by Carol Coffey
Brendan nodded slowly. He felt he now had a better understanding of the acerbic Latina and this new insight made her even more appealing to him.
Eileen sighed. “Anyway, what about you? Mom said you know about your dad now but that I shouldn’t ask you about it – so now I’m asking. How do you feel about it?”
Brendan looked out of the passenger window and thought about her question.
“I don’t know how I feel, is the answer. I . . . I guess it doesn’t change much. One minute he was an Irish waste of space and now he’s a Mexican waste of space. It doesn’t make any difference really. I just don’t know why my mother didn’t tell me. That part doesn’t make any sense.”
Eileen pursed her lips and brooded over her cousin’s words. “Are you going to ask Patricia about it when she arrives?”
Brendan shrugged. “I doubt it but . . . well . . . we’ll see. Come on, let’s get home before Frank skins us both alive.”
After some instruction, Eileen reversed the car nervously out of the parking space and turned the car shakily towards home.
Chapter 20
The minor repair to the fire escape was the second-last thing on Brendan’s repair list that he had kept in his jeans’ pocket since he started working at the shelter. He had taken the ladder from the shed and set it up at the back of the house after smearing his shirtless body with sun protection in the scorching August heat. When he’d finished, he checked the roof, hoping to see some other repairs that needed doing but the slates were clean and in good condition. He looked at the last item on his list. Fix tap in Jonathan’s bedroom. It was two o’clock and he had not seen the man yet that day. Henrietta informed him that since his little skirmish in New York, Jonathan had spent most of the time in his bedroom or sitting in the garden, and that it broke her heart to see him so sad. Her words cut through Brendan but he could see that she meant no malice. She was just another person who cared deeply for the disturbed man.
By three thirty he could not put off his visit to the attic any longer. He gingerly climbed the wooden steps and knocked nervously on the door which was slightly ajar. When he received no answer, he pushed the door slightly, hoping that Jonathan had left the room, but he was there, sitting under the blistering heat of the round window in a large armchair, his half-closed eyesfixedon the wall as if he was watching a movie.
“John?” Brendan said.
Jonathan looked up and rested his eyes on Brendan for a moment. Slowly, an expression of recognition washed over his face.
“Brendan?Where have you been?” he slurred. “I need to tell you something.”
Brendan looked away as saliva ran down Jonathan’schin and onto his woollen vest. He entered the room and hunched down at his friend’s chair.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I really am. I didn’t know that . . .”
Jonathan raised his head and tried to steady it. He focused his eyes on Brendan and tried to speak but his head fell forward on his chest. Then, with effort, he looked dozily up again. Brendan reached out, took Jonathan’s heavy head in his hands and gently lowered it towards the back of the chair.
“I want to tell you that –” Jonathan said.
“It doesn’t matter. You are sick. I understand that now.”
“No!” Jonathan spat angrily.“Brendan, it’s not . . . I’m not . . .”His head fell forward again and his eyes began to close.
Brendan knelt down and faced his friend. “What is it, John?”
Jonathan opened his eyes and focused on Brendan. “My name is Jonathan.”
“Ssh, don’t upset yourself.”
Jonathan tried to speak again. His mouth opened but his eyes closed slowly and his head fell forward as he drifted into a comatose sleep.
Brendan stood and stared at the sad sight before him. Guilt cut into him as he watched his friend slumped in an old armchair in an attic on a sunny day. This was entirely his fault and he was going to think of a way to make up for it. He would keep his promise not to delve anymore into the man’s past – the sight before him convinced him that it was not worth putting Jonathan through it. He was going to find a way to give him new memories and new experiences that might make up for having lost what he once knew. He looked towards the tiny makeshift bathroom but for some reason he couldn’t bring himself to finish that last job.
He went downstairs and stood by Alice who was helping Eileen in the laundry.
“Can I help?” he asked.
“Sure! I was hoping you would.”
Brendan began folding sheets roughly until he was given a lesson from the two amused women.
“That’s it for the repairs,” he said, “but I’ve roughly –”
“Eighty-seven hours yet to do,” Alice cut in, finishing his sentence and looking at her watch simultaneously.
Brendan grinned at her and picked up another sheet to fold as per their strict instructions.
“Nothing to say you can’t stay on when it’s over,” she said with raised eyebrows. Pilar came into the room and dropped another load for washing.
Brendan shrugged. “I’ve nothing really to keep me here when it’s finished.”
Alice looked from Brendan to Pilar and back.“Uh-huh,” she said.“Well, we’ll see about that. Well, here’s Thompson so I got to go.” She threw a sheet down onto the counter. She glanced at Eileen and gave her a nod as though the two women were up to something.
Brendan looked at the open door which led to the back garden but he could not see Thompson or his car. He opened the door that led to the hallway and glanced down the open area but there was no one there. Suddenly the doorbell rang and Kuvic, dressed in a black suit and immaculately polished shoes, came out of nowhere to answer it.
“How did she know Thompson was about to ring the bell?” Brendan asked.
Eileen laughed.“Alice can hear the grass growing.”
“What’s Kuvic doing here?” he whispered.
“The board is meeting today to decide on Alice’s complaint. They’re in the lounge. Kuvic will get a chance to talk his way out of it though.”
Brendan closed the door and lifted another sheet to fold. He hadn’t heard from his probation officer for a few days now. Robert Hensen went a long way back with his uncle and it seemed that they talked more often than Brendan and Robert did. He briefly wondered if Kuvic had complained to the police about their little brawl but decided that Hensen would have been in touch by now if he had.
Eileen folded her last sheet and washed her hands in the sink.
“I’m going up to read to Jonathan now.”
Brendan nodded.
“Alice wants you to feed Zeb,” she said.
“Feed him? Me?” he asked, alarmed at the notion of doing anything so personal for someone else.
“Well, he has two broken arms so he can’t do much for himself. Oh, and Alice said to help Zeb downstairs in” – she checked her watch – “exactly twenty-five minutes. That’s important – twenty-five minutes exactly – okay?”
Brendan shrugged. “Okay.”
He made his way to the kitchen where he collected a tray for the injured man. He climbed the stairs and opened the door to the dorm where Zeb was sitting up in his bed under a window.
Brendan hardly recognised the man. He was showered and freshly shaved and if it hadn’t been for his blackened eye and large plaster casts Brendan would have thought he was in the wrong room. He thought about Eileen’s comments and how Pilar wanted to do more for the clients. Despite the beating he received in the park, the old man definitely looked better being cared for all day than when he was put out each morning to fend for himself.
“Hi, Zeb,” he said as he sat on the side of the bed.
“Hi, Brendan.”
Brendan shuddered as he lifted each spoon of soup and placed it into the man’s mouth. He had few teeth left and his breath was awful.
“It’s nice. Thank you,” he said appreciatively after each spoonful until the brown liquid was all gone.
Brendan looked at his watch. “Alice said I’ve to take you downstairs right about now,” he said.
“Yeah, I know,” Zeb said as he rose unsteadily to his feet. “Alice has got plans,” he added knowingly. He tried to tip his nose but gave up and winked at Brendan instead.
Brendan pulled a dressing gown around Zeb’s shoulders and they slowly set out.
When they were halfway down the stairs, the lounge door opened and the board members spilled slowly into the hallway. Brendan looked down at them and was unsure whether he should go back up with Zeb or try to hurry him down.
“Zeb!” Alice exclaimed as though she had not planned on seeing him painfully making his way down the stairs.“How nice to see you out of bed! How’s the pain?”
Zeb began to whimper.“It’s real bad, Alice. I’m just coming down to see if Pilar can get me something for it,” he sniffled.
Brendan scanned the entrance hall where several middle-aged people stood in horror at the sight of the poor man.
Alice turned to face them.
“This is the man I was telling you all about,” she said as they shook their heads and tut-tutted.
Out of the corner of his eye Brendan could see Kuvic slink down the hallway and into the back of the house, to hide from their disapproving eyes.
“And this awful thing happened when you were put out of here?” one woman asked as she pointed at his arms.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, we will have to make sure that doesn’t happen again!” she exclaimed loudly.
Brendan looked behind the group to where Thompson stood. He could see tears in the man’s eyes, real tears of concern for Zeb who had been coming to the centre when Thompson’s uncle was still alive.
“And this,” Alice said loudly, “is Brendan, a first cousin of our dear Eileen here.”
Two of the women clapped their hands as though Brendan was the final act in the show – like he was Alice’s pièce-de-résistance.
“Brendan’s done a fine job here and all for free. He’s been visiting with his uncle here. Remember Officer Dalton? Well, this fine young man has been so helpful here. Hard to know what we’re going to do without him when he’s gone.” And she shook her head regretfully.
“You’re not leaving, are you?” another woman exclaimed.
Brendan began to answer but Alice cut in.
“Oh, the Big Smoke is calling but, nice boy like that, reckon it’s lonely there. Why, I’d love if he would stay here with us and, look, see how good he is with the clients?”
Brendan almost laughed at how thick Alice was putting on the whole southern-drawl act. Zeb and Brendan had hardly spoken until that very day.
Zeb continued with the role Alice had obviously given him that morning. He moved closer to Brendan and smiled up at him with his almost toothless grin.
“He’s been like a son to me,” he said.
“Oooh!” several of the women said in unison.
Brendan glanced at Alice and shook his head at the clever game she was playing. He helped Zeb down the last of the steps, as Alice saw the board members out, and led him towards the dining room.
As Alice shut the front door, Brendan came back down the hallway having deposited Zeb in front of the TV. He wanted to tell her that he had no intention of staying but she looked so pleased with herself that he couldn’t do it – he couldn’t ruin her moment.
“Well, that ought to do it!” Alice exclaimed as she reached up and placed her arms gently around his shoulders. She stood and looked around the hallway as though replaying the scene in her head.She smiled to herself, her big brown eyes shining with delight. “Yes, that ought to do it.”
Chapter 21
“Fishing?” Jonathan asked from the armchair in his room.
“Sure,” Brendan replied from the doorway.
Jonathan pulled the heavy wool blanket tightly around his shoulders and frowned.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever been fishing before,” he admitted.
The sadness of his tone permeated the air in the dusty, airless room. Dr Reiter’s strong sedatives had done their job. They had banished Jonathan Wyatt Nelson but left in his place a hollow, aimless man.
“Neither have I!” Brendan replied“We’ll be a fine pair. Probably lose my uncle’s rods pulling boots out of the water!”
A small smile washed over Jonathan’s face. He stood and folded the blanket neatly on the chair.
“Okay,” he whispered.
Brownwood Pond was a small lake surrounded by a dense wood off Highland Avenue. The walk, which was a twenty-minute journey on foot, took almost an hour as Jonathan shuffled painfully along on his injured foot.
“You want me to go back and get Pilar to drive us?” Brendan asked but Jonathan waved the suggestion away.
“I’m fine,” he replied, still in his southern drawl.
Brendan pondered on this as he set down their lunch boxes beside a disgusting box of maggots. He wondered if the accent was actually Jonathan’s own but banished the thought from his mind. He was not going down that road.
“What are we hoping to catch?” Jonathan asked.
Brendan burst out laughing.“I’ve no idea,” he said as he looked around the deserted lake.
He squirmed as he put a worm on the end of each of their lines. They cast them into the deep murky water and waited for a bite.
“I don’t think Henrietta’ll cook anything that we catch,” Jonathan said quietly.
“I’mnoteating anything that we catch!” Brendan replied. “We’ll throw it back in.”
“Seems wrong to pull the fish out of where it belongs and then just throw it back someplace else,” Jonathan said.
Brendan looked at him and wondered if he was trying to say something. He’d seemed slightly more alert in the past few days. Pilar had phoned Reiter asking for the medication to be reduced, which had brought the man partially back to himself, whoever that was.
“What do you mean?” Brendan asked.
Jonathan shrugged.“Just that . . . the fish would probably get a fright being pulled up here and then thrown back in where he doesn’t rightly know where he belongs. Might be hard for him to find the exact spot he had been in. Could be it looks all the same down there in the dark.”
Brendan shrugged. “It’s just a fish, John.”
Jonathan took his eyes off his line and stared at the side of Brendan’s face.
“Brendan,” he said quietly, “Kuvic told me he showed you that TV programme . . . about the Nelsons. I . . . I want you to know that I didn’t mean to lie to you. I believe . . . I believed everything I told you. I really did.”
Brendan nodded and wound his line tighter to the shoreline. Ever since Kuvic had shown him The Nelsonshe’d been asking himself why Jonathan chose that specific programme. He felt there must be a reason for it but he would never know the answer to that question or any of the other questions that tormented his mind. He had promised Pilar that there would be no more of these conversations and he intended to keep his word.
Jonathan looked at his line and tried to copy Brendan’s technique but instead of winding it in, he released it further into the lake.
“I also want you to know that some of the things I told you weren’t lies. I spent a lot of time sitting in my room thinking on everything and I don’t remember what my last name is but I know that my name is Jonathan and I did live in a clapboard house. I did have a sister named Cassie and friend named Nella. I did have a cat that spat at me and a tyre that swung from an old oak tree and I –”
“Enough!” Brendan roared.
Jonathan let go of his rod, panicked by the sudden noise, and stood staring at Brendan as the rod disappeared into the deep water.
“Enough, John,” Brendan said quietly. “You’ve . . . we’ve . . . I want to be your friend but we can’t have any more of these conversations, do you understand?”
Jonathan stood open-mouthed at the water’s edge. He did not move.
Brendan looked d
own and shook his head.“It’s over, John. We tried. I’m sorry but it’s over.”
“You’re giving up? You’re giving up on me?”
Brendan looked away and fixed his eyes on the water.“I don’t want to but . . . where can we go from here? You have to face it, John. You’re never going to be able to find home.”
Jonathan moved backwards and began to shake his head.
“No! No!” he said.
Brendan moved forwards to try to calm him but Jonathan began to walk down the pathway through the woods.
“John!” he roared.
Jonathan stopped and turned to face him.
“Don’t worry, I’m just going back to the shelter and if you can’t call me by my real name . . . then . . . please . . . don’t use that name. Don’t call me John.”
Brendan watched him as he made his way through the trees and out onto the main road. He sighed and threw the box of maggots into the water.
“Here, knock yourselves out!” he said to the invisible fish.
He decided it was useless to try to find his uncle’s second rod which had disappeared into the murky water. He reeled in his line, packed up their lunch and left.
When Brendan arrived at the shelter Pilar was sitting in the hallway dressed in a dark navy suit and high heels. She was wearing make-up which he had rarely seen her wear.
“Wow!” he said.
She blushed. “Don’t start – I’ve already had two wolf-whistles from Kuvic!” she moaned.