Chapter Fifteen
1
‘I won’t be going into hospital at all. I want to die here.’
‘But you can’t. ‘
‘I can and I will. This is my home. This is where I’ll die.’
Lucy sank her nails into her thighs, as if they were party of her father’s neck. Susan fiddled with the buttons on her blouse. This was the inevitable confrontation between mother and son. They had all gathered at Chiswick Mall that afternoon, at Freddie’s instigation, to deal with the question ‘my mother won’t face’.
Agnes walked deliberately across the room as if she had a pile of books on her head. She flopped confidently into her usual chair by the bay window
‘Mother, your legs are giving way more often, you- ‘I know’
‘-need a wheelchair-’
‘I know’
‘Getting in and out will not be straightforward.’ ‘No.’
‘You already need help with washing.’
‘Freddie-’
‘Before long, there are going to be problems with feeding, talking, moving-’
‘Freddie,’ said Agnes, her voice rising and the muscles on her face beginning to contort.
‘The house will need cleaning, sheets washed, bedclothes changed-’
‘Freddie- ‘
‘-what about going to the toilet-’
‘Freddieeeeeeeee!’ Agnes’ cry became a strange howl, rising and trailing off. She heaved with a sort of anguished laughter, tears gathering in her eyes, her thin hands shaking uncontrollably
‘Now look what you’ve done,’ snapped Lucy, running towards her. Agnes waved her away, angrily, her mouth locked wide open.
Freddie pulled at his hair, saying sorry over and over again. Agnes was trying to say something by hand gesture, her head thrown back while she moaned.
Lucy could barely contain her anger. ‘Just read this, will you? Go on, read it.’ She reached over to the bureau and handed her father a piece of paper. Agnes had written an explanation:
Sometimes I laugh or cry or wail for no reason. Please ignore me while it lasts. It will stop soon. Thank you.
Lucy took the paper back. Agnes was quiet now No one said anything. Susan made some tea.
Agnes sipped from old china, the tinkling saucer held beneath. The cup was so fragile that sunlight passed through its clay, tracing the outline of frail fingers on the other side.
‘Freddie, don’t worry. It’s difficult for all of us. But I’ve made my mind up,’ said Agnes kindly
Freddie moved to speak. He was resolute, as if he too had made up his mind. He was going to press his point. Lucy felt a flash of anger and confusion. There was such a dreadful mix of motives and concerns. Yes, Agnes was going to deteriorate, and planning was necessary. But there was another powerful drive, and that was Freddie’s reluctance, if not refusal, to become ensnared in day-in day-out nursing care. The illness was creeping up on all of them. Lucy could see her father’s terror. He wasn’t capable of giving Agnes what she needed, he could not carry the strain of intimate dependence on him. And now he was feeling rising desperation, shifting from right to left as if routes of escape were closing down. Lucy saw all this internal squirming, while her father sat stock-still on the settee, his hands on his knees as if for a school photograph. And she loathed it, in him and in herself.
‘I won’t need your help. None of you need worry about that:
Freddie immediately spilled a lie: ‘We’re not worried, we want to help. It’s just that we’ve got to be practical. All of us.’
‘I’ve already planned everything, Freddie.’
No one knew what to say The question they were all asking themselves didn’t need to be asked. Agnes nodded at her tea cup, wanting more. ‘And a chocolate finger, please, Lucy’ Freddie relaxed a little with the promise of relief. And, hating herself for it, so did Lucy
‘I’ve spoken to Social Services. As and when it becomes necessary, carers will come each day to help with washing and dressing. They’ll provide appliances “subject to budget” and I can get all sorts of toys from the hospital or Trusts. There really is nothing to worry about.’
Susan was still fiddling with the buttons on her blouse when she spoke. ‘I don’t want you being cared for by strangers. ‘It’s not right. You need your family I want to help, if you don’t mind, I really do. I’ll do anything you like — I can cook, clean up, I can… do anything… give me the chance, can’t you?’
Agnes was visibly moved. Lucy had always felt Agnes valued Susan’s confused attempts to establish normal relations with her mother-in-law It cost her so much, and always without reward. Susan, like Lucy wanted things to be different, and in her own way had kept on trying.
‘Thank you, Susan, there’s plenty of time, yet, for both of us. Of course you can help.’
Freddie, ashamed, ran for the line: ‘But all this isn’t enough, is it? I mean, it’s not just about bits of help at certain times of the day What about the nights? You’re going to be needing’ — Freddie hesitated, the corner flag was in view — ‘twenty-four-hour-a-day assistance,’ and then he dived, full length, ‘from people who know what they’re doing.’
He was pale. He’d finally said it. He’d said he couldn’t and wouldn’t become a nurse, or move in, or take Agnes to his own home.
‘That’s right, Freddie, and I’ve sorted it all out.’
For the second time, no one knew what to say Lucy, incredulous, guessed immediately The question fell out of Freddie’s mouth: ‘How? In what way?’
Agnes put down her saucer, and then the cup, and then the biscuit, saying, ‘I’ve asked Wilma to move in.
Freddie, rigid again, almost stopped breathing.
2
It seemed it was going to be a day of arguments. After her mother and father had left, Lucy urged Agnes to give a statement to the police.
‘If I get involved, replied Agnes, ‘your father will have to know everything. I don’t want that. His life with me has been hard enough.’ She spoke without a trace of self-pity. ‘It would be too much to ask of him.’
‘What would?’
‘To understand me more than he understands himself.’
‘But if he knew what was done to you, and how you saved him-’
‘Lucy you forget, I also failed him.’ She raised a hand to stop any protestation. ‘That can’t be changed, even by forgiveness. I used to blame myself, but after I met Wilma I realised things couldn’t have been otherwise. But that only makes the remorse all the more insupportable.’ Her features became still and extraordinarily beautiful, like a rapt child at a pantomime, and she said, ‘In a way I lost Freddie as well. I could not bear to lose the little I have left.’
Agnes had a way of saying dreadful things with complete simplicity, as if she were commenting on the wallpaper. Unless one inhabited a similar inner landscape it was quite impossible to reply Even Lucy came up against these awful flashes of tranquillity, where one would expect to find anguish, when she could only look upon her grandmother from a distance with a sort of shocked reverence.
Outside the window rain began to fall, bouncing off the pavement, gathering the litter, washing stray cuttings from tidy gardens, and Agnes, serene, reached for the newspaper by her side, saying, ‘There’s a documentary tonight on The Round Table.’ She paused. ‘One of the contributors is Pascal Fougeres. I’m worried he might
