Love & The Goddess

by Coen, Mary Elizabeth

  “I really appreciate this, James. Just knowing you’re here is such a support.” I scrambled out of the car and ran towards the hospital entrance.

  It was now over forty-eight hours since my father’s car crash. Julie had been in regular contact by text and we’d talked on the phone as soon as I’d arrived in Dublin.

  “He’s out of the woods now, Mum. They were worried about him because he’d blacked out. They kept him under observation in case he had a brain hemorrhage. Apparently, he accidentally took an extra anti-depressant, then went off to the pub intending to have a glass of non-alcoholic beer but one of his friends insisted on him having an Irish whiskey. The alcohol clashed with the drug, and when he was parking the car he hit the accelerator rather than the brake and ran into the big oak tree in the garden. Pure misfortune, as Nanna said.”

  “God, you mean to say he’d arrived in his own gate when it happened?”

  “Yes. Anyway, they have him under psychiatric observation because of his blood toxicity levels. Nanna is up the wall over that. She thinks there’s a terrible stigma to it.”

  Now I had arrived at the hospital and the nurse was holding open the door of room twenty-seven. “Another visitor for you, Mr Tynan.” My mother, Liz and Julie were sitting around his bed.

  “Oh Mum, it’s great to have you home.” Julie came over to embrace me. It was wonderful to be finally holding her after missing her for so long. My coming home ought to have been a happy occasion – I’d imagined arriving back in Ireland in a state of enlightenment, having become a beacon of light and wisdom like a female Dali Lama of sorts. Instead I was inwardly a wreck, yet I had to appear calm rather than fall to pieces.

  “Hi, Dad. How are you?”

  He was sitting up in the bed, ashen apart from the scuffs and bruises around his face. I’d expected him to be bandaged but it looked as though he’d got off lightly. I leaned over to hug him, his body feeling frail and bony as though he’d lost a lot of weight. It can’t have happened over night, but I hadn’t noticed it since he always wore tailored jackets with loose fitting shirts underneath. It was strange seeing him look so helpless, lying there hooked up to a drip.

  “I’m fine, Kate. They shouldn’t have been worrying you. It was a very minor accident. As you can see I’ve no injuries apart from this.” He pointed to the small bandage on his right temple.

  My mother linked my elbow. “Listen to him. We were very concerned, weren’t we, Liz? Your father was under surveillance in case he had internal bleeding. The car took a fair wallop and the air bag didn’t open. But he’s fine now.”

  “Great to have you home, Kate. Mam’s right you know, but thankfully the worst’s over now and Daddy should be out of here in no time.” They both seemed determined to tell me he was fine.

  “I heard something about psychiatric observation. Is that to do with your anti-depressants, Dad?”

  “Don’t mind them. Your father doesn’t need a psychiatrist. Who told you that?”

  “How was your trip, sweetheart?” my father inquired, in his eagerness to change the subject. He had never called me sweetheart in his life before. They all seemed to be putting on some kind of act here. My mother noticed my concern, and rushed to distract me: “You’ve got a great tan, Kate.”

  It maddened me when she said silly things to distract from the real issues, but I humoured her. “I had a great break – the weather was lovely. How do you feel now, Dad?”

  He opened his mouth, but this time it was Liz who jumped in. “Daddy’s great! He’ll be out of here as soon as we can get him discharged. It’s home he needs, not an institution like this.”

  Julie stood behind the two of them, shaking her head and pointing from one to the other, before placing a finger to her temple and alternating it clockwise and anti-clockwise. I said, “Can I have fifteen minutes alone with Dad?” Both my mother and Liz reddened and got ready to protest, but my father spoke up.

  “That’s a good idea. I’d like that.”

  Liz threw me a dirty look and my mother assumed the evicted martyr’s posture of slouched shoulders as they left, shepherded out by Julie. “Oh, Julie.” I called her back. “Take my phone and ring James. He’s in the car park with my luggage. Maybe you could get him to put it in Liz’s car?” That would ensure I had plenty of time. As soon as they’d left, I turned my attention to my father. It pained me to see him look so haunted, hunched there in the bed. He’d always been independent and aloof and though that meant I’d found it hard to ever truly connect with him, at least there was something solid about him, something predictable to depend upon. During my last visit home, he had been forgetful and confused. I shuddered to see him like this – a frightened, crumpled old man letting my mother talk for him. I’d often worried that he might die before we ever truly had a chance to talk. Before I ever had a chance to know who he was. I desperately wanted to grab that opportunity now, before it was too late. “Dad, I’m going to talk straight to you because I’m concerned about you. You seem to have been under huge strain since Uncle Larry died. Mam told me you were taking anti-depressants. You really should have been going to talk to someone rather than relying on the tablets.” I sounded a lot surer than I felt. I was taking a chance speaking to him like this. He could clam up but I was hoping to provoke him into straight talking, appeal to the lawyer in him who liked the truth to be known.

  “Katey, you could be right. I’ve been muddled and I could have killed myself or God forbid someone else. My mind is addled.” He hadn’t called me “Katey” since I was little. It felt strange, like the clock had somehow been turned back.

  “Dad, something’s been not right for as long as I can remember. Maybe if my marriage hadn’t broken down I’d be acting like Mam and Liz, burying my head in the sand. But I’m not prepared to live that way anymore. I think I can be more understanding now of anything you choose to tell me.” I paused and looked at him, hoping he would decide to unburden whatever weighed so heavily on him.

  “Your mother’s a good woman, has been the best wife to me, but you’re right – she brushes things under the carpet. That’s the way she deals with things. She lives by the three monkey philosophy: hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.”

  He was right. I’d never thought of it before; my mother even had a little brass ornament of three monkeys sitting side by side. The first monkey covering his ears, the second one covering his eyes and the third with his hand over his mouth. I’d loved it as a child and had asked my mother if I could play with it. She’d told me it was a paperweight and had been a gift from her sister. I’d never imagined it had any deeper significance. “What has she brushed under the carpet, Dad?” I asked, perplexed by his ready admission that all was not well.

  “There’s been a lot going on.” He faltered as the blood rose to his face. I knew the mood had suddenly changed, that he had quickly reflected on what he was about to say and baulked. “Since the economy collapsed and the property market slumped we’re doing a lot less conveyance work. The practice has suffered, yet I still have eight members of staff to pay. It’s very difficult.”

  “Dad, that’s only material things. You still have a fine practice and you don’t have any residual debt. I’m sure you’re not as profitable, but you’re silly if you’re letting that get you down at your age.” I stopped for him to answer, but he remained tight lipped. “You say Mother doesn’t deal well with things. Neither of you were ever great with emotions, Dad. I think it’s a family problem.” I suddenly noticed I was fiddling with my left ring finger, perturbed by something. Then it dawned on me that I had expected my emerald ring would be there.

  “Katey, you’ve always said what was on your mind. I’ve always admired that. In fact it reminds me of …” He couldn’t finish, as my mother had knocked then stuck her head around the door, asking if we were finished yet.

  “The nurse says visiting time is over now. We have to go.” She came over to fix the bedclothes around my father’s bed. She was all bustle, like a clu
cking hen as she quickly re-arranged the items on his bedside locker and hurried us into saying goodbye before rushing us out of the building. When I was younger I used to object to my mother stage-managing situations this way, but now I knew that was the way both she and Liz coped with things.

  Liz deposited the three of us off at my parents’ house before heading home to her husband and children. She had been uptight in the car, barely speaking apart from snapping out the odd comment like, “All this fussing over Dad needing psychiatric attention is just another way for the hospital to take in funds.” She glared at me in the rear view mirror as she spoke.

  Once inside the house, my mother seemed to relax. “Would you like something to eat, Kate? You must be hungry.”

  “Whatever’s handy will do fine. Some brown bread and ham or cheese.” I opened the fridge door for a look. “How are you coping, Mam?”

  She looked exhausted, slumped in an armchair. “Ah, I’m fine. I don’t like this needless fussing over your father having taken an extra anti-depressant. The silly psychiatrist even went so far as to ask me did I think Jim was suicidal. Imagine that!”

  “Well, you told me yourself that his doctor recommended that he see a psychologist or therapist when he gave him the prescription for Prozac. The drug is not supposed to be used alone, Mam. It’s advisable to accompany it with cognitive behavioural therapy in order to address the real situation.”

  “Ah Kate, you’re a right therapy junkie. You go from one quack to another in search of cures.”

  Julie had been engrossed in the latest edition of Elle magazine, but now she looked up laughing in surprise at my mother’s choice of words.

  I was trying to hold my temper. “Therapy junkie? That’s not a term I’ve ever heard you use before, Mam.”

  “When I told Aunt Marge you’d gone to that healer she said only therapy junkies went to see him.”

  I could feel my blood boil at the mention of her sister’s name. “Mam, I don’t know why you ever listen to Aunt Marge. She’s the last person I’d tell anything to.”

  Julie was still laughing. “Gran, mum is right about Aunt Marge. She’s a sanctimonious holy roller, always finding fault with others. I mean she lives in Chicago and we haven’t seen her for four years, yet she thinks she can dictate to all of us every time you have a telephone conversation.”

  “Julie’s right, Mam. You allow that silly woman too much power in our lives. Stop telling her our business.”

  “Ah no, she’s got a good heart and she’s a very prayerful person, she will be on her knees for your grandfather. Well, I’ll take my leave of the two of you and head off to bed. Goodnight.”

  When she’d gone, Julie sat down opposite me at the kitchen table while I drank my tea and had a sandwich. It struck me that my daughter had lost weight. I knew women controlled their food intake as a way of controlling their inner world; compensation for their outer world falling into chaos. And boy, hadn’t Julie and I had plenty of chaos during the last few months. “Julie, aren’t you going to eat something?”

  “No Mum, I’m never hungry late in the evening.” As she talked about her time in Boston, I noted how pretty she looked. She had Trevor’s eyes and nose; my mouth and cheekbones. She was the best thing to come out of our marriage, proving we had worked well on some level. She had obviously enjoyed working for the law firm, though the hours were long. She was fascinated by my stories of Peru. “You know most of my class in college listed either Peru or Australia as the place they most wanted to visit. It sounds really cool. But I’m shocked by you losing your ring and watch. I’d warned you not to bring them, Mum. It was silly.”

  “It was very upsetting, love. But I can’t waste time crying over them. Even your grandfather’s accident proves how we shouldn’t cling to material possessions.”

  “I know, mum, it’s just … If only you’d left them at home or at least in the hotel safe.”

  Changing the subject, I asked her what had happened since her grandfather had been admitted to hospital.

  “After the initial scare passed they wanted to move him to the psychiatric unit but Gran and Liz wouldn’t hear of it, so a Doctor Waldron visits him twice daily. He says Granddad is depressed and needs treatment.”

  “I thought so. Mam gets bad advice from Liz and that weasel Marge. It frustrates me that they have so much influence over her.”

  “I think you underestimate the influence you can exert, Mum. Gran thinks very highly of you. She constantly says how good you are with people, that you have a gift for helping people. All the neighbours around here think you’re special. They all want me to visit them because I’m your daughter. They all have lovely stories about you.”

  “Are you serious? I always thought Liz was the golden girl.” I perked up for the first time since I’d landed back in Ireland.

  “No, Mum. She may be closer to Gran in lots of ways because they seem to have a common understanding. You’re different, but Gran can see you’re very well intentioned.”

  I suddenly felt a ray of hope. Maybe I really could help them to be proactive in my father’s recovery. I had to believe I really could help heal others by healing myself, just as Raúl had suggested. “I think I’ll visit Dad alone tomorrow,” I said. “By the way, are you dieting?” I had always worried for her about anorexia, having had a brush with it myself in my teens.

  “No, Mum. I guess I’m like you – fast metabolism. I just lost weight from working hard and being under a bit of stress in the job. I’m sure I’ll put all back on now I’m home with two weeks to spare before college starts.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  I awoke early the following morning to a text from Geoff, aka “luvpicasso”, the artist I had met on the dating site. I’d told him I was going to Peru and I had emailed him my phone number before I’d heard of my father’s accident, saying it might be possible to meet up in Dublin on my return. Then I’d texted him to tell him about my father and he’d replied to say if I fancied a break he would be happy to meet me for a chat. A bit of diversion sounded good, so I agreed to meet for coffee not too far from the hospital.

  As I approached the café, I spotted a man with curly fair hair wearing a blue check shirt seated at one of the tables outside in the sunshine. I wondered was it Geoff, but his hair looked blonder than in photographs. As I came closer he stood up to his full height of five feet eleven, and smiled at me. “Kate, great to finally meet up with you.” He offered me his hand, his grip firm and reassuring.

  “You too, though I’m not the best company you could have right now.” I sat down opposite him. I was conscious of not having been in the mood to make much of an effort. My hair needed a wash and I felt scruffy wearing denims with trainers, even though I’d topped them with a nice linen jacket belonging to Julie.

  “I don’t expect you to be. Relax.” He spoke calmly, his smile spreading all the way up to his amber-flecked blue eyes, soft lines etched at their corners. A waitress came and took our order.

  I told Geoff the details of my father’s accident and finished by saying, “I don’t know why I told you all that. I’m sorry – I guess I’m just preoccupied and can think of nothing else right now.” I was fidgeting compulsively, pushing my hair back behind my ears and fiddling with the ring that wasn’t there.

  “Stop apologising, Kate. You’re concerned for your dad and it was obviously stressful for you to hear about his accident when you were so far away. I’m a good listener. Now just relax.” He smiled then exhaled slowly while moving his hands downwards as if deflating a balloon. He radiated an inner peace which made life seem easy, as though the pulse of the city was calming down around us. I knew that was the sort of peace I wanted in my life. I sighed and sat back more comfortably in my chair as the waitress placed our coffees in front of us.

  “You seem very calm, Geoff. Do you work at it? I mean, meditate?”

  “I’m just naturally very chilled out. Always have been a bit of a dreamer. Some people might see that as a fault – a
lack of ambition. My ex told me if I was any more chilled I’d be in a coma and maybe she was right.” He laughed. “But you know something, one of my close friends died recently and I thought life’s too short to live it in a stressed-out state.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Was it a sudden death?”

  “Cancer – only discovered last year. It spread quickly. Only the same age as myself … It shows how quickly you can be snuffed out.” He clicked his fingers in the air, regretfully.

  “You’re right, and we tend to forget that too easily. Only last week I was in Peru promising myself I would stop worrying and now here I am in a state over my father.” I shrugged my shoulders as if to shake off concern. “Anyway, tell me about your exhibition.”

  “I can’t believe the response. It was a joint exhibition with three other artists but I was singled out for some amazing reviews in the papers. Mind you there’s not much money out there right now. I keep prices low so I’m trekkin’ along. Did you see my website?”

  “Oh God, I didn’t get a chance to look.” I could feel myself blushing. “I was in Brazil when you sent me the link.” I picked up my coffee to hide my embarrassment. Damn, I’d made a note to have a quick look before meeting him but I’d found it hard to organise myself this morning.

  “I’d love you to have a look because I think you might like it. Tell me what you think. Will you?”

  “I will of course. Are you still on the dating site?”

  “Not that one. I moved to another one. If you’re on it too long you just keep seeing the same old faces scroll across the top all the time. I told you I met someone?”

  “It seemed to go well for you?”

  “Right, for four weeks. History now.” He smiled, his eyes sparkling with a mischievous glint.

  My heart fluttered as I smiled in response. But time was passing. I glanced at my watch. “I’m sorry I have to go, I need to see my father. It’s been really nice to talk to you at last.” I drained the last of my coffee, before standing.