Crushed

by Kate Hamer

  My hand reaches up and twists the lock and there we are staring at each other.

  I bring my finger to my lips. ‘Ssssh, Mum’s asleep,’ I whisper. ‘We have to be very, very quiet.’

  She hitches her handbag up her shoulder. ‘OK,’ she whispers back, and leans over to take off her wooden clogs, then comes in and lines them neatly by the front door in the hallway. You’ll know, I tell myself, when those clogs are gone whether you are safe or not.

  We pad into the living room and I sit her down and offer to make her tea; when I go out of the room I pull the door behind me. When I make the tea I splash some cold water in it so she doesn’t have to let it cool for an age before she drinks it.

  She takes the cup, sips, and all the while every cell in my body is lit up, my ears straining for any tiny sound.

  ‘So, Grace, tell me how you’re doing.’

  I put my finger to my lips again, and then worry I’m starting to look a bit odd so I sit next to her.

  ‘Very good,’ I whisper. ‘I’m very, very good at the moment.’

  ‘Any specific concerns or worries, and of course I want to hear all about how it went with the group.’

  ‘The group went very well. Cherry seems very nice. Everyone does.’

  ‘That’s great, Grace.’ She looks genuinely happy. ‘It’s fantastic that you’ve got the opportunity to do a bit of mixing and try something new.’

  I realise then, as she chats in a whisper, it’s not simply her professionalism that’s showing through. She actually genuinely likes me and, despite myself and everything that’s happened, it feels quite nice. Then I come to with a jerk. What are you thinking of, you silly bitch? I tell myself, as I watch her pink-lipsticked mouth move. Stop wallowing in feelings about being liked by somebody who is paid to like you.

  ‘Anything you’d like to talk about?’ she asks, so as a diversion I begin telling her about Eating for Health and how interesting it is.

  Christ, I think. How the hell am I going to get through this? How on earth? But somehow I do and she’s putting those clogs back on, her movements slow and exaggerated like people are when they’re demonstrating they’re being quiet, and I’m leaning on the door as I hear her footsteps leading away outside, and I’m putting my hands over my head as if to soothe myself, too overwhelmed and too exhausted even to cry.

  21

  Phoebe

  There is something about hospitals that makes them like nothing else. They are hives, cut off from the world with everything humming inside.

  I keep my eyes on the feet that pass as I sit on the hard plastic chair in the corridor. It’s easier like that. If I raise my eyes it all becomes hallucinatory. The feet keep my interest in a safe way. I can pick out the nurses’ feet because they are in white clogs or plasticky lace-ups. Slippers shuffle past accompanied by a rubber-tipped walking stick. The odd pair of high heels clip along on an important journey.

  ‘Phoebe?’

  With great difficulty I raise my eyes. Everything above shoe level seems misty like I’m looking through a veil. Dad swims before me.

  ‘Dad.’ My hands are balled into fists. I feel sick. He perches on the chair next to me.

  ‘Phoebe, are you OK?’

  I nod.

  ‘I’ve just spoken to the doctor. Not a scratch on you. It’s a miracle.’ He squeezes my hand. I long for him to put his arms around me but he doesn’t and I don’t ask.

  ‘You look so white.’

  I nod. ‘I feel sick. I really hope I’m not going to be sick.’

  He looks helpless, like there’s nothing to be done.

  ‘Perhaps we’d better move.’

  ‘OK.’

  He pulls me to standing. ‘Come on, let’s go and see Mum.’ He tugs on my hand to go and I lean back, resisting.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said, let’s go and see Mum.’

  I start heaving in gasps of air. I feel light-headed. Any moment I’m going to fall on that pink and green floor and crack my skull wide open.

  ‘No, no, no. I can’t.’

  ‘Why not? Come on …’

  ‘See her body?’

  ‘What?’

  I put my hands to my head and clutch my hair. ‘See her body in the morgue?’

  Dad turns and faces me. His eyes are bright and intelligent. His grey hair is clipped neatly. ‘No, silly. She’s not dead. Did you think she was dead? What made you think that?’

  I put my fingers in my mouth and bite on them. What do I remember? Opening the car door and nearly falling out. Walking around in circles on a country road, feeling dazed. Seeing her head through the windscreen. It’s at a strange angle. There is blood on the glass inside. I’m dizzy and afraid. I look at the grass verge, finding a place to be sick should I need to. There’s a roaring in my ears.

  Dad is gently shaking my shoulders. ‘Phoebe, come back to me. Come back to me, love. Everything’s fine. She’s got a nasty bump on her forehead and she’s in a neck brace and she’s going to have to stay in for a bit, but she was really, really lucky – you both were. God knows what made her drive out into the road like that. Next time I’m going to insist on a proper modern car with airbags, not a retro deathtrap.’

  ‘The other car.’ It comes out in a wail.

  ‘Sssh. Sssssh.’ He’s still got his hands on my shoulders and he’s squeezing there. ‘Just a dint on their car. Those four-byfours are so high up it’s possible he didn’t even see our car at first. It’s fine, it’s all fine.’ He smiles at me.

  I nod and take my fingers out of my mouth.

  ‘So let’s go and see Mum – it’s just upstairs. You’ll feel better when you see her. She’s asking for you.’

  I bunch my hands. I’m stiff as a tree. I just bet she’s been asking for me.

  I trail after his straight back. Sounds of footsteps and trolleys being pushed and medics’ conversations filter through the mottled light of the hospital and seem to propel me forward. My feet drag. The walk takes an age. Along the corridor. Into a huge lift where we have to wait to let in a nurse pushing a man in a wheelchair; he’s wearing a surgical gown and his leg is bandaged up. It’s not fair. They should have separate lifts for the patients. Does he know that all eyes on him are glad that it’s not them in that wheelchair, like he is something completely separate and has somehow put himself beyond the pale by being there? I think he does because he keeps his own eyes averted. The lift doors slip open and we’re the last out because we were squashed right against the back. Two floors up, the light is brighter and I tumble out, blinking in the sharpness of it pouring through the windows.

  ‘Come on, this way.’

  I have no choice but to limp after Dad. Why am I limping? I don’t even know. My knee feels bashed. I must’ve hurt it in the accident.

  He’s being gobbled up by the light as he strides far ahead and I have to squint and use my good leg to follow as best I can.

  The thick feeling of dread intensifies with every step. Will she know? What will she know? As we enter the ward and pass the nurses’ station crammed with cards and flowers and charts, I’m wishing just one thing. That I’d managed to do away with the both of us and none of this was happening.

  In the ward I can see her straight away. I know the shape of her, even though now she is mummified by blankets. The light is worse again in here. It burns out the edges of everything. I hobble after Dad to the side of her bed and he sits on the plastic chair and reaches out his hand for her, patting on top of the blankets to find hers. She’s as stiff and straight as a stuffed snake. As I get closer I can see that she can’t move her head because it’s clamped in some sort of neck brace. There’s a dressing taped to her forehead.

  I lean over and stuff my fingers in my mouth.

  ‘Phoebe!’ Dad sounds outraged but I can’t help it. It’s the nerves. It’s the sight of her lying there with her chin resting on the front of the brace, her grey wiry hair standing up on end. I don’t want to laugh but it bubbles out of me and my mi
driff aches with the pain of trying to stop it.

  ‘For God’s sake.’ Dad turns away disgusted, and I nearly choke on my fingers.

  Then a cold dread descends and I stop in a second. I take my fingers out of my mouth, dripping drool onto my T-shirt because I see her eyes switching from side to side. And I can see by the way the furious light in them sparks as they flick about, yet without ever leaving my face, that she knows exactly what happened and she remembers every little bit of what I did.

  *

  At home again it’s so quiet. With Dad gone – he left almost straight away for some charity do or other – her in hospital and The Beloved far away on her travels, I am finally, miraculously, alone. It’s been such a long day, the beginning of it seems far off and misty like it was a year ago rather than a few hours. I open the living room window and the cool air floats in. I light a candle and put it on the sill as if to lure the dark inside. The house creaks to me, friendly. The time I was supposed to meet Lucas was an age ago. I’m so tired I’m not sure I can be bothered even to go and look at the phone outside, although it does make me feel a little sad at the thought of him waiting all alone at the end of his street and me not turning up.

  Tension runs out of me. She seems so very far away. I prod around in my fear, testing it like I do to see if it will ignite, but something’s happened; I can’t provoke it now even if I try. It’s the exhaustion, but something else too. I think about it: this will be the first night spent in this house without her. Can that be true? I feel it is, I feel it in my calmness, a calmness that still holds an excitement at its core like a glittering jewel. The colours of the living room, the mustard velvet of the sofa, the bird’s-egg green of the walls (that’s one thing I can say about her, she does know how to put a room together) have a sweet sharpness to them that practically makes my throat close up in awe of their beauty.

  What will happen when she comes home? How will I explain myself? What revenge will she exact? I go and help myself to the brandy bottle on the sideboard. I pour a glass and sit cross-legged on the sofa, taking tiny sips of the rich umber liquid. Amazingly, I find I don’t even care what she will try to do. I will pass it off as a mistake. A glitch in perception. I’m so warm and lazy. I’m cool and light-headed too. I’m all of those things. Bats begin flitting around outside the window. I imagine them as tiny little witches. They swoop in celebration with me. Harpies, necromancers, shape-shifters – their brooms tucked up tight to their openings. I have such warm thoughts towards the witches. They show me the way forward and how I can be; when I’m young, old, if I am in pain. They show me that to be a scuttling beetle is not the only way to be. They plant their calloused bare feet upon the bare earth and walk through the world not being ashamed or afraid of anything. They don’t even care that people find them ugly. In fact, they probably like it.

  I think again about looking at the phone outside, tucked behind the ivy, but I find I don’t care about that either. I remember the saggy pockets and his bloodshot eyes. He’s probably in bed now anyway, exhausted from being awoken at the crack of dawn by children. Perhaps his wife will be jumping up and down on him like some tin toy soldier on strings.

  Soon, I will wander downstairs and I will actually prepare myself something to eat. I’ll make a beautiful arrangement on the plate. A cube of salty cheese, bright green leaves shiny with dressing, Parma ham with its delicate folds. I will sit here eating, happily sipping brandy and welcoming in the beautiful soft lonely night and watching the flitting shapes, because I realise the predictions at the wishing bowl were real and I am now truly Queen of the House.

  22

  Grace

  I wake up on the sofa and I don’t know how long I’ve been there. There’s a duster in my hand. I must’ve gripped onto it all the way through my sleep.

  ‘Mum?’ I call out. My voice is croaky and exhausted.

  I drag myself up and walk towards her room. At the door I realise the duster is still in my hand and I let it drop to the floor before pushing the door open. What I see makes me stopper my mouth with both hands so I don’t scream.

  My mother, who has at times barely been able to stand let alone walk, who has been so weak in the last couple of days she has had trouble speaking and eating, who not so long ago I worried wasn’t going to make it through the night, has got herself right to the window where she’s standing in her cheap white lacy nightie and she’s grinning her head off at me. For a moment I wonder if this is a strange dream. I pinch myself hard on the wrist and I realise it’s no dream. The pinch seems to wake up my vocal cords.

  ‘Mum, what the fuck are you doing? How did you get there?’ I manage to stutter.

  She grins even wider at me and holds onto the window frame for support. ‘Don’t swear. Grace, I had the most lovely sleep. Hours and hours and hours. And I woke up, I can’t tell you, feeling so much better.’ Her smile wavers a little and she sways. ‘And I thought, I’ll try. What’s the harm in trying?’

  Now I smile too. I can’t help it. She looks so delighted with herself, like a little girl who’s discovered she’s got a special talent like being able to fly or to make herself invisible.

  ‘OK, Mum. That’s amazing, but maybe we should get you back into bed now and then we can talk about it.’

  She nods. ‘Yes, it may be best. Give me your arm, will you?’

  Together we walk her over to the bed and I fuss around remaking it while she stands next to me still swaying. When’s she’s safely tucked in and I feel like I can breathe again, I pull up a chair and we both sit grinning at each other like idiots.

  ‘Maybe it’s all the massages and fresh vegetables,’ she says, laughing and patting the cover with her palms.

  ‘Really? Could it be that?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so but I really don’t know. But I feel better than I’ve done for ages after that fall – I felt like I was going to die it was that bad.’

  ‘Mum, don’t do that again without me, will you.’ I reach out and put my hand on her lacy nylon sleeve. ‘You nearly gave me a heart attack just then.’

  ‘Now, Grace, don’t spoil it by worrying.’

  ‘No, I’m not. Really I’m not, but just make sure I’m here. I can be on the other side of the room perhaps, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.’

  ‘They’re going to be so pleased with me in the hospital next week.’ She’s grinning again.

  I start because I didn’t know she’d remembered that. She cottons on to a lot more than I give her credit for. I had, in fact, planned to phone up in the morning and repeat the same lie I told the caring agency – that we were away having a marvellous time being looked after by a mythical sister, and sorry I’d simply forgotten to cancel the routine appointment.

  ‘Right, yes.’ I’m actually intrigued now to see what they make of this – excited even – and I want to tell her, to let her know I think this is incredible too, but her eyelids have closed again and she is gently snoring into her pillow, worn out by the effort and the exhilaration.

  23

  Orla

  The joy I feel when I open my front door and Phoebe is there is the joy of feeling that this is a Saturday morning as Saturday mornings should really, truly be. The drift of coffee aroma in the house. The sound of the shower running upstairs. Dad shuffling through a newspaper at the kitchen table. But here too, within the weave of that safety net, my own burgeoning beautiful life. My Phoebe standing in the brightness of the open door, saying, ‘Want to do something today?’ And Saturday opening up into glorious branching possibilities.

  ‘Of course I do.’ Even my eagerness feels fine. Warm and companionable instead of grabbing or needy.

  Kai and our weird trysts turn to ash in an instant, aged on fast forward until they are curled grey dusty tableaux that can stay that way forever like a scene from Pompeii. Despite the skin to skin and the slick of saliva, the memory of them is a visit to the dead zone. What the hell was I thinking? Now I’m back with the living. My mind pu
shes away the gnawing worry.

  I’m still in my pyjamas so I dart up to change, leaving Phoebe, hands in pockets, standing by the kettle and talking to Dad. She’s always good with other people’s parents. It’s odd. They think she’s polite and interested with her questions but I know the avaricious curiosity in her eye. She’s probing their lives, like she’s an alien and she must interrogate any normality she finds so she can learn from it. I don’t blame her. I’ve only been to hers a couple of times but the chill is enough to send icicles up your back. I couldn’t wait to get out and back to the noise and life of here. My brothers scuffling. Mum with her pink flushed cheeks and her shiny lipstick put on all wonky. I feel a flush of affection for it now in comparison.

  Today outside, it’s the sweetest day. In the front garden the wild rose climbs up the wall and is alive with bees. The sun toasts the wall so there’s a smell like nothing else, the smell of baked stone. We saunter out together. Two girls, with a bit of money in our purses. Our lace-up canvas shoes patterning the dust on the pavement. I try not to think that Phoebe’s money has most likely come from my own mother’s purse; my flush of affection for my family has provoked guilt about that, but I know already it won’t stop me doing it again. The need to give Phoebe what she wants is too strong, and I shove the feeling aside and concentrate on the day that is hazy above us. When I’m with her, the world can take on the exquisite quality of a Japanese print, delicate as cherry blossom, the joy of the fleeting moment.

  Once we’ve reached town we’re unsure what to do. It’s always the same, like we’ve reached our objective. The day is long, as unknown and ready to be filled as our lives that hollow out before us. We perch next to some railings.

  ‘Shall we go for a coffee?’

  We stand up but don’t move.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I ask.

  ‘I don’t know.’ She’s wired and twitchy now. ‘It’s this place. It’s getting to me.’