OLLY
I can feel my father’s eyes upon me once again, worry emanating from his every fibre. He looks like he wants to say something to me, but keeps changing his mind and he finally settles on holding his counsel. I smile at him, tell him that I’m fine.
Pops, my allegiant. I’m not sure I can remember a time when he wasn’t here by my side, when I needed him. Before and after that apocalyptic day in 1981. Many men would have faltered and lost their way, I reckon, doing the whole single-father gig, but not my father.
He’s strong and I wish I were more like him. It always makes me laugh when my friends worry that the older they get, the more they are turning into their fathers. I worry that I’m not.
I close my eyes and think of Mam once more. What would she make of this if she were here? Would she feel disappointment in her son, with the mess he’s making of his life? I hazard a guess that she would, because I’m pretty pissed with myself too. Somehow or other, I’ve taken my eye off the ball. Now things have gotten all screwed up and my thirteen-year-old daughter is lying in a room hooked up to tubes.
I’ve felt shame a few times in my life. When I lost my job a year ago that was a kick-you-in-the-balls day for sure. A close second is the first time that I had to ask Mae for money because my personal bank account was depleted of funds. My debit card had become as much use as a chocolate teapot. And don’t get me started on the endless pit of desolation as rejection letters began to pile up high on our study table. But none of these are even close to the shame I feel now, as I sit in this waiting room.
My beautiful Evie, fighting for her life down the corridor.
I’m bewildered. I don’t know how this has happened. And then, with surprise, I acknowledge another emotion bubbling up inside – I feel angry. I know that rage is only counterproductive and I need to fight it, to stay calm.
The door opens and a doctor walks in, his face unreadable, and we all jump to attention.
POPS
Tick tock. I can hear the grandfather clock that stands in the corridor outside my bedroom march on towards the start of a new hour. I fancy that the sound of the clock moving time along gets louder every day as I, in turn, get weaker.
Tick tock, time is moving on, but running out for me.
I feel it in my bones. I don’t mean the cancer, which has now spread throughout my body. I mean, I can feel it in my bones that it’s my turn to go. I’ve not asked Doctor Lawlor for a timeframe on how many weeks or months he thinks I’ve got, because I don’t need to. It’s close. He knows it too, because I can see it in his ever-more sympathetic eyes when he comes for his weekly visit.
I’m at peace with my fate and that’s a good job because there’s not a blind thing I can do to stop it anyhow. When death has you in its gnarly vice-like grip, you’re buggered. Beth knew that at the end and I know it now.
‘Beth,’ I whisper her name, savouring how it sounds. I miss saying her name out loud. I miss her.
The sicker I get, the closer I feel to my wife. And that, right there, gives me comfort. As sure as I know that the sun will rise every morning, I know that she’s waiting for me, with great patience. I can feel her. And I don’t intend to keep her waiting much longer. She’s been on her own long enough.
‘Hold on, my love, I’m on my way. I’ve to sort out one or two things here first with our Olly, then I’ll be right with you.’
Olly strides into my bedroom, as if he can hear me taking his name in vain. ‘Who you talking to?’ Concern etched on his tired face, looking around the room for signs of my non-existent company.
‘Your mam,’ I answer, more flippantly than I should. Olly now looks more worried than usual. He’s enough on his plate without thinking I’m losing my marbles too.
I throw in a feeble joke to lighten the moment and change the subject. ‘She says to say hello and don’t forget that the bins go out tonight.’ It works, a smile breaks out on his face.
‘You don’t smile enough any more.’ I worry about that. A life without laughter isn’t worth living at all.
Olly just shrugs in response. He doesn’t answer me, but I’ve a fair idea I know what he’s thinking right now.
What have I got to smile about?
‘You’ve more than most,’ I reply to his thought and he looks startled.
‘How do you do that?’ he asks me, starting to laugh. And as it is with laughter, it’s contagious, so I join in.
‘I always know what you’re thinking, lad,’ I tell him when we calm down. And it’s true. It doesn’t hurt that his face has always been like an open book. He wears his heart on his sleeve, always has done, just like his mother. Mae, now she’s a different kettle of fish. She’s harder to read. She keeps it all bottled up inside. But it’s obvious that she’s as unhappy as Olly is right now, and that worries me.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asks.
I think about lying, but he’s not a boy any more, he’s a grown man with a family of his own, so I do a thumbs-down sign. A pain shoots up from my left thumb all the way to my neck, making me regret my gesture.
But the pain was worth it, because Olly smiles in recognition, as I knew he would. When he was a boy he used his thumbs to depict how he was feeling all the time.
‘That bad?’ he says, the creases of worry on his face deepening.
‘It’s near time for painkillers and then I’ll be all …’ I hold up two thumbs and smile, encouraging Olly to do the same.
‘I wonder what your mam will make of me when she sees me,’ I say, as I look down at the paper-thin skin on my arms, blotched with age spots and wrinkles.
I’ve never been a vain man, but I’ve always taken care of my appearance. I shave every morning as soon as I get up and while I don’t have the energy for a shower every day, I’ll always wash my hair. But even so, I know I look a bit … unkempt. My skin sags wearily on pointy bones and there’s a greyness to my complexion that wasn’t there a few weeks ago. Last time I saw Beth I was young, vibrant, full of vigour. Would she even recognise me now?
‘How can you be so sure that you’ll see her when you die?’
‘I’ve faith, lad.’
Scepticism fills Olly’s face. That, right there, is part of his problem. ‘What makes you not believe?’ I’m curious.
Olly shrugs, but he has no answer for me. I’ve had time to think about my own faith. Goodness knows, it’s been tested many times, not least of all when Beth died. But it was faith that I’d see her again one day that has got me through the past thirty-odd years. Had I not believed that, I don’t think I would have managed to smile and laugh and enjoy my family and life as much as I have. And that would have been a crying shame, because I’ve had a good life with Olly, Mae and the children.
I look at him and wish that I could find words that might explain to him how I feel. I scan my bedroom and my eyes rest on the battered brown briefcase propped against my dresser. I carried that to work every day for nigh-on thirty-eight years, right up until I retired. Now it contains a shiny silver laptop that Olly and Mae bought me a few years back. I thought I’d never get the hang of it. Googling seemed like a ridiculous word, that made me giggle like a silly teenager whenever I thought of it. But now, well, I love it. I think it’s the fact that I can travel anywhere in the world courtesy of that silver box. It’s amazing what you can find on the internet.
Then I have one of those