Always You

The smile faded from his face. ‘I did too.’

‘What were you escaping from?’

He stared at the wall for a few moments and said at last, ‘My family have lived in Ballyfergus and worked on the docks for three generations. I’m not knocking the town, or them, but I wanted something more out of life. It wouldn’t have been possible before for people like me to go to university but the grant system’s changed all that. So long as I work every holiday and keep my job in The Anchor bar, I should be all right.’ He smiled and looked at Sarah. ‘You should’ve seen my Ma and Da’s faces when I told them I was going to university.’

‘They must’ve been pleased.’

‘They were astonished. No one in my family has ever got past O levels, Sarah, never mind gone on to uni.’

Sarah stared at him thoughtfully. ‘There’s far more to you than meets the eye, Cahal Mulvenna.’

‘You think so?’ he laughed, his dark eyes twinkling.

She knitted her eyebrows together. ‘You give the impression of being one of the lads. You act like all you want to do is get pissed and have a good time.’

He grinned. ‘Well I do want to have a good time. You’re only young once. And sure there’s nothing wrong with that.’

‘But you’re not the pisshead you pretend to be. Beneath that exterior, you’re actually quite determined and focused, aren’t you?’

‘This is my chance to make something of my life. I’m not going to screw it up.’ He paused and twirled a lock of her hair around his index finger. ‘You know I’ve never met a girl like you before.’

‘But there have been other girls?’ she teased, looking at him from under her eyelashes. Beneath the covers she found his leg and rubbed his hairy calf with her foot.

‘A few,’ he acknowledged, letting go of her hair and slipping his hand under the covers.

‘Tell me about them.’

‘Ach, now, you don’t want to know that.’ His hand made contact with her ribcage, then moved swiftly down her smooth, boyish hip. ‘You must’ve had your fair share of boyfriends,’ he said, looking up at her questioningly from under long lashes. ‘I bet I’m just one of many.’

She stopped rubbing his leg and stared at him. Didn’t he realise what he meant to her? She’d dated a few boys, but she’d never loved any of them. ‘I’ve had boyfriends,’ she said, looking at his chest, and feeling her face colour. Her voice dropped. ‘But I never slept with any of them.’

His hand stilled and his voice softened. ‘What?’

She raised her eyes to meet his. ‘I never loved any of them, Cahal. Not the way I love you.’

‘Oh, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘You never told me.’

‘You never asked.’

He gathered her to him in his hard arms, and pressed his lips to her temple. Coarse dark stubble rasped against her face with painful, exquisite discomfort. ‘Sarah, Sarah, Sarah,’ he intoned like a prayer, his voice breaking up like static on the radio. ‘I love you too.’

Sarah’s heart swelled with happiness and with the sense of power and protection that his love instilled in her. Every breath was in time with his as if they were one, and in that moment her world contracted. Everything she’d ever wanted, everything she would ever want, was in that small square room, with the tired wallpaper, the wardrobe with one door missing, the creeping mould on the ceiling.

‘If you’d loved someone before me,’ he said into her hair after a long silence, ‘I’d be jealous, you know.’

She laughed. ‘How can you be jealous of someone who happened in the past?’

In reply he kissed the top of her head and held her closer. The still afternoon wore on and they lay for a long time, listening to the sound of traffic and conversation drifting up from the promenade below. And yet she was not at peace. She pressed her face into his chest and closed her eyes but all she saw was her father’s face, sporting the reproachful, wounded expression she knew so well. A police detective, he saw the world in terms of black and white, and was crystal clear about who was on the side of good – and who wasn’t. And the Mulvennas, low-class and of dubious background, would, she suspected (though she had never asked), fall on the wrong side of her father’s carefully calibrated moral fence. Cahal’s father had even served time in prison.

His voice broke through her thoughts. ‘What’re you thinking?’

She blushed, glad that her face was pressed against his chest, so he could not see. ‘Isn’t it weird that we grew up in the same town and never so much as spoke to each other before?’

He pulled away and looked into her face, smiling. ‘I suppose so. But that’s Ulster for you. Two different cultures, not so much rubbing along as steadfastly ignoring each other.’

‘Except when they’re trying to murder each other.’

‘Yeah,’ he said and gave a little laugh. ‘I saw you once, you know. In your grammar school uniform in the library. Last year, when I was home for my gran’s funeral.

‘I used to go there for peace and quiet to revise for my A levels.’

‘I thought you were beautiful even then. I watched you for ages, pretending to choose a book off the shelf. I never thought a girl like you would look at a guy like me.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because you’re an uptown girl,’ he said, referring not just to the fact that she lived in a house on what locals called ‘The Hill’.

‘Well, maybe I like a downtown guy,’ she said playfully.

Cahal sat half upright, his elbow digging into the pillow, and looked down at her. His face was serious. ‘You haven’t answered my question.’

‘What question?’ she said, knowing full well what he meant.

‘Have you told your family about us yet?’

‘I told my little sister that I was seeing someone.’ She raised her eyebrows in the faint hope that this might satisfy him.

‘And the rest of the family?’

She twisted a lock of hair around her forefinger and examined the split ends in the shaft of sunlight that sliced through the ill-fitting curtains. ‘Not yet.’

‘You said you would.’

‘The right moment hasn’t … presented itself.’ He opened his mouth to speak but she silenced him with a smile. ‘But I will. I promise. But back to your parents. They must have said something about me?’ His left shoulder twitched. She sat upright and stared at him. ‘What? What did they say?’

He stared at her for some long moments as if weighing something up in his mind. ‘My Da asked me if you were David Walker’s daughter.’

‘And?’

‘He said I had no business walking out with the daughter of an RUC man.’ RUC stood for Royal Ulster Constabulary.

‘Oh,’ said Sarah, feeling slighted, and her head sank back into the pillow. Having a father in the police had always been a point of pride, of honour. Never before had anyone attempted to make her feel as if it was something to be ashamed of.

‘It’s not personal,’ said Cahal, seeing her unease. ‘You have to understand that my father has a certain, how shall I say it, disregard for the law and those who enforce it.’

‘Hmm,’ said Sarah, only partly mollified. ‘And what did you tell him?’

‘You really want to know?’