Page 52 of The Promise
David looks at me and I bite my lip.
‘Er,’ I mumble.
‘No, no, I’ll step back for this one,’ he says, and I can feel his hurt radiate right through my bones. ‘This is Kate’s moment. It’s her time to shine. I’ll sit this one out, but thanks for asking.’
I walk across the community hall with my heart feeling heavy. Standing for the photo, I urge myself to smile but tears prick my eyes. I want to have David in the photo so badly. I want him by my side today in a way he should be, so proud and so very much part of this campaign’s growth to date.
But he can’t. And that’s all down to me.
‘I’m so sorry.’
I hear my heels click on the pavement as we make our way outside.
‘It’s fine. Don’t mention it again,’ he says, quickening his pace as we leave the community hall for the shelter of one of our favourite Dublin pubs.
‘But—’
‘Honestly, just leave it, Kate,’ he says tartly. ‘This is an evening of celebration. We can talk about it some other time. Not tonight.’
I drop the subject and we eventually spend the evening laughing, eating and drinking around Dublin, and when my guilt subsides about the photo incident and I accept that David really does want to park it until another time, we once more become so carefree and light on our feet inreflection of how far we have come over twelve months and I’m reminded of how deeply we have fallen in love.
David has been my backbone, cheering me on every step of the way as my dream of launching my own charity came to life. We have never felt more together. He believes in me, and I in turn believe in him, even when he decided to register again with the RAF as a part-time reservist. He also wants to give something back, by carrying out humanitarian aid missions to war-torn countries; even though it means more time apart, it makes me admire him even more.
We have both experienced life so close to the edge, and we are both determined now to do more than ever to help others.
Between our relentless work schedules as I juggle my time around my nursing commitments and charity planning, visiting him in England when I can and welcoming him to Dublin on his time off from school or RAF commitments, we do the usual things any other couples do. We go dancing, we go to the cinema, we go ice skating and mountain climbing, we go running together and we go swimming in lakes. All this feeds our thirst for adventure, and gives a two-finger signal to all the elements that have threatened our very existence, including the demons that still live in David’s head and that creep up on him from time to time.
I know there’s still some darkness in there about to explode and I know that a lot of it has got to do with my silence over who we really are and what we mean to each other in public.
It’s not David’s fault, it’s totally mine, and I can feel it threatening to boil over more and more as we become closer and closer.
The morning after my debut public speech, David brings me coffee as I lie in bed in an afterglow. We have just one more day together before he jets off from Dublin on an aid mission to bring supplies to the victims of the devastating earthquake in Haiti. We snuggle between the covers and talk, as we often do, about our future.
‘Are you happy, Kate?’ he asks me, and I know exactly what he is getting at. We still haven’t gone public as a couple at home among our own people, sticking to my terms of coming and going from Dublin and London.
When my cousin got married in November, I went there alone. When David’s aunt passed away in mid-December, I didn’t accompany him to the funeral. I pretended to my mum and sister that I was working so David and I could spend our first Christmas Day together and, when our families ask questions about our love life, we brush any suggestions off. I play it down as well when Mo gets too inquisitive, denying we even keep in touch any more, never mind share a bed and a deep love together.
I prefer it this way to ease any outside influences or pressures, but I know we can’t go on like this for ever.
‘I’m happy for now, yes,’ I tell him as I stare at the ceiling in my bedroom, but in truth I’m really beginning to wish things were different.
I’m fed up with sharing an apartment in Dublin with anyone other than David. I’m fed up with tearful airport scenes and Skype calls, when all I need is a hug from only him, and most of all I’m fed up with myself for not being braver like he is when it comes to telling the world how much we love each other.
The bomb changed my whole outlook on life; it lit a fire in my belly to do even more to test the strength of the person I can become, by making my mark on this world in every way I can. So why can’t I be honest about the person who means more to me than anyone else ever will?
Where I’m the public speaker, David is the engine room. Where I’m the hands-on carer, David is the wind in my sails when I wobble, and when I’m the opinionated know-it-all, he’s the brooding, thoughtful and quiet deep thinker whose words and knowledge could sum me up in seconds. He is inner and I am outer, he is the one with whom my soul connects, yet he is the one I’m letting down the most.
‘I’m not happy, Kate,’ he tells me as we both lie side by side, which takes my breath away. ‘I don’t want this to be a secret any more and I know you don’t either. I don’t think this is healthy at all. I couldn’t even stand beside you in a photo yesterday for something we both believe in. It’s crazy. It’s so wonderful on the surface, but beneath it all I feel we’re struggling already and it’s going to smother us one day.’
I lean on my elbow to face him and I can see his mouth twitch as a million thoughts go through his head.
‘We’re hardly atotalsecret, David!’ I say with a lilt in my voice, trying to play it all down, even though deep down I feel exactly the same. ‘All my friends here in Dublin know about us and they adore you, especially Sinead who thinks you’re almost as wonderful as I do.’
‘That’s not what I mean and you know it.’
‘I’ve met loads of your teaching colleagues in England,’ I say, again trying to play it all down. ‘It’s not like we’re sneaking around like two love-struck teenagers from across the barricades when we’re here on a normal day, is it? Yesterday was a one-off. I know you were upset and that it isn’t exactly the norm, but we have good reason, at least for now.’
‘Good reason?’ he says looking my way. ‘What is this good reason, Kate? The big bad boys up in the north are going to be upset because a wee Catholic girl from the housing estate is going out with a Protestant whose da is a bit of a Bible-bashing mouthpiece? I’m thirty-three years old, not some teenager growing up in the 1980s! This is a joke and you are making it so!’
