by Melissa Hill
In truth, Tara was also shocked by how little he’d changed and how handsome he still looked after all these years. In a way, seeing him face-to-face, and sitting in close proximity to him like this, almost reduced her to the naïve, love-struck teenager she’d been back then. Almost, but not quite. The ensuing years had made sure of that, had guaranteed that Tara’s carefree teenage years were long gone.
And so Tara sat there, within a couple of inches of the only man she’d ever truly loved, a man who’d broken her heart and trampled on her dreams, her silly pathetic teenage dreams of a great romance and a future together. And the reason she’d never ever allowed herself afterwards to get involved with someone who could hurt her like he had. Despite Liz’s and everyone else’s insistence that she should seek out real love and passion in her life, Tara knew that if passion led to such heartbreak and pain, she never wanted to experience it again. And as for love, well, she’d thought Glenn would give her enough of that. But as she’d only recently discovered, maybe she had been wrong in thinking that her life was under control, that by not allowing herself to fall in love again she would be immune from sorrow and pain.
‘Calm, controlled and serene,’ Tara remembered Natalie describing her one time, but what she didn’t know was that Tara was that way for a very good reason.
And now, almost the instant she’d set eyes upon Jason (or Jay, as Natalie called him – why had she never considered there might be a connection, as he was from Dublin?) that old Bryan Adams song, “Heaven”, began to play in her head. Their song – and the song that Tara had never since allowed herself to listen to in its entirety: whenever it appeared on the radio she had always steadfastly changed the channel. It was something that amused Glenn no end.
“Why do you hate that song so much?” he’d laughingly ask her, and Tara would nonchalantly declare that it was “cheesy and pathetic” while inside she’d try desperately to banish the memories the song and its lyrics always triggered. Memories of a time that Tara wanted to forget, but never, ever could. Jason had made sure of that.
“Whew! I’m stuffed after that!” Natalie declared, pushing away the half-eaten plate of roast duck in front of her. “How was yours, Tara? Was it any good? Tara?”
“What?” Tara suddenly realised that someone was speaking to her.
“How was your food? You’ve hardly eaten anything.”
“Oh, it’s great,” she said, trying desperately to raise a smile, as she felt Jason’s gaze on her.
“Are you sure? You haven’t eaten much at all – we can send it back if it –”
“Honestly, Natalie, it’s great, thanks a million. I just don’t have much of an appetite this evening. Sorry.”
“With all the travelling and everything,” Liz inserted by way of explanation, even though their plane had been in the air barely forty-five minutes.
But Natalie didn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary. “I know, air travel can be so tiring!” she agreed, turning once again to Liz. “I suffer from terrible jet-lag at times, do you?” she asked chattily. “Jay, you like flying though, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
He was being as uncommunicative as she was, Tara noticed, resolving to try and buck herself up before Natalie noticed that something was seriously wrong. It wouldn’t be fair of her to ruin this dinner, not when Natalie was making such an effort – especially with Liz.
At that moment, Natalie’s eyes widened and she elbowed Liz’s arm. “Do you know, I think I just saw Jodi Marsh go into the Ladies’!” she declared, and despite herself, Liz’s eyes went wide as saucers.
“Are you serious?” she asked, undoubtedly unable to help herself, and Tara smiled sadly. In normal circumstances this night would have been great fun.
“Come on!” Natalie said, putting her napkin on the table and standing up. “Let’s do a little celeb-stalking!”
Liz looked unsure. “Aren’t you coming too, Tara?” she asked, remembering herself.
“No – you two go ahead.”
“You’re sure . . .?” Liz gave her a questioning look, as she followed Natalie away from the table, and Tara nodded briefly.
When they’d left, Tara truly understood the expression “you could cut the atmosphere with a knife” and she wondered how and why the gods had engineered this nightmare.
“Tara,” Jason began softly, in that familiar velvety voice of his, “this is very . . . very unfortunate. I really had no idea.”
Tara’s voice was brittle, and as she spoke she really wasn’t sure how she was getting the words out. “Unfortunate is a bit of an understatement, Jason – or should I call you Jay?”
There was a slight pause. “It’s a nickname that started in uni, and it stuck. Everyone calls me that now.”
“Really? So you went to university then, did you? How wonderful for you – I never got that chance.”
“Tara . . . believe me, I thought about contacting you many times after –”
“And why didn’t you? What stopped you? Too worried that I might tie you down, cramp your style – all those stupid expressions that people use when talking about people like me. But you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, Jason? No, you got out quick, long before the name-calling started.”
“It wasn’t like that – I . . .” The rest of his sentence trailed off, and he shook his head.
For the next few minutes, there was a deathly silence and right then Tara realised how crazy this was, the two of them meeting here, in a place like this, a place of wealth and opulence and celebrity, while their romance had taken place in an innocent, old-fashioned country hotel in Ireland – a million miles away from somewhere like this. Yet it was here they’d ended up.
“Tara, you must believe me when I tell you how sorry I am,” he said again. “But I didn’t think, I couldn’t think . . . we were so young, and I just didn’t know how or what . . . I was so scared –”
“Jason, you were two years older than I was! I was seventeen, barely seventeen, and I was bloody scared too! But then that didn’t last long, because after that being scared was the least of my worries.”
“I’m sorry,” he repeated.
Yet again the two were silent, Tara twisting her cotton napkin so tightly in her hands she thought it might shred.
Eventually Jason turned to face her – the first time he’d looked at her properly all evening. “So how is . . .” he began, before pausing to take a deep breath. When he spoke again, his voice was shaking. “How is –”
“How is Glenn?” Tara interjected breezily. “Well, I’m delighted to say that he’s grown up to be a mature, responsible and utterly wonderful young man.”
Finally, she looked Jason directly in the eye. “Nothing like his father.”
Chapter 30
In that instant, Tara was back on the dance-floor of the Castlegate Arms Hotel, barely seventeen years old, and in the arms of the man she’d adored for so long. The dress was, in her opinion, the most beautiful ball-gown ever created. It had taken absolutely ages to find but it was worth it, and as soon as Tara had tried it on in the shop, she’d known it was the perfect dress for her. The colour was her favourite – deep cerise pink – and the bodice and overskirt were made of lovely shiny satin that shone under the lights when she moved, and the lovely flowing skirts shushed along when she walked.
Jason had loved it too, and when he’d called to collect her from home earlier, he’d told her she looked “amazing”. Tara was pretty certain that if she’d been going to the debs ball with any of the lads from Castlegate they wouldn’t have even noticed her dress, and certainly wouldn’t have called her “amazing”. Instead they’d have called to the door, fidgeted impatiently for the photographs and talked about hurrying up so they could go and meet “the boys”.
But Jason Murray wasn’t like any of the lads in Castlegate (thank God!) and instead of trying to avoid the photographs like Deborah Murphy’s boyfriend Conor had, he’d even offered to take one of the family, Ta
ra standing in the middle between her mam and dad and a narky-looking Emma kneeling in front and whinging about “being swallowed up in a pink meringue”. And he hadn’t batted an eyelid when they’d reached the hotel and Colm had insisted on getting a group photo, even though Tara knew that he was slightly uncomfortable around her friends, whom he didn’t know all that well.
Now, as Jason and Tara danced slowly to Bryan Adam’s “Heaven”, Tara’s favourite song, his arms wrapped around her waist and his cheek resting lightly against hers, she thought the lyrics had never seemed more appropriate. She truly was in heaven, and he was all that she wanted, that she’d ever wanted.
She still couldn’t believe he’d agreed to go to the debs ball with her, this mature, sophisticated boy from Dublin who’d holidayed with his family in Castlegate every summer for as long as Tara could remember.
He and Tara had struck up a close friendship over the years, and every time he came on holiday they’d spend ages just chatting about nothing in particular and enjoying each other’s company. Tara fancied him for ages, in fact all the girls in the village had fancied him for ages, but it had been Tara he’d eventually agreed to go to the debs with. And she knew all of her fellow sixth years in Our Lady’s Secondary School were pea-green with envy that the fine thing from Dublin had chosen Tara Harrington to go to the debs with. Even Emma, who was only a kid, and didn’t know much about fellas yet, was wide-eyed with awe when Tara told her who she was taking to the ball.
Her mam and dad hadn’t been too happy about it, though.
“He’s a bit old for you, love,” her mother had said. “Why couldn’t you have gone to the debs with one of the local lads, like that nice fella Colm Joyce or maybe Eric McGrath?” Tara had groaned inwardly at the notion. Colm was totally hyper and you wouldn’t get a word in while he was around, and all Eric wanted to do was smoke fags and talk about boring stuff like football. Anyway, none of them were in the least bit good-looking, although this never seemed to stop them from getting girls – Colm in particular was meant to be a “demon with the women”, whatever that implied.
But what Tara’s parents especially didn’t realise was that age didn’t matter when you had something special like she and Jason did. He didn’t talk about Man United and boring things like hurling; he talked about travel and was into astrology, same as she was. Jason Murray was her soul mate, she was sure of it.
And tonight, as Bryan Adam’s throaty voice and romantic lyrics filled the room, Tara closed her eyes and felt more certain than ever. The only thing was, she thought, opening them just as quickly, the room was beginning to spin a bit now, and it wasn’t from dancing. She’d better slow down a bit on the drink. Tara wasn’t a big fan of drink, and she’d never been interested in going off down the park behind the castle, drinking flagons of cider with the boys, like some of her classmates did.
In all fairness, even Emma was able to hold her drink better than Tara, and she was only fourteen! Of course, Tara had tried to have a word with her about it, but she might as well be talking to the wall. Emma wanted to do her own thing, and nobody, least of all Tara, could stop her. She knew Emma thought she was a bit of a goody-two-shoes really. Well, she supposed she was. But she couldn’t help it that she didn’t like the horrible taste of cider or the way it made people act the eejit and fall all over the place, like Eric McGrath. She adored Eric, but there was no need for him to carry on like that, and when he was drinking he turned into a different person altogether. Tara thought he’d better control himself soon enough or he’d end up a drunkard just like his poor father.
No, drink just wasn’t Tara’s thing, but the problem was, she couldn’t very well refuse the drinks that Jason had been good enough to buy her tonight, could she?
And they were expensive drinks too – Southern Comforts, he’d told her – as if she should be impressed by this. Maybe this was some sophisticated drink that they all drank up in Dublin or something, so it might be rude to say no – especially when he’d agreed to come to her debs. So, feck it, for tonight only she’d have a couple of drinks, but she’d sip them slowly, and then, hopefully, she’d be grand.
“Did I tell you, you look beautiful in that dress, Tara?” Jason murmured in her ear, and as she pictured how they must look together, Tara immediately felt like Baby in the film Dirty Dancing, when Patrick Swayze did that slow dance with her. That had been a great film and really romantic. And of course Baby and Johnny were different people from different backgrounds, just like her and Jason, yet they’d fallen in love and to hell with anyone who tried to stop them!
“Thank you – you look funny in a suit, but it’s nice,” she giggled and then kicked herself when she realised how unsophisticated that sounded. Here he was complimenting her like a proper grown-up, and she giggled back at him like a schoolgirl! Well, as of three months ago, Tara was no longer a schoolgirl – she was now a seventeen-year-old woman with the world at her feet. Not that she had much of a clue what to do with that world, she thought ruefully. At least not until she got the Leaving results anyway.
She might like to go to college – she wasn’t really sure. Some of the other girls in her class, like Deborah, couldn’t wait to go to college and “finally get out of this kip”, whereas Tara didn’t think she ever wanted to leave Castlegate. She loved her hometown and the yearly influx of tourists (like Jason) every summer, all anxious to visit the pretty village and famous Norman castle that she was lucky enough to have been born near.
Tara loved the castle and often spent hours thinking about and trying to recreate the lives of the kings and queens who had lived there and she also loved the fact that her little village had such a wealth of history behind it. So, at the moment, she didn’t want to leave Castlegate.
No, what would be perfect would be if Jason and his family moved here from Dublin or something, and then she could see him all the time, and their great romance would last forever. Yes, that would be perfect.
Then, as if reading her thoughts, Jason turned his head and kissed her gently on the lips. As she kissed him back, Tara’s head swam with the romance of it all, the softness of his lips, the taste of him on her tongue, as Bryan Adams was just about to finish the song with that amazing guitar solo. This truly was heaven and it was most definitely love, she was sure of it.
“I want to be with you, Tara,” Jason whispered then. “You’re beautiful.”
Tara’s heart soared as they kissed again, this one deeper and much more passionate. She knew it! Jason felt the same way she did, and he wanted to be with her here in Castlegate too! This was turning out to be the best night of her life. Never mind all the others throwing envious looks at her – from the looks of things there was no point in them being jealous. Jason loved her, and that was that.
Then, the wonderful slow song ended, and all too soon some noisy Madonna number broke the spell. Tara loved Madonna as much as the next girl, but at that moment she really wished that the DJ would play some more romantic numbers, so she could stay wrapped in Jason’s arms forever. Although, she thought, as Jason smiled and led her away from the dance floor and back to their table, now she wouldn’t ever forget that song. “Heaven” would be their song from now on, hers and Jason’s, and whenever she heard that song on the radio in the future it would remind her of tonight – the happiest night of her life.
“Let’s go outside for a while, will we?” Jason said, interrupting her musings. “It’s baking hot in here.”
Tara smiled. She loved his Dublin accent and the funny expressions he came out with sometimes. Castlegate people would never say “baking”. Instead they might say “it’s “boiling” or “roasting”, but she didn’t think they would ever say something like baking. It made Jason seem all the more special.
“Out to the garden?” she said, as Jason picked up her drink – another yucky Southern Comfort, she noted.
“We could go for a walk down by the river, maybe?” he suggested with a smile that made Tara’s heart turn over in her chest. “I
t’s always nice down there. And if it gets cold, you can always take my jacket.”
Tara’s heart soared. “I might as well bring my cloak too,” she said, referring to the silk shawl-type thing that went over her dress. Although she probably wouldn’t need it – the fine summer weather was lasting well into September and the evening was mild, so she’d be plenty warm as she was. Either way, she certainly wasn’t going to refuse. The riverside park behind the castle had always been a popular spot for couples in love – couples like her and Jason. She couldn’t wait to spend time alone with him in one of the most romantic places she could think of – especially tonight, with a full moon out.
This truly was turning out to be the best night of her life.
Chapter 31
It was, she supposed, every teenage girl’s nightmare, discovering they were pregnant after having sex for the very first time. And she’d been stupid, she and Jason had been stupid that night after the debs ball, when drunk on romance (and Southern Comfort) they’d gone down to the romantic, moonlit park behind the castle and made love for the first time by the riverbank, having found a comfortable and private spot for them to be alone.
And it wasn’t all horrible and fumbling like Deborah Murphy had said it was for her – for Tara it was the perfect expression of their love for one another. OK, so it was a bit uncomfortable at first, lying on the ground with only his coat and her shawl beneath them, but eventually she gave herself up to the pleasure of just being with him and enjoying what they were doing.
Afterwards, as they lay sleepily in one another’s arms, Tara thought about how wonderful it had been and how this had to be true love. She knew they had some problems to surmount, certainly – what with Jason living in Dublin and she in Castlegate – and she knew her parents already disapproved of the fact that he was that bit older than her. But this was meant to be, and they’d get through those problems, wouldn’t they? They were soul mates.