‘Brian, Brian McDaid.’ Every word was agony for the poor man, so Carmel’s questions would have to wait. Together, they lifted him into the wheelchair and Sharif pushed him into an examination room. Once there, they had to help him onto the bed, and then Carmel left.
Back in reception, the other man was waiting anxiously. He was tall and distinguished looking, in a long navy wool coat and a trilby hat, which he rotated nervously in his hands.
‘Would you like a cup of tea? Dr Khan could be a while, and he’ll page me when he’s ready. I’m Carmel, I work here.’ Carmel offered her hand and the man shook it.
‘Tim O’Flaherty, yes, a cup of tea would be nice, I suppose I can’t just stand here…’
The poor man looked distraught with worry and Carmel wondered what the connection was between him and Brian McDaid. She led him to the small coffee dock in the main building and put on the kettle. Tim sat, but she could tell he was beside himself.
‘So, is Brian family?’ she asked gently.
‘er, yes, sort of…we…ah, we live together.’
Carmel took that to mean they were in a relationship, something about the man’s appearance, the elegant way he dressed, the clear distress he was in at Brian’s condition, convinced her.
‘Is that a trace of an Irish accent I can hear?’ she asked again, trying to keep his mind off his partner.
‘Yes,’ he half smiled, ‘from Co Mayo originally, but I’ve been here over fifty years, and you?’
‘Dublin, and Offaly after that.’
She knew she shouldn’t pry, but she couldn’t help herself.
‘So, what made you come here rather than A&E?’
‘A friend of ours, well of Brian’s, really, used to have a connection here, she sort of worked here and later, when she got sick, she was a patient. I’ve been looking after him at home for the last five years, but Dolly, that was our friend, said that when it got too much, we should come here. Tonight, well, he was in such pain, and the meds just weren’t touching it; I hated taking him out of our house, but I was scared…’
‘You did the right thing. We don’t have an emergency department as such, but Dr Khan is an oncologist and he’ll be able to make him comfortable, try not to worry.’ Despite Carmel’s longing to know if the Dolly he spoke about was her mother, she knew that it wasn’t fair to cross examine the man at this point.
‘Will he be able to come back home, do you think?’ Tim asked, and immediately he apologized, ‘I’m sorry, how would you know? I just…he hates hospitals and all of that.’
Carmel handed him a cup of tea and a KitKat.
‘This place, Aashna, it’s not really like a hospital; it doesn’t smell like one or even really look like one. If Brian does end up coming here, it will be okay, I promise you.’
‘It’s the beginning of the end. I’ve known for a few months now. Dolly used to visit us a few times a week, and she’d give me a break, let me get out to the bank or shopping or whatever and she’d stay with him; they knew each other since they were children, grew up in Dublin together. He took her death really badly, he’s been going downhill since she died, to be honest.’
Carmel’s heart thumped wildly in her chest, it had to be her Dolly. It just had to be.
Just as she was about to ask him something else, Sharif beeped her.
‘We can go back now; he’s ready to see you.’
Tim rose immediately and followed Carmel back the way they came. The little room she showed him into was cosy and dimly lit and Brian was in the bed, eyes closed and sleeping peacefully, looking considerably less distressed than twenty minutes earlier.
‘I’ve administered some analgesic, a strong painkiller, so he’ll be comfortable for the night. I suggest that you leave him here for now; we’ll take good care of him and perhaps you could come back tomorrow and I’ll do some tests and we can take it from there?’ Sharif’s voice had a soothing effect on patients and families alike.
Tim seemed relieved to see Brian so peaceful and so allowed himself to be escorted to the reception area once more.
‘Thank you, Dr Khan, yes, I’ll go home now, and I’ll see you tomorrow, thank you for taking care of him, he was in terrible pain…’
‘He’ll be fine now, from a preliminary exam and from what Brian was able to tell me, I can see he is in the later stages, so I must prepare you, I think all we can do at this stage is palliative, but as I said, we’ll talk about it properly tomorrow. If you can bring a list of medications he’s currently taking and the details of your GP, I’ll liaise with them and we’ll make sure he is given the best possible care.’
Once Tim had gone and Sharif had briefed the night staff on the patient’s condition, with instructions to call him if anything changed, he and Carmel walked back to their apartment.
‘I think he knew my mother.’ Carmel blurted once they were outside, ‘Tim, Brian’s partner, told me that Brian and Dolly grew up together in Dublin and they were friends and that she died here recently.’
‘I know. He did know her. She used to visit them regularly, Brian managed to tell me that, despite his pain. We always wondered where she went, and now that I know, it seems even stranger. Why didn’t she tell us about them? The fact that they are gay wouldn’t have bothered me or my parents, so it can’t be that.’ Sharif was as puzzled as she was. He stopped and turned to her, ‘Carmel, I know you want to know everything, but he is a very sick man, so if he wants to talk, it has to be in his own time okay?’
She nodded. Sharif knew how much finding out about her parents meant to her, but he was this man’s doctor first and foremost.
‘Okay, I know. I won’t go in there first thing in the morning with a list of questions, I promise.’
He smiled and kissed the top of her head.
She slept fitfully in the days after Brian’s admission, so many questions going round her head. A week after he arrived, she decided to ask Sharif if she could see him. He was in the high dependency wing and was still very sick, but she was going out of her mind. What if he died? Maybe anything he could tell her about her mother, maybe even her father would die with him. She felt awful for being so selfish, but she was so scared her one chance was slipping away.
She went about her business as normal, but she longed to speak to him. Tim came and went, but he was so upset and worried it wasn’t right to bother him with her questions and anyway she wanted to speak to Brian directly.
Sharif knew how she felt, but Brian was just too weak.
‘I don’t know, Carmel, look, I’ll ask him if he’ll see you. To be honest, he’s rarely awake, the medication needed to control the pain means he is sedated most of the time, but mid-morning is the time he is at his most alert. I know how much this means to you. And in any other circumstances, I’d absolutely refuse to have anyone visit him that wasn’t immediate family, but I’ll see what I can do. I’m not promising anything, though, alright? It has to be up to him.’
‘I understand. And thanks, Sharif.’
Brian was too ill and she tried to put it out of her mind. Sharif promised that if he was in imminent danger of death, he would allow her to see him, but he was hopeful that he could give him a few more weeks at least if he responded to the treatment. She had to be happy with that, and be patient.
She and Sharif had bought two chairs and a table for their little courtyard and she’d planted some flowers in pots, and they loved to have coffee there on the mornings when they were off work, to read the papers or just chat quietly. Even though Sharif had his own place, he had moved in with her after they’d spent every night together for ten days after her arrival, and she was thrilled when he suggested it.
The night he arrived with a box of things, she tried not to flinch when he removed a gilt framed photo of a beautiful young Asian woman and placed it on the table along with some books and clothes.
He caught her looking at it.
‘That’s Jamilla. I told you about her.’
She could hear the sadnes
s in his voice and once more she was transported back to the kitchen in Birr, her dusting carefully around the picture of Bill and Gretta. She knew it wasn’t the same, but she couldn’t help the feeling of resentment. Was she to start again, with another dead woman gazing at her every day?
‘I can put it away if it makes you feel uncomfortable.’
Instantly, Carmel felt mean and cruel. Why should he be forced to forget his past?
‘Of course not, don’t be silly,’ she picked up the photo and looked deeply into Jamilla’s brown eyes. ‘She was beautiful.’
‘She was. And funny and kind, just like you, actually. You would have liked her. When she died, I never thought I’d recover. The pain, every day, and the fact that I was a doctor but I couldn’t save her, it ate away at me. Maybe that’s why I threw myself so completely into this place. That’s what my mother thinks, I know, that I was using work to numb the loss, maybe she was right. I would work so hard that when I fell into bed at night, I had no energy for thinking, for feeling, and so that was my life for so long. But, time eases everything, even if you don’t want it to and one day it hurt a little less and so on until I was in a position to live again. And then I met you.’
‘Let’s put her here, on the shelf, that way you can see her every day.’ She tried to inject enthusiasm into her voice.
‘I have a better idea,’ he said, gently taking the photo from her. ‘How about we put it on the shelf in the spare bedroom? I don’t need to see her every day, but sometimes, it’s nice to see her smile. I’d hate to put it in a drawer or something, but we cannot live in the past, we must live in the here and now.’
‘Are you sure?’ it was like he could read her mind.
‘Totally sure. I loved Jamilla once, so very much. But she’s gone and we are here, she wouldn’t want me to be dwelling on her. A little part of me will always be hers, but I told you that before, but the most of me, the part that’s alive and loving life is all yours. Jamilla is no threat to you, Carmel, I promise you.’
Sharif had smiled when he saw her one morning in her dressing gown when he came home for a cup of tea after his early morning rounds. She was curled up with a cup of tea and Oprah’s book What I Know for Sure.
‘You look so happy here,’ he kissed the top of her head and joined her, the morning sun trapped in the little space.
‘I’m sorry, I should get dressed,’ she was embarrassed and began to gather her things to go inside.
‘Why? I thought you were not in until eleven today? It’s only nine thirty.’
She relaxed, he was right. This was her apartment and there were no bells or nuns or anyone else telling her what to do or when to do it, but old habits die hard.
‘When I was a kid, all the time I was in Trinity House actually, you got up on the first bell at seven a.m., got washed and dressed before the second bell at seven twenty, had your bed made and were sitting at the table for breakfast by the third bell at twenty to eight. When I married Bill, it was the same, more or less. He had his breakfast after milking but he had tea and a bowl of porridge at 5.30 so I’m used to being up and ready. This lounging around business is new to me.’ She grinned to dispel the sadness that had crept across his handsome face. She reminded herself not to tell him any more stories of her childhood; it only made him sad.
‘Even on the weekends? Were you not allowed to lie in, or play?’
Carmel put her hand on his. ‘It wasn’t Oliver, you know, we didn’t have to work on a big wheel or up chimneys, it was fine. We did play sometimes, after dinner when the clear up was done, the nuns would let us play cards or there were some board games and the boys went outside to kick a football. They taught me to sew and to knit. It honestly wasn’t that bad.’
‘Please tell me Bill didn’t expect you to get up and feed him at 5.30 every day?’ Sharif rarely said anything about Bill, and never criticized him, so Carmel was a little taken aback.
‘Well, he kind of told me the schedule the first day, and I just did it and…well, kept doing it, I suppose. He didn’t demand it or anything; it was just how things were done. Anyway, when he went milking, then I’d do the housework, and sometimes listen to a podcast or a meditation. I could only do that when I was sure he wouldn’t be back, though; he’d have had a stroke if he found me meditating, probably take me down to Fr Lenihan to have me exorcised or something.’ She giggled but Sharif didn’t smile.
He locked eyes with her as if looking behind them into her mind, her soul. Once, she told him he reminded her of Deepak Chopra, an Indian-born alternative medicine practitioner. Not in the way he looked as such, apart from them coming from similar countries, but there was something deeply spiritual about Sharif. He could be still for long periods and was very connected to himself. He had studied philosophy for many years and continued to do so and was a deep thinker, while also being full of fun and mischief. It was one of the many reasons she loved him so much.
‘Will you divorce him?’
The question caught her off guard.
‘Em…I don’t know. We were married in the Catholic Church, but divorce is legal now…’ She had never really considered it. If she thought about it at all, then maybe she thought he would get his marriage to her annulled.
‘Carmel, I’m not trying to pressure you, if you’re not ready then that’s fine, but you could easily see a solicitor here and start divorce proceedings. You don’t need a reason, though the fact that the marriage was never consummated would probably be grounds for a legal annulment.’
‘But what would he say? He’d be horrified, to get a letter from England, from a solicitor. I mean I did the wrong thing here; I left him without so much as a note, I don’t think I should be the one to…’
‘You did not do anything wrong!’ Sharif was unusually impatient. ‘Listen to yourself, Carmel, you blame yourself for everything. You got dealt a terrible hand in life, it was wrong and you deserved better. You weren’t adopted, and that was wrong. Bill married you when he wasn’t emotionally available. That was wrong. He treated you like a servant, and that was wrong. He didn’t nurture a relationship between his daughters and you, and that was wrong; he allowed his witchy sister to bully you and undermine you, and that was wrong. You are not the perpetrator in any of this, you’re the victim and you have got a chance now to leave all those wrongs in the past. You are entitled to free yourself, legally and mentally from him, and you should do it. Who cares what he thinks, or what people in the village think? He is the one with something to hide, he’s the one that should be hanging his head in shame.’ Sharif, normally so soothing, logical, and calm was unusually worked up. She stood up and went to sit on his lap and he put his arms around her.
Smoothing his silver hair from his temples, she spoke directly to him, ‘I’m convinced my mother sent you to me, though I wish she’d sent you a few years earlier; it would have been even better, but maybe I wasn’t in the place where I could accept you into my life then, who knows? It must seem ridiculous, a grown woman so unsure of herself and I understand the logic of everything you say, I really do. If someone else told me the story of my life, I’d be like, ‘Oh, for goodness sake, she needs a kick in the arse, as we say in Ireland, but it’s not that simple. For so long, all my life really, I wasn’t important to anyone. That sounds a bit whiney maybe, but it’s true. I’m not feeling sorry for myself, I just wasn’t loved. And because nobody loved me, or at least nobody I was aware of, I know now that my mother never stopped loving me and that makes such a difference, but I’m not used to it. I didn’t expect anything from Bill. I mean, sure, at the start, I foolishly thought we could live happily ever after but the reality was that was never going to happen. He shouldn’t have married me, but he saved me. I know it must sound awful to you, the life I had with him, and it was awful in so many ways, it was. But then, I’d see documentaries about homeless people, or drug addicts and so often they grew up in state care and when they reached adulthood they were just thrown out into the world with no skills and I�
��d think well, at least Bill saved me from that. I had a roof over my head and enough to eat and people thought of me as a normal person, with a home and a family, and when you don’t have that, ever, then it’s something precious.
‘You can’t really understand it; you had parents who adored you and a huge extended family, so you knew where you belonged from the start. It’s different when you spend your life trying to find a place to be, when everyone else has their spot and you don’t. I remember at school one time we were learning about the cuckoo, and how he never had a nest of his own but he used to steal other bird’s nests. The teacher was making out like he was a bad bird, compared to all the others who worked so hard on their nests and then he came along and just jumped into it, but I remember thinking, what else was he to do? If you don’t have a nest of your own, then you have to try to muscle in on someone else’s. The cuckoo never learned nest building because his parents never built nests either, so it wasn’t really his fault. All my life, I’ve been a cuckoo, and that’s why I try not to make too many waves or upset people, it’s because I’m always the encroacher. So, I know I’m hard to understand, and I will divorce Bill, I’d love to have him out of my life. Don’t think for a second that I feel in any way connected to him because I’m not, but when you say you love me, or even when I look around our lovely home, sometimes I don’t believe it. I’m afraid that you are going to stop loving me when the novelty wears off or something…though I’m hardly a novelty, but you know what I mean. I’m sorry, it must be such a head wreck as Zane calls it, to be dealing with me.’
Sharif sighed and patted her shoulder, indicating he wanted her to get up. Again, the panic, had she said something wrong? Should she have kept her mouth shut? Maybe he was getting sick of her stupid insecurities. He went into their bedroom and emerged moments later. She was rooted to the spot as he came out through the French doors back into the little courtyard.
Carmel stood in amazement in her dressing gown and slippers as the man she loved got down on one knee in front of her.
The Carmel Sheehan Story Page 12
