – what had come over her? She needed to gather herself before he saw her.

She quickly turned her head back towards the stage and was about to walk away when she heard him say her name.

‘Ava?’

He slid a cup of coffee towards her and smiled.

When he smiled, she smiled back at him – despite herself. The fear was gone in an instant. As soon as he spoke to her everything felt normal again. Everything felt right.

‘That’s me.’

‘Fancy seeing you here,’ he said. ‘I wrote to your father and thanked him – did he get my letter?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

‘I suppose I should have written to you too,’ he said. ‘After all, you were the one who introduced me to him. You were the one who...’

He wanted to say ‘rescued me’ but it didn’t sound very masculine.

‘Oh no,’ she said, rather too emphatically, imagining how Nessa would have reacted to her receiving a letter from the young man. ‘There was really no need, it was...’

She wanted to say a pleasure, but then thought that might sound suggestive, which was ridiculously Victorian of her, and that made her blush and shake her own head and laugh, then Patrick started laughing with her. Gerry looked down the bar and saw his new young barman flirting with poor, plain Ava. Although she wasn’t so plain any more. Wasn’t it amazing what a bit of lipstick and a new hairdo could do for a girl?

When the song ended, a rush of customers landed up at Gerry’s end of the bar so he called Patrick down to serve them. The band started up with ‘Love Me Tender’. Leo, the drummer/singer, coughed loudly into the microphone and he blanched. ‘Jesus, but Leo really is brutal tonight. I think we’d be better off going full instrumental tonight – although the girls do love the few words...’

The idea hit Ava like a slap to the head.

‘I’m surprised you’re letting Leo away with it when you have the best singer in all of County Mayo under your roof tonight.’

‘And who would that be then?’

‘Your new barman – Patrick. I saw him sing at a wedding a while back.’

‘I thought you two looked as if you’ve met before...’

‘Not like that, Gerry! He was really good...’

‘Thanks, Ava, but I think I’d better stick with the professionals.’

‘Really?’ Ava said. ‘How long have I been coming here? I know a good singer when I hear one and Patrick is very good.’

‘I don’t know.’ Gerry grimaced. ‘The band don’t like strangers coming in. I don’t want to upset Leo either – good drummers are the hardest to find.’

But Gerry had learned that it was sometimes worth listening to the young ones. In a business like this the crowd could grow old without you even noticing. So he handed her his list and Ava nodded.

‘“Rock Around the Clock”, “The Galway Shawl”, and “The Locomotion” – nothing too complicated there. Sure, he knows them all...’

She could tell she had got Gerry’s attention now.

‘Leave Leo to me. You give that list to Patrick, and then take over the bar for an hour. I promise he won’t let you down.’

Then before he had time to object, Ava ran across the empty dance floor to the front of the stage. All the guys in the resident band loved her. Ava’s exuberant dancing got them through the sometimes humdrum business of playing to the same crowd night after night, week after week. As soon as he saw her, even though he was halfway through a song, Leo came to the front of the stage. The dance floor was nearly empty anyway.

After a few seconds, he stood back up, finished the song, and then announced,‘Ladies and gentlemen, we have a very special guest here tonight. You all know our favourite girl, Ava, and she’s going to introduce her friend.’

He hauled Ava up the high step to the side of the stage. She was not even nervous addressing the peppering of dancers that was still there. She could not see the seated crowd beyond them over the stage lights.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to introduce a very special young singer, Patrick Murphy, from County Mayo. You know him from behind the bar here in the Emerald – the best ballroom in New York State...’ A cheer went up, and she felt a wave of excitement at how easily the words came flooding out of her, despite never having been on stage before. ‘Gerry is behind the bar for the next half-hour so you had better get the drinks in quick. Grab your partners – because our Mayo Man is going to start us off with a rocking jive – “Rock Around the Clock”!’

Once Patrick was on stage, Leo took off his sequin- collared purple jacket and gave it to the young singer before handing him the microphone.

From the bar Gerry watched in amazement. He didn’t know what Ava had said to charm his truculent drummer, but she was some player, that was for sure.

Patrick did not have time to think or be nervous. Gerry had simply shoved the list at him, and then pushed him towards the stage. He didn’t worry about the slow set, he knew every Irish ballad by heart, but rock and roll was new territory for him. Aside from that one time at the wedding, and once or twice in the Emerald, he had never really performed with a proper band – a big, professional outfit like this – and certainly never to such a big crowd. At that moment, Patrick was not even sure that he knew the words to ‘Rock Around the Clock’. Before the panic set hold of him, he felt Ava grip his arm and she looked at him calmly and said, ‘You’ve seen Bill Haley at the cinema – imagine you are him.’