Part 23 (2/2)
Barry shrugged. ”Something like that,” he said. He realized he was here in part to try to punish Patricia, although how his going to a dance would affect her in the slightest, unless he told her, wasn't entirely clear. And there was some truth in what Harry said. Barry had been faithful to Patricia since she left for England in September, but he had felt that frisson just looking at Mandy's legs. And the room next door was full of attractive, single young women.
”Come on then,” Harry said, moving toward the double doors. ”Let's go and have a look at the talent.”
Inside the hall the lighting had been dimmed, and Barry blinked as he waited for his eyes to get used to the low light and the p.r.i.c.kly feeling caused by the tobacco smoke. The band, playing on a stage at the far end of the room, was well into ”When the Saints Go Marching In.” He could now read the letters painted on the ba.s.s drum. The White Eagles. He'd often danced to this well-known Belfast-based group at medical student affairs.
A large ball suspended from the ceiling spun so that the light reflected from the myriad small mirrors on its surface threw constantly moving bright patches against the walls, the floor, and the dancers. The patterns could have been made by a monochrome kaleidoscope. The dance floor was packed. Some couples maneuvered around, dancing a quickstep. Most happily jived, the men twisting and twirling their partners in flas.h.i.+ng heels, with pirouetting legs giving glimpses of thigh above stocking tops, as skirts whirled merrily like the canopies of a mult.i.tude of carousels.
The trumpeter held a high note and the drummer whaled away happily as the music shuddered to its climax. Some couples stayed together as they left the floor; others thanked their partners and returned to their own side of the hall, men to the right, ladies to the left. The lights brightened. Barry felt Harry nudge him.
”Do you see that wee blonde?” He nodded to a girl talking to a pet.i.te brunette. ”Her name's Jane Duggan. I took her out a few times last year. She's a bit of a flyer, so she is.”
”Oh?”
”I'm going to ask her for the next dance. Will you ask her friend?”
Barry hesitated. Would Patricia be hurt if she found out? d.a.m.n it, if she was here in Ulster he wouldn't be at the dance in the first place-or if he was, she'd be with him, gammy leg and all. And it wasn't as if he was going to take the brunette to bed. It was only a dance. ”Sure,” he said.
Together they crossed the floor. For a moment, Barry thought of a story of the young man who had asked a girl from the Gallaghers' tobacco factory for a dance, only to be told, ”Nah. Ask my sister. I'm sweating something fierce.”
”So anyway,” the brunette was saying, ”Sister nearly went harpic . . .” Barry smiled. Harpic was a toilet cleaner with the slogan Cleans Round the Bend. He heard Harry ask the blonde to dance. Then he saw him take her by the hand and lead her out onto the floor.
Barry smiled at the brunette. ”May I have the next dance?” He saw her dark eyes wrinkle at the corners, her full lips curve into a smile. Her dark hair-it was impossible to make out its true colour in the hall's light-hung to her shoulders, then curled in at the bottom to frame her face, the way Diana Rigg wore hers in the TV show The Avengers. He guessed she was about twenty or twenty-one.
”My pleasure.” She offered a hand. He took it.
”Barry Laverty,” he said, ”from Ballybucklebo.” Her hand was pleasantly cool in his. She wore a lime green V-necked sweater that showed a hint of cleavage, and a wide black patent-leather belt. Her knee-length pleated skirt was dark green.
”Peggy Duff. I'm living in Knock. We're nearly neighbours.”
Barry was usually shy around girls, finding himself as often as not stuck with some inane opening gambit like ”Do you come here often?” or a remark about the weather. But he suddenly remembered what he had overheard her saying. ”Why did Sister go bananas?”
She laughed, a deep throaty chuckle that ended in a snort. ”When I was a first-year student nurse, she sent me to clean all the old men's false teeth. I wasn't thinking, and I collected them all in one basin and washed them . . .”
”I'll bet you had h.e.l.l's delight finding out what teeth belonged to which patient.” Barry laughed.
”It took me two days of trial and error.” She laughed again. ”Sister was not happy with me.”
He liked her easy ability to laugh at herself. ”I'm sure she got over it,” he said.
The lights dimmed. The band swung into a slow number, ”Saint James Infirmary.” He took Peggy to the floor, put his right arm round her waist, and held her right hand with his left, their arms outstretched. This was the position he had learnt at the dancing cla.s.ses at his boys' boarding school. His partner there had been a wooden chair, and it certainly had not been as soft as the girl he was now holding close. Nor did it wear a perfume like Peggy's. He recognized it as Je Reviens because, it seemed like an aeon ago, he'd once bought a bottle as a birthday present for a certain student nurse. One he'd known before Patricia.
He worked them jerkily around the floor. Barry's tone deafness was complemented by his inability to keep on the beat. He knew film stars like Glenn Ford and Henry Fonda would have whirled this girl around and wooed her with their expertise. Barry Laverty, however, pushed her around the floor with a step somewhere between a waltz and the shuffling of a patient with some neurological disorder. At least he managed to avoid stepping on her feet.
They didn't speak during the dance, but she did allow him to hold her more closely and put his cheek against hers. He could feel the softness of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and he let his hand slip down below the small of her back. She did not pull it back up but rather pushed a little harder against him. He felt again the arousal he had when he had watched Mandy's retreating backside. Sorry, Patricia, he thought, and he gently brushed his lips on Peggy's cheek, but you should be here with me. You really should.
He was a little breathless when the music stopped, and it was not from the exertion of dancing. They stood apart, but he held on to her hand and she didn't object.
”You're no Fred Astaire,” she said with a smile. ”Do you really want to dance some more, or would you like to buy me a drink?”
”I thought you'd never ask,” he said, relieved that he would not have to stumble clumsily about anymore. ”The bar's out in the foyer.” Still holding her hand, he guided her around the edge of the dance floor. He didn't see Harry and his blonde partner anywhere, but did wave to Jack and Mandy as they spun past. Barry took Peggy through the double doors and into the foyer. ”What would you like?”
”Vodka and orange, please.”
He found a chair for her, left her sitting, and joined the line in front of the little bar. He turned and looked at her. Peggy really was a most attractive girl. Not as beautiful as Patricia, he reminded himself-no one was-but Jack Mills would describe Peggy Duff as ”restful on the eye.” Very restful.
He ordered her drink and an orange juice for himself. He'd be driving home soon; he hadn't really intended to stay for very long, but it had been pleasant to see Jack and Mandy, and Harry. Barry paid for the drinks and carried them over to Peggy. ”Here you are,” he said, handing her the vodka and sitting opposite.
”Thank you. You're a vodka drinker too?”
He shook his head. ”Just orange. I'm driving.”
She patted his free hand. ”That's smart, Barry. When I was working in Casualty, I saw enough youngsters smashed to tatters because some eejit thought he could take a lot of drink and still drive.”
”I've seen a few myself.”
”How?”
”I'm a GP, a.s.sistant to a Doctor O'Reilly in Ballybucklebo, but I did three months in emergency at the Royal when I was a houseman last year.”
She took a pull from her drink. ”I must have just missed you. I was there this June, just before I got my R.N.” She looked more closely at him and frowned a little. ”Barry Laverty? Laverty? Are you the chap who used to date Brid McCormack?”
”That's me,” Barry said, remembering Brid's green eyes and auburn hair, a remembrance made more real by Peggy's perfume.
”And she married Roger Grant, the surgeon, this September.”
Brid had told him about that in January last year when she'd calmly announced she was going to marry someone else. Now it was December, and it looked as though Patricia was losing interest. There must be something jinxed about women, himself, and the wintertime. He sighed and was surprised to feel Peggy's hand covering his.
”She's a very pretty girl. She was a cla.s.s ahead of me at nursing school.” He looked into her eyes and saw sympathy.
”Och,” he said, shrugging. ” 'That was in another country; and besides, the wench is dead,' ” he said, quoting Christopher Marlowe's The Jew of Malta.
Peggy looked at him quizzically. ”Brid's not dead, as far as I know.”
”I know. It just means I'm over her.” The next question would probably be ”Are you seeing anybody else?” he thought. He didn't know how he was going to answer her, being warmed as he was by the increasing pressure of her hand on his.
”It's not nice to get dumped,” she said. ”My boyfriend and I split up six months ago.” She sighed. ”You get used to it, but it stings.”
”Do you?” he said, wondering if Patricia dumped him would he ever get over it. He knew O'Reilly still grieved for his lost wife, but at least he was seeing Kitty now.
”Yes,” she said, ”you have to. Life has to go on.”
Barry noticed that her gla.s.s was empty. ”Would you like another?”
She shook her head and glanced at her watch. ”I live in Knock, and I have to get up early tomorrow. My friend drove me here, but she seems to have vanished with your white-haired pal. I don't suppose you'd like to give me a lift home? It's on your way to Ballybucklebo.”
<script>