AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Come along now.’ One of her colleagues was guiding her out of the cubicle, but Liv stood firm. She couldn’t leave him. Instead, she watched as the surgeon she’d messaged on the way into ER began to work on Finn O’Connell and all she could do was pray that he would be all right.
3
It was good to be back in Ballycove. The journey home had flown. She and Pete had talked and laughed for most of the few hours it took to cross the country. Liv sank into the sofa next to her sister in the early hours of the morning. Both Maya and her father had sat up to wait for her. There was a lovely ease to sitting there, staring into the dying fire while her father sipped a hot toddy.
Her dad was a big armchair of a man. He was comfortable, solid, a little worn about the edges, but you knew where you were with him. He’d been taller once, but he was still broad, red-faced and there was no missing the vitality of him when you had his full attention. He never missed the daily newspaper, although, these days he caught it on the iPad Maya had talked him into.Better for the environment,he chuckled. He’d taken over this farm from his Uncle Mike, turned it over to organically producing award-winning produce; he loved life, pure and simple, from the hedgehogs in the fields to the stars in the skies. He managed to rear his family and, with a little skimping and saving, send them to college for the careers they’d wanted. As far as he was concerned, he’d lived a small, quiet life and Liv absolutely adored him.
It was obvious both her parents had been looking forward to having her home; she should make it her business to come back more often. There was nothing stopping her, not when her shifts ran into each other every few weeks and meant she regularly had four days off in a row. Except Eddie of course; he always seemed to have something lined up for her to do when those little breaks came her way.
Liv looked at her watch. It was too late to call Eddie now. At some point, her phone’s battery had died, so there was no way of telling if he’d rung her either; although, knowing Eddie he probably hadn’t – time just seemed to slip away from him when he came back to Ballycove. Liv always blamed this on his mother.
No doubt, he was tucked in safe and sound with Barbara clucking maternally about the house, making sure he was warm enough and that his clothes were ready for the following day. Yes. Really. He admitted that when he came home for the weekend, he still brought his laundry, because no-one could iron a shirt like his mother.
In fairness, Liv never really tried. She had enough to be ironing with her own uniform and a million other things to be doing. Secretly, she knew, she might have ironed all his clothes, but he put down the impossible standard of his mother’s creases too long ago for her to ever decide to scale that particular barrier with Barbara. Pick your battles, isn’t that what they say? And it was much too easy to fall out with Barbara Quirke without actually looking for reasons to. At this point, Eddie’s mother had fallen out with half the village and she wasn’t a woman to bury the hatchet unless it was squarely in her rival’s shoulder blades.
Even the rector in the local Church of Ireland had fallen foul of Barbara when she overlooked the Quirke roses in favour of the slightly brighter, larger flowers two houses down the road. The annual festival of flowers was, apparently, still a marker by which some of the local competitive gardeners set some store. Barbara was a woman of impossibly high standards and she possessed a low threshold for the shortcomings of others. Liv knew that she would have to bite down on any resentment in the years ahead if she meant to stick with Eddie, but if Eddie was anything, first and last, he was Barbara’s son and he adored the ground his mother walked on.
She imagined the village off in the distance, silent and sleeping, a fresh layer of snow falling in the darkness, the church bells calling out the hours until they woke in the morning and as she drifted to sleep, she felt a simple contentment, just to be here.
Was it because she had a feeling that Eddie was going to propose to her in the morning? Or was it just being back here, in her single bed, with the silence of the village in the fields far off? It was soothing; a balm to the hectic life of working in the A&E for the rest of the time.
The A&E – she turned it over in her thoughts, stared up at the darkness overhead. Suddenly, it was not guilt that wafted over her as she thought of Finn O’Connell stuck in A&E tonight. She had no reason to feel guilty; she’d done everything she could for him. No, it was something else that niggled at her – something she couldn’t quite put a finger on, but it felt as if she was missing something. Something vital and it made her catch her breath.
Like a child on Christmas Eve, it took Liv ages to fall asleep. She ran it over in her mind, a thousand times – how Eddie would propose. She wondered if perhaps Barbara had told him it was time to make an honest woman of Liv – it was the sort of thing she could imagine Eddie’s mother saying. Eventually, she began to nod off as the crows shook their feathers in the tall trees that dotted all about her father’s farm.
*
At eight o’clock her alarm went off and she silenced it as quickly as she could. She had offered to prepare and cook the turkey; there was stuffing to make and probably a bit of cleaning up to do on the bird before she could pop it in the oven.
‘Have you had your breakfast yet?’ her father asked after she’d begun in the kitchen. He had already been up and checking the ewes he’d moved closer to the house who were due to lamb at any moment.
‘I’ve just got the turkey started; now, let’s have breakfast together.’ Liv was delighted to have a little while longer on her own with him before anyone else arrived.
‘I’ve a better idea,’ he said taking up Liv’s wellingtons from inside the back door and handing them to her. With piping-hot mugs of tea and wedges of her mother’s home-made brown bread in their hands, he led her down to the little sheds that sheltered between the house and the huge farm building that he’d constructed further on when she was still a teenager. For some time, that had been his pride and joy, but these days, she had a feeling that the little old sheds, with their wobbly stone, sloping roofs and brightly painted doors suited him much better.
The cold stung Liv’s face, the only part of her it could get at, since she was bundled up in one of her father’s huge coats, and Maya’s gloves and hat that she’d picked up in the porch. Still, it was refreshing, walking along with the crunch of icy gravel beneath her feet and the rasp of the bitter air in her lungs. She looked out across the frosty fields in the distance. The only houses visible from here seemed to meld in with the whiteness of the landscape. The sky was a muted grey and it merely added to the blend of neutrals – the only relief the dark blue Atlantic. It was winter harsh and uninterrupted in its raw splendour.
Mikey Latimer pushed in the first door they came to and the smell of hay and silage caught in Liv’s throat, pulling her to a stop as a rush of memories flooded her from years earlier. This had always been the highlight of winter on the farm for her, the newborn lambs. Every other year, there was one that needed a little extra care and Liv had always been in charge of feeding and looking after the stragglers of the bunch. ‘Triplets,’ he said proudly pointing to a worn-out, ragged-looking sheep and her three tiny lambs.
‘Oh, I can’t believe it.’ They were only just born, probably not much more than an hour old. ‘Were you here for it all?’ she said a little enviously. ‘I wish you’d called me down.’
‘What and spoil the dinner – you must be joking?’ He laughed. That was her dad all over; he wouldn’t want to inconvenience anyone for the world. ‘Anyway, Cleopatra and I had it all in hand.’
‘Cleopatra?’ Liv glanced at the sheep a little dubiously.
‘What? Sure, isn’t she as entitled to that name as anyone?’ He looked a little embarrassed. ‘You won’t tell your mother, will you? You know, about her name – she might think I’ve gone a bit soft…’
‘Don’t worry, it can be our secret,’ Liv said and she kissed his ruddy cheek. ‘Now, can I get a good look at them?’ she asked climbing over the wooden barrier easily and grabbing the smallest of the lambs for a closer look.
‘It’s lovely to have you back here, Liv,’ her dad said later as they trudged back up towards the house. He stopped for a moment next to the gable wall, laid a hand on it and stood silently catching his breath. She knew what he was thinking. They’d been here, years before – it was Rachel’s last year with them and they’d stood looking out towards the vast ocean.
‘You know, there’s a whole lot more out there than just…’ His voice petered off, as if what he had to say was too much for him to put into words. But she knew what he meant. In an ideal world, as far as her father was concerned, she’d fall in love with Pete and they’d get married and produce a half dozen grandchildren. Even, after six years, it seemed Eddie Quirke was still not quite good enough for his daughter.
‘I know, Dad.’ She squeezed his arm affectionately, basking in his love, which felt as if it simmered in the vastness of the moment between them. ‘Come on, Dad, I’ll make us a nice pot of tea and we can finish our breakfast in peace before they all arrive in on top of us.’
*
So far, it was one long night, but it felt as if Liv had stayed in the hospital for a lifetime. Finn O’Connell’s heart had finally stabilised and he was breathing independently. Liv had a feeling her prayers (even though, she’d never been particularly religious!) were paying off. Next, they needed to investigate that bleeding from his ear and so they were moving him along for a full CT scan. Liv could only hope that it would show up clear. Regardless of how physically strong he looked, the choice between operating if there was internal bleeding and keeping his heart pumping was one that was too hard to call with any good odds in his favour.
