Patience

by Victoria Scott

  ‘Sorry,’ said Pete. ‘I got carried away.’

  ‘Yep,’ Louise replied, in a voice that sounded more like a sigh.

  ‘Let’s change tack,’ said Nathan. ‘And rewind right back to the beginning. How did you two meet, and what brought you together?’

  There was a silence, during which Louise’s mind was suddenly flooded with memories. Laughter over loud music; a hand brushing her hip; a smoky kiss.

  ‘We were in a pub,’ she replied. ‘I was there with some of my friends and Pete was there with his. There was a band. We met on the dance floor.’

  ‘What made you speak to each other?’ asked Nathan.

  ‘She smiled at me,’ said Pete. ‘It was a winning smile, you might say. I thought she was amazing.’

  Louise tried not to meet his eye as he said that, so she looked down at the floor. She didn’t want to smile, as that might make him think he’d changed her mind.

  ‘That’s physical attraction,’ said Nathan. ‘But we all know, those of us who’ve been married for decades, that being attracted to someone’s personality is more long-lasting, so with that in mind, what was it that made you want to spend your lives together?’

  Louise looked up and could see that Pete was wrestling with himself. If she was right, he was trying not to be rude to the counsellor, who he clearly felt was prying. Pete had always been a private person. But he remained silent, which surprised her.

  ‘I thought he was funny,’ she said, finally. ‘And kind.’

  Pete looked straight at her.

  ‘I thought she was incredible,’ he said, refusing to look away. ‘I still do, to be honest. She’s incredibly driven, a committed mother, a total powerhouse.’

  Louise was dumbfounded. She had no idea how to respond. She wanted desperately to take his hand, but the environment they were in stopped her.

  ‘But I am worried,’ he went on, still holding her gaze, ‘about you, Lou. I feel guilty that I’ve left you alone for so long. I can see now just how heavy a burden you’ve had to carry. I realise I’ve been too obsessed with providing, so I haven’t been there, and I regret that. And the thing is, I’m worried that you’re trying to cope now using – using alcohol.’

  His words hit her like lightning.

  ‘What I drink or not has nothing at all to do with—’

  ‘It does have something to do with this, Lou, though, doesn’t it? Patience is injured.’

  Louise suddenly remembered the darkness, her feet giving way beneath her, a desperate plunge as she struggled to put her own body between Patience and the ground, a scream that hadn’t even seemed like her own.

  She set off like a rocket, getting up so quickly that she took both Pete and Nathan by surprise. She ran through the door and sprinted down the corridor, only stopping when she rounded a corner. There, she stood still opposite a fire exit, breathing huge gulps of air, taking in the white and green bar across the door, the patch of grass just behind it and the car park beyond; she contemplated pushing the bar and rushing out, fire alarm be damned.

  ‘Louise?’ Nathan must have tiptoed down the hall, as if he’d been stalking a rabbit. ‘Would you like to come back in? I promise you’ll get to put your side across. This is not about apportioning blame.’

  ‘Sure,’ Louise replied, ‘it might do him good to hear some home truths.’

  She took several more deep breaths and set off back down the corridor.

  Pete looked relieved when she walked back in.

  ‘OK, so now that we’re back together – Louise, would you like to start up again?’ said Nathan, walking the tightrope once again between consideration and condescension.

  ‘I drink in the evening sometimes, to relax, to feel happy,’ she replied, her body one big shrug. ‘As I said, I don’t get to go out, ever, so I drink at home instead. After a hard day caring for Patience, I need something to unwind. That evening, I’d only had a couple, but I suppose it was enough to send me off balance. I just lost my footing.’

  ‘What about Christmas Day?’ Pete asked. ‘Did you drink that much just so that you could relax?’

  ‘No. It was so I could feel happy,’ replied Louise. ‘Otherwise, I’d probably have cried.’

  The room was silent for a few seconds, the only sound being the low hum of an air-conditioning unit.

  ‘OK, let’s change tack,’ said Nathan, sensing that she’d said all she wanted to say on that subject, for now at least. ‘What I’m hearing is that you are both angry about the life you feel you’ve had to lead. Would it be fair to say that you want someone to blame? Do you think you blame each other?’

  ‘It seems like Lou is blaming me for making the decision to work abroad,’ replied Pete. ‘But it was a joint decision. I had to go.’

  ‘Do you blame him, Louise?’ Nathan asked.

  Louise hesitated for a moment.

  ‘No, I don’t blame him for that, although I do wonder where his earnings are actually going,’ she said. ‘But I do blame him for not understanding how being at home all the time with Patience makes me feel. I don’t think he thinks about how I am much, if at all. And I’m exhausted. Washed up. Old. Lonely.’

  ‘Well, I feel lonely too,’ replied Pete.

  ‘And why is that, do you think?’ Nathan asked.

  Pete and Louise looked at each other for a moment.

  ‘I think it’s because we haven’t been a functioning couple for quite a while,’ Pete answered, maintaining eye contact.

  Nathan turned to Louise.

  ‘Do you agree?’ he asked Louise.

  ‘I suppose he’s right,’ she answered. ‘But not in the way he’s thinking. I imagine he’s talking about sex. That’s his main focus, I think.’ Pete grimaced at her. ‘No, don’t look at me like that, Pete. You know I’m speaking the truth.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ he replied. ‘Our marriage is worth a whole lot more to me than a sex life. If it wasn’t, I’d have left years ago.’

  ‘It seems we’re getting to a crucial point here,’ Nathan interrupted. ‘Let’s try to keep this conversation calm. I know this is an intensely personal subject.’

  ‘OK,’ said Louise, mentally brushing Nathan aside. ‘Pete, what do you mean, you’d have left years ago? You seem to have checked out of our marriage already. When did you last sit with me and talk – properly talk? When did we last do something together that didn’t involve a hospital or a supermarket?’

  Pete looked despondent. Beaten.

  ‘And now you’re actively opposing me over the gene therapy, something we should be united about, because we are both Patience’s parents, aren’t we? Seriously, I just have no idea who you are any more. And if we must discuss our sex life, because I know Nathan’s probably wondering about it now, well, yes, when is the last time we did it? It’s like you switched that button off, a long time ago. You could be having an affair, for all I know. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were, to be honest. It would be incredibly easy for you to do…’

  Louise’s sentence tailed off as she watched Pete grab his coat and march out of the room, not looking back.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Nathan said, a master of understatement. ‘That topic obviously proved too much for him. We’ll try to go back to that in a future session.’

  Louise looked as though she had just woken up from a long slumber, her eyes alive, and energy coursing into her limbs.

  She sprang up out of her seat. ‘No, don’t worry, I’ll see myself out.’

  21

  Patience

  February

  There’s a clear halo around my blackout blind, so it must be past seven, but I’m still in bed. This is not an ordinary state of affairs. In the normal way of things, I’d have had a pee on the toilet by now and Mum or one of the carers would be shoehorning me into leggings, soft socks and my uber-fashionable, medically prescribed Velcro-fastening chunky brown boots. If I have to wait any longer to go to the toilet, I’ll have no choice but to pee in my pad. It’s not a sensation I’m fond of.
I’ve been toilet trained since I was a toddler, believe it or not; it’s one of the ‘normal’ things about me. There aren’t many, so I like to celebrate it.

  Where is Mum, anyway? It’s Saturday morning, so the carers won’t come until later, but she usually sits me up and puts the TV on for me before they arrive, because my body clock wakes me up early every day of the week.

  Ah, there’s the doorbell. One of the caring staff has arrived at last. Mum will be embarrassed to be seen in her pyjamas, I expect.

  There’s the bell again. Still no Mum. Is she ill? Something must have happened to her. Oh God, I hope she’s OK. She’s been strange since I got back home: absent, not talking to me much. I’ve been alone in my room a lot more than usual. There have been no impromptu disco parties in the kitchen this week, no sessions of us both watching Pointless on the TV, Mum shouting the answers at the screen, holding my hand and looking at me every time, as if to say, ‘You agree, don’t you? I’m right, aren’t I?’ She is usually right.

  The phone is ringing now. They must have given up on the doorbell and decided to call instead. There’s a handset upstairs in Mum’s room, so she’ll definitely hear it. If she’s there, that is. It’s stopped ringing now and I can hear a muffled voice, hers, I think, thank God, followed by uneven footsteps coming down the stairs. Is she hobbling?

  It’s her. She’s still alive, then. But barely, by the look of things. Her hair is all fluffy, and it looks like a team of mice have been playing in amongst the strands all night, using sections of it as a ski jump. She’s wearing a short cotton T-shirt nightie with a bear on the front, and it’s stained with what might be coffee, or possibly it’s juice? She’s answering the door now, opening it a crack and peering outside with a squint, like a newborn witnessing its first sun.

  ‘Lou! At last! I thought you’d died.’ It’s Serena, Mum’s best friend. Why on earth is she here? She hasn’t visited for ages.

  ‘Serena? What on earth…?’

  ‘I’ve come to look after you, my duck!’ she replies, pushing the door open and, from what I can hear, forcing Mum into an embrace. I hear the wheels of a bag scraping over our threshold and trundling along our hall.

  ‘What time is it?’ Mum asks.

  ‘It’s 8 a.m., Lou.’

  ‘Shit! I haven’t got Patience up yet!’ Mum rushes into my room, yanking the curtains apart and raising my blind with a turn of speed Usain Bolt would be proud of.

  ‘Patience! It’s Mummy! Good morning! I’m sorry, lovey, I’m a bit late today. But look who’s come to see you! Auntie Serena is here.’

  Serena slips into the room. Her glossy red hair – there’s not a hint of grey, despite her age – is piled on top of her head, her make-up is precise, her nails primed and painted, and her green dangly earrings match her scarf and skirt. She is always well put together, ordered, sleek. She walks over to me and lands a kiss on my cheek. She smells of roses. ‘Good morning, lovely girl,’ she says, displaying not a hint of disgust at my morning breath. She’s a pro.

  ‘How did you manage to get here so early?’ Mum springs into action with our usual morning routine as she talks, trying to persuade my legs to straighten before she rolls me over.

  ‘I stayed overnight in a local hotel,’ Serena replies. ‘I decided it would be best not to disturb you last night.’

  They exchange a strange look which, to be honest, seems a little hostile. This is unusual for them. Mum is at her most relaxed when Serena is around, her most happy.

  ‘Has Pete been speaking to you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh, come on, who else was it?’

  ‘I’m not saying,’ replies Serena. ‘But anyway, I’m here now. You need me, I hear. So here I am, like Mary Poppins, just more beautiful, obviously.’

  Mum moves me into a sitting position, and asks Serena to help her attach the straps for the hoist.

  ‘Hang on a sec, Lou – where are the carers this morning?’

  ‘I told them not to come,’ says Mum. This is news to me.

  ‘Why on earth did you do that?’

  ‘Patience and I don’t need them at the weekends,’ she says, avoiding Serena’s gaze.

  ‘But Pete has left,’ Serena says, with emphasis.

  ‘Who told you that? Him?’ Mum is opening the straps and pulling them even more tightly. ‘Yes, he’s buggered off, but you know, situation normal.’

  ‘There’s nothing normal about this, Lou. And of course you need them at weekends. You need them all the time.’

  ‘If I’ve learned anything in this life, it’s that the only person I can trust is myself. And I don’t need to hear them gossiping about me. They have no respect for me at all. So a couple of days without them is fine.’

  She smiles down at me as she says this, the words coming out through gritted teeth. The hoist is currently lifting me across the room towards the toilet, as if Hermione Granger has cast a levitation spell. Serena follows our strange procession and, as I land on my porcelain throne, she asks a question I’ve been dying to ask myself.

  ‘Where is Pete?’

  ‘He didn’t tell you? He’s staying with his brother in Birmingham, apparently. All right for some. He’s picked up some temporary work there, I think. I don’t know when he’s going back to Qatar, he hasn’t said. We have the Best Interests meeting next week, so I suppose he’s waiting for that.’

  I do wish I’d been invited to this meeting, too. So far I’ve just heard that I’m going to be experimented on – both in snippets of overheard conversations, and from Eliza when she came to ask me about it, bless her – but no real details. I have no idea what they are planning, to be honest. What is gene therapy? Answers on a postcard, kids.

  ‘Are you talking at all?’

  As I let out a steady stream of urine, relief floods through me and I let out an involuntary shiver.

  ‘Can you pass her dressing gown, Serena? I think she’s cold.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘And no, we’re not talking. We tried. We had a counselling session. It was a train wreck. He’s a pig-headed, tight arsehole.’

  ‘Should you be saying this sort of thing in front of Patience?’

  ‘One of the things I am forever grateful for is that she has no idea at all about the messes adults make of their lives,’ says Mum.

  I mean, how wrong can you be?

  She’s pulled up my pyjamas, and now the hoist rises again and I’m transferred into my wheelchair. This routine is one Mum knows off by heart, but even so, she seems to be zipping through it today, every detail done in double time, every muscle in her body working at full pelt. She turns her back to me and I can see her shoulders are up. She should try to stop doing that. It gives her tension headaches.

  ‘Why a pig-headed, tight arsehole?’

  Mum takes hold of the chair and begins to steer me in the direction of the kitchen.

  ‘Are you taking the piss?’

  ‘No. I know you’ve always had your moments, but he’s always seemed like a committed dad and husband to me.’

  ‘Then I obviously have some filling-in to do,’ Mum replies, stopping my chair abruptly and parking me by the kitchen table. ‘Shall I start with the cheating, his financial lies, or his absolute refusal to back me over Patience’s gene therapy trial?’ The kettle clicks on, and some mugs are removed from a cupboard. ‘Thank heavens for Eliza, though, and her common sense. Her views will carry weight at the meeting.’

  ‘Infidelity?’ asks Serena, her face startled.

  Here we go.

  ‘Yes. He hasn’t owned up to it, of course, but he reacted oddly in front of our counsellor and the penny dropped. Suddenly I realise why he’s been so absent for so long. And where the money must be going. He’s seeing another woman. He must be.’

  ‘Are you certain, though? He hasn’t owned up to anything, has he?’

  ‘I don’t need to be certain. I know my husband. He’s been hiding something for a long time. And his desire to work overseas, to be away
for long periods, to avoid dealing with what needs to be dealt with here? It all adds up.’ I hear the fridge door open and milk being poured into mugs.

  ‘You are putting two and two together and getting five.’

  ‘I’m not. I tell you, he’s been sleeping with someone else.’

  There’s a telltale clink of crockery as Mum lifts a bowl out of a cupboard and pours Weetabix into it. Damn it, there are some Coco Pops in there, and I really fancy some. But no, they have to give me sensible, fibrous breakfasts, don’t they? Bugger.

  ‘Don’t you think you should talk to him about this, to make sure you’re not imagining it?’ I can just make out Serena, to my right. She has both hands braced behind her on the kitchen counter and she’s clenching and unclenching her grip.

  ‘That’s a lovely idea,’ says Mum, sounding like it would be nothing like lovely, at all. ‘But we’d have to be talking for that to happen.’

  ‘But isn’t the big meeting next week?’

  ‘Yes, if he turns up. He’ll probably bring a lawyer, knowing him. He pretty much suggested that I was an unfit mother, the last time we saw each other.’ Mum plonks the bowl down in front of me and comes back into my line of vision.

  ‘Lou… I wanted to ask. About the trial. I saw the article, about the guy who’s leading it.’

  ‘Did you indeed. Send that to you, did he? It’s all rubbish. There’s nothing in it.’

  Mum sits down to my left and Serena takes a seat opposite her, to my right, bringing two mugs of coffee with her.

  ‘Look, did he send you here to try to talk me out of it? That’s pretty low.’ Mum puts a plastic bib – a bigger version of the kind they use for babies – around my neck, and dips a large, flat plastic spoon into the bowl. ‘He tried it on with Eliza, too. But I think she’s on my side, still. So it should get passed at the meeting. It must.’

  When I move my gaze away from the spoon to Mum’s face, I see that she is starting to cry. Serena opens her arms and Mum collapses into them.

  *

  We are at the pub. Mum started bringing me here when I was eighteen, I think as a sort of gesture of defiance, as if she was facing off with Rett syndrome, saying, ‘Look, this is one thing you haven’t stopped her doing.’