Forty-eight years earlier…
Douglas was, as she might have guessed, early. It didn’t matter, because Tess was ready to walk out the door as soon as he knocked. He looked so dapper, his tuxedo jacket, flawless black, heightened the golden strands of hair that fell across his forehead.
‘Borrowed,’ he said, pulling down sleeves that might have been an inch longer, but not so short you’d notice. ‘Nancy, how are you feeling today?’ It was one of those questions that didn’t really require an answer. She was back in secretarial college and Tess thought maybe she’d met up with some girls to be friends with. Nancy was arriving home a little later most evenings and she seemed to be much happier in herself. Perhaps, Tess thought, she was falling in love too.
Tess looked at her sister now, sitting with a magazine contentedly. They were so different, she couldn’t imagine Nancy experiencing the sort of passion she felt for Douglas. She couldn’t imagine her falling head over heels for some chap. In her mind’s eye, Tess could see Nancy meeting some respectable young man and settling into the sort of boring domesticity that their parents had.
‘Hello Douglas,’ Nancy said, looking up from her magazine, as though she’d only just noticed him, ‘you look very nice, try to be good, both of you.’ She smiled serenely at them, but Tess thought she’d never seen her look more aloof, while at the same time something about her seemed to catch the air between them all. In an instant, her sister, normally so plain, had turned into an ice maiden and even Tess could see that there was something remote, untouchable and, yes, perhaps attractive about her indifference.
‘I’m always good,’ Douglas said and his voice held that middle ground where Tess wasn’t sure if something had passed between them that excluded her.
‘Come on, we’ll be late,’ Tess said, pulling him out the door as she wrapped her shoulders in the long shawl she’d picked up to match her ball gown. The bells across the city struck out seven chimes in night air that was chilly, but the overhead clouds held any frost at bay.
They walked along in silence for most of the journey to the hotel, both of them caught up in their own thoughts. Later, when they had finished dancing and drinking, she would forget the niggling fear that had crept up inside her in the flat.
Dublin, on a dry winter’s night, heaved with a heavy spell that cast a net of uneasiness about the city. Tess felt it as they walked along the empty streets after the ball. It was as though they’d spent the evening at odds, as if they’d had an argument she had not been told about. So, she had drunk a little too much of the free punch and felt it go to her head in a woozy remote way that dulled the discomfort between them. Perhaps it clouded it just enough to give her courage to pull Douglas drunkenly to her when they turned into the square. The idea that something was amiss seemed as if it was a figment of her overactive imagination. She thought that he would kiss her wantonly, hold her and perhaps make some promise that would meld them in some way more than before. But instead he pulled away with a ferocity that almost sent her spinning.
‘What is it, Douglas, what’s wrong?’ she asked, trying to meet his eyes, but he looked away and began to walk back towards the flat.
‘It’ll be bright soon,’ he said needlessly as he hurried on.
Her shoes, cheap and uncomfortable, echoed their pointed sound against the pavements.
‘Oh, Douglas,’ Tess said, catching him up, not quite sure what to make of him, she linked her hand through his. ‘It was a wonderful night, better than I’d ever thought it could be… you and me and the music, I’m so happy.’ She did a little twirl, admiring how her dress swirled out and tapered back in again. Tess threaded her arm through his again, but he pushed it aside quickly. She felt the rebuff, even more acutely than when she’d tried to kiss him. ‘What is it?’
‘We shouldn’t have gone to the ball, not together. This, it’s all wrong, the Sunset Club and all those nights afterwards, I’d never have…’ He didn’t look at her, instead he stared ahead at some unimportant point in the road.
‘What do you mean, Douglas? It was…’ her voice trailed off. ‘But we’re…’
‘We’re what?’ He turned on her now. ‘What are we, really, do you think?’
‘I’m in love with you, Douglas, we’re in love.’
‘In love?’ He laughed cruelly then. ‘With you?’ He shook his head, as though nothing could be further from the truth. ‘Tess, we’re not in love. I’m not in love with you. I’ll admit, that first day in college, I thought maybe…’ He ran his hand through his hair, pulled that thick flop of side fringe back from his eyes. ‘Maybe when you seemed so pure, that first day. You were untouched, I could see it a mile off. You were innocent, different to all the other girls I met at university – they’re all so easy, giving themselves away at the first chance, as though their virginity was something to be discarded like an old coat.’ His expression changed now.
‘But you kissed me, that night on the steps at the flat. You walked me to the Sunset Club every week, you…’ Tess felt the reality of what had passed between them over the past few weeks and maybe what it meant to both of them. Had she let herself become what he seemed to despise so much? Had she, through loving him, managed to lose him?
‘No, Tess. You kissed me. I’ll admit, I couldn’t keep away, but isn’t that the thing with girls like you. You just trap men, you, with your swinging hips and your tight skirts and putting my hand places that would screw up a saint’s brain.’
‘You didn’t have to kiss me back.’ It was a cheap remark, but Tess could feel a sense of desperation rise within her. She was certain that if she lost him on this walk home, things would never be right between them again.
‘No. You’re right there and I’m…’ He waited a moment, examined the footpath intently, and then she noticed something. He was the same as her father, he couldn’t say sorry. Not that she wanted him to be sorry, not for any of it. No, she wanted something else from him, but it wasn’t sorry.
‘Well then,’ she said as they turned into the top of Swift Square. ‘So what now?’ He had to lead the way. She prayed he’d chose to lead them where she wanted to go, even if she feared deep down that he had no intention of it.
‘I suppose, we can’t just fall out with each other, I mean, there’s Nancy to think of too.’ He shook his head and she knew he was just working to keep the worry from his voice. How had she not seen the way he felt? He thought she was trying to trap him, in some way to lead him astray and now she could feel the resentment from him and worse, the shame. She shivered, realizing in one sobering heartbeat that if she had found herself pregnant, Douglas would have turned his back on her.
‘Goodnight, Douglas,’ she managed before she let herself into the flat. Inside the door, she closed her eyes, willing for just a few seconds that she could find some way to turn back the clock. She knew that it would take going back weeks to make things right. She had a feeling that tonight had somehow confirmed for Douglas what he’d suspected for some time. He thought she was cheap – and Douglas would not want anyone who was cheap. She knew he was only half-right, because now, even if she was cheap, she was empty too, she flung herself onto her little single bed and cried until the sun came up – it didn’t make things any better.