Читать книгу Always You - Erin Kaye - Страница 7

‘I hope this ATS conference is a one-off,’ said Jessica, referring to the Australian telecommunications giant that had just bought over Vision Telecommunications Services, or VTS, for whom she and Sarah both worked. ‘I don’t fancy organising this every year.’ Jessica was a very pretty redhead with pale skin and green eyes – and Sarah’s friend.

They were standing at the entrance to the banqueting hall in the glamorous Europa Hotel on Great Victoria Street, Belfast’s ‘Golden Mile’. Outside, the February cold had given way to a wet and windy March. Jessica peered into the room, ticked something off the list on her clipboard and tutted crossly to herself.

‘If I don’t get a drink inside you soon, you’ll turn into a gremlin,’ said Sarah. ‘Come on.’

Jessica looked at her watch, hugged the clipboard to her chest and pulled a disappointed face. ‘I can’t, honey. I have to check the visual display equipment is working,’ she said, pointing with the biro into the banqueting hall.

Sarah looked down at her rose red satin pencil dress, all folds and pleats, which clung to her figure like it was sprayed on. She screwed up her face doubtfully. ‘Do you think this is okay? I bought it for a wedding last year and thought it would do for cocktail parties, but now I’m thinking it’s a bit OTT.’

‘Nonsense,’ exclaimed Jessica with an approving nod of her head. ‘It’s gorgeous. Adds a bit of glamour to an otherwise rather dull occasion.’

Sarah smiled gratefully and Jessica added, ‘You might even catch the eye of one of the Australian change management guys. They arrived an hour ago.’ She raised her right eyebrow like a challenge and said huskily, ‘A couple of them are rather tasty. Kind of makes me wish I was single.’

Sarah laughed off the suggestion and made her way to the drinks reception alone. As soon as she stepped into the wood-panelled room, the soft buzz of civilised conversation closed around her like a blanket. A beaming waitress held out a silver tray of champagne flutes, filled with fizzy, straw-yellow liquid. ‘Prosecco, madam?’

She took a glass and, spying a group of familiar faces, threaded her way through the crowd, holding the glass aloft to avoid spills on her precious dress. ‘And here’s Sarah,’ said her boss Andy, with affection in his deep Home Counties voice. ‘Looking absolutely gorgeous.’

‘You don’t brush up too badly yourself,’ teased Sarah, who regarded portly, grey-haired Andy as a kindly father figure.

‘We were just talking about whether or not ATS might centralise HR,’ said a worried-looking, slightly breathless Trevor, his slightly too-big suit hanging off his shoulders.

‘If they do, they’ll put us all out of a job,’ said Lizzy, one year out of uni and dressed in a royal blue bondage dress that suited her dark colouring but could’ve covered more of her well-built modesty.

Sarah considered the possibility of redundancy and took a gulp of bubbly. Then she glanced at Trevor and Lizzy’s solemn faces and said, ‘I don’t think we’ve anything to worry about. I reckon they’ll need us more than ever once these change management consultants have finished.’

She looked at Andy for support. ‘Sarah’s right. If there’re going to be job cuts, you guys will be busier than ever.’ Lizzy nodded in grim understanding and everyone looked glumly at the floor.

In an effort to lift the mood, Sarah said, ‘Don’t be so downhearted. Change can bring problems, but it also brings opportunities.’

Andy said, ‘Here, here! Listen, kids, it’s not often we get a free jaunt on the business, so let’s stop imagining the worst. Here’s to free bubbly and a good dinner!’ He raised his glass, radiating bonhomie like heat from a fire.

The mood immediately lifted and Sarah took a big gulp, determined to banish the blues and have a great time.

Trevor said, ‘God I’m starving. I could eat a horse,’ and everyone laughed for, in spite of his slight frame he was always hungry.

‘I wish I had your constitution,’ said Andy patting his big, round stomach. ‘If I so much as look at cream cake, it goes right on here.’ He pulled a face, distorting his mobile features into a caricature, making everyone roar with laughter.

Sarah tossed back the rest of her drink, her way of indicating to Lizzy and Trevor that it was okay to relax and have fun tonight, maybe even get a little drunk. Andy took Sarah gently by the elbow and steered her away from the other two. ‘There’s someone you must meet over here,’ he said, business-like all of a sudden.

‘See you at the table, guys,’ Sarah called out over her shoulder.

‘Love your dress,’ mouthed Lizzy, her eye running down Sarah’s figure.

‘Yours too.’

‘Now,’ said Andy peering through the throng, which was becoming more animated by the minute as inhibitions took flight along with the steady consumption of alcohol. ‘This guy’s in charge of the change management team, external consultants brought over from Oz to realign us with the VTS way of doing things. They’ll be here for six months, maybe longer.’

Sarah sailed across the room in his wake, the crowd parting like a sea in the face of his enormous bulk. She’d drunk the wine too quickly on an empty stomach. It had gone to her head making her feel slightly giddy.

Andy called out a salutation and the circle of people in front of them parted to admit Andy and Sarah into their little group. Sarah smiled and stepped into a space.

She glanced at the tall figure opposite her – and emitted a strangled cry. All the blood drained from her head and her fingers went rigid, the glass in her hand nearly slipping to the floor.

‘Sarah, are you all right?’ said Andy.

She looked at him blankly.

It was impossible.

Blood pounded in her ears, filling her head with the noise of crashing waves and making it impossible to make out anything of the conversation around her. And then, in a lull in the noise inside her head, she heard it.

‘Cahal,’ Andy said in the midst of a mouthful of gibberish. And under that deep, dark tan, the man’s face coloured.

Sarah took in a great gasp of air and looked away. It was him. Oh my God, Oh my God, said a voice inside her head and she looked right, then left, ready to bolt. She had never expected to see him again. And certainly not here, not in this too-hot room where people pressed up against her and there wasn’t enough air. Her legs shook beneath her but somehow she held her ground.

‘Sarah, I want you to meet Cahal Mulvenna,’ said Andy, his voice sounding like it came from the end of a tunnel. More incomprehensible mumbling and then, ‘Cahal, meet Sarah Aitken, HR manager here in Belfast.’

Cahal’s eyes came to rest on her once more and he smiled grimly. ‘Aitken,’ he repeated, and she caught a glimpse of the little crooked tooth in his lower jaw, absolute confirmation of his identity. ‘Sarah Aitken.’

Sarah formed her mouth round words but managed only to squeak, ‘What …’ before her throat closed over. She swallowed and found her voice at last. ‘It is you.’ She touched the pulse at the base of her throat – blood pumped through her veins so fast and hard she thought her heart might give out.

A sad, thoughtful look passed briefly across his face. ‘Yes. It’s been a long time, Sarah.’

She stared at him wordlessly. This was not the Cahal Mulvenna she remembered – the skinny student she’d loved with all her heart – but a mature, sophisticated man dressed in the finest apparel money could buy. He was in his mid-forties now; grey peppered his dark, curly hair. Irish gypsy hair, she’d teased him once, running her hand through his luscious locks, while he made love to her in the single bed in her student digs ...

‘Do you two know each other?’ said Andy, sounding a little put out.

‘Yes.’ Cahal extended his hand to Sarah, all smiles. ‘G’day, Sarah, it’s great to see you again.’

She stared at his hand and furrowed her brow. The voice was all wrong. The predominantly Australian accent had softened the hard vowels of the East Antrim one, like a pebble worn smooth by a river. But the underlying accent was still there, unmistakably Ulster in origin.

Hesitantly, she took Cahal’s cool, dry hand in hers and a tiny static shock travelled up her bare arm, making the fine, downy hairs stand on end. On the cuff of his pristine white shirt, a gold cufflink winked in the light like a diamond. He smelt faintly of pine and spice. Quickly, she pulled her hand away.

She’d never seen Cahal in a shirt and tie, let alone a suit. Back when she’d known him, he’d been firmly anti-establishment. How had he gone from a scruffy student in a black leather bomber jacket and jeans – who’d barely scraped a third class degree – to a high-flying management consultant?

Andy’s voice broke the stretched silence. ‘So how do you know each other?’

Cahal’s face went from red to pale under his tan. ‘I … er … we went to university together, didn’t we, Sarah? At least that’s where we met …’ His voice trailed away and Sarah’s gaze slid down to the glass she held in her hands like a chalice.

His words had pierced her heart like needles in a pincushion. Was she nothing more to him than an old university acquaintance? Her throat constricted with anger and she hated him.

Unable to look him in the eye, she mumbled, ‘Yes, it was a long time ago.’ A time when she believed that love could overcome everything …

Inside Morelli’s coffee shop it was warm and steamy but outside the wind howled and, now and again, waves came crashing over the black railings onto Portstewart Promenade. Cahal reached across the table and stroked her damp hair, his eyes soft as chocolate velvet.

‘We were made for each other, Sarah. We’re such a perfect fit in every way.’

She grinned, thinking of the way they lay together at night like spoons, and lifted the cup of hot, sweet tea to her lips. They were inseparable during the day, meeting up between lectures and for lunch, eschewing the company of all others. She set the cup down carefully in the saucer. ‘I never thought that I could love someone as much as I love you, Cahal. When we got together, in those first few weeks, I worried it wouldn’t last, you know. It seemed too perfect, too good to be true. I thought that you would tire of me.’

‘I’ll never tire of you, Sarah.’

She smiled. ‘I thought that as I got to know you better, I would find out things about you that I didn’t like.’

His face fell. ‘And have you?’

She grinned. ‘The more I find out about you, the more I like you.’

A dimple appeared in his left cheek. ‘Even when I bite my nails?’ It was a habit of his when he was worried.

‘Especially when you bite your nails.’

Their hands met, his cold fingers laced with hers. She’d never seen him wear gloves.

‘Do you have to go home tonight?’ he said, squeezing her hands tight, and sending a little shiver deep down inside her. ‘I miss you so much at the weekends.’

‘I miss you too.’

His Adam’s apple moved in his throat. ‘You do know that one day you’ll be mine, Sarah?’

‘I am yours already,’ she breathed into the humid air. ‘I was from the first moment I saw you.’

‘I mean properly mine.’ His hands tightened round hers like a vice. Slow, steady, exquisite pressure. ‘And then we’ll never have to spend a night apart ever again.’

Andy’s voice broke through her thoughts. ‘Well, isn’t that a wonderful coincidence? Just shows you that the world is a lot smaller than we think.’

And yet not big enough, apparently, for her and Cahal. He shouldn’t be here, encroaching on her patch. She had trusted him, blindly, stupidly. And then he’d left her, never to be heard of again. Had he tired of her after all? The bitterness in her mouth was sour and tangy, like blood.

Suddenly, the tall young woman beside Cahal, all sun- bleached hair with teeth like a horse, thrust her hand forward and, positioning her body in front of Cahal’s, said, ‘Hi, I’m Jody.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Sarah, offering a limp handshake. The woman grinned into Cahal’s face and Sarah swallowed the lump in her throat. She had to get away. She tapped the empty glass with a red-painted fingernail and said, ‘If you’ll excuse me a moment, I’ll just go and get another drink.’ And then she turned and fled.

She pushed her way impatiently through the crowd towards the loos, her heart going ka-thump ka-thump against the shiny red fabric of her dress. The sight and smell of Cahal filled all her senses; her eyes pricked inexplicably with tears. She fought them back with ferocious determination.

In the cool, quiet privacy of a cubicle, Sarah sat down on the closed toilet seat and tried to calm herself. Cahal had been in her thoughts since the day he’d boarded the plane to Australia two decades ago, the job as a lab technician long forgotten and their dreams of a life together in tatters. His face was as pale as a ghost, his lips pressed tightly together, thin and colourless. She remembered standing motionless, blinking in dry, wide-eyed disbelief as the metal tube containing the love of her life taxied down the runway and took off.

She’d never seen or heard from him again. She’d been proven right in the end – their love had been too good to be true. Too perfect to last. Too insubstantial to survive in the real world. She’d tried to forget him but, in the years that followed, she’d never stopped wondering about him. And then one day, standing behind his mother in the post office queue, she overheard her tell the postmistress that she was going out to Australia for her son Cahal’s wedding. Sarah went home and cried, and that day a little bit of her died. Two weeks later she accepted Ian’s proposal of marriage.

And now Cahal had been air-dropped into her life, turning everything upside down. She placed a hand over her heart and wondered why it felt like it was cracking open. She hated him for being here, for standing there so cool and collected and dismissing her as a nobody. But most of all she hated him for breaking her heart, a wound which had never healed, never mended, despite everyone’s assurances that it would. Time had merely sealed over the hurt with a thin scab, making life bearable. But now that the scab was picked off, the hurt was just as raw and painful as the day he’d left.

She ran cold water over her blue-veined wrists in the sink and stared at the sad-faced woman in the mirror. She was a good-looking woman for her age, pretty even, but the bloom of youth was gone and every year that passed etched another fine line on her face. She’d spent her best years trapped in a loveless marriage, and she found it hard to forgive herself, or Cahal, for that. But looking back was pointless, and regret is the most damaging of emotions. She would not let herself wallow in it. Sarah dried her hands, smiled grimly at her reflection in the mirror, and walked out.

Back in the drinks reception, she lifted a glass off the silver tray and made her way back to where she’d left Lizzy and Trevor – she had no intention of rejoining Andy whose voice she could hear rising above the bright hum of conversation like a foghorn. But when she got to the middle of the room, her colleagues were gone. She took a sip of Prosecco, hoping dinner would be announced soon, when suddenly Cahal appeared beside her, smelling like a spice market.

‘Sarah,’ he said, shoving both hands into his trouser pockets. ‘I … I never expected to meet you – here of all places.’ He glanced around the room, and then his gaze, intense and steady, came to rest on her. He inclined his head a little and lowered his voice. ‘I can’t tell you what a surprise it is to see you again.’

A tingle travelled down Sarah’s spine and her heart leapt foolishly. But then she frowned and reminded herself that his word was not to be trusted. ‘Well, you know what a small place Northern Ireland is.’

He glanced appraisingly at her figure. ‘You haven’t changed a bit.’

‘You must be needing glasses, Cahal.’ He laughed at this, and she added, ‘You’ve changed.’

He ran a hand through his short hair and his smile faltered. ‘For better or worse?’

She blushed at this allusion to the marriage vows she had once believed they would exchange. ‘Neither,’ she answered shortly. ‘Just different.’

‘That’s a relief.’ He allowed himself a small smile, revealing the crooked tooth she had once loved so much.

‘So, you’re HR manager for VTS,’ he went on. ‘You’ve done well, Sarah.’

She felt herself grow an inch, at the same time hating that she cared what he thought. ‘I am proud of what I’ve achieved,’ she said, referring to her successful transformation from stay-at-home mum to businesswoman. Seven years ago she’d updated her qualifications, brushed up her image and gone back out to work. She’d been promoted three times since then and hadn’t looked back.

He took a hand out of his pocket and rubbed his chin, dark with stubble even though the night was yet young.

‘You know, I was going to look you up when I got here,’ he said.

‘Really?’ she said sourly, disbelieving him. And then she recalled the earlier conversation with Andy. ‘Why did you tell Andy we were just university acquaintances?’

He held out his hands in supplication and smiled disarmingly. ‘What did you expect me to say? That we were lovers once?’

She looked away, embarrassed. Not only had they been lovers, they had been in love, and the best sex she’d ever experienced had been with him …

She opened her mouth to ask why he had wanted to look her up, when a voice shrieked, ‘Cahal!’ They both looked in the direction it was coming from. Jody teetered towards them. She was tall anyway and in heels she towered, like a caramel-coloured gazelle, over all the women and most of the men in the room. She hooked her arm around Cahal’s and, turning a cold, glassy eye on Sarah, she said, ‘Ah, here you are.’ Then she turned her laser-like attention on Cahal. ‘I wondered where you’d gotten to.’ She pouted girlishly into his face, lowered her gaze and pressed a forefinger into his chest. ‘Everyone’s looking for you.’

Sarah looked away, annoyed by the interruption and faintly embarrassed by Jody’s physical intimacy with Cahal. Were they an item? She disapproved, she told herself, because Jody was young enough, almost, to be his daughter.

Regarding Jody from under slightly hooded eyes, he said playfully, ‘You make me sound like a wanted man.’

Heat rose to Sarah’s cheeks. He was flirting with Jody!

Quick as a flash, Jody said, ‘Oh, you are.’ There was a long silence while she let all the possible meanings of this sink in, and Sarah’s emotions see-sawed between admiration at her boldness – and outrage. Once she’d recovered her equilibrium, she said, ‘Excuse me, I have to go,’ and she marched purposefully into the crowd.

Eventually she stumbled across her work colleagues. Lizzy teetered towards her on three-inch heels, red-faced and clearly the worse for wear. Trevor wasn’t far behind, smiling goofily, his tie loosened. ‘Come on,’ said Lizzy. ‘They’ve called us through for dinner. I’m starving.’ She placed one hand on her stomach and grabbed Sarah’s arm with the other to prevent herself from toppling over. Sarah smiled indulgently – and tried to put the image of Jody pawing over Cahal out of her mind.