It Was Only Ever You Read Online Free PDF Page A

Tom, over breakfast that morning, why almost two hundred dollars of his salary was being spent on a Sybil Connolly gown for their daughter, Ava, to wear to a wedding that wasn’t her own. P. J. Dolan was a high court judge and one of the most powerful people in New York Irish society.
    Tom Brogan was a successful insurance broker, one of the rising middle class of Irish Americans, but his real passion was his philanthropic work with young Irish immigrants, many of whom came to be employed in the dance halls owned by his friend Iggy Morrow. Tom and the judge knew each other vaguely through their charitable work for the poor immigrant Irish, but it was apparently well enough for the Brogans to be invited to be one of their eight hundred or so guests at PJ’s eldest daughter Gloria’s wedding. Nessa was determined to make an impression.
    The famous Irish fashion designer Sybil Connolly was renowned for her classic designs using the finest Irish tweeds and linens. Jackie Kennedy was a customer. The Brogans were not in the same league as the Kennedys but being invited to Judge Dolan’s wedding was a start and Tom could afford to splash out every now and then to keep his wife and daughter happy. Or rather, his wife. His daughter hated shopping.
    Nessa opened her eyes wide and nodded conspiratorially. ‘It’s a big day, Thomas, an opportunity. There will be a lot of important people there.’
    Then she mouthed the word ‘husband’. Tom shook his head and blushed, embarrassed. He didn’t see what the problem was. So Ava was taller, broader and not as delicate and pretty as her cousins, but she was still a great girl. She was sensible, practical and as smart as any man he’d ever come across. She could fire through a crossword in an hour and count as fast in her head as any of the young men he had working under him. Ava was a good, kind person too – worth a thousand of these silly American girls with their bows and big busts and their wasp-waists. As far as Tom Brogan was concerned, any man would be the luckiest man alive to marry his daughter. What she needed to find was a good, solid Irishman, like himself. The fact that she insisted on working in the typing pool of his insurance firm didn’t help. She was too independent by far, and men didn’t like that either. Ava could afford to buy her own clothes, but most of the time she didn’t bother. This was her mother’s way of trying to fancy her up a bit. Tom could have told her it wouldn’t work. Ava just wasn’t that kind of girl.
    Tom loved his only daughter more than anything and told her she was beautiful every day. The problem was, she didn’t believe him.
    ‘You can stop talking about me finding a husband,’ Ava said to them. ‘I’ll find my own when I’m good and ready.’
    Tom laughed. ‘There now, Nessa, will you leave the poor girl alone?’
    Nessa smiled, taking temporary comfort in her daughter’s show of confidence.
    ‘The fitting is in the Plaza at eleven, we’ll have time for lunch afterwards in the Palm Court...’
    ‘Steady,’ Tom said.
    ‘Perhaps your father might call in with one of his colleagues?’
    ‘She never gives up!’ Tom said, smiling, bringing the paper back up to his face.
    ‘And I never will,’ said Nessa, picking up her bag, ‘until our daughter is as happily married as we are.’
    Tom pulled a face behind his paper so just Ava could see and she winked back at him.
    It was important to Ava that she let her parents know that she neither noticed nor cared that she wasn’t especially pretty. Except that Ava did notice and she did care. Her nose was too long, her eyes were close together and her face was broader than it should have been. She had good hair that set easily – but it was a dull shade of mousy brown and she was nervous to dye it a shade darker for fear of looking ghoulish. Glamorous ‘Hollywood’ blonde would have been a ridiculous notion on a girl of her size – almost six foot tall, with broad shoulders