There was an exodus from Dublin to Cork.
Jimmy and Dónal, Aesop’s family and Marco, Norman’s Mam. Even Shiggy. Everyone flew straight down as soon as the news reached Dublin. It was fucking horrible down there. Crying, confusion, everyone running about trying to find out what the fuck had happened. Garda Ní Mhurchú had also gone down. This wasn’t just another traffic accident. She stayed with Jimmy all through it. Sergeant Harmon was there for most of it too. He’d been ten minutes behind Norman coming over that hill, Mikey Pat in the front seat next to him, and when he’d seen that girl crouched over Aesop on the ground, both of them covered in blood and muck, he knew it was the one thing in all his years as a policeman that would visit him in the night afterwards. He locked Trish in his car as soon as he’d called the ambulance, and she’d gone quietly. They usually did once they knew it was over. Then he did what he could for Norman and Aesop. Christ, it looked awful. Smeared in scarlet around the frozen white of snow, he didn’t think he’d ever seen so much life seep out of one person.
As Jimmy and everyone else were making their way to Cork, Norman and Aesop lying in hospital, Sergeant Harmon stood over Trish back at the station and tried to talk to her. But she wouldn’t say anything. She just sat on a chair and rocked back and forward, pale and trembling. At one stage, she asked to go to the hospital to see Norman. When he told her that that was out of the question, she just looked down at the tiled floor and wouldn’t speak again. He offered her tea and coffee, a cigarette, food, but she wasn’t interested. A female colleague managed to get her cleaned up as best she could, but Trish didn’t even help her. She just sat and stared as the woman wiped her face with a wet towel. Eventually, they called a doctor in. He took one look at her and told Sergeant Harmon that she couldn’t stay there. She had to go to the hospital too. Shock. The sergeant cursed under his breath and ordered the female Guard who’d cleaned her up and another one to go with them. She wasn’t to be let out of their sight.
*
That first evening in the hospital, Jimmy paced in front of another doctor, biting at the skin in the bend of his thumb. He looked up.
‘Look doctor, I didn’t understand most of that,’ he said. ‘Do you want to tell me what’s happening?’
‘Mr. Kelly is going to be fine,’ said the doctor. ‘The quick attention he received at the scene undoubtedly saved his life. His physical condition is quite remarkable actually. I don’t think we’d be having this conversation at all only for that.’
‘Right. Is he awake?’
‘I’m afraid not. He’s just had pretty major surgery. You can see him tomorrow.’
‘And Aesop?’
The doctor sighed and looked away for a minute. Jimmy felt his stomach lurch. He thought he was going to be sick.
‘Doctor? What about Aesop?’
‘Mr Collins, Mr Murray suffered serious internal injuries, the most significant of which is a ruptured spleen.’
‘Jesus.’
‘We’ve dealt with that problem and I’m hopeful that there won’t be complications.’
‘Okay. What else?’
‘It’s really the head injury that I’m concerned about. He suffered coup-contrecoup impact damage …’
‘Fuck sake doctor, what does that mean? Come on, will you? Jesus …’
‘He’s undergoing some scans now. We’ll know more when we get the results. I’m afraid I can’t tell you much more than that.’
‘Will he be … ?’
‘I’m sorry. It’s far too early to tell. We’ve stopped the bleeding now, but all we can do is wait.’
‘And … and you don’t know …’
‘No, we don’t Mr Collins. But as soon as we do, I’ll talk to you again.’
‘Okay. Fuck … okay. Thanks.’
‘There’s one thing you should probably know, though. About what happened.’
‘Jesus … what is it?’
The doctor told him.
Then Jimmy found himself wandering out in the grounds of the hospital, smoking and feeling nauseous and weak.
*
It was the next night, small flurries of snow appearing out of the darkness of the sky and whipping tightly in the eddies around the hospital, caught in the glow of the lights.
Aesop was alone in his room. Not awake, exactly, but things were starting to happen in his head. He’d hear things, or he’d be able to make out light and dark shades around the room. He’d had a vague sense of people around him, but he couldn’t concentrate. He kept drifting in and out. He didn’t know where he was or why he couldn’t move. There was music, playing softly. It hurt his head, but he couldn’t see to turn it off, or talk to ask someone to turn it off for him. There was something in his mouth. Once he was aware of the pain, it got worse. Like a conversation across a room, where you hear your name. Once you hear it, you tune everything else out until that’s all you can hear. And that music. Jesus … why couldn’t they turn it off. It hurt.
A couple of fingers on his hand twitched and he became aware that he was holding something. Something … something … it came back to him then. It was a button, but right now it was an anchor that allowed him to set an order to things that had happened. He was in a hospital. He’d been run over. A female voice had told him at some stage earlier that pressing his thumb would help with the pain. It wasn’t much, but being able to put some cause and consequence together in his mind gave him some comfort; almost as much as pressing down with his thumb, although that was a completely different kind of comfort. It was on a timer though. There never seemed to be enough in one shot to do him until the timer clicked over and he was allowed have another dose. The first couple of minutes after he pushed the button were absolutely fucking magic and he’d be buzzing like a mad thing in the bed. But the last while before it would reset was usually pretty bad.
And he was in pain now. He started to press his thumb down every couple of seconds, but he mustn’t have been due yet. Fuck, this was the king of headaches he had. It was like having the worst hangover in the world and then someone smacking you hard with a stiff pillow on every count of your pulse. He could feel the sweat rolling down his face. His gown thing was damp and hot. Press … press … press. Nothing yet. He was going to release the button so that he could try and find that other one, the one that he’d been told called the nurse, but he didn’t want to let go. This button was the only thing between the pressure in his head and release from it. Press … press … press. It wouldn’t be long now, surely. He’d already put up with it for long enough. Could they not just knock a few minutes off the bloody timer? Fuck sake, he was in bits. His mouth was open, the one eye he could barely see out of squeezed shut. His face was soaked. Press … press … pr …
It hit him. A blissful rush that seemed to literally squeeze the pain out of his body like water from a sponge. Light danced behind his eyelids and then he felt himself settle back onto the mattress as though the pain had been lifting him off it on pointed barbs. He could breathe properly now. Slowly and deep. His hands and feet tingled for a second and then he felt nothing much. Just a kind of dopey oblivion. Then a sudden coldness wrapped around his chin and exposed cheek. It wiped down his chest, cooling him and making him sigh. It felt beautiful. Like slipping into a pool as the sun beat down on you. He opened his eye to try and thank the nurse through the slowly-moving shapes that weaved in front of him. One of the shapes stopped moving.
It was Trish.
‘Aesop?’
No. Aw Jesus … no.
*
Jimmy hadn’t slept in two days. If he’d needed something to focus on, to try and take his mind off everything that had happened, he got it when the press arrived. The news was all over the country now. The drummer of the biggest band in Ireland had been in some kind of accident. They wanted stories, they wanted pictures. Jimmy wanted to kick the living fuck out of them, but after the first encounter between Jimmy and a photographer, which had ended with a camera being fired out the door of the hospital and into the street, he’d been led away from the public areas of the hospital and into a special waiting room where he wouldn’t have to deal with them. Dónal talked to the throng outside. It was while he was sitting there on his own, staring at a cold cup of tea in front of him, that the words of the doctor the previous night came to him again. They’d figured out what had happened on the road outside the cottage. Jimmy had listened and then just shook his head, barely able to take it in.
It had been Trish.
She’d saved their lives.
The emergency tracheotomy that she’d performed on Norman, opening his throat after it had been closed by the smack of the steering wheel, had kept him alive until the ambulance had arrived. And she’d kept Aesop warm and conscious, his neck held rigid by her own coat, until the sergeant’s car had crested the hill and she’d been locked in it. Once the staff at the hospital realised who this shaken girl was that had been brought in that evening, they told the two Guards what she’d done and then led her away to be looked after.
Jimmy had sat with her for an hour in the hospital when he got down there that first night, talking to her softly, his arm around her.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
She just shook her head, crying.
‘It’s my fault.’
‘It’s not. Shush. It was an accident.’
‘He was running away from me.’
‘He didn’t know what was going on. It’s okay. You saved them.’
But she didn’t want to hear it.
‘My fault,’ was all she’d say.
*
‘Aesop?’
No. Aw Jesus … no.
Why couldn’t he hear that? There was no sound, as though he was only imagining that he’d spoken. That thing in his mouth …
‘Aesop, listen to me. Can you hear me?’
Don’t …
‘Please, Aesop, I’m not going to hurt you. Do you understand me?’
Aesop tried to press the button to call the nurse, but he was holding the wrong one.
Don’t … didn’t … do … anything …
‘Please. Just listen to me. I need to tell you something.’
Her hand came up to his face. There was something white in it.
No … no …
He tried to turn away, but he couldn’t.
‘Shhh …’ she said. ‘It’s okay, Aesop.’
She wiped the new sweat from him.
‘Shhh …’
He drifted off for a minute or two. When he came back she was still there, still wiping him down and telling him that everything was okay in a soft voice. The effects of the drug weren’t as strong now. He could make her out clearly but her voice was still distant, like a television turned down. She reached down and pulled the button out of his hand, leaving his thumb still pressing steadily on air. She sat forward then – closer to him, leaning over him – and held his hand.
‘Aesop? Are you okay?’
No!
‘Are you in pain?’
No … no.
‘I promise, I won’t hurt you. I know what you think happened. It wasn’t like that.’
The dizziness was starting to go. The pain was already gone, along with the feeling of drunken helplessness. He was halfway back to knowing what was going on. It was Trish. He remembered seeing her on the couch. Some couch. Somewhere. She’d had a knife. She was coming for him. That was all he had. And now she was here.
‘I just want to tell you something.’
I don’t love you. Please …
‘I just need you to listen to me for a minute. Okay?’
Jesus …
‘Okay?’
What did she want?
‘If you can understand me, just squeeze my hand.’
She wiped his face again. It felt good, brought him closer to wherever they were. The world outside his head. He couldn’t do anything anyway. What difference did it make now? Maybe if he could drag this out, someone would come along.
He pressed his thumb against her fingers.
She started to tell him then. Her hushed voice was like a breeze outside, but he heard it all. And then, as he lay between the two ends of pain and confusion, neither quite able to reach him now, he understood.
*
‘Hi,’ she said, red with excitement and embarrassment.
‘Hello yourself,’ said Aesop, the big grin shining. ‘Enjoy the gig?’
‘I did. You were brilliant.’
‘Thanks very much. I’m Aesop.’
She laughed.
‘Yeah, I know. I’m Trish.’
‘Hiya Trish. Can I get you a drink?’
‘Ah no. I’m fine with this, thanks.’
‘You sure? Band gets them for free.’
‘No, really. We’re all heading off after this one.’
‘Where yis off to?’
‘Oh I don’t know. Leeson Street I s’pose.’
‘Why don’t you have a proper drink first then? You’ll only get shite down there.’
‘Yeah, I know. God. Okay then. Pint of Budweiser?’
‘Bud? Grand. Hang on there Trish.’
He ordered and turned back to her.
‘Is that a Cork accent?’
‘Kerry.’
‘Ah right. I’m shite with accents. And what are you doing up here in the big smoke then, Trish?’
‘I’m a nurse.’
‘Yeah? Tough job.’
‘I like it though.’
‘Are they all nurses?’
He nodded over to where another half-dozen girls were talking to Jimmy and the new bass player, Beano. Jimmy’s mot, Sandra, was hovering there too, looking pissed off. No change there.
‘Most of them, yeah. It’s her birthday. In the black? That’s Bronagh.’
‘Ah right. Out on the razz then.’
‘A bit, yeah.’
‘So c’mere, where do you do your nursing?’
‘Well …’
She looked down at the drink he was handing to her. He caught a hint of something in her eyes as she did.
‘Well, actually, I’m not working at the moment.’
‘Oh right.’
‘I’m just back from Romania. I did some work over there for a bit.’
Aesop looked closely at her for a second.
‘I saw some stuff on the telly about that.’
She nodded.
‘Were you working with the kids over there?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Fuck. Those poor babies in the …’
‘Aesop, sorry. But I’d rather not …’
‘Okay. Okay, no problem. Anyway, you’re back now. Out with your mates.’
She was still looking down at her drink.
‘You okay?’
She sniffed and looked up at him.
‘Yeah. It was just a bit …’
‘Do you want to sit down?’
‘They’ll be kicking everyone out now, sure’
‘They can’t kick me out. I haven’t cleared the stage yet. We’re grand. C’mon and sit down for a sec with me. Over there, look.’
He caught Jimmy’s eye and gave him a small nod. Jimmy just raised his eyes to heaven and got back to talking to Bronagh and her mates.
Once they were sitting down, next to the stage and away from everyone finishing up their drinks, Aesop took out a smoke for himself and held out the pack to her.
‘No thanks.’
‘Mind if I have one?’
She smiled.
‘No. I’ve heard things about you, Aesop. But you’re not really like I was expecting.’
‘Jaysis. What were you expecting?’
‘Just … y’know …’
‘A mad sexy rockstar who thinks he’s brilliant and only has one thing on his mind when he gets a girl into a dark corner like the very one we seem to find ourselves in right now?’
She laughed.
‘A bit, yeah.’
‘All lies and fabrication. I’m a dote.’
‘Are you?’
‘Ah yeah. You should hear me talking to mammies, sure.’
‘I can imagine.’
‘Altar boy and everything, so I was.’
‘Right, yeah.’
‘You okay?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Cos over there, you looked a little bit …’
‘No. I’m fine. It was just … it was hard being in Romania. I only got back the other day. This party is kind of for me too. Welcome back, y’know?’
‘How long were you over there?’
She twisted her pint around on the table.
‘Not long.’
‘Right. I’d say it was tough all right.’
She nodded.
‘It was.’
Her eyes started to glisten.
‘It was awful.’
‘You want to tell me?’
‘God no. I haven’t even told them yet. I can’t.’
‘Well tell me. Come on.’
‘You don’t want to hear it.’
‘I do. Trish, it’s been on the telly. Christ, it’s heartbreaking. Tell me.’
‘I’m sure you have better things to do than listen to …’
‘I don’t. Believe me, I don’t.’
She looked up at him properly.
‘You don’t want me to ruin your night, do you?’
‘You’ll ruin it if you don’t tell me now. C’mon. Please.’
His eyes were huge. Blue and deep and looking at her in a way she’d never imagined they could from what she’d seen of him earlier up on the stage. Either this was for real or he was the best chatter-upper she’d ever met in her life.
‘I … I thought I’d get used to it,’ she said, sighing. ‘I went there full of good intentions. I was going to help. Make a difference, y’know?’
He nodded back at her, drawing on his smoke.
‘The first day I walked into the orphanage, I had to run out again. I had nightmares that night. The children were piled into old cots, with bars like prisons. There were hardly any bedclothes, and what there was was filthy and torn. They were naked, most of them, and covered in their own and each others’ mess. Half starving, sick and cold. Crying. Jesus, Aesop, you should have heard them crying.’
‘They’d look up at me with their big beautiful eyes and hold out their arms, like they were begging me to take them away. And I wanted to. I wanted to take every one of them and make it better. It was so hard to go in there every day and see their little pleading faces. The kids I’d worked with here, before, that was different. They were loved and cared for as best we could. But these ones … they had nothing. They weren’t loved and nobody cared. Aesop, they hadn’t done anything wrong. They were just children. Why, y’know? It wasn’t fair. When they saw me pass they’d call my name and every time it broke my heart. I was supposed to stay for three months, but I could only do it for two weeks. I couldn’t help them any more. I just couldn’t. I hated to leave, but it was killing me to stay there. I had to go, Aesop, and I’ve been hating myself ever since I got on that plane back here.’
She was sniffling into a hanky now. He put a hand across the table onto her arm.
‘God,’ she said, a small laugh through the tears. ‘Well, there you go. Got more than you bargained for there, rockstar, didn’t you? Here in your dark corner, like.’
He gave her a little squeeze.
‘Actually I did a bit, love, to be honest.’
They both laughed.
‘But listen, you can’t go around smacking yourself in the head over it. You did what you could, didn’t you? That’s all anyone can do.’
‘But I’m s’posed to be the person that does that stuff. Properly, y’know? Goes the distance.’
‘Says who?’
‘Bloody hell. Says everyone. Ever since I was a kid, I was one that …’
‘Ah, don’t mind all that shite. You’re not living for anyone else. You do what you have to do and what you can do. Not what you’re expected to do. That’s only a one-way ticket to a wrecked head. And, Christ, in a job like that there’s enough pressure on you without worrying about who you’re letting down. Fuck sake, Trish, you did what you could! You helped those kids. Who else is helping them?’
‘But I’m not helping them now, am I?’
‘Trish, you did your bit. And now you’re back here with your mates and when you start working again you’re going to be helping more people. I could never do the job you do.’
‘But I should be … over there and …’
‘Only if that’s what you want. But if you’re thinking of going back, for fuck sake just worry about the kids and yourself, right? Not people back here. Fuck them. Look, I only just met you and I don’t know what your story is, but I definitely know that you can’t always be what everyone expects. Who can?’
Her eyes were nearly dry now.
‘I s’pose you’d know.’
‘Hmm?’
‘You’re not exactly what everyone expects, are you?’
‘Oh. Ah Jaysis, I am a bit, Trish. There’s not much hidden in here.’
‘I think there is. I heard you were all lies and come-ons and one-night stands.’
Aesop gave her a small sheepish smile.
‘In my weaker moments, maybe …’
‘But you weren’t with me. Tonight. Just now.’
‘No, I s’pose I wasn’t. Well … except the bit about being an altar boy. That was bollocks.’
‘Yeah, I gathered that. But that’s okay.’
‘Your mates look like they’re getting ready to head.’
‘Yeah. I’d better go.’
‘Okay so.’
‘Do you and the guys want to come out with us? It’d be a laugh.’
‘Would love to Trish, but we’ll be another hour at least here getting all this stuff together.’
‘After that?’
‘After that it’ll be one in the morning and we’ve to get it all back home. That’ll be two in the morning and we’ve a blues gig in Slattery’s tomorrow afternoon, so …’
‘Okay then. Well … thanks Aesop. Really. It was nice talking to you.’
‘And you.’
‘Yeah, right.’
‘No, I mean it. And listen to me … look after yourself, right? You’ve got a gorgeous smile, Trish. Make sure and show it off.’
‘Oh God. Is this the come-on part or the lies part?’
‘Neither.’ He smiled at her. ‘This is the part where I tell you you’re the most beautiful and generous person in here tonight and you should go out with your mates knowing that about yourself. It’s important. More important than anything else. And that’s no word of a lie.’
She stared for a minute and then shook her head at him.
‘I didn’t … really didn’t expect anything like this when I said hello. God, here of all places. You.’
‘Yeah, I’m an enigma. That’s what Jimmy over there calls me.’
‘Does he?’
‘Well … no. But he does call me names.’
‘Aesop?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Would you mind if … if I kissed you before I go?’
‘Eh … sure. Why, but?’
‘I just want to. Help me remember what you said. Is that all right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. No tongues.’
*
‘I went back to Romania a week later,’ whispered Trish, her head close to Aesop’s ear. She could see his chest rising and falling slowly, hear his breath. He was relaxed now.
‘You still with me, Aesop?’
She felt his thumb pressing her hand.
‘Are you okay?’
Press.
‘There’s so many things I could tell you, but I know you’re tired. I stayed for the rest of the year. It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever done. Of course there were days just like the first time, when I wanted to run to the airport and get out of there, but after a while I could see what I was doing and why I was doing it. Those beautiful innocent children were so strong and so brave. They gave me the strength to stay.’
‘But there was one little girl I wanted to tell you about. And then I’ll finish. She was nearly blind and very sick, but she told me through the Sister that she always knew when I was coming to her because she could just make out my uniform against the dark of the rest of the room. I always kept it clean and bright after that. No matter what. My uniform shone even if I had to stay up half the night washing it again and again. Her name was Hilda. She was with us for a couple of months. She used to say that when she saw my uniform, she thought that I was like an angel, coming to take her to God. Little Hilda. So beautiful. When I got there, she was covered in filth and cried every second she was awake. I’d try and talk to her as I cleaned her up. She’d see me coming in my white uniform and her little face would light up and she’d stand in the cot with her arms out until I picked her up and sang to her. She died then.’
Trish paused to take something out of her pocket. A tissue to wipe her face, and something else.
‘Nobody could do anything about that. She was so sick. You don’t want to know what she looked like the first time I saw her. But this is what she looked like a couple of days before the real angel took her away.’
She held a picture up in front of Aesop’s face and turned on the small reading lamp over his head.
‘Do you see her?’
Aesop’s thumb pressed her again.
In front of him, a tiny girl grinned out at the camera from a cot, her huge green eyes clouded but defiant.
Trish put the picture onto Aesop’s bedside stand.
‘You gave me a lift, Aesop. Just when I needed it. I want you to have that picture. I never would’ve met Hilda if I hadn’t gone back. It’s because of you that she was able to go to God with soft words and music in her ears instead of the sound of her own crying. And all the others … I never would have had the chance to help. And all I ever wanted to say was thank you. I love Norman. I think he loves me, but … he’s got something inside him and I don’t know if it’ll ever go away. I’d love to help him make it go away, but he won’t let me. That’s why it was so important for me to talk to you. I was nearly sure that Norman and me wouldn’t work and then I’d probably never see you again to tell you about Hilda. He can be so jealous, the eejit, and all I wanted was a private moment just to tell you what you did for me … for so many people. I’m sorry about everything, Aesop. Making everything so complicated instead of just talking to you. But it was so important to me. I’m sorry.’
She picked up his hand and kissed it.
‘Get well,’ she said, switching off the light over him.
And then she got up and left him in the dark, a single tear rolling onto the pillow under his neck. He couldn’t wipe away the trail it left so he just lay there, waiting for it to dry.