Blood And Water (19 page)

Nico laughed out loud at both him and his appalling chat-up line.

“You’re obviously new to this.” She pointed at his ring finger, eliciting an immediate blush.

Mortified, he instinctively yanked his hand away from his glass.

“Oh, don’t worry,” she placated him. “I get all sorts in here – first timers, old timers, even the odd virgin, believe it or not. I’m no prude and I don’t judge.”

Seb’s eyes dropped.

“If it’s fun you want, have a chat with Sadie over there – she’ll look after you.”

Seb threw a surreptitious glance over at Sadie. She didn’t look so bad. But was that what he was after, coming here, because he couldn’t go home?

A bearded man joined Nico behind the bar.

“All quiet?” he asked.

“All quiet,” she replied, taking off her once-white apron and disappearing out the back.

Feeling safe, with anonymity once again, he took a closer look at Sadie. She could have been anywhere between twenty-five and forty-five, her hair bleached beyond recognition of its original colour. She had a pretty but tired face that looked down onto the screen of her phone. As she was half obscured by the table, he had no idea what she was like from waist down but on top she was well endowed, very well endowed indeed.

Nico reappeared, this time on the right side of the bar, a bag slung over her shoulder with a hoodie in her hand. She went over and flopped down in the snug next to Sadie. Seb immediately dropped his eyes to the remains of his drink, not daring to lift them, but only minutes later Nico was by his side.

“Now she
is
a bit of a Nicky, so be careful.” And with a wink and a smirk she was gone.

“Will I top you up?” the bearded barman asked, hating to watch a man hug an empty glass.

“Please do. And one for my friend.” He nodded towards Sadie who was making her way over from the other side of the bar.

For a while he was Cormac, promiscuous, wild and dirty, and Sadie became Kathryn.
Slut. Whore. Bitch.
He slammed into her hard, her head thumping off the inside of the passenger door, but he didn’t care. She didn’t seem to care either. Every thrust was a knife plunged deep into Kathryn’s heart. Punishment. His eyes clenched tight, the image of her smiling at him with Cormac stooped over, buried in her.
Bitch
, he slammed.
Bitch.

And then he was done.

They drove back into the city; the hills it had seemed was the place to go. She had offered that they should go to hers, but he didn’t have the stomach for it. One step at a time.

“Jeez, man, you need some help,” Sadie complained, fixing herself while massaging her aching head. “I’ve had all sorts in my time, but that’s hard, man.”

“I’m paying you, aren’t I?”

“You fuckin’ bet you are.”

He pulled up outside the bar, two hundred euro lighter, to let her out.

Sadie went to slam the door only to bend into the car again. “Whoever the fuck she is, I hope you got her outta your system. No bird’s worth that much pain. Trust me, I know, I’m one o’ them. But hey,” she scoffed, waving her fifty-euro notes, “don’t be a stranger!”

He stopped at the garage to make sure the back of the car was clean before finally making his way home. His anger was gone, replaced by profound resignation.

He put his key in the door and wondered if she would know. Would she be able to tell? Would she be able to smell Sadie on him?

Four Louis Vuitton bags lined the wall of their ample hall, stuffed it seemed to the brim. She was in the kitchen, waiting, sitting at the table, a bottle of Bordeaux open and half gone. She looked up at him as he entered, her eyes wide open and filled with defiance. Taking a glass from the drainer, he pulled out a chair and sat opposite her. He filled the glass.

Neither spoke. Neither wanted or needed to.

She was still beautiful, Kathryn, his wife. In the silence of the kitchen, observing and contemplating each other from their opposite sides, he couldn’t help but notice she still had the spark that had first lit up his heart. Seb found himself filled with regret. Not because of what he had just done but more for what he hadn’t done for the hundreds of days and nights before. He would miss her, his wife Kathryn, but they both knew she was long gone.

Chapter 17

William remained still and silent for the hours that followed. The first few were fine. Wide awake, Barbara used them to reflect on their lives, her feelings and her future. But then she got bored. She really could do with a drink.

Nurse Cathy had eventually returned to report that she had located Kathryn and Sebastian’s numbers but had so far failed to get in contact with them. She had left messages on their phones, including their landline. Armed with the names of the other Bertram children, she left promising to attempt to contact them through directory enquiries.

Then, in the early morning hours, like a tornado Ciara rushed through the door.

“Oh my God! Dad!” she gushed when she saw him lying so still, so grey.

Barbara prickled at the sight of her.

“I came as soon as I could.” She threw her coat and bag on the empty chair in the corner, firing questions at her dazed mother. “Why didn’t you call me? What happened?” She took her father’s hand in hers.

“He’s had a heart attack,” Barbara answered, clearing the dryness of her throat with a cough, doing her best to sound neither patronising nor sarcastic, wondering who’d told Ciara.

“Oh God! Will he be alright?”

“They seem to think so.” Barbara looked around, wishing herself to be anywhere but here. She had spent her time, years of her time, avoiding situations like this. “Are you going to stay long?” She pulled herself up from the chair. “I should really go home to change and get your father some things.”

“Sure, I’ll stay,” Ciara told her, only then noticing Barbara’s nightdress underneath her coat.

Relieved, Barbara said, “I’ll get back as soon as I can. I’ll give your brothers and sister a call from the house.”

But Ciara wasn’t listening. She had taken hold of William’s hand and was fixing his grey fringe over his eyes.

Barbara glanced briefly back into the room as she left and caught the look of absolute devotion. The poor girl. She worked so hard and was rewarded with so little. But, despite it, she never stopped trying.

It was dark and cold inside the house. She had no idea what time she had called the ambulance and had even less of an idea as to what time it was when she got home. She looked at her watch: it was almost five in the morning. She kicked off her shoes and made her way to the lounge where she headed straight for the drinks tray and poured herself a very generous whiskey. She deserved it, after the day or night she’d had. Just the one, then she’d get herself together, gather his things and make her way back to the hospital. She welcomed the soft comfort of the couch and savoured the burning assault at the back of her throat as the neat spirit made its way down. She didn’t even bother with the ice. She needed to feel its anaesthetic power, needed it to turn down that bloody voice that had spent the night questioning her every single feeling and every tiny action. She, it seemed, had put herself on trial and had become her very own judge and jury, her conscience. But the voice she heard wasn’t her own – it sounded just like her long since dead mother – a tormenting commentary from the grave, criticising and harsh.

The first whiskey didn’t help. Maybe a second would kick its ass, she hoped as she poured a double measure of the amber liquid into her glass. Four rounds later and her eyes were heavy and the inner voice, although not entirely quiet, was reduced to a simpering whisper. Enough to let her sleep.

She was woken what felt like minutes later to urgent shakes and persistent whimpers that in her dream were the wailing cries of a dying cat at her window and no matter how may curtains she pulled in front of it, curtain after curtain, it just wouldn’t go away.

“
Mother! Mother!For God’s sake, wake up, Mother!
” the voice eventually broke through.

She opened her eyes to see what or who was causing her such violent disruption. The looming and undeniable shape of Ciara stood over her with her face all tied up in an ugly grimace, looking like her father.

“Mother, what are you doing?” she shouted, her tone laced with acid fury, which for Ciara, usually the quiet, subdued one was significantly bizarre.

“Ciara?” Barbara asked through her groggy ‘almost but not quite aware’ stupor. “I fell asleep.” She tried to pull herself up – steady as a newborn fawn, her mouth as dry as a sawmill.

“Came home and got plastered more like.”

“Well, if you knew the answer why did you bother asking?”

“You were supposed to bring Dad’s things to the hospital!”

She didn’t bother to reply – instead she got up and left the room.

“What the hell are you playing at?” Ciara called, following her to the kitchen.

“Good Lord, girl, will you stop mithering,” Barbara pleaded, holding on to her head as if keeping it all together in case it should explode.

“Dad is lying in hospital, he could be dead by now for all you know and you’re home here getting drunk.”

“Did you not hear me?”

Barbara called, exasperated and headsore. “I asked you to shut up.
So. Please. Will you shut up?
”

“Don’t tell me to shut up!” Ciara stood back, aghast at her mother’s outburst.

Barbara had surprised herself, never mind Ciara. She had never spoken to her, or any of her children like that before. Maybe it was shock. Maybe it was exhaustion, but something had switched inside telling her enough was enough.

“Too late,” she cracked. “I already did and if you don’t like it you know where to go. You waltz into this house – my house – and order me around like you own the place.”

“He’s not dead yet, you know. You do realise that, don’t you?”

“I beg your pardon?” Barbara demanded, surprised by the comment. “Why would I think he was dead?”

“Well, isn’t that what you’ve been waiting for?”

“Don’t be so bloody childish!”

“You heard me. We all know you and Dad are in trouble.”

“Really
? In trouble?” she repeated with feigned curiosity, encouraging her to continue.

“Yes. And don’t even bother denying it.”

Barbara picked up an empty wine bottle from the counter and shook it desperately before throwing it down again. She bent down and picked a fresh one from the wine rack in the central island.

“Really, Mother, it’s eight thirty in the morning!”

“Oh, would you ever just go back to the hospital and leave me alone!” she spat. “Go look after your
father.
”

She pulled the cork from the twenty-year-old Bordeaux and raised a glass to Ciara’s exit from the room. She listened to her pound up the stairs, apparently transferring her anger to her feet which marched heavily across the floorboards overhead – to William’s room, Barbara guessed.

Barbara’s relationship with her children was almost non-existent: they didn’t figure much in her world and therefore neither did she in theirs. It had always been an enigma, why she never held her children dear like other mothers whose families grew alongside her own. It wasn’t that she didn’t notice her indifference – she had recognised it as being unusual very early on but was more intrigued than worried about the difference between her and the other mums.

“Give Mummy a kiss,” the other children were invited by their attentive parent. Barbara would watch curiously as the tiny pursed lips covered in saliva, snot and God knows what else were pressed untidily against perfectly glossed lips.
Ewww
, she would internally cringe. The last thing she wanted was mucky handprints on her blouse and demanding whinges from children pulling at her petticoat tails. No, she was content to keep them at a safe distance. There were more pressing issues to attend to, like who’d won the last bridge rubber.

Listening to Ciara’s progress upstairs and for her eventual departure from the house, Barbara wondered if any of them had sussed that William didn’t like them much either. They were without exception an intelligent brood: they must know – he wasn’t that good at concealing it. It was the public’s perception of him as a fine upstanding family man worthy of their votes that stopped him from ignoring them altogether. And in return they tested him to the nth degree. All except Ciara who, God bless her, like a little puppy just wanted to be loved. Barbara was almost impressed by Ciara’s outburst and imagined her heading into the hospital telling her tale of finding her mother drunk again, and passed out, to her sick father who quite frankly didn’t give a damn.

Chapter 18

William lay, eyes closed but awake. He heard her come in and felt her gently touch his hand and fix his fringe. But he didn’t open his eyes. She was close: he could feel her breath and smell her slightly citrus perfume. It reminded him of their holidays spent in Spain and the aroma of the tangy cologne that seemed to hang in the air wherever they went. Of all of their children Ciara loved Spain. He hated it: so common.

The door opened again.

“He’s sleeping,” he heard Ciara say.

Was it Barbara, he wondered. Was she there? His eyes were too heavy to open and see for himself.

“Good,” one of the many efficient but slightly nervous nurses charged with his care replied in a whisper. “He needs the rest.”

He heard the sound of the chart being pulled from the pocket at the end of the bed and felt her presence at his side, checking his pulse, fluids and monitors.

“There are a lot of photographers outside,” the nurse remarked, “and Mr. McDaid, the government press secretary, has arrived. He wanted to come straight though, but he’s been told to wait for you in the visitors’ lounge. You might explain to him it’s family only at the moment.”

“I will. He’ll be looking for us to make a statement, I suppose,” said Ciara.

William could hear the confidence disappear from her voice.