Despite the Angels (33 page)

An hour later, David went up to the girls’ room and knocked. He stuck his head round the door and asked the girls to come down and help him with dinner preparations.

“My hand is still sore. I didn’t know I needed my left hand so much. I can’t hold anything properly. Come on.” They followed him down and they did a strange five-handed act, with much laughter. Kathleen came in to see what was happening.

“We’re doing one and a halfles dinner!” said Caroline, as she held the handle of the saucepan that David was stirring. “If I don’t hold it, it goes round and the sauce will stick. It’s called co-operation.” She pronounced this very carefully. New words had to be minded and then stored away.

“Another game,” said Kathleen, sitting down at the table and running her hand across her eyes, “to steal my children away from me.”

“I’m not.” David felt cold again. “I’m just making the dinner, but I need help. My hand is sore. You could have helped, but you wouldn’t. I asked you.”

“You also told me you didn’t want to go on holidays with me.”

“We’re going on holidays, aren’t we?” Clare was puzzled, “all of us? To Portugal?”

“Yes, we are. But Daddy doesn’t like coming.”

“Now, Kathleen, you know that’s not true. I love our summer holiday,” David was brisk. “Come on, girls. Let’s dish up.” He still had the spoon in his hand and with the other he picked up the pan from the stove. His wrist gave, hot sauce splashed onto his shoes and all over the floor. The pan rattled into the corner. Both girls giggled, but their mother got up muttering ‘now look what you’ve done’ and ‘get this mess cleaned up’, so they bent their heads and fetched cloths.

“I’m sorry Jotin, that she’s being so awful. I’ll try to calm her down.” Haliken was beside Kathleen, talking gently to her.

“No, it’s fine this time. We have a plan. He’s going to show Lucy his sprained wrist, then we’ll be on the home straight. Trynor is encouraging her to go shopping, to find something flowery she can wear.”

“Doesn’t she have a uniform?”

Jotin looked stricken. “Oh, yes. Oh well, we’ll get them together anyway. It’s still best that he sees Kathleen’s worst side.”

A week later, as Lucy was walking into work, a charity collector rattled his tin at her.
Trynor jumped with surprise and looked over. He nudged Lucy hard.
Lucy stopped and looked at the man. He was holding out a little bunch of flowers to her.

“We’re asking for a pound for the flowers, or for less you just get the sticker! It’s a good cause…”

“What is it?”

“Who cares what it is. Give him the pound.” Trynor turned to the collector’s guide. “What brought you here? It’s not a good place for collecting, I wouldn’t have thought.”

“I’m a friend of Jotin’s. He told me you need flowers. So I got my guy here. Not too difficult, he hears me sometimes.”

“One of the few, then. Thanks a lot. We’ll owe you one.”

“No. I’m repaying Jo. He’s helped me out often. You’re welcome and the charity gets the money. No losers.” He nodded towards the tin and they watched
Lucy drop her pound into the slot. She took the flowers.

After changing into her white tunic in the hospital, Lucy pinned the flowers up near her shoulder, hoping they would be allowed. She went into the treatment office and looked at the appointments book. Mr O’Leary, Miss Hutchins, little Emily Nolan..

“A new one at eleven?” she remarked to the secretary, Fiona.

“Yes, his letter is here.”

Lucy scanned the letter. Nothing much, a sprained wrist.

“Nothing too difficult, so. Mr O’L here yet?”

At five minutes to eleven, David came into the reception area and gave his name to the secretary.

“Yes, Mr Hyland, Miss Browne will be ready for you in a few minutes. Take a seat and fill out this form. Can you do it with the bad hand?”

David smiled at her. He was feeling inexplicably cheerful this morning. “No problem, it’s the other hand.”

“Oh, that was lucky!” Fiona started typing again.

“Cheerful, for a very good reason. Because I have been telling you all day, since you opened your eyes, that today is the day. That’s why you have your best tie on, that brings out the blue in your eyes. And why you shined your shoes. You’re looking good and we are going to win the girl today. And have the baby, well, not today, but we’re on our way! There’s a song for this,” and Jotin began to sing, “Oh what a beautiful morning!”

“Oh, what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day….” David sang gently, wondering why he should think that, as the weather was not particularly wonderful this dull day.

“Fiona, who’s the gorgeous man in the waiting room?” Joanne, one of Lucy’s more senior colleagues, was leaning over Fiona’s desk.

“Lucy’s eleven o’clock.”

“I’ll take him. I have a gap. I could do with a good view for a change.” Joanne’s last patient, the very old and wheezy Mrs Dunphy, was now waddling her way back to the main entrance.

“O.K. All the same to me.”

“NO!” Jotin was out of his chair, running towards the desk. “Tell your people no! This one is meant for Lucy, we’ve been arranging it for years.”

“More my Joanne’s age, don’t you think?”

“Long story, don’t argue. Tell you later. PLEASE!”

“Tell her Lucy was pleased to have a new client.”
Fiona’s guide was leaning over the desk, pointing at the space in the appointment book.
Fiona looked down.

“Though I don’t know, Joanne. Lucy was pleased to see a new name.”

“She won’t mind. I’m doing her a favour, really.”

“No, Joanne, apparently this one’s not for you. There is one waiting, next year. Wait till then.”

“It could be next year before I get another decent man. After that bastard Seán dumped me I deserve a break.” She picked up the new chart that was waiting on the desk.

“Mr. Hyland? Come this way, please.” Joanne led the way to one of the little treatment rooms. David followed, admiring the way her hair curled at the back of her neck and the shape of her bottom. When she smiled at him as they both got into the room, his heart skipped. For a moment he was glad he had hurt his wrist and had had to reschedule the whole day for this appointment.

“Trynor! The other physio has taken him in. We’ll have to co-ordinate a meeting in the corridor after his treatment. Get those flowers more prominent, the time for subtlety is over.”

Trynor talked rapidly to Lucy and then to the guide of Emily Nolan
, whose stiff little legs Lucy was stretching, to prevent the muscles seizing up. Emily reached up and touched the flowers.

“Pretty flowers. Like mam’s.” Mrs Nolan was wearing a similar bunch, right on the front of her cardigan. “Put here!” Emily pointed imperiously at Lucy’s bosom.

“I can’t, Emily. I really shouldn’t have them on at all. They’re out of the way there.”

“Pretty here!” She poked Lucy’s tunic.

“OK, I’ll move them. Just for you, sweetheart.” Lucy moved the flowers to the front of her tunic, just beside the zip. “How’s that?”

“Nice.”

“Thanks. That should do it. Tell your Emily thanks. She’s a good one.”

“Isn’t she? She has them all organised at home, even with her rudimentary language. ‘Our Special Boss’ they call her. We have a lot of helping and persuading to do this time, me and Emily.”

“What are we going to do?” Trynor wailed. “That was our best chance for ages and we fluffed it.” He and Jotin were sitting together in a quiet spot at Home, allowing soft lights and gentle music soothe them after their frustrating day. “I can’t even get her to stay in the office and do paperwork until David comes out of his session, no, she trots off and has a longer coffee break. And then you fail abysmally to get him to come for another appointment. It was just awful, watching him walking out of there two minutes before she came back from the canteen and knowing he wouldn’t be back.”

Jotin lay back on the soft surface under them and looked at the lights. He ran his mind back over the day.

“Yes, we failed badly. David had every right to feel down. That was one of the worst bits, him suddenly feeling so low after being so cheerful and not knowing why.”

“Was that after he left?”

“No, it was when Joanne turned around, to start taking his history and he sort of knew it was the wrong woman. I could see his heart sink. He checked for the flowers, I’d told him to and she thought he was looking at her breasts. Would have been funny, if it hadn’t been so sad. Joanne tried really hard to get him to notice her. Told him all about Seán and how he’s gone. Only thing she didn’t ask was if David was married. Didn’t want to know.”

“She saw his ring, I suppose.”

“Hadn’t you noticed? He stopped wearing that after Kath accused him of not wanting to go on holidays. He felt if she hadn’t noticed that the start of a holiday was the one time they felt together, they didn’t have much. I didn’t try to discourage him.”

“But he’d still have the mark on his finger, takes a while to wear off.”

“Maybe. Wouldn’t have bothered Lucy.”

“No.” They lay together, pondering. After a while that older wiser energy filled the space and spoke softly inside their heads.

“You are doing your best. That is all any of us can do. Yes, they are remarkable souls who should be together for a whole life. They are more than the sum of their parts and might even work together in a future life, but if not it does not matter. If the Curies had not been there to work with radioactivity, someone else would have been found. Gilbert and Sullivan could have been replaced and the humans would have been no worse off. Watson and Crick would have discovered DNA alone, though maybe not as quickly. Lucy and David are a wonderful pairing such as these, but just think in terms of simply letting them enjoy that they are so well suited.”

“I was hoping they might be able to do something to help the Earth,” Jotin ventured.

“We have people and spirits working on that. The Earth is a magnificent creation and it would be a pity if it was lost. But remember, there are other worlds which we can use if we must.” The light faded, leaving Trynor and Jotin feeling gently sad, but relieved.

“OK, then. I suppose we just watch and wait. We’ll get another chance. Dublin isn’t such a huge place.”

Jotin chuckled. “Yes, the humans never tire of saying that. But they don’t stop to realise how many old friends they never bump into. Always astonished when they meet someone, never astonished they don’t. I mean, Ken is still in Dublin, but I don’t think David has seen him since the twins arrived.”

“No, and Lucy hasn’t seen Sally. Though she’s in London the last few months, I think. They were both in College at the same time, but no need for any contact, so we didn’t arrange any. Imagine the exhaustion if we had to keep them in touch with everyone they had ever known.” Trynor leant back again and stretched luxuriously. “I’m going to have a rest. I’m knackered, to borrow a phrase.” He closed his eyes.

Lucy’s mother Betty Browne put the last plate onto the table at her own place and sat down. She took a deep breath and let it out, looking at her family as they sat waiting for her to start.

“Sorry it’s a quick one again,” she said, picking up her fork, “I seem to be in a constant rush these days. Understaffed as usual and I have to make sure nothing goes wrong. So you’re the ones who suffer.”

“It doesn’t feel like suffering to me,” said her husband Robert. “It looks fine. But I ought to learn to cook, then we could all help out. Why didn’t you do it tonight, girls?”

“No ingredients,” said Alison, with her mouth full of fish finger. “I can’t cook if there’s nothing to cook.”

“I’m sorry, Mum, I didn’t even think of it. I was looking something up. I have an unusual patient.” Lucy was miles away still.

“Thinking about Martin again. No time to notice anything else.”

“Yes,” said Mrs Browne thoughtfully, “Martin. When are we going to meet him? It seems a long time now since you met him.”

“She’s ashamed of him,” crowed Alison, “Doesn’t dare let us see him, he’s so ugly.”

“He isn’t,” Lucy said mildly. A year ago she would have kicked Alison under the table for teasing her like this. These days she was happy. She had managed to keep Alison away from her rather delectable boyfriend for nearly a year. She had received a huge card for Valentine’s Day and was hoping Martin would bring her out for dinner for their anniversary in May. Her new job, though still exhausting, was going well, she had nothing worrying her.

“That’s because you are DEAF. I have been at you and at you to give him up, or to bring him home. So I agree with your Mum. Bring him home.”

“You can meet him if you want.”

“Good. Invite him for dinner on Saturday. Does he eat everything?”

“I think so. He has a sweet tooth. His Mum always makes desserts.”

“Oh, I’ll have to compete with that,”

“Please don’t.”

“Would he like pavlova, do you think?”