The Exit (8 page)

An hour later I was by the river, screaming. I had run there shortly after saying ‘Hey!’ to Jimmy in Room 3. I had run as fast as I could, stopped when I reached the rocky bank, and screamed. I was never going to stop screaming. It felt too good to stop. I wish I’d done it aged five, when Mum made me make my own lunch before my first day at school; at twelve, when she made me go to the supermarket to buy tampons; at fifteen, when she dropped me at the sex clinic to so I could go on the pill, despite my assertions that I always used condoms and did not want to go in there alone and sit in a line with the prostitutes and drug users from Govanhill. I should have spent my life screaming at her. I was making up for it now.

I was so excited when I got to work – the ticket to Costa Rica in my wallet representing my new life – on planes, in jungles, on beaches, in cafés. I’d sorted out how to tell Mum and felt confident about it. I was so excited that I forgot Marcus had wanted to see me upstairs first.

I skipped in the front door, poked my head in to say hi to Rose, who was drawing at her table. She was in the present day, but looked worried, writing frantically. ‘Are you okay, Rose?’

She put her pen down and her face transformed. I can’t tell you how amazing these transformations were. Her face and body language became ten. Her eyes opened more widely, inquisitive, eager, optimistic. She held her back straighter. She fidgeted, jiggled a foot, bit at a fingernail. More than that, though. Her skin changed colour, from greyish-yellow to rosy pink.

She stood up easily, something she didn’t do when she was old Rose, and ran over to me, grabbed my arms, kissed the top of my head. ‘Margie, listen. I promise I’ll be back. In an hour. I promise. I promise. I’ll light a fire.’

She grabbed some drawing paper from the desk, ripped at it, scrunching pages into balls, then placed them on the floor at the foot of her bed. She put her pencils and brushes on top, teepee style. ‘Matches! Wait, I’ll run and get matches. Don’t move.’

Holy shite, she was even crying like a kid, too. Not holding back, going for it. ‘I won’t let you die alone. I swear on Dad’s life, I won’t let you die! I’m just going to get matches.’

A couple of days ago, I’d have run off and hidden from this irksome display. I guess I’d changed a bit already. I smiled, and put my arms around her. ‘I’ve got matches. I’ve got them. I know you won’t leave me, Rose, I know. I know, it’s all right.’

I put her in bed, touched her cheek. ‘Everything’s okay. I’m okay. I know you won’t leave me. It’s all okay.’

As I watched her relax and slowly close her eyes, I didn’t see an old person who jumped the line to get on buses, paid for groceries slowly, took up space. I saw Rose Price.

She fell asleep.

Then I remembered. Marcus. Oops! I walked along the hall towards the back door, still happy, still excited. I waltzed past Room 4, and I’m sure I waved to Jimmy in the room opposite. He was strumming his guitar. I’m sure I said ‘Hey there, Jimmy!’ I’m sure as I was saying ‘Hey there, Jimmy’ I decided that I had just imagined seeing something in Room 4. A flash, a vision, from deep within my psyche, perhaps dug out because of the ticket I’d just bought, the escape I’d just planned. I don’t know why I walked back to check if this was the case but I did so without any worry or concern, just a quick check. I walked back to Room 4. The door was half open. I opened it fully, expecting to shake my head with a ‘silly me’. Alas, the image hadn’t come from an imagination fuelled by guilt. My mother was in the room, sitting in the armchair by the window.

‘Mum?’

‘Catherine.’ She’d said my name in an unusual way, as if ‘Catherine’ meant ‘Help’.

‘Did they say you could sit in here? What do you want?’

‘Sit down, sit.’

‘I’m working, Mum. You could have phoned me. Get up! I’ll get in trouble.’

‘Catherine, come and sit beside me.’ She had a piece of paper in her hand and I could see the numbers on the left. She was wanting a meeting, with an agenda.

‘Mother, I have no time for this now. I’m working. Whatever it is, let’s talk about it when I get home. For God’s sake, Gabriella’s coming. She’ll sack me.’

Gabriella had arrived at the door beside me. She gave my mother a kind smile, then touched my arm. ‘You were supposed to go up and see Marcus before you started today.’ Her voice was out-of-character gentle. I flicked her hand off my arm.

My mother bit her lip. ‘I have to tell you something.’

‘Well hurry, I have work to do. So do you. You should be at work.’

‘Honey, nine weeks ago I was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumour.’

I went like Nancy for a few minutes. Frozen. Maybe underneath Nancy’s blank exterior, her brain raced like mine did in that moment. Three words from the sentence my mother had just spoken beat at my head. Diagnosed. Aggressive. Tumour. No, I thought. That doesn’t make sense. My mother is a chairperson and a director and a righteous bossy boots who makes lists and saves lives and was okay last night, she was okay.

‘Say that again.’

‘Nine weeks ago I was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumour.’

I repeated the sentence to myself. Brain tumours are deadly. Aggressive ones are deadlier. I noticed Mum’s suitcase at the foot of the bed, a few of her clothes already on hangers in the open wardrobe, a photo of me on the bedside table.

‘Baby, sit down. Come, sit beside me. I knew you’d want to look after me, but it’s much better doing it here. This place has an excellent reputation. I looked into it thoroughly, and it’s easy for you to get to. This is my home now.’

But I was supposed to move out of home first. But if this was her home, where was mine? But . . .

And then I ran to the river.

Rose had been staring at her latest drawing for thirty minutes. Once again, she’d drawn Room 7. She’d drawn a camera in the corner. She was drifting, and she could tell, and she had to stop it. This had made sense to her, she was sure of it. Room 7. Camera. In the picture she’d just drawn, four figures were standing around the bed, obscuring the view of the person lying down. Only their backs were visible. She chanted in her head –
Stay Rose stay Rose stay Rose stay
. She read the caption beneath.

It was nonsense. It meant nothing. And if it was just a normal book, it was the worst she’d ever done. She berated herself. The thing she loved about being a writer was never having to retire. She knew writers who were still at it at ninety-five. She should be able to produce better work than this.

Unless this wasn’t a book, unless she’d drawn these pictures for other reasons. Had she? Is that what this was?

Stay Rose stay Rose stay Rose stay
.

She was not staying. She was going fast. She had to hurry. She put on the new Fly boots Chris had brought in for her and walked to the back of the house. No one noticed her going. They were all gathered in Room 4. Someone new had moved in, lucky thing, moving in to death. She opened the back door, went outside, and tried to open the window to Room 7. Painted shut, or locked, and the blinds were down. She gazed through a crack in the venetian. The room was bare. No camera. No people. Just a trolley bed, a bedside cabinet, a picture, wall rails, alarms, the usual. Perhaps if she got inside it she would find something that helped her understand her drawings.

Rose found a large stone, and tossed it through the window.

Things were swirly when she woke.

‘How you feeling, Rose?’ Marcus Baird, that’s what the name tag said. Must be Marcus Baird standing over her now.

‘What did you give me?’

‘Just something to calm you down. You feeling calm?’

‘I feel pissed is what I feel. Pissed off, that is.’ She tried to sit up. ‘What drug did you give me? Where’s Natalie? Get Natalie!’

‘Natalie left her job, remember? The doctor took a look at you and prescribed something to make you feel nice and happy.’

‘Well it’s not working.’

‘Nice and happy, Rose.’ Marcus Baird nodded to the nurse with the bright red lipstick. This place, these people, that’s right!

The Queen, bright red lips.

Rose must have said or done something to make Marcus hold her down. She must have lashed out in some way perhaps, because he placed his hands on hers, while Nurse Gabriella prised her mouth open and put something in it. ‘Drink it down, Rose, that’s it, take a sip now, nice and calm.’

I was all out of screams by the time Marcus found me. He sat on the rocks beside me and stared where I was staring, at the field across the river. Several cows were in it. They looked relaxed. Stupid cows. They weren’t for milking, they were for eating. That field was their hospice.

‘So are you even paying my wage?’

He let out a short breath. ‘No.’

I couldn’t take my eyes off the cows. ‘Isn’t it against the rules, a relative of a patient working here?’

‘No.’

‘McDonald’s has more rules than this place.’

‘Your mum booked in nine weeks ago. She didn’t want you to make the decision. Even big families find it an impossible thing to do, and you’re on your own.’

‘Why did she choose here?’

‘Because it has an excellent reputation, and it’s close to home.’ Marcus had a file with him. ‘Let me read you an email.’ He opened the file and read from a piece of paper.

‘Dear Mr Baird,

‘Yesterday, Mr Hilary at Beatson Oncolocgy Centre diagnosed me with a brain tumour. As per notes attached, the type and position of the tumour make surgery impossible and treatment purely palliative. While radiotherapy may prolong the process for a few weeks, I have decided against it.

‘I am a single mother. My daughter, Catherine, is twenty-three. She has no other family. I am writing for two reasons.

‘One—’

I snorted. Even this email included a list.

‘One,’ Marcus continued. ‘Dear Green comes highly recommended and if I am comfortable after having a thorough inspection of your resource, I would like to spend my final days there. If there is a place available, can you please email me immediately so I can visit as soon as possible? I would like to move in before my decreased mental capacities and mobility are obvious to Catherine.

‘Two. I noticed online that you are looking for a care assistant. This may seem unusual, but my daughter is looking for a job and if you are happy with her CV and interview, I would like you to consider offering her a position. She doesn’t realise this about herself, but she is very kind. She has always looked after me and I know she’ll be an asset. I believe caring for me would be a much easier thing for her to do in a residential setting with the support of trained staff. I would, of course, cover the costs of her employment.’

‘You should have told me.’

Marcus bit his lip. ‘Should I? I was torn, believe me. But I could understand where she was coming from. You wouldn’t believe how hard it is for families to make the hospice decision. You would have battled along to the point of collapse. You’d have wasted the time you have with her. You’d have been no good to anyone. This way is easier; I agree with her. Your mother’s amazing, Catherine.’

The desire to cry gave way to anger again. ‘She’s a control freak.’

‘Here, read through her file. Maybe it’ll help.’

Marcus put his hand on mine. ‘I have to get back. Rose just tossed a rock through a window.’

‘A rock?’

‘Yeah, Room 7.’

‘Is she okay?’

‘She’s sedated, sleeping now.’

He smiled sadly and left.

I don’t know how long I’d been walking before I found the tree on the river-bend that Rose always ran away to. I sat with my back against it, like wee Margie, and the tears came. Eventually, I opened the file Marcus gave me. There were emails. Yes, she could visit. Yes, she was impressed. Yes, there was a place. Yes, she wanted it. Yes, she had filled in all the forms, paid all the money. Yes, the interview went well, the job mine. Yes, they wouldn’t tell me, or press me too hard. Yes, yes, yes.

There was a document titled ‘Advanced Care Planning’. It was signed at the bottom by someone called Adrienne Malloy and also by my mother. She had given medical and financial power of attorney to me. For most of the other questions on the form, Adrienne Malloy had written: ‘See patient statement attached.’

This is what my mother wrote:

There were several envelopes – Mortgage (recently paid off). House (now in my name). Car (paid off, in my name). Savings (£32k, transferred to a new account in my name). Household Bills (direct debits set up to my new account). Will and lawyer’s details (everything to me). Coffin (paid for, to be collected from a man called Eddie, who’d been very helpful indeed). Funeral Director (contact details). And there was the name and address of my father’s parents (in case Catherine ever decides she wants to meet them).

I remember asking Mum about my birth once. Think I was around nineteen. Truth be told, contraceptive failures had occurred and I thought I was pregnant at the time and while I’d decided not to keep it if I was, my head was buzzing with millions of questions.

I should have known she wouldn’t be one of those women who lie about it. It was lovely! It was over in a day! As soon as you came out, I forgot the pain! Instead: ‘It was the most excruciating experience of my life. Like someone stabbing you in the stomach with a very sharp knife and twisting it for a minute, then doing it again two minutes later. For twenty-six hours. Can you imagine? I had a birth plan. I’d been to all the classes on offer and decided I wanted a water birth and no pain relief. So I sat in the bath for twenty-six hours, screaming. I think I was waiting for them to take control and inject me with something, I’d lost the thinking power to ask for drugs, and they never offered. Turned out it was because of that bloody birth plan.’

I can just imagine how detailed it was. A list of exactly how she wanted it to go, just like this. But then, like now, she hadn’t factored in that time can change you, circumstances can change you, pain and fear can change you.

Whenever I think of myself in a past event – I dunno, snogging some guy at a bar, cramming for Higher Maths at the last minute, breaking my arm falling off the climbing frame in Maxwell Park – I see someone else entirely. That person wasn’t me. I don’t even recognise her. This idea has comforted me through the years, because I know that whatever’s in store for me (like childbirth, for example) will be dealt with by another-me altogether. So how can present-me know what’s best for future-me?

Mum hadn’t factored me into her birth plan. I did not want to come out. It took an emergency Caesarean section in the end, so she wound up having twenty-six hours of excruciating pain in a revolting plastic tepid bath, followed by the highest level of pain relief and medical intervention that is possible.

You think she’d have learned by now that some things are not within your control. Some things can’t be planned. That the person she is now is not necessarily the person she will be tomorrow.

After talking to Mum about childbirth I decided to keep the baby if I was pregnant.

I started my period the following morning.

I s’pose a daughter shouldn’t run away from her mother at a time like this, shouldn’t scream with rage by a river, shouldn’t want to go as far away as possible and never face her again. But most daughters wouldn’t be lied to. She should have let me see her symptoms, not hidden them behind fake menopause, fake pins and needles. She should have taken me along with her to the doctor. I would have argued with him or her, insisted on second and third opinions, Googled and phoned and emailed and written and fought. I would have forced the radiotherapy on her, researched homeopathic solutions and foods and I dunno what else, but I’d have tried. And she didn’t trust me, didn’t even let me. Now it was too late and she was going to die and that was going to ruin my life. My life. That was what I was thinking about. Mine, not hers. I was shaking. I was thinking of ways to make this go away. I could run. I was a fast runner in emergencies – when getting the last bus back from town, for example. Perhaps if I ran, this would pour out of my armpits and pound into the ground. That’s what I’d do, run. I took off across the field and lasted about a minute. No sweat, no pounding, just the realisation that fear was driving me away more than anger, and that I should stop. I lay on the grass. Two cows were within feet of me, and I wasn’t scared of them, just her, of seeing her and talking to her. She was no longer the person I’d always known. The person who was in control, annoying, bossy, not dying. Now, she was someone entirely different.

But I couldn’t face her yet. I didn’t want to go inside that death building. I didn’t want to go home. I needed to talk to someone. Rebecca was online on Facebook chat, so I sat up on my muddy mound and messaged:

My friendships and my crises had all been played out and managed on Facebook. I didn’t think for a moment before typing:

The reply:

Perhaps Facebook was the wrong forum for this. I dialled Gina’s mobile. ‘Can you talk?’

‘Aye. Just – Will, turn that off! TURN IT OFF! Sorry, can’t hear. Turn it off, you wanker!’

In the background: ‘Just go to the other room!’

‘Why should I?’

A scuffle, a door shutting. ‘That arsehole. You know he fraped me last night – said I love . . .’

‘Gina, I just found out my mum’s got a brain tumour.’

Silence for a moment. ‘Oh my God, no.’

‘I know, I can’t believe it.’

‘God, I’m in shock . . .’ A long pause. Gina was not good at this. I didn’t fill it. ‘Will she lose her hair?’

I hung up, dialled a taxi, walked to the main road, and went to Paul’s house.

Of course he wasn’t in. ‘He’s at the library till five today,’ his grandfather said. ‘You want to play cards till he’s back?’

Halfway back to Dear Green, I changed my mind and asked the driver to take me to Gartmore.

‘Mum’s dying.’ I blurted it out to an almost complete stranger, just like that. Unlike a stranger, Chris hugged me, helped me inside.

‘She moved in next to Rose today and I didn’t even know she was sick. That’s why she made me get the job. She should have told me.’ I couldn’t get any more words out, just tears. Inside, all I could think was:
She’s going to die. My mum’s going to die
.

A few tissues later, I calmed down a bit. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come here like this. I don’t know you at all.’

He filled the kettle. ‘Don’t be daft. People who haven’t been through it don’t understand, they say all the wrong things. My best friend in the world, you know what he said when Gran went in? When I’d phoned him, crying?’

I shook my head.

‘“Well, she’s had a good life.” I wanted to kill him. I’ve had a good life, but I don’t want to be in a hospice with advanced dementia, reliving a real-life nightmare over and over, only waking from it to find yourself in another one!’

‘My friends are all idiots.’

He smiled. We were friends. ‘So, you found out, then ran off?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You need to go and talk to her.’

I nodded. I would. But not while I was feeling angry. I had to calm down.

‘You don’t need to keep working there if you don’t want to.’

That hadn’t even crossed my mind. ‘Don’t know how I feel about anything. I’ve spent my life trying to rebel against her organisation of me, and it’s like that’s all I know how to do. I can’t believe she hid it from me. What kind of person hides that from her child, her only family!’

But I shouldn’t have been surprised. Mum always planned and controlled things, and the basis for every decision she made was my happiness. She did this for me.

Chris sat on the sofa, patted the seat beside him for me to sit.

‘Margie’s death changed my gran’s life. She could never let it go. I think it defined her as a person. She’d let her down. She’d left her alone. She’d broken a promise. She’d failed.’

I knew what he was trying to tell me: square things up now, before it’s too late. Don’t have any unfinished business. Say a loving goodbye, make it perfect, make it one you can live with. Do what Rose hadn’t managed to do with Margie.

‘It’s important to get this right. This time with your mum will stay with you for ever.’

When I look back over everything that happened at Dear Green, almost every day seemed like a major turning point for me. But the moment I’m most thankful for is when I realised Chris was right. There was no time for me to mature, no time to work through my resentment and my selfishness, no time for Mum and me to journey towards an understanding and acceptance of each other and of the past. If I didn’t get on with it now, make the most of her, put my anger at how she’d approached this behind me, then I’d regret it for the rest of my life. I grew up in Chris’s living room that day. I only had my mum. I loved her. And she only had me. She was going to die, and soon. She wouldn’t get the chance to annoy me by boycotting my wedding or by forcing me to compromise by organising a humanist, feminist one. I wouldn’t get to see her turn all earth-mothery as a grandmother, donning an apron, sewing buttons, baking scones, doing stuff she never did with me. No, our story had come to an end.