by Simon Lelic
So what am I doing here? Why is it I keep coming back to the hospital? It’s like Jack said: I’m spending every spare minute, it feels like, sitting in the same orange plastic chair.
The truth, if you want to hear it, is that I’m afraid. I don’t like admitting it, least of all to myself, but I am. I’m afraid for Elsie, I’m afraid for Jack, I’m afraid for me. I’m afraid of what’s coming. I’m afraid of all the things I’ve already done. I’m afraid, above all, that everything I’ve been through – everything I’ve put others through – will count for nothing. And so I’m hiding, basically. Here, in the only place that feels safe, like the coward I only ever pretended not to be.
Jack
What happened to Elsie happened at the beginning of August. Last month – even though it feels like it happened yesterday. She’s still in hospital. She still hasn’t regained consciousness. The doctors still don’t know if there’s anything more they can do. We’re in a holding pattern, basically. Nothing has changed. Which is odd when you consider that over the same period, for me and Syd, everything has.
Syd says she’s hiding. I don’t blame her, but hiding isn’t going to make any of this go away. I’m not saying I know what will, but writing this, getting things straight, it has to help. Right? It has to. And there’s so much we haven’t covered yet. All the important stuff, in fact. Which, Jesus, makes it sound like I don’t think what happened to Elsie is important, but that’s not what I’m saying, I swear.
It’s just … it’s beginning to feel like I’m losing her. Syd, I mean. Like the longer this goes on, the closer she is to giving up. And that just isn’t like Syd at all.
I’m scared too, Syd. Especially now. Because of the police, yes, but also because it’s starting to dawn on me that maybe – probably – you were right. About what’s been happening. About why. I mean, honestly? The truth is I’m bloody terrified. But that just makes me want to get on with this all the more. To do something instead of just sitting here, waiting for whatever happens next. And if people are going to understand, it’s up to us to try to make them. Right?
Please, Syd.
Please.
Sydney
Jack’s just left. He came to the hospital to see Elsie but also I think to check up on me. I got the impression he wanted to talk, though in the end we barely exchanged a word. What could we say, given the circumstances? They still won’t let us into Elsie’s room, but you can see her if you press against the glass. Obviously I’ve been doing that on a regular basis and each time I retreat to my chair afterwards feeling worse than I did when I got up. Elsie looks so small in that bed she’s in, she barely makes a lump in the bedcovers. There are tubes running from her nose, from her arms, from every part of her, it seems to me, to the extent it appears almost as though it’s the tubes that are trapping her. She’s like a butterfly caught in some malformed web and though I keep hoping she’ll find the strength to break free, whenever I check on her she appears more ensnared than she did before.
But I’m not giving up, Jack. Not on Elsie, not on us. What I wrote before, that was just … it was just a wobble. There’s no way I’d ever leave you to face this on your own. Trust me on that. Please. Although I suppose that’s easy enough for me to say. When it comes to judging who to trust or not, my record is about as bad as anyone’s.
Timing has never been one of my mother’s strong points. After what happened to Elsie, a visit from her was the very last thing I was in the mood for but when she asked less than a week after it happened I wasn’t in any state to put up a fight. And actually there was a part of me that wanted to see her. Two parts, in fact, neither one of which did me any credit. There was the little girl in me who simply wanted her mummy. And there was the bitch in me who wanted someone to blame. For Elsie. For everything.
I’d never before let her see where I lived. Not since I’d left home. We wrote to each other mainly, so she knew where to find me, but since I’d first got back in touch with her – five years ago, roughly – I’d made it clear that she was never, ever to call on me uninvited. To be fair to her she hadn’t complained. She was grateful I was even in contact with her, so anything more than that she would have regarded as a bonus. And it wasn’t that she’d made a particular fuss this time. She’d mentioned how nice it would be to be able to picture where I was living, that was all. To see it in her mind rather than just imagine it. It was because we’d finally bought somewhere, I assumed – her perception I was approaching a happy ending.
Ha.
‘Hello, Sydney.’
She was smiling broadly to cover her nerves. I saw my mother so rarely – twice a year, if that – that I was always caught off guard in some way by her appearance. Today I was surprised mainly by how old she looked. Not old. Tired. She was clothed and coiffed as elegantly as ever. Even though she no longer had access to my father’s money, was these days practically a pauper, she endeavoured to present herself to the world as she always had. She still bleached her hair a silvery blonde once a month, spent twenty minutes each morning painting her face. The make-up this time, though, didn’t offset her pallor. I knew she struggled with sleep as much as I did and I assumed she was just tired … until she moved inside and I noticed her hobble.
It was her hip, then. Not tiredness that was weighing on her, pain. Her hip had been broken (had been broken. It sounds so passive. What I mean is her hip was broken for her) the one time she’d attempted to insert herself between her eldest daughter and her husband. It happened when I was small, soon after my father’s attentions began to wander from my mother towards me, and it was only as I grew older that I started to appreciate what my mother’s actions that day really signified. I’d always blamed her for failing to protect me, for not just leaving and taking me and Jessica with her – and in many ways I still did. But that hip of hers in my mind had become her saving grace. If she hadn’t tried just that once, my leaving home would have been the end of it. I never would have wanted to see my mother again. As it was it had taken me almost a decade to get back in touch and even longer to trust her with anything more revealing about my new life than an email address.
‘It’s Syd, Mum,’ I reminded her. ‘Only my boss calls me Sydney.’
I pressed myself to the wall to allow her to pass, careful not to let her brush against me. The first time we’d met up, I remember, she’d tried to hug me. There’d been no attempt at physical contact since.
‘Oh darling, this is lovely,’ she gushed. ‘This is yours? All of it’s yours?’
‘It’s ours, yes. Mine and Jack’s and the bank’s. The kitchen’s at the back, Mum. Straight through there.’
‘But it’s enormous! How on earth did you afford it?’
‘We saved, Mum. We worked. That’s the sitting room, Mum. The kitchen’s –’
‘At the back. I know, dear, I heard you. But I can’t resist having a nose. Look at those ceilings!’
‘I’ll give you the tour, Mum, but let’s just … I don’t know. Put the kettle on or something first.’
My mother continued making clucking sounds as we ambled along the hallway and I did my best not to sound irritated by her enthusiasm. Even the way Mum said my name sometimes annoyed me. Not sometimes. Always. I’m not sure she could have said it any other way – apart from by calling me Syd, that is, as I’d asked her to about a gazillion fucking times – but somehow she made it sound like a rebuke. A chastisement for having tossed aside the name she’d given me. And that limp. It was more pronounced than I’d ever seen it and I couldn’t help but wonder whether she wasn’t half putting it on. She never would have dared to say so but probably she was disappointed I’d allowed so much time to pass since we’d last seen each other, and playing up her suffering was her way of letting me know.
‘Where is Jack?’ Mum said, when we finally made it to the kitchen. ‘Will he be joining us?’
I started to fill up the kettle. ‘He’s working today,’ I lied. ‘All weekend actually.’
The trut
h was he’d made himself scarce. Not my choice. His. Rather sweetly, Jack’s always been less ready to forgive my mother than I have. Not that I’ve exactly forgiven my mother either but if it were up to Jack she would have been sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. He says he understands why I would want to see her (which is more than I manage, half the time) but that he can’t bring himself to be part of it.
(Just as an aside, I’ve always found it odd that Jack doesn’t apply the same standards in judging his own parents. My mother’s sin was one of omission and Jack’s parents’ failings lie in what they’ve always neglected to offer their child, too. Attention, for example. Encouragement. Love. And yet Jack calls them – religiously – every Sunday, with such longing in his voice my heart aches just listening to him on the telephone. Although I realize that the distance between them is partly my fault because they made it clear they disapproved of me from the beginning.)
‘Sit down, Mum. Just shove all that clutter to one side.’ I made a start clearing the kitchen table but my mother continued towards the window.
‘I’m happy standing for the time being, darling. I was sitting all morning on the train ride.’
My mother’s fingers drifted towards her hip but she didn’t take the opportunity to mention it, which made me wonder whether the pain was genuine after all. In the brightness of the kitchen I could see she was even paler than I’d first thought, and all at once I felt a wave of sympathy. Of shame, too, that I’d treated her thus far so coldly. My mother had suffered at my father’s hand just as much as I had, and being forced to watch what was happening to me must have in itself been a form of torture. And though she’d escaped, eventually, just as I had – after Jessica; after my father went to prison – she’d hit a snake and not a ladder. She was divorced and living all alone. She had a shitty job and a shitty little flat and not even the comfort of any real friends.
That’s why I saw her, I reminded myself. That was the reason I’d got back in touch. As much as I resented her, I also pitied her. As much as I hated her, I also loved her. Because, well … she was my mum. No matter what she’d done, no matter what I blamed her for, there was nothing I could do to change that.
We drank tea. Two cups each. We didn’t chat exactly because that’s far too frivolous a word for it but we talked, cautiously – her about the price of things, mainly; me, at her prompting, about my job, which at least distracted me from thinking about Elsie – and I watched her as she nibbled at a biscuit. The hour almost passed by incident-free – until Mum, at the end of it, started crying.
She was still by the window. She’d turned away, so that without knowing it she was directly facing Elsie’s house, but I caught the whimper that escaped her throat.
‘Mum?’
Up until that point I’d almost been glad I’d invited her over. My mother was never going to be a shoulder for me to cry on but in a weird, complicated way I’d drawn some comfort from her presence nonetheless. And, for the most part, I’d managed to keep my inner bitch in check. Yet I felt precariously balanced and the sight of my mother sobbing only tipped me closer to irritation. Maybe that’s counter-intuitive but as far as I was concerned she had no right to cry. Not in front of me.
‘What is it, Mum? What’s wrong?’ I tried to keep my tone neutral. The impatience would have been plain for her to hear.
‘I’m just … I’m happy for you,’ my mother said. ‘That’s all. Seeing you here. In your new home.’
I felt myself frown.
‘I just think … I just know you’re going to be fine. You and Jack. That it’s all going to work out for you both.’
Which I suppose was meant to be reassuring but only made me think once again about Elsie. And because of that – because my mother was crying – I allowed myself to ask something I knew very well would upset her but that, in light of Elsie, had been playing disproportionately on my mind. The way I saw it, both my mother and I had made a choice: me to intervene, my mother – bluntly – to stand back and watch. The thing I was struggling with was how two contrasting answers to the same question could both end up being so wrong.
‘Tell me something, Mum,’ I said.
She’d been tidying her tears and she paused, as though she could sense what was coming. We’d never before spoken about our past. Not directly. Up until that day there’d never seemed much point.
‘Would you do things differently?’ I asked her. ‘If you had the chance again. Would you …’ I searched for the words that would help me clarify, to explain more specifically what I meant, but I ended up simply repeating the same question. ‘Would you do things differently?’
Whatever answer I was expecting, I wasn’t prepared for the response my mother gave me. Her neck and head sank physically towards the floor, so that in that instant she appeared six inches shorter. The tears she’d dammed welled up again and her hands came together in silent prayer. She shuffled awkwardly, as though her instinct at first was to move towards me but part of her wanted simply to run away.
‘Oh Sydney,’ she said. ‘Darling, I …’ She shook her head and it took a moment for me to realize that the gesture was also her answer.
I frowned again – alarmed, angry, I don’t know. ‘Mum?’
She was trying to speak – trying to explain – but she was struggling to find her voice. ‘I just … I don’t think I could,’ she said at last. ‘Even now, if you gave me the chance … I’m not sure I’m strong enough. I’ve just never, ever been strong enough.’
Her hand reached out and then fell away again. She was watching me, waiting for me to judge her, the tears dry now but the fear visible on her face. The self-loathing too.
‘I’m sorry, Sydney. Really I am. For what happened to you. For everything.’
It was the first time she’d said it, even counting in all her letters. And quite honestly I wasn’t sure how to react. The survivor in me wanted to sneer at her, the little girl longed to be held. I was both, neither, one and then abruptly the other: an adult on a seesaw with a child. No doubt I looked as lost to my mother as she did at that point to me.
It happened as she was leaving. I’d given in and offered my mother the tour, and we were making our way back along the landing when I sensed her come abruptly to a halt.
‘Sydney?’
I turned around. She was staring at the pictures on the wall.
‘Where did you get this?’
It had been a long time since I’d heard my mother speak to me that way, in a tone that implied an accusation. She looked shaken. Angry too, as though she suspected she was the victim of some trick.
I peered to try and work out what she was looking at. The pictures on the landing were spaced so densely her finger could have been directed towards one of several.
‘I told you, Mum. All the pictures came with the house. We’ve been meaning to take them down but so far we haven’t got round to it.’
‘But this picture … this one right here …’
I drew closer and realized the one she was staring at was a portrait of a child. It was faded, though printed in colour, and it showed a brown-haired little girl with a lollipop stick poking through her grin. I’d noticed it before but only in passing. To be honest I’d always found it slightly creepy, though I’d never quite been able to pinpoint why.
‘What about it?’ I asked.
‘You don’t see it?’ My mother was frowning now, first at me and then again at the picture. She seemed to want to edge closer for a better look but at the same time appeared wary of moving too near.
‘See what?’
She didn’t answer.
‘Mum? See what?’
She drew away. ‘I … nothing,’ she said. She shook her head. ‘I just … I made a mistake. That’s all.’
I looked again at the picture. My mother in the meantime moved past me and started awkwardly down the staircase towards the hall.
‘Mum, wait.’ I hurried to catch up. ‘Let me help you.’
B
ut even with her hip the way it was she was moving quickly and soon enough she’d negotiated the stairs all by herself. I tried asking her again what the matter was but she just mumbled something about having to hurry to catch her train. For a moment it looked like she might cry again and I was so thrown by her behaviour that when she kissed me I didn’t even flinch. From the way my mother was acting, I don’t think she noticed doing it herself.
I climbed back up to the landing after she was gone. There was something about that picture that had upset her: some likeness she’d detected in the image she’d been surprised I hadn’t recognized myself. But I couldn’t see it. As far as I was concerned that picture had nothing to do with us: it was a memory from someone else’s past. And so I left it there. I had no reason not to. Until the day I ripped her sobbing from that cage of hers, I barely gave that little girl another glance.
Jack
‘Jack? Can I borrow you for a moment?’
It was Mr Yazdani, my boss. He was a long, spindly man, so devoid of both hair and body fat that you could see the exact shape of his skull through his head. I liked him a lot, in spite of his Death-like appearance, but there was something uncharacteristically formal about his tone. Behind him there were at least three other department heads I recognized, as well as Margery from HR.
‘Jack? Now, if you don’t mind.’
I looked over at Bart. ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Sure. Just let me –’
‘Don’t touch your computer. Bring a pen, if you like, just in case you want to take notes, but the rest, just … just leave it alone,’ Mr Yazdani finished, and I couldn’t tell whether the distaste he was exhibiting was because of some new initiative our department was being lumbered with or whether it was aimed more specifically at me. Bart, when I looked this time, avoided my eye. Practically everyone else in the office was staring directly at me, however – including those three department heads. Whatever was coming, I knew it wouldn’t be good.
