Read Online It Was Only Ever You by Kate Kerrigan - Free Book Online Page A

her mother became suspicious and followed her. They would keep her boarding with the nuns in Crossmolina till she had finished her Matriculation exams at nineteen, then they would decide what was for the best. But Eleanor wondered sometimes if it was right to keep her daughter so cosseted. Rose saw nobody these days and only went out for the walks she took across the fields with her chalks and pencils. She made rough sketches which she would later turn into beautiful watercolours at home.
    What Eleanor did not realize was that Rose’s notepad was already filled with detailed drawings of flowers ready to show her mother when she got in after a deliciously clandestine hour with Patrick Murphy. Now, Rose sauntered casually from the house, crossed the road and, as soon as she was out of sight, ran over the hill to the bushes at the back of the hill where Patrick was waiting. She was so happy to see him that she simply tumbled into the arms and began kissing him.
    ‘Did you miss me?’ she said. The line of her white neck was taut, her face bent back, lips parted, her blonde curls tumbling down her back, eyes sparkling with unashamed joy. Every time he laid eyes on her Patrick was shocked anew by her beauty. More than that, she seemed to understand him. Rose’s passion for drawing was as strong as his own love for singing.
    ‘I missed you madly every minute of every hour and well you know it!’ he said, laughing.
    ‘I felt like I was going to go mad these last two days – I was furious when my mother told me we were going to Galway for the day. You do realize it has been nearly a full forty-eight hours since I last saw you? I was afraid you would have forgotten all about me.’
    ‘Never! What was your name again?’
    Rose punched his arm, reached up and kissed him briefly on the lips then all over his face, pulling him down with unexpected strength on to the ground until the two of them were laughing and rolling around on the warm, soft grass.
    Patrick touched her tenderly, tentatively – running his long, browned hands over the bare skin of her neck and her arms, then, finally, slipping back the strap of her cotton sundress, the creamy curve of her shoulder. After the christening touch, he gently kissed each place in turn before kissing her mouth, reaching into her with a hunger that made her whole body ache. She felt passion race through her in a wave – as if she was drowning again and he was the only one who could save her. Rose knotted his fingers with hers then reached their intertwined hands and arms out to their sides. The push and pull of pushing their hands away from their bodies was a dance of discretion; a way of holding each other while stopping themselves from taking the next step. Their young, vital bodies hurt with a yearning but they both knew they could not go too far. While Rose, at only eighteen, was recklessly in love, she knew it was her responsibility, as the girl, to hold herself back from luring her lover into trouble. They were in enough trouble already just seeing each other.
    Rose knew that she would never experience a love this strong, this certain ever again. This was the love Hollywood films were made on. The instant passionate knowing you have, one for the other. Rose would do anything she could to protect it.
    In the last few weeks she had even withdrawn from her dearest friend, Patrick’s sister Sinead, because she was afraid that she would have to confide in her and Sinead might confide in her own parents. The easy-going Murphy family would probably be delighted to see their son happily in love with their daughter’s friend, but Rose’s parents would be a different matter altogether. Deep in her heart, Rose knew they would not approve. To supplement their small farm, Patrick’s father worked in the local woollen mills, and his wife and six children lived in a two-bedroom smallholding with three cows and a handful of sheep and two small fields just outside the town. They were