A Man With One of Those Faces (The Dublin Trilogy Book 1)
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A Man With One of Those Faces
Caimh McDonnell
McFori Ink
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Epilogue 1
Epilogue 2
Epilogue 3
Epilogue 4
A Word From Caimh
The Day That Never Comes - Synopsis
Prologue
Chapter 1
Another Word From Caimh
Copyright © 2016 by McFori Ink All rights reserved.
Cover Design by Pulp Studio
Edited by: Scott Pack
Proofing and general awesomeness: Penny ‘The High Priestess’ Bryant
Thanks to Clare Campbell and Brendan Dempsey for taking one for the team and reading through the first draft.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Caimh McDonnell
Visit my website at www.WhiteHairedirishman.com First Printing: September 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9955075-1-7
Created with Vellum
Chapter One
“You remember Aidan, your father’s first cousin from Clare?”
“Do I?”
“Ye do! Two dogs and only one eye, never married – he came around the house when you were young a couple of times.”
“Oh yeah.”
“Dead! Died of a heart attack, God rest his soul. I saw it in the paper last week.”
Paul had never realised before how cold an old person’s hand was. As her frail fingers patted his, as if reassuring herself that he was really there, he couldn’t help but notice. To be honest, he was having a hard time thinking about anything else.
“Heart attack in the bath,” she continued. “I think it’s all these new bath salts they have. Sure you wouldn’t know what they’re putting in them.”
Paul nodded, giving the bare modicum of assent she needed to ramble off down whatever mental path she was on.
Aren’t corpses supposed to be freezing? When they were kids Barry Dodds had told him that when he’d knocked his granda’s body over at the wake, it was like being buried under a dozen frozen turkeys. Mind you, he had also told Paul that groping a woman’s breast felt like squeezing a roast chicken. Come to think of it, that kid had a weird obsession with poultry.
“Such a young man. He could only have been…”
Margaret trailed off, staring at the ceiling, trying to do a sum that she didn’t have all the figures for.
Are babies really warm? Do you start life as a tiny boiling inferno of energy, and you just get colder and colder until you eventually reach corpse temperature? He was only speculating on the baby thing. Despite being twenty-eight years of age, Paul had never held one.
Not for the first time, the needle on the record in Margaret’s mind skipped. “I was talking to a woman from Dunboyne on the other ward. She said the Triads are running Dublin now.”
“Did she?”
“It was in the Evening Herald,” she confided. “Apparently you can’t move for Chinese lads these days. I don’t know what’s happening at all. You’d be afraid to go out at night.”
“I hear a lot of them carry swords.”
“Really??”
“Oh yeah,” he said. “They’re big into the beheading and all that…”
He was halfway through miming it when he was interrupted by a throat being pointedly cleared behind him. Bloody typical – 45 minutes of nodding and ‘ah hum’ing along, and Nurse Brigit comes back just in time for the beheading. There she was, arms folded, leaning against the doorframe – giving him that condescending look.
“How’re you two getting on?” she said, moving into the room.
“Grand,” he said. “Chatting up a storm.”
“This is my Gareth,” said Margaret, pointing at Paul.
“Oh I know, Margaret. Sure, didn’t I meet him on the way in?”
Her crinkly little face lit up with pride. “He’s a lawyer,” she beamed. “Flies all over Europe. He was in Brussels just last week.”
“Imagine that!”
Margaret leaned forward automatically to let Brigit fluff her pillows.
“Isn’t it great of him to find the time to come in and see his granny,” said Brigit.
“Mother,” Paul corrected.
“Yes he’s my…”
For a moment the old woman stared quizzically at Paul through the fog of age and fading memory. Paul felt that sickening creak, like the ice he was standing on was about to crack.
Brigit finished the pillows and clapped her hands. The sound drew Margaret’s attention and the smile returned to her lips. Paul relaxed.
“Next time,” said Brigit, “he should visit during the day and the two of you might be able to go for a walk outside, if your physio is going well.”
She looked at Paul expectantly, being that heavy-handed with the hint that he was tempted to let it pass without taking the bait.
“Yeah, that’d be nice,” he said.
He smiled up at Brigit from his seat beside the bed, her ample bosom framing her pissed-off expression perfectly. She was not a bad looking woman, truth be told; a couple of years older than himself, short brown bobbed hair, decent figure – she wouldn’t be launching a thousand ships any time soon but she’d undoubtedly create a fair bit of interest in a chip shop queue.
She had one of those country accents. Like most Dubliners he’d never bothered to learn how to distinguish them from each other. She had that ‘farm strong’ look about her too, not fat or muscly, just that kind of firmness that implied she could wrestle a cow if she had to.
“It’s fierce wet these days though,” said Margaret.
He looked across to see Margaret beaming at him once more.
“Yes Ma.” He raised his voice to make sure she was listening. “It is very important you keep doing your physio, so
we can get you back on your feet. That way we can go out nightclubbing.”
“Oh, Gareth, you’re terrible,” she grinned. “You’d want to keep your eye on this one, nurse.”
“Yes, I’ll have to.”
Paul said his goodbyes and gave Margaret a light peck on the forehead. Again, cold, clammy. The memory of sniffing ham to see if it was fresh came back to him unbidden. He’d be sticking with cheese on toast for the next few days.
Out in the hall, he was reaching for his mobile as he got cuffed on the back of the head with a rolled-up Woman’s Weekly. Not hard enough to hurt but hard enough not to be entirely playful either.
“What was that for?” he said.
“Take a wild stab in the dark.”
“Relax. The old dears love a bit of scandal.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one who has to calm them down when they’re convinced the Chinese lady who collects the medical waste is dealing drugs.”
“Are you sure she isn’t?”
“Oh believe me, I’ve asked.”
“Well,” said Paul, looking at the time on his phone, “I make that three hours and seven minutes, so if you could just sign my note…”
Brigit shifted nervously. “I need you to do another one.”
“Three hours and seven minutes,” repeated Paul, looking at Brigit like she was slightly hard of hearing, “Plus the two hours and fifty eight minutes of visits I did on Monday makes six hours and five minutes. That’s five minutes you’ve already got for free there.”
Brigit gave him a confused look. Paul could see the question she wanted to ask and the favour she needed, briefly tussling for control. The favour won out. She softened her tone a bit. He could tell asking nicely didn’t come naturally to her.
“Please, it’s just a quick one. There’s an old man up there in a private room.”
“I’d love to help,” he lied, “but I’ve got to catch a bus.”
Which was true. Aunt Fidelma’s Ford Cortina that’d outlasted the Berlin Wall, Concorde and Nelson Mandela had gasped its last in the fast lane of the M50 four weeks ago and he hadn’t got the money to get it back on the road. In fact, it’d taken up all of last month’s disposable income and half the emergency fund just to get it off the bit of road it’d broken down on.
“Do you still live up off the North Circular?” Brigit asked.
“Yeah.”
She stopped to think, clearly weighing things up in her mind.
“Do this for me and I’ll drop you home after. My shift finishes in an hour. Deal?”
It did beat freezing his knackers off at a bus stop, plus that was another €3.30 towards replenishing the emergency fund.
“Alright,” he said, “but no funny stuff, I know what you nurses are like.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’ll try and restrain myself.”
He held up his cigs – she pulled another of her seemingly endless supply of disapproving faces before inclining her head for him to follow her.
Brigit opened the fire exit with a flourish and Paul stepped out past her into the sharp November air. It was cold enough for him to want the coat he’d left back in the staff room, but not cold enough for him to actually go and get it. He was surprised when she followed him out and stood beside him, hugging her arms to herself and shuffling her feet to keep warm.
“Fuck sake,” she said.
“Isn’t it weird to think that not that long ago, you used to be allowed to smoke inside a hospital?”
“Yeah,” she sighed. “Those were the good old days, back when people just died.”
As he pulled out his second-to-last cigarette, he noticed her eyes linger on the packet. He held it out.
“It’s your last one.”
“Don’t worry about it, I’ve got loads of them.” This was technically true. He had acquired 25 packs of 20 off posh Padraig for €80 six months ago and had disciplined himself to smoke only one a day. He had considered giving up entirely but then SHE would have won. He was unprepared to let that happen. Still the €3.30 he saved on busfare minus the 16 cents for nurse Conroy’s cigarette, still left him €3.14 up on the transaction.
“Ta,” said Brigit as she cupped her hands around his lighter, puffing the cigarette into life.
They both took a drag and looked at their shadows stretching out across the manicured lawns, half-illuminated by the antiseptic lights from the hospice.
“Can I ask a question?” she said, and he felt himself sag. He knew what was coming.
“Why do people say that?” he said. “A – you just have, and B – nobody has ever accepted no as an answer.”
“Alright, no need to get all arsey. I was just making conversation.”
She flicked her ash towards the drain and hugged herself a little tighter. They both took another drag, in silent agreement that he was an arsehole.
Through the cast-iron railings, Paul could see a fox on the pavement across the road, darting in and out of the pools of yellow streetlight.
He broke the silence. “I have one of those faces.”
“Excuse me?” she said.
“That’s what you were going to ask wasn’t it – how do I do what I do?”
“Well yeah, but…”
“And now,” he interrupted, “you’re going to say – but there has to be more to it than that…”
“You’re a mind reader as well?”
He looked at her. “OK – so what were you going to say?”
“Oh no, Sherlock, you’re dead right. I was going to say exactly that. You can’t just have ‘one of those faces’ – everybody’s got a face. Yours is nothing special. No offence.”
“You do realise that just saying ‘no offence’ does not magically make whatever you say inoffensive?”
She was right, of course. There was nothing special about his face – just the opposite in fact – it was entirely ordinary, as was the rest of him. Five foot nine, blue eyes, brown hair. His sheer ordinariness was the whole point. He was a medium everything; his features were the most common in every category. He had nothing that came close to qualifying as a distinguishing anything. His every facial attribute was a masterpiece of bloody-minded unoriginality, an aesthetic tribute to the forgettably average. Collectively they formed an orchestra designed to produce the facial muzak of the Gods.
“But,” she said, “Margaret thought you were her grandson…”
“Son,” corrected Paul.
“Right,” continued Brigit, “whereas old Donal down the hall thinks you’re his neighbour’s young fella. Misses Jameson thinks you’re…”
“I’m not sure,” said Paul. “Butler would be my best guess.”
“To be fair, she talks to everyone like they’re staff. She asked me last week if the contents of her bedpan are put in with everyone else’s. The woman literally thinks her shit doesn’t stink.”
Paul smiled; she did have that way about her.
“My point is,” said Brigit, “why do you pretend to be all these people you’re not?”
Paul shrugged. “It’s just easier.” And it was. That wasn’t the whole truth, not by a long shot, but it was truth nonetheless. “The patients the hospital asks me to visit, are old and confused. You’ve seen people coming in, visiting their relatives with dementia or whatever else, what’s it like?”
“Not easy,” Brigit conceded. “They’re often faced with a loved one who doesn’t know who they are. It’s heartbreaking. Gradually those patients get fewer and fewer visitors because it’s upsetting for everybody.”
“Exactly. The patient knows enough to get that they should know who this person is. So when I walk in and say hello…”
“You just pretend to be anybody?”
“No. I just agree with whoever they think I am.”
“But you’re not that person.”
“I know but it isn’t exactly hard. How’s so’n’so? Fine. Did whatsherface’s Lumbago clear up? It did. Most of the time, they just like natteri
ng on about whatever, happy to be chatting. If you want the honest-to-God truth, most people have a lot they want to say and not that much they want to hear. ”
The hospital administrators didn’t officially approve of this approach of course but they turned a blind eye. The sad truth was, feeling like they still had one foot in their past life, made patients happier and, in his more cynical moments Paul thought, easier to manage too. His services came free, which made him a lot cheaper than drugs.
Paul took another drag on his cigarette and savoured the counterfeit taste. As he exhaled and looked across the lawn, he could see the fox watching them while it dragged a half-eaten sandwich out of the bin in front of the newsagents. It didn’t have the look of a fearful animal readying itself to bolt. This was a Dublin fox. Its look said, ‘I’m having this, what’re you going to do about it?’.
“So,” said Brigit, “ how did you become the ‘granny whisperer’ then?”
Over the last few years, he’d heard a couple of nicknames for what he did. This was undoubtedly the nicest.
“A few years ago, a woman who… used to take care of me,” there was no need to go into exact details, “was ill over at Saint Katherine’s. She was in one of those wards that… well, there’s only one way out.”
Brigit nodded.
“I went to see her a fair bit. While I was there, another lady on the ward – late stages of Alzheimer’s amongst other things – mistook me for her brother. They knew he wasn’t coming back from America and she had some things she needed to say so…”
“You did your trick,” she finished.
“Not a trick!”
She flinched at the edge of annoyance in his voice before putting her hands out in a placating gesture. “Sorry…”
“I was asked to help, so I did.”
“And then your fame spread throughout the land…”
“Something like that.”
Actually, it was almost nothing like that but he didn’t want to go into those particular details right then. He’d needed to do his six hours of charity work a week and the matron on the ward had made some calls. Visiting patients was, after all, indoors work that involved no heavy lifting.