Minding Frankie (24 page)

Declan saw from Muttie’s face that he realized immediately that the news wasn’t good.

Old Man Casey served them and, since there was no response to his conversation about the weather, the neighborhood and the recession, he left them alone.

“Give it to me straight, Declan,” Muttie said.

“It’s only early days yet, Muttie.”

“It’s bad enough for a drink in the middle of the day, lad. Will you tell me or do I have to beat it out of you?”

“They saw a shadow on the X-ray; the scan showed a small tumor.”

“Tumor?”

“You know … a lump. I’ve made an appointment for you with a specialist next month.”

“Next
month
?”

“The sooner we deal with it, the better, Muttie.”

“But how in the name of God did you get an appointment so soon? I thought there was a waiting list as long as your arm?”

“I went private,” Declan said.

“But I’m a workingman, Declan, I can’t afford these fancy fees.…”

“You won a fortune a few years back on some horse. You’ve got money in the bank—you
told
me.”

“But that’s for emergencies and rainy days.…”

“This is a rainy day, Muttie.” Declan blew his nose very loudly. This was more than he could bear at the moment. He heard himself lying as he felt he had been lying all day.

“The thing is, Muttie, once this appointment is made you can’t cancel it. You have to pay for it anyway.”

“Isn’t that disgraceful!” Muttie was outraged. “Aren’t they very greedy, these people?”

“It’s the system,” Declan said wearily.

“It shouldn’t be allowed.” Muttie shook his head in disapproval.

“But you’ll go, won’t you? Tell me you’ll go?”

“I’ll go because you can’t get me out of it. But it’s very highhanded of you, Declan. But if he suggests some mad, expensive treatment, he’s not getting another cent out of me!” Muttie vowed.

“No, it’s just to know the treatment that he would advise. One visit …”

“All right then,” Muttie grumbled.

“You never asked me one single thing about the whole business,” Declan said. “I mean, there are a lot of options: chemotherapy, radiotherapy, surgery …”

Muttie looked at him with the air of a man who has seen it all and heard it all. “Won’t I hear all about it from the fellow whose Rolls-Royce
I’m
paying for? No point in thinking about it until I have to. Okay?”

“Okay,” agreed Declan, who was beginning to wonder would this day ever end.

By the time that Moira called at Chestnut Court, things had settled down a lot.

Noel had agreed not to drink today. Malachy had taken him to an AA meeting, where nobody had blamed him but everyone had congratulated him on turning up that day.

Halfway through the meeting, Noel remembered that he had not let them know in Hall’s that he wouldn’t be in today.

“Declan did that ages ago,” Malachy said.

“What did he say?”

“That he was your doctor and you weren’t able to go in. That he was telephoning from your flat.”

“I wonder how Mr. Hall took that?” Noel was full of anxiety.

“Oh, Declan would have reassured him. You’d believe anything he said. Anyway, it was all true. You weren’t able to go in and he
was
at your flat.”

“He looked very put out about everything,” Noel said. “I hope he won’t turn against me.”

“No, I think he was put out about something else.” Malachy knew when there was a time to be very firm and a time to be more generous.

Moira viewed the presence of Malachy in the house with no great pleasure.

“Are you a babysitter?” she asked.

“No, Ms. Tierney, I am from Alcoholics Anonymous. That’s how I know Noel.”

“Oh, really …” Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Any reason for the visit?”

“We were at a meeting together up the road and I came back for some tea with Noel. That’s permitted, isn’t it?”

“Of course—you mustn’t make me into some kind of a monster. I’m merely here for Frankie’s sake. It’s just that we had a full and frank exchange of views yesterday and I suppose, well, when I saw you here, I thought that you might … that Noel could possibly … that all was not well.”

“And so now you are reassured?” Malachy asked silkily.

“Frankie will be coming back shortly. We want to get things ready for her … unless there’s anything else?” Noel spoke politely.

Moira left.

Malachy turned to Noel. “One ball-breaker,” he said, and for the first time that day Noel smiled.

Everyone had been planning a Christmas party for Frankie and Johnny. Balloons and paper decorations had been discussed at length and in detail. It was going to be held in Chestnut Court: the apartment block had a big communal room that could be rented for such occasions. Lisa and Noel had reserved it weeks back. Was it to go ahead or was Noel too frail to be part of it?

“We’ve got to go for it,” Lisa encouraged him. “Otherwise when she looks back on her album she’ll wonder why there was no celebration for her first Christmas.”

“She won’t be looking back on any album with us,” Noel said grimly.

“What do you mean?”

“They’ll take her from me, and rightly so. Who would leave a child with me?”

“Well, thank you very much from the rest of us who are doing our best to make a home for her,” Lisa said tartly. “We are not going to give up so easily. Get her into the pram, Noel, and we’ll head off and look at this room.”

Just then the phone rang.

“Noel, it’s Declan. Can we leave Johnny with you for an hour or so—it would be a great help.” This was the first time since Noel’s drinking incident that Johnny had been offered.

Noel knew it was a peace offering and an olive branch. But he also knew it was a vote of confidence. He stood a bit taller now.

“Sure, Declan, we’ll take him off to see the room where he’s having his first Christmas party,” he said. And he felt that Declan was pleased too, glad to know the party was going ahead.

Having a party for the children three days before Christmas was a great opportunity for the families to get together. Most of them celebrated the actual day quietly, eating too much of their own turkeys and sitting with family in front of the television. But this was an excuse to get together and wear paper hats and pretend that it was all for the children, two small babies who would sleep through most of it.

Lisa was in charge of decorating the hall, and she did it in scarlet and silver. Emily helped her to drape huge red curtains borrowed from the church hall, Dingo Duggan had brought a van full of holly from what he described vaguely as the countryside, Aidan and Signora
had decorated a tree that would be left in the big room over the Christmas season. They were going to bring their own grandson, Joseph Edward, to the party as a guest, and Thomas Muttance Feather, Muttie’s grandson, was coming on the assurance that he wouldn’t have to talk to babies or sit at a children’s table.

Josie and Charles were wondering if a picture of St. Jarlath would be appropriate in the decorations, and tactfully, Lisa found a place for it. Somewhere it wouldn’t look utterly ludicrous.

Simon and Maud had a job doing a house party, so they couldn’t do the catering, but Emily had arranged a supper where all the women would bring a chicken or vegetable dish of some sort, and all the men would bring wine and beer or soft drinks and a dessert. The desserts had of course turned out to be an immense number of chocolate ones bought in supermarkets. They were arranged artistically on paper plates on a separate table to be wheeled in after the main course was finished.

Noel showed Frankie all the Christmas decorations and smiled at her adoringly as she squealed with pleasure and sucked her fingers. Dressed in a red Babygro and with a little red pixie hat keeping her head warm, she was passed around from one doting adult to another, and featured in a hundred photographs along with Johnny. Even Thomas was persuaded to join in and posed for pictures with the three youngsters and a plate of mince pies.

Father Flynn had brought a Czech trio to play. They had been lonely in Dublin and missed their homeland, so he arranged a number of outings like this, which they enjoyed doing while they got a good meal and their bus money, and an audience cheering them on.

They sang Christmas songs and carols in Czech and in English. And when it came to

a hush fell on family and friends as they looked at the two sleeping babies. Then they all joined in the singing for the next bit:

and everyone in the room, believers or nonbelievers, felt some sense of Christmas that they had not felt before.

“You’re very good giving Muttie a lift,” Lizzie said when Declan called at the Scarlet house on a cold, gray January morning. “He hates going to the bank—it makes him feel uneasy. He’s dressed himself up likes a dog’s dinner, but he’s been like a caged lion all morning.”

“Oh, don’t worry, Lizzie—I’m going there anyway and I’d enjoy the company.”

Declan realized that Muttie had told Lizzie nothing whatsoever about his appointment with the specialist. He looked at Muttie, dressed in his best suit and tie, and couldn’t help noticing how thin the older man had become. It was a wonder Lizzie hadn’t seen it.

They drove in silence while Muttie drummed his fingers and Declan rehearsed what he was going to say when Dr. Harris delivered the news that was staring at Declan from X-rays, scans and reports. They called first at the bank, where Declan cashed a check just to prove that he had business there. Muttie withdrew 500 euros from his savings.

“Even Scrooge Harris can’t charge that much,” he said, nervously putting it in his wallet. Muttie Scarlet wasn’t happy about carrying huge sums of money like this, but he was even less happy still about handing it over it to this greedy man.

As it turned out, Dr. Harris turned out to be a kindly man. He
was more than pleased to have Declan join them for the consultation.

“If I start talking medical jargon, Dr. Carroll can turn it into ordinary English,” he said with a smile.

“Declan is the first person who grew up on our street who became a professional man,” Muttie said proudly.

“That so? I was the first in my family to get a degree too. I bet they have a great graduation picture of you at home.” Dr. Harris seemed genuinely interested.

“It replaces the Sacred Heart lamp.” Declan grinned.

“Right, Mr. Scarlet, let’s not waste your time here while we go down memory lane.” Dr. Harris came back to the main point. “You’ve been to St. Brigid’s and they’ve given me a very clear picture of your lungs. There are no gray areas—it’s black-and-white. You have a large and growing tumor in your left lung and secondary tumors in your liver.”

Declan noted that there was a carafe of water on the desk and a glass. Dr. Harris poured one for Muttie, who was uncharacteristically silent.

“So, now, Mr. Scarlet, we have to see how best to manage this.”

Muttie was still wordless.

“Will an operation be an option?” Declan asked.

“No, not at this stage. It’s a choice between radiotherapy and chemotherapy at the moment and arranging palliative care at home or in a hospice.”

“What’s palliative care?” Muttie spoke for the first time.

“It’s nurses who are trained to deal with diseases like yours. They are marvelous, very understanding people who know all about it.”

“Have they got it themselves?” Muttie asked.

“No, but they have been well trained and they know a lot about it from nursing other people—what patients want and how to give you the best quality of life.”

Muttie thought about this for a moment. “The quality of life I want is to live for a long,
long
time with Lizzie, to see all my children
again, to see the twins well settled in a business or good jobs and to watch my grandson Thomas Muttance Feather grow up into a fine young man. I’d like to walk my dog, Hooves, for years to the pub, where I meet my Associates, and go to the races about three times a year. That would be a great quality of life.”

Declan saw Dr. Harris remove his glasses for a moment and concentrate on cleaning them. When he trusted himself to speak again he said, “And you
will
be able to do a good deal of that for a time. So let’s look forward to that.”

“Not live for a long, long time, though?”

“Not for a long, long time, Mr. Scarlet, no. So the important thing is how we use what time is left.”

“How long?”

“It’s difficult to say exactly.…”

“How long?”

“Months. Six months? Maybe longer, if we’re lucky.…”

“Well, thank you, Dr. Harris. I must say you’ve been very clear. Not worth hundreds of euros, but you were straight and you were kind as well. How much exactly do I owe you?” Muttie took his wallet from his pocket and laid it on the desk.

Dr. Harris didn’t even look at it. “No, no, Mr. Scarlet, you were brought here by Dr. Carroll, a fellow doctor. There’s a tradition that we never charge fellow doctors for a consultation.”

“But there’s nothing wrong with Declan,” Muttie said, confused.

“You’re his friend. He brought you here. He could have gone to other specialists. Please accept this for what it is, normal procedure, and put that away. I will write my report and recommendations to Dr. Carroll, who will look after you very well.”

Dr. Harris saw them to the lift. Declan noticed him shake his head at the receptionist as she was about to present the bill and Declan breathed a little more easily. Now all he had to do was to keep Noel on the wagon and, more immediately, go home with Muttie and help him tell Lizzie.

Thank God Hat was able to keeps things going until he got back to his surgery.

·   ·   ·

Fiona knew there was something wrong the moment he came in the door.

“Declan, you’re white as a sheet! What happened? Was it Noel?”

“I love you, Fiona, and I love Johnny,” he said, head in his hands.

“Ah, God, Declan, what
is
it?”