He tries to speak but his voice is rough and hoarse. The noise is no more than a rasp.
‘Don’t try talking,’ says Mum. ‘You’re in hospital. Do you remember what happened?’
There’s a tremor in Mum’s voice. She sounds nervous. Dad makes a small nodding gesture accompanied by a grunt. I take this as confirmation that he does indeed know.
Dad raises his hand from the bed. The effort of this is clear, but as his hand shakes from the exertion, he stretches out a bony finger and points at Mum. He frowns and tries to speak, but his voice is husky and the effort too much. With an impatient rasp of air from his lungs, he drops his arm back down onto the bed.
Mum rearranges the bed sheets, which don’t need rearranging at all. She seems flustered. ‘You need to rest, Jim,’ she’s saying. ‘Take your time now, won’t you. Everything is fine and there’s nothing for you to worry about.’
I watch my father intently for any sign of a reaction.
‘Dad,’ I say. ‘Dad, it’s me, Erin.’
His eyes transfer their gaze to me. I carry on. ‘I came over from England because you haven’t been well. We’ve all been worried about you.’ I offer a smile, hoping I will get some sort of acknowledgement. He doesn’t respond, but he continues to look at me. In the past, his gaze, or death stare, as I used to call it, would put the fear of God into me. I would always know when I had said something wrong or done something wrong, he’d fixed me with those dark-green eyes of his. I used to think the death stare was worse than the telling off sometimes. I’m getting the death stare now and I wonder what I’ve done. Maybe he doesn’t appreciate me coming to see him. I want to say more to him, but Mum is there and I can’t bring myself to say what I want to in front of her.
Dad’s eyes begin to close and he doesn’t fight the sleep that threatens. He’s drifting off and within a minute his breathing becomes deeper and falls into the rhythmic pattern of sleep we have grown accustomed to in this ward.
I must have dozed off too at some point. I’m woken by a pain in the back of my neck, where my head has dropped forward. I stretch my arms and roll my head around to loosen the tightness in my neck muscles.
‘Do you fancy a cup of tea, Mum?’ I ask, looking on at Dad. I can’t work out if he’s asleep or awake. His eyes are only half open and his limbs are still. I know Mum has been speaking to him. Her words floated into my subconscious as I had drifted in and out of sleep. She’s been chatting about Fiona and the children.
‘Yes, please,’ says Mum, in answer to my question. ‘I’ll come out for it in a moment.’
I head off to the kitchen and begin to make two cups of tea. I may have left behind as much Irishness in me as possible when I went to England, but tea-drinking is one thing that stayed with me. A cup of tea is the answer to everything, according to Mum. We have lived through every celebration, every achievement, every problem and every crisis with a cup of tea. It’s a natural default setting.
I leave the cups in the family room and go to fetch Mum. Dad looks to be asleep or resting, it’s hard to know which, but the nurse assures us that it is perfectly normal.
‘Will you be doing some test to assess the long-term prognosis?’ I ask.
‘The doctor will discuss all that with you,’ says the nurse. ‘He’ll be doing his rounds later this morning. It’s best to speak to him then.’
‘Thank you,’ I say, although I feel the nurse had sidestepped answering my question. I guide Mum through to the family room. ‘There, sit yourself down, Mum, and have a proper break. I’ll go and sit with Dad.’
‘No, wait for me. Don’t be sitting in there by yourself,’ she says, standing back up.
‘It’s fine, Mum, you stay there.’ Once again I guide Mum back into the chair. ‘I would like to sit with Dad, just for a while… on my own.’
I hope I don’t have to elaborate. There are things I want to say to Dad in private. I don’t know when I’ll get another chance.
‘Don’t go upsetting him, now,’ says Mum.
‘I won’t.’
I leave before she has time to protest or insist on coming with me.
The door to the ward swishes against the floor as I walk in. The heart monitor beeps its regular rhythm. It’s a lonely sound now Dad is breathing on his own, there is no whoosh in and whoosh out of the machine breathing for him. His breath rattles gently at the back of his throat like a Venetian blind fluttering on a clement breeze against an open window.
I sit down and slip my hand into his, placing my other hand over the top.