Mr. Flood's Last Resort(89)

He laughs. “I can’t think of anything better. That one’s a little girl.”

The puppy licks my hand again, wagging her tail hard enough to fall over.

I straighten up. “Thanks for your time.”

He smiles. “No problem, Maud. I’m just sorry that you’re leaving here empty-handed.”

*

SHE’S IN a crate next to me, strapped in the front seat of Gabriel’s stolen car. I push my finger through the wire and she licks it.

“The best time to acquire a puppy,” I say to her, “is when you’re in the middle of a missing-persons investigation and the man you’ve been sleeping with is planning to dispatch you with a crowbar and wrap you in plastic sheeting.”

St. Dymphna, relegated to the back seat, rolls her eyes.

The puppy gives my finger an encouraging nip.





CHAPTER 42




The dog, still unnamed, has chewed up Renata’s feathered mules and had three accidents in the hallway. But Renata loves her already. I can see that from the way she lets the puppy lick the makeup off her face and hang by her tiny fangs from the hem of her kimono.

And now the puppy is asleep, nestled in Renata’s lap. Renata looks like a new parent: exhausted and happy, shell-shocked and full of marvelous intentions.

“So what now?” she whispers.

“I don’t know.” I glance out of the front window at Gabriel’s car. “I’ll have to get rid of that, I suppose.”

“Drive it somewhere and dump it. But for God’s sake be careful, Maud.”

The phone rings. The puppy wakes and bites Renata lightly on the chin; she tucks her under her arm as if she’s been toting canines forever.

Renata comes back into the room. “It was one of the girls from the agency. She thought you should know that Cathal is in hospital. It’s serious.”



I PARK Gabriel’s car outside the hospital and go inside, past the chain-smoking patients strapped to drips and the bickering taxi drivers.

I made Renata promise to check that all the doors and windows were locked and to call the police at the first sign of Gabriel or Stephen. I’ve left St. Dymphna with her, scowling at the puppy, although what can a saint do for someone who can’t see them? But as I walk through the corridors I feel an overwhelming sense of unpreparedness, like I’ve forgotten something important, like I’ve made a dreadful mistake.

At the nurses’ station I say that I’m his daughter and ask if he’s had any other visitors.

No, not yet.

“How is he?”

A doctor guides me to the relatives’ room.

“Your father suffered a major stroke event brought on by an accident.”

“An accident?”

“We believe he fell down the stairs at his home. The carer found him.”

For a moment I can’t speak. Then: “Is he in pain?”

She shakes her head. “We’ve made him comfortable. He hasn’t woken today.”

I look at her face, young, tired, at the end of a three-day shift, and I thank her.

“How long?” I ask.

“That’s up to him, really.”

*

HE’S IN a room of his own. The window is open and a breeze blows the vertical blinds.

There he is on the bed.

My heart falls apart.



I’VE NEVER seen him without his teeth. He’s always insisted on cleaning them in private. But here he is with his cheeks sunken, his mouth a slack pocket. Suddenly a thousand years older. Then there’s his color, the waxy look of him. I’ve seen this before, this withdrawing, this escape. I move to his side, avoiding tubes, to stroke his hair and hold his hand. His big curved nails are blue, his fingertips cold to the touch.

He’s sunk into a grave kind of anonymity. But for his still-dark eyebrows, lifted a little, perhaps in astonishment, I would not know him.

Cathal Flood has moved beyond himself; he’s roaming in another dimension. Where facts and histories, likes and dislikes, the stories we tell and are told mean nothing. Where he doesn’t need to hold a brush or a pencil or remember his own name.

A nurse comes in towing a monitor behind her. She speaks loudly to me, to him. He didn’t touch his food and why ever not? Wasn’t he hungry?

I look at the jelly on the tray and the beaker of orange juice.

I wonder if I should tell her to feck off on his behalf.

“Look at him,” I say. “The man is unconscious. How do you expect him to feed himself?”

She eyes me with hostility while she takes his pulse.

I’m sure his mouth twitches, a ghost of a smile.

“You’re his daughter?” she asks.

“And I’m a care worker. You need to bring me some mouth sponges.”

She writes in his chart, then clatters out of the room, pulling her trolley behind her. I throw her a look and walk back to the bed, slip my hand into his big paw again, and kiss him on his forehead.

“Come on, you old bastard,” I whisper. “Throw a shape on yourself.”

The breeze blows the vertical blinds.

*

I MUST have fallen asleep, still holding his hand with my head on his arm. The room is darker. Someone switches a light on. There’s a voice next to me. A different nurse; she’s telling me he’s gone.