Page 189 of Playing By Ear

“You want a blind man to act as a witness?”

“You won’t need to read anything. You only need to attest that you watched him sign. Father Borelli is one witness, the doctor doesn’t feel comfortable doing it, and Mr. Coyle and Mr. Gilchrist are not exactly disinterested parties.”

“I don’t understand why they’re here,” Jamie said to her, “especially without one of the Wilkies. Why isn’t Stuart part of this meeting?“

“All will be clear in good time, lad. Perry, if you could come now? My brother needs to sign while he’s as alert as possible.”

He let Norma guide him upstairs and into the bedroom. She had Perry stand at the head of the bed, directly beside Martin, so that he could see the man sign each page of the will, none of which Perry could make out. The bedroom, silent but for the turning of pages, held a knife’s-edge quality he wished he could interpret.

Afterward, Perry signed the witness statement. For better or worse, he was now inextricably linked with the MacKrays.

Chapter 36

Monday, 9 May

The mysterious will-changing had left Martin in the best mood since the day he’d been fawned over by hundreds of admirers.

“Want to tell me what the meeting was all about?” Jamie asked that night as he spoon-fed his father one of Perry’s delicious strawberry smoothies.

“You asked me twice already today,” Martin said.

“Aye, but I hoped the tumor would make you forget I asked.”

“Cheeky.” Martin’s smirk aspired to a smile, softening his gaunt face. “You’ll be pleased.”

“Let me guess. You’re liquidating the business and donating the money to a Neapolitan mastiff rescue group?”

“Not a bad idea.” Martin looked at Layla lying beside him, her chin resting on a puff of duvet. Her golden eyes followed the spoon’s voyage back and forth. “Who’d be daft enough to give up a dog like her?”

“Right?” Jamie stirred the smoothie, pushing the spoon down to the bottom of the glass to mix in the juiciest bits.

When he looked up, his father’s gaze had shifted to the bedroom door. “Wa-hey, there you are.”

Jamie looked but saw no one. Was this the “visioning” the hospice folk had told him about, where a dying person sees someone already passed on? “Who’s there, Dad?” Please let it be Mum. “Who do you see?”

His father didn’t reply but beamed like a lovestruck laddie, and in that moment, Jamie saw the young man who’d met his love by the gasworks wall.

Martin’s chin tilted up and his eyes refocused, as though watching someone approach the bed. Jamie’s nape prickled, and he scanned the space above Layla, though he knew he would see nobody.

His dad lifted one thin arm, the bones within looking ready to pierce his fragile skin. Reaching up and out, he murmured a few syllables Jamie couldn’t catch.

Then Martin slowly lowered his arm, let his head sink back into the pillow, and fell asleep.

In all of Jamie’s life, it had never felt so good—nor so necessary—to cry.

Tuesday, 10 May

“So it could happen any time?” Jamie glanced at the ceiling above the dining table where he and the thoroughly vetted hospice nurse, Claire, discussed the unthinkable event everyone was thinking about. “Like, right now while Uncle Pete is telling him knock-knock jokes?”

“Possibly.” Claire took a sip of the tea Aunt Rosemary had forced upon her. “Sometimes loved ones wait until a specific person has visited them, or until all the family is gathered at once. Others wait until they’re alone.”

“Wow.” Jamie sorted the sponge swabs Claire had brought in her latest comfort pack, prioritizing the green ones, per Martin’s preference. “The ultimate Irish Goodbye.”

“Hold on.” Aunt Rosemary turned from the kitchen worktop where she and her daughter were helping Perry catalog and refrigerate well-wishers’ food deliveries. “People can control when they die?”

“If anyone could do it,” Valerie said, “it’d be Uncle Martin.”

Wednesday, 11 May