Human Remains (18 page)

I stared at him. Then I looked at the nurse.

‘Annabel, is there anyone I can phone for you? Someone to be with you?’

‘No,’ I said.

The doctor was looking uncomfortable. I wondered briefly how many times he’d given bad news to a relative.

‘But – but – she’s breathing, isn’t she? I don’t understand.’ I looked at the trolley, at my mother on it, not moving, but with the oxygen mask over her face, unquestionably still breathing. Still very definitely alive.

‘She’s breathing, but I’m afraid the scan shows conclusively that there is no chance of recovery. It’s just a matter of time. I’m so very sorry.’

It was the nurse that spoke next, her voice quiet. ‘We’re arranging to get her transferred to the Stroke Unit upstairs; hopefully you won’t need to wait much longer. It’s much more comfortable up there.’

The doctor went. I didn’t know what to say to the nurse, so I just looked at her forlornly. I wondered if she was used to people coming in here, spaced out from having been woken by some trauma in the middle of the night.

‘She can probably hear you if you want to talk to her,’ she said gently.

I stood up again, and pulled the plastic chair that Jonathan Lamb had vacated over to the trolley. I took hold of Mum’s hand. It was so warm, joints swollen with the arthritis that plagued her. ‘Mum,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t there.’

It sounded so silly, talking to someone who was patently completely unconscious. And even if she could hear me, what to say? What could I possibly say to her? The nurse handed me a tissue. I blew my nose.

I closed my eyes, listening to the rhythmic beeping of the machinery, trying to take myself away from here. I would have to ring work, I thought.

I heard a sound and opened my eyes, thinking Mum had woken up, said something, but she remained motionless. The nurse had gone. When the sound came again I realised it was from the bed next door, separated from us only by a curtain.

In the early hours of the morning they transferred Mum to the Stroke Unit, a complicated procedure involving a porter, the nurse, a different doctor who came and went, and finally the bed being moved, machines and all, through various corridors and into a lift, me beside her trying to keep up with the porter who seemed determined to approach each set of double doors at lightning speed.

There was a handover procedure at the reception desk, and a different nurse took me into a quiet room ‘just for a moment, while we make Mum comfortable’. She asked if I’d had anything to eat or drink, and would I like a cup of tea? I said no first, and then I changed my mind. I’d been warm downstairs in A&E but now I was unaccountably cold. She left me. I closed my eyes again, sitting back in a chair that was the most well-padded of all the chairs I’d been in tonight. I could sleep here, I thought.

The door opened again. It was the nurse, a mug in her hand.

‘Do you want to come with me?’ she asked. ‘We’ve got her all settled now.’

Mum was in a side room, freshly dressed in a new gown that was much looser around her chest and shoulders. She was lying still and, even though she was in exactly the same position as she had been in A&E, she did look more comfortable. She had a drip going into her arm but the oxygen mask was gone. She looked peaceful, although her breathing was loud, as if she was snoring.

‘There we are,’ the nurse said. ‘You must be shattered. I can get you a zed bed, if you’d like to try and get some sleep.’

‘No, thanks,’ I said, not wanting to put her to any trouble. There was a chair like the one in the other waiting room. I could sleep in that.

‘I’m waiting to see someone from Palliative Care,’ she said. ‘They should come along soon and explain what’s going to happen.’

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘If you have any questions…’ she said. ‘Anything at all?’

I should have had a hundred questions, but for now I couldn’t think of anything. She put the tea down on the cabinet that separated the comfy chair from Mum’s bed.

‘Are you alright?’ she asked. ‘I know that’s a silly question, sorry.’

‘Hm?’ I looked up at her.

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she said. She put a hand on my arm. ‘These things do happen, you know – awful things. It’s hard to come to terms with sometimes.’

‘I guess so.’

She was so kind; I felt tears starting. I ran a hand through my hair. My scalp felt itchy, my hair lank. ‘Thank you,’ I said.

After that the nurse left, and it was just me and Mum.

I slept for a few minutes at a time, upright in the chair. I must have slept properly at one point because when I woke up someone had put a blanket round me. I closed my eyes again and when I opened them it was almost daylight outside. The blinds were drawn but there was light coming through them.

Mum hadn’t moved. I stretched and moved the blanket to one side, then eased myself up out of the chair. I felt dizzy for a moment, then when it passed I hobbled stiffly over to the window and pulled the hanging blind to one side to look out, over the car park at the back. There were spaces. It was a grey day, dark clouds overhead. The trees at the far end of the car park were moving, so it must have been windy.

I went back to the chair.

At seven o’clock I went downstairs and out through Reception into the fresh air. There was still a crowd around the smoking area. I wondered if it was the same people. My phone had just enough battery left for me to leave a message for Bill and another one for Kate. Then I went back upstairs to Mum’s room. Nothing had changed.

At about nine o’clock I went for a walk through the hospital. It was bustling now, people walking up and down corridors with a purpose. Trolleys, people pulling relatives backwards in those rear-wheel-drive wheelchairs, kids in pushchairs. I went to the café near the front entrance but the smell of food made me feel queasy, so I went into the shop and bought a bottle of water and a bag of boiled sweets. That would do.

I walked all the way down one corridor, past the clinics, past X-Ray, down to Oncology and the double doors at the end. Then I turned around and walked all the way back. After that I gave up and went back upstairs to the Stroke Unit.

At half-past ten a woman from Palliative Care finally came to see me. She was a nurse but dressed in smart trousers and a green jumper, a chunky necklace. By that time I think the news had sunk in that Mum was going to die. The sound of her breathing had changed too. The snoring got louder and then gradually it seemed to quieten for a while, before changing to a regular, short gasp.

‘The morphine drip will make her more comfortable,’ the nurse said. ‘She’s just in a very deep sleep right now.’

‘How long will she be like this?’ I asked.

‘It’s difficult to say,’ she said. ‘It might be a day or two, maybe less. But not long. Is there anyone you need to call?’

I’d forgotten about my cousin, but what would be the point of telling her now? I hadn’t spoken to her in years.

‘No,’ I said.

Eventually she went. Another hour and a half went past. It was technically lunchtime, so I opened the bag of sweets and had one. I was contemplating a fourth sweet when there was a brief, sharp knock at the door and two nurses came in, wearing aprons and gloves.

‘We’re just going to change your mum,’ one of them said, ‘make her comfortable.’

‘Oh, shall I go?’

‘Might be best. We won’t be long.’

I went into the waiting room where I’d been in the middle of the night. The television was on in the corner, some lunchtime chat show I’d never seen. I sat down and watched without paying any attention at all. I was thinking about work, and the cat.

Half an hour later I went back to Mum’s room, and the nurses were gone. I went out to the nurses’ station again. This time three of them were sitting there with cups of tea.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ I said.

‘That’s alright, don’t worry,’ said the nearest. She was the one who’d come in to sort Mum out.

‘I wondered if it’s OK if I go home for a while,’ I said. ‘I need to feed the cat…’

‘Of course!’ the nurse said. ‘And why don’t you have a shower, get something to eat, too? I can ring you if anything happens.’

On my way out, I walked past the smokers, my head down, hoping that nobody would notice my distress. I needn’t have worried. Even though there were clearly some seriously ill people in the group, the general atmosphere among them seemed to be one of hilarity.

I was concentrating so hard on the pavement that I didn’t notice the man ahead of me until I walked into the back of him. He turned and caught me by the elbow as I went over on my ankle and half-fell into the ambulance bay at the front entrance. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I was – ’

‘Annabel?’

I looked up in surprise. For a moment I was lost and looked at him in confusion.

‘Sam,’ he said. ‘We met yesterday?’

Yesterday? It felt like years ago. ‘Oh, yes,’ I said. ‘Of course. I’m sorry. It’s been – a long day.’

‘Is everything OK?’ he asked, nodding towards the hospital’s main entrance.

‘My mum – she had a fall.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ he said. ‘Is she alright?’

She’s dying
, I thought. I tasted the words, like bile, couldn’t say them. ‘She’s unconscious,’ I said. ‘I was just going home.’ I started to turn back in the direction of the car park, ignoring the sharp pain in my ankle. It was fine, I told myself; it wasn’t a bad twist, I just needed to walk it off. Then I remembered my manners.

‘What about you?’ I asked. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘It’s been a really, really mad couple of days. I’m just waiting for a taxi but I think it would have been quicker to walk.’

‘I’ll give you a lift,’ I said, before I could help myself. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Just back into town,’ he said. ‘Keats Road.’

‘I don’t know where that is. You’ll have to direct me,’ I said, walking back towards the car park.

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I’m really glad you ran into me now.’

I was trying not to hobble.

‘Are you OK? You’re limping.’

‘I’m fine,’ I said, gritting my teeth. ‘Really. I just turned my ankle a bit.’

‘Here,’ he said, offering me his arm.

‘Really, I’m fine.’

He gave me a ‘suit yourself’ shrug and shoved his hands back into his jacket pockets. I could see the car park ahead, full of cars driving around slowly waiting for someone to come out of a space so they could nip into it before someone else did.

I found my keys and opened the door, easing myself into the driver’s seat. It was chilly inside. I reached across and unlocked the other side. Other than my mother, nobody had sat in the passenger seat until now.

I started the engine and put the heaters on full blast to try and get the windscreen cleared enough for me to drive off.

‘So,’ he said, ‘did Andrew Frost tell you what happened to me yesterday?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘what happened?’

‘I had a phone call at work yesterday, just when I was about to go home. It was a woman’s voice, but she sounded odd – distant – I don’t know. Anyway, she told me there was another body, and then she gave me the address.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I checked it out.’

‘And?’

‘Then I called your lot.’

‘You found someone?’

‘Yes. Well – I got to the house, had a look through the window, and then rang the police. I’ve just spent the last three hours at the hospital trying to get information out of the mortuary team, but the person I usually speak to happens to be on holiday. So they’re understaffed in there and none of them is that keen to talk to a reporter, of course… so I’m none the wiser.’

‘What did you see? When you looked through the window?’

‘Not much. I could see what looked like a leg, sticking out from behind a chair. Actually I only realised it was a leg because it had a slipper on it. It was a funny colour. The leg was, I mean. The slipper was… dark red… with a kind of white snowflake pattern…’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘you’d make an excellent witness, anyway. I’m sure they’ll be asking you what the slipper looked like.’

Sam laughed, briefly. ‘I was trying not to look at the leg.’

The thought of it must have made the corners of my mouth turn up, just a little, because Sam said, ‘You should smile more often.’

My face dropped, then. I shouldn’t be smiling at all. What was I thinking? And what did he mean, exactly? It felt as if I was being flirted with, and the not knowing – I could never tell these things – made me uncomfortable.

He must have seen my reaction, and he fell silent. The windscreen was clearer now, so I turned on the lights and reversed out of the parking space.

‘Thank you for the lift,’ he said at last. ‘My car’s in for its MOT. I was going to get a courtesy car but that didn’t happen, and since I was supposed to be in the office all day I didn’t think it would matter. I got a taxi down here.’

I wasn’t really listening to him. We were at the traffic lights, waiting to turn on to the main road back to town.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Hm? Nothing.’

‘You seem distracted.’

‘I’m just tired. I’ve been at the hospital all night.’

‘It sounds serious.’

‘Yes, I think it is. I’m just going home to feed the cat and get a change of clothes, then I’ll be coming back.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that, Annabel. You know, you really don’t need to bother with the lift, I can always wait for the taxi…’

‘No, it’s fine. Don’t worry. It’s nice to have someone to talk to.’

‘Having contacts makes such a difference,’ he said. ‘I’ve got some really good mates now through this job, you know – it’s not all about getting the story, it’s about building relationships with people so they trust you. People are suspicious when they find out you’re a journo; if you’re nice to them they think you’re only doing it because you want to print intimate details of their lives. I don’t know what sort of newspaper they think the
Chronicle
is, for heaven’s sake…’

The town centre was busy, the lunchtime rush. A grey autumn day. The lights on the one-way system seemed to be taking forever to change.