Echoes of a Life

by Robin Byron

  ‘I’m just popping up to check on Callum. Help yourself to another drink if you want.’

  ‘Thanks, but I must be going in a minute,’ said Dorrie, draining the last of her whisky.

  Marianne went upstairs and put her nose into the spare room to check that Callum was still asleep. She gazed at his chubby face. She didn’t see much resemblance to Izzy, but then Callum was also different in temperament; far easier and more placid than Izzy had been at the same age – her daughter was fortunate. The birth of Callum, and the year Izzy had spent at home while Marianne helped her look after her child, had ended the stand-off between mother and daughter. Izzy seemed to have grown out of her need to fight with her parents and now appeared genuinely grateful for their support. Finally, her child had become the friend she always imagined.

  ‘Are you getting Izzy home for the weekend?’ asked Dorrie, getting up from her armchair when Marianne returned to the living room.

  ‘I certainly hope so. She’s gone to London to join Andy at a gig this evening, but she should be here tomorrow – perhaps even tonight.’

  Now that Izzy had started her degree at Leeds it had been decided that during term time Marianne and Edward would look after Callum from Monday to Friday and Izzy would be back home on Friday night; at least, that was the theory, though sometimes it was not till Saturday that she would make it home to be with Callum. They had bought her a car, which Andy was also insured to drive, on condition that he never again took Izzy on the back of his motorbike, but she wasn’t too keen on either of them driving the car late at night after a concert somewhere the other side of London.

  ‘Andy still on the scene then?’ said Dorrie.

  ‘Yes, he’s stuck around – I have to acknowledge that much in his favour, though part of me is inclined to think that Izzy would be better off without him.’

  Andy didn’t seem to have a job or any visible means of support – living, Marianne suspected, partly off Izzy and partly by scrounging occasional handouts from his mother in Glasgow. In term time he mostly hung around Izzy in her hall at Leeds; when in Cambridge he seemed to doss down at a squat somewhere off Mill Road. They didn’t object to him staying with Izzy in their house but often he preferred not to – or Izzy discouraged him, they were never quite sure which. Possibly he found their home too restrictive for his drinking and smoking habits.

  ‘I really must go now,’ said Dorrie, giving Marianne a long hug. ‘It’s really all turned out pretty well hasn’t it? The great baby drama.’

  ‘I suppose it has,’ said Marianne, laughing. ‘Have a fantastic Christmas and see you in the New Year.’

  ‘I will – and give my love to Ed and your beautiful daughter.’

  Returning to the tree, Marianne was thinking about her parents arriving on Sunday, when she heard the front door slam and a few seconds later Edward came into the room.

  ‘You’ve just missed Dorrie.’

  ‘Oh, that’s a shame,’ he said, kissing Marianne and standing back to admire her decorations. ‘I like it. But, I wonder, don’t you think perhaps there are too many of those silver baubles – particularly on the window side?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Marianne, trying to keep the irritation out of her voice.

  ‘What news of Izzy?’ he said, walking back to the kitchen and pouring Marianne and himself a glass of wine.

  ‘I don’t expect her home till tomorrow. She said that if she can get away in time she might try to get back tonight, but I doubt she will.’

  ‘Doesn’t she have to go back to Leeds anyway?’

  ‘Apparently – for a couple of days to finish some work.’

  ‘Why doesn’t she go straight back to Leeds then?’

  ‘Ed, it’s the weekend. It’s supposed to be her time with Callum. Also, I need her here. I can’t get anything done if I’m looking after Callum all day.’

  ‘Well, it’s a freezing night, not ideal for driving – I presume she’s got the car?’

  ‘That’s a point – I suppose she might have taken the train.’

  ‘Well, if she comes by train I hope she’ll get a taxi and not hang around at the station for a bus. If she’s not too late I don’t mind picking her up.’

  Conversation that evening centred on the arrangements for Christmas and the still unresolved issue of whether Claire and her family would come to Cambridge for Christmas Day or whether they would all go down to London to the rather grand house Claire’s husband Peter had bought in Holland Park. They heard nothing from Izzy that evening and shortly before midnight they went to bed.

  Marianne dreamed she was in Vermont. They were all skating on the pond: her parents, Claire and her family, Edward, Izzy, and Larry was there too – or was it Daniel? Whoever it was, he was pulling Callum round and round on a little plastic sledge and for some reason he seemed to think that he was Callum’s father. Izzy skated behind Callum, lithe and graceful in her black woollen tights and red skirt, her fur hat pulled down over her ears, gazing with maternal pride at her tiny son. There was music playing, and now Izzy was doing pirouettes, faster and faster, but the music was too loud; sharp, high notes like bells – bells which turned into shrill ringing, dragging Marianne back into consciousness. She picked up the phone.

  ‘Hello… What… who are you? Yes… say that again. Yes, I’m Marianne Davenport… Oh God… Oh no…’

  ‘Who is it, Marianne?’

  ‘… the police,’ she whispered, turning to Edward. ‘Yes,’ she said back into the telephone. ‘Yes, I understand – yes, the hospital… Yes, we’ll come at once…’ Putting back the receiver, she said, ‘Oh, Ed, I can’t bear it – there’s been an accident…’

  It was impossible later for Marianne to reconstruct the events of that night or the following days. Time ceased to be linear. It bulged; it contracted; it sprung forward at terrifying speed only to stall in a paralysing moment of agony from which she seemed unable to escape. Terrible fear, small shafts of hope, but mostly a crushing pain – a pain in her chest so all-consuming that it seemed impossible that she would be able to draw her next breath. There was also anger – a deep rage that this worthless boy had broken his promise not to take her on his bike and had destroyed their precious daughter.

  On the fourth day – the nurse told her this; she had no idea how much time had elapsed – Marianne sat with Edward at Izzy’s bedside with a form and a pen in her hand. She looked at her daughter, then again at the form.

  The eyes were the hardest part. She knew them too well. Until she had suckled Izzy as an infant she hadn’t believed it was possible for any human being to have such pure blue eyes: huge, round irises of the deepest sapphire which seemed to leave no room for the surrounding white. As she got older the blue became lighter with flecks of green and grey. Sometimes, if she was in a rage, Marianne would see flashes of yellow, like tiny nuggets of gold. But when she was happy her eyes seemed to bombard you with a beam of brilliant blue particles; it was an effervescence which few could resist.

  The heart was easy. She was not sentimental about the heart. I could say that Izzy had a big heart, she thought, and it would be true; I could say she was generous hearted and that would also be true; I could even say that part of me was lodged in her heart, but what use are metaphors now? She ticked the box for heart just like she ticked the box for liver and kidneys and all those vital bits of our anatomy which we know are there but never see. Those parts were easy, but she couldn’t do it for the eyes.

  Edward reached out and put his hand on her arm. Marianne gave a small shake of her head. Gently he took the form from her, studied it, then ticked the box for eyes, signed it and handed it back to her.

  Marianne took the pen from him and for a few moments she stared at Izzy’s profile. Her small delicate nose, so perfectly proportioned, and her eyebrows with that distinctive curl which formed a slight upward tick at the outer extremity. The accident which
destroyed her brain had left her face untouched, but the tape over her eyes and her slack mouth with the ugly ventilation tube marred the illusion of a natural sleep. Eventually she forced herself to look down at the form and make a scribble under Edward’s firm signature. A half-hearted, deniable, apology for a signature was all she would permit herself before she dropped the form on the chair and hurried from the room.

  On the way home in the car Edward said, ‘It’s just the corneas they need.’

  ‘It said eyes,’ she replied.

  ‘Yes, but the only part of the eye they use is the cornea.’

  ‘Old people donate their corneas,’ she said. ‘They must have enough of them.’

  ‘They like to match up ages so they need corneas from young people as well.’

  ‘What do they do with the rest of the eye then?’

  ‘Well, they’re valuable for research.’

  ‘Spoken like a true doctor.’

  Edward was silent but she couldn’t resist continuing her assault. ‘Can’t you think like a father for once? They’ll get every other bit of her; I just didn’t want them to take her eyes. Couldn’t you have just signed the form as it was?’

  Marianne knew she was lashing out at him in her agony but she couldn’t help herself.

  ‘We didn’t have to tick every box,’ she said. ‘It’s not all or nothing. The form makes it clear that you can choose.’

  ‘You’re being illogical, Marianne. It makes no sense to be selective.’

  ‘Why do I have to have sense? At this one moment in my life don’t I have the right not to have any sense? To be senseless – to be foolish, even. To be a grieving mother?’

  They continued their half-hearted quarrel – or at least Marianne’s attempt at a quarrel and Edward’s measured responses – but all the time she was hating herself for attacking him. If anyone is to be reproached it should be me. Isabelle was the product of my upbringing. Still, her rebellious spirit has left one legacy, she thought, and I intend to cling on to him with every ounce of my strength.

  ‘How has he been?’ she asked her mother when they got back from the hospital.

  ‘No problem. He’s been perfect. And sound asleep now.’

  Marianne went to Izzy’s room and looked in the cot where Callum lay. She didn’t want to wake him but she couldn’t help herself; she had to hold him. She picked him up and clutched him tightly, burying her face in his neck. Being such an easy child, he didn’t wake up but merely murmured to himself and clung to her hair with one hand.

  ‘You look exhausted, ma chérie,’ said her mother, giving Marianne a long hug. ‘I’ve cooked some pasta. Come and sit down and eat. Papa and I have already eaten so it’s all for you and Ed.’

  ‘Thank you, Maman – and thank you for being here. I don’t know what we would have done without you.’

  Marianne and Edward sat down at the table. At first there seemed to be nothing left for them to say, but Marianne wanted to turn their thoughts to something positive and that could only be their plans for Callum’s future.

  ‘We will adopt him, won’t we?’ she said.

  ‘I hope we can, but it might depend on Andy.’

  ‘But he’s not going to live, is he?’

  ‘I don’t think so, but you never know. His injuries weren’t as severe as Izzy’s.’

  The thought that Andy could live but Izzy die filled her with silent fury. That boy who had broken his solemn promise to them and thereby killed their only child. That useless layabout – what right has he to take Callum away from us?

  Edward seemed to read her mind. ‘It would be better for Callum to grow up knowing one of his parents.’

  ‘Why?’

  Edward didn’t respond but simply raised his eyebrows at her.

  ‘You know that Bill is not my real father – God, I hate that expression. No one could be more real. But he’s not my biological father.’

  ‘I know, and if Andy dies so be it – but if he pulls through?’

  ‘What’s wrong with us? We’ve spent more time with Callum in his short life even than Izzy – let alone Andy.’

  ‘You can’t deny the right of a parent.’

  ‘We are young enough to be his natural parents. What can Andy offer this child? He has no job, no prospects…’

  ‘It’s not just about material things.’

  ‘Maybe, but how could he look after Callum? Or are you thinking about his mother? My God, is that what you’re thinking? He’d want to take Callum up to Glasgow for his mother to look after? We can’t let that happen, Edward. Please tell me we won’t let them take Callum away.’

  ‘Calm down, Marianne. Andy is in a coma and is unlikely to survive. We’ll continue to look after Callum and see what happens.’

  Possession is nine tenths of the law, she was thinking, but somehow it didn’t seem right to say it in relation to a child. Still, the longer Andy stays in a coma the better. Better still that he should never wake up.

  ‘So what is the prognosis for Andy then?’ she asked. ‘What condition will he be in if he does wake up?’

  ‘Hard to tell. The longer he is in a coma the worse the outlook. He might wake eventually to full consciousness, or he might technically wake up but remain in an unresponsive vegetative state.’

  ‘What happens to him then – I mean, if he is in what you call a vegetative state?’

  ‘Well, they just continue to look after him.’

  ‘For ever?’

  ‘Pretty much. What else can they do?’

  ‘Is that so different from Izzy then?’

  Edward sighed, and reaching across the table, took Marianne’s hand. ‘Darling, I’ve explained before. It’s completely different. Izzy’s brain stem has died. None of her most basic bodily functions work anymore. If they were to turn off the ventilator, then sooner or later her heart would stop. Andy can breathe on his own. Even though he’s unconscious, his reflexes still function.’

  After a pause while Marianne stared at her plate, Edward went on. ‘You are right in one sense, however; if Andy stays in a long-term coma or wakes up in only a vegetative state then it would probably be better for all concerned – and especially for him – that he should die.’

  Marianne had heard all this before but she kept on needing to hear it again. Brain death is so hard to come to terms with. She could sit with Izzy and hold her soft warm hand, feel her pulse and hear the beep of her heart monitor. Every now and then there would even be a small twitch of movement. She talked to her all the time even though she had been told a dozen times there was no possibility that she could be heard.

  The previous day Marianne had taken Callum to say goodbye to his mother. She recognised that this was her own conceit and Edward had been strongly opposed.

  ‘Izzy cannot be aware of what you are doing and Callum will either be indifferent or possibly you will succeed in upsetting him,’ he said. ‘Either way, nothing will be gained.’

  Marianne had been determined to go ahead, notwithstanding Edward’s objections. Part of the reason – which she would never have admitted to Edward – was a lingering fantasy that somehow the doctors had got it all wrong and the presence of Callum nestling against his mother, or perhaps crying for her attention, would trigger a response in some deep recess of her brain which was still alive. She chose a different argument in her response to Edward.

  ‘Just because we can’t remember anything that happens at that age doesn’t make it meaningless; it doesn’t mean the child has no emotional response.’

  ‘Of course he will recognise his mother, but I don’t know what you mean by emotional response. He can’t understand illness or death.’

  ‘He will be pleased to see her.’

  ‘I’m not sure he will. He won’t understand what’s going on. He’ll be disappointed that she won’t wake up for him. Don’t forget,
she has tape over her eyes and a tube coming out of her mouth.’

  ‘Well, I’m doing it anyway,’ she said. ‘If he cries and is upset, then somewhere that experience will lodge in his subconscious and that would be a perfectly proper response to the death of his mother.’

  In the event, Callum hadn’t cried, although Marianne had rather hoped he would. He climbed over Izzy, tried to take the tube out of her mouth, poked her around the face a bit and then got bored. I don’t suppose he’ll have even the most residual memory of seeing her, she thought, but it was important to me, and perhaps that’s justification enough.

  That night, as Marianne lay beside Edward, she sensed a tension between them. They both seemed to know that despite their disagreement there was nothing more to be said. In time, she could feel that he was drifting into sleep, but she remained resolutely awake. She felt she had been awake the whole night, floundering in misery and self-hatred, but she realised she must have slept for a while when she awoke from a dream in which Izzy’s ice-blue eyes were fixed on her. ‘You always said you loved me but now you have come to kill me,’ said the Izzy of her dream. Marianne’s heart was beating violently with the thought that she might be betraying her daughter in her hour of greatest need. She turned to see that Edward was already awake. He smiled at her.

  ‘Did you get some sleep?’ he said.

  ‘A little. Ed… we are due at the hospital this morning to give them the final go ahead…’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘… to switch off Izzy’s life support and take her organs?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I know we’ve talked about this many times already, but I want to ask you this once more – and I shall never ask you a more important question.’