When the Time Comes

by Adele O'Neill

‘Don’t be ridiculous, you’re here now, it’s fine.’ Sarah crinkled her forehead. ‘I just wasn’t expecting anyone, that’s all,’ she looked at him for a moment trying to decipher what was going on in his head. The frown line across his forehead seemed almost too deep for someone of his age. ‘Don’t mind me,’ she attempted a smile. ‘You don’t need to leave,’ she opened the fridge and took out the bottle of wine to pour herself a second glass. ‘Can I get you a coke or something?’ she asked after she had taken the first gulp.

  ‘A coke?’ he sniffed, the reference to him being a child annoying him once again. Even his mum thought of him as older, allowing him to drink a couple of cans with the rest of the boys at their house parties. ‘You do realise that mum knows I drink at sessions and stuff.’

  ‘Sessions?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah, house parties, free gaffs,’ he explained. ‘I’m practically eighteen.’

  ‘Well for a start, practically is not actually, so that argument won’t hold up in court,’ she grinned. ‘And this is no,’ she made speech marks with her fingers in the air, ‘free session,’ she added. She had been at a wedding recently with Jenny, Abbie and Josh when Jenny had allowed Josh to have a drink, justifying it the way most parents of young adults had done: it was better that the teenagers drank with them than behind their backs.

  ‘Free gaff you mean,’ Josh laughed. ‘Seriously though, any chance there’s another one of them?’ he pointed to the glass she was holding to her lips with a cheeky grin on his face.

  ‘What do you think?’ Sarah laughed, holding her hand out for the hoodie he had just taken off. ‘Your hoodie’s damp,’ she explained, ‘I’ll put in the dryer while you’re sitting there.’ She didn’t wait for an agreement and picked up Josh’s hoodie and brought it to the utility room just off the kitchen giving Josh a moment to catch his breath. ‘And while that’s on,’ the noise of the dryer hummed gently in the background. ‘I’m just going to nip upstairs and put something else on, I not exactly dressed for visitors, be back in a minute,’ she added. ‘Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’ Josh watched her walk away. It was hard not to let his imagination get carried away. Sarah Barry was a perfectly gorgeous, half-naked, fit-looking woman despite the fact that she was over twice his age. It was unusual enough seeing her with her hair down, never mind with barely anything on.

  ‘And get yourself a coke, will you?’ she called from the hall, there’s chilled ones in the fridge I think.’ When he knew she was upstairs he picked up her wine glass and gulped the contents back in one go before he refilled it again and gulped that one back too. There had been just enough left in the bottle to refill it one more time before he heard Sarah’s footsteps on the landing upstairs. Then, to take the smell of the wine from his breath, he took a can of coke from the fridge and swigged that back too. By the time she had come back down, this time wearing a pair of leggings and an oversized T-shirt, he had knocked back two glasses of wine, a can of coke, had opened a second can and was sitting at the kitchen table.

  ‘Okay, do you want to tell me what’s going on?’ Sarah, slightly breathless from having rushed back downstairs to get back to their conversation, grabbed her glass and sat opposite to him at the table.

  ‘You know this is really happening?’ his voice was almost inaudible, his face flushed with a combination of the alcohol he had just consumed and the adrenaline that was swelling through his veins. He had to place his hand on his knee under the table to keep his leg still.

  ‘What’s happening, Josh?’ her shoulders tensed a little seeing him so agitated.

  ‘Everything,’ he lifted the can of coke to his mouth to take a gulp before he spoke. ‘I just don’t want that prick moving back in tomorrow to take up exactly where he left off two years ago… it’s as though he’s some fucking saint or something, which we both know he is not.’ He sniffed in disgust.

  ‘Josh,’ Sarah didn’t know what to say or which part of Josh’s rage to address first. If Jenny had been there it would have been his bad language, but chastising a nearly eighteen-year-old boy about his language seemed futile. Besides, there was a small part of her enjoying the fact that she wasn’t the only one who felt that way about Liam. ‘You shouldn’t be talking about your dad like that,’ she settled for a cliché.

  ‘Should I not?’ Josh gulped. ‘That wanker stopped being my dad the day he walked out on us, on Mum, and he thinks that he can just waltz back in here two years later and tell me what to do?’ he reached for his can of coke and swigged another mouthful. Had she not been there he would have finished off the wine. ‘Where the fuck was he when Mum’s legs wouldn’t work and she couldn’t get up the stairs?’ His voice quivered under the strain of emotion that was welling up uncontrollably inside him.

  ‘Josh…’ Sarah had never seen him so irate.

  ‘I’ll tell you where he was, he was up…’ he paused searching for a better word. Using the word ‘fucking’ in front of Sarah would have been a step too far. ‘He was up doing that Alex Kennedy, without even a thought for Mum or what she was going through, the prick.’ His anger at his dad had got the better of him and his heart thumped loudly in his chest. He had been annoyed with his dad before but with the prospect of him moving back into Oakley Drive the next morning, his anger had gone off the scale. ‘He’s a lowlife, a selfish scumbag and mum deserves better. I mean, what type of man leaves their wife just because she’s not well?’

  ‘But I thought,’ Sarah hesitated. She had heard from Jenny about Josh’s theory before. Josh was convinced that Liam had known that his mum was terminally ill before he left and it hurt him so much that he left anyway. Sarah had had her suspicions too, but Jenny had always denied that that was the case. ‘Your mum said that she hadn’t told your dad that she was unwell.’

  ‘She shouldn’t have had to tell him… I knew, you knew, Abbie knew, we had all seen that something was wrong with Mum. We had all seen how tired she was getting and that she was always taking to her bed.’ His chest rose as he inhaled stretching the fabric in his T-shirt even thinner. ‘Mum might not have been diagnosed at that time but we all knew that whatever was going on wasn’t going to be good and he just jumped ship like the rat that he is and left us all on our own.’

  ‘But I thought you two were doing okay – now, I mean.’ Josh’s relationship with his dad had taken a nosedive the day Liam had moved out and Jenny and Liam had worked tirelessly to rebuild it again. It had improved somewhat, but Liam moving back in just seemed to rake up the old anger that he had once felt towards his dad and this time it didn’t seem as though he could get past it.

  ‘It’d be fine if he just stayed where he is.’ He said. ‘And all Mum can say is that “it’s for the best” – for the fucking best!’ he exclaimed, exhaling loudly and dropping his head into his hands. ‘She won’t listen to reason, no matter when I try and talk to her,’ he sighed heavily. ‘She smiles and pats my hand as though I’m some imbecile child who doesn’t understand the adult conversation and I’m telling you now, if that prick moves in tomorrow, I’m moving out—’ his rant was interrupted by Sarah’s doorbell sounding in the hall.

  ‘Just…’ She wasn’t sure what to say. ‘Just wait there a minute will you,’ she shook her head and closed the kitchen door behind her before she answered the door. It was a minute later when she came back in. ‘Just a delivery,’ she said.

  ‘Oh,’ Josh’s eyes glanced at the kitchen clock. ‘Because if you’re expecting someone, I can go.’ He pushed his chair back from the table, agitated.

  ‘No, not at all.’ She placed her hand on his shoulder, gently keeping him where he was. ‘Now,’ she waited until he pulled his chair back to the table before she sat back down. ‘Where were we?’ she took another sip of her wine trying to refocus on what Josh had just said. ‘Look, I get it, I know that you’re upset and I know that it’s just been the three of you ever since your dad left and I know that you have been the rock for both your mum and Abbie,’ she waited while he drank from his can of coke.
‘But your mum still needs you Josh, your mum would be lost without you, so would Abbie. It would kill your mother all together if you weren’t there.’ She knew he would never leave, but she wanted to demonstrate how important he was. He was bound to feel threatened. He had taken the role of the man of the house very seriously when his dad had first moved out and now with his dad returning he was probably feeling like he was no longer of use. It was only human to lash out when faced with a threat.

  ‘Well, do you think he should get to move back in,’ he poised his fingers in quotation marks and sneered mimicking his dad’s deeper voice, ‘to help mum, make it up to her and us, for all the hurt he’s caused and be a proper dad to me and Abbie?’ The question hovered like a wasp between them, threatening to sting them both. She wanted to agree with him, tell him she felt exactly the same, but wasn’t sure that she could. Should she tell him what she really thought?

  8.

  Trial Day 3

  Liam Buckley

  ‘Mr Buckley,’ the reporter is relentless. I keep my head down avoiding him and take the granite steps of the courthouse two by two. It’s worse if you make eye contact. Connection, it seems, is like an invitation to them to proceed, to intrude upon you as though your only value in life is to answer their questions. ‘Mr Buckley,’ he says again, and I fight every urge to defy the instinct in me to look at the person who has called my name. ‘Liam,’ he says again. ‘Do you think your ex-wife intended to kill herself?’

  The same reporter has been here every day. He asks the same questions and when I don’t answer he doesn’t go away. He looks like he’s similar in age to me, similar height, probably has a wife and kids at home. I shake my head at him and narrow my eyes in disgust. The expression more of a statement of disappointment in his life choices than as an answer to his intrusive question.

  ‘Do you?’ he calls after me as I step into the relative safety of the court building. From where I stand in the foyer, I can see Abbie and Josh as they round the corner and make their way to the steps. The waiting press have seen them too. They nod, nudge, whisper like a pack of hyenas circling two young gazelles waiting for their moment to separate them from the pack. I can see Abbie’s eyes twitching, her chest rising and falling in quick snaps. I can imagine the adrenaline that’s pumping rapidly through Josh’s veins, the weight of responsibility broadening his shoulders and making him grow even taller than he already is.

  The foyer is busy, people milling purposefully from one door to another nodding politely at each other as they go by. I stand in the same place as I did yesterday and the day before that. There’s a short wooden bench just right of the second set of double doors before the stairs and directly opposite of where the lifts are. It’s funny how habits can form and something so unusual can become so routine.

  Twenty minutes later, after the court’s doors are closed, everyone is in their seats and the case is reopened by the court for the day. Lucinda Cassidy gets to her feet. ‘The prosecution calls Mr Patrick Richards.’

  He’s a stout man, balding, with a dimple in his chin that I can’t help but recognise. I watch him as he moves towards the bench accompanied by the usher to get sworn in. He has a plastic folder with white sheets inside in his hand. His voice is distinctive, the sound of it ingrained in my brain. I can even hear his words of that night verbatim in my head. He carries his weight as he walks on his right side and his arms hang loosely, and when he reaches the bench he unbuttons the folder, slides the papers from the plastic pocket and sets them neatly in front of himself. When he is finished swearing in, he reaches into his trouser pocket and pulls out a tissue to dab his face, he did the same thing the night Jenny died too.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Richards, can you please tell the court what your profession is?’ Lucinda asks him. I glance at Abbie and Josh, they recognise him too. Within minutes of me ringing the ambulance, Josh and Abbie just happened to arrive home too. It was Mr Richards who had to forcibly lift Abbie away from her mum, so that they could work on her.

  ‘I’m an AP,’ he coughs to clear his throat. Most likely reminding himself of the counsel’s instruction earlier to explain abbreviations or medical terms in as clear and concise a way as possible. ‘I’m an advanced paramedic,’ he adds, the advanced part seems to be most important. ‘With the Dublin Ambulance Service,’ he says nodding his head.

  ‘Thank you, and you attended a call on June 3rd at 26 Oakley Drive, am I correct?’

  ‘Correct,’ he leans towards the microphone, fixing his shirt collar as he does.

  ‘And were you alone?’

  ‘No, the crew consisted of myself and another AP.’

  ‘What time did you receive the call?’ she asks, checking her own notes to make sure.

  ‘We were dispatched,’ his eyes glance at the report he has in front of him, ‘at 8.43 p.m. and we arrived at the scene at 8.50 p.m.’ He seems proud of his response time.

  ‘Thank you, and can you describe the scene when you arrived.’

  ‘We were met on the road by a young man waving, he was directing us to the right house. We later learned that the boy waving was the patient’s son.’ He glances at William awkwardly when he mentions Josh and then flicks his eyes towards me. ‘The patient’s son brought us through the front door and into the front room.’

  ‘And what did you find there?’

  ‘The patient was lying on a medical bed and the patient’s husband was performing chest compressions while the daughter was giving her mother mouth to mouth.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘While the husband was performing chest compressions he briefed us on the situation. My colleague asked the daughter to step away so that he could place oxygen on the patient – it’s the first step of our CPGs.’ He reaches for the glass of water that was freshly poured in front of him when he took his seat.

  ‘CPGs?’ Lucinda asks for clarification.

  ‘Oh sorry, yes,’ he clears his throat. ‘They’re our Clinical Practice Guidelines set down by PHECC… the Pre-hospital Emergency Care Council, in other words, our Bible.’

  ‘Thank you for the clarification,’ Lucinda says, ‘please continue.’

  ‘The daughter was reluctant to stop mouth to mouth, she was very visibly upset, so I had to, in the interest of the patient, remove her.’

  ‘Distressing for all, thank you.’ Lucinda says. ‘And what was his brief, the husband’s account?’

  ‘He said that he had just gone into her to see if she wanted a cup of tea and that she wasn’t responding so he shook her a bit to wake her up. He said he checked her pulse and couldn’t find one and that’s when he rang the emergency services. He said the kids had just arrived home too. When I asked him how long he had been doing CPR for he wasn’t sure, just since whenever he had come in to the room, he had said.’

  ‘And what were your medical observations of the patient, Ms Jennifer Buckley?’ In response to Lucinda’s question he folds back the first sheet of paper methodically and places it facing down, presumably he’s done with that part. He seems meticulous, particular, the type that thrives on detail and would notice every little thing.

  ‘We put the monitor on her straight away, she had a low heart rate, low oxygen, her GCS was at three,’ he looks up from the page, knowing he needs to explain. ‘The Glasgow Coma Scale is the practical method we use for assessment of impairment of consciousness level in a patient… one of the first things we as paramedics would do with an unresponsive patient is perform a trapezius pinch to see what level the patient is at.’ He crosses his left arm over to his right shoulder and demonstrates how it’s done. ‘But there was no response with the patient.’

  ‘I see,’ Lucinda replies.

  ‘Then I checked her pupils and they were miotic – severely constricted.’ He traces the words on the report with his finger as he calls them out, the patient was bradycardic so I administered atropine to stimulate a cardiac response.’

  ‘What is bradycardic?

  ‘When a patient has a hear
t rate below sixty beats per minute.’

  ‘So could this have explained why the defendant thought there had been no pulse?’

  ‘Yes. It would have been quite faint.’

  ‘So the patient was still alive?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you ask about the patient’s medical history?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what were you told?’

  ‘Just that she had motor neurone disease.’ He clears his throat. ‘Also, the daughter was insisting that the patient was absolutely fine about an hour before.’

  ‘Did you notice anything else on her person, in the vicinity?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes,’ he glanced in my direction and I feel awkward and look away. I was the one to draw his attention to it while he was there. It was me who handed it to him for him to bring it to the hospital. ‘When we removed the patients blankets from the bed to transfer her to the stretcher I noticed a syringe containing a pink solution with a needle attached.’ He coughs away his inaccuracy. ‘After seeing the needle I immediately checked the patient’s antecubital fossa on both arms to see if that’s where she would have injected it,’ he holds his arm out and points to the bend in his arm where he suspects the needle was placed. ‘There was what appeared to be a puncture wound on the left arm.’ I wonder had he worn a short sleeve shirt specifically so that he could do the demonstration.

  ‘Did you know what substance it contained?’

  ‘No, I asked the husband if he knew,’ he nods in my direction. ‘But he said he had never seen it before.’

  ‘Okay, you asked the defendant if he had ever seen it before,’ she clarifies for the purposes of influencing the way the story’s told. ‘And then what did you do?’

  ‘We continued to stabilise the patient and then prepared the patient for transfer to the emergency department.’

  I want to turn around and check on Abbie, but I don’t. Her heart is probably shattered reliving everything he has just replayed. His account is bound to resurface every memory that she has tried her hardest to forget. The gurgle of bubbles as she tried to force air from her own lungs into her mum’s in the hope that she could bring her back, Josh’s frantic shouts, the howl of sirens as the ambulance arrived, leather boots manoeuvring around her mum’s bed, and then a stranger having to detach her from her mum as they took her away.