‘No, I don’t suppose it is,’ he said slowly.
‘That’s good, and at least you have us to mind you.’
‘Indeed I do, how lucky am I?’ He smiled at her and squeezed her hand back just as the waitress arrived with platters of ribs, buffalo wings, pulled pork, corn-bread muffins, jalapeño peppers stuffed with cream cheese, and fries.
‘Yum! Yum!’ Sophie approved, diving on the wings.
‘I needed this badly. I just wish it wasn’t such a sad occasion for you, Jonathan.’ Millie selected a sticky rib.
‘I’ll get over it,’ he assured her and right there and right then he felt he would and that was enough for now.
Margaret sat at her table as the sun spilled its rays into her small kitchen and stared at the array of tablets in their blue containers. How many days had she sat here every morning going through the same routine before breakfast? Her phone rang and she saw Hilary’s number displayed. ‘Hello, dear? How is London going? Are you and the girls having a good time?’
‘We’re having a wonderful time, Gran.’ Her daughter-in-law’s clear tones came down the line as though she was next door and not in another country. ‘We’re meeting Jonathan for breakfast in the dining room and then we’re heading off to take a trip on the Eye. I’m taking lots of photos. You’ll love the ones of Kensington Palace from my room. I’ve a terrific view of it and the park. How are you feeling today?’
‘Great, pet, great,’ Margaret lied. ‘Delighted to hear from you.’
‘Are you taking your tablets?’
‘I am.’
‘Well we’ll see you tomorrow evening and don’t forget to keep Sunday free to have dinner with us,’ Hilary reminded her.
‘I look forward to it, dear. Enjoy the rest of your day and love to everyone.’ Hilary was such a good person, ringing to see if she was OK. Sue wouldn’t bother her skinny backside. Her daughter was so resentful at having to bring her to the medical appointments. And she’d tried to blacken Hilary by saying that Hilary had being moaning about being too busy to be taking time off. There had been no need for Sue to tell Margaret that, even if it was true. Now she felt a real and proper nuisance and she knew the way her body was failing it was only going to get worse. Sue would have her in a nursing home if it were left to her.
Margaret gave a deep sigh and poured herself another cup of tea from the china pot she favoured. It was heavy and her hand trembled with the effort. Imagine, she thought in disgust, not even being able to hold a teapot without shaking. What was to become of her?
She could get some home help, she supposed. And in that she could be lucky or unlucky, listening to her friends and the experiences they had. One friend had a home help who even baked bread for her and was extremely kind; another had been robbed blind and lost several hundred euros and some sentimental jewellery.
Margaret buttered her toast and spread it with marmalade and bit into it. Was it that her taste buds had faded, too? Food never seemed as flavorsome any more, and truth be told, she had gone off quite a few foods that she’d liked, and her appetite was getting smaller and smaller.
Old age, all down to old age, she fretted, hardly able to see the writing on the Old Time Irish marmalade jar without her glasses. Her sister-in-law had ended up in a nursing home, nearly blind and shaking with Parkinson’s. Margaret had visited her a few times, her heart sinking at the sight of the once glamorous and proud woman slumped in a wheelchair, hands shaking as she stared unseeingly out at the rose garden beyond.
That might very well be her in a couple of years. Margaret felt the familiar flutter of apprehension envelop her when she contemplated the future.
The warfarin, red, yellow and brown today, lay waiting to be swallowed along with Liposol, and a water tablet. She shook the tablets into her hand and gazed at them. She was being kept alive by tablets, of that there was no doubt. But the more tablets she was prescribed the more they interacted, causing complications. The last antibiotic had given her a most excruciating pain in the tendon in her ankle and calf and the GP had taken her off it immediately and told her to say she was allergic to it if she was ever offered it again. Another friend, Esther, had gone into anaphylactic shock after taking penicillin that she had taken all her life. Esther had spent a night on a trolley in the Mater and had to be resuscitated. She had never got over the episode, which had weakened her considerably, and she had confided to Margaret that she wished she had gone to the lovely peaceful energy that was inviting her to become one with it.
Margaret studied her tablets. Decisions had to be made. Either she could make them or they would be made for her. And having people make decisions for her was the vexing position she just did not want to be in.
‘You’ve raised two great girls,’ Jonathan complimented Hilary as they strolled towards Tate Modern along the South Bank, having had an exhilarating half-hour on the London Eye. The sun was warm on their faces, dazzling on the grey-green waters of the Thames, and a soft breeze rustled gently through the trees.
‘Thanks.’ She tucked her arm in his.
‘They’re so non-judgemental! They’re completely accepting of me.’
‘Why wouldn’t they be?’ She looked at him quizzically.
‘Well you know . . . being gay.’
‘But, Jonathan, they’ve known you since they were kids, they love you, and besides their generation don’t put any pass on whether you’re gay, straight, bi or whatever. Thank God they have the wisdom to
