Chapter 1 #3
‘Is he hurt?’ Nina held the phone with both hands, waiting for the response, her legs shaking, heart pounding.
The slight pause spoke volumes.
‘I am sorry to tell you, Mrs McCarrick, that he was very badly hurt.’
Oh my God . . . No!
She pictured him leaving that morning, grabbing a slice of toast from the plate on the counter-top, reaching for his keys . . . An ordinary farewell on an ordinary day that was now being made so very extraordinary.
‘Is he . . . is he going to be okay?’ The question slipped past her lips like the sneakiest of poisons, souring her tongue and sucking out any joy that lurked within.
She and Dr Ranton were playing a game, with her not wanting to ask if her husband was dying or had died, and Dr Ranton doing her level best to avoid saying anything along those lines.
Again that pause, a silent nothingness that told her more than any words possibly could. How hard was it to say ‘No, he’s going to be fine’? But she didn’t; instead the woman’s words were calm and yet insistent. ‘I think you should come straight to the hospital, Mrs McCarrick.’
And just like that, Nina felt like a child, scared and alone.
She pictured the little room in their home in Frederiksberg on that cold day, when the snow lay deep and an icy wind stole warmth from even the cosiest corner.
A fire crackled in the open grate, and she, not yet four years old, watched her dad, Joe, crouch down, resting on his haunches.
The stiff leather of his ankle boots creaked with the movement.
She sat with her big sister on the red sofa, huddled under a fur throw that absorbed the smell of the fire.
She remembered the tears of anguish that snaked down her father’s ruddy cheeks.
This felt the same. Her stomach twisted with the knowledge that there was about to be a seismic shift in her world.
She nodded into the phone and stared at her son. He held her gaze from the other side of the pitch and she noted his stance, his incongruous serenity in the midst of the chaotic jumble of limbs on the pitch.
He looked pale as he walked calmly towards her, as if he were strolling across a meadow, unaware of the grunts, shouts and scuffles of mud-covered bodies all around him. Like a ghost leaving the fray.
She would learn later that she had been making a strange sound, part moan, part scream: a single, guttural yell. This was why her son had walked towards her, but at the time, in her altered state of mind, she was unaware.
Four hours later she put the key into the front door and closed it behind her. The house was silent with a stillness that she had never known before. Kathy would be back with the boys any time now.
Standing in the middle of the kitchen, Nina looked around the room; she couldn’t decide what to do.
Even making a cup of tea felt like a Herculean task, as well as utterly pointless.
Ordinarily at this time of night, her fingers would be darting in and out of the wide self-closing drawers, reaching into familiar spaces for glass bowls, her hand whisk, or a deep enamel frying pan in the same pale blue colour as her custom-made five-oven range.
She would be humming as she made her way across the smooth oak flooring to the double-fronted, stainless steel, larder-door fridge, pulling out all manner of goodies – a quart of double cream; wax-wrapped slabs of bacon; and fat, fresh organic eggs delivered by the farm shop – as she prepared supper for her boys and her man, due home.
But not tonight.
Placing her hand on the cool granite she let the cold surface suck away the heat of her palm.
Her breathing was loud in her ears, as if she were underwater.
She swallowed, hoping this might help; it didn’t.
She pictured bursting through the surface of the swimming pool last summer, having swum the entire length underwater.
Finn sat on the diving board with his Tom Collins over ice in a tall glass, as he whooped and cheered, ‘You did it! The whole length! Go, Nina!’ If the weather perked up over Easter, they would get the pool cleaned and re-create those lovely evenings of messing about in the water.
It was her favourite thing to do. Fire up the grill and sit with their legs dangling in the water, admiring the view—
Oh no. The thought stopped the breath in her throat.
That can’t happen now. That won’t happen again.
There it was: the realisation like a door slamming in her mind.
Nina braced her shaking arms on the counter-top, fearing that if she let go, she might tumble to the floor, and if she did, she wasn’t sure she would find the energy to stand up.
God, that felt scary, I want to speak to Finn . . . and bang! There it was again.
And again.
And again.
And again . . .
‘Oh my God, Finn!’ She spoke aloud. ‘I can’t imagine a me without you. I can’t picture the kids without their dad. I can’t imagine a world without you in it.’
She wasn’t sure how long she stood leaning on the island in the semi-darkness. Time seemed to be playing tricks on her. She heard the front gate buzz and walked slowly to the entry system and pressed the button, picturing the high metal gate swinging open.
Shuffling into the grand hallway, she stood by the round table, inhaling the scent of flowers from the stunning display, a mixed bouquet ordered weekly, but even this offered no comfort.
She expected the boys to run at her, imagined them hurtling through the door, dropping their bags and dashing in, frenzied and loud.
She tensed her limbs for just this. It was therefore a shock when instead the door handle slowly twisted and the wide door opened gently, revealing her sons, who seemed to have shrunk in the intervening hours.
At the match she had told Connor that Finn had been hurt, nothing more, and given him the instruction to look after his little brother, explaining that Kathy would bring them home.
Nina had been too numb to be grateful, too distracted by the task of getting to the hospital and being with Finn.
The boys, in front of her now, were bowed and quiet.
Gone was the confident colossus of the rugby pitch and in its place stood a fifteen-year-old boy, his skin pale, his eyes vacant and his mouth tight.
Declan whimpered quietly. He was nervous and twitchy, his eyes huge behind his glasses.
She could see that the uncertainty, the lack of information, was gnawing at them.
Bile rose in her throat at the prospect of what she had to do.
She swallowed again and tried to stand tall.
‘They didn’t want any supper. I did offer.’ Kathy spoke over their heads as she loitered in the doorway, her voice quiet, apologetic, as if aware that she shouldn’t be breaking the silence, shouldn’t be there at all.
‘Thank you for . . .’ And just like that, Nina couldn’t remember what she was thanking her for.
‘No worries.’
Nina couldn’t recall if she said goodbye or spoke further, but she was aware that Kathy had gone, and she was grateful.
Connor stared at her. ‘Is he . . . ?’ Nina noticed how he clenched his hands so tightly that his fingers were white. His voice trembled, as if the words were too terrible to voice, the whole idea too horrible to contemplate.
She stared at him, and prepared to engage in the same verbal dance that she and Dr Ranton had perfected earlier.
The expression on her boys’ faces told her they too were smart enough to realise that, were they available, words of comfort and reassurance would be the first thing she would utter to make everything feel better.
Nina reached out her arms towards Declan, who stepped forward carefully, then stopped within touching distance. She pulled him to her chest, stroking his thick, dark hair. It felt easier to address Connor without having to look into her baby’s eyes.
‘He died.’ She spoke the words that sounded unreal: how could they be true? ‘Daddy died.’ Declan went limp in her arms, and she held him up until the strength returned to his legs.
She had imagined this exchange on her way home, playing out various reactions from her boys, many violent, some loud and all accompanied by a deafening howl of distress.
The silence that enveloped the reduced family was something she could not have predicted.
Connor pinched his nose, bowed his head and covered his eyes as his tears ran over his fingers and fell in splats on the wooden floor.
The three stood, unified, as their distress seeped from them.
She reached out her hand and beckoned her eldest son closer, and with desolation and sadness as their glue, they were all joined, arms around backs, heads touching: a three-headed thing, mourning the equally monstrous event that had befallen them.