‘This pâté is gorgeous – have a taste.’ Debbie offered her mother a triangle of toast smeared with a mixture of rich pâté and Cumberland sauce.
‘Here, you have a piece of Brie.’ Connie transferred a chunk of crispy Brie, melting and creamy in the middle, on to her daughter’s plate. They were sitting in Purple Ocean, overlooking the harbour, and the evening sun was glinting on an enormous purple crystal in a display case behind Connie, which was part of the unusual décor of the airy restaurant. It was full of sparkling angel decorations, which could be bought, an unusual touch that had appealed to Connie the first time she’d eaten there.
‘This is the life,’ Debbie sighed as she forked some of the creamy mixture into her mouth. ‘What a nice end to a bummer of a day.’
‘Why? What was wrong with it?’ Connie enquired.
‘Oh, my boss, Judith, never loses a chance to find fault with me, and unfortunately this morning I gave her plenty of excuses. I made three different mistakes in the payroll and Eagle Eyes spotted them.’
‘Oh dear. I suppose that’s what she’s paid for. What’s wrong – can’t you concentrate?’
‘I suppose I was still thinking about last night with Dad,’ Debbie said.
‘Oh . . . yes,’ Connie replied faintly, unable to stop the blush that rose to her cheeks.
‘At least I got it off my chest,’ Debbie blurted, not noticing her mother’s discomfiture. ‘I told him exactly how I felt. I spared him nothing, so at least he knows now why I was so . . . so distant with him.’
‘Could you not have told me?’ Connie said gently. ‘Debbie, when your father told me some of the things you’d said to him, I . . . God, Debbie, I feel I failed you terribly. I wanted to think you were coping because it made life easier for me. I’m so sorry, darling; I only ever wanted the best for you. I—’
‘Mum, Dad shouldn’t have told you what I said, that was for his ears only,’ Debbie said heatedly.
‘No . . . he was right to tell me and I apologize to you, Debbie. You were the child, I was the adult. I should have known better. I wish you’d told me how you felt when you were young.’ She reached across the table and squeezed her daughter’s hand.
‘I didn’t want to add to your worries. You had enough on your plate, Mum, and it was Dad I was angry with, not you.’
‘You once asked me had I done something bad to make Dad leave us,’ Connie reminded her with a smile.
‘Did I say that? Sorry, Mum. I guess I just wanted to blame someone – isn’t that what kids do?’
‘You were a great child, Debbie, I never had any trouble with you, apart from the time you went through your Goth phase – you were pretty obnoxious then – but on the whole we did well, didn’t we?’
Debbie smiled at her, a big grin that reminded Connie of when she was about fifteen, and carefree because she’d met her first boyfriend and she felt part of the scene and she seemed to have come to terms with her father’s second marriage. It had been a happy time in her life and Connie remembered that summer with pleasure. ‘We did fantastic, Mum!’ her daughter assured her.
Connie took a deep breath. If she didn’t have her say now, she’d never say it and, if anything went wrong in her daughter’s marriage, she knew she’d live with the guilt for the rest of her life.
‘Debbie, there’s just one more thing I want to say. I want you to think very carefully about getting married. Sometimes . . . um . . . when I look at Bryan, I see a little of your father in him, when he was that age. And I just wonder if he’s ready to get tied down? Don’t make the mistakes I did. There’s no rush to get married. Live together a while longer. I just want you to be happy, you know that,’ she said earnestly.
‘Bryan makes me happy, Mum. He’s not at all like Dad,’ Debbie protested. ‘No way.’
‘I know he makes you happy, but is that enough? Marriage is hard work sometimes – mortgages, babies, the day-in-day-out sameness of living together knock the romance out of a relationship.’
‘I know that, Mum. Trust me, I’m not wearing rose-tinted glasses,’ Debbie said dryly. ‘Bryan and I will be fine, don’t you worry. I’ve no intention of having a broken marriage.’
‘Ouch!’ Connie grimaced. Smug madam, she thought irritably. You should have seen what your father and I were up to last night. She let it pass; there was no point in going on about Bryan. Nothing that she said was going to change her daughter’s mind.
‘ . . . Bryan’s a good guy, Mum, and he loves me, so stop worrying and let’s look forward to the wedding.’
Connie turned her attention to what Debbie was saying. ‘I just wanted to say it. Honey, I wanted to make sure you’ve no doubts.’
‘No doubts at all. Now let’s have a glass of champers and enjoy our meal.’ Debbie was emphatic.
‘Right,’ said Connie meekly, feeling more like the child than the mother.
As she sipped the sparkling liquid she wished she could put her fears aside, but the niggle of unease still remained. Bryan Kinsella still had to convince her he was good husband material, no matter what Debbie said about him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
‘It’s a pity I couldn’t have a room to myself – did you really try to get them to change me?’ Lily whispered.
‘I did, Ma, but they told me they’re chock-full,’ Judith told her for the umpteenth time.
‘It’s not good enough, I pay the full VHI,’ grumbled Lily. ‘I had my own room the last time I was here, you know. That should be on their records.’
‘I told them that too, and they apologized but there’s nothing they can do. At least it’s a two-bed and not a four-bed,’ Judith said briskly as she took her mother’s nightdress and dressing gown out of the case.
‘They might have a private room for me if I come back another time. This was a cancellation, you know.’
Judith threw her eyes up to heaven. She didn’t know why Lily was whispering; they were in the room by themselves. Lily was lucky, she was in the bed by the window and the second-floor room had a lovely view of the hospital grounds and the vista looking south to the Dublin mountains. Her mother had nearly driven her mad since she’d got home earlier, and it was not improving.
Do this, do that.
Where’s this? Where’s that?
Get me this, that, and the other.
Lily was highly agitated and had taken a half a Valium to calm herself down. When she’d discovered that she had to go into a two-bed ward she’d been mightily displeased and had wanted to go home, only that Judith had persuaded her to stay.
She’d got upset because she couldn’t see the VHI form properly, even with her glasses and Judith’s help, until the very kind admissions officer had calmed her down, telling her that she had all her details on the computer from her previous stay for varicose veins a couple of years ago.
By the time Lily had finally got to her ward Judith had felt like taking a couple of Valium herself. A man sitting in a chair beside the other bed greeted them politely. Lily flushed and muttered a response.
‘The nurse will be with you in a while,’ the admissions officer had said kindly, pulling the curtains around her bed.
‘I’m not staying here,’ Lily had whispered to Judith when she was gone. ‘I’m going home.’
‘No, no, you’re here now, you might as well get it done.’ Judith tried to keep the irritation out of her voice.
She heard the door open again and, from where she was standing at the end of the bed, she could see a plump, grey-haired woman in a green dressing gown enter.
‘You might as well go,’ she heard her say to the man in the chair. ‘I’ve to go off and have physiotherapy.’ She smiled at Judith and Judith smiled back.
‘She looks like a nice lady,’ she said to Lily when the two of them had left. Lily was twisting her wedding ring around her finger, staring out the window.
‘Who does?’ she said distractedly.
‘The woman you’re sharing the room with.’
‘It’s
a woman? Are you sure? Was it not that man that was sitting beside the bed?’ Lily stopped twisting momentarily.
‘Of course not, Mother, what would you be sharing a room with a man for?’ Judith was baffled. Where on earth had Lily got that notion?
‘Martha Kelleher was in a ward with two men on either side of her down in Wexford,’ Lily informed her tightly. ‘It was a terrible ordeal for her. I’m sure it hastened her end, too, because even when she went home she was always terrified that she’d have to go into hospital again and have the same thing happen.’ Lily burst into tears.
‘Mother, please don’t upset yourself, there aren’t mixed wards in this hospital,’ Judith said awkwardly, patting her on the back. ‘You’ll be home the day after tomorrow, and just think how good it will be to be able to see properly again,’ she urged as she handed Lily a tissue. ‘Stop crying now or your blood pressure will go up. Go in and get undressed for bed and I’ll finish unpacking your case.’
‘I still think it’s a disgrace that I don’t have my own room, and I’ll be ringing the VHI to tell them so. They’re going to get a piece of my mind, and I’ll be wanting a refund.’ Lily was not to be mollified as she took the clothes Judith handed her and stomped into the bathroom.
Judith swallowed her exasperation with great difficulty. Trying not to be tetchy with her mother was difficult under normal circumstances, but she always found it extra trying when she had her period and was more likely to fly off the handle. She was furious with her sister and brother. Tom hadn’t even the decency to respond to her text, and Cecily had texted back that she wouldn’t be able to visit until tomorrow and what were the visiting times. Judith hadn’t bothered to answer. Let her ring the hospital herself and find out, selfish cow.
She unpacked her mother’s case, hung her towels and face flannel on the shelf behind the locker and took Ted’s photo out of its covering of linen handkerchiefs. She looked at her father’s picture and felt a spasm of sadness. The grief she’d felt after his death had lessened to a great extent, but there were still times when a deep sorrow would suffuse her and she would have a moment of empathy with her mother, knowing how truly bereft Lily was by his death. Nothing had prepared Judith for the shock and loss she’d felt at her father’s passing.
‘Oh Dad,’ she whispered. ‘I miss you.’ A tsunami of memories almost took her breath away. That stomach-lurching call to work that Friday evening telling her that her father was in A&E and that she had to get there fast. The terror and sense of absolute helplessness as she sat stuck in rush-hour traffic on the quays knowing that her father was dying and she might not make it in time to say goodbye. The thumping of her heart, the knotting of her stomach as she’d searched frantically for a parking space, and then the racing as fast as she could into A&E, trying to find him, stuttering his name at reception, hardly able to talk.
The momentary sense of relief when she’d found him on a trolley hooked up to a plethora of machines, with Lily sobbing and Tom fidgeting restlessly, afraid. Her father had looked at her and she’d seen fleeting recognition and had felt the merest pressure when she’d taken his hand and squeezed it. ‘I’m here, Dad,’ she’d said, amazed at how calm she sounded. ‘Don’t worry about anything.’ How pale and fragile he looked as his eyes closed and he gave a little sigh as if of relief that she was there to take charge.
‘He’s very ill,’ a nurse said quietly to her as she changed one of his drips. ‘You know that, don’t you?’
Judith nodded, her throat constricted. Was he dying? She wanted to ask but couldn’t, even though she knew in her heart of hearts that he was. Lily sobbed uncontrollably.
‘Mam, do you want to go home? I’ll stay with him.’ Judith had put an awkward arm around her weeping mother.
‘That’s a good idea. I’ll take her.’ Tom jumped at the chance of escape. A weeping mother was easier to deal with than a dying father. ‘Come on, Mother.’
Lily stared at Judith, her eyes raw and red-rimmed. ‘Should I stay?’ she asked tremulously.
Judith took a deep breath. ‘I don’t think Dad would want you to be so upset, I think he’d be glad if you went home,’ she managed, knowing that her mother needed permission to leave, needed someone to make the decision for her. How can you leave him? she wanted to rant. Don’t you want to be with him for the last hours of his life? Can’t you put someone else first for once? But she swallowed it all down.
Lily had made her way out through the white curtains, followed by a clearly relieved Tom. A drunk shouted and moaned in the next cubicle, and then the sound of copious puking and the stench that accompanied it. A woman at the desk yelling, ‘It’s a disgrace, you can’t leave her sitting in that chair, she’s been in it for five hours and she’s eighty-two.’
‘Sorry, it’s very busy. Friday evening, people get fraught,’ the nurse said to Judith as a monitor beeped and she made an adjustment to the saline drip.
Judith made some non-committal response. She’d been in A&E a few times over the years with her father, and mother. She knew the nightmare of it. She knew it hadn’t changed in the last ten years, even though the economy was booming. She’d seen the politicians lying through their teeth, saying that improvements had been made and waiting hours were lessened. None of them, with all their perks and privileges, ever had to endure a trip to A&E. How could they know what it was like or what those hard-working nurses and doctors had to endure on a daily basis?
‘Could you just step out for a moment? We need to do a few things for your father,’ the nurse said gently as another nurse appeared at her father’s bed.
‘Sure,’ Judith acquiesced, stepping out of the cubicle, seeing an elderly woman crying in fear in her S-shaped chair as a nurse berated a drugged or drunken man to get up off the floor and a policeman and security man struggled to put him on a chair. Two orderlies weaved their way past with a trolley that had a sort of aluminium container over it. A green see-through sack with clothes rested on top of it. God! she thought in horror, was there a body under that? It looked like a sardine tin. Tears smarted her eyes. What a place to end your life. No privacy, no dignity, only for the utter and incomparable kindness of the nurses and doctors this place was hell on earth. She was suffused with rage that her father, who had worked hard all his life, paid his considerable taxes and never owed a penny or taken a bribe – unlike some of those very politicians who had the nerve to dismiss the problems in the health service – should have to endure this nightmare.
‘You can go back in now.’ The nurse had tapped her gently on the arm.
‘Can you not get a bed for him?’ she begged.
‘We’re doing our best, but it could be a while yet. We’ve made him as comfortable as we can, he has no pain,’ the tired-looking nurse assured her kindly.
‘Thanks,’ she had muttered, afraid she was going to break down. She didn’t even have a chair to sit on, so she leaned on the rail at the side of the trolley and took his hand in hers. ‘I love you, Dad,’ she whispered, wondering if her father, who was unconscious and breathing heavily, could hear her.
Later, seeing his condition deteriorate, they had moved him to a quieter section of the main A&E area, and Judith had known that he was going to die. The harsh fluorescent lights shone down on his waxy features and she had been glad her mother wasn’t here, glad that she’d never have these memories, the way Judith would have when she remembered his last hours.
A chaplain, a lovely sympathetic woman, had come and blessed him and prayed over him as Judith strained to hear her words over the noisy hum of a ventilator in the next cubicle. The cupboard behind the chaplain’s head was open and Judith stared at the contents, willing herself not to cry. Could anything be worse than this? she wondered. She had asked was there no room that he could be brought to where he could die in peace with a few candles lighting and no unending cacophony. ‘I’m sorry,’ the nurse had said sympathetically. ‘We’re still trying to get a bed for him, but it’s a busy night, as you can see.’
&nb
sp; When she had phoned Tom, he had said: ‘Do you want me to come back in?’
He shouldn’t even have had to ask. He should have wanted to be with their father. Didn’t he and Cecily care? Had they no feelings for Ted? Had they no feelings for her that she was left on her own to deal with the most painful event anyone could ever have to deal with?
‘No,’ she had said. Her father would only have a loved one at his side, she thought bitterly as she stroked his thin, bony hand, remembering how strong and vibrant he’d once been.
‘Just go, Dad, any time you want to; you’ve fought it long enough. Rest now,’ she whispered, and had been rewarded by a surprisingly stronger grip, and she knew that he had heard her.
He’d breathed his last so quietly that she hadn’t realized he was gone until the nurse had told her gently that it was over. She’d felt numb as the nurse led her to the family room and brought her tea and sat with her, stroking her hand, until she felt composed enough to go home.
The non-stop business of the next few days, making the arrangements, organizing everything, had kept her going. Everyone had turned to her. What do we do?
‘Why are you asking me?’ she had wanted to yell. ‘There’s three of us. Someone else do something.’ But she wouldn’t let her father down and leave him now to her siblings’ devices.
Only for Massey’s and their kind professionalism she would have cracked completely. They had led her through the arrangements with quiet compassion and treated her father’s remains with great dignity. Lily, drugged to the eyeballs, had managed to get through the funeral and burial and then collapsed and, though Judith had tried to make the break away a month later, knowing that if she didn’t she was doomed never to cut the ties, it had been next to impossible to leave Lily alone and not be overwhelmed with guilt.
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