74
She was heading to the door of the A&E department when she saw him. Arms folded in that dark denim jacket, sitting on one of the plastic seats, head to one side, eyes closed, boot resting on opposite knee.
Roisin stared and stared at him. She took in every detail and committed it to memory as her heart tripled in size. It was almost six a.m. and Roisin was lightheaded. She wondered how long he’d been here: she’d spent two hours by her mum’s bedside, so he must have arrived then.
She reached out and put a hand on Matt’s shoulder.
He started awake and focused on her, rubbing his eyes as he made sense of his surroundings.
‘Morning,’ he said, blearily standing up.
‘Morning. You came all this way?’ she said.
‘I left as soon as I got your message. How are you? How’s Lorraine?’
‘She’s …’ Roisin bit hard into her bottom lip to maintain a semblance of composure. Seeing Matt, after the outcome of such a sleepless and turbulent night, could be like a dam breaking. ‘She’s fine. It was a burst appendix. It can be life-threatening, but they caught it in time. Most of their patients don’t ignore the signs of appendicitis for as long as my mother did.’ Roisin made a face.
‘Oh, thank God,’ Matt said.
‘They’ll keep her in for a few days and she’ll feel like she’s been run over for weeks, but such a relief.’
‘You’ll know she’s truly recovered when she’s pressing the bed alarm for a Kir Royale.’
‘You know her too well,’ Roisin said, her voice thick. She was broken with gratitude at the sight of him. The love was like a physical weight on her chest.
‘Fresh air?’ Matt said, after a loaded pause, and Roisin nodded as he pushed the door open.
Under the bricked shelter of the A&E entrance, they took in the view of hospital grounds at dawn, breathed in and out, looked at each other and shook their heads. Sudden illness was like being torn from the normal world and hurled into an alternative universe.
‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ Roisin said.
Matt turned to face her fully. ‘Listen, Rosh. I want to make it clear, I’m not here with any expectation of—’
Roisin grabbed him by the lapels, buried her face in his chest and howled. He put his arms around her and held her tightly.
‘You’re OK,’ he shushed her. ‘She’s going to be alright. You’re going to be alright.’
‘I know, I know. It’s just …’
When Roisin had shed enough tears to have the power of speech back, she said, ‘My mum lied to get me to spend this summer working at the pub. She didn’t feel she could tell me she wanted me there, in case that was all the time she had left. Absolutely insane.’
‘Why didn’t she go to the doctor? It’s a bit of a leap to say, “I’ve got stomach pains, oh maybe it’s terminal?”’
‘I know. I think she has to be this Lorraine. Glamorous, confident, youthful Lorraine, who runs the show. The thought of even being prescribed treatment that might make her anything other than that was utterly petrifying to her. Scarier than dying when she didn’t have to …?’
She looked at Matt in bewilderment. ‘She thinks those are the conditions for being loved, I guess. Partly because my dad was a shallow bastard in that regard. My brother’s long since fled the scene. He takes after my dad like that. And she wouldn’t tell her own daughter, “I’m scared, I need your support.”’
Roisin looked at Matt in the grey early light. ‘I’m not going to make the same mistake. I called you because you’re the one person in the world I wanted to see.’ Roisin smiled. ‘I’m not going to pretend to be more resilient than I am. I need you.’
Matt smiled back. ‘Well, this morning there’s nowhere I’d rather be than here. I’m glad you called me. I was actually over the moon you called me, and how often can you say that about three a.m. voicemails?’
‘I’ve been far too hard on you, McKenzie, and you’ve dealt with it with your typical generosity. Do you want to give that “being a nauseating couple” thing another try?’ Roisin said. ‘I decided I was going to ask you this over what they call dressy drinks on a nice evening out. Instead, here we are, outside Macclesfield Hospital, me having forced you to do a mercy dash. Near a pigeon with a manky foot, pecking at a Ginster’s pasty.’
She pointed behind them, and Matt brushed her tears away. ‘More than ever, oddly enough.’
They stared into one another’s eyes and silently, mutually acknowledged the point they’d arrived at. This was the understanding you always hoped you’d find.
Roisin rubbed her brow. ‘God’s sake, I’ve been here half the night. I must look like a haunted turnip.’
‘Love isn’t dependent on looking glamorous, remember.’
‘Oh yes, haha. Just as well.’
Roisin hesitated as Matt got his phone out to check for taxis. She was raw, like she was in emotional High Definition. She felt certain there was a moment here that should be used before normality, with all its virtues and vices, crept back in.
‘Whatever happens between us, Matt …’
He looked up at her.
‘I promise you, we can always tell each other the truth, with no fear of shame. Secrets end up poisoning the person keeping them, I think.’
‘What if my final poisonous secret is that I once wrote a poem about the first time I saw you. You were walking down Deansgate in the driving rain, fearlessly head high, with no coat on. You later told me you’d had a row with your mum and stormed out like that. The poem was so bad that the last time I unearthed it, I both wept with laughter and wanted to physically die. I rhyme Roisin with GLEAM. But I STILL couldn’t destroy it, because it reminded me of you.’
‘Oh my God! Even that! Can I read it?’
‘Fuck no.’