‘Dealer shuffles,’ Brendan said, handing the cards to Matt. ‘How was Clara?’
‘Good,’ he said, shuffling. ‘She’s thinking of relocating to the UK.’ He dealt five cards each.
Brendan picked up his hand and viewed it before resting it on the table. ‘That’s come from nowhere.’
‘Not really,’ Matt said, putting his own cards face down. ‘She’s been talking about it for a while.’
‘You didn’t say anything.’
‘Nothing to say. What’s your bet?’
‘One euro.’
‘Feeling rich!’ Matt laughed, tossed in his own coin. ‘How many cards?’
‘Two.’
‘Dealer takes three.’
‘Will you miss her?’
‘I don’t know. I’ll tell you when she’s gone.’ He took back Brendan’s discarded cards.
‘I visited Liv yesterday.’
‘Good. Are you betting?’
‘Another euro.’
‘I’ll see you.’
‘I met Harri there.’
Matt stopped as though something inside him had powered down. He became very still.
Brendan put his cards down. The game was over. He got up, lifted a bottle of brandy from the shelf and wiped two glasses. He placed them in front of his paralysed friend and poured. Brendan drank but Matt didn’t move.
‘She looked so like her,’ Brendan said. ‘Not as tall but her face was so familiar.’
Matt remained silent.
‘She got a fright – she didn’t expect to meet anyone but she knew who I was, Matt. She asked me if I was the doctor.’
Tears leaked from Matt’s eyes.
Brendan bowed his head.
‘Did she talk to you?’
‘Not really. She needed help controlling her breathing and once she recovered she ran, but I called after her. I said I was in the phone book and told her to call. I hope she heard me.’
‘She was due to get married last month.’
‘What?’
‘She didn’t make it to the altar. It was the second attempt. Poor guy, James something.’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘I’ve been keeping tabs her on since I returned from the States fifteen years ago.’
‘You never said.’
‘Since that night by the Eliana, when I held her, a part of me never let go.’ He shrugged. ‘How could I? She was all I had left of Liv. I used to wait every year. I’d think, She’ll come and find me. I was beginning to think it wouldn’t happen. Do you think it will?’
‘I don’t know,’ Brendan said sadly. ‘When she saw me she said she wasn’t ready.’
‘I’ve waited thirty years. I suppose I can wait a while longer.’
He left his brandy untouched. He went home soon after.
Brendan nursed a second brandy on his sofa. All this time Matthew had never spoken about the child he had given up. Brendan had had no idea he had been following the events in her life.
The appointment had been for half past one. Aidan finished working around twelve, got home in time for a shave, a wash and a change. There were three messages on his machine from George and four missed calls. I can’t deal with you right now. He met Andrew in the hospital car park. He had decided against making any comment about Melissa’s research. As his mother always said, if you’ve nothing positive to say, say nothing at all. Andrew was shaking visibly.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Grand.’
‘You’re shaking.’
‘I know.’
Aidan wanted to say it wouldn’t be that bad but, judging by what he’d read, it might well be – and maybe Andrew had carried out some research of his own.
‘You’ll be fine,’ he said, when they were sitting, ironically and unwittingly, on the same chairs Harri and Andrew’s daughter Beth had been sitting on weeks earlier.
‘What do I say?’ Andrew gasped.
‘“I can’t get it up,”’ Aidan whispered.
‘Right. I feel sick.’
‘Hospitals have that effect on people – it’s perfectly normal,’ Aidan said, patting his arm.
‘I don’t think I can do it,’ Andrew said, standing up.
Aidan pulled him back into his seat. ‘Don’t be stupid. You can and you will.’
They didn’t speak after that. Instead they waited to hear a nurse call his name. If someone had asked Andrew what had eventually driven him to seek help he wouldn’t have been able to answer, at least not immediately, but if he thought about it long and hard he would have said he had nothing left to lose. When his name was called, and after a little push from Aidan, he was on his feet and in the doctor’s office, listening to the door close behind him.
Aidan waited five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, twenty minutes, half an hour. Jesus, how long does this take? After an hour Andrew appeared but he was on a gurney, his shirt was open and there were patches on his chest.
‘Andrew?’ Aidan leaped to his feet and joined the hospital staff racing with the gurney.
‘Please give us room, sir,’ one nurse said.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Your friend is having a heart attack.’
Oh, sweet Jesus!
George was in the cellar doing a stock-take when his phone rang.
‘I thought you’d left the country!’ he said.
‘Andrew’s having a heart attack.’
‘What?’
‘Andrew Shannon is having a heart attack as we speak.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I’m in the hospital with him. He’s been having a problem with his dick. I said I’d go with him, hold his hand or whatever. He went into the office and he was fine. He came out of the office on his back having a heart attack.’
‘Christ! Why did he ask you?’
‘I don’t know, George. I hardly think that’s what we should be focusing on.’
‘Calm down, Aidan.’
‘You’ll have to tell Susan.’
‘Why me?’
‘Because I can’t do everything. I have to go. We’re in James’s Street.’ He hung up, leaving George dumbfounded.
‘Hey, George!’ Susan said, into her mobile phone while she was perched precariously on the second-highest step of a ladder.
‘Hey, Susan!’ George said, a little too airily.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Are you near a chair?’
‘I’m on a ladder. What’s up?’
‘Get off the ladder.’
‘What’s going on?’
‘Are you off the ladder?’
‘George?’
‘Just get off the ladder.’
She got off the ladder. ‘I’m off the ladder. Are you happy?’
‘Andrew’s had a heart attack.’
Silence.
‘Susan?’
‘Yes.’
‘He’s in James’s Street. Aidan’s with him.’
‘Is he all right?’
‘I don’t know the details.’
‘Did you say Aidan’s with him?’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s Aidan doing with him?’
‘Long story. I think you should go to the hospital and maybe call Beth.’
‘She won’t answer me. I’ll get Harri to pick her up from work.’
‘Okay. Good. Let me know if you need anything.’
‘Yeah, okay.’ She hung up in a daze. I should go to James’s Street. How do I get there from here? I should just go. I’ll remember the way in the car.
Andrew had had many a nightmare in his day but this one was particularly nasty. He had dreamed he was having his dick examined when an almighty pain took hold of him and it felt like nothing on earth. He grabbed his left arm and chest and slumped, and the doctor whose hand w
as wrapped around his dick said something and called for someone and suddenly he was on a gurney with Aidan racing behind it.
He woke up to discover it wasn’t a dream. That was a kick he could have done without. He was alone. Where’s Aidan? Oh, God, somebody find Aidan. He can’t tell anyone I’m here.
Aidan was outside getting some air and drinking coffee, which was surprisingly good, from a real coffee shop in the hospital concourse, which was more like a shopping mall than part of a hospital. Shops, restaurants, a feckin’ juice bar. Since when have you been able to eat and drink healthily in a hospital? He held his phone close to his ear and spoke loudly to combat the level of noise and bustle around him.
Harri was in the car and on the way to pick up Beth from the boutique she was working in. She had him on speaker. ‘I’m going through the park so if we get cut off I’ll call you back.’
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘What are you going to say to Beth?’
‘I’m going to tell her the truth.’
‘You can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you can’t tell her that her dad had a heart attack while having his dick inspected.’
‘She’s not a child and I’ve no intention of saying that. I’ll just say he was in the hospital having a check-up when he had a heart attack, which is exactly what happened without the graphics.’
‘Fine. I wonder when it would be appropriate for me to leave?’
‘Is Susan there yet?’
‘No.’
‘When she gets there.’
Aidan sighed. ‘Right. I’d better go back.’
‘Okay. I’ll see you if you’re still there.’
Aidan hung up and walked back to where Andrew was lying awake, alert and deeply embarrassed. Aidan steadied himself outside his friend’s husband’s cubicle. He pulled back the curtain with a smile plastered on his face.
‘Well, Andrew Shannon, you certainly know how to give a man a scare.’
‘You called Susan, didn’t you?’ Andrew was clammy, weak, nauseous, tired, with all kinds of liquids flowing through his veins and the memory of torturous pain still fresh in his mind.
‘No,’ Aidan said.
‘Thank you,’ Andrew said, his hands clasped in simulated prayer.
This exposed the two cannulas, one sticking out of each hand, that allowed the administration of the required intravenous fluids, making Aidan feel a little light-headed. He fixed his gaze on a white locker with a missing handle.
‘I called George,’ Aidan told the locker. ‘George called Susan.’
Andrew sighed.
Aidan was on a roll. ‘I also called Harri, who is collecting Beth from work and bringing her here.’
Andrew was silent for approximately seventy-five seconds while he absorbed this information. If he wasn’t knocking on Heaven’s door he could have got up and out of the bed, marched Aidan to the nearest window and thrown him out of it. When I get out of here, you’d better run.
After those seventy-five seconds, Aidan explained to Andrew that although it was highly likely that his reason for being in the hospital would come to light, relatively speaking, his dick was the least of his problems. Aidan had not come to this conclusion quickly. He had spent the previous night awake and worried for the health and safety of his own dick. I wonder if I asked, would someone here check my blood pressure? But Aidan was sure, having feared he was watching his friend’s husband breathe his last, that when it came to a dick and a heart, the heart wins. While he had been contemplating life and death on a hard hospital chair, imbibing a non-fat latte, he had surmised that the heart-beating-dick theory was an analogy appropriate to the state of Andrew’s marriage. This epiphany was one he could not but share with his weary new friend, and whether it was Aidan’s utter belief in his own reasoning or the fact that Andrew’s heart had momentarily failed or just the drugs, it made sense to Andrew.
Aidan sat back in his chair, content. My work here is done. Susan, hurry the fuck up.
Susan drove at forty kilometres per hour the entire way to the hospital. She couldn’t manage to push on the pedal. Instead her foot rested, almost hovered. She didn’t actively drive into the James’s Street car park; the car seemed to take her there. So many questions clouded her mind. She parked, and when she took her hands off the steering-wheel, she saw that she was shaking. She had a little cry before she got out and was grateful for the rain that came from nowhere and soaked her. Others ran with newspapers or handbags over their heads, but she couldn’t break into a jog, never mind a run. She had come off a ladder and her world had switched into slow motion.
She stuttered at the desk when she asked the woman for directions to Accident and Emergency. There, she asked a nurse, stumbling over ‘wife’ as opposed to stuttering ‘Andrew’ but the effect was the same in that it made her want to bawl.
Like Aidan before her, she spent a short time collecting herself outside the cubicle that held the heart patient who used to be her husband.
When Andrew saw her it occurred to him that she looked worse than he did. She still cares after everything. He noticed the shake in her hand despite her attempt at concealing it behind an oversized handbag. What is it with women and large bags?
She was attempting to smile but that annoying dry-mouth syndrome had returned, ensuring her lip stuck to her gum.
Aidan stood up and guided her to the chair he’d been sitting on. She sat without a word. He leaned in. ‘Would you like some coffee?’ he asked, speaking slowly and enunciating each word as if he was speaking to a deaf mute. ‘I can get you some coffee. There is a lovely coffee shop. Seriously, it tastes great.’
‘I’m fine,’ she said, and even through the haze she could sense her friend had lost it a little.
‘I’m going to get a juice. Do you want a juice?’
‘No.’
‘Right.’
‘Aidan?’ she asked.
‘Yeah?’
‘What are you doing here?’
Aidan looked at Andrew, who shook his head and sighed. Aidan raised his hand in farewell and left them.
Harri entered the shop and looked around. She couldn’t see Beth anywhere. She walked up to the counter and was annoyed when the woman fixing the till roll pretended not to notice her. ‘I’m looking for Beth Shannon.’
‘She’s on a break,’ the woman said, without removing her gaze from the till.
‘Do you know where she’s taking her break?’ Harri asked, in a tone that suggested she was ready to kung-fu fight.
‘No,’ the woman responded, in an equally frosty tone.
‘You must have some idea.’
‘Well, I don’t own the girl and I left my divining stick at home so you’re out of luck.’
‘Her dad’s just had a heart attack.’
The woman’s eyes met Harri’s now and it was instantly apparent that she was sorry she’d been such a bitch. ‘She’s in Burger King.’
‘Thank you,’ Harri said, and left.
Burger King was jammed and Beth was still queuing when Harri found her.
On the trip to the car Harri explained what had happened. The information stopped Beth in her tracks so Harri gently guided her into the car.
‘Buckle up,’ Harri said, as she started the car. ‘Everything will be fine.’ She was quite pleased that she wasn’t freaking out, driving into walls and forgetting her own name. I don’t know what people are talking about. I’m great in a crisis.
She accelerated and the car felt spongy.
‘Harri.’
‘Yeah.’
‘It might work better if you take off the handbrake.’
‘Right. Will do.’
Beth went from shock to anger in record speed. She decided that her father’s heart attack was her mother’s fault. ‘I hate her. I hope she burns.’
‘Beth!’ Harri warned.
‘S
he could have killed him!’ Beth pouted.
‘Oh, Beth, seriously, no, don’t do that.’
‘Do what?’
‘Don’t make this about blame.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘I know she had an affair and broke his heart, today being the physical manifestation of same.’
Today being the physical manifestation of same! Who talks like that?
‘Beth, you do not know the full story of your parents’ break-up.’
‘So tell me.’
‘Do you really want to know everything?’
‘I have a right to know.’
‘Really?’
‘It’s my family too.’
‘Okay. Fine. Do me a favour. Close your eyes.’
Beth sighed loudly before doing as she was told.
‘Now, picture your parents having sex. Better still picture your mother on her knees.’
Beth’s eyes and mouth shot open at the same time. ‘Harri, what is wrong with you?’ she almost shouted.
‘So, do you want to know everything now?’ Harri asked.
‘Noooo!’ Beth shouted.
‘I believe I’ve made my point.’
Beth was silent.
‘Your parents are people. People are fallible. Your parents have their problems and you wading in with only half of the information will not help anyone. You judged your dad and gave him a hard time but you didn’t know the whole story. So now I’m asking you to learn from that, to realize that you don’t know the full story and you shouldn’t judge. Stop judging and forgive her. Forgive them both.’
‘Have you stopped judging your parents? Have you forgiven them?’ Beth asked.
Harri bit her lip. She recalled the stilted lunch she had shared with her mother and her last monosyllabic conversation with her dad. ‘No.’
‘Well, then!’
‘Look, Beth, adults are really good at giving other people advice. Unfortunately we’re not so good at taking either our own or anybody else’s, which begs the question as to why, after millennia, we bother giving advice at all. The thing is, we all make mistakes and we know we’re making mistakes because we’re looking at the people around us making the same mistakes. The human race has an extraordinary capacity for stupidity. But, bearing that in mind, I’m asking you to listen to my advice and take it. Break the cycle, Beth.’
The Truth Will Out Page 24