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

smell there, not the reek of smoke and booze. He smelt lovely, sharp. She was allowing herself to relax into it when there was a scraping shriek across the record and some manic Madness track kicked in, leaving the dancers as disorientated as if someone had flung a bucket of water on them. Ali looked up to the stage and saw Brendan grinning, looking straight at her.

She tried to guide Ivor to the back of the marquee, but he had seen.

‘They’re great jokers, your family,’ he said, and his face was like granite. He put his hand against the curve of her spine and steered her towards the refreshment tent. She wasn’t sure if he was angry with her too, but they could have a sit down in the annex and maybe sort it out. But just where one tent led into another, Ivor drew aside a flap of canvas and pushed her out into the darkness. She stumbled over the muddy grass, his hand still pressing against her waistband. It was quiet behind the tent, though she was aware of huddled, possibly embracing figures here and there in the shadows. She stopped walking and turned to face him, put her hand flat against his chest. She could feel the pump of his heart under her palm.

‘I don’t want to be rolling around in some ditch,’ she said. He put his hand out and rubbed his fingertips slowly across her lower lip.

‘Would a van do?’

A moment went by, and then she said yes.

They drove a mile or two out along the road, turned down a lane and parked. He collapsed the back of the bench seat so that it formed a kind of cushioned recline for them. He did it in such a practised way that Ali flickered with doubt, thinking of other girls in this same place. Ivor brushed a hand over the surface and smiled at her.

Everybody thought she was a slut already. Even Davy. She didn’t want to try to remember what it was that Davy had been hinting at. She wanted to be only her body, not thoughts or memories. She took off her top and sat before Ivor in her bra. There was only one thing.

‘Do you have something?’

He smiled and patted his shirt pocket, then reached for the button of her trousers.

They wrestled each other out of their clothes, laughing and straining. The image of a smiling, approving Mary O’Shea came into Ali’s head and she pushed it away as Ivor pushed into her.

Sometime later she was on her hands and knees and he was covering her. There was a slick of sweat between his chest and her back. He reached a hand round to touch her, and pressed his teeth against her neck. Her body shook, her arms suddenly unable to support her. Ivor groaned and collapsed onto her.

‘Fucking hell,’ he muttered and rolled onto his back, one hand fumbling at his groin, taking care of the condom. She nuzzled into his side, trying to keep the feeling going, sneaking looks at his body through half-closed eyes, the dim light barred by shadows of branches around them. He looked like he was sleeping, but his fingers moved slowly back and forth through her hair, keeping her quiet. Owls called in the woods.

The marquee was still alight when they got back. Ali wasn’t sure how much time had passed. They parted outside the van.

‘I need to find Joan,’ he said.

She slipped back in the way they had snuck out. All the refreshments were packed up. Sleepers and snogging couples occupied the benches. Half the dancers had gone home. The Corvettes were playing ‘Spancilhill’, and a scattering of people were lurching around the floor to it. A circle of six men, including Roisín’s husband, rotated drunkenly at one end of the floor, arms around each other’s shoulders like a rugby scrum.

Brendan was putting the records away.

‘Where’s Davy?’

‘Fucked off somewhere. Just like you did. I wouldn’t mind some help with this lot.’ He wouldn’t look at her.

‘I met some girls outside,’ said Ali, acting more pissed than she was.

‘Did you now?’

‘They were such a laugh. I lost track of time.’

‘And which one of those charming ladies gave you that big hickey?’

Ali clamped her hand to her neck.

‘Other side.’

She wrapped both hands round her neck.

‘Must have got your head stuck in a tent flap,’ he said, but he wasn’t smiling, and wouldn’t speak to her on the way home.

20

Joan came over when Davy called her name, but refused to get in the car. He’d told Una she wouldn’t want to, but Una never listened. He hadn’t set eyes on Joan for years, but she was exactly the same: shy, her animal wariness alert to entrapment.

‘Just a quick chat,’ he said, ‘in private, like. You said you wanted to talk to Una. Well, here she is.’ The chug of dance music started up again in the marquee behind them.

‘She can talk to me up there.’ Joan pointed up the road to where the village started, sodium light falling on darkened house fronts and empty pavements.

She walked away, up the middle of the road, towards the lights. Davy got into the car with Una.

‘What’s she playing at?’ Una asked.

‘I don’t know. Maybe she’s drunk.’

‘You’re pretty well on yourself. She shouldn’t be out of Damascus House. I told Peter Nolan, they should keep her in. She’s not right, she’s been making threats.’

Joan was a smoky flicker in the darkness. Una started the engine and eased the car along the road in her wake. She didn’t turn the lights on.

‘What threats?’

‘Letters in the post, most days.’

‘Is she saying she’ll tell on you?’

Una gave him a disgusted look. ‘Tell on me?’

Joan looked back over her shoulder. Davy rolled down the window and stuck his head out.

‘Come here for a minute, eh? Just – come on,’ he called.

A wash of light fanned through the car as a vehicle appeared behind. Una pulled into the side and ducked her head low. Davy