The Exit

by Helen FitzGerald

  She stood, not breathing, lifted it gently from my hand, opened it, and fell back into her chair. ‘Where did you find this?’

  ‘Stuck to the inside of Violet’s head with an old plaster.’

  Rose began sobbing.

  ‘What? What is it, Rose?’

  ‘Margie, she must have hidden it there . . . From that little bitch, what was her name again? Look at him, look at my dad. Isn’t he beautiful? Doesn’t he look like the most loving and lovable person in the whole wide world?’

  I told her he did. I wasn’t humouring her.

  ‘What do think he’s thinking in this photo?’

  ‘Happy things. He’s thinking happy things, Rose. That’s a smize! Smiling with his eyes. Impossible to pretend, unless you’re Tyra Banks.’

  ‘So he’s not thinking that I’m selfish.’

  ‘No, he’s thinking he loves you.’

  Rose stood by the mirror, and placed the chain around her neck. ‘Will you fasten it for me, please?’ Once secured, she beamed at her reflection. ‘Will you promise me something?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Promise me no one will ever take this off me?’

  I extended my pinky and this time Rose understood, and curled her own around mine. ‘Pinky promise.’

  *

  It wasn’t unusual to hear terrifying and upsetting noises in this place: screams of pain, yells of anger or frustration, cries of grief. Someone was crying. I left Rose to drink in her long-lost locket and ducked into the hall to check where it was coming from: Jason’s parents; collecting his belongings.

  ‘They’re sad they missed him,’ Nurse Gabriella said later.

  ‘They didn’t get here in time?’

  ‘No, not till morning, I’m afraid.’ The witch was softening, it seemed. Maybe the red lips in Rose’s picture were not hers.

  ‘So who drank all that water last night, then?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The bin by the water cooler was full of cups this morning. I’d emptied it yesterday.’

  She hardened again – ‘How would I know? I never do Wednesdays.’

  ‘Oh? Why not?’

  ‘Not that it’s any of your business, but since my boy died, I’ve stayed with Mum in Rothesay Wednesdays.’

  ‘You’re close to your mum?’

  ‘She’s my rock.’ Her eyes welled. I’d never seen this side of her before.

  ‘You get the ferry?’

  ‘No, I swim.’ And soft Gabriella morphed back into the bitch I knew.

  A bitch who did not kill people here.

  *

  At midnight, the only other member of staff was old Harriet, who was sneaking a nap in Jason’s ex-room. I wondered about the cups in the water cooler. There must have been other people here last night. I also remembered Mum’s comment – that cars had kept her awake all last night – and wondered if there were CCTV tapes. I’d noticed cameras at the front and at the back of the house but I couldn’t find any tapes in the office. When Harriet woke, I asked her.

  ‘Oh, Marcus doesn’t believe this place should feel like a police state. We haven’t used the cameras for well over a year.’

  Odd, I’d have thought security was essential at a place like this.

  ‘How long have you been working here?’ I followed her to the kitchen, where she put some bread in the toaster.

  ‘Since the beginning of time!’ She laughed, getting jam and butter out of the industrial-sized fridge. ‘Ten, no, eleven years.’

  The toast was burning. Harriet turned it off in a panic, opened the window, waved a towel at the smoke detector on the ceiling. ‘Watch this toaster. It sets that thing off all the time, and if the alarm goes off the fire engines arrive within minutes.’

  She’d averted the crisis, stopped waving the towel.

  ‘Okay. When did Marcus take over?’

  ‘Two years ago.’

  ‘And how long has Gabriella been here?’

  ‘Five years. She and I are the only ones that stayed on.’

  There was a garage about twenty metres from the end of the drive. I offered to get Harriet some chocolate, and headed out for some air. Opposite the drive was a mirror on a tall pole, so drivers exiting here could see if cars were coming along the windy main road. As I was buying the chocolate, I noticed the CCTV video on the wall, showing shots of the pumps and the cash machine. In one view, you could see the mirror opposite Dear Green’s driveway.

  ‘You work at the care home?’ The young guy in the garage looked bored and tired and easily chat-up-able.

  ‘Kind of. Needed a break. It’s nice to see a young face.’ I pressed my arms together and leant in to give him a shot of my cleavage.

  A few minutes later, Greg was showing me the CCTV tapes from last night. He fast forwarded from 10 p.m. onwards. One car drove in at eleven. One left at eleven ten. Shift change, probably. Nurse Gabriella leaving, Harriet arriving. No cars at all for three hours after that, then all of a sudden, car after car after car. Eleven in total, all arriving between 2.20 and 3 a.m. I couldn’t see any of the passengers or number plates, just the headlights in the mirror as the vehicles turned into the drive. No coming and going after that until half past five, when all eleven cars exited in convoy.

  I promised Greg we’d have a drink soon, then walked back to Dear Green thinking about the cars. Where was Marcus last night? We’d had a drink in the evening, gone home, had terrible sex. Yes, he would have been at home after midnight. Oh, perhaps he’d had a party. Of course.

  *

  I went upstairs to his straight away. He was at his desk, tapping away at that shit book of his. ‘Hey, Marcus, just wondering . . . Mum said lots of cars were coming and going late last night?’

  ‘She did?’ Fearing I’d steal his ideas, he slapped the lid shut and turned his attention to me with a huff. ‘The confusion’s very difficult, isn’t it?’

  I didn’t want to confront him and tell him I’d been looking at CCTV footage. It’d seem odd, me snooping about like that, especially after the complaint Rose had made, and me looking through his laptop. Instead I said: ‘So there were no cars?’

  ‘Not that I know of. Shift change at eleven last night. Jason’s family arrived around seven this morning, I think.’

  ‘So what did you get up to last night?’

  ‘After yours? Sleep! Does she know who you are still? Does she need the doctor, you think?’

  ‘No. I mean yes and no. I’d better get back to her though.’

  So, either Marcus was a liar, or another member of staff had people over last night and he hadn’t heard the cars. I hadn’t decided which option to believe before I arrived back in Mum’s room.

  She looked so ill that I stopped wondering about paper cups and cars coming and going and Marcus lying (or not) and Natalie stealing and investigating shift patterns and logbooks. I didn’t go home, I didn’t visit Natalie as I’d promised, I didn’t go next door to see Rose, or to the dining room, or the activity room, or the office, or upstairs to Marcus’s flat, or to the garage. I sat in the armchair and held her hand. I gave her a sponge bath, told her stories, played her music, talked about her mum and dad, her childhood, showed her photos.

  The three albums she’d kept were all about us, me and Mum. Only a few photos were from before I existed – of her fishing with her dad up north somewhere, of her and both parents at the fair in Glasgow. Then me as a newborn in hospital. Mum, despite the horror story of my birth, looked happier than I’d ever seen her, looking into my eyes the way new mothers do, in love. Her pushing me on the swing in that wee park in Dowanhill. Us in raincoats on a ferry to one of the islands. Us having fun, laughing.

  Paul visited at some point. He brought a mixed CD he thought Mum would like, and a basket of food for me. I cried for a while in his car. ‘I’m sorry, you’re in the middle of exams, this is the last thing you need.’

  He held my hand and put on the face that used to make me jump up from couches, run a mile. ‘You do know I
feel the same as you, don’t you?’

  I’m only going to give you one word to describe the kiss. Actually, no I’m not. Not a one.

  ‘Call me when you need me,’ he said after. ‘Now get out of my car!’

  Antonio visited twice. I heard him tell Mum he loved her. She said, ‘Quite right.’ He laughed.

  There was a lot of love going around.

  Gina and Rebecca phoned to ask how I was, then talked for a lot longer about how they were.

  Therapists came and went.

  Catheter came, never went.

  I took Mum for a walk in the wheelchair a few times, the process of hoisting her from bed to chair and back again so exhausting and pointless that I stopped thinking it a grand idea by Monday.

  There were no conversations any more. She understood me sometimes, and answered yes and no to food or drink, but rarely more than that. So it was a shock when she interrupted the story I was reading and said: ‘You were never a mistake.’

  ‘What?’ She hadn’t looked at me this way since she came off the steroids. She was actually seeing me.

  ‘You always thought you were a mistake when in fact you were my great achievement.’

  I burst into tears, ran over and hugged her. ‘Oh, Mum. I love you. I love you so much.’

  She pushed me off. ‘What’s all that noise?’

  I could only hear Paul’s CD playing quietly in the corner. Tracy Chapman, it was. Her favourite. ‘You mean the music?’

  ‘That’s not music, is it?’

  No music after that. All noise was noise, and it pained her.

  I read the time line on the table beside her bed. She’d ticked all the symptoms on the two-to-three-week stage, but had stopped ticking after that, like she’d stopped walking and making sense and lifting a fork to her mouth.

  I looked at the one-to-two-week stage:

  Often, completely bedridden

  May find loud or multiple sounds irritating

  After waking, seems confused for several minutes

  Staring across the room, up toward the ceiling or ‘through’ you

  May look at TV but seem not to be watching it.

  I ripped the time line into tiny pieces.

  Chapter Sixteen

  By Wednesday afternoon, Mum had been sleeping for eighteen hours. We’d managed to wake her a couple of times to get a drop or two of soup into her mouth. At 5 p.m. I was putting a clean sponge of water to her mouth when Nurse Gabriella called me into the office. ‘Your mum left me instructions, Catherine. She asked that you go and stay with Antonio now for a couple of days. He’s coming to collect you in an hour. You do understand?’

  I did. I wished I didn’t.

  ‘I don’t know what I’d do if I were you. Do you want to talk about it?’

  ‘Aren’t you supposed to be in Rothesay?’

  ‘I’m going now. I wanted to say goodbye to your mum. She’s an incredible woman, Catherine. I’m so sorry.’

  *

  Oh, Mum, wake up and give me a list! I’ll squeeze the toothpaste to the top and roll up the tube and close the lid. I’ll put the recycling bin out and I’ll turn the lights off when I leave a room and I’ll read a non-fiction book and two things out of every three that I say to you will be positive and this, Mum, is something I would like to do from now on. Wake up and give me a list. I’ll do everything on it. You can check my progress next Sunday, give me a disappointing treat.

  But she wouldn’t be around next Sunday. And she’d already given me a list. The death plan.

  *

  Marcus was talking on the phone when he let me in. ‘Okay, right, I’ll have to call you back.’ He hung up.

  ‘Just came to tell you I’m leaving today.’

  ‘Oh, Catherine, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Do you promise she won’t be in pain?’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘And you’ll call me when it happens?’

  ‘I will. Will you be okay?’ His phone rang – a loud and intensely irritating train whistle. ‘Where are you going?’

  The train was still whistling, he hadn’t pressed Ignore. ‘Take the call, Marcus. I’m off. I’ll be fine.’

  *

  My phone buzzed as I approached the back door. Natalie didn’t even say hello. She sounded frantic. ‘Did you see that long number thing at the bottom of the entry from eighteen months ago? The woman’s name was Carmel Tate, died on a Wednesday?’

  ‘No. Look I can’t talk just now. It’s really not a good time.’

  ‘I’ll text it to you. Looks like a code. If you get time to have a look, maybe you’d know if it’s something innocent, like for the alarm system or a bank account?’

  ‘Natalie, please. I can’t talk.’

  ‘But I need to tell you. I think Rose is on to something. All the drawings she sent me, they all tie in with the deaths there, exactly. The details in each one are right.’

  ‘But that doesn’t mean anything. Those people did die while Rose was here. I have to go.’

  She wasn’t listening to me. ‘Gabriella’s not the one. She’s never worked those nights, not a once, which is weird, don’t you think? They must keep her away. She’s not involved.’

  ‘I know Gabriella didn’t kill anyone! No one did, Natalie. Rose is sick and you’re a thief and a liar and a busybody and Dear Green is a hospice where people die. It’s happening right now, to Mum.’

  ‘But listen to this. Jim Thornton is a sex offender. He did twelve months back in 1985.’

  I was shocked and didn’t know what to say at first. But then, I thought, so what? Sex offenders get old and have to live somewhere. Mass euthanasia, or whatever Natalie was currently suspecting, would hardly be the MO on an elderly paedophile. ‘That’s a long time ago, Natalie.’

  ‘But he and Marcus knew each other before he moved in!’

  Okay, so this was slightly more interesting. ‘How?’

  ‘They were in the same poetry group.’

  Maybe Jimmy was at the group to work on lyrics – he was a musician, after all. I was beginning to suspect that Natalie was far more confused than Rose. ‘Natalie, I’m going to hang up now. Can you leave this, it’s crazy. I trust you less than anyone right now, to be honest.’

  ‘I have to get to work – doing some agency stuff to make ends meet. I’ll text you the code, though; just take a look. I think it’s some kind of password or something. Who has a computer there?’

  I was getting annoyed at her now. ‘Natalie, I don’t want to hang up on you, but . . .’

  ‘Just quickly, what computers?’

  ‘There’s a PC in the activity room. Jim has a smart phone. Marcus has a phone and a laptop.’

  ‘Where’s his laptop?’

  ‘Upstairs.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘He had it in his office last I saw, but it’s a laptop, Natalie. It’s portable.’

  ‘Thanks, Catherine. Stay with your mum. I’ll be in touch in an hour or so.’

  ‘Don’t . . .’ I was going to tell her not to get in touch for several days, or ever, but she’d hung up.

  *

  I’d like to say my goodbye to Mum was a moving, beautiful, and satisfying closure. I’d like to say we hugged and cried together, that I told her I was sorry for being ungrateful, selfish and lazy; that I admired and respected her more than anyone in the world. I’d like to say that she understood.

  But she was still asleep. I didn’t say anything. I kissed her forehead, then her cheek, whispered, ‘Bye, Mum, I love you,’ and left.

  *

  Chris saw me in the car park, crying so hard I couldn’t start the engine. He got in the passenger side without asking.

  ‘Gabriella told me. I’m sorry.’

  I couldn’t talk through the sobs. Chris leaned over, held me. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘She wanted me to be with Antonio, but I want to be by myself, I think. I don’t want to leave. Will she be okay here?’

  ‘Of course she will.’

>   ‘Did you know Jimmy’s a paedophile?’

  Chris looked bewildered. ‘Have you been playing Inspector Morse?’

  ‘Not me, Natalie.’

  ‘Rose’s Natalie?’

  ‘Aye.’

  Chris sighed loudly, as if he wasn’t surprised. ‘Natalie Holland is mad. She’s always wound Gran up like you wouldn’t believe. She stole nearly ten grand. Now she spends her time getting paranoid. Listen, I do know about Jimmy. You think I didn’t take a good look at this place before letting Gran move in? Could have got me sacked, snooping around police records, but I would never have put her here if I didn’t know for sure it wasn’t the best and the safest place around. Jimmy has a record, yeah, but way, way back. He did his time, even did the treatment programme. And he’s not a paedophile, by the way. Your mum will be well looked after here.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘You’re flipping out. I don’t blame you. But this is what she wanted. Was she comfortable when you left her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Were the staff looking after her?’

  ‘Gabriella’s leaving soon, then Harriet. The doctor’s coming to sort out the morphine. Yes, okay, yes, they are.’

  ‘Then do the right thing, Catherine. Do what she wanted, or you’ll regret it.’

  *

  I drove. At first I didn’t know where, just grabbed the A82 and headed north, like Mum and I used to do sometimes. ‘Just get in!’ she’d say. We’d be out of Glasgow in twenty minutes, Loch Lomond on our right till we decided where was best for lunch. Loch Fyne usually, for delicious seafood. Or further north if we fancied an island hop, or a walk.

  My phone beeped several times after I’d been driving an hour and a half. I stopped at the side of the road and read the messages from Antonio. He was in a panic. Sorry Ants, I replied. I need to be alone. I’m okay. I hope you are. I’ll call soon. xxxx. As I pressed Send, Natalie phoned.

  ‘Catherine, Catherine.’ She was whispering, and the signal was poor, in and out. ‘I have an idea . . . upstairs . . . Did you . . . text . . . the code . . .’