Part 30 (2/2)
”Wonderful ...” Denny O'Rourke muttered.
They fell silent for an hour, lost in daydreams and a cool air that promised the autumn.
When he lost his dad, Ellis lost the one person who knew truly how to be silent. The silences they shared in Paris were their masterpieces, at the end of a lifetime's work. In that city, Ellis O'Rourke took care of Denny O'Rourke for the first time and it made him feel that he and his dad had known each other for ever and that they were each other's father and each other's son.
On a Thursday morning in mid-October, Denny O'Rourke rang his daughter and then his son and told them to come home that evening for dinner.
”The spot on my lungs has halved in size, more than halved in fact. We're looking good!”
”Let's get p.i.s.sed!” Ellis said.
”You said it was only a shadow,” Chrissie replied.
They got drunk on champagne and Denny went to bed undecided as to whether he should take his chemo pills after so much alcohol. Ellis and Chrissie settled down in their beds soon after midnight, as the long graceful sweeps of wind which had buffeted the evening became more forceful.
Panic-stricken, Chrissie woke Ellis at five in the morning. ”There's the most peculiar noise coming from Dad's bedroom!”
”Go back to bed!” Ellis grunted.
”How can you sleep! There's a h.e.l.l of a racket in the garden. I don't know what it is.”
Ellis sat bolt upright. ”You don't know what it is?” He cupped his hands round his ears and listened theatrically. ”It's wind, a natural occurrence. It won't bite.”
”Come and sleep next to me, Ellie.”
”No. Chrissie, you treat me like a right dork when it suits you. You can't have it both ways. Now let me sleep.”
She returned at a quarter to six and this time she switched the light on and tore the blankets away.
”I'm not f.u.c.king around, Ellis! This house sounds like it's going to collapse! There is the most terrible noise coming from Dad's bedroom window and I cannot wake him.”
Ellis didn't argue this time. He went to the window and looked out. ”f.u.c.king h.e.l.l!”
In Denny's room, the window frame was groaning. The gla.s.s heaved as if it were trying to draw breath. The wind howled around the house and outside, silhouetted against an angry, early morning sky, were the walnut trees, bent by the gale.
”Never seen anything like it,” Ellis muttered.
They pushed and prodded Denny but he didn't stir. Chrissie resorted to shouting in his ear.
”Dad! You've got to wake up!”
Denny opened his eyes, touched Chrissie's face and said, ”By all means ask the captain but he won't be able to come about in snowfall. We're not even at Mauritius, you know.” He turned over and went back to sleep.
”I'd stick my neck out and say Dad opted for taking his medication last night, on top of the booze,” Ellis said.
At that moment, the bedroom wall let out a groan. The gla.s.s cracked and the entire window cas.e.m.e.nt was sucked out of the wall and hurled across the garden. The storm poured in through the gaping hole. Ellis and Chrissie stared open-mouthed whilst their father slept on.
The shed had been picked up and deposited in a shattered heap on the other side of the garden. As Ellis dragged a section of it towards the house he was thrown backwards and sideways by the gusts.
”It's amazing out there! Amazing!” he spluttered exuberantly, as Chrissie held the front door open for him.
They had to fall against the door to close it. She helped him upstairs with the shed panel and they found their dad standing by the bed, looking as if he'd been electrocuted.
”There's a hole in the house,” he said to them, with pupils the size of pinholes. ”It's like going round the Cape. Fantastic! Let's go outside!”
”You're not going anywhere,” Chrissie said.
Chrissie took Denny downstairs. Ellis slid the panel across the floor. As soon as he held it up, it was sucked out of his hands and flew at the wall, covering the hole where the window had been. The room fell silent.
”Like slaying a dragon ...” Ellis gasped.
When he'd caught his breath, he nailed the panel to the wall and then he went downstairs where his sister was making tea and his dad was b.u.t.tering a piece of toast.
”Dad's got the munchies,” Chrissie said knowingly.
”This toast couldn't taste any better if it was served up on Selina Scott's thighs!” Denny O'Rourke announced.
”You're off your t.i.ts, Dad,” Ellis said.
”Ellis! You can't say that!” Chrissie protested.
Denny nodded his agreement with a mouth full of toast.
”He's right, dear girl, I think I am.”
Ellis had not slayed the dragon that night. No one had. The dragon slayed the town and the park. It slayed the wooded plateau leading to Ide Hill. It slayed millions. Oak, beech, yew, chestnut. Denny said that Jim Croucher up at Emmetts wept when he saw the devastation. On the television news, people in Jerusalem were praying for England's trees.
”At least it was natural,” Denny said. ”At least it wasn't us.”
A month after the storm, the phone rang at midnight, waking Denny.
”h.e.l.lo, Dad!” Ellis was in a call box.
”Are you all right?” Denny asked.
”Yup.”
”Sober?”
”Just about. Wasn't earlier. But are you, more importantly?”
”Yes. Why do you ask?” A smile broke across Denny's face, one of the many that no one would ever see.
”'Cos I need picking up.”
”Why so late and why the surprise visit, not that I mind either?”
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