Tears streamed down Ali’s face. ‘How can she ever love me?’ He had to bend close to hear her. ‘I never wanted her and now I can’t imagine an instant when I won’t want her. Do you think she’ll make it, Dad? Do you…do you?’ She leaned against him and wailed softly into his neck. ‘They won’t give me any hope… I don’t know what I’ll do if – ’

‘No ifs.’ His confidence was brash and overloud in this place of quietness. He wondered how they do it as he watched a male doctor bend over a tadpole baby who could rest easily in the palm of his broad hand.

He said goodbye to his granddaughter and to his daughter, who had been pulled from the wreck of Cora’s car in the throes of premature labour.

Apart from an hour here and there, he had not slept since he received that frantic phone call from Eleanor. His limbs felt heavy as he walked towards his car. Once inside, he closed his eyes and rested his head against the headrest. When he awoke a traffic warden was tapping on the window.

‘You’re over your time, sir.’ The warden grinned sympathetically. ‘Long night, was it?’ He jerked his head towards the maternity hospital.

Jake nodded. ‘I dozed off. I haven’t slept since… sorry… I’ll move on now.’ He rubbed his eyes and yawned, straightened his shoulders and indicated into the traffic.

He drove northwards to another hospital where Brian sat at his mother’s bedside, waiting for Nadine to open her eyes.

Chapter 62

Door opens. Footsteps. Voices.

‘I love you, my darling. I know you can hear me. Listen to me. You’re going to get well again. You’re going to laugh and dance and sing. I‘m waiting for you. This time I’m not letting you go. I want you back in my arms where you’ve always belonged.’

‘Come back to us, Mum. We’re all here… and Sara… she’s fighting too. You’ll make each other strong, I know it.’

‘Are my hands too rough, Mum? Can you feel them on your face? What’s it like, hiding behind the willows? Come back to us… we’re waiting for you.’

‘Mum, it’s Sam. We’ve just flown in. Samantha’s too choked up to talk. Please wake up and say hello… do something… anything to let us know you can hear us…’

‘On the criteria of the Glasgow Coma Scale, her coma is too deep to respond to stimuli. There will be involuntary gestures, spasmodic movements. I’m afraid you can’t read anything into them. I’m so sorry – ’

‘What utter nonsense, Doctor. Ignore him, my dear, and be strong. It’s possible to come back from the deep. I should know!’

‘It’s me, Nadine, your father. I came as soon as I heard. I should have come more often but work… you know how it is… and you never wanted to know Lilian… why must I keep talking, Jake? It’s obvious she can’t hear a word I’m saying… oh, my poor child… my poor child… what’s to become of her?’

‘I’m here, Nadine. All the way from Vancouver to sit with you. I know you can hear me so listen up. My wedding is in six months. I want you there. Maid of honour. Understood!’

‘Halcyon days, Nadine. Do you remember? Or are your memories lost in the void? What’s it like? Dead to the world yet still alive? Is it peaceful or are you haunted by the wrongs you did? Goodbye for now. I’ll be back to see you soon.’

Door closes. Silence. Stillness. How long does a dream last?

Chapter 63

Jake – six weeks later

As the weeks passed and Jake waited for a sign from Nadine, no matter how slight, to give him hope, he separated his emotions. He banished pity, grief, rage, helplessness, heartache. Love, he believed, was the key to her recovery. And he loved her, not in the old way with its surety and complacency. Not in the obligatory way of those who ‘work’ at marriage and are rewarded with companionship that fits like a pair of well-worn shoes. This emotion was so strong he could not name or describe it. It was as raw as a new beginning, as miraculous as a second chance. He had no way of knowing if his love could reach her. He had to depend on memories. On the years they shared when they became what she once called ‘a hybrid,’ incapable of thinking outside each other’s minds. Somewhere in that dark terrain she occupied she must understand that this love would see her through.

Brian drove from Dingle every weekend to be with Nadine. The twins returned to California to finish their semester. Ali’s bruises slowly disappeared, although she said she still imagined them when she looked in the mirror. Not that she had much time to gaze at her reflection. When she was not in the maternity hospital with Sara she was with Nadine.

Jenny was strong and resilient when she flew in from Vancouver to be with Nadine but her composure cracked when she saw the utter stillness that trapped her friend. Somehow, she told Jake, even though it sounded arrogant, she had hoped her appearance would signal some change, a flicker of recognition, a nod to the past when they became inseparable. She pushed the sleeve of Nadine’s nightgown over her arm and stared at the faint scars that once formed a grid of pain. She rested her cheek against the pulse that still throbbed in Nadine’s wrist.

‘I’m convinced she can hear us.’ On the day before she returned to Vancouver she sat with Jake in the small café attached to Mount Veronica. The clinic specialised in severe brain injury and Nadine had been transferred from the main hospital once her condition stabilised. ‘You mustn’t lose hope. I want her at my wedding. The two of you, together. You have to think positively, Jake. She’s going to come through this.’

‘I know… I know.’ But what will she be like if she does? This question haunted him but he was terrified to utter it aloud.

‘Keep her father as far away from her as possible,’ Jenny advised. ‘He was always a tactless fool. The sooner he goes back to Australia, the better.’

Eoin Keogh had arrived at Sea Aster with two laden suitcases and no set date for departure. He was no good around illness, he admitted to Jake, especially something as mysterious as the comatose state. When Nadine was a child he brought her to see Snow White. Eoin detested that film, all those tweeting birds and little men… hi ho… hi ho… and that awful glass coffin, the rigidity within.

His unwashed clothes spilled over the laundry basket and Jake constantly tripped over his shoes. A pall of cigarette smoke hung in the air, despite repeated requests that he smoke outside. His initial shock had changed to resigned acceptance of Nadine’s fate. He wondered aloud if his first wife’s sudden death was not a better option to a living death. Clean-cut, that was how Eoin Keogh liked life. His voice had the carrying resonance Jake remembered. The realisation that he had always detested his father-in-law sharpened his voice when he warned Eoin never to speak such thoughts aloud in Nadine’s presence.

The band members buoyed him up but he sensed undercurrent of anxiety as the weeks passed and bookings were cancelled. Anything could happen to Nadine while he was away and unable to reach her bedside, he argued when Mik suggested an overnight concert in Cork. Anxiety had become Jake’s natural state. The small ward where Nadine lay had become the centre of his life. All that went on outside – the traffic and hurrying pedestrians, the watchful traffic warden and wasp-headed cyclists – had an urgency that belonged to another time.

‘You should find a replacement singer for the band,’ he told Mik. ‘I can’t leave Nadine and you can’t keep cancelling bookings.’

‘It’s not that easy,’ Mik protested. ‘You’re the glue that holds Shard together. If you opt out Feral and Reedy will do the same and that’ll be the end of Shard. Daryl and Hart have no interest in keeping the band together when the centre’s gone from it. Think on this, Jake, before you make a final decision.’

He had cancelled a tour of the Netherlands at Jake’s behest, apart from one overnight booking. The concert in Amsterdam was a prestigious event and one that Shard could not afford to miss, he said when he called to Sea Aster one evening.