Read Online The Breezes by Joseph O'Neill - Free Book Online

suffer.
    So Pa decided not to pursue the matter. He said, with a forced casualness, ‘So, who’s coming with me to see Merv?’
    Not me, I thought. Although I knew Merv, I hardly knew him well enough to visit him in intensive care.
    â€˜Well?’ Pa said, jingling his keys. He still had not moved from his original spot in the hallway. ‘Johnny? Rosie? Are you coming, my love?’
    Rosie said from the kitchen, ‘Johnny and I don’t know him. He’s your friend. You see him.’
    Pa said, ‘But Rosie, my love, the man’s at death’s door. He needs all the support he can get. He’s met you and Johnny. He knows you. He knows you’re my children. I’m sure he’d like you to be there.’
    Racking up soapy plates with a clatter, Rosie said, ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ She scrubbed furiously at a frying-pan, rasping it with all of her strength. ‘I mean, let’s be honest, it won’t make any real difference to Johnny or me whether what’s his name – Marv? – lives or dies. We hardly know him.’ She banged a dish. ‘If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s that kind of hypocrisy.’
    Pa flinched. He gripped his car keys and there was a moment of silence.
    Then he said, ‘Is that what you think, Rosie? Is that really what you think?’ He slowly shook his head. ‘Well, I’m getting out of here,’ he said, disgust in his voice. ‘All of you, you all …’ He did not finish his sentence. He walked out of the front door and made for his car.
    â€˜Brilliant, Rosie,’ I said. ‘Bloody brilliant.’
    Rosie turned towards me and shouted, ‘Go with him! Don’t let him go there alone! Can’t you see that he needs someone to go with him? Go on,’ she shouted, ‘get after him!’
    She was right; and I snatched a jacket and ran out into the street and caught up with my father just as he was steeringthe car out of its parking slot. I opened the front passenger door and got in.
    We drove along in silence.
    The hospital was situated a few miles to the north, at the top of the hill overlooking the old harbour. It was a dark, cloudy afternoon. The leafing trees shook around in the wind and Rockport and its components – the oily canals, the bunched cranes and, north of the river, the housing towers with balconies flagged with drying clothes – jerked slowly by as we stopped and started.
    Two miles and ten log-jammed minutes later, Pa still had not spoken. Usually, when Pa has been hurt by Rosie, he pours his heart out to me. ‘What’s the matter with that girl?’ he asks helplessly. ‘She’s got everything: she’s smart, she’s got a good job, and, to cap it all, she’s beautiful!’ He shakes his head. ‘She doesn’t mean the things she says, Johnny, not deep down. I know that. It breaks my heart to see her so unhappy. I just don’t know what to do about it. I’m at a loss. There’s something gnawing away at her and God help me I don’t know what it is.’ And off he goes, beating a path around the room. ‘Is it money? How’s she doing for money? Maybe she needs some funds. Here,’ he says, taking out a pen and cheque book, ‘I want you to give this to her.’
    â€˜Pa, don’t do that,’ I say. I physically stop him from writing the cheque. ‘She’s fine for money. You know it’s not money.’
    â€˜What is it, then? Johnny, all I know is that when she was a kid she was a little bundle of dynamite. You’d have to see it to believe it. Do you know that she used to bring your mother and me breakfast in bed? She was just four and half years old.’ I know what Pa is going to say next. He is going to say, She used to bring us boiled eggs with our faces drawn on them, can you imagine? ‘She used to bring us boiled eggs with our faces drawn on