By Janet
Tamara navigated to the crimes section of The Standard online, scanning the page for the information she was looking for. Bingo, she thought as she caught sight of the headline:
Deluded madwoman given indefinite hospital order
for brutal killing of wealthy young socialite
Gotcha, she gloated, like the cat that got the cream.
***
As she drove up the tree-lined driveway, Jo glanced at her mum staring straight ahead, silent and brooding beside her.
“The gardens are beautiful, every flower you could conceive of, and your room has doors that open up directly into them,” Jo said brightly, trying to lighten the mood.
“I’m sure it’s lovely, Jo,” her mum snapped, “but you’ll have to forgive me for not getting too excited about the place where I’m going to die.”
Jo felt stupid. This wasn’t a holiday for her mum; it was a one-way ticket. Why was she trying to sugarcoat it? She bit her lip to stop herself from crying.
“I understand,” she said after a few moments.
“I know you do. I’m sorry,” her mum replied, turning to face her, her face gaunt, her eyes sunken, “this is as hard for you as it is for me. I shouldn’t have lost it.”
They smiled at each other, all forgiven
They continued the journey, lost in their own thoughts, until Jo stopped the car in front of a honey-coloured Georgian manor house that looked more like a luxury hotel than a hospice. If it hadn’t been for her mum’s doctor, she would never have got a place here for her final weeks; places were like gold dust. Jo suspected his motives were none other than self-preservation and the avoidance of a medical negligence claim, but she was grateful all the same; the hospice was the best in the area.
“Wow, that’s posh,” her mum said, punching Jo’s arm playfully and breaking the silence. “I’ll feel like a real lady of the manor living here.”
“No more than you deserve,” Jo laughed. “Now, if m’lady would wait a moment, I’ll fetch her chariot from the boot and bring it round.”
“Carry on,” her mum said regally as they both fell into fits of laughter.
Her mum’s cancer diagnosis had been a shock when it came that, for days after, they had felt like they were in some horrible dream, hoping to wake up and find out that it wasn’t real after all and everything was fine. It wasn’t fine though. It would never be fine. She hadn’t had any noticeable symptoms, just an irritating tickly cough that wouldn’t go away. Struggling to get an appointment to see the doctor: understaffed, a few off on holiday, one excuse followed by another, she had had to be content with a telephone appointment and some antibiotics. After no discernible change, a further two calls and some pleading with the receptionist, she had finally seen him face-to-face. He’d gone quite pale when he’d listened to her chest, instantly cancelled all his other appointments and rushed her himself to the hospital, calls of negligence likely ringing in his ears. By the time Jo had joined her, she had been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer; one whole lung collapsed from the tumour and the cancer spread to her lymph nodes. It was terminal. They gave her six months at most without treatment, a few more with. The months and weeks had gone by so quickly since then. Chemo and immunotherapy had shrunk the tumour, but they knew it would only buy a few extra months. Jo took time off from her job at the restaurant; Gennaro was happy to help; family is everything to the Italians, and they worked their way through as much of her mum’s bucket list as they could, until she wasn’t able to continue.
Now, they were here.
The first week her mum was weak, easily exhausted, but alert, and Jo wheeled her around the beautiful hospice gardens, her mum keen to teach her the names of every plant she could remember. She listened to Jo read to her, sang along to her favourite songs, and looked through old photographs, happier times. The second week she slept more, the cancer beginning to overwhelm her, each breath an effort, even with oxygen to help. Jo sat by her bedside throughout, cherishing the brief moments she was awake, only breaking away to snatch some sleep, shower and change her clothes.
Then, the hallucinations began, each time the same.
Jo woke with a start.
“Sorry to wake you,” the nurse said, “but we need your help with your mum. She’s hallucinating again. We’ve tried to get through to her, but she’s much more agitated and confused this time. We’re afraid she might hurt herself.”
“I’ll come now,” Jo replied groggily, throwing back the duvet and slipping her feet into the pale pink Crocs she used as slippers.
As she approached her mum’s room, she heard her mum’s panicked, rasping voice screaming her name.
“Jo, we need to tell Jo,” she said. “She’s not alone; she needs to know that.”
As she entered, she saw her mum, sat up in bed, flailing wildly, beads of sweat on her forehead from the effort, her hollow eyes fixed on something or someone only she could see. Each time one of the nurses tried to replace her oxygen mask or tried to calm her, she pushed them away, with all the strength her emaciated body could muster.
“She needs to know the secret. We can’t keep it from her any longer. We have to tell her,” she pleaded.
Alarmed at seeing her mum so distressed, Jo rushed to her.
“Shush now Mum, it’s Jo, I’m here now, everything’ s OK,” she said, hugging her gently.
Gradually, she felt her mum’s body shudder and then relax; her words and touch breaking whatever spell her mum had been bewitched by in that moment.
“That’s better,” Jo said, helping her to lower herself back on the bed, exhausted. She smiled at Jo weakly before drifting off to sleep.
Back in her own room, Jo couldn’t get her mum’s words out of her head. She’d rambled like this before, and Jo had just ignored it; hallucinations are common as people got near the end, she’d been told, but this time it had been more urgent, more frantic. Was her mum really trying to tell her something, she wondered. Was there some truth in what she was saying? Who did she believe she was speaking to? There had only ever been Mum and her, and she knew it wasn’t her, so who else and what was it that this person needed to tell her? What was the secret they had been keeping from her? These questions went around and around in her head in an endless loop. She wasn’t sure how, but she would try to ask her mum about it in the morning.
That chance never came.
Jo held her mum’s cold hand tightly, trying not to cry, listening to her breathing become more and more laboured, and the gaps between breaths longer and longer. She was no longer conscious, but Jo was sure she knew she was there.
“It won’t be long now,” the nurse said gently, squeezing her shoulder for reassurance. “Do you want me to stay, or would you prefer to be alone?”
“Alone, I think,” Jo replied, her voice cracking.
The nurse nodded.
“I’ll just be outside; press the call button if you need me,” she said and quietly left the room.
Jo kept her silent vigil until she no longer saw her mum’s chest rise and fall, and the room fell silent. She pressed the call button, and the nurse responded immediately.
“I’m afraid she’s gone, Jo,” she said, turning to her after checking for a pulse.
Jo felt numb. She had known this moment would come, but now that it had, she was paralysed. She felt so lost, so alone.
And then the tears came.
Be First to Comment