With an expert flick of his right wrist, a stubby, double-ended stick skimmed the skin of the drum while his foot pounded out the beat on the floor.
Dark curls, damp with sweat, fell over his forehead and muscular thighs filled the legs of his faded, ripped jeans. Her breath caught in her throat – and her heart turned over. The spirited rhythm made her heart stretch and contract like a bellow. He’d looked up and smiled at her through the fog of smoke, a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, ash falling unheeded to the floor. And she’d stared back into those black, glittering eyes, knowing that her life was changed forever…
Ian coughed and ran the flat of his hands down the long, slim thighs of his jeans, as if brushing something off them. ‘I understand the likes of Cahal Mulvenna perfectly well, Sarah,’ he said coldly. ‘But clearly you don’t. I’m really surprised that you’ve been taken in by him.’
She opened her mouth to defend him but someone beat her to it. ‘Hi, Sarah.’
At the sound of Cahal’s voice, Sarah jumped up and spun around to find him standing there with damp patches on the thighs of his pale blue jeans and across the broad shoulders of the battered brown leather jacket he always wore. His hair, wet from the rain, was plastered to his chiselled features. Just the sight of him was enough to set her heart pounding.
‘You’re soaked through!’ she cried and put a hand on the sleeve of his jacket.
He acknowledged her touch with a look and Ian with a nod of the head. Then he grinned at Sarah and ran a hand through his hair. A black curl fell in front of his face. It took all of Sarah’s self-restraint to resist the urge to reach out and brush it from his brow. She wished she was in bed with him right now, away from prying eyes and interfering busybodies like Ian.
‘Aye, it’s wild out there all right.’ He tossed his head and the curl flopped to one side. ‘Listen, have you got a minute, Sarah? There’s something I need to talk to you about.’ Cahal stared pointedly at Ian and Sarah looked at the floor.
Ian stood up, taller than Sarah by several inches, but the exact same height as Cahal – the only thing, as far as Sarah could see, that the two had in common. ‘I was just leaving.’ He turned to go, then paused and gave Sarah the faintest of smiles. ‘See you around, Sarah.’
‘Yeah, see you, Ian.’
As soon as he was gone, Cahal said, with a twinkle in his eye, ‘S’pose he was giving you a wee lecture about the evils of associating with a guy like me?’
She put a hand over her mouth and giggled. Then she bit her lip to stop herself from laughing. ‘Don’t. Ian’s all right, really.’
Cahal made a sound like a neighing horse. ‘He’s a boring sod.’
‘There’s worse crimes.’
He shrugged, grabbed her hand and pulled her down onto a seat by both hands. ‘I didn’t come to talk about him.’
‘What then?’ she said, slightly alarmed by the firmness of his grip.
He spoke quickly, the words tumbling out, one of top of the other, totally unlike his usual measured way of talking. ‘I’ve been thinking. You know the way I graduate this summer?’
She stared at the rain running in rivulets down the glass. It was all she thought about these days. Although they kept separate lodgings, they practically lived together, rarely spending a night apart. And even though it was months away, the thought of it made her palms sweat with panic. ‘I don’t think I could bear for us to be separated,’ she said, and bit her bottom lip to stop it quivering. Tears were not far away. ‘I don’t think I could live without you.’
He grabbed her shoulders and squeezed. ‘You don’t have to, Sarah.’ He grinned into her face. ‘What if I got a job right here in the university?’
‘What job?’
He pressed his palms together as if praying and touched his bottom lip with his fingertips. ‘Lab technician. I’ve just been talking to my tutor and he says they’re looking for a replacement for Phil Lynch – he’s taking up a post in Edinburgh. They need someone to start after the summer and he thinks I would be ideal. He’s more or less offered me the job, Sarah. What do you think?’
‘Oh, Cahal,’ she said, clasping her hands together and crying with relief. ‘That’s wonderful.’
‘I’d get a decent starting salary. Enough for the two of us to live on. We could move in together.’
‘Oh.’ What would her father say to living in sin? And Aunt Vi?
‘Or,’ he added hastily, seeing her reaction, ‘we could get married. Whatever you want.’
‘Married?’ she said, her head filling immediately with images of her in a white dress and Cahal by her side in a penguin suit, both of them smiling, delirious with happiness.
‘Yes. And then we’d never have to be apart ever again.’
She threw her arms around him and pressed her face into his warm, damp neck. He smelled of cigarettes and last night’s curry. Her stomach churned with desire. ‘Oh let’s, Cahal. And then no one, and nothing, can ever come between us.’
Carnlough beach, at the foot of Glencloy and just twelve miles north of Ballyfergus, was bleak on this bright but bitter February day. Carved out of the landscape by a massive ice age glacier, the glen, framed on either side by gently rising hills, swept gracefully down to meet the beach like a vast, winter-faded green velvet skirt. On its northern hem, the buildings of Carnlough village, mostly hewn from local limestone, clustered like pearls. An icy wind blew down the valley from the west, chilling the four people walking on the shingle beach.
Sarah’s nose was red with the cold and spits of cruel rain speared her left cheek like painful darts. Sarah’s sister, Becky chatted away beside her and, up ahead, Sarah’s children – eleven-year-old Molly and nine-year-old Lewis – stumbled gracelessly along the coarse sand, hindered by ill-fitting wellies. Molly, blonde-haired and grey-eyed, was very like Sarah. Lewis, with short red hair standing up in spikes and brown freckles sprinkled liberally across his face like hundreds and thousands, was the spitting image of his Dad.
Not for the first time, she wondered idly what Lewis might have looked like had she married Cahal instead of Ian. He might’ve had dark curly hair instead of red, and blue-green eyes instead of pale, almost translucent, blue ones. And then, just as quickly as the thought came to mind, she pushed it crossly away, annoyed that she had allowed Cahal to occupy her thoughts even for a second. He had done the thing he promised never to do – he had left her. She would never forgive him. In the same way her father used to dampen down the coal fire every night with a layer of slack, she buried her curiosity under a layer of determination not to think of him again.
‘So,’ Becky was saying, ‘after watching me for ages at the bar, this guy comes over and starts chatting. He was a postgrad. Nice looking. A few years younger than me I’d say, but that didn’t seem to put him off.’
A sudden gust unwound Sarah’s navy and grey cashmere scarf and whipped it in her face. She secured it round her neck again. ‘What were you wearing?’
‘Oh,
