Always You (10 page)

Cahal shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t believe everything you hear.’ And with that he got in the car and drove off.

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.