It Was Only Ever You Read Free Page B

slimy curtain. She struggled to hold her breath and after a few seconds felt the panic rise up in her, willing her to flail around and struggle against the water to reach for the air again. As she was about to open her mouth, she felt the force of Patrick’s body push against her as he carried her in his firm arms up towards the surface of the lake. They burst out of the water and sucked in great breaths together, gasping and clinging to one another.
    Rose had not intended to drown. All she had known was that she had wanted to embrace the moment, to keep the adventure alive. When Patrick had saved her from the bull, the feeling of having been rescued was sweeter than she could have imagined. In those moments, as she was running across the fields, heart thumping, blood pumping through her small breasts, her feet running so fast across the soft grass, she felt as if she was flying. So, she thought, this is what love feels like: to surrender and be saved. She wanted to do it again.
    Rose had pretended to drown because she had wanted to find a way to make Patrick touch her. She knew she was pretty but she also knew he would never look at her. She was his sister’s friend, younger than he was. Rose was the doctor’s daughter, and she also knew that put her out of bounds, not just to Patrick, but to all the boys in the town. Rose was considered ‘posh’ and she hated that. Apart from Sinead, all the other girls thought her standoffish and strange, because she preferred to paint and draw than to talk to people. Sinead said they were just jealous of her because she was beautiful, but Rose didn’t think she was especially beautiful. She knew she looked ‘different’ from the other girls, with her ash-blonde hair and pale, delicate skin. She longed to be earthy and ‘ordinary’ in the just plain pretty way that the boys liked. She wanted to be teased and tickled and danced with, but it seemed that the local boys were somewhat shy of approaching her and the girls just ignored her. Sinead said not to mind them. She said that Rose’s drawing was a special talent. She understood people with special talents because her brother was able to sing like John McCormack. Sinead said that her brother found it hard because people didn’t always understand how important singing was to him. Patrick once confided that the only time he was truly happy was when he was singing. Sometimes, he told Sinead, he dreamt of having enough money to go to America and become a big star, but he was afraid of saying it to people in case they laughed at him.
    Rose could not imagine Sinead’s older brother worrying about anything. But then, no one could imagine Rose Hopkins, the doctor’s daughter, being worried about anything either. She was the girl who had everything, and Patrick was the boy who had everything. Yet Sinead had told her that Patrick, too, had that strange space inside him: the space she could only fill when she was drawing.
    That was what had started Rose off looking at Patrick Murphy in a different way. Up to then he had just been the good-looking bad-boy in town. Now, it seemed, he was a sensitive artist, like her. An unlikely soulmate. Rose had followed him that day, hoping she might draw him away from his friends and, perhaps, strike up a conversation. She had not banked on the bull. Frightening as it was, the encounter with it had worked to her advantage. She had certainly got Patrick’s attention.
    Underneath his blather, she knew that Patrick was not the type to put his hands on a girl uninvited, especially not his little sister’s friend. Which was why she slid into the water and put herself at risk of drowning.
    She had known he would save her. When she felt his strong arms lift her up towards the air again, towards breath, towards light, she felt the thrill of being saved as acutely as if she had actually fallen to her death.
    Patrick put his hand under her torso and swam the few strokes to the edge of the jetty and then told