by Anna Maxted
‘There were masses of scratches, and welts of blood. I was so shocked, Helen, I nearly fainted on the spot. She seemed fine on the surface – quiet, but fine. Back at work, busy with the children, on top of your father’s finances – imagine! Cecelia! I, I never thought, not in a million years, that she’d do something like this. It’s been, what, five, six months, I thought, surely, she should be over it by now . . . er shouldn’t she or ah maybe not?’
Vivienne, who has been talking more to herself than to me, glances at my face and stutters to a halt. I don’t shout at her even though I want to. Even though, at this precise moment, I’m busting for an excuse to shout at anyone. If Johnny Depp sauntered past and accidentally trod on my toe right now I’d crucify him – brooding designer stubble or not, that man would be pulp!
But to Vivienne I keep my voice steady and say, ‘Vivienne, I, I, you know, I, thank God you found her, you, I, no, I’m thinking, five months, it seems ages, maybe, to you, but to her, and, I mean, to me also, it’s no time. No time at all. I, also, stupid, I thought she was, well, getting better, but it’s a, not right. She isn’t over it. I don’t know how long it’ll take. Longer. Maybe she’ll learn to live with it. I hope. But, sorry, I’m burbling, go on.’
Vivienne takes another drag on her cigarette. She sucks so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t shoot down her throat. ‘I took her to the kitchen and wrapped her wrists in damp tea towels, and drove her straight here. She said she’d done it in the bathroom and she’d “lost a lot of blood” so I ran upstairs to see, and it didn’t look so bad – I couldn’t see any blood – but I’m not an expert in these things, and she’d put towels down to, I expect, protect the carpet, but there wasn’t any blood on them, so I rushed down again, and called an ambulance and they – outrageous! – said I should drive her! I’ve a good mind to write to my MP! Whoever he is.
‘So I brought her here, and they assessed her for, sniff, suicidal intent, and from what she said they said it was probably a cry for help rather than a serious attempt to, you know, and they patched her up “for now” and, but, what gets me is, when they asked her why she did it she said, she said . . .’
Vivienne – who I thought would only ever cry if Gucci’s flagship store in Sloane Street was wiped out in a freak thunderstorm – sniffs and dabs at the corner of each eye with her thumb pad.
‘What?’ I whisper.
Vivienne swallows hard and adds, ‘Your mother said, “There’s no point. Not without my Morrie.” She said, “The world keeps turning and I can’t see any point.” Oh Helen. I didn’t realise before, how much she loved him.’
I pat her trembling hand and suspect, meanly, that Vivienne is so overwrought because if her husband died she’d crack open the Bollinger, maintain he wouldn’t have wanted her to mourn, and continue to prey on impressionable young men with even more gusto than she does already. But I shake my head and sigh, ‘Neither did I.’ Privately, I wonder to what extent today’s dramatics relate to my mother’s feelings for my father and to what extent they relate to her feelings for herself.
We go back inside. My mother has fallen asleep in her hard orange plastic chair. She looks about ten years old.
We sit and wait to be called and suddenly I realise. Tom! My date with Tom! Shit. A large notice forbids use of mobile phones inside the hospital so I grab mine and run outside again. It’s 6.37 p.m. I ring Megavet and – a plague on my house or what – Celine answers. It’s supper time and today’s special is humble pie. ‘Celine,’ I say in my most winsome tone, ‘it’s Helen Bradshaw, the one who—’
‘I know who you are,’ she says in a sharp voice. Bugger.
‘Is Tom there?’ I say.
‘He’s busy,’ she snaps. I refuse to freak out because I know that’s what she wants. I decide to play it straight.
‘Celine,’ I say, ‘I was supposed to be seeing Tom tonight but I can’t because my mother has had to go into hospital suddenly, it’s an emergency, very serious, and I’ve got to be with her. I’d be so grateful if you could pass on that message to Tom,’ you sour bitch, I add silently.
I am amazed and grateful when Celine summons a shred of humanity from the air and says, in a serious tone, ‘I’m sorry to hear that. Of course I’ll tell Tom. Go and look after your mother and don’t worry about it.’
I’m stunned. ‘That’s really kind of you, Celine,’ I say.
‘My pleasure,’ she replies.
I beep off the phone. Wow. What did I do to deserve that? Maybe she’s found a suitor for Nancy – a well-to-do Mercedes named Charles, with alloy wheels and leather trim. More likely she’s thrilled that family tragedy has scuppered my date with her beloved boss. I hurry back to Casualty. My mother has woken up and is complaining that her ‘wrists hurt’. You don’t say. I bite my tongue to stop it flapping out something facetious.
Approximately three years later my mother’s name is called and she, Vivienne, and myself are ushered out of the godforsaken waiting room and into what appears to be a corridor separated into tiny little cubicles. ‘Did you bring your swimming costume?’ I joke feebly to my mother who doesn’t laugh. The duty psychiatrist – who has deep purple rings under his eyes and looks like he’s been in a fight – glances at me as if to say ‘prat’. I assume a meek expression and shut up. We can’t all fit into the shoe-box cubicle, so Vivienne offers to wait outside.
I don’t blame her. In the shoe box to our left a man is shouting and in the shoe box to our right a woman is weeping. How relaxing. I glance nervously at my mother for signs of mental instability but she sits quietly on the cubicle chair and allows a nurse to dab a clear liquid on her wounds. I may need new glasses because I have to squint to see the cuts. ‘This is saline solution so it’s going to sting – but only a little,’ says the nurse kindly. My mother nods. She is uncharacteristically docile while her wrists are wrapped in a big sticky tapey plaster and a thin bandage, and remains silent even when she’s given a tetanus injection. ‘Just to be on the safe side,’ says the nurse cheerfully. I smile gratefully at her. As soon as she leaves, Nasty Cop – alias Dr Nathan Collins, according to his badge – begins an interrogation.
How has she been sleeping? What’s her appetite been like? Has she found it hard to concentrate? Has she had thoughts of wanting to join her loved one? Thoughts of wanting to go to sleep and never wake up? Why did she do it? Has she ever done this before? Was it on the spur of the moment? Did she write a suicide note? Does she wish that she were dead? Did she want to be found? What did she think it was going to do? What does she want? Has she felt suicidal before? Has she ever taken an overdose? Has she ever tried to harm herself in the past? Has she been seeing things that aren’t there? Or hearing things? Has she a support system?
I am agog at these bold, prying questions. I quake in anticipation of each answer and half expect my mother to break down and run out of the shoe box. But she doesn’t. The hot tears run down her face as she replies. I hold her hand and study my feet. And she tells Dr Collins she’s been sleeping a lot and eating a little – ‘A little!’ I think, ‘we’ve chomped through Prue Leith’s entire repertoire, twice!’ – and found it impossible to concentrate and she’s had no thoughts of joining her loved one but some thoughts about sleeping for ever and she did it because Morrie died and she misses him so much she can hardly breathe and no one understands and everyone thinks she should have bounced back and she hasn’t and she can’t and it’s all too much and she thought it was getting better but it’s getting worse and she feels as if she’s going mad. No she hasn’t done it before. Yes it was spur of the moment, she just wanted everyone to ‘sit up and take notice’. No she didn’t write a note. She doesn’t truly wish that she were dead – she wishes that Maurice was alive. Yes she wanted to be found. Make people understand. To make people understand. No. No. No. Not really, although she makes a point of talking to Maurice each night before she goes to bed, just a chat really, like yesterday, the new Tom Clancy came out and she knew Morrie would have been irked
to miss it and so she told him she was going to read it for him. She couldn’t see him but she felt a presence. It was just chitchat really. Occasionally she thinks she spots him in the street but it always turns out to be some stranger.
(Incidentally, that was an edited account as she burbles on and on like a babbling brook, each answer as long as the Bible, until Dr Collins snaps, ‘I want a yes or no answer!’)
He watches her closely then says, ‘Mrs Bradshaw. You’ve suffered a terrible loss. The pain of bereavement is always far worse than you can possibly imagine. And you’re right – people don’t understand. It’s hard for them to see you in pain. What they don’t understand is that pain is part of the grieving process, and you have to go through it in order to heal. And five months is nothing!
‘It can take twenty years to come to terms with the death of a loved one. Your reaction is not mad in the least, it’s normal. It’s very common for the pain to hit around now. In the early stages, you’re in shock. And that’s your body’s way of taking care of you. You couldn’t deal with all that grief at once. And you still have the sense, the familiarity of your husband’s presence to buoy you up. But now the penny’s dropped because you know he isn’t coming back. And that, Mrs Bradshaw, is the real bummer.’
My mother stares in awe at Dr Collins as if he’s the Oracle, then wraps her skinny arms around my waist, and sobs piteously into my jumper. Dr Collins nods at me as if to say, ‘She’ll pull through.’ I’m stunned. I don’t know whether to hit him or hug him.
Chapter 19
I’VE NEVER REACTED well to being told off. Once, after a piggishly large dinner, I was reprimanded by Jasper for suggesting he ‘untighten’ his belt. (Apparently I should have said ‘loosen’ – there’s no such word as ‘untighten’.) I felt most aggrieved and sulked for the next hour. After five grouchy ‘What’s wrong?’/ ‘Nothing’ exchanges, I confessed my gripe. Jasper explained that he was only trying to save me ‘from sounding thick’, so I reluctantly forgave him. But inside, the resentment churned. As I see it, constructive criticism, however constructive, is still criticism. It’s being told off in thin disguise.
Which is why, when Dr Collins took me aside and said that my mother had ‘been a bit neglected recently’ and politely but firmly suggested that ‘it might be wise to keep an eye and ear on Mum until we can organise some support for her’ it was hard not to feel hurt. I did keep an ‘eye and ear’ on my mother, I protested in my head. As far as it was feasible. Short of quitting my job and my home – I’ve already quit my social life – and tailing her like a stalker, how close an eye was I expected to keep?
But I tried to play down the sting of his remark. In my heart I knew I’d dismissed her recent attempts to communicate her desperation – no excuse could justify it – so promising to shadow her was the least I could do. As for the ear. I assume Dr Collins meant I should listen to her talk. Eek. Hiding knives and Nurofen and spying on my mother like a pervert would be a joy and a pleasure, compared to listening. I didn’t say this to Dr Collins but I loathe listening to my mother talk.
It’s wretched to hear her spew out her emotions like she’s a friend or an American or someone my own age. When she rattles on about the sweet things my father did for her like kiss her in the mornings or run her a hot bath in the evenings, I feel like a voyeur. A crap one though because I don’t know where to look. Call me a prude but it feels inappropriate. It’s like – not that I ever did thank God – overhearing my parents having sex. And, if you must know, I envy her. Listening to her talk is, as Dr Collins said, hard. Yes, because I hate to witness her pain. But also because it makes me wonder what’s wrong with me, what kind of a daughter am I, that my pain is so fucking wishy-washy, sporadic, and inferior to hers?
Yes, I tell Dr Collins, of course I will keep an eye and ear on my mother. For as long as she wants.
Vivienne drops us home. I thank her, tell her she’s been wonderful, and wave her off. She departs at 90 mph and I don’t blame her. My mother is subdued so I keep talking. Dr Collins has given her two anti-depressants, prescribed her more, arranged for another doctor to see her in a fortnight, and for a ‘CPN’ to call her tomorrow. When Dr Collins said the pills were Prozac, my mother visibly staggered backwards. He then had to convince her that they wouldn’t make her suicidal. She also made a fuss when he mentioned seeing another doctor.
‘What for?’ she demanded.
He replied: ‘You’ve been through a dreadful time, Mrs Bradshaw. You need some support, and the doctor will manage and regulate your medication.’ My mother was so mesmerised by her blue and white capsules in the little bottle, she forgot to ask what a CPN was. So, when she trotted off to show Vivienne her spoils, I asked. ‘The community psychiatric nurse,’ replied Dr Collins.
I stared at him in horror and shouted, ‘But she’s not mental!’
Dr Collins rubbed his bloodshot eyes and said in a scarily soft voice, ‘My priority is to avert disaster.’ To avert being struck off, more like.
‘Dr Collins seems like a nice man,’ I say brightly, as I fuss aimlessly around the kitchen. ‘So you’ll probably go back to the hospital in a few weeks. Do you want me to take you?’ I add, still brightly, hoping against hope that she’ll say no.
‘No,’ says my mother, surprisingly.
‘Are you sure?’ I say suspiciously, wondering if she’s planning a bunk.
‘If I wanted to say yes, I’d have said yes,’ snaps my mother.
I glance at her tired face and change the subject. I am trembling suddenly and feel an urge to grip my mother with both hands and prise an untouchable promise out of her. I want a written guarantee that she is going to remain alive and chipper for another sixty years. That’s what I want, please. Because otherwise, otherwise . . . I don’t want to live like an ant, scurrying about my futile business until one day like any other, I’m crushed pointlessly, indiscriminately, under the black-booted foot of fate. I feel sick with disgust at life’s haphazard nature. It’s about as orderly as my underwear drawer.
‘Mum,’ I blurt, grasping her wrist.
‘Yes?’ she says.
I want to say, I’m so afraid, so fucking afraid that it’s killing me, but I can’t. So I say, ‘I wish you’d called.’
My mother replies shortly, ‘You were busy.’
I feel clueless. I want to scream. I want my dad back. He’d shake some sense into her. I want control and I hate not having it. Should I make a to do list? I’ll make a to do list. I make a to do list.
To Do List
look after Mummy – indefinite – maybe Thursdays too?
go home and get clothes and toothbrush
phone Laetitia
phone Mrs Armstrong
ask Luke to feed Fatboy
phone Tom to apologise again
phone Lizzy for moral support
listen to Mum talk
I don’t dare leave my mother alone while I collect my stuff from the flat, so I ask her along. I am apprehensive about driving her silver Peugeot 206 – never having driven a car I’m not ashamed of before – but I refuse to squander even one more penny on cabs.
‘It’ll be nice for you to see Luke, Mummy, won’t it?’ I say enticingly. I don’t mention Fatboy as – both being loud, egotistical attention seekers – they can’t stand each other.
Before we go, I suggest my mother ‘freshens up’ – which is code for ‘change into a long-sleeved jumper so the public doesn’t realise you’ve just tried to top yourself’. I select a mint-green sweater, she obligingly pulls it on, and we speed off. The first noise I hear as we troop through the door is not Fatboy demanding dinner or Luke playing the Verve – and, no doubt, air guitar – in his room. The first noise I hear comes from Marcus’s bedroom and it is ‘uuuh! uuuh! uuuh!’ and ‘oh! oh! oh! my! God!’ Oh my God indeed. I invite my mother to my flat for the first time in about a year – I thought it would depress her – and she discovers it’s a bordello.
Thus stabbing home the painful point
that her darling is dead and everyone else is dancing and bonking on his grave (so to speak). I curse Marcus and Michelle for picking now to rut like rhinos. I bet they hardly ever have sex! Marcus hasn’t got the necessary equipment and Michelle hates friction. Why else did she date Sammy for five years?
I start speaking loudly and incessantly to drown out the shrieks of Michelle faking orgasm. ‘Mum, come and sit down in the lounge and switch on the telly there might be something good on and would you like another cup of tea I’ll put on the kettle anyway or would you prefer to listen to the radio in the kitchen yes come into the kitchen and let’s turn it on anyway oh look here’s Luke, Luke you remember my mother don’t you, yes Mum you remember Luke he was so helpful at the hospital last time and he played the cheesecake-in-Lizzy’s-bag joke at the supper party, ah Luke would you mind terribly feeding Fatboy tomorrow morning as I’m staying at my mother’s tonight and maybe for the rest of the week?’
I pause for breath. Luke and my mother look at me as if I’m a nutjob. ‘Are you okay?’ says Luke.
‘Fine, fine,’ I say, jerking my thumb towards Marcus’s room and pulling an I’m-repulsed face.
‘Oh yeah,’ nods Luke, immediately. ‘Marcus and your friend shagging. They’ve been at it like rabbits for, I dunno, ten minutes. Can’t hear myself think.’
Oh hooray. Luke the dufus goofs again. I glare at Luke, say, ‘Sorry, Mum, Luke’s just joking,’ and wait for the cloudburst.
Instead, she starts giggling. ‘Helen! Don’t be such a priss! I do know what sex is! I have had it!’ Said in a jovial patronising lilt and with a coy glance at Luke to indicate that she and he are the real grown-ups and I am the silly little girl who can’t cope with words like ‘bottom’. I’d forgotten how she mutates into a coquettish Judas in the presence of any man over twelve.