‘I’m sorry,’ said Allie. ‘I’m sorry I ran away and left you.’
I gave her a filthy look. ‘What d’you mean, sorry? I wondered what took you so long. Couldn’t you take a hint?’
She plucked another grape, and when I shook my head she ate it herself. She had eaten virtually the whole bunch, together with the chocolate supply brought by Shuggie.
‘I didn’t want to leave you,’ she added, ‘but he made me. He told me I had to.’
I clenched my teeth. I didn’t have to ask who had persuaded her to run: not Mickey, that was for sure. Well, for once her delusions had come in handy. ‘Can you not sit on a chair?’
‘Comfier here.’ She patted the mattress, then my hand, lifting it to examine the hospital bracelet. Bored of that, she reached for my notes. ‘Says here you have a month to live. D’you want Robbie Williams as they’re carrying you out, or is that a bit of a cliché?’
‘Ha fecking ha,’ I said.
‘Sorry.’ She gave me a smile, her eyes brown and sparky behind her blunt fringe. You wouldn’t think they could turn so scary and black.
‘Allie,’ I said. ‘Why did you stop?’
‘I didn’t stop.’ She laughed, light and gurgling. ‘Mickey stopped.’
There was a note of satisfaction in her voice that made me shiver. I remembered her saying that about Aidan. He stopped. And now Mickey had, too.
I pressed her. ‘You stopped after you crossed the tracks. That was stupid, Allie.’
‘Well, Aidan told me to. I hated leaving you but he –’
‘Allie …’ I said. There was a chill at the base of my spine.
‘He knew it would be OK.’
‘How? How did he?’ My voice rasped, growing higher-pitched. ‘What if he’d told you to stop on the tracks?’
‘He wouldn’t do that,’ she said kindly. ‘And he knew what to do and he knew it would be fine. Because Mickey said it himself.’
I stared at her.
‘Mickey said so, remember?’ she told me. ‘He never forgot a face.’
‘Don’t,’ I shouted. The man in the opposite bed shook out his paper and glared at me. ‘Don’t,’ I whispered. My voice shook. ‘Don’t say that. Don’t say any more.’
It was too much delusion, or it was Allie at her most manipulative. I wouldn’t ask her again; I didn’t want to hear any more of this. But how had she made Mickey stop? Just by doing what he least expected? Just with the dead glare of her frightening eyes? Yes. Yes. Because there wasn’t any other reason he would stop. There just wasn’t.
Even if he never forgot a face.
She looked at me, and nodded kindly. She didn’t say it.
‘Kev’s recovering. Did you hear? He came out of the coma.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I’m glad.’
‘Believe it or not?’ She smiled. ‘Me too.’
I fiddled with my hospital bracelet, which was making my wrist itch. ‘Dad came earlier,’ I told her. ‘Again.’
‘I know. You’re the next thing to Mahatma Gandhi, you know. You’re JFK meets Nelson Mandela. You’re the Prodigal Saint, I haven’t got a look-in. He’s back home slaughtering the fatted lentils.’
I grinned. ‘God help me. See that horrible smell? That’s the food. Can you sneak me in a cheeseburger?’
‘I’ll bring you anything you want,’ she said seriously.
‘Orla Mahon,’ I said.
She looked at me sadly. Allie knew fine Orla hadn’t been to see me. Not once.
I loved her, all the way. I remembered thinking that when I thought I was going to die. I loved her all the way in to my bone marrow and beyond, and I’d only not-slept with her once, and I’d wanted to do it for ever. Leaking life into the weeds by the tracks it had seemed like the biggest regret of my foreclosed life. I didn’t want co-star billing any more. I didn’t want to be Kev-shaped or, God help me, Mickey-shaped. I didn’t want to be a boy who carried a knife. I wanted to be a boy who pissed off his girlfriend by talking through a film.
Six weeks I’d been watching the grumpy old bugger in the opposite bed read his paper. Six weeks I’d been stuck here waiting for her, bored out of my skull, lovesick to my wounded innards. I wanted to see Orla more than I wanted my own mother, but she hadn’t been near the place. She hadn’t been near me. I guess that was that, then.
Thinking about Orla actually made me wince with pain, and Allie bit her lip anxiously. She glanced at my belly. ‘Does it still hurt?’
‘Terrible,’ I said. I was planning to milk this for as long as I could. ‘No Robbie Williams, get that?’
She laughed and stroked my hand. ‘Oh, Nick, don’t worry. You’re going to live to be such an old fart.’
‘Oh, yeah?’
‘Yeah. Believe me, I know. I just know.’
For some bizarre reason I did believe her. ‘So, Mystic Mentalcase. Am I going to get any more shagging with Orla?’
If I didn’t have a laugh, you see, I was going to cry, but Allie shook her head reproachfully. ‘What d’you take me for? Psychic or something?’
‘Yeah,’ I said.
‘Well.’ She tapped her nose as she slid off the bed and stood up. ‘There’s limits. I’m not a frigging hypnotist.’
‘I’m bored,’ I whinged, desperate to keep her with me.
‘You’re getting out soon. And I’ll come again tomorrow. It’s Saturday.’ She hesitated. ‘Nick?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘He’s gone now, Nick.’
‘Oh. Has he?’
‘He’s not coming back,’ she said. ‘This time he really isn’t.’
I wanted to believe her. I so did.