This Is How It Ends (13 page)

That’s how it seemed to Addie as she stood there looking out over the stretch of still water at the drab old house across the bay. Funny how clear it all seemed from a distance.

“LOLA.” ADDIE SHOUTED
out her name and waited for her to appear. “
Lola!
” There was still no sign of her. Addie turned to look back up the hill. Her attention settled on a large noticeboard right in front of her. A Dublin City Council notice, it was the photograph that caught her attention, a picture of a flock of birds grazing on the grass.

She took a few steps closer, leaning in to study the birds. They had the same black swirl of a neck and chest, the same waddling gray bottom, the same awkward stance. The light-bellied Brent geese, it said on the notice (
Branta bernicla hrota
).

There was a map showing their migration route. A jagged yellow line traced their journey from northwestern Canada, through Greenland and Iceland, ending up in Ireland.

Addie stared at the sign. How many times had she walked this path? How many times had she stopped to sit on this bench? And she’d never noticed it before!

She stood there and read the short piece of text again very slowly, thinking carefully about every word. She studied the map. Then she read the text again. She took in the information about migration paths, her mind registering the notion of seasonal movements. She absorbed the certainty of the homeward journey. And it seemed to Addie that there was a message for her in all of this.

Bruno was bound to go home.

BACK IN HIS ROOM
in the bed-and-breakfast, Bruno was taking the e-mail confirming his flight details out of his backpack.

A clutch of paper that he had printed up himself on the inkjet printer in his apartment, it didn’t seem like an airline ticket at all. He was finding it hard to take it seriously. There was a ridiculous code printed on it, a magic combination of numbers and letters that you had to quote to the check-in clerk in order to travel. There was a list of baggage restrictions and prohibitions running to four pages of dense type.

Bruno checked the return date, even though he knew it already. He checked the time, even though it was too soon to worry about that kind of detail. Then he folded up the pages and tucked them back into the inside pocket of his backpack.

He had a sudden burst of nostalgia for those airline tickets they used to issue in the old days, those checkbook-style tickets with the airline logo on the front and a sheaf of carbon paper counterfoils underneath in increasingly faded type, going from black to pink to gray.

You were a voyager with one of those tickets. You were an airline passenger. You could turn up at the airline’s offices in any city in the world, and they would call you “sir.” You could discuss a change in your travel plans, and you could have them issue you a new ticket. Afterwards, you were left with a record of your journey. You had something to be tossed into a box and discovered again years later.

There was a time when Bruno used to travel a lot. Back in a previous job, his work used to bring him to China regularly. Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, that was his beat. He learned a little Mandarin Chinese. A few words of Japanese, just enough to exchange pleasantries. He had lightweight suits made especially. A frequent-flier account. He had a passport crammed with stamps.

“Is it true that only one percent of Americans have passports?”

Bruno looked up from his newspaper with interest. He seemed interested in everything she had to say.

“I’ve never heard that before.”

“Oh, don’t take my word for it,” said Addie. “I don’t know where I got it from. There’s probably no truth to it.”

Probably not. Most likely it was just one of those toxic little facts about Americans that you hear tossed around in pub conversations. Luckily Bruno didn’t take it personally.

“It’s possible,” he said thoughtfully. “A lot of Americans have never even seen the ocean.”

And Addie narrowed her eyes trying to imagine it. But she couldn’t.

“Have you ever been to Berlin?” he asked her. “We can go to Berlin for nine euros!”

He’d discovered Ryanair. He was feasting his eyes on the full-page ad in the paper, drunk on the idea of all that cheap travel. The cities of Europe, all of them within easy reach.

“What about Venice?” he suggested. “We could go to Venice for the weekend. Nineteen euros, it says here.”

“I thought Venice was flooded. I saw a picture in the paper. It’s sinking down into the water.”

“Even more reason to go! We should go before it disappears altogether!”

“The ads are a bit misleading, you know. It costs way more once you add in the taxes.”

But all her arguments fell on deaf ears.

“Paris is only ninety-nine cents!”

She hated to dent his enthusiasm.

“The thing is,” she said gently, “I don’t really like to leave Lola.”

He closed the newspaper and laid it down on his knees. Now that the ad was out of sight the idea of all that air travel was suddenly less tempting.

“To be honest with you I’m not that crazy about flying anymore,” said Bruno. “I find it increasingly unpleasant. It never really bothered me before. But it does now. Must be something to do with getting older.

“And anyway,” he said, “I haven’t seen anything of Ireland yet. I’d like to see a bit of Ireland first, before I think about going anywhere else.”

And in that way he talked himself out of it again.

It wasn’t a time for going anywhere. They both knew that. It was a waiting time. A time filled with the fragile magic of possibility, a time equally fraught with danger. It was as if they had met in the transit lounge of an airport. Each of them caught between two worlds, they were just sharing this moment in time.

E
VERY MORNING
, Hugh watches them leave the house together.

The same routine every day. They emerge from the basement. He hears the door slam shut and the sound of their feet on the steps. Then they come into view, appearing on the gravel down below his window. He sees the tops of their heads, their bodies foreshortened.

Addie is dressed for the beach. She has her overcoat on and her wellington boots. She’s checking her pockets to make sure she has everything she needs. He has on that enormous jacket and the ludicrous hat. He seems on very good terms with the dog. He bends to attach the lead to her collar before handing it over to Addie. When they get to the gate they stop and turn to each other without speaking. They kiss. Then he turns right and walks along the footpath. Hugh can see his head bobbing along above the next-door neighbor’s hedge. A moment later, he’s gone.

Addie and Lola drift across the road. Hugh watches as Addie throws the dog over the seawall, then climbs over herself. He watches them skip down the steps and out onto the beach.

She has a spring in her step these days, even Hugh can see that. When she comes in the door her cheeks are pink, her eyes are bright, and she’s smiling for no reason. It’s slightly ridiculous, he thinks, her happiness.

Neither of them refers to it, not a word is spoken.

At first it was easy not to mention it. It would have seemed impossible to broach the subject, what on earth would you say? But as the days wore on, as they turned into weeks, it was becoming more and more difficult for Hugh not to say something.

They were conducting their romance right under his nose, for God’s sake. The least he could expect was an introduction.

“HAVE YOU AND
Simon met him yet?” he asked Della tentatively. He was bracing himself for the answer. He had visions of them all sitting around Della’s kitchen table together, laughter filling the air.

But no, they hadn’t been introduced. He had to drag that out of her. She was reluctant to admit it, he got the sense she was a bit miffed herself. Hugh imagined that, for once, he and Della could be allies in something. They could support each other. They could make common cause.

“I see him leaving every morning,” he said. “But I never see him arrive. It’s very curious.”

“Mmm,” said Della. She slid out of her coat and threw it over a chair.

He was sitting at his desk by the window. An air of melancholy hung over him. He was wearing his Saturday-morning rounds outfit, a gray brushed-cotton shirt, a sleeveless lamb’s wool V-neck. The shirt was rolled up past his wrists to accommodate the plaster casts.

“How’s The English Patient?” she had said brusquely when she arrived.

He had grunted to acknowledge the joke.

“Oh, you know, slowly festering.”

As she bent down to kiss him she noticed a speck of shaving foam that had dried and crusted near his earlobe. She scraped it off with her fingernail. He swatted her hand away with his cast.

“You could go out, you know.”

She was using her ward-sister voice, just to annoy him.

“You could go down to the village. Bit of air would do you good. It’s a gorgeous day.”

She looked at him, all innocence, waiting for a reply. He just glared at her. He continued on with his own conversation.

“The only explanation I can think of is that he arrives under the cover of darkness.”

Della stood there surveying him. He’d got heavier, that’s what she was thinking. There was an overhang that hadn’t been there before, spilling over the waistband of the tracksuit bottoms. All that sitting around, she thought. All that whiskey.

The stack of documents on the floor beside his desk was growing by the day. Say nothing, thought Della. Say nothing.

“The thing is,” he tried explaining to her, “I’m curious about him now. I wouldn’t mind meeting him.”

But Della was unsympathetic.

“Well, Hugh,” she said. “You only have yourself to blame.”

IN THE ABSENCE
of a meeting, he finds himself imagining one. He will sit there all day long in the window, looking blindly out to sea, rehearsing heated conversations with an absent adversary.

He has him for an Obama supporter. You can tell just by looking at him.

“I’m a McCain man myself,” he will find himself saying. “That Obama fellow is completely untried. He’s an unknown quantity. The situation is too serious for that now. This is no time for amateurs.”

If the American was any good he would be up for the cut and thrust. He would enjoy a robust debate.

“He’s photogenic, I’ll give you that. He looks good on television. But where we come from, that’s not a reason enough to be elected. Here in Europe, we select our leaders for something other than their looks.”

He would be nice to him. He would be convivial. But he would leave him in no doubt as to where he stood on things.

“AMERICA,” HE SAID.
“I blame America.”

The solicitor and the barrister looked at each other nervously.

“That’s where this is all coming from.” A flush had spread up over his face, and his hair was standing on end. He was leaning forward in his chair, his two plaster casts resting on the highly polished boardroom table.

“This whole bloody culture of litigation, it’s an American import. It’s a deadly bloody cocktail of political correctness and litigiousness and rampant greed. It’s dangerous! Believe you me, it’s going to paralyze the ability of doctors to go about their bloody job!”

He paused for breath. The solicitor ventured to step in. He had a faltering delivery, not quite a stutter.

“I appreciate where you’re coming from, Professor Murphy. And I must, I must confess that I have some sympathy for your standpoint. But I’m afraid that the… the reality of the situation is that we will not be able to defend this case with an argument about the prevailing culture. Specific allegations have been made against you. We… we will be forced to defend them in some detail.”

Hugh waved his hand dismissively.

“Medicine is an imperfect science,” he said. “That’s what you people refuse to accept. Life is an imperfect bloody science!”

The blue eyes were hot and bloodshot. He shook his bandaged right hand at them.

“I’ve got some news for you people,” he said. “Patients die on us sometimes! Old people die, young people die. Children die, for God’s sake. And sometimes there’s not a lot we can do about it!”

The solicitor was doodling on the front of his affidavit. He glanced up despairingly at the barrister. He gave a barely perceptible shrug of the shoulders. Hugh didn’t even seem to notice. He was in full flight.

“I’m a doctor! I’ve spent my life trying to stop people dying. But it’s not a perfect science. And I won’t be held up as some kind of a monster because I had the misfortune to lose a patient and the rabble are baying for a scalp.”

He sat back in his chair, crossing his arms over each other in defiance.

“I refuse to be made a bloody scapegoat of.”

He paused for dramatic effect and the solicitor jumped on the opportunity to come in. He stammered a little as he got going.

“There is also… em, I think it might be worth mentioning at this juncture, there is also the complicating factor of the aggravated damages. You are aware, I assume, that the plaintiffs are seeking aggravated damages. They claim to have been frightened by your behavior.”

He was wincing slightly as he proceeded, bracing himself for another outburst.

“They say they were in some fear that they might be in harm’s way.”

Hugh gave another dismissive wave of the hand.

“That old chestnut,” he said. “They always say that, par for the course. Terrified by the insensitive approach of the doctor, and so on and so forth. Unable to ever so much as darken the door of a hospital again, unable to watch an episode of
ER
on the television…”

And so on it went. An hour-long consultation and by the end of it, despite the exorbitant fees the two lawyers would mark up for the session, they had both well and truly earned their money.

As they stood up to bring the proceedings to an end, it seemed their pinstriped suits were more than usually crumpled, the carefully oiled kinks in their hair were slipping out of place, their normally tight faces sagging.

They both stuck their arms out automatically to shake hands before realizing that it wouldn’t be possible. Hugh stood there with his bandaged hands at his sides and gave a funny little bow. Then he swiveled round and stormed off, head down, towards the door.

The solicitor rushed to open it for him. Half hiding behind it, he waited for Hugh to pass through.

They could still hear him ranting to himself as he disappeared down into the darkness of the stairwell.

A PINT WAS
called for.

The light was streaming in through the stained-glass windows of the snug. It picked out the water marks on the wooden table, the torn leather vents in the banquette seats, the yellowed foam peeping out. The sun highlighted the dandruff on the barrister’s shoulders, the red veins on the solicitor’s nose. The ten colors lurking in the black depths of the Guinness, the bubbles climbing up to settle in the creamy head.

The two men waited, even though they were in need of the drink.

“I don’t see how we can put him on the stand.”

“It’s not as if he’s going to agree to settle.”

“He may not have any choice. The insurance company won’t want this to get to court.”

“We could drag out the discovery, perhaps?”

“It would buy us some time.”

“Maybe something will happen in the meantime.”

“A bolt of lightning could strike him down.”

“Fingers crossed.”

And they lifted their pints and toasted to that.

IT WAS ONLY WHEN
Hugh was settling into the back of the taxi that he realized he had failed to mention the hospital inquiry. No doubt they were aware of it already, they would have to be aware of it. But he had intended to warn them all the same.

The hospital couldn’t be trusted.

The hospital had its own agenda, it had even appointed its own team of lawyers. They would be seeking to avoid publicity. They would be engaged in damage limitation. They would be prepared to do anything to stay out of the headlines.

That’s what Hugh wanted to say to his lawyers. He wanted to warn them. Never mind the forty years of experience, he would say. Never mind the professorship and the fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons, never mind antiquated concepts like loyalty and collegiality. The hospital was run by bureaucrats now. It was run by little men in Marks and Spencer’s suits. They wouldn’t hesitate to cut him loose.

That’s what he wanted to say to his legal team. He wanted to mark their card for them. He needed them to understand. This was a battle they had on their hands. This was one man against the world.