The Exit

by Helen FitzGerald

  Every hour since she arrived, Mum’s situation changed, and I had very little time to think about anything else. I’d find a routine that worked for whatever basic function we were trying to achieve, and then bang, something went wrong and I had to work out a whole new one.

  In five days, she went from being able to walk to the dining room to not being able; from being able to wipe her own bottom to not being able; from being able to get out of the bed on her own to falling on the floor with a thud; from being able to get up off the floor to not. So I’d update my system, chuck out the piece of equipment we’d been using, and find another one to suit the short-lived stage we now found ourselves in. I kept busy, working out equipment, making her comfortable, talking happy talk, avoiding conversations that might remind her of where she was and why she was there.

  Other activities punctuated the days. A harpist came and played one evening. A tear machine, that instrument. The guy, Pete, spent his weekends playing his music for the dying. I left the room, walked to my regular spot on the river, and sobbed.

  There were visits from massage therapists, physiotherapists, oncologists, occupational therapists and aromatherapists. I escaped upstairs to Marcus’s for a nap when someone else was with Mum, but I never managed more than a couple of hours at a time. I needed sleep but I didn’t want it. As soon as I lost sight of her, I panicked, felt lost and terrified. Being with her and helping her was the only way to keep my head.

  Aggressive was the right word for this tumour. Sometimes I’d look at her head, imagining the killer within it, wishing I could suck it out through her ears, massage it out with my hands, will it out with my tumour-free mind. Other times I’d look at her head and refuse to believe there was anything unusual going on inside it.

  I was helping Mum back into bed when the doctor arrived. Mum had decided she was tired of the sweating and the immobility and the mouth ulcers caused by the steroids. ‘I’d prefer the swelling to this,’ she told the doctor, who was around forty, I’d say; a cougar. ‘No more medication, just pain relief if and when.’

  ‘So no more steroids?’ The doctor’s expression said it all. (Do you know what this will do? Are you sure?)

  Mum’s face answered the questions. The answer to both was yes. She nodded. ‘No more steroids.’

  I wonder why I didn’t realise the significance of it. The loss of mobility had seemed so awful, I couldn’t imagine anything would be worse. I suppose she believed the same. I wish I’d known that morning, that this was the last day I would be able to talk to her, really talk. I should have let her cry, let her see me cry. I should not have prioritised my fears above hers, and stifled the only opportunity I’d ever have to tell her how much I admired and loved her. I should have let her be afraid. I should have lay beside her and wept with her for hours and hours before the swelling came and took her from me. I should have made her stay on the steroids.

  After the doctor left, a girl called Zoe came to massage Mum’s feet (although Mum couldn’t feel it. Her feet had died already. Death was taking over from the bottom up.) I went upstairs to make an attempt at sleep and Marcus offered me a joint. Ah, just what the care assistant ordered. Perhaps drugs would quell the terror and the sadness. I smoked half of it, head out of the drawing-room window, and slept for three hours.

  Since Mum’s arrival, I’d avoided everyone except Rose. As I walked back to Mum’s room, I popped in on Jimmy.

  ‘I have a present for you.’ He was sitting in bed, guitar in hand. I passed him the unsmoked half of the joint.

  ‘Oh my! I knew I loved you from the moment I saw you. Now, it’s an obsessive love!’

  ‘Have it outside, yeah? You want me to take you?’

  ‘No, I’m fine. I’ll nip out myself when everyone’s busy with the new boy.’

  ‘New boy?’

  ‘Not new exactly. He was here a month, then went home for a few days. He’s going fast; family had hoped he’d go at home, but they couldn’t cope. That’s him arriving.’

  I guessed it was his parents wheeling him down the hall. They looked exhausted and devastated, but were trying to maintain some normalcy by chatting about practicalities. ‘We’ll set up the laptop on the lunch tray,’ his mother said. ‘You can keep Skype on all the time,’ his father said. ‘I’ll point our camera at the kitchen so you can see what we’re up to.’ The boy, just twenty-one, wore a black Billabong beanie, his thin legs covered with a blanket.

  ‘That’s a great idea.’ His voice wasn’t a flat, dying voice. He really did think that was a great idea.

  It struck me that the dying cared for the carers almost as much as the other way round. Mum was always telling me to rest, saying thanks, keeping her voice as animated as possible, being grateful, never talking about the truth of what was going on, the horror of her loss of self and of what was to come. She was always agreeing that whatever small alteration I had made in the room, or to her clothing, was excellent, perfect, just right. Aren’t you clever! That’s a great idea!

  Jimmy sighed as the boy’s bedroom door was shut. ‘Leukaemia, wee soul.’

  I was becoming uncomfortably comfortable talking about illness. ‘What’s wrong with you, Jimmy?’

  He sniggered. ‘What’s wrong with me is that I’m old and no one wants me. I could be here for years.’

  ‘In that case –’ I pointed to the joint in his hand ‘– I’d better get you some more of those!’

  *

  Mum was asleep again. I knocked on Rose’s door and unlocked it. As usual for this time of the day, she was at her desk, drawing.

  ‘Catherine! I’m just finishing off a drawing. I want you to do a job for me.’

  I looked at the page. Again, Room 7. But this time the room was crammed full of faceless people, swirled together in an angry mess. Once again, one of the blank faces had bright lipstick, but she’d drawn no other facial features. A small bony figure lay on the bed.

  I read the words out loud.

  Tilly wasn’t just sick of the game of Kings and Queens, she was actually sick. And so young. A crowd would gather by her bed when the time came.

  ‘Here’s five hundred. Take it to Natalie Holland. That’s her home address. She’s cluey. She’ll understand. Tell her—’

  ‘—the truth is in your drawings.’

  ‘Yes! How did you know that?’

  ‘You’ve asked me to go to her before, Rose.’

  She put her head in her hands, annoyed, then shook it off, folded the page. ‘Maybe she’ll understand this one. Tell her—’

  ‘—the truth is in your drawings, I’ll tell her.’

  ‘You have to go now, because of Jason. Hurry!’

  I assumed Jason was the young guy I’d just seen moving back into Room 5.

  ‘I can’t take your money again, Rose.’

  ‘No, you can’t.’ The voice was Chris’s. He was standing at the door behind me, and had obviously heard our conversation.

  ‘Just how much have you taken from my grandmother already?’

  ‘Um. Oh shit.’ It was awful what I’d done, wasn’t it? I decided to be completely honest. ‘One thousand five hundred. I’ll give it back. I’m sorry.’

  He nodded, his lips tight and angry. ‘You will, yes. And I’m going to report you, Catherine. I’m gobsmacked. I am absolutely appalled. Where are you hiding money, Gran?’

  ‘It’s none of your business. It’s mine.’ Rose was a tough old bird when she needed to be.

  ‘I know, but it should be in the bank. I’m keeping it safe for you. Do you have a hiding place? Where are you hiding things?’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘Money, matches. I don’t know what else.’ He scoured the room for hiding places – under the bed, under the mattress, in her bedside cabinet, the en-suite cupboard. No luck. Then he walked over to the desk and unfolded the picture she’d just drawn. ‘Gran, these drawings aren’t doing you any good. Maybe you should stop.’

  ‘I’ll draw if I want.’

  He to
ok the drawing, folded it. ‘I’ll put this somewhere safe for you.’

  ‘Why do you take everything away from me? It’s mine. I’ll keep it safe.’

  He ignored her, put the folded drawing and the envelope full of money in his jacket pocket. ‘You were at the back of the house last night, weren’t you, Gran?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘You were. I know exactly where you are at any given moment. I can track you on my phone. Last night at 3 a.m. you were outside. At the back of the house.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘The tag, Gran, remember?’ He lifted her jeans. The tag was still there, but it had marks on it. She’d obviously been trying to cut it off.

  ‘You can’t get it off. You must stop trying.’ He turned to me: ‘What’s she been using to cut this? You let her have sharp implements?’

  I hadn’t given her the scissors as she’d asked. ‘No. She must have found something. We don’t let her—’

  ‘Get out of my grandmother’s room, and don’t come back. Hear me? I don’t want you to have anything to do with her again. You hear me, Gran? Do not talk to this girl. She’s stealing from you. I want that money back, you hear? I’m going to complain to the owner. You should not be working here. If I catch you at it again, I’ll call the police.’

  Rose stood. ‘Leave her alone. I can give money to anyone I want. It’s mine.’

  ‘Actually, Gran—’

  She moved closer to him. ‘Actually nothing, Christopher. You keep the money I gave you, Catherine, you hear me? I employed you. You earned it.’

  She’d walked over to grasp my upper arms. I admit, I was a little scared of her, but not as scared as I was of Chris. ‘You should go home. It’s not safe here.’

  ‘Gran, it’s perfectly safe.’ Chris was holding the Zimmer in front of her. ‘Let’s get some fresh air.’

  *

  I shut Mum’s door behind me. Where had the traumaless girl of a week ago gone? I was finding it difficult to breathe. I hadn’t slept more than ten hours in days. I felt faint. How long since I’d eaten? Had I eaten anything since Mum moved in? I must have. But I couldn’t remember eating, and I couldn’t imagine ever wanting to again.

  ‘Cath?’

  Mum was awake. No, she’d seen me crying. The tears receded immediately. Amazing, that. ‘Hey, Mum, you’re awake!’

  ‘You can’t keep this up, darlin’.’

  ‘Keep what up?’

  ‘Twenty-four hours a day. You can’t do this for ever.’

  ‘It won’t be for ever.’ Shit! I hadn’t just said that out loud, had I? Oh no, I had. ‘I mean, it won’t be. I won’t.’ There was no changing that sentence around.

  ‘It’s fine.’ She laughed, held her hand out. ‘Come here. It’s fine. I’ve spoken to Marcus and we both agree you need time off. You’ve got to look after your own health, honey. For me? Take a couple of nights off, okay?’

  I wanted to talk to her about what’d just happened. Whenever I made a mistake or felt guilty, she always listened and said the right things. Why did I ever think she was a crap mother? Because she hadn’t baked cakes? What an areshole I am. I couldn’t burden a dying woman with my pathetic selfish errors of judgement. ‘But I don’t want to leave you.’

  She reached for a sheet of paper at the side of her bed. ‘I made a copy of this for you.’

  It was titled: ‘The Brain Hospice – Symptom Time Line’. I started reading:

  The question I am asked most often is How long? While the end stage path varies from person to person, there do tend to be commonalities that can help to ‘see what we’re seeing’ and often, to estimate how much time might remain.

  Underneath were several sections.

  3–6 weeks prior to death:

  There was a list of symptoms:

  increasing weakness on the affected side, falling due to resistance to accept help, need for more assistance with walking, confusion and memory loss, increasingly tired etc. etc.

  Mum had ticked all the things on that list.

  2–3 weeks prior to death: If still walking, may wander around the house a little, as if restless, more urgency with urination, less interest in world at large; more confused by choices – yes/no answers are best.

  She’d ticked three-quarters of the symptoms listed in that section.

  I put it down. ‘I don’t want to look at this.’

  ‘Well it’s helped me, knowing. I think it’ll help you too. Look, I’m not quite at the one-to-two-week stage, and I’m not at the five-to-seven-day stage, or the two-to-five, or the final forty-eight hours. Keep the list, so you know where we’re at. You can go home and rest. I’ll still be here when you get back.’

  But she wouldn’t be, not really.

  *

  On the way out, Rose pounced from behind her bedroom door. ‘I drew it again.’ She handed me the new drawing, and tried to give me another handful of money. Chris was right: she obviously had a hiding place in the room somewhere. Good on her. I wondered how much money was there. ‘Please take it to Natalie. I don’t know why I didn’t think of her first. She’s the one. She’ll understand, even if I don’t right now.’

  ‘I’ll take this to Natalie.’ I put the cash in her palm, closed her bony fingers around it. ‘But I won’t take your money.’

  As I was calling a taxi outside, Marcus drove up in his Merc, beeped, and wound down his window.

  ‘Good, you’re going home. You want a lift?’

  The taxi number wasn’t answering. I jumped in.

  *

  They say grief increases the libido, at least temporarily, something about the life-affirming nature of procreation. While I insisted on a non-procreating condom, I must agree about the life-affirming argument. I escaped grief for a moment (I’d say one minute, to be exact). For the other ten minutes or so I dreamt of taking a shower.

  I’d invited Marcus in for a coffee and ended up giving him a whisky followed by a full-on kiss. While I was kissing him I was thinking to myself: this is wrong and selfish and – well, mainly wrong. Since Mum’s bombshell I hadn’t sought any of my usual pleasures at all – alcohol, humour, the Internet, friendships, food, or even a proper sleep. Apart from that half a joint, I s’pose, but that was medicine, to help me rest so I could resume my duties with competence. Yet here I was seeking out Marcus’s thin and quite hard tongue, hoping it would relax, thicken and be less pointy if coaxed by my own tongue movements and enthusiasm. Alas, it remained pornstar pointy, prodding and twirling, unwilling to go back into his mouth or step inside mine: wriggle, wriggle, point, point, dab, dab. I should have stopped, but an urgency to disappear into flesh overwhelmed me. The thrust of tongue or body might yank the death out of me. I might forget for a moment. I might feel something other than fear.

  So I kept going, leading Marcus into my bedroom, where I ordered him to lie down.

  He asked me if I was sure about this and I told him to shut up.

  He asked me if this was wrong, him being my boss and all, and I told him he wasn’t my boss, he wasn’t paying me, my mother was, so take your clothes off and shut up.

  Marcus wasn’t great naked. Despite a slim frame, he was soft and man-booby and his puffy knees were even puffier than I’d suspected.

  I sat on top of him but he wasn’t hard yet and this made me cry.

  He told me to shut up this time, tossed me onto my back and began.

  His moves were so slow and so gentle – like he was rowing a boat through a lake made of glue. Same movement, over and over. This was the worst sex I had ever had in my life, even worse than my first time: Derek Valien from my class at school. We were down in by the river in the Botanics and he came as soon as I touched him but he still tried to put it in me after because he didn’t understand the logistics. As Marcus rowed his sluggish boat, moaning in unison with his oar, I found myself wishing for the quiet of grief. Let me think about my mother. Let me be with my mother.

  I bounced on top and took over in order to get some
anger in there. I wanted to punch him in the face as I began the grind. I wanted to yank his hair out till his scalp bled. I wanted to cut his head open with an axe and pull out his tumour-free brain and drive as fast as I could back to Mum, brain throbbing in my bloody hands, and pop it into her head. With knees like this, man-boobs like this, moves like these, he did not deserve a tumour-free brain.

  ‘Stay still!’

  I couldn’t stop crying.

  ‘Keep your eyes open.’

  My tears stopped as I imagined strangling him with my hands, stomping on his stupid thin nostrils with my feet till his nose split in half.

  We were vying for control. I was back under again, crying again.

  ‘Stop wriggling!’

  To get it over with, I stopped moving altogether while he stirred so quietly I could hardly tell it was happening. Finally, he shuddered a whites-of-eyes orgasm. I was glad he couldn’t see the disgust on my face. Eeek!

  I pulled myself out from under him and covered myself with the duvet. ‘Thought I nearly lost you there.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ He put his arms behind his head, triumphant. ‘La petite mort!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The little death. Just what I needed, cheers.’

  As I put my pants on, he raised his eyebrows: ‘So, did you?’

  I hated it when guys asked me this. If they had to ask, then they knew. And how could he even think that? I’d cried most of the time, and surely he’d noticed the murder on my face. I felt like torturing him. ‘Did I what?’

  ‘Did you die a little death?’

  ‘Couldn’t even conjure a fake one I’m afraid, Marcus.’ But he was in danger of dying a big one if he didn’t get the hell out of my house. I’m not sure you could call it kicking him out, but I do remember placing a firm hand on his lower back and encouraging him out the door. I should not have done that. It had not affirmed life. It had made it want to vomit. Why, why had I? Why hadn’t I gone to Paul’s house and hugged him? I rushed to my computer to write another email.