What made him walk out when he’d repaired so much in his life?
I have another question. I don’t want to ask. But I can’t escape it.
‘When did he die?’
Ellie blinks at me. I hope she doesn’t cry. I might be holding her baby but I have no idea of the protocol of hugging your half-sister when you’ve only just discovered she exists. The gap before she speaks is excruciating, so much so that I wish I could grab the question and stuff it back inside my gullet. I watch the rise and fall of her chest, the first glimpse of tears glisten in her eyes.
‘Oh Sam…’
‘I’m sorry, Ellie. I—’
She reaches her hand across the table and I grasp it, holding on as if an earthquake is about to rip a chasm in the ground between us.
‘Frank’s not dead.’
‘What?’ My question is a whisper in the cacophony of my brain.
‘He’s still in the hospice. Over in Trinity? St Columba’s.’
Barney stirs against my shoulder where he’s napping, as a sob escapes me.
‘How long…?’
‘Last we were told, about four weeks. It’s hard to tell. He’s stabilised for now although he was poorly last week. Pneumonia, they said.’ She gives my hand a gentle squeeze. ‘I’m going to see him later. Do you want to come?’
I don’t know what to say.
* * *
The hospice is brighter than I expected. I’d imagined dark, grey rooms with dim light painting everything sombre monochrome. This place is light and airy and ironically full of life. There’s soothing music and colour and it’s not at all a place of grief.
I don’t know if I should be grieving for Frank. I’m not sure what to feel.
He’s dying, of course. He wouldn’t be in this place if he weren’t. But the man I have only the vaguest recollection of died twenty-three years ago, so will I even recognise the person I’m about to meet?
I feel like a vagabond, schlepping in with my holdall and the fiddle on my back. I’ll be catching a taxi from here to the station after this. I’m still not sure why I brought my violin, only that it goes everywhere with me. It felt right that it accompanied me back to the city where I first fell in love with music.
Ellie thought there might be somewhere we could leave my stuff, but all the nurses were busy elsewhere when we arrived. They have far more important demands on their time than my luggage. So, Ellie, my bag, my violin and me make the journey towards the man who connects us. As we walk, I’m suddenly struck by the thought that I’m carrying similar things to those Frank must have taken the day he left us: his bag and his fiddle.
Am I like him? Ailish said I was running away before.
And I can’t deny it: I have packed a bag, picked up my fiddle and run away, many times.
But I’m not running today.
The corridor seems to stretch for miles and though we move quickly, our destination at the end of it – the final room on the left – takes forever to reach.
His room.
All the miles that have separated us, all the years he remained out of my life, out of reach, are now being closed. Distance has caught up with Frank, just as time has. He can no longer run, but now I’m moving towards him.
And then, we arrive. The door is already open, the air from the open window at the end of the corridor fresh as it moves in. Ellie smiles at me, risks a squeeze of my arm. Then she enters. Cautiously, I let the breeze blow me in too.
I don’t know the man in the bed. He looks old, although I’m guessing the strokes have aged him. He seems sunken beneath the white bed sheets. His hands rest, palms up, on the green wool blanket draped over his body. It might be many years since he last played, but the callouses on the tips of his fingers are unmistakable. A fiddle-player’s hands. Long slender fingers, toughened at the ends, the muscles taut from years of moving over a fingerboard.
He’s sleeping. That’s a relief. A sleeping old man I can deal with. Perhaps he won’t wake at all while I’m here. Ellie prepared me for this in the taxi over. The meds he’s on make him sleepy, apparently, a deliberate act to ease his suffering and confusion. I think they hope if they steadily increase the morphine he’ll gently slip away when he’s ready. It seems altogether more humane than forcing him to stay awake in a world he no longer recognises.
I drop my stuff in the corner by the window and we fetch a dull green plastic chair each from the stack by the wall. Ellie plants a kiss on Frank’s forehead. I look away.
‘They’ve given him a shave since yesterday,’ Ellie says as she sits. ‘He won’t be happy about that.’
‘Likes the haggard look, does he?’
‘Dad’s no hipster but he never likes to look too tidy,’ she laughs, her smile fading as soon as she looks at me. ‘Oh – Sam – I’m sorry.’
‘No. It’s okay. It’s good you know stuff like that about him.’
‘Did your mum never tell you what he was like?’
I shake my head. ‘She was too angry. Hard to talk about the amusing quirks of the person who destroyed your life.’
‘Sure.’
I can’t expect Ellie to understand this. Her good memories are as valid and valuable as my bad ones. Neither of us shares one clear image of who Frank Mullins was.
He stirs and my heart leaps to my mouth.
Ellie leans close to his ear. ‘Hey, Pa. It’s Ellie.’
Frank mumbles something. I can’t hear the words.
‘Barney’s at Mum’s. I have someone else to visit you today.’
I watch Frank’s sleep-crusted eyelids split open and eyes the colour of mine are revealed.
Twenty-three years since they last focused on me.
I hold my breath. I don’t know why. My chest aches from the effort.
My father is staring at me – the son he abandoned a lifetime ago. And there is nothing there. No flicker of recognition. No glimpse of remorse, or shock, or… anything.
The 9-year-old me wants to run out of the room, out of the too-bright corridor with its soothing pictures and hopeful sunlight, out of the building into the real world. This isn’t real, is it? It’s a place of soon-to-be loss; heavy sadness and fear carefully tucked out of view in the colourful interior. The man lying in this bed might as well be a mirage.
I feel like I should cry, or yell, or say something that could make him remember me – because he should remember me. He shouldn’t be allowed to forget – again.
A hand gently rests on my knee. I look up and see Ellie’s concern. ‘Talk to him.’
The eyes-like-mine stare back from the bed.
What do I say?
‘Um… Hey… Hello, Frank. I’m Sam.’
The eyelids flicker, don’t quite close.
‘I’m your son. Jean’s boy? Jean from Mull?’
Nothing.
‘Go on, Sam.’ Ellie’s voice is soft and low, the voice Ma used when Cal and I woke with nightmares in the Dumbiedykes flat, months after leaving Grandma’s. ‘He can hear you.’
‘Can he?’
She nods. I’m not certain I believe her.
‘I live in London now. I’m a musician. Er – I play the fiddle, funnily enough. I’ve played all over the world and made records, too. And I’ve a studio – I own it with a friend…’