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‘If you’re sure. You just take care of yourself and I’ll see you in a few days.’
The whole thing made Liv feel like a fraud. She stood for a moment. Thoughts of the trip home, the holiday season, her impending supposedly surprise engagement all flooded from her mind. Suddenly, the sweet notion that her life finally was slipping into place evaporated, and it was replaced by a heavy sensation that weighed on her irrationally. Instead, she thought of Francine and the doctors and nurses who would have a truly crap Christmas covering everyone’s shifts as well as their own.
‘There’s no point going home and feeling rotten when you can get checked out before you leave.’ The EMT winked at her.
‘No, no, really I’m fine, just… worried about this patient before I leave.’ She shook her head, noticing his slightly lopsided smile.
‘Well, just you be sure to make the most of it now.’ He took the patient notes she’d been carrying from her. ‘Go on now, you’ve done your bit here. I’ll make sure he’s well looked after.’
It seemed that she was just in the way after all. She had no business here, not really. She wasn’t a relative and nor was she his nurse. It was time to step aside and let Finn O’Connell get the best care he could get.
‘I’ll try,’ she said and then she dug in her bag, fished out her earbuds and turned the music on her phone to full volume. ‘The Power of Love’ flooded into her ear canals, shocking her with its volume, but blotting out the hospital sounds around her. It was from her Christmas playlist covering the decades. As she walked down the corridor she concentrated on her breathing; perhaps she was having some sort of mini panic attack. She needed to get out of here before they insisted on putting her onto a gurney and checking her over too.
She told herself she was fine; all she had to do was breathe. This anxiety rising up in her was only a reaction to the fright of almost being killed less than an hour earlier. Yes, she told herself, she was suffering from shock. That made more sense than thunderbolts and lightning from a complete stranger – no matter how unnervingly attractive he happened to be.
She raced from the A&E, through the ambulance exit to avoid any of the nursing staff and soon she was out in the freezing night air. The journey back to her flat was oddly depressing. The bus was half full of late-night revellers. Stragglers from the pub bundled up in coats and oncoming hangovers. The rest were like Liv, workers eager to make their way home after long shifts that had emptied them out of any Christmas cheer for a few more hours. The window beside her was wet, condensation from too many journeys seeping down along the cracked rubber at its base. The smell of damp coats and the disregarding faces of the other passengers absorbed in their phones only added to the heaviness that was settling in her stomach. And she couldn’t help wondering how Finn O’Connell was doing now.
The EMT was right, she decided as the bus pulled into her stop. She might as well make the very most of the Christmas holidays from here on in. She checked her watch as she made her way into the flat. Almost one o’clock. It would take about twenty minutes for Pete to swing by and collect her. She had packed her bags the night before, so all she really had to do was scoot around to make sure that everything was switched off, the place was secure and they could pull into one of the all-night garages to pick up coffees and sandwiches for the journey home to Ballycove.
Back at the flat, she rang Eddie to distract herself while she waited for Pete. Voicemail. He was probably tucked up in bed now after a night in the pub with a couple of his mates. No doubt he spent the evening sitting at the bar counter in the warm glow of catching up before the open fire in Flannelly’s snug, chatting about whatever they talked about when she wasn’t there.
It seemed the flat and all of Dublin had fallen into a sleeping silence, oppressive and judging. After a few minutes of sitting there feeling it close in on her, she decided to haul her bags down to the front door and wait for Pete to pick her up there. Never was she as happy to see him pull up against the footpath. She needed to get out of the city, maybe more than she’d realised. Now it felt as if this city couldn’t wait to see the back of her for the next few days. As if she would somehow be in the way if she had stayed here, even in her own flat; yes, she badly needed a break away from it all.
‘A penny for them,’ Pete asked as they drove out through Dublin’s deserted streets.
‘I think you can afford much more than that if you wanted to know what’s on my mind.’ She chuckled at him.
‘Perhaps, but how do I know they’re worth anything more?’
‘Cheek.’ She nudged him gently, but she had very few, if any, secrets from Pete. ‘All right, if you want to know, I’m just thinking about that guy that was involved in the accident before I left…’ And then more details about the whole story came spilling out, about the man at the traffic lights and how he’d basically saved her life.
‘And you’re sure you’re all right?’ He glanced across at her and there was no missing the worry etched out across his brows. ‘I mean, did they check you out? God Almighty, you could have been killed.’ She could see him clenching the steering wheel now and too late she realised how much something like this could upset him. He’d taken Rachel’s death so badly. Liv could see it for herself: he was never the same again afterwards, as if some little part of him died with his best friend that day in the hospital.
‘I’m fine, don’t worry. Of course they checked me out, not so much as a bruise on me.’ It was a lie, but what did one small fib matter when it came to giving someone peace of mind? Pete had enough to be worrying about – he’d just come out of a relationship that Liv had thought wasThe Onefor sure.
‘I suppose you’ll expect doughnuts now.’ He raised an eyebrow. It was a joke between them that went back to when they were small kids and she’d managed to wheedle the last doughnut from his mother just because she’d fallen off her bike and scratched her knee. Of course, she’d shared evenly three ways, but Pete had managed to conveniently forget that over the years.
‘Too right, I’ll need doughnutsandéclairs if you make a big deal out of it.’
‘You’ll ruin my car with crumbs and jam,’ he said in a funny voice.
‘Oh, shut up, we both know that you’re probably going to get a new one as soon as next year’s plates are out.’ Pete drove a very flash car, too flash really for him, but it was a company car and they insisted on buying the very best for their senior executives. They could banter like this the whole way home, but it was late and Liv was tired after her shift. She closed her eyes and leant her head against the window.
‘It’ll be nice to get home though, won’t it?’ Pete said softly.
‘It will,’ Liv agreed, because there really was nowhere like Ballycove at Christmas time.
‘Any big plans this year?’ he asked and for a moment, Liv wondered if Eddie had said something about the ring. Probably not – Eddie and Pete weren’t that close. Liv was the glue that held them together.
‘Nothing special. What about you?’
‘Quiet. I’ll spend Christmas Day at home, do the washing up before I slump in front of the telly and then spend the next day trying to walk off the effects of my mum’s pudding and brandy sauce.’ He laughed at this – didn’t everyone feel the same way on St Stephen’s Day. Wasn’t that why the beach was packed with walkers and the village annual five-a-side pulled in even the least sporty bodies around. ‘I hear there’s big plans at your place…’
‘Oh?’ Liv tried to keep the surprise from her voice. Eddiemusthave mentioned something. ‘Really, I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said, but she shot up straighter in the seat, all tiredness falling from her with even the hint of Eddie proposing to her.
‘Yeah, I heard you had invited Eddie and Barbara over for Christmas.’ He shook his head and made a snorting sound that she knew, if she was honest, she’d probably have shared with him. Everyone in the village knew that Eddie’s mother, Barbara, was a complete nightmare. ‘Now that really is going the extra mile to spread the Christmas spirit.’
‘Ah, come on, Pete, she’s not that bad.’ Liv was trying hard to think of one good trait the woman could lay claim to, apart from being Eddie’s mother.
