Jimmy had to go home that same night. Nothing was happening in the hospital anyway. They had to just wait. He needed to see his Mam, who his Da said was up the walls with worry. He walked into the house first thing the next morning and suffered the third degree for the best part of an hour, Peggy boiling the kettle and making pot after pot of tea as she demanded to know everything about what was going on down in Cork. The doctors were happy enough, that was the latest. Aesop was stable, but it was too early to know anything for sure about what would happen later on. But she wanted to know more than that. How did he look? Was he in any pain? What did the doctor say exactly? No, but Jimmy, what did he say? Jimmy just sat next to Seán at the kitchen table and went over it all about four times, stuff she already knew anyway from his calling her. When she moved on to asking about Jennifer, Aesop’s Dad and Norman’s Mam, he knew the worst of it was over. She’d wrung him dry.
She was putting out sandwiches for the two of them when his phone rang. Jennifer. He spoke into it for a couple of minutes and then looked up at his folks.
‘He’s awake.’
*
He got a taxi straight to the airport and was running through the corridors of the hospital in Cork not three hours later. Before he even got to Aesop’s room, though, he almost bowled over the doctor who was looking after him as he rounded a corner. Jimmy stood, panting, and asked him how everything was. The doctor took his time, going over everything in detail and outlining the various ways things could go from here.
Jimmy looked at him, his mind reeling from all the information. Bloody doctors.
‘I’m afraid Mr Murray’s injuries were serious, as you know. But he is stable for the moment. And he’s awake, which is excellent news.’
‘Will he be okay?’
‘As I said, he’s very ill. It’s too early to say exactly how his recovery will progress. He seems to be doing well and that’s all I can tell you. I’m optimistic, but there’s a long road ahead of him.’
‘Can I see him?’
‘Of course. But, please, not for too long.’
‘Okay. But is he … is he … when you talked to him, y’know … is he … okay? In his head, like.’
‘He can’t talk yet, due at least in part to the severe bruising to his face. We’ve given him a pencil and pad, although he hasn’t used it yet. He’s lost at least some function down one side, Mr Collins. He’ll have more scans today so we can try and find out why.’
‘Fuck … okay. Thanks doctor.’
*
Jennifer and Marco were coming out of the room when Jimmy got there. He hugged them both. They looked wrecked.
‘What’s up?’ said Jimmy. ‘Is he okay?’
‘He looks awful,’ said Jennifer. ‘But I think he’s okay. Comfortable anyway.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah. Well, it’s hard to tell with all the … but …’
‘Come on Jen,’ said Marco, an arm around her shoulder. ‘Coffee time. We’ll be back in a while Jimmy.’
They left Jimmy standing outside the door and moved off down the corridor. Jimmy took a deep breath and went in.
Aesop was lying there on the bed, covered in wires, his head wrapped up in a huge bandage. Machines everywhere, beeping and flickering. Jimmy stood just inside the door, rooted to the spot and his legs shaking.
‘Jesus.’
He walked closer to the bed, both hands over his mouth.
‘Aw Aesop, you … you stupid fucker. Jesus Christ … look at you …’
The bandage covered all of one eye, right down past his cheek and back up again so that his other eye was half visible, although that one was almost completely closed from the swelling. Almost. Jimmy could see that the eye was following him. He shook his head slowly and moved a bit closer.
‘Can you hear me?’
It was really weird, talking to a big bandage like this. The guy in the bed looked nothing like Aesop. Nothing at all.
The corners of the lips tugged a little. Was that a smile? Recognition?
‘Listen Aesop …’ said Jimmy.
He grabbed a chair and pulled it closer to the bed.
‘Listen, everything’s going to be okay, man. The doctor says you’re grand. You’re awake now and he’s delighted about that. Means you’re going to be grand. Everyone’s here to look after you. Fuck sake, every single nurse in Ireland has been trying to get transferred to Cork since they heard you were here. Queuing up to give you sponge baths, they’ll be, watch.’
Aesop lifted his left hand onto his chest and Jimmy put one of his on top of it.
‘I know you’re in a bit of pain. He says that’ll go away. And your other arm is a bit fucked, and your leg, but he says you’ll just need to get to work with a physio when you feel a bit better. You’ll be back playing the drums in no time at all. Right? As soon as you’re ready, we’re going to be back. The Grove, man. Look, I know all about Helen and all. That must have been fucking terrible for you. I’m sorry it didn’t work out. We heard from Alison that you wanted to pack it all in and join Leet. I understand that completely. I do. Fuck knows, I’m the one who always gets the shite kicked out of me over women, right? I know how it feels. Just getting the fuck away from everything and trying to forget about it always seems like the best idea. But c’mere, it doesn’t have to be like that. We don’t need to do any of that. They can all get fucked, right? Me and you. Soon as you’re better, we’re going to start playing again. Anything you want. Megadeth, Anthrax, Pantera … all that horrible shite you like, whatever you want is fine with me.’
He thought he saw the smile get a tiny bit bigger.
‘I’m telling you, man, I’ll play any fucking thing at all just as long as you get yourself better. Fuck sake, I’ve been listening to nothing but the new Maiden album since you’ve been in here. Don’t mind all that Celtic stuff I was on about before. Trad and all. I know you hate that stuff. And we don’t have to do it, right? But I was talking to Dónal. He’s on for your girl trad band idea. We can work on that together. Whatever you want to call them. That’s grand with me. We’ll have a laugh, right? It’ll be deadly. Just … just you get better and then we’ll put The Grove back together. Properly. Get a bass player. Do the tour, do another album. They way it should have been. Fuck Senturion and all that. Fuck Leet. They can all go off and do what they want. That’s not us. It’s not you. We’ll go ahead and do things our way, okay? The way we always have. Fuck them. They can all … they can all …’
Jimmy’s eyes were moist and stinging now.
‘They can all go and … and …’
The hand came up and Jimmy leaned in. Aesop stretched out a finger and put it on Jimmy’s lips.
‘Sshhh …’
It was barely audible, but Jimmy caught it and stopped talking.
Then the hand fell back onto the bed and Aesop started to grab at something. Jimmy leaned over to see a pad and a pencil at Aesop’s other leg. He picked up the pencil and put it into Aesop’s hand, positioning the pad under it. He wiped at his eyes and nose while Aesop wrote. And then he leaned over and picked up the pad to read it.
You had me at ‘stupid fucker’.
Jimmy’s eyes filled up again, properly this time, as he tried to laugh. This was the first time that he knew something the doctors wouldn’t or couldn’t tell him.
His best mate was going to be okay.