by Brothers
‘I can actually fit you in today, if it suits. Normally, he’s not here on a Tuesday but he’s here now.’
Rose shivered. As eager as she was, she wasn’t sure that she was ready.
‘I can fit you in just before five. If that will work for you?’ Rose looked at her watch; it was already ten past four. ‘Otherwise the next available appointment is in three weeks.’
‘Okay.’ Rose’s voice didn’t reflect her anxiety. ‘No time like the present, I suppose.’
It was the insidious nature of this illness that bothered Rose the most. There was no intense pain, or rash or obvious culprit. She would have preferred those. Whatever it was, it hid inside her, taking over by stealth under the cover of darkness, when she wasn’t looking. It crept, inch by inch, and now a mutiny seemed to be going on between her brain and her muscles, rendering her far less capable than she was comfortable with, it was time to see about it. She put on her coat and her shoes, grabbed her bag and made her way for her appointment.
*
‘Rose O’Reilly,’ she announced herself to the young receptionist behind the counter. She suspected by the brightness of the receptionist’s smile that she was the friendly voice on the call earlier.
‘Oh great, I have your file right here. I’ll bring you straight in.’ The receptionist walked slowly, clutching the brown file to her chest. Rose followed. She announced Rose’s name as she entered the doctor’s office and handed him her file.
‘Ms. O’ Reilly, please,’ he waved his arm across the desk and pointed to the chair on the other side of it. ‘Take a seat.’
Mr Tomkinson was a pale, sincere-looking man with wiry grey hair. He looked at Rose from his notes over the top of his glasses. He had taken his suit jacket off and it was hung neatly on the rack behind the door.
Rose let out a little sigh. She wasn’t sure herself if it was from relief. She studied the consultant as he studied her file. His eyes darted across the graphs and notes that were fixed inside a binder. It was obvious from his demeanour that he wasn’t the most social of beings. A book had been written about her, she noticed, as the wallet of medical information was organised into different sections, denoted by different coloured papers and various degrees of X-rays and prints. He looked at her over his glasses that balanced on the end of his nose, as though confirming some detail in the dossier. She watched his intense eyes scan the data and input it into his brain.
‘Well then,’ he started as he fixed his attention on her. Rose noticed she had been holding her breath as she exhaled slowly. ‘Tell me what your concerns are?’
‘I feel…’ Rose tried to find the words. ‘I feel as though I’m drunk, most of the time, I suppose is the best way to describe it.’ She looked at her hands and stretched her stiff fingers. They were ghost white. ‘It’s as though my body won’t do what my brain is telling it. You know, it might take me an age to get moving in the morning, as though my muscles won’t wake up,’ she explained.
Mr Tomkinson nodded and rechecked a scan in the blue tabbed section of her file.
Rose spoke and tried as concisely as she could, to explain what she referred to as her increasing inability to do everyday things. ‘I have an overwhelming fatigue at times.’ She shook her head. ‘And rigidity in my muscles, like they’re frozen.’ She waited for him to write on the page. ‘And I’m always dizzy, especially in the mornings.’ She watched as he wrote his shorthand account of her longhand explanations. She stopped short of explaining how she felt, intuitively, that something wasn’t right. She suspected he was a man that worked only with facts and that intuition wouldn’t count for much in his diagnosis.
‘Hop up here, till I have a look.’ He walked towards the bed in the room and waited for her to follow. It was his tactful way of observing how well she could walk. He waited, patiently for her to lie flat on the bed and then gave her various instructions to move her limbs.
Rose watched soberly as her left leg disobeyed. It lay there, oblivious to her brain screaming at it to move in sync with her right. She could tell by his murmurings that he had seen what he had wanted to see and returned to his desk, making sure to assist her from the bed. As he scribbled, she smoothed out her clothes and went back to her seat.
‘Your symptoms are very suggestive of a disorder of the nervous system. We are possibly dealing with a degenerative disease. The possibilities include, Motor Neuron Disease or Parkinson’s Disease,’ the doctor said. ‘The presence of upper and lower motor neuron signs in a single limb is strongly suggestive of some of the neurological disorders.’
Rose sat silently in her chair, anxious that she might misunderstand.
The doctor paused as if giving her time to absorb the information. Rose inhaled deeply as though bracing herself. ‘There is no definitive test as such; instead our diagnosis is primarily based on the symptoms and signs we observe.’ He paused again. ‘I propose we do a full neurologic examination at regular intervals to assess whether symptoms such as muscle weakness and spasticity are getting progressively worse.’ Rose sat silently as he flung the words and descriptions across the desk at her. ‘I suggest you come back and see me in four weeks.’ He pushed his glasses back up from their position on the bridge of his nose and continued to scribble.
‘Mr Tomkinson,’ Rose’s voice trembled, ‘are you confirming that it is one of these diseases I have?’ She wasn’t sure if she had understood. He had said the words so flippantly.
‘As I’ve said, there is no test to confirm it. However, we have done tests that rule out other options.’
Rose’s hands shook and minute droplets of sweat formed on her upper lip creating a shimmer.
‘With that said, all indicators at the moment, given your age and your symptoms, would make this diagnosis the most likely. But we need to observe you for longer.’
The shaking migrated to Rose’s legs and travelled rapidly up her spine.
‘There are some medications that, given a chance to work, have a certain efficacy with one or other of the diseases we are looking at. This is another way that we can identify, the exact nature of what we are dealing with.’
‘Okay.’ Rose was waiting for him to continue. He opened her file to the yellow section and scribbled furiously for two minutes, filling half a page. Rose fumbled in her bag for a bottle of water, to no avail. Her tongue stuck to the sides of her gums.
‘I’m giving you a prescription.’ He handed her the yellow page. ‘You should start to see a difference in as little as ten days.’ Rose read it as though she would understand what it meant but she didn’t. ‘Particularly with the dizziness and low blood pressure.’ He clarified. ‘And I will see you again in four weeks. Have you any questions Mrs O’Reilly?’
‘No, I don’t think so. I don’t know.’ Rose was dazed. She stood up, retrieving her bag from the floor beside her chair.
‘If you would like to email later, if something does occur to you, or if a family member would like to contact me for further details, my contact information is in the pack,’ he spoke softer now. ‘A nurse will speak with you outside.’ Rose knew he was eager for her to leave. ‘My secretary will arrange for your follow-up’. Rose couldn’t speak; she merely mustered the ability to acknowledge him by nodding as she left the room.
Chapter 9
Tuesday Night – March 1970
I watch Tim’s expressions as we whisper. I’m pleading with him to calm down, to listen to me. We sit, perched on the top step of the back stairs. Stairs we never use. They’re furthest away from my mother’s room, my father’s room and the back door. We used to play here when we were younger. It was the most secret place to be. I’m washed and freshened from my bath and I’m wrapped warmly in my dressing gown. I made him promise not to leave me and Tim is very good at keeping promises.
‘Why didn’t you tell me, Rose?’ The tears still haven’t dried in his eyes and the jagged edge of his jawline still hasn’t softened despite his wearisome wait for me to emerge from the bathroom. ‘How could I
have missed it?’ He didn’t know the answer the first time he asked it and he still doesn’t know six hundred times later. His voice wavers with every question.
‘I don’t know,’ I answer, because I don’t. It seemed easier to endure my uncle, than to confront him. ‘I don’t know,’ I say again.
‘Oh, Rosie, my poor Rosie.’ His head falls into his hands as though chopped from his shoulders. His legs reach the third step from the top, mine are on the second. ‘Are you…’ he cleared his throat; I could tell he was awkward. ‘You know, sore?’
‘Not anymore,’ I say, even more embarrassed than him. His words are as stuck as mine and a cloud of silence floats over us and lingers for a while. I twist the fleece belt of my dressing gown around my fingers, over and over again. I watch as the blood bunches at the tips, angrily elbowing to flow, and then gushes back down the length of my fingers when I let go.
‘I’ll never let him touch you again.’ He knits his arm through mine, blanketing my small hand with his and squeezes. ‘We have to get you out of here.’ His voice reminds me of a film and I can’t remember the name to tell him. Anyway, Tim doesn’t like films, not like I do, especially not the musical ones I watch. He likes books. I draw my knees to my chest and huddle. I trace the swirls and curls of the brown and orange pattern on the stairs with my eyes and follow it, till the darkness at the bottom obscures it. I trace it back up and back down, again and again, counting the swooshes along the chain. There’s twenty-seven on the way down and twenty-eight on the way up, I don’t understand it.
‘What you thinking?’ Tim follows my eyes.
‘I was sick, you know,’ I say. A gentle smirk rolls up my cheeks as though I had achieved something. ‘All over the kitchen floor,’ I add. I glance at Tim and my smirk is contagious. ‘It was brown and orange and all sorts of gunk.’ Both of us giggle. ‘Just like the carpet,’ I say, pointing downwards. Our smiles swell on our faces. ‘He slipped, on my sick, trying to catch me.’ We laugh, not loudly but heartily and it feels so good. As if we are happy.
‘That’s my girl, always have the last laugh.’ Tim unravels his arm and wraps it around my shoulder. I lean against him and we’re safe, for now. ‘It won’t be long, Rosie.’ He squeezes me too tight, I suppose his energy has to go somewhere. ‘Till we’re out of here,’ he says.
‘How though?’ It doesn’t feel possible to me. I have resigned myself to waiting and counting my lists until they’re dead, my mother, my father and especially my uncle. I never thought for one minute that there was an alternative.
‘Don’t worry about it. I have a plan.’ Tim says this all the time and I nod, just like I always do.
‘What plan though?’ I ask. He doesn’t answer. ‘Father won’t like it; he’ll have no one to work on the farm with him.’ I worry that Tim’s temper will get him into trouble. Only the holes in the walls know how angry he is.
‘Don’t worry about him, Rose; he’s not worrying about you. Don’t worry about any of them, they’re not worth it,’ Tim says. His voice is low. Our smiles that imagined Patrick slipping in my sick have evaporated and left in their places are rigid lines across our faces. ‘Either way, I’m not leaving you here. You can come with me.’
‘But what about school?’ I say. I still don’t understand him. Sister Alphonsus will come looking for me, I think. ‘And what about mother?’
He looks at me as though he doesn’t need to answer. ‘We’ll figure that bit out later, but you are not staying here.’ Tim is definite. He ruffles my hair and says I should get some sleep. I don’t feel sleepy, but I do what he says. Tim looks at his watch and then back at me. ‘Come on, let’s get you to bed.’ He insists and stands to walk me to my room. I go with him, carefully hopscotching on the landing so as not to creak the boards.
‘Tim.’ I’m under my covers and Tim is standing at my window. He checks his watch again. He doesn’t answer. ‘Tim,’ I call again.
‘Right, you ready to sleep.’ He turns and leans across my bed.
‘I think Patrick did the same to Mother, Tim,’ I say, my voice so quiet, I wonder does he hear. He doesn’t respond. ‘Did Patrick ever do that to you?’ I ask.
‘It doesn’t matter anymore, Rosie, the only thing that matters now is what we do next,’ Tim says. His eyes tell me, yes.
‘Tim, don’t go back out, promise me.’
‘I’m only going back up to the ewes to check, before Father gets home, as far as he is concerned I’m still up in the caravan.’ He tucks my eiderdown tightly around me. ‘I won’t be long,’ he says. ‘Actually, wait a minute.’ He darts from my room and returns seconds later. ‘If anyone comes in to your room, even if its Mother, blow this as loudly as you can, I’ll leave your window open, I’ll be able to hear you.’ He hands me a whistle and I clasp it to my chest.
‘Tim, come straight back.’ I deliberately don’t add, ‘Please’.
‘I promise,’ he says and then he is gone.
The house is in darkness except for the amber glow from the lamp that Tim left lighting my room. I often listen at night, trying to separate the layers of sounds that create the silence: the hum of the heater, the rapping of the rain, the gentle breaths. The harder I listen, the louder the lullaby, and tonight the lullaby keeps me awake.
A soothing breeze sneaks through the window and brings with it the smell of the wet night outside. The rain tap-dances on the window sill like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. That’s exactly it; I say to myself, that was the film Tim sounded like. The curtains rise and fall to the rhythm of the gusts and I can hear the wetness of the stones underneath Tim’s fading steps outside, gradually disappearing. I’m waiting. Waiting for Tim to not break his promise.
*
Tim’s bicycle whirred down the hill and clanked across the cattle gate at the bottom. He stopped still, focusing his eyes on the road ahead of him. Dozens of hawthorn bushes lined the crooked road into town and the asphalt glistened under the drizzle of the moonlight. He had watched and waited patiently for his Rosie to recover and now, with her safely in her bed, he wore a determined expression on his damp face as he pedalled into the blackness in front of him. It hadn’t taken him long to reach O’Connor’s Corner, only two miles later, and he dismounted his bicycle.
O’Connor’s Corner always remained the landmark by which they would give directions to the house. It was the last junction used to point the direction of their land. The old house at O’Connor’s Corner had lain derelict with weeds and greenery slowly creeping through the windows and doors. It was a perfectly secluded spot for Tim to wait for his uncle to pass. The clouds crept slowly across the moon, dulling the light from the sky. He stood motionless in the niche of the old stone wall.
As the footsteps grew louder so did the beating of Tim’s heart. He felt each individual pulse drive the blood through his veins, carrying with it the strength to fight.
‘I want to talk to you.’ Tim stepped from his hiding place at the side of the stone wall.
‘What the…’ Patrick paused and noticed the rock in his nephew’s hands. ‘What the fuck are you playing at?’ His words, laced with venom and whiskey, zigzagged out of his mouth.
‘You bastard.’ Tim stepped closer to him, squaring his shoulders and inflating his chest. ‘I know what you did to Rose, you spineless piece of shit.’ The words spewed from Tim like lava erupting from an awakened volcano.
‘Ah, the lovely Rosie,’ Patrick said, mocking his nephew. ‘Sweet little Rosie.’ Patrick watched as his nephew drew himself up into his shoulders. ‘So you found a pair of balls after all,’ he said. ‘Your sister fought harder than you. Fucking pussy,’ Patrick said.
‘Make you feel like a big man, did it?’ Tim’s anger was about to bolt. His adrenaline had peaked and it needed to go somewhere.
‘I’d say she liked it just as much as you did,’ Patrick answered.
Tim lunged for him then, knocking him to the ground, his youth and soberness giving him the upper hand over Patrick’s staggering strength. H
e buried his boot, over and over again, in Patrick, drawing blood from every orifice on his face.
‘You,’ thump, ‘will not,’ thud, ‘lay,’ bang, ‘a hand,’ thunk, ‘on her,’ thud, ‘ever,’ thwack, ‘again.’ Tim stopped and stepped away, scared of the strength he found within himself. He watched his uncle writhe, bleeding, on the wet asphalt road. Blood oozed from his eyes and his ears, and the swelling was almost immediate. Patrick’s eyes flickered and rolled in his head. Tim hauled him upright into a sitting position by the scruff of his neck. ‘The next time you so much as think about touching Rosie, or anyone else for that matter, I won’t stop, do you hear me?’ Tim shouted. Patrick groaned. ‘The only reason I don’t kill you is because it would be too easy for you.’ Tim, winded by his exertion, gasped for air. He shoved Patrick back to the ground. ‘If you are on Fitzpatrick Farm tomorrow morning when I wake up, I will make sure, that everyone,’ he spit a ball of saliva on the ground. ‘And I mean everyone,’ the words spilled from his lips in bitterness. He hauled Patrick upright again, slapping his face to look at him. ‘Will know how much of a pervert you are. And I don’t just mean what you did to Rosie.’ Tim hauled Patrick’s battered body sideways from the road. ‘I don’t care, you bastard, not any more, I’ll tell them what you did to me too.’
Tim stepped away backwards from Patrick’s frightened whimpers and groans. If he had learned anything, it was not to turn your back on him. He watched as his uncle attempted to right himself. He hoped he had done enough. He pulled his bicycle from the hedge and set off for home. He wasn’t sure how long it took Patrick to get to his feet behind him.
Chapter 10
Tuesday Afternoon – 2016
‘Rose, hi, I’m Nora, the nurse.’ A tall willowy lady, wearing green scrubs appeared as Rose left Mr Tomkinson’s room. ‘I’m going to take you over to this room here.’ She stood in the sterile passageway and guided Rose across the room. ‘We just want to check a few details on your file and check your blood pressure and a few things. Is that all right?’