He's Got to Go

by Sheila O'Flanagan

  “Nessa, she’s twenty-five years old,” Adam reminded her. “You’re not in charge of her. You can’t possibly think like that. Now drink the tea, go to the hospital and find out that she’s probably fine. If she was well enough to phone you then she can’t be that seriously injured.”

  Nessa smiled at him. “You’re a rock,” she said.

  He put his arm around her again and hugged her. “She’ll be fine,” he promised.

  Nessa sped down the Malahide Road. She kept telling herself that Adam was right, that Bree must be OK because she’d phoned but she was still worried about her. She wished she could think positively instead of thinking terrible things like the possibility that everyone thought Bree was perfectly well but that she’d banged her head and done something that they hadn’t spotted and that, by the time she got to the hospital, Bree would be unconscious and they’d all be very concerned.

  She drove too fast along the hospital driveway, bouncing over the ramps and shuddering to a halt in the car park.

  Accident and emergency was crowded. Nessa had heard that Friday nights were busy times for A&E units but she didn’t realize just how busy they could be. There was a steady stream of people presenting themselves, some with gashes and cuts that clearly needed immediate attention, some who simply looked drunk, and some who didn’t look as if anything was the matter with them at all but who were sitting on the plastic chairs waiting to see a doctor. She looked around her helplessly and finally saw a clerk behind the desk.

  “Bree Driscoll?” she asked the clerk. “A car accident earlier?”

  The clerk directed her to a cubicle and Nessa hurried down the corridor. She pushed aside the blue cubicle curtain and saw her sister lying there, eyes closed. She felt a chill rush through her.

  “Bree?”

  Bree’s eyes flickered then opened. “Hi,” she said wanly.

  “Oh, Bree.” Nessa wanted to hug her but was afraid. “I was so worried…”

  “It’s OK,” said Bree. “My really nice doctor tells me that the worst injury I have is torn ligaments in my foot. It’s agony at the moment but he assures me that the pain will go away and I’ll be left with a Technicolor foot very soon. I’ll be hobbling for a few days but I’ll get over that.”

  “You have a cut over your eye,” said Nessa.

  “That’s one of my minor abrasions,” Bree told her.

  “Minor!”

  “He says there won’t be much of a scar,” said Bree.

  “What happened?”

  Bree told her.

  “Was he drunk?” demanded Nessa. “Did you get into the car with a drunk driver?”

  “Don’t be silly,” said Bree tiredly. “He wasn’t drunk. He’d had a glass of champagne, that’s all. He’s just not a very good driver. But he was trying to show off.”

  “Oh, Bree!”

  “He didn’t get off as lightly,” said Bree. “He’s broken his leg and his arm and his ribs and the doctor says his face is cut up too.”

  “Will he be all right?”

  “They say so,” said Bree. “I hope so, Nessa.” She bit her lip. “I phoned his father. He’ll be here soon. And the police are going to question me.”

  “The police!”

  “They had to get the car towed away,” said Bree. “It might be a question of dangerous driving.”

  “Was he driving dangerously?” asked Nessa.

  Bree shrugged then winced as the pain hit her again. “Not really,” she said. “But, I guess, not very safely either.”

  “Can you prosecute him?”

  “I’m not going to prosecute him,” she replied, her tone horrified.

  “I’m very glad to hear that.” The curtains parted and the sisters looked at Declan Morrissey. He looked grim and determined.

  Then Bree started to cry again

  19

  Mars in the 3rd House

  Competitive, often argumentative, a fiery temper.

  Because the doctors told her that she’d be able to go home the following morning, Bree gave the key to her flat to Nessa and asked her to bring her some clothes when she came back to pick her up. “Because,” she said, “my brand-new slinky outfit is ruined.” And she sniffed back the tears that once again threatened. She was really tired of crying now. It wasn’t part of her nature to cry. Normally, very few things moved her to tears.

  It took ages before Nessa finally left the hospital for the night and Bree was, for a moment at least, alone in her bed. Actually she wasn’t sure it was really a bed, she was still in the accident and emergency unit and hadn’t been transferred to a ward because they were all full. But it didn’t matter to her what she was lying on, she was exhausted and desperately wanted to sleep.

  Declan Morrissey had gone to the ward to see Michael again. Nessa had snapped at him when he’d told Bree that he was glad she wasn’t thinking of charging Michael with dangerous driving and told him that he was bloody lucky that Bree was alive and in a position to prosecute or not. Foolishly (in Bree’s opinion) Declan had wondered whether a fault with the car had contributed to the accident, because that had caused Nessa to fly at him like a banshee and shout at him that if he thought he could pin something on the garage or on Bree, he had another damn think coming and that all lawyers were the same, fucking leeches and blame mongers and that she wished her sister had never met his obviously totally incompetent son. Bree reckoned that Declan had been utterly taken aback by Nessa’s anger because he’d muttered and stuttered in a way which she felt was probably quite unlike him and had said that he wasn’t trying to imply anything and he knew that Bree hadn’t done something to the car that could possibly have caused an accident and that there was no point in tempers getting heated.

  At which point a nurse had poked her head around the curtains and, much to Bree’s relief, insisted that both Declan and Nessa should leave because Bree needed some rest.

  But almost as soon as Nessa and Declan had disappeared, the Gardai had arrived to question her about the accident. Bree knew that people considered themselves to be getting old when the police looked even younger than them, but she thought it was almost criminal in itself to feel positively ancient when the pretty girl with the carrot curls (who didn’t look as if she was old enough to be out of school) had sat down on the bed and asked what had happened.

  “It was an accident,” Bree repeated over and over again. “He pulled in after overtaking a lorry and the car skidded and nothing he could do would stop it.”

  “What speed was he doing?” asked the girl.

  “I don’t know.” Bree closed her eyes. “Probably about fifty initially, but he would have accelerated to overtake the lorry. He was slowing down again when the car skidded, I think.”

  “Had you been drinking?” she asked.

  Bree suddenly wished Declan was with her. She didn’t know whether or not she should say anything, whether she was obliged to say anything. She didn’t know whether or not the guards had already talked to poor Michael who couldn’t possibly be feeling all that great at this point and who might say anything simply to be left alone. She felt that way herself.

  “We had a meal,” she said eventually. “He had a glass of champagne. That’s all. I had champagne and wine.”

  “Do you want to press charges?” asked the guard.

  “What kind of charges?”

  “Dangerous driving.”

  “He wasn’t dangerous,” said Bree. “Really he wasn’t. He was just unlucky.”

  The carrot-haired guard smiled at her. “Life’s like that.”

  “Yeah, well.” Bree shrugged and winced as every bone in her body protested. “At least nobody was killed.”

  The guard nodded. “Thanks for talking to me.”

  “Sure.” Bree was suddenly exhausted. But as the pretty young guard left the cubicle, Nessa came back in. Her face was still grim and determined and Bree wondered, tiredly, what other things she might have said to Declan Morrissey.

  The next morning Bree pulled
her paper gown around her and hobbled slowly with the aid of her crutches along interminable corridors to see Michael. He was propped up in bed, his face pale against the pillows, an angry gash across his forehead and a couple of less vivid but still shocking cuts across his face. His right eye was bruised and almost closed.

  “Hi,” she said as she sat down beside him. “How’re you feeling?”

  “D’you want the truth or what I told Dad?” he asked wanly.

  “The truth.”

  “I feel like shit,” he admitted. “My head hurts. My back hurts. My side hurts. My face feels mangled. My leg and my arm are broken. And I nearly killed you too, Bree.”

  She looked around the ward anxiously. “Don’t say that.”

  “It was my fault,” he said. “I told the cops it was my fault.”

  “I hope your dad doesn’t know you told them that,” said Bree.

  “The guard said that they might prosecute me,” said Michael. “Dangerous driving, she said.”

  “She said that to me too,” Bree told him. “But I said that it was an accident.”

  “It was an accident,” Michael said ruefully. “But avoidable.”

  “Oh, I don’t know…”

  “Of course it was,” he said vehemently. “I was messing about because you were in the car with me. I wanted to impress you.”

  “Michael—”

  “I’ve never met anyone like you before,” he said. “You make me feel—you make me feel inadequate.”

  “I really don’t think—”

  “You’re so good at cars and stuff and I felt that I had to show off.”

  “I know,” said Bree.

  “Which was stupid and nearly got us killed.”

  “But it didn’t.” Bree smiled weakly at him. “We’ll be good as new.”

  “At least you’re not too badly cut, thank God,” said Michael. “But I look like I was in some kind of gang fight.”

  “When all those scars heal you’ll look even more attractive,” Bree assured him. “Girls like a few scars and stuff.”

  Michael tried to laugh.

  “Of course you never should have listened to your dad and brought me to a flashy restaurant in the first place,” said Bree. “We never had these problems when we just had beer and crisps.”

  “Dad tore strips off me,” Michael told her. “After he was reassured that I wasn’t going to die or anything he went ballistic about my awful driving with you in the car. He said if I wanted to kill myself that was fine but I wasn’t to take vulnerable young girls with me.”

  “Gosh, he changed his tune,” said Bree. “When he called by my little cubbyhole last night he had a row with my sister about the dangerous driving thing.”

  “Really?”

  “It was all silly stuff,” said Bree. “Probably because they were both upset.” She looked around as a nurse arrived and stood by the bed.

  “We have to give Michael a jab,” she told Bree. “I don’t think it’s something you want to hang around for.”

  “Probably not,” agreed Bree. She eased herself to her feet and picked up the crutches. “I’ll see you soon,” she told Michael. “Take care.”

  “Don’t worry.” The nurse grinned at her. “We’ll take care of him for you.”

  “Thanks,” said Bree as she made her painful way out of the ward.

  She couldn’t understand why Nessa hadn’t gone to her flat and brought her clothes like she’d asked. Instead her sister had turned up at the hospital with a pair of her own jeans and a bright yellow sweatshirt.

  “I look like a kid’s toy in this,” grumbled Bree as she maneuvered herself along the corridor. Her hands were sore from using the crutches already and she didn’t seem to be able to get a rhythm going at all. It looked so simple when you saw other people with them, she thought ruefully, as she narrowly missed a visitor, but they required practice.

  She followed Nessa across the car park and sighed with relief when they got to the car. Nessa clucked around her in elder sister mode, making sure that she was sitting comfortably and telling her to fasten her seat belt.

  “I will fasten it,” complained Bree. “Honestly, Nessa, I’ve injured my foot not my brain. There’s no need to talk to me like I was about three years old!”

  “I just want to make sure you’re OK,” said Nessa as she turned the key in the ignition. “I phoned Mum this morning and she was worried about you.”

  “What did you tell her?” asked Bree.

  “That you were fine,” replied Nessa.

  Bree shot her a grateful look. She didn’t want Miriam ringing her up and fussing or, worse still, rushing from Galway to be at her side. Miriam was relatively laidback but Bree couldn’t help thinking that a car accident would be cause for dramatics as far as her mother was concerned. She leaned her head against the passenger window and allowed her mind to drift as Nessa eased into the traffic. Michael had turned out to be a weirdo after all, she supposed. Not a full-blown weirdo but weird enough to crash his car and nearly kill her. None of the rest of them had nearly killed her. She winced as the car hit a pothole and a white stab of pain shot through her.

  “You all right?” Nessa glanced at her.

  “Fine,” said Bree. “I’m absolutely fine.”

  When they got to her flat, Bree was astonished to see Cate’s Alfa parked outside.

  “You didn’t tell me she’d be here too,” she said accusingly to Nessa. “I don’t need the entire family fussing around me.”

  “I rang her this morning and she insisted on coming over.” Bree was surprised at the coolness in Nessa’s tone. “That’s why I didn’t bring you your clothes. Cate said she’d tidy up for you and get things in order since you were so vehement last night about not staying with me while you recuperate.”

  “Was I?” asked Bree. “I don’t remember.”

  “You got a bit incoherent at one stage,” Nessa said. “After you’d spoken to the police. I asked you to come to my house for a couple of days but you said you couldn’t have my broken marriage on your conscience.”

  “Did I?”

  Nessa nodded. “Which, since that boy’s father was standing beside us at the time, caused raised eyebrows.”

  “Oh, God, Ness, I’m sorry!” wailed Bree. “I don’t remember that at all.”

  “It was after I told him that if he tried to stick some kind of lawsuit on you for not fixing his useless son’s car properly it’d be the last thing he ever did.”

  “I remember that bit all right,” said Bree ruefully. “I must have tuned out afterward.”

  “I think I said enough to convince him that he can’t mess with the Driscolls,” said Nessa grimly.

  “I’m sure you did,” murmured Bree.

  Cate had obviously seen them arrive because she opened the door of the house as they walked up the garden path.

  “Jesus Christ, Bree!” She gasped as she looked at her sister. “I thought you’d only sprained your ankle. You look terrible.”

  “Thanks,” said Bree. “So do you.” Although, she had to admit, Cate looked as gorgeous and as groomed as ever even in her casual outfit of loose denims and gray sweatshirt.

  Cate smiled at her. “Sorry. That sounded bad. I just meant that, well, your poor face!”

  “It’s not so awful.” Bree touched her forehead. “The doctor assures me that this’ll heal perfectly. You should see the other guy!”

  “Is he OK?” asked Cate.

  “Beaten up,” said Bree. “But he’ll survive.” She edged past her sisters and looked at the stairs warily.

  “We’ll give you a fireman’s lift,” said Cate who saw Bree’s expression.

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “We did it before,” Cate reminded her. “When you fell off your skates at the bottom of the hill.”

  Bree grinned. “I was a lot younger and a lot lighter then.”

  “No bother,” said Cate.

  “Are you sure you should?” Nessa looked at Cate.

&n
bsp; “What?”

  “Lifting people,” said Nessa. “I don’t know if you should be lifting anyone.”

  “What difference does it make.” Cate’s voice was brittle.

  Bree looked from one to the other in puzzlement. “What’s the problem?”

  “No problem,” said Cate robustly. “Come on, little sister. Let’s go.”

  They carried Bree up the stairs and into the flat where she slid from the chair they’d made with their hands and looked around her in astonishment. The bundle of discarded clothes that normally took up one corner of the room had been tidied away, as had the precarious pile of car manuals and old newspapers that she kept on the table. The mantelpiece over the old fireplace had been tidied too, gone were the nuts, screws, oily rags and other bits and pieces so that, for the first time ever, she could actually see the beautiful black marble.

  “I didn’t realize you were so domesticated.” She turned to Cate. “I thought your place always looked neat because you didn’t have anything in it. I didn’t realize it was because you spent all day tidying it up.”

  Cate laughed. “I certainly don’t have the clutter that you have,” she told Bree. “But I can’t stand things being untidy. It offends me.”

  “You must’ve had a nightmare when you walked in here then.” Bree hugged her. “It looks fabulous, Catey. Thanks. Although,” she looked at Cate ruefully, “it probably won’t be long before I trash it again.”

  “Oh, don’t trash it.” Nessa ran her finger over the rosewood table. “There are some lovely things here.”

  “First time I’ve seen them in months,” said Bree cheerfully. “The place was a mess when I moved in and I guess I’ve kept it like that.”

  “It’s actually very nice,” said Cate. “Not my thing really, but still nice.”

  “Can you imagine when these were private houses?” asked Nessa. “No wonder people had maids and servants.”

  “Just as well I’ve no chance of affording it as a private house,” said Bree. “I can’t even keep my two rooms tidy, let alone the rest of it.”