‘Ah, David, thank you,’ she says, tilting her head to the side as she opens the modest gift. I can smell her perfume. It’s the same one she was wearing the last time we met six months ago and its scent makes me want to touch her even more.
She looks puzzled as she opens the little bracelet, a silver chain with a ruby stone, and immediately puts it around her wrist, smiling with pleasure. I lean across to help her fasten the clip and our eyes meet.
‘It’s your birthstone, but of course you already know that,’ I say as I clip it together around her wrist. My hand brushes her skin and our eyes meet, and we hold one another’s gaze for a few seconds, then she holds her hand up to the light. Just like me, she can’t stop grinning.
‘A ruby? I’m right, I hope?’ I wait.
‘Yes, you’re right,’ she replies. ‘David, this is really sweet, but why would you—?’
‘It’s a thank you after all these years, that’s all,’ I say quickly, knowing that it looks as though I’ve totally overstepped the mark. ‘I wanted to get you something to say thank you and for keeping your promise that day of the bomb. I’m glad we’ve found each other again. It means nothing more than that.’
‘You sure?’ she asks, her face wrinkling in concern.
‘I promise,’ I say, hoping to diffuse any suggestion of other motives.
‘Thank you,’ she says, looking at it again and touchingit with her delicate fingers. ‘It’s very special. I’ll treasure it for ever.’
She reverses the car out of the parking space and I watch her hands on the steering wheel, where rows of other silver bangles jingle as she moves them around and I can’t help but wonder how many others she has managed to help with those hands, as she helped me that day.
I turn down the window. The fresh air shakes me up a bit, thank goodness.
‘So how’s your mum?’ she asks, and I’m thankful to her for bringing us back to some everyday conversation. ‘She’s going to get a great surprise when you get there tonight. Are you sure you’re OK to hang out here for the evening? Oh, I bet she’ll be over the moon to see you.’
I don’t hesitate to answer. ‘She’s coping so well and with such dignity,’ I say, feeling a pang in my heart at the thought that I can’t even introduce Kate to my own mother because of my father’s bitterness and resentment. ‘Bernie – the therapist – is like a lifeline, calling once a week. I’d say she knows more about my mum now than I do myself. It’s been great for Mum. I honestly can’t thank you enough and, as for hanging out with you this evening, there’s no way I could pass through Dublin without saying hello, is there?’
She smiles as she drives and her turquoise eyes, defined like a cat’s, light up when I tell her so.
‘It’s so good to see you,’ she says, and I nod in agreement.
I know this is going too fast and too far already. I try tostay focused, to stay faithful, to stay true to my word and not ruin everything I have. I have made a home with Lesley, we have a future planned, I’ve a career in England and a comfortable existence that took me years to build up through hard work. But with Kate I have a connection that runs deeper than I’ve ever known with anyone else, an attraction that could set the world on fire.
But there’s a danger in the knowledge that we would never be accepted as a couple with our families. To push this too far could be the ruination of everything, so I must stay in control.
‘So, tell me, how was the flight?’ she asks, and we laugh at her deliberate attempt to change the subject.
We chat so freely together, just like we did when on our almost daily phone calls, but being here in her presence, in her car, in the city she now calls home, in her daily existence in real life is very different and even a little surreal.
It’s like no matter how much we’ve got to know each other, I sometimes think of Kate as some sort of enigma from another existence – untouchable, otherworldly – so it’s strange to be driving along the motorway now in her little car with its worn-out seats and fresh pine smell, talking in real life about her real life and about mine. She is cool and elegant, vibrant and positive, and she radiates even in such a mundane, everyday scenario as driving her car.
Every time I get to know her a little more, I find myself more and more spellbound, which frightens me to say thevery least when I think of the backlash we’d have from so many if we were to cross the line tonight. I shouldn’t feel this way about her, and I hate that I do, yet I love it even more than I hate it.
‘So, what’s the address of the restaurant again?’ she asks when we stop at traffic lights. ‘Did you say Parnell Square or am I totally wrong?’
‘Yes, Parnell Square North,’ I say, as the lights change to green. She wears a soft leather biker jacket and a long burgundy woollen skirt, which rides up her calf when she accelerates. I try not to gasp when I see a long white line on her tanned leg which makes me wince.
I instantly get a brief flashback again to the screams and the terror from the doorway, but her voice as she speaks soothes me instantly and brings me back to reality just as it has done so many times lately.
‘I don’t know about you, but I’m starving,’ she says, flashing me a trademark Kate smile. ‘Is it OK if we drop the car back at mine and get a taxi there?’
‘Of course. Great,’ I say to her, and as we cruise towards her flat, the wipers screeching as the rain dries up, that’s exactly the way I feel.
10.
KATE
‘Oh, David, that’s hysterical!’
I can barely eat for laughing, and we’ve been in this constant giddy state ever since we hit the city centre and found the little side-street restaurant that David had pre-booked for our early evening meal together. We are both giggly and excitable, like two teenagers on a first date, trying to ignore the sizzling tension that hovers between us.
