The Ballroom on Magnolia Street (17 page)

For the first few days, he waited politely for Kate to summon him for his lunchtime cuppa. Then, with his confidence increasing, he would just appear at the door of the office when the one o’clock news came on the radio. Kate would look up and smile and then get out of her seat to fill the kettle. It was never awkward between them. They could talk about the business for half an hour, with no fears about being alone together. And the phone never stopped ringing some days, so there was always the distraction of that. Sometimes it was quiet, and then they might discuss things like the price of holidays abroad or where they might like to live if the Troubles got much worse. A lot of their friends were emigrating, with or without legal papers. They said they might as well labour under a blue sky, as under a grey one; without the fear of violence hanging over them all the time. Kevin liked big cities like London but he was reluctant to leave his thriving business behind him and start all over again somewhere else. Kate agreed with him. She’d like to live somewhere hot and glamorous, but didn’t want to strike out for foreign shores on her own. The two of them had some very pleasant chats about the world in general, on the green velvet sofa. Kate felt very relaxed with Kevin. Not crazy with lust, unfortunately; but then, no horrible trembling and palpitations either. All that business had stopped completely. Which made her so grateful she sometimes knelt down on the floor beside her bed and actually prayed properly for ten whole minutes before going to sleep.

When she had banked her first pay-cheque, Kate invited Kevin out for dinner, to thank him for the new job. He was growing on her, gradually; day by day, little by little. He was so easy to work with, she actually enjoyed hearing the alarm clock ringing in the morning. It wasn’t too bad sitting behind a desk all day when you had some degree of freedom and independence. As long as all the paperwork was in order by the end of the day, Kevin didn’t care how many coffee breaks she had or if she listened to the radio or if she had fresh flowers and little ornaments on her desk. He treated Kate like a human being, not as a human
resource
. Why didn’t these so-called management gurus know that, she wondered. Hadn’t they heard of words like
individuality
and
stress
and
PMT
? Kate felt so much better she decided she would even try to be nicer to her own family. She apologized to all of them for her recent bad humour.

Kate and Shirley made friends again. (Although they both knew it would take them a long time to forget the hurtful words that had been thrown in the heat of the moment.) Shirley told Kate that Miss Bingham was very upset when she discovered that Kate had a new job. She’d asked Shirley straight out why Kate hadn’t turned up for her most recent ‘signing on’ and Shirley had told her that Kate was now the office manager of a thriving business. She wouldn’t be claiming benefit any more; she was earning more money than in her old job. And Miss Bingham had been so annoyed she’d bent a teaspoon in half. So upset, in fact, she’d slammed a drawer shut in one of the filing cabinets without removing her fingers first. The sisters had a good giggle about that. Poor Miss Bingham wouldn’t get to gloat over Kate’s unemployment after all.

Shirley also told Kate that she was getting on well with Declan. She didn’t, however, tell Kate about meeting Declan’s family, and that it hadn’t been a nerve-racking experience at all. They were very warm and welcoming towards her despite their wealthy background. Even his mother, Marion, who might have been overprotective of her only son, could not have been nicer. Irish mothers could be cruel, sometimes; they could be even more snobbish than the English. But Mrs Greenwood went out of her way to make sure that Shirley enjoyed her dinner, and did not ask her too many awkward questions – like, where she worked or where she lived or what her father did for a living – knowing already that the answers would be very disappointing, that Shirley lived in a small, terraced house and her parents were both cleaners in the Royal Victoria Hospital.

Nor did she tell Kate that they had spent some heavenly afternoons in Declan’s double bed when his parents had gone away on a cruise with their three daughters. Declan had a beautiful body and a fantastic record collection. She’d never be able to hear the Cure or the Stranglers again without blushing. Once Shirley had opened that button on Declan’s shirt for the first time, there was no going back. And she was clear on that. She was the one who had started it, not him. ‘Are you sure?’ he’d asked her, that day. They’d been out for a lovely stroll in the park, followed by fish and chips and a cup of tea, in front of the television.

‘Yes,’ she’d said. ‘I’m sure.’

They loved each other. They had both said it, several times. What was the point in waiting until they were in their thirties and could afford a fancy wedding? By the time they had saved up for something lavish enough to please Marion, they would be middle-aged.

Kate would be shocked that their relationship had progressed so much in just a few short weeks. But she would never understand how close Shirley felt to Declan, and that even though he was barely twenty years old, he was very mature and sensible. He didn’t giggle when they undressed in the afternoons, with the bedroom curtains closed against the winter winds. And Shirley didn’t tell Kate that all her fears and worries about taking off her own clothes hadn’t been necessary, either. Most of the time, they barely paused to take off all of their clothes, anyway, and afterwards fell about the bed laughing, with shirts and sweaters wrapped around wrists, and socks and shoes half on. Shirley’s time-sheets were in a state of meltdown: currently minus fifteen hours and twenty minutes. She could almost hear Miss Bingham shrieking the next time she carried out a spot check.

Declan was worth it, though. He was the sexiest man Shirley had ever encountered in real life. He had an easygoing charm that was not threatening or irritating, but warm and seductive. He told her funny stories that made her laugh until her eyes watered. He told her she was beautiful. Best of all, he was discreet. He didn’t boast about his love life to his friends. Shirley knew that for a fact because they didn’t snigger when they met her on the street. Some boys were so immature, they were really still children: laughing through their noses at words like ‘breast’ or ‘orgasm’. Declan was a really special man; she knew he wasn’t just pretending to be sensitive to impress her. Within days of meeting him, she felt that she had known him always. But Shirley couldn’t tell her big sister any of that. Kate used her sexuality to reward expensive meals out, or gifts of gold jewellery. She enjoyed knowing that men desired her, but it wasn’t an intellectual experience for her, or even an emotional one. She wouldn’t understand that sacred feeling of bonding between two separate souls who had suddenly found each other and become one. Kate would say that Shirley had given out the goods too soon and that Declan would have no respect for her.

She had to be vague when she was talking to Kate about romance. She couldn’t say that they had already carried out Shirley’s fantasy of kissing in the rain until their clothes were soaked through. (Kate would think she was crazy.) Or that Declan had told her he wanted them to be together for ever. (He wasn’t commitment-phobic, as so many men seemed to be these days.) Or that his skin was soft and clean and smelt of aftershave and toast. Or that the first time they slept together was very uncomfortable for Shirley. (That was to be expected.) But that after that, it was wonderful. He was a gentle lover, who kissed her shoulders and her face tenderly before, and after, they went to bed together. And now, it just felt so
right
, lying in his arms and falling asleep beside his deliciously warm body. The closeness of sleeping together was almost more special than making love. Sometimes, they stayed under the warm blankets all afternoon, drinking tea and eating biscuits, and gossiping about their friends and families. Poor Kate had never felt any of these things and so Shirley kept the depth of her new love a secret. Some things just had to remain private.

And then Shirley was writing her Christmas cards on the fifteenth of December, and wondering what the last day for posting was, and the thought suddenly came to her that she couldn’t remember the date of her last period. She was determined to be calm as she got out her diary and flicked through the pages. Five weeks! What with the Christmas preparations, she’d forgotten all about it. She didn’t breathe for about three minutes when the realization finally dawned on her. She’d never been late before. Not even when she was worried about important exams or a lack of money or the death of a close relative. Shirley put on a warm coat and walked to a chemist shop, well away from her own neighbourhood. She bought the pregnancy testing kit in a matter-of-fact way, as if she was buying it for someone else. When the friendly assistant told her it was the most accurate brand on the market, she said she would pass on the advice, thank you very much. She kept the little carton in the bottom of her wardrobe, hidden in a shoebox, for three whole days. Waiting and praying for her period to come. But it didn’t.

And then she carried out the test. Such a simple and straightforward test, it was hard to believe it could really tell Shirley if her whole life was about to go into free fall. She checked the instructions over and over again, to make sure there would be no mistakes when the result came through. And of course, it was positive. She was pregnant. She was going to have a baby! She was so shocked, she couldn’t even laugh or cry or panic or feel
anything
. Time stood still. She tensed up completely, waiting for the sky to fall down heavily on her head. But amazingly, nothing at all happened. Nothing. She ate her supper with her family and they didn’t even comment that her face was tight with tension or that she ate nothing and drank six cups of tea. She lay awake that night, so numb it was frightening, just looking up at the moon. Have I ruined everything, she wondered. Will Declan change his mind about me? Will my father have a heart attack? Will my mother chop down a tree on the avenue, fashion a rudimentary cross with it and quite literally
crucify
me? Will I end up in a hovel somewhere, living on economy cornflakes, with a greasy ponytail and wearing the same cheap anorak for the rest of my days?

Finally it was Christmas Eve. Shirley hadn’t told anyone her news. Not her family, not her friends, not even Declan. She couldn’t tell them, until she could come to terms with it herself. She refused to contemplate ending the pregnancy, that was all she knew for certain. It wasn’t the baby’s fault that she had been such an idiot. The baby was the only person in all of this that was pure and precious and blameless and innocent. And so, although she was tempted to go to London and book herself into a private clinic, like Kevin’s mother and her varicose veins, she knew she would regret it for the rest of her life. She’d read all the magazine articles about how some women were suicidal for years afterwards, half mad with grief and regret.
This will pass
, she told herself, a hundred times a day, like a recovering alcoholic.
This will pass
. All the same, she knew that it was going to be a bumpy ride until things quietened down again. She felt nauseous at the thought of it. Or was that the morning sickness starting already?

It was going to be so hard to deal with her mother’s religious rants, her father’s inevitable withdrawal to the shed, Declan’s possible desertion, and Kate’s smug lectures on birth control. So, she said nothing. And life went on as normal. Mr and Mrs Winters fussed over the food supplies, debating for hours about whether they should buy a posh and trendy fresh turkey or a good old-fashioned frozen one. In the end, they bought both. A cheaper frozen one for Christmas Day, and an expensive fresh one for the following day. They wanted to impress Kevin and Declan, who had both been invited for dinner. Mrs Winters had somehow got her ideas all mixed up and decided that Thanksgiving in America, and being middle-class in general, meant that nothing else but a fresh turkey would do when guests were invited to the house. And fresh cranberry sauce had to be made as well. The glass jar from the supermarket had been hidden at the back of the larder, along with the box of dehydrated stuffing mix and the cheap crepe-paper crackers. Mr Winters complained that such rampant snobbery would have him bankrupted, and that if any of the neighbours found out they had paid twenty pounds for a box of crackers, they would call the nearest mental hospital, and have them both committed right away.

‘We’re two-up, two-down people,’ he kept saying. Which was incorrect, since they had three bedrooms. (Well, two, and a very small boxroom.)

Shirley was kneeling on the floor of the boxroom, after lunch on Christmas Eve, wrapping her gift for Declan. After much deliberation, she had bought him a lovely pair of real leather gloves. (Probably some subconscious jab at him for not being careful enough with the condoms.) She tucked the corners of the parcel in neatly, and stuck a big blue bow on the top. Then, she fetched the matching gift-tag from the carrier bag and wrote
love from Shirley
on it. She had bought her mother perfume, aftershave for her father and a glittery handbag for Kate. (Even though she didn’t need it or deserve it.) But anyway. Shirley was going to enjoy Christmas. She’d promised herself that. She’d revel in every traditional minute of it; eat lots of sweets and sandwiches, watch television until her eyes dried up, and then deal with the fallout from the pregnancy in the dismal anticlimax that was January.

The little bedroom became dark and when Shirley got up to switch on her bedside lamp, she saw the reason for the lack of light in the sky. As if the Christmas fairy had arranged it, it had begun to snow. Big fat clusters of dry snowflakes came scurrying down from the grey sky. At first, there were just a few, and then more and more began to fall until Shirley could barely see the houses on the other side of the street. Shirley was delighted to note that the snow was not melting on the ground, but piling up in corners as if it intended to hang around for a few days. A little bubble of excitement burst in her heart. She would get to kiss Declan in a new weather situation! Bliss. For a moment she even forgot about the baby.