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Olly snorts. That went well.
‘You need to take control of your life.’ I wince inwardly as I realise that I sound a bit like one of those cagey inspirational speakers.
‘How am I supposed to do that?’ Olly says with irritation and I don’t blame him. My advice is falling short. I need to come up with something better than soundbites, no matter how true they are. How can he take control back? That is the million-dollar question, lad, no doubt about it.
‘What do you want from life? That’s as good a place as any to start with,’ I say.
‘I’m losing my family. I want them back. I want my family back.’ His sincerity strikes me dumb.
I wait for him to continue. I can see him grappling with whether he should talk, whether it is fair to burden me or not. He knows I’m in pain.
And as soon as I think the word ‘pain’, the dull ache that has been nagging me for the past hour begins ramping up and demands more of my attention. I sit up straighter, try to find a more comfortable position, so I can continue. I smile at Olly as I do so, to urge him to keep talking.
‘Look at me, Pops. Washed up at forty years old with no job. Evie is lucky to be alive and we’ve not even scratched the surface on that problem. She’s still not telling us what really happened. I don’t buy that bullshit, that she was experimenting with alcohol to celebrate the start of her school holidays. It’s too out of character. Jamie is back to pissing in his bed. He’s not done that since he was three years old. Don’t tell me that’s not related to the trauma of finding his sister half dead in her bedroom. And then there’s Mae. Pops, she can barely look at me any more. Who can blame her? She can do far better than me. And that’s not even the worst of it. What about … what about you? I’m not ready to say goodbye to you yet, Pops.’
‘Yes, lad. Your life is, without doubt, complicated right now. No one could disagree with that.’
I know that I’ve got to somehow find a way to make a difference, before I’m gone and it’s too late. I grapple to find the right words, feeling ill equipped to give my son something to help assuage his obvious pain. Unlike the cancerous pain I’m enduring, there’s not a pill he can take to ease away his aches. He has to work through them, sort them out as best he can himself, without any numbing narcotics.
I’m not sure that there are any words that will help prepare him for my soon-to-be fate. Are we ever ready for a loved one to die? No. And even though there will be no surprise when it’s my time to go, I know that he’s not ready for me to leave.
I need more time, but I know that’s one thing I don’t have any more. Tick tock.
‘I can’t sleep at night worrying about the what-ifs. How did I not see that something was going on with Evie? I’m supposed to take care of her. I’m supposed to be her hero, to save her,’ Olly says. ‘I let her down.’
‘Sure, that’s the greatest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard. You’re good parents, good people. But even the best can’t get it all right all the time.’ I point my finger at him to illustrate how emphatic I am about this point.
There it is in all its glory – self-doubt – one of the ugliest of our inner turmoils, glaring out of my son’s eyes.
‘I. Should. Have. Seen. It. Coming,’ Olly spits out, his voice rising with every word he says.
‘You can raise your voice all you like, but that doesn’t make your bullshit any truer,’ I say.
He stops at my words and half-laughs, saluting me with the tip of his hand. ‘It’s a while since you’ve used that line on me.’
‘It’s a statement I’ve used to good effect in many a battle of wills. You were a stubborn little fecker as a kid.’
‘You used to say it to me all the time. Must remember it for the next time Mae shouts at me,’ Olly laughs.
‘Don’t you be using my good lines to score points with your wife,’ I say. But I’m smiling too. Olly starts to fidget and I think that he’s about to leave. But I don’t want this conversation to end. What if it’s one of our last ones? I haven’t said everything that I need to.
‘Was I a good father to you?’ I ask him. ‘Don’t lie, lad. Speak the truth, now.’
I hold my breath, waiting for his answer. I want the truth, of course I do, but in the name of God, please don’t let him tell me I was a crap father.
‘The best,’ I exhale in relief.
‘But did I make mistakes?’ I say again. ‘Were there times that you thought, fuck you, Pops, and the horse you rode into town on!’
Olly looks shocked at this and begins to shake his head in denial of the statement.
‘Liar! You know there were times when I got it wrong. But that’s okay, because in the main I got it right and you always knew I loved you, even when I messed up. Right?’ I demand.
Olly smiles at me and says, ‘I always knew that you loved me. And you didn’t get it wrong often, Pops.’
I’m grateful for his words.
‘Thanks, lad. But I’m not fishing for compliments from you, although I’m not sorry to hear them. I just want to illustrate that it’s okay to have the odd bad day, as long as in the main you get it right. You can’t be Evie’s hero every day of the week, can you? Even Spiderman gets the odd day off. The girl needs to live her own life, make her own mistakes, learn from them and she can’t do that if she’s under her parents’ coat tails.’
‘But every time she goes into her bedroom, I’m worried sick about what she could be doing in there. I tell you, Pops, it’s crossed my mind to put in cameras so I can be sure she’s not downing another bottle of fecking vodka!’
‘Would you whist, lad. Let the girl have her privacy. Sure, God knows, when you were that age you spent half your life in your bedroom and you’re still alive. Don’t tell me you didn’t have a sneaky drink back then.’
‘I never ended up in hospital with alcoholic poisoning, though, Pops,’ Olly states.
‘No, you didn’t. But you had my heart broken more than once. Evie messed up. What you need to do is find out why. She’s been withdrawn for months now. I know she’s not talking yet, but she’ll tell you in her own good time what’s going on. She’s a strong girl, she just needs to remember that.’
I think I’m beginning to get through to Olly because he’s stopped stooping and is now sitting up straighter in the chair. He has a look on his face that I’ve not seen in a long time – determination.
We sit without speaking for a while and I think about Mae and wonder if I dare bring up their marriage. It’s a dangerous thing talking about the inner sanctum of a couple’s life. In fact, it’s true that I have no business snooping around there. But I realise that I have to speak up. Someone has to, because they seem hell-bent on destroying themselves.
‘You and Mae. You need to watch that,’ I decide to take the bull by the horns and get straight to it. No time to dilly-dally around the issue.
‘You don’t think I don’t know that?’ Olly responds. ‘I can feel her slipping away from me, every day one little bit further. But I’m powerless to stop her. I don’t know who she is any more. She’s changed, Pops.’
‘Arra, nobody stays the same, lad. We all change as we go through life and that’s good, ’cos it would be pretty boring otherwise. You’re not the same man you used to be, either. Did you ever think of that?’
Olly looks startled at this piece of information.
‘I’ve seen a change in you these past months, since you stopped working. I daresay that Mae has noticed it too.’
‘I’m still the same person,’ Olly’s petulant and irritated, reminding me of his teenage self. I hope he listens more to me now than he did back then.
‘No you’re not, son. You’re different. I know losing your job has been tough. But maybe it’s time to look at your redundancy with different eyes.’
‘What do you mean?’ he asks.
‘Well, you didn’t even like that job. Don’t lie. You were just punching the clock every day.’
‘I hated it,’ he admits. ‘How did I even end up as an accountant?’
‘You always wanted to be an astronaut,’ I say. ‘Walk on the moon.’
‘Think NASA might have an age limit on new recruits, Pops,’ he says, laughing.
‘Never say never,’ I tell him. ‘You might not get to the moon, but who says that this can’t be the catalyst for you to make a change. Instead of feeling sorry for yourself, why not take this opportunity to look for a new direction? You can’t hide out at home forever.’
He looks doubtful. I can almost hear his mind working through excuses.
‘That’s what life is about, lad – change. You need to talk to Mae. She can’t read minds, you know. Tell her what’s going on in your head. If you stopped blaming each other for every damn set-back that’s happened to you both, you might remember that you love each other. You’re being too careless with her.’
‘What if it’s too late? What if I’ve lost her, Pops?’ Olly asks, shoulders down low again.
‘No!’ I shout. ‘No, God damn it, Olly, no! Stop being so damn defeatist about the woman you love. I’d have given anything to have the time you have with Mae, with my wife. I didn’t get that chance. You need to start paying more attention to her. And I don’t care how many times Mae tells you that she’s okay or pushes you away, don’t believe her. Because she’s obviously not! You walk over to your wife and you hold her in your arms. Do you hear me, son?’
I start to cough and know that I’m done for now. Between the wheezing and racking cough and the pain that is now taking control of me, I cannot speak another word.
I hold my hand up, reassuring Olly that I’m not about to die, and he leans in close, clutching my hand once again between his own. I point to the water and my meds and he helps me take a sip to swallow the chalky tabs down. I close my eyes and somehow or other, despite the pain, I manage to drift off to sleep.
When I wake up, it’s dark outside. I must have been out cold for several hours. I can smell dinner wafting towards me, but regrettably my appetite has been absent for weeks. I say ‘regrettable’ because, at a guess, from the beautiful aroma that is snaking its way around my room, Olly has made fish pie. That’s one of my favourites. He’s a good lad.
Rather, it used to be a favourite. I make a vow to try to eat a mouthful to please him, but just the thought of even taking one bite makes me feel tired.
I’ve no time to rest because I know what I can do to help my family before I die. Beth and I have come up with a plan. Despite what most would think, I’m not losing my marbles. While I slept, Beth came to me in my dreams and told me what I should do.
Wi-Fi sure is powerful stuff, I chuckle. I knew it would connect me to her when I needed it. I smile as I think of all their faces when they find out what we’ve planned. Mae won’t be happy, I know that. But don’t ask me why. I know it will be the best gift I can ever give them. I’ve got a lot of planning to do to pull it off though. Tick tock. Feck OFF!
‘There’s life in the old dog yet, Beth,’ I say out loud. ‘I’ve one more trick up my sleeve before I say goodbye to this world.’
I think about something that she used to say to me when Olly was a baby, ‘I just want to make sure that he gets a happy ending.’
She was a bit of a romantic, my Beth. Well, I’m pretty sure that the only way to give a happy ending to Olly and his family is to give them all a new beginning. So that’s what I’m going to do.
Chapter Two (#ulink_7d6e3240-1d61-544e-b191-2569c332ff8e)
OLLY
Today is my father’s funeral.
I knew that this day was coming. We all did. The grim reaper has been hovering at our door for weeks and with every passing day we saw Pops slip further away from us, closer to that bugger. I find it incredible that an event that I knew was inevitable still has the power to wound me, spear me, surprise me. I want to run away from today and all its responsibilities. I’m not sure I have the strength to say goodbye.
I’ve often lamented my only-child status, but none more so than today. The weight of being his only child feels intolerable. So I’ll stay, I’ll help carry his coffin and I’ll watch them send his body to be burned. And somehow or other I’ll get through it.
I was with Pops when he exhaled his last long breath. I’m grateful for that. I was determined that I would be the last person he saw, before …
I hope he knew I was there. At the end, it was fucking crazy. We’d been warned that his breathing would get shallow in those last moments. Erratic. At first his exhalation was longer than his inhalation and, as morbid as this sounds, it was fascinating to witness. The gaps between each breath started to get longer and longer. There were periods of no breathing and this part freaked us all out many times. Almost comical. That’s awful, isn’t it? His family laughing, with more than a hint of hysteria when we’d think he was dead, then suddenly he’d bellow out another breath and we’d all jump sky high. Pops would have approved of our laughter, though. I fancied I saw a glimmer of a smile on his lips at one point when we tried to stifle our guffaws.
Evie, our resident encyclopaedia, told us that scriptures state that you must always ensure the individual is on his right, like Buddha was at his death, and this will give them a happy, peaceful mind. So we propped Pops up, telling him what we were doing and why. It made Evie happy, so Mae and I went along with it.
We took turns sitting with him, making a pact never to leave him on his own in his last days. Even Jamie joined in our unofficial, unspoken rota when he wasn’t in school. Although he was never alone with Pops. Evie on the other hand got to spend a lot of time solo with him, at her own request. She told us that she wasn’t scared, so we respected her wishes and let her do her turn.
In the end, it was on my watch when that last breath was exhaled and Pops left us. And you know the weird thing? I was as unprepared for that moment as I had been for my mother’s untimely demise. I’d thought about the difference between their deaths a lot over the past few months. Wondered which would be easier. With Mam there was no warning whatsoever, but of course we all knew what was headed our way with Pops. Well, now that both my parents are dead and I’ve experienced each option, I still don’t have an answer to that. There is something I do know for sure, though. Both options suck, both hurt like hell and both I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemies.
On one hand, the last few months before Mam died were pretty perfect. There were no shadows on our time together, we just got on about the business of living. And loving. And, boy, did we have a lot of love!
And I suppose in that alone I’m lucky, or at least luckier than most. Although she was taken so abruptly, I have no regrets about anything. Because nothing was left unsaid before she was snatched away from us. In our family, when I was a kid, ‘I love you’s were abundant and spoken every day. And that’s how we roll in my own family now too. I tell the children often how much I love them. My parents taught me well.
I push aside the fact that I can’t remember the last time I whispered any endearments to Mae. Or her to me.
While the last few months were tortuous in so many ways, watching Pops fight his illness, at least I got to say goodbye to him. I got to hold his hand and kiss his head fifty times a day, whenever I felt the need to do so. And towards the end, I won’t lie, that need was pretty much always there. When I wasn’t in the room with him, I fretted and missed him, so I would find myself making excuses to go back.
Another wave of grief assaults me as I ponder a life without kisses to Pop’s forehead.
The silence in the room mocks me. I expect to hear Pops say something smart. He always had this knack of knowing what I’m thinking.
I miss his voice. I’d do anything to hear it one more time. He’s not been gone more than forty-eight hours and already it feels like forever.
At least he died at home, surrounded by the people he loved most in the world, exactly as he wanted to, and for that I’m grateful. He had a smile on his face in those last moments. Maybe his faith hooked him up with Mam again as he said it would. I close my eyes and picture her in her blue dress, pulling him into her open embrace. Then, holding hands, leading him away from us to wherever their next adventure was about to begin. Tears blur my eyes.
I need to right the emptiness in the house. No matter which room I walk into, his absence is palpable from the silence therein. Even here, in our bedroom for goodness sake, where he had no business being, feels wrong. Mae said to me yesterday that she couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t in the house with us. And she’s right. We’d go off on our own sometimes, but when we got back, he’d be at the front door waiting, the sound of the kettle in the background whistling, ready to wet the tea.
The thought of being just the four of us scares me. I’ve never been here without him. I’m forty years old, but I feel like a child again, when Mam died and left me.
The urge to run is back. Fuck responsibility. I can’t do this.
The crushing reality is that I am just a fool standing in an empty room, looking for a man that is no longer here. And he’s not coming back. I collapse onto the edge of our bed and take several steadying breaths.
‘Come on, lad, pull yourself together.’ His voice whispers through the air towards me.
I close my eyes and lie back onto the soft pillows. I’m so fucking tired – bone fucking weary, truth be told. The last year, with the constant hospital visits, the chemotherapy, the cleaning up of sick and piss – it’s all taken its toll. And I won’t be sorry to say goodbye to that. Goodbye to the never-ending cancerous groundhog day, which had only one inevitable outcome for Pops.
And here’s the thing. I feel relief. And shame that I feel relieved of the burden of his illness. So many emotions mixed up amongst my all-consuming pain. It’s just … the man I long for is the healthy, vibrant Pops of last year. Not the shadow of a man he became in these past few cancerous-ridden months. Fuck me! The pain he was in! Nobody should have to live like that.
So yes, damn it! I’m glad he’s gone, if living like that was the only choice. A blessed release, that’s what Father Kelly said. And he’s right, it is a blessed release for him. For me too. It’s not just my heart that is in half today, it’s my whole body. What I’d give to climb under the heavy duvet and allow myself to sleep through this day.
‘How are you doing?’ Mae’s voice pulls my eyes open and I watch her walk into our bedroom. I sit up and lie, saying that of course I’m fine.
‘Do you need some help with that?’ She points to the tie that is hanging loose around my neck, waiting. She doesn’t wait for an answer, but walks over to me and places it under its collar. Over and around, under and over and she’s done, the perfect knot.
‘You look tired, Olly,’ Mae says, looking up at me. Her hand hovers beside my face, but she doesn’t touch me. I look at her and see the pain that I feel, mirrored in her too.
‘I just want to get today over and done with,’ I say. ‘I can’t get my head around this whole cremation choice. I was sure he’d want to be buried with Mam.’
‘Had he never mentioned it before to you?’ Mae asks.
‘No. He told me what he wanted to wear. He also told me to call Larkin’s, the funeral directors, when it was time. I just assumed it would be a burial. It never crossed my mind he’d chosen cremation.’
Larkin said everything was under control when I rang them. Pops had even paid for everything up front and arranged every last detail himself. I’m not surprised by that. Pops always did everything in his power to make things easy for me. Even down to arranging his own funeral service.
‘You know, it’s weird, but I thought he was getting better, you know,’ Mae remarks. ‘This past week or so, have you noticed that he seemed, more energetic or something?’
I had noticed it. He’d seemed stronger to me too.
‘He was on his laptop a lot. I thought that was a good sign. I should have copped on that he was up to something. He was organising today. Getting it all in order.’
‘It’s going be so quiet without him,’ Mae said.
‘Did you mind him being here all the time?’ I ask her. ‘I know you always said you didn’t, but it must have been difficult at times to have a father-in-law living with us.’
