A Daughter’s Secret

‘And spoiled, no doubt,’ Aggie smiled. ‘Like Nuala will probably be. She is just ten months old and she rules the roost already.’

‘But Nuala might not be the youngest always,’ McAllister said, and laughed at the blush forming on Aggie’s cheeks. ‘Now what’s embarrassed you?’ he asked.

‘It’s just … well, the thought of my parents doing that sort of thing.’

‘What sort of thing?’ McAllister teased. ‘Sex?’

Aggie gave a gasp. ‘I don’t think we should say that word.’

‘What word? Sex? Let me tell you, girl, the world would be a very peculiar place without it. You do know what it is all about, don’t you?’

Aggie nodded. ‘Of course I do.’ She lived on a farm and had seen the bull brought in to service the cows, the ram for the ewes, the boar for the sow, and the baby animals born afterwards.

McAllister, guessing a lot of the thoughts tumbling around in Aggie’s head, said, ‘You have seen the animals at it, I imagine, but for humans there is pleasure to be had too.’

Aggie’s face was a picture, for she had never heard that before. She looked at McAllister incredulously and he laughed as he pulled her to her feet.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Get your boots and your shawl. It’s time to go home.’

Aggie was loath to bring the evening to an end. It had been a special time with just the two of them, which would probably never happen again.

At the door McAllister took another hefty drink from the flask and offered it to Aggie. ‘Care for a drop?’

Aggie smiled as she shook her head. ‘Daddy gave me a wee sip just the other day and it burned my mouth and my throat, and afterwards it was as if my stomach was on fire. I have no liking for it at all.’

‘You don’t know what you are missing, girl,’ McAllister told her. ‘Still, your loss, sweetheart. Now, I will see you home.’

‘Oh, but really there is no need.’

‘Agnes, the wind would near cut a body in two and the night air is raw and bone-chillingly cold,’ McAllister said firmly. ‘If you will not have a wee drop of poteen to help you cope with that, then you need my arms around you to keep you from freezing altogether.’

Aggie did not protest. She could think of few things nicer than walking home wrapped in her warmest shawl and cuddled into Bernie McAllister, and she nodded her head happily.

‘I’d like that,’ she said, and they stepped into the night together.

TWO (#ulink_3f7087fb-47e2-5a5f-90b6-e002409763b2)

Aggie recalled that walk home many times. She remembered how secure and protected she had felt. McAllister had his arm tight around her so that, despite the bleakness of the night, she felt glowingly warm inside.

He had been telling himself since they’d set out to go easy and have a bit of common sense, but the very nearness of Aggie was making him harden. He knew to touch her was madness. Hadn’t his wife threatened what she would do if ever she found him at it again, after that last time?

And he knew that if they hadn’t had the offer of the grocery store, and been able to flee to Ireland when they had, he’d have more than likely been laid out in a hospital bed, if not on a mortuary slab, as soon as the pregnancy of their neighbour’s daughter had become obvious. He remembered how she had pleaded with him for help and he had promised to think of something, even as they were making plans to leave. He had blamed the girl for her condition, though, claiming that she had teased him and flirted with him outrageously and that a man was only flesh and blood after all.

He had seen the telltale flush of shame steal over the girl’s face and she had even apologised for leading him on so. He had patted her hand and said she wasn’t to worry her wee head about it any longer; that he would deal with it.

How Philomena found out he never knew, but she had and she was not best pleased. Yet she made plans to leave at once and in the early morning before many were astir. McAllister had a fleeting flash of pity for the young girl left alone to cope, but it was gone in an instant and he had to admit he was relieved to be away out of it.

When Philomena saw this, however, she had snapped, ‘This isn’t being done to save your skin, so never think it. What you did to that young girl was disgusting and my heart goes out to her and the life she will likely have because of you. But I have my own weans to see to. It would not help them if you were dead or crippled, and I know you would be one or the other if we stopped here one moment longer than necessary.’

He knew she was right. He was also well aware that the girl would name him as the father, because if she wouldn’t tell willingly, her father was the sort to beat it out of her. Then he and the son would have come for him. Fear had crawled all through McAllister at that thought. His salvation, in the shape of a grocery shop in a remote part of Ireland, hadn’t come a moment too soon.

‘I appreciate it,’ McAllister had said to his wife. ‘And I’m sorry.’

‘You’re always sorry,’ Philomena had replied scathingly. ‘And in the end it makes no odds. But I am telling you now, Bernie, I know that that girl was not the first, but she will be the last, for if this ever happens again, that will be the finish of us.’

‘It won’t, I promise.’

‘You’ve promised more times than I have had hot dinners,’ Philomena snapped, ‘but this time think on, because I mean it. Keep your hands to yourself and your prick in your trousers, and we will get along well enough.’

Philomena had meant every word. He remembered that she had kicked up shocking when he had suggested the dancing and music lessons.

‘They have no one to teach them,’ he had told her. ‘Surely you are not for them forgetting their heritage.’

‘It may surprise you to learn that we have a business to run, Bernie McAllister,’ Philomena had said. ‘If you have time and energy enough for this, then I suggest those energies would be better employed the other side of the counter.’

‘It would stifle me, woman,’ McAllister had protested. ‘A man has to have some outlet.’

‘Are you sure you are not up to your old tricks?’

‘For God’s sake, woman, are you crazy or what? Don’t you think I’ve learned my lesson this time?’

‘I certainly hope so.’

‘Look, I teach the music at the children’s own homes and the dances at the church hall in a group.’

‘Well, yes, I know,’ Philomena conceded.

‘Then trust me.’

And Philomena tried. She knew that Bernie was no model husband. He said the grocery shop bored him, and certainly he was seldom seen behind the counter. He also drank far too much, but all that Philomena could put up with. As the months and then years passed she even told herself that the flight to Ireland had at last seemed to cure him of his taste for young girls, so that when he told her he was selecting two of the older and better dancers for special tuition one evening a week, she had dampened down the suspicion that arose in her. When he said to her, ‘Look, Philomena, I know how you feel, and with reason, but I promise that I will never see either of the girls alone,’ Philomena’s fears abated somewhat.

Then why hadn’t he allowed Aggie to go home that night; even sent word to the house and told her not to bother coming out? He knew why full well. The madness was coming over him again and the blood was coursing through his veins at the nearness of the girl tucked in beside him so tightly he could hear her heartbeat.

When she gave a sigh, snuggled closer and said, ‘I love being here with you like this and I am so grateful for you leaving me home,’ he knew he had lost any shred of reason that might have been attached to him. Overpowering lust had taken its place.

‘How grateful are you?’ he asked Aggie huskily, as he pulled her to a stop and turned her to face him.

She smiled as she said, ‘Lots.’

‘Grateful enough to give me a kiss?’

Aggie hesitated. ‘I’m not sure …’

‘I thought you were grateful,’ McAllister said reprovingly. ‘Fine way to show it. What harm is a kiss between two people who like each other?’

‘Nothing, I suppose,’ Aggie had to admit.

‘Well, then?’ McAllister said, opening his arms wide.