Free Stand by Me by Sheila O'Flanagan Page A

Brendan too.’
     
    ‘Oh, don’t be so bloody silly!’ cried Evelyn. ‘You think he loves you? You think he really wants to marry you?’
     
    ‘Yes.’ The tears were coursing down Dominique’s face. ‘Yes he loves me and yes he’ll marry me.’
     
    ‘And if you believe that, you’re even more stupid than I thought,’ said Evelyn.
     
     
    Her hands were shaking as she picked up the phone and called O’Neill’s bar, which was where they’d arranged to meet that night. She was left waiting for five minutes, and she thought that perhaps Brendan wasn’t there yet, but then she heard a rustling noise and the receiver was picked up and she heard him say, ‘Domino?’
     
    ‘Hi.’ Her voice was shaky.
     
    ‘Domino. Are you all right?’
     
    ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘I’m OK.’
     
    ‘You don’t sound it. Why aren’t you here?’
     
    ‘I . . . wasn’t well earlier,’ she said.
     
    ‘What was the matter? You sound dreadful now.’
     
    ‘Oh, Brendan ...’ She sniffed. ‘I’m sorry.’
     
    There was a silence at the other end of the phone. And then he replaced the receiver.
     
     
    She didn’t want to admit that Evelyn had been right. That she’d been a naïve, stupid girl who’d got carried away and slept with her boyfriend and made a basic, basic mistake. She was supposed to be more intelligent than that. But clearly she wasn’t. She’d managed to ruin her life before it had even started.
     
    She was surprised by the ringing of the doorbell, and even more surprised to hear Brendan’s raised voice. Evelyn had answered the door, and she was clearly giving him a piece of her mind.
     
    ‘I’m here to see Domino,’ she heard him say. ‘If you don’t want to let me in to the house, then tell her to come out here to me.’
     
    She opened her bedroom door and came downstairs.
     
    ‘Talk then.’ Evelyn looked between them. ‘Talk for all the good it will do.’
     
    ‘I’m sorry,’ said Dominique again as she led him into the unwelcoming front room. ‘She’s furious with me. I’ve let her down, you see. All of her parish friends ...’ She shrugged.
     
    ‘First of all, let’s get things straight,’ said Brendan. ‘Have I guessed correctly? Are you pregnant?’
     
    ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry about that too.’ She rubbed at her eyes. ‘It’s my problem.’
     
    ‘Do you have such a low opinion of me?’ Brendan looked at her intently. ‘Do you think I’m just going to walk away?’
     
    ‘I’ll understand,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t as though we were . . . well, you know.’
     
    ‘Hey, Domino, I told you I loved you. I meant it.’
     
    ‘Brendan, I’m pregnant. It’s a whole new ball game.’
     
    ‘True. But if we’d got married the day I met you, people would be asking us now if there was “any news”.’
     
    Her smile was watery.
     
    ‘This isn’t the way I wanted it to be,’ he admitted. ‘But I love you, Dominique Brady. You’re the girl for me. And I want kids. Lots of ’em. If we’ve had an early start, so what?’
     
    She stared at him.
     
    ‘You said you loved me too.’ He looked at her with the same slightly anxious look he’d worn when he’d first asked her out. ‘Did you mean it?’
     
    ‘Of course I meant it,’ she said. ‘It’s just that . . . I thought that guys didn’t want to settle down. That you wanted to kind of play the field and stuff.’
     
    ‘I’m twenty-eight,’ he said. ‘I’ve given the field a bit of a going-over already.’
     
    She laughed shakily.
     
    ‘So how about it?’ he said. ‘How about cheering up your ma and da and telling them that we’re engaged and that they don’t have to worry about their future grandchild? Though I have to say, Domino, they’re the most old-fashioned people I’ve ever met in my entire life. They haven’t moved out of the fifties, you know.’
     
    ‘I know.’
     
    ‘Well?’
     
    She’d always imagined that a marriage proposal would be more romantic