by Fin C Gray
‘I’m glad the kids are out,’ whispered Alison. The pain was even stealing her voice from him.
‘Yes,’ said Tom. ‘I hear someone at the door. That’ll be the nurse. You’ll feel better in a moment, my darling.’
Daniel and Jenny burst into their parents’ room. ‘Merry Christmas!’ they shouted. Alison raised her head weakly.
‘Merry Christmas, you two,’ she said, raising a smile that didn’t quite make it to her eyes.
Tom sat on a chair by her side.
‘Merry Christmas,’ he said. ‘How about you both make us a nice pot of tea? We’ll come through in a few minutes and open the presents.’
Daniel looked at them suspiciously, then took his sister’s arm. ‘C’mon, you,’ he said. ‘I’ll make the tea, and you can burn the toast.’
‘More like you’ll stew the tea, and I’ll make perfect, golden-brown, buttery, gorgeous toast,’ laughed Jenny, tugging at Daniel’s hair.
They both went out, arguing good-humouredly.
Tom stood up and went to the dining room where he switched on the Christmas tree lights. When he returned, Alison was trying to get up. He picked up her dressing gown and draped it around her shoulders. She reached for the Zimmer, hoisted herself up and began to move slowly towards the door. Every step she took made her face tighten.
‘Tom, darling, get me two of those pills on my table, will you?’
She swallowed them back before Tom reached her with the water glass. Then she took a gulp of water and began her slow journey to the dining room. Daniel appeared from the kitchen carrying a tray containing a pot of tea and two mugs, one with a prancing reindeer on it, the other with a grinning Santa Claus. Jenny followed behind with a plate of mince pies, each topped with a sprig of holly.
Daniel had put some Christmas music on and ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’ tinkled into the room.
‘Well done, kids,’ said Tom, ruffling his son’s hair and stroking Jenny’s cheek. ‘A perfect Christmas breakfast.’
By the time Alison made it to the living room, Jenny was already there, expectantly holding a misshapen parcel wrapped in bright-green paper.
‘Open this one first, Mum – it’s from Dad,’ she said. ‘You’re going to love it.’
Alison sat down, and Jenny placed the package on her lap. ‘Will you help me, love?’ asked Alison.
Jenny ripped off the paper and held up what was inside; it was a life-sized cat made of the most beautiful striped bocote wood. Around its neck glistened a silver Tiffany chain from which dangled a shiny silver medallion that rested on the cat’s chest. There was something engraved upon it.
‘Read it for me please, Jen, will you?’ Jenny held the cat close to her mother’s face.
‘It says, “I saw this and thought of you. All my love, always, T xxx.”’ Alison looked up at Tom, her eyes full of tears.
‘Thank you, darling. I love it.’
‘Cats at Christmas seem to be the right thing,’ said Tom. ‘Where are the moggies, anyway? I thought they’d be here to wish us all Merry Christmas. It is kind of their birthdays, after all.’
‘Both asleep on my bed,’ said Daniel. ‘Rufus brought in a dead robin and laid it at my bedroom door. Clearly, he didn’t want Christmas to go unobserved.’
Jenny laughed. ‘How very Christmassy. I had a dead shrew outside my bedroom. Probably a present from Jasper. At least Rufus made an effort.’
Tom laughed, and they all looked to Alison for her reaction, but she wasn’t smiling. Her face was locked in pain. She was staring beyond them.
‘I’m sorry, everyone,’ she said. ‘I’m not feeling too good. I’ll just go and lie down for a while. Maybe take some painkillers. Tom, darling, help me up please.’
‘Aw, Mum,’ said Jenny. ‘You haven’t even opened our presents yet.’
‘I will, love, once I’ve had a lie-down. I’ll have more energy for it then.’
Tom gave Jenny a look that said ‘no more’ and gently helped Alison up to her Zimmer frame. He looked back apologetically at his two children as he followed his wife slowly out of the room.
Back in their bedroom, he helped her struggle into bed and he reached for the pills on her bedside table.
‘Tom, darling,’ she said, her voice barely audible. ‘I don’t think they will take this pain away. Call the nurse again, will you?’
‘Are you sure?’
He could see she had no fight left in her. She could hardly form any words. ‘Take these for now,’ he said, pressing the pills to her lips. He held a beaker of water to her mouth to help her swallow them down. ‘At least they might make a dent in it until the nurse gets here.’
It was midnight. Christmas day was over, and the district nurse was about to leave. This was her third visit of the day. She took Tom’s hand.
‘Mr McIntyre, I don’t think she has long.’
Tom couldn’t stop himself bursting into tears. He hadn’t allowed himself to think of the unthinkable all through Alison’s illness. To hear it said like this, out loud, was comparable to being stripped of every defence. She was always going to get better. None of the consultants or hospital nurses had talked in terms of time frames, and neither he nor Alison had been able to bring themselves to ask the question. Whether or not this had ever been a question in his mind, it was being answered. He didn’t want the answer. He hadn’t asked for it.
‘The next few weeks are going to get harder, I’m afraid.’ She had placed her arm around him now.
Stop talking, please. Just go.
‘I can organise a Macmillan nurse to be around during the day. That way, she’ll never be in any discomfort. Marie Curie nurses can help closer to the end. They can stay all through the night. You never need to panic, that way. Shall I arrange that for you, Mr McIntyre?’
Tom stood away from the nurse, pulled a paper tissue from his pocket, wiped his eyes and forcefully blew his nose.
‘Can’t I just call you when I need you?’ he said.
‘Of course you can call me. Call me anytime. But it will be better for Alison if you have someone right here when she needs them. If I’m on another call, it could be half an hour, longer even, before I get to you. Like today — the whole festive period is always very busy. Better for her and better for you and the kids if we get a Marie Curie nurse here to keep an eye on you all. They really are lovely, and you won’t even know they are here.’
‘Let me think about it,’ said Tom. ‘Can I call you tomorrow?’
‘Of course, Mr McIntyre.’
‘Tom. Call me Tom, please.’
‘Yes, Tom. Call tomorrow. It won’t take me long to organise someone. Just let me know.’
Tom watched her drive away in her little grey car. He closed the door and rushed back to Alison. Falling to his knees, he burrowed his face in the blankets around his wife’s chest.
Tom looked at his watch obsessively. It would be New Year’s Day in less than an hour. Margaret, the Marie Curie nurse, sat knitting on a chair in the dining room, just visible through the open door to their bedroom. Daniel lay on the bed beside his mother, gently stroking her face. She wasn’t there any more. Muddled words had preceded longer periods of unconsciousness, until her body had suddenly tightened two days earlier and then there were no more words. Not from her. Only heavy, laboured breaths and no sense of the person behind eyes that rarely opened.
Jenny popped in every hour or so, but hadn’t appeared since around ten o’clock. She’d probably fallen asleep upstairs; the poor thing was exhausted. Daniel only left his mother’s side to use the bathroom. When Tom lay down in search of a few moments of sleep, Daniel would take his place in the chair at the side of the bed. Margaret continually brought them drinks and made sandwiches that usually stayed uneaten. Alison had a drip attached to her, unable to eat or drink now. The bedroom smelled like a hospital room. It smelled of death.
Alison’s breathing became harsher and seemed to get worse every few minutes. It sounded as if she was struggling to breat
he.
‘Margaret, will you come, please? I’m worried,’ said Tom.
She came immediately. ‘She’s not in any distress,’ she said, feeling for Alison’s pulse. ‘I don’t think it will be very long now. I’ll just be outside if you need me.’
‘But her breathing… she looks like she’s struggling for every breath. It sounds like she’s in terrible distress.’
‘Tom, believe me, please. She isn’t aware of anything. This is her body slowly shutting down. The worst is over for Alison, I promise you. I know it’s hard to listen to this laboured breathing, but it’s only the body labouring, fighting to stay alive. Her mind is totally unaware of any of that.’
‘Can’t you do anything? Give her something?’
‘No, Tom. She’s in no pain. There’s nothing I can do to change her breathing. It’ll be over soon. She’s getting ready to go. Now, I’ll leave you to say goodbye as a family. I’ll come back in when you’re ready.’
Tom watched Daniel sobbing into the pillow beside his mother. He held her hand. Tom took both their hands in his and kissed them. It was New Year’s Day, just a few minutes after midnight. Each breath now sounded like a watery rattle that wasn’t able to let any air into her lungs. Tom began to wish it was all over and that she would be set free from this misery.
At ten minutes to one, her breaths grew less frequent and the rasping from her chest seemed louder with each one. A longer period of silence intervened every few minutes, and they both believed she had gone each time that it happened. Then the silence persisted, and there were no more sounds from her wasted body. Daniel lay beside her on the bed, crying quietly, and he put his arm around her waist.
Tom stood helpless by her side, gazing at the two of them. He touched his son’s warm hand and said, ‘She’s gone.’
Daniel raised himself up and hugged his father tightly and, through their joint sobs, said, ‘What are we going to do without her, Dad?’
‘I don’t know. I just don’t know.’
Was this the first time he was admitting defeat to his son? The thing was, he just didn’t know. He had never allowed himself to imagine life without his wife, his love, his best friend. What could he say to himself, far less Daniel?
‘We’re going to help each other through this, son,’ he said. ‘We’ve got each other. At least we have that. We will find some way to get to the other side and live again. She would want us to do that.’
Chapter Eleven
Then
Sympathy cards lined every surface that had any space in the room. Crosses, angels, doves, flowers, swans – the ways to express sorrow seemed to be endless. Tom wanted to throw any with Christian crosses in the bin, but Daniel had stopped him. He’d told him it didn’t matter that Tom had no religious belief, that he must allow people to express their sympathy in a way that meant something to them. Tom had wanted to argue that the sympathy was for them and that people should show respect for their beliefs, but he had quickly realised that he wasn’t sure what his son believed. He’d lost touch with him over the period of Alison’s illness, although in the days following her death, he had felt close to him again. He had felt supported and loved by him. But the truth was, Daniel and Jenny had become more or less shadows to him.
Tom stood looking out of the window at the grey sky and the bare trees that were made less bleak by the light coat of frost they had taken on. He was wearing his best black suit and a black silk tie that he’d bought when he was shopping for Christmas gifts. Had he been thinking this was its purpose when he’d chosen it? Subliminally, maybe. Alison was never going to die, not really. Something was always bound to come around to prove it had all been a mistake and that she was going to get better. Some drug would come on the market that would deal with her form of cancer and fix things. Until it didn’t.
In the reflection of the glass, he noticed his tie was squint. Alison would have spotted that way before he had and straightened it up for him. Life was going to be like that now. What Alison would have done. What Alison would have said. What Alison would think of this or that. Ghosts had many ways of haunting a person. Tom wanted Alison to haunt him. He wanted to feel her with him every second of every day.
Things will get easier. This mantra was what every other person he spoke to liked to chant at him. He hoped things would get easier, that he would be able to think about her and smile. Even laugh, maybe, like they had done so often together. Those memories would always make him laugh, wouldn’t they? He’d always have those to hang onto. Nothing made him feel like smiling, never mind laughing, right now. Right now, all he wanted to do was drink himself into unconsciousness and blot everything else out. He walked to the drinks cabinet, poured himself a large glass of whisky and quickly swallowed it back. Another one would help him cope with this awful day.
Tom had just poured himself a third glass when Jenny came into the living room wearing a black pinafore. Her hair was tied back, and she had a tiny bit of make-up on her lips and cheeks.
‘Will I do, Dad?’ she asked.
‘Yes, you’ll do. Your mum would be very proud of you.’
He pulled her towards him and hugged her tightly. Looking beyond her, he saw Daniel standing in the doorway. He wore a black suit, the one he’d worn to the last school Christmas party the year before. It had been too big on him then. Now it fitted him perfectly. That time, he’d worn a sparkly blue bow tie. Now, he wore a thin straight black tie. His short spiky hair seemed glued down by some glossy varnish, making it all seem flat. He hardly looked like his son. He made Tom think of the young man who had come to finalise the service arrangements with them.
‘Well, look at you,’ said Tom.
Daniel shuffled slowly into the room. His cheeks were pink and his eyes were rimmed with red, making them look swollen. He had obviously been up most of the night crying. Tom let go of Jenny and went over to him, pulling his son’s skinny frame towards him. He felt Daniel stiffen and pull away.
‘You reek of booze,’ Daniel said, screwing his face up.
‘Sorry, Daniel. I… needed a bit of help to get me through today. I’ll go and brush my teeth again.’
Tom left them in the living room and went to his bedroom. The bed was a scrum of blankets, and a pile of pillows covered the side where Alison had always slept. Someone had told him to do that; then if he woke up during the night, he would have a sense of her being in the bed beside him. He’d even scrunched her dressing gown beside the pillows to give a sense of her smell. The truth was, he never woke up during the night. Wine and sleeping pills saw to that. Whisky in the morning was a bit of a departure for him, but circumstances dictate behaviour, sometimes. He couldn’t get through today, meet everyone, stand at the graveside and listen to the eulogies without some variety of chemical help.
Swiping most of the pillows onto the floor, he went into his bathroom and gazed at himself in the mirror. If Daniel looked bad, he looked exponentially worse. People would feel real sympathy for this wreck of a man, that much he was sure of. He threw cold water on his face and pressed a towel against his eyes. The mouthwash bottle was close to empty, but he swished the dregs from the bottom of it around his mouth for as long as he could before he started to gag. A big squeeze of toothpaste on his brush would do the rest of the job, and he brushed mindlessly, feeling slightly light-headed.
‘Dad, are you OK? You’ve been in there for ages. We’ll have to get ready to go soon.’
It was Jenny’s voice.
‘Yes, love. I’ll be right out. Go and tell your brother I’ll be through in a minute.’
Tom splashed more cold water on his face and pulled a comb through his hair. There was more grey than brown now. He’d have to get used to getting old. Used to getting old on his own. He’d have to get used to a whole different life. A lesser life. A diminished existence. The future had been grim for so long now; surely it would be easier to take on this new, inferior life? Probably. He sprayed on some aftershave as extra insurance and went to join Jenny and Dan
iel in the living room.
Daniel sat on the sofa, his head in his hands. Jenny was staring out of the window.
‘What time are the cars due to arrive, Dad?’ she asked.
‘In about twenty minutes,’ said Tom. ‘Danny, are you alright?’
‘Dad, are we still going to move to the new house?’ asked Daniel.
‘Yes,’ said Tom. ‘I’ve exchanged contracts on it and this place will go to completion in two weeks.’
‘But Mum never even got to see it. She won’t know where we are.’
‘Son, don’t you remember that she saw the foundations and the plans? You and Jenny came with us that day. She helped choose all the fittings and fixtures that are going to be in there. Every tile, every worktop will have some of her personality in it. You’ll see, when we move there. She knew exactly where we are moving to.’
‘I couldn’t tell you how to get there from here, right now,’ said Daniel. ‘Like me, she was only there once, and the whole estate was a building site. It’s only had its official street name for a month or less. It’s a completely new part of the city.’
‘She knew the area very well, Daniel, and she knew what the street was going to be called right from the day we decided to buy it.’
‘Can’t we stay here, Dad? I’d rather stay here.’
‘No!’ shouted Jenny. ‘I hate it here. So did Mum. She hated that lorry park, she hated the dust, she wanted to move away from here and so do I.’
Tom sat down beside Daniel and put his arm around him.
‘Mum would have wanted us to move to the new house, son. She was sad that she would never see it finished, but she wanted us all to move there and be happy. She would be sad if she thought we had given up on what was a dream for all of us.’