Somehow, having something practical to think about seems to help. Anyway, I’d be really pleased to see you here any time for a return visit before the end of the holidays, I’m sure you know that without my saying. I’m quite safe, now that the thing with Richard is over (as I’m sure it is over, it has to be over, despite the gnawing ache of his absence) – even if in the meantime you work your way through I to Q in double-quick time.
Much love,
Margaret xx
Extract from Helen’s diary
I keep thinking about Mum’s bridge nights, back when I was nine or ten. Every Monday night it was. She used to change and put on powder and lipstick, and she never came back until after eleven. Did she know?
I used to beg her not to go out, crying and wheedling like a toddler. She would always stand there in the hall, smelling of scent, with her arms folded defensively over her chest, and demand, ‘Why not?’ It was a challenge thrown down, we both knew it. And every time I didn’t answer, every time I just sobbed louder and shuffled my slippers without speaking, it underlined the illusory, comfortable untruth, the unvoiced, perfidious, safe certainty that there could be no reason for her not to go . . .
42 Gledhill Street
Ipswich
18 August 2005
Dearest Pete,
Oh dear, love, I’m ever so worried about Margaret! First, as you know, there was all that business in the papers, and then Helen’s death and the funeral, and the next thing, she’s split up with Richard over something he said in the Town Crier. It all just seemed like a lot of politics to me, but what really got to Margaret, I think, was that he was running a campaign with that horrible man, Helen’s father, the one that abused her.
Then, next thing, Margaret gets hold of this diary that Helen kept, right since she was a little girl, writing down all the dreadful things that she went through. Margaret being Margaret, of course she insisted on reading it from cover to cover. Poring over the blessed thing in every spare moment, she was, in tears more often than not. I could see it tearing her up, and it was awful to watch, since obviously nothing I could say would make it any different. We have had a good idea, though (well, it was Margaret’s idea), about setting up a support scheme for other youngsters like Helen, you know, with depression – arranging for people to go and sit with them and so on. I’m going to see if they might have any money for it at work.
Anyway, on top of all this, this afternoon at about six o’clock Margaret had a call from her mum, to say that her gran has had another stroke, poor thing. She’s in hospital and it doesn’t sound too good. Of course, Margaret packed a quick bag and went straight off to get the train – down Hampshire way, it is, where the old lady lives. She promised to phone me before bedtime and let me know how things were, but she hasn’t yet. It will have taken her a while to get there, of course, and then she’ll want to be with her gran, and the family. It’s getting late for me to be up, what with work in the morning, but I don’t want to go to bed and miss her call.
I’m sorry it’s just a short note this time, Petey – but it has really helped me to write this all down.
With my best love, as always,
Cora xxxx
From: Margaret Hayton
[[email protected]]
Sent: 19/8/05 19:54
To: Rebecca Prichard [[email protected]]
Dear Becs,
Sorry to bend your ear from the train yesterday like that, but I just had to talk to someone, and you did a great job of calming me down. You were quite right, I’d have been no earthly use to Gran or anybody else in the state I was in when I called!
I said I’d give you a progress report today, so here it is, from an otherwise eerily deserted internet café near the hospital in Winchester. Well, things don’t look quite so bleak as they did when I arrived last night. She has at least regained consciousness now, and seems to have some hazy idea of where she is and who we are, though she’s not able to speak at all, not for the moment at least, so it’s hard to be sure exactly how much she is aware of. Her right arm and hand are completely useless, like they were at the beg inning last time, but this time she doesn’t seem able to move either of her legs – nothing below the waist at all yet – so of course she’s incontinent, too. One good thing is they’ve disconnected her drip and said that she’s OK to take food by mouth now. There was some macaroni cheese with peas tonight, which was do-able because it didn’t need much chewing, and she can just about manage a fork with her left hand (you know she’s a lefty like me). But the whole right-hand side of her face is frozen, and her coordination seems to be all haywire, so just finding her mouth took every ounce of her concentration. Then swallowing was another whole challenge – she seems to be having to relearn all the things which are normally more or less a reflex. An hour and five minutes it took her, but she finished the whole plate with a real sense of achievement. I wouldn’t have stepped in and fed it to her for the world.
She looked so frail, Becs, lying propped partway up in that metal bed. Hospital always seems to diminish people, somehow (probably a combination of the disempowerment and the high ceilings). I couldn’t help being reminded of Helen, that last time I saw her. Gran seemed about half the size she did when I saw her last, when I came down with Richard . . . but everything was different then. What I care about most, though, the thing that scares me so much I hardly dare write it, is whether she’ll have lost any of her mental faculties. I’d happily watch her eat soup through a tube, wheel her around in a chair, anything – but I need my gran to come back to me as the person she is. What would I do without her?
It looks likely that Gran will be in hospital for quite some time, and it’s not at all clear whether she’ll be able to go home to The Hollies even when they are ready to discharge her. I’m going to stay at the house for the time being, so I can sit with her in the daytime – it’s only a half-hour bus journey from East Markhurst into Winchester. Mum and Dad were both here last night – none of us really went to bed at all – but they had to get back today. Apparently it’s the annual round-the-parishes sponsored bike ride, and St Mary’s is hosting the grand finish this year, and Dad has to award medals to those that make it all the way round. As Mum points out, vicars – much less vicars’ wives – don’t get those lovely long holidays that we teachers do!
Will phone or e-mail tomorrow with further update.
Love and hugs,
Margaret xxx
From: Rebecca Prichard [[email protected]]
Sent: 19/8/05 20:19
To: Margaret Hayton [[email protected]]
Thanks so much for letting me know how it’s going. I’ve been worrying about you all day. Are you sure you are going to be OK in your gran’s house all by yourself down there with no one about? It might go on for a while, if what you say is right. Though if she needs to find a place in a nursing home when she comes out, I suppose you’ll need to be there to sort that out for her. (I’m usually careful not to say anything, but quite honestly, it sounds like your parents are pretty useless.) I would come down and keep you company if I could, chuck, but I’m at Mum and Dad’s at the moment. Mum’s got the flu, and whatever they might say, neither of them is up to looking after the other just now.
Love, and an even bigger hug than usual,
Becs xx
From: Rebecca Prichard [[email protected]]
Sent: 19/8/05 20:50
To: Richard Slater [[email protected]]
Dear Mr Slater,
You don’t know me, but I am a friend of Margaret Hayton. I thought you would wish to know that Margaret’s grandmother has had another stroke. Margaret is down there with her now. Whatever you’ve done, I think you need to get your arse down there PDQ. Go and fix things. Margaret needs you.
Yours sincerely,
Rebecca Prichard.
From: Margaret Hayton
[[email protected]]
Sent: 20/8/05 18:11
To: Rebecca
Prichard [[email protected]]
Dear Becs,
You will think I am overtired and suffering delusions, this is all so weird, but you are going to just have to take my word for it all, because it’s true.
Gran seemed a little better today. She is getting some feeling back in her left leg, and she is starting to speak a little, though it is still very slurry and costs her an enormous amount of energy. Much of what she has been saying is indistinct, so it’s hard to be absolutely certain yet about what she’s understanding and what she isn’t. But the way she smiled at me when I came in this morning, with the functioning half of her face and both her eyes, made me feel convinced that the old gran is still in there and fighting her way back. I stayed all morning, watched her defeat a plate of scrambled eggs through sheer willpower, and then headed back to The Hollies because the nurse said Gran could do with some more nightclothes. (The incontinence is still taking its toll.) By the time I arrived back on the ward it was after four o’clock. I came in and saw Gran in a full sitting position, with extra pillows behind her, bending over something. I thought at first it was one of the little aluminium trays that they bring the meals on, but when I got close I could see that it was in fact, of all things, a laptop! Gran saw me and nodded an acknowledging smile, but didn’t try to say anything. I came round beside her and looked at the screen – and she was playing chess! Some kind of computer chess game. Well, Gran used to play quite a bit of chess with Grandad before he died (she used to oblige him endlessly, though he always beat her), but I’m pretty certain she has never touched a computer in her life, let alone played a computer game! But she could work the keys quite steadily with her left forefinger, and she seemed to be getting along fine. I was so overwhelmed, Becs. Gran, not only sitting up, but apparently totally compos mentis, sufficiently so to be picking up keyboard skills and playing chess against a computer! I was so happy I could have cried. I assumed that one of the nurses, or maybe another patient’s visitor, had lent her it – though as to how such an unlikely thing would have come about, I was somewhat at a loss.
Then Gran started trying to say something, so I bent close to her, and with a great effort she managed to croak a couple of words. I was frustrated at first that I couldn’t make out her meaning – worse, I feared that she might not have regained all of her marbles after all – because what it sounded like, more than anything, was ‘Richard’ and ‘here’. But then suddenly it hit me, with a lurch of recognition – it was his laptop! His old one, the one he used to use all the time before he got his state-of-the-art new one from Culture, Media and Sport, and still takes when he’s going anywhere by train, and uses when he’s in Ipswich. I could tell by the dent on the lid. I remember he mentioned once that it was sustained playing an ill-advised smash during an improvised game of desktop table tennis with the MP he used to share an office with, using laptops and an old squash ball.
How could Richard possibly have been here? It just didn’t make any sense. But how could Gran have got his laptop, otherwise? He certainly didn’t leave it behind after we were down here in June, because I remember him having it on the day of Helen’s funeral. I wanted to quiz Gran about it, but of course that was impossible; she could barely get out a few single, strangled words. All I could do was to sit in bewilderment, and take her hand – the left one, the one with the feeling in it – and give it a squeeze. And to relish the joy of feeling her returning my pressure, faintly but perceptibly.
A while later, still mulling over her next chess move, Gran nodded off, so I made her as comfortable as I could against the pillows and then gently slid the laptop from out of her slackening grasp in order to get it out of her way. I thought I’d close it down, so I exited the chess game, but underneath that there was another window which also needed closing. It was Richard’s hard disc, containing the chess-game icon, and also all his other stored files displayed. I really didn’t look on purpose, Becs, honestly, I just couldn’t help it – but one of the filenames caught my eye. ‘Adamson’, it was called. It had to be something about Helen and her family! Well, I know that what I did next is utterly unforgivable and not a thing I would ever remotely contemplate doing normally, but all the fury and the hurt suddenly came surging back up, hardening into a tight ball in my throat like something gristly you can’t swallow. And in my defence I might plead being still shell-shocked following the discovery of Richard’s laptop and Gran’s unexpected penchant for electronic games. The whole afternoon was beginning to take on a dream-like quality, in any case. And I am only human. So I opened the file.
It consisted of just one short letter. I suppose he must have written it in Ipswich, since it was on his old laptop. I am still struggling to take in the implications, so I am copying it to you so you can read it for yourself. (OK, so when I say I opened the file, it may also have found its way on to my memory stick. But I really did need more time to digest it.)
I just don’t get it. The Town Crier said that Richard was backing Helen’s father’s calls for an inquiry – they were actually quoted in the paper together, saying the same things. Campaigning together – or that’s how it sounded, anyway. But now it looks like Richard never spoke to the man after all! I don’t understand – what does it all mean?
I’m at the same café again – still just as empty. The guy at the counter, who has a most unfortunate wispy beard which looks like the result of a shaving blind spot, welcomed me like a long-lost friend when I came in. At least his americano has a passing acquaintance with the coffee bean – the muck in the machine at the hospital tastes of nothing at all. Then I’m going to get off home to East Markhurst. But I’ll be back in the morning, and see if any of it makes any more sense then.
Love,
Margaret xx
From: Rebecca Prichard [[email protected]]
Sent: 20/8/05 18:21
To: Margaret Hayton [[email protected]]
What it means, I suspect (and you of all people ought to know this by now, Margaret my dear), is that you can’t always believe everything you read in the newspapers.
Hugs,
Becs xxx
From: Richard Slater
[[email protected]]
Sent: 20/8/05 21:26
To: Michael Carragan [[email protected]]
Hi Michael,
The reason that you and I are not at this moment sitting outside the Black Boar on Carteret Street together, contemplatively skimming the froth from the top of our second pint, is that I am currently at an internet booth in the lobby of a small hotel on the outskirts of Winchester. Sorry I didn’t ring you as promised, but it has been quite a day.
It began when I switched on my computer in the office this morning and opened up my e-mail, to find a message from somebody called Rebecca. Whom, through the matutinal haze which always clouds my brain while the hour is yet in single figures, I only later identified with Margaret’s much-spoken-of friend Becs. (For some reason it had never occurred to me that Becs was short for anything. I’d always vaguely pictured it as Becks, like the lager.) What she had to impart was bad news – Margaret’s gran has had a second stroke and is in hospital. But her e-mail also suggested to me in no uncertain terms that I ought to be at Margaret’s side.
Now, as you know, Mike, I am not normally given to flights of unbridled optimism, but it did occur to me that this Becs must be to some extent at least in Margaret’s confidence. It was apparent that this SOS call was made on compassionate grounds, and almost certainly without Margaret’s knowledge or approval. But would Becs have felt that my presence was required if she didn’t have some cause, however insubstantial or misguided, to believe that Margaret might welcome my appearance at the bedside? It was a possibility, and that was enough for me.
First, however, there was the obstacle of discovering the grandmother’s whereabouts. The relative in question is Margaret’s maternal antecedent, so not herself a Hayton, and it took several hours, and flagrant misuse of my House of Commons credentials,
to find amongst all the hospital wards in Hampshire someone known to me only as Gran.
I must admit to feeling a little self-conscious when I finally located the correct elderly relative, around mid-afternoon. I mean, I am well aware that the mercy dash to the sickbed is something of a mawkish cliché, the staple stuff of romantic fiction (though, admittedly, I believe that by tradition it should be the heroine herself lying pale and interesting in the bed, and not her 81-year-old grandmother). On the threshold of the ward, I all of a sudden lacked the courage to go in, and decided to fortify myself first with a cup of coffee from the machine in the corridor outside. However, the insipid brew, deposited in the white polystyrene foam cup in a half-hearted dribble followed by a damply flaccid hiss, was a transparent light tan in colour, incongruously pétillant, and clearly contained insufficient caffeine to pep up a drowsy woodlouse. I experimented with sugar, breaking out the tea-stained spoon from the surface crust in the hospital-issue metal sugar bowl, and ladling in a heaped measure, but already the temperature of the watery liquid had fallen too far to have any hope of dissolving the forged-together granules. There was nothing left for it but to quell both my embarrassment and my desperate hope, and to go in.
Both emotions proved unnecessary. Margaret wasn’t there. Gran seemed to recognise me, though – and, even more encouragingly, did not immediately summon hospital security to seek my summary removal. Indeed, she actually seemed quite pleased to see me, and took hold of my hand, even though her facial muscles couldn’t be induced to form much of a smile. I suddenly realised with a nasty stab of guilt that I had hardly thought about Gran at all, all day, so consumed had I been with the prospect of seeing Margaret, and what I should say to her, and how she might react. But to see her there in the bed was a real shock. She’s such a positive, feisty person – we had great fun that weekend when Margaret and I went to hide out with her (in spite of the reason we were there), so witnessing her suddenly reduced in that way gave me a real jolt. She couldn’t really speak, so I sat and chatted for a bit, but, well, you know, men and hospital bedsides . . . And it isn’t easy to keep your end up for too long in a completely one-sided conversation, especially when you daren’t mention the one thing you have in common (Margaret). So quite soon I lapsed into silence.
More Than Love Letters Page 22