This Is How It Ends (7 page)

O
H, TO HAVE YOUR LIFE,”
said Della. “Oh, to be free to hop into bed with a complete stranger!”

“He’s not a complete stranger, Dell. Isn’t that the whole point? He’s our cousin.”

“I thought you weren’t allowed to sleep with your cousin. I thought you had to get a papal dispensation or something.”

“Second cousin once removed. I don’t think the pope’s going to be too worried.”

Della snorted.

“Is he married? How many kids does he have?”

“None that I know of.” Addie heard the guarded tone in her own voice, the unsuccessful attempt not to sound naïve. “I never asked.”

Della made another snorting noise, which Addie chose to ignore.

“He’s a banker.”

“Impressive,” said Della, trying not to sound too surprised.

“He’s some kind of an expert in airline stocks. Actually, he’s just lost his job. He used to work for Lehman Brothers.”

Now, there’s a surprise, Della was thinking. Addie’s an expert at picking a dud, and this guy is bound to be one too.

Addie could read her sister’s mind. She jumped to make a joke out of it.

“Wouldn’t you know my luck? Just when I meet a nice banker, the whole global financial system collapses.”

“Oh well,” sighed Della. “We are in the middle of a recession. We can’t afford to be too picky.”

Time was when a banker would have seemed like an even worse prospect to Addie than a serial killer. Bankers, accountants, solicitors, talk to the hand! She wouldn’t have stopped to give them the time of day, not a girl like her.

How things change. These days a banker seems like love’s young dream.

“There’s one more thing,” said Addie. “He’s old.”

“Addie, we’re all old.”

“I suppose.”

“How old exactly?”

“Forty-nine.”

“Sure Simon Sheridan’s going to be forty-four this year.”

She has this habit of using her husband’s second name when she talks about him. Anything to put a bit of distance between herself and her life.

“I know, I know,” said Addie. “It’s just forty-nine is only one year off fifty. I can’t believe I’m shagging a fifty-year-old man. It’s a bit weird, that’s all.”

“It’s the future is what it is,” said Della. “Have you introduced him to Hugh yet?”

“Della, for God’s sake. He’s an American. He’s a relation. And he has a beard. It’s a recipe for disaster.”

“Ah yes, but don’t forget, he’s a banker.”

THE TROUBLE IS
, Bruno doesn’t really see himself as a banker anymore.

He’s not sure he ever was one. It was just something that picked him up and carried him along with it. He was good at math in school and it all flowed from there. Now he feels like he was a passenger on a train that just crashed. He’s walking away from the wreckage and he’s thinking, how lucky was I to get thrown free?

If you saw him sitting there in Starbucks, with his notebook open on the table in front of him, you might think he was a writer, or a journalist. He’s looking around him, his eyes shining with interest. Every so often he bends over his notebook and scribbles something down.

Saturday afternoon and the place is full of couples. Trendy young people dressed in jeans and cashmere. Cell phones and car keys strewn on the tabletops among the mugs of steaming caffe latte and the expensive pastries. At each table, the Saturday papers are being divvied out, section by section. Bruno scans the headlines, the same phrases jumping out at him no matter where he looks. Budget deficit, global crisis, financial meltdown.

Funny, nobody looks too worried. They’re all reading the papers and sipping their coffees and they’re making plans for Saturday night. Bruno can hear them talking into their cell phones. Describing their hangovers. The detail they’re going into, Bruno is intrigued. They have a special vocabulary for this. He can hear them making arrangements to meet in this pub or that pub, the next thing they’re booking a restaurant table. “I have to get my hair done, but I could meet you after that.” They’re acting like none of this is going to affect them.

Bruno is interested in what’s happening, how could you not be? He’s an insider. He understands the way it works. Those banks that are falling down, he can take stock of them. He can measure their impact. Like a weatherman eyes a hurricane on a chart, like a mountaineer looks up at a rockfall. Bruno knows the weight of those boulders that are crashing down the mountainside, he knows their girth. He knows they’re going to sweep away everything in their path.

He’s watching it all the way you watch a movie, as if he has no stake in it.

Here he is, a man of forty-nine with no ties in the world. An unemployed, slightly unfashionable-looking man in casual clothing, sitting on a soft chair in a franchised coffee shop in Dublin, Ireland. As the world collapses around him, Bruno sits in Starbucks eating his Valencia orange cake with a plastic fork. He’s sipping his Americano and he’s thinking to himself, how lucky was I to get thrown free!

THE THING ABOUT
Bruno is that he’s interested in everything but himself. He can’t imagine why anyone would find him interesting. It’s a pathology that has been pointed out to him many times over.

“You’re a closed book,” Laura used to tell him. “You give nothing away.” And she would cry tears of frustration, begging him to reveal something of himself to her. Bruno always found this conversation baffling, unaware there was anything of him to reveal.

He had always thought of himself as an open person. Not so, apparently.

“Four years of marriage and still I don’t feel I know you,” said Sara once. And she’d asked him, “Do
you
consider this normal?”

Twice he’d been married, and twice he’d left the marriage behind him, like a snake slithers out of its skin. The third time round he had managed to avoid marrying, in case it was marriage itself that was the problem.

That relationship did last the longest, but its ending was by far the bloodiest.

“It’s not like I was having an affair,” he had said.

“An affair I could understand!”

Even then he had tried to explain, doggedly refusing to acknowledge that he had done anything wrong.

“You know there is such a thing as a sin of omission.”

She was using her courtroom voice. That was when he knew it was over.

Three relationships, one per decade of his adult life. They all merge together now. It’s hard to separate them out in his mind. There was a sameness to the relationships, if not to the women themselves. The same circular arguments, the same hellish impasse.

Relationships like an endless car trip, you kept missing the exit so in the end you just pulled over onto the verge and one of you got out and walked.

BRUNO HAD FAILED
to mention any of this to Addie. All day long they had talked, but he had failed to mention the central facts of his life.

He had told her about his father, about the dream of a return that was still on his lips even as he was sucking mints to take away the taste of death. He had spoken about his sisters and their children, relaying in the simplest of terms their achievements and their disappointments. He had told her about Bruce Springsteen, about Asbury Park and
Darkness on the Edge of Town
. Even now, he had told her, he only had to hear Bruce’s voice and he was filled with pride. The pride of belonging to something. He had told her all of these things, and yet he had failed to mention the two marriages, the last disastrous nonmarriage.

Then again, it occurred to him, she hadn’t asked. There had been no forensic questions from her. In fact, she hadn’t asked him a single question about his past. There had been none of the gentle probing, none of the leading questions, none of the clumsily disguised fishing expeditions that he had come to expect from women.

None of the bravado or the bluster, none of the tough talk that was used to distract you from the fact that scouts were being sent out to map your territory. They were charting your history, even now they were weighing up your baggage and measuring it against their own.

It was almost insulting to him, this lack of interest from her. Now that he thought about it, she seemed utterly incurious about his past. He was intrigued by this. She was so different from any of the women he’d ever met before.

In Addie, life seemed to have dealt Bruno the ultimate trump card.

A
DDIE WAS DETERMINED
not to hang around waiting for the phone to ring. She would go for her swim. Her swim was sacrosanct.

She was just packing her things into the bag when there was a pounding on the ceiling.

Jesus, she thought. It’s like living in a box. If they’re not banging on the door, they’re banging on the ceiling.

“
I’m coming,
” she roared, louder than she usually would. She stomped up the outside steps and let herself in the front door with her own key. That sour smell again, it always filled her with despair. She stood there for a moment in the hall, baffled by the smell, frustrated by it. She’d spoken to Mrs. Dunphy about it, she’d even hung around to check up on her. The place was spotless. And yet there it was, the house was starting to smell like an old person’s house. Nothing they did seemed to make a difference. There just wasn’t enough life in it. It smelled stale.

“Hi, Dad,” she called out, opening the door into the living room.

“Lazarus,” he said.

“Lie-in. It’s Saturday.” And she bent down to kiss him. He smelled of soap and that lotion he used to comb his hair over his bald patch. A slimy smell.

“I need you to perform some secretarial duties for me.”

He thinks it’s OK to talk to people like this. He’s been doing it all his life.

“I was just about to go for a swim.”

Already she knew that she wouldn’t go. She would give in to him, just like she always did.

He waved his bandaged right hand over the desk.

“Some documents came this morning by courier. I need you to open them for me. That one there. No, no, not that one. The one under it. The large brown one.”

Addie fished out the letter he was indicating, flipped it over, and wiggled her little finger in under the flap. Ripped up and across, making a messy jagged tear in the brown paper. She slid her hand in and pulled out a single typewritten page.

“I merely asked you to open the letter. No need for you to read it.” A peevishness in his tone.

She only had time to register the headed notepaper, a firm of solicitors. She launched the page over to him through the air, watching it land neatly in front of him. He bent over it.

“I’m most obliged.”

He goes into character like this, talking to his daughters like they’re staff. It drives Della insane. Addie just ignores it.

She began opening the rest of his post, stacking the letters up in a neat little pile on the desk. The envelopes she ripped and then ripped again, tossing the torn fragments into the wastepaper basket.

He was still bent over the letter, glaring at it.

“Well, if there’s nothing else you need, I’ll be off.”

She jumped up out of her chair. She checked her mobile, no missed calls. “I won’t be around later on, so I’ve left your dinner all laid out in the kitchen. Is there anything else you require before I go?”

She stood up as tall as she could, raising her arms up over her head to stretch her spine. Her back was aching. Must be the way I was sitting, she thought. She reached over for the pack of Solpadeine on his desk, slid out a foil tray, and cracked two pills out of their blisters. Popped them into her mouth and washed them down with a large swig from the open bottle of mineral water sitting on the desk.

“No, no,” he said in a distracted voice. “That was all.”

BANGING THE FRONT
door behind her, she stood on the top step for a minute and gulped in the sea air. The tide was full in now and the sun was low in the sky, casting a cold light across the water. You could smell the salt in the air. She closed her eyes for a second and breathed in through her nose.

Suddenly she didn’t know what to do. She should go for her swim, of course she should go for her swim. But he might ring her while she was in the water. Surely he would leave a message, but what if he didn’t? She imagined herself swimming laps, trying not to think about the possibility that the phone might be ringing in her handbag.

She stood there on the top step, teetering between hope and despair. The glorious promise of the morning was fading now. With every hour that passed she was less hopeful of hearing from him. She could still feel him on every inch of her body. Her skin was still burning with the memory of him. But her optimism was waning.

This morning, as she’d walked the dog in the park, she had felt like a lover. She had felt like a blushing bride. It had seemed obvious that he would call. It had seemed clear that this was just the start of something. But now, now even this morning seemed like such a long time ago. Now she was starting to feel like a fool. It was nearly five o’clock. He wasn’t going to call.

Suddenly, she couldn’t bear to go back down to the flat to get her swimming bag. She couldn’t bear the thought of knocking around down there all evening, just herself and the TV and the little dog. She couldn’t stand the possibility that her life was about to go back to what it had been before she met him.

She dashed down the steps and opened the basement door, calling for Lola to come out. She didn’t even put a foot inside. She didn’t even reach in for her coat. She just kept the door open long enough for Lola to come bounding out and then she slammed it shut, as if there was something evil lurking inside. She tipped Lola into the back of the car, hopped into the driver’s seat, and turned the key in the ignition.

As she ground the gear lever into reverse, she glanced up at the window. And there he was, his neck stretched up like a mad giraffe so that he could peer down at her. She gave him a wave and he waved back, the big bandaged hand wobbling around on top of his arm. She eased the car back out of the drive, her eye fixed on the rearview mirror, her heart weighed down with a heavy sludge of love and guilt.

HE WATCHED HER
pull away, following her little car as she inched it out onto the road. He watched as she waited for a break in the traffic. Then he saw her pull out. Swinging to the right, she joined the line of cars streaming off to the south.

Within seconds he had lost sight of her.

He let his head fall back against the chair and closed his eyes. He couldn’t remember when he had last felt so disheartened.

The date had been set, that’s what the letter said. The paperwork was all there, a thick clutch of photocopies, attached with a giant-sized paper clip. Hugh had been expecting it. He had known it was coming. But he’d been entertaining the vague hope that it might still be dropped, that they’d lose the energy for the fight, that they would finally see reason and call a halt to the whole thing.

Of course he should have known, there was no chance of that happening. This one was going to go all the way.

He was overcome by a wave of weariness.

He sat there slumped over his desk, his shoulders falling forward in a gesture of defeat. His head felt huge and heavy, the weight of it too much for his neck. He let his forehead drop forward, his chin fell in towards his chest, and he closed his eyes for a moment. He felt like a Christian martyr, waiting to be thrown to the lions.

The papers would lap it up, he knew that. It had all the elements. A young mother, dead before she turned thirty. Two small children left with no one to care for them. A heartbroken husband struggling to earn a living, a pair of angry parents out for revenge. A routine procedure, that’s how the papers would describe it, a needless death. They would refer to Hugh as the eminent professor. And in the careful phrasing of their copy they would imply that there was plenty more that they couldn’t say about him for legal reasons.

When the details of the case came out, there would be a debate. There would be talk of the need for new standards. People would say this kind of behavior just isn’t acceptable anymore. They would call on the Medical Council to publish industry standards, they would demand new guidelines on dealing with patients and junior staff. They would talk about the importance of a good bedside manner, they would suggest that this be included in the syllabus.

They would say it was time for a changing of the guard.

THE MOST DIFFICULT
time in his life.

Not that there haven’t been difficult times before, of course there have. But he was always equal to the challenge. He always put his shoulder to the wheel. That’s what he’s done his whole life, he’s always been a worker.

Sixty-four years old, which means it’s forty-six years since he embarked on a career in medicine. There’s a symmetry to that, he can’t help but think. There’s something neat about it. If he keeps on going to his retirement date, that much will be lost. In his heart he knows he won’t make it to his retirement date.

That’s all the thanks you get. Forty years working at it, fifty weeks a year. Twelve-hour days, fourteen-hour days. Saturdays and bank holidays, he even made his rounds on Christmas Day. He made a point of it, bringing the girls with him if he had to. Phone calls in the middle of the night, patients with all sorts of complications. Conferences and bloody case conferences. He never once complained about the workload. Whatever had to be done, he did it. He loved being a doctor. He still thrilled to the sound of the word.

If only they’d just let you
be
a doctor, if only they’d let you practice your trade. But no, you had to be a bloody psychologist now as well. You had to be a social worker too, you had to submit yourself to interrogation. They’d all been watching too much
ER
, these people, they’d all been looking things up on the Internet. They wanted to know about all the available options.

There are always options, that’s what he liked to say to them. The options are these. We can treat your mother as best we can, in which case there’s a good chance she will survive. Or she can choose not to receive treatment, in which case she will almost certainly die.

Very few people appreciated his frankness. There was even the odd complaint. People had no bloody sense of humor anymore, they couldn’t take a joke.

He doesn’t understand the language people use. He doesn’t know where they’re getting it from. They talk about consultant cover 24/7 and they talk about thinking outside the box and they talk about face time. They’ve started calling patients “clients,” for Christ’s sake. They talk about service providers and patient journeys. It all sounds like nonsense of the highest order, but as soon as you say that all you get is the raised eyebrows. They’re all playing the game, all afraid to say boo.

They don’t even seem capable of keeping the hospitals clean these days. They’re riddled with MRSA. The nurses won’t so much as change a bedpan. Well, what do you expect, letting accountants run the hospitals, bloody bean counters. Bring back the nuns, that’s what he’s been saying for years. The nuns knew how to run a bloody hospital.

He knows he sounds like an outdated, antiquated old fart. He’s past his sell-by date, he’s aware of that. Still, he’d been hoping to limp over the finish line.

It’s been on his mind for a while, the dreaded retirement. Lately, he’s found himself thinking about it more and more. Part of him has been thinking, no dinner, no fuss. But the next thing he’ll find himself rehearsing his speech, he’ll be picturing himself struggling to his feet, tapping a spoon against a glass. A hush falling on the room. He glances down the table and sees… who does he see?

Who would come to his retirement? Who would he even want to have there? In his mind, he scans the faces of his colleagues and it occurs to him, he couldn’t count a single one of them as a friend. Not a single one who he would ever meet up with for a drink. He’s never been invited to any of their homes and it never occurred to him to invite any of them to his. There was no wife to make friends with their wives, no wife to throw dinner parties that would further his career. And of course he never went to any of those medical functions. God, how he hates those ghastly functions.

He should have played golf. But how could he have played golf? He had two little girls to rear, he wasn’t free to bugger off and spend his weekend on a bloody golf course. And anyway, it was far from golf he was reared. Still, he should have played the odd game of golf, it might have been the saving of him now. He never played the game, he can see that now. You have to play the game.

Would any of them stick up for him? That’s what it came down to. If none of them would speak up in his defense, he was done for. He was as good as finished.

An outsider all his life, the herd had never allowed him in. Their instincts were infallible, they could smell it off him. A good doctor he may have been, but he wasn’t one of them.

He was never lonely until now.

HE MUSTERED ALL
his courage and raised his head, opening his eyes onto the harsh daylight. He used his elbows to push himself up off the armchair, stumbling like an old man as he got to his feet. He shuffled over to the music cabinet. Maybe some music would save him from himself.

He didn’t know very much about music. He’d like to know more about it, he really would, it’s something he’s always been meaning to get around to. Opera, that’s what he likes, he sees himself as an opera buff. But all he has in his repertoire is a few compilation CDs, Christmas presents and the like. He’s ashamed of his ignorance, he regrets it. It would be such a comfort to him now, to be a music lover.

He remembers his first tantalizing taste of opera. He’d been given a wireless for Christmas and he had it in pride of place on his bedside table. He was studying for his exams, it must have been his Leaving Cert. He can still remember the frigid cold of his feet under the desk, the ache in his neck as he bent over his books. The merciless damp of the winter morning, you were hungry for any morsel of comfort. The radio was on low, he wasn’t even aware it was on until the music started. He lifted his head from his books, pricked up his ears, and listened.

A heavenly sound. He didn’t even know what it was they were singing, all he knew was that it was beautiful. And in that moment he felt his mind open up, like a parcel falls open when you remove the twine. He sat there in a spell.