Page 14 of The Last Love Song
‘Behind you.’ Con indicated the arm of the couch. Sorcha picked it up and moved to the open door in silence.
‘Goodbye, Con. When shall I see you again?’
He shrugged his shoulders.
Sorcha walked through the door and out into the bracing night air. The door was shut behind her with a bang.
Sorcha scrambled along the path through the dunes, her eyes blinded by tears, her sobs echoing around her. She wished she could go to church, ask His advice, but she knew running away with a man and leaving her family behind to enjoy what would soon become pleasures of the flesh was not the kind of operation He would be happy to deal with.
‘Ouch!’ Sorcha stumbled and lay in the sand waiting for the pain in her ankle to lessen. She turned over and looked up at the sky. It was a beautiful clear night and she could see the stars twinkling brightly in their constellations.
If she let him go without her, wouldn’t she regret it for the rest of her life? What was she leaving here? She wasn’t a child any more. And the thought of a future without Con was unbearable.
That evening, Sorcha took her seat at the O’Donovan family dining table as her mother scooped out mountainous dollops of colcannon onto the plates. Once Seamus had delivered his lengthy grace, dinner was its usual tense affair. When her mother had finished clearing the crockery, Sorcha plucked up enough courage to engage her father in conversation.
‘Daddy?’
‘Sorcha.’
‘You’re always asking Helen McCarthy what her plans are for her future.’
He stared at her unblinkingly. ‘Did you intend to ask a question, or merely make a statement?’
Sorcha blushed. ‘Sorry. I just thought, as I’m getting on to be seventeen, that we could discuss my future?’
Seamus seemed to soften a little. ‘Yes. That sounds like a prudent conversation.’ He crossed his arms. ‘Now, as much as I love you as a daughter, I need the quality of work you produce to be top class.’
Sorcha knew exactly where this conversation was heading.
‘Therefore, before I take you on at the firm as a typist, I will need you to obtain the highest secretarial qualification. Cork has a number of institutions that will be suitable, but my recommendation would be—’
‘Daddy?’ Sorcha dared to interrupt. Seamus raised a curious eyebrow. ‘I know that you want me to work in your offices, and that’d be grand altogether, but...’ Sorcha’s mother reappeared at the table with a steaming bread pudding.
‘Please, finish your sentence, Sorcha.’
Sorcha was flustered. ‘I have heard that there are lots of opportunities in London.’
‘London?’ Seamus queried. ‘Who’s put ideas in your head about that?’
‘No one, I just—’
Seamus straightened his back. ‘No daughter of mine is to go gallivanting off to England.’
‘I understand, Daddy, but I really think that I could make something of myself there. There’s not as many opportunities here at home.’
Sorcha’s eyes crossed to her mother, who was stiffly filling three bowls with the beige-brown pudding, visibly anxious.
‘Not many opportunities here?’ Seamus leant in across the table towards his daughter. ‘And what, pray tell, do you believe the opportunities to be in London?’
Sorcha stared blankly down at the table. ‘Well...’
‘Precisely. You don’t have an answer. Whichever silly little friend of yours has mentioned this to you clearly hasn’t been thinking about the realities of life. You’ll go over there with nothing. How will you afford accommodation?’
‘I...’
‘Bills? Food?’
‘I don’t know.’
