I was thankful that they had not been separated by today’s events, that they had each other. They were every bit as close as Eli and I were. And then the weirdest thing happened. I had a sensation that Eli was here. I turned around and looked up and down the lobby, convinced I’d see him standing right in front of me. Together, we’d get Mam to hospital and then together we’d find Dad.
But the mind is a cruel trickster.
‘I shall carry you,’ Sven said to Mam, then with great tenderness picked her up into his arms, holding her head in close to his chest. If he struggled with her weight, he didn’t show it.
‘He strong man.’ The Thai man said in approval, walking to Mam’s side to say goodbye. She touched their faces, one by one, and then they walked out the door. I never saw them again. I looked for them, but I never even got their names.
Dil moved anything out of the way that might hold up Sven’s path back to the beach. I walked by his side, afraid to let Mam out of touching distance and this time, because we did not stop, our progress was quick. Soon we were climbing the stairwell once more to the rooftop.
‘Ben!’
‘You came back,’ he said, walking towards me.
‘I found my mam.’
‘Over here.’ He motioned for Sven to place Mam on the ground beside Alice.
Daisy threw herself into my arms, saying the words that I was thinking, ‘I missed you.’ I had only been gone a few hours, but I was glad to be back to them. Our little gang complete once more.
‘I’m so happy for you,’ Maria said, as she hugged me. We watched Ben do his examination. He put his head down low, listening to her lungs. He looked at his watch as he held onto her pulse, checking her heart rate. Every now and then, Mam coughed up more brown, muddy water. And once, I swear, there was a string of seaweed in it. Long, brown, slimy and my mind recoiled in horror. Maria moved a crying Daisy away.
‘You’ve taken in a lot of fluid. And I don’t like the sound of your lungs. Your head has a deep wound too that’s gonna need stitches.’ He pulled a bandage out from his first-aid kit, which I noticed was now depleted from much of its contents. He wrapped it around her head, tightly, to stem the bleeding. ‘You need to rest, no more moving around, do you hear me?’
‘Skye. I need to find Eli, your dad …’ her voice seemed to weaken with each word.
‘What’s wrong?’ I suddenly screamed at Ben. He checked her pulse and lifted her eyelids to look at her pupils. I didn’t like the look on his face. ‘Ben?’
‘She’s lost a lot of blood. Dammit, we can’t wait any longer for help to come. We need to get your mam to hospital.’ He walked away, muttering to himself. I didn’t know what to do. So I sat down beside Mam and held her hand, not taking my eyes from her for a second.
‘Drink some water, go on, you must be dehydrated.’ Maria handed me a half-full bottle. I took a swig, only because I knew that I had to remain healthy to look after Mam. I held Mam’s hand tightly. Now that she was here, I was afraid, if I turned away, she’d vanish once more.
‘I knew you’d find each other,’ Alice croaked beside me. I turned to look at her properly and was shocked by her appearance. She had deteriorated further. Anna and Corey looked as anxious as I felt. ‘Close your eyes again, rest up.’
‘She’s been in and out of consciousness for the past hour,’ Anna said, ‘coughing up brown muck like your mam too.’
‘Their bodies are fighting to expel the water they took in, it’s to be expected,’ Ben said, returning to our side.
‘So, is it safe to go down yet?’
Ben replied, ‘We give it one more hour, but if no help arrives, then we’ll make our own way down.’
We all nodded in agreement, glad that a plan was now in place.
‘Surely at this stage the English embassy should be on hand to help?’ Corey asked.
‘Is there an Irish embassy over here?’ I wondered out loud. They all shrugged.
Maria said, ‘You never think about stuff like that when you travel. There are tourists here from countries all over the world. Once they hear about the devastation here, they’ll each step in.’
Corey continued. ‘They’ll have to replace our passports. Our money. We don’t even have any clothes to put on. Once I can get to a phone, I’m calling our health insurance to get Alice air-lifted out of here.’
‘Mum won’t be travelling anywhere in this state,’ Anna replied.
‘Did your mam say anything to you about your dad and Eli?’ Maria asked. I shook my head.
‘Mam, have you seen Eli or Dad?’ I asked gently, crossing my fingers, like I used to do as a kid when I wanted news to go my way.
‘Where are they, Skye? Are they here? I’ve got to find them.’ And she started to sob.
Chapter 43
SKYE
Word filtered up that there were trucks and ambulances arriving at the beachfront to take the severely wounded to hospital. Ben organised volunteers to help carry the injured on sun loungers to them. He said it would be quicker than waiting for them to get to us.
Sven and Dil helped to carry those who weren’t able to walk, including Mam and Alice. Ben led the way down the staircase and I wasn’t sorry to leave the rooftop behind. A lot had already left anyhow, going to their bedrooms to salvage what they could, before moving further uphill, to a couple of hotels that had become refugee camps.
‘We’ll go with you to the hospital,’ Maria said. ‘Maybe Kevin and Alfie are there. We’ve come this far together, we might as well continue.’
It was slow, making our way through the debris. Cars were slammed into shop-front windows. We had to make several detours when our path was blocked. It struck me that already the beach road was dry. I could hear the hum of helicopters somewhere in the distance.
Ghostly reminders of the water’s victims were scattered on the ground. A single white converse runner, a child’s one, made Maria sob and fall to her feet. Alfie had a pair just like them.
‘Alfie wasn’t wearing shoes when the wave hit,’ I reminded her. ‘You were all in bed. So even if this is his runner, which is unlikely, it’s of no matter. Because he wasn’t wearing it.’
She refused to put it down, but got up and carried on with the rest of us, the shoe in her hand. I picked up Daisy and carried her on my back again, to give Maria some time to compose herself. I couldn’t imagine what it must be like to be missing a child. Oh Dad, are you frantic looking for us right now? We climbed over a pickup truck that blocked our way, carrying the makeshift stretchers high over our heads, passing them to each other, one by one. Then, we finally saw the ambulances, already filling up with the injured. Other doctors and nurses, who were holidaying here, like Ben, were tending to the wounded, trying to ascertain who needed transportation quickest to the hospitals.
Thai volunteers cleared away debris from the road so that trucks could access the beach front. Further help was on its way. The ambulances were full by the time we got there, but Ben found us a truck that was on its way to Bangkok Hospital Phuket. They squeezed our group onto the truck and then we left Patong Beach. The hospital, we were told, was being made a referral centre for the critically ill.
It would become another temporary home for us over the next few days.
It was chaos there. People filled the corridors and wards, while staff tried desperately to put some order into the mayhem. Anna and I ran after our mothers, who were placed side by side in a long ward. Ben spoke to the Thai medical teams and then he left us to go back to help others on the beach. We didn’t even get to say thank you.
The staff were kind but the language barrier became problematic and we struggled to get any real information from them. Alice’s leg was deeply infected and a temporary cast was placed on it. Corey made it his mission to get their health insurance on the phone, to bring Alice home. Mam’s head was stitched, as was my side. But the most worrying thing for us right now was Mam’s lungs. She had taken a battering with water inhalation and they were compromised. La
nguage barrier or not, I knew she was critical.
And despite all I had seen, despite the horror of the day so far, seeing the dead wheeled out to the makeshift morgues in tents outside the hospital shocked me. Bodies were wrapped in white cotton sheets and blue plastic tarpaulins. Seeing the lifeless bodies of people who that morning had woken up happy, ready to start their day, made me shake uncontrollably.
‘I need to find out if Eli or Dad have been admitted here. Will you come find me if Mam gets worse?’ I asked Anna and then I left.
I found a staff member, who brought me to a table where lists were compiled of patients who had been admitted. No Eli or John Madden. But I quickly realised that didn’t mean anything, because when I looked to see if Mam’s name or Alice’s were there, I saw they were omitted from the lists too.
I added our names. If someone came looking for us, they’d know we were here. I searched each ward, looking right and left, up and down, shouting for Eli and Dad, passing by dozens who were doing the same. Photographs were pushed towards me. And I realised I had nothing to show anyone.
Maria and Daisy left the hospital to go search the refugee camps when they couldn’t find Kevin or Alfie. We clung to each other, silent. Sometimes there are no words.
A sense of foreboding, unlike any I’d ever felt before, overcame me as I watched them drive away in the back of an open truck. The hope I’d been storing up began to slip away once more.
I felt torn. The need to stay with Mam was strong, but the need to search for Dad and Eli overpowered me. It was as if their lives lay in the balance, that if I didn’t get to them quickly, they would be dead. Irrational, but how I felt.
I continued my search outside the hospital in the tents that had been erected in the grounds. But found nothing. Only when it began to get dark, deflated and exhausted, I returned to my mother’s side.
She drifted in and out of consciousness throughout the night. I slept on the floor by her bed. At about 2 am, she called my name, looking a little better. I needed to find out more about what happened after we got separated. Maybe it would give me a clue as to where Dad now was.
‘You said Dad tried to save a girl?’
‘He got me onto a roof, but he was swept away by water before he could climb up. The Thai men who brought me to the hotel, they tried to grab him, but the current was too strong.’
So that wasn’t my imagination. I did see that.
‘He grabbed a mattress that floated by. I can remember thinking, climb up on top of that, it would be just like a lilo, wouldn’t it?’ she asked.
I nodded.
‘I never took my eyes off him and then he hit another tree, so he let go of the mattress and wrapped himself around it. I shouted over to him and he waved back. There was a girl there with him. When I looked first of all, I thought it was you. But it was just my eyes playing tricks on me. She was the same build, but that was about it. Her hair was plaited in those corn braids and she had on a bright-red swimsuit, like the Baywatch ones. I can remember thinking that we could do with David Hasslehoff right now. How silly is that?’
I smiled at her and kissed her forehead, ‘Not silly at all. But I’m not sure The Hoff with his red life buoy would have been able to save us from this today.’
Even so, hope began its dance again. Dad was okay. I was sure of it.
‘I wasn’t feeling too clever. So I lay down on the roof, but I stayed close to the edge, so your father and I could see each other.’
‘Oh Mam,’ I whispered.
She closed her eyes for a moment, her face contorted with pain. Then she continued, ‘He shouted over to me, saying, “they say no matter where you go, you’ll bump into someone from home. Never thought it would be clinging to a fecking palm tree!”’
‘You mean the girl with the Baywatch swimsuit was Irish?’
‘Yes. She was distressed, your dad was trying to calm her down. He shouted that they were going to swim to us. He was only inches from me and the Thai lads reached over to grab him, when he suddenly realised the girl wasn’t beside him any more. He turned back for her.’
Fear began to fight back, banishing my hope to the darkest part of my mind. I didn’t want to find out what happened next.
‘A car rushed by in the current. One minute your dad was pulling the girl towards us, the next they were gone.’
‘He could have grabbed onto something. He could be fine,’ I told her.
She didn’t answer. Please, Dad, you pinkie promised me.
‘He’s grand,’ she said, but her eyes made a liar of her.
‘I have loved your father every day since the moment we first met. And he loved me right back. Don’t settle for anything less than that. He turned back to help that girl. You make sure that you get a man as good as him one day. A strong, kind, generous man. Promise me.’
‘I promise.’ I began to feel unnerved by the tone of the conversation. ‘Don’t you dare say your goodbyes to me, Mam.’
She ignored me and continued, ‘You must always follow your heart, trust your instincts.’ She clasped my hand, but her grip had no strength to it.
‘You can remind me of all that, Mam, when I forget,’ I said.
She looked at me with such sadness, my heart split into a million pieces. It’s hard to put into words how painful it felt. It was as if my body was being stabbed, pierced, over and over.
‘Don’t settle for anything less than a good man. And remember how strong you are. You’ve always been the strong one.’
Then she started to cough up that bloody muddy water. I mopped her up each time as best I could with towels and told her stories about school that she’d heard a million times before. Anything to try to block out the sounds of sobbing family members as more victims perished. One by one, more were brought out to the morgues.
Ben stopped by to see us. He told us he had done over a dozen runs back and forth to the island. Before I could get the words out, he shook his head. ‘I asked each time. There was no John or Eli.’
Alice was critical, a fever having set in. Ben spoke in hushed tones to both Anna and Corey. They were doing all they could to get her flown to a bigger hospital.
‘Do you have someone here?’ I asked Ben. He looked exhausted, but of course he was going back again.
‘I was with friends. Other paramedics. Two of our group are at the beach, helping. Two are still missing.’ Pain shadowed his face and he patted my shoulder. ‘Maybe the next run will have my friends and your family.’
‘You need to sleep.’
‘So do you.’
‘Will she be okay?’ I asked.
‘Alice or your mam?’
‘Both,’ I replied.
‘I honestly don’t know.’
And before the night was over, one of them was dead.
Chapter 44
STELLA
70 Derry Lane, Dublin, 2014
‘That looked very cosy,’ Matt said when Stella walked in. His voice sounded playful. As if he hadn’t a care in the world.
‘It was Rea’s birthday. She invited me in for a drink. I thought, why not? I was on my own. It was fun. You’d like them.’ Stella was aware that she was babbling, so she made herself stop. Breathe, don’t panic, it’s okay.
He stood up and walked towards her and his eyes looked her up and down. His face still wore that crooked smile full of lies and contradictions. ‘So many changes. Oh don’t look so surprised Stella. I’ve been watching you. I know you rang the letting agent about our house in Rathmines.’
‘My house!’ Stella answered, unable to stop herself. She waited for the backlash from that statement, but he just smiled at her, as if amused by her words.
‘And this new look of yours. You look like a common tramp off the street.’
His words assaulted her. ‘Don’t talk like that to me, Matt.’
His reaction was almost comical. His shock was evident in every muscle in his face, which twitched in protest at her cheek. In daring to question him.
&nbs
p; ‘I’ll say anything I like to you. I am your husband.’
She lifted her chin and reminded herself that she deserved better. Rea’s bravery today, in facing some heartbreaking truths head on, was incredible. On top of finally acknowledging that her daughter was dead, saying those horrific words out loud, she walked outside. If she could make such a huge step, a leap of faith that her world was bigger than her house and mind, which had both imprisoned her, Stella could do the same. If he dared raise his hand to her, she would walk too.
‘And I am your wife. We chose our vows together, do you remember that?’
He nodded, but continued pacing around the room, his hands clenched in fists by his side, his face in a twisted grimace.
‘I take you to be my wife. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love and honour you all the days of my life.’ She spat the words at him and searched his face for traces of the man she thought he was when she had made those vows to him and he to her.
He was silent, watching her carefully.
‘There is no love nor honour in this marriage,’ Stella said. ‘And I’ve had enough.’
‘What are you saying, exactly?’ He moved closer, his fists clenched and now raised a little higher by his side.
‘I will not be your punching bag. If you hit me, I will call the Gardaí myself.’
‘Well, well, well. Look who got all brave.’
‘I’ve always been brave, but I’d just forgotten it,’ Stella replied, forcing herself to look him in the eye. Don’t back down, don’t allow him to dominate you.
He looked at her in silence for several minutes. What the hell was going through his mind, Stella thought. He paced the floor, then he stopped in front of her, still not saying a word. He lifted his fists up in front of his face and looked at them. Then slowly, he unfurled his hands and held his two palms up, as if in surrender.
The Woman at 72 Derry Lane Page 26
