With the back of my hand I roughly scrubbed away the tears that I hadn’t even realised were falling and went back to filling the holdall on the bed. I found toiletries in the bathroom and just grabbed everything I thought might be useful. Half of it was probably unnecessary but I took it anyway, unwilling to spend any more time dwelling on how little I really knew my own mother.
Back in the bedroom, I zipped up the holdall and surveyed the room. The bed cover was wrinkled and a couple of the drawers were slightly open where I’d left random bits of clothing poking out of the top or side. I didn’t tidy them up, the belligerent child in me wanted to provoke her, I think, wanted her to tell me off because at least that would have been communication of a sort. How sick and twisted was that?
I stomped heavily down the stairs and flung the holdall into the corner by the front door. I went over to the living room and hit the light switch. My eye was immediately drawn to the bloodstain on the rug in front of the fireplace. It wasn’t huge but its presence on the cream carpet still made me uncomfortable, reminding me of the fact that my mother had been lying there bleeding before anyone found her. Should I just roll up the rug and get rid of it? No, better to try and clean the stain, I thought, ignoring the little accusatory voice in my head that was telling me I should be going back to the hospital rather than scrubbing a carpet.
There was carpet-cleaner foam under the sink in the kitchen and I found a cloth; I was about to start filling the plastic washing-up bowl with warm water when I saw there were three cups in the sink. A cup and saucer and two mugs, to be exact. I knew the cup and saucer belonged to Mum – she never drank her tea out of anything else – but who’d used the mugs? The paramedics that Matt called wouldn’t have had tea whilst in the middle of treating an elderly stroke victim, would they? No. So, who were the mugs for? I walked back down the hall still wondering and went into the living room to begin my task.
Kneeling on the rug, I sprayed cleaning solution onto the stain. The white foam sat there for a few seconds and then it started to turn slightly pink. I left it to work and set about sorting the pile of magazines that was strewn across the coffee table. On top of the pile there was a business card. It had an official-looking police emblem in the corner and a name – Joanne Clow, Family Liaison Officer. Did the mugs in the sink belong to the police? Matt hadn’t said anything about calling the police to the house. Or maybe he had and I just hadn’t been listening?
I started scrubbing at the now baby-pink foam on the carpet; some of the blood came out but there was still an ugly-looking mark left behind. It was obviously ruined, so I rolled it up and carried it out to the wheelie bin at the end of the front garden path. I turned to walk back into the house and I spotted a large black car, a Range Rover, parked across the street. The windows were tinted so I couldn’t see in, but I got the feeling that whoever was inside was watching me. I crossed my arms defensively across my chest and headed quickly back into the house. Turning off the overhead light in the living room, I stood by the window, watching the car. After a few minutes, it drove away. I felt slightly freaked out. It was just a car, Abby. Stop jumping at shadows.
I sat in Mum’s armchair in the now dark living room and took out my mobile phone. I had four missed calls and half a dozen text messages – all from Liz.
R u ok? Anything I can do? Please let me know if there is, sending love xx
The next message was much the same but by the third one she was getting irate; I needed to reply, if only to stop her from jumping in her car and racing to the hospital. I loved her but the last thing I wanted was her striding onto the ward and bossing the nurses around. I typed in a quick reply.
Mum still in hospital. Will call when I know more xxx.
Almost instantly another message pinged into life on the screen; the number was unknown.
I hope everything is okay with your mum. Am heading back home in a few days, thought I would let you know. Jack.
Heading home? Back to America? That thought made me feel sick. Isn’t this what you wanted? You wanted him to leave you alone and now he is – he’s buggering off back to America with his beautifully young girlfriend, end of story. Happy now? I felt a flutter of panic; did I want that? I didn’t know.
The deaf old man next door must have gone to bed because I couldn’t hear his TV anymore; all I could hear was my own rapid breathing and the tick of the clock on the mantel. Jack’s reference to ‘home’ had brought me back to earth with a bang; London wasn’t his home any longer. He belonged somewhere else, somewhere I had no business being. If I was being totally honest, I’d always known that our futures would take us in different directions. Even as a teenager he’d been adamant that he wanted to get away. We’d spoken about it a few times; in fact, one of our last conversations had been about just that.
We were sitting on the top field at school. It was summer – that was the only time we were allowed on the field; the slightest chance of rain and we were all sent to play on the playground to make sure we weren’t traipsing mud into school. On this day it was warm, and Jack and I were propped up against one of the old oak trees. There were two of them and their massive, sprawling canopies used to cause havoc with all games of rounders or cricket. Balls always ended up stuck in their branches, but they were such beautiful old trees that no one ever thought about removing them. The ground underneath was bone dry and grassless, there was just a fine dirty dust that managed to get into your shoes and make your socks dirty. Jack was staring up at the sky, watching a plane leave jet trails in its wake.
‘That’s gonna be me one day,’ he said.
I looked up. ‘Really? Where do you want to go?’
‘Anywhere. Anywhere that’s not here. Somewhere exciting and far away. There’s nothing to keep me here,’ he said.
I swallowed the lump that had suddenly formed in my throat; I couldn’t believe he would say there was nothing for him here. When I didn’t reply straight away, Jack sat up and looked at me.
‘What’s up?’
‘Nothing. Just got a bit of dirt in my eye, that’s all. I’m fine.’
‘Here, let me have a look.’
He took hold of my face and pulled my eyelid down to check for this phantom piece of dirt.
‘Looks all right,’ he said. I nodded, and he sat back down next to me.
‘You’d better start saving, then, if you want to get away so badly. Y’know, if it’s so awful to be here with all of us boring ordinary people.’
‘I didn’t mean you.’ Jack reached across and took my hand, interlinking our fingers and making butterflies take off in my tummy.
‘We’re going to go together. Wherever it is, we’ll be together. I promise.’
It had all sounded so simple back then; we were two stupid kids, what did we know? And now he was leaving again and this time there was no question that he was leaving me behind. It was better this way, I told myself, much easier to let him go now before something happened that we’d both likely regret. There was no version of this story that ended with us together.
As I threw my phone onto the coffee table, I noticed the card again. I was confident that Matt would know what that was all about; I knew Mum would have undoubtedly shared it with her favourite child. I picked up the card and stuffed it in the back pocket of my jeans and then, with enormous effort and a large dose of reluctance, I hauled myself out of the armchair and into the hallway, picking up the bag of Mum’s things as I passed.
*
I’d only taken a few steps into the hospital foyer before I realised that I couldn’t remember which way I needed to go. I looked around, trying to find something, anything, that would jog my memory, but every corridor looked depressingly similar. The information desk was empty, so I wandered across to a map of the hospital. No, still no fucking clue. She was in a critical care ward, that much I knew, but the map might as well have been written in hieroglyphics. Someone had scratched off the helpful ‘You are here’ arrow, as well as the names of some of the wards.
Great. I was about to pull out my phone and dial my brother until I heard his voice bellowing at me from the hospital café.
‘Oi, Midget! Over here!’
I weaved my way between empty tables and chairs, over to where he was sitting, his large body wedged into a tiny plastic chair in the corner of the café.
‘I couldn’t bloody remember which way to go. Good job you were here. I could have been wandering these corridors for hours.’ I dropped the bag and slid into the chair opposite him.
‘Do you want a cup of coffee or tea? The counter’s not open but there’s a machine in the corner.’ He was holding a flimsy plastic cup, full of something that resembled dirty dishwater. I wrinkled my nose in disgust.
‘No, it’s fine, I’ll get something later. How’s Mum doing?’
‘She’s still unconscious. Lucy’s up there with her. I couldn’t sit there looking at her any longer. I needed to get out of that room… She just looks so small… I can’t…’
I reached over and put my hand on his arm. ‘It’s okay, Matt. Lucy’s with her. When she wakes up she won’t be on her own.’ I said ‘when’ not ‘if’, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being unduly optimistic. He nodded and took a mouthful of his coffee.
‘Fucking Nora, this stuff is awful!’ he exclaimed, pushing the cup away from him. The coffee sloshed up the sides of the cup and formed a puddle around the base.
‘She’s going to hate the tea in here when she wakes up,’ I said. ‘I might have to bring her a decent cuppa, in a flask or something.’
‘Yeah, she’d like that.’
I nodded and Matt went back to looking at his phone.
‘How come you went to the house?’ I asked. He looked up and gave me a non-committal ‘Hmmm?’
‘I said, how come you went to the house? What made you think something was up?’
He continued scrolling through messages on his phone for a few seconds and then placed it on the table.
‘I told you, I’d called her a couple of times but she wasn’t answering, which I thought was a bit odd, so after I finished work I went round.’
‘Oh.’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘No reason, just curious.’
‘Balls. What are you getting at, Abby?’
I shrugged. ‘I dunno. I feel bad, I guess. That’s all.’
‘What for?’
I picked at the skin around my thumbnail for a bit and didn’t look at him as I answered. ‘When you don’t hear from her you’re concerned enough to make the effort to go and check on her but when I don’t hear from her I feel… well, relieved I suppose is the best way to describe it. I’m relieved I haven’t had to struggle through another conversation with her and that makes me feel terrible.’
I stared down at the puddle of cold brown coffee sitting around the bottom of his cup and felt a sudden urge to wipe it up. I stood up quickly, my chair made a loud scraping sound that echoed round the empty canteen, and I scurried over to the napkin dispenser by the counter. I yanked on a napkin and managed to pull another twenty or so out along with it. Armed with my wad of paper I went back to the table and made a half-arsed attempt to mop up the coffee, before slinging the whole dripping mess of paper into a nearby bin. I sat back in my chair.
‘Are you done?’
‘Yes… sorry… stupid bloody napkins… had to wipe it up, it was annoying me.’
‘Mum understands, you know. She always has done, about the way you two are together. She gets it.’
He looked so sincere and I got a very unkind urge to giggle. I seriously doubted my mum ‘got it’, or got me, any more than I got her.
‘She doesn’t understand, Matt, because she doesn’t want to. That would involve her having to take some responsibility and she won’t do that. And I feel awful for thinking that way, but I can’t help it. I can’t just bury how I feel in the way that you seem to have managed to.’
He shook his head at me and gave me a pitying look.
‘Don’t do that. You always give me that look whenever I try and talk to you about how she makes me feel. You shake your head and treat me like I’m a pathetic little girl who doesn’t know any better. It’s so bloody patronising!’
‘I wish I could have made you understand, Abby. Mum loved us both so much, protecting us was all she ever wanted to do.’
Not this old chestnut again. ‘Protect us from what? How did she think she was protecting us when she stuffed herself full of Valium and hid behind her bedroom door?’
I started to feel the beginnings of the headache that always accompanied this conversation. I pinched the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes.
‘Why can’t you let it go, Abs? She did her best, you don’t know all of it… you don’t understand.’
My eyes flew back open. ‘Of course, I don’t,’ I hissed, ‘because no one would ever tell me anything, would they? I was just supposed to take your word for it, wasn’t I? Just go along with the idea that everyone had decided what was best for me, no questions asked.’
Matt slumped back in his chair, looking exhausted. ‘I don’t want to fight with you, Abs, not right now. Please?’
I wanted to argue, to tell him that I was sick of always being kept in the dark and lied to, but I didn’t. Instead I went with a petulant, ‘Fine.’ The loud metallic rattling of the shutter going up over the counter stopped any further comment from either of us.
‘I’m going to get a drink. Do you want something?’ I asked, standing up from the table.
‘No, thanks, I’m fine.’ Matt returned to looking at his phone, another indication that any more discussions were off limits for the time being.
There was a young man behind the counter, just putting the cash drawer into the till. He looked up as I approached and smiled.
‘What can I get you?’
‘Just a cup of tea, please,’ I asked, ’milk, no sugar.’
‘Coming right up.’ He turned to the tea urn behind him and I started rummaging around in my pockets for some change. From the back one I retrieved the business card I’d found at Mum’s. I thought about just stuffing it back into my pocket and forgetting it. After the conversation we’d just had, perhaps it would be better not to stir things up. That thought lasted for about two seconds – I knew that whatever the story was that went along with the card, I wanted to hear it. I paid for my tea and walked back to Matt. I sat down and slid the card across to him. He picked it up and glanced at it, trying to appear casual, but I saw a brief flash of shock skitter across his face. He regained his composure quickly, but I knew what I’d seen. I waited for him to start talking; the silence was awkward and I was determined to stay quiet until he decided to talk.
‘What’s that?’ he said, eventually.
‘You’re going to claim ignorance, then?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Pretending you don’t know anything about this card.’
‘I don’t.’
I knew he was lying to me. I’d known him for too long and I’d seen him lie very convincingly to the many girlfriends he’d had in tow over the past few years.
‘Don’t lie to me, Matt, just tell me what this is all about. For once, please, just tell me the truth.’
A loud crash came from behind the counter and I jumped in my seat. Matt didn’t move at all; it was as if he hadn’t even heard it. The man who’d served me my tea appeared behind the counter, clutching a mop.
‘Sorry, sorry, everyone. My fault – I dropped a pot!’ He scurried back out to the kitchen. After a long few minutes Matt sat up straight in his chair and reached across the table to take my hand.
‘I’m sorry, Abby, but I can’t. It’s not my story to tell.’
‘Then whose is it?’ I wanted to force him to tell me, I was angry that he couldn’t see how badly I needed to know, but before I could go on the silent cafeteria was disrupted by my daughter, screaming my name.
‘Mum! You need to come! Something’s happened to Nan!’
Chapter 11
Lucy dragged us both out of the café and over to the stairs. ‘We can’t wait for the lift. We have to go now!’
She led the way, taking the stairs two at a time. Matt took the bag I was carrying and gestured for me to go in front of him. The urgency in Lucy’s voice was fuelling our ascent and we burst through the double doors at the top so loudly that several disapproving heads turned in our direction. I didn’t care; all I wanted to do was get to Mum.
We raced back into the side room and stood at the bottom of the bed. There were two nurses and a doctor working on her tiny body.
‘What’s happening?’ I could see panic in Matt’s eyes; Lucy pulled me close and sobbed into my shoulder.
‘Oh, Mum! It all happened so fast! She opened her eyes, we thought she was coming round, but then her breathing went funny… She was making this horrible noise.’
‘It’s okay, love, the doctor will help her…’ Even as I said the words I knew that they weren’t true. The nurses had stopped what they were doing, and I heard the doctor declare the time of Mum’s death.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, turning to face us. ‘It appears your mother suffered another stroke. We did everything we could but she never regained consciousness.’
Secrets and Tea at Rosie Lee's Page 11