‘The roads will be icy,’ Kathleen says. ‘You’d better be careful if you’re heading out in it.’
She has barely spoken to me since our earlier conversation in the kitchen and the drama of me cutting my finger. She keeps looking at me, though, and I don’t like how exposed I feel.
‘I think maybe I’ll stay here tonight,’ she says to no one in particular. ‘The chances of getting a taxi won’t be great.’
‘We can drop you to Pauline’s,’ Alex offers.
I don’t give out that dropping her to Pauline’s will take us at least ten miles in the opposite direction of home.
‘I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble,’ she says, her voice meek.
‘It’s no trouble at all,’ Alex says.
‘You’re very kind,’ Kathleen says, yawning again.
She’s exhausted. We’re all exhausted. None of us are sleeping well. I can tell just by looking around the room. Dark circles and bags under our eyes. Pale skin, bodies stiff with tension. We’re no further forwards in coming up with a cohesive plan about Joe’s care, but we are at least faking an air of mutual respect. No, not respect. Tolerance. We are tolerating each other.
‘You go on,’ Ciara says. ‘We’ll stay here tonight, Stella and I. In the spare room.’ She looks me square in the eyes as she says this.
Is she marking her territory on this house? Still sore from my outburst yesterday. I’ve apologised so there’s nothing I can do, or am willing to do, to appease her further.
‘Well, we should get going, then,’ I say, more keen than ever to get away from this house and the stifling atmosphere.
‘I’ll get Lily from upstairs,’ Alex says, standing up and stretching before going to get Lily from my old bedroom.
I don’t want to be left alone with the others, so I set about packing up Lily’s things and putting my coat on. I’m in the hall, cramming a pale pink blanket into the top of her changing bag, when Alex appears at the top of the stairs. His face is pale, his eyes wide. He isn’t carrying Lily and for a moment I feel my heart sink to my stomach and fear grip me.
‘Lily?’ I mutter. ‘Where’s Lily?’
I feel my head start to spin. Why doesn’t he have Lily? The look on his face. Something bad has happened. My knees start to go beneath me. He can barely speak. He shakes his head slowly.
I think I might throw up. It feels like minutes, hours even, are passing when really it can only be a second or two. Then he speaks.
‘It’s Joe,’ he says.
A guttural cry breaks forth from my chest – and it’s not for Joe. It’s borne of relief that Lily is okay. Ciara comes out of the hall to see what the fuss is about.
‘What is it?’ she asks, her eyes darting between Alex and me.
‘He’s dead,’ Alex says, matter of factly, as if he can hardly believe what he is saying. ‘Joe’s dead. I’m so sorry.’ There is a tremor in his voice now.
Joe McKee is dead. I inhale deeply.
In that moment everything is still. The ticking of the clock is the only thing to punctuate the silence. I can almost feel Alex’s words, and the realisation of what they mean, move around the room, around the house. They wash over us all, and they start to sink in and the noise builds slowly. Kathleen wails, quietly at first, but her cry increases in volume and intensity within the same breath. Ciara calmly, maybe too calmly, asks Alex to repeat himself, and she’s already moving towards the stairs as if she needs to see it for herself. Stella is calling her back. Alex is looking at me, watching for my reaction, perhaps. I’m frozen to the spot. I dare not move, or hope …
Ciara pushes past Alex, knocking him flat against the wall. Stella is following her up the stairs, pleading with her to slow down. Kathleen has slumped to the floor and she is keening, rocking backwards and forwards. She is muttering something. The words of a prayer or something that I can’t quite hear over the buzzing in my head. Alex moves to her and not me, sitting beside her and wrapping his arms around her.
‘It looks very peaceful,’ he says, his voice shaky. ‘He looks very peaceful. He must have just gone in his sleep. I’m so sorry.’
I watch them as if I’m watching a TV show. Without emotion. Without a feeling it is real.
I hear a shout from the top of the stairs. A cry out. A ‘Daddy’ – it’s the most vulnerable I have ever known Ciara to be.
Stella appears at the top of the stairs, her face as ashen as Alex’s. ‘I think we should call an ambulance,’ she says.
‘But if he’s dead …’ I blurt. My voice sounds funny.
‘I think it’s still protocol,’ she says.
‘And Dr Sweeney,’ Kathleen says, her voice thick, trembling with grief.
‘It’s very late,’ I say. ‘And a bad night. I’m sure the ambulance crew can do what’s necessary.’
‘Dr Sweeney won’t mind. He’s a friend of the family. Joe would want him to be here. He would want to be here,’ Kathleen says, her voice borderline hysterical.
‘Okay,’ I say, ‘I’ll make the calls.’ Anything to calm her down.
I half walk, half stumble through to the living room, dig my phone from the changing bag I’ve carried in with me. The same pale pink blanket is still poking out of the top of it.
I make the calls. I hardly recognise my own voice as I speak, and then I sit and wait to feel different.
I always thought the minute he was dead, my shame would die with him. But I feel it niggle as I climb the stairs. It has mutated, though. This time, some of it comes from the fact that a tiny spark inside me feels alive for the first time in twenty years.