She returns to the book. If she’s lucky, she’ll finish it on the way across.
She is three paragraphs in when she feels someone come up to her. If she doesn’t look up maybe they’ll go away.
“Looks like a great book,” an American voice says.
Her head shoots up and she smiles. “You owe me a night’s sleep,” she tells Wayne Hill. “I couldn’t put it down. I’ve only a chapter left.”
“Wait. You stole it from poor Mrs. Cooke?” he asks. Then the swaying boat plonks him down beside Grace.
“She let me borrow it but I don’t think she wanted to let it out of her sight to be honest. Actually, if I finish it on the crossing, could you bring it back to her? Would you mind?”
“Sure. I’ll leave you to it, then.” From his battered leather satchel, he produces an orange moleskin notebook and pen.
“Great. Thanks.” She glances back down at the novel, then up again. “You better not make me cry,” she warns.
He puts his hands up. “Whatever I say to that will be a spoiler.”
“Good point. Shut up and let me read it.”
He laughs.
She zones in on the book. She wants to take her time, savour it but knows that she might not get it finished.
Then, reading, she forgets everything as she gets lost in his words.
Finally, she closes the book. She is very still. It’s either surreptitiously wipe her nose on her sleeve or give the game away and go for a tissue. She wishes she still had her bob to hide behind. With a sniff and a defeated sigh, she opts for the tissue. She tries to blow delicately.
“That bad?” he asks.
She passes the book to him. “You’ve broken my heart,” she says hoarsely.
“Bet you say that to all the boys.”
She smiles. To herself. And sighs away the sadness that his words have brought to her heart. She’s okay again. Or she will be in another minute or two.
“It is,” he says.
She turns to him. “It’s what?”
He shrugs. “Based on my life. You wanted to know, right?”
Compassion, respect and admiration swamp her. “I didn’t want to ask.”
“I know.”
She wants to reach out. Touch him. Comfort him in some real way. She can’t imagine life without Jack or Holly. She doesn’t think she could live it. “I’m so sorry.”
He smiles. “Me too.”
She wants to tell him that he should go back to his wife, try again, maybe with counselling. It’s so clear that they love each other but are just so broken. But what does she know? She hasn’t walked in his shoes. She has read his story and thinks she knows him. Silence falls between them as Grace, once more, readjusts her view of this man she met just a day ago. Of course, he’d want to escape to a wild, grey, remote and unforgiving island. Of course, he’d shun the limelight. Of course, he’d be quick to anger – though in fairness any man would be angered by Dr. O’Malley’s mistakes (plural). She wants to say sorry for all the judgements she had made. She wants to say sorry for his pain. Instead, she is silent. Whatever she might say, she knows that it would be too little.
27
Grace offers Wayne Hill a lift to the surgery. She wants to tell him how much his book moved her. But she’s already made that obvious. So, she gives him something else:
“I was thinking,” she says, squirting water on the windshield to clear the Dried-in salt stains from the storm spray. “Maybe all those people who treat you like a celebrity just love your books.” She glances at him. “It’d be hard not to.”
“Hey, you’ve just read the one,” he says with a self-depreciating smile.
“Well, it won’t be my last.” She looks at the road ahead. “I was wondering why you wrote it as fiction.” She glances at him. “If you don’t mind me asking.”
He turns his mouth down and shakes his head. “To protect my wife.” He looks out his window. “It still upset her. Sometimes I think I shouldn’t have written it. But it was my tribute to Jason. And that still stands.”
She wants to reach out, squeeze his hand. But who is she to do so? “It’s a wonderful tribute and an important book. I want to tell the world about it.”
He turns to her. “Thank you.”
Arriving at the clinic, they become doctor and patient again. Grace hurries inside. Approaching reception, she remembers that there’s probably no one waiting for her anyway.
“Myra, how are things?” she asks.
“Same as ever,” she says with meaning.
Grace feels heat spreading across her face. “Do you have that tetanus vial?”
Myra nods and goes to get it.
Grace turns and smiles at Wayne Hill. “Don’t bother with the waiting room. I’ll see you now.”
Myra hands her the vial.
“This is Wayne Hill,” Grace explains to her. “He’s Dr. O’Malley’s patient but I saw him out on the island and he’s due a tetanus jab,” is the best way to put it. “Oh, and Myra,” she says, rooting in her bag. “Could you get this swab to the lab asap. It’s been in the fridge overnight.”
Myra takes it from her.
“I’ll take the repeat prescriptions too, thanks.”
Myra passes them to her.
“One last thing. Fred Cronin’s results. Have they come in?”
“No. I’ve been keeping an eye out.” Myra tucks a strand of hair behind her ear as if hit by a sudden, un-Myra-like, uncertainty. Or is it embarrassment? “I knew you’d be looking for them,” she adds unnecessarily.
Could Myra like Fred? Grace is not going to embarrass her by staring – though that’s exactly what she wants to do, stand there staring until she figures it out. “Great thanks, Myra. I’ll see Mr. Hill now.”
Wayne Hill follows her into her surgery. “So, it’s back to Mr. Hill?”
She turns and smiles.
“Wayne,” he says.
“Wayne it is, so,” she says awkwardly.
“Maybe I can drop the Young in front of Dr. Sullivan?” he teases.
“Grace. Please.” She holds up the vial. “So! This goes in your shoulder muscle.” She looks at the layers of clothes he’s wearing. “I’m not sure I can get your sleeves up that high though.”
He pulls two pullovers over his head at the same time. His T-shirt rides up, accidentally revealing an actual washboard stomach. Heroically, Grace tears her eyes away.
Yanking the T-shirt down, he asks, “Is there any part of me you haven’t seen now?”
“I don’t think I’ve seen your feet.”
“Don’t tempt fate. I’ll probably drop something on them on my way out.”
Smiling, Grace washes her hands and draws up the injection, flicking air bubbles to the top of the syringe and squeezing them out with the plunger until a droplet of tetanus sprouts out.
“You’re not squeamish about needles?”
He shakes his head.
“Great!” She locates the injection site and swabs it.
She looks into his ridiculously blue eyes. (Is he wearing coloured contacts or something?). “On the count of three, I want you to take a deep breath.” She gives him the shot on two.
“Hey! Sneaky!”
“It was over before you knew it, though.”
“I don’t know if I can ever trust you again,” he jokes.
She smiles. “I presume you’ve had all your childhood vaccines?” she asks to rule out the need for more boosters.
He nods.
“Great! That’s it! I just need to show you how to do the dressing.”
“I kind of know what to do,” he says like a child trying to avoid homework.
She smiles. “I just want to make sure that you do it in as sterile a way as possible.”
Grace pulls around the curtain. While he disappears behind it, she gets the dressing kit ready.
She shows him how to clean the wound then watches him in action.
“Perfect. I’ll let you get dressed.”
&nb
sp; When he comes out from behind the curtain, Grace is writing out a list of what he’ll need at the pharmacy.”
He smiles, glancing at it. “I feel like a little boy about to go to the store.”
She doesn’t tell him that he looked like a little boy last night by candlelight. “Make sure to get yourself a lollipop.”
“Will I get you one?” he asks in all seriousness.
She laughs. “You’d have to bring it all the way back.”
“You’re worth it,” he jokes.
She hands him the list. “You can have my one. By the way, the peroxide might sting a little.”
“I can take it.” He gets up.
“Don’t pay Myra on the way out. I’ll let her know you covered it yesterday.”
“Okay! I guess I’ll see you when the stitches come out.”
She raises her eyebrows. “No more climbing over fences.”
“My love affair with fences is over.”
Grace walks him to the door. “So, call me if the wound doesn’t start to improve. And I’ll be in touch if you need to change the antibiotics.”
His, “Thank you,” sounds like an apology for their first consultation.
“My pleasure.”
“I hope not.”
“Ha!” she barks. She’s about to call herself a sadist when she stops short. What is wrong with her?
Des might be making progress on the Southern Star crossword, open in front of him on the kitchen table, if he weren’t revelling in the sounds of life in the house. Being Wednesday, the children have a half-day from school and Holly has arrived home with two friends – Barbara Kelly’s youngest, Aoife, whose appendix almost killed her when she was eight and Jenn Ahern whose grandad, Bill, owns the pub. They’re on the floor, fussing over the dog like new parents.
“Where’s Jack?” one of them shyly asks. Without looking up, Des suspects it’s Jenn, the more quietly spoken of the two.
“Oh my God!” exclaims the other – definitely Aoife. “Jack is so mint.”
Des has never heard of “mint” but it sounds like a positive.
“Does he have a girlfriend?” Jenn asks, sounding a strange mix of shy and forward.
There’s a pause.
The urge to look up is killing Des but he can’t let them know he’s listening.
“I don’t know. It’s not like he’d tell me.” Holly sounds snippy.
“Nah. If Jack had a girlfriend we’d have heard,” says Barbara Kelly’s daughter.
It’s a lifetime ago since Des was a teenager but he remembers it like yesterday. The tension, the excitement, the hoping. Then, first love. Was there anything like it ever again?
He wonders how the subject of the conversation is getting on at the hurling. Jack arrived home shortly after one, bolted down a sandwich, hurried into sports gear and took off, saying he was going to borrow a hurl and a helmet from someone called Ginge.
Hope is a feeling that had started to die for Des. Six days ago, it came back into his life. Hope is what keeps a man alive.
There’s a knock at the door. Des takes his time. He looks through the camera Alan installed this morning and sees the man himself returning from his lunch break. Des opens up.
“Still working okay?” Alan asks of the camera.
“’Tis, indeed. I keep going over to check it,” he says like a kid with a new toy. “Don’t know how I lived without it.”
Alan smiles. Then he rubs his hands together. “I’ll finish installing the alarm so. Then I’ll start on the window locks. I thought the deadbolts might have arrived home by now but no sign, there. It might have to be tomorrow before I get to them, Des.”
“That’s fine, Alan. Sure, I’ll have my alarm. I won’t know myself.”
“Grand so.”
Every time Alan comes to do a job, Des is reminded why he chooses him. He just gets to work in a quiet, unruffled way, tapping away at whatever he’s at without the need for blaring music or chatter. And nothing is ever a problem.
28
The afternoon has dragged. After Wayne Hill left, Grace went through the repeat prescriptions. She texted patients their blood results, then revised the notes of everyone she saw on the island, making sure she missed nothing. She rang home (all well), called Alan (it went to voicemail), checked her bank balance online hoping for a miracle (no miracle, no maintenance payment). In a moment of craziness, she set up a stockbroking account and bought a tiny amount of shares in Blackcastle Pharmaceuticals. Conor Sweeney was just so enthusiastic.
Now, she’s drumming her fingers and looking around the surgery.
When her phone pings, she snatches it up.
“Want to meet for coffee?” Jack’s text says.
This is an absolute first. And highly suspicious. Grace wonders what it could be about. She checks the time. Just after four. She’s so hungry, she’s starting to get shaky. That’s when it hits her. She never had lunch.
“Meet you in five at The Coffee Cove,” she texts back.
It’s unlikely she’ll need her doctor’s bag but it would be handy to have in case a house call comes in – she can go from there. Which means she should also bring the car.
Out at reception, she tells Myra she’s popping out for a late lunch but that she has her phone.
In the car park, she takes a moment to breathe in the sea view, the fresh air, the peace. Today, the gulls seem to be crying, “Why? Why? Why?” She rolls her shoulders back. Living amongst all this beauty must be good for the health. It’s certainly good for the soul.
The Coffee Cove is Manhattan chic with lots of pale wood, white walls, low-hanging, metal light fittings and paintings of the area. Though it’s October and the village is quiet, “the Cove” has attracted a crowd like a cosy fire. School kids nursing mugs of hot chocolate. Older people brightening their day. There’s “lovely” Jacinta Creedon with a boy of about five; if it’s her son, she had him late. No sign of Jack.
To get to the counter, Grace will have to pass Jacinta. She is about to get a table and wait for Jack, instead, when she notices how unwell the boy is looking. He is worryingly pale and his breathing seems to be off. Grace should say something. If Jacinta were anyone else, she would. She tells herself that she shouldn’t punish the boy because his mother is a cow. Just as she is forcing herself to go over, Jacinta turns and sees her.
“Young Dr. Sullivan, I’m glad you came over,” she says in a hushed but relieved voice. “That was so awkward in the supermarket–”
“Hi Jacinta,” Grace cuts her off. “Who’s this?” she asks smiling at the boy.
“This is my son, Matthew,” she says with all the softness in the world.
Grace squats down to the child. “Hey, Matthew. How’s it going?”
He holds his throat.
“We’re on our way to the surgery,” Jacinta rushes.
Grace keeps her eyes on the boy. “Good idea. I’d say you have a temperature, little man.” His eyes look watery.
“He just wanted an ice cream to cool his throat down, first.”
He hasn’t eaten any of it, Grace notices. “I won’t hold you up,” she says because, by the looks of Matthew, they shouldn’t delay. “Tell Myra I said you could skip the queue when you get there. I’ll text her now.” The receptionist will probably kill Grace on her return. Time she started living dangerously.
There’s a tap on her shoulder. She swivels round automatically, arms rising into a defensive position. Seeing Jack, she continues her arms in a smooth upward arc to her hair and smiles to cover her reaction.
“Hot chocolate?” she asks. Her heart always lifts to see one of her kids.
“Hey, I asked you for coffee. I’m buying.”
Wow, her little boy is growing up. “I’ll have a latte so. Thanks, sweetie.”
“If they have them here,” he says looking towards the counter.
“Of course, they do. West Cork has the finest food in Ireland.” He’ll learn.
“You sit down,” he instruct
s.
“See you later,” she says to Jacinta and winks at Matthew. “Hope you’re feeling better soon.”
Grace finds a table and positions herself with her back to the wall. No one can steal up on her that way. She wonders if she’ll ever feel relaxed enough to just sit anywhere, do anything, with anyone. One day at a time, she reminds herself.
She glances around the café, loving the little touches. Old-fashioned, glass milk bottles hold tap water with mint leaves. Smaller bottles act as vases for pink peonies, red roses and sprigs of tiny wild flowers. Sugar bowls and milk jugs are turquoise, glazed pottery – Dunbeacon, Grace discovers, on inspection.
She glances over at Matthew. His breathing is becoming visibly laboured. She wishes Jacinta would forget about the bloody ice cream and get a move on. Grace is distracted by the approach of her handsome young son. How did he grow up so fast?
“They had those homemade chocolate chip cookies that you like so I got you one.”
“Wow! It’s huge.” She can totally see how one of these a day would win a person’s loyalty. “Thanks, love.”
Jack unloads the tray and sits down. He worries his hot chocolate with a straw then glances up at Grace. There is a tiny bit of mud over his eyebrow. Grace reaches across and scratches it away with her thumb.
“A tiny bit of mud,” she says. “How was the hurling? Grandad told me you were giving it a try.
“Ferocious!”
“Is that good or bad?” she asks cautiously. Hockey was his life.
His face lights up. “Mad! Totally vicious. And fast. They’re all crazy! You can whack that ball as high as you like. You could take someone’s head off. It’s brilliant!”
She laughs.
He sucks on his straw, like he has lost years. And darkness.
“This is such a lovely idea. I’m so glad you suggested it. I never get to talk to you alone.”
He drops his gaze and goes back to stirring the straw.
She has ruined the moment. As she always seems to do with Jack, somehow. Anxious, she breaks the biscuit into pieces. And takes a sip of coffee.
Season of Second Chances: an uplifting novel of moving away and starting over Page 14