When he saw Sarah sitting alone with a cup of coffee the very next day in the canteen at work, he froze. Her head was bent over her BlackBerry screen, a button of pale, vulnerable skin exposed at the crown of her head. Suddenly her nose wrinkled up the way it used to when she was annoyed with him – and something inside him melted.
She was the only person he had ever confided in about his family. Adele had seen for herself, but he’d never shared with her how he felt deep inside. How he’d spent his life wishing he was someone else.
Something made her look up at that precise moment and their eyes locked. Her lips formed into a nervous, fleeting acknowledgement that was almost a smile. She looked away and lifted the cup to her lips. Without thinking about it, he went over. ‘Mind if I sit down?’
She glanced at the empty seats around the table and shrugged.
He sat down opposite her, set his mug of tea on the table and rested his hands on his thighs. ‘I never expected to see you again.’
‘Nor I you,’ she said and looked away. In the silence that followed, he studied the pale pink nail polish on the ends of her slender fingers.
‘So, you married Ian?’ he said, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice.
‘He’s a good man,’ she said coldly.
He frowned. Why was she being so hostile? If anyone had a right to be angry it was him, not her.
She set the BlackBerry on the table in front of her. ‘You never liked him.’
It was so like her to go straight for the jugular. Small talk had never been her forte. But then again, they knew each other too well for meaningless chit-chat. ‘No. And he never liked me much either,’ he said evenly. ‘I would go so far as to say he hated me.’
‘He didn’t hate you,’ she said quietly. ‘He hated what he thought you were. What you stood for. Just as you hated what he stood for.’
He shook his head, refuting this. ‘He hated me because of you, Sarah. It was obvious to everyone that he loved you, even when you were going out with me.’ She blinked, colour rising to her cheeks and he went on, ‘But I like to think that under other circumstances, in another place and time perhaps, we might have been friends.’
She looked at him sceptically.
‘I was prejudiced back then. Narrow-minded,’ he explained, ‘I hope I’m not now.’
She frowned and took another sip of coffee. Then she put the cup down and blurted out, ‘Well, the marriage didn’t last. Though it was a good divorce. If you can have such a thing.’
This news left him dumbstruck, his eye drawn to her bare ring finger. She was not another man’s after all. She did not lie with Ian every night as he had imagined. A shutter creaked open in his heart.
‘What I mean is,’ she went on, ‘we’re not at each other’s throats all the time, like some people. We always put the kids first.’
‘Kids?’
‘Yes, Molly’s eleven-year-old and Lewis is nine-year-old,’ she said, proudly, lifting her chin.
Children, he thought regretfully, that might have been his. It came as no surprise, really, that she had a family. But the knowledge lodged itself uncomfortably in his consciousness all the same. ‘I have three boys.’
A smile warmed her face, softening her features. ‘You must miss them.’
‘It’s like someone’s taken a big chunk out of me, right here.’ He placed a hand on his side. ‘And it hurts like hell. I’ve only been gone a week and I’ve spoken to them on the phone every day. But it’s not the same as being there.’
She shook her head. ‘I could never leave my children.’
‘I had to because of this job,’ he snapped defensively, and then softened. ‘And now I’m sorry I did.’
In the awkward silence that followed, Sarah looked away.
‘Your father and your aunt,’ he said, ‘are they still both well?’
She looked at him, surprised. ‘Both, yes, thank you.’ She frowned, turning the mug between her fingers. ‘The last time you spoke to me of them, you said you hated them.’
‘I had reason to, hadn’t I?’ It had slipped out, more bitter and resentful than he’d intended. But honest too. He stared at her and she stared back.
And then her BlackBerry, on the table between them, buzzed like a wasp trapped in a jar. She picked it up and, without looking at the screen, said, ‘I have to go. I’ve got a meeting in five minutes.’ She stood up and swung a black leather handbag over her left shoulder. He got to his feet and they faced each other across the small table.
‘Sarah?’
She paused, one hand on the back of the chair, her face a deliberate mask. ‘What?’
‘I think we need to talk.’
She looked away.
He took a step around the table till they were an arm’s length apart. He still hadn’t got the answers that he wanted. And even now, when he was angry with her, when he blamed her for so much, he was drawn to her, like a moth to a flame. ‘Have dinner with me.’
A pained expression briefly marred her pretty features and she looked at the floor. ‘I don’t know if that’s a good –’
‘Please,’ he cut across her, more of a demand than a request, and touched her lightly on the hand. Her skin tingled under his touch.
She looked at his hand, then into his face. Her eyelids flickered. ‘Okay.’
‘Quieten down you two,’ hollered Becky, standing at the bottom of Sarah’s stairs, her hand on the newel post, one foot on the bottom stair. ‘Or I’ll come up and … eh … sort you out.’
Upstairs, the whooping and squealing intensified and Becky rolled her eyes. ‘They don’t listen to a word I say.’
Sarah pulled on her smart black wool coat. ‘That’s because they know you’re a soft touch. Not that that’s a bad thing,’ she added hastily. ‘They love you just the way you are.’
A smile flickered across Becky’s face and then she was serious. ‘Listen, are you sure you really want to meet Cahal Mulvenna? Personally, I think he’s got a cheek coming back after all this time, expecting you to be at his beck and call.’
Sarah did up the buttons on her coat. ‘I’m not at his beck and call. We’re just having dinner.’ But now she was having second thoughts about it. For one thing, her stomach was so tied up in knots she didn’t think she’d be able to eat a single mouthful.
A deep line appeared between Becky’s brows. ‘And he didn’t say why he wanted to meet you?’
Sarah put her gloves back in the drawer. She would not need them. Her palms were sweating. ‘He just said we needed to talk, that was all.’
‘He wants you to forgive him. You do know that, don’t you? So he can go back to Australia and feel good about himself.’
She slung her bag over her shoulder. ‘Maybe.’ It wouldn’t change anything, but an apology would be something at least.
A kind of cold comfort.
‘Is that why you said yes?’
Sarah smoothed down the front of her wool coat with sticky hands. She didn’t know why she had agreed. Only that she couldn’t say no. ‘I guess I’m curious.’
‘You know what they say: curiosity killed the cat.’
Sarah smiled weakly and Becky reached out and touched her on the arm. ‘Just be careful, Sarah. I don’t want to see you hurt.’ She paused and added, ‘Like the last time.’
‘I won’t be.’ Sarah took a deep breath and threw back her shoulders. ‘How do I look?’
Becky’s arm fell to her side. ‘Fabulous. He’ll be sorry he ever let you go when he sees you.’
‘Thank you.’ Sarah bit her lip. ‘Wish me luck.’
Becky smiled, though Sarah could tell she was faking it, and gave her a big warm hug. Then she held her at arms’ length. ‘You’ll be grand. You can tell me all about it when you get in. I’ll wait up.’
‘You don’t have to.’
‘I want to. Anyway, I’ve got this great documentary to watch about Ephesus once the kids are in bed.’
‘Who’s Ephesus?’
‘Duh?’ said Becky and she knocked Sarah’s forehead lightly with her knuckle. ‘Only the best preserved classical city in the whole of the Eastern Mediterranean. It’s in Turkey.’
‘You cheeky cow,’ said Sarah taking an ineffectual swipe at Becky’s hand. But Becky had already jumped nimbly onto the stairs, well out of reach. She grinned and glanced at her watch. ‘Hadn’t you better go?’
*
Cahal sat alone at a table for two in Carnegie’s, Ballyfergus’s only fine-dining restaurant, waiting. Outside, new owners had done a good job of tarting up what used to be a grotty biker’s hang-out, Peggy’s Kitchen.
Across the road stood the old Carnegie library, where he’d spent many silent hours as a boy sitting cross-legged on the dusty wooden floor. With a book resting on his bare knees, and the warm sun streaming through the tall windows, he’d been transported to a world that could not have been more different from his own – an exotic land populated by ex-convicts, coal-black Aborigines and kangaroos. Inside, the restaurant was extravagantly done out in plush carpet, rich brocades and velvets in burgundy and gold with ornate mirrors on the wall and candles everywhere. The room smelt of candle smoke and good food. It was certainly atmospheric, but now that he was here – and it was too late to change – he worried that it was too romantic.
It was not a date, he reminded himself, even though his stomach flipped every time the door opened. The purpose of the meeting was to get answers to his questions. What had happened after he went to Australia? Why had she not replied to his letters and phone call? Had she ever really loved him? Or had he been a complete and utter fool to believe in her?
He finished his drink, set the empty glass on the linen tablecloth and immediately a young waiter, all in black like a shadow, was at his side. ‘Would you like another beer, sir?’
He shook his head.
‘Something else?’
He cleared his throat. ‘No thank you.’
The waiter moved away and, nervously, Cahal pulled his mobile out of his pocket. Sarah was fifteen minutes late and there was no text to say why. He set the phone on the table and peered out the small window on his left which overlooked the almost empty car park. So she was a few minutes late? Big deal. She might have had trouble getting the kids to bed or maybe the babysitter was late. He let out a long, audible sigh and told himself to stop worrying. Then he closed his eyes, rolled his shoulders – still tense from the visit earlier in the week to his parents’ – and tried to relax. His stomach felt like a wet sheet after the spin cycle – all snarled up in itself, a feeling he associated only with his family. It was, he supposed, what love, hate and guilt felt like all tangled up together.
He looked at his watch. It was twenty minutes past eight. He tapped the face of the watch but the time stayed the same.
His heart fluttered in his chest as the possibility that she might not show began to elbow its way into his consciousness. Perhaps her mobile had no signal. His spirits lifted then fell again when he realised that, if she wanted to get a message to him, all she had to do was phone the restaurant. He bit his lip and dialled into his voicemail – but there was nothing from Sarah. Finally, he sent her a text. Where are you? C
He placed the phone carefully on the table beside the gleaming knife again and took a deep breath. Give it five more minutes he said to himself, while his hands in his lap, hidden underneath the fine linen tablecloth, clenched into fists. And the rage that he had felt all those years ago at her betrayal began to surface once more.
The minutes and seconds ticked by and the collar of his new white shirt, bought specially for tonight in Belfast’s upmarket Victoria Square, began to itch. The couple at the next table glanced at him and quickly looked away. The waiter, hovering near the door to the kitchen, checked his watch and consulted discreetly with a colleague. One of the elderly ladies, cutlery in hand, nudged her neighbour and nodded sympathetically at him. He caught her eye but she did not look away. Embarrassed, he did.
He would give her until half past eight.
Two minutes later the waiter came over, carrying an order pad and pen. ‘Just to let you know, sir,’ he said, looking almost as embarrassed as Cahal felt, ‘the kitchen closes for orders at nine.’
Cahal gave him a grim smile and picked up the mobile. Eight twenty-nine.
She wasn’t coming.
‘I don’t think I’ll be dining tonight after all,’ he said, slipping the phone into his inside pocket. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘That’s quite all right, sir.’
Cahal pulled a twenty out of his wallet and pressed it into the waiter’s palm. ‘For the beer,’ he said quietly. ‘And your trouble.’
‘Thank you very much, sir,’ said the waiter, pocketing the note in one smooth movement without looking at it.
Cahal stood up slowly and took his time fastening the middle button on his jacket with fingers suddenly fat and clumsy. Then he strode casually out the door resisting the urge to run. He knew, if he glanced back, everyone would be looking at him.
Outside in the car park it was raining, the perfect end to a miserable day. He walked quickly to the car, head down, his fists curled into balls. Anger rose in him like sap. He hated to be humiliated. He oughtn’t to be surprised. After all, it wasn’t the first time she had broken her word. It wasn’t the first time she had let him down. What on earth had made him think that he could trust her, that she had changed?
The rain merged into a blur and he swallowed hard as the anger turned to sadness. He’d wanted answers tonight but he’d wanted something else too. He wanted to know if she felt anything for him – anything at all. Her reaction to his flirting with Jody had given him hope. But now he knew.
He blinked, the muscles in his jaw twitching. Then he thrust the car into first gear and screeched onto the road like a teenager in his first car.
Hidden in the shadows outside Carnegie’s, Sarah stared through the window at the warm and cosy scene inside. Half the tables in the restaurant were filled with old people and couples – and Cahal, sitting alone at a table for two facing the door, his face bathed in golden candlelight.
He was smartly, but casually, dressed in a navy sports jacket and crisp white shirt, opened at the neck just enough to reveal a triangle of brown flesh and black chest hair. The dark shadow on his chin made him look both slightly unkempt, and undeniably attractive. Her stomach flipped with desire and she placed a hand on her belly.
She had dressed with great care for tonight, rejecting outfit after outfit until her bed was piled high with clothes, and she finally settled on a red crepe dress and high-heeled black boots. Not too smart, not too casual. But now the shiny patent boots felt too sexy and the dress too tight. What the hell was she doing here? Cahal was a married man with a family. What did he want with her after all these years? Her stomach tightened and she pulled her wool coat tighter around her body.
Movement inside the restaurant caught her eye. A waiter went over and exchanged a few words with Cahal, then wandered off with an empty glass in his hand. Cahal pulled a mobile out of his pocket, frowned at it, then glanced at the window. And even though she knew he would see nothing but a reflection of himself in the glass, she jumped back all the same, her heart thumping against her ribs. She was already ten minutes late and it would be incredibly rude to keep him waiting any longer. She ought to go inside now. But her feet were rooted to the spot.
She leaned against the wall and looked up at the inky sky. A cool breeze fanned her flushed cheeks. He’d said they needed to talk. But what was there to talk about except the past and what had gone wrong between them? She hated to recall the painful memories, and the good ones were even worse. They only served as cruel reminders of the love and happiness she had known and lost. And a little, cruel part of her wanted to give him a taste of his own medicine – she wanted him to know what it was like to wait for someone. She was wiser now, more cautious, and she would never let anyone break her heart again.
*
Cahal stood as still and unyielding as a rock in the airport foyer, ignoring the people streaming around him. Flight information flickered on the screens above his head. Sarah stood before him, her eyes itchy from crying, legs swaying beneath her. She felt like she was swimming against the tide, against a current that she feared would prove too strong.
‘Please, Cahal,’ she said for the hundredth time that morning. ‘Don’t go.’
She clutched the arm of his battered leather jacket and stared into his red-rimmed eyes. But there was no softness there, only hard, glassy stubbornness. ‘Please.’
‘I have to.’ He looked down and gently peeled her hand from his arm. It hung by her side like a dead weight. ‘We’ve been through this a thousand times, Sarah. You know what I want.’
She stifled a sob. If she started crying again, she knew she would not stop. ‘I can’t. You know I can’t. You know what it would mean.’
The corner of his mouth twitched and he gave her a withering look. ‘That’s what you keep saying.’
‘Just give me two months. That’s all I ask.’
‘No.’
‘When will I hear from you again?’
‘I’ll write to you,’ he said, grim-faced. ‘I promise.’ And he turned and walked away.
She stood with her fist stuffed into her mouth, watching the back of his head and his broad, square shoulders disappear in the crowd, believing that he would turn round any minute, any second, and come running back to her. He would not leave her. She could not survive without him.
But his head remained resolutely fixed straight ahead and suddenly he was at the security gate. He handed over his passport and ticket. She started to move towards him, mouthing silent words, her eyes wide in disbelief. He would not do this, he would not leave her. But then, just like that, he was gone.
Sarah brushed a tear from her eye and felt a spit of rain, like a hot spark, on her cheek. Despite his promise, he’d never written. Not once. In desperation she’d tried to contact him. She’d no address for him in Australia, so she’d sent a letter care of his parents. She’d gone round to their flat one day and slipped the envelope through their letterbox before running away. But she’d never received a reply.
She closed her eyes. Becky was right. All Cahal wanted was the chance to say sorry, the opportunity to salve his guilty conscience. Her throat tightened. She clenched her teeth so tightly, her jaw ached. He wanted her to absolve him. He wanted her to say she forgave him for breaking her heart.
She opened her eyes. Through the restaurant window she watched Cahal pick the phone up, peer at the screen – and set it down again. What she’d said to Becky about being curious was true, but the real reason she’d agreed to meet him was more foolish. She wanted to feel once more the love they had shared, to relive the happiest days of her life. She still ached for the Cahal she had adored.
But that Cahal was long gone. The urbane, sophisticated man on the other side of the glass had a wife and family. She had an ex-husband and two children. It was too late to turn back the clock.
A car pulled into the car park. Briefly she was caught in the headlights. She covered her face with her arm and realised how ridiculous she must look, hiding in the foliage. The car parked and the couple inside got out, put up an umbrella and walked down the road without looking at her. She was really late now. But still she could not move.
Cahal could not be trusted.
If he’d only listened to her. If he’d only given her more time. But he would not do either. It was his way, or no way.
She could pinpoint the exact moment when it had all started to go sour.
It was Sunday night and she was returning from the long Easter break spent with her family in Ballyfergus. Cahal had stayed in Portstewart over the Easter holidays – just as he did every holiday. On the platform in Coleraine station, she saw him before he saw her, his hands shoved in the pockets of his brown leather jacket, which he wore in spite of the warm summery weather. He looked a little worried, his brow furrowed in concentration as he scanned the crowd of chattering students returning for the summer term. Her heart fluttered in her breast; she quickened her step, picking her way through the crowd. When he saw her, a smile that obliterated everything else lit up his face. She ran to him, her enormous bag banging against her legs, and threw her arms around his neck. He kissed her on the lips fierce and hard. She closed her eyes and drank him in.
‘Jesus, I’ve missed you,’ he said, holding her head in his hands. His thumbs and fingertips pressed into her skull, at once soothing and stoking her desire. His gaze travelled up her face, searching, as if he was mapping out her features in his mind. He kissed her on both eyelids, then let go of her head.
She pressed her cheek against his rough, late afternoon stubble. He smelt of cigarettes and sweat. ‘I missed you too, love,’ she said, pulling away a little and running her hand through his thick, black curls. Every nerve in her body tingled.
His pupils dilated. ‘Your place or mine?’
‘Mine,’ she said huskily. ‘The flat’s empty. No one’s back till tomorrow.’
He grabbed her bag then and swung it over his shoulder as if it weighed nothing at all. Then he led her by the hand out of the station.
Outside, dusk was falling on a fair and still day. They stood apart from the other people waiting for the bus. She noticed that the skin under his eyes was grey. ‘Have you been working a lot?’
He let out a long sigh. ‘Yeah. I’ve been pretty much full time at the pub. The hot weather’s been good for business.’
For the last three years he’d worked term time and the Easter and summer holidays at The Anchor bar in Portstewart, a favourite student haunt. But his exams were only weeks away. It wasn’t fair that he had to work so hard. ‘Did you manage to get any studying done?’
He shrugged. ‘Not as much as I would’ve liked. But I’m not complaining. I need the money, Sarah.’
She bit her lip and thought about the cheque her father had just given her, burning a hole in her pocket. ‘I could help you. Then you wouldn’t have to work so much.’
His right eyelid flickered. ‘Don’t say that again. I won’t take money from you. I can look after myself.’
The bus came, cutting the conversation short, and when they’d boarded and were seated together he said, ‘Well, how did it go?’
Her stomach muscles clenched but not with desire. ‘Fine,’ she said breezily, taking a big breath to hold down the feeling of nausea. ‘I got a lot of revision done but I wish I could’ve been up here with you.’
His grip on her hand slackened. ‘That’s not what I meant.’
She looked out the window at the red-pink sky and felt her face go the same colour, while her heartbeat fluttered. She had made him a promise and she had broken it.
He released her hand, discarding it like something unwanted, and she withdrew it onto her own lap.
‘You didn’t tell them, did you?’
She blinked at the setting sun, a ball of orange on the horizon, then looked at the Claddagh ring on the wedding finger of her left hand. The ring had spent the last fortnight in the zipped breast pocket of her jacket – she’d only slipped it on her finger when the train had left Ballyfergus station that afternoon.
‘I tried to,’ she said honestly. Every morning she had risen with fresh resolve but every day her courage failed. ‘You don’t understand what they’re like, Cahal.’
Silence.
‘I don’t care so much what my aunt thinks. But my father.’ She fought back tears. ‘Him and Becky are all I’ve got. But I really think that if he got to know you –’
‘Got to know me?’ growled Cahal, his nostrils flaring. ‘How can he get to know me if he won’t even meet me? My family weren’t exactly thrilled when I told them I was going out with you but at least they’re not so bigoted that they refused to meet you.’
Sarah blushed with shame, reluctant to admit that, while religion undoubtedly played a part in her father’s objections, Cahal’s low-class background and his father’s criminal convictions counted for far more.
She’d felt out of place as soon as she set foot on the Drumalis estate, which she had never before visited. The small flat stank of cigarette smoke and his mother made her uncomfortable, flapping about as if she were royalty and apologising for everything from the chipped mugs to the broken biscuits. His father sat mute in the corner, staring at her through a cloud of pale blue smoke.
She rubbed the Claddagh ring between finger and thumb as if it might produce a genie with an answer to the dilemma.
‘And how come they didn’t notice the ring then?’
Sarah lifted her right shoulder a little and lied to him for the first time. ‘I guess they weren’t paying attention.’
He stared at it coldly. ‘Until you tell them, Sarah, we can’t tell anyone else. And until that happens we’re not engaged.’
‘But we are,’ she protested feebly, his words pricking holes in her happiness.
‘No we’re not. An engagement is a public declaration of an intention to marry.’ His bottom lip quivered and she hated herself for inflicting pain on him. The same way she hated the look of quiet misery that crossed her father’s face when Cahal’s name was mentioned.
‘I thought you loved me, Sarah.’
‘I do.’
‘Then show it.’
The phone in her pocket vibrated, bringing Sarah back to the present. Cahal was still sitting at the table in the restaurant. She pulled the phone out of her bag, her hands shaking. It was Cahal. When she touched her cheek, she was surprised to find cold tears clinging to her face.
Cahal had been wrong. She had loved him with all her heart but she had loved her family too. He could never understand her devotion to them. He made it sound so simple, but it wasn’t. And what had he done to save the relationship? Nothing. When things got tough, he’d run away to the other side of the world.
On the other side of the glass, Cahal was talking to the waiter again, but this time there was no trace of good humour in his expression. She wished he had never come back. His presence reminded her of a past she would rather forget and forced her to examine the present – and find it wanting. She should not have come.
A trickle of rain ran into the collar of Sarah’s coat, shockingly cold against her hot skin. Cahal handed something to the waiter and stood up. Her heart pounded so loudly it filled her ears with noise. Grimly she pulled the collar of her coat tight, turned her back on the brightly lit window, and fled into the night.