False Hope

by Lynne Lee

  Once Mum was free of her clothing, she was covered in a Bair Hugger – a big plastic bag, essentially, into which hot air was pumped – before being transferred on to a bed bound for a ward, leaving the shredded clothes behind on the trolley. They no longer looked like clothes. Just components of clothing. As if laid out in a factory, waiting to be machined. But at least she was a less alarming shade of pink. Though no less incoherent. It was sobering to think that had Holly not been able to put two and two together so quickly, she could so easily still be up there. Could have died.

  In the privacy of my head, I’d prepared for my mother’s death often. The unanswered phone call. Holly’s name popping up unexpectedly on my mobile. A random visit to the flat, to find her lying on the floor. The mental leap. The acceptance. The getting into gear. But not, strangely, this. This more humdrum, much more likely, perhaps, crossing of the Rubicon. Her being hospitalised. Reassessed. Declared moved-up-a-level. To the nursing home. And then to the top floor of the nursing home – the secure floor. The one with window bars and wall-to-wall hygienic easy-clean surfaces. The stage no one wants, but so many get.

  Momentarily, because my mum was that no one personified, I considered the benefits of it all ending here, now, today. Of all the things I was least prepared for – with Mum, in life generally, in my relationship with death – the detachment with which I seemed able to process this potential scenario was frightening in itself. That I could do it without feeling bleak felt all too bleak. Was such a horrible thing to admit, even to myself.

  There were countless staff I didn’t yet know in this huge teaching hospital, and once Mum was finally settled on a geriatric ward, to be rehydrated and treated for what they suspected was an acute kidney injury, and would very likely lead to infection, I was just another anxious relative, taking up space. Which was why, when a nurse asked if I had details of Mum’s usual medications, I realised I’d be more useful if I actually went to get them, along with her toiletries and night clothes.

  Back when Mum first moved into her flat at The Beeches, she would laughingly refer to herself and her fellow residents as the ‘inmates’. Though it wasn’t a nursing home, or any other kind of institution. They were all privately owned apartments, albeit ones sharing a ‘support’ umbrella. They had care lines, a social programme, Holly. It was one of many such developments springing up everywhere in recent years, a practical, pragmatic way for the over fifty-fives (the usual watershed) to throw off many decades’ worth of material shackles, as exemplified by the hoardings that advertised them – heavily emphasising the silver-surfer benefits of constructive downsizing, freeing up cash, and precious time, to go on cruises.

  I’d never seen any evidence of that here. Beguiling though the pitch looked, the reality was very different. Yes, pragmatic (definitely in Mum’s case), but usually for different reasons. Most were women here: divorced women, widowed women, women without families. I knew of at least two who hadn’t a single living relative. Being around for Mum, therefore, lent me an unsolicited status here too, because it formalised the one I’d been bucking against all my adult life – that of dutiful, to-be-relied-upon daughter.

  It looked like a home, though, despite the marketing message. So perhaps someone didn’t get the memo. The carpet was burnt orange, the furniture 1970s; the chairs – a variety of wing-backed, easy-rise ones – were all upholstered like train carriages, in cut moquette.

  I was keen to hurry past; get what I needed, get back to the hospital, check all was well, then run away, to my own life, and my own home. But I’d arrived during ‘Friday Night Fun’, their regular weekly early-evening get-together, and Isabel’s gran was already rising from her chair. ‘How’s your poor mum?’ she asked. Then took my hand and squeezed it. ‘More importantly,’ she asked, ‘how are you, dear?’ And I was struck by how I honestly couldn’t remember a single time since my childhood when my own mother had ever asked me that question. ‘Your eye—’

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ I said, ‘just had an altercation with a swing door at work earlier in the week.’ Then before the emotions of the day threatened to give me away further, I reassured her that Mum would be fine, told her Isabel was an angel, then made my excuses and headed on upstairs.

  Where, as soon as I entered Mum’s flat, I remembered Holly’s comment about the mess. She was right. The living room looked like a crime scene. There was barely a patch of carpet visible. Just piles and piles of paperwork, seemingly pulled out at random, from various boxes and carrier bags and plastic lidded trays, which she’d presumably dragged in from her bedroom in stages. I stood in the doorway, thinking she was right – things definitely had got out of hand here. What on earth – who on earth – could have prompted her to do this?

  It was probably pointless to speculate. It could have been something completely innocuous, after all. A feature on gardening on This Morning, or something like that. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d latched on to something on television and become obsessed with some tangentially related scheme or search. Equally, she could have stumbled upon the cache of bulbs as a by-product of rummaging around for something else, and remembered what she’d bought them for.

  I spotted something else too, which did seem to make sense. In the middle of all the muddle on the floor was an empty photo frame. One I recognised because I’d recently given it to Mum myself. Dillon’s latest school photograph; I’d put both the boys’ most recent ones in frames for her. I didn’t know which was the chicken and which the egg in the bulb/Dillon equation, but she’d obviously decided, since I could ‘never be bothered’, that she’d take him to visit Hope’s grave herself. Well, at least his image. Which was presumably still there, no doubt sellotaped to the plaque, and flapping wildly in the sleety, scouring wind.

  Till one of the staff took it down again, at any rate. Which they would: bar the native flower species on the approved list, any kind of adornment to the graves was strictly banned. And Mum, never happy with Hope’s choice of resting place and all its ‘daft, happy-clappy’ rules, was already known as a serial offender.

  I stepped over the mess and went into the kitchen, where she kept her stack of plastic trays of pills, one tray per week, four weeks’ supply, pre-sorted by the pharmacist into individual daily doses so she didn’t get muddled up. Those safely in a bag, I then made my way into Mum’s bedroom, to fetch some nightwear and slippers and toiletries.

  If anything, the mess in here was worse. There were drawers half pulled out, contents riffled through and muddled, and for a moment I wondered if my first impression had been the right one – had someone broken in after she’d left and turned everything out in search of loot? But nothing of value had been touched – her padded jewellery box still sat where it always had, and its contents appeared undisturbed. In the middle of her bed, though, squatting like a huge sulking toad, sat a holdall I immediately recognised. It had been Hope’s, and Mum had obviously dragged it out from the bottom of the wardrobe, because that too was open, and the shoes, boots and sandals that normally sat in a jumble on top of it had been distributed around the carpet in front of it.

  I was in a hurry – to do what was required of me and get home to my boys – but something about the scale of the mess of stuff in front of me made me actively want to scan it for clues. There was just so much – as if part of a sustained search for something. Not in itself unusual – not at this point in Mum’s dementia, anyway – but there was just so much of it, as if she’d been trawling for hours. For those bulbs to plant? No. I didn’t think so. This was much more like a palaeontologist digging down through rock strata; an unpeeling of historical layers.

  I saw things I’d not seen in years, and, in some cases, decades – possessions and records I’d imagined I wouldn’t see again till she was gone and I was sorting out her belongings to settle her affairs. And not just all the well-thumbed bank statements and fuel bills and phone bills. What looked like the contents of the expanding file she bought when my dad left had also been dug
out: her passport, her National Insurance card, a cache of long-expired bus passes, plus the old NHS baby books in which she’d recorded our milestones and vaccinations. Marked our steady progress along the centile charts with tiny ballpoint dots.

  There were several bundles of letters strewn on the bed too, all categorised and contained by coloured elastic bands. Some I recognised as predating her. Some harked back to her childhood. Some were familiar from my own childhood as bitter-sweet heirlooms: the handful of letters from her father, when she was packed off to boarding school; the rather thicker wodge from a penfriend in Bonn.

  One bundle of letters, however, was unfamiliar. And though there was no reason why it shouldn’t be – I had power of attorney, but that didn’t mean I was my mother’s keeper – I found myself immediately drawn to it. The letters were all still in their envelopes – rather large ones, just for letters – with Mum’s name and address handwritten, in business-like capitals. And once I liberated them from their elastic band I saw there were ten or twelve of them, and that the most recent – one of only two addressed to here, rather than her old place – had a postmark some three years old.

  They were private, no question. Absolutely none of my business. And were it not for the situation, I probably wouldn’t have given them more than a fleeting thought. Another penfriend, perhaps. A similarly retired colleague. An unlikely correspondence with Aurélie.

  But the postmarks were all Brighton – I flicked through to check them – and though I felt grubby, like a snooper invading her privacy, there was something about the handwriting that was worryingly familiar. There was also something with them, which explained the large envelopes – a folded supermarket carrier bag, corralled within its own elastic band. And within that, there was another pile, of this time unopened envelopes. One was white, two were blue, one was red, one was lemon. And all different sizes, because they were greeting-card envelopes, but all of a size that would allow them to fit into the ones that had been addressed to her. And on each, in the same handwriting, was written the same name.

  Dillon.

  My brain already off the blocks and careering away from me, I picked one at random and slid a finger beneath the as yet unopened flap. Pulled out a birthday card. (Cartoon superhero. Kapow! Wow! You’re FIVE!) Read the words inside the card, both the printed – a much exclamation-marked poem – and the handwritten; to Dilly Dilly, lots of love, Auntie Mary xxx.

  Mary? I thought. Was this the Mary she’d mentioned before Christmas?

  I picked up a letter, then. The one on top, the most recent one addressed to here. It was postmarked August 2017, a couple of weeks after Dillon’s eighth birthday.

  Inside the envelope was a single sheet of folded paper. The ink was black, the pen a ballpoint, the handwriting hurried. Not quite dashed off, like it might be on a shopping list or note. But there was no return address, and it seemed written in the heat of the moment. Without pause. Without thought. Only emotion.

  It began ‘Joy’. Not ‘Dear Joy’. Just ‘Joy’. Underlined.

  I truly cannot believe – double underlined – that you’ve done this. After everything you promised me. WHERE – treble underlined – WERE YOU? Please call me immediately to explain what’s going on. I waited an HOUR for you. Why didn’t you phone me?????

  CALL me. Please don’t make me come round there.

  So was this from Mary too? Yes. The handwriting was the same.

  A sickening realisation began to mushroom up inside me. I thought back again, to the evening after I’d operated on Aidan. She’d been looking for something. For someone called Mary. Been triggered to do so by a call from someone called Mary. But I’d checked. There hadn’t been one.

  Then I realised my twenty-first-century error. It had never even occurred to me to check the landline. Mum’s meds forgotten now, I tore open the red envelope. (To a special boy. Merry Xmas! Lots of love, Auntie Mary.) Then the lemon one. (Birthday Hugs. Lots of love, Auntie Mary.) Then another of the letters. An older one, this one. Another single-pager.

  Dear Joy, it read. It was lovely to see you. And thank you so very much for the latest photos, which I’ll treasure. As promised, here’s the card. (I popped ten pounds in it for him.) Let me know when we can sort something out next. And, as I said, please don’t worry if it’s short notice. I’ll get there.

  Till then, all the best to you, and fingers crossed for Easter, N x

  I sat back on my heels, read the letter again, reeling. What the hell?

  N. N for Norma. My mother had been corresponding with Norma.

  Corresponding secretly with Norma, about Dillon. My own mother.

  And then something else hit me. This latest colossal ‘sort-out’. Was this what Mum had meant about things getting out of hand? Could it have happened because Norma had been here?

  I’m not easily shocked, but I was now, to the core.

  Holly only worked from eight till three, so she was, by now, long gone. And when I left Mum’s flat – having thrown everything, plus all the evidence, into Hope’s battered old holdall – the sitting room downstairs was dark and deserted, Friday Night Fun being a strictly time-limited affair. I dithered over doing so – Holly was as entitled to her time off as anyone – but in the end, once I was on the road back to the hospital, I decided to call her. I might just as well get her up to speed about Mum now, in any case.

  ‘Just one thing that’s struck me,’ I added once I’d updated her. ‘About what might have prompted all of this. Do you know if she’s had any visitors in the last couple of days? There’s an old friend of hers. Mary. Elderly. Black hair. Petite. Only, looking at some of the things Mum’s turned out, I’m wondering if she might have been round to see her.’

  ‘Not that I’m aware,’ Holly said. ‘I can ask if anyone else knows, but people come and go all the time here – including dozens of carers. And though a lot of them seem to think I should be, I’m not a sentry. She could well have had a visitor. Could have had several, in fact. I’ll ask around if you like, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up. When do you think she’ll be back now?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ I said. ‘Now she’s in the system it could be days, or even weeks.’

  ‘More likely weeks,’ Holly said. ‘Now she’s in the system, they’ll need to put a care package in place before they can let her out again. Still, she’s safe. That’s the main thing. Give her my love, won’t you?’

  I told her I would, but as I drove back into town, I wondered just how much I’d be able to summon of my own.

  Chapter 15

  Mum was asleep, the sister told me, when I returned with the pills and her clothes, the latter of which I’d packed assuming my instinct would be sound – that it would more likely be a three- or four-day stay, minimum.

  I gave her Mum’s pill packs, then went over to her bedside. The ward was quiet now, the lights dimmed, the nurses padding around silently, and as I walked I could feel the weight of my new knowledge like a ball and chain dragging my feet.

  Mum’s colour was better now, her hair dry and brushed, and I was pleased beyond measure that her eyes were closed. Because right then, I couldn’t even bear to look at her, let alone, as I had seen on my way past the other beds, place a comforting, loving hand over her own. So I didn’t linger. Just put the case by her bed and left for home.

  Then, on a whim, or perhaps an instinctive compulsion, I dived into the big Sainsbury’s on my way. I had a powerful need to separate myself from the clouds gathering around me. To simply bolt. Try and outrun the emotional storm. To get back to my own family, my own life, my own routines. To reassure myself that what was going on – had been going on, and for what appeared to have been for years – was something apart from me. Wholly separate. Ditto my mother’s astonishing complicity, another product of my dead sister’s legacy, the tentacles of which were still reaching out beyond her grave. In that moment, I wished one thing above anything – anything. That I could wave a magic wand and wipe the Faulkner family hard drive. Ove
rwrite the past with a completely different story – one where my dad hadn’t left us, where we hadn’t imploded, where the Kennedys were erased at a stroke. I wanted to scream, just as I had during that final grim encounter with Norma, that I didn’t ask for, didn’t want, didn’t deserve any of this. That none of this mess was of my making.

  I went straight to the bakery, bought a gingerbread man for Daniel, an iced bun for Dillon, a cinnamon swirl for Isabel and an éclair for myself. Sugar and spice, all things nice, to take away the bitter taste. Then, deciding to abandon the bolognaise I’d got out of the freezer that morning, I swept along the pizza aisle, choosing the biggest I could find.

  And all the while the holdall in my car hummed with menace.

  By the time I arrived home the sky had cleared, revealing an almost full moon, and where patches of the earlier sleet had now settled, it bathed the ground in a pale, blue-ish light. It almost looked like snow – the air even smelt of it – and though even if it did come I knew it wouldn’t last (this was Brighton; snow and sleet rarely stuck), the unexpected brightness, after a day that had been so dank and dark, immediately lifted my spirits.

  Though the tableau that greeted me when I entered the kitchen had the opposite effect. It wasn’t maternal FOMO exactly, because it wasn’t a fear of missing out. It was the fact that I’d missed out that really upset me. I wasn’t given to sentimentality, because my career mattered to me hugely, but I was emotionally exhausted and it hit me really hard that while I’d been running around after my own treacherous mother, my children were having fun without me.