Dr. O'Keeney came into the waiting room. He was a tall, rangy man with bulging eyes like Buster Keaton and hands that flapped around at the bottoms of his sleeves as if they didn't belong to him. He smelled of antiseptic and smoke.
'We've had the results of Paul's tests, Katie, and I have to be honest and tell you here and now that they're not very encouraging.'
Katie felt cold. She had been right on the point of standing up, but now she remained seated, although she kept her back rigidly straight. Dr. O'Keeney had a largewart close to the side of his nose. She had always wondered why people didn't have warts removed, especially doctors.
'Paul's brain was deprived of oxygen for long enough to cause a considerable amount of damage. His disability isn't life-threatening, I have to tell you, but it is very unlikely that he will recover consciousness, and he is likely to remain in a vegetative state for the remainder of his life.'
'He won't wake up?
Dr. O'Keeney shook his head. 'I don't know what's happening inside of his head, Katie, what thoughts he might be having, what dreams. But I don't think they could possibly be worse than the sort of existence that he would have to suffer if he were to come out of his coma, and try to live in the waking world. He would be unable to speak, unable to feed himself, doubly incontinent, but always conscious of his predicament.'
'So what can I do?'
'Nothing, I'm afraid. I do have several other coma cases here, where parents and children sit with their afflicted loved ones, and talk to them every day, and play them their favorite music. It's always very well publicized when somebody recovers, but in my experience this very rarely happens. You'll have to face up to something very grim, Katie. To all intents and purposes, the Paul you knew died in the back of that car.'
'What if he's aware?'
'He's not, I assure you.'
'How can you be certain? You just said yourself that you didn't know what thoughts he was having.'
'Katie, barring a miracle from God, he's lost to you forever. I'm very sorry.'
She went alone into Paul's room and stood beside him. He looked deeply peaceful, as if he were simply sleeping after a long day's betting on the horses at Fairyhouse and too much Guinness. She knew now that her life had changed forever, and that the dreams she had harbored when she was young were never to be. She felt as if her dreams had been a curse on everybody who came into contact with her, even her dog.
She didn't kiss him, couldn't. What was the point? Instead she walked out through the swing doors and into the parking lot where it was raining in torrents and ran to her car. She started the engine, then she turned it off again. Then she picked up her cell phone and dialed Jury's Inn.
'Lucy? Lucy, it's Katie Maguire. Do you mind if we meet?'
49
As she pulled away from the Y-junction at Victoria Cross, a pickup truck came right through the lights opposite The Crow's Nest pub and collided with her nearside passenger door. The truck wasn't going fast, but the noise was tremendous, and Katie's car was pushed sideways across the road so that her rear offside bumper was hit by a hackney coming in the opposite direction.
She climbed out into the pouring rain. The pickup's wheel arch had become entangled with hers, and when the driver tried to reverse there was a crackling, groaning sound of metal and plastic.
Turning up her collar, she walked around to the driver's door and held up her badge.
'Oh feck,' said the driver. He was a young man with a shaven head and earrings and a donkey jacket with orange fluorescent patches on it.
'You went right through a red light without stopping,' Katie told him. 'I want your name and address and the name of your insurance company.'
'I'm sorry, my girlfriend's having a baby and I was trying to get home quick.'
'I don't care if the hounds of hell are after you, you could have killed somebody, driving like that.'
She called the traffic department at Anglesea Street and then ordered the pickup driver to pull in by the side of the road. Her car was still drivable, even though the tire chafed against the twisted wheel arch with a chuffing sound like maracas. By the time a squad car had arrived and she had redirected two miles of congested traffic, she was soaked through, and trembling with cold.
'Not your week, Superintendent,' said Garda Nial O'Gorman, climbing out of the squad car and putting on his cap.
Lucy was waiting for her in the bar, at a table by the window, working on her laptop. She was wearing a fluffy white rollneck sweater and black leather trousers. 'My God,' she said, when Katie walked in. 'What happened to you?'
'Minor car accident, that's all. Nobody hurt, nothing to worry about.'
'You're drenched. Do you want a drink?'
'I'm still on duty, but I'll have a coffee maybe.'
She sat down. Through the window she could see the lights of Western Road and the glossy black river, sliding by. 'What are you working on?' she asked, nodding at the laptop. 'Are you making any progress with this Mor-Rioghain thing?'
'A little,' said Lucy. 'I went up to Knocknadeenly again this morning and had a look at the site by the wood. There's no doubt that it's the sort of place that would have had great magical significance in druidic times. There are Celtic stone markers at Ballynahina to the south, at Tullig to the west, at Rathfilode Cave to the east, and at the megalithic tomb at Kilgallan to the north. If you draw lines from each of these locations, they converge precisely on Knocknadeenly, practically down to the meter. Then of course we have Iollan's Wood, which is a natural gateway through to the Invisible Kingdom.'
