Surtsey touched a finger against the reception desk. ‘Hi, Effie, how’s she been?’
Effie nodded with her mouth turned down. ‘OK.’ Which meant anything but.
‘Did she sleep?’
‘Not much. A bit like yourself, looking at you.’
Surtsey lifted her finger from the oak up to her temple, where it fluttered. ‘I’m fine.’
Effie smiled. ‘Candle at both ends, eh?’
‘Not exactly.’ Surtsey looked along the corridor to the left. ‘Where is she?’
‘Rec room,’ Effie said, nodding. ‘Away in.’
Surtsey’s stomach was tight as she walked. She came to see Mum every day, twice if possible, but it was never easy, she had to steel herself each time. She understood why Iona stayed away, she would herself if she could.
The rec room was quiet, two old dears bowed over knitting in the far corner. One of the disadvantages of dying from cancer in her forties was that everyone else in the place was twice Louise’s age. Louise sat at one of the large bay windows looking out to sea, thin blanket over her knees.
This wasn’t her mother, but it was. On the one hand Surtsey didn’t want this wasted, six-stone shell of a woman to be the mum she remembered after she was gone. She wanted to picture the vibrant woman slipping off her shoes in the sand and dancing with Surtsey and her sister, kicking up her dress as she ran round the bases at rounders, cigarette hanging from her mouth.
But then she didn’t want to deny dignity to this woman in front of her either. This really was her mother, this was every molecule, every pore, every inch the same woman who gave birth to her after thirty-six long hours, who raised her and her sister alone, who fed and clothed them and took them out of school on exotic working holidays at a moment’s notice, to earthquake zones and volcanoes in the middle of jungles, high on desert plateaus, adrift on arctic seas.
And here she was with half her stomach and bowel hacked away by surgery, what remained riddled with aggressive carcinoma. Ironic that someone who smoked all her life ended up getting stomach not lung cancer, but there you go.
‘Hey, Mum.’
Surtsey touched her mum’s shoulder and kissed the top of her head, the short hair rough against her lips. Louise had shaved her head a while back when chemo was an option, then never went bald. One of cancer’s wee jokes. But she kept it short anyway, it was easier. When you needed a nurse to cut your food and wipe your arse, not having to keep your hair shiny was one less piece of crap to worry about.
Louise turned and smiled, held out a hand. Surtsey took it and sat down. Her mum’s skin felt like nylon, artificial somehow. She smelt bitter, acrid. Could you smell of cancer? Weren’t there dogs that detected early signs of it in humans?
‘How are you?’ Surtsey said.
‘I’m dying.’
‘Nice day for it.’
This was a running joke. Louise threw out the line, Surtsey batted it straight back, although it was getting less funny every day, and Surtsey wished they hadn’t started it.
Louise’s breath was laboured, a wheeze deep in her chest. She had a handkerchief in her other hand, brought it up and dabbed at her mouth, dribbled into it. Surtsey looked away for a moment.
‘Anything happening in the world?’ Louise said.
Surtsey examined her. Forty-five years old and reduced to clock watching, waiting to die. She was so physically diminished it was as if she might shrink to death. Surtsey tried to picture the vibrant presence of her mother in her childhood, but the truth was this image in front of her was replacing that one.
‘Not really,’ she said.
Louise coughed, dabbed at her lips. ‘Up to much last night?’
Of course, Surtsey had skipped the after-work visit to sneak around with Tom. Christ. The last time Surtsey saw her mum, Tom was alive. That seemed impossible. It already felt like he’d always been dead, lying out there waiting to be found. Surtsey took her hand from Louise’s and rubbed at her own jaw.
‘Out with Brendan.’
Louise tried to smile. ‘How are things between you two?’
‘OK.’
‘Wow, sounds like true love.’
‘It’s good, things are good.’
Louise coughed but was too slow in getting the handkerchief to her mouth, green spit down her T-shirt. She dabbed at it until Surtsey pulled a tissue from her pocket and wiped, feeling the knobbly breastbone beneath.
Louise tried to push Surtsey’s hand away. ‘I don’t need help.’
‘Yes, you do, that’s why you’re in here.’
‘I don’t need help from you, is what I meant.’
‘I’m your daughter.’
‘Exactly.’
Surtsey folded the damp tissue away and stuffed it in her pocket. Louise was gazing out the window, the shoulder of the Inch to her left, Inchkeith behind. Surtsey tried to imagine what the view was like thirty years ago before the Inch was born. The island had always been in her life, a permanent presence, but nothing was permanent, just think of the Cockenzie chimneys, now gone. Or Louise. Or Tom.
‘How’s your sister?’ Louise said.
Surtsey took a breath. ‘You would know how she was if she ever bothered to visit.’
‘Don’t, Sur.’ Louise shook her head. ‘She’s busy.’
‘Don’t make excuses for her.’
‘It’s hard for her.’
‘And it’s easy for me?’ Surtsey hated how she sounded, small and bitter.
Louise turned to meet Surtsey’s gaze. ‘You’re strong.’
‘I don’t feel strong.’
Louise coughed some more, held the hankie to her mouth, her body shuddering as if she might shake apart.
Surtsey put a hand on her mum’s back, didn’t move it, just left it there, connected.
‘Are you OK, Louise?’
A familiar voice behind them.
Surtsey turned to see Donna in her pastel scrubs. Tall and
