Chapter 9
The sun warmed Grace’s face as she stared out the window of the Bus éireann coach. It was pulling out of Dublin Airport to join the continuous flow of westbound traffic, and its next stop was Galway. She’d arranged for her dad to pick her up from the station, her roundabout journey the result of much googling to find the cheapest route home. So here she was, bumping ever closer to Emerald Bay on a half-full coach.
Clara was none the wiser about her impending visit, and Grace planned to take her friend out for lunch to tell her about her and Chris’s plans for Emerald Grooves. By lunch, she meant a bowl of chips at the Silver Spoon cafe. Her finances would stretch to that. She popped a mint in her mouth to get rid of the bitter taste of the takeaway coffee she’d grabbed at the airport before making her way out to the bus stop. Closing her eyes against the sun’s rays, Grace let her mind flit back over another visit to Dublin.
The sign for Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin, could be mistaken for an early childhood centre, Grace thought as the Uber she’d picked up outside the bus station cruised through the entrance and past railings either side of the road painted in primary colours of red, yellow and blue. A little way ahead, she could see the hospital buildings, brown and squat against an inclement Irish sky. A woman was pushing a young lad in a wheelchair toward the exit. He looked around eight or nine and was rugged up even though the day was mild, his face pale against the navy blue of his hooded jacket. Grace felt inexplicably sad for whatever life had thrown at him in the short time he’d been in the world as her driver, a whiskery pensioner called Ned supplementing his retirement, slowed to an idling stop at a set-down point a little past the entrance. He popped the boot and eased his girth out from behind the steering wheel to retrieve her wheelie case.
Grace clambered out of the car and pulled the handle of her case up with a ‘Thanks a million’. She was eager to escape, having listened to a monologue about the cost of living in Dublin being daylight robbery, swiftly followed by a lament on how the recent pub closures were sure to impact tourism, during the twenty-minute ride from the airport. Personally speaking, Grace had thought disgruntled Uber drivers spouting their views as they ferried visitors about the Fair City was far more likely to hurt tourism.
St John’s Ward was to be Clara and Alfie’s home for the week and wasn’t hard to locate despite the size of the hospital complex.
The unit Grace entered was in stark contrast to the building’s dour exterior. It was light, bright and cheerful. Nor did it have that peculiar hospital smell of disinfectant and stewing meat. She hung back by the entrance, texting Clara to let her know she was there. Her friend had said her visit needed to be cleared in advance with the clinical nurse manager as typically only immediate family were allowed on the ward. She would meet her here in the admittance area with a pass.
Stuffing her phone back in her bag, Grace tried to blend into the background – difficult given her red hair was a beacon against the white walls – aware the nurse writing notes behind the main desk was eyeing her.
A woman not much older than Grace in nursing scrubs wandered through, pushing a wheelchair in which a small child hooked up to a drip was sitting. Her mother, presumably, kept pace as the little girl chattered, surprisingly bright, about the Storybots show she’d been watching.
At that moment, observing the little girl’s pinched face, which spoke of what she was battling, and hearing her sing-song voice prattling on in that way of children, Grace felt ashamed of every trivial complaint she’d ever made. Her immediate cursing over the coffee stain on her jeans sprang to mind.
‘Grace!’
Clara was striding toward her, and the sight of her friend, clad in a tracksuit, hair shoved back any which way with a bobble, saw her hurrying to meet her embrace.
‘I can’t believe you’re here.’ Clara hugged her tightly. ‘It means a lot to me, and it will Alfie, too.’ Her voice splintered on her last sentence.
Grace squeezed her back, feeling the sharpness of Clara’s shoulder blades through her sweatshirt as she pressed her eyes shut, determined to hold the tears that had sprung unexpectedly at bay.
‘Here,’ Clara said, thrusting the visitor pass at her. ‘I don’t want to leave Alfie on his own for long, so come on. Mam and Dad are coming in half an hour, and they’ll sit with him while we go and get a bite to eat. They were delighted to hear you were coming, by the way.’
Grace smiled as they strode along. ‘How could I not come? How’s he doing?’ The latter was a general question expected to cover so much. She wanted to know how Alfie was coping with being in hospital, what he understood about his illness and how he was managing the first stage of the treatment he was three days into.
‘Children are amazing. Alfie’s taking it all in his stride.’
Grace thought about the little girl she’d just seen. ‘And what about you?’
‘I’m doing OK, thanks. Mam and Dad have been my rocks. They’ve been brilliant, Grace. Every time I’ve felt myself sinking, they’ve hauled me back up, refusing to entertain anything other than a positive outcome.’
Grace knew the odds – she’d googled – and she was with Mr and Mrs Casey.
Her attention was caught by a playroom bursting with yellow, pink and green but absent of any children. She slowed to a stop and peeked inside. ‘Look at this place. If I were twenty years younger, I’d be in there,’ she said.
‘It’s pretty cool all right, and would you believe there’s even a classroom? The unit has its own teacher.’
Grace shook her head. It was a whole other world, one no parent would want to be part of, but for some, it was reality, and every effort had been made to make the hospital a welcoming space for their children, who’d be frightened of the unknown.
‘The doctors and the nurses are brilliant at getting the kids to raise a smile. Alfie’s doctor even dons a red nose and wears ridiculous clothes when he makes his rounds,’ Clara said as they moved away from the playroom entrance. ‘Clown doctors,’ she explained.
A nurse pushing a rattling trolley past smiled and greeted Clara by name while Grace hugged the wall to allow her to pass. They walked by a room, and Grace caught a snatch of a story being read and a child giggling.
Then Clara came to a standstill outside an open door and, turning, whispered to Grace, ‘I didn’t tell him you were coming. I thought it would be a nice surprise.’ She stepped inside the room. ‘Alfie, look who’s come to see you.’
Grace hoped he wasn’t too disappointed that it wasn’t his clown doctor as she appeared alongside her friend, plastering a huge smile on her face. ‘Hello, Alfie!’
Alfie looked up from his iPad, his eyes – so like his mam’s – rounded as he clocked Grace and gave her a gap-toothed grin. He was propped up against a blue pillow connected to an IV drip with a teddy bear vying for space next to him. ‘Aunty Grace!’
Grace liked being called aunty and moved toward the bed then froze suddenly, unsure whether hugging was allowed. Her eyes flew to Clara, who dipped her head to say go for it, so she swooped in on Alfie for a careful hello hug, mindful of his IV line. He smelled soft like talcum, and she said, ‘I brought you something.’ She let him go to fetch the gift-wrapped box from her wheelie case and presented it to him.
Grace and Clara exchanged a grin as he tore into the paper and held the box of Lego Duplo triumphantly.
‘Look, Mammy! It’s the Space Shuttle.’
‘You chose well. You’ve had your eye on that, haven’t you, Alfie?’ Clara grinned at the excitement lighting up his face.
Grace was pleased, although it was the shop assistant in the toy shop she’d whipped into on the high street yesterday who deserved the credit.
His shock of gingery-blonde hair, inherited from his mam, fell forward as he dipped his head to open the box.
‘Alfie.’ Clara’s voice was a gentle reminder.
‘Thank you.’ He didn’t look up, intent on getting into the bag containing the Duplo figurines.
Would he lose his beautiful hair? Grace wondered, observing him. Her stomach lurched at the thought of it.
‘Careful you don’t lose any,’ Clara warned as he tore the bag and the smaller pieces spilled onto the bed. Then she looked to Grace. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have let him open it until you’d gone.’
‘Don’t be silly. Sure, you know yourself what torture it is when you’re not allowed to open a present on the spot, like.’
Grace used the time Alfie spent checking out the spacemen to look about the room. Next to his bed was a cabinet on which a stack of books was piled, along with a jug of water and a glass. A helium balloon with ‘You’re a Star’ emblazoned on it was tied to the railing at the base of the trolley bed, and it bobbed about. Someone, Clara, perhaps, had tied string across the room and pegged cards and colourful scribbles to it. They must be from his playmates, she surmised. A television screen was fixed to the wall. Natural light filtered in through the windows, which looked out onto the grounds, and an armchair had been slotted into the corner of the room, a pile of neatly folded blankets on the seat.
‘Is that where you sleep?’
Clara nodded. ‘It folds out, and it’s surprisingly comfortable.’
Alfie looked up, two pieces of the Duplo Lego in his hands. ‘I’ve got ’kemia, Aunty Grace.’
Looking back on it now, the memory of his earnest face as he’d said this in such a matter-of-fact way made Grace’s throat ache. That was in the past, though. Thank goodness. Alfie was doing great. Right now, it was his mam who needed her help.
Hers and Chris’s, she reminded herself.