The Exit (9 page)

Chris’s phone rang and I knew immediately that something was wrong. He hung up and grabbed his car keys. ‘I’ve got to go. Gran ran away again.’

‘Where is she?’

‘Maryhill Police Station. I’ll drop you off.’

I wasn’t in awe of Chris any more. He made me feel safe and calm. Lucky Rose, having a grandson like him. As we drove towards Glasgow, I wondered if I could be as good at caring as he was. What would be required of me? What would Mum expect? Would she cry all the time, get angry at me, angry at the tumour, angry at death? I felt sick with terror. I was about to enter a terrible time. It could last days, weeks, months. Worse than terrible. And after that . . . what, after that? I tried a technique Mum had taught me in the early secondary years, when low moods had started arriving at least once a month. ‘If something’s worrying or upsetting you, just don’t think about it. Say this to yourself: “I’m not going to think about that.”’

I tried this, in the car. It didn’t work. It was impossible and wrong not to think about this.

‘You okay there?’ Chris had heard my teeth grinding.

‘Not really.’

‘Want to talk about it?’

‘I don’t think I do.’

I stayed in the car while Chris collected his gran. Yesterday, everything around me had seemed simple and pretty: who to have drinks with, where to go on holiday, who to kiss, who liked my Facebook posts. Today: lies, illness, death. And there was Rose, her arm through Chris’s as he escorted her back to the car. She was so tiny – smaller than me even. She looked confused and angry.

‘In you go, that’s it, Gran.’ Chris buckled her in the back seat. As we drove to Dear Green, he filled me in on what had happened.

She’d hailed a taxi on the main road in front of the garage. The driver said she was very anxious, desperate to get to the station with some information that would save lives. Actually, what she said exactly was that she had information that would ‘save deaths’, but the taxi driver figured she was confused. And he was right. By the time he had delivered her to the police station, she couldn’t recall why she was there. She had the drawing in her hand. She’d looked at it and said: ‘This isn’t publishable!’ She shook her head in dismay, apparently. ‘I’ve lost it. I can’t write or draw any more. I’m a useless idiot.’

Chris knew two of the police officers. He’d been in the station speaking to them for a long time, which suited me because I didn’t feel ready to face Mum yet. I was practising what to say, how to act. I was imagining how to make her feel calm, while hiding my own panic. I was forming a list in my head, making a plan. After hugging her, holding her, telling her I loved her, I’d head home and get her favourite music, the laptop, some DVDs she’d always been too busy to watch. I’d get some strawberries – she adored strawberries. And cream. She could eat all the cream she wanted, damn it. I’d buy some nice oils and give her massages. I’d get the
Guardian
and read it to her! I’d get the
Guardian
every day, read it to her every day! Oh, and we’d watch the
Channel 4 News
together and I’d concentrate on what they were saying and we’d discuss the items afterwards. And we’d go for walks around the garden. I’d hold her hand.

Rose was very fidgety in the back seat, and took one of her shoes off en route to Dear Green. ‘This is the ugliest anklet I’ve ever seen. Who gave me this?’

She had a contraption around her ankle. It was obviously irritating her. She was trying to pull it off, and failing. ‘Get this off!’

‘Gran, I explained in there. If you wear that, I’ll always know where you are.’

‘But I don’t want you to always know where I am.’

‘Is that an electronic tag?’ Surely not, I thought.

‘It’s hush-hush, okay. I pulled in some favours. I know it’s difficult to get your head around. But how do I keep her safe? It makes sense. I can track her on my phone.’

She was yanking at it. ‘It won’t come off!’

‘No, Gran, it stays on.’

She was still yanking at it by the time we arrived.

I felt numb approaching the house. My mum was in there. And she was dying. As Chris took Rose inside, I stopped at the front door and began sobbing uncontrollably. I sat on the step and composed myself. She shouldn’t see me cry.

I needed to be strong.

Sometimes Rose didn’t like Chris. He was very bossy with her. Do this do that, put this on, take that off, sign this, don’t go out, sign that, wear this. Sometimes she wished he would go away. Like now. Bossy little boy. She wanted to take the ankle bracelet off and he wouldn’t let her. She’d have to wait till he left and cut it with scissors. His mother should have set some boundaries when he was younger. She should not have given him everything he wanted. ‘Where’s your mother?’

‘She lives in London, you remember?’

She did remember. Of course she did. What did he think – that she’d lost her mind?

‘You can’t keep running away, Gran. They can’t keep fetching you.’

Ooh, this kind of talk really peeved her. She was a grown-up woman, very grown-up. She would bloody well run away if she wanted to. She didn’t have children to care for any more. She earned her own living. She could run away any time she wanted, and it wouldn’t be running away, it would just be going somewhere. She could go somewhere now, if she chose to, even if she didn’t know why or where to.

Rose was glad when she saw the dull girl walk past her room. ‘Hey! You! Come here. Tell my grandson to go home.’

The girl seemed sad. She walked in, reluctantly. ‘Go home, Chris! You heard the woman.’

‘Right, I will then, Gran. I’ll be back tomorrow.’ He kissed her on the forehead, then kissed the dull girl on the cheek, and left.

Sometimes Rose really couldn’t stand him, you know. He reminded her of a guinea pig. Scratchy and jittery, always wanting human food: gimme, gimme.

Rose opened her bedside cabinet and retrieved a toilet bag. ‘They’ve taken my nail scissors! Jesus Christ, what’s going on here? They can’t just take my things. Have you got some scissors?’ Rose tugged at the contraption on her ankle. ‘I cannot work out the latch on this ugly thing.’ The girl was crying. ‘You’re not allowed to cry. You work here.’

The girl flicked through her drawings, nervous, worried. ‘What was your latest drawing? You were taking it to the police.’

‘Oh I don’t know. Stupid. I’m ashamed of it.’ Rose picked it up and read with a mocking tone:

‘“After intermission, blah, blah, blah.” What is that? My career is over.’

The girl looked at the page and smiled. ‘Nah, you just need to keep working on it.’

‘True indeed! Writing is rewriting. Maybe you’re not so dumb after all.’

‘You thought I was dumb?’

‘More dull than dumb, actually. I thought there was nothing to you.’ The girl was very on edge. Maybe Rose shouldn’t have said that. She always said things she shouldn’t. People didn’t need to know every little thought in her head. But being a famous writer had required spontaneous over-sharing. The books were the thoughts in her head, after all. And the newspaper, magazine and radio interviewers all asked her about the little thoughts in her head. For years, all she did was talk about herself, and the thoughts in her head. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.’

‘No, you’re right.’ She crossed her arms and scratched at her shoulder. ‘My mum’s moved in next door. I just found out she has a brain tumour.’

Like it or not, then, the girl would be forced into depth. Rose felt compelled to hug her. Right now, she reminded her of Margie, so like Margie. Was it her eyes?

‘I need to go talk to her. I kind of ran off.’

But she wasn’t going. She was sobbing again. Rose took her in her arms and held her until she calmed. ‘Sit here for a few minutes before you go in. Sit down and tell me about your mum. What’s she like?’

‘She hates men and motherhood, a feminist. I was a mistake.’

‘I love men and motherhood and I’m a feminist.’

‘Well she doesn’t love or need either. She brought me up to be the same.’

‘I can understand. I did the same for my girls to a certain extent. It was hard to get a balance. One of my daughters, Elena, doesn’t need them at all – she’s a lesbian, doesn’t hate them, mind; just doesn’t need cock.’

The girl stared.

‘What was I saying? My other daughter, Chris’s mum, hates her husband so much she often wants to murder him and I wouldn’t object if she did. She and her husband move invisible money around for a living. Makes no sense to me, but it means they’re able to buy loads of stuff. All the stuff in the world, yet they never have anything interesting to say.’

The girl laughed. She had a lovely laugh. ‘I’d better go. Mum’s next door, like I said.’

‘Okay. Hey, don’t let this take over.’

‘What?’

‘That she’s dying. Remember that she’s living.’

‘Thanks, Rose. I’ll pop in on you later.’

‘Oh, and, girl!’

‘Yeah?’

‘Can you get me some scissors?’

I stood outside Mum’s door for a few minutes because I couldn’t stop crying. My mother was dying. I said it over and over in my head.
My mother is dying my mother is dying
. When I was little I used to fantasise that I got very bad news in a public place, and my friends would feel sorry for me and I’d be kind of famous. In my fantasies, the head teacher would call me out of class, or I’d get a phone call while on the school bus. Everyone would stare at me. I liked the idea. It comforted me, sent me to sleep.
My mum is dying my mum is dying my mum is dying
. No fame, and no comfort, in this nonsensical sentence. I decided to try my mum’s advice again (‘Just don’t think about it’), as thinking about it was making me cry even harder. I took three deep breaths, knocked on the door, and went inside.

She was sleeping, or at least she had her eyes shut. I stood at the side of the bed and looked over her. How could I have not noticed? She’d been dragging her left foot around the house for weeks. She’d not been at work (working from home my arse). She’d fallen over at least once that I knew of. (‘Silly me!’ she’d say.) She’d packed the house and made enough food for me for a year. She’d been crying a lot. And there was that ‘episode’ about a month ago. I’d arrived home from the pub to find her unable to move on the bathroom floor. She told me she’d had too much to drink, and I’d believed her. (How stupid was I? Mum never got drunk to the point of paralysed.) It took me about an hour to get her into the bed. And now, even though she was sleeping, I could see that she had changed dramatically. She was drenched in sweat. Her face was puffy – she’d gained weight.

She opened her eyes. ‘Hello.’

‘Hey, Mum.’ I took her hand and kissed it.

She stared at me. ‘Catherine.’

‘Yeah.’

‘You’re mad at me.’

‘I was, not now. I’m here for you, just like you wanted. I’ve read your plan and I want you to know I’m okay with all of it. I’ll make sure things go exactly the way you want.’

Her lip quivered. ‘This isn’t the way I wanted things to go at all.’

The quiver didn’t turn into a cry. She was holding it in. I put my head on her chest. ‘Me either.’

I’d always preferred Mum when she was sick. She stayed still. Once, feverish with a chest infection, she even watched a whole movie without budging. I kept my head on her chest, and could feel as she relaxed into sleep. I did the same, later waking to her voice.

‘Where did all this furniture come from?’

‘Hi there. What furniture?’

She tried to sit up, but couldn’t. I grabbed her arms and hauled her upright. It took all my strength. How could she have deteriorated so fast? Had she given in to it by moving here?

‘It’s weird, being here again.’

‘Have you been in this room before?’

As well as the puffy face, her eyes were glassy and her mouth didn’t seem capable of smiling or frowning. She stared in a blank, confused way. ‘I need to go to the toilet.’

And thus began a routine so consumed by the frantic needs of a failing body and mind that there was no time, and no need, for crying.

When I introduced Mum and Rose the day after Mum moved in, I assumed they’d get along, even form some kind of self-help alliance for strong independent women with rotting brains. And they did, the first time they met.

‘No one listens to me any more,’ Rose’s hand was shaking. ‘They took my only friend away, you know. Her name’s Natalie and she has the most beautiful family, four boys. She tries to come and they stop her. Are you listening?’

Mum had made a career out of listening to the disenfranchised. ‘Yes, of course I am.’

When Rose left the room, Mum made me promise that I wouldn’t dismiss everything Rose said. ‘Listen to people without voices, won’t you, Catherine, from now on?’

I promised.

The following day, Rose popped in again while I was giving Mum her lunch. She’d shut the door and asked if she could use Mum’s phone. ‘Natalie? It’s Rose, you have to help me. Oh, damn answering machine!’ She hung up and called the police. ‘This is Rose Price,’ she’d said. ‘I am phoning from Dear Green Care Home in Clydebank. Please take note of what I’m saying. People are dying here, and not the way you think. What I mean is . . . I’m trying to explain! If you’d just let me explain . . . There’s evil here! I’ve asked and asked for you to investigate this place. Have you looked into the people here? I told you, my name is Rose Price. Yes, I know I’ve been in touch before. You stupid cunt, I’m telling you to do something!’

I wasn’t sure what to do, so I pressed Mum’s buzzer. Nurse Gabriella came in, snatched the phone from a now-hysterical Rose, assured the police that no one was in danger at all, that Rose was confused and that, yes, they would make sure she didn’t waste police time again.

‘Poor thing,’ Mum said when Nurse Gabriella and Marcus had carried her – kicking and screaming – back to her room.

Marcus came back in a while later. ‘We’ve locked Rose’s door from the outside. No other way, I’m afraid, but we do hear her if she needs us. You won’t be having any unexpected visits from now on.’

‘Can you check on her every hour?’ Mum asked me after he’d left. ‘So sad.’

The week before Mum moved in, the doctor had upped her dosage of steroids. That’s why her mobility had gone downhill so rapidly, and why her appetite and weight had increased. It also caused the sweating. I found myself changing Mum’s T-shirt every hour, and helping her walk as far as seemed manageable, which wasn’t very far. (Enter Zimmer frame and step-by-step instructions: That’s it, that’s it, one hand on one handle, one on the other, now push yourself up! Yay, well done! Now right foot first, just one step, back straight, look ahead, good!)

It was the toilet thing that I found the hardest. I’d seen her pee, but never the other. And it took a while to get my head around it. At first, I’d stand at the bathroom door and peek at parts that were dressed, telling myself I could dash in if she looked like falling. But soon I discovered that I couldn’t dash in fast enough. She fell moving from loo to sink, trousers still at her ankles. Getting her up again was much more difficult than I imagined. We were knotted there on the floor together for ages before I thought through how to go about it (try and get into a kneeling position, hand on toilet seat, and up). After that, I had to go in there with her, pulling her pants down, getting her into position and watching while she did the business and while she wiped.

I never knew my mum used so much toilet paper, and that she folded it, very neatly. I was happier not knowing.

It had been five days since Mum moved in, and I hadn’t left Dear Green at all. Mum was asleep. Nurse Gabriella had gone home, and Harriet was in the television room. If this was where my mum was to spend her last days, I wanted to know everything I could about it, and this was the first chance I’d had to take a closer look. I closed the office door and checked through the filing cabinets, curious about the people here, especially Nurse Gabriella and her fountain pen.

Her file included a copy of her nursing qualification, her Disclosure Scotland certificate, her bank details, and her CV. She was fifty-six, divorced and had no criminal convictions. On the personal statement in her CV, she’d written that her son’s death had changed her life and inspired her to work with the dying. Someone had written in red pen beside this statement – ‘Article in
Herald
, Dignitas.’

I googled ‘Gabriella Nelson’ and ‘Dignitas’ and ‘Herald’ and clicked on the article.

The grief-stricken mother in this article didn’t feel like the curt woman with the nurse’s badge. So very sad. But also strange and creepy that she came to work here afterwards.

The other staff and resident files were less intriguing.

Tubby, ugly care assistant Harriet had never married, and spent her life cleaning people’s houses before starting here ten years ago.

The part-time care assistant, Molly, was twenty-eight, and in a long-term relationship with the father of her two children, both under ten.

Catatonic Nancy and her husband Gavin had been married forty-one years. They had three children and seven grandchildren. She’d been a receptionist, he an accountant. Her advanced care planning statement was in her file, and read just like Marcus said. ‘Sex is very important to me and Gavin. No one and nothing can take that away from us.’

I was about to read Jimmy’s file (his surname was Thornton) when I heard banging. It was Rose, trying to get out of her room again. ‘Help me! I’m being held prisoner!’ she was yelling. The noise had woken Harriet, who gave her a tranquilliser and settled her back into bed. It had also woken Mum, who had tried to get up to help Rose, and was now lying face down on the floor.

Every hour since she arrived, Mum’s situation changed, and I had very little time to think about anything else. I’d find a routine that worked for whatever basic function we were trying to achieve, and then bang, something went wrong and I had to work out a whole new one.

In five days, she went from being able to walk to the dining room to not being able; from being able to wipe her own bottom to not being able; from being able to get out of the bed on her own to falling on the floor with a thud; from being able to get up off the floor to not. So I’d update my system, chuck out the piece of equipment we’d been using, and find another one to suit the short-lived stage we now found ourselves in. I kept busy, working out equipment, making her comfortable, talking happy talk, avoiding conversations that might remind her of where she was and why she was there.

Other activities punctuated the days. A harpist came and played one evening. A tear machine, that instrument. The guy, Pete, spent his weekends playing his music for the dying. I left the room, walked to my regular spot on the river, and sobbed.

There were visits from massage therapists, physiotherapists, oncologists, occupational therapists and aromatherapists. I escaped upstairs to Marcus’s for a nap when someone else was with Mum, but I never managed more than a couple of hours at a time. I needed sleep but I didn’t want it. As soon as I lost sight of her, I panicked, felt lost and terrified. Being with her and helping her was the only way to keep my head.

Aggressive was the right word for this tumour. Sometimes I’d look at her head, imagining the killer within it, wishing I could suck it out through her ears, massage it out with my hands, will it out with my tumour-free mind. Other times I’d look at her head and refuse to believe there was anything unusual going on inside it.

I was helping Mum back into bed when the doctor arrived. Mum had decided she was tired of the sweating and the immobility and the mouth ulcers caused by the steroids. ‘I’d prefer the swelling to this,’ she told the doctor, who was around forty, I’d say; a cougar. ‘No more medication, just pain relief if and when.’

‘So no more steroids?’ The doctor’s expression said it all. (
Do you know what this will do? Are you sure?
)

Mum’s face answered the questions. The answer to both was yes. She nodded. ‘No more steroids.’

I wonder why I didn’t realise the significance of it. The loss of mobility had seemed so awful, I couldn’t imagine anything would be worse. I suppose she believed the same. I wish I’d known that morning, that this was the last day I would be able to talk to her, really talk. I should have let her cry, let her see me cry. I should not have prioritised my fears above hers, and stifled the only opportunity I’d ever have to tell her how much I admired and loved her. I should have let her be afraid. I should have lay beside her and wept with her for hours and hours before the swelling came and took her from me. I should have made her stay on the steroids.

After the doctor left, a girl called Zoe came to massage Mum’s feet (although Mum couldn’t feel it. Her feet had died already. Death was taking over from the bottom up.) I went upstairs to make an attempt at sleep and Marcus offered me a joint. Ah, just what the care assistant ordered. Perhaps drugs would quell the terror and the sadness. I smoked half of it, head out of the drawing-room window, and slept for three hours.

Since Mum’s arrival, I’d avoided everyone except Rose. As I walked back to Mum’s room, I popped in on Jimmy.

‘I have a present for you.’ He was sitting in bed, guitar in hand. I passed him the unsmoked half of the joint.

‘Oh my! I knew I loved you from the moment I saw you. Now, it’s an obsessive love!’

‘Have it outside, yeah? You want me to take you?’

‘No, I’m fine. I’ll nip out myself when everyone’s busy with the new boy.’

‘New boy?’

‘Not new exactly. He was here a month, then went home for a few days. He’s going fast; family had hoped he’d go at home, but they couldn’t cope. That’s him arriving.’

I guessed it was his parents wheeling him down the hall. They looked exhausted and devastated, but were trying to maintain some normalcy by chatting about practicalities. ‘We’ll set up the laptop on the lunch tray,’ his mother said. ‘You can keep Skype on all the time,’ his father said. ‘I’ll point our camera at the kitchen so you can see what we’re up to.’ The boy, just twenty-one, wore a black Billabong beanie, his thin legs covered with a blanket.

‘That’s a great idea.’ His voice wasn’t a flat, dying voice. He really did think that was a great idea.

It struck me that the dying cared for the carers almost as much as the other way round. Mum was always telling me to rest, saying thanks, keeping her voice as animated as possible, being grateful, never talking about the truth of what was going on, the horror of her loss of self and of what was to come. She was always agreeing that whatever small alteration I had made in the room, or to her clothing, was excellent, perfect, just right. Aren’t you clever! That’s a great idea!