After spending some time sitting brooding and smoking, Gabs eventually returned home in the small hours, cursing as she tripped over the cot and the car seat in the dark, and waking Clive, who was asleep on the sofa. The flat was still redolent of grilled steak, and Steph and Clive had not washed up after their meal, leaving the sink full of dirty dishes.
“Bloody hell!” Gabs crashed around in the kitchen, throwing plates in the dishwasher and making as much noise as possible. “Does no one around here think of anyone but themselves?”
“Well, you obviously don’t.” Clive rose up from among the cushions on the sofa. “Waking everyone up like this!”
“By everyone, I suppose you mean you?” Gabs paused with a saucepan in her hand. She was sorely tempted to batter Clive over the head with it.
“Well, yes. I’ve got work in the morning.”
“You also have a home to go to. You don’t have to stay here. What you seem to forget is that this is my flat as well as Steph’s, and you are trespassing on my hospitality!”
“Gosh! Steph said you were being moody!” Clive sat up carefully, covering his crotch with his hands (although he was wearing boxer shorts, and Gabs doubted whether there would have been much to cover if he had been stark naked).
“Did she now?”
“Yes, she did. And it’s hard for her, in her condition. She needs looking after.”
“And I suppose I don’t? Does it occur to anyone that occasionally — just occasionally — I wouldn’t mind a bit of consideration, too?”
At that moment, a door opened, and Steph emerged, yawning.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “Has something happened?”
“Your little friend here is objecting because I’ve come home to my flat and am tidying up my kitchen after your little feast,” Gabs told her.
“Our kitchen,” Steph said. “And I was going to do it in the morning.”
“Yeah. Right.” Gabs banged down her saucepan in case she should be tempted to use it. “And I suppose it didn’t occur to either of you that it might be a tad depressing for me to come back and find the place in this filthy state? When you’ve had all evening to sort it out?”
“What’s the big deal?” Clive pulled a sweater over his thin, coat-hanger shoulders.
“The big deal,” Gabs said, “is that I’m tired, and I’m miserable, and this — this mess is the last straw.”
“Steady on, Gabs.” Steph put out a hand, but Gabs pushed it away.
“No. I won’t steady on. I’ve had enough of you. Both of you. I’ve had enough of my home being — being invaded. You’ve got a room, Steph, and it’s big enough for two, but oh no. Clive has to sleep on the only sofa in the only living room because you’re not bloody married! How ridiculous is that? Meanwhile, the rest of the flat is full of Clive’s things and baby stuff and fucking yellow paint. I’m surprised you haven’t taken over my room as well!”
“Now you’re being ridiculous!”
“Is this all because of that priest?” asked Clive, who had found his trousers, and with them, apparently, his confidence.
Gabs turned to Steph. “You told him! I can’t believe you told him!”
“Well, of course I told him. We’re together. We tell each other things.”
“But that was confidential! I trusted you, Steph. I trusted you!”
“I think I should be going,” Clive said, edging towards the door. “Leave you two to sort things out.”
“You do that, Clive. You get the fuck out of my flat and go home to mummy. I’m sure she’ll look after you.”
“Gabs, how could you? How could you speak to Clive like that?” Steph demanded when Clive had left.
“Quite easily, actually. He had it coming.”
“No, he did not. He was my guest, and he had every right —”
“Oh, shut up, Steph. Please, please, just shut up.” And Gabs sat down and burst into tears. “I don’t know what to do,” she sobbed. “I just don’t know what to do. Oh, Steph, whatever am I going to do?”
“About what? Do about what?”
“About my life, Father Augustine — oh, everything. It’s all such a mess.” She looked up at Steph. “And I’m sorry if I was rude to Clive, but he’s here all the time, and I can’t talk to you properly, and I haven’t anyone else at the moment. I feel so — so lonely.”
“Well, if you treat people like this, I’m not surprised you’re lonely.”
“I know, I know. I’ve been horrible.”
“You certainly have.” Steph was evidently not in forgiving mode.
“And I suppose now you’ll tell me that my problems are all of my own making.”
“Well, aren’t they?”
“Yes. Yes, of course they are! But d’you think that makes it any better?” Gabs looked at Steph, with her pink furry slippers and her smug little bump, and just for a moment, she hated her. “But of course, you wouldn’t understand that, would you?”
“A sister who has sex for money and then sets out to seduce an innocent priest? No, I don’t understand. I don’t understand at all.”
“And you’re so bloody perfect, aren’t you? Even though you had sex with a man you didn’t love and are having his little bastard!”
“How dare you! How dare you talk to me like that!” Steph placed her hands protectively over her stomach.
“That’s right,” Gabs said. “We mustn’t let Junior hear naughty language, must we?”
“Gabs, how can you?”
“Oh, shut up, Steph. Just shut the fuck up!”
Gabs got up and took herself off to her room, slamming the door behind her. There, she threw herself face down on the bed and howled into her pillow, pulling the duvet over her head to muffle the sound. Life was awful. Everything was awful. The grief, the isolation, and the sheer misery were, quite simply, unbearable. How on earth was she ever going to get through this?
Eventually she must have fallen asleep, for the next thing she knew, it was morning, and Steph was standing in the doorway holding the telephone.
“Didn’t you hear this?” she demanded.
“Obviously not. What’s the time?”
“Just after seven.” Steph switched on the light. “Gabs, look at the state of you!”
Gabs peered at her reflection in the mirror. The face that looked back at her was streaked with mascara, the eyes bruised with exhaustion, the hair a tangled mess.
“Your concern is touching,” she said.
“Never mind that. Just take this call, will you, and then I can get back to sleep. If you remember, I had a rather disturbed night.”
“Who is it?” Gabs asked.
“It’s that Mavis person. Why couldn’t she phone you on your mobile? Here.” Steph threw the phone onto the bed and disappeared back to her own room.
“Hello?” Gabs began to peel off her clothes with her free hand. They reeked of cigarette smoke, and she was badly in need of a shower.
“I’m so sorry to disturb you,” said Mavis. “But I just had to talk to someone.”
“Oh.” Gabs tried to gather her wits. “Why? What’s happened?”
“It’s Mother.” (Who else?) “She was taken into the hospital last night, and I’ve been there with her ever since. She’s had another stroke. Oh, Gabs. She looks much worse this time. Whatever shall I do?”
Mavis
Mavis knew that Maudie was frightened. Her one good hand — not so good now — made tiny fluttering movements, like those of an injured bird, and the sounds that she made were the cries of a distressed child. Her face was frozen into immobility, but her eyes, bright with life and fear, seemed to beg for help.
“Please, can she have something?” Mavis asked the sister. “Something to make her less — afraid.”
The sister patted her shoulder and told her not to worry. Maudie’s movements were random. They didn’t mean anything. “And if we did give her drugs, they would mask any improvement,” she added.
“But you said there proba
bly wasn’t going to be any improvement,” Mavis reasoned. “So what harm can it do?”
“I think it’s best to leave these decisions to the doctors, don’t you?”
Mavis felt small and patronised and utterly helpless. She wished very much that Gabs were still with her, but Gabs had had to go to work.
Mavis thought it likely that this kind of situation brought out the best in Gabs; she had an insouciance, a strength, a capableness that made her seem far older than her years, and she had the knack of getting things done. Although she had looked exhausted (“man trouble; don’t ask”), it was Gabs who had argued until Maudie had been moved from a trolley in A & E into a proper bed in a ward, Gabs who had demanded a comfortable chair for Mavis, and Gabs who had found her a welcome cup of tea. And when one of the nurses had asked whether Gabs was her daughter, Mavis had been rather pleased. Gabs’ occupation apart (and even that seemed less important now that they knew each other better), Mavis would have been rather pleased to have her as a daughter.
The following morning, Maudie had a scan, and the doctor told Mavis that she had suffered “a massive brain haemorrhage”.
“We’ll just keep her comfortable,” he said, his eyes already wandering towards his next (and probably more interesting) patient, and even Mavis knew that keeping someone comfortable was hospitalspeak for having reached the end of the road. Maudie wasn’t going to get better; she didn’t even have to ask.
“Can’t you give her something?” she asked again. “She seems so frightened.”
The doctor consulted Maudie’s chart, and then shook his head. “I’m afraid not. And it wouldn’t make any difference. Stroke patients are often like this. It doesn’t mean anything.”
So Maudie was no longer Maudie; she was a stroke patient, behaving the way stroke patients behaved. When tears leaked from Maudie’s eyes, that too was apparently normal.
“Stroke patients do cry a lot,” the staff nurse told Mavis. “It doesn’t mean they’re unhappy. They just get emotional.”
“What’s the difference?” Mavis asked.
The nurse smiled. “When you’ve been doing this job as long as I have, believe me, you’ll realise that this is all par for the course.”
Since Mavis was never going to do the nurse’s job, this seemed a ridiculous thing to say, besides being particularly unhelpful. Maudie was a stroke patient, and stroke patients were miserable; therefore Maudie must be miserable. Well, Mavis didn’t know anything about other stroke patients, but she wasn’t going to sit by and see her mother suffer. There had to be something she could do.
When Gabs called in later on to see how things were going, Mavis told her what had happened.
“It seems that they’re quite happy for her to suffer like this,” Mavis said. “I can’t bear it, Gabs. I just can’t bear it. I promised her I’d always make sure that she was all right, and now she really needs help, there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do for her. They’re just — leaving her. Nobody seems to care. It’s as though she doesn’t matter.”
“Oh, she matters all right. Our Maudie certainly matters.” Gabs thought for a moment. “Leave this to me, Mavis. I’ll sort it.”
“You won’t — you won’t make a fuss, will you?”
“If that’s what it takes, I’ll certainly make a fuss. But don’t worry, Mavis. It’ll be my fuss, and if anyone gets into trouble, it’ll be me. You wait here.”
She went off, and returned ten minutes later with a young doctor in tow.
“You see, Doctor, we really need to do something to relieve her suffering,” Gabs said. “We hate to see her like this.”
The doctor dragged his eyes away from Gabs’ bosom. (Didn’t he see enough bosoms in the course of his work?)
“I’m sure we can do something,” he said.
“Oh, that’s so kind of you,” Gabs simpered. “My godmother was always such a strong woman” (godmother?) “and we hate to see her like this.”
“I’m sure you do.” Briefly, the doctor’s gaze found its way back to her bosom. Gabs caught his eye and winked at him, and he blushed. “Yes. Certainly. I’ll see what I can do,” he said, and scurried off with Maudie’s chart.
“How do you do it?” Mavis asked when he’d gone.
“Do what? Oh, the man thing, you mean?”
“Well, no. I didn’t mean that. But that, too.”
“I vowed that I’d try and change,” Gabs said, “after — after what happened. But somehow I can’t help myself, even when I’m feeling miserable. It’s like a reflex. ‘Born to flirt,’ Steph says, and I suppose she’s right.” She sighed. “Change is a darned sight harder than you think.”
“Oh, I know.”
“Do you?” Gabs asked. “Do you want to change, Mavis?”
“Doesn’t everyone? In some way or another? I’d love to be more assertive, for a start. Like you. Get things done. Not be afraid of authority.”
“What’s to be afraid of?”
“I don’t know. Not being liked, perhaps. I’ve always been afraid of not being liked.”
“I couldn’t give a damn,” said Gabs. “What people think is their problem.”
“That must be wonderful.”
The doctor returned with promises of a nurse with an injection to calm Maudie down. He looked embarrassed and kept his eyes firmly on Maudie.
“Poor lamb,” said Gabs when he’d gone again. “I know what he needs. Quite nice-looking too.”
“I thought you were going to change,” Mavis said.
“Wasn’t it Saint Augustine who wanted to change, but not yet? I guess I’m a bit like that. It’s a kind of work in progress,” Gabs said. “Right. I’m off. Oh, by the way, I phoned your Mr. Strong to tell him you wouldn’t be in. He wasn’t very pleased.”
“Mr. Strong is rarely pleased,” said Mavis.
“He said that he’d probably have to bring in his wife.”
“Oh dear.” Mrs. Strong was thought by some to be suffering from early dementia. She occasionally ‘helped out’ in the shop, but Mavis thought that this was more therapy for Mrs. Strong than help for Mavis, since she tended to put everything away in the wrong places and give the customers too much change. Mention of bringing in Mrs. Strong was a threat, albeit a veiled one.
But Mavis no longer cared. “Bugger Mr. Strong,” she said boldly. “He can stew for all I care. He’s been precious little support to me, and if I lose my job, well, I’ll probably live.”
“Good for you, Mavis,” Gabs said. “You tell ‘em.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much.” Mavis touched Gabs’ hand. “I don’t know what I’d have done without you.”
“Don’t mention it. Besides, you’ve done me a favour. I was having a bit of a crisis, and you’ve helped take my mind off things.”
Maudie appeared to settle after her injection, and when she seemed to be sleeping peacefully, Mavis called for a taxi home so that she could have a bath and something to eat. She also phoned Clifford to tell him what had happened.
“Oh dear. And we were going to meet up tomorrow, too,” Clifford said. “How disappointing.”
“Is that all you can think about?” asked Mavis.
“Well, I’m sorry about your mother, Mavis. Of course I am. But we knew this was going to happen, didn’t we?”
“Did we?”
“Yes. She’s old. She was bound to have another stroke sooner or later. Perhaps better sooner, all things considered.”
“And you know all about strokes, do you?”
“Well, I did do some research on the internet.”
“Oh yes.” That would have been the time when Clifford had had a headache for several days and had taken it upon himself to diagnose the problem. In the end, he had decided it was a brain tumour, but the stroke was very much in the running, as was something terrifying called a ‘subarachnoid haemorrhage’. Clifford had taken to the idea of the subarachnoid haemorrhage. Mavis had not. (Dorothy, apparently, had laughed and told him not to be so silly.)
“Clifford, have you any idea how unkind you sound?”
“Not unkind at all. Practical. I’m being practical, Mavis. Facing reality. And I think you might find it helpful if you could do the same.”
“What I would find helpful would be some support, some understanding.”
“Yes. Yes of course.” Clifford seemed to pull himself together. “Perhaps I could fetch you from the hospital tomorrow, and we could have an early dinner together.”
“That would be nice. Thank you.”
But the evening was not a success. For a start, Clifford declined to come up to the ward to see Maudie, which Mavis had thought might help him to understand her situation a little better.
“Oh no, Mavis. It’s a little too soon, I’m afraid.”
“What do you mean, too soon?”
“It — it brings everything back,” Clifford told her.
Mavis thought that hospital visits would be just up Clifford’s street, and as for bringing everything back, well, since he spent much of his time doing just that, what was the problem?
But no. The new, sensitive Clifford couldn’t cope with Maudie in her hospital bed (Mavis privately thought that he couldn’t be bothered to make his way up to the fourth floor, even though there was a perfectly satisfactory lift), and so they met downstairs by the reception desk.
“You look pale,” Clifford said, kissing her cheek.
“I’m just tired,” Mavis said. “I haven’t had much sleep.”
“You must get your rest,” Clifford said as they made their way to the carpark.
This sounded promising, and so Mavis told him about her two nights sitting by Maudie’s bed and how difficult it was to sleep in a chair.
“No one sat by my bed,” Clifford said.
“Well, I suppose in intensive care, you have so many nurses you don’t really need anyone.”
“That’s not the point.” Clifford opened the car door for her. “It was the fact that no one wanted to sit by my bed. If you’d been my wife, you’d have been at my bedside, wouldn’t you, Mavis?”
Women Behaving Badly_An uplifting, feel-good holiday read Page 29