This time had been even worse. There were no beds, no cubicles. The entrance hall was lined with patients on trolleys and ambulance crews waiting for their trolleys to go back out on the road.
‘Been here three hours,’ Margaret heard one crewman tell her minder. ‘That man over there has MRSA, post surgery open wound, should be in isolation. He’s been attended to behind a screen. It’s crazy!’
Crazy it was. She had eventually been transferred to a bed in a cubicle, with a drunk, yelling and puking, in the adjoining cubicle. The nurse and doctor were trying to calm him down, pacifying him with enormous patience. How she had longed to get out of her bed and go over to him and smack him hard and tell him to behave himself and leave beds for people who were ill through no fault of their own.
And then the pain of the cannula being inserted into her frail hands. It had made her cry. And the blood tests, the interminable blood tests. She was black and blue after it, her arms like pincushions from the nurses trying to find veins that would give up their red bounty.
Two days and nights she had lain in that nightmarish place, unable to sleep, or eat the slop they called food. Niall, Sue and Hilary had taken turns to be with her and she had fretted at the amount of time they had to waste, standing, without even a chair to sit on, when their own lives were so busy. Never again, Margaret had sworn when she was finally wheeled away to a hospital ward.
She had felt the effects of that last hospital stay much more than previous ones. All she was able to do on her return home was potter around, from her sitting room to her kitchen, and watch TV. Her sight was fading, even with her glasses. She could no longer see the birds feeding out in the garden. Reading was difficult. All she was doing was waiting for the inevitable. What was the point of delaying it? New medical discoveries and medications were prolonging life, but at what cost when you were existing as opposed to living? In her day pneumonia was known as the old people’s friend. Now it was treated with antibiotics and steroids. Until another dose came and the whole palaver started again. What was the point of keeping her alive with her ageing heart and aching body, when she had come to know that death was preferable? Why did she have to do this alone? Could hospice care not be extended to all? In a hospice death was given the respect it deserved. In hospital you were made well enough to be discharged. And then they were finished with you and you had to get on with it until the next time. Margaret had spent many hours pondering the ethical questions. The spiritual questions. The practical questions. Until she had made peace with her decision. It didn’t matter what anyone else thought, she decided. If she was at peace with it, and she was, then that was all that mattered. That knowledge gave her comfort and courage.
When the time came to make the decision to stop taking her tablets, she was well prepared. She had spent a delightful Sunday with Niall, Hilary and her beloved granddaughters, making the very most of it, knowing that it was her last one with them. She would miss them dreadfully, especially Millie, her favourite. Sadness crept around her weary heart. Millie and she had always been extra close. But her grandchildren were young and, though they would grieve for her, their lives were so fast-paced now that she would become but a faded memory that would bring a smile in years to come. That was the way of it.
Margaret felt a shudder ripple through her body, not an unpleasant sensation, just like a slight shiver. She was tired now, very tired; she’d close her eyes for a while. She’d say a Hail Mary and then let go. ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee,’ she managed, before a beautiful all-encompassing light of love and peace enveloped her and she slipped gently back to the place that had always been home.
‘Aw, Gran H.’ Hilary ran to her mother-in-law, who was slumped against the cushions on the sofa, and knelt beside her. She knew instinctively before she searched for a pulse that Margaret was gone. Her body was still warm. If she’d come even fifteen minutes earlier she might have been able to save her, Hilary thought, heartsick, tears spilling down her cheeks as she cradled the frail body of the elderly woman in her arms. She whispered an act of contrition, and laid Margaret back against the cushions, glad that her eyes and mouth were closed and she wouldn’t have to force them. She put the soft angora throw over her, knowing it was irrational to think that Margaret would feel cold. She was just about to phone the doctor when the doorbell rang. She could see a man’s silhouette against the frosted glass. Bad timing, whoever he was, she thought, trying to compose herself before opening the door. ‘Niall!’ Hilary exclaimed when she saw her husband standing on the step. ‘Oh Niall, I’m so sorry.’
‘Oh God, is she gone?’ Her husband turned ashen and brushed past her. ‘Where?’
‘The sitting room,’ she said, before bursting into sobs. It broke her heart to see Niall on his knees cradling his mother, whispering endearments into her hair, telling her that he loved her.
‘I knew something was up. I didn’t want you to find her on your own. I came as quickly as I could.’ He raised a tear-streaked face to her.
‘We’re with her now, Niall. She’s not alone, and she looks so peaceful. I’m glad it was in her own home and not in hospital.’ Hilary knelt beside him and put her arms around him and they stayed like that awhile, reluctant to give Margaret to the doctors, undertakers and priests, who would do what they had to do to prepare her body for its final journey.
Sue’s heart sank and apprehension swamped her when she saw Niall and Hilary in the foyer. The receptionist had told her two people wished to see her. Both had been crying. She could see the puffiness of their eyes and the grief etched on their faces and she knew instantly that her mother had died.
‘Come into my office,’ she said calmly, determined that she would keep her composure. ‘It’s Mam, isn’t it?’ she said, closing the door.
‘Yes.’ Niall walked over to the window.
‘How?’
‘A heart attack, her doctor said.’ Hilary marvelled at the other woman’s self-possession.
‘Where?’ Sue faltered a little.
‘At home. She never answered the phone this morning so I drove over and found her. Niall and I wanted to tell you in person. We didn’t want you to find out in a phone call,’ Hilary explained.
‘Thanks. I appreciate it. We’d better make funeral arrangements.’ Sue glanced over at her brother.
‘Yes, we wanted to discuss it with you. Although Mam’s wishes were very clear – she wanted to be waked at home before being brought to the church—’
‘Oh no! I hate all that stuff with the neighbours coming in and peering into the coffin, and looking around the house,’ Sue exclaimed. ‘Could we not at least wake her in a funeral parlour?’
Hilary looked at Niall feeling it wasn’t up to her to respond. She was horrified that even in death Sue couldn’t respect her mother’s wishes.
‘No, Sue, we’ll do it the way Mam wanted, if you don’t mind,’ he said quietly.
‘Well then, what’s the point of asking me to get involved? You and Hilary have clearly decided what’s to be done,’ she said huffily.
‘No, we just want what Mam wanted. What Hilary and I want is irrelevant,’ Niall said with an edge to his voice.
‘Well let me know where I’ve to be and when,’ Sue said frostily.
‘The doctor has said there’s no need for a post mortem. She says the steroids Mrs H was on affected the warfarin, and weakened your mother’s heart even more, so she can sign the death certificate. The undertaker said she could be with us this evening. Niall and I and the girls will stay the night with her. The removal will be tomorrow and the burial on Thursday. It’s up to you whatever you wish to do,’ Hilary said coolly.
‘Very well. I need to speak to my boss and sort things out here. I’ll see you at the house tonight,’ Sue said without a hint of emotion.
‘OK, see you then.’ Niall glanced at Hilary, clearly baffled by his sister’s reaction.
‘I’m very sorry for your loss, Sue. Your mother was a lovely woman.’ Hilary offered
her condolences. She was shocked that Sue didn’t want to engage in any of the arrangements. She had been about to ask her was there any outfit that Sue wanted to suggest for Margaret to be buried in. Hilary felt, as a daughter, that call was Sue’s to make, but clearly her sister-in-law had no intention of being involved.
Sue bent her head. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured. ‘And thank you for telling me in person. I’ll see you tonight. Bye.’ She turned away and punched in a number on the phone.
Dismissed, Niall and Hilary walked out of Sue’s office.
‘Why am I surprised?’ Niall muttered as they waited for the lift in the foyer.
Hilary said nothing. She was not going to diss her sister-in-law to Niall. The sooner Margaret’s funeral was over the better and if they could get the poor woman buried without a family row they would be doing very well indeed, she thought, heavy-hearted, stepping into the lift with her husband.
Sue’s heart was thumping so loudly she was sure Tina could hear it in reception. Mam was dead. Gone! In an instant. She couldn’t quite believe it. The memory of her father’s death came roaring back in a tidal wave of memories. Her mother weeping. Telling them that her husband had died at his desk at work, from what turned out to be an aneurysm. The terror of seeing her dad in his coffin, pale and waxy-looking. Feeling his marble coldness. Knowing he was gone from her life, never to speak to, or hug, or laugh with again. Her champion, her mentor, cleaved away from her without even a last farewell. Watching their mother turn to Niall for comfort and advice, sidelining Sue as though she hadn’t a thought or contribution to make, had made it all so much more difficult to bear. She was only a woman after all: what would she know about wills and probate and the like?
Bitterness rose in Sue at the memory. Girls should marry and have children. That was the way of it, her mother had told her once, when news of Hilary’s first pregnancy had broken. ‘You should be thinking of marrying and settling down.’ And then, she had finally married, a divorced man, in a small private civil ceremony, ‘Because you were too mean to invite your relations and it’s not a proper wedding,’ Margaret had accused crossly, annoyed that it hadn’t been done ‘properly’ and she’d have to explain to family and neighbours that Cormac was divorced, and in her eyes, therefore, not free to marry at all.
Time had softened Margaret regarding the lack of a ‘proper’ wedding or marriage and her mother had pressed her constantly for news of a pregnancy. One day Sue had told her straight out. ‘I don’t like children and babies. I wouldn’t be a good mother so I’m not going to have any.’
‘And what does Cormac think of that? Does he not want children with you?’ her mother asked, taken aback by her daughter’s vehemence on the subject.
‘He agrees with me,’ Sue retorted. She hadn’t told her mother that Cormac already had children from his previous marriage. That would have caused consternation.
‘Well the pair of you are well suited so,’ Margaret sniffed condescendingly. She had never really taken to Cormac and his dry sarcastic humour and his highbrow ways. Sue knew her mother put on a façade of acceptance of their union but in reality Margaret felt that Sue had let down the family yet again by marrying a divorced man who had failed another woman. Cormac was a freelance proofreader and it was Sue who made the money in their marriage, another no-no for Margaret. ‘A man should keep a woman, not the other way round,’ she’d jibed once, after they’d had one of their periodic spats. Hilary might think that Margaret was all sweetness and light: Sue was the one that got the sharp end of her tongue more often than not.
And now her mother was dead. Each of them had disappointed the other, and it was too late to resolve their differences. And that she would have to live with, Sue thought forlornly, dreading the thought of the next few days.
In Margaret’s small kitchen Millie and Sophie buttered slices of bread and placed ham, tomatoes and lettuce on them. Their grandmother was lying in a coffin in the sitting room, and the neighbours were in paying their respects, then chatting, and having tea and sandwiches in the dining room. Niall and Hilary took turns to sit with Margaret, and later, when everyone was gone, Millie and Sophie would share the intimate vigil with their parents.
‘It’s just so hard to believe that one minute you’re breathing and everything is normal, and the next minute you’re dead,’ Millie murmured as she cut the sandwiches diagonally in dainty triangles.
‘It’s scary!’ Sophie declared, nibbling at a cut of ham. ‘I just can’t believe we’ll never see Gran again. I feel like my heart is like lead in my chest.’ She started to cry.
Millie put her arms around her younger sister. ‘It’s a horrible feeling. I’ve been sad before but never like this. I know this is an awful thing to say, but I’m glad I got my Leaving Cert done; I’d never have been able to concentrate if Gran had died before it. I keep trying to think what were her last words to me. And I didn’t even know they were her last words, whatever they were . . .’ She trailed off.
‘Me too. I think we talked about when Gran was young and she lived near the railway line and they used to walk along it to the dance hall when they were young, and how Granddad used to bring her a bunch of roses every time they went to a dance.’
‘It was real old-fashioned then, wasn’t it? Like in those old films,’ Millie remarked. ‘If you walked along a railway line to a dance now you’d be brown bread.’
Sophie giggled. ‘Fried! What a sight that would be. Your hair in a frizz and your eyes bulging. Imagine looking like that in your coffin! They’d all be screaming.’
‘Stop,’ Millie grinned, giving her sister a poke. ‘Get buttering – here’s another lot,’ she sighed as the doorbell rang and more neighbours and relatives came to say their farewells to their grandmother.
‘She looks peaceful,’ Sue said, gazing down at her mother’s serene expression. ‘They did a good job at the undertakers’.’
‘Yes, they were very kind and helpful,’ Hilary said, standing up. ‘Here, take the chair and I’ll leave you with her for a while so you can be alone. I’ll keep everyone out until you’re done,’ she offered kindly.
‘Thanks, I’d appreciate that. I hate having to do small talk. Mam loved you. You know that though,’ Sue said matter-of-factly. ‘I was a big disappointment to her. You and Niall were the perfect ones. Cormac and I were the failures. He couldn’t come by the way, he has a strep throat.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Hilary said uncomfortably. Surely with your mother lying in her coffin you would try and make some effort to put bitterness aside, she thought.
‘Mam won’t mind – she didn’t really like him. She pretended to and was civil to him but she didn’t. I knew.’ Sue sighed. ‘I can almost hear her saying, “I wouldn’t want him gawking at me in my coffin!”’ She caught Hilary’s eye. Hilary laughed, in spite of herself, and Sue gave a small chuckle. ‘Isn’t that what she’d be saying?’
‘She would say something like that all right,’ Hilary agreed.
‘I know you’ll be shocked by this, but I won’t be staying long. We didn’t have a lot to say to each other in life. I don’t really have anything much to say to her in death. That’s the way of it,’ Sue shrugged. ‘You think I’m hard, and maybe I am. But I am what I am and she could never see that and accept it.’
‘Sue, you had your relationship with Margaret and I had mine. It wasn’t a competition. I know being a daughter can be hard sometimes. I resented things my mother expected of me when I was younger, and things she expects of me now, so don’t think I don’t understand that. Don’t be hard on yourself – it’s a difficult enough time as it is. I’ll leave you in peace to say your goodbyes, and, when this is over and things have settled, you know where Niall and I are if you need us,’ Hilary said generously. ‘We are family when all is said and done.’
‘Thank you,’ Sue murmured, touched in spite of herself. Hilary closed the door and Sue was alone with her mother. ‘What do you think of that, Mam?’ she said wryly. ‘You were right
all along. Hilary is a feckin’ saint. No wonder you loved her. I could never in a million years be that good-natured if I tried.’
The poignant strains of ‘Nearer My God To Thee’ drifted down from the gallery while the mourners sat after communion at Margaret’s funeral before the final blessing. Out of the corner of her eye, Hilary saw Sue reach down to her handbag and then she was dabbing a tissue at her eyes, and the sound of an unmistakable sob broke the silence.
Thank God, Hilary thought with relief. Thank God there’s grief because where there’s grief there’s love and someday she’ll realize that. Beside her, Millie and Sophie cried quietly, and Niall had tears streaming down his face. She squeezed his hand in silent comfort and he squeezed back. Hilary raised her face to the sun pouring through the stained-glass window behind the altar. The rays bathing the coffin in ethereal red and blue and green.
Margaret’s fears and worries about her future were all behind her now, and she’d been lucky the way she’d passed. And she’d orchestrated it.
Hilary had noticed that all her mother-in-law’s tablets for the previous five days had been untouched in the blue receptacles. Hilary always did the weekly tablets with Margaret, popping them into the receptacles for her, because she found it difficult to do with her arthritic fingers. Hilary knew what she was taking and what dosage she was on.
She’d been shocked at the discovery! Could it be said that Margaret had committed suicide? Could not taking tablets that kept you alive be considered in the same way as taking an overdose? Hilary agonized. Should she tell the doctor and Niall? But what difference would it make now, she argued with herself. It was very clear that Margaret had made a decision to stop taking her medication. She’d had a few days to reverse the decision. She hadn’t. Death was the required goal. Death was the result. Margaret had chosen her way to go. If Hilary hadn’t known anything about her mother-in-law’s medication she would have been none the wiser.
Hilary kept the knowledge to herself. Niall did not need to be troubled by it, or indeed Sue. Because troubled they would be. Guilt would come knocking on their door. Margaret would not have wanted that. There was nothing they could do now to change the way of their mother’s passing.
A Time for Friends Page 35
