It Was Only Ever You (28 page)

‘I came to find you.’

Patrick had suspected that to be the case but, even so, he was frightened. He didn’t even ask how she had got there or whether her parents knew where she was. All he could think of, right now, was that Ava could not find out.

‘Well, now you have found me. You can’t stay here. It’s out of the question. Ava does not know that we were sweethearts...’

‘I haven’t told her.’

‘Good.’ He stopped short of saying thank you.

‘It was my parents, Patrick. My father tricked me, he tricked both of us. I didn’t get your letters, I found them in my father’s desk and as soon as I found them I came straight away. I thought you didn’t love me any more...’

‘I don’t love you any more.’

Rose took a sharp intake of breath. It was as if she had been stabbed. She looked at his face. He had to love her. He must be lying. For a terrible moment she imagined that perhaps she was just believing that to save herself the pain of having chased across the world on a whim for a man she thought loved her. If he didn’t love her then she was the greatest fool that ever lived. If he didn’t love her, it was so much more than the humiliation and the hurt. Patrick was everything to her. If Patrick didn’t love her everything would be gone. Life would not be worth living.

‘I’m with Ava now. We’re married.’

Patrick was as white as a sheet and his gaze was flitting around the room.

He was lying. Rose felt a thin veil of relief.

‘Say it again,’ she said. ‘Look me in the eye and tell me again that you don’t love me.’

He looked at her – pitiful, pleading.

‘I don’t need to say it again. I love Ava. I married Ava...’

If he stayed hard and tough Rose would go away. He wanted her to go away, although now that she was here, sitting in front of him, in the flesh, his beautiful, delicate Rose, close enough to him to reach out and touch her hair and feel the soft lips at the end of his thumb, Patrick was no longer sure of anything.

‘You have to leave,’ he said. ‘You must see how impossible this is.’

He had thought he would never see her again. He had, perhaps, hoped that would be the case. Her father had sent him to America to keep them away from each other. He understood that now. In some small part of himself, Patrick feared that perhaps that had been the case all along. Perhaps, in some hidden part of himself, he had traded his love of Rose for the opportunity to come to America. Now, when everything was working out so well, his past had turned up to punish him.

Ava opened the door, abruptly, and they both started slightly.

‘How have you two been getting along?’

Ava stood looking puzzled at them both until Rose said, ‘Just fine.’

Patrick smiled, his best, most convincing stage smile. This was a nightmare, but if he didn’t play along, he feared Rose would tell Ava everything. Aside from the fact that he had been in love with Rose, Patrick knew that the way in which he had abandoned her might upset kind-hearted Ava more. Even if he had thought to tell her the truth, the moment he saw Rose in their house, the lie had begun and now he had no choice but to follow it through.

‘Although,’ Rose added, ‘I do not want to be a burden on you.’

‘Why, there is no burden at all,’ said Ava. ‘Is there, Patrick?’

‘No,’ he said. Everything out of his mouth now was a lie. Curse Rose. What was she playing at? Where would this end?

‘No, thank you, I’ll stay at the convent, but if I could just get a job,’ Rose said, ‘something small, anywhere. I suppose, in a way, I’m being selfish.’ She added, ‘I have not seen anything since I got here and I would just love to work somewhere that I might see a bit of the New York life I’ve heard so much about.’

Rose knew, in some part of herself, that she was being cruel, manipulating Ava’s good nature in this way. She was, truly, a lovely woman. It was not her fault that Patrick did not love her, could never love Ava, the way he loved her. This was something Ava had got caught up in. Something she could never understand. Rose felt bad for her. Worse, she felt bad lying and wheedling to get her own way. But what choice did she have? Patrick was, after all, the love of her life. After talking with Ava it was clear that she had not stolen him from her. Rose was confident that Ava had not even known she existed. That, in itself, gave Rose some comfort. The fact that Patrick had lied to Ava, and never explained to her about their love, their engagement, was testament that she must still mean something to him. The fact that Ava was pregnant made it even worse. But Rose knew that her love was pure and true. Great passion meant great sacrifices. And the passion Rose shared with Patrick was not the ordinary love of everyday life. It was something so much bigger than marriage. They were soulmates. Nothing could part them. Not her parents, not the great Atlantic Ocean, not even marriage to another woman – however nice she was. They were meant to be together. And even if Patrick did not have the courage to face that right now, in time he would.

‘I’ve got an idea,’ Ava said, taking up her guest’s cue. ‘Patrick, why don’t you take Rose into work with you tomorrow? You can collect her from the convent, I’ll call Gerry now. I’m sure he’ll be able to find some small job for her.’

‘I don’t want to be any trouble,’ Rose said.

‘It’s no trouble at all, is it, Patrick?’ Ava said, looking at him firmly.

He really was being insufferably childish. Ava could not imagine why he was behaving so badly, but while she was irritated by his taciturn manners, she was, at least, comforted by the fact that he obviously did not have any particular ghrá for this beautiful girl from back home.

‘A
GAIN
!’

Patrick had sung ‘It’s Only Make Believe’ half a dozen times, and he still could not get it right.

Sheila had decided that, like Conway Twitty who had made the song a hit, Patrick’s voice was best suited to contemporary ballads. His being Irish, he had a country twang. However, she was anxious to get away from the Irish ballads and pure country – she would never get a hit out of that. ‘It’s Only Make Believe’ was, she felt, the perfect song for him. But it was also Conway Twitty’s song, and Patrick was performing just like a poor version of somebody else today. No matter what she gave him to sing, he seemed to turn it into a dirge. His voice was as strong as ever but his eyes were completely dead. There was no life in him, no passion. The voice was passable, but he was an unconvincing performer. Sheila was starting to get annoyed. She didn’t need a copycat, she needed an original star, but Patrick was letting them both down with these lacklustre performances.

As his voice reached for the crescendo, Sheila waved her cigarette at him.

‘Stop, Patrick. You sound awful. I don’t know what’s wrong with you today...’

‘I’m sorry, Sheila.’

At least he knew something was wrong himself.

‘Would anyone like some coffee? It’s just finished brewing.’

It was that irritating Irish girl again. She was a kid from Patrick’s hometown. Some kind of a runaway. Patrick and the girl had come in with his wife, a plain-looking woman who, although friendly enough, kept insisting that her father was some Irish big shot who knew Iggy. That irritated Sheila far more than it impressed her, but she took on their sad case anyway. For no other reason than she thought her pretty face about the place might put a bit of life into Patrick. Having her young star married with a child on the way was an unnatural state of affairs for an aspiring pop singer. Girls and drugs and parties were what made great rock and roll singers. Not nagging wives and weeping children. However, it was clear that this girl was madly in love with him. Every time Sheila turned around she was there offering coffee or lazily wiping down a booth, while gazing up at him with a sometimes frightening intensity. Frankly, the girl seemed a bit nuts. Sheila had hoped she might provide an adoring audience. However, it seemed more likely that the simpering admiration was putting Patrick off his singing rather than adding to it. She had thought she should probably get rid of her, but at the same time it was important that Patrick learned how to sing the same, whatever else is going on in his life. The kid needed to man up and not let his life being run by a bossy wife or the lovelorn attention of a pretty girl. He had to get used to singing to crazy fans if he was going to be a star. Although by his performance today, that was seeming less likely than ever.

Sheila really needed Patrick to become a star.

In the past couple of weeks she had begun to feel unnerved by her situation. Here she was, again, managing a club and sleeping with her boss. Iggy wasn’t married, although he was so distant and secretive he could just as well be and nobody would ever know it. He was, when he was around, an attentive and caring lover. He gave her small gifts, although they were never insulting (underwear) or extravagant (jewellery she would never wear), as many of Dan’s gifts had been. He was careful in his manner too, and Sheila understood his reticence as respect. There were certainly no insistent professions of love as there had been from Dan and she was grateful for that. Sheila hated being lied to more than anything else, but this meant that she had a tendency to believe men when they told her they loved her; the alternative – that they were lying to please her – being too dreadful to contemplate. Sheila had believed Dan was in love with her, and that silly belief had prolonged the affair, making it more than it should ever have been. Now, here she was in the same situation again. Iggy was as straightforward and honest a person as herself; she trusted that. However, he was pathologically secretive, and that was, in itself, a kind of lying. Nobody knew where Iggy would be from week to week. She knew that was how he ran his business and how he kept control of his empire, but nonetheless, Sheila felt uncomfortable always living on the edge of his life. Iggy himself admitted that it was a ‘strange way to live’, but he could see nothing wrong with it. Indeed, Sheila had always lived life on her own unconventional terms. However, they were her terms as part of her life. Living on the edge of somebody else’s was a completely different matter. From day to day, Sheila did not know where her lover was or when he would be back in New York again. She was being sucked into his footloose, routineless way of living and she didn’t like it. This uncertainty had led her to stay with her aunt and uncle in Riverdale for the time being. They did not ask about her comings and goings. Auntie made up cold plates for her supper and left them in the Frigidaire for whenever she might be around. They did not know she had a lover, and the nights that she spent in hotels with Iggy they put down to late working hours. They were so grateful for the time that they had with her that, although every week Sheila intended to leave and find her own apartment again, somehow she returned to the comfort of sharing some semblance of a domestic life – standing at the sink washing out somebody else’s cup, listening to the radio with her uncle – however fleeting it might turn out to be.

In addition to that, she did not want to tie herself down financially to rental lease when she had no idea how long she would be around. She knew, already, that history was repeating itself and that she did not intend to stay managing the Emerald and being Iggy Morrow’s mistress indefinitely. As soon as Patrick’s career was up and running and he had a recording contract she would be able to leave and start expanding her portfolio. However, she had to find him a hit record first, and songwriters weren’t cheap. She didn’t want to have to charm that money out of Iggy; not, indeed, that charming anything out of Iggy was possible, but if she didn’t come up with something soon, her dreams would start to disintegrate again. And Sheila could feel she was close, so close to success now, she wasn’t going to let it go again.

‘Let’s wrap it up for the day, Patrick,’ she said, ignoring Rose. Then, more to punish him than anything else, added, ‘I’m sure Patrick could use a coffee, sweetheart. You guys go ahead. If Gerry needs me, I’m in the office.’

Sheila went into the office then nearly jumped out of her skin when Iggy suddenly appeared standing next to the filing cabinet as she shut the door.

‘Christ! What the hell are you doing in here?!’

The curse came out before she even knew what she was saying. Iggy laughed. He loved when this happened. It was the closest he came to having fun in his job. Once people had been working for him for a while they got used to his sudden appearances, and that took the amusement out of it.

‘This is not funny,’ she said. ‘I could have had a heart attack.’

‘Well, you didn’t,’ he said, putting his arms around her waist and pulling her into him, ‘although your heart is beating kind of fast. Just let me check in here...’ He placed his hand gently on her breast.

Sheila’s eyes fluttered closed, and she leaned back, unable to help herself. No matter what time of the day or night he suddenly appeared like this, she always wanted him.

She made herself pull away.

‘I’m busy. If you can turn up like this to check up on me, you can’t expect me to drop my pants every time you come into the room.’

Iggy flinched. He hated when she referred to work and ‘them’ in the same sentence. It made what they had seem cheap. And it wasn’t cheap. Not to him. Iggy had never been in this situation before. Sleeping with somebody that worked for him. He made a point of never doing it. Sheila was an exception. She had been an exception since that first night, he knew that now. Although he did not like to admit it, Iggy was in love. All the signs were there. When they were alone in a room together all he could think about was making love to her. Everything she said, even the banal, everyday business of their work together, was fascinating or amusing just because it was Sheila saying it. When she cursed him, he laughed. When she berated or belittled him, he couldn’t feel angry. Instead, it felt like a knife in his chest. She weakened him, and in her company sometimes he felt powerless. At the same time, however hard she appeared, some nights after they had made love, when she could be persuaded to spend the night with him in his hotel, he would watch her sleeping and his breath would catch at how delicate and vulnerable and warm she was. In life, Sheila was feisty, a livewire. In her sleep, and in some of the quieter, gentle moments in their lovemaking, Iggy sensed a tenderness, a sensitivity he found too compelling to name. Sheila was, in her lithe figure and her hidden spirit, he believed, like a child-woman. She was tough and it was no game, he knew she was no pushover, he could not pull the wool over her eyes in business or in their private life, and nor would he attempt to. However, on some level he knew that she needed looking after. For the first time in his life, Iggy felt that was something he wanted to do. But he mistrusted that instinct and pushed it to one side. Partly because he knew she would never concede, and partly because the idea of loving someone that much, being tied to somebody else’s life, somebody else’s needs, was beyond him.