No Way to Say Goodbye (14 page)

Mary switched on the kettle and bit her knuckle.

“Ever slipped a disc before?” Dr Macken asked.

“No,” Sam said, clearly perturbed.

“Well, son, it looks like you could have slipped one now.” He went to his bag. “Now, if you’re lucky it might just be a serious muscle spasm.”

The kettle whistled.

“Milk, no sugar, Mary,” said Dr Macken. “Now, I’m going to give you something to relax the muscles and then I’m going to prescribe painkillers.”

He walked into the sitting room and Mary followed him with his tea.

“We’re going to need a fairly hard mattress. You’ll have to move the sofa but he’ll be fine here for a few days,” he said, taking the mug from her.

“Excuse me?” she asked, alarmed.

“What?” Sam shouted, from the kitchen.

“Well, you’ll hardly send him in next door.”

“Why not? That’s where he lives,” she whispered.

“I’m not staying here!” Sam shouted.

“He can’t be left on his own, Mary girl, and, besides, you have a downstairs bathroom.”

Silently Mary cursed her extension.

“I am not staying here!” Sam shouted, despite the pain it caused in his lower back.

“Do you have a suitable mattress?” Dr Macken asked, ignoring all objections.

Mary rolled her eyes, much as she did each time he tapped her head and made some annoying comment about her metal plate.

Dr Macken was assisting Sam into the sitting room while Mary wrestled the mattress from the spare room down the stairs.

“Oh, that’ll do nicely!” the doctor remarked.

Sam was a whiter shade of pale. Dr Macken resumed a conversation with his patient to which Mary had not been a party. “You either take the muscle relaxant or you end up in this particularly amusing stance for the rest of your days.”

“Not until you tell me what’s in it.”

“Is there something in your medical history you’d like to share with me?” Dr Macken asked.

“No,” Sam replied.

“And you’re not allergic to anything?”

“No,” Sam confirmed.

“Then take the pill.”

The doctor held the glass of water in front of him and he swallowed the tablet and drank until the glass was empty.

“Good,” Dr Macken said.

He helped Mary to move the sofa, and when the mattress was dressed, he reintroduced Sam to the art of lying down, ably assisted by his unwilling aide, Mary, who was charged with providing cushions to prop up the patient’s knees. “As he loosens up, take away the cushions,” he ordered.

She responded with a heavy sigh. Sam covered his face with his hands and inhaled deeply.

“Well, I can see this little sleepover is going to go beautifully.” Dr Macken laughed. “Hah, Robocop, I’d say it’s a match made in heaven!” Dr Macken turned to Sam. “It’s a wonder she can’t pick up a few more channels on that thing,” he said, pointing to her head while she pursed her lips to stop herself telling him to make himself scarce. Sam snickered a little. Dr Macken softened. “Still, it’s a wonder she’s with us at all!” He smiled at his toughest patient, then became serious. “Any headaches since I last saw you?”

“No,” Mary said, embarrassed by the question in front of a stranger.

“You’re due a scan,” he said.

“I know.”

“I’ll make the appointment,” he said, picking up his bag.

“OK.” She walked towards the door. Thankfully, he followed her.

“I’m giving you a prescription for painkillers.”

Sam called from the floor. “What’s in them?”

Dr Macken laughed. “Don’t worry, just a little opioid – they won’t kill you.”

He probably thinks I’m one of those health freaks he reads about
, thought Sam,
the kind of guy who dates in oxygen bars and whose idea for a great weekend involves colonic irrigation.
Sam knew he couldn’t touch an opioid unless he wanted to end up an addict again and right back where he’d started. This meant that he’d be in pain without relief.
I’m on the fucking precipice
.

On the morning following Adam’s departure from Kenmare something clicked in Penny and she emerged from her booze-laced cocoon. She had been drinking for three weeks straight and, like a reluctant genie, it took courage to emerge from the bottle. She had hidden away and licked her wounds, and her friends had given her the space to do so, knowing that Penny liked to do things her way. But they were unaware as to what exactly her way entailed.

She had spent the greater part of her day cleaning herself and then her house until she felt there was no visible trace of her transgression. Her clean start was tiring work but it kept her mind off the fact that Adam was gone. She’d avoided Mary’s five calls. Later she packed her car boot with empty bottles and drove to the recycling centre. It was late evening so she hadn’t anticipated meeting anyone. Unfortunately she was halfway through unloading when she spotted one of Adam’s wife’s more vocal friends, Bridget Browne.

“That must have been some party,” Bridget said, with a sneer.

“You’ve no idea,” Penny said, her cheeks threatening to shatter under the strain of her fake smile.

“You have a thick neck!” Bridget said, passing so close they almost touched.

Penny faced her but Bridget walked on. “Excuse me?” She didn’t need to take this crap from a woman who had once been one of the town’s biggest sluts.

Bridget turned back to look her up and down with contempt. “You heard, you callous bitch!”

“Hey, Bridget, guess what?”

“What?”

“Your husband recently fathered a child in Sneem.” She watched Bridget’s face fall. “Is that callous enough for you?” she asked.

Bridget was momentarily stunned, and immediately Penny realized the depths to which she had sunk. She might have apologized but the moment passed, and so did Bridget’s shock.

“
What did you say?
” she screamed.

A little panicked, Penny shut her boot, still half full of bottles, and walked around to the driver’s seat.

“
What did you say, you bitch?
” Bridget said, thundering towards her.

Penny opened the car door quickly, knowing that the other was on her way to launch a well-deserved punch at her face.

She locked the doors just in time and backed out of the recycling centre with a screaming and red-faced Bridget pounding on the roof of her car.

Once she’d made her getaway, she broke into laughter born of mild hysteria and tears quickly followed.
Oh, God, what did I just do?
Revealing a husband’s secret love-child was brutal, petty and maybe even despicable. An internal debate followed in which she reasoned that, although she had done something terrible, Bridget was a horrible human being who had often revelled in the misery of others. She silently accused Bridget of being the kind of person who liked to lord it over others and was only too happy to judge all and sundry. She still felt a little sick until she remembered that Bridget and her husband had been known as the town bikes for years. It had been bound to come out sooner or later. By the time she’d driven halfway home, she’d decided that Bridget deserved it.

The truth was she didn’t deserve it, and if Penny hadn’t been bitter, broken-hearted and hung-over she would never have torn apart anyone, even someone of Bridget Browne’s bad temperament. She dried her eyes and decided to forget her verbal assault by buying a bottle of her favourite red wine – she was off the hard stuff but wine never hurt anybody.

Penny had decided to throw herself back into work and, by coincidence, the next morning the Cork correspondent was forced to take a sudden leave of absence. Penny had a fluff piece about an obese cow in north Kerry and was covering the opening of a restaurant in Dingle but, despite time constraints and impending deadlines, she readily agreed to cover his story. She worried briefly that her decision to help out a colleague was based on Cork being Adam’s new home, but concluded that it most certainly was not. She reminded herself that Adam had made his choice. Furthermore he hadn’t even told her where he would be working or whispered his address – not that she wanted to know either. That ship had sailed and she was moving on, except of course that she wasn’t. Instead she was drowning. The emptiness made her insides ache but she wasn’t about to ask Mary or Ivan for information on Adam’s exact co-ordinates because then they would know that she was desperate to see him, even though she had almost convinced herself that she wasn’t. In any case, if he’d wanted to see her he would have called and he hadn’t, not that she was waiting for him to call. In fact, she probably wouldn’t have taken his call, so determined was she to start afresh.

However, upon arriving into Cork City she found she wanted to explore it more than she had in previous years. She might even have walked around the city centre for a few hours paying particular attention to the restaurants, peering at the menus stuck to the windows and accidentally catching glimpses of front-of-house staff, none of whom was Adam. Then again, she’d always been a fan of restaurants and Cork was full of them.

Late afternoon, and after a long walk, she arrived at her destination. The piece she had been asked to cover was a story about a young Corkwoman, Lacey Doyle, who’d travelled to an exotic location only to become a bomb victim, returning home minus her legs. Despite this she’d been deemed lucky: her best friend, who had been standing less than ten feet away from her, could only be identified by DNA. The crux of Penny’s story lay in the revolutionary new limbs Lacey’s supporters had paid for. It was all very complicated and Penny wasn’t sure how they were different from any others. They were state-of-the-art in a weird futuristic way. The manufacturers had made no attempt to create the illusion of real legs. The girl’s skin met metal and at the end there was a shoe but she didn’t seem to care. She spoke a lot about their flexibility and was happy to demonstrate. Every time she exposed her stumps, though, Penny felt a little sick.

“It’s horrible, isn’t it?” Lacey asked chirpily.

“No,” Penny lied, “it’s fine.”

“My legs were ripped off – it’s OK to feel a little repulsed.” Lacey laughed at Penny, who had gone very pale.

“OK,” Penny conceded, “I do feel a little sick.”

“I couldn’t look down for six months,” Lacey admitted.

“What changed?”

“I got bored looking up.” Lacey giggled and Penny joined in.

“I don’t know how you get over something like that,” said Penny. She was a lot more interested in the woman who’d lost her legs than the revolutionary replacements.

“You don’t,” Lacey said. “You just get on with things. You either do that or you rot.” She grinned. “And there was George.”

“George?” Penny asked, intrigued.

“My boyfriend – well, actually he’s my fiancé now. We got engaged last month.”

Penny’s mouth almost fell open.

“You’re surprised anyone would marry me,” Lacey said.

“No.” Penny was horrified that she was so transparent.

“I was surprised too,” Lacey confirmed. “It was a year before I could let him touch me, never mind anything else.”

Penny wasn’t sure she wanted to hear any more.

“Sex was a nightmare at first,” Lacey said, “but it got better,” she nodded, “and now it’s good.”

Penny was glad she was sitting down as her own legs were feeling a little shaky.

“You’re sickened again, aren’t you?” Lacey asked.

Penny smiled. “Yes, but it’s not what you think.”

“What, then?” Lacey asked.

“I’m jealous.”

“
Jealous?
”

“Pathetic, isn’t it?”

“A little bit. Can I ask why?”

“At least you’re not alone,” she said, and a tear escaped.

She had burst into tears in front of an interviewee – was she having a breakdown? Penny couldn’t face driving home so she booked into a hotel and headed for the bar where she ordered vodka on the rocks.

“Tough day?” the barman asked.

“I met a bomb victim without legs who’s happier than I am,” she said quietly, raised her glass and drank.

“Jaysus, your life must really suck,” he said, and grinned.

“What part of Dublin are you from?” she asked automatically.

“What part do you want me to be from?” He winked.

“A part where they answer direct questions with direct answers,” she said, draining her glass.

He laughed. “Crumlin. You want another?”

She nodded.

“What about you? Where are you from?” He handed her the refilled glass.

“Nowhere,” she said.

“You’re homeless, then?”

“Home is where the heart is,” she said, with a bitter laugh.

“And where’s your heart?”

“Lost.” She raised her hands in the air, then drank the vodka in one.

“Women! Does the drama ever end?” he said.

“You tell me,” she said, with a hint of a grin.

The bar was quiet and he had little to do but flirt with her so she stayed there, drinking vodka after vodka, talking with the barman from Dublin. When he got off his shift she led him up to her room.

“I’m married,” he said.

“So was my boyfriend.” She closed the door behind them.

The next morning she awoke alone with bruises on her arms and thighs. The room was in a state, too, as a result of Penny and the stranger taking out their frustration on one another. She had a bruise on her hip from where he’d slammed her against the dresser and her leg was scraped, she couldn’t remember why. He would have been marked, too, and she wondered how he’d explain it to his poor wife or even if he’d bother. Her neck was sore from when he’d held her against the wardrobe until she couldn’t breathe, but she’d kicked him onto the ground and, when she had been on top, she’d bitten him hard. Her nipples were raw, and when she went to the loo she bled a little.

After a cleansing shower she decided not to drink alone any more, only with friends. Then she wouldn’t over-indulge until she was sick or prostituting herself.
Jesus, what was last night about?
She had made a mistake but she was OK and wouldn’t put herself in that position again.
Easy
.
No problem.

11. Knowing me, knowing you