by Robin Byron
Leah looked alarmed. ‘Are you OK, Gran?’
She nodded and put out her arms as Leah knelt to hug and thank her. Marianne held on to her as long as she could – perhaps longer than was quite seemly – but Leah was also clinging tightly to her. Gently Marianne pushed her away. ‘You remind me so much… you’re so like her – Isabelle – your real grandmother,’ she said, reaching for a handkerchief to blow her nose. ‘Now go and get your father off the telephone and we’ll have some tea before you leave.’ As Leah got to her feet, Marianne noticed that she also seemed close to tears. Perhaps she does know, she thought. I wonder if Callum told her?
Jake had spent the afternoon in his office reviewing all the material they had gathered on postal voting. He was about to leave the office when his phone buzzed with a message. Leah needed to talk to him urgently – could he stay at the office till she got there? Since the evening when Leah had stormed out of his flat, they had maintained a self-consciously formal relationship in the office, occasionally discussing Marianne but avoiding all mention of the theatre and its aftermath. Jake was not expecting to see Leah that evening. He knew she had gone to Cambridge with her father to see Marianne, and Leah knew that he had a longstanding arrangement to see a new film with Gemma, an old friend from Bristol. Jake’s friendship with Gemma had developed from the university film club and a shared enthusiasm for French New Wave cinema of the 1960s, which no one else in their circle could be bothered with. Pretentious philosophical waffle, his friends thought, but Jake confessed to a weakness for those evenings of delicious melancholy and those ‘lost girls with greasy hair’, as some critic had memorably described a certain period of French cinema. The film they were due to see that evening – though apparently quite violent – was billed as homage to Chabrol and other film makers of the sixties and seventies.
Jake was reluctant to stand up his old college soulmate and sent a text back to Leah asking if it was important and reminding her that he was booked to go to the movies with an old friend. The message came back: ‘fucking is – Gran definitely going for AD – Dad just confirmed – we’ve got to do something.’
Jake sat back in his chair. He realised it must be nearly six months since he had seen Marianne. He would need to visit her before it was too late. Once the initial moment of shock had passed, Jake felt a more general sadness, but also some irritation with Leah. Reluctantly he confirmed that he would wait for her and then called Gemma to explain why he had to pull out at short notice.
The large open-plan office in Covent Garden where Jake worked was half empty by the time Leah arrived. As a temporary intern she had her own pass and suddenly he realised she was standing beside him, pouring out her distress and anger in a confused and confusing torrent of words. Jake swiftly closed down his screen, took her by the arm and led her out towards the lifts. ‘People are still working, Leah. Let’s go somewhere we can talk.’
By the time they had found their way to the corner of a basement bar, Jake had deduced that Leah’s anger was largely because she felt she had been treated like a child. ‘I was not supposed to know so I couldn’t, like, say anything. Then Gran gave me this incredible necklace and started to be all, like, emotional – but I couldn’t say a fucking word to her, even though that might be the last time I will ever see my grandmother. I mean, Dad admitted afterwards it was her way of saying goodbye to me – can you believe it? – but no one gave me the chance to say anything…’
‘I suppose it’s hard for her…’
‘… and Dad’s so bloody calm about it – as if it’s just a detail that his mum’s going off to kill herself.’
‘Did he give you any clue why…?’
‘No, that’s the point. There doesn’t seem to be any reason for it. No terminal illness, just, just… well, nothing.’
Jake reached across the table and put his hand on her arm. ‘I’m really sorry about this – I love her too, but I know she’s your grandmother, not mine.’
‘We need to do something…’
‘I’ll speak to my grandmother Claire – she’ll know what’s going on for sure.’
‘We have to think of a strategy. I need you on my side.’
‘I am on your side.’
‘I’m glad,’ she said, and gave his hand a squeeze.
Half an hour passed in discussing what they knew of Marianne’s circumstances before Jake said, ‘Another drink? Or do you want to come back to my place and I will cook you something?’
Leah looked at him sceptically. ‘Back to your flat?’
‘Yes.’
Leah paused. ‘I’ll come if you promise to treat me as an adult.’
‘I’ve never… well, of course, yes – I promise.’
‘No more talk about your so-called responsibility to my parents?’
‘Fine.’
‘And no more talk about age and cousins or any of that shit?’
‘Not a word.’
The meal which Jake had promised did not get cooked. They were barely inside the door when they started pulling at each other’s clothes. On this occasion neither held back and before long they were tottering half undressed onto Jake’s bed.
Afterwards, as he lay on his back with Leah’s head on his chest he realised he must have fallen asleep. He knew he had been too quick for her and now he could feel her hand exploring the contours of his stomach. Slowly she traced a finger down the slope of his chest to his flat abdomen – no six-pack but a firmness which suggested sufficient muscularity. Pausing at the neat circle of his belly button, she traced a wide arc down one leg to the extremity of her reach, coming to rest on the inside of his thigh. For a few seconds, she stroked both thighs before bringing her hand up between his legs.
Jake lay still, enjoying the attention. As his state of arousal increased, he moved Leah onto her back and started kissing her breasts. She shut her eyes as his kisses moved down her body. For a few seconds he felt her tense as his tongue probed between her legs. Although she had remained silent in their first encounter, when his tongue reached the right place she let out a small involuntary cry. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, ‘just there.’ Later she muttered, ‘Don’t stop,’ as well as, ‘Oh shit,’ and, much louder, ‘Fucking beautiful,’ and other obscenities which would have caused Jake to smile, if smiling had been possible at that time.
Much later, when calmness had returned to both of them, Jake asked her whether anyone had done that to her before.
‘Chance would be a fine thing,’ she said. ‘The boys expect us to do it to them, but we don’t get it back.’
‘Sounds a bit selfish.’
‘That’s why I like having an older man,’ she whispered, biting his ear lobe.
Later, while Leah was taking a bath, Jake called his mother and discovered that she had heard the same news about Marianne from Claire the day before. ‘It’s all rather a mystery, darling,’ she said. ‘No one seems to know what’s suddenly triggered this.’ When he called Claire himself, she was brusque and to the point. ‘I’m glad you’ve telephoned. Come over tomorrow evening. I may have a task for you. I’ll expect you at seven.’
26
Jake was still trying to work out how he should respond to the news about Marianne as he made his way towards Holland Park for supper with his grandmother. As he rang the bell he remembered how intimidating he had found her house as a child. The elegance of the first-floor drawing room, with its polished wood floors and soft Persian rugs, could not have been further removed from the utilitarian living room in his parents’ converted cowshed on the edge of a muddy field in Dorset. A separate dining room, with its long mahogany table and eighteenth-century Hepplewhite chairs with padded leather seats seemed impossibly grand, compared with the small pine table at the end of the kitchen where Jake and his family ate their meals.
Following his grandmother up the wide staircase into the drawing room, where long, floor-length curtain
s were drawn across the pair of tall sash widows, he was waved to a sofa while Claire mixed him a gin and tonic, without asking what he wanted.
‘So you heard about it from Callum’s girl?’
‘From Leah – yes. She’s an intern in our office. She took the news badly.’
‘I can imagine. Of course, I’ve known Marianne has been thinking about this for a while, but I confess it took me by surprise when I received her letter a couple of days ago,’ and Claire reached for an envelope beside her chair. ‘Here, you might as well read it – it concerns you in part.’
Jake took the letter from Claire and began to read.
My dearest Claire,
We are perhaps the last generation who will ever send letters to each other and this is a hard one to write. Several times in the past we have discussed the possible advantages of AD and I think you know that it has been on my mind a lot in the last few months.
So far only Callum and Helen and one other close friend know this, but I have booked into an AD clinic and will end my life very shortly. It feels strange writing that last sentence. In the past, the very recent past, it would have been, ‘I don’t think I have much longer to live,’ but now I already know the date of my death. There are many reasons why I have decided to do this but suffice it to say I am nearly ninety now and I feel it’s the right time for me to go.
I know that I should say goodbye to you in person but I know you will understand when I say what a difficult process this is, and it is probably easier for both of us if I say goodbye to you this way. The same goes for Julie and Tom as well as for Jake. I just can’t do too many face-to-face goodbyes so I will rely on you to tell them.
It may be that we will speak before the end, but I wanted to take this opportunity to mention our mother’s wartime diaries which I have been slaving over these last two years. As you know, Callum can’t read French and is not interested anyway, so I have made it clear to him that the notebooks, as well as the translations and notes I have made, are to go to you. What you do with it all is up to you. I think it may be of some historical as well as family interest. A year or two ago your grandson Jake expressed some slight appreciation of what I was doing and he might have an interest in helping to finish what I have started.
Darling Claire – my little sister – we were not close as children but it has been a wonderful journey getting to know you over the years. We have had some marvellous times together, particularly at Les Trois Cheminées, where you and Peter were always such generous hosts. As for the tragedy of Fran’s death: I don’t believe I was to blame, but if you and Julie feel that I was, then I hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive me. I could say so much more but I don’t have the strength now. You know it anyway. My utmost love to you all.
Marianne
Jake contemplated the letter he had just read. His great-aunt, who had been a permanent fixture in his life, who was still alive and apparently well, would shortly be dead. Despite his sympathy for the concept of AD, the reality of Marianne’s imminent but voluntary death shocked him.
‘Do you know any more about why she is doing this?’
Claire sighed. ‘The way I see it, Marianne has always wanted to be in control. Of herself and others. As she said, we were not close as children. I was nearly ten years younger and she was like an extra mother – extremely bossy – and I wasn’t always very fond of her.’
‘And then you lived apart?’
‘Yes, when I was about nine and Marianne was away at college, my mother declared she was homesick for France and she and my father moved to Normandy, where they stayed for nearly ten years – which is why I grew up essentially a French girl. I saw very little of Marianne till I moved to England at the end of the seventies.’
‘But there must have been something to trigger this – are you sure she hasn’t got some condition she’s not telling you about?’
‘I really don’t think so. I called Callum as soon as I got the letter, and he is pretty sure there is no mysterious illness.’
‘How does he feel?’
‘Torn, I think – between respecting her decision and the responsibility of a son for his elderly mother.’
‘I got the impression from Leah that Helen might be something of an agent provocateur in this.’
‘It wouldn’t surprise me.’
They continued to talk as Claire led him to the kitchen where a variety of cold meats had been laid on the table. Claire went to the stove and heated some onion soup which she ladled into two bowls. Jake wondered how often Claire used that imposing dining room which used to intimidate him so much as a child.
‘These diaries – do you know how far she has got?’ he asked, as he swallowed a mouthful of soup.
‘No – and it’s one of the things I want you to find out. I want you to go and visit her as soon as possible. She doesn’t want to see me – and she’s probably right; it would be too painful for both of us. But she always had a soft spot for you, and with her mention of the diaries it gives you the perfect excuse.’
‘Will she agree to my coming?’
‘I think she will. I want you to find out if she is really serious – although I fear that she probably is.’
It seemed to Jake that his Granny Claire was taking the imminent death of her sister very calmly, but he also detected an undertone of disapproval. ‘Are you against AD?’ he asked.
‘You know, Jake,’ she said, as she ladled more soup into his bowl, ‘I have had several friends who have gone down that route – not because of great suffering but because they thought it was expected of them. And I will tell you one thing – in many ways it’s made the process of old age harder.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Twenty years ago, apart from a few extreme cases where people travelled to Switzerland, or persuaded a friendly doctor to give them an overdose, you carried on with your life, however hard it was, until you died. You had no choice on the timing of your death.’
‘But would you want to go back to the way it was before? I mean, I understood from Mum that – well, that Grandpapa…’
‘Yes, right at the end he was helped; but these clinics that Marianne is talking about – most of their patients are not in extremis.’
‘They have to have a serious illness…’
Claire sniffed. ‘In theory – but once you are in your eighties and beyond, most people have enough ailments to satisfy the test.’
‘That’s the impression I am beginning to get – but there are supposed to be safeguards – I mean to ensure people are not pressured…’
Claire said nothing and Jake wondered whether she was finding the conversation uncomfortable. He was about to change the subject when she said, ‘It’s not about external pressures; it’s about how old people start to think of themselves: am I becoming a burden; how long is it reasonable to go on living?’
‘But you wouldn’t think like that?’
‘Not me – I’m too selfish, and I don’t have any financial worries – but I know people who have done it, and I know others who are thinking about it.’
‘Is it something you talk about – I mean with your friends?’
Claire didn’t answer. She got up to clear the soup bowls and bring a plate of cheese to the table. Sitting back in her seat, she said, ‘Believe me, Jake, while for a few it’s been a blessed relief to be able to choose the timing of their death, for many it’s greatly increased the anxiety of old age. Sometimes it’s easier not to have a choice.’
At first Marianne was quite bewildered; to receive a telephone call from Jake was the last thing she expected, until she realised that Claire must have received her letter, and was intent on sending her grandchild as a spy – no doubt to report back on whether Marianne was serious or was playing some sort of game. She told him he couldn’t come. She repeated what she had written to Claire in her letter; she was tryin
g to create order in the last weeks of her life, and couldn’t cope with seeing him.
Marianne knew she had only just held herself together with Leah. But she had achieved something. Leah would have a positive memory of her as a sentient human being and not some drooling semi-corpse in a nursing home; the memory of others being the only sliver of immortality we can hope for. As for Jake, she was fond of him, but if she wasn’t going to say goodbye in person to Claire or Julie, she certainly didn’t need a face-to-face session with Jake.
To her surprise, however, he had been remarkably persistent. He appeared genuinely interested in the diaries and asked a lot of questions about her mother’s experiences. She had also been reminded that he spoke good French and was well educated on the history of France and the Second World War.
In the end Marianne found she was unable to say no; she agreed that he could come.
To speak to Jake was inevitably to bring back thoughts of that afternoon at Les Trois Cheminées, when, in her memory now, a premonition of death hung in the air. She has been asleep in her room. When she opens her eyes, she closes them again immediately. Although the shutters are fastened, a streak of sunlight lies across her bed. For perhaps half a minute she lies without moving. Then with one hand she pushes her damp hair away from her face, reaches for another pillow to put behind her, opens her eyes again and sits up.
