43
Fegan knew it was useless, but he tried again anyway. The phone refused to come to life no matter how hard or how many times he pressed the button. The screen was cracked and the casing loose.
He brought it to his ear and shook it. Something heavy rattled inside. He could hear its movement above the rumble of traffic from the New Jersey Turnpike.
The Doyles had bundled Pyè into the back of the car and sped off from the diner, leaving their driver lying on the sidewalk. Fegan was confident they would leave him alone for the time being. Packie and Frankie had both looked terrified. But they wouldn’t stay scared for long. Fegan needed to move.
He placed the phone on the motel-room dressing table. The dreams had been bad during the night, fire and screaming. He had woken soaked with sweat, his heart racing, his lungs burning for oxygen. Even now, hours later, he saw the flames every time he closed his eyes.
A jet roared overhead as it approached Newark Airport. Fegan took two items from his bag and laid them next to the broken phone: a roll of hundred-dollar bills, totalling just less than three thousand, and an Irish passport in the name of Patrick Feeney. From his window he could see the lights of an airplane as it took off.
‘I’m going home soon,’ Fegan said, his voice hollow in the miserable room.
He started packing.
44
The place felt more like an airport than a hospital, all glass and open spaces. Even a sculpture of a snake clinging to a pillar outside the entrance, for Christ’s sake. The Traveller moved among the halt and the lame, avoiding their glances. Women in dressing gowns wandered aimlessly, coffee in hand, some clutching cigarette packets and lighters. Doctors who looked like children walked in pairs and threes.
No matter how clean it was, no matter how new, the smell of sickness still underlay everything. The Traveller hated hospitals almost as much as he hated the medical profession. Hospitals were churches of the dead and dying, and doctors were the thieves who robbed the corpses, even those corpses that still breathed.
One of the thieves approached.
‘Are you looking for A&E?’ she asked, a bright young girl with a white overcoat and pens in her pocket.
‘No,’ the Traveller said, turning a circle as he scanned the reception area.
‘Oh.’ She stepped away. ‘Sorry. It’s just your eye looks—’
‘My eye’s fine. Where do you keep the stroke victims?’
‘Depends,’ she said. ‘When was the patient admitted?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘I mean, they could be in ICU, or in Admissions, or on a ward, or—’
‘I’ll find him myself,’ the Traveller said.
As he walked away, he heard, ‘Well, fuck you, then.’
He turned back to the girl, but she was already striding away, her head down, her arms churning.
‘Cunt,’ he said to her back.
45
Lennon recognised Bernie McKenna, Marie’s aunt, hovering over the bed, fussing about the motionless form, adjusting pillows and straightening sheets. Bernie stiffened as Marie approached, but did not look up. Ellen clung to her mother’s fingers, her doll dangling from the other hand.
‘So you’re back, then,’ Bernie said, her stare fixed on the bed.
Marie faced her across the bed. ‘How is he?’
‘How does he look?’ Bernie smoothed the sheets and spared Marie a glance. ‘Poor cratur doesn’t know where he is. You’d have been better going to see your mother. It’d do her more good than him.’
Bernie looked up from the grey sliver of a man once more and saw Lennon. Her eyes narrowed as she searched her memory for his face; her jaw hardened when she found it.
‘Jesus, you brought him here?’
‘He gave us a lift.’
‘I don’t care what he gave you. You shouldn’t have brought him here. Has he not caused you enough trouble?’
‘I’ll take a walk,’ Lennon said. When Marie looked to him, he said, ‘I won’t go far.’
He backed away from the bed and looked around the bay. Old men gazed back, their eyes vacant, IV lines and oxygen masks hanging from them. Lennon shivered and went to the corridor. He leaned his back against the wall, keeping the women and the little girl in his vision.
They would be safe here, he was sure of that.
46
The Traveller watched the cop through the swinging doors as nurses and visitors brushed past him. He couldn’t see the woman and the kid from here, but he could tell they held the cop’s gaze.
Maybe this was the place to act, maybe it wasn’t. A lot of people around. Sometimes that was a good thing. People are generally cowards. They’ll keep their heads down if they can help it, not get involved.
Either way, he had time. All the time in the world.
47
Ellen clutched the doll to her chest and smiled at the air above her grandfather’s bed. Lennon wondered what she saw there between the slanted shafts of light and the shadows. She opened her mouth and spoke, but Lennon couldn’t hear her from his position at the other side of the corridor.
Marie and Bernie turned their heads to her. Bernie’s brow creased while Marie showed nothing but a kind of surrendered fatigue. She put a hand on her daughter’s cheek, said something, and her shoulders sagged at the answer. Marie’s father watched them both with watery eyes that showed no understanding.
Ellen said something, pouted at her mother’s response, said it louder. Marie closed her eyes and breathed deep. She stood, took Ellen’s hand, and marched her over to Lennon.
‘Please, take her for a walk, will you?’ Marie said.
‘What’s wrong?’ Lennon asked.
Marie looked down at their daughter. ‘She’s being a bold girl. Telling fibs. In front of Auntie Bernie, too.’ She levelled her gaze at Lennon, her eyes shadowed with weariness. ‘I’m sorry, it’s just too much. Not when I have to see my father like that. Not when I have to face Bernie.’
Lennon straightened, lifting his shoulders from the wall. ‘Do you trust me with her?’
‘I don’t have much choice,’ Marie said, placing Ellen’s hand in Lennon’s. ‘She’s safer with you than anyone else. I mean, you’ve got a fucking gun, haven’t you?’
Ellen stretched her hand up towards her mother’s mouth, but couldn’t reach. ‘You said a bad word.’
Marie seemed to fold in on herself, a tired laugh breaking from her. ‘I know, darling. I’m sorry.’
‘I’ll take her,’ Lennon said. ‘If she’ll come with me.’
Marie hunkered down, took a tissue from her sleeve and dabbed at Ellen’s face. ‘You’ll go with Jack, won’t you, love? Maybe he’ll take you to the shop downstairs. Get you some sweeties.’
Ellen leaned close to her mother, whispered in her ear, ‘Who is he?’
Marie lifted her head, glanced up at Lennon, the sorrow laid naked across her face. She gathered Ellen close. ‘An old friend of Mummy’s. He’ll look after you.’
Lennon swallowed a sour taste.
Marie untangled herself from her daughter, looked her in the eye. ‘I’ll be right here, okay? I’m not going anywhere. I just need to talk to Auntie Bernie for a wee while. Jack will bring you right back up once he’s got you some sweeties, okay?’
Ellen stared at the floor, her doll clasped tight. ‘Okay.’
‘Okay,’ Marie said. She stood upright, touched Lennon’s arm. ‘Just give me twenty minutes, all right?’
‘All right,’ Lennon said. ‘She’ll be fine.’
Worry crept over Marie’s features.
‘She’ll be fine,’ Lennon said again, firm enough to almost believe it himself.
Marie nodded, ran her fingers through Ellen’s hair, and left the two of them in the corridor. Lennon and his daughter watched her leave. Ellen’s fingers twitched against his.
‘Okay,’ Lennon said, moving along the corridor towing Ellen behind him. ‘What kind of sweets do you want?’
‘Don’t know,’ Ellen said.
‘Chocolate?’ he asked. ‘Maltesers? Minstrels? Mars bars?’
She followed, her tiny hand lost in his. ‘Don’t know.’
‘What about Skittles? Or Opal Fruits? No, they don’t call them Opal Fruits any more.’
‘Don’t know,’ she said as they reached the swinging doors.
‘Or ice cream?’ Lennon asked. ‘God help us if you don’t like ice cream.’
They walked through to the elevator bank. Ellen rubbed her nose. Lennon caught an odour on the air, something lurking between the hospital’s sickness and disinfectant smells. Something goatish, a low tang of sweat, like the wards in the mental hospital Lennon had worked in when he was a student.
He exhaled, expelled the odour, and pressed the button to call the lift. Ellen’s fingers felt small between his, cold and slippery. He looked down at her. She held her doll to her lips, whispered to it, said a word that might have been ‘Gerry.’
48
Fegan sat down hard on the edge of the bed, his breath abandoning him. Waves of trembling rolled through him, from his feet to his fingers, churning his stomach as they passed.
His gut clenched and he threw himself from the bed. He staggered to the bathroom, shouldered the door open, leaned over the toilet bowl. The spasms brought him to his knees.
Between swallows of air and bitter retches, he said, ‘Ellen.’
49
The Traveller watched them from the other side of the lobby, using a pillar for cover. The cop fished change from his pocket, struggling with his one free hand, the other clasping the child’s. A juice box and a tube of Smarties sat on the counter. The change handed over, the cop gathered the sweets and drink and led the girl out of the shop. He looked upstairs to the second level then leaned down to the child. The girl nodded and allowed the cop to lead her upwards.
The Traveller eased out from behind the pillar, keeping them in his vision for as long as he could. He took a tissue from his pocket, dabbed at his eye, hissed at the pain. Passers-by looked at him, their mouths turned down in distaste. He ignored them.
50
Lennon chose a table by the ceiling-high windows and set down his paper cup full of tea, steam rising from hole in the lid. Ellen sat opposite him while he pierced the juice box with the little straw. He placed it in front of her then prised the plastic cap from the tube of Smarties. She watched his fingers work as he spread a napkin on the table and tipped a few brightly coloured sweets onto the paper.
‘There you go,’ he said.
‘Thank you,’ Ellen said in the stiff manner of a child well instructed in politeness.
Lennon raised the cup to his lips and sipped hot sweet tea through the lid’s mouthpiece. He did not see this new drinking technology as an advance in civilisation. It made him feel like a toddler with a sippy cup.
Ellen moved the sweets around the napkin with her fingertips, but did not bring any to her mouth. The doll lay naked alongside the juice box like a passed-out junkie.
Lennon flinched at the association. Ellen reached for the doll and arranged it in a sitting position. She looked up at Lennon as if asking if that was better. He went to say yes, but caught himself. He blinked hard to dislodge the foolish notion from his mind.
‘So, did you like Birmingham?’ Lennon asked.
Ellen looked down and shook her head.
‘Why not?’
‘Too big,’ Ellen said. She put her hands over her ears. ‘Too noisy.’
‘You like home better?’
Ellen dropped her hands and nodded.
‘Are you glad to be back?’
Ellen shrugged.
‘It’s home. Do you like home?’
‘S’okay,’ Ellen said.
‘You don’t know who I am,’ Lennon said. It was a statement, not a question to test the child.
‘You’re Jack,’ Ellen said, her face brightening a little for remembering the detail. ‘Mummy said.’
‘Did your mummy ever mention me?’
‘Uh-uh,’ Ellen said, shaking her head. She took a sip of juice, then a Smartie. She chewed with her mouth primly closed. She took another from the napkin and popped it in her mouth, again sealing her lips shut.
‘You have very good manners,’ Lennon said.
Ellen nodded. ‘Mm-hmm.’
‘Your mummy taught you well.’
Ellen smiled.
Lennon’s throat tightened. He coughed and said, ‘Well, eat up. Then we’ll go back upstairs.’
Ellen drew on the straw, her gaze fixed somewhere behind Lennon. He looked over his shoulder, seeing only people moving between tables, their trays clutched shakily in front of them. Curved walls screened the area off, decorated with spoons and forks arranged to resemble shoals of fish against the blue-green paint.
‘What are you looking at?’ he asked.
‘People,’ Ellen said.
‘What people?’
‘All different people.’ She put the juice box back on the tabletop. ‘There’s bad people here.’
‘You mean sick people?’ Lennon asked. ‘There’s lots of sick people. Most of them will get better, though.’
Ellen picked up the juice box and drained it. She popped the lid back onto the tube of Smarties and tucked the sweets into her coat pocket. ‘For later,’ she said.
Lennon took another swig of tea, but it soured his stomach. He took Ellen’s empty juice box from the table and stood, gripping the litter in one hand. ‘Come on,’ he said.
Ellen gripped his fingers and followed him towards the litter bin beyond the curved walls, over by the kitchen. Lennon struggled to find a way through the people crushing around the till.
A cleaner tipped a tray of refuse into the bin as he and Ellen drew near. The cleaner dropped the lid and stepped aside. Lennon depressed the foot lever to open the bin. The lid didn’t budge. He tried to lift it with the hand that gripped the tray. It didn’t budge. People jostled as they tried to reach the till. Lennon suppressed a curse as shoulders nudged and shoved him. The cup slipped across the tray, and Lennon released Ellen’s fingers long enough to save it from spilling. He finally lifted the bin lid and dumped the rubbish inside. That done, he added his tray to the stack nearby and reached back for Ellen’s hand.
He found cold air.
Lennon spun to where Ellen had stood no more than moments ago. His stomach dropped through the floor.
51
The child came to him. The Traveller simply stood and watched her approach from his position behind the curved wall. All the time she had sat eating her sweets with the big cop opposite her, she kept looking the Traveller’s way. More than once he found himself unable to return her stare, her eyes so bright and knowing. Like she could see the ugly things in his head, swirling and snapping at one another.
And here she came, her doll hanging loose by her side. The naked plastic body made echoes of some buried memory sound behind his eyes. He blinked them away, and a burst of pain like hot needles forced his teeth together.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘What do you want?’
The Traveller stared down at her, unsure how to answer the question. He looked back towards the cop who turned in a circle, horror breaking on his face.
‘Do you know Gerry?’ the girl asked.
The Traveller licked his upper lip. ‘Yeah,’ he said. He took her hand. ‘Come on.’
They were halfway down the curving flight of stairs, ducking between patients and staff, when a voice called, ‘Ellen.’ It was weak, frightened. If the child heard, she didn’t react.
The Traveller quickened his step, the girl dragging on his hand. ‘This way,’ he said as they reached the ground floor. The Quiet Room stood to their right, facing the shop he’d watched them in a few minutes before.
‘Ellen!’
Louder now, not quite panic yet, but an angry edge.
The girl resisted, turned to look for the voice that called her name. The Traveller pulled harder. He scanned the shifting crowd for concerned onlookers as they passed the information desk. No one paid attention, so he marched to the Quiet Room, ignored the flare of pain as he shouldered the door open. Low lighting, a hush in the air despite the room being empty but for him and the child. The door swung closed, sealing them in.
Ellen tried to pull her fingers away from his, but he held firm. His breath sounded alien in this dim and silent place. He realised he didn’t know what to do next.
Sweat prickled his skin and he swallowed against the dryness in his mouth. The child had come to him, sought him out. Stupid. He’d never been stupid in his life. He couldn’t afford to be. Rash, yes, but never stupid. Not like this. All because the little girl came to him.
A strange and horrible idea burst in his mind. It took hold, bright and unyielding as only the truth can be. He looked down at the child. She smiled back up at him and all doubt was gone.
He had not captured her.
She had captured him.