Ride On (32 page)

The door of the cottage opened and Aesop stood there.

He stared.

‘What the … ?' he said.

Trish went to stand up from the couch.

‘Stay the fuck where you are, you mad cow,' said Aesop, pointing at her and taking a step back. ‘I'm bleedin' freezing and I've had enough of your psycho shit.'

‘What? Jesus, Aesop, where have you been? Everyone's been worried sick!'

‘What are you doing here? Where's Norman?'

‘He's dropping Mikey Pat home and then coming back with his car.'

‘Me bollocks he is.' Then he saw the knife next to her on the couch and took another half-step backwards. ‘Wha … why have you got his knife?'

‘What? Oh, he gave it to me to mind. He said …'

‘That's his Da's knife. No one's allowed touch it, you lying fucker.'

‘Aesop, I swear, he's just …'

‘Stay fucking sitting down!'

‘What? Aesop, I'm just …'

‘Where is he?'

‘Who?'

‘Norman!'

‘I told you. He's getting Mikey Pat's car. My car won't start and he's going to drop me to the train. The spark plugs are gone again. It keeps happening.'

Aesop took a quick glance behind him.

‘That car?'

‘Yeah. It's my Dad's.'

‘The spark plugs are gone, are they?'

‘Yes! Look Aesop, will you come in and shut the door, for God sake!'

‘You think I'm a fuckin' eejit? That's a diesel car.'

‘What? I don't …'

Then he saw something else on the couch.

‘Where did you get that?'

‘What?'

‘That's my phone.'

‘Norman found it.'

‘Norman found it? How did he manage that?'

‘It was down the well.'

‘I know where it was. It bleedin' fell down there the …'

Aesop's eyes jumped from the phone to the knife and then to Trish's face.

‘Holy fuck,' he said, backing even further out the door and grabbing the handle. ‘What are you after … you sick fucking …'

‘Aesop? Aesop come back. Where are you …'

‘Get the fuck away from me!'

She stood up and started to move towards him. He ran outside, slamming the door shut behind him. He heard the door open again but he just kept going, down the short gravel driveway and out the gate. He was twenty yards down the road, his name from her mouth echoing in his ears, when the car came bouncing over the hill.

And straight into him. He just had time to jump a couple of inches into the air and then he was collected up by the bonnet, his legs flung in an arc over his head, which smashed against the windscreen. The car kept going, sliding over the black, packed ice on the road and colliding with the gatepost of the cottage. Aesop had a brief sense of cold and noise in his head … and then he was gone.

*

Jimmy was fuck-ways in the head with worry. There was no word from anyone. Norman hadn't called and wasn't answering his phone. Aesop's was still dead. He called Dónal to tell him the latest and spent five minutes being told to sit down and try and relax. He couldn't though. As soon as Dónal hung up he was back to pacing his living room, cursing at his phone and rubbing his face. At least the coppers knew. That's what Norman had said the last time he called. Mikey Pat was with the sergeant and telling him what was going on. That was something.

Jimmy was about to call Shiggy, just for something to do, when the phone rang and vibrated in his hand, making him jerk.

‘Jesus …'

The screen said nothing only that a call was incoming.

‘Hello?'

‘Jimmy?'

It was Susan in London. Fuck, what now?

‘Susan?'

‘Yeah. Hi.'

‘Eh … hiya.'

‘What's wrong?'

‘What?'

‘You sound awful.'

‘Nothing … eh, nothing. I'm grand.'

Norman had asked him to say fuck all to her.

‘Are you sure?'

‘Yeah. I'm sure. What's up?'

She spoke quietly then.

‘Jimmy, I can understand if you're annoyed. I'm sorry I never got back to you when you called me in London.'

‘It's all right.'

‘No. Listen, I knew you'd be around and I just didn't want to deal with it.'

‘It's okay, Susan.'

‘I went to my Mam's for the weekend. In Surrey. I just couldn't face the idea of seeing you and … y'know … getting into everything. So … eh …'

Will you get to the fucking point, woman?

‘Susan, it's fine, okay? I mean … whatever.'

‘Oh. So you're pissed off. I see. Well I won't keep you then.'

‘Look Susan, I'm sorry. There's … stuff going on at the moment and I'm a bit on edge. Can I call you later?'

‘Is everything okay?'

‘Yeah. Well, no. Look, Aesop's gone missing and we're a bit worried about him.'

‘Aesop?'

‘Yeah. He's been gone for a couple of days now. And someone's been threatening him recently. We're all … y'know? We're worried that something might have happened to him.'

‘But Jimmy, that's why I called. I wanted to tell you that Amanda is okay.'

‘Wh … Amanda?'

‘Yeah. It turns out that she was in Ireland. She went over to see Aesop. She hadn't planned it, but … oh, I don't know. She remembered the great time we all had in Thailand, and she just wanted to see him again. I don't think she expected much, but she figured that Aesop was pretty easy-going and was hoping they could hang out for a bit. She was going to surprise him.'

‘Right. Eh … and have you spoken to her? I mean, today or … recently?'

Christ, what was going on?

‘Yeah! I talked to her this morning.'

What?! Jimmy swallowed. He might be able to find out something at long fucking last.

‘And what did she say?'

‘She said that she spent the last couple of days with Aesop.'

‘She said that?'

‘Yeah. They went to see some dolphin or something? Aesop insisted. She had a car and they drove to the coast and went out in a boat. Had a great time.'

‘But …'

‘Actually, she was a bit embarrassed. Apparently, it took ages to track him down. She ended up talking to one of your friends' mothers to find him. She lied about who she was, she says. But she just thought that with him being famous and all, that's why he was so hard to find, because he was laying low. She didn't want to just arrive when he was too busy to talk to her or anything. She wanted to find the right moment, she said. But then …'

Susan started laughing on the other end of the phone. Jimmy frowned at his phone. This was getting mental.

‘ … and then when she did find him, she went and walked straight in on him with another girl!'

‘What girl?'

‘Oh I don't know. Some fan I think. Jessica? I don't know if you know her. Anyway, this other girl was all embarrassed too. She left in quite a hurry and then Aesop and Amanda got chatting. Ended up spending the weekend together. They went off looking at this dolphin.'

Jimmy was scratching his head furiously now.

‘Susan, did she say where they are?'

‘Well, Amanda's back here. She flew in this morning. I met her for lunch.'

‘She's … she's back in London?'

‘Yeah. And she's a new girl. It's fantastic, Jimmy. You should see her! She had such a good time with Aesop. I mean, I don't even think anything happened. Y'know … anything like that. They were just like old mates. She loved it. Aesop really gave her a lift. I haven't seen her like this in so long. It's great. She said that first thing tomorrow morning, she's going to …'

‘Susan, where the fuck is Aesop?'

‘What?'

‘Where is he? Is he in London?'

‘What? No. He's in Ireland. They said goodbye in the airport in Cork and she flew back. I think he was going back to his friend's house or something.'

‘So … are you sure about all this?'

‘Yeah. I just left Amanda an hour ago. She's gone home to …'

Jimmy stopped listening. It was all okay. The dopey fucking idiot had spent the weekend in Dingle. He was grand. He must be on his way back to Dublin now. Christ.

‘We were … we were just worried about him,' he said. ‘We haven't heard from him in days and … we didn't know what to think.'

‘Oh. Well … look, do you want Amanda's number? We were just chatting, so I wasn't really paying attention to every little detail.'

‘Yeah. Can I have it?'

He took the number down on the edge of a newspaper.

‘I'll talk to you later Susan, okay?'

‘Okay. Jimmy, are you sure everything's okay?'

‘I think so. Now I do, anyway.'

Five minutes later he was talking to a very confused Amanda.

‘And you never, y'know, wrote him notes or put flowers through his letterbox?'

‘What? Why would I do that Jimmy?'

‘Just … so you didn't then? You're sure you weren't breaking into his house and pissing on his bed there last month?'

‘Piss … Jimmy, what's gotten into you? I didn't even know where he was until last week. What's the matter?'

‘Nothing, Amanda. I just … look, can I call you later?'

*

It was cold. Freezing. Numb. No pain.

Aesop tried to open his eyes. They both seemed to open all right, but he could only see out of one of them, and everything was blurred. He went to wipe at his face, but nothing happened. He couldn't move. He heard someone screaming and then everything was black. A bit later – seconds or hours, he couldn't tell – his good eye opened again. He could just make out two figures, one lying down and the other one kneeling. He recognised Norman's coat. His legs were still in the car but the rest of him was out, lying on the ground. The other figure was Trish. Aesop tried to call to Norman, to reach out to him, but nothing happened. Nothing came out of this mouth and his arm still wouldn't move.

He saw Trish look up. There was blood on her clothes.

‘I'll be over to you in a minute, Aesop.'

He heard that, but it sounded like it was coming from the end of a tunnel. He tried to call again to Norman, but Norman didn't look around. He seemed to be struggling with her. Fighting. Then Aesop saw the knife. She held it, pointing it down at Norman as she pinned him with her knees. Tears filled Aesop's eyes. He couldn't do anything. And then he could barely see anything, his one eye becoming blurred again with the tears. His mouth made the shape again. ‘Norman.' But if it made any sound, Aesop couldn't hear it. The figures just a few metres away were more like shadows now than real people. He blinked and for a split second the fog was gone. The last thing he saw before he blacked out again was Trish plunging the knife into Norman. That was it. He faded in and out a couple more times, but both his eyes were gone now. All he had left was the cold that seemed to be spreading from inside him instead of seeping into him from the ground.

And then his heartbeat. It thumped in his head and he could start to feel the pain now with every new beat. But it didn't sound right. There was something wrong. It suddenly didn't even sound like his heart any more. More like the thud of footsteps.

Getting louder.

There was an exodus from Dublin to Cork.

Jimmy and Dónal, Aesop's family and Marco, Norman's Mam. Even Shiggy. Everyone flew straight down as soon as the news reached Dublin. It was fucking horrible down there. Crying, confusion, everyone running about trying to find out what the fuck had happened. Garda Ní Mhurchú had also gone down. This wasn't just another traffic accident. She stayed with Jimmy all through it. Sergeant Harmon was there for most of it too. He'd been ten minutes behind Norman coming over that hill, Mikey Pat in the front seat next to him, and when he'd seen that girl crouched over Aesop on the ground, both of them covered in blood and muck, he knew it was the one thing in all his years as a policeman that would visit him in the night afterwards. He locked Trish in his car as soon as he'd called the ambulance, and she'd gone quietly. They usually did once they knew it was over. Then he did what he could for Norman and Aesop. Christ, it looked awful. Smeared in scarlet around the frozen white of snow, he didn't think he'd ever seen so much life seep out of one person.

As Jimmy and everyone else were making their way to Cork, Norman and Aesop lying in hospital, Sergeant Harmon stood over Trish back at the station and tried to talk to her. But she wouldn't say anything. She just sat on a chair and rocked back and forward, pale and trembling. At one stage, she asked to go to the hospital to see Norman. When he told her that that was out of the question, she just looked down at the tiled floor and wouldn't speak again. He offered her tea and coffee, a cigarette, food, but she wasn't interested. A female colleague managed to get her cleaned up as best she could, but Trish didn't even help her. She just sat and stared as the woman wiped her face with a wet towel. Eventually, they called a doctor in. He took one look at her and told Sergeant Harmon that she couldn't stay there. She had to go to the hospital too. Shock. The sergeant cursed under his breath and ordered the female Guard who'd cleaned her up and another one to go with them. She wasn't to be let out of their sight.

*

That first evening in the hospital, Jimmy paced in front of another doctor, biting at the skin in the bend of his thumb. He looked up.

‘Look doctor, I didn't understand most of that,' he said. ‘Do you want to tell me what's happening?'

‘Mr. Kelly is going to be fine,' said the doctor. ‘The quick attention he received at the scene undoubtedly saved his life. His physical condition is quite remarkable actually. I don't think we'd be having this conversation at all only for that.'

‘Right. Is he awake?'

‘I'm afraid not. He's just had pretty major surgery. You can see him tomorrow.'

‘And Aesop?'

The doctor sighed and looked away for a minute. Jimmy felt his stomach lurch. He thought he was going to be sick.

‘Doctor? What about Aesop?'

‘Mr Collins, Mr Murray suffered serious internal injuries, the most significant of which is a ruptured spleen.'

‘Jesus.'

‘We've dealt with that problem and I'm hopeful that there won't be complications.'

‘Okay. What else?'

‘It's really the head injury that I'm concerned about. He suffered coup-contrecoup impact damage …'

‘Fuck sake doctor, what does that mean? Come on, will you? Jesus …'

‘He's undergoing some scans now. We'll know more when we get the results. I'm afraid I can't tell you much more than that.'

‘Will he be … ?'

‘I'm sorry. It's far too early to tell. We've stopped the bleeding now, but all we can do is wait.'

‘And … and you don't know …'

‘No, we don't Mr Collins. But as soon as we do, I'll talk to you again.'

‘Okay. Fuck … okay. Thanks.'

‘There's one thing you should probably know, though. About what happened.'

‘Jesus … what is it?'

The doctor told him.

Then Jimmy found himself wandering out in the grounds of the hospital, smoking and feeling nauseous and weak.

*

It was the next night, small flurries of snow appearing out of the darkness of the sky and whipping tightly in the eddies around the hospital, caught in the glow of the lights.

Aesop was alone in his room. Not awake, exactly, but things were starting to happen in his head. He'd hear things, or he'd be able to make out light and dark shades around the room. He'd had a vague sense of people around him, but he couldn't concentrate. He kept drifting in and out. He didn't know where he was or why he couldn't move. There was music, playing softly. It hurt his head, but he couldn't see to turn it off, or talk to ask someone to turn it off for him. There was something in his mouth. Once he was aware of the pain, it got worse. Like a conversation across a room, where you hear your name. Once you hear it, you tune everything else out until that's all you can hear. And that music. Jesus … why couldn't they turn it off. It hurt.

A couple of fingers on his hand twitched and he became aware that he was holding something. Something … something … it came back to him then. It was a button, but right now it was an anchor that allowed him to set an order to things that had happened. He was in a hospital. He'd been run over. A female voice had told him at some stage earlier that pressing his thumb would help with the pain. It wasn't much, but being able to put some cause and consequence together in his mind gave him some comfort; almost as much as pressing down with his thumb, although that was a completely different kind of comfort. It was on a timer though. There never seemed to be enough in one shot to do him until the timer clicked over and he was allowed have another dose. The first couple of minutes after he pushed the button were absolutely fucking magic and he'd be buzzing like a mad thing in the bed. But the last while before it would reset was usually pretty bad.

And he was in pain now. He started to press his thumb down every couple of seconds, but he mustn't have been due yet. Fuck, this was the king of headaches he had. It was like having the worst hangover in the world and then someone smacking you hard with a stiff pillow on every count of your pulse. He could feel the sweat rolling down his face. His gown thing was damp and hot. Press … press … press. Nothing yet. He was going to release the button so that he could try and find that other one, the one that he'd been told called the nurse, but he didn't want to let go. This button was the only thing between the pressure in his head and release from it. Press … press … press. It wouldn't be long now, surely. He'd already put up with it for long enough. Could they not just knock a few minutes off the bloody timer? Fuck sake, he was in bits. His mouth was open, the one eye he could barely see out of squeezed shut. His face was soaked. Press … press … pr …

It hit him. A blissful rush that seemed to literally squeeze the pain out of his body like water from a sponge. Light danced behind his eyelids and then he felt himself settle back onto the mattress as though the pain had been lifting him off it on pointed barbs. He could breathe properly now. Slowly and deep. His hands and feet tingled for a second and then he felt nothing much. Just a kind of dopey oblivion. Then a sudden coldness wrapped around his chin and exposed cheek. It wiped down his chest, cooling him and making him sigh. It felt beautiful. Like slipping into a pool as the sun beat down on you. He opened his eye to try and thank the nurse through the slowly-moving shapes that weaved in front of him. One of the shapes stopped moving.

It was Trish.

‘Aesop?'

No. Aw Jesus … no.

*

Jimmy hadn't slept in two days. If he'd needed something to focus on, to try and take his mind off everything that had happened, he got it when the press arrived. The news was all over the country now. The drummer of the biggest band in Ireland had been in some kind of accident. They wanted stories, they wanted pictures. Jimmy wanted to kick the living fuck out of them, but after the first encounter between Jimmy and a photographer, which had ended with a camera being fired out the door of the hospital and into the street, he'd been led away from the public areas of the hospital and into a special waiting room where he wouldn't have to deal with them. Dónal talked to the throng outside. It was while he was sitting there on his own, staring at a cold cup of tea in front of him, that the words of the doctor the previous night came to him again. They'd figured out what had happened on the road outside the cottage. Jimmy had listened and then just shook his head, barely able to take it in.

It had been Trish.

She'd saved their lives.

The emergency tracheotomy that she'd performed on Norman, opening his throat after it had been closed by the smack of the steering wheel, had kept him alive until the ambulance had arrived. And she'd kept Aesop warm and conscious, his neck held rigid by her own coat, until the sergeant's car had crested the hill and she'd been locked in it. Once the staff at the hospital realised who this shaken girl was that had been brought in that evening, they told the two Guards what she'd done and then led her away to be looked after.

Jimmy had sat with her for an hour in the hospital when he got down there that first night, talking to her softly, his arm around her.

‘Thank you,' he said.

She just shook her head, crying.

‘It's my fault.'

‘It's not. Shush. It was an accident.'

‘He was running away from me.'

‘He didn't know what was going on. It's okay. You saved them.'

But she didn't want to hear it.

‘My fault,' was all she'd say.

*

‘Aesop?'

No. Aw Jesus … no.

Why couldn't he hear that? There was no sound, as though he was only imagining that he'd spoken. That thing in his mouth …

‘Aesop, listen to me. Can you hear me?'

Don't …

‘Please, Aesop, I'm not going to hurt you. Do you understand me?'

Aesop tried to press the button to call the nurse, but he was holding the wrong one.

Don't … didn't … do … anything …

‘Please. Just listen to me. I need to tell you something.'

Her hand came up to his face. There was something white in it.

No … no …

He tried to turn away, but he couldn't.

‘Shhh …' she said. ‘It's okay, Aesop.'

She wiped the new sweat from him.

‘Shhh …'

He drifted off for a minute or two. When he came back she was still there, still wiping him down and telling him that everything was okay in a soft voice. The effects of the drug weren't as strong now. He could make her out clearly but her voice was still distant, like a television turned down. She reached down and pulled the button out of his hand, leaving his thumb still pressing steadily on air. She sat forward then – closer to him, leaning over him – and held his hand.

‘Aesop? Are you okay?'

No!

‘Are you in pain?'

No … no.

‘I promise, I won't hurt you. I know what you think happened. It wasn't like that.'

The dizziness was starting to go. The pain was already gone, along with the feeling of drunken helplessness. He was halfway back to knowing what was going on. It was Trish. He remembered seeing her on the couch. Some couch. Somewhere. She'd had a knife. She was coming for him. That was all he had. And now she was here.

‘I just want to tell you something.'

I don't love you. Please …

‘I just need you to listen to me for a minute. Okay?'

Jesus …

‘Okay?'

What did she want?

‘If you can understand me, just squeeze my hand.'

She wiped his face again. It felt good, brought him closer to wherever they were. The world outside his head. He couldn't do anything anyway. What difference did it make now? Maybe if he could drag this out, someone would come along.

He pressed his thumb against her fingers.

She started to tell him then. Her hushed voice was like a breeze outside, but he heard it all. And then, as he lay between the two ends of pain and confusion, neither quite able to reach him now, he understood.

*

‘Hi,' she said, red with excitement and embarrassment.

‘Hello yourself,' said Aesop, the big grin shining. ‘Enjoy the gig?'

‘I did. You were brilliant.'

‘Thanks very much. I'm Aesop.'

She laughed.

‘Yeah, I know. I'm Trish.'

‘Hiya Trish. Can I get you a drink?'

‘Ah no. I'm fine with this, thanks.'

‘You sure? Band gets them for free.'

‘No, really. We're all heading off after this one.'

‘Where yis off to?'

‘Oh I don't know. Leeson Street I s'pose.'

‘Why don't you have a proper drink first then? You'll only get shite down there.'

‘Yeah, I know. God. Okay then. Pint of Budweiser?'

‘Bud? Grand. Hang on there Trish.'

He ordered and turned back to her.

‘Is that a Cork accent?'

‘Kerry.'

‘Ah right. I'm shite with accents. And what are you doing up here in the big smoke then, Trish?'

‘I'm a nurse.'

‘Yeah? Tough job.'

‘I like it though.'

‘Are they all nurses?'

He nodded over to where another half-dozen girls were talking to Jimmy and the new bass player, Beano. Jimmy's mot, Sandra, was hovering there too, looking pissed off. No change there.

‘Most of them, yeah. It's her birthday. In the black? That's Bronagh.'

‘Ah right. Out on the razz then.'

‘A bit, yeah.'

‘So c'mere, where do you do your nursing?'

‘Well …'

She looked down at the drink he was handing to her. He caught a hint of something in her eyes as she did.