Joseph O'Neill - The Breezes

And then there is Pa. With her constant unkindness to him, Rosie is doing her best to lose him, too. Of course, that could never happen. Pa’s love is unlosable. Pa still believes in his daughter no matter what, believes that, like Steve, she has inner resources. ‘She doesn’t mean it,’ he tells me after she has hurt him again with some remark. ‘She has a heart of gold,’ he says, and I stupidly imagine a lump of that soft metal implanted in my sister’s breast.

A heart of gold: I suppose it’s no surprise that Pa should resort to platitudes like this. That’s how he often deals with difficulties, by grasping on to tried and tested sayings as though they were the warm rungs of wisdom’s ladder. Right now, I’ll bet, he is lying in bed and telling himself that it is darkest before the dawn and that all clouds have silver linings. He is saying to himself that although, one, his best friend is in intensive care; two, his job is at risk; three, his children are sources of fear and anxiety; four, he has been attacked by a strange man and by a dog; five, his refereeing hobby is a humiliation; six, his pet is missing; seven, his house has been broken into and the precious photographs of his late wife, herself robbed from him, have been stolen, although all of these things are true, at least he and his children are healthy, at least his house is intact — things could be worse , Pa is saying to himself.

Now this relativism may be true (although, in fact, things are worse: Pa still does not know about the imminent collapse of my exhibition, does he?), but surely even Pa knows that it is also crap. Everybody knows that.

Pa’s fondness for adages has spilled over into his work. Prompted by the arrival of Paddy Browne, the Network whizz-kid, he has taken to reading executive success books, in particular the How To books written by a management guru called Mark Q. Fincham: The How To of Negotiation, The How To of Team Play and The How To of Making Contacts. Every chapter in a Mark Q. Fincham book begins with a pithy epigraph in glittering italics and it is these, rather than the body of the work, which really impress my father. ‘How about this,’ he says. ‘Build your adversary a golden bridge to retreat across. Sun Tzu.’ He leafs through some more pages. ‘In the long run, men only hit what they aim at. Henry David Thoreau.’ He is full of admiration. ‘You should read this, John. There’s some great stuff here. Nobody shoulders a rifle in defence of a boarding house. Bret Harte. Now that’s smart.’ He reads on. ‘Success as an executive requires the presence of many qualities — whereas failure will proceed from the absence of merely one of them.’ Pa hesitates over this one. He starts to say something but then stops. Then he says defensively, ‘Dr Robert N. McMurry. Who the hell is he, anyway?’

His favourite business Bible is Fincham’s What They Don’t Teach You at Rockport Business School , because Paddy Browne went to Rockport Business School and Pa figures that reading this book will give him some kind of edge over the man. Following Fincham’s recommendation, he carries around in his wallet the special takeaway cards that come with the books, cards which boil the techniques of business down to their mysterious essence. DIAGNOSIS, one card reads. NON-POSTPONEMENT, reads another one. INPUT? THROUGHPUT? OUTPUT? asks another. And my favourite: INEVITABLE PROBLEMS — QUICK RESPONSE. It’s the dash I love — that immediate, right-on-top-of-the-problem dash.

Answer me this: Merv’s accident — what is the quick response to that?

Merv is being treated in a hospital just outside Rockport city. It is an isolated, dark-bricked, turreted old building and for panoramic reasons, one supposes, its founders located it right on the precipice that overshadows the Rockport yacht haven, giving the place the bleak, looming air of a Central European schloss. We approached it by a narrow road that ran alongside the edge of the cliff. Below, to our right, was the city in its basin and, to our left, on the exposed flatland in front of the hospital, stood a wind farm, the propellers planted in the arid earth in parallel rows, blades spinning sweetly in the plentiful sea wind.

We arrived just after three o’clock. There was a moment of quiet after the car stopped. An ambulance drew up to the hospital entrance, its roof light turning orange again and again. Neither of us felt like moving.

Pa tapped me on the shoulder. ‘Look,’ he said, pointing. I looked: way below, a train, slithering carefully through gardens and allotments into North Rockport Station. Pa checked his watch. ‘Bang on time,’ he said.

We got out of the car and walked into the reception area and Pa asked about seeing Mr Mervyn Rasmussen in intensive care. First floor, take a right, take a left, go down to the bottom of the corridor, the receptionist said, then wait in the waiting-room.

‘Hold on a moment,’ Pa said, just as we were about to set off. He dashed outside and came back moments later with a bouquet of daffodils and a get-well card with a joke. It could be worse , the front of the card said. I looked inside it for the punchline: I could be ill and you could be listening to me complaining!

BEST WISHES FOR A SPEEDY RECOVERY, MERV, Pa wrote. WITH BEST WISHES FROM THE BREEZES. He signed his name and Rosie’s, and then I signed. ‘OK,’ he said worriedly. ‘I suppose we’d better get going.’

We walked without speaking. We turned one corner, then another. Finally, after what seemed like half an hour going down a long corridor, we reached the intensive care waiting-room. It felt like an airport lounge full of delayed passengers. The atmosphere was one of exhaustion and camaraderie and domestic informality, the visitors unkempt, walking around in socks, eating snacks, dipping into bags for belongings. A television was on in the corner. There was a low hum of conversation.

Pa said, ‘There she is. That’s Mrs Rasmussen — Amy. And that’s Merv’s boy,’ he whispered. ‘He’s called Billy.’ We approached them. ‘Amy,’ Pa said. He gave her a big hug while Billy and I stood awkwardly by.

‘Billy,’ Mrs Rasmussen said, ‘you remember Mr Breeze?’ Pa and Billy shook hands. ‘And you must be John,’ Mrs Rasmussen said. We shook hands. Then, after a moment of hesitation, Billy Rasmussen and I shook hands, too. Billy was a big-shouldered, brown-skinned man of about my age. His hands were enormous. He kept half grinning, as if there were something comical about the situation.

Mrs Rasmussen was a tiny Oriental woman of around fifty, a Filipino by origin, I guessed. She was wearing a pyjama suit and slippers and obviously had been camping out in the waiting-room since the accident. I could see a sleeping-bag and a small suitcase under her chair.

‘How is he, Amy?’ Pa said.

Mrs Rasmussen shrugged. ‘Not good, Gene.’

Pa went quiet for a moment. He made to hold up the daffodils, but then he lowered them again.

Mrs Rasmussen said kindly, ‘You don’t have to see him, you know. You can leave the flowers with me, if you like.’

Pa moved a little.

‘Would you like to see him?’ Mrs Rasmussen said. She looked at me.

Pa said. ‘Only if it’s OK, Amy. We don’t want to disturb him.’

Mrs Rasmussen smiled. Her tiredness showed. ‘Of course it’s all right. You’re his best friend.’ Then she smiled at me, as if I, too, were a best friend of Merv.

A nurse nodded his approval to Mrs Rasmussen and we followed her through one door and then through another, her slippers slapping against her heels. She pointed through a third transparent door. ‘He’s in there,’ she said. ‘I’ll wait here,’ she said.