by Maeve Binchy
“You are a very good druid, Father Brian.”
“A good what?” he asked her.
“Now I have to teach you English. It's an affectionate word for a priest.”
“No, it's not, Ania.”
“It is in Ania's world, but maybe you've had such a close call you might be prepared to get out of it and join the real world.”
“Ah, Johnny, Johnny, when all is said and done, what do you know about anything?” Brian asked, punching his friend cheerfully in the arm.
Chapter Six
Mountainview, despite its pleasant name, was one of the tougher areas of Dublin. Some of the big estates were home to drug dealers and it wasn't a place to walk alone at night. The school had its ups and downs, but it was lucky enough to have a headmaster, Tony O'Brien, who could deal with toughness head-on.
Some of the older teachers found the change difficult. Things used to be different. The place had been shabby but they'd had respect. The children came from homes where money was short, but they were all keen to make something of themselves. Today they only cared about money, and if someone's big brother was driving a smart car and wearing an expensive leather jacket, it was hard to get interested in having a job in a bank or an office where you might never make enough to have your own house or car and a leather jacket was just a dream. No wonder so many of them joined gangs. And as for respect?
Aidan Dunne told his wife, Nora, all about it.
Big fellows would push past you in the corridor and sort of nudge the books out of your hand. Then they would laugh and say that sir must be losing his grip. Aidan remembered when they would rush to pick up the books. Not now. Now they called him Baldy, or asked him if he remembered the First World War.
It was the same with the women teachers. If they weren't married, some of the really rough fellows would ask them were they frigid or lesbian. If they were married, they would ask them how many times a night did they do it.
“And what do you say?” Nora wondered.
“I try to ignore them. I tell myself that they're only insecure kids like always—it's just they have a different way of expressing it. Still, it doesn't make the day's work any easier.”
“And how do the women cope?”
“The younger ones are on top of it, they say things like, ‘Oh, you'd never be able to satisfy me like my old man does,’ or else that, sure, they are gay because the only alternative is horrible spotty boys with filthy fingernails.” Aidan shook his head. “By the time I get to the classroom I'm worn out,” he said sadly.
“Why don't you give it up?” Nora said suddenly. She taught Italian at an evening class and organized a yearly outing to Italy for the group. She had several other small jobs, but she had no interest in money or pensions or the future. She sat in one of the basket chairs she had bought at a garage sale and tried to persuade Aidan to join her in this carefree lifestyle.
But he was a worrier. It would be idiotic to leave his school now several years before retirement date. It would mean no proper pension; if he were to amount to anything he had to provide for Nora and his family from an earlier marriage.
“Oh, you've well provided for them,” Nora said cheerfully. “You've given Nell most of the money you got for the house, Grania is married to the headmaster of Mountainview School, Brigid has been made a partner in the travel agency. They should be providing for you, if you come to think of it.”
“But you, Nora, what about you? I want to look after you, give you some comfort and pleasures.”
“You give me great comfort and pleasures,” she said.
“But some security, Nora,” he pleaded.
“I never had security before, I don't want it now.”
“I have to finish out my time there.”
“Not if you don't like it. What about this lovely life we promised each other and we have mainly had?”
“It depends on my having a good safe job, Nora,” he said.
“No—it doesn't. Not if it's making you worry, and panic about these louts. We don't need it, Aidan. Not if it's affecting your health.”
“It's not affecting my health,” Aidan said firmly.
A week later Aidan and Nora were in one of their favorite secondhand bookshops; they were each browsing separately when she suddenly looked over at him. His hand was at his throat and he seemed to be having difficulty catching his breath.
“Aidan?” she called.
“Sorry, is it very stuffy in here?”
“No, indeed—there's a lazy wind coming in from the canal.”
“A lazy wind?” he asked distractedly.
“You know—a wind that doesn't bother to make the time to go round you so it goes through you …” Nora smiled.
He didn't smile back.
She was alarmed now. “Is there something wrong?”
“I don't seem to be able to breathe in,” he said. “Oh, Nora, dear Nora, I hope that I'm not going to faint or anything.”
“No, of course you're not. Just sit down there.” She was brisk and practical. First, she spoke to the shop owner.
“Where's the nearest hospital?” she asked.
“St. Brigid's. Is there a problem?”
“I think my husband is having some kind of seizure. Taxi rank?”
“Don't bother. I'll drive you,” he said.
Nora didn't question it. There would be time to thank him later.
“Right, Aidan, Dara is giving us a lift,” she said.
“Where to?” he gasped.
“To somewhere that will help you breathe properly, my darling,” she said.
And he closed his eyes in relief.
• • •
At the A&E in St. Brigid's the nurses moved him wordlessly into a cubicle. They had given him oxygen and the house doctor had been called.
“Take off his trousers,” the doctor said.
“What?” Nora was taken aback.
“Please, madam.” The Chinese doctor was very courteous. “His lungs are flooded, we need to drain the liquid from him, we have to put him on a catheter …”
Nora explained this to Aidan.
“That's extraordinary—I don't feel as if I need to go to the loo at all,” he said.
The oxygen was helping. He was much calmer. Nora looked at a huge container and saw it filling up with what looked like gallons of fluid.
“How could that happen?” she asked.
“The heart is failing to pump,” the Chinese doctor explained. “He is in heart failure at the moment.”
Nora felt all the strength leave her body. The good, kind man that she adored and who loved her too had a heart that had failed him. Life as they knew it was over.
In about an hour Aidan felt so much better he was ready to come home. He was surprised when he heard that they were getting a bed for him in St. Brigid's.
“But I'm perfectly fine now,” he protested.
Nora went home for his pajamas, dressing gown and a sponge bag. She remained calm and reassuring on the outside, but inside she felt that she had lost the will to live.
The next few days passed in a blur: visits from teams of senior doctors, their younger assistants with clipboards, nurses, carers, cleaners, trolleys of food. Visitors coming in with anxious faces. And among them was Nora Dunne, tall, wild-eyed, her long red hair with its gray streaks tied back with a black ribbon.
She sat beside Aidan's bed and they played chess happily together. If people had been watching them closely they would have noticed that they never talked about household things, bills, repairs, shopping. They didn't talk about neighbors or family or friends. They just lived for each other. And if people had been watching very carefully they would have realized that Nora was behaving like a robot. She was keeping the show on the road for Aidan.
When he was discharged after a week they talked to him seriously about levels of stress in his life. When he told them about life up at the school, the cardiologist advised him to give up the job.
Aidan wouldn't even consider discu
ssing it. He would take his medication, he would take long rests each day. But he would not give up his job. It was the only thing he had to offer his wife, some stability. He had not been a good provider. There had been other calls on his finances. A previous family. No, in all honor he had to stay on until his pension was assured.
The medical team spoke to Nora too and found her hard to fathom. Over and over she said she wasn't remotely interested in possessions or pensions. They lived in a small and simple rented flat. She could easily go out to work and make the rent. Their needs were not great.
“So will you encourage him to retire?” the cardiologist suggested.
“No, not if he doesn't want to, Doctor. Why should I stand between him and what he wants to do? Aidan always loved teaching. He would feel such a failure if we took him out of that school.”
“Could he not teach at home? Give private tuition, maybe?”
“No. Aidan doesn't approve of people having to pay for extra education. We couldn't ask him to go against his principles.”
“But you are such a strong personality, Mrs. Dunne. I am sure that you could persuade him.”
“I'm sure I could if I tried—but it would not be honest to make him give up what he truly wants to do.”
“Even if it's killing him?”
“But he's going to die anyway, isn't he?”
“We all are, but with care he has plenty of life left.”
Nora's face was still empty. “A life of fear and anxiety and thinking that choking will return.”
“We can help him make sure that it doesn't. As sure as can be.”
“Which isn't totally sure, is it?” Her voice was hard.
“No, no more than we can be sure that you won't both be hit by a bus on your way home. But we have a very good record in keeping people alive and well and in normal life after a heart attack. Your husband will be in that number. We have referred him to a heart failure clinic which he will have to attend regularly. It's a heart clinic attached to this hospital. Patients go there to be monitored, to have blood tests, check their medication.”
“And why do you call it heart failure?”
“Because that's what their hearts are doing: failing to work at the optimum levels.”
“And Aidan has to come here every week, is that it?”
“To start with, yes. Then as he progresses, less often. He will find it a great reassurance.”
Nora was silent.
“Truly he will, Mrs. Dunne. All our research has shown that it makes people much more confident and positive, which is exactly what they need at this time.”
“And is it funded by a drug company? Do they do experiments on the patients?”
“Absolutely not. It is operated under the aegis of this hospital and we are very proud of it.” He bristled with resentment at her suspicions.
“I'm sorry, Doctor. To you Aidan is a patient you are looking after. To me he is my whole life. I'm not thinking straight.”
“He will need you to think straight now more than ever before,” the doctor said. Clearly, this woman had to be brought on board. “Go to the heart clinic with him, get to know the people there; you may both get a lot from it.”
For the first time, the tight, pained look left Nora Dunne's face. She was a handsome woman, the doctor realized.
“We'll give it a chance,” she said with a hint of a smile.
• • •
Barbara had visited Aidan in hospital to explain the system to him. Aidan listened to this attractive, bouncy girl and nodded his understanding. It seemed to have everything you'd need: exercise class, blood pressure, weigh-ins.
There was an emergency phone number for them to call at night.
“Why would we not come straight in to Emergency?” Aidan had asked.
“Well, of course you could, but there might be a shortcut. It could be a question of taking another diuretic. And then we would call you back in half an hour to see had the breathlessness disappeared. That's often all it needs, and it would save you all the business of coming in here again.” Barbara was cheerful and practical. “You'll love the people there, Aidan. They're a great crowd,” she said.
It was an easy bus journey from Nora and Aidan's flat to the heart clinic. People were well wrapped up against the February chill and there was a mist coming in over the canal. Nora had tied a smart tartan woolly scarf around Aidan's neck before they set out. He felt perfectly fine; it was only that the shadow of all this happening again hung over him.
The bus stopped outside the clinic's gate. Nora and Aidan both knew the story of how it had once been a storage depot and had nearly become a car park until rescued by St. Brigid's for this purpose. There was a big brass plaque outside saying HEART CLINIC. Inside it was full of light and remarkably cheerful.
Nora and Aidan were shown around and introduced by Ania, who clearly loved this part of her job. Here was the exercise room: Johnny had a powerful handshake and a great belief that muscles could do anything. He showed them the various machines and said he would look forward to building Aidan up on them.
Then Ania took them to meet Lavender in the dietitian's room, and they got a food sheet and a list of the times that Lavender gave cookery demonstrations, at which all were welcome.
Aidan recognized Barbara, the cheerful nurse, who in turn introduced Fiona, a beautiful girl. “That's just in case you're unlucky enough to hit a day when I'm not here, Aidan. Fiona will do her best with you.”
“Don't take a blind bit of notice of her, Aidan,” Fiona said. “You'll be ringing up secretly to know when Barbara is off, just like everyone else.”
And here was a young doctor called Declan, then an office manager whose name was Hilary who had all his details and files from the hospital, and finally the beautiful Dr. Casey, who ran the whole outfit.
“I'm Clara,” she said simply. She had notes in her hand from the hospital and when Aidan was borne away by Barbara to one of the treatment cubicles, Clara asked Nora to sit down. She glanced down at the hospital notes, which included a short scribble in the margin. “Work on the wife,” it said cryptically.
She was striking-looking, thought Clara. It was odd to see a woman in her fifties with long hair in what looked almost like alternate stripes of gray and red and realize that it had not been done in a hairdresser's. It was really due to nature.
Nora had the gift of being very still. She must be a restful person to live with. Clara wondered what she was meant to work on this woman about.
Soon it became clear.
Nora Dunne did not believe her husband was going to make any kind of recovery and now that was becoming a big part of the problem.
Clara gave her usual optimistic spiel about the clinic and its powers to keep people out of hospital. But she felt it was falling on stony ground. So she moved to a different tactic.
“We have found that those who come from a positive background, from a home where people really believe they will get better, do get better,” she said.
“Mind over matter, do you mean?” Nora did not sound convinced.
“Not really. Just affirmation, something to live for.”
Nora still looked skeptical. “And I suppose you think religious people recover even quicker?”
“I have no idea. Possibly a firm conviction of faith might help, certainly. It's not something we can measure.”
“But you can measure sunny cheerful home atmosphere and what good it does?” Nora sounded very cynical.
“You have seen some of the facilities we can offer here at this clinic, Nora. You have talked to people who think that carefully and regularly checked medication, blood tests, monitoring, exercise and nutrition will all help to save and prolong lives. Why do you not feel part of this?”
“Because the quality of the life you are preserving and prolonging isn't going to be any good,” Nora said desolately.
“How amazing to be so certain!” Clara looked very angry. “I have been practicing medicine for years and I
don't have your confidence in that judgment.”
“I am the least confident person you ever met,” Nora said sadly. “I would do anything on earth to help Aidan get better. But you're asking me to believe in a fairy tale. I find that hard to take on.”
“Do you believe in compromise?” Clara asked suddenly.
“Once I didn't, but in fact I do nowadays. Why do you ask?”
“I was going to ask you to give me six weeks where you pretend to think it's all working and doing him some good, and if after that you think it's only feel-good rubbish, then go back to your principles.” Clara opened her diary. “Why don't we choose a date in April when we decide what you feel. You're only investing six weeks. A month and a half? For Aidan?”
“How can I refuse?” Nora had a wonderful smile. Her cooperation was indeed going to be essential to her husband's recovery.
So for six weeks Nora Dunne kept her part of the bargain and spoke enthusiastically about the heart clinic that Aidan was attending.
She told her two sisters, Helen and Rita, who never showed much interest in anything. She met them once a week at the old people's home where her mother now lived. Rita and Helen made no secret of the fact that they thought their sister Nora was eccentric and not to be trusted on any matter. After all, she had run away to Italy after a married man. When she had finally come home, forced out of the place probably, she had dressed most oddly. Then she took a room in a very rough area and taught Italian in a tough school. She had “married” a man who was a teacher in the school, but of course it wasn't a real marriage since he was already married and divorced and it was one of these Register Office jobs. They sniffed as if to imply that a heart attack was the very least punishment Aidan Dunne might have expected for having committed adultery.
Nora and Aidan went to one of Lavender's cookery demonstrations and heard about how to reduce salt in everything and how to make little fish parcels. In front of everyone, Lavender took out squares of foil and on each one placed a small piece of cod; she added sliced leeks, green beans and some cherry tomatoes. Then she sprayed everything with a low-fat spray and folded up the foil as an envelope. It took about twenty minutes to cook. While it was cooking she gave them helpful advice about shopping and asking for lean cuts of meat.