When All Is Said(63)
‘Well, I…’ she stumbled as I waited, my toes crossed in my shined Sunday-best shoes, ‘I would love that. I finish at six.’
‘Six it is, so. I’ll be outside.’
I think I actually winked at her before I left her counter. I near ran from it, convinced that I couldn’t’ve been that lucky and any minute now she’d call me back to say she’d changed her mind. I don’t think I took a breath until I got outside and leaned up against the wall wondering how I’d managed that at all.
‘It’s a big thing getting a job in the bank,’ she told me later, in that Donegal lilt of hers after we’d given our order in the Duncashel Central and handed back our menus.
‘I couldn’t believe it when I passed the exams. Neither could Mammy and Daddy. I mean it’s not something you can say no to, is it? Permanent, pensionable and all that,’ she said, moving the salt and pepper cellars around. ‘I know it sounds ungrateful but … I don’t think it’s me. I haven’t an ounce of interest. Money’s a nasty business really,’ she added, leaving the condiments, now happy with their new positions.
Is it? I thought.
‘You’re a long way from Donegal, alright,’ I said instead.
‘And that’s another thing, I’d rather be nearer home. To help out and that.’
‘Farming people?’
‘No. My father’s a guard. No, it’s just…’ She looked like she was about to say something further but stopped short, thinking of Noreen no doubt, not that I knew about her then. ‘Well, you know yourself, there’s always work to be done about the place, farm or no farm.’
‘True, true,’ I said, not wishing to dig any further at such an early stage, ‘it’s back north for you, so? No way we can keep you down here?’ I said, giving the condiments a good going over myself.
‘Well…’ She smiled over at me with a gorgeous shyness.
‘Well, what?’ I asked eagerly.
‘You never know, I suppose.’
Our eyes met for a brief second before our blushes forced us to look around. The tables were a mixture of all sorts: a single bachelor, eating his fry in silence, looking out to the passers-by on Patrick’s Street; a couple, more experienced than ourselves in the ways of relationships, sitting opposite us, him with his paper held up and she reading the adverts on the back page. There was one family, all dressed up for their Thursday treat. The children with their knee socks pulled right up, the boys with their Brylcreemed hair, the girls in pigtails with green polka dot ribbons. The mother keeping a watchful eye over their behaviour as the father chatted across to her. Every now and again he gave a big neighing laugh and hit the table with his hand, making the cutlery protest as he looked around for the appreciation he felt his joke deserved.
‘Do you come to this place much?’ Sadie asked.
‘I like to take all my girlfriends here.’
She laughed too then. But hers was a laugh that felt precious and dainty, quite the opposite of the father, three tables down. Her eyes met mine, just long enough not to embarrass us but to acknowledge our beginning. I knew for certain then, that there, sitting across the red Formica table, with the perfectly placed condiments, was the woman I was ready to love until the life went out of me.
I never attempted to kiss her on our first date. I wanted nothing more than to hold her hand, but as we left the Duncashel Central, I decided against pushing my luck. I walked her home to her lodgings. I was glad she lived the other end of the town. We chatted comfortably all the way to her door and stood doing the same once we’d arrived. We could have been there an hour for all I know. I’m sure it was just a matter of minutes before she started to root in her bag for her key. I’d lost all sense of time, you see, couldn’t have given a damn if it was five in the morning and it was time to milk the cows. I would’ve done it, happily. That’s how she made me feel, happy with the world, with myself.
‘Go on in, so,’ I said, fighting the urge to hold her just a moment longer. ‘Mrs Durkin’s hand must be getting tired holding back that curtain there, as if we can’t see her.’
‘Ssh! Make no mistake she knows you can see her. That’s what she’s aiming for. She knows all about the likes of you.’ She laughed, and I smiled too, feeling the cheekiness of her statement egging me on. I took hold of her free hand as her other turned the lock. I looked down at it and asked:
‘Might you be free for the dance, so, on Saturday? Over in O’Reilly’s hall, it’s a bit out the road but I can come get you on the bike – nothing but the best for my girlfriends.’
‘Would you go on with you and your girlfriends. I bet I’m the first who’s ever said yes.’
‘You’ll go then. Seven o’clock, Saturday? I’ll pick you up at the mall, not here. Don’t want herself getting in touch with your parents just yet.’
‘Goodnight,’ she said, in mock exasperation at a boy who thought he might keel over in pure delight. I stayed until the door closed and then ran down the street. Retrieving my bike, I cycled as if I was representing Ireland in the Olympics, speeding past fields, whooping at cows that might have lazily raised their heads too late to see my ghost of a cap pass by.
Saturday couldn’t come quick enough. I hadn’t seen Sadie for two days, but it may as well have been a year. Arriving at the mall good and early, I waited, leaning up against my vehicle with as much panache as any farmer from Meath with a pushbike could manage. My stomach did somersaults as I paced up and down the path, hopping from kerb to road, anything to distract myself, until eventually I saw her. And as she approached me in a white dress with red roses, it began to dawn on me that I was about to make this picture of beauty sit up on a cold, uncomfortable crossbar for the two-mile journey out the road. By the time she reached me I was sure she could smell the panic.