Less Than Perfect

by Ber Carroll

  Is this what it’s like for Josh and Liam? Floating above the world? Watching me and everyone else?

  Down below Nic tosses her hair, flirting and trying to decide which of the men, if any, is worth playing for. Over in some far-off corner is Derek, friends with Nic now, still stubbornly blaming me for the accident. Somewhere out there is Matthew, shy, sweet, perceptive, demanding answers, not loving me enough to call today; and how ironic that I wouldn’t have met him in the first place if it wasn’t for the accident.

  Thanks for that, Derek. Thanks for facilitating that first meeting with Matthew. Or do I mean no thanks? What does it matter! I like it up here. Nothing seems to matter that much at all.

  No sooner have I had this thought than I start to fall, the floor rushing up to meet me. Hands grab my arms on the way down.

  ‘Caitlin? Caitlin?’ Nicola’s voice.

  ‘She’s blacked out.’ A voice I don’t recognise.

  ‘Clear back, everyone. Clear back!’

  I don’t hear the rest of what’s said.

  This was a bad day. A bad twenty-four hours, in fact. I’m more than happy to be out of it.

  Part Three

  Chapter 30

  When I first open my eyes, I feel relaxed and quite pleasantly vague. My eyes drift from left to right; it’s taking some effort to focus. I conclude that the bed I’m lying on must be quite high off the ground because I feel as though I’m floating in midair. The realisation that I’m not in my own room causes momentary but mild confusion. There’s a thin white blanket tucked neatly around my lower body and a metal industrial-looking bed end. The room is compact, the walls a bland inoffensive colour, and the light spilling from the window suggests that it’s sometime in the afternoon. This prompts me to check my watch and it’s only then I realise that there is something attached to me: a drip.

  Awareness pricks my bubble. Immediately, I begin to recall snatches of the events that have led me to this bed, this hospital. Matthew, standing on the pier, his face uncharacteristically severe, his eyes knowing more than I can deal with. My mother, the accusations, the blame, the terrible truths released down the phone. Jeanie, provocative and hurtful words spewing from her mouth. Jarrod’s expression strangely sympathetic. Nicola steadying my arm, grinning. ‘I’ve never seen you so pissed.’

  The door opens and a nurse comes in. She sees that I’m awake and gives me a warm smile. ‘You’re back in the land of the living, I see,’ she proclaims and unhooks the chart from the end of my bed.

  ‘How long was I out?’ My voice sounds weak from disuse.

  ‘A couple of days.’

  A couple of days. Not hours. Days.

  ‘Does anyone know I’m here?’ I manage, despite my shock.

  The nurse gives me an odd look before she writes on the chart. ‘Of course. Your boyfriend has been here …’

  My boyfriend. Does she mean Matthew?

  The nurse takes my pulse and listens to my heartbeat and checks my feet. ‘And I’ve seen a girl here too.’

  Probably Nicola.

  ‘Blonde hair.’

  Jeanie. I fight the sudden onslaught of tears.

  The nurse’s voice is kind. ‘It can be a little overwhelming waking after something like this. Don’t be too hard on yourself, now.’

  It’s only then that I hear her accent. The edges have been softened and polished but its origins are undeniable. I falter, a question stuck in my throat. What part of Belfast are you from?

  She’s bent over the chart again. If only I could get a closer look at her name tag … The irony doesn’t fail to strike me: here I am, more than a decade later on the other side of the world, tubes feeding insulin and other fluids into my body, and it’s still about names. That reflex, to pinpoint religion and political affiliation, has endured through everything and is as strong as ever.

  The nurse hooks the chart back onto the bed, slips a pen into her pocket and turns towards the door, all without giving me a clear view of the tag pinned neatly to the front of her white short-sleeved shirt. ‘I’ll be back later. Press the button if there’s anything you need in the meantime.’

  I’m on my own, wondering if there is anything I need. There are, in fact, a few things that I need right now. I need to know how Matthew – if it was indeed him the nurse saw sitting by my bed – found out I was here. I need to know if Jeanie is still upset with me. For that matter, I also need to know if Matthew is upset with me. And, of course, my mother. It’s quite a list of people I’ve managed to put offside.

  I lie still for a long time, thinking about how I can make amends, worrying that I can never put things right, seesawing between the present and the past. At some point, feeling heavy and weighed down by it all, I close my eyes and sleep.

  I dream that I’m in Belfast City Hospital. The nurse has a much stronger accent, so pronounced that I’m finding her hard to follow. Her name is Margaret Donaldson.

  ‘My first boyfriend was Protestant too …’ I tell her conversationally.

  ‘Good for him,’ she replies tartly.

  ‘He died in the Clonmegan bombing.’

  She softens immediately. ‘I’m sorry, love.’

  I nod and we share a moment of silence.

  ‘Your mother came in while you were sleeping,’ she says, taking her turn at being the conversational one.

  ‘She did?’

  ‘Aye. She was crying a lot.’

  ‘Oh, no.’

  ‘She kept saying that she’d thought you were taking proper care of yourself …’

  ‘My glucometer was dead, it needed new batteries,’ I confess shamefacedly. ‘I know I should have made the batteries a priority, but there was so much else going on.’

  ‘So you were a bit careless …’

  ‘Yes, I was.’ My voice is laden with guilt. ‘I wasn’t taking proper care of myself.’

  ‘Well, that much is clear to your poor mother now!’

  I wake with a jolt, the nurse’s admonition ringing in my ears, a taste of guilt in my mouth. I’m inordinately relieved to find that I’m not in Belfast City Hospital and that my mother’s recriminations and very justifiable disappointment don’t have to be dealt with. Well, at least not right at this moment.

  I press the buzzer to call the nurse. The light flashes red in my hand, indicating urgency, and I feel a little embarrassed that I’m calling her only to ask her name and what part of Belfast she’s from. The urgency is not of a medical nature, but it is otherwise genuine, and I cannot begin to explain how badly I need to know.

  Later in the day, after the dinner trolleys have been wheeled away and the smells of food have dissipated into the usual hospital smell of disinfectant, there is a rap on my door. It’s Matthew. He fills the room even from the doorway, vibrant and purposeful against the bland clinical backdrop. He’s in uniform. On his way to work, I guess from the pristine condition of his blue shirt.

  ‘Hello.’ My lips tremble into an uncertain smile.

  ‘Hello.’ His response is formal, distant. Still, he’s here, and given the circumstances I’m grateful. He pulls up a seat and sits next to the bed, his arms resting on his knees.

  I plunge in at the deep end. ‘I’m sorry, Matthew. Everything you said was justified.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter now.’ He looks down at his hands, shaking his head slightly.

  ‘But it does matter,’ I insist anxiously. ‘And I’m really sorry.’

  ‘Okay. Apology accepted.’

  The silence that follows is filled only with hospital sounds: the rise and fall of nurses’ voices as they pass outside, the squeak of wheels down the corridor, faint beeps from machines in other rooms.

  ‘How did you find out I was here?’

  ‘I rang your mobile phone and Nicola answered.’ He had called in the end. I should have known he would. I should have trusted him. ‘Of course, Nicola had no idea who I was,’ he adds in a flat voice.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I reiterate. I’m gripping the blanket, the cotton s
crunched under my tense, furled fingers.

  This time he acknowledges my apology with a slight nod that gives nothing away.

  ‘Do you know if anyone has told my mother?’

  ‘Jeanie called your mother.’

  ‘You’ve met Jeanie?’

  ‘Yes. Someone else who was totally unaware of my existence,’ he says in that same detached tone, but his jaw is rigid and it’s suddenly obvious to me that that he’s holding his feelings in check, that this formality is a front. He doesn’t trust me. And given my secretiveness and erratic behaviour, who could blame him?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say yet again. There are so many things that I am sorry for, I’m in danger of losing track of them all. ‘I found it difficult to talk about you, to tell them how serious we were …’

  He looks at his hands again and then at me. ‘Look, Caitlin, I don’t need to be validated by your friends. That’s not what I’m about.’ His voice trails off but I know that he’s not finished. I wait, my heart drumming, creating a peculiar sensation in my chest. Finally he continues, ‘All relationships reach a point where you are either honest about who and what you are, or you walk away.’

  I’m distraught. I can’t walk away from him. Not again. Not ever. ‘No, I don’t want to walk away,’ I say urgently. ‘Do you? Do you want to walk away?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’ He sounds resigned. ‘But I’m not prepared to go on as we were either. I need to know who you are – I need to understand why you do the things you do.’

  I nod. I understand what he’s saying. And so I summon everything I have, every ounce of strength and courage and endurance, and try to explain. ‘It’s not easy for me to be honest, about either my feelings or my past. What’s here and now is fine, but what happened before is not, and I thought I could put it behind me, that I could leave it for dead. It’s taken me this long to realise that I can’t. It’s alive, it’s part of me, it’s everywhere. Even the nurse here is from Belfast: her name is Mona and she’s Catholic, not Protestant like I first thought …’

  I realise that I’m all over the place, that I’m not making much sense, not to myself, definitely not to Matthew. ‘I don’t know where to start!’ I cry in desperation.

  ‘Start anywhere.’ Emotion flickers in his eyes. His shield is slipping. This gives me hope and an injection of strength.

  I take a breath and try again, taking a step back in time and making a big effort to talk more slowly. ‘My father brought us up believing that if we kept to the rules, everything would be fine, nothing bad could happen. But something bad did happen, something very bad, and maybe that’s why I can’t see the point of rules …’

  No, that’s still not the right starting point; Matthew looks more bemused than enlightened.

  Another breath. Another attempt. ‘The bomb I told you about was a car bomb. It went off in the middle of town. Josh, my boyfriend, was killed …’

  I hear him suck in his breath and his hand reaches to take mine. Tears pour down my face. Now we are underway. ‘Josh was deaf, he didn’t even hear the blast, but he knew that something was wrong so he went back to clear people away from the car. He was standing in the worst possible place … there was nothing left of him.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Matthew says quietly. His hand tightens on mine and I feel his strength.

  ‘That’s not all,’ I sob. ‘My brother … my brother was killed too …’

  Matthew has stood up from the visitors’ seat and is now sitting on the bed next to me. His arm curls around my shoulders and he gathers me as close as he can.

  ‘Liam was three years older than me.’ My voice is hoarse and uneven. ‘He was annoying and exasperating, like all brothers, but we were very close. He was brilliant at sport, but he couldn’t get a job, not coaching or doing anything remotely related.’

  My head is buried in the crook of Matthew’s neck. Though feeling wrung out and emotional, I feel a sense of safety too which, ironically, reminds me of my father and the piece of the story I’ve not yet told. ‘Neither Josh nor Liam would have been in town that day if it wasn’t for my father. We had no reason to go into town, we were all perfectly happy to spend the afternoon at home, until Dad started picking on Liam …’

  I start to cry in earnest, my tears blotting Matthew’s shirt. A few minutes pass before I can utter the last of what I need to say.

  ‘You asked me why I hate my father. There are a few reasons. Dad was there for everybody else, providing support for the whole town, with the exception of his own family. We should have had first call – we needed him the most. The affair, doing that to my mother while she was still reeling from the loss of her son, was like a slap in the face for us all. But at the root of everything is the fact that Dad’s intolerance and lack of understanding drove us into town that day … We had no reason to be there, no reason at all, only that Dad couldn’t bear to look at Liam a moment longer. In effect, it’s like he sent Liam and Josh to their death … How could I not hate him for that?’

  Chapter 31

  Josh was my first love, and I loved him so instinctively and with such devotion I thought it would last forever. Maybe it could have, I don’t know, but considering how young we were, there was every possibility that we would have eventually split up, perhaps one of us breaking the other’s heart.

  But Liam should have been a given, he should have been there always, forever. He should be married now, to some nice local girl, with one or two kids – boys, little rascals with red hair, thick legs and an obsession with kicking balls of all shapes and sizes. Instead, he’s dead. I have no brother now and never will again. Even though it’s been eleven years, I can’t seem to come to terms with this stark, irreversible fact, and now I realise that’s why I shut out what happened to him. Difficult and heartbreaking and unfathomable as it was, I did manage to process Josh’s death – but Liam’s I simply couldn’t accept. In my mind, he’s frozen at the stage he was at before he died: afternoons spent booting a ball against the side of the house, low, powerful shots, honed through frustration and boredom; coming in on Saturday nights, eyes glazed, a smirk on his mouth, spirits raised by the combination of pool and beer. On one such occasion, Mum smacked him when she saw how intoxicated he was, forgetting in her anger that he was a man, not a boy. There was a moment of stunned silence before he laughed, and then she laughed, and so did I, until tears ran down our faces.

  I remember Liam on the day of the bombing, slouched in the armchair, one leg hooked over the armrest, joystick in his hand. My father was parked in the other armchair, occasionally looking up from the papers he was marking to frown at Liam. Josh and I were on the couch, my head resting against his shoulder as we both read our books, content to be together despite the tension building around us.

  ‘For the love of God, Liam, would you put that thing away and find something constructive to do with yourself!’

  My father’s low, contemptuous voice permeated the room. If he had shouted in anger, I imagine Liam would have instantly retaliated. But contempt is harder than outright anger to answer, and Liam was mute in its wake.

  My father’s aggravation increased even further at this lack of response. ‘Did you hear me? You’ve been playing that thing all week. I can’t bear to see you doing something so utterly useless. There must be something else you can do, Liam.’

  Liam still persevered with the game, glaring at the screen, jerking the joystick back and forth, a tic working at the side of his mouth.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ Dad was relentless. ‘Are you too lazy to even answer me now?’

  Liam quite obviously didn’t have the energy or imagination to craft an answer that would satisfy my father. There was a dangerous pause.

  ‘Answer me, damn it. Show some bloody respect.’

  Liam’s answer, when it came, was not what any of us expected. He hurled the joystick across the room, the wire dislodging from the PlayStation and trailing behind it like a ribbon. It whizzed past my father’s ear before crashing into t
he wall behind him. Liam leapt up from his seat. ‘There! You can fucking well keep it for all I care.’

  Josh and I exchanged alarmed glances and stood up too.

  My father, apoplectic with rage, was the last to get to his feet. ‘Get out of this house,’ he roared. ‘Get out now!’

  ‘Don’t fucking worry,’ Liam spat, his fists clenched. ‘I’m going.’

  Josh, worried about Liam’s fists and what he might do with them, took his arm and forcefully assisted his departure.

  ‘Why are you always picking on him?’ I screamed at Dad. ‘Why can’t you leave him alone?’ Not waiting for an answer, I ran after Josh and Liam. I found them outside, standing by the front gate. Liam looked pale and depleted, as though his anger had bled out of him.

  ‘I’m going into town,’ he muttered.

  ‘We’ll go with you,’ I offered as a show of solidarity.

  That was how we all ended up going into town that day. Josh and I walked the first leg with Liam, before he detoured to pick up a friend. Later on, when the town centre was evacuated, Liam was standing on the opposite side of the road from us, close to the dark-green car. I exchanged a shrug with him and pointed in the direction of home. He shook his head; I knew he had no desire to return to the house and sit in the same room as my father, being made to feel so inadequate and worthless.

  Josh was uneasy, though. He kept looking back over his shoulder, at the car, at Liam. He felt compelled to go back. Josh and Liam were side by side when the bomb exploded, Josh’s hand on Liam’s arm as he tried to convince him to come home with us. The blast took them both. Nothing was left of them. Nothing but the ash that hailed from the sky and landed on my arms as I screamed their names.