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Evie. I catch a sob in my throat before it escapes. Even so, Jamie hears it and looks at me, his little nose scrunched up in worry. I smile to cover it up. He’s scared enough without worrying about me as well. I glance at Mae, but she’s looking out of the small window, lost in her own worry and pain. Should I go over to her? I chicken out and decide maybe later.
MAE
My mind races. I cannot understand how Evie could end up in such a state. I peek up at Olly again, as that same irrationality that won’t stop plaguing me jumps up and hits me in the face. Shouldn’t my perfect house-husband have known that something was wrong? I want to scream at him again, ‘Why didn’t you see this coming, Olly?’
I know his answer to that baseless accusation would be, ‘What about you, Mae, where were you? Why didn’t you see this?’ And the weight of my shame makes me hang my head low. The blame sits on both of our shoulders. Somehow or other we’ve let our daughter down.
OLLY
That bloody perfume cloys at me now and memories batter me, determined to be heard. Mam was only thirty-three when she died, younger than I am now. I look at Mae and contemplate a world where my wife dies. As my chest tightens in panic, I look back at Pops and wonder how he ever managed to smile after he lost my mam, his love.
Evie and Jamie. I have my answer. My children. Of course Pops smiled for me, his son. He had no choice but to keep trucking on. We don’t have a choice, as parents. We keep going no matter what curve ball kicks us in the bollocks.
I resist the urge to grab my father to hug him and cry for our loss. Instead I reach over and pat his knee. I am alarmed at how bony and frail it feels. The cancer is eating him up and I know that he must be in pain sitting here in this room for hours on end. But he won’t go home, he won’t rest in bed, so I know that there is no point in asking him to leave. He’s stubborn, but I suppose I am too. I glance at Jamie. Like grandfather, like father, like son.
MAE
‘You need to get that sorted,’ Pops says. He misses nothing and has noticed me wincing from back pain again. I nod and refrain from biting back, when on earth would I have time? My life is a blur of early mornings and late nights at school. If I’m not at work doing my principal duties, I’m at home marking papers or setting assignments. Whilst simultaneously trying hard to fit in some quality time with a family who don’t seem to need me any more. Self-pity, now there’s an ugly trait that has joined forces with irrational jealousy. What have I become this past year? I used to be a happy, self-assured woman.
My mind keeps going back to that brief flash I caught of Evie when I arrived at the hospital. Her complexion the colour of unspoilt snow. Perfect, unblemished. Still. Too still.
I can feel Olly’s eyes boring into me, but I avoid making eye contact with him.
‘Do you need anything?’ I fuss over Pops instead, noticing he is very pale. ‘A hot drink?’
‘I’m good. Don’t be worrying about me. It won’t be long now, I’m sure. They’ll be in soon to confirm she’ll be fine. She’s a strong one, our Evie.’
I hope he’s right. I know that I must find a way to make this better. Please, give me the chance to make this better. Don’t let her die. A sob escapes again, so I lower my head, allowing my hair to hide my face. I think I hear Olly whisper my name, but I’m not sure. The realisation that I yearn to feel his strong arms around me confounds me. Most of the time I want to stab him with a fork, slap him, shout at him – anything to get a reaction, get noticed. But right now, I want him to murmur reassurances that everything will be alright.
Yet, I don’t look up or move towards my husband. I stay on my own, back aching, sitting on a cold, bloody plastic chair. It’s most likely one of the most uncomfortable chairs in the room. I realise that there’s a whole month of therapy in that choice right there.
OLLY
I look around the small family room we’re camped in, typical of the kind of waiting room that you find scattered around hospitals all over Ireland. Shades of magnolia with faded pictures of landscape scenes framed on the nondescript walls. Despite their best efforts, they fail to brighten up the tired room. There’s a small cream-leather sofa that has seen better days pressed against the back wall. A potpourri of tears and coffee stains embedded into the fabric.
Jamie is sitting upon it, cross-legged, with his iPad Mini. But, for once, the usual tip-tap of his hand, as he battles his way towards the next level of Candy Crush, is still. He looks scared.
Mae is still at last. Since her arrival, she’s paced the room like a caged lion. She’s cried, she’s shouted at me once or twice, then she’s paced the room some more. Pops sighs loudly with dissatisfaction and then throws in a loud ‘arra’ for good measure. He’s letting us know that he can see what we’re doing to each other and he doesn’t approve one bit. I decide to ignore that for now and move over to the couch so that I can pull Jamie in tight to me. At seven he’s almost at that age where he doesn’t need cuddles any more. Not in public, anyhow – but today is an extreme circumstance and he relaxes into my arms.
I can hear his heart hammering away through his shirt. He catches his breath in jagged succession as he tries to stem the tears that are threatening to escape.
‘It’s going to be okay, dude,’ I whisper. He looks up at me, doubt making his eyes dark and I reiterate the statement with authority. Somehow or other I need to make my words come true.
MAE
Olly is rocking Jamie back and forth in his arms. His little eyes are heavy with fatigue, flickering as they always do when he puts up one last defiant fight to stay awake. I smile at my baby, my youngest child, and wish that I could just walk over and snatch him from Olly into my arms. I want to feel his soft breath on the nape of my neck as he snuggles in close to me. I want to be the one to give him comfort. He loves that spot under my chin to rest his head. Or at least he used to.
As hurtful as it is, I know that while I need Jamie right now, he needs Olly more. He’s gotten used to having him at home at his beck and call these past few months. He’s forgotten that it used to be me that he ran to when he scuffed his knees or banged his head. I haven’t, though. I ache to hold him, but I know that it would be selfish of me to do anything about it.
This position I find myself in, I feel powerless to change. I do not have the luxury of slowing down in work. We need my salary as my husband seems to have given up on ever finding a job again. His sole focus these days is being the perfect house-husband. The only problem with that is, he also seems to have given up on me. On us. I simply don’t know what to do.
I sigh and turn away from them. I know it’s not fair to blame Olly for the relationship he has with Jamie, after all he’s earned that closeness, their bond. But watching our son relax in his arms right now, in a way that he hasn’t done with me for a long time, makes me want to run over to my husband and slap him hard across his saintly face.
The violence I’ve been feeling towards my husband these days startles me. I love him. Or at least I think I do. I just don’t like him very much. I know I sound like a prize bitch. I’m well aware that every thought is irrational. In fact, I can feel something oozing out of my skin, like a septic pus. What I’m feeling is jealousy in all its ugly and green glory, the cause of all my irritations. But acknowledging something and being able to stop it are two different things.
I take a long, deep breath and look at my son. I remind myself that Jamie has not stopped loving me. But the balance of power has shifted in our house since Olly became a stay-at-home dad. I wish I was a nicer person who could find it in her psyche to be happier for the new-found father-and-son bond that they have going on. But I’m not. I suppose, in my defence, I would cheer with abandon for them both, except for one thing. The stronger they seem to become, the weaker my relationship with the children becomes. I sigh in frustration at the stupidity of this.
OLLY
I can feel my father’s eyes upon me once again, worry emanating from his every fibre. He looks like he wants to say something to me, but keeps changing his mind and he finally settles on holding his counsel. I smile at him, tell him that I’m fine.
Pops, my allegiant. I’m not sure I can remember a time when he wasn’t here by my side, when I needed him. Before and after that apocalyptic day in 1981. Many men would have faltered and lost their way, I reckon, doing the whole single-father gig, but not my father.
He’s strong and I wish I were more like him. It always makes me laugh when my friends worry that the older they get, the more they are turning into their fathers. I worry that I’m not.
I close my eyes and think of Mam once more. What would she make of this if she were here? Would she feel disappointment in her son, with the mess he’s making of his life? I hazard a guess that she would, because I’m pretty pissed with myself too. Somehow or other, I’ve taken my eye off the ball. Now things have gotten all screwed up and my thirteen-year-old daughter is lying in a room hooked up to tubes.
I’ve felt shame a few times in my life. When I lost my job a year ago that was a kick-you-in-the-balls day for sure. A close second is the first time that I had to ask Mae for money because my personal bank account was depleted of funds. My debit card had become as much use as a chocolate teapot. And don’t get me started on the endless pit of desolation as rejection letters began to pile up high on our study table. But none of these are even close to the shame I feel now, as I sit in this waiting room.
My beautiful Evie, fighting for her life down the corridor.
I’m bewildered. I don’t know how this has happened. And then, with surprise, I acknowledge another emotion bubbling up inside – I feel angry. I know that rage is only counterproductive and I need to fight it, to stay calm.
The door opens and a doctor walks in, his face unreadable, and we all jump to attention.
Chapter One (#ulink_c8ca8737-0042-5b31-b04b-733a63f0cbe8)
POPS
Tick tock. I can hear the grandfather clock that stands in the corridor outside my bedroom march on towards the start of a new hour. I fancy that the sound of the clock moving time along gets louder every day as I, in turn, get weaker.
Tick tock, time is moving on, but running out for me.
I feel it in my bones. I don’t mean the cancer, which has now spread throughout my body. I mean, I can feel it in my bones that it’s my turn to go. I’ve not asked Doctor Lawlor for a timeframe on how many weeks or months he thinks I’ve got, because I don’t need to. It’s close. He knows it too, because I can see it in his ever-more sympathetic eyes when he comes for his weekly visit.
I’m at peace with my fate and that’s a good job because there’s not a blind thing I can do to stop it anyhow. When death has you in its gnarly vice-like grip, you’re buggered. Beth knew that at the end and I know it now.
‘Beth,’ I whisper her name, savouring how it sounds. I miss saying her name out loud. I miss her.
The sicker I get, the closer I feel to my wife. And that, right there, gives me comfort. As sure as I know that the sun will rise every morning, I know that she’s waiting for me, with great patience. I can feel her. And I don’t intend to keep her waiting much longer. She’s been on her own long enough.
‘Hold on, my love, I’m on my way. I’ve to sort out one or two things here first with our Olly, then I’ll be right with you.’
Olly strides into my bedroom, as if he can hear me taking his name in vain. ‘Who you talking to?’ Concern etched on his tired face, looking around the room for signs of my non-existent company.
‘Your mam,’ I answer, more flippantly than I should. Olly now looks more worried than usual. He’s enough on his plate without thinking I’m losing my marbles too.
I throw in a feeble joke to lighten the moment and change the subject. ‘She says to say hello and don’t forget that the bins go out tonight.’ It works, a smile breaks out on his face.
‘You don’t smile enough any more.’ I worry about that. A life without laughter isn’t worth living at all.
Olly just shrugs in response. He doesn’t answer me, but I’ve a fair idea I know what he’s thinking right now.
What have I got to smile about?
‘You’ve more than most,’ I reply to his thought and he looks startled.
‘How do you do that?’ he asks me, starting to laugh. And as it is with laughter, it’s contagious, so I join in.
‘I always know what you’re thinking, lad,’ I tell him when we calm down. And it’s true. It doesn’t hurt that his face has always been like an open book. He wears his heart on his sleeve, always has done, just like his mother. Mae, now she’s a different kettle of fish. She’s harder to read. She keeps it all bottled up inside. But it’s obvious that she’s as unhappy as Olly is right now, and that worries me.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asks.
I think about lying, but he’s not a boy any more, he’s a grown man with a family of his own, so I do a thumbs-down sign. A pain shoots up from my left thumb all the way to my neck, making me regret my gesture.
But the pain was worth it, because Olly smiles in recognition, as I knew he would. When he was a boy he used his thumbs to depict how he was feeling all the time.
‘That bad?’ he says, the creases of worry on his face deepening.
‘It’s near time for painkillers and then I’ll be all …’ I hold up two thumbs and smile, encouraging Olly to do the same.
‘I wonder what your mam will make of me when she sees me,’ I say, as I look down at the paper-thin skin on my arms, blotched with age spots and wrinkles.
I’ve never been a vain man, but I’ve always taken care of my appearance. I shave every morning as soon as I get up and while I don’t have the energy for a shower every day, I’ll always wash my hair. But even so, I know I look a bit … unkempt. My skin sags wearily on pointy bones and there’s a greyness to my complexion that wasn’t there a few weeks ago. Last time I saw Beth I was young, vibrant, full of vigour. Would she even recognise me now?
‘How can you be so sure that you’ll see her when you die?’
‘I’ve faith, lad.’
Scepticism fills Olly’s face. That, right there, is part of his problem. ‘What makes you not believe?’ I’m curious.
Olly shrugs, but he has no answer for me. I’ve had time to think about my own faith. Goodness knows, it’s been tested many times, not least of all when Beth died. But it was faith that I’d see her again one day that has got me through the past thirty-odd years. Had I not believed that, I don’t think I would have managed to smile and laugh and enjoy my family and life as much as I have. And that would have been a crying shame, because I’ve had a good life with Olly, Mae and the children.
I look at him and wish that I could find words that might explain to him how I feel. I scan my bedroom and my eyes rest on the battered brown briefcase propped against my dresser. I carried that to work every day for nigh-on thirty-eight years, right up until I retired. Now it contains a shiny silver laptop that Olly and Mae bought me a few years back. I thought I’d never get the hang of it. Googling seemed like a ridiculous word, that made me giggle like a silly teenager whenever I thought of it. But now, well, I love it. I think it’s the fact that I can travel anywhere in the world courtesy of that silver box. It’s amazing what you can find on the internet.
Then I have one of those light-bulb moments.
‘Think of Wi-Fi, lad. You can’t see that, right? Faith is just like Wi-Fi, with the power to connect you to so much, to places all over the world.’
Olly seems amused at the direction my train of thought has gone. I dive in with my analogy.
‘Think about it. I have faith that your mother is waiting for me. I can feel that more and more every day. I’m sure of it, lad, in the same way I know that I’ll be waiting for you, when it’s your turn to go too.’
‘Not for a few more decades though, please, Pops!’ and we both laugh together at that. ‘You’ve a great way of looking at things. It’s a nice thought, either ways.’
‘Well, you remember what I said about the Wi-Fi when I’m gone. I’ll connect with you again one day, lad. Somehow or other, we’ll find each other. You mark my words.’
Olly squeezes my hand, pain etched all over his face. I feel his love for me and know that he is already mourning my inevitable absence in his life. I hate that I’m adding to his worry right now.
‘Are you honest to God worried about how you look?’
When I nod in response, he looks at me with a critical eye, ‘I suppose you could do with a hair-cut. You’re looking a bit Spandau Ballet-like there, Pops.’
Ha! He’s funny, my son. How many times did I nag him when he was a teenager and into all that New Romantic nonsense? He grew his hair long and started to wear white floppy shirts. Eejit.
‘I’ll book the hairdresser,’ Olly assures me. He bends in towards me, so close we’re almost nose to nose. ‘Mam loved you. She won’t care what you look like. She wasn’t like that, worried about stupid superficial stuff.’
I daresay he’s right.
‘Sure, maybe you’ll become young again when you die,’ he adds.
‘Aye, maybe I will that.’ I like that thought. This body of mine is gone all worn out, like a set of brake pads past their sell-by date. I’d happily swap it for a younger version. ‘Would you get my good suit dry-cleaned for me, the one I got last year in Neon’s?’ I’ve gotten my suits in that shop in Talbot Street for over thirty years now. Mind you, when I bought it, I had no idea that it would be the last time I’d ever buy a suit. Had I known, I might have splurged and bought two!
I watch Olly’s face go through several emotions. From shock, to anger, to sadness and then finally it settles on acceptance of a kind. While I know that it’s time that I start working through all the finer details of what I want, I hate seeing the effect that it has on him.
‘That’s what you want to wear … when … you know?’ He stammers out and his face has gone a funny grey colour.
‘I do,’ I reply. ‘But make sure you put me in my shiny shoes. The ones I usually wear for a black-tie do. And I want my white dress shirt too with the cufflinks that I wore for your wedding. I always feel dapper when I wear those. Oh, and I want the blue tie that Evie bought me last Christmas to finish the look off. She’ll like that.’
Olly blinks, then nods, leaning in to grasp my hand and squeeze it tight.
‘I want to look smart,’ I tell him, but damn it, my voice catches. I blink fast. I need him to understand that this is important for me.
‘I won’t forget, Pops. I’ll make sure you look perfect,’ Olly promises, and I know I’m in safe hands. When Olly promises to do something, he never lets you down. He’s solid. A good man. But with the weight of the world on his shoulders these days.
Since he was made redundant, it’s like he’s lost his spark. At first he was all bluster, full of anger, I suppose. That kept him buoyant as he started looking for a new job. But each ‘Dear John’ chipped away at his confidence. He’s given up even trying to find work now. I’ve got to find a way to bring back the old Olly. Reignite that spark of his.
‘Will you tell Mam that I’m sorry,’ Olly whispers. His voice is so quiet that I almost miss it.
‘Not that nonsense again. Aarra! You’ve nothing to be sorry about, lad.’ He always blames himself for her accident and he is no more to blame than I am.
‘Even so, will you tell her?’ he says and I nod as I can see how important it is for him.
We sit in silence for a few minutes, each lost in our own thoughts. I close my eyes to rest for a moment. It feels peaceful and I think, this wouldn’t be a bad time to go.
After a while, something changes and a tension seems to hover in the air like large ice particles, ready to drop and pierce our heads any minute.
I open my eyes half expecting to see the grim reaper standing over me. But the room is empty except for Olly. His whole demeanour has changed, his shoulders hunched and his fists are clenched by his side.
‘Lad? What is it?’ I ask.
‘Life just seems too fucking complicated right now,’ he says.
I look at my son and think for the first time that I can remember, he looks every bit of his forty years. I hear the clock tick tocking in the background, reminding me of my limited time left. Not now. I need more time, damn it.
I want to say something that will proffer some change, melt those blasted ice particles before they do any damage.
This is my big opportunity to dispense some father-like advice and make a difference. Here goes. ‘Life can be as complicated or as simple as you want it to be.’
