Belfast Girls

by Gerry McCullough

  Chapter Sixty-One

  John had begun early that morning by ringing one number after another until he had discovered that Sheila had been taken to hospital to stay overnight. Then he had arrived in person and had raged through the wards like a tornado, severely disrupting hospital staff and routine, until a nurse had told him severely that Sheila had signed herself out that morning. No, they did not have her address and, if they had, they would certainly not feel at liberty to give it out to all and sundry.

  John felt weak and devastated.

  He had done everything he could and had finally managed to free Sheila from her captors the previous night. He had watched Sheila being carried away, white-faced and unconscious, before his eyes, from the scene of her imprisonment.

  At first, slumped down with his head in his hands, he had been unable to move, shaking from sheer relief.

  Then he had spent hours giving his statement to the police, waiting, then repeating what he had to say to more and more senior officials before being finally released, told to go home and rest.

  Instead, it was then that he began phoning, using all his newspaper contacts, trying to find out where Sheila had been taken.

  It was Brian Gallagher, his colleague on the BBC news programme, who first gave him any clear information.

  Brian, as a staff reporter, had been one of the first on the scene. When John managed to reach him on the phone, he sounded upset and shaken, very different from his usual calm persona.

  In response to John’s urgent demands, he told him, “They were carrying some people off on stretchers to the Royal. You might be able to find her there.”

  Brian didn’t ask the reason for John’s urgent questions. Outside his professional duty, he was not an inquisitive person. He asked so many questions in the course of his work that out of working hours he just wanted a rest from it. He was bone tired. The small hours of the morning were growing into bigger hours and he was still awake.

  So then John began on the Royal Victoria Hospital.

  In the end, he took the line he should have followed in the first place and rang his sister Mary. Mary didn’t know Sheila’s new address but she was willing to do what John shrank from doing and ring Sheila’s parents. As a friend of Sheila’s, Mary had no trouble getting the address of the apartment from Kathy Doherty. She also learned that Sheila had fainted and had spent the night in hospital but was otherwise unhurt.

  John’s first feeling was of overwhelming relief. Tears of reaction pricked his eyelids.

  Sheila was okay.

  Then he began to wonder.

  Was there any point in going to see her? Would she even want to

  see him?

  He had ended their relationship a long time ago, or so it felt. Was there anything there to take up? Or should he be satisfied that she was all right and continue to keep her safely out of his life?

  He walked aimlessly along, trying to decide.

  When he looked up and saw that he was outside the block of new apartments where she lived, he found himself laughing.

  He could no more resist seeing her for himself than he could fly. His next move, if any, would depend on her response.

  He rang the bell of Sheila’s apartment just before lunchtime.

  Sheila came to answer it almost at once.

  She was still barefoot and half asleep from her long daydreaming and reminiscing in the armchair by the window. For a moment it seemed her mind was playing tricks on her, translating the recent vivid memories into hallucinations.

  “John,” she said, after a thunder-stricken moment. “Come in.”

  John came in, feeling awkward.

  “Hullo, Sheila. About last night. I wanted to see if you were okay.”

  “Come upstairs,” Sheila said faintly. “I’ll make a cup of coffee.”

  She turned and went up the carpeted flight. John followed. His legs felt strange and shaky.

  He came into the apartment behind her, blind to everything but the sight of Sheila.

  “Sit down,” Sheila said. She had forgotten for the time being about her offer of coffee. She felt as if she had been stricken dumb.

  John walked over to the window and stood with his back to the room, looking out.

  She had not said “Good to see you again” or any of the other commonplaces. W as it because she thought this meeting too important for that sort of thing? Or because she was not glad to see him, and wished he hadn’t come?

  He stared at the river.

  Presently Sheila’s voice spoke just behind him.

  “John?”

  Then Sheila said “Are you –?” at the same moment that John said “Sheila, I –”

  They both said “Oh, sorry!” and then laughed.

  “Let’s sit down,” said Sheila.

  They sat side by side on the big comfortable sofa.

  “I wanted to be sure you were all right,” John said abruptly.

  “Yes. I haven’t thanked you properly yet for what you did. I’ll say it now. Thank you.” Sheila sat silently for another few moments. Then she looked up into John’s face with determination. “John – why did it matter to you what happened to me?”

  John took a deep breath.

  He was about to speak when a voice sounded from the kitchen. “Ready at last, beautiful!”

  Sheila stood up. She remembered through a haze, and as if from a long time ago, that Francis was in there. Making coffee. The kitchen door swung open and he backed in, still talking, carrying a tray with coffee pot, cups and one of the roses he had brought in a small slim vase.

  “I feel like a dutiful husband bringing breakfast in bed to his lovely wife on Mother’s Day.”

  Francis Delmara.

  John stiffened. He felt a pain in his chest as if someone had stuck a knife into him.

  Francis, on the contrary, seemed fully at ease. He clearly remembered John but nothing in his words showed this.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” he said easily. “Sheila, beautiful, sit down and enjoy! But those clothes, darling! You really must change before some photographer gets himself the scoop of a lifetime by snapping Sheila Doherty in school uniform!”

  “Francis, you know it isn’t school uniform,” said Sheila, laughing. Francis Delmara always managed to amuse her. “And I’ll change when I want to! Thanks for making the coffee.”

  John swallowed the lump in his throat which was making it impossible to speak. He stood up.

  “I’ll go on, then, Sheila,” he said abruptly. “Glad to see you’re okay.”

  Sheila stared at him. “You don’t need to go, John. Please don’t worry about Francis. He won’t be staying long – will you, Francis?”

  “No, I must get on,” said John obstinately. “I have to get to work some time to-day, I suppose.”

  He walked past Sheila to the door and opened it. For a moment he hesitated, looking round at her.

  “So that’s Francis Delmara,” he said. “The one you’ve been working for all this time. Living with, too, apparently. I wish I’d known. Maybe I wouldn’t have bothered –”

  He broke off. For a moment he stood staring at her.

  “I’m glad you’re okay,” he said.

  Then he was gone.

  Sheila stared after him. She could hear his footsteps running down the stairs. She started to run after him, trying to say “But I’m not,” finding that the words wouldn’t come.

  The outside door slammed.

  Francis Delmara said something.

  “Sorry,” Sheila said blankly after a long pause. “I’m sorry – I didn’t hear what you said.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Francis. “Why don’t we sit down?”

  He took Sheila’s arm gently and lowered her onto the big chair.

  Sheila sat quietly. Her mind was whirling.

  She could not believe that John Branagh had come back into her life and then left again with hardly a word.

  She was also finding it next to impossible not to break down
into uncontrollable tears.

  “I want to get you away from all this as soon as possible, Sheila,” Delmara said. “You need time to recover from the shock.” He didn’t specify which shock, and Sheila was grateful that he didn’t. “I want to arrange a holiday for you in the Pacific islands and then some shows in America. Will you come?”

  Sheila nodded. She needed time before she could speak without breaking down, but she could nod.

  “Good,” said Francis briskly. “Some time before the end of the week, then.”

  Which was why Sheila, on the other side of the world, heard nothing about Phil’s arrest until many months later.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Delmara Fashions arrived in New York to find the press only too happy to give them whatever publicity they wanted.

  Harrington Smith’s name for Sheila, ‘The Ice Maiden’, had caught the public imagination and there was an eager market for stories about her and about her private life.

  The capture of Sheila and Rosemary Frazer Knight was a great focus of interest, and although neither Delmara nor Sheila wanted to talk about it, let alone make use of it for publicity purposes, they soon found that they had no choice in the matter. The New York papers carried repeated stories about Sheila’s escape and the burning of Mrs Knight until the subject was at last done to death.

  Sheila discovered in herself a new desire for excitement and luxury. She had decided that John Branagh was out of her life now for good. His sudden reappearance, and equally sudden exit, seemed to have finally cured her of the lingering hope that he would sometime or other come back to her. He had come, it hadn’t worked, and now there was nothing left to hope for.

  Meanwhile, the world was full of other men who seemed to find Sheila attractive.

  Life became a series of new meetings, dates, parties and evenings out.

  Sheila worked hard and played hard. She went with Delmara to show off his best lines to private customers, to display the goods to clothes stores who were considering a cut-price range of the most popular dresses, to carefully set-up lunches with financiers who knew little or nothing about clothes but who might, perhaps, be charmed into investing in Delmara Fashions by the beauty of his leading model.

  Delmara began to worry about her health. She had lost half a stone but this seemed only to add to her ethereal attraction.

  She was interviewed on television by a chat show host who wanted her to talk about the hostage situation or her own love life, and enjoyed evading his questions and giving him less than nothing for his pains. She met the rich and the famous, and had a much publicised fling with a film star notorious for his good looks and his success with women which the newspapers insisted resulted in the breaking of the film star’s heart. She dined, danced, and drove out always with a fresh admirer and could not lose her heart to any of them.

  When they had been in New York for three months, Pat Fitzwilliam, his leg healed and his spirits high, came over for a trial race and immediately sought Sheila out.

  “It’s grand to see you again, me darling!” he said, sounding amazingly Irish and familiar among the American accents. “Looking as lovely as ever. What’s this I hear about yourself and Kurt Paston?”

  Kurt Paston was the film star whose heart Sheila was said to have broken.

  “I don’t know. What is it you hear?” Sheila asked teasingly.

  She was very pleased to see Pat again, especially as her last sight of him in the hospital bed could now be forgotten, together with all the other memories of that dreadful time. He seemed like an old, close friend, someone with whom she could relax and be herself.

  “Well, whatever I hear, it’s time you forgot about him and thought about me instead!” said Pat, light heartedly. “I’m going to take you out to the racetrack this afternoon, okay?”

  “That sounds good, Pat. And will you take me for a spin in your racing car?”

  “Ah, well, now, Sheila –” Pat hesitated. “Anything for you, my darling girl, but these racing cars are a bit fragile. There’s no way I’d be allowed to do that. Besides, there’s only room for one!”

  “I know – I was only teasing. But you can let me drive your own car instead – how about that?”

  Pat, who was never without a car for his own private use, and who had lost no time in acquiring a shift stick Ferrari to replace the Lamborghini he had left behind him in Ireland, agreed laughingly.

  “But can you drive, Sheila?” he asked, “or do I have to teach you first?”

  Sheila, who had bullied Frank Doherty into teaching her to drive as soon as she was seventeen, looked indignant.

  “Certainly I can drive,” she assured him, omitting to say that Frank’s old Audi was a very different proposition from a Ferrari. “And I expect, if you’ll give me the benefit of your expertise, that I’ll soon be even better.”

  At the first opportunity, Pat drove her out of town, heading into Connecticut and found a wide stretch of road for the experiment.

  Sheila found herself experiencing a touch of nerves as Pat pulled in to the side of the road and made way for her in the driving seat.

  “What happens if I smash your beautiful car?” she asked playfully. The long thin lines of the gleaming red bonnet stretched before her as she settled herself at the wheel.

  “Just so long as you don’t smash your even more beautiful self!” Pat joked, concealing an undercurrent of worry. Like most good drivers, Pat hated to be driven. He would be relieved to find Sheila as capable in this area as in all others.

  The smooth, powerful engine purred as Sheila pressed lightly on accelerator and clutch, and slipped into gear. With a speed which sent her heart into her mouth, the car leapt forward. Resisting an instinct to clutch feverishly at the wheel, Sheila deliberately relaxed her grip and felt the steering respond to the light pressure. They raced down the wide carriageway.

  “By heavens, you can drive, all right!” Pat said admiringly and Sheila laughed breathlessly. The wind rushed past, lifting her hair and streaming it backwards. She felt an exhilaration which had been missing from her life for months. The spring sun shone down and she felt its heat for the first time since the start of winter. Unconsciously she increased her pressure on the accelerator and the car shot forward.

  “Careful, my darling girl!” Pat exclaimed. “You don’t want the speed cops after you!”

  “I suppose it wouldn’t do,” Sheila agreed. “What Delmara would call bad publicity.”

  “It might be a good idea to turn off the main highway,” Pat suggested. “Take the next right. There’s a very pleasant road after a few more turns, more like the countryside than the city, and quite a decent pub not too far away.”

  “Fine.” Sheila duly turned right. She slackened her speed in deference to the narrower road but continued to move faster than Pat thought safe.

  It was as they turned a sharp corner that it happened. A large American car, taking up far more than its share of the road, came careering round the bend and was almost into them.

  Sheila instinctively pulled to the left.

  A split second later, she realised that this was the States and that she was meant to be on the right hand side of the road.

  She tried frantically to correct. Everything suddenly changed to slow motion. There was the enormous car on the verge of crashing into them. There was the squeal of tyres. Her heart was pounding. Then Pat’s hands on the wheel, wrenching it over and the other car sweeping safely past. Sheila let her breath out in a sobbing gasp. The Ferrari, which was heading into the verge, was righted almost miraculously by Pat’s skilful hands and pulled in well clear of the bend.

  Then Pat’s arms were round her and she was weeping tears of reaction into his shoulder.

  “Oh, Sheila, darling,” Pat said thickly.

  His lips came down hard on hers and, for a moment, they clung together, kissing frantically.

  Then Sheila drew back and laughed shakily. “Sorry – and thanks.” “Never mind about that,” Pat said hoars
ely. “Sheila, I love you. I want you. Don’t hold me off any more.” All at once a wave of longing went over Sheila, for the safety and security of a man’s arms around her and a man’s love to protect her. Pat was strong and warm and kind. She was very, very fond of him. She knew that. Why hold back?

  She said nothing.

  “Let’s get away from this public road,” Pat said abruptly. “Here, move over.” He got out and went round to the driver’s side while Sheila obediently slid across to make room for him.

  Pat drove with a mastery which increased his attraction for Sheila.

  She had thought of him as just a young man who admired her.

  Now she saw him again in his own element, exhibiting a natural grace and control which was impressive.

  What was she waiting for, Sheila wondered. Where would she find a better man than this one?

  John Branagh. The thought forced its way unbidden into her mind and was vigorously pushed out again. John Branagh was nothing to her any more, for she was clearly nothing to him.

  They were far away from the main highway now and had come by a series of winding roads to the side of a river.

  Pat pulled up beside a clump of trees, parking on a flat piece of rough grassy bank out of sight of passers-by. He turned towards Sheila, leaning over to kiss her.

  The over-hanging branches of the tree brushed lightly against her head. Fresh, new green leaves, bright against the red gold of her hair.

  Pat caught his breath and gave a groan of desire. His arms went round her again and their lips clung together.

  Sheila let herself surrender to the urgency of his passion, feeling her body respond to his warm strength. She put one hand to the back of his head and held him lightly, feeling the soft wiriness of his hair beneath her fingers.

  She had gone far beyond thought or conscious desire. At the back of her mind, out of reach of any response, she knew that she was behaving cruelly.

  Pat was going to be very hurt if she let him think that she cared and he then found out that she didn’t. She didn’t really care for him in a serious way. But he was so close, so loving –