Always You

To my big brother, Jim

Contents

Cover

Title page

Dedication

Chapter 1 1992

Chapter 2 2012

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Backads

About the Author

Also by Erin Kaye

Copyright

About the Publisher

Chapter 1 1992

‘So, have you told your father about us yet?’ Cahal lay on his back, head propped up by two pillows, staring at a patch of green mould on the ceiling. A chipped saucer, full of ash, balanced precariously on his athletic chest.

‘Have you told yours?’ said Sarah, tracing her finger around the whorl of thick, black hair that surrounded his left nipple. The room smelt of cigarette smoke, stale beer and sex – the smell of sin. Golden February sunshine filtered through the thin floral curtains and ‘Goodnight Girl’ by Wet Wet Wet played quietly on the radio. The laughter of high school kids on their lunch break floated up from the street below.

‘Yep.’ He brought the stub of a roll-up to his lips, pinched between nicotine-yellow finger and thumb. His chest rose as he inhaled, stilled, then deflated slowly as a plume of grey smoke escaped from the corner of his mouth.

Sarah propped herself up on her elbow, and pulled the slightly musty duvet around her naked, shivering shoulders. She tucked a lock of long, blonde hair behind her ear. ‘What did they say?’

He stubbed the cigarette out on the saucer with a faint fizzing sound and carefully placed the saucer atop the bedside table. ‘Not much.’

‘Oh,’ she said, disappointed, and sank back down on the bed again.

He rolled onto his side and the well-defined muscles beneath his pale skin flexed. ‘Don’t take it personally. They aren’t that interested in anything I do.’ But though he smiled, his eyes, the same blue-green colour of the sea in Portstewart bay outside, were sad.

Sarah frowned. ‘Not like my Dad. He rang the flat the other day, you know, asking me what mark I got in that psychology paper. He’s always ringing me. Or if not him, Aunt Vi. I wish we didn’t have that phone. You manage perfectly well here without one. He insists that I come home every weekend. You’d think I was twelve, not a grown adult.’

He cocked his head in reply and was quiet for a few moments. Sarah waited, used to the way he always thought before he spoke, a trait that lent everything he said an air of authority. ‘I wouldn’t knock it. At least he cares about you.’

‘He cares too much,’ grumbled Sarah. ‘He didn’t want me to leave Ballyfergus. He wanted me to go to Queen’s in Belfast and live at home.’

A pause. ‘So why didn’t you?’

‘I had to get away. Living in that house was suffocating. I had to attend church twice on a Sunday and my father always had to know exactly where I was, and who I was with. My aunt was even worse. And if I was ever late, oh, what a carry-on. You’d have thought Jack the Ripper was on the loose.’

He grinned lopsidedly, a dimple appearing in his left cheek, and revealed the crooked tooth in his lower left jaw that would’ve been an imperfection in anyone else. He placed a hand, rough and hot, on her hip. ‘So you escaped?’

‘Something like that.’

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?’

She nodded.

‘I told him to mind his own effing business.’

She blinked, suddenly so proud of him for standing up for her against his father that her throat swelled up and she found it hard to speak. ‘You did?’ she squeaked.

‘Pah,’ he said, brushing off his father’s objections like dandruff. ‘I’m not having a layabout like him telling me what to do.’ He smiled then and placed his palm on her cheek, his big hand curled around her face like one half of a shell. ‘I know what I want, Sarah. I want you. And I’m not going to let anything, or anyone in this world, come between us.’

‘Me neither, Cahal.’

‘Do you mean that, Sarah? Do you really, really mean it?’

Her heart pounded in her chest. ‘With all my heart and soul. I have never loved a man as I love you and I never will again.’

‘Stay there,’ he said, as a wide, triumphant grin spread across his face. He jumped out of bed and crossed the room in two strides, the gluteal muscles in his tight, stark white buttocks flexing as he walked. Above his backside, a narrow waist widened into a deep, strong back and broad triangular shoulders. She propped herself up on both elbows and butterflies born of lust, not nerves, made her stomach churn.

He crouched down and rummaged in the bottom of the wardrobe, his muscled body vulnerable in a crouched position, like Atlas preparing to take the weight of the world upon his shoulders.

He stood up, faced her front on. ‘Found it,’ he grinned, holding out his closed right fist. His knuckles bore dark red crusty scars from hurling, a game she’d never seen until yesterday, when she’d stood on the sidelines astounded by its pace and warrior-like qualities, the sticks brandished like swords.

He came over and knelt on the bed, seemingly oblivious to the chill in the room, which the early spring sunshine did nothing to dissipate. If she breathed out hard enough, her breath misted. She sat up, leaned against the pillows and pulled the covers up to her chin.

‘I want you to have this,’ he said and he held out a small gold ring in the palm of his calloused hand.

She hesitated.

‘Go on. Take it.’

She picked it up and examined it. It was a curious design featuring two hands entwined around a heart with a crown on top, all wrought from pale yellow gold. The edges of the ring were worn with age, like the weathered sandstone gargoyles on Ballyfergus town hall that had fascinated her as a child.

‘It belonged to my grandmother on my father’s side, Sarah. It was her wedding ring.’

Sarah breathed in sharply and her heart began to pound.

‘She left it to me when she died,’ he went on. ‘By tradition Claddagh rings get passed down the female line but she never had a daughter of her own, and she never got on with my sister. So I got it.’

‘It’s … it’s beautiful.’

He smiled, his eyes all glassy and bright. ‘I want you to wear it, Sarah.’

‘I … I can’t. It’s a family heirloom.’

‘Exactly.’ He stared at her intensely, and the quietest of silences settled between them. And then he said, ‘That’s why I want you to have it. You are my family now.’

Her whole body flooded with happiness. ‘Oh, Cahal.’

He plucked the ring from her open palm. ‘Will you wear this ring as a token of my love?’

She gasped and, letting go of the covers to reveal her naked torso, clapped both hands over her mouth at once. Under her fingers, her face burned, and she felt foolishly giddy. She stared into his eyes, steady and calm and the giddiness evaporated. Her hands dropped onto the bed cover and she said solemnly, ‘I will.’

He took her right hand and slid the ring onto her third finger. ‘There,’ he said and grinned. ‘You see the way the heart faces inwards towards your heart?’

Her hand trembled. ‘Yes.’

‘That means your heart is taken.’

She smiled. ‘Oh Cahal, that’s so sweet.’

‘And it is taken, isn’t it?’ His right eyelid twitched.

‘Completely and absolutely. Forever.’

He squeezed her fingers tightly in his and kissed the back of her hand. ‘You understand what this means, me giving you this ring?’

She looked at him blankly.

‘Claddagh rings are passed down from generation to generation. And one day I hope it will seal our marriage.’

She looked at her hand but she could not see the ring, only the blur of tears in her eyes.

He slid in beside her then and pulled her fiercely against his hard cold body. They wriggled down under the covers and both held their arms aloft, forming a tent-like space underneath the duvet where it was warm and dim like a cave.

‘This is our world, Cahal, under this duvet. Under here it’s just you and me, and the rest of the world doesn’t matter.’ She tried to forget about what would happen when Cahal graduated in the summer. ‘Just each other. In our wee world.’ In the dimness, his pupils were large and black. The space was filled with the smell of him and already his body was radiating heat like a furnace.

He inched forward but she placed a hand on his chest. ‘Promise me you’ll never leave me, Cahal.’

He smiled easily and, moving closer, teased, ‘Of course I’ll never leave you, you eijet.’

She pressed her palm against his flesh. ‘You have to say it. You have to say the words.’

‘Sarah Anne Walker. I’ll never leave you. Not so long as I have breath in my body.’

The next day, Sarah strolled down the corridor, clutching a folder to her chest and thinking of Cahal. Rain battered the glass walls of the building and the wind howled around it like a demented ghost. She felt guilty about the three lectures and tutorial she had missed yesterday, even more about spending an entire day in bed. But it had been the most wonderful day of her life. Cahal wanted to marry her.

‘What are you smiling about?’ said a male voice and she started.

It was Ian Aitken, one of her oldest friends from Ballyfergus. She clutched the folder even tighter across her breasts – tender from Cahal’s passionate, rough love-making – as if it might hide the guilty secrets of her heart.

‘Nothing.’

‘I missed you at the Physics Society talk last night,’ he said, staring down at her with pale blue eyes, his gaze as resolute as his character. His ginger hair was carefully combed in a side parting and his terribly unfashionable dark blue jeans had a crease ironed down the front of each leg. ‘I only went because I thought you’d be there.’

She chewed her lip and looked away. ‘Sorry. Had some work to catch up on.’ She glanced up into his face and gave him a quick smile. That bit at least was true. She’d left Cahal’s flat in the late afternoon and gone home and started an assignment.

After a moment’s hesitation his face relaxed into a forgiving smile. She felt as if he could see right through her and she blushed. She could not see him approving of a full day spent in bed. Ian was conventional, old-fashioned even, in his outlook.

‘Have you got time for a coffee, Sarah? I haven’t spoken to you properly in ages.’

‘Sure,’ she said brightly.

‘Come on then,’ he said and fell in beside her as she walked, his clean, white trainers squeaking on the floor. ‘You haven’t been avoiding me, have you?’ He sounded a little wounded.

‘Don’t be silly. Why would I do such a thing?’

They got coffees and sat facing each other, the rain pattering relentlessly against the window. She arranged her bag and folder on the floor, then crossed her hands primly on her lap, feeling like she was about to be interviewed. Conscious of Cahal’s ring on her finger, where she had never worn one before, she hid her right hand under her left.

They chatted about inconsequential things and then Ian leaned back in the low chair and folded his arms across his chest. ‘Is it true that you’re still seeing Cahal Mulvenna?’

She frowned crossly. It was impossible to keep anything private in the small uni community. ‘Yes. What about it?’

He looked at the floor and his features twisted into a grimace. ‘How long have we known each other, Sarah?’

‘All our lives?’

‘Almost. You were seven when we moved to Ballyfergus. I remember the first time I saw you.’ He unfolded his arms and leaned forward, his big hands dangling awkwardly between his long legs. ‘At first, I thought you were an angel.’

‘I’m no angel.’ She shifted uncomfortably in the chair, recalling Ian as a child – a bookish redhead with brown freckles splattered across the bridge of his nose. He’d annoyed her so much with his intense wide-eyed stare, that she’d stuck her tongue out at him.

He smiled. ‘I found that out later, didn’t I? The first time I saw you, you wore a pink dress and white ankle socks. I’d never met a girl with such blonde hair. Or such a stubborn character.’

‘Me? Stubborn?’

‘Oh yes. Don’t you remember how you refused to participate when Mrs Banks took Sunday school because you’d taken a dislike to her? You spent months sitting in the corner, staring at the wall.’

‘She was horrible. She told me I was vain and that vanity was a sin. She told me that, if I didn’t mend my ways, I’d burn in hell.’ Sarah pouted crossly. ‘I’ve never forgiven her for that.’

He laughed indulgently. ‘See what I mean?’

Sarah laughed too. In spite of getting off to a bad start, she and Ian had eventually become friends, more through circumstance than a natural affinity in character. Their fathers knew each other through their jobs in the police – as young men they’d served together in Ballymena – and the families often socialised together. She wondered what Cahal would’ve been like as a little boy. If they’d met, she was certain that they would’ve recognised kindred spirits in each other and become instant, inseparable friends, she thought with a smile.

When Ian’s laughter faded, she said carefully, ‘You know, Ian, that was a long time ago. I’ve grown up a lot since then.’

‘We’ve both grown up. But some things never change, Sarah.’ His eyes were bright and shining. ‘And some people never change.’

‘I have.’ It was a challenge and they both knew it. Their eyes locked.

He stared, unblinking. ‘I don’t know about that. I think that underneath you’re the same Sarah you always were. I know I’m the same.’

‘Yes,’ she said and it was simply an observation, meant as neither criticism nor praise. Ian had always seemed so certain of himself, even as a child. And now that he was an adult, he reminded her more and more of her father. Conservative. Steadfast. Staid.

He looked away. ‘About Cahal,’ he said, picking his words carefully. ‘Are you sure that he’s right for you?’

‘Really, Ian,’ she snapped, her patience worn thin, ‘I don’t mean to be unkind, but it’s none of your business.’

His face fell, and she felt mean for hurting him.

‘You know that I care for you, don’t you, Sarah?’

She swallowed and looked away. ‘Yes.’ She’d dated him the previous summer and it had been a mistake. She’d never seen a guy so happy, nor so heartbroken when, three months later, she’d finished the relationship. She’d given him hope and even now, when she was with someone else, he had not relinquished it.

‘Well, it’s just that since you started seeing him, you’ve become quite distant. I’m worried about you.’ He wasn’t worried; he was pissed because she was dating Cahal and not him.

She gave him a tolerant smile that belied the irritation she felt inside. ‘Well, you don’t need to be. I …’ She sought for the words that might accurately describe how being with Cahal made her feel – whole, complete, sated – and settled for, ‘I’ve never been happier in my entire life. I’m sorry that I haven’t had much time for our friendship lately.’

‘I feel like I’m losing you, Sarah,’ he said glumly.

She reached for the coffee cup and tried not to show her exasperation. He talked as if she was his to lose. She suspected that he’d followed her to uni. He’d got straight A’s. He could’ve gone anywhere, yet he turned down places at St Andrews and Durham to come to The University of Ulster at Coleraine, which filled a fair whack of its places through clearing. Sarah’s reasons for being here, on the other hand, had nothing to do with grades. She needed to be far enough away from home to achieve the independence she craved, yet close enough to keep an eye on her little sister, Becky.

‘I’ll always be your friend, Ian. You will always be able to count on me. But going to uni is all about growing and changing, not holding on to the familiar,’ she said, rather pointedly. Ian had surrounded himself with people who were almost carbon copies of his geeky friends at home.

His eyes flashed. ‘Well, I think it’s important to keep old friends and stay true to who you are.’

‘And I think it’s important to expand your horizons, to question who you are and what you’ve been brought up to believe.’ She took a sip of milky, lukewarm coffee. ‘We should be opening our minds to new experiences. Being a student isn’t just about getting grades, Ian. It’s about learning in the broadest sense.’