It Was Only Ever You (40 page)

But, whatever he had done, Patrick was still her husband. He had made a mistake, one mistake, albeit a very serious one. But, underneath it all, he was a good man, and Ava knew he would have been suffering. Patrick had always told her that he could never be a success without her. And now that his dream was coming true, the very foundation on which it was built had crumbled. He must be feeling dreadful. Ava, for all the pain she still felt at his having betrayed her, still felt a deep loyalty to the love they had shared and to the baby they had made and then lost. They were married. Surely that meant they should stick together, no matter what?

All of this was swirling in a confusing soup of conflicting thoughts and emotions in her head as she sat down for breakfast that morning.

Nessa put the cornflakes packet in front of her and asked, ‘When are you going to see Dermot again?’

You could tell from her voice that she had been clinging on to the question since their afternoon out, a week ago.

‘Really, Ava, he is such a nice man.’

Ava felt like screaming at her but instead she just nodded and said, ‘I know.’

There was no point in trying to explain any of her thoughts to her mother. In any case, Nessa was right, Dermot was a very nice man. But then, he always had been. He had just never been quite ‘enough’ somehow. That was something that she could never hope to make her mother understand. In truth, Ava struggled to understand it herself.

In any case, Ava had a feeling that Dermot would always be there, but if she wanted to hold on to Patrick, and their marriage, she would have to act fast.

Whatever the future held for them, Ava knew that she should be there for him on his important night. She would simply go along as a member of the audience. Maybe they would talk. Or maybe he would just see that she was there to support him. Whether they would be able to put the past behind them and reunite was a matter for later. However, Ava knew she had to at least try to make it work.

‘Anyway, I’m going out tonight,’ she said to Nessa. She did not tell her where or who with and Nessa had the good sense not to ask. Although, as she stood at the sink facing out the kitchen window, she beamed heartily, believing it was Dermot. Wait until she told Tom!

Ava telephoned Myrtle while her mother was out of earshot to see if she would come along as her partner in crime. She did not mention Patrick, just that she would like to go dancing at the Emerald. If Myrtle told her that it was Patrick’s gig, something she would surely know about, Ava would try and persuade her it didn’t matter. But, she didn’t.

‘I’m busy tonight,’ she said.

‘A date?’ Ava asked. If Myrtle met a man now and left her, Ava did not know what she would do.

‘Maybe,’ Myrtle said mysteriously, then quickly rang off saying, ‘Got to go, I have a crazy day!’

Ava tried to keep her head straight for the rest of the day. To her parents’ astonishment, she took a train into the city for the first time since her recovery began, and walked round the stores looking for an outfit to wear that night. However, she was so filled with nervous excitement, she could not find anything and took the subway back to Yonkers, where she went to a local salon, getting her hair styled and her nails manicured. In the early evening, she opened her wardrobe to find something to wear. By this time, she was irritated with how she was feeling at the prospect of seeing Patrick again. It was a very different kind of excitement to the lusty nervousness of when they had first met. This stomach-churning was closer to dread than passion. She was not thinking of seeing him with any particular joy in her heart. She only knew that she should be there, and that, if she ended up being on show as Patrick’s wife, she should, at least, look her very best. Not simply for him, but more to prove something to herself.

Opening her wardrobe she flicked through endless mediocre, casual ensembles, flinching as her freshly painted fingernails brushed the maternity dresses. Then, she came to it. The rose suit.

She had lost a great deal of weight in the last few weeks. Would it fit her?

She quickly took it out and tried it on. The zip on the skirt ran up like butter. Every button on the jacket closed snugly across her breasts.

Nervously, Ava looked at herself in the mirror. She saw the elegant young woman who had surprised her, a year ago, in front of Sybil Connolly’s Plaza suite mirror. Except that her transformation was no longer simply in the suit. It had been earned through a year of love and loss. Life was written on her face, now, and it had made her beautiful.

She drove down to South Broadway and parked outside the Emerald.

Even though it was early there was already a long queue. Taking a deep breath, Ava marched to the top of the queue, as she had done in the old days. Gerry happened to be at the door. His eyebrows raised slightly in surprise. ‘Ava. Good to see you,’ was all he said, before ushering her in himself.

‘You going backstage?’ he asked, gently.

‘Not tonight,’ she replied, and he sat her at a booth near the stage, instructing one of the bar staff to bring across the red VIP rope and wait on her all evening.

Ava appreciated his recognizing her status, but his respectfulness also made her feel a little sad. This did not feel like her life. Aside from that one night when she had got Patrick up on stage, she had never been a part of his work. He had said that she was his rock, but, in reality, Patrick had done it all by himself. His manager, Sheila, had been the one to encourage and support him. Ava certainly did not resent her for it. She had never had any real interest in the music, beyond dancing to it and enjoying it, just the same as everybody else. She was his audience. No more, no less. In a small, shocking moment she wondered if she had been the inspiration for this record that Sheila had arranged for him. ‘It Was Only Ever You’. Surely not. It had never been only Ava. In some part of her, she had always known that. She had always known that she was not the first girl he had been in love with. That was why she had never asked. If she had he might have told her that he was in love with Rose. And although Patrick had been the first man she had gone all the way with, Dermot had been the first man she kissed. If she had married Dermot, before she met Patrick, he would have been the only man she might have known her whole life. And that, even though it was wrong, might have driven Ava half-mad with wondering what might have been...

The compère came out and introduced the resident band. Patrick would be on stage at eight o’clock, less than half an hour away. The place was really filling up fast, and, as the band struck up Bill Haley’s Saturday-night anthem, ‘Rip It Up!’ couples began flooding on to the dance floor. The air was electric with the start of the weekend and everyone was letting off steam. Ava was sitting there, demure with her cigarette and a just-delivered martini, with no intention of dancing. She watched on as guys threw girls over their shoulders, spinning them around, with feet going heel-to-toe faster than was feasible. This had once been her world, but tonight, all that felt like a lifetime ago.

‘Wee-ell I got me a date and I won’t be late...’

As the song took off Ava’s friend Myrtle came into view. She was ripping it up like crazy, right in the middle of the floor with some guy who Ava assumed must be her new mystery man.

*

Dermot had begged Myrtle not to make him jive. After his frantic phone call where he had asked Myrtle to come and teach him, once and for all, how to dance, Dermot had immediately regretted the decision.

He never felt more of a bumbling fool than when he was on the dance floor. The baggy, long-line suits, coupled with his complete lack of coordination made Dermot look, and feel, like the greatest idiot that had ever drawn breath. Dermot was at his best in a courtroom, and an old-fashioned three-piece suit like his father, pontificating cleverly. However, Ava was never likely to see him in that light. And if she did, it was unlikely to impress her. He had tried, and failed, so far, to win Ava’s heart and, out of desperation, imagined that learning to dance might do the trick. However, he now realized a few lessons wasn’t going to fix his broken heart. And, in any case, he had been attending Mrs Quinn’s dance classes for months now, and he still had two left feet. He was beyond help.

However, to the indomitable dancer Myrtle, nobody was beyond help when it came to romance.

So, on the phone that day, she did a deal.

‘I will teach you to dance and fix you up with Ava if you put in a word for me with your brother.’

Niall, that little tearaway – what would she want with him?

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I’ll put you in his path.’

‘And your mother?’

Myrtle knew from Ava that Mrs Dolan was a hard nut to crack.

‘I’ll tell her you are a real lady from an excellent family.’

‘Which I am.’

‘Of course you are.’

‘We have a deal. See you tomorrow at your place, six p.m. I assume you have a record player?’

‘Of course!’ Although his records were mostly Mahler.

‘I’ll bring the records. Roll back the sofa and don’t be late.’

In their first session, she laid out the ground rules.

‘Rule one: do everything I say. Rule two: listen closely to the music. Rule three: keep going no matter what.’

For the next two hours Myrtle dragged, cajoled, persuaded and prodded Dermot around his living room. Dermot was a nice guy. She liked him. She was glad that he loved Ava and she was sure that, if she could just fire a little jazz into him, she could get Ava to love him back. But when it came to being fun, of which dancing was the top qualification, he was a washout. Finally, after a lacklustre cha-cha, she sat him down, looked him straight in the eye and called him out. ‘Do you love Ava?’

‘Why?’ he said.

‘Don’t look at me all embarrassed. If you don’t know by now then...’

‘She is beautiful...’

‘And?’

‘She’s smart, and funny. She makes me laugh...’

As he was talking Dermot began to feel as if Ava was there, in the room with them. ‘She is full of energy and life...’ God he loved her, ‘and she is just about the most capable woman I know...’ It was all true. How he wanted her back! He had to win her back!

‘Yes, Dermot, she is all that and she loves to dance. So, if you want her back, you are going to have to step up to the plate, loverman. Because Ava is not going to settle for some lousy grey lawyer who is as stiff as a board. Is that you, Dermot?’

‘No, it’s not!’

‘Can we do this, Dermot?’

‘Yes!’ He was going to jive his way back into Ava’s heart if it was the last thing he did!

Myrtle stood up and put on ‘Rock Around the Clock’ for the umpteenth time.

‘And remember – it’s only a bloody dance. Don’t let it get the better of you. Now. Let’s try it one more time. With some feeling, yes?’

*

As Ava watched Myrtle giving her all on the dance floor, getting stuck into ‘Rip It Up!’ she felt a twinge of regret that those days seemed to be behind her. She did not quite know how that had happened. Only that the carefree impulse to jump on to the dance floor and let herself go had left her. She had become so distracted by her passion for Patrick that dancing had seemed childish somehow. It was who she had been before she met these men. It was no longer part of her life, and she felt that, more keenly than ever, sitting separate from the crowd in her private booth. Alone, struggling to recover from the aftermath of her broken marriage. Dancing was something you did when you were happy, did not have a care in the world. Perhaps she would be happy one day. As Ava was thinking these thoughts, her eyes fixed on Myrtle.

She was wearing a beautiful sky-blue blouse tucked into a black skirt, which hugged her curves, and a pair of stilettos. It set off her slim figure perfectly and she was dancing very elegantly, and without her usual wild abandon. Nonetheless, her face was glittering with joy, and she seemed very pleased with herself indeed. He must be a very special guy, Ava thought, if he is eliciting this kind of effort from flirtatious Myrtle. As they spun around in a restrained, but perfectly timed turn, Ava strained her eyes to get a look at him. As he came into focus she was astonished to see that it was Dermot.

That was not what she had been expecting. Dermot? Dancing? He wasn’t the best dancer in the room, but he wasn’t the worst either. When did this happen? Could Dermot really be Myrtle’s mystery date? It certainly looked like it. She was beaming like the cat that got the cream. Dermot was a free man, he could date whomever he liked. But Myrtle? Everyone knew she was desperate to find a husband— Wait – was Ava jealous? As she watched the couple weave in and out, their arms sliding seamlessly over each other’s body, smiling, jumping about, having fun, Ava felt a stab of sadness for all she had lost. Then something happened. The band hit a particular part of the song that she loved. Ava felt the music tingling through her feet, then moving up her legs, filling her chest, her arms, every inch of her body until she got up from her seat and began walking towards the couple. As she walked, Ava felt the beat slamming through her, driving her on. ‘I’m gonna rip it up...’ There was only one thing on her mind: This is my dance, this is my man and, as she pushed Myrtle aside and slid seamlessly into a side swing, This is my life and to hell with the world. I’m gonna shake it up!

Dermot was surprised and almost lost his step when Ava butted in. He had practised every move of this dance meticulously with Myrtle and wasn’t sure he could carry it off with anyone else. But Ava was so determined, so glorious in her smiling, smooth energy, that all he wanted was to keep her there, with him. Dermot found he was able to stay one step ahead of her, pre-empting her moves, being the steady presence guiding and leading her into looking good in her favourite place, the dance floor. It seemed that this was what made Ava happy, and Dermot loved making her happy.

When the jive ended, the band moved on to a slow waltz. Ava was utterly distracted by the adrenalin that was still pumping through her. The delight of dancing again. The thrill of it being with Dermot. She paused, briefly remembering that she was here to see Patrick, but then Dermot put his arms around her and pulled her into a tight, chest-hugging waltz hold. Patrick had never held her like that, with such firm determination. Then, without giving her time to breathe, Dermot leaned in close to her and whispered in a voice that was deeper, more masterful that she remembered it being.