Kisses

By Jeannie Curran

Sally Mc Quire is twenty-six years old and lives in the very beautiful City of Derry, Ireland. Ten years ago, the love of her short life left for Spain, promising to write every week.

Sally is left heartbroken as she never hears from him again. Until now.

When Mal does get in touch, it's not with her, and Sally's heart and mind is in turmoil. Kisses will follow, but will their young love survive the ten years apart?

Does fireball Mal have a good enough excuse for not keeping his promise?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: May 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9781499096330

Jeannie Curran

Jeannie Curran is a married mum of four, born and raised in the beautiful city of Derry, Ireland. Since early childhood, she has had a love affair with reading. Aspirations grew within her to take the huge step of putting pen to paper. Finding the time was never going to be easy when juggling a busy family life. Somehow, however, she managed to achieve what she thought was the unimaginable. The end result, her debut novel, is set in her hometown of Derry, Ireland.

Book preview

Chapter 1

S pringtime, daffodils bunched along the roadside and in nearly every garden, signalling new beginnings, fresh starts. The children ran about with their wee milky white arms and legs bared after a long Irish winter in wool and fleece, their wee noses getting the first light scatter of freckles from the springtime sun. ‘Springtime had to be the best time of the year,’ Sally thought…

Easter was late this year, and in two weeks, she would take off for her mum and dad’s mobile home in Culdaff, a beautiful part of the country not far from Malin Head, the most northern part of Ireland. The views and beaches were stunning even on a dull day, but if the Irish weather permitted and the sun came out, then that was a whole other experience for the eye.

Population was about 350, the last she had read a few years ago. It at least doubled in the summer months – everyone flocking to summer houses and mobile homes, some of which were like suites at the Waldorf Hotel. Sally’s parents’ mobile home was like that – three double bedrooms with an en-suite and a fitted state-of-the-art kitchen with a dishwasher, a washing machine, a full-length fridge freezer, and, of course, a wine fridge… of course. It had wrap-around decking and an eight-piece garden set with loungers to match. When the weather was nice, there was no more beautiful scenery and views that Sally could think of.

The site the mobile homes sat on overlooked a small beach, and hail, rain, or shine, you always saw the sea and at night the lighthouse. It had wash houses with five washer-dryer machines (for those who didn’t have washing machines in their mobile homes) – everything one needed for a relaxing break away. Mc Gory’s Hotel was a short drive away, which always had some kind of entertainment going on. It even got in the ‘Hot Press Best of Ireland’s Twenty Best Venues’ and lots of other awards in Ireland. A ten-minute walk on the road led to another pub-come-guest house overlooking the beach. What more could one ask for?

Sally had two weeks off work and she couldn’t wait to get away to one of the most peaceful and relaxing parts of the country she ever had the pleasure of coming across. Culdaff was like a different world. She knew as soon as she stepped foot out of the car and breathed in the country air she would feel the bliss…

Work was really stressing her out, and she really disliked her boss and she got the feeling that the feeling was mutual. Sally’s title was ‘supervisor’ in a café in the town called ‘Victoria’s Café’, but she more or less ran the café; she had hardly ever seen her boss, only when she was giving her friends a free lunch. Sally would agree Victoria was a ‘hard-faced woman of the world’ as Victoria would put it. (Sally added the ‘hard-faced’ bit in.) As Sally would put it, she was a ‘hard-faced spoilt daddy’s girl that never had to work for a thing in her life’, and if that passed for an ‘of the world’ at the end of it, then so be it.

She had a chip on her shoulder, a rich daddy’s little girl who expected everyone she employed to dance to her every tune. She would waltz into the café with her size-eight figure, all skin and bones, long waist-length dark brown hair flying around the counter and food, her nose in the air, and maybe order coffee for her friends and herself and leave without either a thanks or a payment.

She wasn’t much older than Sally, which made it even harder for her to like her. Daddy’s money had bought her the café, but she didn’t care much for it; she just liked the feeling of empowerment of owning it.

Sally loved her job, colleagues, and the customers, most of whom she had grown to know personally. Lisa and Shelly were the other two full-time workers at the café, and they had a great laugh together. Lisa was thirty and Shelly forty-two. Shelly was a big girl with an even bigger personality. She had a heart of gold and always a smile on her face for everyone. Lisa was a lot quieter, but the different personalities among the three worked well, and they had a blast working together – always laughing and having the craic with each other or the customers. Sally worked hard and liked to be kept busy but never got the appreciation she deserved; she made it her business to give the other two girls the credit they deserved. She was taking this time out not only to relax but also to try and get her head around the fact that work was getting her down a little. She wanted to think about where life was taking her and what she really wanted from it. Her life was beginning to depress her just a little and that scared her a lot.

At twenty-six, Sally was five feet seven inches, with a great curvy body, long wavy blonde hair, Irish gypsy eyes (emerald green), and a great personality to match. Sally had her fair share of offers of dates. She didn’t care much for any fellas she dated though. She went on dates sometimes, most of whom she dumped in a text the next day or didn’t answer their calls after the first date. She even walked out of the cinema on one fella, telling him she was just popping to the loo, and off to home she went for a bath and a glass of wine, her Westlife album playing in the background. He never called her again, needless to say.

She left another fella in a restaurant. But then, he was a male chauvinist pig and deserved the humiliation. During dinner, he said, ‘I am glad you don’t feel intimidated by the fact I have a much superior job to yours. I mean, if you were to get married, you would be leaving your job anyway, so what’s the use in wasting time with a high-powered job, right?’

‘Excuse me,’ Sally said to that, and off she went as if going to ‘the loo’, but she darted straight out the door and off to home. Her wine and Westlife album were both on standby…

She never met anyone who held her attention or her heart any more than a month.

Mal lasted eight months though. He was the one every boy was measured up to. No one ever came close, and Sally couldn’t get him out of her head; sometimes she didn’t even want to. He was her partner in science all of the fifth year, and on the last day of the school year, he asked her to go bowling with him. That was it; they spent the whole summer together, walking the back roads of the borders between Donegal and Derry and eating packed lunches on the dragon’s teeth that separated the borders. Huge four-by-four-feet concrete blocks stopped cars from driving to and from Donegal without passing through the police checkpoint first. They would take one block each and sit with their legs criss-crossed over in front of them, eating their lunch of whatever was in the fridge that morning – from jam sandwiches to corn beef and HP sauce sandwiches, crisps and custard cream biscuits. Custard creams were always Mal’s favourite. Every time she saw one, to this day, it still reminded her of Mal, of days spent walking without a care in the world, and of fresh air in bucket loads. She missed those carefree days, and at the thought of being in Culdaff for two weeks, with all its beautiful blue flag, sandy beaches, and mountains surrounding the field where the site was situated in, Sally’s heart pounded in anticipation. It was everything she needed right now. Peace and quiet and some ‘me time…’

Chapter 2

S ally’s bbf was Nicole O’Shea. The girls were friends through everything – from nursery school to now. One of the incidents which their mums would tell them about fondly was when Nicole had been playing hairdressers in the nursery room. She had sat Sally down at the little pink plastic dressing table, got a pink comb and the arts-and-crafts scissors, and chopped and chopped at Sally’s hair. She then squealed, crying because, thankfully, the scissors didn’t cut the hair. They still got a laugh to this day at that story.

Their mums had lots of stories of both fights and a blossoming friendship. Another story was when the girls at age eight dressed up in their mums’ clothes, put on a really full face of make-up, and went walking round and round the few streets next to theirs. They didn’t want to go home because they thought they looked too grown-up and beautiful, so they walked to a café and sat there reading magazines and playing grown-ups. They didn’t know their parents were going out of their minds with worry searching everywhere they could think of. They got their wings clipped for their disobedience at the time, but looking back now, they could all laugh…

The girls’ mums had been friends from secondary school; both married two best friends and were inseparable ever since. When they fell pregnant within five months of each other and both had girls, Sally being the older of the two, it was beyond their best ever imaginations.

When Nicole was dumped by Johnny Brown in the third year of school, Sally and her mum, Elizabeth, went straight over to Nicole’s with the largest tub of Dale Farm Raspberry Ripple Ice Cream, a bottle of ice cream soda, Maine fizzy lemonade to make ice cream drinks, and a six pack of flakes to sprinkle on top.

Elizabeth and Nicole’s mum, Anna, sat at the kitchen island, drinking coffee and eating a flake each with two straws, ready to suck up the flaky chocolate bits that fell to the counter with every bite.

‘You’re never too old for chocolate and never too old to eat it the way you want to,’ Anna had said. After twenty minutes of Nicole questioning herself and Sally reassuring her that it was ‘Johnny Brown’s loss’, they went downstairs to make their drinks while their mums laughed and chatted about their old days; even knowing then that their mums would have been only about thirty-five, the days they talked about were old to them. Stories flowed, and the ice cream drinks sprinkled with flakes disappeared, and the four best friends in the world enjoyed their little haven of mother–daughter friendship. Bad Johnny Brown was never mentioned again…

Nicole, now an excellent colourist and stylist, (funnily enough) had her own hairdressers and beauticians in town and was doing great, loving her job and life. She had a boyfriend for the last three years – a lovely fella called Johnny White (what’s the chances?); she had met him in a pub in Letterkenny one girls’ night, but Sally forgave her because he was so cute, and they looked even cuter together. Being the same size as Nicole in three-inch wedges (Nicole in the wedges, not Johnny), it took him to about five feet ten inches; they had exactly the same colour of auburn hair and brandy-coloured eyes. They could have passed for brother and sister had it not been for the chemistry between them.

‘Cute as two buttons together,’ Nicole’s mum, Anna, would say. She loved him ‘nearly’ as much as she loved Nicole.

Johnny had been eyeing Nicole up all night, and when he finally made his way over to their company, the music stopped, but Johnny still asked, ‘Would you like to dance?’ He was that nervous. The girls burst out laughing but then felt sorry for him when he went to leave. Sally stayed him with her hand on his arm and then very discreetly nipped to the ladies. When she returned, Nicole was on full flirt alert.

The girls were staying in the Ramada Hotel that night and taking the bus back to Derry the next day. Johnny saw this as an opportunity and insisted on driving them home the next afternoon. He was double-parked outside their hotel entrance from five minutes to twelve the next morning in his Honda Civic that was polished to within a millimetre of its metallic paint. He spent the day with Nicole in her mum and dad’s house, had dinner, and then drove home. He drove up and down nearly every night, and within three months, he had a job in Derry, and they had a deposit down on a house to move in together. Nicole’s dad was none too pleased about the arrangement, being kinda old-fashioned, but Johnny and Nicole were made for each other, and even Jim couldn’t deny that. They were inseparable.

They sometimes reminded Sally of Mal and her; their summer together was the best of her life. The only thing that interrupted them for the full two months was the week in Portugal her mum and dad had booked. It was the first time they went away without Nicole and her mum and dad, and that was only because they had a family wedding in Chester, England, to go to and couldn’t afford both.

Nicole and Sally would cast spells on the bride-to-be and her future husband. Having reached an age of sexual knowledge, they wished his penis to be twisted and bent so it would hurt her going in on their wedding night. They hated anyone who kept them apart. Jeez, the innocence of them, with a small twist of badness…

The summer otherwise was perfect. Sally had two very different best friends – Nicole for her girly chats and Mal for everything else. Mal was way too laddish to talk girly stuff, but she always felt she could talk to him about anything, and she knew the feeling was mutual. Life was good…

Mal announced on 7 February, eight months after they began their summer of carefree fun and cosy winter of movies, custard creams, and Wispa bars with Nicole and Brian Wade (a boy she dated just so she wasn’t a gooseberry, she admitted years later), that his parents were splitting up, and his mum, originally from Madrid, was packing up and moving back to look after her elderly parents, who were eighty-three and needed her more than ever to help them with their farm and to assist them with life’s comings and goings in their old age.

They stood surrounded with green grass, hills, and fresh Donegal air in the paddock of Lenamore stables, where they had walked to loads of times, but this time she knew he was hiding something from her. She didn’t want to think he could, so she just babbled on about Nicole and her day at school. Nicole and Sally had gone back to school to do A levels, but Mal and Brian hadn’t. Mal had gone to the training centre for school leavers to get himself a trade in the joinery. Brian had gone to work with his dad, learning the plumbing trade. Sally was in the middle of telling him about Nicole having a very grown-up debate in business studies class with their teacher Mrs M. Hamilton (they had to use the ‘M’ because there were three Mrs Hamiltons) when Mal grabbed her to his chest and squashed her head under his chin tightly, saying, ‘Shh, Sal, please.’ He patted her long curly blonde hair with his right hand and held her tight around her shoulders with his left. He was going to turn seventeen in less than a month and Sally had still two months to go to be seventeen, but it was a very real and grown-up moment they shared. Standing there in the field of horses in Mal’s arms, Sally felt her heartbeats pound in her ears; she