by Carol Coffey
“Fuck them!” he said aloud to Ben who started to scream once more. “Jesus, Ben, is there anything else in your miserable life that you have learned to do any better than scream?”
As Seán sped towards a dangerous bend, a large tractor and trailer carrying sheep drove out slowly from a side road to the left. Seán swerved to avoid it, narrowly missing a van coming in the opposite direction. He swerved again and tried to straighten the car but spun around, into the path of an oncoming lorry. As his car slid across the road, Seán could see the driver of the lorry brake and swerve to avoid him. He saw the driver’s O-shaped mouth, his expression of astonishment and fear merged into one. He glanced sideways to see if Ben was okay while simultaneously trying to turn the truck back in the direction of the traffic. He reversed a little and thanked God the trailer, which had now ground to a halt further along the road, had been going so slowly. He fixed his eyes on the driver of the trailer who had begun to wave his hands frantically at him, warning him.
Seán looked behind him and saw he had reversed too far back. He tried to come forward but somehow shot further into the opposite lane. Everything started to move in slow motion. He thought he could hear his mute brother say something. He could smell burning rubber and could see an articulated truck blurring in his rear-view mirror, the slow sickening screech of its brakes deafening out the sound of his own screams.
Kate stood in the kitchen, Dermot by her side. He had given up on searching for Seán and returned to be with Kate, knowing she would be frantic.
Garda Morris walked slowly into the kitchen and tried to conceal what she had just been told by phone until her superior arrived.
“That was Sergeant Mackey. He’ll be here shortly, Miss Byrne.”
“Have they found them?”
The policewoman cleared her throat. She had only graduated from Templemore one year ago and hadn’t yet come across anything like this, especially in this small country town where she had been stationed.
“I don’t know, Miss Byrne, I doubt it,” she lied. “We should know more soon.”
She felt Dermot watching her closely.
Ten excruciating minutes later Sergeant Thomas Mackey drove up into the yard and walked slowly into the house. He knew the family vaguely but was more familiar with their cousin Liam to whom he had been called out many a night to caution after a hard night’s drinking. Before sitting down he asked Dermot was there any whiskey in the house, which Kate thought was unbelievable under the circumstances.
“Not for me,” said the sergeant, seeing her shocked face. “You look like you need a shot, Ma’am.”
“No, thank you,” Kate replied stiffly. She had seen enough drink to last her a lifetime, unaware of the significance of the sergeant’s request, a request that was not lost on Dermot who moved closer to Kate, placing his arm around her back to steady her for what he knew was to come.
“Garda,” he said, looking directly at the policewoman, “can you find Tess and take her outside for a while? To feed the horse?”
Kate looked at him as the policewoman left the room, but he looked away, unable to bear the pain she was about to face.
The sergeant cleared his throat.
“We found the truck, Miss Byrne, on the main road. I’m afraid there was an accident. Several vehicles were involved.”
Dermot felt Kate straighten her spine as though to prepare herself, strengthening her body for the blow. She did not dare speak in case she missed the sergeant’s words, in case she wouldn’t hear him say they were okay, that Ben was okay.
“It was a bad accident,” he began again, pausing enough between each sentence to ensure she could take it in. “Your brother, your younger brother, wasn’t wearing a seat belt. I’m afraid the impact caused him to go through the windscreen. The paramedics tried everything. I’m sorry, Ma’am. Truly. They requested I tell you that he wouldn’t have felt any pain, that he died on impact.”
He paused and looked at the woman whose face stared back at him, disbelieving.
“Your older brother was driving. It seems he lost control of the car. He’s in a serious condition in St Patrick’s Hospital. I need to be completely honest with you, Ma’am, it’s not looking good. We can take you to see him –”
“No! No!”
Sergeant Mackey had been waiting on this, the slow crumbling reaction that occurred when people were faced with such life-changing, life-destroying news. It never got any easier, no matter how often he had to deliver it. He looked towards the man who was trying to hold Kate Byrne up as she slowly folded towards the floor. The sergeant looked down at his shoes. He never knew what to do at this point and was glad someone was with the woman as he had often had to deliver such news to people on their own and had stood holding the person as they cried in his arms. He stood up while Kate Byrne mouthed silent sobs into Dermot’s shirt, the man himself shedding silent tears.
The policewoman, sensing that Tess had special needs, had kept her outside for as long as she could but was aware that the young woman was nervous and wanted to return to the kitchen where her sister was. She took her back and when Tess entered Dermot beckoned her to come to him and all three stood together, arms and bodies entwined, Tess looking into Dermot’s eyes, inquiring. Kate’s sobs changed to a long, low exhausted moan, her body wracked by howling, buckled into Dermot’s body, his arms holding her up. He wanted to whisper words of comfort and reassurance but could think of none. All three remained like this for some time. The sergeant looked down at his shoes and the young policewoman wished she’d chosen any other job than this one right now.
Chapter 42
1981
On the morning after the death, Dermot stood beside Kate inside the small morgue of the general hospital where Seán had been a patient only weeks before. It had been a sleepless night for all except Tess to whom they had not yet fully explained everything. Dermot had spent the entire night with Kate in the kitchen, as she sat rigidly in her chair by the unlit fire, her hands clasped tightly together on her lap as if they were holding her together. She had refused any food and stared into space as though hypnotised. Dermot sensed that while she needed him there, she did not want to talk. They sat silently together through the night.
Deirdre O’Connell had called early in the morning and suggested breaking the news to Tess gently and advised Kate not to be surprised if she didn’t fully understand or perhaps didn’t seem to care about Ben’s death. The two women had then together told Tess who indeed behaved as if she had not even heard what they had said to her. There was nothing more they could do – Tess would have to absorb the shock in her own way and in her own time.
Deirdre had agreed to stay on at the house with Tess while Kate identified Ben’s body.
As Kate stood in the mortuary, a short man with an abnormally long pale face asked her if she was ready before pulling a white sheet down enough for Kate to see Ben’s sweet face, cut almost beyond recognition. There was a long, evenly stitched cut across his forehead where his face had hit the shattering windscreen. Two smaller cuts on his face, although neatly sewn, looked like deep hollows above his broken jaws and gave him the appearance of a sleeping, dimpled-cheeked boy. His nose, broken and misshapen in the impact looked purple above his swollen lips. For the second time in less than twenty-four hours Kate slumped backwards into Dermot who placed both arms firmly around her.
“I’m with you,” he whispered.
Kate nodded to the waiting man, confirming that this was her precious brother, a brother she had raised almost since birth and was like her own son. A brother who was sweet and innocent and did not ask to be born into this world, into this family, and now he was dead, lost to her, and she didn’t know where she fitted into the world if not to care for Ben. She moved forward and touched him, shocked by his icy cold skin. Kate wondered what her precious boy went through those last few minutes of his life. Was he crying for her? Was he wondering where she was? She couldn’t bear to think about it. She stood back and looked at
him again. It was the most peaceful she had ever seen him for even when he was a baby Ben would twitch and kick as he slept. She bent forward once again and kissed him. She wanted to lift him to hug him one last time. Ben had always hated being hugged and for once he would not squirm away from her. She moved to place her arm around his neck to raise him from the cold white slab and into her arms. As if reading her mind the long-faced man moved forward, catching her softly but firmly on the forearm, while simultaneously glancing at Dermot who moved forward and took Kate once again in his arms, both knowing Kate had not seen the dead boy’s worst injuries. They remained standing there for some time, the man moving out of sight to give the grieving couple some privacy.
Upstairs, Seán lay in intensive care and had not regained consciousness. Dermot had tried to persuade her to go to him, worried that she might later regret not seeing him but she refused and they left the morgue and headed for home where Tess would be waiting.
In Árd Glen, Tess sat in her room alone while Deirdre made her sandwiches in the kitchen. She took her list from a drawer and adjusted it, running a long black line through Ben’s name. She had wanted to apologise to Ben for pinching him when he was a baby, especially when he could not talk. She planned on apologising by teaching Ben to speak like she had done with some of the small children in the hospital school but it was too late now. Ben was dead and Tess would never be able to apologise.
Dermot Lynch lay awake, stretched out on the Byrnes’ sofa. He did not want to leave Kate alone and had stayed even though he knew it would get the town’s gossips going. He had wanted to lie beside Kate, to hold her all night and comfort her but felt that under the circumstances it wouldn’t be right. Kate had offered him Seán’s bed but he declined, saying he probably wouldn’t sleep anyway. At the end of the hall, Tess and Kate lay awake in their room, both staring at the shadows moving on the ceiling from the lights of cars passing over the high bend on the road that led to their house.
“Kate?”
Kate did not answer for what seemed to Tess like an eternity.
Kate was lying on her back thinking of Ben. Her body ached for him as she imagined the last few moments of her brother’s life over and over, tormenting her mind and keeping her from sleep. Eventually she answered, hoping her sister’s questions would distract her tortured mind, if only for a few seconds.
“Yes?”
“If you want to hug Dermot in the sitting room, I won’t mind being on my own.”
Kate felt a loud gulp rise in her throat and started to sob, tears never being far from her eyes. Her sister’s unusual expression of understanding almost seemed too much for Kate to cope with. She had tried to concentrate on caring for Tess since the news, trying desperately to focus on anything other than Ben’s death but had found her sister continued to take the news calmly and had remained by Kate’s side in the dreadful waking hours since. Tess had even made tea for neighbours who had not crossed their doorstep in many years, calling to console them for their loss.
Kate tried to control her sobs long enough to answer Tess but couldn’t.
“We’ll be okay, Kate, don’t worry. Everything is okay now. Dermot will look after us.”
Tess did not know why her words made Kate turn her face to the wall and she could hear her sister weeping into the night.
Kate could not figure out how Seán had got his hands on the keys. She went over the sequence of events in her mind and was sure that she had not left them in the truck. She was sure that she had them in her hand when she went in search of Tess. She could not remember much after that and hoped that Ben’s death was not her fault.
At four the phone rang loudly in the hallway. Kate and Tess listened intently as Dermot answered it and spoke quietly to the unknown caller. By the time he knocked on their bedroom door to wake them, both sisters were dressed sitting hand in hand on the same bed. Dermot stood awkwardly in the doorway, knowing by Kate’s face that she knew what he was about to say.
“We have to go to the hospital – they’ve called the priest.” Dermot looked at Kate, expecting resistance, but watched as she surrendered to Tess’s gentle pull on her hand.
The sisters walked out of the house together and towards Dermot’s car.
When they arrived at the hospital, all three were greeted by the hospital chaplain who led them into a small room off the main intensive-care room where Seán had been moved to over an hour before. Tess stared at the breathing tube leading from his mouth to a machine that moved up and down like an accordion. A loud machine beeped repeatedly. A clear plastic bag hung from the side of Seán’s bed and was filling with blood. Tess looked away, afraid that she would vomit which, apart from seeing blood, was the second worst thing she feared. All three sat on the seats already placed for them around the bed, Kate choosing the one furthest away, its view of Seán obstructed by the hospital machinery that was keeping him alive. She did not look at her brother and sat with her hands on her lap, head bowed as though in prayer. The chaplain squeezed her left shoulder, moved toward the bed and began praying over her brother’s dying body.
Tess, who had always found it soothing to listen to the repetitive chanting of prayers, looked up. Sensing her best behaviour was required, she made a special effort not to begin humming as she often did during Mass as a child. Instead she focused on Seán who lay motionless in the bed. Tess could see something hard and round on her brother’s neck which made his head look small. A large bruise ran evenly across his forehead like it had been painted on. His eyes were closed and a long white tube ran up his nose and was taped onto his face. It was attached to a bag filled with white liquid hanging from a hook above his bed. A wire cage covered both his legs which looked as though they had huge bandages on them. The sheet covering him did not reach the end of the bed but was folded neatly about a foot above his bare feet which were not bruised or cut. Tess focused on this and wondered how this could be. She wondered if Seán’s feet were cold and worried that if they were, he would not be able to tell anyone, just like Ben could never tell anyone if something was wrong. She stood and moved closer to the brother who had treated her badly since she had returned home. She knew now that she would never know why he had not liked her. If he had told her what she had done wrong she could have tried harder, she could have apologised but it was too late now. It was also too late for Seán to say he was sorry to her as she knew that even if he did wake up, he wouldn’t be able to speak with the tube in his mouth. Tess moved closer to the bed and leant close to her brother’s ear, her hand covering the left side of her face, obscuring the bag of blood that hung on the tall metal stand beside the bed.
“It’s okay, Seán. I forgive you for shouting at me and drinking all the money and for hitting Kate outside the house, and for –”
“Tess!” said Dermot urgently.
The priest, who did not deviate from his prayers, looked up and shifted uneasily from foot to foot. Dermot rose and stood beside Tess who looked up at him, wondering if she was about to be told off.
“Maybe we could say everything we have to say in our thoughts, Tess?” he whispered.
Tess stood silently and mouthed the rest of Seán’s sins silently over his body. She tugged at the stiff white sheet, pulling it down enough to cover his feet and smoothing it around him. Kate smiled and stood with her, both silently saying their goodbyes and forgiving Seán for the wrong he had done to them. Kate could not forgive him for what he had done to Ben – she hoped God would do that for her.
At seven thirty, when the late November sun of a fine, frosty morning began to shine through the hospital blinds, two doctors came into the room and removed the breathing tube from Seán’s mouth. Tess watched carefully, hoping he would say something. The beeps from the loud machine began to slow down, eventually merging into a long sharp bell. Tess raised her hands to her ears instinctively but moved them swiftly back onto her lap, knowing that Kate hated to see her do this. Instead she started counting the tiles on the wall, hoping to distract hersel
f from the awful noise. The doctor looked at his watch and wrote something on Seán’s chart. The chaplain put a long thin purple cloth around his neck and began praying very quietly over Seán. Kate and Dermot blessed themselves and Tess copied them quickly. Only when Kate began to cry did Tess understand that her older brother was dead. Quietly and without being noticed Tess withdrew her notebook from her coat pocket, drew a line through Seán’s name and stared at the last name on her list: Kate.
Kate had not wanted a double funeral for Seán and Ben but knew she couldn’t go through the torment of two funerals, coping with the sympathy of people who had never asked after Ben in his entire life and had never visited Kate when they knew she was trying to cope alone. Her “father” still had family in the area but none of them had called to the house since his death, understandably, some might say. Neither did Kate want Seán and Ben buried in the same grave but knew that their mother, who they would be buried alongside, would have wanted this.
Neither had Kate had a wake. It was too painful to bring her beautiful boy home like that, and she wanted to remember him as he was. She did not want a wake for Seán as her fond memories were few and lay dormant now in the back of the mind of the young girl she no longer was. She could not pretend.
