The Heart Whisperer (29 page)

He had to get back. Oonagh needed him in there. He staggered out of the cubicle, went to the sink and washed his hands. His face, above his white dress shirt, was clammy and chalk white. He ran his finger along the raised ridge of the scar on his forehead. Oonagh was right. If it had been stitched properly, it might have become invisible now.

‘Let me give you a helping hand there, Doc.' Owen Clancy was standing behind him.

‘I'm not a doctor!' Nick tried to say, then suddenly he was back at the table, leaning on Owen's arm. He was vaguely aware of a circle of horrified faces looking up at him as Owen steered him into his seat.

‘I told you to put him in a taxi,' Oonagh hissed as he reached for someone else's glass of red wine. It tipped over and a puddle of red bloomed on the white cloth and he saw the stain on the stool in the bedroom again.

On the stage, a woman in a shimmering dress was making an announcement. ‘The award for best Lifestyle Magazine programme,' there was a stagey pause, ‘goes to OO in the Afternoon!'

A spotlight swooped and dived on to their table. Oonagh and Owen stood up. Curtis bounced to his feet clapping. Nick stood up too, confused by the blaze of light and the waves of applause. The fashion designer's boyfriend had to pull him back down into his chair to stop him staggering up on to the stage to collect the award.

Claire was beneath an oak tree in the park, double-bagging her hand, when Sinead rang.

‘I've been trying to call your sister-in-law but she's not picking up. I'm afraid there's been an incident.'

Claire's heart lurched. She straightened up. ‘Is Dad OK?'

‘It's Brian Cunningham you should be worried about. He very kindly mowed the back garden this morning and—'

‘Wait a second!' Claire cut across her. ‘I told you that the Cunninghams were not to be invited into the house.'

‘He wasn't in the house. He was in the garden when your father threw the teapot at him. Luckily it just broke the window but the poor man could have been killed. It's the final straw. Your father is monosyllabic, he's uncooperative and he's made it quite clear that he doesn't want me here.'

This was just the excuse Claire needed to see her dad again. ‘I'll talk to him, Sinead. I can be round in an hour.'

‘I won't be here. I have a taxi waiting. You can send on a cheque for what I'm owed.'

‘You can't just walk out. Dad can't live without a carer.'

‘Your father doesn't need a carer. If you want my professional opinion, I don't think that he cares whether he lives at all.'

Nick woke with his head stuck at an odd angle. Everything hurt. For a moment, he wondered if he'd been in an accident. Then his brain produced a word. Hangover. He opened his eyes. There was a mug on a coaster on the coffee table, steam rising from it in wispy trails. He heaved himself into an upright position, stood up carefully and walked slowly into the kitchen.

Sunshine was pouring in the window. Kelly was at the island in a grey tracksuit and a pink T-shirt that said ‘Keep Calm and Carry On'.

‘Hi.' She smiled, opening a carton of free-range eggs. This is what his mother used to do when he was angry with her, pretend that everything was just fine. ‘I'm making breakfast but we could Two Listen first.' She came over and took his hand. A lemony tendril of her perfume wafted towards him, cutting through the sour smell of his clothes and his stale breath. Her hand was cool, the skin unlined, the nails painted a delicate pink.

‘Honey, I want to say that I'm sorry. I should have told you I was trying to get pregnant all this time. It was wrong of me. I forgot to bring my birth control tablets when we were on honeymoon and then, when we got back, I just kept not taking them.' She shook her head. ‘After a year, when nothing had happened, I was too scared to stop. I wanted to tell you but I just couldn't. There was nobody I could talk to.'

Except hundreds of people on the internet, Nick thought. He
was supposed to repeat what she'd said but he couldn't. Hearing it once was enough. He stood up.

‘I just need a time-out.'

She nodded. ‘OK.'

‘Have a break, not a breakdown', that was what he told couples every day. He sat on the sofa staring at the clumps of dried mud on the pale grey rug. He remembered, hazily, that it had been raining last night when he came home. At least his car wasn't in the driveway. Someone must have put him into a taxi. He had been completely out of control. After a lifetime of carefully managing himself, he'd lost it completely in front of four hundred people. Shame broke over him in a sticky wave. When he had cleaned up this mess with Kelly, he'd have to call Oonagh. He had blown his chances with Clingfilms; he just hoped he hadn't blown hers.

He could hear Kelly in the kitchen. Taking things out of the fridge. Setting the table. He had to go back in there and save his marriage. That was his job.

The table was set with a jug of fresh orange juice, a bottle of maple syrup and a bowl of blueberries. Kelly was standing at the cooker, beating eggs with a balloon whisk.

‘I'm sorry,' Nick began. He wanted to say he was sorry for staying so long in the living room but Kelly cut in before he could finish.

‘I forgive you. All that matters is that we love each other and that we're going to have a baby together.'

She forgave him?
‘I think we need to put the baby plans on hold,' he said evenly, ‘just for a while.'

She stopped whisking. ‘How long a while?'

‘We could go back to our original timeline.'

‘And wait another two years? Are you crazy? We can't stop! We're infertile! And we have another three cycles of Clomid to go.'

‘Please,' he shook his head, ‘I'm trying to be calm. I need to process all this …'

She was twisting her ponytail in one hand, staring around the kitchen, her eyes panicky. ‘But if the Clomid doesn't work then we need to start thinking about IVF—'

‘That is not going to happen.'

The house phone began to ring. They stood on opposite sides of the kitchen listening to it.

Kelly put down the bowl. ‘You never wanted a baby, did you?'

‘I have concerns …'

Her face was pale. ‘And I have the FSH of a woman in her forties. I want a child I can love and nurture and if you aren't prepared to give that to me, I'm going to have to find someone who will.' She took off her rings and threw them down on the worktop, then she picked up the bowl and flung it across the kitchen. It flew past Nick's head and smashed against the wall behind him.

‘Don't be here when I get back.' She grabbed her bag. ‘Don't even think about coming back unless you change your mind.'

The front door slammed. Nick heard a spray of gravel as Kelly reversed, too fast, out of the drive. He stood listening to his own broken breathing, feeling the tightening of the skin on his cheeks where streaks of egg were drying, then he went upstairs to pack a bag.

Claire answered the door. She had done something to her hair and now she looked so like their mother that Nick caught his breath.

‘You're sure you're OK to do this?' Claire pulled his case up the step.

He couldn't look her in the eye. ‘I'll just stay for a couple of days until we can sort out a new arrangement for the old man.'

‘Kelly won't mind?'

‘She's away for a week on a course.' Nick bumped his suitcase upstairs and along the uneven carpet on the landing. He opened the door of his old room and stared in at the office chair, the drawing board and the shelves of art supplies. He was so overwhelmed that he'd forgotten that his room had been turned into a drawing studio after he moved out. He opened the door of Claire's old room, where the carer had slept, but the colour scheme of soft greys and pinks reminded him too much of Kelly.

He dragged the case into his parents' old room, closed the door and leaned on it. He hated this room most. It was a shrine to the past. The candlewick bedspread. The tangerine curtains. The wonky wicker and glass bedside cabinets. The heavy built-in wardrobe still jammed with his mother's things.

He thought, with longing, of an anonymous room, soothing and bland, devoid of any personality. He imagined crawling between laundered sheets and sleeping for a long time. But he couldn't go to a hotel. He was ‘Ireland's go-to guy for troubled couples'. How was it going to look if he booked in without his wife only a few miles from where he lived?

‘Thank you, Claire.' Her dad's face still looked gaunt and pinched but at least he wasn't ignoring her.

She put his tea down on his bedside table. ‘I had to make this in the cup. The teapot is in pieces.'

‘Is that woman gone?'

‘Yes. Nick's here. He's going to stay with you for a few days, till we can find another carer.'

‘I don't want another carer. All I need is a hand back upstairs.'

Claire wanted to shake him. She had never raised her voice to him before, but before she could stop herself she was shouting. ‘You can't go upstairs until you can walk! And you won't walk again unless you start taking your pain medication and doing your physio! It's your choice, Dad!' She crossed the room and slammed the door behind her.

Claire had lined up a row of pill bottles on the kitchen table. ‘Sinead said Dad hasn't been taking any of these but he's going to have to start. He's supposed to take a Difene first thing but he can't take it on an empty stomach.'

Nick folded his arms and leaned against the cooker.

‘He needs to take these Ixprim twice a day after that. He's not going to be able to put weight on his leg if he's in pain and he needs to start moving even if he only goes as far as the kitchen and back.'

‘I'm staying for a couple of days,' Nick said through gritted teeth. ‘I'm not going to be his nursemaid.'

Her green eyes were glittering with anger. He'd heard her shouting at the old man. It had almost made him smile. ‘If you can't do this then just say so. I'll move in myself.'

‘Go on,' he said. The sooner she got through this, the sooner she'd be gone.

She held up a blister pack. ‘These are sleeping tablets. One every night, after he's in bed. These are OxyContin,' she held up a brown bottle, ‘for emergencies, in case the pain gets too bad to handle.'

She stood up. ‘I'll try and organise a new carer as soon as I can.'

‘I'll do it,' Nick said, quickly. ‘Kelly has a dozen CVs on file
from the last time. I'll sort through them. I'm just going to move the car.'

Why did he need to move his car? Claire wondered. What was he even doing here? He had only shown up at the hospital once. He hadn't spent more than a couple of hours in this house for nearly twenty years.

Nick parked the Volvo in the laneway at the back of the garden where it wouldn't be seen. Claire was gone when he got back. He went into the kitchen and found the OxyContin bottle. He swallowed one with a mouthful of water from the tap. Then he stood at the window looking out at the chestnut tree.

His mother had gone up first, hiking her long skirt up and swinging herself easily into the tangle of branches.

‘Come on!' Her red hair was framed by a canopy of leaves. ‘What's the matter?' She pulled off a twig and dropped it on his head. ‘Too scared to climb a little tree?'

‘I can climb it!' Claire patted the trunk.

‘No!' Nick squatted down. ‘You're too small.'

‘Come on, Nickers!' His mother took off her cardigan and dangled it like a rope. ‘I double, treble dare you.'

He reached up and grabbed the sleeve of the cardigan. His feet swung clear of the ground as she lifted him, there was a sharp tearing sound and then his hands were clawing the air, trying to grab branches as he fell. Don't let me fall on Claire, he remembered thinking just before his forehead hit the ground.

His mother took her locket off and gave it to Claire to stop her crying but Nick hadn't cried at all. Not even when she was stitching the cut.

‘Not a single tear. You're a brave boy, do you know that?' His mother had nipped the thread with her teeth and then tickled him until he laughed. And he hated her and himself.

He had no idea how long he had stood at the window but he slowly became aware that it was gone. All of it. The memory of what he'd read on the message board. The pain. The anger. Even the hangover. He put his finger up to the ridge of his scar again, half expecting to find that it had gone too.

He knew he should call Kelly. They were adults, they needed to
sort this out. But if he called her, the pain would come back and he didn't want to let go of the OxyContin blur. Not yet. He went into the living room and switched on the ancient electric fire then took his old place on the worn brown corduroy sofa on the far end, near the window.

He watched a medical drama about some good-looking surgeons with complicated love lives performing a liver shunt. The news came on. After a while he realised he was hungry. He hadn't eaten anything since lunchtime yesterday. He went into the kitchen and wolfed down half a packet of Jaffa Cakes and drank most of a carton of milk. Then he climbed the stairs, got undressed and slid in between the cold sheets of his parents' bed and fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Kelly had always loved the pier in Dun Laoghaire but today the sea was wild and a sharp wind blew sheets of icy spray into her face. Her hair and clothes were soaked when she got back to the car. She sat, watching the waves pound the harbour, putting off going home. Afraid that she'd find Nick there. Afraid that she wouldn't.

When she got back, the bowl was still in fragments on the kitchen floor. A scrawl of dried egg yolk looped up over the island, across the hand-painted wooden cabinets, up on to the ceiling.

She went upstairs and saw the cleared shelf in the antique bathroom cabinet, the empty drawers in the bedroom, the dozen bare, cedar-scented wooden hangers in his wardrobe. Seeing them sent a trickle of fear down her back.