My mother finally goes upstairs to change and brush her hair, and I take stock of my charges. In the downstairs den, now turned into my father’s bedroom and bathroom, he sits in his wheelchair on the highly expensive cushions that areair-filled so as to help the sitter avoid pressure sores, the bane of all invalids’ and their carers’ lives. My father can move – but his rare condition means he has no impetus to do so.
For a moment, I take in the smell of the sickroom: the lavender oil my mother burns in a tiny aromatherapy pot each morning to remove the scents of hospital cleansers, hand washes and the smell of the sick room. In his chair, looking out the window but not seeing, is Dad.
Dad is Not Dad. At least not the Dad I once knew. Not anymore. He doesn’t talk and looks at the world with unseeing eyes. He has to be fed, as he appears not to know how to feed himself. The other great worry, as for allwheelchair-bound patients – whatever their reason for being wheelchair bound, is that he will get a pressure sore because they can lead to sepsis. Taking care of him outside anursing-home environment is a huge responsibility, but my mother insists.
‘He knows it’s me,’ she insists. But for once in my life, I am not sure I believe her.
It’s his eyes that tell me the true story. Dad’s eyes are so like mine and Scarlett’s and once, they sparkled with humour and intelligence.
Not now.
I have a sudden, crushing memory of Dad on my wedding day, the two of us waiting in the tiny little porch of the very old chapel belonging to the old country house hotel where we were getting married.
I was grinning and ready for the off, and Dad – who was tone deaf – hearing the music, and saying: ‘Is that our song, chicken?’
‘No, it’s Elvis,’ I laughed, high on happiness.
The music was Pachelbel’s Canon in D, which Eddie kept saying was by Packie O’Dell, because he’d wanted us to have Irish music.
My arm slipped through Dad’s, and he reached with his other hand, held my fingers tightly. ‘I’m always here, chicken,’ he said, suddenly serious. ‘Always. Dan is a great man: wouldn’t have let anyone else take you from us, but we’re always here.I’malways here.’
Dad was tall, too. Is tall. The only member of the family as tall as I am. His hair is like an old lion’s mane: golden bits and grey streaks and worn too long for his own poor mother, long departed, who used to say, ‘Lorcan, would you cut your hair! Or even brush it!’ and everyone else would grin because Dad would not be Dad if he wasn’t running a big hand through his mane of hair, making it go every which way.
Someone from the hotel stuck their head into the porch. ‘Are you ready?’ she whispered, a hint of the frantic about her voice.
We were the first civil wedding of the day because the tiny chapel was always fully booked for people who wanted the peace of a place of worship for their civil ceremony and also, because it has a genuine Harry Clarkstained-glass window of a Madonna who looks like an ingénue 1930s movie star with smudgy eyeliner in the nave.
Dad had smiled at me and squeezed my hand tighter.
I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Right back at you, Dad,’ I’d said.
The wedding party had been glorious. Fun. Not a hint of stress.
‘I want it to be lovely and let nobody worry about if their daughter wants to wear her new jeans, or if their husband has to keep rushing off to the bar to look at the match on Sky Sports,’ I’d insisted in advance. ‘We don’t fuss and I don’t want our wedding to be about fuss.’
‘Another reason I love you, woman,’ Dan had said, burying his face in my neck. ‘I won’t wear jeans.’
I laughed. ‘Ah now, Conroy,’ I said. ‘No teasing or there’ll be no conjugals for a month.’
He saluted. ‘Message received. No jeans, ma’m! There’s no big match on, either. I’m not daft.’
Unlike Dan’s first wedding, this one wasnon-religious, small and intimate. The guest list was short – just family and genuinely close friends. Because Dan’s father was no longer alive, we had plans to take care of his mother, Betty, so that she didn’t get stressed or feel left out. Watching her two tall sons, Dan and Zed (actually Ed, but he put a Z in there when he was ten and it stuck), both so full of confidence and energy, Louis Conroy had been just like them.
We’ll take care of Betty, I mentally assured thelong-dead Louis, determined that at this wedding, her needs would be paramount.
Lexi, a perfect little flower girl in pale pink tulle and silk, had taken off her shoes and played sliding with all the other children on the glossy wooden floors in the specially designated room adjoining the reception area. Liam, a stockyeighteen-month-old, was happy to be glued to his Nana Betty because she fed him whatever he wanted.
Scarlett and I had accompanied Mum and Betty shopping to get wedding outfits.
‘Tell her nosecond-hand shops,’ Dad had roared as we whisked Mum off. ‘Let her spend a few shekels, for God’s sake!’
Mum had chuckled affectionately. ‘Yes, Lorcan,’ she said out loud. We left the house. ‘Thatdressing-gown he loves, the purple silk one – straight out of the Vincent de Paul shop in Dundrum,’ she said. ‘He knows well where I got it. Loves it.’
‘You could wear that to the wedding and look fabulous,’ I said, ‘but this is about Betty. She had an awful time with Dan’s first wedding. Trying to compete with the Markham money nearly gave her a nervous breakdown, from what Dan tells me. I think the doctor gave her Valium for the day.’
Mum settled into the front seat. ‘She won’t need Valium at your wedding, darling. Unless Eddie asks her to dance, that is. He feels not enough people know “Doing the Lambeth Walk”.’
Eddie was mad to dance on the day, but he dutifully played his role because Dad told him to.
