«Erin is going to be fine, Kathryn. You’ll see. But Rachel, I really want to see her get better. I pray to God for that every day.»

«They both live in our hearts, and in our prayers, Kevin…»

«I just can’t get my head around it, what’s wrong with her? Do you remember a few weeks after you returned from the maternity home, she turned Erin’s pram on its side and the tiny little thing screamed and fell out onto the floor? At least she was unharmed, apart from one scratch! And sometimes she pinched her so much that the poor, defenceless little thing couldn’t stop crying. Where did all that malice come from? I still can’t fathom it to this day, where did we go wrong? What did we do to deserve that?»

«You can’t blame us for all that, dear. We weren’t bad parents. I think everything will look up eventually. We need to be a bit more patient. We will leave it in the hands of God, and the doctors. She is in good hands. First, we must take care of you, Kevin. Tell me some good news, please… Or sing something…»

«I don’t want to sing, Kathryn. And as you know I am not an orator. Never was. I can’t articulate my emotions well. We men are tough creations. However, I can tell you this, you were my guiding star. No one can take our love off us! I am grateful to you for every day that we spent together. You deserved much better than me. All I can do now is beg for your forgiveness for every upset I inflicted on you.» His face remained motionless and grey, his gaze fixed on the ceiling.

«And forgive me, Kevin. Sometimes I wore you down with my nit-picking, I really bugged you…»

«So, finally you admit it?» Kevin said triumphantly.

«Yes, I admit it. I remember our arguments, I always wanted to win because victory made me feel more self-confident. That’s why I always stood my ground, even though it damaged our relationship. It seemed to me that I had to assert my right to supremacy in the family. How was I to know that the happiness of the family was more important than our exhausting squabbling in search of an imaginary justice?»

«I’m glad to be assured that wisdom definitely does come with age, Kathryn!»

«But you were wise even at the beginning of our life together, dear! You could have turned your back on me and left a long time ago. But you didn’t. You always forgot about the most recent argument for the sake of making the peace, for the sake of love. Don’t you think that is amazing? And I am grateful to you for it.»

«I did not leave you, but this was only because I always remembered the words of the vicar at our wedding in St Chad’s Cathedral. He asked us if we were ready to „be faithful to one another, in illness or health, in happiness or sadness, for rich or for poor?“ We both answered we were. And then he pronounced us man and wife, adding: „That which God has united, man cannot separate,“ Kathryn, I cannot repeat this enough, remember this. I am happy… I am waiting for my time, and I’m not scared…»

«Don’t give me that nonsense!» and the emotional nature of her incorrigible soul boiled over inside her, «at least not on your birthday! Have you thought about us?»

«You need to face facts. I have cancer. I am completely disabled. Life, if this state of being can be called life, has taken a turn for the worst. The doctors shrug their shoulders and won’t even look me in the eye. They’ve already written me off.»

«Whilst your lungs have breath in them, Kevin, you are fighting. You are alive, even if only for our sake.»

«But why? Why should I go on without hope? If the pain killers are now useless? If new and intolerable suffering and gloom increases by the hour? But the law of life is simple: one must pay for one’s own sins…»

«Will you stop beating that into the ground?» she choked out through tears. «I forgave you a long time ago for that fling with the trainee… Although I swore once never to forget about it!»

«But you spent a long time exploiting my guilt… That exploit has left a small scar on my conscience… and shame… But I’m not talking about that.»

«What are you talking about then?»

«That’s not important, Kathryn…»

«Is there something else I don’t know about? Tell me, Kevin, sharing a problem halves it. Don’t let your conscience torment you.»

«I can’t. It’s a long story…»

«I’ll find out sooner or later.»

«Please be patient, Kathryn. Everything has its time. But today, on my birthday, I wanted to speak to you.»

«Well then, speak… I’m listening…» she looked at him patiently.

«My dear Kathryn, my love,» he said, and then went silent. It was obvious he was trying to gather courage. She looked at him, and her lips faltered in desperation and powerlessness. «I do not see a reason to keep on living. It can only get worse for me. Why should I be a burden on you, the children, and on myself?»

«You’re not a burden!» Kathryn said, trying to reassure him.

«Don’t lie to me, please. That’s the one thing you’re no good at.»

«Put yourself in my shoes… could this not have happened to me?» she asked, a lump forming in her throat.

«I have thought about that too. But imagination and reality have little in common…»

«But there is still hope, no matter how little… There is always a sliver of chance…»

«Rubbish! I don’t need a false saviour! Don’t you understand, I have no more will to live, at all! Yes, truth be told, this is principally for my sake. This is not about you or the children. It is very moving that you want with all your heart to ease my pathetic condition…»

She hid her eyes and stared into the far corner of the wardroom. He said her name, and there was an urging in his voice, asking for her to understand, to forgive him. «You’re a kind person, and that is important!» said Kathryn, after a pause. «You have so much warmth inside you! And you can love with your whole heart! I have always looked up to you! I have always admired your work ethic, I always admired how you worked towards your success.»

«I had a long and tiresome road to go down, Kathryn, you know that…»

«If it was not for your perseverance and endurance, your ambitious hopes…»

«That is the only way you can not only stand on your own two feet, but also reach for the stars…»

«But dear, you were not born with those things, but you reached the moon anyway… You never promised your family anything more than you were in a position to deliver.»

«You know, dear, who stopped us…»

«From reaching the stars? Yes, Margaret Thatcher…»

«The very same. The «Iron Lady’. With her inhumane policies and relationship with the people. Do you remember, her economic plans were meant to end up with high unemployment? She strangled the trade unions with her bare hands, she ended the subsidisation of unprofitable companies. She raised taxes and lowered spending on social development. How many people ended up on the streets, without a penny in their pocket. All because she judged inflation to be a greater danger than three and a half million unemployed.»

«Yes, those were hard times… The people went bust…» Kathryn answered sadly.

«And then in 1981, in Ireland our homeland, there was a big string of hunger strikes and riots, and the Baroness’ response was overly brutal. No wonder there was an assassination planned against her. Do you remember the bomb at the party conference in Brighton? If it were not for her victory in the Falklands War, she would have lost the 1983 election.» Kevin continued his endless search for historic justice. This seemed to be one of the few things that could intermittently take his mind off things.

«The next two years were overshadowed by the miners’ strikes. Without batting an eyelid, the lady premier destroyed the nation’s coal industry with a single stroke, and left tens of thousands unemployed, and the pound crashed. That was why, when she died, there were celebrations in many of our cities, London, Bristol, Liverpool and Glasgow. People had placards with Ding-dong, the witch is dead written on them, people celebrated with champagne…»

«But you cannot argue, Kevin, we both felt sorry for her… Despite everything she did…»

«Yes, despite all that, she was still a human being. And a woman. Of course, you remember that poor woman had several strokes and a broken arm. Before she died, she had to go to the therapist for hallucination and dementia. I felt sorry for her, of course. Only death could bring her escape from her anguish, and, I hope, forgiveness for everything she had done, even though she never expressed regret for anything…»

«They should stop feeding you and just let you discuss politics and economics all day and all night, dear, you understand the ins and outs like the back of your hand… I can see it brings you great pleasure…»

«It is good that we see eye to eye on these issues, Kathryn!»

«Well obviously! If I was not also of 100% Irish stock, these discussions of ours would always and inevitably end in an overblown argument.»

«That’s where you’re wrong, my love! It wouldn’t end in an argument, but in a speedy divorce! That’d be it!»

«I value your sense of humour! You could outdo Tony Hancock at this. You’ve always been able to make me laugh, or at least force a smile.»

«With a big more luck… I could have you rolling on the floor in laughter…»

«You were lucky enough to be an Irishman, is that not enough already!» she retorted.

«Kiss me, Kathryn. I want to be reminded of the taste of your lips for the rest of time.»

For a moment, she felt embarrassment. But then, a second having passed, she leaned over to him and firmly kissed him on the mouth with her kind and pink lips, and briefly picked up the partially sweet, partially bitter smell of almonds. Her heart was racing. As their lips parted, he noticed that her large, dark eyes held a sad smile, and that her soul seemed completely void.

At this time, it was getting dark outside. The day of the Heavenly Patron was coming to a close. The weather started to get worse, the sky became overcast with big, grey clouds, and then came a drizzle of rain. Gloomy and grey. Kathryn sighed heavily and exited the hospital, feeling an unexpected coldness. She opened her large umbrella over her head, which partially concealed her face from passers-by, her face which had in the course of her visit become pinched and worn, and also covered over her fragile figure, now permeated with a great sadness. It also hid her eyes in darkness, brimming with tears of salt, like a boundless ocean. A feeling of hopelessness enraptured her body.

Deep in thought, she wandered the streets of Birmingham, this great industrial English city. The streetlights had already come on, the shopfronts were shining brightly, tempting the city’s shoppers, drunk with everything from ale to whisky with green shamrocks, with brightly coloured celebratory wreaths, and discounts advertised on brightly coloured signs. But she noticed none of these sights at all. Her strikingly transparent eyes, with their indescribable grief, gazed off somewhere in the distance, and her head was filled with the realisation of the hollowness of her existence.

«What is life?» she asked herself. «A single moment. And everything must come in this moment, birth, a baby’s cry, their smile, their first timid movements and the unintelligible babbling, the happy and carefree childhood, the first love, laughter and tears, victories and defeats, loss of loved ones, the overcoming of all kinds of problems. All of this must be done in this single moment. And what is death? Alas, it is not a moment, but eternity itself. Its arrival is inevitable. Who on earth has the power to stop it? Or at least delay it? To succeed in savouring the moment, in which we were all so happy…»