Erin Kaye - Always You

She reached for the coffee cup and tried not to show her exasperation. He talked as if she was his to lose. She suspected that he’d followed her to uni. He’d got straight A’s. He could’ve gone anywhere, yet he turned down places at St Andrews and Durham to come to The University of Ulster at Coleraine, which filled a fair whack of its places through clearing. Sarah’s reasons for being here, on the other hand, had nothing to do with grades. She needed to be far enough away from home to achieve the independence she craved, yet close enough to keep an eye on her little sister, Becky.

‘I’ll always be your friend, Ian. You will always be able to count on me. But going to uni is all about growing and changing, not holding on to the familiar,’ she said, rather pointedly. Ian had surrounded himself with people who were almost carbon copies of his geeky friends at home.

His eyes flashed. ‘Well, I think it’s important to keep old friends and stay true to who you are.’

‘And I think it’s important to expand your horizons, to question who you are and what you’ve been brought up to believe.’ She took a sip of milky, lukewarm coffee. ‘We should be opening our minds to new experiences. Being a student isn’t just about getting grades, Ian. It’s about learning in the broadest sense.’

He looked at her as if she’d just spouted forth ancient Greek, then focused on her hands cradling the cup. His brows knitted together – he cocked his head to one side and squinted. And making no attempt to hide his dismay said, ‘Did he give you that ring?’

She set the cup down and twisted the ring between the finger and thumb of her left hand. A sudden burst of rain hit the glass wall of the building like peppercorns.

‘It’s just a ring, Ian,’ she said, trying to make light of it. Why did she say that? The ring meant everything to her. Cahal meant everything to her.

‘You really are going over to the dark side, aren’t you?’ he said, though there was no humour in his voice.

Sarah inched forward in her seat and lowered her voice. ‘Don’t be like that, Ian. You should be more open-minded. We only fear those who are different from us because we fear what we don’t understand.’

But she had never feared Cahal. She’d been inexorably drawn to him. She thought back to the first time she’d seen him all those months ago, playing the bodhran drum in The Anchor bar.

The sound came from a small room at the front of the bar. She fought her way through the crowd blocking the doorway and stood there, transfixed by the scene in the smoke-filled room. Musicians sat on the wooden benches on either side of the fire dancing in the grate, the air filled with such music – the moving cadence of the fiddle, the high, sweet tones of the flute and the fierce, primeval beat of a drum. And it was Cahal, the drummer, who caught her eye. His head was down, his entire body vibrated in time to the wild pulse of the small round drum balanced vertically on his left thigh. 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.