Read Online It Was Only Ever You by Kate Kerrigan - Free Book Online
Authors: Kate Kerrigan
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Balduccis to back him. I hear he’s real mean, Sheila. Maybe it’s best if you left town for a while.’
Sheila nodded and smiled, but her heart was breaking. Leave the city? Was she being chased out by Dan’s bully-boy in-laws? Was it possible? But the Balducci boys were a bad bunch all right. Sheila looked at the stern, worried face of her old friend and realized with a growing sense of alarm that this was really happening.
If Angela’s brothers were going about town warning innocents like Frankie the Sax off her, no wonder she was persona non grata in the clubs.
‘Thanks, Frankie,’ she said. ‘Maybe I’ll do that.’
She kissed him and he said, ‘You take care now, honey,’ before tapping twice on the big steel door and being let in by the janitor. As Sheila watched him go into the kitchen she knew she was saying goodbye, not just to Frankie, but to a part of her life.
As she walked back towards midtown, Sheila let the reality of what she had just learned sink in. Aside from her dream being shattered, she had run out of money and she needed a job. Nobody would take her on as their manager right now.
There was no point in even trying. If Angela’s brothers had got to the smaller club owners, then there wasn’t a dance hall in Manhattan that would give her a job washing dishes.
She wouldn’t give up. She didn’t know anything else. But she would have to get out of the city for a while and figure out how she was going to make this work.
Sheila had made a big mistake. She knew that. Dan was the married one but the woman was the one who always paid. It wasn’t fair but she would be dumb to think it would be any different. She had screwed the wrong guy, with the wrong wife, from the wrong family and now – she was screwed. There was no sense in crying over it. She just had to move on. Where and how, she had no idea. The only one place she knew she could go at that moment was the last place she wanted to go.
Back home to her aunt and uncle in leafy Riverdale – the Bronx.
6
R OSE ’ S BEDROOM was on the first floor and looked out on to the courtyard at the front of the house. It was just short of midday and a small breeze was tickling the tall bamboo plants that sat in huge exotic pots on the cobblestones. A gang of swallows were swooping across towards the gooseberry bushes in her mother’s walled garden.
Rose lived with her parents in a large, stone-fronted house about a mile outside Foxford, on the Ballina road. Dr John Hopkins was the general practitioner in the town and tended to the medical needs of the people of Foxford with great kindness and efficiency. He and the local priest owned the only two cars in the small town.
The courtyard was surrounded by a high stone wall covered with ivy. The stone arch led to a narrow public road down which cars rarely passed. From her window Rose could see the small wooden gate, which led to a hilly field, circled by shrubs and trees. It was part of their garden, but semi-wild. A man came to mow it throughout the summer, but otherwise her mother had her hands full with the rose garden and the walled fruit garden and rarely ventured across the road to ‘the hill’.
Rose was sitting by the window, painting, with her easel propped up on the wide, deep sill. The weather had cooled in the last few days and there were droplets of condensation on the inside of the glass. Rose was trying to capture the drops of fluid, with their sparkle and shadows, in a charcoal drawing. She looked across to the field and, from behind a bank of hydrangea to the left of the hill, she saw Patrick’s hand waving a blue shirt.
Excited, she grabbed her cardigan from the bed, and ran downstairs. ‘I’m going out, Mother,’ she called into the kitchen.
‘Where are you going?’ Eleanor called out anxiously.
‘Just taking a walk across the fields to do some sketching. I’ll be back within the hour.’
Rose was always careful never to stay out longer than she promised in case
Sheila nodded and smiled, but her heart was breaking. Leave the city? Was she being chased out by Dan’s bully-boy in-laws? Was it possible? But the Balducci boys were a bad bunch all right. Sheila looked at the stern, worried face of her old friend and realized with a growing sense of alarm that this was really happening.
If Angela’s brothers were going about town warning innocents like Frankie the Sax off her, no wonder she was persona non grata in the clubs.
‘Thanks, Frankie,’ she said. ‘Maybe I’ll do that.’
She kissed him and he said, ‘You take care now, honey,’ before tapping twice on the big steel door and being let in by the janitor. As Sheila watched him go into the kitchen she knew she was saying goodbye, not just to Frankie, but to a part of her life.
As she walked back towards midtown, Sheila let the reality of what she had just learned sink in. Aside from her dream being shattered, she had run out of money and she needed a job. Nobody would take her on as their manager right now.
There was no point in even trying. If Angela’s brothers had got to the smaller club owners, then there wasn’t a dance hall in Manhattan that would give her a job washing dishes.
She wouldn’t give up. She didn’t know anything else. But she would have to get out of the city for a while and figure out how she was going to make this work.
Sheila had made a big mistake. She knew that. Dan was the married one but the woman was the one who always paid. It wasn’t fair but she would be dumb to think it would be any different. She had screwed the wrong guy, with the wrong wife, from the wrong family and now – she was screwed. There was no sense in crying over it. She just had to move on. Where and how, she had no idea. The only one place she knew she could go at that moment was the last place she wanted to go.
Back home to her aunt and uncle in leafy Riverdale – the Bronx.
6
R OSE ’ S BEDROOM was on the first floor and looked out on to the courtyard at the front of the house. It was just short of midday and a small breeze was tickling the tall bamboo plants that sat in huge exotic pots on the cobblestones. A gang of swallows were swooping across towards the gooseberry bushes in her mother’s walled garden.
Rose lived with her parents in a large, stone-fronted house about a mile outside Foxford, on the Ballina road. Dr John Hopkins was the general practitioner in the town and tended to the medical needs of the people of Foxford with great kindness and efficiency. He and the local priest owned the only two cars in the small town.
The courtyard was surrounded by a high stone wall covered with ivy. The stone arch led to a narrow public road down which cars rarely passed. From her window Rose could see the small wooden gate, which led to a hilly field, circled by shrubs and trees. It was part of their garden, but semi-wild. A man came to mow it throughout the summer, but otherwise her mother had her hands full with the rose garden and the walled fruit garden and rarely ventured across the road to ‘the hill’.
Rose was sitting by the window, painting, with her easel propped up on the wide, deep sill. The weather had cooled in the last few days and there were droplets of condensation on the inside of the glass. Rose was trying to capture the drops of fluid, with their sparkle and shadows, in a charcoal drawing. She looked across to the field and, from behind a bank of hydrangea to the left of the hill, she saw Patrick’s hand waving a blue shirt.
Excited, she grabbed her cardigan from the bed, and ran downstairs. ‘I’m going out, Mother,’ she called into the kitchen.
‘Where are you going?’ Eleanor called out anxiously.
‘Just taking a walk across the fields to do some sketching. I’ll be back within the hour.’
Rose was always careful never to stay out longer than she promised in case
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