Echoes (55 page)

 

He had written it over and over to try to take out the phrases that sounded tired. He tried to make it just himself. But he was in such unaccustomed low form, it didn't end up sounding like him. Perhaps he should have just left a card with a heart on it, or should he have gone round to the hostel after her last night? He had telephoned from a phone box and asked to speak to Mary Catherine. The nun on duty had asked did he know the time, all the young ladies were in bed, he could leave a message in an emergency. He had hung up. Perhaps he should have feigned illness at the hospital and taken a day off. He could have waited at the bottom of those rungs. Clare would have had to come down that way; she wasn't meant to be a resident. Perhaps he should have stood in the hall up at UCD and waited till she came in for lectures.

Most of the morning was spent speculating between beds.

The secretary at the front desk handed him a note as he passed. “This just came for you, Dr. Power.”

In her big firm handwriting she had written:

 

They were often too tired to talk, too tired to make love when they went to their bed, but not irritably tired. They looked forward to David's proper leave days with excitement and planned them down to the last detail. They went to the zoo, which was lovely in the winter because it wasn't crowded, and they went out to Bray on the train one day and climbed Bray Head to look all over County Wicklow and County Dublin.

Sometimes they ate out, and they had gone to the pictures with Mary Catherine and Valerie one night. But they didn't mix much with David's hospital set, and they didn't look up old friends. James had given up on Mary Catherine and he seemed to be in a very social set. David and Clare didn't need James Nolan; they didn't need anyone but each other.

They had decided not to think about the future yet. David was going round doing interviews for hospitals where he would do his Post Intern year once he finished his present post in July. Clare had her mind fixed firmly on her degree.

By next September they would both be earning money. They would afford a better place. They would not get married yet. They just skated over that bit, but neither of them wanted to bring on the storm. Up here in Dublin in their own little world, nothing mattered, nobody bothered them.

They would be all right unless something happened.

Coming up to Easter two things happened.

Dr. Power had a mild stroke.

And Clare discovered she was pregnant.

 

It was Angela who found him when he passed out. He was just getting into his car, which he had parked a quarter of a mile from the golf club in order to give himself a little walk. He had bandaged the finger of the barman, delivered a strong lecture on the danger of sharp knives, and explained that it didn't matter whether a lemon was finely sliced for drinks but it did matter if dangerous knives were left where people could cut their hands on them.

He walked cheerfully down to the car and then felt everything go dark. He realized that he must be about to faint and lowered himself to the ground beside his car. He tried to call out but he could hear a rushing sound and knew that he was losing consciousness.

Angela was hanging up some clothes on the washing line. She saw the car, and just as she was about to turn back into her house, she saw his black bag thrown on the ground. She ran quickly and was at his side when he was recovering consciousness.

“Did you have a fall?” she said.

“No, Jhangelgha,” he said. “Shmore a vainting . . .” His voice sounded very odd. As if he were drunk. She was practical as he would have expected.

“Tell me what to do in yeses or nos. Can you stand up if I help you?”

“Yesh.”

“Will I open the door and put you sitting in the car?”

“Yesh.”

He started to speak again, she had the door open and the big man seated in the passenger seat.

“Now, do you want me to get your wife, or to go to a phone and call the hospital in the town? Sorry. You have to answer yes or no. Will I get Mrs. Power?”

“No.”

“Will I phone the hospital?”

“No. Drive.”

“No, Dr. Power. I could curse myself to the pit of hell but I can't drive. Let me get someone to drive you . . . is it safe to leave you here?”

“Yesh. Shafe.”

“Very well, I'll get my bike. I'll be back in five minutes. . . .”

“Anjheala.” He seemed agitated.

“Trust me, trust me. I'll get the right person. Are you better here or would you like me to help you back to my house?”

“Alrigth.”

She was a blur of bicycle wheels and then he heard a car coming. Dick Dillon and Gerry Doyle stepped out. The two men he would have picked himself in the whole of Castlebay.

They had been marvelous to him in the hospital, masking their shock that it was the man himself who needed a bed, not one of his patients.

One of his oldest friends Tim Daly was with him in no time. “That's a light one, Paddy—take more than that to put you in a wheelchair,” he said.

That was what Paddy Power wanted, no fancy chat, no pretending nothing had happened. He knew a stroke when he saw one, and even more so when he had just been through one.

He pointed at his mouth. “Shpeesh,” he said.

“Sure, that can go on for a day or two even in the slightest of strokes, you know that.”

“Shide,” he said indicating the side of his body.

“Same thing. It's not paralyzed in any strict sense. It's just a bit numb.”

“Yesh.” Power's face was sad.

“Will I drive out to Molly myself, and tell her we're keeping you here for a few days, bring her in with me maybe?”

“Itsh far.”

“No, it's not. It's no trouble. And would you like me to tell David? There's no need, as you well know. You could stay here and come out and he need never be any the wiser. Is that what you'd like?”

“Yesh.”

“Sleep a bit, Paddy. It's hard I know, but it's what will do you good . . .”

“Tim . . . Tim . . . locum.” He was straining.

“I have it in hand. I've told him three weeks. You're not to get frightened. I said that so that you can have a real rest, maybe a week away somewhere with Molly.”

Dr. Power closed his eyes, secure at last that everything was under control.

 

Tim Daly was right. It was a very light one. So light that it was never even referred to as a stroke. Dr. Power said that it wouldn't give a young mother confidence if she thought that the doctor attending the birth of her first baby might keel over paralyzed. It was described as a little turn and it caused hardly any comment in Castlebay. The locum doctor was a nice man too and not a bit put out by people saying that if he didn't mind they'd wait until Dr. Power was ready before they'd have their stitches out or go for those blood tests.

Dr. Mackey had lived for a long time in the North of England in industrial towns. He thought the peace of Castlebay was something that should be bottled and put on prescription for those who were tense or anxious all over the world.

“Faith and there's a fair few very tense and anxious here all the same,” Paddy Power said to him. He, Dr. Mackey, and Dr. Tim Daly were all having a progress discussion. Paddy had been out of hospital for a week: Dr. Mackey was still booked for another ten days. The speech had fully returned to normal and there was no more trace of numbness. But Paddy agreed that it was a warning, and agreed further that his own advice to anyone in similar circumstances would be cut down drastically. He knew there should be no more night calls. He would in fact have to cut out a lot of his long drives over bad roads on home calls. He needed someone else to help him. Since there would not be a living for two doctors, he would need a younger man as an assistant. That man should be the one who intended to follow him. David.

“I have written to him. It was easier to write than to say.”

“You're not asking him much,” sniffed Dr. Mackey. “To come back to a ready-made practice. You can teach him all he doesn't know already. You won't be a dog in the manger trying to keep the good will—an
ideal
set-up for any young doctor.”

Dr. Power sighed. “Ah yes, but this young doctor was all set to do his pediatrics and then obstetrics and then the Lord knows what . . . he hadn't it in his mind to come back now. That's what I said to him, I said I knew it was bad timing. He's coming home tomorrow. The hospital gave him compassionate leave. He had to tell them I was at death's doors but he'll be here tomorrow.”

Molly came in with Nellie and a tea tray. Molly had surprised them all by being so calm. They had expected hysterics and they had got a very practical woman. She had even agreed that David should not be alerted until they knew the extent of the trouble.

Tim Daly thought that he must have misjudged her. He had often said to his own wife that Paddy Power had deserved someone less feathery and citified than Molly; but maybe he had been wrong. Anyway there was never any doubt about that son of his, a big, square, handsome, bright lad. Tim Daly sighed again thinking of the strange hand of fate that had dealt him five daughters in succession and no boy anywhere along the line.

 

David knew about his father before he got the letter. He had heard from Angela almost immediately after it happened. She wrote that she was becoming increasingly unable to mind her own business as she grew older and unable to avoid meddling in other people's affairs, but just in case he would need more time to think about it than he would get, his father planned to write to him in a few days and tell him of a mild stroke which was genuinely believed to have been slight and no threat to his life, but which would mean that he might need David much sooner than expected. Angela said that he mustn't acknowledge the letter or anything, it was just sometimes nicer to be forewarned.

She had written to him at his hospital, and without her having to put it in writing he knew she hadn't written to Clare. It was to give him time to think. It was all bad news but he thanked her deep in his heart.

He thought. Three times he was pulled up for not paying attention, and on one occasion a patient said to him that he looked as if he was on another planet.

He went into a cubicle in casualty and sat on the bed. Suppose he did go home? In July, when he finished this intern year? Suppose Clare studied on, back and forth from Castlebay to Dublin? Suppose she took her degree and was accepted for M.A.? It was by thesis. You could write a thesis anywhere, couldn't you? He was desperately vague. Could you do it from Castlebay?

He rang the admissions office of the university, and the voice kept saying he would have to come in and discuss it.

“Goddamn it!”
David cried. “There must be a
rule.
Can people do their M.A. without being in the university or not?
Yes
or
No?
Is that too much to ask?”

It was, or the tone in which he asked was too much to reply to.

He couldn't go back to hide in the cubicle, it was time to go back to work.

He had hidden nothing from Clare up to now and there was no point in pussyfooting around and trying to get nonexistent information about her degree. Anyway, their futures were together. She deserved to know anything that he knew.

He would do no special pleading.

He wouldn't try to sell her on the idea of going home. He wouldn't apologize for his father's ill health.

He would tell her no flowery tales about how much she would love his mother once David and Clare were married.

He would gloss over nothing.

But he must tell her.

There was no bus coming so he decided to walk. He saw her coming up the road toward him, hands in pockets, thoughtful.

“You came to meet me,” he cried.

“Yes, I wondered if we could go somewhere just to have a drink maybe?”

“That's great.” He tucked her arm into his. It would be easier to tell her in a pub that their life in Dublin, their freedom, their study, was going to be cut short.

He carried the drinks to the corner table. He would tell her at once.

“David. You're not going to like this. But it's no use putting it off. I'm pregnant.”

There was a long silence.

“I'm very sorry. But it's confirmed. I sent a sample to Holles Street. It's positive, and I . . . well, I know . . .”

“But you
can't
be. . . . We took such care.”

“Not enough, it seems.” She looked very small and young and frightened.

“Oh, Clare, Clare,” he said. “What will we do?”

“I don't know. I've had two weeks to wonder and worry. And I still don't know.”

“You should have told me.”

“What was the point? Silly, frightening both of us to death unless it was definite.”

“And it's
definitely
definite?”

“It is, David. It is.”

He put his head in his hands. “Oh,
Christ,
” he said. “
Christ, God,
isn't that so unfair? Isn't that
all
we need?”

His drink was untouched and so was hers. Nobody was near enough to hear them or have any idea what they were talking about.