Tales from a Master's Notebook

by Various

  The doctor smiled and shook his head. The nurse from the Catholic hospice actually snorted.

  Beth slipped down to the kitchen, fetched some Echinacea and a vial of vitamin C, a brown bottle of paracetamol tablets and put them on a sandwich tray with a glass of mineral water.

  ‘Not now.’ Her mother shook her head in irritation.

  ‘K.’

  The doctor sat down. That had to be a sign. He was emotional, religious, Church of England, high end, and if you asked him how he was he tended to answer. One memorable time: ‘Well I can’t help wondering why I am drawn to taking on more and more patients rather than improving my relationships with my children. What is that, do you think?’ He had four children, two of each, well-spaced. It was a rhetorical question she realised just in the nick of time.

  Beth had a brother, Robin, in Florida, who was on a plane home for their father as they spoke. He was successful and glamorous in a square-shouldered, flawless, American way. He loved Miami. The air he said was ‘milky’. She couldn’t imagine what that meant. Soft? It sounded lovely in any case. She ought to visit him one day. Nowhere in the world, she had heard, she had read, would you encounter more glamorous women in the 100–110 age bracket. That was encouraging.

  He had three small girls but it was painful to think of because Lauren, his wife, liked them very much away.

  ‘I suppose the nurse can always stay on for me,’ her mother said.

  The nurse’s face!

  And then her father died and that was that and she left the room so that her mother could have some time alone with him, and then sat with him alone herself for a spell, unsure of what to say.

  ‘It’s OK, Dad,’ she murmured every now and then as he was cooling. ‘Doing well. It’s all right. That’s it. That’s it now. Doing so so so so well. Lots of love.’

  She felt strongly the throb of shyness in the room, a warm, loving embarrassment rising from him, from her, hovering above them, brightening the bedroom as the natural light failed.

  Later that evening, she sat with her mother in the sitting room on the sofa. Her mother held a cushion to her chest.

  ‘Could you eat something?’ Beth asked.

  ‘I don’t think so. Not tonight.’

  ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’

  ‘There is something.’

  ‘Sure,’ she said.

  ‘Will you stay?’

  ‘Of course I will,’ she said. ‘I could stay all week if you like?’

  ‘I was thinking more, permanently. Move back home.’

  That she had not been expecting. She had a small flat in Hackney with her boyfriend Will who was a primary school teacher. ‘Islington borders’, her mother said. Beth was head of English at an academic girls’ school. Exams were done and it was the start of the long summer break.

  ‘I know you have your own life now, but I don’t think I can see my way forward if you’re not here.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Please Beth.’

  That was another story, hard to contain because it stretched and stretched and was not to be gone into here, not now – the headmistress who said you can always come back, in some capacity; the day she had packed her possessions at the flat and they had fitted easily into the boot of a Ford Galaxy – but the thing she was remembering, not ruefully but with a certain sense of things not being as they should, the third thing, was that as her father lay dying her mother had them all fussing that she might be getting a cold. It was a pressurised time, of course, and it was always impossible to be certain about reality as opposed to your sensations at such moments, and added to that it was essential in life to try to see round corners, to take things on the slant, but it struck her now that they shouldn’t have been rinsing thermometers under taps and messing about with bottles of pills for her mother in his very last moments. It wasn’t respectful.

  ‘I am so sorry, Dad,’ she whispered all the way back into the past.

  Her mother was making tiny uncomfortable movements in her hospital bed. Perhaps she was in pain. She opened her eyes.

  ‘Hi, Mum. How was your night? Looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day.’ The morning sky was blazing now, with streaks of pink laddering the blue.

  ‘Hello dear.’

  ‘Can I get you anything? I think the nurse will be over in a bit to take you for a wash and brush up and change your nightie and everything.’

  ‘It’s so nice to have you sitting there in the chair,’ her mother said. ‘I love to see you reading when I wake up. So civilised and comforting, you look like a painting.’

  ‘Thank you!’

  ‘Oh, you’ve brought me lovely fresh things.’

  ‘Oh good. There was quite a nice thing on the telly I was watching earlier. It’s very peaceful on the ward today.’

  ‘You’re such a good girl.’ She lowered her voice, ‘Janet, you know, in the bed next door, she said how come your daughter comes every day for hours?’

  Beth reached for her mother’s hand from the chair and they both closed their eyes and dozed for a bit.

  ‘That doctor deserves to be struck off!’ Her mother was livid.

  ‘Oh no! What’s he done?’

  ‘It’s what he’s not done. Chiefly, his job!’

  ‘That’s terrible.’

  ‘I am going to have to make a complaint. Can you find me a pen and some paper please?’

  ‘Hang on. I’ve got some in here.’ She fished in her bag for a red notebook she had bought at the hospital shop for writing down the doctors’ remarks and instructions. She handed it to her mother. ‘Sorry, let me find a pen that writes. Here you go. But what did he not do, the doctor, exactly?’

  Her mother shook her head with heavy emotion.

  ‘I’m too tired for all this,’ she said.

  ‘Poor Mum.’

  ‘He says they can’t do anything more for me. Says I’ve to go home.’

  ‘Oh I am so so sorry.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When do they say you should go home?’

  ‘Asap, I think. Yesterday. They’re ever so keen to get rid of me.’

  ‘Oh no. They are beasts.’

  Just then Beth spied Mr L her mother’s oncologist finishing up with another patient. Although six foot four and solid and thickset he had the consultant’s knack of disappearing into thin air. She took her chance, chasing him down the corridor. If only it was Dr Clarkson. He didn’t make you dive like a crazed goalkeeper just in order to speak to him. Will, her ex, had given her a Valentine’s card once with a picture of a goalie on it, looking shy and pale and anxious and knock-kneed with the caption in black capitals ‘You’re a Keeper.’

  Ha!

  She sort of threw herself between Mr L and the bank of lifts, took a moment to catch her footing, find her breath. She tried to talk slowly and intelligently. ‘Good morning, Mr L. Might you have a second, for a minute? And I do apologise for haranguing you. My mother says you have told her there’s nothing more you can do for her here. Can we have a quick – about the kind of support she is going to need at home? And what’s available because, and I hate to ask about timing but could we speak about that as well? We have to pace ourselves I suppose is what I am saying. If that is what we—’

  He ushered her into a ward where the corner bed was empty, yanking the plastic privacy screen to make a little room. ‘Well, let me tell you first that all the scans have come back clear. We can’t find anything. I know she says she feels unwell and I am not absolutely ruling out the possibility of something emerging, some … shoots … but at this stage the best thing is for her to go home and we’ll run tests again in three months’ time.’

  ‘No, I – Oh, I see. Right. Well, that’s good, isn’t it?’

  He was already halfway down the corridor when he turned back to face her unexpectedly. She had forgotten to thank! ‘Thank you so much for everything you’ve done for us,’ Beth said quickly.

  ‘A funny thing,’ he put a thoughtful hand to his chi
n. ‘Friend of mine, on call over the weekend, had a young man come into casualty in an ambulance, Saturday night, quarter past twelve. With a case of dandruff.’

  ‘Oh no! How maddening—’

  ‘We just can’t operate like that.’

  She was surprised to hear a doctor use the word operate in that way. She felt a strong desire to stick up for the young man with the minimal ailment. He was probably just lonely. Middle of the night – didn’t know what to do with himself. It was a mental health situation he was presenting with I expect, she thought.

  And then, almost as though he heard her thinking, Mr L spoke to her severely.

  ‘A heart condition and loneliness are not one and the same. No. It isn’t helpful to pretend they are when we have such limited resources. Even if we didn’t.’

  She was half amazed to hear herself answer, ‘I do completely understand. But can’t you see it might feel the same to a patient. And people can die of heartbreak. They really can—’

  ‘In books!’ he said. ‘In books!’

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘maybe …’ They were both laughing, she shyly and he, she felt, with a sense of how ridiculous the world was and how civilised it was to remember that fact when your work was life and death, undiluted, every day.

  ‘You’re the expert and I know what you’re saying but’ – that wasn’t quite right, she tried again – ‘Look I need to know how –’ but that wouldn’t do either, and finally when she found the words she needed (why was she always so slow!), ‘But may I ask you,’ that was the question, yes, ‘why does my mother feel so dreadful all the time? Is it just the effects of the treatment last year? How do I keep her going is what I am trying to—’ But Mr L had disappeared. She had a strong feeling that were she a man she would be treated to a higher level of something. She ran to the edge of the ward but there was absolutely no trace, not even an echo of steps.

  God!

  The next morning to be on the safe side Beth telephoned Dr Clarkson.

  ‘How are things?’ he asked.

  ‘We are back at home but she’s not right,’ she said. ‘Mr L said the scans show nothing. But she’s a bad colour and she’s weak. She can barely walk, she won’t eat. She’s definitely not herself.’

  ‘I will pop in at lunchtime, shall I?’ he said.

  While he was upstairs with her mother she made him a ham sandwich, seeing as it was 12.26. She put a halved tomato on the side of the plate with some cucumber slices, cut a dill pickle into coins and fanned them out on a few gem lettuce leaves. ‘Too kind,’ he said, sitting down with her at the little kitchen table.

  ‘And how are you doing?’ he said, mid-sandwich.

  ‘Me?’

  ‘I wonder if a holiday might be in order. Change of scene. This has been going on for two years now. And your father before that. You have done amazingly but it must be taking its toll.’

  ‘No, no,’ she said lightly. She was smiling. He was too kind.

  She had her routines. She liked them. ‘No no,’ she said again. A holiday? There was no need for actual hysteria. Besides it was impossible, he knew that.

  ‘Do you good,’ he said. There was a note of warning, was there? ‘Could your brother be persuaded to come over? That would give her an enormous boost.’

  ‘I’m just not sure he can get away but I could ask, I suppose.’

  ‘In any case, day in day out, I just wonder if you might be running the risk of—’

  ‘Well, I will certainly give it some thought.’

  She would not.

  Then things took a turn for the surreal.

  ‘Thing is,’ he said, ‘you’re young, you’re intelligent, you’re – and you’re making sacrifices the value of which you just don’t know. But you might one day and my worry is by then it will be too late. You mustn’t let your high standards and your talents be – This could go on for years and years. You are doing a first-rate job with her care but is it really going to? I know you must feel an enormous pressure and I can’t help thinking at your stage in life you ought to be – When you are older and you look back at things – There, I’ve said it,’ he said.

  Beth smiled frankly at the man.

  ‘And of course I knew your father since we were children, as you know, and he would have never forgiven me if I just stood by and—’

  ‘Please,’ she said.

  He stopped.

  ‘I am incredibly grateful to you,’ she said. ‘We all are.’

  She saw her note of formality wound his feelings.

  ‘Not at all.’ He pushed past her.

  And in the middle of the night when Beth was turning everything over in her mind – ‘Beth Beth! Can you come! Beth? Are you there?’

  ‘Just coming,’ she called along the landing. ‘Putting my dressing gown on. God, it’s cold. Just find my slippers.’

  ‘Are you there, Beth?’

  ‘Here I am! Poor Mum. Are you all right? Are you feeling rough? What can I get you?’

  ‘Why do I feel so bad?’

  ‘Oh I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’m not right, Beth.’

  ‘Well—’

  ‘That hospital. The doctors are villains!’

  ‘What did Dr Clarkson say?’

  ‘Wants me to try antidepressants.’

  ‘Does he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How does that feel?’

  ‘I looked them up and do you know what the first side effect listed is?’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Suicide.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘Why would he want me to take something that inclined me towards suicide?’

  ‘Well – that’s a good question. But I suppose a side effect might only affect one in ten thousand, one in a hundred thousand.’

  ‘Still, that is quite a lot of people.’

  ‘I wouldn’t try to talk you into it if you feel that way. It is alarming. It has to feel right. Shall I ask Clarkson if he has other patients who have tried them that we could speak to? Might be a place to start. Or is that —?’

  ‘Helen’s daughter was given antidepressants for her anorexia and the first side effect listed was loss of appetite.’

  ‘Oh no! Speaking of appetite, what would you like to eat tomorrow? Today, I mean. I am doing an internet order so the world is your oyster.’

  ‘You are a darling.’

  ‘Thanks. You’re not so bad yourself.’

  ‘Could you face making some soup?’

  ‘Sure. Then I thought after lunch we could watch The Lady Eve with Barbara Stanwyck. The dresses are out of this world.’

  ‘Perfect. Would you mind doing my nails for me as we watch?’

  The following day at 7 a.m. her brother Robin telephoned. His tone was odd – faltering – as though he had bad news to impart.

  ‘Thanks so much for all you are doing with Mum. I am so sorry you have to do everything.’

  ‘Well—’

  ‘It doesn’t seem at all right or fair.’

  ‘I am happy to do it. You have Lauren and the girls to take care of, anyway.’

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘It’s very generous of you to see it like that. But I worry you don’t have enough time to live your own life.’

  ‘What do you think I do every day?’

  ‘It’s just – I don’t know what I’m saying really.’

  ‘No,’ she said. And then, ‘How are the girls?’

  ‘Pretty naughty.’

  ‘Well that sounds perfect,’ she laughed.

  ‘Yeah, maybe. I hope so. Funny being in a house with four females. All the hairbrushes – you wouldn’t believe. The little ones let me do their plaits in the morning. Me! I love it. They’re never that neat but they don’t complain. Some of their friends have housekeepers who can do really fancy French plaits and mine are basic, but they’re sturdy!’

  ‘That’s a lovely picture you paint,’ Beth said.

  ‘Thanks. With Mum, I mean, can I ask if it doesn’t sound too �
�� I mean do you meet people, go out and about sometimes with friends and have … times?’

  Clarkson!

  It was strange the way there was such a stigma, in life, attached to doing your duty.

  ‘I do,’ she said. By times she had an awful feeling he meant sexual intercourse.

  People!

  ‘Will still off the scene?’ he asked.

  Aha, she was right. ‘Yep. That ship has sailed.’

  ‘Shame,’ he said, ‘I did like him.’

  ‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘Me too.’

  ‘You wouldn’t consider coming to visit us, would you?’

  ‘I’d love to some time, it’s just I am not certain if she’ll ever feel up to the journey.’

  ‘Ah … Well … it’s an open invitation.’

  ‘Thanks. I appreciate that. And they do say Miami is one of the best places on the planet to be an old lady.’

  He made no answer.

  ‘And there’s no need to worry,’ she said. ‘I am completely fine. I’d say if I wasn’t.’

  ‘Thank you.’ His voice which at the beginning of their talk had been thin and reedy now sounded half-drunk with relief.

  She settled her mother at seven on Saturday night with cream of watercress soup and apple snow and a milky coffee on a flowered tray, and Ginger Rogers. She went out for ninety minutes to meet some old school friends.

  ‘Sure you’ll be OK now?’

  ‘I think so, yes.’

  ‘Will you phone if you need anything? It’s less than ten minutes away.’

  ‘I will,’ her mother said.

  She couldn’t imagine the night she was in for would be preferable to staying at home. Her friends were so vehement in their complaints.

  ‘What’s the most maddening thing about Will?’ they used to ask her. They sat back as she racked her brains.

  ‘Sometimes when we go out he can be a little bit quiet.’

  How they ladled on the scorn! She just didn’t have extreme things in her life as they did, didn’t need them, didn’t miss them. It didn’t make her, to herself, a bad person.

  Now her life was a bit odd they seemed to find her more of a fascination. They were at pains to understand her world, attempting to apply things from her life to things in their own.

  ‘Perhaps you are right and it is a tiny bit like you with the new baby, trying to keep a person alive. It is a responsibility, yes,’ she said, ‘as well as a privilege, of course. She doesn’t sleep through the night, no, almost never! How’s Archie doing anyway, has he got any new tricks up his sleeve?’