Crash Course by Derek Fee (freenovel24 .TXT) 📗

a hearty breakfast and no reports in medical journals on the evils of eggs and bacon would change that tradition. Kane walked quietly along the corridor and opened the kitchen door. His father stood at the cooker. He still wore the shirt and trousers of his security man’s uniform. The khaki brown jacket hung on the back of a chair. Making the breakfast was the first chore after his arrival from a night spent wandering the halls of a private bank in the City of London. Every time Kane looked at his father, he wondered if that was where he would end. Paddy tramped the night-time corridors for less than the minimum wage because there was no place in the Police Service of Northern Ireland for a man whose nerve had gone.

“The dead arose and appeared to many,” Kane’s father said, looking up from the stove. “I suppose you’ll be wanting to feed your face while you’re here.”

“It’s great to see you too.” Kane crossed the room to where his mother sat in her customary chair by the old fireplace. As he bent to kiss her, images flashed quickly through his brain and he winced at their intensity. He looked into her glassy eyes that showed no sign of life. Maybe I should have been like you, he thought. Perhaps blocking it all out by becoming a living vegetable might have been the best way of dealing with the pain. But for him, that hadn’t been an option. He’d passed through one of the gates of Hell and something deep inside him would not allow him to take the route favoured by his mother. He kissed her lips. They tasted dry and soft and lifeless. It hurt him to think that he had probably lost his mother forever and that he had been the cause of her retreat into herself. My God but she looks old, he thought. A lot older than her chronological age. Her white skin sagged over her once fine cheekbones and her now totally white hair was in disarray. She was fifty-seven years old but she looked more than ninety. He glanced over at his father. The old man had had a difficult three years. Forced to work on because of his paltry pension and then turned into a carer for the last part of his life. Kane sometimes wondered how long it could go on. Both he and his father knew that Agnes Kane needed professional care. But neither was yet capable of relinquishing their duty to the woman they loved.

“No change?” he said as he took a seat at the kitchen table.

“What did you expect?” Patrick Kane poured out two cups of strong tea before depositing a plate containing enough bad cholesterol to clog the arteries of an army in front of his son. “Maybe we should change our religion and get ourselves off to Lourdes. That’s the kind of miracle we’re lookin’ for these days. But how would you know since we see you so rarely.”

Kane looked at the fatty mess on his plate and picked up his fork. “I’ve been busy,” he said. “Big drugs bust. I was under for six months trying to nail the bastards.”

“You and your God Almighty important job.” His father forked some eggs into his mouth. “If it wasn’t for you and your likin’ for your job maybe your mother wouldn’t be sitting there in the corner like a fuckin’ vegetable. You and your job cost me a companion for the rest of my life.”

Kane looked up and saw the anger in his father’s eyes. There was a time when those eyes only smiled for him. But that was a long time ago. He often wondered when their relationship had changed. For his father, the cataclysm occurred one sunny July day when he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The bomb on the Shankill hadn’t injured him badly. Others had been killed and maimed but Patrick Kane’s injuries hadn’t been life threatening. His son had been at home when the telephone call came telling him that his father had been taken to the Royal Infirmary. The voice on the other end of the line had been reassuring. His father had been injured but not critically. His mother had collapsed in a heap and after he had called the neighbours to look after her, he had marched off to the Royal to see for himself. He walked in on the mayhem of the aftermath of a bomb blast. Doctors and nurses ran in every direction and his first impression was of controlled chaos if such a state existed. He received directions several times before he located his father on a gurney in a corridor. At first, he didn’t recognise his own father. The injuries, although superficial, had been to the face. His father lay perfectly still and he thought for a moment that he might be dead. Flying glass had cut his face to shreds and a deep cut on his forehead had caused blood to fill his eye cavities. Mark had removed a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed the blood away. In that moment, he knew that he loved his father greatly. However, that bomb on that sunny Saturday was to change everything in the Kane household. His father had been unable psychologically to resume his duties; his mood became sullen as his life fell slowly apart. Finally, they had been forced to leave the province in which they had been born. Patrick Kane’s smiling eyes were seen no more.

“We’ve been through this a thousand times,” Kane said. “Mom’s breakdown wasn’t my fault. I had no idea she’d trip out when Nancy and the kids died.”

“If they’d simply died then maybe she could have handled it.” Pieces of chewed egg shot from the corner of Patrick Kane’s mouth as he spoke. “She was more of a mother to those children than ever your wife was. The poor wee critter.”

“Like I said.