by Elaine Chong
“I’m not expecting you to,” I quickly reassure her.
She tells me she’ll email me her itinerary then adds that she intends to stay in a hotel until our mother has been discharged from hospital. “But you can stay in the house,” I say. “I’ve already asked Maggie to get your old room ready for you.”
“I’d rather stay in London. Colin and I booked a room at the Marriott last time we were there. It’s a good central location and I can get on the tube at Marble Arch.”
“Well, if you’re sure?”
“I’m not staying at the house until I absolutely have to, thank you very much. This whole business of Daddy leaving it to someone, who claims to be his daughter, is ridiculous. You may be happy to just hand over our rightful inheritance, but I’m not!” she says tartly, sounding much more like her old self.
“I’m not handing anything over,” I tell her. “It’s a done deal, Julia; it’s what he wanted. Our only concern now is whether or not Mum can continue to live there on her own.”
A little voice in my head is telling me that this might be an appropriate moment to talk about Aggie’s bungalow, but I decide I need to speak to our mother first. I just hope and pray that when I see her later, she isn’t too confused to explain why she hasn’t mentioned it to me before this.
Julia is adamant that she’ll contest our father’s will, and I can’t be bothered to argue with her over the phone – we have days, perhaps even weeks, ahead of us, when this issue can be discussed face to face, at length and in detail, if that’s what she wants.
I wind up the conversation as fast as I can and promise that I’ll contact her if the conversation with the doctor raises any significant problems.
The rest of the day passes uneventfully and, with all the phone calls made and details of changes to plans noted down carefully in writing, I clear the desk, which Silvio and I share in our study, then throw a change of clothes into a bag – just in case I have to return to Hillcrest.
When I get to the hospital, there’s a long queue of cars in front of me. This is the first time I’ve had to compete for a parking space and somehow it underlines the stress and strain of visiting a friend or a family member at an hour that’s hardly convenient for anyone in paid employment. Of course, I understand that the hospital has its own busy schedule, but adequate parking would make life infinitely easier, I think to myself, as my own irritation mounts in parallel with the minutes ticking past on the dashboard clock.
Half an hour later, I’ve managed to squeeze my car into a space between a monster-sized truck and an SUV. I can hear Mamma Mazzi’s voice in my head bemoaning this country’s current trend to drive off-road vehicles on overcrowded city streets. “Why you need cars like this?” she demands angrily every time a four-wheel drive mounts the pavement in front of the restaurant. “In Italy, we have right size cars. This ... this ... è pazzo!”
She’s right, it’s madness, but I’m here now, and I hope that soon I’ll get some answers to my questions.
Outside, in front of the hospital foyer, there’s a group of people taking hasty, last minute drags at cigarettes, and just inside anxious faces are searching signs and noticeboards for information. As patients and visitors pass in and out in a steady stream, the doors open then close with slow, almost rhythmic precision.
I suddenly notice that there are shops inside selling magazines and all kinds of confectionery, vacuum-packed sandwiches and six kinds of coffee. Even the café has music playing in the background. It reminds me of a busy airport terminal. I suppose this is what you call progress, although I feel that money might be better spent on other things.
I pass through another set of swing doors into the long, green corridor and at once feel my feet begin to drag. I can’t be sure that it’s the effect of the trance-inducing paintwork, but the sign to Sparrow Ward looks further and further away.
Nurse Kelly buzzes me through the security doors. She wears a badge with her name on it and a welcoming smile. “You’re just the person I wanted to see,” I tell her. “I’m Lenora Oakley’s son – I spoke to you this morning.”
“So, you did,” she says. The smile wavers.
“You told me I need to speak to my mother’s doctor, but I’m not entirely sure who that is now?”
“I think it’s Mr Singh, but I’ll need to check the board,” she says, and she bustles back to the reception desk. I follow close on her heels. Behind the desk is a whiteboard showing a list of patients and the doctor in attendance. My mother’s doctor is someone called Raji Singh.
“So, where’s Doctor Singh?” I ask her.
“Mister Singh,” she corrects me. “He’s the surgeon, who operated on Mrs Oakley, but he’s not here now.”
“Well, where is he?”
“Probably in theatre,” she says. “He was here this morning when he did his ward round.”
“When I spoke to you, you didn’t tell me he was here. You just said he was the person I needed to speak to.”
“He is. I’m sorry, Mr Oakley, I’m not being deliberately obstructive. I did tell Mr Singh you want to speak to him, but you have to be here when he’s here if you want to do that. I’m afraid that’s just how the system works. It’s by no means perfect, but hospital protocol prioritises patient confidentiality. That means only the attending doctor – surgeon or physician – can answer questions.”
I suspect that this is a conversation she has to have on a regular basis, and she sounds genuinely apologetic, so I’m forced to bite my tongue, even though I want to shout my frustration into her now not so smiling face. However, I’m not going to let her off the hook quite that easily. “What’s this ‘situation’ you were referring to?”
“Well, your mother has a UTI,” she says in a confident voice and she resumes the friendly, smiley, nice nurse face.
“I know that,” I say, “but this morning you seemed to be suggesting there was another problem.” The nice nurse face freezes, probably because she’s desperately trying to remember what she told me that she possibly shouldn’t have told me due to hospital protocol. “If there’s something else, I really ought to know about it now.”
“Why don’t you go and talk to your mother,” she says. “It might be easier for me to explain, when you’ve seen her and spoken to her.” And before I have a chance to question her further, she briskly walks off.
My mother is sitting up in bed in exactly the same position that I left her three days ago only today her hair is dishevelled, and her eyes are unnaturally bright. I sit on the edge of the bed and lean in to kiss her cheek. For a few uncomfortable seconds she stiffens awkwardly under my touch, but then I feel her fingers gently moving through my hair. “Richard, my son,” she whispers.
I move to sit in the chair next to the bed, but I take her hand. I notice at once that it’s unnaturally warm and the skin is flaking. “Are you drinking enough?” I ask her.
“I’ve got water in that … that thing there, haven’t I?” she says and points at a plastic jug sitting on the table at the end of the bed. “I think I’ve had a cup of tea today as well… I had one when I had breakfast … I think I had tea …” Her voice trails away. She suddenly turns and looks directly at me. “It is Richard,” she says, and she smiles. “Robin was here this morning. I don’t know why he came. He just stood in the doorway there watching me. Didn’t say a word. I thought it was you for a moment but then I remembered you’ve got that hotel project you’re working on.” Her attention suddenly switches to something in the corner of the room behind me. It’s hard to read the expression on her face, but she isn’t smiling anymore, in fact she looks scared.
The change in her has shocked me profoundly. I glance back over my shoulder, but there’s nothing there, only the window which looks out over a concreted patch of ground with raised brick flower beds, now empty of flowers.
I reach across the bed and stroke the hair away from her face. I say, “I think you must have just seen someone who looks like Robin.” (My cousin, Robin, move
d to Australia about five years ago.) “It was probably one of the doctors,” I go on, painfully aware that her eyes are still fixed on something I can’t see. “I expect he was just checking on you.”
She turns back to me and she seems to have forgotten whatever she thought she could see in the corner of the room because she smiles again. “It was definitely Robin,” she says. “He was wearing that horrible navy blazer with the brass buttons. The one he wore to your father’s funeral. That’s how I knew it wasn’t you.”
Even though I’ve read the literature, I still can’t quite accept that an infection can cause this kind of confusion, because Robin did indeed wear the blazer to my father’s funeral, but the idea that he’d fly back here to visit my mother in hospital is unlikely in the extreme.
“Robin lives in Melbourne now, Mum,” I say. “It must have been somebody else.”
“Melbourne,” she repeats after me. “That’s in Australia, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
She withdraws her hand from mine, reaches into the drawer in the locker next to the bed and pulls out two small rectangles of paper. They look like tickets of some kind. “I found these in the pocket of my dressing-gown.” She leans forward and places them carefully on the bed next to her. “I think they might be important. I want you to take them and put them somewhere safe. Somewhere where she can’t find them.”
“Who are you talking about, Mum?” I ask her gently even though I find myself unnerved by this sudden change of tack.
She puts her finger to her lips, beckons to me to move closer, whispers, “Agnes Bagshaw.”
“You mean Aggie?”
She nods.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, but one glance at the fear-filled expression on my mother’s face forces me to take control of my emotions. I pick up the tickets – now I can see that they’re from her local leisure centre. “These are just entrance tickets for the swimming pool, Mum. Didn’t you used to go swimming with Aggie? I don’t think they’re important, but I’ll keep hold of them for you.” I slip them into the inside pocket of my jacket.
“I did used to go swimming with her, didn’t I?” she says. She looks thoughtful. “Perhaps I’m getting them muddled up with something else.”
Nurse Kelly appears in the doorway of the room. “Everything okay here?”
“Can I have a quick word with you before I leave?” I say. The tremor in my voice immediately betrays the anxiety and emotion I’m feeling and which I’ve been trying hard to conceal. My mother doesn’t appear to notice, but Nurse Kelly gives me a knowing look and invites me to join her for a cup of tea.
“I’m going on my break soon, Lenora,” she says.
“I can’t stay very long, Mum,” I say. “I’ll try to come again tomorrow. Maybe in the evening.” When she opens up her arms to me, I move to fold her in what I hope is a reassuring embrace. She’s fragile, bird-like, and I’m frightened for her. How can Julia and I even begin to think of leaving her to live by herself in that dreadful house with all its sadness and secrets now exposed?
She whispers in my ear, “Sometimes I think I see her – just a glimpse of her red dress. Sometimes I smell her perfume. Can it really be her, Richard? What does she want from me?”
Lenora
The mind plays tricks. All those senses upon which we rely to confirm what we know – what we think we know – well, they’re unreliable. I’ve learned that over the last two years and now I feel it ever more intently and it frightens me because Robin was here this morning. I saw him quite clearly, standing in the doorway, but Richard said that Robin is in Australia, and even with this befuddled, old brain, I can work out that he can’t be here and there at the same time.
The same is true of memory. There are things, which I think I remember, but now I’m not certain if they were real or if I just dreamed them. I remember that I used to go swimming with Aggie, but we used to do lots of things together. What I don’t remember is if the tickets I gave to Richard to keep safe are important because of what they are, or because I found them, and they reminded of something I didn’t want to forget.
I close my eyes and try to concentrate because I know that I kept the tickets for a reason. I think about the swimming pool at the leisure centre and then I remember what Aggie told me the day she learned to swim.
“You’re going to learn to do what?”
“Learn to swim. It’s on my retirement list,” she said. “All the things I didn’t have time to do when I was working. Do you want to come with me?”
I hesitated before I answered because Aggie was annoyingly more than proficient at most things, but I was intrigued to find out more. “What else can’t you do?”
She gave me an odd look. “I’m concentrating on swimming for the time being.”
I’d learned to swim in that time-honoured fashion of the youngest child in the family: I was pushed in at the deep end. As a consequence, I could manage an undignified doggy-paddle, but I wasn’t sure that I wanted to learn to swim properly with Aggie. Competition ran through her veins.
In the end I said, “I might just come and watch.” She looked disappointed, so I offered to drive us both there the following day.
I decided to join her in the pool, but I wasn’t convinced that learning to swim with her would improve either my confidence or my competence in the water, so I left her to it when the instructor, a jolly, middle-aged woman wearing a T-shirt and a pair of baggy shorts, urged her to get into the water before she got cold and then handed her a bright blue swimming float.
I made my way over to the far side of the pool and tentatively dipped my toe in the water. The sign over the reception desk said the temperature was 32° but it felt like the North Sea to me. I tried to appear graceful as I slowly climbed down the ladder, but I miscounted the rungs and suddenly found myself plunging helplessly into the water. Arms flailing wildly, legs kicking uselessly, I scrambled for the side, coughing and gasping for air. When I finally found my feet, I discovered that I was only standing in four feet of water. Feeling like a complete idiot, I looked back over my shoulder and saw that Aggie and her instructor were watching me from the other side of the pool.
I spent the next half an hour dog paddling breathlessly up and down like a frightened five-year-old that had just learned to let go of the side.
My eldest brother, Jonnie, had tried to improve my technique one summer when I was about ten years old. I think he was probably the one who threw me in the pool in the first place, so I didn’t really trust him to hold me up in the water when he insisted that I had to learn in the deep end.
We didn’t have floats in those days, but I did have an old, rubber, swimming ring. My father had patched it up numerous times with a bicycle repair kit, so it looked unreliable but was actually very effective at holding you up in the water. The problem with it was its size. It was quite small, but I managed to force it over my head and shoulders.
Jonnie towed me up to the deep end of the pool, holding my hands in his. He was a really strong swimmer and had clearly forgotten what it was like to be a novice swimmer stuck inside in a swimming ring. He gave me a few brief instructions and an equally brief demonstration then let go of my hands. I kicked my legs, leaned forward over the edge of the ring to attempt a front crawl and immediately turned turtle. One moment I was looking helplessly at Jonnie and the next moment I was looking up at the sky.
Of course, Jonnie couldn’t stop laughing, and so did everyone else in the pool around us. Eventually he agreed to tow me back to the shallow end, and my humiliation was complete when I climbed out of the pool but couldn’t get out of the swimming ring. My mother had to cut it off me with a pair of scissors when we got home.
“Waste of a good rubber ring,” my father said when he saw what she’d done. And I spent the rest of the summer playing in the babies’ pool and never did learn to swim like a real swimmer.
By the end of her lesson, Aggie had already learned to let go of her blue float and the instructor
was showing her how to keep her fingers pressed tightly together while she propelled herself through the water with slow, controlled strokes. I was amazed and envious that she’d picked it up so quickly.
When we were back in the changing room, we chose cubicles next to one another. I called to Aggie through chattering teeth over the high divide, “How was your lesson then?” I was hoping and praying that she’d hated every second of it.
“Mary says I’m making good progress,” she said, sounding pleased with herself. “She says I have an aptitude for swimming – something about some people being naturally more buoyant than others. Anyway, I’ve booked in for another lesson next week. Why don’t you join us?”
“It’s too cold,” I said.
“Mary says you don’t get cold if you swim properly. She says you can stay warm in the water if you relax into the rhythm of the strokes and let the water hold you where you’re supposed to be.”
I was used to Aggie’s sly digs – I usually managed to accept them with good humour – but I was so cold and miserable that I told her, “I know where I’m supposed to be and it isn’t getting changed out of a swimsuit in a room the size of a telephone box.”
“Why don’t you use the family cubicle?” she said. “Then you’d have more space.”
“If you’re trying to say I’m overweight, I already know that, but I hardly think I need space for a whole family to get changed in.”
“It was just a suggestion!” she said hotly and gave me the silent treatment until we were changed into back into our clothes.
In the café she continued to talk about her lesson with enthusiasm. While I sipped my tea, she showed me how I should move my head from side to side with each stroke.
“I do know how to swim,” I told her.
“Not really.”
“I suppose Mary told you that,” I said. “I’ll have you know I was swimming at the Lido when you were still paddling your feet in a plastic inflatable.”