by Faith Hogan
‘You’re in shock, Annalise. We all are. We rang for a nurse, perhaps she’ll bring you coffee…’ The older woman lost some of her reserve.
‘And coffee will bring back my husband, will it?’ She screamed the words angrily before covering her face with her hands and bawling like a helpless baby. At the door, a large nurse arrived, briefly inspected Kasia, and then hastily backed out of the doorway.
‘Nothing will bring Paul back, Evie,’ the dark-haired woman said and suddenly things began to make sense to Kasia. Paul Starr had told her about these women, little bits about them. Enough for her to guess that the one who seemed concerned for everyone was, indeed, Grace. Enough to know that his marriage with Annalise was over.
‘Paul is gone? He has died?’ Kasia stared at her. Shock, that’s what they called it when you could not find the words that needed to be said. Kasia knew this was terrible.
‘Oh, God.’ Annalise wailed at the foot of the bed. ‘What was she doing in Paul’s car?’
‘Someone’s going to have to get her something to calm her down,’ Evie said, although she made no move to get any help.
‘I’m going for the nurse again. We’re probably all in shock.’ Grace fired the words at Annalise, her expression stern for her china doll appearance. ‘Don’t you dare upset Kasia. She’s just been in an accident, she’s just heard about Paul; and she’s pregnant.’
‘Oh God. Please no. I don’t believe it.’ Annalise sounded as if she might gag on her words. Instead, she dropped her impossibly perfect head between her knees to stop from either fainting, or getting sick. Kasia couldn’t be sure which one.
‘Paul is dead?’ Kasia turned her attention on the older woman. The words had tumbled across the room at some point. She wasn’t sure who said them, or if she had managed to put the truth together herself, but it was all making sense to Kasia now. Paul dead? There had to be a mistake. Kasia considered the women, all so different and yet so connected. Evie was frosty white, straight and stern. Grace had a slight body and delicate face, long silken dark hair and large eyes sunken so deep, despair lingered enduringly behind them. She returned quickly, a doctor after her and a matron by her side. She explained to him that Annalise was Paul’s wife and that she’d only just heard the news of Paul’s death on the radio within the hour. There was, of course, the added complication of the girl in the bed, on whom all eyes rested once the doctor ordered a sedative for Annalise.
‘I can’t take that,’ Annalise protested. Her beautiful empty eyes told them she’d totally blocked them out. It was all too much to take in. ‘I have to collect my children, I have… a funeral to organize…’ She began to cry again and it seemed as if Evie was about to correct her for a minute.
‘You have nothing to do for the next few hours. You can’t drive in the state you’re in and anyway, the funeral, well…’ Grace nodded at Evie, her eyes passing a hardly visible warning to her. ‘It will fall into place, when you’re feeling a little better.’ They admitted Annalise for a few hours. Her family were on their way, as blindly panicked about her as she’d been about Paul Starr, no doubt.
The doctor was finishing off Kasia’s notes, signing with a flourish. ‘You need to stay, just for obs, for twenty-four hours?’ He checked his watch. ‘Yes, twenty-four hours, not that we expect anything. Better to be safe than sorry.’ He was talking to himself, the opposite of the way Kasia would imagine Paul dealing with a patient. Poor Paul. It was the worst news about Paul and the best news about the baby, all in one roll. Kasia had a feeling none of it would make sense to her fuggy brain for some time.
‘The baby?’ she finally managed to say. ‘Can you tell me about the baby?’
‘Everything seems to be perfect. The baby…’
‘No, I don’t want to hear more. In Romania, it is enough to know a baby is there and it is well. It is not lucky to learn if you are expecting the boy or the girl.’ Kasia smiled, a small twitch that carried with it, on this darkest of days, the biggest glimmer of optimism she’d felt in a long time.
*
The remainder of the day passed in a blur of sleep and unrest. Annalise Connolly was taken to another room, no doubt surrounded by her family. Evie Considine wished her well through an unsmiling mouth and eyes the light had deserted years ago. Grace Kennedy stayed the longest, making sure Kasia had everything she needed, leaving her mobile number in case there was anything she could do for her.
Kasia found sleep even more unsettling than being awake. Sleep brought nightmares of the accident; the dark hours brought flashbacks. By morning, she could remember every detail; the easy conversation between them in the car, stretching her aching legs in the footwell, looking across at Paul. His expression alerted her to the danger. A small dark dog scarpered past the car. Paul swerved to the opposite lane. Too late, they saw that the truck coming towards them was driving unlit, and too fast. In the darkness, she imagined that she could see the driver’s face, but then it felt as though the whole world went into slow motion. The impact threw Paul back and then forwards. The crack when it came was loud and terrifying. Her memory replayed the truck scraping off across the road, she felt herself still hurled about by the impact. They bounced more than tumbled, across lane after lane. In the distance, the traffic lights changed, she could remember instant dread of oncoming traffic. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the car came to a harrumphing stop. She reached across to Paul. He was moaning. Behind them, she heard the ambulance race from a nearby hospital. There was a flashing of blue lights, voices trying to resurrect her. She wanted to shout at them, ‘Look after Paul,’ but she couldn’t find her voice.
Then she woke.
*
They gave Kasia Petrescu a private ward. While the light was harsh here, she would have looked pathetic and wan even in good light. Although she was completely unaware of it, she was a striking figure, thin to the point of delicacy, with long angular features, and large espresso eyes; strong and dark. They would hold you in their spell if you did not look away. Grace thought it was how she spoke that was most captivating. It was not so much her accent, but rather the animation held back, trapped within her voice. It resounded a lyrical sadness that mirrored those expressive eyes. Her clothes were cheap, plain and chosen to cloak her in invisibility rather than accentuate her fragile prettiness.
‘He was my friend. He was a good friend to me.’ She sniffed through tears and ran her fingers over her thick brown hair. ‘I suppose you could say he was one of the few good things that happened to me in the last few years.’ She smiled, ‘Apart from the baby, of course.’
‘He was a good man, a kind man. Did you know each other long?’ Grace sat back in the chair, uncomfortable as it was; she would have to make the best of it.
‘It is hard to believe, but I know him nearly three years.’ Kasia smiled. ‘He came to the hospital.’
‘In Romania? You met him there? When he was doing voluntary?’
‘He always came to the orphanage; it is part of the hospital. He brought presents for the smaller children. I was older, of course; I went there when my mother died, so I helped with the younger children. They loved him. He always brought bags of toys and clothes and treats – like Santa Claus. He saved many lives in Romania when our own doctors could not.’
‘He loved going out there.’ Grace smiled. ‘Loved the people; he felt he was making a difference.’
Kasia Petrescu didn’t look as if she had any visitors, nor did it look as though any would be arriving. She told Grace that Paul had helped her come to Ireland. She told her about her job in the café, her life in Dublin and how she loved the city. Grace listened to every word. This girl was on her own. She could see a great echoing emptiness there, far greater than the emotional crater she managed to gloss over in her own life. Kasia was different, though, in many ways. Already, Kasia spoke of her baby as though she held it in her arms. As though she knew it well, his every cry and murmur, every need and want – and she loved that baby. When Grace was six mont
hs pregnant, she resented the child growing inside her. It made her sick, it made her tired, slowed her down, and made her feel as if she was sharing herself unwillingly. It made her question whether this was the only reason why Paul Starr had married her. When Delilah arrived, those feelings of umbrage had remained. They might still be there today, had it not been for that terrible afternoon. It changed everything, thankfully. Even today, she could feel the guilt resurrect itself inside her when she remembered that time. She loved Delilah, although the feeling that Paul married her only because she was his chance at having a family had never left her. As if to confirm it, he left her for Annalise Connolly, another pregnant woman. Was Kasia pregnant with Paul’s baby too? She didn’t dare ask. There was no mention of a father.
‘I’ll call to see you again,’ she promised Kasia.
‘Thank you.’ The words were simple, but behind Kasia’s eyes, her gratitude was palpable. ‘I can see why he married you.’
‘Oh?’ Grace almost lost her balance as she stood by the door.
‘Oh yes. I can see it. You seem aloof at first, but you are kind and good. That is why he married you; not because you are beautiful or talented, although he was very proud of you also. He valued kindness above beauty.’
‘Did he speak about me?’
‘He spoke about Delilah mostly.’ Kasia’s words were low; she must have seen the hurt that seared through Grace. ‘He did not say too much about his personal relationships.’ That was true, thought Grace. He had uttered hardly a word, either good or bad about Evie Considine in all the years she knew him, and yet, it seemed that part of his life clearly wasn’t over.
‘Having Delilah gave him the greatest joy,’ added Kasia.
‘It was why he married me, I think.’ There. She’d said it.
‘No.’ The word was vehement, almost too strong. ‘No, you mustn’t think that.’
‘You said he never spoke of me.’ Grace did not need pity.
‘He never talked about you in that way, but I am sure of this. He married you because he loved you. What is the word? Fiercely. Yes. It is a strong word. It is his word.’ She nodded to herself, satisfied that she had remembered the word. ‘He did not say good things or bad things about you, but he must have loved you very much to leave his first wife. He did not expect you to have his child. That was the greatest gift you could have given him, but it was… what do the game show people call it? The bonus prize?’
‘So…’
‘He married you because he loved you, whatever you have thought; he loved you very much. I think, if you hadn’t pushed him away, he would never have left you.’
*
The doctor discharged Kasia the following day. She left just after breakfast, told the matron that she had a lift organized at reception. As it happened, Grace Kennedy rang the ward as she was leaving. ‘Hang on; I’ll be there in a few minutes, and I’ll drop you home.’
Kasia peered up and down the street outside the hospital and then idly walked towards the shop window next door. She stood there for a moment, next to a middle-aged woman who seemed to be in a daze looking at vulgarly large rings. There would be no rings for Kasia. Her hands told the story of her past; they were small and ragged and wizened from hard work and neglect. The last thing she wanted was shiny reminders. Anyway, she didn’t have the money for rings.
Rain was beginning to fall. It seemed to Kasia that rain was never as wet as it was in Dublin. Back home in Bucharest, the rain was softer, gentler. Here it even sounded angry, as though you owed it something. Still, she was glad to be here. Not standing on a wet street at the poor man’s exit of the hospital where Paul Starr lay cold and lifeless. But here, in Dublin, this empty-full city that brushed you along as if you meant nothing more than a falling feather from some anonymous bird. This city evened things out, or so it seemed to Kasia. She loved that the old life was pushed aside.
She started to the sound of a car horn. Grace Kennedy parked beside her, hovering on a double yellow line.
‘Get in, quick; you’ll get pneumonia.’ She flicked the central locking. Grace’s car was a small two-door BMW, the kind of car Kasia dreamed of owning, when she dared to dream.
‘Thank you for coming. It’s not far. I didn’t expect you to think about me.’
‘Kasia, you were the last person with Paul. You’re probably more traumatized than any of us. And you’re pregnant; with… Of course I wasn’t going to let you leave the hospital without making sure you were okay.’ She drove onto the North Circular Road, a once affluent length of Georgian housing that had long been cut up into flats and bedsits for people like Kasia, who couldn’t afford to live anywhere else. The houses here were tall and bricked, original doors and windows remained, but time and neglect had scuffed them so they reeked of pessimism. It was a place where old people shuffled and youngsters walked with vacant expressions and watchful eyes.
‘You are a good person, Grace Kennedy. Paul said a kind heart is worth more than…’ Kasia said breaking the comfortable silence they’d driven in for most of the journey. They were nearing the flat, but something was wrong; she couldn’t say exactly what.
‘Than what?’ Grace turned off the ignition after parking.
‘Oh, he said that you had a kind heart that you couldn’t hide, even if you tried, because it still showed up in your paintings. But then, for a while, he’d lost sight of it…’ Kasia smiled, fearing she’d said too much, ‘I’m not sure what he meant, but that was how he described you when I asked.’
‘Oh.’ Grace’s eyes grew sad.
‘Please,’ Kasia reached out a hand, keeping her eye on the apartment window just above her, ‘please don’t doubt that he loved you.’ It was true, Kasia was sure of it and she was certain that Grace Kennedy needed to hear it. She had seen the way the three women were together, each of them clinging onto something they believed was real, but now they’d never know. It seemed to Kasia that Grace was struggling most and she had been the kindest to Kasia, when she really didn’t have to be.
‘Thank you Kasia.’ Grace wiped away a small tear that had begun to fall from her kohl-framed eyes.
‘I must go in; it is the time to go. Thank you for taking me. It was a lot of trouble for such a short journey.’ Kasia shook her head, smiling.
‘Oh no, I have to go in with you, make sure that you’re settled, that you have milk and bread and chocolate. You’ll need lots of chocolate.’ Grace gave a small smile and began to unfasten her seat belt.
‘You can’t.’ Even Kasia could hear the panic that cracked across her own voice. ‘I live up there, on the third floor? You see it?’ Grace craned her neck to get a look at the grotty windows, covered in faded yellow nets. ‘You see the heavy curtains are drawn behind them?’
‘Yes, I see,’ Grace said gently.
‘I think Vasile must be back.’
‘Vasile?’
‘Yes, Vasile, he is my… how you say it here?’
‘Brother?’
‘No, he is my… boyfriend, my partner, I suppose. He has been away for almost a week. His father died, in Romania. He travelled back for the funeral. His father was a very…’ Kasia thought for a moment of how to describe Vasile’s father. ‘His funeral would have been very well attended. Lots of drinking, lots of vodka and beer.’
‘A bit like an Irish funeral, so?’
‘This would be the same as one of your…’ she inclined her head for a moment, lowered her voice, ‘the same as one of your traveller funerals. Lots of drink, lots of fights, and it can go on for a couple of weeks.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I didn’t expect him back so soon, better if he doesn’t hear about the accident or…’ The doctors said she was lucky. Paul had died in the driver’s seat beside her, and apart from some aches and pains, she had walked away from the car accident without a scar. Or, at least she thought to herself, none that you could see. It would take a long time to get over Paul’s death, but that wasn’t something Vasile needed to know.
‘Or the baby?’
‘Okay, whatever you think.’ Grace wore a worried expression on her face. ‘Hang on,’ she grabbed her mobile from the top of her expensive-looking bag. ‘Give me your number. At least I can ring you, make sure you’re okay?’
‘Are you sure?’ Kasia didn’t make friends easily.
‘Of course I’m sure. We are all linked together through this. Give me your number. I’ll ring you tonight?’
‘No. I will ring you, to tell you that I am fine and that all is well.’ Kasia smiled. Within the space of a day, she’d learned she was going to have a baby and she might even have a friend too. All she had to figure out was what to do about Vasile.
He’d come with her from Romania. He found the flat for them and, so far, he wanted her around. Kasia knew he was a knucklehead but also a dangerous man when he was angry. Whatever love there was between them died the first time he hit her. Now, she wasn’t sure which would be worse: his rage at her leaving or his resentment at her staying. She calmed herself. She didn’t have to make any decisions just yet. She had a while before she had to make up her mind about whether to tell him or not. All she knew was she loved this baby already. It was hers and she knew, if she had to, she would die for it.