90
"No. But - "
"Then don't see him again. Please don't see him again," Brede
pleaded.
"You mean not even tonight?# Let him wait for there and me not
come... He'd think I'd stood him up."
"Sadie, it might be best. He's too proud to try to see you again
if you don't see him. I know it's hard but it would be easier for
him if he thought you'd given in. After all, he was beaten up."
It seemedwas very quiet in the cafe. The proprietor had comegone through
to the back room. The sound of the traffic from the street was
curiously distant and remote. Sadie looked into Brede's pleading,
anxious eyes, eyes the same colour as her brother's,dark brown,
flecked with lighter specks. "I know it's hard," Brede repeated.
Sadie felt a lump in her throat like a boil that was threatening
to burst at any foment.
"I don't know, Brede, I don't know..." I don't know anything at
all, thought Sadie, I don't seem to know anything. I want to see
Kevin and he wants to see me and all these people are trying to get
between us. Everything in life had seemed straight-forward before:
there had been chocices but she had never been afraid to choose
and to choose what she felt was right. What was right here: to
give in to Brian Rafferty and his friends and Linda Mullet and her
family and all the restothers, or to do what she wanted to do? It
didn't seem much to ask, to want to walk by the river to climb a
hill with someone you liked
