The Rosary Garden by Nicola White (best books to read now TXT) 📕

Four girls drifted out into the middle of the floor and started to dance, smiling only at each other or down at their shoes, pretending not to be aware of the crowd that now ringed the hall, three or four deep as closing pubs swelled the numbers. Brendan turned up the music to rise over the sound of the talking. In response, people raised their voices, yelling conversations into their neighbour’s ears. Ali looked round to see who she recognised; there was Roisín’s husband Colman, roaring drunk and hugging an equally red-faced buddy by the neck – Cathal, the arsehole with the foetus-feet badge. Roisín must be home with the baby. More girls were dancing now, sedate little shimmies set against the wild gestures and stumbles of the roiling crowd ringing the floor. It was either going to be a brilliant night or a riot.

Davy hopped off the stage and grabbed her wrist, pulling Ali out into the centre of the sparsely occupied floor. He was the first man up, and what he lacked in rhythm he made up for in enthusiasm, twirling her about, playing various invisible instruments, winking at the other dancers. They danced for four songs, by which time the floor was packed. Brendan gave them a thumbs-up from the stage.

‘Want a mineral?’ said Ali. ‘I’m parched.’

Davy signalled that he had another source of drink up by the decks, so she threaded her way to the refreshment tent on her own, squeezing her fingers into her pockets to find the fiver she’d stowed earlier.

Things were quieter in the side tent. Women poured tea and offered Club biscuits or packets of crisps from big tin boxes. As she stood in line for her lemonade Ali spotted Joan standing with a couple of older women. After she bought her bottle, she wandered over, noticing as she drew close that Joan wasn’t doing any of the talking, was in fact smiling past the women’s heads at the blank wall of the tent, jiggling her head from side to side. The women eyed Ali with suspicion.

‘All right?’ she called to Joan. Joan didn’t seem to hear, so Ali tapped her on the back. She swung round quick as a flash, something like fear widening her eyes, then settling into pleasure as she recognised Ali.

‘Look at you – and that hair: you’ve mad style.’

‘I wouldn’t get looked at twice in Dublin, but here … Anyway, how are you settling in at Ivor’s?’

‘Yeah, yeah, it’s good,’ said Joan, dismissing the question. Her eyes raked the crowd beyond Ali’s shoulder. ‘Is your aunt not coming?’

‘She’s a bit old for this, eh? Not much of a groover, Aunt Una.’

‘I need to talk to her.’

‘Tell me, I’ll pass it on.’

‘Nope,’ said Joan and turned back to the whispering women. Ali headed back into the main hall. She hoped it wasn’t her old job that Joan wanted to ask Una for. She thought they had got past all that.

She found a quiet spot by the marquee wall and took the combs out of her hair, shaking it down and raking it through with her fingers. ‘Mad style’ was not the look she’d been aiming at.

She looked up and saw Peggy Nolan standing alone in a rose-printed dress at the edge of the light, watching the dancers. Her expression was as miserable as her frock was merry. Some people could make you feel guilty just by breathing. Perhaps she would go and talk to her. But then Ali saw a hand reach out and touch Peggy’s shoulder from behind. Peggy turned round to the man on the end of the tapping hand, her dull expression unchanging. But the man must have read some consent in her eyes, because he guided her out into the swarm of dancers, an arm firmly round her middle. Ali moved to the little gap Peggy had vacated. Davy was close by on the floor, dancing slowly with a tall girl Ali hadn’t seen before – elegant, with dark sleepy eyes and high cheekbones, like a girl in a magazine. Davy was talking close into her ear, but the girl hardly seemed to listen, looked bored.

Ali squeezed her way back to the stage and asked Brendan to top up her lemonade with the Bacardi she’d seen him buy at the Red Rock.

‘The lovely Valerie,’ he said when she pointed to Davy’s dance partner. ‘And he’s still trying to get her back, poor sucker.’

So this was the girl Davy had built a house for. Ali found it hard to believe anyone would turn down Davy, even a girl who looked like that.

Then The Corvettes took to the stage and the marquee skipped and sweated to a ceilidh set. Davy reappeared to persuade her up for ‘The Walls of Limerick’. Ali hadn’t ceilidh-danced since she was thirteen and spent three unhappy weeks down in Irish college in Spiddal. They hopped and they spun, passing under the facing couple’s steepled arms after each bout, to meet a new pair to repeat the moves with. Halfway round the hall they ducked under and came face-to-face with Ivor Dempsey, holding hands with a small busty girl who seemed to be unable to dance without holding her mouth open in a delighted silent scream.

‘Theresa, darlin’,’ said Davy and kissed her hand as he sidestepped her away.

Ivor looked either furious or embarrassed as he offered his hand, it was hard to tell which. Why had she acted like such a stuck-up tit yesterday? It had taken her until now to realise that he’d perhaps been asking her out.

‘Howya?’

‘I’m grand, Ivor,’ said Ali and gave his hand a little squeeze.

He stood still for a moment and looked at her. Everyone around them was spinning, and he belatedly caught her elbow and whirled her so hard that her feet lifted up from the ground. He laughed and brought them to a sudden stop. Her head kept twirling, even as Davy danced her on to the next pair.

‘Lively girl,