Walled Garden

by Catherine Dunne

  ‘There, now, dry your eyes,’ Granny Mac was saying, handing her daughter one of the big men’s handkerchiefs she always carried up her sleeve. Beth could still feel how the shock had rooted her to the floor, paralysed her, made her incapable of thought.

  Her mother? Crying?

  When she spoke, her tone was unmistakable. It had that strangled, sobbing, hurting sound that everyone shared when they cried really hard.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mam. It’s just that on days like this I still really miss him. It’s so difficult doing it all on your own, you know? And James is sixteen – he really needs a father.’

  Then she had cried again, not so much this time, and blew her nose.

  ‘And I still feel so guilty when I get furious at him for leaving us without a penny.’

  ‘I know, love. The last six years have been tough. And I wish I could have helped you more. But since your dad died, this place has been riddled with debt.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant, Mam – you’ve always done all you could, and so did Dad, when he was alive. I’m grateful, really I am. No, I’d have been fine if Jack had just been more careful, if he’d looked after us properly . . .’

  ‘There’s no point in going down that road again, Alice.’

  Granny Mac’s voice had been a little sharp. After a moment, she’d continued in a softer tone.

  ‘He was a lovely man, was Jack, but useless at managing money. And he was a sure bet for every hard-luck story there ever was. There’s no point now in crying over spilt milk.’

  There was a long quietness.

  ‘I know. I just sometimes get tired of working so hard.’

  The two women had fallen silent, then, both gazing away in front of them, eyes roving over the lush Meath countryside. Beth had known that now was the time to go, to sneak back through the hallway past the study, through the kitchen, out the scullery door. The dogs would be waiting for her. They’d be bound to start barking any second now; they hated being cooped up.

  Beth pulled herself, with difficulty, back to the present. The bathroom was filled with steam, her head full of ghosts. Poor Alice. Everything had started to break up, soon after that. Her Confirmation day was the last day she could recall when the old order had still remained, when everything to do with her grandmother, on the surface at least, had been solid and unchanged. The reality, of course, must have been very different. Beth knew, from somewhere, someone, that Granny Mac had been cheated and lied to by various farm managers ever since her husband’s death. Abbotsford – the house and the lands had to have been on the point of collapse for some time. It seemed that very shortly after that day in May, Granny Mac had sold up everything, finally admitting defeat, and gone to live with her sister Sally in Wicklow. There had been precious little left: Beth could still remember Alice’s bitterness that her mother had received virtually nothing for the lovely old farmhouse. She’d been tight-lipped and angry at the relentless loop of history that seemed to repeat itself from generation to generation, reaching from the past into the future and back again.

  Beth dried herself vigorously and remembered the oil lamps, the Singer sewing-machine and the big kitchen table that had come to their house after the auction. She felt suddenly glad that, financially at least, she had been luckier than either her mother or her grandmother.

  ‘Beth?’

  There was a soft tapping at the bathroom door.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I think you’d better come quickly.’

  James’s voice was muffled, but the panic was unmistakable. Jesus, was this it? Beth threw on her dressing gown, dragging her wet hair back from her forehead. She felt everything around her speed up again; her chest was tight, her mind racing. Should they call an ambulance? Did undertakers work on a Saturday? Dear God, would Alice already be gone?

  She wrenched open the bathroom door and ran straight to her mother’s bedside. James was standing in his usual place, his expression lost, haunted. He didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. Keith’s face was a blank sheet, white and stretched.

  Alice’s mouth was open wide; each breath taken was hoarse and gravelly.

  Beth looked down at her, surprised at her own sudden calm. She could see nothing different. She checked her mother’s colour and the rise and fall of her chest. She didn’t seem to be having any difficulty breathing. Then, suddenly, it struck her. She started to laugh. She couldn’t help it. James and Keith stared at her: two sets of eyes, of an almost uniform, piercing blue. Are you mad? their gaze asked her.

  ‘I’m sorry!’ she gasped. ‘It’s just that she’s – she’s snoring!’

  Keith began to grin, his features relaxing back into familiarity again. James looked at her.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  She nodded, biting her lip to keep from exploding. The last minute’s laughter right now felt suspiciously like hysteria. Suddenly, Alice’s head turned slightly to one side. Her eyes flickered open, and abruptly, the harsh breathing was stilled. She murmured something, and again closed her eyes. It seemed as though the room held its breath. Beth reached down for her mother’s wrist and felt for a pulse. There it was, faint but steady. Keith snorted once; he was grinning hugely.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s like being at Mass and knowing you can’t laugh.’

  James sat down abruptly. He looked suddenly several sizes smaller.

  ‘Jesus Christ, that scared the living daylights out of me.’

  He took his mother’s other hand in his.

  ‘Maybe we should stay in tonight – just in case.’

  Beth saw the helpless way he looked at her, saw that, for now, it was pointless to argue with him. She didn’t even know whether she wanted to argue. This uncertainty was driving both of them to the point where the thin thread of connection between them and ordinary life was stretched almost beyond breaking point. Living inside this death was now their only existence. If there were any way of knowing how long Alice’s half-life would go on for – a day, a week, a month – they could manage. They would learn to cope. It was this constant see-saw between hope and hope against hope that set everything around them on edge. There were apparently two roles to be played out in this drama – the part of the strong and the part of the vulnerable one. She and James seemed to keep on exchanging roles, so that she never knew when it was her turn to be the rock.

  She smiled at him.

  ‘Let’s talk to Dr Crowley this evening, and decide then.’

  He nodded.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I’m going inside to clean the bath, all right?’

  He looked at her stupidly.

  ‘Keith, will you stay with your dad until I get dressed? I won’t be long.’

  ‘Sure.’

  She left both of them, sitting side by side. She locked herself into the bathroom again, and sat down on the floor, her knees no longer able to hold her up. She dabbed at the back of her neck with a towel, trying to catch the drips from her hair. Suddenly she wanted to weep. The hysterical bubble at the base of her throat had deflated now, and she felt flat, useless. After a few minutes, while she waited for the beating of her heart to subside, she pulled herself up into a kneeling position and began to scrub the bath with a violence that left her sweaty and breathless. God, she needed to do something normal, something that felt real. She needed to think about everyday things, even the things that usually bored her senseless. She would go shopping; there was bread and milk to be bought, at the very least. Surely Alice’s sheets should be changed again – she must ask June tonight. And she needed a walk; even dank October air would be welcome. Besides, there was nothing to make for dinner . . . She laid her forehead on the side of the bath and let the tears rise and heave from nowhere, filling her eyes and her throat and her ears with the same harsh choking sobs she had heard through the window in County Meath, all those years ago.

  *

  ‘Dr Crowley. Come in, please.’

  Beth took the vast umbrella that Ellen Crowle
y was struggling to keep above her head in the gale which had kept everyone housebound since early afternoon. The noise of the wind howling down the old chimneys and setting off house alarms nearby had had Beth’s teeth on edge all evening. She’d called the Garda Station three times already, to complain. Bloody neighbours were probably away in the Canaries or somewhere, sunning themselves, while she . . . Beth stopped herself. She knew she was being unreasonable; she just needed someone to be angry at.

  Ellen Crowley grinned at her.

  ‘Hello, Beth. Welcome home. Let’s dispense with the formalities, shall we?’

  She handed Beth her coat and scarf, and peeled her leather gloves off carefully, finger by finger. Beth returned her smile.

  ‘I was so used to calling your father “Dr Crowley” that I’ve just transferred the name to you.’ Beth busied herself, hanging up the coat, placing the dripping umbrella in the stand. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fine, thanks, and you? How are you holding up?’

  Beth shrugged. ‘You’d need to ask me that on an hourly basis – I hardly know, myself. I’m glad to see you, though. Thanks for coming.’

  ‘No problem. How is Alice today?’

  Beth gestured in the direction of the kitchen.

  ‘No change, as far as we can see. Come on inside. James is here. We’d like to talk to you together; there are lots of things I need to ask you, and I know James has some questions, too. Keith will stay with Alice until you’re ready to see her.’

  Beth opened the door into the kitchen, and James stood up at once. He shook hands warmly.

  ‘Ellen. Good to see you. Would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘That would be lovely; thanks.’

  Now that she was here, Beth felt suddenly at a loss. The issue of sedation no longer seemed important. All that mattered to her now was Alice’s comfort. She knew that Ellen couldn’t give her the answer she was looking for, the reassurance of known boundaries for herself and James. But she wanted to ask the question anyway: how long?

  ‘Has the nurse been to your mother yet today?’

  Beth was relieved. A perfect opening. She looked over at James, who was refilling his cup, his eyes down, concentrating on what he was doing.

  ‘No, not yet. June usually comes about half nine or ten. She’s been great, and she’s given James as much information as she can, but . . .’

  James placed his spoon carefully in the saucer. The little ping of metal against china sounded to Beth like a punctuation mark, and a disapproving one at that. What was wrong with him? Did he suddenly not want to talk about this, or was he still hoping for some sort of miracle cure? Not for the first time since she’d come home, Beth felt angry at him. She was finally growing resentful of his air of superiority, of propriety, almost, where Alice was concerned. He had agreed to this meeting, and now he was distancing himself from any of the hard questions that she felt the need to ask. She suddenly hated him for his air of detachment from her, at a time like this. She turned away from him.

  ‘I know that my mother has suffered a massive stroke, and I think I understand all the implications of that. But – I also think she’s still present in herself. She spoke to me on Thursday night, the night I arrived, and she seemed quite lucid. She pressed my hand, and was definitely trying to tell me something. And today, she opened her eyes again, very briefly. I – we need to know what’s going on.’

  Ellen sipped at her tea, and looked at Beth with interest. Her eyes were bright, intelligent. Beth was reassured by her obvious alertness. Her mother was in good hands.

  ‘How lucid was she? Did she make sense?’

  Beth began to feel uncomfortable. Her secret was now such a guilty one: talk about a skeleton in the cupboard. How was she going to get through this without lying, without deliberately keeping James in the dark about their mother’s letters? She tried to be careful.

  ‘Well, that’s just the thing. Her eyes were lucid, if you know what I mean – she definitely knew it was me. I could see that she recognized me. But before she could finish whatever it was she wanted to say, she drifted off again. I’ve no idea if she wanted something, or if there was something pressing on her mind, or what.’

  Ellen nodded.

  ‘Let me explain to you exactly what has happened to your mother. Then I’ll be as clear and precise as I can about how she is right now. After that, we can discuss the future, what’s likely to happen over the next little while.’

  Beth nodded, startled at the effect of the doctor’s ‘little while’. Was it not going to go on for ever, then?

  James intervened quietly.

  ‘We asked you to meet us today, Ellen, because we both want to do what’s best for Alice.’ He paused. ‘And because we think it’s important for all of us to be able to say our goodbyes. I know my mother would want that. We thought that perhaps, if her sedation was reduced a little, we might be able to speak to her again. But neither of us wants her to suffer.’

  Beth felt her eyes sting, and she was glad she didn’t have to answer James. All her anger deflated as suddenly as a child’s balloon and she looked over at him gratefully.

  ‘Right. I understand. This is the picture.’

  Ellen Crowley’s voice became softer, and she paused frequently, looking from Beth to James for confirmation that they had both understood her.

  ‘Alice had suffered a series of small strokes before she went to the hospital in July. That process is known as multi-infarct dementia, and it’s characterized by sudden bouts of confusion, or dizziness. The memory becomes less trustworthy, and physically the patient begins to slow down, to become more hesitant, feeling weak and tired much more easily than before. In the past three months, your mother has had some episodes of confusion, some little difficulties with language and short-term memory. However, she’s a fighter, and she held on to everything that was important to her, right up until last week. With some patients, the symptoms can go on for years, but most commonly, a major stroke or some other illness intervenes, as it did in Alice’s case. Her stroke occurred in the left side of her brain – that’s why the opposite side of her face, the right side, is affected. It’s called aphasia, which means the loss of the power of expression, although comprehension tends to remain reasonably intact.’

  Ellen stopped for a moment. Beth thought she was weighing her words very carefully.

  ‘Alice’s most recent stroke was a very serious one, and it resulted in coma. I don’t need to go into detail about all the possible complications here: in her case, the cause of death will most likely be pneumonia. Coma is the perfect ally for the microbes that cause pneumonia: Alice has no resistance, she doesn’t even have the reflex to cough. Eventually, the oxygen levels drop below the critical point, and the heart will stop. That’s why we’re keeping her sedated. She can’t recover, her breathing will become laboured and we want to make sure she dies in her sleep.’

  Beth looked directly at her. She had heard these words before, during James’s first telephone call, but her body had responded to them then with a numbness, a sense of unreality, and the feeling that this was all happening to someone else. She now felt their impact fully, almost as an electrical shock. She placed her elbows carefully on the table in front of her, making herself feel more grounded. Almost at once, she began to feel calmer. She could cope with this. No matter how awful it was to think about, it would all be over soon, and she would see it through. She had a real sense of being filled by her own strength, at last.

  ‘The only reason they let her home,’ continued Ellen, ‘is because she had always insisted to me, in the strongest possible terms, that she didn’t want to die in hospital. I told her that I’d do my best to make sure she didn’t. However,’ and here she looked from Beth to James, ‘I also promised her I’d make sure she suffered as little as possible.’

  ‘Then it would be cruel to deprive her of sedation. There’s no question of it.’

  Beth spoke quietly; a certainty, finally. One less option, one less possibility
to be considered. She felt immediately guilty. Everything kept shifting: this awfulness was now easier for her than it was for James. She had her mother’s words, her mother’s voice, waiting for her. He had nothing to help him, nothing that he knew of. God, she hoped he’d hurry up and find his letters soon. She had always found obedience difficult, but she was determined to keep her silent promise to Alice for as long as she could.

  ‘If it was my mother, I wouldn’t want it. But that doesn’t mean that Alice won’t come to again, on her own. She was physically very strong before all this, and she has a will of iron. My guess is she still retains some level of comprehension. Stay close to her; you may well get to say your goodbyes.’

  Beth nodded.

  ‘Thank you, Ellen. I understand better now.’

  She couldn’t stop her eyes from filling.

  Ellen’s voice was still gentle, but its note of almost professional compassion had faded, and her warmth was genuine, personal.

  ‘Please call on me, whenever you want. I’ll always have the time to talk to you.’

  She stood, and placed her hand on Beth’s arm.

  ‘It will mean a great deal to your mother to know that you’re both here, even if she can’t tell you herself.’

  Beth nodded.

  ‘Thanks. Do you have any idea, any idea at all, how long . . .’

  Ellen looked at both of them carefully.

  ‘When I was here on Thursday morning, there were some definite signs of a chest infection. I’ll examine her again now, and we should get a more complete picture. Either way, we’re talking days, certainly not weeks.’