by V E Rooney
Fuck!
You were asking for that, dickhead.
Jesus. Did you see that? Like a fucking ninja, she was!
Richie can’t believe it at first but then he’s back into Hulk mode. “I’ll fucking kill you, you fucking…”
Before he can move towards me again, Sean grabs Richie in a headlock, spins him around and lands a lightning-quick right hook, plum on Richie’s gob. Richie falls to the floor, clutching his face. Sean grabs him by his shoulders and hoists him up. Richie, bloodied and bewildered, stares up beseechingly at Sean’s contorted face of fury. Sean lets rip at him.
“The busies weren’t tailing us, Richie. No. The busies weren’t tailing us. Fucking Customs were tailing us!”
At this, there are shocked shouts from the rest of the crew.
You what?
The cuzzies? The fucking cuzzies?
Oh, fucking hell. Customs. That’s proper fucking bad.
“And do you know what, Richie?” Sean says, as he twists Richie’s neck to keep him level. “Do you know what? If it wasn’t for her,” he says, pointing at me, “if it wasn’t for her, all of us would be in the fucking slammer by now! Have you got that, Richie? The only reason you’re still a free man is because of her!”
With that, Sean lets go of Richie and takes a few steps backwards without taking his eyes off him. It’s the turn of the rest of the crew to look gobsmacked as the enormity of what Sean has just told them sinks in. That’s right, lads. You all owe me. You all owe me big time. And I will never let you forget it.
But Richie will not admit defeat.
“Sean…Sean…fuck…why are you doing this, mate? Why? Look what’s she’s doing to us, mate. Sean, me and you go way back, lad,” he says plaintively. He’s fucked off his boss once too often and he knows it. But Sean is impassive. He points towards the door of the warehouse.
“Get out, Richie. Get out.”
There is silence as Richie slowly clambers to his feet. He looks around at the crew. Some won’t look at him while some stare at him with a mixture of pity and disdain. It’s a pathetic sight and I almost feel sorry for him. He looks on the verge of tears. He shuffles awkwardly towards the door. Then he’s gone.
Sean wastes no time in giving the remaining crew the definitive odds.
“Any of you who slagged her? You should be fucking grovelling right now. You should be on your fucking knees, licking her arsehole clean. And if any of you ever, EVER show such fucking disrespect to each other again? You’ll be following him out on your fucking arse. Got that?”
A loose mumbled chorus of yeah, boss is the reply.
Order is restored in the universe.
PART THREE
33. COMMUNION
Away from work, my old routines are in place, anchoring me to my past life. Mum and I catch up with each other every couple of weeks, I’ll go round to hers in Kirkby for Sunday roast, we’ll sit and slag off the shite on telly like we always do. Sometimes we’ll go out. I like to treat her to a posh meal occasionally or go with her to the bingo, just like old times.
It’s the 6th of November 1994. It’s a Sunday and we’ve just finished having our roast. We’re sat on the couch in the lounge. That’s when she tells me.
I’ve noticed she’s been looking a bit out of sorts for a few weeks. She seems more tired, isn’t as spritely or as perky as normal. Isn’t so quick with the smart arse quips or responses. She seems distracted. I’m babbling on about whatever and then I see that she’s just staring out of the window, in a world all of her own.
“Sorry, love, I was miles away. What were you saying?” she says in response to my slight tap on her arm and my ‘Earth to mother’ plea.
“Are you sure you’re alright?” I say, genuinely confused. “You don’t seem yourself lately. Away with the fairies, you are. Something going on?”
She looks down at her lap and purses her lips, like she isn’t sure what to say. So Mum being Mum, she just comes out with it.
“I went to the doctor’s the other week. Kept getting pains down there, you know,” she says, glancing at her lap. “Got sent to Fazakerley Hospital for some tests, blood tests and all that,” she says. Then she pauses.
“I’ve got cervical cancer,” she says, looking at the floor.
Normal service has been temporarily suspended.
“What?”
“I’m starting treatment this week. Chemo, radiotherapy and all that. It’s advanced, the doctors said, so they need to start throwing everything at it.”
I want to cry, I want to scream, I want to throw my arms around her and never let her go.
“How advanced?” I say, feeling my throat begin to tighten up.
“Oh, it’s not terminal. But because it’s cervical cancer, you know, it’s one of those aggressive cancers, so yeah, it’s…it’s serious. And you,” she says, suddenly turning to me and speaking in a slightly admonishing tone, “need to go and get yourself checked out as well. High risk of daughters inheriting it, that’s what the doctors said. So you get yourself down your doctor’s first thing, do you hear me?”
“Mum…I…”
The tears come and I can’t stop them. Mum puts her arms around me and I put mine around her. All the time she’s going, “shh, love, it’s OK, like I’m gonna let some fucking tumour get the better of me,” and I’m going, “Mum, it’s OK, it’s OK, you’re gonna be alright, I’ll get you the best doctors,” and we’re both crying and holding each other and rocking each other.
I start babbling on about getting the best specialists in the country to check her out and you know what she says? “Don’t you waste your money. I’m not going into some fucking poncey private hospital. The NHS will do me just fine. Backbone of this country, the NHS. I can get the bus straight to the hospital from the townie, it’ll be a doddle.”
She goes into the hospital as an in-patient on the Monday morning. Ste is back from Spain for a few days, incognito of course, and insists on driving Mum and I to the hospital, ignoring her half-hearted protestations that she’s alright with the bus. She’s sharing a ward with a right rabble. There’s Glynis, a retired snooty teacher from Ormskirk with cervical cancer like Mum; Betty, a cackling divorced housewife around the same age as Mum and in hospital with a cancerous thyroid; Anne, a raucous former pub landlady who’s already had half her left lung taken away; and Julie, who’s only in her early 20s but is on her second battle with a recurring tumour lodged near her spine.
We’ve only got Mum settled on the ward for a few minutes and she’s already swapping jokes with Anne about Ste being her toyboy. “Tell you what, love, if I was 20 years younger I wouldn’t mind having a go on him myself. That would do my sciatica the world of good, that would,” Anne wheezes approvingly as she admires Ste’s physique.
“Good job you’ve got some spare oxygen, love, you’ll need it once he’s done with you,” says Mum as she winks at Ste. At this Ste goes beetroot and reverts back into the shy and bumbling schoolboy who’s awestruck by older women. Bless him.
With Mum’s treatment regime committed to memory, and with promises that I’ll visit as near enough to daily as I can, Ste and I kiss her goodbye and leave her to get acquainted with her new mates. I’ll see her daily and several times daily when time and business allow it. Even if I can’t get to the hospital for whatever reason, I know she won’t be short of visitors. Some of the girls from the bingo are coming in later to see her.
As we leave the ward, Ste and I can hear a cackle from Betty.
Jesus Christ, did you see the muscles in his arse? Fuck me, you could crack walnuts between those cheeks.
Overnight, I become an expert in cervical cancer. I buy all kinds of medical books. Even go to Blackwell’s, the university textbook shop, and get all the books I can find on cervical cancer - the treatments, the drugs, the surgical techniques. I stay up night after night, poring over anything related to cervical cancer. Trying to find something that will help her, save her. Over time, I persuade her to get second
opinions from some of the leading private specialists in the UK. I arrange helicopter trips between Liverpool and London so that these elite doctors can get back to their posh Harley Street clinics and see their well-to-do patients with minimal disruption.
There’s a birthday party for Lee at Sean’s house. I’ve been here about an hour, having come from the hospital. The nurses said that they would make Mum as comfortable as they could. She was sparked out when I left. Probably didn’t even know I was there. I’ll be back first thing in the morning.
And, having been camped out in the intensive care unit for the last few weeks, I need a bit of a break from the bright lights, the incessant humming and beeping of machines, the smell of disinfectant and the platitudes from the nurses and the doctors. They can’t do anything else for Mum. It’s just a matter of time now.
I’m chinwagging with some of the girls when my mobile starts buzzing. It’s the hospital. Mum has taken a turn for the worse and would it be possible for me to get back there quick as? I’m out of the door before anyone can ask what’s wrong. Sean calls after me but I ignore him.
The taxi ride is five minutes. Every second feels like a year. I know that this is the end. The end for Mum, and for Mum and me.
I’m almost sprinting along the harshly-lit ward corridor and I’m met by a nurse who takes me to Mum’s side.
She’s just a bag of bones at this point. Her skin is like wet tissue paper, grey and translucent. I can see her veins and her bones. I can hear her breath struggling to get in and out of her chest. Her oxygen mask is making it sound even more raspy than normal. She sounds like she could choke at any moment.
I sit down by her side and gently take her frail hand in mine. She slowly twists her head towards me, her eyes are half-closed and glassy. She looks at me for a few moments and turns her head away.
I start talking about practical stuff because I’m rubbish at the emotional stuff. Stuff about the kind of funeral she wants. I want to tell her how much I love her, how proud I am that she’s my Mum, how grateful I am that I’m her daughter, how much I’m going to miss her, how my heart feels like it’s being crushed by an invisible hand. How it’s so unfair that the strongest, bravest and funniest woman I’ve ever known has to suffer like this. It’s so fucking unfair.
Where are you, God? Where are you now when she needs you? Isn’t it enough that she’s already lived a life so hard, such a fucking cruel and unrelentingly harsh life already? A life that meant she had no family to turn to? No parents to visit, no brothers to be found anywhere? Getting battered by my Dad when she tried to protect me from the fighting and the shouting? How she carried on alone, struggling on the dole, working cash-in-hand for a pittance, doing all kinds of horrible jobs just to keep us fed and watered? What the fuck did she ever do to you, God? Why are you such a fucking cruel and heartless bastard? You couldn’t even let her live to be 40 years old, could you? And that wasn’t enough for you, was it, you fucking cunt? No. You had to make sure that she got one of the worst cancers a woman can get. The kind that makes her weep and howl and writhe and scream in agony, no matter how much fucking morphine the doctors pump into her.
Mum slowly pulls down her oxygen mask. She’s trying to speak. I lean over so I can hear better.
“You know what?” she says, her voice almost a whisper. Her head remains where it is, not looking at me.
“What?” I say as I bring my head closer to hers.
“I wish I’d never had you.”
The shock that paralyses my body and mind and mouth is like nothing I’ve ever felt in my worst moments of fear. I am frozen.
I blink and bring myself back into the room. Oh, Mum. It’s OK. It’s OK. You’re gonna say that you wished things could have been better for us, aren’t you? You’re gonna say that you’d have preferred it if neither of us had existed, rather than go through the unremitting grind of our deprived circumstances day after day. That you wished things could have been better for us. Because with you, it’s all or nothing. Much better to not exist than to exist in misery, that’s your mindset. I get it, Mum. I do, really. But don’t you dare think like that, Mum. A lifetime with you is worth a million lifetimes with the kind of perfect, bland mothers that are held up as the ideal on those stupid telly adverts. Don’t you dare think like that, Mum. I wouldn’t swap you for anything.
“I wanted an abortion…but your Dad wouldn’t let me.”
Mum, please. Please. Please don’t.
“I could’ve had a different life. A better life.”
Mum, I am begging you. Please. Please don’t say that.
“Didn’t have a fucking choice, did I? Look at me now.”
Mum…Mum…Mum…
She turns her head to me. Looks me right in the eyes.
“Fuck off. Go on. Fuck off.”
Mum, stop it, stop it, don’t say that, don’t say that.
She’s trying to shout now but it just comes out as a raspy croak.
“IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT…IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT…”
Normal service has been temporarily suspended.
The nurses come rushing in, followed by one doctor. They’re trying to calm her down. The doctor is trying to gently push her heaving, jerking body back down onto the bed. She’s gasping for breath now. Her head is flailing backwards and forwards. She’s clawing at the nurses who are trying to get the oxygen mask back over her mouth. The noises coming out of her. I can’t bear it. Her eyes are bulging out of her head. It’s like her lungs are making noises independently of her mouth. And then she is silent. Her mouth is open, fixed in a silent scream.
Her body goes limp. She’s still.
She’s gone.
In the ward corridor afterwards, I get the usual shit from the doctors.
It’s not uncommon for patients to hallucinate towards the end.
She was on such a high dose of morphine. She didn’t know what she was saying.
Remember her the way she was in life, not the way she was at the end.
I nod. I listen to them. I thank them for the way they took care of her, for treating her so kindly and gently. I set off back down the corridor. Come on, Ali. Deep breaths. Just put one foot in front of the other. Just keep looking at the exit. Just keep breathing. Just keep going.
Flashbacks of when I was a little girl.
Mum standing patiently while I watched the shipping containers in Kirkby being loaded and unloaded, stacked on top of each other like Lego bricks.
Mum being a human shield when Dad kicked off.
Mum playing hide and seek with me as the rent collector hammered on the front door.
I get round the corner of the corridor. Then the tears come. Then the uncontrollable sobs. I fall against the wall, and slide down onto the floor.
Mum…please don’t go…
Mum…please stay…please stay with me…
Mum…please don’t leave me…please don’t go away…please stay with me forever…
I don’t doubt that she loved me and did her best for me. But I also know she meant what she said. That was who she was. No sugarcoating with my Mum.
I don’t remember leaving the hospital. I’m vaguely aware of the noise of traffic, the glare of the street lamps, the snatches of chatter from passers-by but it’s like I’m in my own invisible bubble. I’m walking down London Road towards the city centre, past the pubs, the chippies, the throngs of scallies and students milling about outside. I don’t know where I’m going. I just need to keep moving.
A couple of hours later. It’s about 3am, I think. I’m at Crosby Marina. Why did I come here? Haven’t been up this way in years. When was the last time I was here? It must have been when I was seven or eight. Mum and I got the bus up here.
She shows me the rabbits jumping about in the car park. We get ice cream from the van – a 99er for her and a Funny Feet lolly for me. Past the ramshackle grimy glass and brick box of Crosby Swimming Pool, then we walk over to the sand dunes leading on to the beach. Apparently, so John told me
once, Stanley Kubrick was going to use these sand dunes as some of the background scenery in 2001: A Space Odyssey but then he changed his mind, which was unusual for him. Fuck knows why, because you do feel like you’re walking on some weird alien landscape here.
Mum and I jump about in the sand dunes, playing hide and seek for fun this time. We roll down the big dunes onto the beach, laughing all the way. We fall in a heap at the bottom, sand all over our clothes, in our hair, up our noses but we don’t care because it’s a lovely sunny day and we’re at the seaside.
We sit on our coats and watch the ships in the distance making their way to and from the docks further down. She points to a massive ship about a mile offshore, heading towards the docks.
“See that, love? See that big ship?” she says, as I follow her finger to the giant ship moving slowly across the surface.
“Mum! That’s the biggest ship I’ve ever seen!” I squeal.
“See all those big boxes in front? Those are the shipping containers you like to look at.”
“Where do they come from?” I say excitedly.
“Oh, all over the world, love. You see, once those ships get to the docks, all those boxes get unloaded and then they get put on the big lorries and then they go all over the country. But some of them stay here, you know, because we’ve got the docks and people want to have their containers nearby. So that’s why some of them get taken to Kirkby and stored there.”
“What’s in them? Is there treasure?”
“I reckon you could call it treasure in a way,” she says, chuckling. “Some boxes have food in them. Some have got furniture in them. Some have even got cars in them, you know. Big fancy cars from America like you see in the films.”
