Blood Ties: A gripping Irish police procedural, heralding the return of Ben Devlin by Brian McGilloway
Author:Brian McGilloway [McGilloway, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2021-03-24T11:00:00+00:00
Chapter Twenty-Five
âThere are rumours weâre going to be closing before the end of the week,â Debs said, over dinner.
âFor Easter?â
She shrugged. âSomeone claimed it was discussed at a headteachersâ conference yesterday, that everyone will be sent home and weâll be teaching online for a few weeks.â
âNice one,â Shane offered.
âYouâll still have to get up and do your classes every day at the usual time,â she said. âYour teachers will still be teaching.â
âThey will, right enough,â he said, laughing. âIâll be in me bed until lunchtime! I must see if I can get extra hours at work.â
âIf the schools close, shops might start closing down too,â I said. âWork might not be quite the same.â
âBesides,â Debs said. âYour Granda is living here with us. Might be best if youâre not putting yourself at risk of catching coronavirus.â
âThatâs not fair,â Shane said.
âWeâll talk about it later,â I said. My dad had been following the conversation, though had contributed nothing to it, eating his meal silently.
* * *
Later that evening, though, as I helped my dad up the stairs to his room, he did comment.
âI might be better back at the home,â he said. âItâs not fair on the young fella to have to stop working because of me.â
âItâs not because of you,â I said. âI donât want him catching anything himself. Or bringing anything into the house to the rest of us.â
âYouâll still be working, though,â my father said, in such a way that I couldnât be sure whether it was a question or a statement.
âIâm sure theyâll be taking whatever precautions they need to for us,â I said.
âYou canât do one thing yourself and ask Shane to do the opposite. Heâll resent it. And resent you for making him do it.â
âWeâll see,â I said, a little rankled at the comment for reasons I could not fully recognise.
âIâm not telling you what to do,â he said. âHeâs so like you at that age, Iâm just thinking about how youâd have reacted to someone telling you what to do.â
âI always listened to good advice,â I said.
âYou did?â Dad laughed and this time there was no confusion over the fact it was a question.
âIf only I could have found someone to give me some!â
He laughed again, lightly, the sound rattling around his ribcage as he slipped his arm across my back to support himself. His grip was loose, his arm surprisingly light around my shoulder.
* * *
I woke at around 3 a.m. with my dad calling for me. When I went into the room, he lay on the floor, one leg still caught in the sheets on the bed, where heâd fallen out.
I rushed across to him, as he protested that he was okay. But, even as he did, I could see that he was unable to lift himself, his arms ineffectually pushing against the ground, one hand twisted in the duvet that had fallen off with him.
I knelt down next to him and recognised his fear.
âAre you hurt?â
He shook his head. âI shocked myself, I think,â he said.
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