False Mermaid

“Yes, we need an ambulance—” He heard his own voice, calmly answering the operator’s questions, while his eyes got used to the half darkness. On the floor before him lay his father, naked but for a flannel dressing gown open to the waist. Joseph Maguire’s eyes were open but unblinking. That this could be the same man who had spoken so blithely about his “spell” the other night was inconceivable.

“They’re on their way,” he said to Roz. “They said to keep him warm.”

As his eyes grew more accustomed to the darkness in the room, he suddenly realized that the duvet from the bed was wrapped around Roz. Her shoulders were bare, her loose hair in disarray. Conscious of his gaze, she reached for a bathrobe that lay on the floor and pulled it about her.

“Cormac, I know how this must look—we’ll have to talk about it later. Help me.” She took the duvet and began tucking it around his father, speaking in a low voice: “Everything’s going to be all right, Joe—an ambulance is on the way. Can you hear me? Please don’t leave us.”

At the hospital, Roz sat beside Cormac in the waiting area at Casualty and handed him a plastic cup of weak tea, purchased from a woman pushing a food trolley through the wards. She took a deep breath. “Cormac, I know how things looked this morning, but it’s not what you might think—”

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me, Roz—”

“No, I do. He’s your father—”

“The man walked out when I was a child, Roz. I didn’t see him again for ten years. We’re barely acquainted, if you want to know the truth.”

“I know. He told me everything. About leaving Ireland, about his work in South America, all the people he knew who just disappeared. He told me about your mother—and you.”

“Me? He doesn’t know the first thing about me.”

“He does. And he cares about you, Cormac, more than you know.”

“He’s certainly had a very odd way of showing it.”

“You say he doesn’t know you, but what do you know about him? He’s such a remarkable man, Cormac. Do you know anything about his work in Chile all those years, the thousands of people he treated with no concern for his own safety—all the lives he saved? Did you know how many times he was arrested and tortured? And in spite of all that, I’ve never met anyone so…” She searched for the words. “I don’t know—so completely engaged with the world, so alive.”

“Why is it every person who tries to convince me what a great humanitarian my father is, just happens to be someone he’s shagging?”

Roz looked as though she’d been slapped.

“Please forgive me, Roz. That was a rotten thing to say. I’m so sorry.”

She was quiet for a moment. “We’re both upset.” A tear escaped and trickled down her face. She brushed it away, and then smiled. “Do you know what’s funny? We haven’t actually—I’d only moved my things down to his room on that day you arrived. He wanted to send me packing back upstairs, but I told him he was being ridiculous. For God’s sake, I said, we’re all adults. He kept insisting that he didn’t want to be unfair to me. Almost as if he knew—” She buried her face in her hands. Cormac moved closer and put his arm around her.

“As long as we’re offering true confessions,” he said, “I’m booked on a flight to America first thing tomorrow morning. “

Roz looked up at him. “Who or what’s in America?”

“Someone I don’t want to lose.”

She squeezed his arm, and shook her head in sympathy. “We are a pair, aren’t we? You know I’ll do everything I can to help.”

“Start of term is only a few weeks away, Roz. Nobody expects you to stay on here. I might be able to request some emergency leave. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”

He stood and walked to the end of the corridor, where he could see the nurses still hovering over his father and hear the quiet murmurs, the squeaking of their shoes on the polished tile floor. One of his father’s bare feet poked out from under the blanket, and Cormac felt an unfamiliar surge of protective instinct. One of the nurses finally noticed as well, and tucked the blanket more securely around the old man.

Part of him couldn’t consider abandoning his father now, despite anything that had happened in the past. The man had left whatever life he’d made for himself in Chile to return home and care for his wife in her last days. Éilis—Cormac’s mother—was still his wife. And still loved him, all those years later. Maybe that should count for something.

The fantasy he’d had of landing once again on Nora’s doorstep was rapidly evaporating, and he could feel her slipping further away from him. Why had he not gone with her? Fear of crowding her, perhaps. But if she was going to reject him eventually, wasn’t it best to give her a clear opportunity? She must know how he felt, that he’d never felt the same about anyone else. But their lives were not yet intertwined, and maybe they never would be. He’d always been so separate, unto himself. Could he change—was it possible, at this late date?