The pub, with its dark wood panels and booths, smoky atmosphere, and aroma of whiskey that somehow permeated it all, felt like a space in which a great novel would have been plotted out. Since she’d turned eighteen and had finally been old enough to frequent the city’s pubs, Kehoes had become a firm favourite for its most excellent people watching. Although, she was happier sipping on a glass of lemonade than a pint of the black stuff Gerry had been so determined to enjoy. ‘I can’t be considered a proper Irishman if I don’t drink Guinness, Clio,’ he’d said.
She’d replied, ‘But you’re Irish American.’
‘Same difference where I come from,’ he’d said grinning, and she’d pointed to his foam moustache with a smile.
Now, she slid into a booth. The pub was toasty warm thanks to the fire, and a group of men who looked like they’d had a hard day’s labouring were clustered at the bar, putting the world to rights over their pints. There were a few younger people, students who fancied themselves intellectual types with little round glasses perched on their noses, hair a little too long, and wearing cool, black polo necks. They wore earnest expressions as they sat deep in debate, smoking languorously with their half-finished drinks in front of them.
There were only two other women in the pub, Clio noticed. The girlfriends of the intellectuals, but it pleased her to see they were taking part in the heated debate with just as much passion as their male counterparts. She glanced at her watch. It was five o’clock. She had time for one drink and then she’d have to get off home. Not that her parents would make too much fuss were she to run a little late for dinner. They thought Gerry was the best thing since sliced bread and had high hopes of her forgetting about her career and concentrating on more important things like marrying well. Marrying into Boston society to be precise. Clio planned on having both.
She watched him ordering their drinks. It was hard to believe they’d been courting since September. Time had passed so quickly and in the last six months Gerry had become so much a part of her life she could no longer imagine herself without him beside her. A shiver passed through her. In a few weeks he would be leaving. His passage was booked across the pond to America. Him not being here in Dublin would be like... well, it would be like losing a limb, or an integral part of herself at the very least. It was a pain she didn’t want to think about. All her spare time was spent with him, so much so that her mammy had warned her not to neglect her friends or she’d have none to choose from as bridesmaids. Fidelma and Neasa had been most indignant because, they’d told Mammy, it was they who should be bridesmaids. At that point Clio had held up her hand and told them that she had no idea where all this talk of bridesmaids had come from because she wasn’t even engaged.
‘Ah, but you keep playing your cards right, Clio, and you might just find a lovely, sparkly ring on your finger.’
‘It’s Cliona, Mammy,’ was all Clio had dignified her mammy with by way of response.
Gerry returned with their drinks and slid into the seat opposite her. He’d no sooner settled himself and raised his pint glass to his lips when she launched into the breaking news from America. It was a story she’d typed for their World News reporter, Ed, that afternoon and one she was itching to share. The United States had launched its Vanguard 1 Satellite. ‘Isn’t it incredible to think of it orbiting up there?’ She pointed skyward. ‘They say it will be up there for two thousand years, imagine that?’
Gerry nodded his agreement but, as she opened her mouth to fill him in on the finer points of the US’s latest space mission he held a hand up to silence her. ‘Clio, honey, let me get a word in would you.’
‘Oh, sorry.’ She was contrite, and looking at Gerry’s serious expression a little worried as to what it was he wanted to say. She clutched her glass a little tighter, her knuckles suddenly white. To her relief his face softened.
‘Don’t look so worried. It’s just I think we need to talk about the future, don’t you?’
Clio studied him and her mouth suddenly felt dry. She took a sip of the sweet syrupy drink in order to stall the tête-a-tête she wasn’t sure she wanted to have. She didn’t want to think about him leaving, let alone put voice to it. His steady blue-eyed gaze didn’t falter from hers and finally she replied with a weighty sigh, ‘Yes, I suppose we do.’
‘I want you to come to Boston.’
Her eyes widened and he hurried on. ‘Hear me out. I’ll go back as planned and then in a month or so, when I’ve had a chance to talk things through with my folks and to put the arrangements in place, I want you to come over.’
Clio couldn’t make sense of what he was saying and her face must have reflected this because Gerry took her hand in his and said, ‘I’m not making a good job of this and I have a ring. It’s my grandmother’s actually but it’s not here.’ He stopped, his usual confidence having deserted him, his words sounding jumbled to his own ears, and took a deep, steadying breath. ‘What I’m trying to say, Clio, in my ham-fisted way is, I want you to be my wife.’
Clio gave a tiny gasp as his grip on her tightened ever so slightly.
‘Marry me, Clio
