Thank you for all your lovely reviews. I'll try and keep busting these out now that I've settled into the semester!
Chapter Eleven
1920.
Four years without Sybil.
Tom sat quietly at the workbench eating the cold leftover fish and chips from last night's dinner. He was still a mechanic, tinkering away at the same garage he worked at when he came back to Dublin. Not aspiring to do anything more. Too preoccupied with the past to worry about his future. Still living with his mam and his brother, not bothering to find a place of his own. It was familiar and comforting, characteristics that no longer existed in a post-Sybil life.
He tried forgetting about her. He really did. The alcohol helped at night, but when the morning came, the absence of her body next to his was enough to send him clawing for the bottle again. Tom kept it in control most of the time, but some days it would be too much. On rare occasions, his thoughts would spiral out of control, sending Tom into a deep depression. Sometimes he would wake up the next morning with a thunderous headache and a strange woman who wasn't Sybil lying next to him. The women he chose bore no resemblance to Sybil, fearing that he would accidentally call her name at the peak of his pleasure. He usually did anyways, on accident of course.
Days, weeks, months, and years passed but he was still in England, replaying all the lies she had told him over and over and over in his mind. Forever stuck in a vicious cycle of endless questions with no answers.
'Why did she leave me? Why didn't she tell the truth? Does Sybil love me? Is she married now? Is she happy?'
Tom shook his head, trying to expel the thoughts running through his mind. He reached for the ale that sat on the dusty floor of the garage to wash down his lunch and found it was missing from its usual spot.
"You shouldn't be drinking Tommy."
Niall, the youngest of the Branson boys at 19, stood over Tom's hunched body. Tom looked up, glassy eyed and slightly inebriated from the ale.
"I'll do what I fucking want. What do you want Niall? I'm busy."
Niall took a swig from the bottle, downing the last of the alcohol, and tossed it in the far corner of the garage with the numerous others. Tom crumpled up the last the newspaper that he had wrapped his lunch in and lazily threw it in the same corner. His garbage was piling up and he needed to get rid of it soon.
"I'm on my way to the hospital. Did something to my knee. Just checking up on you."
Tom scowled at his younger brother.
"Fuckin' hell. I don't need you to look after me."
Niall shook his head in anger and bitter disappointment.
"Christ almighty Tommy! How long are you going to be like this? I only want to help."
"I don't need your help," Tom said petulantly.
"You can't keep shutting me and Mam out like this Tommy. It's not healthy."
Tom rubbed the bridge of his nose, anger and annoyance raging inside.
"Fuck off already."
"If you acted like this, maybe your English bird was right to leave you."
How.
Dare.
He.
Tom leapt up and struck Niall between his eye and nose with a clenched fist. The dull crack of the punch quickly disappeared into the background as Niall fell to the dusty concrete floor, crying out.
"Fucking shite!"
Blood slowly trickled down Niall's face and dripped onto his jacket and the floor. Niall held his nose, putting pressure on the fresh wound, an attempt to stop the bleeding. A shot of adrenaline ran through Tom's veins and he sobered up. He stared at his brother lying on the ground, broken and bloody. A surge of guilt invaded his consciousness.
Tom took a step forward to help his brother up, but Niall scrambled to his feet, hand still on his nose.
"Niall…"
Niall held up a hand in defeat and tuned his back to leave.
"I fucking get it. I'm already fucking leaving Tom."
Niall's footsteps grew fainter as he exited. Tom wanted to apologize, but it was too late. Instead, he stood alone in the middle of the garage, staring at the drops of red on the concrete.
. . .
Niall sat alone on the exam table in the examination room of The Royal City of Dublin Hospital, holding his nose. The doctor came in earlier and checked his knee. It wasn't serious, just a small sprain. His left eye was a different story. Although his nose had taken the brunt of the hit, his occipital bone may have been fractured by the hit due to the growing swell underneath his tear duct. There was also a small gash under his eye that needed stitches.
Once the last stitches were sewn in by the doctor, he left to send in a nurse for further treatment.
He sat in silence for a few minutes until he heard three soft raps at the door. It opened slowly and the nurse stepped in. Niall immediately calmed in her presence. She was confident as she strode into the room, every step was sure as she made her way to the cabinet in the corner of the room, her nose buried in his file. She set the file down on top of the cabinet, grabbed bandages and salve from inside the drawer and turned to face Niall.
She stopped. Her eyes went wide and stared at Niall for a brief moment. Her mouth fell open slightly and she almost dropped the bandages and salve in her hands. Her face paled and her hands started to tremble.
Niall, concerned she was ill, spoke up.
"Are you alright?"
The nurse shook her head and put on an obligatory smile, trying to hide what had just occurred seconds earlier.
"Fine. Yes."
It was Niall's turn to be stunned. Her accent… She was most definitely not from Dublin.
She cautiously approached Niall on the exam table. She examined his eye. The pale flesh around the bridge of his nose was quickly turning purple, engorged with blood. The nurse delicately brushed the bruise and his newly acquired stitches with her fingers, testing its tenderness. Niall winced at the contact and pulled away.
"I'll bandage your knee first."
She knelt down and rolled his trousers up until his knee was exposed. The nurse rubbed a cooling salve on the joint and started to wrap it tight.
"What happened? To you eye I mean."
Niall scowled at the thought of his brother. Tom was difficult and they had their fair share of fights, but Tom crossed a line. Still, Niall was fiercely loyal to his family and didn't want to place the blame entirely on Tom. He was in the wrong as well.
"Just a fight between brothers. Nothing too serious."
"I should have a word with him. He could have blinded you."
Niall thought of Tom's drinking and scoffed.
"You should have a word with him about other things as well."
She finished wrapping his knee and pulled the trouser leg down. She stood up and walked to a table with a bowl and pitcher. Cold water poured from the pitcher onto a towel in the bowl. The excess water was wrung out and she handed him the towel.
"Put this on your eye while I get the bandages prepared."
Niall did was he was told. The cold pressure stung his eye. He couldn't see exactly what she was doing, but she was once again in the corner of the exam room, gathering more bandages and gauze.
"You're English," he blurted.
She didn't turn around, but still answered.
"I am."
"Why are you here?"'
She turned around holding soaked gauze and bandages in her hands. The medicine's stench filled the room and invaded his nostrils. It smelled revolting, but she didn't seem to notice. She nodded towards the towel at Niall's eye.
"Put that down for a moment."
Niall obeyed the nurse's command and the air hit his skin, cooling the blood in his inflamed eye. She applied the gauze and held it still as she started to unwind the bandage around his head.
"I'm a nurse on the Isle of Man, but many of hospitals in Ireland were in dire need of more nurses, so I was transferred here for the time being."
"You don't sound happy about that."
"I'm an English nurse working in an Irish hospital. People come in all the time and they refuse to be seen by me. Dublin isn't safe for me. It isn't safe for anyone, but especially not for me."
"Why stay then?"
She was silent for a moment, then answered.
"Foolishness to be quite honest. You're done."
She tucked in the last of the bandage around his head and took a step back.
Niall tested the bandages. He pushed his jaw down, pulling the muscles of his face down to make sure that the bandages stayed. They did.
He gave her a smile, etched in was concern for her current situation.
"Good luck with that."
She politely smiled back.
"I'll try. Thank you…uh…"
"Niall."
A genuine smile crossed her face and a true warmth emanated from her.
"Thank you Niall."
The nurse reached around her, gathering a small parcel she had made minutes earlier. She handed it to him and patted his hand to make sure that he had it firmly in his grasp.
"Put ice on your knee for 15 minutes and wrap it immediately. Take it off at night or else your ankle will swell. As for your eye, lots of ice. Put the ointment over the stitches every morning, noon and night. Don't pick at the them and forget to change gauze and bandages every day. Don't go out too often. With one eye, you have limited vision and you might have some trouble navigating until you get used to it. In the parcel are some extra bandages, gauze, and ointment. Come back in a week or two and I'll remove them. I'll check on the healing as well."
Niall was stunned. He'd gone to hospitals for scrapes before, but none of the other nurses had given him supplies to heal himself. The expense would usually come out of Mam's pocket and it would usually cost more than they ever had on hand. He smiled at her, truly grateful for her generosity.
"Thank you Nurse…"
"Crawley. Nurse Crawley."