by Adrian White
Margaret spent her days being there for other people, but her own life was falling apart. She sat in her car and watched traffic pass by along the main road. People were going home for the evening, to their families, to their partners, and to their children. Her own empty house was behind her, but it was no longer a home.
She was so ashamed. She was ashamed of whom she had become, and she was ashamed of the way she’d humiliated Eugene. She had humiliated herself.
Margaret took out her mobile phone and checked it for messages; there were none.
Where was Mike?
She dropped the phone back into her bag. She knew she had no option but to go into the house alone. She picked up her bag, got out the car and pressed the remote. She walked back along the street and up the steps to her front door. She went inside and closed the door behind her. She stood with her back to the door and listened to the silence of the house. She looked at the telephone in the hallway.
She picked up the receiver and dialled Mike’s mobile number, but her call went straight through to his message system. She hung up before saying anything.
Maybe Mike was on his way home?
Margaret picked up the phone and dialled again.
“Mike . . . ” she said, but that was all. She didn’t know what else to say. Tell him she loved him? That she wished he were home? That he was coming home?
Was he coming home? Was he ever coming home?
Margaret ran out of time before she could say anything else and she didn’t phone again. She dialled Eugene’s home number but when it rang out a few times she knew that this, too, was going on to a message.
“Eugene,” she said. “It’s Margaret. Please pick up the phone.”
Nothing.
“I’m so sorry for this morning,” she said. “I know . . . I know you probably can’t, but, please, if you’re there, pick up the phone.”
She waited but there was nothing, and then the line went dead. Margaret continued to speak into the receiver.
“I’m so ashamed,” she said. “I’m so ashamed, Eugene – of us, and of everything”
But when Margaret put down the phone and stood alone in her hallway, she knew it wasn’t Eugene she had to talk to – it wasn’t even her husband Mike. She couldn’t confide in her boys, because Jack and Mike junior were gone. It was healthy that they were gone, but Margaret missed them all the same; she missed the strength they’d so often given her in the past.
She knew what she had to do for this mess to be made right again. She knew what she had to do – she just didn’t think she had the courage to do it.
It was past two-thirty by the time Mike had persuaded Katie to come back with him to Manchester. He’d bought tickets for several flights throughout the early evening, all business class, and a return for Katie on the last flight back to Dublin at nine o’clock. Mike was delighted that Katie had her passport; he’d been prepared to wait while she went home to fetch it. He was prepared to do anything to make this happen.
“You’ve some nerve booking me a flight,” said Katie.
“It’s only money,” replied Mike. “There was every chance you might not agree to see me, remember?”
Katie didn’t know what Mike hoped she could achieve but since she wasn’t about to return to work for the afternoon, she thought she might as well give him the rest of the day. It didn’t matter to Katie if a few hours of that day were spent flying back and forth across the Irish Sea; it was only the fact that it was Manchester that unnerved her.
“If we leave now,” said Mike, “we can catch a flight at four o’clock.”
Mike walked across to the reception desk to settle his bill, though, from what Katie could see, he’d only used the bar.
Katie didn’t like the idea of interfering in Mike’s family, but he assured her they wouldn’t be disturbed. Official visiting hours at the hospital weren’t until seven o’clock, and the unspoken implication was that nobody would be there to visit Katherine anyway.
“You won’t even know you’re there,” said Mike. “She’s in Wythenshawe Hospital, right next to the airport.”
“I know where Wythenshawe Hospital is,” said Katie. She felt tetchy – it was a long time since she’d been home. She’d kept herself ready for over twenty years to leave at a moment’s notice; she wasn’t too happy now that moment had come that it was Manchester she was running to.
They didn’t talk much on the journey over; there was little more to be said and Mike knew better than to expect any small talk from Katie.
The plane flew in over south Manchester.
“Where are you from, Katie?” asked Mike.
“You mean where was I born, and where did I live, and all that?”
“Yes,” said Mike, “all the normal things.”
“Gorton,” said Katie. “I’m from Gorton.”
“That’s over by Ashton, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Katie, “around there.”
“So we’ll have passed close by when we used to drive out to the hills?”
“Not really,” said Katie. “That was closer to Oldham than Ashton.”
Even so, Mike sat on the plane and thought of Katie back then – how she was so close to her home and never said a word.
But this was all Mike got out of Katie. He’d never know that Katie had a whole different childhood – if you could call it that – before she was taken into care in Gorton. He’d never learn how she came to be living in Hulme and studying law by the time she was twenty. He’d never know, because he’d never ask; and he’d never ask, because he knew she’d never tell.
Katie and Mike had eaten on the plane. The food was good and helped fill in the silence between them. The stewardess cleared away their drink glasses for landing.
If Katie thought of anything, it was to question the sense in Mike asking her to come. Who in his right mind would let another head case like Katie within a million miles his daughter? But then, maybe that was it – none of them were in their right mind here. If this was what Mike wanted, if this was what he was asking of Katie, then so be it. If she could help, she would try to help; and she’d make every effort not to do Katherine any further harm.
Now Katie was here, she would do what was asked of her, but she couldn’t help but be concerned about what the next two hours might bring.
They had no baggage, so they were quicker through to Arrivals and then out to the car park.
“Do you ever worry that you might be stopped at customs one day?” asked Katie.
“As in – properly stopped?” asked Mike. “For all my past sins, you mean?”
“Yes,” said Katie. “That they might be looking for you, or at least looking to stop you coming back into the country?”
“Well, obviously it’s occurred to me – otherwise I’d never have come up with that story this morning – but no, I gave up worrying a long time ago.”
“Have you been back to the States since?”
“No,” said Mike. “I don’t want to push my luck. I think it was a good plan at the time, and I think we got away with it, but I don’t like the idea of Bruno still being out there somewhere.”
“As a loose end, you mean?”
“Yes,” said Mike. “It’s a shame to say it, but that’s how I think of Bruno now – as a messy loose end that might come back to haunt me. I gave up worrying about him a long time ago, though; I’ve bigger things to worry about now. This is us, here,” he said.
“You got rid of the Jag, then?” said Katie, once they were in the car.
Mike reversed out the parking space.
“It’s going to take more than driving a Volvo to keep my family safe,” he said.
They drove straight to the hospital. Mike had to brake hard twice to avoid other cars as he looked for a space in the hospital car park.
“Are you sure about this?” asked Katie.
She looked across at Mike; he was becoming increasingly agitated, and less and less like Mike.
“No,”
he said, “no, I’m not sure.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” said Katie.
“It made sense when I set out to ask you this morning.”
“I don’t know what you hope I can do.”
“Talk to her,” said Mike. “That’s all – just talk to her.”
They walked from the car park to the hospital entrance. The complex of different buildings was confusing to Katie, and she let Mike lead the way. Inside, there was a large expanse of floor with a reception desk in the middle.
“If you wait here,” said Mike, “I’ll just make sure that it’s okay to go in before visiting hours.”
Katie sat down to one side on one of the many plastic chairs placed around the entrance hall. She suspected Mike had gone to check on Katherine, and not on the visiting hours; she wondered what would happen if Katherine was too ill to be seen.“Come on,” said Mike, when he returned. His face drained of its usual freshness and youth.
He looks like an old man, Katie thought for the first time.
They walked down a long corridor, one side of which faced out on to an inner courtyard. Then they turned into a ward of private rooms. Mike opened a door and stood back to allow Katie through. He gestured with his hand – part invitation and part introduction.
Katie could see that Mike was in bits. She took a hold of his hand. So many years between them and so little physical contact – it was strange to touch the skin of a man she knew so well, and yet barely knew at all.
“You’d better leave us alone,” she said.
Mike looked across the room, from Katie to his daughter on the bed, and then looked back down at the ground.
“Please, Mike,” said Katie. “And don’t wait around here; wait outside the ward, or at the entrance where we came in to the hospital.”
Mike hesitated, and then nodded in agreement. He reached up to Katie’s face with his free hand, but she moved away from his touch.
“Go on,” she said. “I’ll find you when I’m through.”
She pushed him away and pulled the door across to shut him out. She didn’t know what she could possibly do here, but she knew Mike had to be elsewhere.
As soon as Mike had left, Katie realised this had come too quickly; she hadn’t thought it through. But if she had, would she have come? Hearing Mike, seeing Mike – could she have refused this request? Could she ever refuse Mike anything? Probably not.
Katie closed the door. She looked through the glass, and watched as Mike walked away down the corridor.
She waited a second or so, and then turned into the room. She looked across at the figure on the bed. Was Katherine conscious, or aware? Might she have witnessed the intimacy between Katie and Mike? According to Mike, the doctors believed Katherine was going in and out of consciousness.
Katie rested her weight on the handle of the door. Now that she was here, Katie felt certain that Katherine was a conscious presence in the room. She had to believe this, otherwise there really was no point.
The room was nice, but Katie guessed this was the point of paying for a private room – no public ward hell for Mike Maguire’s daughter. There were flowers on every available surface, and cards and some stuffed toys. The wear and tear of the toys suggested they belonged to Katherine, toys from a childhood that was not so very long ago. No amount of flowers or cards or toys could distract Katie from the real business of the room, however. Katherine lay on the bed surrounded on one side by monitors and support machines and, suspended above her, the drip that fed into her arm.
Katie pushed herself away from the door and into the room. All the machinery was around the head of the bed and along the far side of Katherine. Katie picked up a chair by the backrest and carried it over to the side of the bed. She breathed deeply and looked down at Katherine on the bed.
Oh fuck, she thought, what are you doing to yourself?
“Katherine.”
Katie said the name out loud, to see how it sounded on her tongue. She didn’t expect a reply. She held on to the back of the chair, and traced the metal studs that pinned down the leather upholstery. She forced herself to look at Katherine’s face – it was a hard face to look at.
The lack of a reply from Katherine accentuated the buzz and the hum of the support machines. How quiet it would seem if they just turned everything off.
“I don’t know if you can hear me,” she said, “or even if you know that I’m here.”
She paused and this set the pattern for how Katie spoke while she was in the room. She came out with what felt like short bursts of words, followed by longer periods of silence – a silence that was really the humming noise of the machines. It was a strange and exhausting experience to talk to someone in this way.
This is the last thing you need, Katie thought for Katherine.
And this is the last thing you need, she thought for herself.
Katie took off her coat and laid it across the back of the chair, but she didn’t sit down. She introduced herself, and tried to explain how Mike had asked her to visit, but it was hopeless. She was a stranger here.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “this is really hard.”
She thought about leaving the room, and going back out to Mike. But she stayed.
Just talk, thought Katie. Just talk.
She talked about her years with Mike and this made her think of the years without – twenty years was a long time for her to have been on her own.
“Your dad just let me be me,” she said. “He just let me be me.”
Katie was still standing by the chair. She inclined her head slightly – asking Katherine for silent permission to sit down – and decided to sit anyway. It felt more intimate to be at the lower level of the chair. Katherine’s left hand – her free hand away from all the instruments – was on the bed covers, close to where Katie sat. Her identification bracelet was around the wrist.
“Your dad was in love with me back then,” said Katie.
She watched for some reaction, but there was nothing. This wasn’t getting any easier.
“Your dad was in love with me, but I couldn’t love him back. It wasn’t that I couldn’t love him; it was just that I couldn’t love anybody . . . in that way.”
Christ, thought Katie, what does she need to know this for? What good can it do? You only have one shot at this so don’t fuck it up.
“Your dad accepted that he could never understand me,” she said. “I gave him nothing, and he accepted it. I never gave him an explanation and he never asked me for one and that’s why I still owe him, even after all these years.
“I’m not sure I fully appreciated what your dad did for me at the time, but I do now.”
Katie stopped and put her head in her hands. This was unreal – talking into silence. Every now and again, she’d get the feeling that Katherine was listening, at least to the sound of Katie’s voice, but surely this was a mistaken hope? What would Katie’s voice mean to Katherine anyway? It was going to take more than this to bring her back.
Katie looked at Katherine on the bed. There was a clock on one of the monitors; it was almost seven o’clock – the official visiting time was about to begin. Katie had been in the room for almost an hour; she was beginning to appreciate Katherine’s stubborn refusal to do anything but breathe.
Katie stood up and walked to the door. She rested her hand on the door and took a deep breath – a very different breath to the short, snatched gasps of Katherine on the bed behind her. She looked through the glass door, out into the corridor.
What was she doing here? This was wasting everybody’s time.
Katie turned again towards the room. She walked over to pick up one of the stuffed toys from the shelf. It was a purple teddy bear, soft and homely, and Katie knew it would be Katherine’s favourite – it was a colour thing. She replaced the teddy on the shelf, and returned to her seat.
She wondered if Katherine had any control left over her own body. At what point would Katherine’s own strong will, her determinat
ion to hurt her parents for hurting her, give way to a body that could no longer help itself? Katherine’s strength of mind was making her body weaker.
There’s something to admire in all of this, thought Katie.
“I told you those things about your dad,” she said, “because I want you to know that I understand what it means to be loved by him. I don’t think for one minute that I can change your mind here, but I want you to know this isn’t the first time your dad has failed to understand a person he loves. It’s not the first time he’s been unable to help someone who needs his help – and he hates it.”
Katie thought for a while.
“But this won’t make any difference to you, will it? I mean, nothing I say will change the way you feel; I know you won’t let yourself be helped. But the thing is – whatever you decide to do – your dad’s going to love you anyway. Even if you hurt him like this, he’ll still love you. I know, because he did the same for me, and he got nothing from me but pain – well, maybe we had some fun, but still – all he did was love me and set me free.”
Again Katie was quiet for a long time.
“And then he made his life with your mother and he had you, his children. And I guess there were good times and bad times, like there is in any family, but nothing prepared him for this – except me, maybe, and I think that’s why I’m here.
“He’d try anything rather than lose you.
“But I think it might be too late.”
Katie leant forward on to the bed and tentatively touched Katherine’s left hand. Katherine’s fingers were laying face down on the bed covers. At Katie’s touch, Katherine’s hand moved slightly – a short, spasmodic response. Katie took her hand away and looked at Katherine. She reached again so that the tips of Katherine’s fingers were rested on her own. There was no substance there, no weight. Katie stroked the fingers with her thumb.