Blood And Water (18 page)

She knelt by his side. The minutes that passed felt like hours.

“Come on . . . come on . . .” she pleaded.

William didn’t open his eyes. He lay limp and lifeless on the floor but his hands remained warm.

In reality they were there within minutes and the room flashed blue to the rhythm of the ambulance lights.

Barbara let go of his hand and opened the door.

Gladly she stood back to let the experts take over. He was alive, they assured her, but in a grave condition. They stretchered him out of the house with an oxygen mask covering his face and nose. His eyes, relaxed now, remained closed. There was nothing like near-death to sober you up, she thought, and considered her chances of sneaking in a quick shot before she piled into the back of the ambulance with him. No sooner had the thought crossed her mind than she was ushered up the steps of the ambulance, still in her nightgown and a coat she had thrown over it. The doors were slammed shut and seconds later the wheels spun on the gravel outside, spitting up pebbles and grit behind them like fuel-filled boy racers. She sat beside him, rocking and swaying with the fast motion of the ambulance. One of the paramedics attended him all the way, his face serious, fully focused on the task at hand. Seán was his name. He spoke gently to her throughout the short journey, but she had no idea what they talked about. She couldn’t take her eyes off her husband. He looked so pale, so vulnerable, lying there defenceless and sleeping, his face covered by a mask with his mouth almost open. Her hand swept a loose hair from his forehead and strayed to explore the lines and creases that catalogued his life. He was a bastard, she mused, wiping a speck of dust from his cheek. She hated him. Really hated him. But in calling the ambulance she had saved his life. How ironic. She had wished him dead more times in the recent years of their fifty-five together than she should really admit, and now when the time came to actually see her deep-rooted fantasy come to fruition she forgot herself and let it pass. Why? How?

It wasn’t always like that: she wasn’t always this bitter, like an old lemon. She had loved him. Once. And it lasted for many years. Really loved him. And, she assumed, somewhere in the residues of that love lived the apparently impulsive need to keep him alive.

From the moment she’d first met him he had captivated her. She had just turned eighteen when they were first introduced: she, the pretty debutante, he the slightly older son of a wealthy solicitor and successful politician. As close to a celebrity as she was ever likely to meet. He was, everyone agreed, a highly eligible bachelor and would be a wonderful catch. Educated, smart, entertaining, witty and with prospects to boot, all he needed was the looks and he’d have been perfect. Perfect husband material. He wasn’t particularly good-looking, in fact he was decidedly ordinary, but there was something extraordinarily charismatic about him. He had presence and the most alluring male pheromones, enough to make any young girl lose herself in his company. And what he lacked in looks he made up for in confidence. She and the rest of the young ladies discreetly competed for his attention. But in the end, he picked her – why, she could never really understand. In so many ways they were opposites: he was gregarious and outgoing, the life and soul of the party while she was happy to sit alone in his company. He was the acidic joker and entertainer and the audience, both male and female, that invariably gathered were without fail seduced by his charm. And while he stole the show, she would observe and bask quietly in awe of him. He was tall while she was the perfect petite package: there was nothing she liked more than to be wrapped in his arms, to be held deep into his chest, his musky aroma intoxicating and his heartbeat mesmerising. She felt so safe, so lucky that he chose her. They were the perfect couple that in the early days were the must-have guests at every party. He was always so dashing with his lean physique apparent in the sharp slim-fitted tailored suits often topped with inimitably matching Stetsons. She wore only the finest dresses, perfectly pinched to show off her delicate waist and sculptured torso, and quickly became the most envied woman in the town. But in private circles, beyond theirs, they were branded Beauty and the Beast.

In the early years Barbara never doubted his love for her. He appeared impervious to the many female advances and was always attentive and caring. It was only after Sebastian was born that things went awry.

The news that she was pregnant was met with great joy and celebration. And when the first-born boy, his successor, came into the world, she and William thanked the Lord for their beautiful gift. He lavished her with chocolates, flowers and a stunning diamond-encrusted eternity ring. The menfolk celebrated for days while the womenfolk fussed. There was champagne and cigars and many late nights of chest-beating celebrations. But it had been a difficult labour and Barbara lost a life-threatening amount of blood. She suffered hard with depression and found it almost impossible to bond with her whimpering little bundle and even harder to admit her failing. To try and help her, William immediately arranged for a nanny to come and help and she was a godsend. Barbara was weak and William understood, encouraging her to take her time to recover, which she did. And when that recovery, almost a year later, was deemed to be complete and she could no longer use her depression as an excuse for ignoring her little boy, she begrudgingly re-established her position as lady of the house.

And as William’s career flourished and he quickly rose up the ranks of power, Barbara drank cocktails, smoked though her long tortoiseshell filter and played bridge from one end of the week to the other. She was too self-obsessed to notice that William was fast becoming less and less attentive and came to her bed less often. They had always had separate bedrooms. William wanted it that way – he liked the idea of having his own private space and she didn’t mind it either. He was often out late with his politics and she hated to be disturbed. With the children it made it easier and, as she too discovered, she liked her own space just as much as he did. Rian arrived not much more than a year after Sebastian and Cormac three and a half years after that. She lost a baby, a little girl, Emily, when Cormac had just turned two years old. The fact that she had become pregnant at all was nothing short of a miracle. The enjoyable intimacy of their sex life had all but disappeared and his rare visits to her bed were out of carnal necessity rather than true longing. But she never turned him away even when he so obviously abused his privilege. On occasion he would come to her and, without removing his clothes or engaging in any sort of foreplay, enter her roughly, take her hard and quick then pull out, wipe himself on her nightclothes and leave without uttering a single word. It was on those evenings when she lay still and shaking on the bed that she wished herself somewhere, anywhere else. She didn’t have to bother pretending to enjoy it because he didn’t care, being not in the least bit concerned about her pleasure.

After Seb, the joy of being pregnant never really came to life again in Barbara. She spent the nine months in a constant state of regret and sadness. On the day Emily Bertram was born, the same day she died, a little bit more of Barbara died with her. The once attentive husband had become bored and disinterested while she responded with relief to his waning attentions. But what never crossed her mind was that an insatiable libido didn’t just disappear. She never stopped to think about where and how he was now being satisfied.

Enya was a different story. Enya was her choice. She was never sure why her body wanted a last baby so badly: her biological clock, perhaps. Or maybe it was a much-needed distraction, a balancing of rights, after the arrival of Ciara. Perhaps.

In the ambulance, William opened his eyes briefly, like he was checking to see if he was alive, or dead and en route to heaven or hell. He didn’t open them again until he was admitted and safe in the private hospital bed with the nurses and doctors flurrying around him, dashing and shouting all sorts of complex statements and instructions. And Barbara watched from the corner as they worked. Eventually, with William stable, noticing her they enquired as to her wellbeing. She looked frail and slightly confused: distantly traumatised. But all she wanted was for them to leave her be.

“Can I call anyone for you?” a young nurse asked while handing her a cup of tea. “One of your children perhaps?”

“I don’t know any of their numbers.”

“Don’t you have your mobile with you?”

“No,” she replied with a small shake of her head. “I don’t have one.”

Nurse Cathy, as she introduced herself, threw her a sympathetic but slightly patronising smile then sat down in the leatherette chair beside her with a squeak and gave her knee an uninvited squeeze.

“Will he live?” Barbara asked vacantly.

“Yes,” Cathy replied earnestly with a reassuring pat on Barbara’s hand, misinterpreting her quiet tone as one of concern rather than doubt. “Yes, he’ll be just fine. He mightn’t be on his feet for a bit though. How about their names?”

“Eh?” Barbara responded, feeling slightly bothered by this nurse’s insistence on talking to her.

“Your children,” she prompted. “Their names. We can always try the old-fashioned way through directory enquiries.”

“Right.” Barbara thought for a minute before remembering the obvious. “My daughter-in-law Kathryn Bertram, she works here. You could contact her husband through her – my son Sebastian – he’s the eldest.”

“Perfect. Well, let’s see what we can do.” And with a smile and another small comforting pat on Barbara’s hand, she got up and left.

Barbara sat, lost in thought, wondering, amongst other irrelevant things, about the bang of the front door and who it might have been who had left the house.

She got up and stood over William, inspecting his grey features and wondering if he was in fact a little greyer than before. His eyes flickered open. She caught them with her own and, although she wanted to, she didn’t look away. He tried but couldn’t hold her stare, trying to keep her in focus with each slow blink of his lids. He was obviously heavily sedated and she was surprised he could actually see her at all.

“You got help then,” he slurred almost inaudibly, his voice tacky.

“I couldn’t help myself,” was the best she could respond with. But it was the truth.

His eyebrows attempted a weak lift.

“Are you surprised?” she asked but he didn’t reply. Either he fell back into his drug-induced stupor or he just didn’t want to admit aloud what he had been thinking as he lay motionless on the floor.

So he did realise what he had been doing to her all these years. She smiled to herself sadly. He was afraid – not of dying, but of her. The power had shifted and he knew it.

Chapter 16

Almost every day Seb drove past the bar and every time wondered what it was like inside. It was exactly as he imagined, except perhaps for the smell – like cinnamon and dark chocolate, not what he was expecting. Dark and dingy with Thin Lizzy streaming from an old-style juke box in the corner, it was just what he needed. No one would recognise him here. This wasn’t his kind of place and these weren’t his kind of people.

He took a seat at the corner of the well-worn bar where many an elbow had rested as punters drank to their woes, just as he intended to do now.

“What can I get you?” asked the barmaid, wiping the counter in front of him with a sodden cloth.

“Double Jack Daniels on ice.”

“That kind of day, huh?”

“Yep.”

“Well, this isn’t goin’ to make it much better, trust me,” she advised, nodding towards his fellow drinkers with a knowing glance, pouring him his drink.

Seb smiled up at her. “That’s not going to do business much good, turning the customers off their booze, now is it?”

“I know, don’t tell the boss.” She smiled at him, a cheeky grin with eyes to match. “You just don’t seem the sort, and I haven’t seen you in here before.”

“What’s your name?” He asked her.

“Nico.”

“Very exotic.”

“Not really, just suits me better, that’s all.”

“Short for Nicola, I assume?”

“Don’t tell me – genius, right?” she asked with a smartass tilt of her head.

He raised his glass to her with an apologetic nod. “What’s wrong with Nick or Nicky then?”

“Do I look like a Nick or a Nicky to you?” she asked, standing with one hand on her stuck-out hip.

He didn’t dare answer.

“Thought so,” she huffed, continuing about her business.

But she wasn’t serious and he knew it. He liked her. She was sassy as hell and curvaceous to boot with a look in her eyes that said more about what she would do than wouldn’t. He watched her move behind the bar and thought about Cormac, about Kathryn and Cormac. And then Cormac again. The bastard. What would he do if he were here now, watching that fine backside strut behind the bar? Would he fancy her? Seb didn’t even know if she was his type – but then he reckoned Cormac probably didn’t have any particular type: they all went down the same way. The family all knew what he was like, even if they never discussed it openly. But Kathryn, of all people. He took a swig of his drink, wincing as it seared the back of his throat.

“Same again!” he called and watched as she poured his seconds.

“So what do you do when you’re not here?” he asked, surprising himself.

Nico smiled. “Not a lot really. I study when I can.”

“Ah, educating yourself. Interesting.”

“I don’t plan on being here for the rest of my life. I’ve got plans.”

“Care to share?” Seb invited, sipping his Bourbon, enjoying what he thought was frivolous banter.

Was this what Cormac did? Was this his kind of opening line? Seb felt dangerously alive, putting himself in Cormac’s shoes. Call it research, he told himself. Anyway, did it really matter? His marriage was over, so why the hell not?

“Not really. I tend not to share with strange men who walk into my bar.”

“More’s the pity.” He shrugged. “We could have had a little fun.”