Oh Dear Silvia

by Dawn French

  The ceremony of it matters to Winnie. Silvia is not religious and the family have rejected any suggestion of a vicar or last rites or anything, so this is Winnie’s small symbolic way of showing her reverent respects, of giving praise and thanks for Silvia and of believing in the goodness of her soul. It is a pious and devout act. Quiet and personal. And beautiful.

  When Winnie has finished washing Silvia’s right foot she takes a towel and pats both feet dry. She makes sure the bedding and the colourful sarong don’t encase her feet. Ed has explained that she always liked to keep them out of the sheets, in the fresh air, so Silvia tucks the bedding out of the way, and gently lays her feet on top. Her elegant long white Venus-like feet.

  Winnie can hear the voices of Jo and Cassie in the corridor. Their meeting with the doctor is over. She can hear a deep voice joining on. It’s Ed. He is outside now too. The family are gathering. It’s time for Winnie to take her place firmly in the background. The next phase of her role begins now. She must assist with the dying, make it the best death it can be, and do her best to support the friends and family. That’s all part of the nursing, and maybe now, the most important part.

  She steals this moment to speak her truth to Silvia.

  ‘Silvia? Mi feel sure yu can still hear me, yes? Yu know yu not goin to recover from dis. Yu know dat. Yu time soon come. But wait, sista, an’ hear mi out, mi know fe sure dat yu a go to a better place, a great place, to paradise, Silvia, to de Lord. Go home to glory. Don’t be afeard, nuttin gonna hurt yu. Dis is yu homegoing. Yu gonna be bathed in light. Yes Jesus. Yu gonna be saved. Mi jus’ wan’ to say, it’s bin mi privilege to nurse yu. Yu a good woman. An’ yu truly loved. Mi walk wid yu right to de gates, OK? So, go well Silvia, go well.’

  She hurries from the room, to give the family as much time as they can have. She knows the way only a nurse knows, it really won’t be long now.

  Thirty-Seven

  Family

  Friday 12.30pm

  Winnie closes the door behind her, leaving Silvia alone for the first time since last evening when Ed arrived to keep the night vigil. They have all switched and shared the time with Silvia between them, like handing a baton on in a relay race against the clock. All have tried to give each other some space and somehow, as it remarkably does at crucial times like this, it has worked seamlessly. There has been a hushed respect, which has flourished inside the diminishing time. There isn’t room for selfishness here, they must all give the best of themselves.

  Inside Suite 5, there is only one energy.

  Silvia.

  Her life force is fading but right now, she is still alive, and while she lives, she is the pivot for them all. She is why they are circling around, collecting together to share however it is going to be. She has drawn them in.

  She.

  Her.

  She.

  Silvia.

  Jo, Cassie and Ed are clustered together in the corridor. Ed is wide-eyed, unshaven, and stunned. Winnie brings them all into the windowless day room with the fish tank beaming its cheerfulness out brightly in the corner, she touches his arm reassuringly, and she goes to fetch tea. Something has ruffled Ed badly, but what’s happening here in the hospital is more pressing, so he listens carefully whilst Jo and Cassie explain in detail the conversation they have had with the doctor.

  Cassie speaks pointedly to her father.

  ‘I think this is it, Dad. The doctor said the infection is bad …’

  ‘Getting worse, gaining control, grim …’ Jo chimes in, ensuring the story is as overdramatic and alliterative as it can be.

  ‘Yes,’ Cassie agrees generously, allowing her aunty to indulge, ‘basically, they can’t really do much more now. She is going to find it increasingly difficult to breathe …’

  ‘Gasping, choking, wheezing, drowning …’

  ‘Aunty Jo, I don’t think we need to …’

  ‘No, of course darling, sorry, I’m just drawing the picture for your dad …’

  ‘Right, well, she said they would recommend taking her off everything, the drips, the ventilator, everything …’

  ‘The catheter would, of course, remain …’

  Jo is determined to be precise. The detail is presently keeping her focused. The bigger picture is too horrific.

  ‘Yes. Umm … they’re saying it’s our decision entirely since there’s no living will or anything …’

  Ed rubs his stubbly face, and says, ‘Actually, this isn’t a hard decision, for my part I mean. I know it’s tough, it’s bloody awful, but the fact is, I remember having a conversation soon after we were married actually, yonks ago, about exactly this sort of scenario. We were driving somewhere. Dunno. I thought she was being a bit morbid at the time, but I clearly remember her saying she wouldn’t want to be kept alive “like Frankenstein”, should she not be able to live decently, sort of thing, y’know, independently.

  ‘I remember because I violently disagreed. About her, I mean. Yep, she definitely said that. Or words to that effect. Typically contrary. Stubborn. God. I never thought …’

  Cassie is relieved.

  ‘Really? Right. Well I suppose it’s obvious then …’

  ‘Oh Christ, we’re going to kill her!’ Jo gasps.

  Ed is forced to take control.

  ‘Jo! Will you stop your bloody nonsense. This is hard enough without your drama. Stop it please.’

  ‘Yes, yes. Sorry Ed. Sorry Cassie. It’s just …’

  ‘I know,’ says Cassie as she pats Jo on her hand, ‘but it’s the right thing. We all know it is, and from what Dad says, Mum’s already made the decision, it’s out of our hands.’

  ‘Yes. Yes,’ Jo concedes.

  ‘It’s going to happen anyway Aunty Jo, we’re just making sure she’s comfortable.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right …’ Jo is astounded at how mature and collected Cassie is. Cassie is so much Silvia’s daughter. ‘Yes, of course. Sorry.’

  Winnie brings in the tea and they all pounce on it. A familiar hot wet sweet taste. Something normal amidst the strangeness. It is massively comforting, a liquid blanket over them all.

  Winnie sits down next to Ed. Very close.

  ‘Yu let mi know when yu decide, yes? No hurry. Nothing happen ’til yu say. An’ I mek sure it’s me who do everyting. So she safe. She safe.’

  Ed pipes up.

  ‘Well, I think we all agree? Yes?’

  Jo nods her head vigorously. Over-keen now, determined to be supportive and part of this family team. Desperate, in fact, not to be left out, desperate to matter. Cassie blinks her consent, solemnly.

  ‘So we will sign whatever you need, just please make sure she is in no pain?’

  ‘Mi tell the palliative team fe come along and check everyting right now, and togedda we prepare her. Get rid of all dose h’ugly tubes. Bet she glad to get dem away.’

  Cassie’s small voice cuts through.

  ‘How long, Winnie?’

  ‘Very difficul’ to say h’exactly darlin, but I h’expect not long. Inside dis hour mebbe? You h’okay wid dat?’

  ‘Yes,’ Cassie says.

  ‘Yes,’ Jo says.

  ‘Yes,’ Ed says.

  The three-line whip is complete, and Winnie rises to do her duty. As she gets up, she strokes Ed’s back, a daring intimacy in these circumstances, but she wants him to know what a sure and certain anchor she is.

  He stands up with her and mumbles, ‘Can I speak to you? Out there?’

  She leaves the room, and he follows, letting Cassie and Jo fortify themselves with tea. When they get into the corridor, he realizes that it’s all too busy there, too public, so he motions that they should go into Suite 5. They slip into the room. As soon as they are alone, they both simultaneously want to hold each other, but equally, they both instinctively know this is the wrong place for that. It would be unseemly, inappropriate, selfish. So they don’t.

  But Ed has to tell Winnie something, he speaks fast and low.

  ‘I’ve been up at th
e wood. With the police. Bloody hell, Winnie …’

  He clamps his hand over his mouth, he hasn’t said any of this out loud yet, and it’s utterly shocking. Agitated, he pulls his hands through his hair. He is trying to think of the right, careful words. He can’t, so he just says it as he knows it, and it tumbles out of his mouth in an odd staccato fashion.

  ‘They found a man. All curled up. Bent over. A dead man. An actual bloody person. Dead. Been there some years, they reckon. Inside my boundaries. In my bloody wood! Dead. Completely dead. Rotting. Under one of my big old nurse beeches. Right there. Where I walk all the time. Probably walked all over him. A lot. Never saw a thing. Dead. A bloke. A dead bloke, an actual bloke …’

  Winnie puts her hands on his shoulders.

  ‘OK, h’Edward. Calm now. Dat is crazy. Yu mus’ be shock’d. Who dey think dat it be?’

  ‘They don’t know yet. They asked me if I knew. Of course I don’t know. I asked them if I’m a bloody suspect, why are they asking me? Chrissakes!’

  ‘An’ what de say to dat?’

  ‘They say I’m not as yet. They … apparently … ninety per cent of this sort of thing … they match the dental records to missing persons … then they often find out very quickly who they are. They usually do, they said. But they might ask me a few more questions or something, I don’t know … I told them what’s going on here and they were fine for me to come …’

  ‘Of course. Yu have nuttin to worry, becaa yu h’innocent, h’Edward. Truss’ mi.’

  ‘Yes, yes. I suppose so, but it’s so strange. I don’t want to tell Cassie. Not right now … with all this …’

  ‘Of course. Dats right. Don’t yu worry. It all come out darlin, it all come out. It jus’ a bit shockin, in’t it? Mad. Come. Sit dung.’

  Ed is willingly led by her to sit in the visitor’s chair. His heart is beating fast. He has the images he has just seen recurring in his mind, buzzing about, horrific fragments dipping and diving in and out of his thoughts.

  He found it hard to make sense of the scene that greeted him up in the wood. When he first approached, he saw the tape around the site and the tarpaulin erected over the top and for one heart-thuddingly bizarre moment, he thought he might find out that it was himself in there, cold on the ground, with a noose around his neck. He suddenly imagined that his suicide attempt back then had somehow been successful and everything else since was some kind of other-world reality. That he was actually dead. He shakes off this notion as swiftly as it had slammed into his thoughts, but it certainly shocked him, jolted him.

  As he approached and they checked his identity, he realized just how awful it was when he saw disturbing glimpses inside the tent. Tufts of hair on a muddy leathery scalp, bone and flesh in shapes and colours he couldn’t recognize or process, whilst still knowing, in a harrowingly real way, what it was. He was aware that he stopped breathing, then that he suddenly had to. And then, on the intake, the revolting stench filled his nostrils, which told his brain what was truly happening. His brain immediately informed his stomach that this was entirely, horrifically unpalatable, and he began to retch. He had to walk away from the site and vomit nearby. He was shaking, unable to control the hammer blows of revulsion smashing him in the gut.

  The violence of the shock caught him unawares, and his general tiredness from a fairly sleepless night did nothing to help. He had no resilience. Who would? How many people ever witness such a thing? A murdered body, halfway dug up from its rude muddy grave. Haunting.

  Still now, Ed feels the brutality of it, but he can’t indulge in it. Silvia must be his focus today, it’s unlikely she will have a tomorrow.

  Winnie has stood quietly next to him, letting him gather his thoughts.

  ‘Come back out now darlin, mi need to get all dis offa her, and mek she ready. Yu should go an’ splash yu face, get a h’apple, be wid yu daughta …’

  ‘Yes. Yes. I will, yes.’

  He takes her hand as she leads him back out.

  The door closes, once again leaving Silvia alone. With the white-hot secret hanging heavy in her air.

  Back in the day room, Ed slurps his tea and looks at his lovely daughter’s troubled face. What a complicated, difficult time this must be for her. He is struck by just how brilliantly she is handling it all. He makes a mental note that Cassie may feel much more of it all later, after … he will keep an eye out for that. She is a supreme coper. He is aware of that. Look how she has coped with everything so far. She is a mother, for heaven’s sake, and so young.

  His phone pings. It’s a text. The detective involved up at the wood has sent it. He said he would communicate in this way considering Ed’s circumstances. In fact, he said he wouldn’t communicate whatsoever unless there was an urgent need.

  It reads simply:

  Would you know of a Catherine Mary Bernadette O’Brien?

  Yes. He does.

  At this precise moment, a figure shambles past the open door. Cassie and Jo are facing into the room, so they don’t see, because they are distracted, talking about the fish tank and how it is the only colourful thing to look at in this appalling, windowless room.

  Ed sees it though. He sees a shape at least, he just caught sight of it briefly before it exited from his vision. A bent shape, a hunched man, clumsily walking with … what was it? A stick, a crutch? Something.

  This is a busy hospital, of course someone is walking with a stick. Ed knows in a blinding certain instant that what he fleetingly saw wasn’t a someone. It was his someone. He senses his own, smells it. Like a returning Emperor Penguin will instantly find his own singular chick amongst a vast horde of them. He knows he is right, and he is out of his seat in an instant, and into the corridor, where the figure has his back to him.

  ‘Son?’

  Jamie turns awkwardly and sees his father coming towards him, arms outstretched.

  ‘Bloody hell, Jamie, it is you!’

  Although everything hurts, Jamie eagerly surrenders to a massive bear hug from his dad. Cassie and Jo have heard Ed’s shout and join on to a boisterous joyful bundle in the corridor. They are so happy to see him, to see him alive, that, for a moment, they all forget why they are there.

  Gradually, the screech and twitter of their hysteria subsides, and Ed ushers them all back into the drab day room to brief Jamie. He disappears into the room amid a hail of excited questions from his family. He is back in the fold.

  He is back.

  Just in time.

  In Suite 5, one of the other nurses assisting Winnie is wheeling out the last of the standing machines. Winnie wants it to be as un-hospital-y as possible for them all, so she has removed everything she can. Silvia is no longer attached to anything, and there are clean dressings on each part of her body that was. She has a large dressing on her neck, and smaller ones on her arms and hands. Winnie has rolled up two small clean towels and placed them under Silvia’s hands to support them. She has made a comfortable V-shape of pillows behind Silvia’s shoulders and head, and she has raised the head of the bed so that Silvia is half sitting, half lying. The sarong is wrapped around her, and her feet are still out of the bedding at the foot of the bed.

  The room is much quieter since all the bleeping and wheezing machines have gone, but they are replaced by the sobering sound of Silvia breathing unassisted. She is struggling on each breath and the gurgle of her throat is ominously audible, but she is heavily sedated so she isn’t physically distressed at all. She is in a deep narcotic slumber, she is in a coma, so there are no signs of response. Winnie is pleased it is fairly tranquil.

  She takes the brush, and tidies Silvia’s hair.

  ‘Dere. Yu look pretty. Nice an’ pretty.’

  Winnie leans over and, quite unprofessionally, she kisses Silvia on the forehead, and goes to gather up the family.

  Silvia breathes.

  Then doesn’t.

  For a bit too long.

  Then does.

  In the day room, Winnie is introduced hastily to Jamie
by Ed.

  ‘Winnie, this is my son, Jamie, and this is Winnie, my … Mum’s nurse … her friend … my friend … umm.’

  ‘Yeah, OK Dad. Hello Winnie.’

  ‘Yu hurt bad?’

  ‘It’s OK thanks. My knee’s buggered.’

  ‘Any pyain?’

  ‘Not presently.’

  ‘OK. Yu tell mi if yu need anyting?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Thank you.’

  ‘Mi tink it’s time yu should all go in … yes?’

  They all mutter and start to move towards Suite 5, with Jamie at the front, the vanguard. He limps and winces when he forgets occasionally just how shattered his knee is. He has metal pins in it and he isn’t supposed to be walking on it at all yet, his operation was only a few days ago at a hospital in Birmingham. He was recovering quietly when he received the text from Cassie about just how serious the situation with Silvia is.

  He didn’t want to come, it’s too painful and he didn’t want to ever see her again or grant her any of his time or effort. His barriers were firmly up, but then there was something achingly plaintive about Cassie’s text. He could tell she was being brave and stepping up to be the organizer, the little mother. It broke his heart that she should think she has to do that. He knew that he must support her, whatever the cost to him. He won’t allow the dysfunction and coldness of Silvia to filter down into their lives so much that they forget to support each other. Even though Dad is here, big brother looks after little sister. Those are the rules, and they’re right. He requested compassionate leave, he’s on R and R anyway, so here he is.

  For Cassie.

  Or so he thinks.

  Just as they get to the door of Suite 5, they hear a kerfuffle and when they look back they see a dishevelled, angry wide-eyed sweaty creature bombing up the corridor towards them.