With All My Love (7 page)

When Gary Higgins had chatted Valerie up one Saturday night when she had sneaked out of the house to go to a disco at the hotel, she had decided once and for all to prove to herself that she wasn’t frigid. Gary was experienced; he’d know how to treat her; he’d know what he was doing, she reasoned. And so when he’d walked her through The Triangle and sat her down on a bench, her heart had thumped with excitement. It was finally going to happen. He would cup her breasts in his hands, just like in a Mills & Boon romance. He’d gently caress her nipples until they were hard peaks of desire and his kisses would be deep and tender at first, but then probing and insistent as she inflamed him with passionate desire. And then she would feel the quivery, aching need herself and
know
that she was normal, just like Frances and Anna, and those women she read about.

When he had stuck his beer-soaked tongue so far down her throat that she almost gagged, and twisted her nipples until she had gasped with pain and dismay, he had mistaken it for a gasp of pleasure. Before she realized what he was doing, Gary had thrust his hand inside the waistbands of her maxi skirt and knickers and roughly jammed two fingers into her, making her cry out in shock and pain.

‘Good, isn’t it?’ he muttered drunkenly, jabbing his fingers in and out. ‘Now you touch me.’ He was unzipping his jeans as he spoke.

Stunned, she’d managed to pull away from him after a struggle and had jumped to her feet. ‘Hey, don’t be a prick teaser,’ he protested, lurching towards her, but she had raced out of The Triangle as fast as she could, disappearing down the narrow lane that led to the back of the cottages and climbed in through her bedroom window, her heart pounding so hard she was sure the whole street could hear it.

She lay on her bed, sore and violated, trying hard not to cry and had decided if being frigid meant you didn’t have to endure men doing horrible things to you, she could live with it. Her mother was right.

‘What was it like? Did you come?’ Lizzie asked excitedly the next morning as they walked through the village to Mass.

‘No, I went,’ Valerie giggled. Now that it was daylight and she had accepted her frigidity and resolved never to let a man ‘maul’ – another of her mother’s contemptuous metaphors – her, she felt a huge sense of relief. She related the events of the previous night as they headed to St Anthony’s.

‘Eewww!’ Lizzie uttered, horrified.

‘It bloody hurt,’ Valerie added indignantly as Mrs O’Connell, the principal of the primary school, click-clacked past them in her shiny patent high heels and green velvet hat, a jaunty white feather curling over the brim. ‘Morning, girls,’ she saluted brightly.

‘Morning, Mrs O’Connell,’ they chorused politely.

‘Don’t be late now and don’t hang around the end of the church. Make sure you go up the front,’ their former teacher instructed bossily as she overtook them and increased her speed. She was the organist and choir mistress, and she was running late.

‘Who does she think she is? Bossy boots! We’re in Secondary now; she’s not in charge of us any more,’ Valerie muttered.

‘Could you imagine
her
doing it? She has four kids. Maybe she’s a nympho,’ Lizzie tittered, and Valerie giggled. As they neared the church gates the air filled with greeting from various classmates who were already congregated inside the church grounds, waiting for them.

‘Good night, Valerie?’ Frances O’Connor asked slyly. She too had previous experience of Romeo Higgins and his roaming fingers.

‘Fab,’ Valerie said airily, and marched in through the gloomy porch of St Anthony’s with Lizzie right behind her. ‘What a bitch,’ she muttered. ‘She thinks she’s the bee’s knees with her pink leg warmers!’

‘Knobbly knees, more like,’ Lizzie retorted smartly as they genuflected and edged into a rapidly filling pew. ‘And she’s a bandy little cow!’

Valerie smiled at the memory of that Sunday morning last summer. Lizzie was always quick with a riposte. She was a brilliant friend and now she needed support in her new romance. Lizzie was convinced Phil Casey was finally ‘The One’.

‘He’s a great kisser, the best, actually,’ she’d admitted, deliriously happy after their first kiss, and Valerie had tried not to feel jealous. It was hard, though. Now it was all ‘we’ are going here, ‘we’ are going there, ‘we’ are doing this and that. Where once it was she and Lizzie who were the ‘we’, now an interloper had taken possession of her friend, her and Lizzie’s friendship was on the back burner and Valerie was lonely. She was going to feel like a real gooseberry when they went back to the pub for a drink after the match. But she hid her dismay with, to her mind, an Oscar-winning performance for fake enthusiasm.

‘OK, I’ll come. I’ll cheer Phil on for you.’ She smiled at her friend. Lizzie squealed excitedly. ‘You’re the best, Val, you’ll really enjoy it, and there are some fine things in the team. You might get off with someone.’

‘Nope, not interested. Besides, Da would have a fit if I started going with someone. You know that. There’s no point in me even thinking about dating until the Leaving is over,’ Valerie said as they reached the welcome shelter of Lizzie’s house, where her mother had kept them two luscious slices of home-made strawberry meringue. Valerie loved being at her friend’s house where she was treated like one of the family. It was a real home, unlike her own, which was fraught with arguments and tension.

She had a precious hour of peace the following Sunday when her parents left for Dublin, but it sped by and then reluctantly she pulled on her coat and a purple knitted hat to keep the cold out, and made her way to Lizzie’s house. Lizzie was dressed to impress in new Levi’s and a cream polo-necked skinny rib jumper under a cropped denim jacket, and wedge boots. ‘You better bring a coat, it’s cold out,’ Valerie warned, as her friend finished putting on her eye shadow.

‘Do I look OK?’ Lizzie fretted. ‘Should I put on some more blusher?’

‘Not unless you want to look like Bobo the Clown. You’re fine,’ Valerie assured her, whooshing her out the door, wishing the ordeal was over.

To add insult to injury it started raining about ten minutes after the match started; a fine grey mist, which clung wraithlike to her, seeping through her coat and hat, which she had pulled down over her ears. The heels of her boots sank into the soft ground and the bottoms of her jeans were caked with muck. Beside her, Lizzie jumped up and down like a crazy marionette yelling, ‘Come on, Rovers! COMMME OOOOOONNNNNNN!!!!! Put it in the net, lads. Put it in the NEEEET. Ref, Ref, are you BLIND? Offside, OffSIIIIDE!’

When, Valerie wondered, had her best friend turned into a football fanatic? Until a month ago, when Phil Casey had first asked her out, she had never shown a scintilla of interest in anything related to football. Now she was even watching
Match of the Day
with Phil, leaving Valerie to her own devices on Saturday nights. Valerie couldn’t help the by now familiar feeling of being hard done by. Lizzie had dropped her on Saturday nights and yet she expected her to be by her side at a boring football match. She expected a lot, Valerie thought with renewed resentment, praying Lizzie would shut up screeching.

Valerie was yawning, wishing she had worn a scarf to stop the rain dribbling down her collar, when a violent thump made her jump. The hard leather ball bounced again, spattering her with muck.

‘Bloody hell! Look at the state of me.’ She glared at Lizzie.

‘Kick it back in,’ Lizzie instructed.

Valerie was so mad she drew her foot back and let fly just as one of the players was heading in her direction to retrieve the ball.

‘Yikes, you nearly got Jeff Egan in the goolies!’ Lizzie snorted.

‘Pity I didn’t. Is this thing nearly over?’

‘Stop making me feel bad,’ Lizzie snapped. ‘Standing there with a face like a slapped ass. I won’t ask you to come again.’

‘Great, Lizzie, great that’s good to hear.’ She couldn’t hide her irritation.

‘Oh my God! Oh my God! Phil’s got the ball. Go, Phil! Go, Phil! Go, Phil!
GOOOOOO!!
’ Lizzie was dancing with excitement as her new boyfriend scored the winning goal. The hundred or so supporters erupted, yelling and roaring, and then, music to Valerie’s ears, the final whistle blew, a long sharp piercing note that led to more yelling and joyous cheering.

Later, while she was sipping a Bacardi and Coke in the Oyster Bar, a local pub near the football grounds, a hand tapped Valerie on the shoulder. ‘The least you could do is buy me a drink since you nearly ruined my marriage prospects. Just as well I’ve got good reflexes.’ A pair of smiling brown eyes looked down at her and she grinned when she saw Jeff Egan standing beside her. He had been a year ahead of her at school and they knew each other casually.

‘Sorry about that. But you ruined my trousers, buster.’

‘Ah, stick them in the washing machine, they’ll be fine,’ he laughed. ‘So what about that drink, then?’

‘They won’t serve me, I’m under age. I’ll give you the money for it but you’ll have to get it. Phil got our drinks for us.’ She went to open her bag.

‘I’m just teasing,’ Jeff assured her. ‘Did you enjoy the match? I didn’t know you were a Rockland’s Rovers supporter.’

‘I’m not, and no!’ she said bluntly. ‘I just came because Lizzie asked me so she wouldn’t be on her own.’

‘Ah, yeah, she’s started going out with Phil. So it’s kind of mandatory to go to the matches, for the first few months, anyway.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t be going if I was dating anyone in the team.’ She was almost shouting, it was so noisy in the bar.

‘And are you dating anyone?’

‘Nope. My da would have a fit. I’m doing the Leaving. I’d better be heading off home. The reason I got out of going to Dublin with my folks was I said I’d be studying.’ She drained her Bacardi and Coke and turned to find Lizzie, who was submerged in a gang of Phil’s mates.

‘I’ll give you a lift home. I have my da’s car,’ Jeff offered.

‘You’re going to miss all the celebrations.’

‘I’m getting the bus up to Dublin tonight. I need to put in a few hours at the books: I’ve got a thermodynamics exam tomorrow.’

‘Oh . . . OK, I’ll just grab my coat and let Lizzie know that I’m heading off.’ Valerie was taken aback. It was the last thing she had expected. And a guy as nice as Jeff Egan offering her a lift, at that. She didn’t know if he was dating anyone; now that he was studying in Dublin she didn’t see him around much.

‘Hey, Lizzie, I’m gonna head home, see you at school tomorrow,’ she shouted to her friend.

Lizzie battled her way through the throng. ‘Are you sure you have to go? A gang of us are going to the disco in Hanlon’s.’

‘You know I can’t, Lizzie. Da would go ballistic; I just have to accept that until I’ve done my Leaving I might as well be a prisoner. I don’t have easy-going parents like you do.’

‘Ah it’s just I’m the youngest and I get away with murder,’ her friend grinned. ‘Thanks a mill for coming today. I owe you one.’

‘Forget it, see ya.’ She didn’t want to tell her friend that Jeff was giving her a lift home. She didn’t want to be roaring her business out over the din in the busy bar. She could see Jeff was chatting to one of his teammates near the door, waiting for her.

‘Will I be safe? Do I need to protect any delicate parts?’ he teased, holding the heavy swing door open for her.

Valerie laughed. ‘So how do you like college?’ she asked as they hurried through the rain to a blue station wagon.

‘It’s cool. Very different from St Mel’s. It’s up to yourself whether you study or not.’ He opened the passenger door for her and she was impressed with his good manners. No one had ever held a car door open for her before. ‘So what are your plans when you leave school next June?’ He started the engine and reversed out of the car park.

‘I might do a secretarial course. And of course I’ll be applying for the banks, county councils, Dublin Corporation, the usual.’ She shrugged.

‘Wouldn’t you think of going to go to college?’

‘Nah, I couldn’t bear to be under my father’s thumb for three more years. The sooner I start earning my own money the better. I want to be as free as a bird. He thinks I’m going to college. I have all the application forms just to keep him quiet. He wants me to be a doctor or a lawyer or an accountant, so I’m saying nothing, just keeping my head down.’

‘They’re good aspirations to have. Do you not get on well with your da? He seems like a nice guy, from what I’ve seen of him. Helping out with the Meals on Wheels and bingo and stuff like that?’

‘He’s a bit . . . um . . . a bit . . . strict because it’s my exam year.’

‘
Oh . . .
right.’

She changed the subject. ‘So are you living in a flat?’

‘No, I wish I was. I’m in digs. Maybe next year, if I make enough money on the boats. We’ll see how it goes.’

‘What’s your landlady like?’

‘A bulldog,’ he grinned, a boyish lopsided grin that showed off his white teeth and made his brown eyes glint. ‘She caught me trying to sneak my girlfriend in one night and, boy, did I get a tongue-lashing!’ He laughed at the memory, a deep hearty chuckle.

‘That was the pits for sure,’ she said brightly, surprised at how disappointed she felt at hearing he had a girlfriend.

‘Well, here you are, home safe and sound.’ He drew up outside her house. ‘Sorry about mucking up your jeans.’

‘No bother, Jeff. Thanks for the lift, and good luck with your exams,’ she said briskly, letting herself out of the car.

‘Same to you, Valerie, see you around.’ He gave a toot of the horn and she waved after him as the car drove down the road. Why wouldn’t he have a girlfriend? she thought grouchily. There were loads of girls in Dublin and he was a dishy kind of guy. College had matured him. He wore his brown hair longer, and the black leather jacket was very sexy on him. She might even overcome her aversion to men if she went on a date with him.

She sighed as she let herself into the house. He was out of her league now, for sure, and anyway, she had no time for thinking about boys. She needed to make sure she got enough honours in her Leaving Certificate to get a decent job and take the first steps towards independence.