And as she watches Myra take off, she decides that whatever their problem (or multiple problems) with her, she has to do something to change this. This partnership has to work.
Wearily, Myra returns to her desk. She loves this job. She loves the patients and – normally – the doctors. She had a special affection for Dr. Sullivan with his warmth and his calm approach to everything. Without him, it’s like a light has gone out in the surgery, like the very air has changed. She watches Young Dr. Sullivan approach the waiting room like a lamb to the slaughter. Myra had hoped that she’d be like her father. Instead, she’s like the young locums who come in to relieve the doctors every so often – filled with energy and bright ideas that never work. Every last one of them talks of appointments. Appointments how are you?! No one wants to see these young idealists coming to the rescue. Myra doesn’t know what the point of them is, really. They don’t ultimately relieve the doctors because no one will go to them. They just put pressure on her. They don’t know the system, the subtleties, the locals. And no one trusts them. They’re nothing but a thorn in her side. Until now, though, they have only been a temporary thorn. Manageable. She looks at Young Dr. Sullivan coming to a halt at the waiting room door with her silly hair and her city clothes. Her heart sinks. She’ll open her mouth now and unleash that posh Dublin accent of hers. She may as well have a sign around her neck saying, “unclean.”
At the waiting room, Grace feels like she’s standing at the door to a party she hasn’t been invited to. All eyes are on her. One woman nudges another with a surreptitious elbow that Grace – unfortunately – sees. Grace raises her chin and smiles professionally.
“Good morning, everyone. I’m Grace Sullivan.”
There follows a round of: “Good morning, Young Dr. Sullivan.”
“Anyone for me?” she asks aiming for Simon-confidence.
No one moves. A blink or two. Finally, a frail man of around eighty raises his hand like a schoolboy asking permission to speak.
“I’ll wait for Dr. O’Malley, if you don’t mind, love.”
She forces another professional smile. Then glances around at the other patients. “Does anyone want to avoid a wait? I’m available now.”
People look into their laps, at their fingernails, out the window – anywhere but at the new doctor. One woman suddenly rummages in her bag like the pressure’s too much.
“Well, you know where I am if the wait gets too much.”
Grace returns to reception. “Myra, if anyone’s in a hurry, please send them in to me. Also, anyone who’d rather a female doctor.” She stops short at “young.” Desperation is not going to make her ageist. Anyway, she’s already learned: “young” is relative.
12
Des is on the ground, where he has fallen. He can’t believe how easily he came down. He was just turning around. He must be more aware of where he places his feet, must remember to keep them wider apart, especially when turning. He must be constantly aware of what he is doing.
The doorbell rings. Well, they can wait. If he rushes now, he’ll come a cropper again. He rolls onto his side and, from there, onto his hands and knees. He grips the arm of the couch and pulls himself up.
The bell goes again.
“All right, keep your hair on,” is not like him. And he scolds himself. He will not let this… condition… turn him into someone else.
Des opens the door to his grandson. And knows immediately that something’s wrong. For starters, school’s far from over. He’s in his school shirt and tie – no coat. And he is shivering. His skin is chalk white, lips blue, fingers mottled. He didn’t get this cold just walking from the school. Where has the boy been?
“Come on in out of the cold,” Des says, standing back to let him in.
Jack heads for the stairs.
“Tea?” is a speedy attempt to stop him.
Jack turns and looks at his grandad for a long moment, sighs, then nods and goes to the kitchen table where he sinks into a chair like gravity is pulling harder on him than the rest of the world. He rests his head in his hands, his fingers splayed through his hair.
Des puts on the kettle. And the heat. “Back in a second.”
Gripping the bannister, he makes his way upstairs, frustrated by his body’s stiffness, slowness, heaviness. In his room, he takes his neatly folded navy round-neck pullover from the top drawer. He roots around in the bottom one for a woollen cap he got from a patient one Christmas but has never worn. He snaps off the label. And makes his way back downstairs.
He hands Jack the pullover. “Put this on.”
Jack doesn’t argue.
“And this.” He passes him the cap.
“I’m okay.”
“Put it on anyway.”
Jack tugs it over his cold red ears.
Des makes the tea and pops on two slices of toast. Things are always better on a full stomach.
He brings the snack to the table and sits at right angles to Jack. Face to face might seem confrontational.
Jack studies the grain in the pine table, following the swirl of a knot with his finger. Des wants to ruffle his hair and tell him that, whatever it is, it’ll be okay. He thinks of Grace and wonders if the school has been onto her. If they had, she’d have been straight on to him. She’s probably with a patient. Des hopes he can ease the boy’s distress before she finds out. First things first. Distraction.
“Will you give your old grandad a hand putting in a new ballcock when we’ve finished our tea?”
“Ballcock?” Jack squints as if his grandad is having him on.
“For the cistern in the bathroom. I think it’s the root of all that groaning when the toilet flushes.”
“Oh, right. Okay,” he says as if anything’s better than going back to school.
Des looks into his milky tea. “So, do you want to tell me what happened?”
“Not really.”
Des smiles. “Come on. I’m bored out of my tree. I need a little excitement in my life.”
Jack sighs. “It was just some punk looking for trouble,” he mumbles into his mug.
“In what way?”
“I don’t know. Slagging me off. Being a smart ass.”
“What did he say exactly?”
“Look, it doesn’t matter.”
“It might. Cork people are a law onto themselves. We say all sorts of nonsense that mean absolutely nothing.”
Jack sighs. “He said, ‘Ye boy ye.’”
“Sure, that’s a compliment down here as in, ‘Hup ye boy ye!’ It means you did a good thing.”
“It was the way he said it. Like he meant the opposite, like he was talking down to me.”
“What else did he say?”
“Something about coming down from Dublin.”
“That’s it?”
“No. He started explaining to me that craic meant fun. As if I was from outer space. Of course, I know what craic means. I’m bloody Irish.”
“Maybe he genuinely thought you didn’t, though. Maybe he was having a go at himself to make you feel more at ease. Playing up the culchie.”
Jack looks doubtful. “You can’t take any rubbish, Grandad, especially on your first day.”
Des tilts his head to the side. “True enough. But, once you decide not to take it, people will know that from your body language and leave you be. You can put a man in his place with just a look, a sentence, even silence.”
“I know that.” Jack stares into his tea, then looks up. “So, you really don’t think he meant anything?”
“No. I don’t,” he says very definitely.
Jack flops back in his chair. “That’s just great then,” he says sarcastically.
“What?” Des asks.
“I hit him.”
A pause. “So, apologise.”
He scoffs. “Only wimps apologise.”
“Only wimps don’t. It takes guts to say sorry. And one ‘sorry’ can go a long way in defusing a situation.”
“Not in my experience.”
Silence falls. Des knows that the “experience” he means is the experience of growing up in an abusive situation. He wants more than anything to help this hurt and damaged boy who is nowhere as hard as he lets on. He fumbles for his wallet. With clumsy fingers, he takes out a photo of Jack as a baby that’s been cut to passport size. He slides it across the table to his grandson.
“Your mum sent me that a long time ago.”
Jack brings it to his face, smiling at the little person he used to be. Looking directly at the camera, too young to know to smile, he was a cute kid with his little heart-shaped face, hair blonde then, eyes green. Jack glances up at his grandad in gratitude, touched that he carries this photo with him. He passes it back.
“You were a right joker, back then,” Des says with affection, tucking it back in his wallet.
“I was?”
Des chuckles. “You used to be always messing.”
“Really?” he asks, encouraged.
“Oh yeah. Whenever we came up to visit, you’d be up to all sorts of tricks. You’d drop your bottle out of the cot just so your mam would have to pick it up. ’Twas a game ye played. Your gran thought you were a scream.”
Smiling again, Jack asks, “What else did I do?”
“Oh, let me see.” His face brightens at a memory and he chuckles. “You’d call your mam ‘Dad’ and you’d call your dad ‘Mam.’ You were barely talking. And, still, you were such a little blackguard.”
“And what did I call you?”
“Poo – for a long time.”
Jack laughs out loud.
“Come on, let’s show this ballcock who’s boss,” Des says.
Jack looks at his grandad and laughs even louder.
13
Grace familiarises herself with the computer system – just in case hell freezes over and she gets a patient. There’s a knock on her door. She turns in hope.
But it’s not a patient.
She gets up. “Dr. O’Malley!”
Entirely bald and dressed in a tweed jacket that has seen better days, he looks so much older than she remembers – as old as her father who, at seventy, is ten years older than his former partner. He has a little bit of egg yolk on his tie. Grace decides against pointing that out.
“Grace,” he beams, smelling of hard-boiled clove sweets. He grips her upper arms and she tries not to flinch. “I can’t get over you. You were probably, what, eighteen when I last saw you?”
She smiles professionally, then decides to face the elephant in the surgery.. “Sorry about the waiting room. You’re a lot more popular than I am.”
“Ah, probably just a case of the devil you know. Give it time. Show your face around the town. Oh and make an appearance at Mass. Always a good idea.” He winks then he rubs his hands together. “Right, I better get to it. Time waits for no man. Welcome onboard, pet.”
Grace tenses. Pet? Is that how it’s going to be? Did he say it in all innocence because he has only known her as a child? Or is he putting her in her box? She wishes she could tell.
“Maybe we’ll have a drink after work,” he suggests.
She smiles politely but plans to get home as soon as she can to see how Jack and Holly got on at school. Poor Holly. It’ll be hardest for her.
The door closes behind him. Grace checks her phone. And nearly drops it. Three missed calls from the boys’ school. Plus, one voicemail. Before she can listen to it, her phone rings again. She answers immediately.
“Is this Dr. Sullivan?”
“Yes?”
“Jack Sullivan’s mother?”
Grace freezes. “Jack Willoughby?” she clarifies, hoping there has been a mistake.
“No. Sullivan.”
Grace closes her eyes and releases a long breath she didn’t know she was holding. Wrong child!
“No wait. You’re right. Sorry, it is Jack Willoughby. I see here from the records that he’s enrolled as Willoughby. He was calling himself Sullivan.”
Should she explain?
She doesn’t get a chance. “This is Sinead Hannigan, the principal. We need you to come in. There’s been an incident.”
Her breath catches. “An incident?”
“Jack punched one of our best students, then marched out of the school and hasn’t come back. That was half an hour ago. I should warn you, we’re looking at expulsion.
Grace’s hand goes to her forehead. “Where’s Jack now?”
“We were hoping you could tell us.”
“I’m at work. But let me call home. Then I’ll be straight over.”
“Bring Jack with you, obviously, if you can find him.”
“Of course.”
Grace kills the line. And immediately calls her father.
Des and Jack are replacing the ballcock, Des instructing, Jack implementing, sleeves rolled up, hands submerged in the cistern.
“Okay now, pop that in there,” Des says. “And that should be it.”
Jack does as instructed, then looks at his grandad.
“Good man! That’s it! You did it!”
Jack, wearing a look of achievement, takes his hands from the water. Des passes him a towel.
“Did you know that your grandad was almost expelled from school once?”
Jack’s eyes widen as he sits down at the side of the bath. “What did you do?”
“Chased a teacher around the classroom with his belt.” Des smiles nostalgically like those were the good old days.
His grandson looks baffled. “What were you doing with his belt?”
“Oh, I snatched it out of his hand when he tried to whip me with it.”
Jack’s eyebrows shoot up. “He tried to whip you?”
Des nods. “They were always at it, back then. Corporal punishment they called it. To make it official, like. Well, that day I’d had enough. He needed a taste of his own medicine,” Des says simply. “The coward ran. The class was in uproar. It was worth it just to see everyone’s faces. Our one small victory. We’d all had enough of that weasel and his antics.”
“Go you, Grandad. Wait. Why didn’t they expel you?”
Des waves his hand. “Ah. I was up for a scholarship and they were due to get half. So, they didn’t want to cut off the gravy train.”
“Did you get the scholarship?”
“Oh, I did. Otherwise I’d never have been a doctor.”
“Wow,” Jack says looking at his grandad with new eyes.
Des replaces the lid on the cistern. “All I’m saying is, I was always in trouble and I turned out okay. Well, if you call a harmless auld fella fixing a ballcock okay.”
“What else did you do?” Jack asks eagerly.
“I used to stand up to bullies when they were picking on the little lads. I was a little skinny lad myself but nifty with the old catapult.”
Jack laughs, looking at his grandad in amazement.
“The school were always sending letters home.”
“What did your parents say?”
“Oh, they never saw them; the big eejit of a principal trusted me to deliver them.”
Jack pulls down his sleeves. “Wish there were more people like you,” he says with regret.
Des wonders if he’s thinking about his father. “All I’m saying is, don’t worry about this. It’s nothing in the grand scheme of things.”
Jack grimaces. “Not sure that Mum will agree.”
“Ah, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Now let’s flush this baby and see if we’ve made any difference at all.”
They’re listening to the sound of groan-free flush – and sharing a victorious smile– when Des’s phone rings.
They look at it, up on the windowsill, as if it spells doom.
“Well, that’ll be your mother,” Des says, reaching for it.
“Or the school.”
Des answers, looking at Jack. “He’s here.”
“And you didn’t think to call me?” Grace sounds furious.
Des draws a finger across his throat for Jack�
�s benefit. “I thought you’d be with a patient.”
“Put him onto me.”
“He’s holding something for me,” Des lies.
Jack looks at him in gratitude.
“He assaulted one of the best pupils at school! Then left, just walked out. They’re talking about expulsion!”
“’Twas a punch, love. And they won’t expel him. Not on his first day. A man is allowed a mistake on his first day.”
Jack’s eyes are glued to his grandfather’s.
“I’ll have a chat with him now about what happened. Then we’ll head over to the school to Sinead.”
“First name terms?”
“Sure, I’ve been her doctor all her life.”
“You can’t dine out on that!”
“Grace, love, you asked me how we’re on first name terms.”
“I know but how can you be so calm?” she asks shrilly.
Des looks at Jack. “Sure, getting worked up never helped anyone.”
“This is serious, Dad. Jack, of all people, knows you can’t go around assaulting people.” Her voice rises and wobbles as if tears are on the way.
“Look, ’tis all under control. You go on back to work. How’s it going anyway?”
“I’m coming home.”
Des and Jack exchange a defeated glance.
Driving too fast through the village, questions flood Grace’s mind, all of them panicked. Is he turning into his father? Does he want to be expelled? Does he want to go back to Dublin? To his father? And why didn’t she take the day off for their first day at school?
14
“Neaten up, there, Jack,” Des says as they wait for Grace to show up.
“I’m grand.”
“Why antagonise the principal further by refusing to tuck in that shirt and straighten that tie?” Des shoves a tub of Brylcream in Jack’s direction. “And here, tame that hair.”
Jack would rather walk on nails. But, seeing as it’s his grandad asking, takes the tub to the bathroom mirror and obliges.
When his mother’s Jeep screeches to a halt outside the house, he is ready at the door. He goes out to her before she can come in.
Season of Second Chances: an uplifting novel of moving away and starting over Page 7
