The Exit (4 page)

My mum gave me my first ‘Sunday List’ when I was five.

‘These are the things I’d like you to try and do this week,’ she said, handing it to me. I was starting at Hillhead Primary the following day – teaching me to read and write before I went to school must have been on one of the lists she made for herself.

I got one of these lists every Sunday till I left school. If I did three of the five things on it, I received a very disappointing reward, like an extra half an hour of television the following Sunday.

When I got home from my first shift at Dear Green, there was a skip in the front yard, half filled already. I spotted an open box of old computer cables, faded curtains from the dining room, a broken mirror, the cabinet from the bathroom, some childhood toys, and about a dozen black bin bags. Inside the hall were some boxes labelled Oxfam. Mum was sitting at her desk in the study, writing. A list, in all probability.

I poked my head in. ‘You work from home today?’

She covered what she was writing with her hand, and slid some envelopes under her elbow.

‘Just this headache. How was your job?’

The boxes and the rubbish and the envelopes were all indicative of Manic Mum. Don’t get me wrong, she was always manic – not in a diagnosable way – but busy, busier than anyone I’ve ever known. She never lay on the sofa. Never read a book unless she felt certain she’d learn something from it. Never watched television, apart from the
Channel 4 News
while she was cooking. She had mountains of energy and used it all efficiently. For sixty hours a week, she helped run one of the biggest charities in the UK. For forty-two, she slept soundly. For the other sixty-six, she made lists for herself and for me, and ensured that at least three-fifths of the tasks on them were completed satisfactorily. But by the look of things, today she was the kind of Manic Mum that only happened about once a year. She’d slowed a bit for the last two months and I was excited that perhaps middle age was calming her down. Or making her depressed, which was easier to be around than manic. But she didn’t look relaxed or depressed now. She was at her desk, with that look in her eye that said: I’ve done everything I aimed to do today, Catherine, have you?

I was going to have sell the idea of never going back to Dear Green. ‘I scraped my arm pulling a mad old lady off the road. She ran off so fast, you should have seen her go! It’s not safe for me there. Look.’

Mum didn’t respond to the bloody scrapes on my arm as I expected. (That’s a shame, but if you start something, you must finish it.) Instead: ‘How ’bout we open some red? Come, tell me about it.’

This was odd. We didn’t have a ‘glass-of-wine’ kind of relationship. We’d never been drunk together, had a joint together, danced in the kitchen together. I never initiated a cuddle and when a sense of duty compelled her to, it was bony and man-like. She never told me she loved me and I never told her, not because we didn’t, but because our respective roles – she the driven mother, I the rudderless daughter – did not require mush, or chats over a glass of wine.

She poured mine and sat on the sofa.

‘So . . . Dear Green Care Home. I hear it’s a beautiful old building. Tell me about it.’

I relayed the events of the day, my phone zzzing with texts and Facebook messages that I wanted to read and usually would, but somehow felt I couldn’t.

‘And it’s clean, and comfortable?’

I wish I’d lied and told her it was crawling with rats. I nodded.

‘The staff – they’re friendly?’

‘I s’pose.’

She took a last sip, sighed, and attempted to stand, her left foot pointing inwards, a dead weight.

‘You okay, Mum?’

‘Yeah, yeah. Pins and needles, my foot went to sleep.’

She kissed my cheek and I blushed, like I did the first time a boy kissed me.

She settled back into the sofa and fiddled with the sapphire ring on her finger. Gran’s engagement ring, it was. Mum hadn’t taken it off since she died.

‘Look, my finger’s too fat for this now.’ She pulled the ring off and smiled at it. ‘Does it fit you?’ She slid it on my reluctant finger as if we’d just said our vows. I didn’t have the heart to tell her the ring was for fuddy duddies. ‘Your gran was a conventional old bag,’ she said, ‘but God I loved her. I always thought she could have done so much more with her life, but she cherished Dad till he died; and us till she did. Now, I don’t think you could hope to achieve more than that in a lifetime.’

I smiled at the ring just as she had. Actually, it looked beautiful on my finger.

‘Cherish it, Cath. And defrost two lasagne, will you?’

A few days ago, Mum began cooking frantically, packing portions or home-made food into labelled Tupperware containers. The preparation of our weekly menu was always on her Sunday list (a list which always had more than five items, sometimes as many as fifty). But she’d been OCD for a bit, filling our regular freezer, and another that she’d bought and put in the hall cupboard. She had to do extra, she explained, because we were so busy now.

After planning my night on Facebook (drinks at Studio at eight with pals Gina and Co.), it was time for me to complete a duty from one of my eight-year-old lists.

At 6.30 every night, set the dinner table with tablecloth, napkins, cutlery and condiments which are appropriate to the meal listed on the weekly menu on the fridge. (This, Catherine, is something I would like you to do from now on.)

The conversation at dinner was always the same. Mum would ask me if I had any news. I’d say no. She’d say I must have and I’d say nah, not really, and she’d tell me hers, which was always about some famine or a political tyrant, and I’d always feel glad I hadn’t told her about the fab new foundation I got on sale at Boots. Tonight she didn’t start with the interrogation, just picked at her food in silence and didn’t seem to notice when I left.

Marcus Baird called before I made it to Studio. ‘Just wondering if you could come in tonight? We need cover from nine till two. Harriet can’t make it in till two and Molly’s sick. It’ll be time and a half.’

I pondered the maths. If I worked there for a month, doing as much overtime as possible, I’d have enough for a ticket to Ibiza. I could get work in a bar there and spend all my spare time dancing on the beach. I could not be here. ‘I’ll be there in two hours.’

I arrived three vodka and Red Bulls later, mint in mouth to cover the smell. Marcus had his evening wear on – jeans, purple designer T-shirt and that leather biker’s jacket he was always zipping and unzipping. He was ever so grateful. Nurse Gabriella was doing a double shift again. She’d show me the ropes, he said, and then he headed out to a gig at the Barrowlands.

Nurse Gabriella was like one of those women you see in a bank or in a baker’s shop, the kind who is either unhappily single or married to a drunken violent brute, her only relief to torment underlings at work. She wanted to make me feel small. ‘So, you’ve never worked as a carer? Hmm.’ She wanted to make my life miserable. ‘You can scrub the kitchen units. Then tidy the office.’ She wanted to assert her power whenever possible. ‘You’re saying you already cleaned that? Clean it properly.’

Being used to finishing things on lists, I completed all the tasks diligently, but slowly, so she wouldn’t give me any more jobs. It was midnight by the time I finished. I couldn’t find her anywhere, so I closed the door to the office, hoping for some peace. There was nowhere comfortable to sit. Deliberate, I suppose, to stop staff falling asleep. I checked myself in both mirrors. (I needed to pluck my eyebrows and could maybe consider some leg toning exercises one day. Nah, they were fine. Were they? I lifted my trousers to knee-level and stood on my tippy toes – yeah, calf muscles were still there at least, thanks to my three-inch wedges probs, no need for drastic action.) Satisfied with myself, I sat at one of the two office chairs and started looking through the logbooks.

Note to self: If suffering from insomnia, read Dear Green logbooks.

They were in bullet-point form, mainly: medication changes, maintenance problems, messages from visitors, shift changes.

Nothing interesting in the current one, or the one before it.

I don’t know why I kept looking, but I found myself going back through the months. Eighteen months ago, and earlier, the entries were far more entertaining. In between the usual shift changes and medical emergencies were entries about the people who’d died here.

And the one before that:

Jpeg? Why would anyone take a photo? Maybe the relatives wanted one, or the funeral director required one, or perhaps it was just an innocent shot of something else altogether?

All the dull entries were signed – Harriet Gavern, Molly Wallace, etc. But under these weird death entries there was no signature. And the entries were all printed, with a fountain pen, judging by the frequent splotches. I skimmed through the entries before that. For over twelve months, every time someone died, the moment was meticulously recorded by an anonymous weirdo until eighteen months ago when Carmel Tate died (at 5.12 a.m. She’d wanted to die in her sleep, and she did.) No jpeg under her entry, just a weird code or something – zKgy48r9fP2_9b.

‘What are you doing?’

Shite, Head Bitch had caught me.

‘Nothing.’

‘Well, we don’t pay you to do nothing. Rose needs a change. Stay with her the rest of the shift. Do not spend any more time in here.’

A change. Holy mother, please make it a change of scene or a change of heart or change of playlist.

It wasn’t what I feared – an oldie-nappy filled with number two. It was a complete change, top to toe. Rose had taken a shower, fully clothed.

She was ten again, thankfully, because ten-year-old Rose didn’t want someone to take her pants off for her. ‘I’ll do it, Margie, you sit by the window. The fresh air might help!’ As she took off her wet zebra onesie, she whispered frantically. ‘I was swimming across the river, it’s quicker that way. But then I don’t know what happened!’

She managed to get into another onesie, a bunny rabbit this time. (Where’d this old dude get all her funky gear from?) She fell asleep a few minutes after hitting the pillow, and I was soon to follow.

When I woke, Rose had her hand over my mouth.

‘Shh! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m not going to hurt you. Just . . . listen.’

I was in the armchair by Rose’s desk. The bedroom door was shut. Her art materials were strewn across the desk – she’d been drawing. What was the best response? Kick her? Scream? It was dark outside, but I saw headlights approaching. A car was coming up the drive. I gently prised two bony fingers apart and drew a breath, having decided not to provoke her.

‘I know you think I’m crazy. Fine, that’s fine. I am confused, most of the time. But not when I draw. The truth is in my drawings.’

She still had her hand over my mouth, so all I could do was nod. She sighed. My nod was not convincing.

‘Do something for me. I’ll give you this.’ She had an open envelope in her other hand, with a roll of twenty-pound notes inside. ‘Can I take my hand away? You won’t yell?’

Another nod.

‘You’re no use, but Natalie will be. She knows me, and she’s cluey, she’ll see.’

There was a drawing in a plastic folder on her lap. ‘Her address is on the envelope. Tell her what I said, about my drawings. What did I say about my drawings?’

‘That the truth is in them.’

‘Yes. Good. Tell her that. There’s five hundred pounds. I see from the rota you’re on late shift tomorrow. I’ll give you the same again at two, as long as you’ve done what I asked. It’s very important. You’ll do it? Good. Tell her to study the page very carefully.’ Rose looked out at the driveway. The car lights had gone out. The engine stopped. ‘Go home now, Catherine. It’s nearly two. It’s not safe here.’

It sure wasn’t. An elderly ferret had tried to suffocate me and was now scaring the bejesus out of me.

‘And remember this, listen carefully: whatever you do, don’t go in Room 7.’

There was £500 in the envelope. £500! And I’d get the same again tomorrow. I said goodbye to Harriet, who’d taken over from Nurse Gabriella for the night. She was short and chubby, Harriet, with grey-white shoulder length hair that had mostly fallen out. At least sixty, I reckoned, jolly and kind, but with the most unfortunate facial features I’d ever seen. Tiny colourless piggy eyes, no eyelashes or eyebrows, a red lumpy, perhaps even cancerous, nose, and thin lips that couldn’t close to cover her yellow teeth. Also, she smelt of cheese. I got a whiff as she saw me to the door with a ‘Safe home and God bless’.