by Tara Lyons
‘Hello,’ I croak and quickly clear my throat.
‘Can I speak to Ms Quinn please?’
Oh, sweet Jesus. Please be PPI, please be PPI. Don’t be a hospital. Don’t be a hospital.
‘Speaking.’
‘This is Trudy from the hospice–’
‘Oh my God, I knew it. What’s wrong with her?’
‘Now please, Ms Quinn, there’s no reason to panic–’
‘Where is she? Which hospital?’
The woman trips over her words and I want to punch her like I’ve never wanted to punch anyone in my life. ‘Er… Ms Quinn, I’m calling from Baytree Hospice regarding your mother. It’s Trudy, the night nurse. I think we’ve only met the once.’
My breath catches in my throat and a weird gurgling noise escapes my mouth. I wipe the silent tears that have started to fall and try to pull myself together.
‘Ms Quinn, are you okay? Please don’t panic. Your mum is okay, but she hasn’t had a great day is all. She’s called for you quite a few times today, and the day staff didn’t feel it warranted a phone call to you. These things are regular occurrences here, as I’m sure you understand.’
‘S-s-so… w-w-w…’ I take another moment. ‘I’m sorry, Trudy. What’s made you call me now?’
The woman on the other end practically whispers, like she doesn’t want those around her to hear some secret she’s telling me. ‘Ms Quinn, I’m quite a fan of your mother and I just wanted you to be aware of the situation really. I’m sorry, perhaps it’s inappropriate. But I just know she’ll have a better night’s sleep if she sees you first. Gets to say goodnight. It’s hardly fair not to when she’s been asking for you all day. I know you work on a shift pattern and it’s not always easy for you–’
‘Trudy, say no more, I’m leaving my house this second. Tell my mum I’m on my way and I shouldn’t be more than half an hour.’
I hang up, grab my bag and coat from the sofa, slip my feet back into my boots while switching the lamp off and head for the front door. It doesn’t change my plans for tomorrow, and I can check the train times to Brighton later. Mum might actually be able to talk some sense into me.
I can’t help chuckling at my own naivety as I jump in the car.
The drive from my home in East Finchley to the hospice in Aldenham takes almost half an hour, thanks to the traffic on the M1. I never wanted my mother to be so far from me, but Baytree is such a beautiful building surrounded by golf courses and country clubs, farms and heaths – and I wanted Mum to have stunning scenery. Beats the built-up-and-busy view she had from the dining-room-cum-bedroom we made in her Wembley home after my father passed away. The area grew in popularity with football and NFL games being played at the iconic stadium, and it could sometimes take me longer to get to her when she lived there. Aldenham wasn’t just a pretty move, it was a smart one too, though I’m sure she doesn’t feel like that today, when she’s been calling out for me all day.
Thank God for Trudy, and for her getting in touch with me.
I breeze through the security measures in place at Baytree, despite this not being my regular time to visit. Most of the staff know me. Or maybe it’s because I didn’t have time to change out of my uniform and they’ve just assumed another poor soul has pegged it and I’m here to escort the body from the premises. It sounds like we – emergency service professionals, carers – are a cold-hearted bunch. We’re not; we’re just used to death. We’ve become accustomed to it. Old, young, sick or healthy, the grim reaper really doesn’t discriminate – and we’ve seen it all.
The screech from my mother’s room makes me run down the hallway; whether Trudy was lying or not earlier, things sound far from fine now. At the doorway to her room I stop and wait. I don’t know why, but I can’t go in. Like a vampire who needs permission, I’m stuck here, just watching and waiting.
Two male nurses are trying to pin my mother to the bed, and a female nurse, who I assume is Trudy, is gently trying to cajole her. It isn’t working. There’s no aggression, and the men don’t seem to be using brute force, but it’s the wildness of my mother that’s stopped me in my tracks. Her usually tidy white hair is unruly and unkempt, standing on end, to the point where she looks like Albert Einstein, minus the tash, thankfully. She’s so thin… with her petite body, her bony hands and her wrinkled flustered face. My mother’s floral nightie has ridden up to her knees as she’s thrashed about trying to get out of the bed, and I step forward, without thinking, and pull the hem of it back down to her ankles.
There’s a wave of silence in the room as my mother stops fighting against the nurses and reaches out to stroke my hair. Her long slender fingers, like that of a pianist’s, find their way to my earlobe and she rubs it. She told me I used to do this to her when I was a child; it had been my way of finding calm and falling asleep.
‘Abigail,’ she whispers, and everything changes. Just like that.
The male nurses tuck my mother into bed now that she has let go of my ear. Her eyes never move from me, and Trudy promises that this episode – as they like to call it – had only started five minutes ago. I believe her, I think. I still ask her to leave me and my mother alone.
‘Kitty, I’m going to leave you with Abi now.’
My mother dismisses the nurses with a flick of her hand, a frown line deeply burrowed in her forehead. I know that frown – it’s one of annoyance, not confusion. She wants them gone as much as I do. I love it when my mother’s like this: in control of her feelings. With it – rational and lucid, I mean.
There are days when I visit and I could be here an hour before she recognises who I am. I talk about my childhood, her bingo outings, about Dad, about her working as a caregiver for most of her life – helping people who were in the same situation she is in now. Actually, perhaps that’s something she doesn’t want to remember. But nothing seems to register. Mum’s been in this hospice for five years. Five. Sometimes that feels like a lifetime in itself, probably because I just never know which Kitty I’m going to interact with when I get here: the confused young girl who doesn’t have a daughter, the frustrated adult who thinks I’m still a teenager, or Kitty my mother who remembers everything. Too much, sometimes.
From the smile on her face, tonight is a good night, despite the episode I was greeted with, because she knows who I am. I join her on the bed, my bum half on and half off because I don’t want to ask her to move now that she seems so comfortable. There’s a brush on the bedside table, calling out to be used, and I snatch it up and get to work on taming my mother’s hair. She would hate to see herself like this; Mum is a woman who, while never overdone with make-up, always took pride in her appearance. I should say takes pride… she’s not dead yet. Just allowing that thought to enter my head for the briefest of moments causes a rogue tear to leak from my eye. Anyway, her hair was always a major part of who she was – always dyed with that one same black colour whenever she spied a streak of white, and always set in curlers to give it a natural-looking bounce. Mum would hate to see herself like this, even more so when there were strangers in the room, so I take my time stroking the brush from root to tip until it’s tidy enough to wrap up in a high and neat chignon bun. She likes that hairstyle, or at least she used to.
As I return the hairbrush to its home on the nightstand, my mum reaches a hand up to rest it on my face. I place my own hand over hers, can feel the slight shake to her unsteady touch, can trace the lines of wrinkles and veins under my own finger, but her skin still feels as soft as ever. She still feels like Mum.
‘Abigail?’ she whispers again, this time in a tone that makes me feel like she’s reassuring herself that it’s really me.
It’s dementia, by the way, if you hadn’t already guessed. And although Mum’s lived here for five years, she’s probably suffered with the disease for quite a while – at least seven years, I’d estimate. It was just easier to ignore – that’s the wrong word – it was easier to deny when my father was alive. He took care of Mum, and I think he h
id quite a lot from me. Undoubtedly, he assumed he could handle things, that she would leave this world before him, so he didn’t need to worry me. Funny how life really can change in the blink of an eye. The fearful C-word. There’s quite a few of those, isn’t there? Christmas. Cunt. Chlamydia. But no, it was the real dreaded C-word that no one wants to hear, yet so many people do on a daily basis. Cancer. Dad didn’t even have a chance to battle against it. Diagnosis to funeral in four months.
I still haven’t decided which is crueller: losing your hero suddenly without having the chance to say all the things you wanted and needed to – namely how sorry you were for disappointing them – or watching the woman who raised you crumble away in front of your eyes, losing a small piece of her every single day. Can one actually be worse than the other?
‘Abigail, what are you thinking about?’ Mum’s voice is still soft, but not so much of a murmur as it was before. Her strength rebuilds the calmer she is after an episode.
I use the break in silence to get off the bed, pull the armchair closer to my mother and sit down. I grab her hand again, squeeze it a bit tighter and smile. ‘I was thinking about Dad.’
‘Ah, that man fills my thoughts most hours. From when we were teenagers waltzing around the dance halls, to having you – our only child – and then becoming grandparents to our little flower.’
I feel the lump in my throat gather momentum and it takes me a while to force it down. ‘A lot of lovely memories, Mum.’
‘How is the baby?’
My tearful emotions are replaced by a sad sigh. ‘Rose isn’t a baby any more, Mum. She’s a grown woman, remember? Studying at Brighton University. Oh, you were so proud of her when she told you she’d been accepted.’
I think of how much I want to be on a train heading to the seaside town right now; I’m so desperate to see my daughter. Mum distracts me again. There’s a change in her expression, a change to her frown, and I wonder if I’m about to lose her.
‘And Patrick, how is he?’
Crap. ‘Mum, please can we not do this?’
‘You need to tell that man about the baby.’
I release her hand and fidget with my own fingers, unable – unwilling – to look at her. ‘Patrick died, Mum. You know that.’
‘Stop lying, Abigail Quinn.’
My head snaps up; something in my mother’s voice is different. There’s definitely no more weakness in her body. She looks like my mother from ten, twelve, twenty years ago. A look of fury in her eyes and life in her cheeks again. For the first time in a long time I see the woman my mother used to be.
‘Patrick never died, Abi, stop lying. If I told you once, I’ve told you a million times: the truth will always out.’
I move back from the bed, almost as if she’d pushed me away with her words. Mum hasn’t spoken to me like that since Rose was a baby, when she agreed to keep my secret. It was for the best. It was for Rose.
‘You can’t play with people’s lives, Abi. You’ve lied to that girl for twenty years. And what about Patrick? Don’t you think he has a right to know?’
She’s wagging her finger like an angry headmistress – and I feel like a naughty schoolgirl. I get up and walk to the end of the bed, grip the iron bar at the base of it and stumble over my own words. It’s been so long since she’s confronted me about it, I’m truly at a loss for words.
‘M-mum, what do you mean? Patrick died, remember?’
As quick as she returned, my mum is gone; the flustered cheeks give way to a grey tinge and she’s poking her temple rather than pointing at me. ‘Yes, I remember now, Abigail. I’m sorry.’
Mum is lost and confused, and I put her there. The guilt pushes me back to her and I scoop her up in a hug. Her frail body crushes against me and I feel her ribs under my hands.
‘I’m so sorry Patrick died. How sad for you and Rose.’
My chest feels like it’s trying to crush my heart, the pressure getting tighter and tighter as I hold back the tears. It’s one thing lying to my daughter – she knows no different – but my mother knows the truth and I’ve sent her mind to purgatory to keep my evil secret safe.
But is it safe? That’s the first time since Mum’s been in this hospice that she’s challenged me about Patrick. What if more memories return the next time Rose is here? She’ll question me… I’ll need to be prepared.
What if I’m not here when Rose visits?
Panic claws up my throat like a savage and trapped beast, and the urge to find my daughter becomes even more paramount.
Chapter 8
I’m late. Fucking stupidly late, and I hate myself for it. I had such enthusiastic plans to be up early this morning – not as early as the first train from Victoria to Brighton at something absurd like 5am; Rose would definitely click-on to something being wrong if I rocked up to her house at six thirty in the morning. But I had plans nonetheless to be bright and energic today, painting the picture of a mother with a day off from work, taking a trip to the seaside, excited to see her daughter. However, thanks to Mum, I hardly slept at all last night.
It’s the not knowing. Not knowing what my mum could say at any given time. She’s the only one who shares the real secret with me and I’ve never worried about her slipping up before. Pathetic of me really, considering she’s suffering from a disease that has slowly been damaging her brain, all her memories. How could I never think this could be a possibility? If she told Rose the truth… No, I can’t even go there.
Besides, Rose still hasn’t been on social media. Her phone is now going straight to voicemail without ringing and despite trying to be calm about her not calling me, every time I closed my eyes last night, I saw her petite body lying in a dark ditch. Funny how that’s where our thoughts go when we think of our kids in danger: a dark trench by the side of the road, them covered in dirt and mud and calling out to us with no avail. I blame the movies. Or maybe my job. Sadly, I’ve witnessed these scenarios first-hand.
Sleep won at some point in the early hours. It was a sweaty and disturbed slumber and I obviously turned off my alarm instead of snoozing it. Which leads to the reason I’m running late and why I missed the earlier trains. Now I’m flustered and red from a rushed, steaming-hot shower.
Breathe, Abi.
I hate talking to myself in the mirror, but sometimes a good lecture from yourself is actually just what you need. I wipe the condensation from the glass and take a long hard look at myself. Rose looks a lot like me. I couldn’t see it when she was growing up, though my parents could, thank God. I can now. Now she’s an adult and has filled out and fitted into her skin, I can see the woman she is. The same features looking back at me are the same ones Rose has inherited: long dark hair, pale white skin dotted with the odd freckle here and there, deep brown eyes. It’s no wonder strangers mistake us for sisters.
Despite my flustered hue, I’m still pale; the palest I’ve looked in years. Probably because I haven’t been on a sunny break since Rose was fifteen. It was our last mother-and-daughter holiday to Spain – we visited the same place every year. That year, however, while we were sitting by the pool, Rose said she thought it best we didn’t go any more, confessing that the kids at school had laughed at her when she told them. Apparently, fifteen-year-olds don’t holiday with their parents any longer. Of course I was hurt; it was like a punch to the gut. I looked forward to our annual holiday during the year, but breaking away from the annual holiday with Mum is a rite of passage for any teenager and I had to accept that. Even though we didn’t go to Spain again, every now and then she allowed me to take her on a shopping trip or on a day out to Southend-on-Sea. It never mattered to me where we were. As long as I got to spend quality time with my daughter, I was happy.
I exhale deeply, fogging up the mirror again, but not before noticing the look of fear etched on my face. Not only do I see it, I feel it. It’s a bad case of the butterflies you don’t want. These aren’t the excited flutters, these are the downright terrified whacks against your insides.
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br /> My thoughts are a mix of Mum and Rose and I hate that I can’t settle on one problem at a time. Although, what my mum may or may not say doesn’t really matter at all if I can’t find Rose. It’s Sunday. I haven’t spoken to her since Thursday and there’s been no word from her since Friday afternoon.
That’s what today is all about.
Breathe, Abi. Breathe. There’s no point heading down to Brighton like this: flustered and irrational. Push the worries aside, take one thing at a time and calm the fuck down.
I listen to my internal self, inhaling and exhaling like a pregnant woman in early labour.
Dry yourself. Blow-dry your hair. Choose an outfit. Oh, and slap some bloody make-up on because you look like a flaming ghost. Then go from there.
And so, I focus on these initial tasks, even putting the radio on and letting some eighties classics flow through my body as I prance around my bedroom. It can only be a good day if you let it be one, and that’s exactly what today will be.
An hour later, I’m dressed and have painted a new woman on my face – well, a fresh woman with some bronzer and pink lip gloss. I’ve had breakfast and googled the later trains from London Victoria to Brighton. It’s a very short walk from my house to East Finchley Underground Station, and two trains will get me into Victoria in twenty-four minutes. I’ll have time to buy a ticket for the 10.25am train and will arrive at the seaside for 11.31am. Then, when I get to Rose’s house and we’ve had a cuddle and laugh at my expense, I can offer to buy her lunch.
Sorted.
The doorbell sounds just as I reach it to open it and leave. Adele is standing there, a huge smile plastered across her beautiful brown skin. I’m sure she’s never visited my home so much in the past. Shit, I can tell by her face she wants to come in.
Of course, things aren’t as sorted as I tried to believe. Is anything ever simple?
I don’t mean to sound rude, but I can’t help it. I have to stick with my plan today. I can’t be sidetracked again. This is too important.