With all the excitement earlier this evening I am too distracted at the gym to put in any serious effort toward my goals. Thirty minutes on each of the machines, my usual routine, but my thirty laps of the pool take nearly twenty-three minutes. In the gym I manage to tune out the thoughts with the thumping beat from the loudspeakers and the hypnotic rhythm of the woman’s ass on the treadmill in front of me, but now, in the pool, all I can think about is Sam Everett and whether he has done anything with the information I’ve given him. It’s tempting, so tempting, to detour via that dingy little two-up, two-down at the wrong end of Hawthorn Crescent, but instead I finish my swim and go home.
Before I’ve even unpacked the groceries I find myself overcome with it all. My hands are shaking, pulling the newspaper out of the plastic shopping bag. I’ve never been so aroused in my life. The thrill of leaving someone behind to transform has been completely eclipsed by the thrill of letting someone in on the secret, even if it wasn’t the whole secret, even if I haven’t done the telling myself.
I want to shout it to the whole world, but then the secret would not thrill me anymore—and I would probably be locked up. They would lock me up forever for what I’ve done. Or would they? I’ve done nothing to these people, other than help them escape from the terrible drudgery of the lives they were living up to now. If anything, my input is cathartic; it’s a merciful release. They would have killed themselves sooner or later, and my method is infinitely less painful, and possibly less messy. I haven’t harmed anyone. I merely crystalized their thoughts, prompted them into action that might otherwise have been a long time coming, during which time they would have suffered and lingered and probably taken several other people down with them. And I anesthetized them, too, so that from the moment their decision was made, they felt no pain, suffered no trauma, no anguish. It was perfect.
I take the newspaper upstairs with me, take off my pants, and fold them neatly over the same hanger from which I removed them this morning. My underwear, too, into the laundry basket. I’m shivering with the anticipation of it. I open the newspaper out to the double-page spread that I wanked over in the disabled toilets at lunchtime yesterday, smooth it out on the bed.
I turn on the television and press play on the DVD remote, sparking the thing to life with a whirr and a click. The porn I watched last weekend, some American tripe with two fat whores going at each other like starving dogs. A few seconds later I turn it off. It isn’t doing it for me; it’s distracting. The newspaper, on the other hand, is doing it. Those faces—all the smiling faces, happy at weddings, the other people in the pictures, the people who were there in past times, neatly clipped away from their lives, neatly put aside—and my penis is so hard it’s painful, still bruised from the beating I gave it yesterday and last night and the night before and yet so delicious, such a relief to take hold of it again.
This time, when I come a few moments later, I am careful to use tissues, leaving the newspaper clean and undamaged for another day.
Annabel
I was in bed but not asleep when the phone started ringing.
I listened to it ringing in the stillness of the house, wondering who would be calling me at this time of night and whether it was worth getting up to find out. I had only one handset, downstairs, because the phone didn’t ring often enough to warrant getting another one in the bedroom.
After the sixth ring I got out of bed, shoved my feet into my slippers, pulled on my bathrobe and padded down the stairs. I thought it would probably stop right at the very moment that I put my hand on the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Is that Annabel? Annabel Hayer?” It was a man’s voice, elderly. A bit uncertain.
“Speaking.”
“This is Len from next door. It’s about your mom.”
For a moment I couldn’t place him. From next door? I didn’t have a Len next door. Then I realized exactly who he was—the old guy who lived next door to my mother’s house, the one who took her in the day her pipes burst. He lived with his wife. What was her name? Carol?
“Mum? What’s the matter? I only saw her a few hours ago . . .”
“She’s had a bit of a fall. The ambulance is here now; they’re taking her to St. Mary’s. It’s taken me all this time to find your number. She really should have it written down somewhere handy, honestly.”
“Is she all right?”
“I think so, love. You’d best get down to the hospital.”
“OK. Thank you.”
“I’ll lock up here. She gave me a key. You don’t need to worry about a thing.”
When I hung up a few moments later I sat in a stunned silence for a moment and then hot tears started to fall. I wasn’t even sure why I was crying. “Stop it,” I said out loud. “Stop it right now.” I rubbed my bathrobe sleeve across my cheeks and went back upstairs to get dressed.
Outside the main entrance of the hospital, a collection of people in wheelchairs and hospital gowns were openly defying the smoking ban with their abler-bodied companions. Inside, the shops were all closed, the reception desk unstaffed.
I stood there for a moment, baffled. Where did you go to find someone, when the main reception was closed? Then I realized that the majority of pedestrian traffic was back and forth down the hall to my left. A sign on the wall listed the various departments that I would find in this direction, including Accident and Emergency. Of course—that was where the ambulance would have taken her.
Despite the adrenaline, my brain didn’t seem to be functioning properly. I wasn’t used to being awake at this time of night, and after several nights of disturbed sleep I was beginning to feel light-headed and strange.
There were several people gathered around the reception desk that served A&E. I stood at what I thought was the back of the line. The woman currently being served was having an argument with the receptionist, which grew louder and more unpleasant to listen to. The argument itself made no sense, going round and round in circles and I realized she was drunk, holding on to the counter with one hand while her feet struggled to maintain balance. In the end two security guards appeared and took the woman off to one side to speak to her, and the next person in the line moved forward.
I looked around desperately, half expecting to see my mother sitting on one of the chairs in the waiting area. There was no sign of her. The place was busy, too, with plenty of people waiting. What was it like here on a Friday or a Saturday night I wondered. Must be hell on earth.
“Can I help you?” A second receptionist had come to the desk and called me forward.
“My mother’s been brought here. Iris Hayer. She had a fall.”
The receptionist tapped on her keyboard. “Hayer? How are you spelling it?”
I spelled it out for her. I could see the reflection of the screen in her glasses as she moved the mouse and clicked the screen. “And your name is?”
“Annabel Hayer.”
“And you’re her daughter?”
I said that already I thought crossly. “Yes.”
“Right, here we go. If you take a seat, someone will be with you shortly. All right?”
As I found a seat I thought of all the questions I should have asked. How is she? Can I see her? How long will I have to wait? But I’d been dismissed, and as I looked back to the desk I realized that the line was now twice as long as the one I’d joined.
I sat down next to a vending machine displaying bars of chocolate. My stomach grumbled at the sight of it, even though I would normally be fast asleep by now. I thought about getting a coffee and something to eat, but of course the minute I did that someone would emerge from one of the doors and call my name.
I checked my cell phone, as though someone else might call me in the middle of the night. I looked at the girl sitting opposite me in a hospital-issue wheelchair, one naked foot swollen and pale, the skin stretched so tight it was shiny. Farther down the row of chairs were two young men, their shirts covered in blood. One of them was holding a small towel,
of the type used for mopping up spilled beer in pubs, to the top of his head. They were talking and laughing animatedly, some discussion about football that I had no desire to listen to but could not avoid.
I wondered how the girl had hurt her foot, and was on the verge of asking when an orderly showed up and wheeled her away. I stood up, then, and went to a nearby table weighed down with dog-eared magazines. I chose three of the most gossipy and sat down again, wishing I’d brought a book so I could tune everything out. At the entrance a group of young men were loitering, getting increasingly loud. Security, having dealt with one awkward customer, were gathering like fluorescent vultures.
Above the noise of the shouting youths at the front, a toddler that had been whimpering now expanded to a full-on piercing scream. It was a little boy, red-faced, stretching and squirming in his mother’s lap. His fine blond hair was sticking to his forehead with sweat, his eyes wide. His mother shushed and rocked him without effect, tried with a pacifier that came straight back out again. There was a merciful pause and I thought I’d gone deaf, but he was only recovering his breath ready for another shriek.
I looked at the first magazine, tried to focus on the celebrity faces. I only knew who one of them was. I flicked through the magazine until I came across an eight-page photo spread that seemed to be about Elton John putting his trash out. I gave up and tossed the magazine to one side. The longer I waited, I thought, the less likely it was that Mum’s condition was serious. If she were in a bad way they would have seen me quickly, wouldn’t they?
And of course, at that moment a nurse came out of the curtained area.
“Annabel Hayer?”
I stood up quickly, feeling faint as I did so but trying to look as normal as possible. “Yes,” I said.
“Hello,” she said, already walking back the way she’d come in the expectation that I was following. “Have you been waiting long?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t think so. How’s my mother? Is she all right?”
She opened a door and stood aside to let me in. I thought it was going to be a small room but it turned out that it was a corner of the A&E treatment area.
“Have a seat,” she said. “The doctor will be in shortly.”
And before I could ask her anything more she’d left, shutting the door to the waiting area behind her.
I stared out into the treatment area, trying not to cry. I wanted to call someone but for the life of me I couldn’t think of anyone. Who would I call? My only cousin, in Scotland? What could she do, from the other end of the country? Maybe I could phone Kate. But I really didn’t know her well enough, not for a crisis call like this one. She’d end up hating me even more than she did already. I had nobody. I was on my own.
The screaming toddler (or maybe it was a different one; all babies sounded identical to me) was being dealt with somewhere behind a curtain. Over the wailing I could hear soothing tones, inflections rising and falling: “There you go! Good boy, what a brave boy you are. We’ll be done soon. Nearly done now. Mum, can you hold his hand? Like that. Tight hold . . . Yep . . . There we are! That part’s all done.”
I heard footsteps, rapid, on the linoleum and a man came around the corner, dressed in a blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, stethoscope around his neck, ID badge clipped to the breast pocket. He looked very young and very tired, but he managed a smile. I scrambled to my feet, my bag half falling from my lap until I clutched at it.
“Miss Hayer? Thank you for waiting. I’m Jonathan Lamb. I’m one of the doctors treating your mother this evening. Would you come this way?”
“How is she?” I said, trying to keep up with him as he stalked off. He led me down the hall past several curtained bays, each one of them occupied. At the farthest one he stopped and waited. I was several paces behind him, breathless with the exertion even though we’d only walked a hundred yards or so.
“She had a fall at home I understand?”
“Her neighbor called me. I don’t know what happened.”
“Just in here.” He pulled at the curtain and stood aside to let me in. Mum was on a hospital bed, equipment and tubes all over her.
“Oh, Mum!” I said. I couldn’t help it.
Behind me, Jonathan Lamb’s pager made a bleeping noise. “I’ll—er—I’ll be back in one second, and we can talk further. Have a seat.”
I lifted Mum’s hand, heavy, hot from the sheet that covered her. She was wearing a hospital gown. I should have brought her a nightie, I thought. She’d hate that. It was clearly too small for her. “Mum?”
There was no response to the squeeze I gave her fingers. Nothing.
I stood there holding her hand for what felt like a long time. My back was hurting standing like this, leaning over, and it was only when that dull ache became too much that I let go of her hand and sat on the chair next to the bed. I tried to pull it closer but it was heavy. I found a tissue in my bag and wiped my eyes, blew my nose. I couldn’t quite believe this was happening. It felt so unreal.
There was a clock on the wall above my head, and I twisted to look at it, watching the minutes tick past. It was nearly one. If it got to half past one I’d go and find someone.
At twenty past, I stood up and stretched. Then the curtain twitched aside and Jonathan Lamb was back, this time with a nurse. She gave me a warm, sympathetic smile. “Hello,” she said.
“Really sorry about the delay,” Jonathan Lamb said. “Please have a seat.”
I did as I was told, and the doctor disappeared again and came back a moment later with two stacked plastic chairs. He unstacked them, scraping them noisily on the linoleum. He sat down. The nurse sat down. It felt bizarrely like an interview.
He looked at the cardboard folder, at the notes, and started talking. I heard the first words he said—“It’s very bad news I’m afraid . . .”—and didn’t hear very much after that at all. A stroke—although he had a different word for it—CVA? Cerebrovascular accident, that was it. It made it sound like a mistake, as if one or other of us could have done something to stop it. The reason they had kept me waiting was that they were waiting for scan results.
“She’d had a chest infection recently?”
“What? Oh—well, it was a while ago now. She was on antibiotics.”
“It’s quite common for this to happen, I’m afraid. I’m so sorry.”
I thought I’d missed the part where he said what was going to happen to her. “She’ll get better? Is that what you’re saying?”
“No, I’m afraid she won’t get better. All we can do now is make her as comfortable as possible.”
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 hospital bed, 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 left. 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 bed. I took hold of Mum’s hand. It was so warm, joints swollen with the arthritis that plagued her. “Mum,” I said. “I’m sorr
y. 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 call 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 left. When the sound came again I realized 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 an orderly, the nurse, a different doctor who came and went, and finally the bed being moved, machines and all, through various halls and into an elevator, me beside her trying to keep up with the orderly, 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 were snoring.
“There we are,” the nurse said. “You must be exhausted. I can get you a cot, if you’d like to try and get some sleep.”