No Way to Say Goodbye - Anna McPartlin [103]
“It was just dinner. Actually, her boyfriend had followed her but I’m guessing you heard that.”
“It was mentioned.”
“He came to see me.”
“Really?”
“Oh, you remember!”
“What?” she asked innocently.
“When you nearly fell out the window trying to get a look?”
“That’s the last time I tell Ivan anything.”
*
Adam was waiting at the front doors of the hospital. Ivan and Sam carried Penny between them, with Mary following. He gasped at her injuries, and Penny started to cry as soon as she saw him.
He took her in his arms. “It’s all right,” he said. “Everything’s going to be all right.” Penny didn’t seem certain of that. She pulled away from his embrace and tried to shield her injured face with a hand. Once they were inside and a woman behind a glass window had taken down her details, a nurse escorted her to a cubicle so that her injuries could be assessed. “How much have you had to drink?” she asked.
“I don’t know – a lot,” Penny admitted.
“What happened to you?”
“I fell.”
“Some fall,” the woman said, unconvinced.
After testing Penny’s responses the nurse determined that she was not critical, and although she had facial lacerations they weren’t considered serious enough to merit her skipping the large queue in the waiting area. Penny returned to her friends and sat down.
“Well?” Adam said.
“I wait.”
“But your face is a mess.”
“Thanks.”
“This is ridiculous,” he said, and stormed across to the reception desk.
Mary, Sam, Ivan and Penny watched him argue a case for his mistress skipping a long queue. The woman behind the window was unmoved. He returned to them, disgusted. “You’d find a better health system in the third world,” he said.
“It’s OK,” Penny said.
“I’ll get coffee,” Mary offered.
“No, you go home,” Adam said. “I’ll stay with Penny. It looks like it’s going to be a long wait.”
“Can I talk to you over here for a minute?” Mary asked him. She stood up and walked towards the door. An old woman in her eighties lying on a trolley was pushed past them by ambulance men. She was complaining that she couldn’t leave the dog at home alone; her weary daughter reminded her that the dog had died in 1987.
“I thought it was your father died in 1987,” the old lady said.
“No, Mother, he died in 1977.”
“Time flies,” the old lady said. “Still, I really do need to get home to the dog.”
Adam smiled at the daughter, who smiled back. Mary punched his arm. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“What do you mean?” he responded in surprise. “I just smiled at her – it looked like she could do with cheering up.”
“Yeah, you’re a real humanitarian. I’m not talking about her, I’m talking about your marriage.”
“I’m not leaving Penny in that state.”
“I’m here,” she said. “It’s late at night and you have a wife to go home to.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“OK,” she said, shrugging her shoulders, “have it your way.”
“Mary –”
“Grow up, Adam,” she said, and went back to the others.
After that they debated whether or not it was a better idea to stay in Cork or go home. Eventually, after much negotiation, Sam, Mary and Ivan decided to leave. Mary felt bad to be contemplating deserting her best friend, but there wasn’t enough room in the waiting area for the actual patients, never mind the people accompanying them. Penny insisted she was fine and happy to be left alone, but Adam insisted on staying: like Margaret Thatcher, he said, he was not for turning. Ivan laughed, but Mary glared at him. He grinned and gave her the fingers. She couldn’t help but smile. Something about an adult giving another that gesture never failed to amuse her.
They left Penny and Adam sitting in the Regional Hospital.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Penny said.
“I’ve already been through this with Mary.” He got up from his chair. “I’m getting us some coffee.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” Penny repeated, but Adam was already halfway down the corridor.
Ivan, Mary and Sam sat in a hotel bar. Ivan and Mary debated their next move while Sam drank a ginger ale. Once her injuries were sorted Ivan suggested moving Penny to a drying-out facility in