A is for Angelica

by Iain Broome

  ‘When did it happen?’

  ‘Six weeks ago. The day before you moved in.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Gordon.’

  ‘And maybe again this week. She’d been getting better.’

  ‘I could smell it. I knew there was something.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Illness. Something not quite right’

  ‘I bathe her every day.’

  ‘It’s not the same.’

  ‘It’s the best I can do.’

  I turn away from her. Now I’m shaking too. I look through the window. The sunlight creeps over the house and into the back garden. It forms a triangle in the corner of the lawn. The rest is still in shade. Coated in frost.

  ‘She needs to go to hospital, Gordon.’

  ‘She doesn’t, she’ll get better.’

  ‘How do you know that? You can’t do this.’

  ‘I am doing it and I’ve done it before.’

  ‘Not like this though. Not on your own.’

  ‘I want you to help me.’

  ‘You’re killing her.’

  ‘Help me.’

  ‘I can’t, Gordon.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know what to do.’

  ‘I’ll show you.’

  ‘I don’t want you to show me.’ She stops pacing, throws her arms in the air and stares straight at me. She looks ready to explode.

  ‘I thought you’d understand.’

  ‘You lied to me, Gordon. I took you to your parents’ house.’

  ‘I thought we were friends.’

  ‘We hardly know each other.’

  ‘What about Benny?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘We watch Benny together.’ I watch Angelica lower her arms. Then I look at the floor. I cover my eyes with my hand and squeeze my brow with my fingers. I’m pretending to cry, but I don’t know what it feels like. I can’t remember. It seems so long ago. This is me upset. She’ll never believe it.

  ‘You need to ring the hospital. They’ll send an ambulance.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You have to. Georgina needs help.’

  ‘She’s getting help.’

  ‘She needs real help.’

  ‘You don’t understand. We’ve done this before and we know what we’re doing. You can help us.’

  ‘Gordon, she seems barely conscious.’

  ‘It’s just a setback. She’s been getting better.’

  ‘I can’t help you, Gordon. She needs professional help.’

  I bring my fist down on the kitchen worktop. It makes the sink and the plates in the cupboards rattle. It stops us both. I’ve never done it before. Angelica backs away from me. She’s got no idea what we’ve been through. All she does is drink my tea and stare out of the window. My window. I want to ask her about the marker pen. Where did she get it from? What about the footballs in the garden? It should be me who’s asking the questions. Demanding explanations. Losing my temper.

  ‘No, she doesn’t. No-one needs to know.’

  ‘What’s your fucking problem?’ she says. ‘You’re insane.’

  ‘Don’t swear.’

  ‘Do you want her to die?’

  ‘You’re always swearing.’

  ‘Can you live with the guilt?’

  ‘There’s nothing to feel guilty about.’

  ‘She’s not getting better, Gordon.’

  ‘She will get better.’

  ‘Not like this.’

  ‘It’s what she wanted.’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘Yes I do.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘She told me. We have a system.’

  I open the cupboard under the sink and take out my manual. It seems thicker than ever. Angelica watches me. We’ve raised our voices. She’s louder than me. Taller than me. Pacing up and down. Georgina must have heard us. We’ve woken her up. She’s lying in bed, feeling for her water and wondering where I am.

  ‘Gordon, calm down,’ says Angelica. ‘I’m sorry. I’m still in shock.’

  I walk to the table, pull out a chair and sit down. I open my manual and cover my eyes again. I squeeze my brow with my fingers. Drag them over my eyes. Still pretending to cry. This time my hands are wet. There are tears on my cheeks and my chin and they are falling onto the table. Angelica walks towards me. She puts her hand on my shoulder. On the back of my neck. Pulling me close. She wraps her arms around my head and holds it to her stomach. I grip the manual with one hand and her leg with the other. I hold it tight below the knee. For dear life and comfort.

  ‘This is what she wanted.’

  ‘I have to go, Gordon.’

  ‘Don’t go.’

  ‘I have to. I need to take this in. I’ll come back later on.’

  ‘We haven’t had breakfast.’

  ‘I’m meeting Michael.’

  ‘Who’s Michael?’

  ‘He’s my husband.’

  Vicious circle

  Georgina likes her card. I gave it to her this morning when Angelica had gone. I sat on the chair by the bed and opened the envelope. She was wide-awake. Her eyes were fully open. I took out the card and held it up for her to look at. I pointed to Kipling and squeezed her hand. ‘Do you like it?’ I said. One small, fragile stroke = Yes. ‘Did you hear any noises earlier?’ One pinch, barely noticeable = No. I held the glass of water to her lips. She slowly let some slip into her mouth. She managed three sips. Then she started coughing. I put my hand on her back and tried to help her straighten, but it didn’t seem to help. The coughing got worse before it eased. After more than thirty seconds, it stopped. I held Georgina’s head and lowered it back onto the pillow. She was breathing quickly, but the danger had passed. I talked about the weather until her eyes closed and she drifted into sleep. Her breathing returned to normal. I walked to the opposite side of the room and placed her card on the dressing table. Then I opened mine and stood them together.

  Note. Tear Angelica’s card into strips. Cut strips into squares. Note end.

  I’m in the kitchen baking carrot cake. I’ve turned on the oven, prepared the tin and grated the carrots. The rest of the ingredients are spread out across the worktop, on plates and in mugs. One by one, I put them into the mixing bowl, adding eggs, beating well. I fold the mixture until my fingers ache. Then I pour it into the tin, smooth it with the back of a spoon and open the oven door. The heat rolls out, warms my skin and burns my lips. I slide the cake onto a shelf. I look up at the clock and make a note of the time. Three fifteen. More than six hours since Angelica found Georgina. She hasn’t been back yet. Everything is normal. Nothing has changed. I expected her to phone the hospital, describe what she saw and tell them to send out an ambulance. I’ve been waiting by the window, listening for sirens, expecting Doctor Jonathan. But it hasn’t happened. Georgina’s still upstairs and she has no idea that someone else has seen her. I haven’t said a word. It would break her heart.

  It’s time to make the topping for the carrot cake. I take a bowl from the worktop and put in some cream cheese and icing sugar. I add the juice of half an orange, squeeze and stir together. When I’ve finished, I’m going to create a new schedule. I’m going to work twice as hard and Georgina is going to get better. She’s not in any pain and she’s still able to swallow. Things might start to change. She might begin to talk again. She might be walking in a month. Angelica is going to change her mind. That’s why there’s no ambulance. She’s been thinking about it. She’s going to help me. Her husband too. We can lift Georgina together. We’ll take a side each and move her into a chair. So she feels normal again, at least for a while. I finish stirring the mixture. The cake smells delicious.

  It’s midnight. I’m waiting for Angelica. Half an hour ago she pulled back her curtain, looked over at the house and up at the spare room. She was looking for me, but I wasn’t there. I was with Georgina, peering through the gap in the curtains. Now I’m in the spare room and Angelica is coming. We’re goi
ng to watch Benny. She’s going to apologise and tell me I was right. I know what I’m doing because I’ve done it before. Here she is. She’s opening her front door and walking across the road. She wraps her arms around her chest and skips up and onto the pavement. Then she stops, looks up at the window. I smile at her and wave, but she doesn’t smile back. Or wave. Instead she looks away and continues across the road. I take a single step backwards. A deep breath. I check Georgina’s door is locked and make my way downstairs. The letterbox rattles. There’s a note on the floor in the hall. I pick it up, open the door and watch Angelica running back across the street. I go to shout, but she’s almost home and I don’t know what to say. She opens her door and disappears inside the house. I take the note to the kitchen. The words are gold and written in capital letters. They’re difficult to read. I hold the paper to the light.

  ‘GET HELP. IF YOU DON’T, I WILL’

  I sit down at the table and read the note again out loud. Angelica is threatening me. She hasn’t changed her mind. She was never going to help us. I stand up and walk to the kitchen window. The sky is clear and the stars are out. My heart is racing and my throat is dry. I pour myself a glass of water and drink it in one. I need to calm down. There’s no need to panic. She clearly hasn’t thought things through. She doesn’t understand.

  I pick up the note and walk to the living room window. I look across the street at Angelica’s house. It’s in total darkness. She’s pretending to be asleep. She wants me to think that she’s gone to bed and that there’s no point trying to reason with her. I pull back the curtain and take my pen from the windowsill. The wind is blowing through the trees on Cressington Vale. The branches move against the stillness of the stars. I walk to the hall and put my coat on. I wrap it tight around my shoulders and lift the collar up and over the back of my neck. My gloves are in the pockets. I take them out and squeeze my fingers inside. I pick up my keys, open the door and step out into the night. There’s still no sign of life in Angelica’s house. It doesn’t matter. We don’t need to talk. Not tonight.

  I walk to the end of the garden, open the gate and cross the road. It’s extremely quiet and incredibly still. There are lights in houses, but not many. I stand outside Angelica’s door and hold the note up to the moonlight. I read her words for one last time. Then I turn the paper over and write some words of my own. In normal letters, not capitals: ‘Help us, or I’ll tell him everything.’ I fold the note and push it through the letterbox. I turn and walk back across the street, into the house and to the kitchen. I take my coat off and flick the switch on the kettle. I make myself a cup of tea.

  Windows

  ‘We’ll have to come back tomorrow,’ said Georgina. She reached across and put her hand on my knee. We were driving home from her mother’s house after spending the day cleaning, clearing and throwing things away. Furniture, books and jewellery. Ornaments, clothes and cutlery. Everything she owned. Georgina said that we weren’t throwing things away, we were simply deciding not to keep them. It made her feel less guilty. The house had to go on the market. We had no choice.

  ‘I’ll ask Don about the freezer. He says he needs a new one.’

  ‘That’s fine. We don’t need it.’

  ‘And the lawnmower. He might want that as well.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘We don’t need it.’

  ‘Fine. He can have it.’

  We pulled up at the traffic lights. The last lights before the entrance to Cressington Vale. We sat and listened to the rain and the window wipers scraping back and forth across the windscreen. I looked in the rear view mirror at the photos on the parcel shelf. We’d found them just before we left the house, stashed away in one of the kitchen cupboards, a plastic shopping bag hidden behind packets of cereal, all out of date except one. The photos were of my father. Various poses in various places. Him on a beach with an ice cream. Him at a zoo with a monkey. Him in a car park, waving with one hand and eating a sandwich with the other. There were fifteen photos and in every one he was wearing his dancing suit and shoes. In every one he was smiling.

  ‘What shall we do with them?’ I said. Georgina sighed and took her hand from my knee. She pulled the sun visor down and looked in the mirror. She adjusted her hair and sighed.

  ‘I don’t know Gordon.’

  ‘We need to do something. We can’t keep them.’

  ‘Then why don’t you get rid of them?’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t know. Bin them. Burn them. Whatever makes you feel better.’

  Georgina flipped the visor back to the roof of the car and turned away from me. The lights changed from red to amber, amber to green. We drove into Cressington Vale, swerved around the tree and pulled up outside the house. I turned off the engine. It was early evening. The sky was neither blue nor black.

  ‘There’s so much that I don’t know,’ I said. Georgina sighed again, shook her head and climbed out of the car. She hitched her skirt and stretched her back. ‘You can’t know everything, Gordon,’ she said. ‘No-one ever does.’

  *

  It’s half past nine in the morning and I’m sitting in the backseat of a taxi. Georgina is at home alone. This morning I sat with her and ate my breakfast. I handed her a yoghurt and she refused to take it. I peeled back the lid, scooped some out with a spoon and put it to her mouth. She slowly turned her head away. I asked her what the matter was. Would she try something else? But she didn’t speak to me. She wouldn’t even try. Her face was pale. Her pulse was slow. She still looked awful. And now I’m here and the meter is running. I’ve never been in a taxi before. It’s always seemed like such a waste of money.

  ‘Who lives here then?’ says the driver. He is twenty-four-years-old and engaged to an eighteen-year-old girl who has a six-month old child called Melissa. He is not Melissa’s father. But he knows her father because they went to school together. The pink paint on his overalls is from decorating Melissa’s nursery, which is currently blue. He will be a taxi driver until something better comes along. He refuses to work on the lorries. He hasn’t told me his name.

  ‘My mother and father live here.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They must be old.’

  ‘Yes. I suppose they are.’

  I’ve decided to speak to my parents and ask for their help. There is no-one else to turn to. No other family. No friends. I wish Don Donald were here. I wish I hadn’t spoken to him like I did. He would’ve sat at the kitchen table, drank tea and helped me make decisions. We’d have been a partnership. But Don is gone. And I am here. Outside my parents’ house again. My fingers trembling. From the nerves and the memories. The taxi meter running.

  ‘Are you going in? It’s getting expensive.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Okay. No problem.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I haven’t got all day though.’

  ‘I’ll just be a minute.’

  I take a deep breath. This is what will happen. I’ll pay the driver and ask him to come back in half an hour. Then I’ll walk to the front door, knock and wait for my mother to answer, just like she did when I came with Angelica. I will hear my father shout in the background. My mother will let me into the house and I will kiss her on the cheek. I’ll say hello to them both. She’ll be pleased to see me. He’ll be polite, suspicious and offer me a drink. We’ll walk to the kitchen together. I’ll look at the plaque on the wall. We live by faith, not by sight.

  ‘Back again?’ my father will ask as he fills the kettle with water. ‘What did we do to deserve this?’ I’ll smile and pretend he’s being nice. But both of us will know that he’s not. It will be awkward. Painful. We’ll wait for the kettle to boil and its spluttering and hissing will fill the silence between us. Then he’ll pour the tea. I’ll ask him to sit down.

  ‘Dad, I’ve got something to tell you,’ I’ll say. ‘It’s important.’

  ‘Right. Okay then.’

  ‘And you need to
listen carefully, because it isn’t easy for me.’

  ‘All right. I’m listening. But before you start, there’s no money. Nothing.’

  ‘It isn’t that. I don’t want any money.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Your help. It’s Georgina. She’s had another stroke. She’s extremely ill. I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Is she outside in the car?’

  ‘No. She’s at home. She’s been in bed since it happened and no-one knows. I’ve been caring for her myself. I have all the notes. All the information. But she’s not getting any better. She was. But now she isn’t.’

  My father will say nothing, at first. He will fidget in his seat, raise his eyebrows and scratch the tip of his nose. It will mean that he is thinking. Taking it in. Absorbing the information and preparing a response.

  ‘What does Doctor Richmoor say?’

  ‘He doesn’t know about it either. He moved to New Zealand before Christmas.’

  ‘Really? I didn’t know that.’

  ‘Dad, she’s dying.’

  ‘New Zealand? That’s a long way.’

  I will begin to regret my decision to come here. My father has never taken me seriously. Why should he now? I’m fifty-two-years-old. He’s got better things to worry about. Like his guilty conscience and my mother’s health. I will start again.

  ‘It happened on my birthday. Everything was fine and then it just happened. We’d been doing everything right. Just like they’d told us. She’d been getting better.’

  ‘Why didn’t you take her to hospital?’

  ‘I panicked. It wasn’t as bad as the first time. I thought we could do it alone. Without all the hassle. All the interfering. I couldn’t face it again.’

  ‘So you haven’t told anyone?’

  ‘No. I have it all written down. I know what I’m doing.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Yes. All we need is an extra pair of hands.’

  ‘You don’t need me, Gordon.’

  ‘I do. You can help me lift her.’

  ‘I’m an old man.’

  ‘So am I, Dad. So am I.’