I can see my dad make his way back inside and I feel hotter and hotter by the second. I’m hoping my hot and cold flushes are not health related and are just from the intensity of keeping mine and David’s new, if still pending, relationship status a secret from the vultures in my neighbourhood. I can’t afford to be sick. David and I have waited for these summer months and we’ve so much planned for once he finishes school this week.
‘So, darling daughter, can I take you for a drink before you go back to Dublin?’ my dad asks when he comes backinside, the waft of tobacco following him again being enough to send our Maureen into another spin of air freshener. ‘How about you and I go for a pint? Maureen and Shannon can come too if they want to join us? It’s a beautiful day for a beer garden.’
I feel so shivery now and my head is fuzzy. I quickly check my phone and see a flurry of messages from David, as I expected I would by now, but all I want to do is lie down in bed and sleep off my exhaustion. Our tropical holiday was extremely enjoyable, but also very full on, as Sinead and I stuck to a very action-packed itinerary in Africa.
My dad waits for my answer.
‘I’m sorry, Dad, I’m absolutely knackered,’ I try to explain to him gently. ‘I’m going to have to go and lie down a while, but thanks for calling by to see us. Do you mind? We’ll do it next time, I promise.’
He pats his pockets, searching for his keys, and he gives me one of his twinkling smiles from beneath his scruffy beard.
‘Are you happy, my girl?’ he asks me at the front door before he leaves, a question he has asked me so many times from the day I was born and I already know what his next response will be.
‘I will be after I catch up on some sleep,’ I tell him, longing to lie down. ‘But yes, Dad. I’m really happy with my lot. I’ve a good life. I’m in a really nice place in here.’
I point to my head and to my heart in a gesture that we always share.
‘Then I’m happy too,’ he says to me, thumping his chest, and he gives me a hug before he leaves. My father’s hugs, though he is always a little bit rough around the edges in his appearance and outlook, with his unruly greying beard and unkempt ways, are always so genuine and heartfelt to me, and I nuzzle into him feeling like I’m just a child again. He hasn’t always been present or consistent in my life, but I’ve learned so much from him and I’ve also learned to forgive him for his weaknesses. As a fully grown adult myself now, I can accept him as a person in his own right with flaws and not just as my father.
And the truth is, out of all my family – Mum, Maureen and young Shannon – my dad is the one who can always read me the best. When I tell him I’m happy, he knows that I’m telling the truth.
‘You’ve love in your eyes, girl,’ he says with a smile as he leaves the front door of our terraced home for his flat across town. ‘He’s a lucky beggar, whoever he is. He’d better treat you like a queen.’
‘He does, Daddy,’ I tell him, lighting up when I think of David and how I’ve planned to spend a glorious weekend with him when his school term ends next week, then a dread fills my stomach as I fear for how I might never be able to introduce the two main men in my life for fear that – if they ever crossed paths in person – there might befireworks, at least on my dad’s part. He would be shocked to the core if he heard I’d fallen in love with someone from David’s part of town, not to mention the son of the renowned bigot Bob Campbell, who my mum claims isn’t as pure as he might lead everyone to believe. This is not just about religion or politics, it’s about a deep opposition that has haunted our small town since for ever and, unfortunately for David and me, we are from different ends of the spectrum.
‘Do I know him?’ he asks, his sparkling eyes lighting up.
My stomach flips.
‘Er, I’m not sure,’ I say, my pounding head getting worse by the second at the idea of telling the truth. ‘I’ll fill you in some day when I’m feeling a bit better.’
He leaves and I fall into bed in Maureen’s room. When David calls me, I can barely find the energy to hold the phone to my ear.
At the sound of his voice, I drift away to a place where I’m with him in real life properly, without this pretence and denial to our families, without this distance, in a world where his parents accept me and mine accept him and welcome our growing love with delight.
‘I’m glad to be back, David, but the truth is I’m exhausted,’ I confess to him. ‘I wish I could magic myself back quickly to my own bed in Dublin, and to the weekend when we’ll be together properly at last.’
‘It’s been a long two months,’ he says in agreement, ‘butI’ve my new little place well lived in by now here in Bromley and, with school ending next week, we’ve a whole summer to spend together in Dublin if that’s still what you want?’
‘It’s still what I want for sure,’ I tell him, allowing for just this moment to forget about the tension this whole reality might bring to us. ‘I can’t wait.’
In the eight or so weeks since David called off his wedding and left to go and pick up the pieces of his life in England, to find a new place to live and finish his school term, we’ve been talking like lovers even though we’ve really only spent one night together, but what a night it was. Lying in David’s strong, sexy arms was like floating on a cloud, feeling his skin on mine was like my whole world was safe and complete, and when he kissed me properly for the first time I knew we were meant to be.
It was electrifying, it was soft, sensual and time-stopping, and I knew right then I wanted to be with him, even if we had to fight the world to make it happen.
‘I want that more than anything,’ I tell him, wanting so badly to fast forward to the day when I would be able to feel him in my arms again. ‘Hurry up and get here. I want us to be in the same place at the same time once and for all.’
DAVID
‘Are you going to see yourgirlfriend?’ Stacy, one of my A-level students asks me as we finish up on our last day of term. ‘Brianna is so jealous. She really fancies you, sir.’
‘They all fancy you,’ says Edward, one of my top pupils who is normally also the quietest. ‘They think you’re hot. Even the other teachers do. We think Miss Harper is in love with you too.’
‘Now, now, that’s enough!’ I tell my three eager students, who are swarming around me like bees round a honeypot as I do my best to disguise my delight that today has finally come. ‘You’ve all a whole summer ahead to get all that built-up adrenaline out of your system. I’ll see you in September, OK?’
But there is no hiding it from anyone as I stroll out of school, saying goodbye to my team in the science department and to my groups of eager students, that I am like the cat that has got the cream.
I’m mad to see Kate and I can’t disguise how I’m now counting down the hours to my flight the next morning.
