Mother of the Bride

by Marita Conlon-McKenna

  ‘Try texting Amy again,’ Jess suggested as they drove back to Dublin.

  Thirty minutes later, a relieved Ciara said, ‘Hey, she just texted me back. You won’t believe it, but she’s at my gran’s. Gran had some kind of a turn and was in hospital, but they are back in Gran’s house now and Gran’s asleep. Amy said that she’s going to stay there tonight with her. Poor Gran. I’ll call over to her tomorrow.’

  ‘Phew,’ said Jess, wondering how she was ever going to explain what she had done to her best friend.

  ‘Remember, nobody knows about us being down in Kilkenny,’ Ciara warned, ‘and that’s the way to keep it!’

  Jess glanced over. Amy was always saying that Ciara was like a sphinx and that sometimes you could get nothing out of her.

  ‘What about Matt?’

  ‘He’s not going to tell Amy he’s off in a hotel with some girl from Belfast!’

  ‘I suppose not!’ Jess agreed.

  ‘Did you see the look on his face?’ teased Ciara.

  ‘Did you see her face?’ laughed Jess, and the two of them got hysterics replaying it over and over again in their heads, both swearing to each other to keep it a secret.

  Chapter Forty-four

  Amy stared at the text again. All day long Matt had been phoning and texting her at work, begging her to come down to Kilkenny for the weekend with him. He kept pestering her about the two of them getting away from everything and everyone and having the chance to be together like the way they were before.

  Despite finding Matt as attractive as ever, Amy had no intention of turning back the clock. What part of ‘no’ did Matt Kerrigan not understand? She had texted back, irritated, wishing that he would just leave her alone with her broken heart!

  Concentrating on a press release she was about to send out, she ignored her phone ringing again. It was a number she didn’t recognize and she let it ring out. The number rang yet again. About to give Matt a piece of her mind, she answered.

  ‘Matt, I—’

  ‘Hello, is that Amy O’Connor, Sheila Hennessy’s grand-daughter?’ asked the voice.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, suddenly worried.

  ‘This is Cathy Jordan; I live next door to your granny.’

  ‘Is she all right?’ Amy asked, panicked.

  ‘Well, actually, no,’ explained her gran’s neighbour. ‘I’m in St James’s Hospital with her. She’s had a bit of an accident. She fell and cut her head, and she’s had a few stitches.’

  ‘Oh my God. Poor Gran!’

  ‘She’s going for X-rays as the doctor thinks she may have broken her wrist, and they are checking her ribs, too. But you know Sheila, all she wants is to go home.’ Cathy Jordan sounded worried. ‘I tried to phone your mum, but there’s no one at home, and there’s no answer from your Uncle Tim’s either. They are the only numbers that I could find. But I remembered that your granny told me where you worked one day when we were having a cup of coffee.’

  ‘What happened to Gran?’

  ‘She was up at the local shops and she was in a bit of a state. She didn’t seem herself, and didn’t even say hello to me! She was outside the chemist’s when she suddenly stepped out in front of the traffic, and a young lad on a bike nearly knocked her over. She fell in the roadway and hurt her head. I called an ambulance and took her to hospital.’

  ‘Cathy, thanks so much,’ said Amy gratefully. ‘My mum and dad are gone to my aunt’s sixtieth birthday party in Cork, and my uncle is in France. Listen, I’ll be over to St James’s as quick as I can,’ she promised.

  Norah had taken the afternoon off as there was a parent–teacher meeting in the twins’ school and Jilly and Gary had already left. Amy could see Niamh and a few others were busy on a presentation, but there was nothing to hold her, so she turned off her computer and grabbed her things. She’d race back to Jess’s and get her car and a few things en route to the hospital, as she’d probably stay in Willow Grove if her granny was sent home.

  To say the busy Accident and Emergency department in St James’s Hospital was crowded was an understatement, and Amy could see two ambulances waiting to discharge patients as she walked into the reception. She searched around, looking for any sign of her grandmother, the receptionist pointing her towards the back row of cubicles.

  Sheila Hennessy looked pale and exhausted lying on the trolley bed, a big gash in the centre of her forehead stitched and covered lightly with a piece of gauze. Her hair was in a white halo around her face, her skin drained of colour, and lined like old paper.

  ‘Gran, what have you done to yourself?’ asked Amy, rushing over to kiss her.

  ‘I was just doing a bit of shopping,’ Sheila said emphatically. ‘I need to get a new coat and some boots!’

  ‘Gran, you were up at the shops! Do you remember that?’

  Her grandmother clammed up like a small kid.

  What was her eighty-four-year-old gran up to, walking almost a mile to the shops? What was she thinking of with her talk of buying a new coat and boots when there was only a supermarket, a butcher’s, a chemist’s, a hairdresser’s and the post office in the small crescent of shops?

  ‘Hello, I’m Cathy,’ the pretty dark-haired young woman sitting on the far side of the bed introduced herself. She was only a few years older than Amy and looked pregnant.

  ‘We bought the old house next to Sheila’s and moved in about six months ago when all the building work was done. We’ve become good friends,’ she said, patting Sheila’s hand.

  ‘Cathy, thanks so much for being there, and helping Gran, and going in the ambulance and everything.’ Amy was filled with enormous gratitude towards this stranger who had taken care of her grandmother.

  ‘That’s what neighbours are for.’ Cathy grinned. ‘But I’m glad that you’re here now, because I’ve to collect my four-year-old from a friend’s house. She was able to hold on to her. My husband said that he’d pick me up here once someone came for Sheila.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ asked Sheila, getting all fretful when Cathy stood up to go.

  ‘I have to go home, Sheila, but I’ll see you tomorrow,’ Cathy promised, leaning forward and giving the old lady a hug. ‘Amy’s here to look after you now.’

  Amy sat for hours beside her grandmother waiting for someone in the busy Accident and Emergency department to organize for Sheila to go for her X-ray.

  ‘Where’s your young man?’ asked her gran, who had a soft spot for Dan.

  ‘He’s not here, Gran. He’s in work.’ It was much too complicated to explain again to someone like her gran what was going on between them.

  Amy was relieved when they were finally brought down to X-ray. Her grandmother, who was mad on medical programmes on TV, plagued the nurses and young doctor in the X-ray department with questions, displaying an encyclopedic medical knowledge few eighty-four-year-olds could match!

  An hour later Sheila Hennessy’s broken left wrist was in a cast, and she had been told to take things very easy as she had a broken rib on her left side, too. There were no spare beds in the hospital so they were discharging her.

  ‘Thank heaven,’ said Sheila loudly. ‘I don’t want to catch MRSA.’

  ‘No more gallivanting, young lady!’ warned the A & E consultant, as she gave Sheila a letter for her GP and an appointment for the hospital the following week.

  ‘Come on, Gran, let’s get you home to Willow Grove,’ urged Amy, helping her.

  It was late by the time Amy got her grandmother home and safely upstairs to bed. She made them both a toasted sandwich and gave Gran a big mug of milky cocoa. Sheila was exhausted, and half an hour later was fast asleep, snoring. Amy slipped back downstairs and made herself a cup of coffee, deciding there was no point ruining her parents’ night at the party. She’d phone them in the morning. Gran was safe and as comfortable as she could be, asleep upstairs in the bedroom. She’d text Ciara and Ronan to tell them and would text Jess to apologize for letting her down about the theatre.

  Amy looked around
the old-fashioned messy kitchen and began to tidy it: sorting out papers for recycling, bottles for the bottle bank, and chucking all the out-of-date jars and cans and packets from her gran’s larder and fridge firmly in the bin. It was a wonder that her gran wasn’t in hospital with food poisoning! How did old people live like this? she wondered. She stacked the new dishwasher her mum and her uncles had brought for her gran at Christmas with all the grimy mugs and bowls and plates and pots that were around the kitchen, then put it on to an intensive wash cycle. It was 2 a.m. before she realized the time, and with fresh sheets taken from the hot press, she made up a bed for herself in the back bedroom.

  The next morning, as the sun streamed in, Amy couldn’t believe how well she had slept. It was her first proper night’s sleep since she had split up with Dan, and she felt drowsy and relaxed as she looked at the faded pink floral wallpaper and old velour curtains.

  Cathy from next door called in an hour later with her little girl, Emily, to see how Sheila was doing.

  ‘We made some buns, and I know Sheila is partial to them.’ She set the buns on the table and seemed delighted to be asked to stay for coffee.

  Sheila showed Emily her cast, and ate two of the soft sponge buns with their pink icing straight away, and chattered away to the little girl, who was obviously a favourite. Ten minutes later Sheila’s elderly friend Florence Byrne from across the street came over to find out how she was, and Sheila relished the attention as she told Florence all about her trip in the ambulance.

  ‘These old houses are great,’ remarked Cathy, looking out at the garden, where Emily was stomping around and picking daisies from the lawn. ‘They have plenty of space for kids, and to build an extension like we did. Most of them are being sold and done up, so there is a great mixture of neighbours.’

  Amy looked around at her gran’s small cramped kitchen with its tired beige tiles and green kitchen presses, which could certainly do with being done up!

  ‘Mum was in hospital!’ Helen was upset when Amy phoned to tell her what happened. ‘Your dad and I’ll be there in a few hours,’ she fussed. ‘We’ll check out of the hotel and be on the road to Dublin as soon as we can.’

  ‘Mum, Gran’s fine,’ Amy reassured. ‘Take your time, there’s no rush back. She’s broken her arm and a rib and she’s had a few stitches, but honestly she’s OK.’

  Amy had a slightly bizarre phone conversation with Jess, where her best friend mentioned the wasted theatre tickets, but actually seemed more upset that she had taken off somewhere for the weekend without telling her. Maybe staying here in Willow Grove with her gran for a while wouldn’t be a bad idea!

  Her parents arrived mid-afternoon. Her dad looked tired from the long drive on the motorway.

  Amy watched, bemused, as her mum fussed over her grandmother as if she was a child.

  ‘What were you doing walking all that way to the shops on your own? You know that I’ll always bring you shopping or get anything you need.’

  ‘I just wanted to get one or two things,’ replied Gran stubbornly.

  ‘Mum, there are enough people to help if you want something.’

  ‘I’m perfectly able to get shopping for myself,’ said Sheila calmly. It had always been her habit never to depend on others.

  ‘Mum, why don’t you come and stay with myself and Paddy for a bit. Till you’re feeling better, at least?’ cajoled Helen.

  ‘I’m feeling fine, Helen, just a bit stiff and sore from the broken rib and the bruising. But I’ll mend,’ Sheila said stubbornly. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

  Amy could understand her grandmother wanting to stay in the familiarity of her own home with all her clutter of things around her. So much was changing around the old woman that this was probably the only place she felt safe.

  ‘Gran, would you like me to stay here with you for a bit?’ she found herself offering.

  ‘That would be grand, Amy love,’ nodded Sheila.

  ‘Then I’ll stay here for the moment,’ Amy volunteered. ‘I need somewhere to live. Jess’s is great, but I can’t stay there for ever. I’ve been trying to find somewhere, and being here with Gran is fine.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked Paddy, concerned.

  ‘Yeah, it suits everyone.’

  ‘Amy, it would be great if you were here at night to keep an eye on things,’ said Helen, unable to hide the relief in her voice. ‘But what will happen during the day when you are out at work?’

  ‘Doesn’t Sylvie already come in three days? Maybe you could ask her if she could manage five mornings for the moment? Also, Gran’s neighbours are great.’

  ‘There’s no harm asking,’ agreed her mother, ‘and at weekends Brendan and David and Tim and all the family chip in.’

  ‘Well, if that’s settled, then,’ said Sheila, ‘I’m going to put my feet up and have a nap in the front room.’

  Chapter Forty-five

  Paddy O’Connor checked in with the pretty young receptionist at the Oaklands Medical Centre. It had been over two years since he had graced the place, and he shifted nervously in his seat in the large waiting area, seeking refuge in a copy of the daily newspaper. He was mostly surrounded by women: some with babies, some with elderly parents, and Bernice Patterson, a neighbour from down the road who was on crutches. An old geezer in the corner coughed his lungs out and was given a wide berth by everyone. A forty-a-day man, by the sound of it, and as evidenced by the brown nicotine-stained fingers that trembled as he pretended to read a magazine. Paddy hated coming to the surgery, dealing with doctors and nurses and medical people, but lately he had been feeling unwell. He believed that health was wealth. He ensured that his car was serviced regularly and passed the NCT test, so it was the least he could do to make sure that his own engine wasn’t developing some kind of problem.

  To be honest, for the last few weeks Paddy hadn’t been feeling right. He’d felt awful down at his sister’s sixtieth party in Cork and was tired and out of sorts. He found that even doing simple things was making him breathless. He hadn’t mentioned a word to Helen, who had enough on her plate: dealing with Sheila – who seemed to suddenly have developed some form of mild dementia – and getting over the disappointment and upset of Amy’s wedding. No, he would go calmly and quietly to Tom Galligan and find out what was what!

  He scanned the sports results and the business page, unable to concentrate. In the distance a baby roared, the sound filling the silence. Poor wee thing, being vaccinated and subjected to a needle! He was a grown man, and yet he hated needles!

  ‘Mr O’Connor!’ The receptionist called his name. ‘Doctor Galligan will see you now in room three.’

  Paddy got up, abandoning the paper, and tried to compose himself as he walked along the cream-painted corridor.

  ‘Come in, Paddy, and sit down,’ Tom Galligan said warmly, pointing to a leather chair opposite his desk.

  His office was bright and neat, with a slim computer and screen sitting on the modern desk with its silver legs and wooden top.

  ‘How are you?’ said the doctor.

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve been a bit off sorts lately,’ Paddy said.

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Well, I’m finding it harder to lift things . . . even to go up the stairs to the office sometimes.’

  ‘Any shortness of breath?’

  ‘A bit, I suppose, but it’s probably just my age. My office is up on the second floor, and even though I’d consider myself fit, recently the stairs take it out of me. Then at the weekend I thought that I’d do a bit of work in the garden, digging, clearing the back up near the shed – and I had to stop.’

  ‘Any pain?’

  ‘I suppose a bit. I just didn’t feel right.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Doctor Galligan. He stood up and asked Paddy to remove his jacket and shirt. Then he took his blood pressure and pulse before getting Paddy to lie on the white couch while he examined him and listened to his chest.

  ‘Paddy, when someone like you, who rarely darkens
my door, tells me he’s not feeling right a little alarm bell rings,’ said Tom Galligan. The doctor examined him literally from head to toe. Paddy was embarrassed when he hooked him up to the surgery’s ECG machine and stuck pads to his chest so that he could examine his heart.

  ‘Hopefully, it’s nothing, but I’d prefer to have you checked out properly. I think that we should do a few blood tests here today, and then Elaine, my receptionist, will set up a few more tests for you in the morning. Also, I want to get Elaine to book you in for a more detailed test of your heart – an echocardiogram – which is an ultra-sound of your heart, down in the Blackrock Clinic tomorrow, if she can get an appointment.’

  ‘Tom, do you think there might be something wrong?’ Paddy asked, suddenly alarmed.

  ‘I think we need to do a few more tests to see what’s going on!’ the doctor explained calmly. Paddy tried to mask his dismay as he thanked him and paid his bill before driving back into town.

  Two days later Paddy got an appointment for the cardiology department in Blackrock Clinic. Luckily he had good medical cover and could get all the tests done on the same day. He filled in a detailed form which asked a load of questions about his health and his family history. His father, Seamus, had died of a stroke at seventy-two years of age. A fit, strong man, he had stepped out of bed one morning and collapsed, unable to speak or move, Paddy’s mother finding him when she returned from ten o’clock Mass. There had been hospitals and doctors and scans, but his father had not recovered, and he had died about eight days later.

  The first test was the echocardiogram: an ultrasound of his heart. The young male technician explained it to Paddy as he made him lie down on his side on the narrow bed. He firmly pressed the scanner down hard on to his chest and sides: the ECHO would help show up any weakness or abnormality in his heart. It was strange listening to the gushing and thumping sounds of his own heart.

  Everything seemed fine, and Paddy felt he was a fraud, wasting medical people’s valuable time.