by Rhoda Baxter
Chapter Two
10 months after the crash
The hospice was called Holy Spirit Hospice, which always sounded faintly spooky to Grace. The building had once been a Catholic school, which explained the name and the spread of the large house. At some point there had been a circular drive that led to the front door, but hospices needed car parks and ambulance ports, so it was all concreted over now. Only the fountain near the entrance still remained. They had saved the beauty for the gardens at the back. The facade of the building spread out in two wings. It looked more like a hotel than a place where very sick people went to recover or die.
Grace strode in, barely noticing the ornamental plants that flanked the entrance.
The guard at the reception desk said, ‘Evening Grace. Bit early today.’
‘Evening Tony. How’re you?’
‘Are you going to this meeting later?’
‘I certainly am.’ Grace signed in, as she always did.
‘They’ve changed the room where they’re holding it,’ said Tony. ‘It’s in the common room on third floor East.’ He consulted a note on his desk. ‘Same time.’
‘Thanks.’ She gave him a parting wave and headed to the lifts. The lift had just arrived when someone ran up and dashed a signature into the signing in book. Grace stuck her hand out and stayed the doors.
A blond man, holding a bunch of roses, gave her grateful smile and got in next to her. Having pressed the fourth floor button for herself, she pressed the third floor button for him without him asking. They had seen each other before. She knew whoever he visited every day was on the long term palliative care floor.
The man thanked her and pushed his glasses, which had slipped down his nose, back up. They both avoided eye contact. Grace pretended to read a poster about a sponsored abseil down the hospital tower.
After a few seconds, Grace took a sideways glance at him. He was handsome, if a little drawn. His hair was getting a bit long, which made him look quite attractive in a young George Clooney sort of a way. Behind his small designer glasses, there were shadows under his eyes and a sadness that he wore around him like a cloak. Grace wondered who it was that he was visiting. A parent? A lover? She leaned forward a little to look to see if he had a wedding ring on his hand. Damn. He was wearing leather gloves.
He saw her peering and gave her a quizzical look. Caught out, Grace struggled for something to say. ‘I … was just admiring your flowers. Very beautiful.’
He looked down at the bunch of red roses. She had seen him with those a lot. Not every day, but often. ‘Yes,’ he said, carefully, as though considering the possibility that they were beautiful. ‘I guess they are.’ He shook his head. ‘They were her favourite flowers. So I bring them in … in case she can smell them.’
The lift reached floor three and pinged. The man seemed relieved. ‘Bye.’ He stepped out of the lift.
Grace watched him as he walked away, the bunch of flowers swinging as his arms moved. A lone figure in the long corridor. She wondered again whom he was visiting and how he must love her. The doors closed and Grace reflected that it would be nice to be loved that much. Especially by a man so good-looking. She sighed. What had got into her today? It was all very well admiring a handsome man, but to think about him in any other way … that was just silly. He was, after all, just a stranger.
The lift stopped on her floor and she got out.
This floor was brighter and more cheery than the one below. It was meant to be a more sociable space and not look like a hospital, but it was hard to disguise the smell of disinfectant and old age, despite the air-fresheners that regularly hissed out the scent of fresh laundry.
A few elderly residents were being wheeled around in their wheelchairs. Grace greeted most of them by name. She had been coming here often enough to know them all. Most of them would leave within a few months, one way or another. Her mother had stayed here for just over a year, her life slowly leaching away.
She reached Margaret’s room and knocked before going in. The room was bright and tastefully decorated. The staff had tried to make it as comfortable as possible, putting Margaret’s photographs on the wall and using her bedding from home.
Margaret was sitting up in her bed, wearing the dusky rose slip dress, her grey hair neatly combed. A nurse stood next to her, changing the bag on her drip. Margaret’s bad right arm lay, palm up, on the bed next to her. The IV line trailed out of it and was held in place with a bandage, so there were no sticky plasters to damage the paper-thin skin. Margaret was talking, the words slightly slurred by the droop on one side of her mouth. ‘Absolute drivel,’ she said. ‘Why even put it on? It’s not as though it even has a proper storyline.’
‘Did someone leave Big Brother on again?’ Grace went across to the other side of the bed and laid a kiss on the soft cheek. Margaret was small, with her skin stretched over delicate bones. She had once been firm and plump and formidable, but the stroke and age had shrunk her. She was, however, still formidable.
‘No. It was some other reality thing. The language those young people used. I’m surprised they even let it on the airwaves.’
‘Perhaps I should read you 1984 next.’
‘George Orwell would be turning in his grave,’ Margaret muttered.
The nurse caught Grace’s eye and raised her eyebrows. ‘Now, are you comfortable Margaret? Do you need me to adjust the bed at all?’
‘I’m fine now, thank you Judy. Especially now that Grace is here. It will be good to hear a proper story.’ She paused. ‘You couldn’t get me a glass of sherry?’
Both the nurse and Grace laughed.
‘Nice try, Margaret,’ said the nurse. ‘You are a one.’ She smiled fondly at the old lady. ‘I’ll leave you to your reading then. Got the call button within reach? Good. Just buzz if you need anything.’ She looked up. ‘I’ll see you later, Grace.’
‘Bye Judy.’
They watched her leave. Once the door had clicked behind her, Margaret said, ‘She’s worried about that son of hers. He’s going to Afghanistan next week.’
‘I guess he’d be in the front line too. Poor Judy. It must be horrible sending your son out to work knowing he may never come back.’ Grace pulled the comfy chair nearer to the bed.
‘What a waste of youth,’ said Margaret. ‘Still, it’s better than sitting here waiting to die.’
Grace ignored the comment. She didn’t want to get drawn into a conversation about the attractions of death when compared to boredom. Margaret complained about being bored all the time. Yet she was constantly busy with watching TV, or catching up on gossip. She even insisted on being wheeled into the chair aerobics classes so that she could wave her good arm around according to the instructions and then stay for a cup of a tea afterwards.
‘It’s a short visit today Margaret. I’ve got to go to a fundraising meeting,’ said Grace. She opened the cupboard next to Margaret’s bed and pulled out a copy of The Life of Pi. There was a postcard stuck in it to mark the place. ‘Ready?’
‘No. No. Tell me about your day first,’ said Margaret, leaning back and turning her head to look at Grace. ‘What’s happening out there in the real world?’
‘You tell me,’ said Grace. Margaret watched the news every day. She was better informed about world politics than Grace was. She also knew what films were out. What new books she wanted to read.
‘How’s work?’
Grace shrugged. ‘Same as always.’
‘And how is your assistant?’ Margaret seemed to remember every small detail that Grace had shared with her.
‘Okay, I think. She was going on about getting back into the dating scene.’
‘Good for her,’ said Margaret. ‘It’s a shame to waste your life looking back and wishing things had been different.’ Margaret gave Grace a meaningful look. Her eyes, nestled in amongst
the smile lines, were sharp. ‘You should go out with her. Hitch your colours to her mast … as it were. Get out there and meet a nice young man.’
Grace opened the book. Margaret gave her this lecture every so often. She didn’t need to hear it again. It was patronising and irritating. And true.
‘You need to do something outside your comfort zone,’ Margaret carried on. ‘Get yourself out of this rut you’ve got yourself into.’
‘Do you want me to read today or not?’
Margaret sighed. ‘Only trying to help. It’s such a waste that you’re hiding away behind your work.’
Grace closed her eyes and composed herself. Margaret meant well. She had been friends with Grace’s mother when she was staying in the hospice. When her mother died, Margaret and Grace had sort of adopted each other. Margaret was trying to carry on her mother’s campaign to get Grace to settle down. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped. It’s just … been a long day.’
‘Sorry,’ said Margaret, not sounding sorry at all. ‘Perhaps you had better read. It’s a wonderful book, this. Who would have thought a story about a boy and a tiger afloat in the ocean would be so enthralling? And the writing is so lucid.’
Grace removed the bookmark, settled back in her chair and began to read. Soon she and Margaret were in a lifeboat in the middle of the sea. The hospice, with its cheerful wallpaper and bunches of flowers and impossible-to-disguise medical equipment were all forgotten, for a while.
Consciousness returned slowly. ‘I must be in the ambulance,’ Sally thought. ‘After the crash.’ There had been a car crash. She remembered that much.
Everything around her was black. So black it was as though there was nothing above her, nothing below, nothing all around. The blackness was not threatening. It was a comforting sort of absence. Genuine nothing.
She should have been frightened, but she wasn’t. She knew there were things that she wanted, needed even, but she couldn’t recall what they were. So she relaxed. This was probably a dream and she’d wake up all too soon. In the meantime, she would enjoy this … she sought for a word; a name for this unfamiliar feeling of everything being as it should be. This … tranquillity.
Every so often there would be something. A distant noise. Or sense of her body. Arms and legs she knew she had, but couldn’t move or touch or see. Like phantom limbs, they told her they were there and then melted away again.
It was a voice that caught her attention. A man’s voice. Deep and soft and kind. Very kind. She knew that voice. He was important. Sally listened. Eventually a name came to her. Peter. That voice was Peter. He meant something.
She only heard his speaking in snatches. A word here and there, the cadences of his voice that resonated. There were long gaps when she went back to her lovely world of nothing and then, again, the voice. Eventually the sound of Peter’s voice came in longer and longer snatches. Until she could hear whole sentences at a time. Then there were other voices. Women who said things like ‘let’s change those sheets for you Sally’ and then said things like ‘I went to that new club last night’ or ‘Our Gary wants to join the army. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want him to get shot’.
With the increasing clarity came the other stuff. The feelings. The frustration. She tried to move. To say ‘I’m here. It’s dark. Get me out’, but nothing happened. She would have cried, if she could. Eventually, she learned to listen. She learned the different nurses’ names. She waited for the gossip when they talked by her bedside. She knew by now she was in a hospital or something. She also knew that no one came to visit her other than Peter.
Chapter Three
Peter stopped at the nurses’ station to check on progress. There was no one there, so he waited, examining a painting of a jungle that hung on the wall. The hospice often displayed work from the local art college. This one was rather good. It had a certain depth to it. Peter moved closer and was so engrossed in the greens and blacks that he jumped when someone said ‘Hello Peter.’
He turned to find one of the nurses wheeling the medicine trolley to the back of the nurses’ bay, which was set up half way down the corridor. Apart from the trolley and the apron, the only thing that marked her out as a nurse was the big badge, which declared her name to be Maria. She put the trolley away and returned, minus the apron. ‘Have you been to see her yet?’ She smiled at him and pulled Sally’s notes up on the computer.
‘Not yet.’ He looked down at the flowers.
‘She’s doing well. No change.’ They always said that. As though ‘no change’ and ‘doing well’ were the same thing.
‘Has she said anything?’
‘She’s been whispering again. We still can’t make out any words though.’
He had sat with Sally night after night, talking to her, reading to her, listening to her. She hadn’t whispered anything. ‘Is there a pattern? Maybe something triggers it?’
‘Not that we can figure out, apart from it’s normally in the day time.’
‘I’ll spend the whole day here on Saturday,’ he said. ‘Maybe I’ll be able to see if there’s anything that stimulates the whispering.’
‘Did Dr Harris call you? She was going to call you about a change in medication.’ Maria pulled open a drawer and looked through the files.
‘She did.’
‘I have a consent form for you to sign, right … here.’ She pulled the document out and laid it on the counter for him. She handed him a pen. ‘Are you okay with it? Do you have any questions?’
‘No. I think Dr Harris covered everything. She’s trying to get Sally to a higher level of alertness … if she can. That’s fine with me.’ He scanned the document and signed. ‘What’s the date?’
‘Twenty-third,’ said Maria. She watched him sign and took the papers from him. ‘And how are you doing? Are you okay?’ She had that concerned voice that people did.
Peter forced a smile. ‘Yes. I’m doing okay. Just, you know, tired.’ He knew better than to say how he really felt. The last time he’d done that various people had pestered him until he agreed to see a counsellor. It was nice that they cared, but really, the only thing that would help was Sally coming out of her coma. Unless they could do that for him, they were just wasting his time.
‘Okay. If you need anything, just say. We are here to look after the relatives as well. Not just Sally.’
‘I know. Thank you.’ He held the smile as he turned and went into Sally’s room.
Sally had been here for months now and it still hurt him to come in. This room was much better than the one she’d had in the hospital. It was almost worth the price he paid to keep her here to have a private room with pretty wallpaper and rugs instead of clinical walls and moppable lino. He had even brought in Sally’s bed linen from when she lived alone. It shouldn’t make a difference, but it did. Sally would have preferred it.
She was lying on the bed, covered by a bedspread with blue flowers on it. It looked like it had been washed many, many times. It may well have been a favourite of hers. But Sally couldn’t see it, so what did it matter. He approached her, searching for signs of change, but there were none. Her hair had been neatly combed and gathered so that it fell over one shoulder. The blonde had grown out of it almost completely now, leaving it heavy and brown. The nurses made sure it always looked clean and brushed, for which Peter was grateful. Sally would have appreciated that.
‘Hello Darling.’ He leaned over and kissed the top of her head, careful not to disturb the NG tube that ran into her nose. She didn’t look like Sally. She was just a woman, pale and still and covered in tubes and pads and things. A mock person. The only movement was her chest going slowly up and down. Up and down.
‘I’ve brought you some red roses again,’ Peter said. He took the old flowers out of the vase. ‘I thought these ones needed changing.’ He spoke loudly, in case she could hear. ‘They’
re not quite the same bright red as the ones before. The man in shop has changed supplier.’ He was talking nonsense. It was hard to keep a conversation going when the other person didn’t respond. He changed the water in the vase, pitched the old flowers in the bin, bit the edge of the packet of flower food to open it. ‘I really should bring a pair of scissors,’ he said to Sally. ‘I keep meaning to.’ He put the flower food in and arranged the fresh roses in the vase. ‘There.’ He moved it to where her eyeline would be, if her eyes had been open. ‘Do you like them?’
In and out. In and out. Nothing more.
He sat in the chair, close enough to the bed that he could hold her hand. Her wedding ring was on her hand. She’d been wearing it when the crash happened. He’d asked if she could keep it on. The chart at the end of the bed said Mrs Sally Wesley. Not Sally Cummings. It seemed the right thing to do when admitting a bride.
He told her about his day, about the new client who wanted a database setting up to manage his documents. He mentioned that Steve was being a pain, but he couldn’t let him go because he couldn’t manage the back office stuff and go out to client meetings by himself. After some time he ran out of things to say.
He pulled out a Reader’s Digest. He’d known Sally for nearly two years now and the only things he’d seen her read were self help books and decorating magazines. Reading self help books made him want to scream and he didn’t know or care about the celebrities in Sally’s favourite magazines, so he read the Reader’s Digest to her instead. At least it was relatively interesting and the articles were short.
A different nurse popped her head in. ‘Hello Peter, I’m just going to do her readings.’
‘Okay.’ He pushed his chair back, torn between being annoyed and glad for the interruption.