Chapter 14
14
EMMY
The time between her tea break and her mid-shift break had felt like a week and a half, and it had been made even later by Mrs Bennet in bed four going for a wander that resulted in every member of staff on the ward searching for her for twenty minutes. In the end, they played back the cameras at the doors of the ward, and spotted that she’d managed to sneak out by loitering at the door until someone was buzzed in. Then she’d gaily swerved past them and done a runner. Or rather, a particularly nifty slow shuffle in her furry slippers. After some very anxious minutes, Emmy had had a hunch, and headed to the hospital café on the ground floor, where, yes, there was Mrs Bennet, in her dressing gown and slippers, enjoying a nice cup of tea and a ginger slice.
She’d gently steered her back upstairs, just in time to referee a disagreement between two patients about what they should watch on the TV in the day room and then speak to a concerned relative who’d called in for a progress report on their grandmother. Emmy never rushed family members off the phone, taking all the time they needed to feel reassured, because she knew just how upset she would be if anything happened to Minnie.
In the end, it was almost half past three by the time she managed to get away, and she went straight to the staffroom for her car keys and phone. She switched the handset on and shoved it in her pocket.
Yvie’s and Keli’s breaks were staggered, so Yvie came in right behind her, while Keli was just about to go back onto the ward.
‘You’re not actually going to check up on him, are you?’ Yvie asked, and Emmy felt real gratitude for the concern that was written all over her friend’s face. However, she still had to do this because the suspicion was eating away at her. This was the first time in her life she’d ever felt this kind of emotion and she was hating every second of it.
‘I am. I need to, Yvie. And I know that makes me a terrible person, but there it is. If I’m wrong, then I’ll eat humble pie…’
‘And if you’re right?’ Keli asked her, clearly just as concerned.
‘Then I’ll cry. For a long time. And maybe slash his tyres, but it depends if there’s witnesses.’
Her attempt to make a joke was fooling neither of them.
‘Look, I’ll come with you,’ Yvie offered. ‘I don’t want you to do this on your own and if I stay here, I’ll only eat the rest of that yule log, so you’re saving me from myself.’
Emmy appreciated the offer more than she could say. ‘Really? You don’t mind? Okay, well…’ She was about to say ‘Let’s go,’ when the phone sprang to life in her pocket. For a split second, she hoped it was a message from Cormac, saying something that would set her mind at ease, quell all her fears and put her back into a bubble of bliss and security about their relationship.
But no, it wasn’t Cormac.
‘Oh bollocks,’ she murmured. ‘It’s a text from my dad.’ Her first instinct was to ignore it, but she couldn’t bring herself to blank him.
‘Honest to God, this day…’ she said, as she clicked to open it.
HEY LOVE IM DOWNSTAIRS IN THE CANTEEN IF YOU GET A MINUTE CAN YOU POP DOWN VERY URGENT LOVE DAD
He had obviously taken to using the caps button these days. Quite a surprise that his thirty-four-year-old mistress hadn’t taken a moment to point out to him that CAPS were the equivalent of shouting. Or maybe she had, and that was the point.
‘We’re going to have to hold off on the boyfriend check,’ she told Yvie. ‘My dad’s downstairs and wants to talk to me. The man has spent the last two years avoiding any kind of meaningful conversation with me and now he wants to be my best friend and needs me to sort out his problems with his love life. When did my father become a needy teenager? I feel like I’m stuck in one of those movies where the kids and adults swap places.’ She tossed her car keys back into her locker and then, as she walked past them, kissed Yvie on the cheek and then did the same to Keli. ‘You’re both awesome and thanks for listening to me today. But if I don’t come back, it’s because I’m tired of all my fricking drama and you’ll find me in a beach hut in Hawaii.’
There was only a half joke in that. Emmy wasn’t predisposed to emotional turmoil. All her life, she’d had lovely, stable, sweet grandparents who’d made so much time for her. And she’d had happily married, maybe a little unexciting, parents who never made her feel anything but loved and secure until exactly two years ago today when it had all gone to shit. All this craziness today was making her want to run for the hills. Or some beach hut by the ocean.
The elevator doors on her floor were just about to close when she stuck her hand in, reopened them and jumped in, much to the annoyance of an elderly gent, who rolled his eyes and sighed. Emmy wanted to point out to him that if the worst thing that happened to him today was his lift getting held up by two and a half seconds, he had hee-haw to moan about. Instead, she clamped her mouth shut and said nothing, her stomach churning with the anxiety of it all.
When she reached the canteen on the ground floor, it wasn’t too busy, because it was between the lunchtime rush, the dinner rush and the pre-afternoon visiting rush, so she spotted her dad at a corner table straight away.
On the way to him, she stopped at the counter, where Joanie, the lovely canteen supervisor was placing a Victoria sponge under a glass dome.
‘Joanie, can I have a cappuccino, please?’ Emmy asked. ‘And a tuna sandwich, please.’ The realisation that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast had just reached her stomach and it was rumbling.
Joanie was already on the case, and it was only a couple of minutes before she handed over Emmy’s order. ‘There you go, pet. Just tap your card on the machine there. And Happy New Year when it comes. Anything nice planned?’
It was the same conversation that half of the country would be having today and Emmy appreciated the normality of it. ‘Nothing exciting. Just… family stuff. What about you, Joanie?’
‘We’ve got the karaoke machine set up at my sister’s house and she’s been making sandwiches and sausage rolls since dawn. If the whole street doesn’t turn up, she’ll be gutted.’
That made Emmy laugh. ‘Well, if they don’t, it’ll be their loss.’
‘Aye, that’s what I said because her and I are like Beyoncé and Miley Cyrus when we get started on that thing.’
‘I bet you are. Have a brilliant night, Joanie, and thanks for this.’
Heart rate reduced a little by Joanie’s chat, she took her coffee and sandwich over to her dad’s table. He had his back to her, so he didn’t spot her until she came up beside him and then pulled out the chair opposite him.
‘Dad, what are you doing here? You know I don’t want to get in the middle of this situation with Mum.’
‘I know, but, Emmy, you’re the only person whose opinions mean something here and I need help on what to do. Clearly, I’ve messed up so much and I don’t want to do the wrong thing again.’
The sight of him made her feel a twinge of compassion. He was still undeniably rocking the silver-fox thing – as witnessed by the fact that Joanie’s gaze had been fixed on him since Emmy left the counter, and now she was out on the floor, on the pretext of wiping tables, trying to get a better gauge of what was going on. This whole hospital ran on care, compassion and gossip and Joanie excelled in all three.
However, dashing looks aside, she couldn’t help notice that her dad’s forehead was etched with deep lines, he was still unshaven and the stress was almost seeping out of his pores.
Emmy immediately slid several notches down the irritated scale. ‘Okay, well, I’ve only got another half an hour on my break, Dad, so I don’t have long.’
‘Right.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I went to your mum’s new flat. It was the forwarding address she gave when we sold the house, so I knew where it was.’
No wonder he looked stressed.
‘I’m scared to ask, but I take it by the fact that you’re sitting here, it didn’t go well?’
‘She wasn’t in.’
Oh. That was a bit of an anticlimax. Her emotions were struggling to cope with the peaks and troughs of this meeting, and she’d only just sat down.
‘But I spoke to her…’
‘I thought you said she wasn’t in?’
‘She wasn’t. I spoke to her through the doorbell.’
Emmy closed her eyes for a second of reprieve. This was unbelievable. What should have been a cataclysmic point in her parents’ relationship, and it was conducted via doorbell. Great.
‘So what was the upshot of that then?’ she probed.
‘Well, she said she was out with Rhonda and Gwen, so I asked her when she’d be back and told her I needed to speak to her and she basically told me to sod off.’
Emmy felt the corners of her mouth begin to twitch and there was a tiny swell of admiration for her mum there. The old Ailish would never have done something like that. Throughout their entire marriage, her mum had been absolutely devoted to her dad, and she’d always put him first. This was Ailish Mark Two, and Emmy wholeheartedly approved. Besides, if she was with Aunt Rhonda and Aunt Gwen, she must still be on Gwen’s ward in the other wing of the hospital, not, as her dad clearly imagined, out gallivanting somewhere getting fired up for a big night out.
Her dad put on his best ‘taking action’ face. ‘I think the only answer is to go and sit outside her front door until she comes back.’
‘You can’t do that, Dad. That’s stalking. You’ll get arrested.’
‘Exactly. Which is why I need you to call her to find out where she’ll be tonight.’
Bugger, she’d walked right into that one.
‘No. I’m not getting involved. I told you that you need to sort this out for yourself.’
‘I understand. I do. I’ll just wait it out at her apartment right enough then, because this is a conversation I want to have face to face and I need to do it today.’
Ah, the manipulation. Emmy saw it loud and clear, but at the same time, she didn’t relish two of the possible outcomes of that decision: either Dad getting hoicked off to the slammer after some concerned neighbour reported him for suspicious behaviour or – more importantly – Mum getting ambushed when she got home.
‘Okay, I tell you what. I’ll find out if she’ll be around later, and then you can call her and ask to see her. That’s as much as I’m doing, Dad, so don’t ask for any more and don’t you dare tell Mum I helped you. I’m not taking sides in this, although, if I was, it would obviously be Mum’s.’
Much as she loved him, she still wasn’t letting him get away with what he’d done.
Putting her tuna sandwich down, she pulled her phone out of her pocket and texted…
Hey mum, hope Aunt Gwen is doing well today. I was thinking about popping over tonight while Cormac is at work. Are you going to be in?
She tried to tell herself she wasn’t doing a terrible thing, because she’d already tentatively suggested that she might join her mum on the couch later if she didn’t have other plans and wasn’t too tired after work.
Her mum’s reply was almost instant.
Spooky! I was just about to call you. Gwen got discharged and we’re in the hairdressers’ because we’ve decided to go out tonight. Very welcome to join us? Xx
What? Now she was intrigued. And also, obviously, very happy that Aunt Gwen must be out of the hospital. Her mum must be so relieved.
I don’t think I’ll make it, Mum – I don’t want to go out to party in case Cormac gets finished early. Where are you going?
Okay, so it wasn’t strictly true, but it was close. Kind of.
You’ll never believe it – they’ve talked me into going to Gino’s. Reluctant, but actually quite excited now. Love you. Will call you at midnight. Xx
If her mum had walked into the canteen right now and did a duet to ‘All the Single Ladies’ with Joanie behind the counter, Emmy wouldn’t have been more gobsmacked. She never thought her mum would ever step foot in that restaurant again – not after what had happened there.
‘What is it?’ Her dad’s voice cut through her thoughts and almost made her jump. She’d been so focused on her mum’s texts, she’d forgotten he was there.
‘Okay, Dad, bad news I’m afraid. Mum won’t be back home tonight. She’s going out with Rhonda and Gwen.’ That was all he needed to know.
‘Going out where?’ he shot back, clearly as surprised as she was. He was fully aware that her mum had lost her zest for life since the divorce.
‘I don’t know,’ she lied.
But he knew her too well to get away with that.
‘Darling… There’s only one place the three of them would go on New Year’s Eve and after what happened, I don’t think they’d go there.’ He was staring at her intently as he spoke. ‘They wouldn’t, would they?’
He hadn’t even asked a clear bloody question, but they both knew exactly what he was referring to. Jesus, he was using reverse psychology on her and it was working. She was rubbish at this. And she must have blinked or something because the next thing, his eyes widened.
‘They are. That’s where they’re going. Well, I’ll be damned, they’re going to Gino’s,’ he exclaimed.
How the hell did he do that? This was next level Paul McKenna mind-reading stuff. Urgh.
Annoyed with herself, although she didn’t quite understand how that had just happened, Emmy tried to pull back some girl-code credibility. ‘Dad, I’m not going to tell you where they’re going. But even if you find out where they are, I want you to promise me that you won’t go. Let Mum have her night out. She deserves it.’
‘Of course, yes. I promise.’
As she got up to leave, her break over, she decided that she didn’t believe him for a second.