The Shoestring Club (33 page)

The first question Pandora asked as soon I’d been popped into bed and the nurses had left was about Ed. My eyes had filled with tears and I felt so overwhelmed by stupidity and regret that I couldn’t even speak, so she let me be for a while.

But now she puts down her magazine and asks, ‘What on earth were you doing in the tree house, Boolie? And why was Ed there too? Talk to me, please.’

I shrug, which makes my neck hurt a little and my head throb. Tears spring to my eyes again.

‘Sorry, Jules, I don’t mean to upset you. We can talk about it later if you’re still not ready.’

I sigh. She’s been very patient and she deserves an explanation. She asked me several times in the A and E and I brushed her off then too.

‘He called over to say goodbye before the wedding,’ I say. ‘Brought some champagne.’

She stared at me. ‘I thought you hated him.’

‘It’s complicated. We were together for a long time. I guess part of me still loves him.’ I stop for a second. Actually that’s not true. Right now, I have no feelings for him whatsoever. Suddenly I feel lighter than I have in months. ‘Loved,’ I correct myself. ‘Definitely past tense. And where is he anyway? What happened after I fell?’

‘Ed knocked on the door so loudly it woke up Iris and made her cry. I went outside and found you lying there on the leaves, unconscious. I got such a fright, Jules. Then I found your pulse and figured you’d been knocked out. Ed had already called an ambulance, so he waited with me while it came. I asked him what the two of you were playing at but he was being pretty evasive. Said he just had to talk to you. As soon as he heard the sirens he left pretty abruptly. Said he was sorry but he couldn’t stay. Had to get back to Lainey. Stupid fecker.’

I think about this for a second. ‘He didn’t wait to see what the ambulance crew had to say?’

‘Nope.’

‘You’re right, he is a little fecker.’

‘And then the ambulance arrived and you woke up when we were driving through Blackrock.’

‘What about Iris? Did you leave her on her own?’

‘No. Jamie heard the ambulance sirens and ran over. Must have just missed Ed. Poor guy nearly passed out himself when he saw you, went so pale. He wanted to go with you, but I asked him to stay with Iris instead.’

‘That was decent of him. I can’t believe Ed ran off like that.’ I bite my lip. After everything I’ve done, it’s Jamie who has my back, not Ed. It’s always been Jamie. I’ve made such a mess of things. But it’s too late now. My eyes water.

‘Oh, Boolie, don’t. Ed is not worth it.’

I laugh through my tears. ‘I know!’

She pats my hand and leaves it there for a few minutes before pulling it away. She looks around and sighs. ‘This place is so depressing.’ We both hate anything to do with hospitals.

‘What do you expect?’ I ask. ‘Pink walls? Dance music? And, hello, you’re supposed to be the one cheering me up, not the other way around.’

She looks contrite. ‘I know, I’m sorry. I’m just tired.’ On cue, she gives an almighty yawn.

I glance at my watch. ‘I’m not surprised. It’s nearly midnight. You should get back to Iris. I’m fine on my own, honestly.’

She shakes her head. ‘Bird and Dad have it all under control. They’ll both be in first thing in the morning. One night sleeping in a chair isn’t going to kill me. Dad used to do it all the time,’ she adds softly. ‘But you probably don’t remember.’

I stare at her. It’s not something we mention in our family, ever. She’s talking about when Mum was really sick and we were all staying in Bird’s house. Dad moved the old squishy armchair from the living room up to Mum’s bedroom and stayed there most nights, his legs stretched out in front of him, a rug thrown over his body. Bird tried to make him sleep in his own bed, get some proper rest, but he refused. Like Pandora, he said one night sleeping in a chair wasn’t going to kill him. Towards the very end he stopped for some reason.

‘Yes, I do remember,’ I say in an equally soft voice. ‘I was nine, Pandora. I remember everything. Mum dying, Dad going all funny, you trying to take Mum’s place.’

She looks upset. ‘No, I wasn’t. I was just trying to look after you and Dad.’

‘I didn’t mean it in a bad way,’ I say gently. ‘But you must admit you did smother me a bit. You even made me sleep in your bed with you.’

She stares at me. ‘That was because of your nightmares. You didn’t have so many horrible dreams in with me.’

‘Was I really that bad?’

‘Yes.’ She strokes the side of my head. ‘You used to wake up screaming and ranting about all kinds of weird stuff.’

‘You’ve never told me that before. Ranting about what?’

She sighs. ‘It doesn’t matter. Forget about it.’

‘I want to know,’ I say stubbornly. ‘Please? It’s important.’

‘I don’t see how it can be. It was such a long time ago.’

I want to tell her – about how I still wake up in the middle of the night sometimes, heart pounding, howling on the inside, having learnt long ago not to attract attention by screaming out loud. But I can’t. I bite the inside of my lip instead.

She studies my face, her eyes soft and kind. ‘You still get them, don’t you, Boolie?’

I nod and then lower my gaze and stare at my hands which are twisting in my lap.

Pandora sighs. ‘Are they very dark?’

My head still dropped, I nod again.

‘About your hands being covered in blood?’ she whispers.

Tears drip down onto the hospital blanket and I wipe them away with my fingers.

‘Sometimes,’ I say, remembering the recent dream triggered by Iris’s near miss.

‘Come here.’ She puts her arms around me and holds me tight against her chest. I can smell her orange blossom perfume, feel the slightly scratchiness of her jumper against my cheek.

‘I’m so sorry, Boolie. You should have said something. I can’t believe you’ve had to go through it on your own all these years.’

We stay like that for ages, until finally she draws away. She pushes my curls off my face.

‘Do you think it has something to do with Mum’s death?’ she asks. ‘It must have frightened you so much. You were so young and seeing her so sick like that . . .’ she breaks off, pauses. I can see it’s hard for her to find the words. She swallows, looks out of the window for a second, and then back into the room.

‘It changes you, doesn’t it?’ she says eventually. ‘I tried to get Dad to find you someone to talk to about the nightmares, someone professional, but he said you’d grow out of it. But if you’re still having them, years later . . .’ she tails off again. ‘I should have tried Bird instead. Dad was all over the place.’

She pauses. ‘Boolie, I have to ask you, and please don’t shout me down. When you drink, heavily I mean, do you still have nightmares? Or do they go away? Is that why you do it?’

It’s not something I’ve ever consciously thought about. Yes, it makes it easier to get to sleep, but it doesn’t banish the images from my head. In fact sometimes it makes them worse and I wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, my heart thumping out of my chest, and I can’t get back to sleep again for hours. I’m not comfortable talking about this any more, so I stare out of the window myself, hoping she’ll get the message and change the subject.

But Pandora’s not one for giving up.

‘Boolie?’ she says.

And then again, ‘Boolie?’

I swing my eyes back towards her. ‘That’s not why I drink,’ I say, answering her question.

‘Then it could be your genes.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Grandpa Schuster was an alcoholic.’

I stare at her. ‘What? Are you sure?’

‘Yes. I overheard Dad and Bird discussing it one evening. It was just before Bird made you visit Sheila. Dad was begging her to tell Sheila but Bird refused, said it was irrelevant and she wouldn’t have all that dragged up again. I went straight in, confronted them about it, told Bird that Dad was right. But then Bird talked us both around, you know how persuasive she can be sometimes.’

She sighs. ‘But I’m sorry, I should have said something earlier, you had a right to know and this family has far too many secrets already. He died from liver failure and alcohol poisoning, went on an almighty bender after a rugby match and never came out of the hospital after it.’

‘Not a heart attack?’

‘No. But that’s what Bird told everyone. I think she was ashamed at the truth. It was hardly her fault, but I think she blames herself for not being able to help him.’ I try to take this in. I’d always been told that my grandpa, Derek Schuster, died of a heart attack when he was thirty-eight. I’ve seen photographs of him – he was a bit overweight, but he had a lovely wide smile and twinkling sky-blue eyes.

‘Which is why Bird is so worried about my drinking,’ I say.

‘I’d say so.’ Pandora looks at me. ‘Boolie, do you think it’s time to talk to someone about it? I know you don’t drink every day, but you can’t keep having accidents like this. And I read in the paper the other day that eighty per cent of rape cases involve alcohol. Imagine if something like that happened to you? I’d never forgive myself.’

My face crumples and before I know what’s happening I’m crying into my hands.

Pandora looks shocked. ‘What did I say? You’re scaring me. What’s wrong?’

‘That night you collected me in the industrial estate, this guy,’ I gulp, but try to continue. ‘This guy attacked me. In the beer garden at Dicey Reilly’s.’

‘Jesus! Why didn’t you say something?’

‘I couldn’t. I was drunk and confused. And you were so annoyed with me. You told me to shut up and get in the car.’

‘I’m so sorry.’ Pandora’s eyes well up. ‘I had no idea. But nothing happened, did it? He didn’t . . . you know.’

‘No. But only ’cos someone came out and distracted him. I kneed him in the balls and ran away.’

‘Thank Christ for that. Oh, Boolie, what am I going to do with you?’ She hugs me again, tight. ‘You’re shaking,’ she says, rubbing my back in circles through the thin cotton of the hospital gown. ‘It’s going to be OK, darling. Don’t you worry. And I’ll never let anything like that happen to you again, I swear to God.’

She sighs deeply and pulls away a little. ‘Is there anything else you need to tell me? Anything else you’re keeping to yourself?’

Mum’s face flashes in front of my eyes. Her waxy, peaceful, just-dead face. But when I open my mouth, nothing comes out. I can’t. Not yet.

‘Sometimes I need a drink so badly my hands shake,’ I say instead. And then I start crying again.

‘You must be Julia. I’m Anne Crampton.’ A tall woman looks down at me, smiling warmly. She’s wearing a neat navy trouser suit, her long brown hair is streaked with silver and she speaks English with a slight accent, Norwegian maybe or Swedish. I’ve been sitting in the waiting area outside her consultation rooms for ten minutes trying to focus on a magazine, jittery with nerves.

‘Yes, Jules,’ I say, putting down the magazine and standing up. She offers me her hand and I shake it, her palm warm and firm against mine.

‘Jules, good. Please come in.’ She waves her hand towards the open doorway and I follow her through. The room smells clean and slightly lemony from the scented candle burning on the mantelpiece. It’s early in the year for a fire, but it’s burning away in the black Victorian fireplace. I look around for one of those leather chaises longues that shrinks’ offices in movies always seem to have, but there’s only two chocolate-brown armchairs opposite each other in front of the fireplace. A glass coffee table sits in-between, and there’s a tidy wooden roll-top desk against one of the cream walls with two watercolours hanging above it: one of Dalkey Island, the other of Dun Laoghaire Pier.

‘Please, take a seat.’ She gestures at one of the chairs. My eye catches the large man-sized box of tissues on the table.

I sit down, cross my legs and jiggle my foot nervously. Anne takes a notepad and pen off her desk and takes a seat opposite me.

‘Why don’t you start by telling me why you’re here today?’ she says, her voice calm and soothing. ‘I believe you had an accident, is that correct?’

I look at her, wondering what else Sheila’s referral notes said, but her gaze seems even and non-judgemental.

I nod and take a deep breath. ‘I fell out of a tree last Saturday night. Well, a tree house actually. I’d had some champagne and I lost my footing. I was lucky – I landed on a pile of leaves. Knocked myself out though. Was in hospital for two days with bad concussion.’

‘Gosh, you poor thing.’ She jots something down in the notebook, then asks, ‘And how are you feeling now?’

‘OK. I have a bit of a headache still, but the doctor said that’s normal.’

‘It is. And you say you lost your footing. How is your balance normally?’

‘Good. I cycle a lot, you have to have pretty good balance to deal with the traffic in Dublin. But I’ve had quite a lot of accidents recently.’

She doesn’t look up from her pad, her pen still poised. ‘Any of them also drink related?’

I can feel my cheeks blush. I know there’s no point being here unless I tell the truth. ‘Most of them I guess.’ I tell her about stepping on the glass and about what happened in Dicey Reilly’s, an edited version which doesn’t include the phone call to Ed, or the fact that I know Noel. I’m not ready to talk about Ed yet, not by a long way. By the end of the Dicey story I’m crying.