Sarah Love

by Geraldine O'Neill

  For a moment Sarah was relieved she hadn’t spoken. She was in no frame of mind to chat to anyone now. She started to walk, then something made her call out, “Excuse me!”

  The girl turned around to look at her.

  Sarah hurried across the street towards her. “I hope you don’t mind me asking – I don’t mean to be nosey – but I saw the ambulance at your door earlier in the week. I hope it wasn’t anything serious?”

  The girl’s face softened. “It was my father, and he’s all right now, thanks. He has a problem with his heart and he gets these turns. He should be getting home on Monday. I’m going to see him now.”

  Sarah was surprised that the girl had a Newcastle accent – similar to Harriet’s. She had expected her to have a strange, foreign accent. “I wasn’t sure what to do when I saw the ambulance,” she told her. “I’ve just moved here – I’d only arrived in England the night before. I didn’t like to come over to your house in case you thought I was interfering.”

  “It’s nice that you thought about us. Where are you from?”

  They started walking along together. “Ireland,” Sarah told her. “From a town down the country.” She was trying to concentrate on the conversation, and not think of the awful things she had overheard back at the house.

  “You lived in the country? You must find it very different here.”

  “Yes, I do.” She thought for a moment. “I should have said earlier, my name’s Sarah Love.”

  “And mine is Lisha Williams.”

  “Lisha is a lovely, unusual name.” Sarah felt as though half of her mind was normal and trying to keep up with a normal conversation, while the other half was falling to bits inside her head.

  The girl looked at her for a moment then suddenly blurted out: “It’s a Nigerian name. My real father was from Nigeria.” She glanced sideways at Sarah. “My mother, Fiona, is English though, and so is my stepfather. Williams is his name and I got his name when they got married.”

  “And your brother’s name is?”

  “Mark. He’s my half-brother.”

  Sarah had never really spoken to anyone from a foreign country before. She had served tourists in the hotel, but that wasn’t the same as a proper conversation. The quiet, calm side of her mind told her to ask polite, safe questions. The kind of questions she would ask a young girl back home. She couldn’t bear to say the wrong thing and feel even more of an outsider than she already was. “Are you still at school, Lisha?”

  “Yes, unfortunately.” The girl smiled. “I suppose it’s not that bad. I like some of the subjects.”

  “How old are you?”

  “I just turned sixteen.”

  “What subjects do you like?”

  “I like English,” She shrugged. “I love reading so that’s a big help with English Literature, and I like history and every kind of sport.”

  “What do you hope to do when you leave school?” Sarah wondered at herself asking such mundane questions. Would she be able to keep on like this all weekend, all next week? Would she always be able to pretend that she was a different person outside and another one inside?

  Lisha shrugged. “I don’t know . . . maybe teaching if I get the qualifications. That’s what my mother would like me to do.” She looked at Sarah again. “Do you work?”

  “Yes, I work in a sewing shop and I make and alter clothes as well.”

  “That’s one of my favourite subjects too – domestic science. We do cookery and sewing and that kind of thing.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m not exactly brilliant at it, like – I made a pair of pyjamas for my exam last summer but the machine I had was an old one and it kept dragging the material so they didn’t turn out exactly as they should.”

  “That can easily happen.”

  They walked down the hill to the station chatting in the same vein. It was neither an easy nor an uneasy conversation. Lisha said she would walk up by Harrison’s shop to see where Sarah worked, since it was just as easy to take that route to the hospital as any other.

  “I like all the things in the window,” the young girl said when they got there. “Did you make them?”

  Sarah told her she did.

  “I think my mother would like one of the peg-bags,” said Lisha. “I’ll come into the shop next week.”

  “I’ll be making more over the weekend,” Sarah told her. “And you can have one as a present.”

  “No, no – I’ll buy it.”

  “I’d be happy to giving you one, especially after all the worry your mother has had this week. It might cheer her up.”

  “That’s very good of you. When will I come over for it?”

  Sarah thought for a moment. She didn’t want the girl to get a cold reception from the awful Vivienne. “I’ll watch out for you, or I’ll bring it over.”

  Sarah spent a few hours looking around the shops. She went into a newsagent’s and bought a blue Basildon Bond airmail writing pad and envelopes and a Woman’s Own magazine, and then she wandered around the haberdashery department in Fenwick’s. Although she was drawn to the rolls of lovely material and the racks of trimmings, her heart wasn’t in it, the way it had been on her first visit to the shop.

  As she walked around she felt a slight nagging feeling in her lower stomach. It was familiar enough to make her calculate her monthly cycle. She usually got this warning a few days before her period started, so she looked for a chemist’s shop and went in. There was a man behind the counter and woman behind the glass partition, so she browsed around the shop with a basket until the female assistant was free. By that time she had picked up two bars of Cameo soup, a deodorant stick, bath cubes, Vosene shampoo and a bottle of bubble bath. She asked the woman in a low voice for the sanitary towels and some aspirin and then paid for the items in the basket.

  When she came out from the chemist’s shop there was a shower of rain, and since she found herself near the café with the juke-box, she went in and ordered a coffee made with hot milk. She looked at the cakes, but her stomach still had a knot in it from the episode back in the house, so she ate nothing. She sat alone in one of the booths, either stirring her coffee with a spoon and staring out of the window, or sipping it slowly. The waitress came and took away her empty cup and since she felt awkward just sitting, she ordered another coffee and took just as long drinking that.

  The sky started to darken and Sarah suddenly realised that the shops were all closing around her, but she still didn’t move. The longer she was away from the house and the other girls in Victoria Street the more she dreaded going back. Whilst she knew the other girls had been nice enough to her, she didn’t know if she could force herself to speak again to the medical student who hated the Irish so much.

  There was a sign in the café saying that it stayed open until ten o’clock on a Saturday night, and Sarah felt comforted by the knowledge that she had somewhere warm that she could stay in if she wanted to stay out until bedtime. She knew it might look strange to the waitresses, but she didn’t care.

  It must have been after six o’clock when a group of seven or eight girls and lads came in the door, all laughing and chatting. They looked like people who had just finished work for the day.

  The café was now crowded and Sarah wondered if she might need to move into the corner of the booth to let someone sit beside her. She dreaded the thought of sitting so close to strangers, but the thought of going back to the house was worse.

  She glanced up from her magazine and saw David McGuire in the middle of the group, talking and laughing. Her heart sank. This was all she needed. She lowered her head, hoping he wouldn’t see her. From the corner of her eyes she could see he was busy chatting and gesturing to the others – the main focus of attention. Sarah wasn’t surprised.

  The group hovered at the counter, and then one of the girls leaned over to David and said something. He nodded and the three girls moved towards the top part of the café where there were more seats. The lads stood for a few minutes debating the menu, and then Davi
d turned to scan the tables.

  Sarah dropped her head but, after a few moments, couldn’t resist glancing up again and that was when he spotted her. He said something to the lads and then came straight towards her.

  “Are you all by yourself?” he asked.

  “I am now.” She was trying to sound casual. “I was with a friend earlier.” She knew it was bending the truth, but she had been in the city earlier with Lisha, and she hadn’t said she was actually in the café with a friend.

  He slid into the vinyl-covered bench across from her. “Are you okay? You look very pale or something.”

  “I’m grand,” she said automatically. “Apart from being a bit tired. That’s why I said I wouldn’t go to the dance tonight.”

  “I’m not going either. It’s the same old faces week after week.” He smiled at her. “I would have made an exception for you – you’re a new face.” He looked straight into her eyes but she looked away.

  The waitress came to the table for their order.

  “Will you have a Coca-Cola?” David asked her.

  Sarah looked at her cup of lukewarm tea, then she looked at her watch. A drink would kill another while. She knew that earlier in the day she had promised herself not to get too friendly with him on account of Harriet, so she would be careful.

  “Don’t you want to join your friends?” she said.

  “They won’t miss me – there’s enough of them there.” He turned to the waitress. “Two Cokes, please.” When she left he looked at Sarah again. “Are you sure you’re all right? You don’t look as bright as you usually do.”

  “It’s nothing really . . .” Then, she looked at him and when their eyes met hers suddenly filled up. Just the way they had that morning with Harriet. She quickly picked up a paper napkin, held it to her face and gave a light cough. “Excuse me . . .”

  “Sarah,” he said quietly, “has something upset you? You can tell me, you know.”

  She took a deep, shuddering breath and composed herself again. “I’m sorry, I’m just being stupid.”

  “Are you still thinking about Ireland?”

  She felt her stomach clench. Harriet had obviously been talking about her. When they both left the shop together the other morning, she must have told him that she had got upset. But she now had to guess what he knew. Had Harriet told him how she had been betrayed by her fiancé and her best friend? She couldn’t bear to discuss any of that. She would go. She would walk the darkening streets in the city now rather than talk about it with him. She reached down for her bag but when she picked it up and went to move, the waitress appeared at the table with their drinks.

  While David McGuire sorted the bottles and straws and gave the waitress the money, Sarah fought back the urge to run out of the café. The more rational side of her knew that it wasn’t the answer. She had already run out of the house that afternoon. She had already run away from Ireland. At some stage she needed to stay and face things.

  He handed her the Coke bottle and a straw now. “Okay?” His eyebrows were raised in concern.

  “I’m okay, thanks.” She took a sip through the straw. “Actually . . . I was a bit upset this afternoon. Something happened up at the house.”

  “What, like?”

  “It’s one of the other girls . . .” Her throat went dry. She gave another little cough. “She doesn’t like me living in the house. She doesn’t like Irish people at all.”

  He leaned across the table towards her. “How do you know?”

  “I heard her. I was coming down the stairs and she was in the kitchen. She was talking loudly . . .” She broke off. She composed herself again. “She said some terrible things . . . all about people coming over to England looking for work, when they should be staying in their own country. She said we were uneducated and dirty.”

  “Blidey hell! I thought that kind of carry-on had all finished.”

  She looked up at him through tear-rimmed eyes.

  “My mother talks about the rows out in the street when she was younger, the name-calling they got because my granny and granddad were Irish, but that was years ago.” He rubbed his chin. “You wouldn’t expect educated people to be talking like that. There’s all kinds in Newcastle, especially working in the hospitals.”

  “This was serious – really nasty. She was arguing with the other girls, saying that the landlord had no right to allow me in the house without talking it over with them. When the other girls pointed out that he had never asked anyone’s permission about who he gave rooms to, she said it was different because I was Irish.”

  “Did you tackle her about it?”

  “No . . .” Her voice sounded hoarse. “I was just coming down the stairs, on my way out, when I heard her giving out to the others about me. I got such a shock I didn’t know what to do.”

  His brow deepened. “What’s this girl like? Is she a Newcastle lass?”

  “She’s from London. She’s training to be a doctor.”

  “Well, she won’t be very popular with her patients with an attitude like that. She probably doesn’t like Geordies either. Her type only like people like themselves – stuck-up snobs.”

  “I feel terrible.” She was unable to stop herself now. All her earlier determination draining away. “I feel like going back to Ireland – maybe to Dublin or Galway or one of the bigger cities.”

  “Ah, Sarah – don’t let one horrible person put you off.”

  “But I feel as though the other girls didn’t stick up for me either.” A sick feeling came into her stomach as she remembered Elizabeth saying she couldn’t imagine her not having a bath at home. “They might prefer to have only English girls living in the house too.”

  “You haven’t spoken to any of them yet – you don’t know how they feel.”

  “I know how I feel.”

  “Don’t jump the gun. Give yourself more time,” he told her. “You’ve started to make friends already, it’s obvious that your boss is happy with you and Harriet was singing your praises the other day. She was saying you could really feel a difference in the shop, how it’s far more professional since you’ve arrived, and Lucy said all the customers really liked you.” He touched her hand. “Most people are nice, Sarah. Don’t let one rotten apple spoil it for you.”

  Sarah began to feel a little lighter. “Thanks,” she said. “I feel better now that I’ve talked to you.”

  “Good, because –” He suddenly stopped as a hand touched his shoulder. It was one of the girls he’d come in with.

  “Excuse me for interrupting, but we wondered if you were going to join us?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Joyce,” he said, smiling at her. “But I’ve had a change of plans.”

  “Well, thanks for letting us know,” she said. “We were all waiting until you came back to the table to order. I don’t suppose you’re going to the dance either?”

  “No,” he said, “but I wasn’t going anyway. I told some of the others.”

  “That’s fine.” Her injured tone didn’t sound fine at all. “I’ll tell them we don’t need to wait any longer, and we can order our chips now.”

  David looked at Sarah now and gave an embarrassed grin. “I think I’m in trouble.”

  “Oh, no . . .” Sarah reached for her bag, flustered now. It was obvious that she had spoiled his plans. “I need to go now.”

  “Look, they’re not even close friends. I just meet up with them after work now and again.” David stood up now. “I’ll walk you back.”

  “No, no . . .” she said, sliding out of the booth. “I’m happy to walk back on my own.” She caught a glimpse of the crowd at the table and she could see they were all looking down at her and David. She kept her gaze fixed on the floor as she walked out.

  “There’s no point in arguing,” he said, as he held the door open for her. “I’ve nothing else to do and I’m not letting you walk back to that miserable house on your own. We might even stop for a drink on the way back. There’s a few decent pubs on the way down to t
he station.”

  “But you need to get home.”

  “To sit and watch the telly with me mam and dad? Because that’s all I’m going to do. My brother will be out dancing and my sister is staying at her fiancé’s house.”

  There was nothing she could really say to that, and she didn’t want to have a disagreement in the middle of the street. They walked across the main road and a few minutes later they were walking down the cobbles in Pilgrims Lane.

  “It’s different when all the shops are closed,” David said. “Isn’t it? Most people keep to the main streets, because they’re better lit up. But there are a few lampposts down here, and when you know a place well you don’t think about it.”

  “I’m used to everything being dark in Ireland,” Sarah said. “We only have street lamps in the middle of the town.”

  “Do you miss it a lot?” he asked.

  “A bit.” She hoped he wasn’t going to start prying into her background. “But if things settle down at the house, I’m happy enough here.” Her words were braver than her feelings about staying, because she knew for the time being she had no option.

  David slowed to a stop under a lamppost to examine his watch. “Neither of us is in a rush home – why don’t we go to the pictures?”

  “No. Thanks for asking but I’ve work to do.”

  “You’ll need to have a break, a bit of a laugh at some point. You know what they say about all work and no play.”

  “I’m only here a week, there’s time enough for that.”

  The bookshop manager kept up the chat all the way to Victoria Place.

  “It’s just up here,” she said, when they turned the corner and the tall grey-stone buildings came in view. She came to a halt. “Thanks for seeing me back, it was good of you.”

  “Right to the door.” He continued to walk. “And I wouldn’t say no to a cup of tea if you want to invite me in. I could have a word in that snooty doctor’s ear.”

  “Definitely not,” she said. “Anyway, I’m going straight to my room.” She opened the gate and walked towards the front door. She felt as though she was running away from one awkward situation and heading towards one she dreaded even more.