Never Leaves Me

by C J Morrow

  ‘Not tonight, he has a staff meeting.’

  Kisses and hugs and they’re gone. Sue messes with me and I don’t even notice; I’m too busy trying to remember, trying to make sense.

  Finally, I’m alone again. That’s when I realise that in the confusion, the distraction of Stephen, I don’t know what happened to Mads.

  Why did Mads die?

  How?

  Seven

  ‘Has she finished now?’ Robin’s back.

  ‘I think so.’ I assume he’s talking about Sue who’s just walked away from us.

  ‘Good. She’s very loud, that one.’

  ‘How did Mads die?’

  ‘Do you really want to talk about this now?’ He sounds upset.

  ‘I need to know.’ I force back a gulp that will turn into a sob if I let it.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes.’ Why won’t he just get on with it.

  ‘She committed suicide.’

  That’s why. I’m stunned into silence. Then I sob.

  I think I’d prefer to be dead.

  ‘I shouldn’t have told you,’ Robin whispers in my ear. ‘I should have sugar-coated it.’

  I’m waving my arms about, I don’t know why. The shock maybe.

  ‘Well done, Juliette. You’re moving.’ Robin claps. He actually claps.

  As if they have run out of energy my arms flop down onto my lap.

  ‘Why?’ I gulp and sniff. Instead of my arms waving aimlessly, I wish they could do something about the river of snot and tears dripping off my chin. With his stupid squeamishness about bodily fluids, including his own, Robin isn’t offering to wipe my face either.

  ‘Why what?’

  ‘Why did she commit suicide?’

  ‘Bullying at school. They think. Must we churn all this up again?’

  ‘It’s new to me. I don’t remember any of it.’

  He doesn’t reply but I can imagine the pained look on his face. I wish I could see it.

  ‘How?’

  He groans. How dare he groan?

  ‘Overdose.’ His voice is quiet, almost a whisper.

  Overdose? My little sister. Mads. Overdose. I cannot believe it.

  ‘Look, I’m going to get off now. I have a pupil tonight. Will you be okay?’

  ‘I’ll have to be.’ He’s dropped the bombshell and now he’s just leaving me alone.

  He pats my arm. It’s painful.

  ‘Is that my injured arm?’ I snap.

  ‘Sorry.’ His tone is just as sharp. I hear the chair scrape. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, late afternoon.’

  Are we having an argument while I’m lying in bed, just out of a coma, almost paralysed and my sister dead? I call a goodbye, but he doesn’t reply.

  How dare he be annoyed because I want to know what happened.

  This has a familiar ring to it.

  ‘I hear you’ve had a bad night.’ Jeff moves me about to do his checks, then lifts the bedcovers. I hope I haven’t shat myself again; I can’t smell anything, but I’ve been crying so much my nose is completely blocked.

  I can imagine that Mads’s death has had a profound effect on all of us. Poor Mum and Dad.

  What the hell could have driven her to suicide? Bullying at school, according to Robin. Is that true? If only I could remember the last time we met, or spoke on the phone. I can only recall a brief message exchange about missing each other. Surely, I’ve said more to her than that recently.

  ‘I’m just going to change your catheter,’ Jeff says as the curtains swish closed around me.

  ‘Must you,’ I mutter.

  ‘Fraid so.’

  He’s quick and efficient, I’ll give him that, but it’s so demeaning and undignified.

  ‘Done. Well done.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I feel embarrassed for being surly, embarrassed for being embarrassed. It’s all so bloody horrible. ‘My sister’s dead,’ I blurt. ‘My little sister.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for your losses.’

  ‘I don’t know what happened. I don’t remember. I feel so useless.’

  Jeff pats my shoulder. Poor man, what can he say? Nothing will make it better.

  He brushes my hair, wipes my face, cleans my teeth; I manage a better spit than the last time.

  ‘Well done. Let’s try you with a drink, shall we?’

  ‘Must we?’ I shouldn’t be so ungrateful, but everything seems so pointless without Mads.

  He doesn’t answer my rhetorical question but pushes a straw into my mouth, I suck and swallow.

  ‘That is excellent. Well done. Have some more.’ He pushes the straw into my mouth again and encourages me to keep guzzling.

  It’s tasteless water and it’s lukewarm. Not nice. I make a face indicating my displeasure.

  ‘We’ll get your mum to bring up something nicer, cordial or something, shall we?’

  ‘Yeah.’ I finish the whole glass.

  ‘Hey hun,’ Jeff says, as he’s walking away. ‘The best you can do for your sister…’ he stalls, ‘your whole family, is to get better.’

  ‘Yeah, thanks.’ I know he’s right. I’ve got to get better for Mum, for Dad, for Robin. For Mads. And once I am better I’m going to get to the bottom of why she took an overdose, because it just doesn’t add up. If she was being bullied at school, why didn’t she come to me? Why didn’t she confide in me? It’s not like her. And if she was bullied at school I want to meet the culprits face-to-face.

  I doze off and when I wake it’s with a start; I’ve been having that dream again, the car crash dream. This time Mads is in it; she’s wearing my black coat – it fits her better than it does me. She’s standing on the side of the road as the car starts to roll, she’s waving and smiling. Then she’s looking down at my body – we’re both wearing the coat. There’s blood everywhere; it’s the first-time blood has featured in the dream.

  My heart is beating fast, I feel sick. I breathe deeply to calm myself. It’s just a dream, it’s just a dream. It may have happened but it’s not happening now. In my mind, I sound quite reasonable.

  My body is aching; the effort of thinking, the discovery of misery, it’s all too much. I lift my hands to my head, rub my forehead. It’s all too much.

  Wait. I lifted my hands, I rubbed my head.

  I move my arms around, I feel my face with my fingers, the tubes in my nose, the shaved hair, the lumps on my skull and skin. My eyes are puffballs; no wonder I cannot open them. My mouth feels almost normal though.

  I wriggle my toes, flex my ankles. It is a small miracle.

  ‘Progress,’ I hiss.

  But the voice in my head reminds me that it won’t bring Mads back.

  ‘It’s a start.’ I’m talking to myself.

  ‘There you are,’ it’s Mum’s voice. I wait for Sally to speak but she doesn’t.

  ‘On your own?’

  ‘Yes. Sally’s busy today.’

  ‘Shame.’ I like Sally but I don’t need her to visit for my sake, but for Mum’s. Sally is good for Mum. ‘Next time.’ I put my hand out towards where I think Mum is. I touch her face. She gasps. The skin under her eyes feels baggy and wrinkled; I imagine dark circles. Her cheeks are sunken, her skin dry.

  ‘You’re moving. That’s marvellous.’ She jumps up and hugs me and I am able to hug her back.

  I tell Mum about moving my feet too, I tell her I’m going to work on opening my eyes. I don’t tell her that Robin has told me Mads overdosed. I can’t bear to upset her any further. She has suffered enough.

  We find ourselves sitting in silence. I hear Mum rustling in her bag, she drops the book – Pride and Prejudice, I expect – on the bed, which hisses as the air moves from the new pressure.

  ‘Shall I read?’

  What can I say? I really don’t feel like hearing about The Bennets and snooty Darcy, or silly Bingley. That all seems so trivial.

  ‘What’s Sally doing today, then?’ I wonder how obvious my diversion is.

  ‘Stephen has
taken her out for a long, late lunch.’

  ‘Stephen. Stephen.’ I repeat his name, rolling it around in my mouth and in my head. ‘What’s he doing back here, anyway? Didn’t he emigrate to America, or somewhere?’

  ‘Canada,’ Mum says, fidgeting with the book.

  ‘Oh yeah.’ I do remember. He went just after he’d finished university. He had a first-class degree in engineering, or something like that. Road building, he’d called it; he’d always been self-deprecating. Witty asides were his forte. Once, when I’d laughed at him until tears ran down my face, and told him, for about the twentieth time, how funny he was, he suddenly turned serious.

  ‘I have to be funny, Etty.’ He’d taken to calling me Etty because it was Mads’s pet name for me. ‘I’m not beautiful, like your husband.’ He was right, he wasn’t tall, dark and handsome. He was tall enough though, much taller than me, his hair was fair and already thinning, even then, but his face was pleasant enough, just nothing special. Robin looked like a movie star against the boy-next-door.

  Stephen didn’t dress very well either; he had that air of student-grunge about him. But he was good company and even though we’d lost touch during the years he’d spent at different schools or summering with his dad, we still had that connection from our early childhood.

  He got on well with Mads too, who, like me, looked on him as a big brother. They’d become good friends during his university years, he would send her silly postcards and chat to her over the garden fence when he came home in the holidays. His dad had more children, another family by then, so wasn’t demanding that Stephen spend so much time with him; anyway, Stephen was an adult and could please himself.

  Mads was always talking about me to Stephen – Etty this, Etty that, though invariably it was Etty and Robin this, Etty and Robin that – so Stephen usually knew what I was doing even though I only saw him occasionally, usually in the garden. He would invite me and Robin to gigs he knew about, suggest new indie bands we should hear. Robin always sneered when I relayed the invitation; I couldn’t imagine Robin in some grubby pub-backroom listening to indie rock.

  We were all invited to Stephen’s graduation party – a grand title for a Saturday tea-buffet that carried on into the evening. Sally had invited Mum, Dad, Mads, me and Robin, as well as half the street. Robin and I had been married almost four years by then, Robin wasn’t keen, but didn’t want me going on my own.

  Stephen brought his then girlfriend, Lucia, with him. She was a stunner, petite and dainty with thick, black hair which hung down her back like a glossy cape. Lucia was nice, everybody said so. Lucky Stephen.

  ‘My dad’s Italian,’ she explained when I complimented on her beautiful clothes; she certainly didn’t dress student-grungy. Stephen was delighted with her, putting a proprietary arm around her waist, kissing the top of her head. She seemed, to me, like a sleek, prize cat. She chatted happily to Sally, to my parents, and to Mads, who insisted on linking arms with her most of the evening until she was taken home to bed.

  ‘Way past your bedtime,’ Mum said. It was after ten and Mum had had enough herself and used Mads as an excuse to escape; Dad went with them. Mads would have been ten or so by then.

  ‘Lucia seems lovely.’ Stephen and I were in the kitchen squeezing the last drop of white wine from the box on the worktop.

  ‘Yeah.’ He had a dreamy look in his eyes, though it could have been the alcohol.

  ‘She’s very elegant and well dressed.’ Unbidden, I glanced down at his clothes, a cargo-pants-rock-gods-t-shirt combo.

  ‘Unlike me.’ He nudged shoulders with me.

  ‘I didn’t mean that…’

  ‘Yes, you did.’

  ‘Yeah, I did.’ We laughed.

  Back in Sally’s lounge everyone was dancing, including Robin. With Lucia. They were huddled close, whispering to each other.

  I felt a twinge under my ribcage. Stephen and I stood side-by-side watching them for what was only a few seconds but felt like an eternity.

  ‘Never mind. Dance with me.’ Stephen put his arm around my waist.

  ‘No.’ I pushed him off. I marched up to Robin. I tapped him on the shoulder. He turned and glared at me, as though I were a stranger. Then smiled. But the gap between the glare and the smile was too long. ‘Can we go?’ My voice whined. ‘I don’t feel too good.’

  ‘Until we meet again,’ he held Lucia’s hand in his. ‘Okay. Let’s go.’ He turned and took my elbow.

  I wanted to go and say goodbye to Mum and Dad but Robin pulled me away and towards my car. I’d driven us there, but that night Robin snatched the keys from me once I’d fumbled them out of my handbag.

  ‘I’ll have to drive. You’re drunk.’ I wasn’t, I’d only had two glasses of wine the entire time, but maybe I was over the limit. Robin rarely drank, he said he liked to keep his wits about him. Always.

  He slammed the car into gear and drove up the road.

  ‘What was that all about?’ He said as we reached the junction.

  ‘What?’ I was starting to feel foolish.

  ‘All that. Pushing in on my dance with your friend. Acting jealous.’ He spat the words as though they tasted bad.

  ‘Not my friend,’ I muttered.

  ‘Your friend’s friend, then.’

  ‘His girlfriend. And you never dance with me. You say you don’t dance.’

  ‘And I don’t, normally. But she asked me. And you were canoodling in the kitchen with your…’ he deliberately paused, ‘friend.’

  We were arguing over nothing. Imagined jealousies. I felt stupid. He was angry. We drove the rest of the way home in silence.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said as we reached our doorstep.

  ‘You should be.’ He put the key in the lock. Once inside he slammed the door behind us. ‘I suppose I should be flattered that you think anyone that beautiful would want me. Your friend is certainly punching above his weight.’

  I swallowed. I didn’t know what to say.

  The next thing I heard Stephen had gone to Canada. I assumed Lucia had gone with him.

  ‘So, Stephen’s back from Canada?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘On holiday?’

  ‘No, he’s back for good.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘He said he’d had a great time over there, but wanted to live here.’ The weight of Pride and Prejudice is lifted from my hissing bed. I hope Mum isn’t going to read it now. ‘We won’t bother with this today.’ She has got the message. I hear her yawn.

  ‘Why don’t you go home, Mum, and have a rest.’

  ‘I’m fine, darling.’

  ‘No, really. You don’t need to stay. You don’t have to come every day.’ How stupid of me to say that.

  ‘I do. I want to.’ Of course, she does, I’m the only daughter she has left now.

  For the while I’ve been distracted by memories of Stephen, I’ve almost forgotten that Mads is gone. The pain returns like a punch.

  ‘Go and rest, Mum.’

  I hear her sigh. ‘If you’re sure.’

  ‘I am.’ I don’t want to tell her that the minute she’s gone Robin will appear from wherever it is he lurks when my parents visit. Neither of them has mentioned Robin and, other than the odd polite hello, there’s been no conversation between them – well not in front of me anyway. I hope they haven’t had a row. It’s late afternoon and that’s when Robin said he’d be back.

  ‘Your dad will be up later. He can bring the squash the nurses said you need now. So good you’re drinking.’ She bends over to hug and kiss me, she smells of my childhood; she smells of Mads.

  ‘And finally, I get you to myself,’ Robin says. Mum can barely have left the ward before he’s back.

  ‘How do you get here so quickly when I’m alone. Where do you lurk?’

  ‘Now that,’ he laughs, ‘would be telling.’

  ‘Mmm.’ I really can’t be bothered to attempt to tease it out of him.

  ‘What were you talking about?’

&n
bsp; ‘Mum was telling me Stephen is back from Canada. He’s staying here now.’

  ‘Stephen. Your ex-boyfriend?’ Trust him to think that.

  ‘We were hardly that. Just friends.’

  ‘He was too friendly.’

  I groan inwardly, some of that groan escapes through my mouth. I wait for Robin to pounce, but he doesn’t. I used to love his possessiveness. His love. Now I find it overbearing and, quite often, ridiculous. I’ve never given him cause to be jealous.

  Robin and I sit for a while in silence before he says, ‘Urgh. What’s that smell?’

  I sniff.

  ‘Pure oxygen,’ I say. I’m cracking a joke. He should congratulate me.

  ‘No, it smells like body odour.’

  That could be me but I’m not about to say so. Anyway, it shouldn’t be me, I’ve been washed enough, much to my embarrassment. I wonder if I’ve shat myself again.

  Then the smell drifts into my nostrils.

  ‘It’s food.’

  ‘Oh God. And it’s coming closer.’ His tone changes. ‘Hi Jeff,’ he says as though they are best friends.

  ‘Good afternoon. I thought you might like to try something solid. Well, semi-solid.’ Jeff pulls something up to my bed, then his footsteps retreat.

  ‘It’s a table over the bed.’ Robin says, but I’ve already worked that out. I run my fingers over it. ‘Here he comes, lumber, lumber.’ Robin can be so rude, but as Jeff reaches us he says, ‘smells good, Jeff.’

  ‘Try this. It’s Cottage Pie, it’s nice and soft so should slide down easily. Shall I get you started?’

  I’m grateful that he hasn’t suggested Robin helps me, because Robin hates doing things like that. It’s just as well we’ve never had children because he wouldn’t help with the feeding, let alone nappy changing.

  ‘Just chew slowly and swallow when you’re ready. I’ve got a drink for you, just water I’m afraid.’ The spoon goes into my mouth and I experience the novelty of real food. It may not be my choice, or my favourite, but it tastes so good.

  There’s not much to chew; the texture is soft and overcooked. I swallow, afraid that I might choke but it glides down easily. I hear my stomach growl its approval.

  ‘Juliette,’ Robin hisses.