That sounds selfish, but maybe mourning someone you love when they pass is selfish. They’re no longer hurting, after all. They’re not in pain. They’re not feeling the loss of the relationship, it is you who is left behind who gets to feel it all. Grief is all about selfishness. It’s not about the person who is gone. It’s about what they brought into your life, and Beth brought a hell of a lot into my life.
She brought joy into my life. She had always been there for me.
And now she was asking me to be there for her. But in such a brutal way. A way that would tear me apart and leave me empty and alone.
I thought of Matt and how oblivious he was to all this. Ensconced in his cosy little world across the ocean, maybe contacting Beth once a week or every couple of weeks. How he just cared about himself and his own feelings and how Beth never stopped caring for anyone.
I put a hand on my barren stomach and watched the steam rise out of the kettle as it started to come to the boil. Beth had been there when I needed her the most, when I had lost Stephen. My one and only child. She was there when I had needed her, when I had needed someone, even when her son couldn’t or wouldn’t.
It had been miraculous – we’d found out afterwards – that I had been pregnant in the first place.
Stephen was our miracle boy. When Matt and I decided to try for a baby, I was pregnant within the first month of trying. We were over the moon. We talked to him, walked with him, sang to him, played music to him, all the goofy stuff you see young parents doing that could possibly influence the happiness of a baby in the womb, we did it.
The first trimester flew by. We didn’t tell anyone other than Beth and she was overjoyed for us. She joined in with the stomach conversations, promising to be the best grandmother a woman could be. She cooked for us on days I was too exhausted to stand in the kitchen. It was a blissful time. Even with the morning sickness and exhaustion. I took it in my stride, happy that it meant the new life inside me, our child, was thriving and taking what he needed. We found out what his gender was the minute we could. We didn’t subscribe to all this nonsense about having a surprise baby. I couldn’t imagine being any happier seeing his face if I didn’t know his sex, than if I did. I was simply over the moon.
The second trimester was harder, and I thought it was supposed to get easier. I started to lose weight with all the vomiting I was doing and I needed more rest than usual but it didn’t diminish my joy. Matt fussed over me and Beth told him off for it. It’s a baby, she said, women have been doing this for centuries.
Not my baby, he’d replied, they haven’t been having my baby for centuries, and he fluffed up my pillows again as I leaned on them and tried for the life of me to get comfortable.
It was as we entered the third trimester and we had everything bought and the spare room cleaned out ready to turn into a nursery that I felt something wasn’t right. I had started to feel better. I’d had a rotten time during the whole second trimester and yet all of a sudden I didn’t feel ill anymore. Matt had laughed at me. Maybe you’re a late bloomer, he had said. You were supposed to bloom in the second whatsit, maybe this is you blooming.
But I wasn’t blooming. It took me two days to realise something was wrong. Beth had come around to do a spot of tidying up for us.
‘You look well,’ she said.
I smiled at her, enjoying the moment of calm that had come over me.
‘How is my little grandson?’ She held out a hand with a question in her eyes. She always asked before she touched. Said she hated it when complete strangers thought they could invade her space when she was pregnant and touch her body just because there was a baby inside her, when the reality was her body was even more precious and personal, so she made the decision that even though this was her grandchild she would never touch without first getting express permission. Even though I’d told her she could touch him whenever she wanted.
Her hand hovered above her own stomach, not even yet stretched out towards mine. The unspoken question there between us.
I paused on the sofa where I sat ballooning into a mini whale, as I considered what it was she was asking permission for. To touch my stomach, yes, but for what purpose.
Then it hit me and I clambered to my feet, slow and ungainly, my eyes wide in fear. ‘We need to go to the hospital,’ I said to them both.
He wasn’t named Stephen until after he was delivered. 11.58 the next morning. They had induced me because he was so far along I had to deliver him naturally. I have never experienced anything so devastating in my entire life. He was tiny. I’d say perfectly formed, but he looked different. Not like a baby you deliver at term, because he was early. His features were stubby somehow, not quite fully formed and rounded. But he was mine and I saw the beauty in him. We were given two hours to cradle him, to take photographs with him, to cry over him and quietly talk to him. It was the most precious time of my life. Footprints and handprints were taken of him and then someone took him from me and then I never saw him again.
He was buried, and Matt and I cried and cried and cried.
We lost Stephen and I fell to pieces and needed Beth to tend to me like a child. The loss and the grief. I couldn’t bear it, tearing away at my insides, ripping and shredding so that it was all I could do to sit upright some days. The easiest thing to do had been to curl into a ball and hold myself.
Beth nurtured me when I refused to get out of bed. She made me soup with chunks of bread and fed me if I refused to eat it. She wiped me down when I refused to shower. She looked after Lilac. Who in her own way kept her vigil and slinked into the bedroom and lay on the empty pillow at the side of me and roared her quiet purrs into my ears. Then she would slink back out again and disappear for a day.
Lilac learned to trust Beth as much as she trusted me. She never quite took to Matt. It should have told me a lot. They say animals have a sixth sense. I should have listened to her. I should have paid attention and got out before he did. Maybe it would not have hurt as much as it did in the end.
But, when the end came, Beth didn’t try to defend her son. Neither did she denigrate him. She simply wished he had talked to me about things more. Wished we had been able to work things out, even if children had not been an option. She didn’t want to lose me as a daughter-in-law and it was then that I promised she wouldn’t.
And I have kept that promise.
Even after the MS diagnosis.
She took the diagnosis calmly. I had come to expect nothing less from her.
How could I let her down now she needed me? But, how could she ask this of me? How could she expect me to be able to do this for her? She was the one person in the whole world I loved and she wanted this from me. The person I would turn to when faced with such pain was the one person who was causing it. I didn’t know where to turn.
I took my tea back into the room and sat in the chair next to the bed.
‘So, you’re not sitting back on the bed with me?’ asked Beth. ‘I must have upset you. I’m sorry, sweetie, I really am. You know I would never hurt you on purpose, don’t you?’
I nodded.
‘And this isn’t about you.’
I felt like a real piece of work because she was right. I was making this about me and it wasn’t. It was about her and how she felt living the life she was in. ‘I’m sorry, Beth. I can only imagine what it is like to live the way you live.’
‘In fact, it is in part about you, Alice. It’s not about living like this now. It’s about the progression of the disease, about how bad it’s going to get. About how it’s likely I’m going to die a slow painful death choking on my own saliva if not on something I’m attempting to eat or drink.’
She didn’t need to paint me the grim picture, I knew all this. She made sure I was aware what I was in for if I continued to come and see her.
‘I don’t want to die like that, and if I have to die because of this disease then I demand that it is the way I choose. Not some horrific way the disease chooses for me and I refuse
to put you through all of that, Alice. I want to release you from the horror of seeing me choke. Of changing my nappies. Of having to deal with me as a baby as my body turns back into one and worse.
I held on to my mug, I needed something to do with my hands. I felt helpless, useless.
‘I need time to get my head around it, Beth. You’re not in any rush, are you?’
She let out a sigh. ‘I’m not in a rush. I just wanted to broach it. To give you time. I know it’s going to be hard for you, but think about this as well, it’s going to be as hard to see me later on as this progresses.’
I put my mug on the table and stood, leaned over the bed and kissed Beth on the forehead. ‘You know how much I love you, don’t you?’
‘I do. And if you need me to tell you again, I love you too, sweet girl. Get up here and let’s watch this together.’
I climbed onto the bed at the side of her, clicked play on the remote control and watched as the screen came alive with the deadliest village in the country.
3
My legs were like jelly, they felt weak and like they didn’t belong to me as I drove home from Beth’s. I was nauseous and there was a secure band of pain around my head. I took a deep breath in, tightened my grip on the steering wheel, locked my elbows, held the breath for ten seconds then let it out slowly.
A wisp of air circulated through the slightly opened window and feathered my face, the journey home feeling so much longer than the trip out to Beth’s had been. The small bag of shopping that I’d bought for myself was perched on the passenger seat beside me.
Traffic was steady which made it easier for me to focus on the road and on what I was doing. There was an ice-cream van ahead of me. I kept my distance. I knew he would be stopping and starting and I would need to overtake him soon. I was tired and ready for my bed but I needed to get home in one piece first, and running into the back of an ice-cream van was not in my evening’s plans.
A jogger ran down the path on the nearside of me. Earbud wires snaked their way from a band on the top of her arm to her ears.
A mother and her young son were on the opposite side of the road. She had hold of him by his hand and I smiled to myself. No matter my personal situation, I did love to see young children, young families, out together, safe and loved. I wasn’t one of those bitter women who held a grudge against every woman who managed to hold a pregnancy to term.
The ice-cream van put its musical sirens on but hadn’t started to slow yet. I was tempted to pull over and get one. I could do with something nice for myself. I deserved it after the conversation I’d had with Beth and the decision I had to contemplate. Ice-cream would go down well. Yes, I thought, I might just stop when he did.
Then it happened. The little boy to my right, on the other side of the road, once in the hand of his mother, slipped from her grip and ran away from her and aimed for the van as it started to slow.
He was quick and couldn’t have been any older than five. I watched as time slowed, the mother ran to grab the child. Her face stretched out in a scream as her legs moved her to him, as she lurched forward and grabbed out, reaching for her boy, her eyes looking ahead to the road, fear on her face. She just managed to touch his t-shirt by the collar as his feet stepped off the pavement and in front of an oncoming car.
The car facing me, nearest the boy, the one that he had stepped out in front of, swerved to avoid him, and it swerved which such speed and conviction that it was not going to hit that child. But it swerved directly into my path. In the blink of an eye it had been a choice between hitting a small child with a heavy moving vehicle or a crash with another vehicle. The driver made the decision she would rather live with the crash and the decision was made. We were on a course for each other.
The mother’s voice echoed in the noise of the street and vehicles as she screamed out at the child while managing to yank him back. His little legs flew out in front of him as they continued their forward momentum against her backwards pull, requiring her to catch him as he lost all stability. She swept him up into her arms and shouted at him and hugged him all at once, her fury and relief evident for all to see. The little boy was lost and confused by what was his mother’s rage and love all at the same time.
He was snatched back in the nick of time but the swerve was too locked in. I pushed my feet down, my legs jamming rigid as I forced them and willed with all my might for my car to stop and for this not to happen, for this collision to not be, for us to stop in time.
My body tensed. I looked at the woman in the other car, shock radiating from her as we skidded closer.
Then there was a screaming wail as metal hit metal, the sound slicing the air as our front ends collided with a sickening accuracy.
The airbag exploded in my face and the chemical dust sprayed out with it coating my tongue in a nasty tasting acrid layer. I ricocheted in the minutest of movements, held in place by seatbelt and airbag, but jerked by the impact and the sudden halt from movement. A searing pain slid down my head and my neck and all the way down my spine.
Then it was over. It all stopped. Gradually the bag deflated. I stayed motionless. Attempted to get my bearings. Glad I hadn’t been travelling at any speed. It could have been so much worse. I mentally checked down my body. Wiggled my fingers. They moved. I wiggled my toes in my trainers. I think they moved. I shifted my back to be met by the searing pain again. I stayed put.
‘Miss, miss. Don’t move.’ A face appeared at my window, an elderly man with a bald head and a worried expression. ‘An ambulance and the police are on the way,’ he said through my window. ‘Are you hurt?’
His concern was touching. I considered the rough assessment I had done, the movement I had been able to do. The pain in my neck and my back. ‘Just some pain.’
‘Stay still,’ he repeated. ‘Help is on the way. Best to stay there.’
I turned to my left, looked at the people on the pavement. A young chap was standing there, in his hand a mobile phone and his arm raised to take images or video.
I was about to be someone’s story for the evening.
‘The other lady?’ I asked the kindly gentleman.
‘Someone is with her. I said I would stay with you. Can you hear me okay?’
He tugged on the door. It didn’t move. I bent my head and screamed out at the pain.
‘Love, stay still. Push your head up against the headrest.’
I did as I was told. It seemed like a sensible action in the circumstances.
He tugged again, I could see his shoulders tense under his t-shirt and this time with complaint the door opened. There was palpable relief on his face as he bent down and crouched in front of me.
‘I’m Hashim.’ He was calm and kind.
‘Alice,’ I said.
‘It’s nice to meet you, Alice.’
It was a strange thing to say in the circumstances, but I knew what he meant.
I could hear the engine ticking over as it cooled down.
‘The boy?’ I asked.
‘Boy?’ Hashim queried.
‘There was a boy, it was the reason she swerved like she did.’
He lifted his head in understanding. ‘Ah, well then. If that’s so, then he’s okay.’ He looked behind him and around. ‘There’s a mother and young son standing over there looking particularly worried. I would think that’s probably them. He’s fine.’
‘Thank you.’ I was grateful that the boy was unharmed.
Hashim looked behind him again. His eyebrows drew together and he wiped his hands on his trouser legs. Something was wrong. I couldn’t see much from where I was. The bonnet of the other car had crumpled slightly and I could no longer see the driver.
‘What is it, Hashim?’
I heard sirens in the distance, getting closer. They were coming for us.
Hashim looked at me. ‘It’s nothing for you to worry about. Focus on you. They’re nearly here, love.’
‘Hashim?’
He let out a sigh. ‘Something is w
rong, with the other driver. I’m not sure what. A lot of people are with her. But we don’t have anyone here with medical experience. We can’t help her.’
4.
I thought back to the home I had just left. To Beth and her sour-edged soapy scent. The warmth of her up close as we leaned in to each other. The love that emanated from the woman I thought of as my mother, especially as I had lost both my parents in a car accident when I was twenty-one. Now here I was, pinned into my car by pain, and the woman opposite who had saved a child was in trouble.
‘Where were you off to, love?’ Hashim asked.
I didn’t want to talk. I was in no mood to talk before the accident, and now, now I was also in physical pain and wanted to be alone, but Hashim was trying to keep my spirits up. I turned a little more to look at him again.
‘No. No, don’t do that. Stay still. You don’t have to move,’ he said.
I patted his hand as he crouched down at the side of me.
He laughed. ‘I’m trying to cheer you up, love, not the other way around.’
‘I’m glad you’re here,’ I told him, even though it wasn’t strictly true.
The sounds from in front of us let me know that all was not well in the other car. I couldn’t see from my position pinned in my seat.
The sirens I heard approaching screeched to a halt around us. Blue lights bounced lightly in the still bright day.
‘Help is here,’ Hashim said. The muscles that had been tight in his face relaxed. As designated Alice soother, he had nearly finished his job and he could let the professionals take over.
Perfect Murder Page 2