Echoes of a Life

by Robin Byron

  ‘You mean not to have me aborted?’

  ‘Most girls would have done so at her age. It wasn’t such an obvious choice for a girl of her background to go through with having a baby at seventeen.’

  ‘So would you have let her? I mean, abort the baby?’

  ‘If she had wanted to she would have gone ahead and done it. That’s the sort of person she was. We might never have known about it. She wouldn’t even have told Andy – although she might have just casually mentioned it to us afterwards – she was capable of doing that.’

  ‘Mum, why are we talking about this?’

  ‘I need to know. Deep down you must have sometimes wished you had your own natural parents? Even Andy. He may have been a bit wild but if it hadn’t been for the accident I think he might in the end have made a good father.’

  ‘Mum, this is fantasy. My natural parents were dead before I had a chance to ever know them. You and Dad adopted me. Of course, I never understood why you two split up and I would have preferred you to have lived under the same roof, but it’s never mattered to me that you were grandparents. You were just Mum and Dad, and that was it.’

  ‘I’m glad, darling. Now, you’re supposed to be taking me out to lunch. You’d better go and get Helen, otherwise we will be too late for our table.’

  ‘Alright, fine, but we need to talk more about your decision after lunch.’

  And so, in time-honoured fashion, it was tacitly agreed that they would have lunch without discussing the subject which was the whole purpose of the lunch – lest the lunch should thereby be spoiled.

  When the three of them had settled themselves into a quiet corner table at the Red Lion, Callum went to the bar to place their orders and, despite his protests, Helen insisted on going with him to ‘help’. Marianne watched from her corner while an intense whispered conversation took place at the bar, Helen’s face a few inches from Callum’s right ear. Ah, the debriefing, she thought. Looks like Callum is getting the third degree. Not for the first time Marianne wondered if she would have liked Helen more if they had lived in England. Had she always blamed her for taking Callum away?

  When Helen returned to the table they both sat for a few moments in an uncomfortable silence.

  ‘What news of Emma?’ Marianne asked.

  ‘Working hard for her end-of-year exams,’ Helen responded brightly, appearing relieved that Marianne had broken the silence and not raised any more difficult subjects. ‘She’s still playing a lot of hockey.’

  ‘I’ve given them our orders,’ said Callum, returning to the table.

  ‘You must miss Emma?’ Marianne said, then instantly regretted the remark as soon as she had uttered it.

  ‘Yes, of course, but we plan to go back to Oz for Christmas and…’

  Helen had suddenly spotted, as Marianne had a moment earlier, that the conversation was drifting perilously close to the forbidden subject. By Christmas I shall be dead, thought Marianne – or at least I will be if things go according to my plan – so Christmas was not a proper subject for discussion. Callum had also spotted the danger and dived to the rescue.

  ‘Well, we haven’t made any definite plans yet… Now, Mum, how is Anna looking after you? Are you getting enough decent food?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve already told you, Anna is looking after me as well as ever.’

  As they waited for their lunch to arrive, Callum kept the conversation reassuringly general. Dangerous subjects were circumvented: climatic differences between England and Australia, Callum’s job in London, political issues in England and America – these were all safe subjects, but not the immediate future. Not for Marianne, nor for Callum and Helen.

  ‘Ah, this is ours, I think,’ said Callum, as a waitress brought over their lunch, allowing the conversation to be diverted to their choice of food.

  ‘Ta,’ said Helen as the waitress put down her caesar salad. Marianne was having the fish pie while Callum had a steak and ale pie with chips, causing Helen to comment, ‘Chips as well, Cal?’, eyeing his plate with disapproval.

  Throughout the meal Marianne felt a curious detachment. She was both sitting in her corner seat and at the same time surveying the scene as if from above. Dorrie had mocked her when she said she had a strange kind of excitement, an intensity of feeling which she had not experienced before, but it was a fact that since her decision on Wednesday she had felt both part of the life she was leading but also separate from it, as if already viewing the life of another person.

  Callum was asking her whether she wanted dessert but suddenly she had an urgent need to get back to the house and for Callum and Helen to be gone.

  ‘No thank you, darling,’ she said, ‘I feel a bit tired now. I think we might go back.’

  ‘Yes, of course. I’ll just pay the bill,’ and once again Callum got up and went to the bar, leaving Helen and Marianne alone. Marianne was about to launch into another bland conversation to cover an awkward silence when, to her amazement, Helen plunged into the forbidden subject.

  ‘Are you still planning to go to the clinic on Tuesday?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘Would you like me to take you? It’s just that I know Cal would want to take you himself, but he has an important meeting on Tuesday.’

  ‘Well,’ Marianne said, hesitating; she had been wondering how she would get to the clinic. Normally Anna would take her anywhere she wanted to go but she hadn’t told Anna yet.

  ‘Well, if it’s not too much trouble?’

  ‘No, of course not. I’ve already discussed it with Cal.’

  Have you indeed, thought Marianne. So, despite all Callum’s expressed unhappiness about my decision, their expectation has been that I will go through with it, not that they will persuade me otherwise.

  ‘Ready to go now,’ said Callum returning to the table and taking Marianne’s arm. As he helped her to her feet and they made their way out to the car park she wondered what further arguments might be in store when they got home. But back in the house, the second phase of their conversation which Callum had promised was over almost before it had begun. Helen had taken herself to the upstairs bathroom.

  ‘So, Mum,’ Callum began, ‘are you sure you don’t want to just forget about all this…? I mean, the AD clinic.’

  ‘No, darling, I’m going to the stage two appointment on Tuesday.’

  ‘Well, perhaps they will talk you out of it.’

  ‘Perhaps they will,’ she said (but if he really thinks that he doesn’t know how these things work).

  ‘Well, if you are determined to go, Helen has said that she will take you. I would come myself but I have a rather difficult day on Tuesday.’

  ‘That’s alright, Helen has already said she would take me.’

  ‘Has she? OK then. What time should she get here?’

  ‘The appointment is at eleven, so if she’s here by ten thirty that would be fine.’

  ‘OK, Mum, but remember what I said, won’t you?’

  ‘I will, darling. I will.’

  21

  Marianne sat in the Iris reception room waiting to be seen while Helen read – or pretended to read – a magazine. Every now and then Helen looked up and gave Marianne an encouraging smile, rather as if she was an anxious child before a visit to the dentist. There appeared to be some sort of glitch before Marianne could be seen and this gave her an opportunity to read some of the clinic’s literature. Apparently, the Iris was the fifth clinic to be opened in England by the Dutch de Zeeou Group, now popularly known as the Daisy Chain. There was also literature explaining the environmental, cremation and burial services on offer; another arm (and a highly profitable one she had read) of the de Zeeou Group.

  Eventually Marianne was called in to meet the support nurse. Helen was not allowed to accompany her during this interview. Marianne was pleasantly surprised by the attitude of the nurse. She introduced
herself as Nikhita Singh; aged about fifty, with small brown, slightly hooded eyes and noticeably crooked teeth, she seemed friendly but respectful.

  ‘I have read through your stage one notes, Mrs Davenport, and you seemed very confident that AD would be the right solution for you when the time came.’

  ‘Yes, I have always believed in AD.’

  ‘Yes indeed, and I understand why from your previous interviews. Now I am going to have to ask you a number of questions and you must give me an honest and truthful answer. Never say what you think I might expect or want to hear. Only your own view, is that clear?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Right, here is the question sheet so you can follow what I’m asking.’

  And so the process started. Marianne had an idea what to expect, from her friend Millicent who had gone through AD a few years earlier. She had explained that it’s all about getting the right score. Most of the questions are about evaluating certain aspects of your life, both physical and mental. The scoring system seeks to achieve a measure of uniformity, so:

  ‘On a scale of one to ten, Mrs Davenport, with ten being the most happy, and zero being the least happy, how would you describe your state of mind?’ Of course, the questions were in many ways absurd but Marianne knew that you have to play along with the system and exaggerate a little. She opted for a two. They moved on to physical suffering.

  ‘What aspects of your physical life cause you distress and suffering, Mrs Davenport?’

  ‘Well, there’s my hands and my hips,’ she said. ‘I broke my pelvis in my twenties and it didn’t heal well.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ said the nurse, studying her notes.

  ‘You will see that I had hip problems quite early in life and had replacement hips about twenty years ago. Apparently my bones have now degenerated so that it’s not considered possible to have further surgery. So sooner or later I’m likely to end up in a wheelchair.’

  ‘Yes, I understand. So, on a scale of one to ten, with ten being the most severe, how would you evaluate the pain you suffer from your hips?’

  How to answer this question? How can anyone know what level ten pain could amount to? Have I had my fingernails ripped out? Have I been broken on the rack in a medieval torture chamber? I haven’t even come anywhere near the pain suffered by my poor father at the end of his life. I suspect that my pain would barely register against the full capacity for human beings to suffer.

  ‘Maybe five?’ The nurse noted it down. Marianne knew that it didn’t really matter what she said. Her case for AD was mental – I have a reasonably held belief, based on my physical condition, that it is no longer tolerable to go on living. Once it became settled practice that the interpretation of a serious physiological condition meant any condition which wasn’t trivial then it all turned on of the reasonableness of your belief. When you were into your eighties or nineties there was seldom any argument about it.

  ‘Yes, and your hands?’ said the nurse. ‘You mentioned about the pain in your hands?’

  ‘Yes. You see, although my hips and hands are both troubling on their own, the combination is particularly difficult. I need two sticks to walk now and it’s very difficult trying to hold the sticks, especially first thing in the morning, or using the commode at night.’

  ‘So how would you score that?’ Marianne opted for a four then said perhaps four and a half. Were halves allowed? It seemed they were. The nurse noted it down.

  Gradually they worked through Marianne’s bodily ailments. Her headaches, her sometimes painful eyes, constipation, haemorrhoids and occasional incontinence. By now Marianne was feeling acutely uncomfortable at having to talk up such common ailments of old age.

  They had been going for over an hour and the nurse saw that Marianne was beginning to flag. She offered her a cup of tea or coffee and a short break. Marianne opted for tea. The nurse suggested she might like to go back and have her tea in the reception with her daughter-in-law. Marianne declined and spent a few minutes leafing through a brochure describing the legal implications of AD: the law did not permit discrimination against those who opted for an assisted death, the de Zeeou Group was pleased to inform readers, and life insurers were obliged to pay provided the policy was taken out at least three years before death.

  Another article explained that euthanasia was still illegal in Britain; hence no doctor could administer a fatal dose. Patients had to self-administer the necessary drugs, but the de Zeeou clinics provided for that process to be easy, pain free and to take place in a secure environment under medical supervision.

  When they resumed, Marianne realised that the topic had changed. So far it seemed that they had been concentrating on the reasonableness or otherwise of her view that life was no longer tolerable. Now they had to concentrate on ensuring that she was not being swayed by ‘inappropriate’ criteria. This could range from domestic circumstances, financial considerations, all the way to undue influence.

  ‘So I take it, Mrs Davenport, from our previous discussion, that you live alone but have a carer who comes in every day.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can you describe the arrangement for me?’

  Marianne described how Anna looked after her.

  ‘She seems very helpful, your Anna. Would you describe it as a good relationship?’ How to describe her relationship with Anna? Good wouldn’t even get close. She loved Anna. She knew that she loved her too much. Too much for her own good and possibly Anna’s as well.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Yes, it’s a good relationship.’

  The questions moved on to money. Shortage of money, as Marianne knew, is a big no-no as far as the clinics are concerned. There had been a lot of bad publicity a few years earlier when some researchers suggested that anxiety about money was the second biggest factor involved in people’s decisions to go for AD. That didn’t seem a particularly strange conclusion to Marianne, since health and money are the two overriding concerns of old age. Nevertheless, the research spawned a big political debate about pension levels and the cost of care with articles in the press suggesting that AD clinics were profiteering from the financial anxieties of the elderly. As a result, the clinics tried hard to show that shortage of money was not a factor in choosing AD.

  Marianne disliked this part of the enquiry even more than the discussion about her health and domestic circumstances. She had always guarded the privacy of her financial affairs. ‘I own my own house. I have a pension from the university and my state pension. No particular money problems,’ she lied. The nurse seemed pleased with her answers.

  The final section dealt with the attitude of her relations. To some extent this had already been dealt with at stage one. Callum had come with her on that occasion. He had told them that he certainly would not encourage it but he would respect his mother’s decision to choose AD if the situation ever arose. Similar questions were now asked of Marianne.

  ‘Mrs Davenport, please tell me which one of the following statements most accurately describes the attitude of your son to your decision to seek AD: strongly supports, supports, is neutral, opposes or strongly opposes?’

  For the first time Marianne gave an answer which seemed to trouble the nurse: ‘I would say the second.’

  The nurse frowned. ‘Your son is supportive of your decision?’

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ Marianne said, but she hadn’t quite realised that this answer would set off an alarm bell; except in cases of extreme suffering or a severe degenerative disease, the AD clinics preferred relations to be neutral or mildly opposed. This suggested that the decision was that of the patient alone, entered into without persuasion or interference.

  ‘So has your son played any part in persuading you to choose AD?’ the nurse asked anxiously.

  ‘No, no, not at all. He regards it as my decision and supports whatever decision I wish to make.’

  ‘I wonder, therefore, if
neutral isn’t really the correct answer?’ she asked.

  Neutral? Marianne wondered how a son could be neutral about his mother’s death. He may support the decision because he respects and loves his mother or even because he doesn’t. Or he may oppose it for the same reasons. But to be neutral as to whether his mother lives or dies? And with one of those sudden flashes of memory which are a feature of old age, Marianne remembered a discussion in her literature class seventy or more years ago when they were reading Sons and Lovers. Paul grinds up the morphine and puts it in his mother’s milk to hasten her death ‘yet he loved her more than his own life’. She had never forgotten those words. Neutral? That would hardly be possible.

  ‘So on reflection, what shall I put down?’ asked the nurse. Marianne looked down at the form and tried to focus on the question – oh, what the hell.

  ‘Yes, you’re right, neutral is better,’ she said; the nurse smiled and ringed three on her form.

  ‘And your daughter-in-law? Would the answer be the same for her?’ Marianne was startled by the question. Helen? Why is she asking me about Helen? And for half a second a little devil inside her suggested, ‘strongly supports’. She suppressed it immediately. Totally unfair. Helen had never expressed any view and had deliberately kept out of any conversation on the subject.

  ‘I am sure her attitude is the same as my son’s,’ she said.

  ‘Excellent,’ said the nurse. ‘Now we are all done.’

  When she returned to reception, Marianne noticed Helen was looking both bored and anxious. ‘Is everything alright?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s fine but there are a lot of forms to go through.’

  Helen looked relieved. ‘So what happens now?’ she asked.

  ‘I have to see the two doctors who must approve my decision.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ said Helen. ‘There was someone else who wanted to talk to both of us together when you were finished with the nurse. I’ll see if I can find her.’