He liked hearing her sounding so happy again. It felt as if she was almost back to normal again. He hoped so. He missed her when she was grieving. It was mad really – all the money he earned, and all the love she had inside her, and they couldn’t have the one thing that they really wanted. The one thing she really wanted. Then there was Assumpta, who was carrying a child she really didn’t want. Any other father would have seen it aborted, for no other reason than the girl was a fucking idiot and no one in their right mind would trust her with a baby. She had enough trouble stringing a coherent sentence together. It was so unfair.
He sighed, and hugged his lovely wife tightly to him. As his mum always said, if it was meant to be, then it would happen for them. He wanted it to happen not just because his Josephine deserved it, but because he would finally feel she had everything he had promised her all those years ago, when they were just starting out and life still held endless possibilities. She had never asked for anything, she had always been there for him, and he knew how lucky he was in that way. Nothing he could ever do would change her feelings for him, she loved him without any strings, or any kind of expectations.
She was his world, and that would never change.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Carmel Costello looked awful, but for once she didn’t care. This wasn’t about her – this was about her husband.
‘Assumpta, will you please shut up! If he hears you carrying on again he will be up here on top of us. Just ignore him.’
Assumpta knew that her mother was talking sense, but her father’s shouting was getting too much now. It had been going on for hours. ‘Just make him shut up, Mum, please make him stop! He’s giving me a headache.’
Carmel grabbed her daughter’s wrists tightly. The girl was getting hysterical, and she didn’t blame her. Nevertheless, this was something her daughter had brought on herself – had brought on them all with her behaviour. Carmel’s job was to emphasise to her daughter the seriousness of what was actually going on.
‘Listen to me, girl, and you better listen good. That man down there is not in his right mind. He is capable of really hurting us. You know that he cannot be talked to when he is like this. If I thought I could calm him down don’t you think I would have been down there hours ago? I’m the one person who has ever been allowed to disagree with him, and that’s only when he lets me. Right now, he is beyond reason and if you don’t shut the fuck up, he will be up here like an avenging angel and then we will really be in trouble.’
Assumpta was truly terrified now. Her father had been ranting without pause for hours on end, and it wasn’t going to let up any time soon.
‘Just keep quiet, let him get it out of his system, and hope to God that it’s sooner rather than later.’
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Declan was tired out. It was the third time in twenty-four hours that Carmel had rung him to come and help with Patrick. If only Patrick would agree to go into hospital. But he was adamant that he was not going to do that again.
He was so fucking paranoid. He was convinced that everyone was plotting against him. It was like dealing with a six-foot toddler, who had no intention of doing anything other than exactly what they wanted.
‘Please, Patrick, will you just let me speak for a few minutes?’
Patrick was still manic. Declan could see the toll the lack of sleep was having on his brother. He had seen him like this before, but never this bad. He was all over the place, unable to relax for even a few minutes. It was pitiful to watch him.
‘I don’t need to do fucking anything, Declan. I know that you will just talk shite to me again. I’m telling you what I’ve told you over and over: I am not going into a hospital. I don’t need to go into a hospital. What I need is to sort things out. What I need is to fucking finally remove the people who are standing in my way. Don’t you get it? I am surrounded by cunts, absolute cunts.’
Declan sighed. This was going to go on for a while. Carmel wanted to have him sectioned but she was too frightened to be the person to orchestrate that. She wanted Declan to do it and who could blame her?
He knew he should do it. It was in all their interests – especially Patrick’s – but he couldn’t. He couldn’t bring himself to put his brother away. It was never going to happen. But seeing him like this was almost as bad. All his life Patrick had been on the borderline, but he had always managed to eventually control himself. His strength of mind was awesome. Patrick had always been very unpredictable but, in the past, he had accepted that about himself. He had understood his own weaknesses and fought to bring them under some kind of control.