Naomi couldn’t resist a smile. At the time he’d left her in no doubt about how much he admired her own figure but it was a surprise to see that he had committed his observations about Brenda’s size to print.
He wouldn’t approve today. Bony was closer to the mark, gaunt. Grief did that to people. Who was there to care now?
19 OCTOBER—Woke at 4AM again today. Lay there, just waiting for the sky to start bleeding into the morning. I read the phrase somewhere, thought I’d try it out. No, it’s not me.
This post-infection weakness seems to be affecting lots of functions. Typing even a short paragraph is exhausting. My concentration’s gone to pot. Holding a conversation is a battle. Naomi has taken time off to nurse me but nothing’s happening in my life while I lie here recuperating, so I’m struggling to find something to say. Her world’s limited to my horizons. Result: long silences. Another portent.
Do I want her to forfeit her stimulating life to look after me?
I do not.
Do I want her to be afraid to mention her active life because of my incapacity?
I do not.
Do I want to see her vigour, her potential, being stifled by my limitations?
I do not.
Do I want the noose of my disability to tighten inexorably around our relationship?
I do not.
20 OCTOBER—My worst day yet. Sheer unadulterated excrement – at the height of a food poisoning epidemic, iced with bile, with a lump of somebody else’s earwax plonked on top, and the whole glorious edifice sprayed with poisonous flatus!
It took me two hours to wash and dress this morning. A colossal effort. Then Naomi handed me this thick towelling robe. ‘Try this. Wrap yourself in it,’ she said. ‘Save your energy.’
I was touched. Then, damn it, she informs me it was the OT’s idea! Practical not lovingly thoughtful. Damn, damn, damn! Presumably I didn’t betray my disappointment because she then said, what about a long-handled brush for the extremities and unreachable parts?
‘You’ve got those stashed away too?’ I asked, feeling the bile spitting between my teeth.
‘Just in case,’ she admitted.
‘Next you’ll be telling me that pesky OT loaned them to you!’
She didn’t say a thing but shot me a reproachful look.
‘Better still, why don’t I give in and let you wash me, instead?’ I muttered.
‘Why not? I’m willing. I wish you would let me help more.’ And I thought my sarcasm was cruelly blatant!
Why not?… Why not? Ye gods!
I’m recalling my original aim: to keep the essential spark that is me alive. But what is the essential me? The old Adam wouldn’t have vented his spleen on a hapless Naomi.
She’d tried so hard to respect his feelings. She’d purposely not told him she was learning safe ways of moving and handling; Lydia slotted sessions in in her lunch breaks.
‘No point in waiting till you’ve damaged your back,’ she’d said. ‘Learn good techniques now. In preparation.’
It made sense and Lydia made it fun. Naomi had giggled as they slid each other from seat to seat on banana boards, tweaked gripper sheets from under each other’s buttocks, spread their feet wide in unladylike poses to lift without bending their spines. But the seriousness of this preparation was never far from her thoughts. She had to stay strong enough to do whatever it took for as long as it took.
Nobody factored in Adam’s resistance.
She dragged her eyes unwillingly back to the screen.
Ursula Major managed somehow to leave her confounded brochure here. Why I didn’t consign it to the recycling bin immediately I don’t know.
It’s even worse than I remember. From Velcro-ed shoes I progressed to nightshirts; key rings on trouser zips took me all the way to bottom wipers… bottom wipers! Seems Velcro’s the answer to everything. I can see the whole week’s wash snarled up around the foul stuff.
I am in hurtling danger of failing my second aim: to stay in control.
I feel like an onion being stripped of skins. How far is too far?
21 OCTOBER—All this thinking about establishing a sustained and logical argument has forced me to imagine end-stage scenarios. Vivid pictures. Especially during these long wakeful watches in the night when hitherto I’d have been hammering out dazzling discourses on profound topics, or plotting the next chapter of my book.
However, it does help to crystallise my position.
No death-bed heroics, that’s for sure. Peace and dignity, if you please. What on earth would I be coming back to anyway? Or for?
Drugs? Specific information needed: how much, how long, where from. There must be no half-baked attempts.
Starving? Unpleasant side effects: further muscle-wasting, constipation, nausea, foul mouth, stomach pains, increased weakness – all while you’re still conscious. Would my resolve stand firm? Don’t want to be totally humiliated as well as scrawny and evil-smelling!
Accident? Logistically doubtful given my weakness. Don’t want to traumatise some poor driver or passer-by? Or, enough of an accident to need medical intervention – which I could then refuse… They’d say I was mentally incompetent to decide for myself!
Refusal of treatment? I have to need life-saving treatment without precipitating that state deliberately. I must be conscious and aware of my dying.
Killing? I know they can’t. And won’t.
The problem is, the medical world equates death with failure. If you seek it the balance of your mind is disturbed. You need a higher level of competence to make this choice. Ergo, another raft of patients are incompetent. The doctors are back in control. Sickening!
Quality of life isn’t an objective measure. It draws on issues like what’s intolerable, what’s futile, what’s important – things only I know! They have to respect my wishes, my assessment, my preferences.
We’ve gone full circle. Back to the essential ‘I’ in MIND. History isn’t on my side. Those doctors didn’t respect Ms B’s preferences, not even when the judge ruled in her favour. They had to move her to another hospital; she had to have other doctors – strangers – to pull the plug. Dr Cox, too, he got rapped over the knuckles for respecting Mrs Boyes’ preferences, and she was in a far worse mess than I am – in excruciating pain from her arthritis, only weeks to live, pleading for death.
Conclusion? If I can’t find a doctor to assist me in dying, I need to be in a situation where I require life-saving treatment, attended by a doctor who subscribes to the commandment not to strive officiously to keep me alive. Bless him, satire or not, Clough knew what he was talking about.
22 OCTOBER—I was shot to pieces after the sheer effort of typing so much yesterday, but I shall go stark raving mad if I don’t drag myself out of this whirlpool of ethical conundrums. I hate being the vulnerable party in all this. I HATE IT!
Curtis is my best hope. I need to slice below his sturdy conscience. He needs to hear the screams of this fellow human being trapped in a blazing car. But… he mustn’t be penalised.
Maybe I should decide: these are the things I want to do before I go; once I’ve done them, exit stage right, in whatever way comes to mind at the time.
Naomi was suddenly vividly reminded of Dr Curtis’s words: ‘It’s hard to pack away a life.’
This morbid introspection was partly attributable to Adam’s post-viral state, a product of too much idle time on his hands. In spite of his relentless worrying, in spite of the horrors ahead, life had been precious to him. He’d been reluctant to leave. It was some small comfort to have that fact confirmed – by Adam himself.
Noelani, with the imperiousness born of breeding, has started to pretend she doesn’t hear me calling her. Here am I, struggling to conserve my energy as per instructions, and the malicious creature forces me to search for her before I lock up for the night. The comparison between her silent, quicksilver leap past me and into her basket and my shuffling gait is too painful for benevolence. I curse her roundly for her in
sensitivity. Her copper stare oozes disdain.
If I didn’t know better I’d suspect her of colluding with everyone else who’s trying to ignore me and my rights.
I must be paranoid after all!
24 OCTOBER—We’ve just returned from Liverpool. Naomi did all the driving; I gave in without a protest. Another first.
It was her cousin’s wedding. Nobody said anything outright but I felt the sideways glances. Most of them haven’t seen me since our own wedding. It must have been a shock; all the imperceptible creeping of the paralysis fast-forwarded.
Mercifully the evening reception was one of those no-skill bops. Up here you need to be free-standing and generally in possession of your faculties to get through the orderly sequences of Scottish dance creditably. I’d have had to rivet my carcass to the furthermost seat in the darkest corner and avoid all eye contact. Mindless swaying from one foot to the other on a crowded, strobing square of parquet flooring, I can manage. Hanging on to Naomi, keeping time, thumbing my nose at Nemesis. I didn’t dare to ask anyone else to take a spin with me; no merit in adding a charge of groping or indecent familiarity to my catalogue of problems!
Naomi’s a sensation on the dance floor: feline, sinuous. In the midst of all those glitzy outfits, dazzling hairdos, she outshone them all. She still makes my heart lurch. I’m sure there’s no shortage of men queuing up to take my place, but no question: she’s mine.
26 OCTOBER—I had no choice. Harry insisted I did a full day in the office today. He was a cross between a nag and a dictator all day and it was after 6 before I even left my desk. Talk about stultifying! The stuff I wrote was probably Primary 5 standard. The team meeting was spectacular in its hostility and even Jannine spat back at the unfortunate Jerry. Jannine! She who must at all times reflect the purity of her Christian thoughts.
Harry has a lot to answer for and I found myself hoping he will have to recount his sins in public at the feet of the all-seeing and wrathful Almighty, with Jannine in attendance to witness his humiliation.
As if that weren’t bad enough, I arrived home to my mother in full germ-destruction mode. The place stinks of furniture polish and lavatory bleach and kitchen bug-busters – heaven knows what she’s single-handedly doing to the environment. I’m hiding in my study, Noelani cringing on my lap, but the sound of her campaign is drowning out my concentration.
Why on earth my mother should be here again today, I cannot imagine. It was only yesterday that she was furiously poking things into crevices and beating the daylights out of rugs. Nor can I fathom why Naomi should tolerate such an invasion of her space on her day off – a day to ‘just mooch’. She has to be the most accommodating daughter-in-law on the planet.
27 OCTOBER—I am a new man. Not in the sense of changing nappies and hanging out the Lenor-fresh underpants; but revived, restored, re-invigorated. Back in the driving seat.
Naomi’s working this Saturday so I shambled off to the study at 8.45 with a coffee and modest expectations. I read the last chapter of Aidan’s story and suddenly this new idea rushed at me with all the force of an express train. Next thing I knew, Noelani was scratching at my shoe with irritating persistence. I gave her a dose of her own medicine to start with but when I finally deigned to take notice, I got a real shock: it was 2.35 and the poor beast thought we were on a suicide starvation pact!
It was the new character I’m introducing into Aidan’s life that did it. Hanif Khälid by name. By the time I’d described him he was there in the flesh. And as soon as he opened his mouth the sparks just flew. Ding dong battle of wills. They got stuck into everything from joining Europe to gay marriages and I just took dictation. Brilliant. When it’s a complete takeover bid, that’s when I know it’s working.
I’m ashamed to say, I was no more mindful of Naomi’s need for sustenance in spite of Noelani’s reminder, and she arrived home to a cold kitchen and a remote husband. I made reparation by taking her out for an Italian meal and some quality wine. It felt like a celebration.
Today makes me realise a good day at the writing is more therapeutic than any aromatherapy I’ve ever smelt, any drug I’ve ever taken. And more confirming than any philosophical agonising. I must hang onto that thought. I may be knackered at the end of it but it’s a good kind of knackered.
Moral? Forget the navel-gazing, immerse myself in fantasy. My new resolve.
Naomi smiled softly. It had been annoying to find he hadn’t even turned up the Aga. She’d been tired and cold after a trying day; he’d been indoors in the warm, no outside demands, indulging in his favourite occupation. It surely wasn’t too much to expect.
He was abject in his apology. Fortellani’s was perfect – once Adam had slumped into his seat and hidden his sticks under the chair. His conversation was animated, his eyes sparkling. After the weeks of lethargy and preoccupation, it was doubly reassuring.
Hanif dominated the first part of the evening. Adam became Hanif and soon had her giggling over his exaggerated pronouncements and absurd gestures. But with the dessert menu came an unexpected change of direction.
‘How’s the redoubtable Stella?’
She swallowed the surge of fear.
‘Have you been up to your old tricks?’ she countered, throwing him a hard look.
‘Moi? Tricks? Never!’ The glint in his eye seemed genuine.
She shook her head at him.
‘Has she forgiven me?’ he persisted.
‘I’ve no idea, but I imagine she’s got much more important things to worry about than your lunacy.’
‘Haven’t you seen her since? Who is she anyway?’
She turned the stem of the glass in her fingers, watching the meniscus swirl this way and that.
‘She’s a professional colleague. A counsellor.’
‘Heavens! A stuff-of-the-soul merchant, dredging up secrets from the past. She’s probably psycho-analysed me and found me seriously wanting by now then!’
‘Probably.’
‘Don’t tell me you’re pouring out your inner contradictions to a counsellor! I thought you had more self-respect!’
‘Should have done so light years ago before I took you on!’ She kept it light. ‘Stella, where were you when I needed you?’
‘Then we wouldn’t be sitting here, sated on pasta and alcohol, sparkling in the candlelight, communing with our inner happiness.’
‘Indeed.’
‘What did she say though?’
‘I don’t remember. Nothing much. She’s trained in being non-judgmental, luckily for you.’
After a pause she glanced up to find him staring at her with a strange expression in his eyes.
‘Are you getting enough help with all this, Naomi?’ The gesture took in his disability.
‘I’m fine. And all the better for seeing you more cheerful.’
‘Sorry. I’ve been an old grouch lately, I know.’
‘No, you haven’t. But you have been low with this infectious thingy. Not your usual self.’
‘Took more out of me than I realised.’
‘I know.’
He reached across the table to lay a hand over hers.
‘I don’t want to be a drag, Nay.’
‘I know. And you’re not. I shall probably regret this… but… welcome back, Mr Crazy!’
28 OCTOBER—I’ve had a brilliant day writing. I want to keep going while I’m on a roll but Naomi’s just put paid to that: she’s invited Mother for a meal. I need my parent’s presence tonight like I need barbed wire around my chair.
‘Just you stay in here out of harm’s way,’ she advised, closing the door firmly on the words. ‘And remember. You owe her.’
She’s right. Forty years ago today at this precise hour my mother was enduring the agony of labour on my account. I guess it’s not too much to ask that we remember her key role in my existence. To fortify myself for an enforced state of benevolence I shall re-visit my novel. Hanif and Aidan will hopefully blur the edges of reality for the rest of the evening.
Later (and actually tomorrow) Before I retire to join the saint who was foolish enough to marry me, I must record my state of amazed incredulity – if that’s not tautological. What the heck if it is! My astonishment is double-barrelled anyway.
By the time I put a tentative toe outside my study the testing began. It went like this:
The house looks ready for prospective buyers; all evidence of my careless habits completely eradicated. There is no sign of either of the significant women in my life but fantastic olfactory stimuli are emanating from the kitchen. I have a little reconnoitre, and find them sitting primly in the sitting room swathed in soft music and subdued lighting. Gone is that offensive wrap-around apron my mother dons for her descent into chardom. Instead this elegant figure in a black fitted dress glides across to give me an unexpected kiss. I’m further baffled by a distinct scent of perfume on her.
What is going on?!
Naomi herself is in some floaty creation in a muted pink colour that makes her dissolve in my vision and I suddenly desperately wish my mother would vanish. Their splendid appearances dictate something other than my workaday garb and by the time I’ve fought and won the battle of cufflinks and a new silk tie my desires are heading in a more seemly direction.
Naomi has excelled herself in the culinary department as well as the floral. Delightful but not surprising. What really bowls me over is the older woman at our table. If I had met her at the home of some of our more avant-garde friends I’d have been intrigued by her air of mystery, curious about her opinions. Indeed, she is such a stranger to me tonight that I have no difficulty in slotting into this bizarre charade these women have concocted.
I hear myself spontaneously raising a glass to acknowledge the role she has played throughout my life – the dreaded cleaning of today alongside the dedicated wage-earning of the past; present courage echoing past fortitude. Naomi’s smile is all the thanks I need, but my mother takes her cue and says with poignant simplicity, that that’s what mothers do.
Right to Die Page 22
