O negative. When Nick had told her this, she’d felt sick. What were the chances of a donor coming up of this type? She knew it was rare, and if the doctor had said he had a year to live … It didn’t bear thinking about. Her relief that the break-up wasn’t about her had been short-lived. She had to admit that despite her protests about staying with him, there was a part of her that wanted to cut and run. Wouldn’t it be better for her to end it now and let the healing begin, than to stand by and see Nick deteriorate, knowing she was helpless to do anything about it, forced to watch him die the way her mother had?
Michelle had done everything for her mother. She’d worked part-time to take her to her hospital appointments – followed up all the test results with the doctors, monitored everything they did. When her mother had begun to suffer from confusion, unable to structure simple sentences, it was Michelle who’d identified the drug that was causing the problem. The doctors had denied it, said that confusion was not a side effect of that medication, and yet when her mother had, of her own volition, stopped taking it, her confusion had miraculously subsided and she was herself again.
The whole experience had shaken her faith in the medical system. Michelle knew it was the hospital’s fault that her mother was dead. They’d taken their eye off the ball, failed to notice or else failed to tell them that the cancer had returned. They allowed it to run rampant until her mother’s bone marrow had deteriorated to the point that there was no way back. Michelle had queried it, asked why they had not been given the results of a biopsy six months previously – surely this along with the blood tests taken monthly had indicated that the disease was not only present but escalating. When Michelle had pointed that out to the consultant, she’d been told that they didn’t treat patients on numbers but on symptoms. They were not about to admit culpability, but everybody knew that doctors were run ragged – that long hours and too many patients led to these mistakes.
She’d spent all weekend watching over Nick. She’d wanted to stay again that night, but he told her he’d be fine. Besides, she had the soup run and she wouldn’t get back till late. She called Nick before she went out and was worried when he didn’t answer, but he called her back immediately.
‘Hey, how did the hypnosis session go?’ she asked him.
‘Yeah, it was fine, good.’
He hadn’t told her exactly what happened at the sessions, and for some reason she wasn’t sure if she should ask, it seemed something private. ‘Do you think it’s helping?’ she asked.
Nick laughed. ‘Believe it or not, I do. She tells me to think of something good, a time when I felt empowered – I have to make a fist as I think about it. The theory is that when I feel the urge to drink, I’m to make a fist and try to get back that feeling.’
‘And it works?’
‘It seems to. I often think about you.’ His voice was soft, and she felt relieved. Things had become so strange between them, it was hard to get back to where they’d been before.
‘Will you be okay tonight?’ she asked.
‘Yeah, I just need to sleep. I’ll be fine.’
Michelle was early getting into the centre. Conor was sitting drinking coffee with Barbara and a few of the other volunteers. Michelle smiled as she took her coat off and hung it on the back of a chair. ‘What’s up?’ she said.
Conor shook his head. ‘You haven’t heard?’
She looked round at the grim faces. ‘No, what’s happened?’
‘The lad outside the government offices was found this morning.’ Conor looked at the mug cradled in his hands.
‘Not dead?’
Three nodding heads confirmed it. ‘Hypothermia.’
‘Christ.’ Michelle sat next to Conor. ‘We only chatted to him last week. His name was Dan, remember?’
Conor nodded, looked around at the others. ‘He’d been sleeping outside the Dáil to give them a wake-up call. Usually he was moved on by security before a politician even got near the place, not that they’d have cared.’
‘Maybe they’ll pay attention now,’ Barbara said. ‘Right on their doorstep.’
In the last year, homelessness in the city had reached crisis point. Everybody knew that. You couldn’t walk ten paces without coming upon someone in a doorway begging for money. It was the reason Michelle had volunteered. It wasn’t enough to give money. She had to do something more, even if it was just soup and sandwiches. The government had vowed a year ago to provide more beds in hostels, but that hadn’t happened. Instead, the problem had spiralled.
All the volunteers knew that there was no quick-fix solution to the problem. They weren’t that idealistic. There were the usual addicts on the streets, the ones that couldn’t be helped, but there were others too, the mentally ill who’d fallen through the cracks in the system, the ones who’d taken oversized loans from the bank to buy houses during the economic boom, only for the prices to come crashing down along with the jobs that had just about enabled them to pay their monthly mortgage.
Michelle often wondered what had happened to the ghost estates, hundreds of houses built around the country with no one to live in them. Some of them half built, abandoned by the builders who’d run out of money halfway through projects. Now everybody talked about the lack of social housing, and the fact that every boarded-up building in the city belonged to the National Asset Management Agency.
Poor Dan. She knew from talking to him that he’d had some kind of problem. She suspected Asperger’s. Even when he’d made enough money to pay for a hostel room, he preferred to sleep on the streets. Hostels were lethal, he said, too many people shooting up, drinking, fighting. The streets were bad, but he felt safer out in the open. He’d ranted about the state of the country – everyone ranted about the state of the country.
‘You okay?’ Conor put his hand on her arm. Barbara was standing, clearing away the coffee mugs. ‘Yeah, sorry. It’s just … poor Dan. I can’t believe it.’
Conor nodded. ‘I know. He had to die to get attention. I’m surprised you didn’t see it on the news.’
Michelle wrapped her scarf round her neck and started to help Conor load the wrapped sandwiches into the bags. ‘I didn’t watch it. To be honest, I don’t know what’s been going on around me the last few days, I’ve had so much on.’
‘Is everything all right?’ Conor said. His concern was genuine. She didn’t know much about him, except that he had a good heart. All the volunteers had. She could confide in him, she knew, but she didn’t want to. She would feel like she was betraying Nick.
‘Ah, I’m okay. Come on, we’d better get out there. I can imagine what the mood will be like tonight after Dan.’ She put the bag on her back and followed Conor out into the cold night.