Just Between Us (56 page)

In reply, Tom leaned over and kissed her softly on the mouth.

‘Christmas presents? Already?’ said Joan, scandalised. ‘Are you mad, Holly? I mean, holy shit. You are scaring me. It was my sister’s birthday last week and I still haven’t got her anything…’

Tom kissed Holly again when he saw the Le Corbusier book. He and Kenny admired it, while Joan went on about presents and honestly, she was broke right now. Holly made another pot of tea and couldn’t keep the goofy smile from her face. Everything was just perfect.

Stella stood outside the Intensive Care Unit and leaned against the pale green hospital wall. She’d been there all night and yet the lack of sleep didn’t really bother her. She’d heard that in times of trauma, people’s bodies found the resources to survive from somewhere. And it was true. It was eight in the morning and all she’d had since the night before were three cups of coffee, a bottle of mineral water and no sleep. Not that she’d have been able to sleep even if she’d had a bed: she was too worried.

Angela’s phone call at just after eleven the previous night had given her an enormous shock.

As soon as she’d heard her old friend’s voice, Stella had feared the worst.

‘Angela, I…what…Oh no, it’s Dad, isn’t it?’ she’d said, holding onto the edge of the coffee table to steady herself.

‘He’s had a heart attack and he’s in Kinvarra General, Stella. He’s in intensive care. The doctors don’t want to tell myself and Alastair too much because we’re not family. I think you should come…’ Angela’s voice trailed off.

‘How serious was it?’

Angela was grave. ‘Very, I’m afraid. He was with us when he had the attack, or I don’t know what would have happened. He was so distraught, Stella, but he kept saying not to tell your mother. I’m so sorry, I didn’t know what to do.’

‘You were right to phone me. I’ll be there in an hour,’ whispered Stella. ‘I’ll have my mobile phone with me. Phone
at any time.’ She left the number and hung up, rushing into her room to grab a few things which she stuffed into a small hold-all. Three minutes after Angela’s phone call, Stella was in the car. She dialled Tara’s number and the answering machine kicked in. ‘Tara, if you’re there, could you pick up?’ said Stella.

Tara didn’t pick up. Damn. Stella didn’t want to leave a terrifying message on the tape but there was no option. ‘Could you phone me on my mobile as soon as you get this, Tara. Bye.’

She tried Tara’s mobile but got another machine, where she left the same message. Then she phoned Holly.

‘Hiya, Stella,’ said Holly, sounding sleepy.

‘Hello, darling, I’ve got bad news, Holly. Dad’s had a heart attack.’

‘Oh no.’ Holly was wide awake now.

‘Angela has just phoned me and I’ve grabbed a few things and am in the car driving home. Do you want me to pick you up?’

‘Yes. It should take you ten minutes, I’ll be at the gate.’

A wan-faced Holly clutching a weekend case was waiting when Stella pulled up outside the house in Windmill Terrace.

The sisters hugged tearfully.

‘Did Angela say anything else? Is he very bad?’ asked Holly as she clicked on her seat belt.

Stella shook herhead. ‘She didn’t know much. Luckily, he was with Angela and Alastair and they phoned an ambulance. I hate to imagine what would have happened if he’d been on his own…’ She had to bite her lip to stop herself from crying.

Holly patted her sister’s arm comfortingly. ‘Come on, Stella, he’s going to be fine, we’ve got to believe that. If we arrive at the hospital as if we expect the worst, Dad will pick up on that. We’ve got to be positive for his sake. And he’s in the right place, he’ll be safe there.’

‘I know.’ Stella wiped her eyes roughly and did her best to concentrate on the road.

‘Did you phone Tara?’

‘She’s not at home and I didn’t want to leave her a message and tell her what had happened.’ Stella paused. ‘Mum doesn’t know either. Angela said that Dad begged her not to phone Mum.’

Holly groaned. ‘Oh poor Dad. He thinks if Mum knows, she’ll come home only because he’s sick and he wants her to come home because she wants to be with him. We’ve got to tell her, Stella.’

‘We can’t phone her in the middle of the night, she’d only drive up and crash the car or something.’

‘Well, we have to phone first thing in the morning, then. She loves him, you know,’ Holly added. ‘She really does.’

The gods were with them on the journey and they made it to Kinvarra in just over an hour. It was years since either of them had been in the hospital but the cardiac ICU was well signposted, and they sprinted up stairs and along corridors until they saw Angela and Alastair sitting quietly in a waiting area. They were holding hands and Angela was crying. Stella’s gait slowed till she was moving like a person in quicksand. Angela could only be crying for one reason.

‘No!’ sobbed Stella, the word sounding like a wail.

‘Oh, Stella, it’s OK.’ Alastair leapt to his feet and held both sisters close. ‘He’s not dead, it’s OK, we’re just a bit emotional…’

That was all they needed to hear. While Holly hugged Angela in thanks, Stella rushed off and found a nurse to take them in to see Hugh.

The ICU ward was quiet but for the hum and bird-like beeps of banks of monitors. Three of the four beds were occupied, with patients lying as still as mummies, swathed in thin hospital sheets, surrounded by the machines that registered their every heartbeat. Hugh was by the window.

The man in the bed didn’t look like her father, was Stella’s first thought. Her father was always healthy-looking, with a glow and a vibrancy emanating from him. Now he was
frighteningly immobile and his skin was grey, as if he was already dead. He had oxygen tubes running into his nostrils, monitor sensors sticking to his chest and a drip attached to the back of one hand. The nurse made room for them to stand beside their father.

‘Don’t be alarmed. It always looks terrible,’ she said calmly.

‘How is he?’ Stella asked, clasping Hugh’s limp hand. On the other side of the bed, Holly pulled up a chair, sat down and stroked her father’s forehead, her eyes clouded with unshed tears.

‘He’s doing all right,’ the nurse said guardedly. ‘He was lucky he was with people who could phone for an ambulance. I’ll get a doctor to talk to you. Sit down.’ She pulled another chair over and Stella sank onto it gratefully. Round them, nurses came and went, checking Hugh’s progress, making notes, nodding hello at the sisters who sat in numbed silence.

Stella prayed like she’d never prayed before, asking God for forgiveness for how rarely she went into His house, but begging for his help.

Please, please save my father. He’s a good man, he doesn’t deserve to die.

It had been half an hour before they’d seen a doctor, a tiny Indian woman with the darkest, kindest eyes Stella had ever seen.

‘Your father has had a massive heart attack. At the moment, the biggest risk is arrhythmia: abnormal heart rhythms. We’re monitoring him and giving him drugs to try and control this but the next few hours are crucial.’

During the night, Stella and Holly had spent time sitting outside the ICU when the medical team were with their father. Stella sent Alastair and Angela home to get some rest.

‘There’s no point in us all being here,’ she said. ‘You need some sleep.’

Twice they’d got cups of milky weak coffee from the
machine in the corridor, yet the knot in Stella’s stomach meant she hadn’t been able to finish hers.

There didn’t seem to be any change in Hugh’s condition during the long lonely hours of the night. He’d woken briefly once and smiled a faltering smile at his daughters, who’d whispered that he was going to be all right and that they loved him and…But he’d drifted off again, leaving them a little bit more hopeful.

At half seven, the nurses sent the sisters off to get some breakfast.

‘We’ll phone you if there’s any change. The specialist will be around by half nine, so be back then.’

Holly said she’d just visit the loo first, so Stella waited for her, leaning wearily against the hospital wall, thinking back over the night.

It would soon be time to try Tara again.

‘OK?’ said Holly, coming back from the loo and putting an arm round her sister’s shoulder.

Stella nodded.

Outside the calm, unreal atmosphere of the hospital, it was a bright sunny morning. It seemed odd to see the coming and going on the street: cars with tired commuters heading for work, people walking smartly to bus stops. In the ICU, it had felt as if time had been suspended somehow, and yet Stella could see that it hadn’t.

The nurse had recommended an early-morning café across the road as the hospital canteen wouldn’t be open for hours. The scent of frying mingled with the tang of strong coffee hit them as they walked into ‘Sid’s Caff: Good Food All Day’.

‘I don’t know if I could eat anything,’ muttered Stella.

‘Nonsense,’ replied Holly firmly. ‘We’re having the full Irish breakfast and you’re going to eat every mouthful if I have to shovel it in myself.’

Somehow Stella managed to eat half of her breakfast, and she did feel a lot better when she sat back to finish her coffee.

‘I wish you’d give up,’ she commented as Holly lit up.

‘Don’t nag,’ begged Holly. ‘I’m down to five a day.’

‘Heart disease is genetic and if you keep smoking, you’ll end up in a hospital bed like Dad one day,’ Stella said. She was suddenly furious with Holly for smoking. How could she risk her life like that?

Holly watched the play of emotions on Stella’s pale face and she knew her sister was right. Stella wasn’t nagging, she just cared.

Holly opened her packet of cigarettes. There were nine left in the box. Nine and the one she was halfway through smoking. ‘You’re right,’ she said, sighing. ‘I promise never to buy a packet of fags again, deal? I’ll smoke these and that’s it.’

‘You promise?’

‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’ Holly uttered the childish vow with her eyes shut.

‘Not so much death, please,’ said Stella, but she was smiling. ‘Thank you, Holly. I know it’ll be hard but you’ll be doing yourself such a favour. And all of us.’

Holly took an extra long drag on her cigarette. ‘I had to bite the bullet some time,’ she said. ‘Talking of the rest of the Millers, hadn’t we better phone Tara?’

Tara lay immobile in her bed, listening to the radio and willing herself to wake up properly. Sleeping tablets were overrated, she decided. Even her previous state of insomnia was better than this. Last night was the second night she’d taken one and while she had actually slept, it had been more of the knocked-out-by-Mike-Tyson sort of sleep than anything refreshing. Isadora had mentioned that the tablets were strong but she hadn’t said anything about the knockout-punch capabilities.

‘The doctor gave them to me when my father died,’ Isadora had explained. She peered at the best-before date. ‘No, they’re still OK. But don’t have a glass of wine or anything with them, or you’ll feel dopey in the morning.’

There was no alcohol in Tara’s apartment any more. She’d emptied every single bottle down the sink, even the tonic
bottle she’d been surprised to discover was half full of vodka. She’d felt queasy even smelling the alcohol, and simply couldn’t face the notion of so much as a white wine spritzer. Alcohol had no place in her life any more, not after what it had done to Finn.

So she’d taken her sleeping tablet with an abstemious glass of mineral water both nights, and had still woken up like a zombie.

She moved in the bed, her limbs leaden. Definitely no more sleeping tablets. A cool shower was the only option. The noise of the shower blocked out the sound of the phone the first time and Tara stood face-up under the streaming water, trying to invigorate herself with icy water. She was just towelling herself off when the phone rang again. It was only ten past eight, nobody but Finn would phone her at home at that hour of the morning. Tara lunged for the phone in the hall and was startled to see that she’d had two messages.

‘Hello.’

‘Tara, thank God.’ It was Stella. ‘Is Finn with you?’

Tara’s mind ran rapidly through the possible answers to this. ‘No, he’s gone to work early,’ she said quickly, then, ‘why did you ask.’

‘I didn’t want you to be alone when I told you,’ Stella explained. ‘It’s Dad. He’s had a heart attack.’

Tara held the towel closer round her body and began to shake.

‘Hello, girls,’ said their father. He was sitting up in bed with a nurse beside him giving him several pills.

‘Oh, Dad,’ Stella beamed at him.

Holly kissed his forehead softly. ‘You gave us all a fright, you bad boy,’ she teased.

‘Probably too much disco dancing,’ joked the nurse. ‘These tall, silver-haired fellows are all the same. Once they hit sixty, they go mad for dancing.’

Hugh laughed and both Holly and Stella relaxed as they saw the spark of humour in his tired eyes.

‘Now, girls, we want your father to get some sleep, so we’ll throw you out for a few hours. The night staff say you were here all night, so you might want to get a bit of a rest yourselves. We’ll look after Mr Disco Dancer here and we’ll phone you if he does anything wild.’

It was the right approach. Hugh hated being treated like an invalid and now his grin broadened naughtily, as if he really was capable of dancing, rather than being confined to bed after a massive heart attack.

Outside the unit, a different doctor filled them in on their father’s condition.

‘We need to find out how much his heart has been damaged and to discover if blocked arteries have contributed to the attack. We’ll probably do an angiogram in a few days but we want to make sure he’s stable first. These first few days are when he’s most at risk.’

When the doctor had gone, Stella and Holly went back to sit with their father for a few minutes.

‘We’ve been talking to Tara and she sends you her love. She’s on her way here.’

Hugh nodded. ‘About your mother…’ he began.

‘We’re going to phone her,’ Holly said firmly. ‘Don’t get upset, Dad. Mum needs to see you.’

‘What if she doesn’t want to come?’ Hugh said weakly.

Stella crossed her fingers surreptitiously. ‘She’ll come.’

The sisters were both shocked at the state of their home in Kinvarra. The house was adequately clean, yet somehow cold and unlived in. The essence of Rose had gone and the rooms were bare and cold without her touch to liven them up.

‘Go to bed, Holls,’ said Stella. ‘I’m going to wait up until Tara gets here. They said they’d let her in to see Dad but they won’t let her stay if he’s asleep, so I told her to come here and we’d go in together later.’

‘You’ve got to phone Mum.’