Love
J
Chapter 19
She hated him. It was such a simple emotion and such a release to finally admit it to herself. At first she thought it was fear, then loathing, then an abhorrence of his state. But she’d finally been able to name it. It was hatred. Everything she’d felt had been distilled, crystallised and refined until it was diamond hard and as clear as ice. She hated him.
At least she didn’t have to hide it from him. There were whole days when she ignored his pleas for a drink or something to eat and others where she gave him everything he wanted and watched in disgust as he ate and drank. Twice he’d begged her to kill him and twice she’d refused, decreasing the morphine dose until his pain was unbearable but keeping him mildly sedated so he couldn’t escape the agony.
It was only fair. He deserved to suffer. He wasn’t going to get an easy, dignified death: he was going to linger. She knew that the whisky was partly responsible for his pain; that his liver was struggling to metabolise it so she kept giving him small amounts; just enough to mix with the Diazepam and keep him sluggish and bedridden. And in pain.
Sometimes he had moments of perfect clarity. He knew exactly where he was, what was wrong with him and what she was doing. That’s when he cried like a child and begged for release. Sometimes he called her by her mother’s name, confused and desperate. She learned to ignore his pitiful whimpering and his incoherent rambling. But she was getting tired. She wanted it to be over. She needed a plan for the end.
A light knock on the door interrupted her thoughts. Bren. Caroline had told her that she could continue to visit Dennis but only by prior arrangement. She couldn’t have her interrupting one of their heart-to-heart sessions where Caroline told him what a bastard he was and yelled at him until he agreed.
Wearily, she rose from the kitchen table and opened the back door. Bren looked like she’d been out for the morning. Her hair was freshly styled and partially covered with a mauve headscarf, her make-up slightly overdone, as if she’d wanted to make an effort for somebody. Her chins wobbled with the humiliation of having to knock.
‘You said one o’clock,’ she said to Caroline, stepping forward without being invited in.
‘I know. He’s asleep.’ Caroline pushed the door further back, allowing Bren to manoeuvre her bulk inside.
‘You said I could see him, so I intend to,’ she said belligerently. ‘We had an agreement.’
Caroline laughed in her face.
‘An agreement. Is that what you call it? I only allow you in here out of pity. Pity for you for wanting to help him, and pity for him because he’s got nobody else but you and me.’
Bren snorted. ‘If I’d had my way, he wouldn’t have had you here. He was fine until you stuck your nose in.’
Caroline sat back down at the kitchen table, regarding the older woman with a mix of curiosity and suspicion. She was right. Without her intervention, Dennis would probably still be going for walks round the block or even popping into the pub. Did Bren have an inkling that Dennis’s condition wasn’t just the natural progress of his disease? Caroline doubted it. She’d no evidence that Bren was especially perceptive and she wouldn’t allow her any time alone with Dennis – supervising her visits extremely closely.
Bren removed her coat and headscarf and draped them across the back of the other kitchen chair then stared at Caroline expectantly. ‘Well. Are we going to make small talk or can I go upstairs and see him?’
‘Do what you want. I told you he’s asleep. Feel free to go and have a look. If he’s shit himself again you can also feel free to clean him up and wash his pyjamas.’
Bren reared back as though she’d been slapped. ‘How dare you talk about him like that? That man brought you up and now you talk about him as if he’s a naughty child. I ought to wash your mouth out, you disgusting woman.’
Caroline stood up, toe to toe with Bren. Caroline towered over the older woman by a few inches so Bren had to step back in order to look her in the face.
‘Why don’t you try it,’ Caroline said with a smile. ‘There’s soap on the sink. And when you’ve done you can go up and say goodbye to your precious Dennis because it’ll be the last you’ll see of him. I allow you in here, Bren, when I don’t have to. You have no rights in this situation, and it’s only through my generosity that you’re still in this kitchen talking to me. So, if you want to keep coming back, a little respect might be the way forward.’
Bren glared up at her, mouth opening and closing like a landed trout.
‘So? Do we have an understanding? This is my house and I’ll say what I want. If you don’t fucking like it you know where the door is!’
The older woman went to pick up her coat and headscarf but then seemed to change her mind. She took a deep breath and drew herself up to her full five feet and said, ‘I’d like to see Dennis, please.’
It was a minor victory but one that Caroline relished. Bren knew exactly where she stood and was aware of the consequences of her actions. It might just keep her in line for a while, and keeping her in line was a necessity.
Caroline pushed past the older woman and trudged down the hallway.
‘Come on then!’ she shouted from the bottom of the stairs, aware that their raised voices may have awoken her father. ‘I haven’t got all day.’ She was halfway up the stairs before Bren appeared at the kitchen door.
‘I see he’s still only on paracetamol,’ she said.
‘I see you’re still a nosy cow,’ Caroline retorted, irritated that Bren had used her few seconds alone in the kitchen to do some snooping. Just as well Caroline kept the Diazepam and Oramorph in her bedroom and disposed of the empty packets and bottles deep in litter bins around the area. She couldn’t tell if Bren’s spluttering was further outrage or from the effort of climbing the stairs.
Caroline stood outside Dennis’s bedroom door and ushered Bren across the threshold. The older woman sniffed loudly as she stepped inside the room, obviously trying to insinuate that she had a bloodhound-like sense for anything out of the ordinary. There was nothing to find – Caroline made sure of that. Anything in the least bit incriminating was long gone by the time Bren arrived for her visits. She knew that Bren was assessing everything about the room, cataloguing and checking everything against her memory of the bedroom and of Dennis. Not that he bore much resemblance to the man she had known.
The decline had surprised Caroline with its speed. She’d expected something less perceptible – a gentle easing down into lethargy and disinterest but, since she’d started the sedatives, Dennis had gone from being reasonably mobile and alert to the snorting, snoring husk that lay in the bed. She’d tried lowering the dose, alarmed at the sudden deterioration but a lighter touch left him more argumentative and more determined to have his own way. At least the sedatives did little for the pain and she could be sparing with the morphine if he wasn’t fully compliant.
‘How long has he been asleep?’ Bren asked.
‘A couple of hours,’ Caroline lied. She had no idea. She’d helped him to the bathroom, given him a cup of tea with Diazepam mixed in like sugar, and left him to get on with his morning. She’d been out to buy bread and milk, safe in the knowledge that he wasn’t able to leave his room and, when she’d got back, she’d read the paper and had a couple of mugs of coffee. An hour before Bren had been due, Caroline had zipped round with the vacuum cleaner, put the soiled bedding on to wash and run a flannel across Dennis’s inert face. Good enough to look like she was being a dutiful caring daughter.
‘Is he eating properly? He looks thin.’
Resisting the urge to yell at her, Caroline answered Bren’s questions in a carefully judged tone; a calculated mix of weariness, irritation and concern. Yes he’d had a drink. Yes he’d been to the bathroom. No he’d not needed anything in the night. Not that Caroline was aware of at least because she’d had three gin and tonics and slept like a baby despite the oppressive memory-ridden bedroom and the lumpy mattress.
; ‘It smells a bit in here. Have you been opening the windows to let some air in?’
‘It smells because he sometimes shi– soils himself and I have to clean him and the bed,’ Caroline said, not trying too hard to mask her irritation. ‘I haven’t had the windows open because it’s minus three outside overnight and I don’t really want him to catch pneumonia or die of hypothermia.’
Something about her tone must have registered with Dennis because he stirred, his lips making a liquid chewing motion which looked like an attempt to speak. His eyelids fluttered open and his cold grey eyes fixed on Caroline. The effect was like something from a horror film when the monster is supposed to be dead but he suddenly finds one last burst of strength and grabs the pretty girl by the ankle just as she thinks she’s escaped. Caroline froze. They’d been arguing the previous night about her mum and Jeanette, and Caroline had been quite clear that she wanted him to suffer. She’d intended for him to be asleep throughout Bren’s visit but he was waking up and he appeared to be fairly lucid.
‘Bren,’ he slurred, his eyes closing with the effort of forming the word.
‘I’m here, Dennis, love.’ Bren sighed, moving closer and leaning in so that she could hear if he said anything else.
He turned towards her voice and opened his eyes again. ‘Not seen you for ages,’ he mumbled.
Bren cast an accusatory glare at Caroline. ‘It’s not been that long, love. I came a couple of days ago. I’m glad you’re awake. I didn’t want to go home without talking to you.’
His eyes closed again. Caroline wondered if the dose she’d given him earlier was enough to keep him docile if he really struggled against the sedative effects of the drug.
‘She’s supposed to be looking after me,’ he said. ‘Caroline. She’s supposed to be looking after me but she’s not.’
Caroline stiffened. Was this it? Was he going to tell Bren about the drugs; about the pain and the arguments?
‘She’s not here,’ he continued, looking directly at her. ‘Irene’s been with our Jeanette, but Caroline said she’d look after me and she’s gone away.’
The breath that Caroline had been holding left her lungs in such a rush that she was surprised that Bren didn’t notice. Her legs felt suddenly unsteady with relief. He wasn’t lucid at all, he was rambling. Bren had obviously realised the same thing. She sat on the bed and stroked a few stray strands of hair from his face.
‘She’s here, love. Caroline’s right here. Look.’ She turned and pointed. ‘She’s been here all the time.’ But he wasn’t listening. His eyes had closed and his breathing was slowing.
‘Looks like the show’s over,’ Caroline said. ‘Might be best if you go now. Come back in a couple of days, if you like. I’ll give you a ring and let you know when he seems like he might be able to talk to you.’
Bren opened her mouth to argue but Caroline’s frosty expression seemed to trap the words in her throat. Instead of speaking, Bren jumped up from the bed with more grace than Caroline expected from a woman of her size and age and stomped off downstairs.
A minute later, the door slammed followed by the gate.
Dennis’s eyes opened again and he gave her a weak smile.
‘Might win an Oscar if I keep this up, eh?’
‘What…? You…?’ Caroline couldn’t quite form a sentence. He’d been faking. He knew exactly where he was and what was happening and he’d been acting. He tried to pull himself into a sitting position, failed on the first attempt and tried again. Caroline stepped closer and pulled one of his pillows into a more comfortable position behind his back. The action was almost instinctive; she didn’t care if he was comfortable or not but shock had made her incapable of coherent thought.
‘Did you like that? I didn’t lay it on too thick, did I?’ He smiled again, a ghastly rictus that exposed his naked gums.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ she managed to ask.
‘Same as you,’ he said. ‘Just thought you should know that we can both play games. I know what you’re doing, Caroline. I know that you want me dead; you just don’t have the balls to go through with it. All this arguing and tormenting me. It’s not to make me suffer; it’s because you’re scared to do away with me. You always were a mouse.’
‘Why didn’t you tell Bren?’ Caroline asked, hearing a tremble in her voice. Was he right? Was she afraid?
He sneered at her, one side of his face curling up into a nest of wrinkles. ‘What would be the fun in that?’
‘You bastard!’ she screamed, grabbing the pillow that lay next to his head and pushing it down onto his face. ‘You fucker!’
She pressed down, hard. His hands reached up and grasped her wrists and she stiffened, prepared for a struggle but instead, she felt him pulling her hands more tightly down onto the pillow. He wanted this.
‘No!’ she gasped. ‘Not like this. I’m not going to make it that easy.’ Images of her research flashed in front of her eyes. Petechial haemorrhages, fibres in his mouth. She’d be caught.
Chest heaving, she pulled the pillow back from his face and was met with a triumphant smile.
‘I knew you didn’t have the guts for this, you spineless little cunt,’ Dennis spat.
She put the pillow back, holding it with one hand while she curled the other into a fist and pounded her father’s face through the thick layer of foam. He struggled. She leaned across him, using her weight to keep his upper body relatively still as she smashed her fist into the pillow again and again.
‘Had enough?’ she yelled.
He stopped struggling and went limp beneath her. There was no smile when she removed the pillow, instead his face was contorted with pain and there was blood around his nose.
Caroline quickly stripped off the pillowcase, intending to wash the blood off as soon as she could. She staggered to the bathroom, still breathing heavily, and ran cold water on a flannel before rushing back to Dennis’s bedside.
As she reached out to clean his face, his eyes opened and met hers.
‘Clean up your own fucking mess!’ she spat, throwing the flannel at him.
Chapter 20
The smell was getting worse. Caroline knew that she needed to bathe him but she hadn’t been able to face dragging him to the bathroom, stripping him down and holding the showerhead on him until he was vaguely clean. It was her own fault. She’d let it get this bad and now she was having to live with the consequences.
She could smell him everywhere. In the kitchen, while she was making breakfast, she caught a whiff of his fruity aroma under the sweet, smoothness of her coffee and she had to throw the drink down the sink. In the sitting room, if she watched television for an hour’s relief she knew he was in the room above her, gradually rotting his way through the ceiling. She’d taken to sitting on the sofa under the window because the other chairs were directly below his bed, and she was half convinced that he would come crashing through.
It had only been a few days. Bren had been round for Christmas, laden down with presents for Dennis but nothing for Caroline. She’d brought him a portable DAB radio, half a ton of sweets and biscuits, and some new pyjamas. The same ones he’d been wearing for three days. Caroline had lightened his medication for the visit, wary but convinced that he was too groggy to say anything incriminating to Bren. She’d been prepared to pass off anything incriminating he said as rambling but he’d been quite normal. He’d had plenty of morphine which was controlling the pain quite well, when she allowed him to have it, and he’d even managed to sit up in bed. Bren had made some comments about him looking better – as if he was going to get out of this alive – but Caroline knew that she was just trying to cheer him up.
She needed to do something. She changed his pyjama bottoms regularly and he wasn’t soiling himself as often in bed, probably due to him being asleep for much of the day and asking for the toilet when he was awake. He knew that Caroline hated having to get him out of bed but she hated having to change his shitty pyjamas even more. Now, the rancid smell of s
weat meant that she needed to bathe him properly. She’d briefly considered asking Bren, just for that satisfaction of watching the old bag struggle, but Caroline knew that Dennis couldn’t be trusted. She’d have to do it herself.
She looked round the kitchen, hoping for inspiration, anything that might make the task ahead less daunting. She’d done a lot of cleaning since she’d been there. Bren’s efforts had been much like Bren; shallow, only surface-deep. Beneath the wiped table and vacuumed carpet lay years of accumulated filth that needed a thorough deep clean to make the place liveable. Caroline had started with the kitchen, scouring the grout with a toothbrush, buying a new vacuum cleaner and then shampooing the carpet, blasting the cooker with the most toxic grease remover that she could find. At first it was satisfying, she was making a visible difference, but she realised that it was displacement. What she really wanted to strip to the core was her relationship with Dennis and with her past.
At least it was winter and she didn’t have to face the garden.
She drained her coffee mug, ran it under the tap and grabbed the rubber gloves that were lying next to the sink; she couldn’t bear the thought of her skin touching his. As she marched upstairs she could hear him stirring. He hadn’t had breakfast and the dose of Diazepam that went with it, and she hadn’t given him any morphine since the previous evening. He was awake and in pain.
‘About time,’ he gasped as she pushed open the door to the bedroom. His sallow face was contorted in agony and he was trying to pull himself into a sitting position. ‘I don’t know what you’re giving me but I think I need a lot more today.’
The Kate Fletcher Series Page 37