by Elaine Chong
“I did. But Arthur’s mum told me where to find you.”
“Is she still there? She won’t be happy.”
“She’s not. And Arthur’s still in the doghouse.”
Her mouth smiles in response but her eyes carry a look of nervous apprehension. “I’m still in my nightie and dressing-gown, but they insisted I had to come here to wait for you.”
“That’s okay.” I show her the bag of clothes I’ve brought with me. “Do you want to change?”
“Maybe put my coat on,” she says, and she immediately shuffles off the dressing-gown.
A nurse appears at my shoulder. “Are you here for Lenora Oakley?” When I say I am, she hands me an envelope. “You need to give the letter inside here to her GP. It just lets him know that she’s been discharged from hospital and any changes to her medication. There are some information sheets and some exercises from the physiotherapist, which she needs to do at home.” She looks down at my mother with what I know is intended to be a compassionate smile. “It’s really important that you read the instructions carefully, Lenora. If you need help understanding anything, I’m sure your son can explain it to you.”
I glance at my mother. Any anxiety she felt about leaving hospital has been replaced with angry indignation and before I can intervene, she replies in an icy tone, “I was the one who taught him to read. And, by the way, my GP is a her.”
The nurse pats her distractedly on the shoulder: her attention is already on another patient.
Before my mother can launch into a full-blown rant against ageist and sexist attitudes, I pull her coat from the bag and insist that she puts it on straight away. “Let’s go,” I say.
While we slowly make our way to the car park, I compliment her on how well she’s managing with the crutches. “I’m amazed,” I tell her.
“What are you amazed at? That I can walk and talk at the same time?”
I laugh. “It’s nice to have the old you back again. And by old, I don’t mean ancient.”
“You make it sound like I wasn’t me while I was in hospital.”
“Well, you weren’t – at least, not for a while. To be honest, Mum, I’ve been quite worried about you.”
“Ah…” she says.
“Ah?”
“Is that why you told the consultant you want him to refer me to this Memory Clinic? If it is, I can tell you right now there’s nothing wrong with my memory.”
We’ve reached the car, so I suggest we continue the conversation once we get on the road. It’s not one I’m looking forward to, but I remember my mother once confiding in me that she always arranged to have difficult conversations while she was driving whether it was with my father or with me and Julia. She said it gave her an excuse to not have eye contact while she said what she wanted to say, and the other person was forced to sit and listen. Either that or do a James Bond-style getaway.
As soon as we’ve left the hospital grounds and are back on a main road I begin. “While you were in hospital, you were very confused sometimes, Mum. You said Robin came to see you, which obviously he didn’t because he’s living in Melbourne. And you gave me those old tickets for the swimming pool at the leisure centre: you told me you didn’t want Aggie to find them. Do you remember any of that?” I glance at her face but it’s unreadable. “Mum?”
“Why are you asking me if I remember when you’ve already decided that I’ve got a problem with my memory?”
“You just told me there’s nothing wrong with your memory.”
Another sideways glance establishes that she can see she’s slipped up: the tightest of smiles puckers the corners of her mouth. She says. “I had a UTI. That sometimes causes confusion and paranoia. Apparently, it’s something us old folk are especially prone to, but there isn’t anything wrong with my memory. And before you ask – because I know you will ask – because the doctor has already mentioned it to me – yes, I do remember how I came to fall down the stairs.”
“You told me you didn’t remember!”
“I know.”
I’m distracted for several minutes by the driver of a white van who seems intent on overtaking me even though the markings on the road clearly indicate that it’s prohibited. But I’m keen to know what happened the day that she fell so as soon as he’s accomplished his objective, I turn to her again. “So … what happened that you didn’t want to tell me?”
“I still don’t want to tell you. I know you’re going to think that I’m going gaga.”
This time I’m the one reluctant to reply, but she doesn’t seem to notice my hesitation. She leans her head back against the headrest and closes her eyes. We sit in silence for perhaps ten minutes. I think she’s fallen asleep, but when I look at her face to check, she’s opened her eyes again.
“Do you believe in ghosts, Richard?” she asks in a strained voice. “Before you answer, let me tell you that I’ve asked Edward Feering the same question. I hoped he might be able to help me, but he … prevaricated; didn’t want to commit himself. Apparently, the Anglican Church is happy to promote the mysterious workings of the Holy Ghost, but not yet ready to recognise the existence of other incorporeal beings. Actually, he had the same reaction I know you’re going to have when I tell what you happened. You’ve hinted at it already – I know why people get referred to a memory clinic by the way and it isn’t because they can’t remember where they put their spectacles.”
“Mum…” I begin, but she immediately cuts me off.
“Let me tell you everything. Then you can decide for yourself if I’m sliding into senility or if, God forbid, there really is something else going on.”
And then she tells me.
Lenora
Poor Richard. Forced to listen to the ravings of a mad, old woman. I’m surprised he hasn’t pulled over to the side of the road and asked me to climb into the back seat of the car so that he can press down the kiddie locks and keep me secured for my own protection. Instead he’s listened attentively and without comment.
“When did this all begin?” he asks.
“Well, obviously after Aggie died.” I don’t want to sound snappish, but I know how this all sounds and I feel foolish beyond words, now that I’ve actually told my story out loud. “Please don’t tell me it’s a form of unresolved grief. I’ve already had that lecture from Maggie.”
“Really?” He glances at me with an eager, expectant expression on his face.
“She said she read about it in a magazine – the inability to accept the death of a loved one caused by powerful feelings of pain and sorrow.”
“I suppose it’s possible…”
“No, it’s not!”
“But…”
“I was sitting next to her when she died, Richard. I saw them take her body away and I sat in the chapel at the crematorium and watched her coffin slide into a fiery furnace. I know she’s dead.” His mouth opens to contradict me once again, so I shut him up quickly. “I’m not mourning. I’m not suffering from unresolved grief. The woman had terminal cancer and at the end, when she died, both of us were glad she’d gone.”
He’s shocked. He can’t believe I said I’m glad Aggie died. Of course, I’m not exactly glad that she died, but under the circumstances, well, it was definitely a case of a welcome end to overwhelming suffering.
“She was your closest friend,” he begins again. “You must have been grieving…”
“Oh, for goodness sake! Of course, I grieved for her after she died. She was my closest friend. But I’m not grieving for her anymore.”
“Okay…” he says slowly. “So, what do you think has been happening?”
I stall for time to reply because that’s the burning question, isn’t it?
Before I fell down the stairs, I couldn’t make up my mind. Was I imagining everything or had Aggie returned from the dead to haunt my waking – and unwaking – hours? Had she ever really left?
As Edward Feering had been less than useless, I eventually confided my fears in Maggie. It’s fair
to say she was a bit shocked, but she didn’t dismiss it as just the wild imaginings of a batty, old woman who needs to go a memory clinic. She said she would think about it and the following week she told me she thought she had a solution. She said she didn’t know if it was unresolved grief like it said in the magazine, or if perhaps Aggie was finding it hard to leave this world behind her, but she thought it might be useful either way if I went to the cemetery where her ashes had been placed in the columbarium. She said, she thought I should say a final goodbye to Aggie; tell her I was fine, and it was time for her to move on.
I had nothing to lose, so that’s what I did. I went to the cemetery and I stood in front of the urn which housed Aggie’s ashes. I told her I was happy on my own and I didn’t need her to watch over me; that she could leave Hillcrest and this world safe in the knowledge that all would be well.
For perhaps a couple of weeks everything was well, and my home once again became a haven of peace. Then Aggie appeared behind me at the top of the stairs, gave me a nudge and I fell.
Richard is waiting patiently for a reply and I can only say to him, “I don’t know what to think.”
He looks thoughtful. I can tell by the way he bites his lower lip that he’s considering the possibilities. At last he says, “I’m going to tell you something – well, two things actually. Don’t freak out.”
“I won’t,” I say. “I promise.”
“I think something is going on at Hillcrest, but I don’t think it’s anything … supernatural.”
“What’s happened?”
“I told you I called in a couple of hours ago to drop off some shopping and pick up some clothes for you. Well, guess what I found? A cleaner from Hutton Home Help in your bedroom.”
“Not Maggie?”
“No. Someone called Jackie. She was clearing up broken glass; she said Maggie told her to do it. After she left, I discovered that the broken glass was Dad’s crystal whiskey decanter and glasses. The ones on the silver tray in the dining room.”
This doesn’t strike me as especially worrying because it’s happened before – when Maggie was on holiday or unwell – but she always asked my permission first before she sent someone to the house with a key to let themselves in. “How on earth did Maggie know what had happened?” I ask him.
“That’s what I couldn’t work out,” he says.
“What’s the second thing?”
Richard is studying the road ahead of him, but he casts a cautious glance in my direction before he replies (he always hates to be the bearer of bad tidings). “I discovered that the door to the garage – the up-and-over door – it was unlocked. Anyone could have got into the house, and I know you won’t want to hear this, but I think Maggie’s responsible. I think she’s been using the house to meet ... to meet men.”
Meet men? I suppose I don’t really know Maggie well enough to comment on her private life, but it seems highly unlikely to me. “Why would Maggie need to leave the garage door open when she has a key to the front door?”
“Perhaps she left it open for the person she’s been meeting.”
“Couldn’t she just give him her key?”
“Perhaps that was too big a risk.”
“Bigger than leaving the garage doors open so that he can get into the house and drink your father’s whiskey?”
“I know it sounds unlikely,” he says, “but didn’t you say you thought you’d seen someone lurking in the back garden?”
“I thought I saw Aggie,” I say.
“But it could have been a man.”
“In a red dress?”
“Are you sure it was Aggie?”
“Am I sure it was Aggie? Are you mad?”
Richard’s head swings round and he says sharply, “Am I mad? Are you kidding me? You’re the one who thinks that it’s more likely to have been your dead friend wafting around the garden in her red dress rather than consider the possibility that Maggie has a boyfriend waiting to meet her.”
His brief lapse of focus on the road propels the car dangerously towards the kerb but Richard quickly corrects it. The situation has shaken up both of us and, even though I’m not thrilled at the prospect of returning to my haunted house, if I have to do it I’d rather do it in one piece so I choose not to respond with the displeasure I actually feel and instead point out in a calm voice, “Maggie only works on a Monday morning.”
He’s obviously still feeling rattled because he exclaims crossly, “Well, she’s not going to bring him into the house when she’s cleaning your carpets, is she!”
I have to say, this persistent sarcasm is quite out of character for Richard, but I’m forced to agree with him. “Probably not,” I say. “But why would she need to secretly meet anyone in my house?”
“I don’t know! But somebody was drinking whiskey in your bedroom and somehow managed to break the bottle and the two glasses. Somebody is responsible for leaving the garage doors unlocked. Was that Aggie?”
As neither one of us can be sure, we lapse into silence for the rest of the journey home, each lost in our own private thoughts.
When we arrive at Hillcrest, Julia comes out of the house to greet us. She smiles and tells me I look well. I can’t say the same for her. She’s usually immaculately and expensively turned out from head to toe but today she’s wearing a simple cream sweater with a pair of jeans and not a scrap of make-up. If I didn’t know her better, I’d think she’d been crying.
She leads us into the house saying that she’s made up the beds in both my room and the guest room. I don’t ask her why she isn’t sleeping in her own room because I already know the answer.
I’ve quickly discovered that walking around on crutches is exhausting so when Richard offers to make me a cup of tea, I ask him if someone will bring it up to my room. “I think I need to rest for a while,” I tell them.
They both stand at the foot of the stairs and watch my painfully slow ascent. I hear Richard say to Julia in a low voice, which he probably thinks I can’t hear, “You’ll need to keep an eye on her when she’s going up and down the stairs.”
“Why?” Julia asks. “She looks like she knows what she’s doing, and I can’t help her if she falls.”
“I’ll explain later,” he says.
I manage to get to my bedroom without tumbling down the stairs, and carefully lower myself onto the bed – Frankie the physio gave me precise instructions before I left. He told me he hoped – in the nicest way possible – that he wouldn’t see me again soon. I told him his feelings were reciprocated and we said goodbye with a friendly handshake.
Now that I’m back in my own bed, I have a mixture of emotions running through my head. On the one hand, I’m happy to be home surrounded by my own things and not having to listen to the vapid conversation of the medical staff with the other patients. Dementia is a cruel and careless thief of intellect and dignity and if that’s the alternative explanation for what I’ve been experiencing then perhaps being haunted by Aggie isn’t such a high price to pay. On the other hand, if my brain is still functioning normally and this madness is Aggie intent on helping me to join her in the afterlife then moving out of my lovely home would certainly be the wisest course of action.
I’m considering my dilemma when Julia appears in the doorway.
“I hope this is up to your usual standards,” she says, placing a mug of tea on the table next to me. “And before you complain about the mug, Richard said it would be safer for you. I told him you’re more than capable of balancing a cup in a saucer, especially seeing the way you went about walking up the stairs carrying your crutches,” she adds. She offers me a sympathetic smile.
“Oh, you know your brother,” I say. “Caution is his middle name.” I deliberately catch her eye. “Not like you, eh Julia?”
A pained expression passes over her face. “Well, it’s no bad thing, is it?”
I want to ask her what’s happened, but this clearly isn’t the right time so instead I say, “I’m going to rest upstairs here
for a while so don’t worry about me.”
“Don’t try to come downstairs by yourself,” she tells me. “Shout out and one of us will …” she gives a strangled laugh. “Actually, I don’t know what we’ll do, but when we’ve worked out what it is then we’ll do it.”
I wave her away.
The tea tastes good although I think Richard just swished a bag around in some hot water because the mug has a telltale rim of brown scum around the edge of it. I think to myself: I’ll have to tell him about my tea-for-one teapot, but no sooner has the picture of the little blue and white teapot burst into the forefront of my memory than another picture takes its place and my hand actually begins to shake. I’m reminded of the day that Aggie came into my room with a cup of tea, sat on the end of my bed and insisted on telling me what she’d done.
It was early, a Monday morning, and I was woken by the sound of someone moving around downstairs. I immediately assumed it must be Maggie even though the clock said it was only seven thirty.
I didn’t want to get up. I was dog-tired. Caring for Aggie was taking a huge toll on both my physical and mental health and I wasn’t sure how much longer I could go on. We’d talked about what might happen at the end, but Aggie was adamant that she wasn’t going to die in a hospital bed. The medication she took made her dull and drowsy: it eased the pain and was helping her to make an exit from this life with dignity and calm, but it didn’t help me.
I was on the point of forcing myself to get up when there was a tap on the door. It slowly opened into the room and Aggie shuffled in bearing a cup of tea, no saucer.
“I’m sorry, Lenora,” she said, “but I’ve got a slight tremor in my hand this morning so I couldn’t carry a cup and a saucer.” I began to throw off the bedclothes, but she told me to stay where I was. “I have to take my tablets in half an hour, but I want to talk to you first.”
“You didn’t have to make me tea,” I said, knowing that I sounded ungracious.
“I wanted to. I can’t do much of anything anymore, but this morning I can make you tea.”