‘How about Clooney?’ Lily said, after a few minutes.
‘He’s in Afghanistan.’
‘What the hell is he doing there?’ Lily asked, alarmed.
‘Feeding people,’ Eve said.
Lily nodded. Of course he is. ‘Have you a husband or children?’ she asked.
‘No.’
‘Who do I contact?’
‘No one,’ Eve said, as she drifted into sleep.
‘Eve.’
‘What?’
‘You can’t go through this alone.’
‘Of course I can,’ Eve said. She closed her eyes.
When Lily was sure she was asleep she opened the locker, pulled out Eve’s phone and went out into the corridor. She scanned through the contacts and found Clooney’s name. She paused for a second or two before hitting the call button. Clooney’s phone went to voicemail. She took a deep breath and waited for the beep.
‘Hi, Clooney, this is Lily Donovan – I used to be Lily Brennan. Eve’s friend? I’m ringing because she’s been in a serious car accident. It’s not fatal and she’s going to be fine so please don’t worry, but she’s badly hurt. She’s going to need help. She’s here in St Martin’s Hospital. Ward Five on the third floor. I hope you get this and I hope you can come. OK. ’Bye.’
She switched off the phone and went to put it back in Eve’s locker. Her heart was racing. She didn’t know if she had done the right thing or not. She was filled with anxiety because although she had no right to interfere Eve needed someone and, although they were on good terms and it was nice to see her, their friendship had died a long time ago and that someone could not be her. Lily was Eve’s nurse and she didn’t have room in her life or the energy to be anything more. I wish I could but I just can’t, Eve.
Eve was throwing her guts up the next time Lily returned to the ward. Lily took over from Marion while Eve cried with the pain the vomiting caused her injuries. Eventually, spent and dizzy, she lay back and stared at the ceiling. It swirled and the figure ‘8’ kept appearing and disappearing. She blinked and a rabbit jumped through the top circle of the ‘8’ before burrowing into the bottom circle with his little button tail twitching.
Lily returned with Adam in time to hear Eve singing ‘Bright Eyes’ and waving her good arm at the ceiling. ‘When we were kids we saw Watership Down eight times,’ Lily told him.
Adam smiled and went to Eve. ‘Hi, Eve, I’m Adam. I’m your surgeon.’
‘There’s a bunny on the ceiling.’
‘Hallucinations,’ Adam said to Lily, and made an invisible tick in the air.
‘Lily says you’re good. Are you good, Adam?’ Eve asked.
Adam laughed. ‘Yes, I’m good, Eve,’ he said. ‘I’m just going to check you for rash, OK?’ He pulled down the sheet and peered at her extremities. Then Lily helped remove her paper nightgown so that he could examine her body. She was free from rash. Lily made a mental note to buy her some nightclothes. Please come home, Clooney.
‘Are you experiencing any tightness in your chest or difficulty breathing?’ Adam asked.
‘No. I’m experiencing rabbits,’ she said, pointing to the ceiling.
‘No unusual swelling in your hands and feet?’ he said, after examining them gently.
‘So this is what doing drugs is like,’ Eve said. ‘I’m not sure I like it.’
‘How about a headache?’
‘Always have a headache. Life is one big headache.’
When he had confirmed that she wasn’t experiencing any dangerous side effects, he prescribed an anti-nausea injection, which Lily gave her as soon as he left the room.
‘What time is it?’ Eve asked, for the third time in two hours.
‘It’s four o’clock.’
‘How many bags and tubes are coming out of me?’
‘Well, you have a bowel bag and a bladder bag. You have a tube in your knee with a bottle attached to collect pus and the same for your shoulder. You have a drip in your right arm.’ She lifted Eve’s good arm. ‘And this is a cannula – it means we can inject the drugs straight in here.’
‘So I just lie here, wee and crap myself and watch for rabbits.’
‘For today. Tomorrow will be better, I promise.’
Before Lily left, she dampened Eve’s lips with ice chips, trying to avoid the cut.
‘Any news on Ben?’
‘When there’s news I’ll tell you,’ Lily said, keeping her voice even.
‘OK.’
At seven, before the change-over meeting, Lily called to see Eve for the last time that day. She was distressed and calling out in her sleep. Lily waited until she had settled before joining the meeting.
Lily jogged around the shopping centre. It was an unscheduled trip and, as fast as she went about her business, she was still going to be late home. Her phone was out of juice and she knew that her delay would worry Declan. When he was anxious he became angry. She hoped he was still at the hospital.
When she got home, her heart sank when she saw his car in the driveway. Bugger-balls.
‘I tried to call you four times,’ he said, opening the front door as though he’d been watching for her through the glass.
‘Sorry, my phone packed up.’ She wasn’t in the mood for an inquisition just because she’d dared to veer two hours off schedule.
‘Where were you?’
‘I got delayed.’
‘Where?’
‘Are you the police?’ She was annoyed by the limitations he set. Jesus Christ, just let me breathe.
‘Answer the question, Lily.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Declan, I was in the shopping centre. Are you happy?’
‘What were you doing there?’
‘I was looking for trainers for Scott,’ she said, putting her meal into the microwave.
‘So where are they?’
‘I couldn’t find any worth buying,’ she said, leaning against the wall.
‘You might have been dead.’
But they both knew that Declan’s first thought was never injury and always infidelity. He was obsessed, even though she’d never given him any reason to be. He’d say it was her fault that he was as he was because she flirted with every man she met. Lily felt terribly aggrieved by that because in all the years she’d been married she’d never even dreamed of straying, even when things had been at their worst.
‘Does dead on my feet count?’ she asked, attempting to lighten the mood. She opened the microwave, took out her food and put it on a plate. Then she sat at the table, keenly aware that her husband was looming over her, silent. ‘Anything on the box?’ she asked, hoping she could turn the tide.
‘No,’ he said, sitting opposite her.
She started to eat. ‘Where are the kids?’ she said.
‘Scott’s out. Daisy’s in the sitting room.’
‘How was your day?’
‘Fine – until I thought my wife was dead.’
‘What do you want me to say, Declan?’
‘That you’ll never put me through that again.’
‘Oh, for the love of God, I’m two hours late!’
Declan nodded. Then he picked up her plate and flung it at the kitchen wall. It smashed and food flew everywhere. ‘Two hours is a lifetime,’ he said, and walked out of the room.
Lily sat at the kitchen table, resting her head in her hands for a few minutes. Then she cleaned up the mess. She wondered what Eve would say – I told you so? What did you expect? How could you pick that dicknose over me? Why didn’t you give me a chance to explain myself? Why didn’t you trust me? Everything could have been so different. Maybe Eve had been right about Declan, but Eve didn’t know him the way Lily did. Then again …
She was cleaning the wall when Daisy appeared.
‘What happened?’ Daisy asked.
‘I dropped my dinner,’ Lily said.
‘Dad was really worried about you.’
‘Yeah, he told me.’
‘You didn’t ask me how my recit
al went.’
‘Oh, fudge cake! That was yesterday. I’m so sorry, Daisy.’
‘It’s OK.’
‘How did you do?’
‘I rocked it,’ she said, smiling.
‘Did you tape it?’
‘Of course.’
‘So why don’t I make us some tea and you pull out some brownies and we’ll watch it together?’
‘Cool.’
Lily sat with her arm around her daughter, drinking tea and eating a brownie for dinner, watching Daisy play her piece perfectly. She thought about Eve being alone in the world. She thought about the nightdresses, underwear, perfume and creams she had bought for her that were stashed in the boot of the car. She thought about her husband’s jealousy and temper. She wondered how long she could keep Eve’s presence in the hospital from him, and feared what would happen if and when he found out.
5. The things we do and don’t say
Sunday, 15 July 1990
Dear Lily,
I am so, so, so, so sorry that I wasn’t there to take your phone call on Friday. I really did try to make it home but I was in town with Ben (I’m calling him by his name now because he’s officially my boyfriend – more on that later) and his band rehearsal ran really late but Clooney said he picked up and you talked for about half an hour. What’s that about? I thought you had no money for phone calls??? I asked him how you were and he said fine. I asked for your news but he just said you had no news. So what did you both talk about for that length of time? We haven’t talked for five minutes since you left. Anyway, I’m not going to complain because I should have been there but I can’t seem to get a word out of him unless he’s annoying me.
Where do I start with my news? Ah, well, Ben is an AMAZING singer and guitar player. His band is so cool. There are five of them, Ben on vocals and acoustic guitar, Billy on bass, Mark on drums, Finbarr on keyboards and Tom on lead guitar. They’re called Gulliver Stood On My Son and they’re going to be as big as U2. The gig was brilliant last night. The band were already playing when Ben got on stage and he took the mike and screamed out that they were Gulliver Stood On My Son and he was Ben fucking Logan and the crowd roared and cheered. He says the F-word because it’s rock ’n’ roll and it always gets the crowd going. And in the spirit of friendship and feeling bad for being overheard calling Declan Dicknose, I did apologize and asked him to the gig. I went up to him in the bar and said, ‘Listen, I’ve been missing Lily and taking it out on you because she calls you all the time and she won’t call me.’ He was actually very nice about it. He said that he was glad it was that because he was really worried he had done something to offend me and he’d hate to do that, and then he bought me a drink. I made sure to buy him one back but it’s the thought that counts. Declan came to the gig with Gar, who brought the girl from Bray. She’s really nice – she’s just going into Leaving Cert in September, the poor cow. It’s all ahead of her.
Anyway, back to the gig. The band on before Gulliver Stood On My Son were called Bricking It and it was a good name for them because they were shit. I actually got quite stressed because, even though the rehearsal had been good, I thought, what if they get so nervous they’re shit too? It would be written all over my face, and I’d be doing him no favours just saying yeah you were brilliant when clearly they weren’t brilliant but it didn’t matter because they were brilliant. They blew the roof off the place. I swear I was so excited and high I felt like crying. It was really weird and so unlike me.
I don’t know, Lily, I look in the mirror and I don’t recognize myself any more. Oh, don’t freak out but I’ve cut my hair – it’s in a bob now. I’m feeling and thinking so differently and it’s so weird. And don’t say I’m growing up or maturing or something else condescending. In a few weeks it feels like everything has completely changed and there’s a part of me that wishes everything would just slow down a bit because I’m getting a little dizzy.
Declan and Gar were really impressed by the band. Afterwards we all had drinks together in the bar a few doors down from the venue. You’d really like Ben’s band. Billy is twenty-one and he’s an electrician by day. He has a thick Dublin accent and he’s really funny. He’s always making jokes. He calls Ben Bono’s Bollocks. HILARIOUS. Mark is twenty – he’s the quiet one but he’s kind and really clever. His head is always stuck in a book and it’s usually one I’ve never heard of but no doubt you’d know them all. He’s in college doing Arts. He’s still not sure what he wants to do besides the band. Finbarr looks really like your neighbour’s dad, well, a younger version – he’s doing history, he has horn-rimmed glasses but he’s cute with a quiff. Tom is nineteen, the same age as Ben, and he’s Ben’s cousin. He lived in France for years, his mother is French and he speaks French fluently. They seemed to get on well with Declan and Gar.
Ben and I left them drinking together in a pub and we walked around Grafton Street and Stephen’s Green, and then he showed me a gap in the wall and I followed him into the park. It was really dark and a bit freaky, to be honest. I said if he knew about the gap, loads of others did, and some of them could be perverts, rapists, murderers and junkies. He said I had a way of ruining a perfectly romantic gesture and I told him I didn’t do romance. We found cover and talked for ages. He told me that his parents own the bowling alley. I didn’t know that, did you? And that other weird boy that works there, the one who eats his own snot, well, he’s the son of a friend of the family and he was perfect until he was twelve and then one day he started seizing and now he’s a bit brain-damaged. It’s awful, isn’t it? I said, ‘Still, brain-damaged or not, you’d have to have always had a taste for snot to eat it.’ He wasn’t too happy with me saying that so we changed the subject. He told me that even though he likes college and marketing is OK he really just wants to sing and play the guitar. I told him I had no doubt that’s what he was meant for. He was happy then. We kissed and kissed and kissed until my face was sore and my chin was raw. He slipped his hand under my blouse and I didn’t even feel him doing it until it felt good, if that makes any sense. Not like poor Gar who nearly ripped my nipple off. And then he started moving south and I held his hand and said, ‘NO WAY, not in a park, who do you think I am????’ He said, ‘I’m really sorry, I just got carried away and I really like you.’ I felt bad then so I gave him a hand job because he didn’t seem to mind the fact that we were sitting under a bush. Oh, and on our way out I found a stack of porn in plastic bags about two feet from where we were messing around, proving my point about perverts, rapists, murderers and junkies.
On the way to the bus stop he asked me if I was a virgin! Can you believe him? He really does have a nerve. I said it was none of his business and he stopped right then and there and grabbed me and pushed me against the railings. OK, when I read that back it sounds like he attacked me but it wasn’t like that at all, it was sexy – and I hate to say it but he was firm but tender. (PUKING AS I’M WRITING.) He looked at me straight in the eyes and I couldn’t escape his stare even though I tried because I was embarrassed (ME EMBARRASSED? IT’S UNBELIEVABLE) and he told me that it did matter because he was my boyfriend and he didn’t care either way but it was an important detail! I nearly died. I mean, it’s so personal and I hadn’t really considered that we were going out but then I suppose we are and I want to be his girlfriend and I wish you were here because you’re so much better than me at feelings. I feel like I want to run away but then I look at him and I want to stay and I’m scared. I know it sounds really stupid but I am. I don’t get close to people. Aside from you, who knows me? Clooney a little bit, but that’s just because he lives with me – and now when I think about it he doesn’t really know me. I mean, I don’t talk to him the way I do with you. Arrgh, it’s so frustrating!!!! I just want to talk to you. I mean, what if he gets to know me and he doesn’t like me any more? What if by the time he works out that he doesn’t like me I like him so much that I’ll want to die when he leaves? That’s what was so great about Gar. He was nice and a distraction but if
he’d decided to leave I wouldn’t have cared. That was a real plus in our relationship.
Anyway, back to the night by the railings. I turned the question around on him and of course he isn’t a virgin, he’s a nineteen-year-old college rocker! So I told him the truth. I said that Gar and I had tried but it hadn’t worked. He laughed, which annoyed me so I walked on. He caught up and apologized and asked what I meant. I told him that we were in my room and I’d thought that Danny and Clooney would be out all evening. Gar was nervous and first the condom took ages because Gar was all fingers and thumbs and then when he got going it was like I was being poked in all the wrong places and he was getting frustrated so I asked if I could help but he said no – and then we heard the door and it was Clooney and he was shouting Danny’s name and my name, and just as Gar was finally pointed in the right direction Clooney came stamping up the stairs. Gar jumped up and out of the bed and that was pretty much the end of it. I didn’t tell Ben that I’d been pretty much turned off after that and broken it off with Gar. I still feel a bit mean for not giving him a second chance but I was afraid he’d arrive with a potholing helmet and a car jack. Ben said thanks for telling him and I said, ‘You’re welcome,’ and then he said, ‘You won’t have to worry about that happening with me.’ COCKY OR WHAT? I told him he needn’t get any big ideas. I had no plans to be with him like that in the near future. He just smiled and said, ‘The best things are never planned.’ I told him for a short boy he really does have a big head. He just laughed. Anyway I’ve been thinking about it since and I’m going to go for it with him. I mean, so far so good, and let’s face it, I’m eighteen and I don’t want to go to London a virgin. That would be a nightmare. I’ll wait another week or so and see how it goes but that’s the decision made. I know you probably think I’m rushing into it. I’ve only known him a few weeks etc but not everyone meets their soul mate when they’re sixteen and you’ve been doing it for over a year so I’m really falling behind here. I need to get going.
Oh, and V Kill P is a lesbian. Apparently she and Clooney are just friends and they’ve been spending more time together because she’s just split up with her girlfriend and he’s sworn off girls since Bushy Head started stalking him. I’m not joking. He told Danny and me the other night over dinner that she’s everywhere he goes. She’s always at the radio station he’s interning in. (He’s a runner as opposed to host which is a big comedown but it’s a nice place to work and it’s only for the summer so he’s happy enough.) She’s at the coffee shop he has lunch in and the bar he drinks in. Danny told him that aside from the station he has to change his haunts. Clooney’s really upset but Danny says change is better than rest so it would do Clooney good, and if he sees her in the new places he’ll have to go to the guards. Clooney didn’t want to do that. He said the whole place will be laughing at him but Danny said, ‘Let them laugh, she’s clearly not stable.’ I agreed having met her – her hair alone confirms she’s definitely nuts. Anyway, Clooney is hoping that making some changes will be enough to stop her, and I told him not to worry because he has a lesbian bodyguard. Danny and I thought that was really funny but Clooney failed to see the joke. Instead he stormed out and we didn’t see him after that.
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