To be fair, the hoover probably isn’t the best accompaniment, but she’s singing her heart out just the same.
‘Ah, boys,’ she says, turning to face us. ‘God only knows why your mother has these draughty old wooden boards when she could have a nice Axminster. They’re a bugger to hoover, if you’ll pardon my French.’
Mrs M stops dead as she takes in Jesse in his muddy kit.
‘Glory be, look at the state of yous, flaking your mud all over my nice clean floor. Get out now.’ She adds under her breath, ‘And I’ve just done in here, too.’
She heads for the kitchen and comes back with a few sheets of newspaper for Jesse to stand on and a plastic carrier bag.
‘Clothes in there,’ she says, holding the carrier out to him, ‘and then up to the shower with you.’
‘I’m not stripping naked in front of you,’ says Jesse indignantly. By now, he’s mastered the fine art of being rude to Mrs M without actually offending her, mainly because he’s worked out she has a soft spot for him. I’d never dare to be rude – for one thing, she blatantly doesn’t like me, and for another, once the floodgates are opened, who knows what’s going to happen next?
‘Luke, will you nip upstairs and grab your brother’s dressing gown,’ says Mrs M, ‘though Lord knows why he’s making all this fuss. Do you think I’ve never seen a boy naked before?’
‘I don’t care,’ says Jesse. ‘You’re not seeing me naked. Pervert.’
‘Well, don’t you go moving off that paper,’ says Mrs M wagging a finger at him in exasperation, ‘or I’ll come and scrub the mud off you myself with a big bristly brush. You should have a shower straight after you’ve finished playing football, not when you get home. Sure, it’s all caked in everywhere.’
I go upstairs and grab Jesse’s dressing gown from his room and chuck it at him downstairs.
‘Cheers,’ he moans. ‘Now can I have some privacy please?’
As I go into the kitchen, Mrs M announces, ‘I’ve had the hospital on the phone this afternoon, Luke.’
‘The hospital?’ I say.
‘Yes, it seems your mammy’s not been feeling too good today. She had a bad night. So they said it’s best not to go in this weekend, to let her rest for a couple of days. You can call her tomorrow and see how she’s feeling.’
‘Jesse will be disappointed,’ I say. ‘He was looking forward to telling her about the match. They’re into the semi-finals.’
‘Oh, is that right?’ says Mrs M. I might as well have told her the moon is made of blue cheese – she hasn’t a clue what I’m on about.
‘The semis, eh? Well, isn’t that grand?’ she goes on. ‘And I’ve taken one of my lovely casseroles out of the freezer for later this evening.’
Jesse is feeling really low tonight, I can tell, and it isn’t just Mrs M’s casserole that’s to blame. I challenge him to his favourite game in the world, Cluedo, and we’re playing at the kitchen table. We used to play all our board games here with Mum. She was never a big fan of Cluedo, mainly because Jesse used to get paranoid that either Mum or I was going to win, and so he’d just guess any old rubbish, ages before he’d worked it out properly. Then, when he checked and discovered he was wrong, he’d get in a big strop and stomp off. End of game. Typical Jesse.
We’ve managed to persuade Mrs M to join in too, just to make up the numbers, though she doesn’t have any idea what’s going on in the game. But as Jesse throws the dice and wanders from room to room, picking up bits of lead piping, the candlestick and some wool (we lost the original rope ages ago and improvised with some yarn from Mum’s sewing box), I can see he’s getting more and more upset. The telly is on in the corner and Mrs M is obviously more interested in Harry Hill’s TV Burp than the game. I’m just moving Colonel Mustard off to the conservatory for a bit of questioning when I hear Jesse sniff and I can see a tear drip off his nose and splash on to Professor Plum. Suddenly he belts upstairs. Mrs M is chortling at some daft sketch and doesn’t even notice we’ve both left the room.
Upstairs I knock on Jesse’s door and go in, not bothering to wait for a reply. He’d probably just tell me to get lost, or something ruder, I figure, so I may as well take my chances.
‘What’s up with you?’ I ask. ‘Come on, spill.’
Jesse is lying face down on his bed.
‘Nothing,’ he says.
‘Yeah, like you’ve had your best day’s footie ever, you’re as happy as a kid’s TV presenter all afternoon, and you’re blubbing like a big baby by the evening,’ I say. ‘So, come on. Tell me what’s wrong.’
‘It’s Mum,’ he says. ‘I miss her. I just wanted to tell her about the match tonight, you know. So I could share it with her.’
‘Look,’ I reply, ‘we’ll go tomorrow, whatever they say. It’s only one day. She’s bound to be better by tomorrow. They can’t stop us, and she’ll want to see us anyway. She’ll even want to hear about you and your tedious little match.’
He smiles a bit at that. I pull a pile of tissues out of the box.
‘I really miss her,’ he says again, his eyes starting to leak more tears. ‘It’s been weeks now, and she doesn’t seem to get any better. In fact, she’s getting worse.’
‘Crap, Jesse,’ I tell him. ‘She’s got to get worse before she gets better. That’s what she told us. That’s how it works sometimes. She should know, Jesse. She’s a nurse.’
‘Yeah I s’pose,’ he grunts through the tears.
‘I know so,’ I say with confidence. Only I don’t. I’m just putting on a brave face for him, really. It’s what Freya calls the Power of Positive Thinking. The worst thing is, I know Jesse’s right. Mum isn’t getting any better. Last time we went in, we even had to help prop her up in bed so she could sit and chat to us. But even chatting seems to wear her out now.
‘She’s having a bad day,’ Sister Calder had said on Friday when we last saw her. Mum seemed to have an awful lot of nasty pills to swallow when the drugs trolley came round – some were huge – and it took her ages to get them all down.
‘We’ll go tomorrow, for sure,’ I say again, brightly. ‘But don’t say anything about the old bag downstairs,’ I warn. ‘I don’t think we should go upsetting Mum. Anyway, I’ve got a plan for getting rid of her.’
‘Have you?’ Jesse looks more cheerful already. ‘What is it?’
‘All in good time,’ I say. ‘Want to watch some telly now?’
‘Yeah, all right,’ he says, pulling himself off the bed, ignoring the tissues I’ve handed him and wiping his snotty nose on his sleeve. ‘I reckon it was Miss Scarlett in the billiard room with the revolver, anyway.’
‘Bollocks,’ I say. ‘She did it in the ballroom. With the spanner.’
chapter eleven
Funny, isn’t it, how stuff doesn’t always seem to go to plan? Somehow in my own mind, I had that Sunday all worked out. We were going to see Mum in the morning. Have a chat, talk about Jesse’s football triumph. Then head home for lunch with Mrs M. Sunday was always a roast with Mrs M, we were relieved to discover, because there’s only so much anyone can do to mess up a roast chicken. She’d had a good stab at it the previous week though by getting her gravy granules and the instant coffee mixed up (her eyesight obviously isn’t what it used to be), but fortunately I’d sniffed out the error before she’d managed to get it to the table, never mind actually slooshing the dirty brown coffee-flavoured goo over the meat and veg.
Mrs M always goes to church first thing on a Sunday morning, and, despite the fact she always drops massive hints about us joining her (she tells us what horrible little pagans we are), somehow we always manage to wheedle our way out. I plead excessive homework and Jesse gives her his big doe-eyed routine and that usually wins her over. So, as soon as she trots off down the path, safely out of the way, Jesse and I chuck on our clothes and hotfoot it over to the hospital on our bikes.
Visiting hours are always a bit strict during the week, but at weekends they seem to relax a lot more. But when we walk o
n to Nelson Ward this morning I can tell something is up. As we approach Mum’s bed, Jesse and I start to slow down until eventually we stop about three metres away. The bed is empty, made up and ready for the next occupant.
Jesse and I look at each other.
‘Where is she?’ he asks.
I look blankly at the hospital bed.
All I can do is shrug.
The staff nurse, Jasmine, comes sailing towards us. We like her. Well, Mum likes her, which normally means that we like her too. Mum rates all the nurses on a purely professional basis. ‘Sloppy,’ she’d say about Kim, Luiz is ‘kind and caring, a very good nurse’, Heather is ‘lazy and grunts a lot’ and Ginny is declared ‘a laugh’.
‘Hello, boys, you’re up with the lark this morning, aren’t you?’
Jasmine is checking a chart with her usual air of efficiency.
‘Where’s Mum?’ I ask, bluntly.
‘Didn’t someone phone you yesterday?’ she says, scowling. ‘Kim was meant to call you. Your mum’s been moved to another ward. Spencer. It’s on the fourth floor.’
‘Spencer?’
Jesse’s bottom lip has started to quiver a bit. I know it sounds kind of wet, but I can’t help feeling sorry for him. All he wants to do is tell Mum about his football match, have her rub his back and tell him what a star he is. It just seems like he’s got to perform the trials of Hercules first.
‘Tell you what,’ says Jasmine, noticing Jesse’s lip and taking him by the hand, ‘why don’t I get Luiz to take you boys up in the lift?’
We stand in the lift with Luiz, chatting away. He’s a tall Brazilian bloke, always has a smile for us, always stops to chat when we visit. He loves teasing Jesse about football too.
‘Your England lose again I see,’ he smiles. His English isn’t fantastic, but it’s a lot better than our Portuguese. ‘Still, what you expect? Your English players spend too much time worrying about their hair and not enough time practising, I think.’
‘Brazilian players don’t have any hair,’ says Jesse. ‘They’re all bald as coots.’
Luiz rubs his own close-cropped balding head.
‘What, like me, you think?’ He laughs. ‘I save a fortune on the hair cuts and shampoo, you know.’
The lift pings at the fourth floor, the doors sweep open and we all pile out. Jesse has relaxed a bit, chatting to Luiz, and we walk towards the swing doors.
‘Why’ve they moved Mum up here?’ I ask.
‘It’s a special ward,’ says Luiz. ‘She’s better here, I think. They understand more about her illness on Spencer. She has her own room too. Wait here while I go and see the desk, please.’
I’m thinking, illness? What illness? I thought they were still doing tests.
Luiz approaches the nurse at the desk and explains something in a low voice. She turns to look at us as he speaks, then she bites her lip and nods. Luiz returns with her.
‘This is Megan,’ says Luiz. ‘I leave you with her now, yes?’ He ruffles Jesse’s hair. ‘Spend more time practising and less time doing your hair, Jesse, and you may play for England one day, eh?’
‘If I go bald I can always play for Brazil,’ Jesse says.
Luiz is laughing as he dives back into the lift.
‘Your mum’s in here,’ says Megan, and she leads us into a side room off the main ward.
Mum is lying propped up in the bed with some kind of monitor attached to her arm. She looks really dopey, but she opens her eyes and just says, ‘Boys …’ and holds her arms out to us.
Jesse launches himself into them and Megan says, ‘Hey there, easy, Tiger, your mum’s not a well woman, you know. I’ll just get you a couple of chairs.’
‘Oh, I’ve missed you both,’ says Mum. She raises her arm – the one with the funny little contraption attached – and traces the side of my face with her fingers, very gently. She smiles at me. I notice her face is much thinner, and her hair looks lank and greasy. The sun is flooding through her window – it’s another lovely day – but Mum just looks grey and tired, really knackered.
‘What’s this for?’ I ask, pointing at the little box with the digital display.
‘Is it a kind of iPod?’ says Jesse, gormlessly. Duh.
‘It’s for pain relief,’ says Mum. ‘See, when the pain gets bad, I can just press on this little red button here, and it gives me something to make it better.’
Megan slips two chairs into the room, and closes the door behind her. I sit down on one, but Jesse just lies across Mum’s bed.
‘What does it give you?’ Jesse asks.
‘It’s a drug,’ says Mum.
‘Drugs!’ said Jesse. ‘You’re always going on at us about the dangers of drugs …’
‘Not those kinds of drugs, lard brain,’ I say.
‘It’s medicine,’ says Mum patiently. ‘It’s to help take the pain away, help me feel better. Luke darling, can you pass me some water please? I’m so thirsty at the moment.’
I pour Mum out a glass of water and give it to her. I watch her hand take hold of the glass and notice how thin her wrists are, how the skin is practically translucent, almost as fragile as the glass she’s holding.
Jesse starts telling Mum all about his finest hour on the pitch.
She smiles and laughs as he exaggerates his role out of all proportion. I’m thinking she looks better already.
When he’s finished, she looks up at me.
‘So how’s my big grown-up boy?’ she says.
‘Okay,’ I say.
‘I haven’t had any breakfast yet,’ says Jesse. ‘Have you got anything to eat, Mum?’
Mum scowls.
‘Isn’t she feeding you, Mrs McLafferty?’
I give Jesse a subtle dig in the ribs. ‘Yeah, yeah,’ I tell her. ‘We were just in a bit of a rush to get here. Jesse wanted to tell you all about the match. Did you eat breakfast?’
‘Not really,’ she says. ‘I haven’t much of an appetite these days.’
She points towards a sad, pappy-looking apple and a spotty banana that’s seen better days.
‘There’s some fruit …’
‘Can I get something from the shop?’ asks Jesse. ‘Please? I’m starving.’
I can tell Mum is quite keen to get rid of Jesse, because normally she’d bang on about not buying loads of sweets and fizzy drinks and rubbish like that. Only this time, she doesn’t, she just gives him the money and doesn’t remind him to bring back the change like she normally does. He’s out of the door in a micro-second.
‘I want to talk to you, Luke,’ says Mum.
She holds out her hand, so pale it could be porcelain, and takes mine in it. I thought it would feel cold, but it’s not, it’s warm, slightly clammy.
‘They’ve been waiting to move me up to Spencer because …’ she pauses for breath as she struggles to choose the right words, ‘ … because now they know what’s wrong with me, they can give me specialist treatment here.’
‘I know,’ I say. ‘That’s what Luiz told us.’
‘They’re starting me on other treatments now too,’ says Mum. ‘Some of them leave me feeling tired and washed-out. I spend all my time wishing I was at home with you two, worrying about how you’re getting on without me, but then sometimes I’m quite glad you can’t see me in this state.’
‘When are you coming home, Mum?’ I ask.
She glances up at me and her eyes look glassy and bright, and then everything starts spilling over, there are tears running down her cheeks and I notice she’s squeezing my hand really hard.
‘I’m coming home for the weekend in a couple of weeks’ time,’ says Mum. ‘I’ve had a word with the staff here, and they can make special arrangements. They’ll drop me off on the Friday night and send a special nurse. Mia is going to come too. Then they’ll pick me up and drop me back on the Sunday.’
‘Just for the weekend?’ I say. I don’t understand. All we’ve talked about over the last few weeks is Mum getting better, Mum coming home, what we’ll do
when Mum gets back. Now she’s coming home and she’s going back again. And she’s not even better. That’s not right.
‘Just for the weekend,’ says Mum, and she starts to cry again. I’ve only ever seen her cry once before all this and that was after Dad left. I came down one night, about half an hour after I’d gone to bed, and I found her crying on the sofa. She looked really embarrassed, like I’d caught her out, and tried to wipe her face with the back of her sleeve, but I could tell she’d been crying.
‘I’m not really well enough to come home for good, not yet,’ she says.
She gulps. She wants to say something, but the words aren’t coming out. She’s stuck.
‘You’ve got cancer, haven’t you?’ I say.
Mum raises a hand to her eyes as though she’s trying to protect them from the sun. It looks as if she’s trying to cover the tears, cover the pain, she can’t bear to look at me. She turns her head to the side, but she can’t speak, as though something has lodged in her throat – maybe it’s the words, maybe it’s the cancer – and then she starts to cry again, really sobbing this time. She holds her arms out to take me, like she used to do when I was little, and she’d pick me up and twirl me around in the garden and my head would spin. That’s my cue to go to her, to hold her and hug her back, but she feels like bones and paper, she’s lost so much weight and I don’t want to hurt her. I can feel her sobbing in my arms in big, shuddering spasms, as though everything is broken and it’ll never be mended again.
‘I wanted to tell you,’ she gasps. ‘But I couldn’t say it. I just couldn’t say that word.’
chapter twelve
‘I’ll not be here that weekend,’ announces Mrs M over lunch. ‘I’m going to visit my sister Margaret in Colchester. She’s a cleaner at a local school there and she’s a martyr to her bunions.’
She sniffs and takes another sip of her pale ale. It’s her tipple of choice at Sunday lunchtime. I’d never even heard of it before she came to live with us. We’re allowed juice that Mrs M always calls ‘squash’.
Mrs M isn’t happy with us. Of course, she got back from church before we did and once she realised where we’d bunked off to – Jesse’s rubbish at keeping secrets, he blurted it out as soon as we got back – she threw a wobbly.
Life, Interrupted Page 6