Secrets of Our Hearts. Sheelagh Kelly

had just paid for the drinks was left to stare in dismay at his empty tray.

      ‘’Scuse me!’

      Niall looked on sympathetically as the victim tried to catch the attention of the big Irish fool who continued to dance about like a lunatic, eventually managing to tug at his sleeve.

      ‘You might offer to pay for them!’

      But the author of the disaster stopped only briefly to weigh up the little fellow, and to demand with a contemptuous sneer and a thick Irish brogue, ‘What’re ye going to do about it if I don’t, Johnny-boy?’ Then he cackled out loud and went back to his dancing, flailing his arms and legs about like a maniac.

      He was not to do so for long. His victim might be a foot shorter but he had a weapon in his hand. Lifting the tray, he dealt the Irishman an almighty blow to the back of his head, so hard that the tray instantly buckled and so did the man’s legs – but only for an instant, for he wheeled round in anger and was about to take a swing at the one who had assaulted him, when another grasped his arm.

      ‘I think you ought to pay for his drinks,’ demanded Niall.

      Restricted by the iron grip, the drover turned his hostility on the one who held him and, wrenching himself free, threw a punch at Niall, which was easily parried. With this insufficient to halt the attack there was only one way to terminate it: Niall dealt a blow that knocked him to the ground.

      The crowd, which had drawn aside like two separate curtains at the first sign of trouble, now swept back together, laughing and singing along with the piano player, who had not even missed a beat, whilst the avenging angel Niall rubbed his knuckles and looked down at the bully, who lay out cold on the glass-sprinkled tiles.

      ‘Sure, I wouldn’t want to be upsetting you!’ laughed an Irish voice close to his ear, a kinder female one this time.

      It was Boadicea, come to try to sweep up the mess, though she was not allowed to do so until the obstacle had been removed by his friends. The piano player changed to a gentler tempo and the crowd took an interval from their dancing.

      ‘Sorry, I just can’t stand people like him!’ Niall increased his pitch against the raucous strains of ‘I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen’.

      She wrinkled her nose and bent to her task. ‘Aw, he’s all right really.’ Twas just the drink talking.’

      Realising this did not present him in a good light, Niall felt he should justify his action. ‘I’m not usually so quick to hit somebody! He gave me no option; it was him or me.’

      ‘Sure, I know that!’ She did not sound at all recriminatory. ‘He was asking for a few tours of the parade ground, as my old dad would say, and you were only looking out for the little fella. Your man’ll be regretting it tomorrow, so he will. Likely be offering to buy you a drink!’

      ‘That’s probably true,’ agreed Niall, still rubbing his scuffed knuckles, his attention more on Boadicea now, for it was suddenly and delightfully brought home to him that he usually only ever saw her from the waist up. Taking advantage of this new perspective – the young woman crouching unawares – he examined first the wide hips, then followed the line of a rather shapely calf in a tan silk stocking, to the finely boned ankle that protruded from the high-heeled court shoe. ‘They’re a strange lot, the Irish,’ he concluded.

      ‘Ye cheeky article!’

      He was forced to tear his eyes from her leg as she came upright with a look of faked offence, and dealt him a dig with her arm.

      ‘I hope you’re including yourself in that remark?’

      So, she had remembered what he had told her then, about being of Irish stock. This and the little nudge of familiarity pleased him no end, and he grinned at her. ‘Aye, well, there’s some’d say I’m nobbut strange meself.’

      Boadicea grinned back, her eyes sparkling, but already her attention was being stolen by another who was thrusting a coin in her hand to pay for the spilled drinks, and soon she was set to return to the bar, her shovel piled with glass. Still, she included Niall in an afterthought as she left him. ‘Would you be after a refill an’ all?’

      ‘No, thanks, I’ve had my quota for the night.’

      ‘See you again then!’ called Boadicea, before being swallowed up by the revellers.

      Aye, you’ll see me again, thought Niall warmly, her final smiling comment topping off the evening nicely for him, as he took one last covetous look, then went out into the night.

      Friday’s episode being too boisterous for one of such a quiet disposition, he decided it was pointless to call in at the pub over the rest of the weekend, for he would see very little of Boadicea. But oh, the aching emptiness this involved … Being without her for two nights was as hard a separation as he had ever experienced, tearing at his gut in a way that was almost physical in its intensity. It was a crime in itself to attend confession and be forgiven for his sinful thoughts, when he had every intention of repeating that sin, but Niall went along anyway, if simply for the fact that his parish priest was one of the few to whom he could unload such a burden – though he did not name names, of course, but restricted the information to a generalised confession of impure thoughts. So long as those thoughts were not put to deed he could rely on Father Finnegan’s understanding; he was a man himself, after all.

      Already conscious of the worried looks that were exchanged between Nora and her daughters, as he had gone off to the pub night after night, he dared not extend his itinerary to the Sabbath, though he would dearly have loved to, for come Sunday he was as thoroughly depressed and agitated over his withdrawal from Boadicea as an alcoholic might be from his whisky. Hence, by Thursday of the following week, his good intentions of limiting his visits looked set to collapse, for he had been to The Angel four times in as many days, and in all probability would be there on a fifth.

      It did not matter that often he had not even the chance to converse with her other than to obtain his drink of choice; he was content be in her presence, to watch and to listen and to admire. Barely able to afford even the one pint per visit, he had foregone other things, walked miles to work where once he might have caught the bus, in order just to sit nursing the glass that permitted him to be near her; a nearness that became almost unbearable as he witnessed others do what he himself would love to be doing. He was deeply jealous of the ease with which they chatted to her, though he told himself he had no right to be. It was not as if she belonged to him.

      Which in turn made him ask, did he want her to? Sitting there on his own, night after night, levered away from the bar by those more extrovert, and by his own lack of confidence, in his unobtrusive corner he had been privy to all manner of discussion about the fair Irish barmaid, and would have known if there had been a rival. He had even heard one fool comment that she was a bonny enough lass but there must be ‘summat up with her’ to remain a spinster at her age. Well, here was one who would have her.

      Acutely conscious where this would lead, and how it would hurt Ellen’s family and possibly his children, and that he was a hypocrite for the way he had condemned his brother yet was following the same route himself, Niall tried hard to overcome his feelings … but maybe not hard enough … or maybe it was just that he did not really want to. He could not remember experiencing such a reaction over anyone, not even Ellen in the first flush of courtship. He had not even known it was possible to feel a passion that took over one’s entire life. Which was why, finally abandoning all self-delusion, all pretence of noble resistance, and surrendering to a baser, masculine selfishness, he decided he must pluck up the courage and ask her to go out with him.

      Yet, whilst his happiness flourished over this decision, so too did his guilt, for, acting totally against character, he had lied to those at home about the recent change in his social habits, had made out that he had joined the Railway Institute where there were all kind of activities to take one’s mind off one’s sorrows – feeling guiltier still at using a dead wife as his excuse. But nothing could have deterred him now from seeing that lovely Celtic lass.

      Obsessed as he had become in his