The Healing Place

by Clare Nonhebel

CHAPTER 38

  Sister Briege’s prediction was wrong. Father Francis was not only still breathing but still trying to talk. Rachel sat with her head down on the bed, dazed with crying, with the old man’s hand on her head. Franz sat straight, on the other side of him. His face was white and he seemed to have aged. The resemblance between him and his father now was even more striking.

  The gossips will have a field day when they see him at the funeral, Ella thought. He had been twenty-five, he had told her, when his black hair had gone silver-grey almost overnight – within the space of a few months. So when he left Ireland at twenty-two he didn’t look as much like his father as he does now, she reflected, and there may be some people who haven’t seen him since he first left.

  She wondered how long it was since he been back for a visit. Not since she had known him, certainly, and probably not since setting up The Healing Place – he would have been too busy.

  Sister Briege took the old man’s pulse, felt his forehead, peered into his eyes.

  ‘He might be thirsty,’ Franz said. ‘He keeps trying to talk and his mouth is dry. I didn’t know if it was safe to give him a drink?’

  ‘No – use one of these little pieces of sponge and just dip it in the water and wipe round his mouth.’

  This is so painful, Ella thought, watching him carefully follow Sister Briege’s instructions. She noticed that Sister Briege didn’t offer to do it instead of him. She knows he needs to do this, Ella thought. Like I needed to wash and change Sam, before he died. I felt I grew up overnight.

  The old man turned his head aside, screwing up his eyes.

  ‘Is he in pain?’ Ella asked.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Sister Briege said.

  ‘He’s trying to talk again,’ Franz said. ‘It’s a big effort for him.’

  Ella sat down near the end of the bed. The old man mumbled something indistinct. Franz lifted the oxygen mask from his mouth.

  ‘Say again?’ he said.

  The old man raised one hand, like a pointer on the end of an arm that was thin as a stick, and waved in Rachel and Ella’s direction.

  ‘Take them home now,’ he said clearly.

  ‘Okay,’ said Franz. ‘I’ll come right back afterwards, all right?’

  ‘No!’ No doubt about the emphasis. A strong character, Ella thought, even on his deathbed.

  The old man half-raised himself up from the bed, looking Franz in the eyes.

  ‘Don’t …..’

  His breath ran out in a gasp and he nearly fell back, then forced himself up again. Franz tensed but didn’t try to rescue him.

  ‘Don’t come back for the funeral,’ said Father Francis, as loudly as he could manage.

  Ella felt a chill run down her spine. He’s saving him, she thought, and was filled with gratitude.

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ Franz told him. ‘I’ll be all right.’

  The old man grimaced, the strain pulling at the corners of his mouth. A tear rolled out of his eye.

  ‘Franz,’ Ella said, ‘he wants you to listen to him. He’s doing this for you.’

  ‘I know he is but …’

  She stood up and put her arms round his shoulders. ‘I think you should let him do this last thing for you. I think he means it.’

  Sister Briege, watching, said softly, ‘I never knew him say a word he didn’t mean, Michael.’

  Franz sat with his head down. Ella could feel the struggle within him. Then he stood, leaned over his father and said, ‘Da? We’re going to go now.’

  The old man nodded, his face relieved. The tears flowed but the strain went from his mouth and forehead.

  Franz wiped the tears from the old man’s face with his thumb, bent over him again and said, ‘Thank you. Thanks for everything.’ Then he went round to the other side of the bed, put his arms round Rachel and said, ‘Come on, sweetheart. Time to go,’ and she stood up and let him lead her out of the room.

  Ella followed them, looking back at the nun as she settled herself into Franz’s chair, reached under her white overall and gathered up the long string of beads that hung from the belt of her skirt.

  ‘Will you be okay?’ she asked Sister Briege.

  ‘I’ll be fine. I’ll sit with him and say my rosary. When I finish it I’ll call Sister Imelda; she offered to come and take over from me. But I doubt it will be that long. He’s on his way now.’

  ‘Do you think it’s really okay for us to go? I mean, okay for him?’

  ‘It’s the right thing for him as well. He needs to be alone with his God.’

  Ella looked at the old man’s face. He was peaceful now, not like someone who had been struggling to speak only a moment ago, but like someone who had been asleep for a long time.

  Already, his face was taking on that look she had seen in Sam – the impersonal appearance of a face reduced to features: eyes, nose and mouth, cheekbones and chin and eyebrows. Soon it would seem that they could belong to anybody, that the atoms and molecules could any minute now rearrange themselves and disperse to be used in the assembly of some other new human being who wasn’t yet born.

  ‘Thank you,’ Ella told him. ‘Thank you for giving me Francis.’

  She went out then and left him alone with Sister Briege and with the God for whom his soul longed.