The Small Fortune of Dorothea Q

by Sharon Maas

  She snatched her hand away. I replaced the pile of clothes in my arms to its shelf and took a step away from the wardrobe, sinking on to Gran’s commode.

  ‘We have to be sensible, Mum,’ I said. ‘And practical. The stamp …’

  ‘The stamp. The stamp! Is that all you can think about at a time like this? Mummy isn’t in her grave yet, you know!’

  Mum’s eyes blazed with wrath.

  ‘I know, I know, Mum, but it’s not about that. She’s probably got this brain damage, Dr Stone said so, and Neville’s coming in a few hours and I thought …’

  ‘Neville’s coming?’

  ‘Yes, and Norbert too!’

  ‘Oh.’ Mum was silent for a moment. The news of her brothers’ imminent arrival seemed to have driven out her anger. She stood in the doorway frowning, scratching her head, biting her bottom lip. Her hair was a mess, a mane of partly matted frizz. She was barefoot, her pyjamas mismatched; a plain washed-out purple striped top on faded floral bottoms.

  ‘I suppose they have the right,’ she said at last. ‘She’s their Mum too. And Marion? I told Neville to tell her too. Is she on her way as well?’

  ‘I don’t know. He didn’t mention Marion. I suppose she’ll want to come too if everyone else is here.’

  ‘A family reunion. How nice.’

  I smiled at her sarcasm; that was more like Mum. Encouraged by the dissolution of her anger I continued the interrupted explanation of why I was here, in Gran’s room, going through her stuff.

  ‘You see, they’re worried about the stamp. They’re afraid Gran may have hidden it somewhere and might not remember where, after the accident. Neville said he’s coming to look for it. He …’

  ‘So you thought you’d find it first?’

  I nodded. ‘Mum, I’m not the mercenary beast you think. I do care about Gran and I was so relieved the operation went well. I do love her … you saw that last night! But we have to be practical as well. Do you really want Neville and Norbert snooping around in her room? She wouldn’t want that.’

  ‘She wouldn’t want you snooping around in here either. Now you just put everything back exactly the way it was. I don’t know what devil gets into you people’s heads.’

  ‘Mum, I …’ I jumped to my feet to explain some more; I didn’t appreciate being reduced to Neville and Norbert’s level. But Mum had turned away and was already stomping upstairs. I followed her up, leaving Gran’s room the way it was.

  ‘I’m going to have a shower, then I’m going to hospital. If you want to come with me you’d better hurry.’

  ‘But Neville … what if he comes?’

  ‘I’m not waiting at home for Neville. If he wants to come he should come to the hospital. That’s where Mum is.’

  ‘Does he know which hospital?’

  ‘I didn’t tell him. Didn’t he ask?’

  ‘No. He said he was coming to our place.’

  ‘Well, serve him right. He’ll just have to wait.’ She disappeared into the bathroom.

  * * *

  Mum was in such a hurry to get back to hospital I didn’t have time to fix Gran’s room. I promised her to do it the moment we returned. I didn’t want to be left at home in case Neville turned up, and Mum didn’t want to wait.

  The hospital was quite a different place during the day. People bustling everywhere, patients in wheelchairs smoking outside, others rolling around the corridors pushed by white-clad orderlies. Nurses rushed past, grasping papers or bending over gurneys. All the waiting rooms were full. Accident and Emergency patients sat with glazed eyes, sipping coffee in paper cups or leafing through last year’s House Beautiful, waiting their turn.

  No waiting for us, this time. We went straight to Gran’s ward. There she lay. Frail and lifeless and so alone among all the hospital gadgetry, a little brown doll enclosed in bedsheet white. Only her face showed, smaller than ever beneath its turban of white bandage, its expression of peace so absolute that for a moment I thought she was dead.

  We took seats on either side of her. There were three more beds in the room, separated from each other by curtains. The one opposite her was occupied by a man who seemed as lifeless as Gran; it was mutual oblivion.

  Mum had brought fruit and juice for Gran, and magazines. All of it went unnoticed. Gran wasn’t moving. We whispered comforting words to each other across the bed, and then a nurse popped in. Gran could wake up at any moment, she said cheerfully, and was doing as well as could be under the circumstances. She popped out again.

  * * *

  At around eleven I went outside for a cigarette. I switched on my mobile. Thirteen missed calls, eight from Neville, five unknowns. I called Sal; he had come to the hospital last night to get the door-key, and gone back to feed Samba. We chatted for a while, and then I returned Neville’s call.

  ‘Where the hell are you people?’ Neville’s voice was a veritable snarl.

  ‘At the hospital, of course.’

  ‘And here’s me sitting in the bloody car outside your house for the last half-hour twiddling my thumbs! You could at least have told me which hospital.’

  ‘You didn’t ask!’

  ‘Well, tell me now! How’s Mummy by the way?’

  I told him.

  ‘You mean she hasn’t come out of it yet?’

  I shook my head unhappily, forgetting he couldn’t see. ‘The doctors aren’t happy. They say she’s fallen into a coma.’

  ‘Wonderful. Just wonderful.’

  ‘Do you want to come over? I’ll give you the address.’

  ‘Well, there’s not much point, is there, if she’s in a fucking coma.’

  ‘But she might wake up any time. Mum refuses to leave her side.’

  ‘Well, that’s good. So that’s taken care of. But what concerns me is …’

  ‘The stamp.’

  ‘You said it. Did you search her handbag?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The weight of my betrayal sat heavy on my shoulders. Mum’s accusing eyes glared at me through my confession, through the victory of pragmatism over optimism. My heart broke for Mum, sitting there holding Gran’s hand, waiting in vain for the flicker of eyelids closed forever; she was living a fool’s dream. I refused to deceive myself, to give in to the fantasy that Gran would wake up any moment and be her beloved cantankerous old self again. I’d seen the veiled truth in doctors’ eyes as they discussed Gran’s case with Mum. I’d heard the charity in their voices as they kept her hope alive with best-case scenarios. No mention was made of the worst-case scenario; Mum didn’t ask, and they didn’t offer it. But I knew.

  We’d lost Gran. I felt it in my in the pit of my stomach, in the marrow of my bones. We might still have her body; it would lie there frail and still, kept alive by and hope and prayer, by medicines and daily nourishment and care, but she was gone. As the past few hours ticked away I’d convinced myself that Gran, even if she should awake, would never be the same again. While Mum sat there grasping her hand, stroking her bony fingers, hanging on to straws of hope, I had fought for sense and reason. I refused to be blinded by hope. I had to be rational and strong – for Mum.

  Neville’s voice cut through my musings.

  ‘It wasn’t there, I suppose.’

  ‘What? Oh ... the stamp. No.’

  ‘Inky, you do realise, don’t you, that this is no time for sentimentality. You know as well as I do that Mummy isn’t capable of any kind of rational action concerning that stamp. Even before this happened she was in danger of losing it through sheer bloody-mindedness. Now, Rika isn’t much better, but you, Inky, you know better. We’ve got to find that stamp and keep it in a safe place. Do you agree?’

  To my credit, I paused for the longest time before I gave my answer.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then come home, and let’s look for it.’

  * * *

  Neville’s Beamer, parked outside our house, was empty. Maybe he’d walked down to Streatham High Street to get a bite to eat. I entered the garden gate, walked
down the path, turned the key. The moment I entered the house I knew something was wrong, and two steps later, standing in Gran’s threshold, I knew.

  Neville and Norbert were both there, demolishing Gran’s room, inch by inch. They had moved all the furniture over to one corner and had pulled up the carpet in another. All enmity put aside, they now worked in brotherly unity; right now they were searching her photo album trunk. Neville sat on the floor beside the open trunk. He had an album in his hand, the one with the Quint family photos. He had taken out half the photos; they lay in a heap beside him. I caught him in the act of removing the next photo, turning it over to check its backside. Norbert was doing the same with a newer album. They obviously hadn’t heard my key in the lock, so intent were they on snooping. Incongruously, they were both dressed as if for the office, in suits and ties and – horror of horrors – laced-up shoes. It was the shoes that did it. They summoned Mum’s spirit, and lent me her words. I yelled into the silence:

  ‘What in the name of ten million suns are you two doing?’

  They looked up, guilt written all over their faces.

  ‘Ahhh ... hello Inky,’ said Norbert. He jumped to his feet and put on the loving long-lost uncle act. ‘Great to see you again! We just decided to continue the search … we see that you’d already started, at least that’s the conclusion we’d jumped to, seeing as how you’d emptied the closet, and …’

  ‘How’d you get in the house?’

  ‘I happen to have a key,’ said Norbert. ‘When I came earlier this year I had a copy made; after all, you never know.’

  Rage welled up in me, all the frustration and helplessness accumulated over the long empty hours of waiting suddenly finding a new form, a new energy in which to exit my body. I wanted to lash out at them both, scream and pummel them. It lasted less than a second. My knees buckled under me and I almost fell. Instead, I grasped for the door jamb for support, swayed a little and then steadied myself. I said nothing. What could I say? It was wrong for them to enter the house, wrong to start searching Gran’s room, but who was I to talk? I had led the search party.

  ‘Are you all right, Inky? You look exhausted.’ That was Neville. Big bad Neville, who’d never spoken a friendly word to me in his life, all of a sudden solicitous.

  I nodded, suddenly aware of my exhaustion. ‘I hardly slept at all last night. I just want to …’

  ‘You need some sleep. Why don’t you run off to bed.’

  I waved my hand towards the mess in Gran’s room.’

  ‘We can’t leave it like this. Put everything back the way it was. Mum’ll be furious. And Gran … Gran …’

  ‘What about her? Has she woken up?’

  And that was what woke me up. Neville’s question sharpened my groggy mind. I looked up, met his eye, and I saw not the arrogant bully I’d always known but a frightened child, a naughty little boy who had done something wrong behind Mummy’s back, and feared the consequences. Coward!

  I’d had enough of these two idiots. They’d both raced here, not out of concern for Gran but because of that damn stamp. That was all they cared about. They hadn’t even asked how she was. They wanted Gran not to wake up, because then they could take control of the stamp – if they found it. They’d bully Mum into handing it over, and knowing Mum’s complete indifference she would, without a whimper. But first they had to find it. How could I have even dreamt of collaborating with them, even for a second? How could I have succumbed to Neville’s coaxing, his silky lecture about being practical and realistic? I was as bad as them, the only difference being that I felt guilty about it. And all I really wanted was for Gran to wake up and be her cantankerous old self again. I’d have given anything in the world for her to trundle in on her rollator right now and give me the tongue lashing I deserved, to flay me alive with her fury. That was the Gran I knew and loved.

  ‘Get out,’ I said, and my rage finally found its outlet. ‘Just get out. Both of you. Out of my house. Right now.’

  ‘But …’

  They actually cowered before me, these two uncles of mine. They quaked before my fury, Norbert in his crisp Wall Street pin-stripes and Neville in his immaculate white shirt and Gucci tie. I took a step forward, fearless, threatening.

  ‘Didn’t you hear me? I said get out.’

  They edged around the room, heading for the door, their eyes fixed on me. If I hadn’t been so furious I’d have found it funny, laughed out loud. Now I was just sick to my stomach. I glanced around and saw one of Gran’s walking sticks leaning against the wall. I grabbed it, waved it at them. They edged backwards through the doorway.

  ‘Inky, listen …’

  ‘How dare you! How dare you come in here and mess around in Gran’s room. How dare you! You haven’t even asked how she is. What kind of monsters are you? What kind of – of – of …’ I searched for the perfect word but all I could come up with was my old staple. ‘What kind of bloody wankers?’

  They were in the hall now, edging backwards towards the front door, me herding them out with the stick raised aloft.

  ‘At least tell us where she is, which hospital!’

  That was Norbert. His hand was on the door handle, though he still faced forward. He opened the door. Neville slipped through it like the slick little worm he was, but Norbert braved my wrath a second longer. He stood in the open doorway, eyes pleading for that last piece of information.

  ‘What hospital, Inky? Where is she?’

  ‘St George’s!’ I yelled, brandishing my stick like a club. Norbert flitted through the door. I slammed it behind him and collapsed against it, sinking to the floor.

  After a while I got up and went to the kitchen. I was hungry.

  The fridge was empty. We had not done our usual Saturday shop. I opened the freezer, pulled out a ready-meal, and stuck it into the oven.

  Then I returned to Gran’s room and began the long overdue clean up.

  * * *

  An hour later I returned to the hospital. As soon as Mum, sitting at Gran’s side, saw me, her eyes lit up. ‘Save me,’ they said, ‘from these two morons!’ Neville and Norbert didn’t even look at me; whether from shame or anger I couldn’t tell. Surely they wouldn’t have told Mum what they’d done to Gran’s room? Neville was ambling up and down the ward muttering and looking at his watch every now and then. Norbert was reading the Financial Times at Gran’s other side. Neither spoke. The man in the bed across from Gran was as motionless and silent as ever. He had no visitors.

  I pushed a chair up next to Mum and she leant towards me. ‘No change,’ she whispered, but I could see that already. Gran lay as silent as ever, a frail and crumpled ghost of her old self. It was amazing how, without the fire of her personality to activate it, weak and insubstantial her body looked, as if the fragile remnant of life still in it would slip away at any time. And even if it didn’t, if life continued but without the force of a healthy mind – would it still be Gran? Would Gran want to live as a vegetable? I knew the answer to that. So did Mum. And I remembered the eerie prediction she had made on her very first day with us: six months to live, she had given herself. We were nearing the deadline.

  The ward door swung open and a team of doctors and nurses marched up to Gran’s bed. They all smiled and nodded at Mum and me before turning their attention to Gran. Immediately, the mood among us all perked up. Neville stopped his strutting and shot up to Gran’s bedside, pushing his way into the now closed circle. Norbert slowly folded away his Financial Times and put on his most self-important expression. We all left the room.

  The news, after the consultation, was not good. Gran could remain in this state for the rest of her life, which would, with luck, be short. She could wake up in a moment with severe brain damage, unable to function as a human being, unable to speak or even recognise us. Or she might be as good as gold.

  ‘What’s the probability of brain damage?’ that was Neville.

  ‘High, I’d say, considering her age.’ Neville and Norbert looked at each other,
dismay written all over their faces. Their concern was so transparent. Gran, it seemed, would either stay in a coma until she died, or, if she did wake up, would have brain damage. Next to those two options the possibility of her being normal again, normal enough to recover the Quint and hand it over to them, were slim. And that, presumably, was all they cared about.

  * * *

  Once the medical team had left, Neville and Norbert turned fidgety and talkative.

  ‘I really have to get back to New York,’ Norbert said. ‘I’ve an important meeting on Monday and I don’t want to be too jet-lagged. I guess I’ll go back to the hotel and book a flight. I left the return flight open as I didn’t know what would happen with Mummy but as it is ….’

  He shook his head, an expression of deep gravitas written across his face.

  ‘Yes, I’ve got to get back too,’ said Neville. ‘There’s really not much I can do here. When – if – she wakes up, or, or anything, you’ll call me, won’t you, Rika.’

  And then they both turned their greedy eyes on me. And I knew what they were thinking. And I knew I’d won. There was no way they could get their hot little hands on Gran’s stamp, without my help. But my triumph was short-lived. I looked at Gran, lying there oblivious to us all and to her own life. And more than anything, more than I wanted the stamp, I wanted her back. Neville spoke.

  ‘Aaaah, Inky, um, what happened earlier, you see, we have to be realistic. We have to be prepared. You heard what the doctor said …’

  ‘Go,’ I said. ‘Just go. Both of you.’ And so, for the second time that day, I threw my uncles out.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  RIKA: THE SIXTIES

  She ought to be exhausted, after the hours spent at Mummy’s bedside, but sleep just would not come. The Beast was scratching at the edge of her consciousness, demanding entrance. Could she? Could she possibly?

  What choice had she?

  ‘Rajan!’ she whimpered into the night, into the darkness of her room. ‘Rajan! Help me!’