Heart and Soul (6 page)

“We find that there will be a great need for an aide here. Some patients will need wheelchairs, some will need assistance to and from the bus stop, there is a need for coffee, for general cleaning, making the place acceptable and attractive to those who come here. We will need someone to go to and from Mr. Barry's pharmacy for those unable to make the journey. We constantly need someone to go to and fro to the hospital to collect X-rays and to do general messages. There is work every minute of the day, I assure you.”

“Oh, I'm afraid it will be quite impossible to get the hospital to agree to that,” Frank began.

Clara saw Hilary's eyes narrow slightly. The fight was on.

“You see, Dr. Casey, you already
have
Miss …er …Hickey here to help you. We can't expect to provide a bottomless pit of employees—”

Hilary interrupted. “But, Frank, a persuasive man like yourself would have the hospital eating out of your palm in no time, and you needn't think that my knees are as young as Ania's here and that I'd get down and clean the floors, nor would I spend the time when I could be helping to run the place, so I am sure you'll see to it that Ania stays with us.”

It felt like ten seconds, but Clara knew it could only have been three at the most. Then he spoke. “How much do you pay her?” His voice was more like a bark.

“The minimum wage, but now that she has had a week of on-the-job training I would have thought—”

“Minimum wage!” he snapped and left.

Ania hugged them both and brought out the chocolate biscuits. After all this goodwill Clara was able to face Alan's text message. He wanted to meet her. He suggested a drink after work, a meal even. She texted him back. He could come to her house, but he must bring no wine. They would talk for an hour, there would be no rows, the girls would not be dragged into it. If he agreed to that, then he could come to the house at seven.

Her mother rang just then to find out if Clara would come around and help her decide between fabrics for curtains. Clara knew that this would be an unsatisfactory endeavor. Her mother relished indecision. Nothing would be agreed, nothing would be chosen.

“I can't, Mother. I have to meet Alan,” she said.

“To get rid of him finally, I hope,” her mother said crisply.

“Perhaps and perhaps not. We'll see.” Clara was mild.

“We
have
seen,” her mother snapped. “And we haven't liked what we saw.”

“Sure, Mother.” Clara hung up wearily.

Hilary looked at Clara, who worked so hard, and hoped that she had planned a good evening out. But when she inquired, she was surprised at Claras reply.

“My tiresome ex-husband is coming around to the house to ask, yet again, for a divorce,” Clara said simply.

“I'm sure you'll say yes and get rid of him,” Hilary said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Why should I make things easy for him?” Clara wondered.

“Because hanging on to him only makes things worse for you. I must rush. Lord knows what my poor mother will have got up to.” And she was gone.

Clara's friend Dervla phoned as she was driving home. “He's coming round again this evening,” Clara explained.

Dervla had never liked Alan, but she was usually reticent. Not this time. She spared no feelings when she heard the news.

“I have been hearing that he's coming round or that he hasn't come around for twenty-five years. Clara, give him the bloody divorce. Get closure on the thing, for heaven's sake.”

“Thanks, Dervla.” Clara laughed.

“Have you thought he might be tiring of the new broad and wants to come back to you?”

“No. I'm too old and hatchet-faced.”

“Would you have him if he
did want
that?”

“That's like talking about white blackbirds,” Clara said. She wasn't going to go down that road.

At home Clara was relieved to find the house empty. It would make things easier. She had a shower and washed her hair. She had just dried it and put on a fresh pink shirt when she heard him ring at the door. She offered him coffee and poured it out for him. Black, as he always took it.

“Just a chat, Clara, like old times,” he pleaded.

“Not like old times. Old times were mainly a screaming match, if you remember.”

“Well, the very old times, then.” He had a nice smile. She would have to agree to that. He held his head on one side as if he were convincing you to see things his way, which of course she had done for years.

“What did we talk about in the very old days?”

“Work, the children, each other.” He found the answers easily.

“Well, work is the safest. How's yours?”

“It's all right. It's tiring, of course. Banking has changed. There's just so much more pressure these days. And yours?” He really did sound as if he wanted to know.

She told him about the Polish girl, Ania, and the new assistant, Hilary Hickey About the two cheerful nurses, the physiotherapist, Lavender, the dietitian, and Tim, the security man. She even told him about the dreaded administrator Frank and Peter Barry the pharmacist. And yes, he did seem interested.

Suppose he hadn't met this terrible girl Cinta. Could they possibly have had a normal sort of life together? She tried to get the thought out of her head. It wasn't going to happen. And anyway, there had been others before Cinta and there would be more after her.

He asked her questions about the people she described. Questions that showed he was paying attention. She remembered that about him. It had been easy to discuss her work with him. Alan was a good listener. She had missed him when she had to go it alone through the humiliation of being passed over for the job. She refilled his coffee cup.

“You might meet someone in this new job,” he said softly.

“I must have met a hundred people this week.” She sighed.

“No, I meant
meet
someone. You know, I meant get together with someone.” He was smiling enthusiastically. Wishing her well in the great big frightening world of relationships. She looked at him in amazement. Sometimes he could be impossibly insensitive and thick.

“I don't think we should spend any time wandering around that remote possibility. It's nice of you to wish me well, but actually I find it unbearably patronizing.”

“Patronizing? Me to you? You have to be joking! Clara, you've always been the brainy one. You
know
that.”

“Leave it, Alan. Next thing, you'll be saying you married me for my fine mind!”

“I did in many ways, but also because you were and are one of the loveliest women in the world.” He leaned over and stroked her cheek. The sheer unexpectedness of it made her flinch.

“Al
an, please.”

“Now don't tell me that you don't feel something for me. You're just lovely, Clara. Your hair is so fresh and shiny. You smell like a flower. Come here to me. Let me hold you.”

Because she was so startled, Clara didn't fight him off as quickly as she might have, and there he was, holding her face in his hands and kissing her before she could escape his grasp.

“Are you mad?” she gasped. “It's been five years.”

“Since you threw me out, but I never wanted to go. I never went in my heart.”

“Are you telling me that Cinta has thrown you out too?” She was looking at him in disbelief.

“Not at all, but she has nothing to do with this. With us.”

“There
is
no us, Alan. Get off me.” She struggled, but he held her all the more firmly.

“This reminds me very much of the old days, Clara,” he said into her ear.

She finally got away from him and ran across the kitchen, putting a chair between them.

“What do you mean nothing to do with Cinta? You
live
with her. She's having your baby, for God's sake. You're here to ask me again for a divorce so that you can marry her.” Her eyes were blazing with rage. “What are you up to?”

“I'm trying to get you to relax. You're so tense and strung out. Why can't you unwind and let me make you happy like I used to? For old times’ sake.”

He smiled at her, handsome Alan, who was always used to getting his own way. He hadn't changed. Alan, who was already as
faithless to Cinta as he had been to her. Suddenly, like a focus in binoculars, everything became clear. This was a man worth spending not one more minute thinking about, second-guessing or trying to understand.

“Right,” Clara said briskly. “It worked. You can go home and tell little Cinta that she has the divorce and the prize of you as a husband. And that you did it as you usually do, by suggesting that you screw me.”

“That's not the way I'd actually describe it,” he began to bluster.

“That's the only way it can be described and will be described.”

“You're not going to say anything to the girls.” He was frightened.

“Adi and Linda will be only slightly more embarrassed by the news than they already are by you having a child with a girl who is the same age as they are.”

“Please, Clara …”

“Go, Alan. Go now.”

“You're just locking yourself away. You're still a fine-looking woman …”

“Go while you are still able to walk.”

Clara made a gesture with the chair as if she were going to use it as a weapon. He backed out the door and was gone. She didn't feel outraged or insulted. She didn't even feel patronized anymore. She felt empty and foolish and ashamed that she had spent any small moment holding on to this worthless man for whatever reason.

Tomorrow she would start the divorce process.

What her mother, her daughters, her good friend Dervla and her new assistant, Hilary, had not been able to make her do, Alan had done himself. By his clumsy attempt to make love to her, by his casual assumption that she would welcome it, he had actually achieved what he wanted—a divorce. Or maybe didn't want. But she would never know or care. She had more important things to think about. And for the first time since she had embarked on this new job, Clara felt it was in fact the most important part of her life.

She would put Alan totally out of her mind and think instead
about what lay ahead tomorrow. She would be meeting the new doctor and welcoming him to the clinic. He seemed a very nice young man—good CV, red hair, a calm manner—everything, in fact, that you need for heart patients. His name was Declan Carroll, and Clara had a feeling that he was going to be very good.

It was useless trying to tell his mother that it was a run-of-the-mill posting in the heart clinic. Molly Carroll was telling everyone that her son had a huge new job as a head cardiologist. Declan gave up trying to change her take on it all. Anyway her friends and family
wanted
to think that he was a boy genius. It would be downbeat, pedantic and tedious to explain that as part of his training in becoming a GP he would need to do a stint in cardiology.

He had already done the six months in an accident and emergency department, and the same in a children's hospital, and when this heart clinic was over he would do a further six months in geriatrics. Only then would he be considered experienced enough to join a general practice.

He never knew whether his father understood the system. Paddy Carroll was a quiet man who went to work in the meat department of a supermarket, who had his pint every evening and his three pints on a Saturday. He always said it was a miracle that young Declan had done so well. “Your mother must have slept with a brainbox for us to get you,” he'd say admiringly.

Declan hated it. He wished his father wouldn't put himself down so much. It would have made him much happier if his father had realized that Declan had got so far simply because he had worked so hard.

Molly was cooking a breakfast that would kill an ox. “You never know when you might get to eat again, Declan,” she fussed. “They'll all be consulting you all day and asking your opinion.”

“Or showing me the ropes and telling me what to do,” Declan said, looking dismayed at the huge plate of food in front of him.

Paddy Carroll looked meaningfully at Dimples, the big sleeping dog. “You won't forget to walk that dog before you head off to work, Declan,” he said.

Declan got the message. He wasn't to upset his mother by refusing the monstrous breakfast, but Dimples would make short work of the sausages and black pudding. His mother came round to give him a hug before she rushed off to open up the launderette.

“I'm so proud of you, I could burst!” she said.

“Aw, Mam, sure it's all down to you and Dad, doing overtime and saving for me.”

“I wish I could tell everyone who comes in today that my boy is starting work as a heart specialist,” she said, her face glowing with happiness.

Declan Carroll knew that she
would
tell everybody who came in. She might even show them all a photograph of his graduation— Declan in full gear, his freckles and ginger hair making him look like an impostor, he always thought. There were enlargements of this picture in three rooms of their little house in St. Jarlaths Crescent.

Dimples, who was partly Labrador and partly something unspecified, was delighted with the unexpected breakfast. It was fanciful, but Declan thought that even the dog was proud of him this morning. Just as well that none of them knew how anxious he felt about his first day as a new boy. He must be there in good time. It would be a very bad beginning to arrive late. He patted the overfed dog on the head and got on his bicycle to head off for the heart clinic. As he rode his bike through the busy early-morning traffic, he wished there had been someone just leaving the post, someone who could have marked his card. But this was a new outfit. He would be their first houseman, registrar, dogsbody. Or, as his mother was telling everyone already—senior cardiologist.