No Way to Say Goodbye - Anna McPartlin [107]
Tears rolled down her face, which she tried to hide with trembling hands. “I don’t think I can do it,” she whispered.
“I know you can,” he said.
“I don’t want to be like this any more.”
“You don’t have to be.”
Penny and Adam found themselves on the ten thirty a.m. train to Dublin. They sat in the dining section, Adam tucking into a full Irish breakfast and Penny playing with the foil wrapping of her painkillers. She had been silent since she had said her goodbyes at the hotel. Mary had cried and Penny had felt like an arsehole, remembering the stupid document in which she had spurted venom at the very people who were helping her.
When her tremor became so severe that Adam feared she might seize, he made the executive decision to allow her a shot of vodka. While she attempted to sip it he called the clinic to ask if he was doing the right thing.
Eventually the tremor subsided. “What have you told Alina?” Penny asked.
“I lied,” he lied.
“It’s still that easy?” she said.
“It was never easy.”
They looked out of the window at the fields and grazing animals, the towns and houses, all passing them at speed.
“I want another drink,” she said.
“I know.”
“Thanks for being here.”
“It was the very least I could do.”
*
The taxi pulled up outside the clinic and Penny sat pinned to the back seat, looking much like the deer she had destroyed.
Adam paid the driver, then reached for her hand. “Time to go,” he said.
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
Fresh tears spilled. “I don’t want to.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I’m really scared.”
“It’s OK to be scared.”
He helped her out of the car and the taxi drove away. He guided her towards the door. A nurse emerged with a clipboard and stood there, waiting. Penny stalled. Adam put his hand on her waist and she snuggled into him. He spun her around and suddenly they were dancing as they had on the night he’d said goodbye. In her head she could hear Sinéad singing about sacrifice. He kissed her cheek and held her close to him, and all the while the nurse watched and waited.
“You’re always leaving me.”
“I never want to.”
He wasn’t allowed past the front door. The nurse took her new patient by the hand and Penny smiled through her tears and waved goodbye to the love of her life, who waited for her to disappear behind the white doors.
I’ll always love you, Penny Walsh.
Mary sat on the sofa alone that night, Mr Monkels having fallen asleep on the window-seat. She was drinking tea and listening to Snow Patrol. For some reason she felt like crying. The boy in her dream was haunting her. She didn’t have to sleep for him to find her now. At any given moment he would appear, staring at her with the most terrible expression on his face. She had seen things before, but they had all been so vague and about people she knew in the here and now. Nothing had ever manifested itself as this had – and what was it telling her? What part of the story was missing? And why, suddenly, did the boy seem familiar? Who the hell was he?
Emotion welled inside her, like untapped oil ready to burst through solid rock, and she wondered if she was having her tenth breakdown in that month. But then, of course, it had been so long since she had felt anything. When her child had died a part of her had stopped, like a broken clock, stuck for ever in the past. She had become Miss Havisham minus the wedding dress and the cruel streak. Until a stranger had appeared and something inside her had begun to tick…
Sam sat in his kitchen sipping a glass of Jack Daniel’s from the bottle Caleb had left behind. He hadn’t slept properly in a week and earlier had succumbed to the shakes, like he used to when he was without control. Penny’s intervention had hit him harder than he’d expected. For some reason it had projected his mind to another place. A place in the past when he had been a shit-scared teenager, running with all his might. Oh, God, no!
And then he was somewhere else, in another time, a time when he was older and successful and an addict. He was in a communal bathroom in a bad area, kicking the shit out of another junkie