Barry sounds on a high, tired and drunk all at the same time. ‘… Proud father of a baby boy.’
‘Congratulations, Bar. That’s great. Dee OK?’
‘Dee’s great.’
‘And the baby?’
‘Robert. A sturdy nine-pounder. Future prop forward.’
‘Signed him up for Rock yet?’ Blackrock College is an elite school they used to compete against in schools rugby – and invariably lose. ‘Listen, Bar. Sorry to bring this up now, but your bag was nicked last night.’
‘Nicked? How? Where did you leave it?’
He wasn’t planning on going into detail. ‘I was mugged.’
‘Jesus. Are you OK?’
‘Bar a needlestick injury.’
‘I don’t believe it. What happened?’
As he talks it through, anger grips him, anger at his attacker, but mostly at himself. ‘He was a kid, Barry. A kid. I was bigger. Stronger. Could have taken him. Easily.’
‘He had a syringe. No point being a hero in these situations. You were unlucky.’
‘I could have flattened him – if I hadn’t been so busy shitting myself.’
‘Rory. I feel awful about this. If I hadn’t…’
‘Dee was having a baby. You had to be there. I was unlucky. Like you said.’
‘You’ve been to casualty, right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What prophylaxis did they give?’
As Rory takes him through it, he starts to suspect that he’s making an interesting case history for his doctor friend. He tells himself to stop being paranoid.
‘How are you now?’ Barry asks.
‘Fine. Though I’ve as good as lost that consultancy post. They’re bound to count me out of the running now.’
‘Jesus, Rory. This is all my fault.’
Rory’s sorry he brought it up. ‘Look, I probably wouldn’t have got it anyway.’
‘Come on. You’re the perfect man for the job. You’re there on the ground. You’re in with all the right people. The job’s yours, Rory.’
‘Maybe,’ he says, to make Barry feel better. He is less optimistic. If the panel finds out what’s happened, how can they give him the job knowing they might have to sack him again in a few months should he turn out to be an infection risk?
‘Anyway,’ Barry says, ‘they won’t know about the attack unless you tell them.’
‘Yeah,’ he says, while thinking: at St Paul’s? Are you kidding?
Rory considers another option. He could come clean, ask them to postpone the interview process until he has the results. He almost laughs. He’s not that goddamn important. There are people coming back from the States for interviews. And anyway, what’s the point in even thinking about it? If he tests positive, the consultancy post will be the least of his worries.
5
Rory gets in from work at six. He swallows the two sleeping pills he bummed from one of the nurses that afternoon and takes to his bed. He doesn’t hear Louise come in, doesn’t hear anything at all until morning, when he wakes, groggy, to the sound of the alarm on his phone, an upbeat reggae tune that is supposed to make getting up easier. It doesn’t. He drags himself out of bed and into the shower. Towel wrapped around his waist, he clears the bathroom mirror of condensation and looks for his razor. He finds it on the edge of the bath. Shit, he thinks. He picks it up and heads for the bedroom.
‘Louise. Did you use my razor last night?’
A pillow over her head, Louise doesn’t answer.
He repeats the question.
She groans. ‘Rory! Just change the blade.’
‘Tell me you didn’t nick yourself,’ he says slowly.
The pillow moves back. A head emerges. They look at each other. Louise sits up, suddenly awake.
‘No. I don’t think so. No, I didn’t.’ She pulls back the duvet, and carefully checks her legs. She looks up. ‘I’m OK.’
He breathes out. ‘Thank God.’ He sits on the bed beside her. ‘Please, Lou, don’t use my razor, my toothbrush, my anything, until I get the all-clear, OK?’
‘Rory, you said everything was fine.’
‘It is.’ He puts his hand over hers. ‘But we should take precautions, just till we’re a hundred per cent sure. I’m sorry, Lou. I meant to talk about this last night. Didn’t think I’d sleep. Are you OK?’
She rakes her hair back from her face. A corner of her mouth lifts. ‘One way to stop me using your razor, I suppose,’ she jokes.
‘I don’t think we should have sex for a while either, just to be on the safe side, just till I get the results.’
Her face falls.
‘It’s just a precaution. The chances I’ve caught anything are tiny. Minuscule. I’m just being extra careful. Until I know.’
‘When will you?’
‘Four to six months.’
She speaks slowly. ‘Rory, you are telling me everything, aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
She looks into his eyes. ‘Four to six months is a long time.’
‘It will fly.’
She hesitates. ‘We could use a condom?’
Even if he was infected for sure, a condom should provide enough protection. Should, though, isn’t enough. He squeezes her hand, appreciating her gesture. ‘Let’s not take any chances.’
She nods slowly. ‘Whatever you think.’
Is it his imagination or does she look relieved?
Hours later, Rory finishes examining a patient with advanced Parkinson’s Disease. He helps her settle into a comfortable position and draws back the curtains. At the end of her bed, he lifts her chart and checks her drug sheet. He needs to alter her medication in light of the deterioration in her condition. But it is a challenge. As always with Parkinson’s, a balance has to be struck between increasing the dosage and keeping side effects to a minimum. It is while considering the limited options available that suddenly he remembers: his own future is no longer certain. He could die. The thought stills him. He looks up from the chart at the frail elderly woman. He has been surrounded by death all his working life, but he has never thought about the possibility of his own. He frowns at the chart, forcing concentration. He doesn’t want to increase the Sinemet. He’ll have to up the Requip. He crosses out the current prescription and writes up a new dosage regime. He looks up at the woman and makes his smile say, ‘I’m going to improve things for you.’ Hanging the chart back, he can’t help thinking that there’s nothing he can do for himself, except wait.
When Rory goes to his locker to take his pills, he pulls out his phone. The call is to a mate, a fellow rugby coach. Along with medicine, rugby is Rory’s great passion. He’d have made a career out of it if he’d been good enough. Next best thing is coaching. Missing a training session is something that does not happen. Normally. Now, he asks his friend, a New Zealander, to cover for him that evening.
‘Unlike you, mate, to not turn out,’ says the friend. ‘Must be on your last legs.’
‘Certainly feels that way. Food poisoning.’
‘Crikey… No worries. I’ll do it. What about Thursday?’
‘Should be OK. It’s probably a twenty-four hour thing.’
By Wednesday, Rory has learnt to keep his face blank when he has a flashback, to clear sweat from his forehead by sweeping his hair back, to smile widely at people who are beginning to look concerned. Why can’t he just forget? What kind of wuss is he? When Louise suggests cancelling her yoga to be with him, he has to stop himself from agreeing. He is not letting this get to him. He’s fine on his own. He’ll watch the box. Chill. Or die trying.
Alone in the apartment, he fights an urge to call his parents. Scrap that, he thinks. Last time he called home was to say he couldn’t make Christmas. He and Louise were going skiing.
By the time Louise gets home – singing one of her favourites, ‘Everybody Hurts’ by REM – Rory has never been so glad to see her. She pulls the white earphones of his borrowed iPod from her ears, appearing flushed and healthy, as
she always does after yoga. He is up from the couch and over to her, taking her in his arms, closing his eyes and inhaling… cigarette smoke? Abruptly, he pulls back. But it is too late. There is a third person in the room, Rory’s attacker, closing in on him. Louise is saying something but Rory doesn’t hear it. He steps back, on his face a look of disgust.
‘I thought you said you were going to quit,’ he says, venom in his voice.
Her eyes widen. He sees the hurt in them and knows immediately that he is out of line. He tries to pretend he hasn’t spoken so accusingly, his voice contrite when he says, ‘You said you’d quit.’
But she is angry now, as well as hurt. ‘Yeah, and if it were that easy, I would have. D’you think I felt good lighting up straight after yoga? Or that it helps for you to have a go at me as soon as I get in the door? Well, it doesn’t. All it does is make me want to light up again.’
He is rubbing an eyebrow, regretting that he has directed his anger at the wrong person. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I’m not myself.’ A pause. ‘Sometimes I worry.’
‘But you said there was nothing to worry about.’ Now she sounds worried.
‘There isn’t.’ His voice is weary. ‘I’m just tired. Come here.’
She goes to him and he, breathing through his mouth, puts his arms around her, relieved to be finally holding her, taking comfort in the warmth and softness of her body.
‘I love you.’ He doesn’t say it often. And never has to anyone else.
Friday morning, having missed a second coaching session the night before, Rory wakes with palpitations, chest pain and dizziness. He thinks he’s having a heart attack. Where’s Louise? Gone? Already? He reminds himself she leaves early on Fridays. Damn. He puts his hand to his chest, feels a racing, bucking heart. He should ring the hospital.
No… Wait. Stop… Calm down.
Take a deep breath.
Another.
A third.
‘OK, let’s be sensible here,’ he says, aloud. ‘You’re young. Fit. No family history of cardiac problems.’
He checks his pulse. Rapid, but regular. Scrap the heart attack. What’s happening here is simple – he’s allowed himself to get so worked up that he’s on the verge of a panic attack. There’s nothing medically wrong with him. And he sure as hell isn’t going to start taking anti-anxiety medication. He can control this. All he has to do is avoid situations that trigger flashbacks. That means work. For a while. Until this passes. If he doesn’t go in today, that gives him three days. He hopes it will be enough.
He dials the ward, claiming to have a strep throat (something infectious) then asks to talk to his SHO whom he briefs on a few key issues he’d planned to deal with that day. She should call him at any time if she needs to. When he hangs up, he considers going back to sleep, but knows he will be haunted there too. He gets up, takes it slow. Swallows his numerous pills. And a mango smoothie that Louise has bought for him. He scans the apartment. It’s a mess – thanks to a week of moping in front of the TV, finding comfort in Homer Simpson and distraction in Premier League Football. Even the intricacies of make-up application have proved preferable to the thoughts that have started to ambush him, thoughts about his life and what he’s done with it, or, rather, what he hasn’t. Being faced with your own mortality has a way of focusing the mind. Rory is a man with no footprints, a man who has taken no risks, has nothing to show for over three and a half decades on the planet. Will he ever get a chance to put that right?
He’ll start by getting the apartment back in order. While he’s at it, he’ll change the sheets – seeing as he has mangled the ones on the bed. He should work on himself too. Enough slobbing around. He showers, shaves, does a few press-ups. He should really go for a run. The thought of that, though, makes him draw back. Out there, on his own, in the wide-open, no defences… Aw, fuck.
This is not Rory’s usual supermarket. It’s the one in the massive shopping centre where Louise’s flower shop is based, though it’s not called a shopping centre but a ‘shopping experience’. Rory surprised Louise earlier by dropping in and taking her out to lunch. It wasn’t simply that he wanted to see her, which he did; he needed to remind her that he could still make her laugh, that he was the same guy who had sex once with his gumshield in. He wanted to say sorry without words. Lunch was a success. Louise returned to work, looking at him the way she did a week ago.
Rory, with nothing else to do, wandered around the shops, or at least, the computer games shops, sports shops and Tommy Hilfiger. Passing a window featuring baby clothes, he was reminded to get a present for Barry’s baby. He wondered where Louise had got that silver bracelet for Daisy. In a nearby jeweller, he finally settled on a no-frills, silver picture frame. One thing about babies – people photograph them. Not in a hurry to get back to the apartment, Rory decided to kill time by getting food in. He could cook Louise a meal, the one and only dish he knows, a chicken casserole he used to help his mother make – a long time ago.
He is reaching for a red pepper when he hears his name. He turns.
‘Well, if it isn’t the fairy godmother,’ he says, smiling.
‘What are you doing in this neck of the woods?’ Orla asks. Then works it out herself. ‘Louise’s shop. Of course.’ She moves the shopping basket to her other hand. ‘I should go in there, give her a bit of business. Now that I think of it, that’s exactly what I should be doing – buying myself flowers.’
‘How are you?’ he asks. ‘I’ve been meaning to call.’ Truth is, in the one week since the christening he had forgotten her existence.
‘Yeah, right,’ she says, laughing.
‘OK, let me rephrase that. How’re you fixed this afternoon?’
‘I have to dash to the school to collect Jason. But after that I’m around if you want to drop by.’ It sounds like a dare.
‘Sure,’ he says, shelving the frozen-food excuse that had popped into his head. He’s a better person than she thinks. Yes, he may have lost contact with her but, contrary to what she believes, it’s not because he has taken sides. He just let things slip. More than that, he felt awkward, embarrassed on behalf of his brother. ‘What time will you be home?’
‘About three.’
‘Right. See you then.’
6
Last time Rory was at Orla’s house, she and Owen were still a couple, a family. Arriving now, he is reminded of the friendship she showed him over the years, welcoming him in time and again, including him in meals, and taking his side when Owen began his lectures on Rory’s single, carefree life. Of course, the irony is, Owen has discarded his family in favour of the very life he had so frowned upon. Rory doesn’t understand it. They were such an easy-going couple. He loved them both. They used to make him laugh. They used to make each other laugh.
Now he eyes with disdain the ‘Auction’ sign posted in the front garden. Nothing is ‘For Sale’ in Dublin any more. Not that it must matter to Orla how the place is sold. It’s her home. And it’s going. How must it feel to have to pack up and leave because your husband has left you?
‘Lilies!’ she says when she opens the door. Then her face changes. ‘God. I hope you didn’t think I was hinting…’
‘’Course I did. You’re just so pushy, Dennehy.’
She smiles. And they go in.
‘Wow, the place looks great,’ he says, glancing around.
‘If you want your home at its best, put it on view.’
‘I can’t get over how big it seems.’
‘We’re open to offers,’ she jokes.
‘I’d better buy a Lotto ticket then.’
They go into the kitchen. Jason is perched up at the counter on a high stool, a book open in front of him. He is leaning on an elbow and his ears are red from concentration. Stretched out at his feet is Lieutenant Dan, Jenna’s black Labrador. He lifts his head at the sight of Rory and wags his tail lazily. Slowly he gets up and comes to an old friend. Rory slaps his side.
‘Hey, bud, how’ve you been?’ he asks
the dog, then looks up at Jason. ‘How’s the homework going?’
‘Shite.’
Rory laughs. ‘Would a glass of Coke help?’ He puts a supermarket carrier bag on the table, then remembers Orla. ‘Is Coke OK?’
She nods.
‘Real Coke?’ Jason asks.
‘Real Coke,’ Rory confirms, lifting it out.
‘Then you were robbed. You can get a two-litre bottle at Tesco for thirty cent.’
‘Is that right?’ Rory suppresses a smile. ‘And how did you know that?’
‘Don’t you ever watch the ads?’
‘Not enough, obviously.’ He’s surprised he missed it, all the TV he’s been watching.
Orla pours Jason a glass. He takes it and starts to climb down from the bar stool.
‘Hey, hey, hey.’ Orla says. ‘One last page.’
‘Aw.’
She underlines the words with a finger and he reads in a hesitant monotone, interrupting himself once to call a character in the story a ‘dummy’. Last sentence barely finished, he slams the book closed and hops down. They watch him disappear into the TV room, Lieutenant Dan taking up the rear. A sudden realization hits Rory: if he tests positive, he can never be a father – trying for a baby would risk infecting Louise.
‘Tea, coffee or extortionate Coke?’ Orla offers.
‘Sorry?’
She repeats herself.
He opts for the first, not caring. For a man who has never wanted kids, he can’t believe the extent of the loss he suddenly feels. He tells himself he is being ridiculous. He doesn’t want kids. They tie you down. Make demands.
Do You Want What I Want? Page 4
