by Tim Parks
‘Would you like me to make you some tea?’ he asked at once.
‘If it’s better than the coffee,’ I laughed. He didn’t smile. I asked him if he was spending the night in an armchair too. He shook his head, but now he did smile as if amused by my question. He must have one of the guest rooms my sister had mentioned, I thought. Sitting on the sofa again, I found the computer had managed to send my message to my brother and that no fewer than fourteen emails were now waiting to be read. Scanning the list, I saw Elsa’s name. Deborah’s, Dr Sharp, the conference organisers in Berlin, an academic publisher, both twins, my wife, an insurance company, no doubt requesting payment, an old girlfriend of a decade and more ago, two names I didn’t know or perhaps couldn’t remember. As I tried to decide whether to take a quick look at these emails before going back to my mother, another message arrived, from my brother. I clicked at once.
‘Coughing up blood not much fun,’ he wrote. ‘Poor Mum. But by no means fatal. I still wonder if the doctors are not maybe overlooking something that happened when she fell. See if you can arrange for a second opinion. She sounded pretty chirpy on the phone when I spoke to her.’
‘Here.’ The old man placed a cup of black tea on the low table beside me. Shaking, his wrist was scarred with injection marks. An inmate, I realised. I was being served by the dying.
‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’
He smiled again, as if he had understood what I was thinking.
‘Got yourself a little knock,’ he said, observing my cheek. ‘How did that happen?’
The truth seemed too complicated.
‘I was walking and texting. Ran into a post.’
He shook his head. ‘You young folks. Always in a hurry.’
‘I’m fifty-seven,’ I laughed.
He sighed, as if I’d confirmed what he meant.
‘Is it safe to leave my computer here for a few minutes?’
‘I’m not going to steal it,’ he said. His voice was squeaky. Halfway back to the counter and his own tea, he suddenly sat down on a chair.
I walked back down the corridor, carrying my tea. My hand shakes too, I thought. The man had unnerved me.
‘Edward?’ my mother asked. ‘Edward, is that you?’
I hadn’t heard her call his name in decades.
‘It’s Tom,’ I told her. ‘I’m back. Good to see you awake, Mum.’
She looked lost. She had pulled herself up on her elbows and, through her nightdress, I could see the thick bandage wrapped around her breasts, or what had been her breasts.
‘Sorry.’ She tried to smile, her bottom lip sucked in over toothless gums. ‘How stupid. Did I say Edward?’ Her speech was slurred.
‘It’s okay, don’t worry.’ I sat on the chair. ‘I just went out to get myself a cup of tea. Do you want anything?’
She stared at me.
‘Is the nurse coming or not? I’m in pain.’
‘Did you call her?’
‘Hours ago.’
‘Let’s call her again.’
I reached for the buzzer that was lying by her hand.
‘We mustn’t bother her, Thomas.’
‘She won’t be bothered.’
The fear of bothering someone seemed to have brought her back to herself.
‘She’ll be upset if we ring twice.’
‘No, she won’t.’
‘I don’t want them to think I’m a nuisance.’
‘But if you’re in pain …’
My mother shut her eyes. ‘Oh, do what you want,’ she said sharply. It was unlike her.
I pressed the buzzer, put it down and took my mother’s hand. She pulled it away.
‘Mum?’
I sat waiting for the nurse to arrive, sipping the tea, which was no better than the coffee. After a minute or two I became aware that I was looking forward to reading my emails, especially the one from the old girlfriend I hadn’t thought of for years. As soon as I recognised this, I felt irritated with myself: why couldn’t I just be with my mother and forget everything else? But irritation changed nothing. My computer was calling me. I could feel its pull, a kind of magnetism down the corridor. I was wondering if Deborah had explained anything further in her email. I was wondering if the twins had written to say they were coming. In which case where would they stay? What had Elsa said? And my wife? Could my brother be right that I should ask for a second opinion? What did I know about vomiting blood? Red or black. Only now did I realise I was proud to have been present when she had vomited, proud to have reacted promptly, grabbing the bowl – bowls, rather – and holding them one after another under her mouth, pushing my hand in the grey hair behind her neck. Yellowish-grey. I was proud to have been involved in this tiny way in her agony. Now I was going to spend the night in this room, and perhaps it would happen again and I would help her again and she would register that Thomas was really there at the end and was helping her, unfazed by the smell and the vomit, the corruption, and she would be glad of that and there would be a kind of sad happiness between us, my mother and myself, at the end.
I could bring the computer in here perhaps. Into her room. Even if there was no Wi-Fi, I could read the messages offline. Reply to them here, during the night. Then just walk down the corridor for a few minutes to connect, when I wanted to send them. Why not?
‘Did you ring?’ The nurse put her head round the door.
‘Mum’s in pain.’
‘Are you feeling bad, Martha?’ the nurse asked.
My mother grimaced, screwing her closed eyes.
‘I’ll go and get something,’ the nurse said. ‘I won’t be a moment, Martha.’
I marvelled at the thought that this was the same nurse who just a few hours before had no idea who Mrs Sanders was, then realised that perhaps the nameplate on the door was actually there for that purpose: each time a nurse opened the door, she had the name there and could address the patient in a friendly way, and I imagined mother approaching the Pearly Gates, and St Peter provided with a nameplate or idiot-card so he could say, ‘Welcome, Martha’ to someone he didn’t know from Adam.
Why does my mind work like this? What is gained?
I sipped my tea. I had imagined the nurse would return immediately, but she didn’t.
‘The children are coming tomorrow, Mum,’ I said. ‘The twins as well, maybe.’
She seemed to struggle. At last she said. ‘What are you doing here, Thomas?’
‘I’m here to be with you.’
‘It’s night, isn’t it? It’s dark. When are you going to your hotel?’
‘I haven’t got a hotel, Mum. I’m spending the night with you. You’ve been poorly. I’ll be here. In the armchair.’
I hadn’t said ‘poorly’ in decades. It was because the nurse had said it earlier, because it was a word that went back to childhood.
She shook her head and kept shaking it, back and forth. I couldn’t understand if it was a response to what I’d said, or to her pain.
‘Go to your hotel, Thomas.’
‘I haven’t got a hotel, Mum. You’ve been sick a couple of times. It’s best you have someone here.’
‘I don’t want you here, Thomas.’
The nurse walked into the room, stripping plastic packaging from a small box. She skirted the bed and went to adjust the drip hanging on the far side.
‘I don’t want you to see me like this,’ my mother insisted.
The nurse was now examining the drug pump in the sheets. I tried to find my mother’s eyes. ‘It’s no problem, Mum. I’m glad to be here.’
Why did I keep on with that mantra? Because she might expect I wouldn’t be glad?
Her head was twisting this way and that. It must be serious pain.
‘This will have you comfortable, Martha,’ the nurse said brightly.
‘You should go to your hotel now, Thomas,’ Mother said. Her speech was slurred but stern, as if talking to a small boy. A boy who had peed in a jar. ‘It’s late now.’
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I exchanged glances with the nurse, indicating I would like to speak to her outside. At which point she noticed my cheek. I saw the sudden narrowing of the eyes. As soon as she came round the bed, I got up and followed her into the corridor. She pulled the door to.
‘How did you get that?’ she asked. As I told her the same story I’d told the old man in the Commemoration Room, I was aware of the irony that nothing could be less like me than this man who blundered into lamp posts while sending text messages. ‘You heard what Mum said,’ I hurried on, ‘about not wanting me to see her in such bad shape. What should I do?’
The nurse frowned, still staring at my cheek. I had the impression she was confirming for herself that it could not be the consequence of a collision with a lamp post.
‘The morphine will make her sleep,’ she said. ‘She won’t know you’re there. It would be useful if you stayed. We have two other critical patients, so it’s going to be a busy night. Meantime, I’ll go and get some disinfectant for that wound.’
‘Thank you,’ I told her. ‘I’ll just sit quietly in the shadows then.’ Glancing up as I said this, I saw Charlie was standing at the end of the corridor, near the Commemoration Room.
‘On the other hand,’ the nurse was saying, ‘I suppose you have to decide whether you want to respect her wishes.’
Charlie had folded his arms and was gazing down the corridor.
‘I’d appreciate your advice, Nurse,’ I said. ‘What do you think?’
I was hoping she hadn’t seen Charlie, hoping I wouldn’t have to explain about Charlie and confess that he had been responsible for my puffed-up face.
‘There’s also the problem of whether to book a flight or not,’ I said.
A buzzer sounded and a light began to flash over a door halfway down the corridor. Turning towards it, the nurse must have seen Charlie, who hadn’t budged. But now another nurse appeared from one of the doors quite near to him.
‘I have a major conference in Berlin,’ I said, ‘the day after tomorrow. So I need to know …’
My voice faltered. The second nurse had exchanged words with Charlie, who was nodding in my direction.
‘It’s my son,’ I said.
The nurse beside me seemed lost for a moment. She was still holding the packaging of the drug she had given my mother.
‘One thing at a time,’ she said. ‘Let’s get through tonight first.’ She frowned. ‘I suppose, if you’re sure your mother is the kind of person who would be upset by your seeing her so ill, perhaps you should respect her wishes. It’s up to you.’
‘But where would I stay? I haven’t got a hotel. I don’t have a car here.’
She turned to watch her fellow nurse disappear in the door where the emergency call light was flashing.
‘My son,’ I said, seeing the objection before she did, ‘is in a tiny bedsit with his girlfriend.’
The nurse had begun to move off. ‘I can give you one of our guest rooms. That way, we can call you if she takes a bad turn.’ She smiled more kindly. ‘Just let me know when you’ve decided, Mr Sanders.’
‘Thomas,’ I said.
She smiled.
I went back into Mother’s room to find she was snoring lightly, almost healthily, though still with a grimace of pain knitted into the forehead. I looked around at the dimly lit space, breathed its smell, and now it seemed to me I very much wanted to spend the night there with her, in this warm nest, ready to help, if help was needed. I imagined myself dozing through the small hours, or communing quietly with my mother, trying to remember the good times, maybe, the country walks, fishing for newts, looking for unusual wild flowers. Or even the evenings, decades later, playing Scrabble when she put her feet up and took her shoes off and kept on saying, ‘I wonder’ to herself over the little rack of letters she had, ‘I wonder, I just wonder.’ How her feet smelled in their nylon stockings when she took her shoes off! Stronger than the cancer smell, come to think of it. Mother had never worried about my smelling her feet. Perhaps she wasn’t aware they smelled. Children have sensitive noses for their parents’ smells. I had seen that with my own children. Yes, now that she had forbidden me to stay, I found I very much wanted to stay and sit with her. Yearned to. My computer with its fourteen unread emails had lost all allure. On the other hand, I knew Mother had meant it when she said she didn’t want me to see her in that state. She didn’t want me to associate this broken, stinking, vomiting body with her, Martha Sanders, on her way home to glory. I bent down to kiss her. The eyelids puckered.
‘Mum.’
You could feel she was still there, in this body. Or rather you could feel this body was still alive.
I let my lips press on the old skin, very aware of what I was doing, as if being observed. Then I realised there was somebody behind me. Charlie. He was in the doorway, staring. I turned and hurried him out into the corridor. I didn’t want him to see my mother, in that state.
‘What in God’s name are you doing here? You’re soaked.’
I began to walk back down the corridor to the Commemoration Room. He walked beside me without answering. On our left, one of the nurses appeared with a basket of dirty sheets.
‘I said you were my son.’
‘How funny.’
In the Commemoration Room the old man was gone. I went to my computer, where the screen was in standby.
‘You can make yourself a coffee, if you like. Or tea.’
‘I’d rather have a Coke,’ he said. He went to a machine I hadn’t noticed in the far corner of the room, dispensing cold drinks and snacks.
‘Want one?’
‘Why not?’ I thought it might sharpen me up.
As I lifted the computer on my lap, it occurred to me that it was a mistake perhaps not to stay with mother. Whether she liked it or not, she needed me. In the end, I had only left the room because of Charlie. I hadn’t actually decided to leave. Then it also occurred to me that almost every decision I take I quickly regret having taken, with the result that not only do I always feel I have taken the wrong decision, but also that I haven’t really taken a decision at all. Or not altogether.
And Elsa? The thought presented itself with surprising urgency. Have you really taken a decision over Elsa? If so, why ask your sister not to mention her to the kids?
‘Here,’ Charles said, putting a can of Coke in my hand.
I clicked on Elsa’s email and saw a long paragraph in Spanish. About her sister. Something had happened between her sister and her mother. As my eye moved across the paragraph I became aware of Charlie looking over my shoulder.
‘Mi amor,’ the email finished.
I closed it.
‘Don’t mind me,’ Charlie said. ‘I no speak no dago.’
I turned on him. ‘What are you doing here, Charlie? You didn’t want to talk to me, so why not just go home? Your mother is worried sick.’
Charlie leaned back so sharply his head clunked against the wall behind the sofa. It was quite a knock, but it didn’t seem to bother him. He stretched out his long legs, shut his eyes, raised the Coke can to his chin and sipped. Along the corridor another buzzer sounded and I heard the nurses calling to each other. Suddenly, all I wanted to do was read my emails and go to bed, hopefully get some sleep before the early-morning meeting with the doctors.
‘Call your mum and get her to come and pick you up.’
‘I’m sorry about the bruise, Tom,’ he said.
I looked at him. He seemed a picture of youthful health.
‘You don’t sound sorry.’
‘Sometimes I feel so angry I don’t know what I’m doing.’
‘You need help, Charlie. You need to see an expert. I can’t understand why your mother wanted you to talk to me, of all people.’
‘I can,’ he said.
It sounded like a bait. I opened Elsa’s email again. Her sister had finally told her mother she was pregnant. This was an ongoing saga. There had been a heated argument. ‘At least it takes the spotlight off us, To
mmy.’ Elsa still hadn’t told her family about me. But why should we hurry to tell our families? To hell with families.
‘Is your mum dying?’ Charlie asked.
‘Seems so,’ I told him. ‘Just you can never tell how long these things will take.’
Without intending to, I managed to sound as though I had considerable experience in such matters.
‘How does it feel?’
He was still sprawled in the same position, head back on the wall, face upturned, eyes closed.
‘Feel? I don’t know. I haven’t had time to feel anything.’
But just saying these words, I experienced a sudden rush of emotion. I had to put the computer to one side. ‘I feel sorry for her,’ I said quietly. ‘I wish she didn’t have to go through this. I wish she didn’t have to suffer.’
After two or three sips of Coke he asked, ‘Were you close?’
I hesitated. ‘In some ways. In others, we were poles apart.’
‘But she had a good life, didn’t she?’ Charlie insisted. ‘I mean, from what I heard from Mum. She’s old now. She had a normal marriage and everything. They didn’t leave each other or make each other unhappy.’
I had no real answer to these questions. What is a normal marriage? On the other hand, trying to answer them seemed the best way to deal with Charlie.
‘My dad died thirty years ago,’ I said. ‘She’s been alone since then.’
Saying this, I sensed a connection somewhere; a thought was pushing to become conscious.
‘She never had anyone else afterwards?’ Charlie seemed genuinely interested.
‘I think there were a couple of offers. One guy in particular. Worked on the stock exchange. A Dutch bloke. But she wanted to live with the memory of my father.’
‘Noble,’ Charlie said at once.
I looked at him. His position hadn’t changed, but his face had relaxed a little. My emotion of a few moments before was receding too.
‘I mean, unusual – romantic,’ the boy elaborated. ‘These days.’
‘I suppose so.’
I tried to remember what the story had been around this rather wealthy Dutch man. Or was he Danish? They had met through the Church of course.