Margaret Hammond stared out at the sleeting rain bouncing off the circular cream-and-brown ceramic table on her patio. Her garden, though rain-battered and windswept, was well kept, thanks to the gardener that her son paid for to come once a fortnight. Niall was a generous son, she couldn’t deny, but he expected a lot of Hilary. Her daughter-in-law had her own demanding job; surely he could have taken an hour or two off to bring her to the clinic. There was no point in Margaret expecting her daughter to take the time off. Sue was so absorbed in her own life she had no time for anyone else.
Margaret sighed as she struggled to open the cap of her paracetamol container. She felt very arthritic today, always did when it rained. Old age was unforgiving and unrelenting and a cause of great worry to her. She could feel her body deteriorating. Her eyesight was beginning to fade, her hearing getting poorer. The breathlessness caused by her heart congestion was increasing. The water tablets she took were affecting her potassium levels and had to be adjusted and it was just one thing after another, she thought glumly, as the urge to pee increased and she hoped she’d make it to the loo without wetting herself.
What would happen, she wondered, limping back into the kitchen, if she just stopped taking all her tablets? If she thought she would go quickly to her eternal rest she’d do it, Margaret thought defiantly, wishing she had the nerve. Death did not worry her. It was the way of her going that concerned her. Her great fear about stopping her tablets was suffering a stroke and being trapped in her body. Her other great fear was ending up in a nursing home.
She knew Hilary and Niall would do the best they could for her. Sue would think a nursing home was the perfect solution . . . as long as she didn’t have to pay . . . How had she reared a daughter who was so . . . so indifferent and self-absorbed? Margaret shook her head. She had been too soft on her children and her husband. Done too much for them. It was as much her fault as theirs that Sue and to a lesser extent Niall were somewhat selfish.
She could see in her daughter-in-law the same giving nature she’d had. She saw how Niall and her granddaughters often took Hilary, and all she did for them, for granted. Niall was content to let Hilary run the household and ferry the girls to their various appointments. Margaret had done the same with her family while her husband had concentrated on his job. The difference was, she hadn’t worked outside the home. Hilary was a woman with a career and a very successful career at that. She had elderly parents of her own to keep an eye on. She just couldn’t be running after her and bringing her to clinics and appointments.
But what other options did she have than to accept her daughter-in-law’s assistance, Margaret brooded, finally managing to get her tablet carton opened. She studied the pile of white rectangular tablets. It was a pity they were quite sizeable pills, difficult to swallow a large amount. An overdose caused liver damage, she’d heard. Would that be painless? What would happen if it didn’t work? She filled a glass of water and shook two tablets into her palm, and swallowed them.
Coward!
It’s a sin to think like that.
If you didn’t have warfarin and the likes you’d be dead anyway – it’s the tablets that are keeping you alive. You are being kept alive through artificial means.
‘Oh stop it!’ she said aloud, angrily wiping the tears from her eyes. She didn’t normally give in to self-pity but she felt low and fed up today. The come-down from her steroids had kicked in and she missed the artificial energy they gave her. It was disappointing, too, to have to go back to the clinic in two weeks’ time. Even if she got a taxi herself, she would still have a long walk to the clinic along hospital corridors, without the comfort of someone beside her if she took a wobbly. But she couldn’t impose on Hilary’s kindness any longer. She would have to find some long-term solution. It was time to face facts and deal with her situation, instead of sticking her head in the sand, Margaret decided.
She made herself a cup of tea, buttered a slice of bread and cut a hunk off a block of Cheddar cheese. A spoonful of tomato chutney and an apple completed her repast and she carried her cup and plate into her sitting room. It had grown so overcast and gloomy with the rain the room was almost dark. She switched on a lamp, the opaque light casting a warm glow over her armchair. She was tired after her early morning start; a fire would be a nice treat. Normally she didn’t light one this early but she deserved some little perk, she told herself, spiritedly placing firelighters and some turf and briquettes from the wicker basket beside the fireplace into the grate. In minutes a comforting blaze threw out a satisfying heat, the flickering flames crackling companion-ably in the hearth.
‘I’m very lucky, I’m still living in my own home, I have my independence and a good pension,’ she told herself, trying to raise her spirits with her little pep talk. After her lunch and a nap in front of the fire she would do her physio exercises and give some considered thought to making herself even more independent and
