Chapter 4
‘So, will you come with me, Sorcha?’
She looked at Con, lying full-length on the battered couch he ate and slept on. She shivered and moved nearer to the small fire that was burning in the stove. Even though it was the beginning of May, the nights could still be sharp.
‘Con Daly, where would we go? What would we live on? I have no money, and neither do you.’
‘I have my guitar, Sorcha. We wouldn’t starve, even if I have to sing on street corners with my hat placed on the pavement for silver.
And I know it won’t be long before I’m getting gigs, and after that, a record deal.
’ Con pointed away from the ocean. ‘London’s where the music scene is happening.
That’s where I have to be.’ He reached in his pocket and drew out a battered cigarette.
Then he moved over to the stove and lit it on the hot coals. He took a drag. ‘Want some?’
Sorcha shook her head.
Con put an arm around her and pulled her towards him. He kissed her, his lips tasting of the tar he’d just inhaled. He stroked her hair lovingly.
‘Ah, Sorcha-porcha, I’m a man whose passion is inflamed. You won’t let me make love to you, you won’t say if you’ll come with me to England . . . I’m beginning to wonder if you love me at all.’
Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Con, you know I love you. It’s fierce. I think of nothing else. Even Sister Benedict has asked me if I’ve any trouble at home because my marks are slipping at school. It’s just that . . . I . . . I’m scared, Con.’
‘What of, Sorcha? My love? Me?’
He tipped her face up to look at him, his eyes gentle.
‘No. I . . . well, I’ve always thought I’d leave school, attend a secretarial college in Cork and take a job in my daddy’s office. Then I’d . . .’
‘Wait until a suitable man wants to marry you. Don’t you know that there’s a world out there waiting to be explored? This tiny corner of the earth will be the same for the next fifty years. I thought you’d be after excitement, Sorcha. Don’t you want to live? Don’t you want me?’
‘I . . .’ Sorcha looked at him helplessly.
‘Atch!’ Con stood up, threw his cigarette onto the stove and banged its door closed.
He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Sorcha, it’s been three months now that we’ve been together.
I understand that you’re young and are protected by that mammy and daddy of yours.
I want you to come with me, be part of my future.
I’ve sworn to take care of you, marry you if you wish, but I can’t be sitting here wasting time trying to convince you.
I’m going to London, Sorcha, with or without you, in a month’s time.
I have enough money to pay for your passage too, if you want to come.
There, that’s how it is,’ he sniffed. ‘Now I suppose you’d better be leaving.
Otherwise Mammy and Daddy might call the guards and I’d be accused of kidnapping you. ’
Con moved towards the door and opened it.
Fighting back tears, Sorcha looked around for her jacket.
‘Behind you.’ Con indicated the arm of the couch. Sorcha picked it up and moved to the open door in silence.
‘Goodbye, Con. When shall I see you again?’
He shrugged his shoulders.
Sorcha walked through the door and out into the bracing night air. The door was shut behind her with a bang.
Sorcha scrambled along the path through the dunes, her eyes blinded by tears, her sobs echoing around her.
She wished she could go to church, ask His advice, but she knew running away with a man and leaving her family behind to enjoy what would soon become pleasures of the flesh was not the kind of operation He would be happy to deal with.
‘Ouch!’ Sorcha stumbled and lay in the sand waiting for the pain in her ankle to lessen. She turned over and looked up at the sky. It was a beautiful clear night and she could see the stars twinkling brightly in their constellations.
If she let him go without her, wouldn’t she regret it for the rest of her life? What was she leaving here? She wasn’t a child any more. And the thought of a future without Con was unbearable.
That evening, Sorcha took her seat at the O’Donovan family dining table as her mother scooped out mountainous dollops of colcannon onto the plates.
Once Seamus had delivered his lengthy grace, dinner was its usual tense affair.
When her mother had finished clearing the crockery, Sorcha plucked up enough courage to engage her father in conversation.
‘Daddy?’
‘Sorcha.’
‘You’re always asking Helen McCarthy what her plans are for her future.’
He stared at her unblinkingly. ‘Did you intend to ask a question, or merely make a statement?’
Sorcha blushed. ‘Sorry. I just thought, as I’m getting on to be seventeen, that we could discuss my future?’
Seamus seemed to soften a little. ‘Yes. That sounds like a prudent conversation.’ He crossed his arms. ‘Now, as much as I love you as a daughter, I need the quality of work you produce to be top class.’
Sorcha knew exactly where this conversation was heading.
‘Therefore, before I take you on at the firm as a typist, I will need you to obtain the highest secretarial qualification. Cork has a number of institutions that will be suitable, but my recommendation would be—’
‘Daddy?’ Sorcha dared to interrupt. Seamus raised a curious eyebrow. ‘I know that you want me to work in your offices, and that’d be grand altogether, but . . .’ Sorcha’s mother reappeared at the table with a steaming bread pudding.
‘Please, finish your sentence, Sorcha.’
Sorcha was flustered. ‘I have heard that there are lots of opportunities in London.’
‘London?’ Seamus queried. ‘Who’s put ideas in your head about that?’
‘No one, I just—’
Seamus straightened his back. ‘No daughter of mine is to go gallivanting off to England.’
‘I understand, Daddy, but I really think that I could make something of myself there. There’s not as many opportunities here at home.’
Sorcha’s eyes crossed to her mother, who was stiffly filling three bowls with the beige-brown pudding, visibly anxious.
‘Not many opportunities here?’ Seamus leant in across the table towards his daughter. ‘And what, pray tell, do you believe the opportunities to be in London?’
Sorcha stared blankly down at the table. ‘Well . . .’
‘Precisely. You don’t have an answer. Whichever silly little friend of yours has mentioned this to you clearly hasn’t been thinking about the realities of life. You’ll go over there with nothing. How will you afford accommodation?’
‘I . . .’
‘Bills? Food?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Because you won’t have any help from me. None at all.’
‘I wouldn’t expect any.’
‘Oh, wouldn’t you? That’s about the only logical conclusion you’ve been able to draw this evening. If your plan is to go over there and find some fancy millionaire man to marry, it’s a foolish one. There’s a lot more women to choose from in England, that come from better stock than you.’
Sorcha observed her mother’s eyes shoot daggers at her father, unseen by Seamus.
‘You’ve a much better chance here, with someone we deem suitable.’
Sorcha felt an anger simmering within her. It was in danger of bubbling over. ‘What if I don’t want to get married? What if I want to have a career?’
Her father guffawed. ‘It’s a career you want, is it? Are you hearing this, Mary? Our daughter wants a career!’ His laughter sent a tidal wave of shame washing over Sorcha. ‘You’ll make a fine typist and an even better wife and mother. No man will want his woman working outside the marital home.’
‘Daddy, please just listen to—’
‘Enough!’ Seamus banged his fist on the table.
‘Your mother and I have raised you to represent the O’Donovan family.
I will not have my child flouncing off to England only to have you come crawling back with an expectation that I will fix everything for you.
You will not embarrass this family, Sorcha. That is the end of it.’
Pudding was consumed in total silence.
That night, Sorcha cried silent tears in bed.
Seamus had worn her down. Whether she liked it or not, going to London with Con was an impossibility.
Travelling across the Irish Sea would mean cutting ties with her family entirely, and no matter how her father made her feel, Sorcha wasn’t sure she could make such a life-changing decision at such a young age.
If Con truly loved her, as he said he did, then surely a life together in Ballymore was enough?
That said, her next task was to convince her father that Con was more than just the local reprobate. Perhaps if Seamus could appreciate his talent, he would see that Con could be a provider.
With all his ability, how could he fail?
Of course, announcing her relationship brazenly over breakfast tomorrow morning would not be the wisest move. It might just give Seamus a heart attack. That was a problem for a different day.
Sorcha dried her tears on her pillowcase and thought about Con’s shimmering eyes.
Con was strumming morosely on his guitar when he heard the tap on the door. It opened before he reached it.
Sorcha stood there shivering with cold and emotion. ‘I love you, Con. I never want to be without you.’
‘You’ll come with me to London then?’
Sorcha steeled herself. ‘No, Con. I can’t just leave everything behind. This is where my life is.’
Con shook his head and cast his eyes to the floor. ‘Oh, God, Sorcha. How will I cope without you?’
She took his hands in her own. ‘You don’t have to, Con Daly. Stay here, with me.’
‘You know that will never work. Your father won’t allow us to be together.’
‘That’s my problem, Con, and one I will solve . . . with time.’
He freed his hands and rubbed his eyes. ‘I can’t give up my music. You know I can’t.’
‘I do. But I was thinking that you could go to Dublin, and try and get someone in the business to notice you there.’
Con seemed unsure. ‘They want folk singers in Dublin. I’m a rocker.’
‘Yes. But all you need is a chance. Then you can be whatever you want, Con. When you’re successful, with thousands of pounds and three houses, Daddy will see that you’re the man for me.’ She gave him a reassuring smile. ‘And then, who knows? Maybe we’ll both end up in London just like you want.’
Con looked genuinely torn. ‘Jesus, I love you, Sorcha-porcha. I just . . .’ Sorcha took his head in her hands and kissed him gently, then more passionately.
After a few minutes, desire took over. He pulled her down on the sofa and his hands began to roam Sorcha’s body.
He waited for them to be removed from her breasts, but met no resistance.
His fingers travelled up her legs and caressed the soft flesh of her inner thigh, still waiting to be checked.
But her eyes were closed, her lips turned up in a faint smile.
Small sighs of pleasure left her.
‘Sorcha . . . is this . . . can we?’
She opened her eyes and smiled up at him.
‘Yes. Just promise me one day we’ll be married. Then I can think that this won’t be a mortal sin.’
‘We’re married now in our souls. Love is no sin in God’s eyes, Sorcha.’
‘No. Then love me, Con.’
Two hours later, Sorcha was back home, soaping herself in a hot bath.
She felt a little sore, but it was a nice pain, because it was where she and Con had been joined.
She’d cycled like a madwoman all the way home, terrified her mother might have called Maureen’s to find out why she was so late, only to discover Sorcha hadn’t been there at all.
But when she arrived home, her mother was in bed with a migraine and her father was still out at a meeting in the community hall.
Slipping her nightgown over her head, Sorcha climbed into bed. She looked at the almost hairless teddy that usually kept her company in bed. Grabbing him, she tossed him out of bed.
Teddies were for children.
And now she was a woman.
After tonight, Sorcha knew that she and Con completely belonged to one another. All would have to be well.
She would make sure of it.