After Before

by Jemma Wayne

  Luke sighed again and replaced his glasses. He got that from her, his poor vision. Philip’s sight had been perfect almost until the last and it had been comical to both of them when he’d finally succumbed to needing spectacles and they had clashed frames when they tried to kiss. They’d laughed a lot that last year. Philip had cut down his hours, finally, and twenty-odd years after they’d laid on the river bank of the Cam they’d been making plans again: Paris, Rome.

  “Mother, we need to plan what we’re going to do.”

  A different kind of planning.

  “Oh you’ll figure it out. Remember that time John got his nose punched? You looked after him then didn’t you? Saw to that awful boy, what was he called? Kevin Randall? Rundell. You stood up to him. Remember?”

  “I’m not talking about John, Mother. I mean, we need to talk about what we’re going to do about you, about your situation. I can’t take time off work at the moment - ”

  “Well whoever asked you to?”

  Of course she wouldn’t cry. Many years had passed since there’d been any point in it, anyone there to mop up the tears. But her chest tightened as Luke spoke to her of practicalities. She hadn’t thought ahead this far. For the last weeks she had been occupied with the past, with what she wouldn’t ever now get to do, with the time she had wasted wallowing, mourning, regretting, but not with the disease itself, the silent, creeping sickness that was responsible for the final removal of choice and chance and possibility. The doctor had tried to tell her. He’d spoken about the ‘decline’ to come, about progressive symptoms, and now the worst of his warnings came back to her and struck her hard: she would need looking after. But by whom? Who would buy the shopping when she could no longer make it to the supermarket, or even the little Indian-owned shop on the corner? Who would bring her her meals when she was too weak to fetch them? Who would change her sheets when she soiled them?

  “I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself thank you,” Lynn frowned. Luke tried to reach for her hand but she slapped it away.

  “Mother, you’re going to need help. You already need help.”

  “Don’t be so ridiculous.”

  “I wish I could look after you myself, but I just can’t at the moment. Maybe, perhaps John could - ”

  “Don’t you dare burden him with this.” Lynn pulled herself painfully into a more upright position in the bed. “He has enough on his plate.”

  “Why do you always make excuses for him?”

  Luke stood up and paced around the room in front of Lynn’s bed. His agitation was disturbing at first, but after a while it worked its way into a rhythm and his to-ing and fro-ing began to lull Lynn into another fog in which he was still there but smaller, and John was nearby, and Philip was crawling across the floor towards them in a swaying motion, pretending to be a ghost.

  “Mother.”

  She opened her eyes.

  “You’ll need someone to take you for your treatment Mother. And to look after you. You can’t do everything for yourself. You - you won’t be able to Mother. Already look how tired it’s making you. I should have noticed. But - now -we’ve got to face it.” His jaw trembled in the same way it had when he was seven and being told off.

  “Oh come here you silly boy.”

  Luke sat down again, this time on the end of her bed and she took his hand. Removing his glasses, he rested his head on their clasped grasp. It seemed that if only they could remain this way, the moment would defy truth and time would pause, give them longer. But Lynn had to tell him.

  “Luke, I’m not going to have treatment,” she said quietly. His head still bent, Luke didn’t move. “There’s no hope of recovery. I’m sure the doctor’s told you this. All it might do is delay things, a little, but it will make me much sicker, and I don’t want to be. You know I’m no good with illness. So I’m not going to have treatment. And I’m not going into hospital. I’m going to stay here, in my own home, with my own things, where I’ve always been.”

  It was just what her own mother had told her before her descent into nothingness. But such words had infuriated Lynn then, the stubbornness, the giving up, the admission of defeat. She’d wanted her mother to fight, to try, to prolong her life even if it was by mere moments. Now however she understood. This was the last and only stand that could be taken, the only way of exerting control, if not over a wasted life, then at least over death; not the whole story but the final chapter.

  “I knew you’d say that Mother.” Luke left his head on their hands and wouldn’t look at her.

  “You mustn’t tell John though, that there’s an option.”

  “Mother, are you sure?”

  Are you certain? Her mother had asked her before the wedding.

  “I’m positive.”

  “Then we need to sort out some help here. Someone to look after you.”

  She closed her eyes.

  When she opened them again, Luke was gone.

  She looked at the clock on the wall and saw that almost an hour had passed. Painfully, she shifted herself higher up the bed. The china cups and saucers were still in the sitting room, along with the plates full of crumbs and chocolate biscuits that would melt from the heat of the fire. It bothered her to think of the tea staining the pot and the inside of her cups, but she would have to deal with it all in the morning. There would be no returning downstairs that afternoon, or that night, and no return to her retreat at the back of the house; she was tired now. Lynn turned her head to study the photograph next to her bed once more. It had been taken almost ten years after that first, joyous wedding night with Philip, and by then there was a noticeable qualification in her smile, but the girl staring back at her was still naïve. She still possessed a faith that Lynn no longer indulged, and as she looked now at the hope in her youthful eyes, it filled her with scorn and pity, and a deep, grinding resentment for her former, innocent, culpable self.

  Chapter

  Five

  Emily didn’t mind working in the evenings. There was a certain serenity to having whole buildings to herself, hallways and offices and corridors without another soul to contend with, and she preferred traversing the city at night. The problem was, it wasn’t possible for her to sleep in the daylight; so she grew tired and had migraines more often and thought more frequently about the razor blade in the box under the sink.

  Usually her shifts had started by five. At this time of day the council building she lived in was buzzing with sounds: of teens only slightly younger than herself crashing in and out of each other’s flats; of mothers screaming at unruly children or unreliable husbands; of music blasting too loudly and rattling the walls; and she would move quickly then, without glancing up, glad in the knowledge that when she returned at two or three in the morning, a hush would have descended. Even in those dusky hours a few darkened figures might loiter in stairwells, and sometimes there was arguing, or the bass thump of music, or furniture moving in the room next to hers, but such activity always seemed muted somehow, made appropriate for the night. And this was when Emily sank into her bed, savoured the darkness and allowed herself to be lulled to sleep by city sounds that reminded her of where she was, and where she was not.

  During the day, such calm was a futile hope. Even grey skies pushed colour through the tiny window into her room, and once lit, it was impossible for Emily to rid the corners and crevices of memories that hid there, waiting for her to look. The only solution was to move, and keep moving. And so she would brave the cold of her room to dress, make herself a flask of sugary tea, and hit the pavements of the streets that weaved around her. All day she would walk the cheerless roads, careful to avoid the areas where she used to know people, the building where she used to go to college, the road where Auntie and Uncle still lived.

  The town hall was a place to go. Like museums, and galleries, places one could stand in for free and observe. It was something Emily was learning - the art of being a watcher without being watched. Evening shifts made it easy, scuttling about
in darkened offices after people had left them, looking at their photos and their handwriting while never being seen. But in the daytime, no matter how firmly she set her fringe with wax, how drably she dressed, nor how flat her shoes, she could not shed the sensation of difference she had felt since coming here. Even at school, when half her class had been from other countries and many of the girls didn’t bother to learn English properly so should have felt more different than she, there was an internal badge she could not take off that marked her out, made her angry and defensive, and kept her alone. It was memory, she supposed. Memory that jolted sharply through the London rain with hot, stabbing reminders of what had come before such comforting dreariness. Accusing her. Pointing at her. Making clear that she was not in fact so coolly disposed to talk calmly about the weather. To talk at all. If you keep your problems in your stomach, the dogs cannot eat them, her mother had told her once. Another proverb, etched in her head. And Emily clung hard to this wise instruction. She watched, and said as little as she could get away with, and kept her difference to herself.

  Because nobody else noticed it, she was beginning to realise. It was her insecurity, her paranoia, her hard-learned lessons. Yet even in the town hall, where she sat amongst throngs of others darker and lighter and taller and shorter and thinner and fatter than she was, she needed a magazine to hide behind. She had taken this one from the doctor’s office, and peeked out at the people from under it. It was a marvel to her the way they registered themselves. For all sorts of things: births, marriages, deaths, planning permission, social care, housing. She heard them talking in their twos and threes, or loudly over desks to council workers, explaining. So flippantly. Emily had applied for housing only because she had no other choice. She had loitered in the lobby for hours before joining the queue, and they’d had to ask her name three times before she had given it. Secrets should remain in one’s stomach. She would not repeat the process to register for benefits. Still, she chose to come here sometimes when she had days free, to listen to other people’s confessions.

  Chapter

  Six

  The red spot underneath Vera’s ring has grown into a callous. She has not yet had the band tightened, though she has become obsessed with shining the rose-gold. She uses her jumper and occasionally strands of cotton catch on the diamond, only then making Vera aware that again, she has been shining. She is showing it off to her workmates. They think, she is sure, that it is the reason for her impending absence, though she has told them it is her own mother she needs time to care for.

  Vera doesn’t know why she is hiding the fact that it is Lynn. Lynn who is ill, Lynn who is dying, Lynn who she will sit with until that moment comes. Vera does not intend to be a silent martyr. It is purely for the credit that she is making the sacrifice. But perhaps she is mindful that it is Luke’s loss and not hers. Or that death is not something to be bandied about. Or that the credit she wants is not from her colleagues. It is from the universe, or the power she prays to but does not believe in. It is from those great karmic scales, which currently lay toppled far too heavily to one side.

  Vera smiles at the girls still cooing over her ring and begins sorting through the stack of files on her desk. It feels thrilling to be doing the right thing. Luke would never have asked it of her, but a trickle of excitement pumps through her stomach as she thinks about telling him. It is a truly generous Christian act. It is better. It is worthy.

  “So, did you finally do the deed?” asks Felicity, leaning on the edge of Vera’s desk. She lifts her eyebrows as she says this, and the other girls laugh.

  When Vera returns to her desk after lunch, there is a message from her father. She hasn’t spoken to him since the proposal. Nor has she spoken to her mother. It has been months since she last saw them, and only then because it was her birthday and they turned up outside her door. Vera texted her mother from the hotel room on the day Luke proposed but didn’t answer when almost immediately she rang back. There have been no celebrations, no champagne, no meeting of in-laws, no reminiscing about how fast it all went and how grown up she has become. Vera’s throat tightens as she thinks about this. She cannot bear the not seeing them. She cannot bear not hearing the sound of her father’s soft, humour-filled voice. She cannot bear never sharing with her mother the bad haircuts and smelly armpit-men on the tube, and contents of her lunch, and other inane moments of her life that nobody else would care about. She cannot bear the thought that she will never again sit between them on the sofa and play Scrabble, all of them cheating. She cannot bear these things only marginally less than she can bear the alternative: seeing them, being reminded. To be clean, to be clean.

  It was a stupid teenage rebellion that should have ended years ago. It was so stupid. So fast and unplanned. But all too quickly life changed from fields and mud, journals and pink hair ribbons, her mother’s tuna bake and A grades. And the piano. To a piano still but with Charlie, and her sat in her underwear on top of it. To dark rooms, hash that was too strong and made her sick, unbuttoned tops, unreturned phone calls, undone assignments, men, dawns, needles, ecstasy, abandon. And not her parents. And not herself, barely. But the start of everything that came next. And since it came next, she does not deserve to have what came before. The good is only a reminder of the bad. The past is a reminder of what has been. She can only survive by not thinking. And therefore the not seeing has to be borne.

  Vera scrunches the message from her father into her palm and throws it under her desk into the bin. She remains still for a moment, her head bent. But she is too late. She did not act fast enough. She feels heavy.

  “But this will pick you up,” Charlie told her. “It’s pure.”

  Charlie reached into his wallet and handed the guy his share. Vera fished around in her bag for her mother’s purse and produced a note from it. She would have left the purse and taken only the cash, but her parents had walked in just as she was rifling through it. They’d been at a dinner party across the road. Vera had been waiting at the sitting room window for Charlie’s text. It was the summer holidays.

  “Do you remember when you were 12, and we found you in here crying because we were home late?” Her father smiled, bounding into the room, enlivened by an evening of debate.

  “You were so sensitive,” added her mother. “You thought something terrible must have happened. We were only 10 minutes late.”

  Vera dodged her father’s kiss and stuffed the purse into her bag. “I’m going out,” she told them.

  Charlie had met her at Kings Cross. She didn’t know he’d be with a girl. She was called Jane, blonde, pretty, innocent looking, like Vera had been. Behind them was a friend of Charlie’s from boarding school. His father was a QC. His hair coiffed to the side hiding an early receding hairline. His skin was bad, his breath slightly putrid. Vera fucked him on Charlie’s bed while Charlie and Jane giggled naked on the couch.

  Vera shakes herself and glances purposefully up at her computer. Her screensaver is a photo of Luke. She locks her eyes onto his face and studies him, her soon-to-be forever: his jaw is well-defined, his nose hawked and masculine, his sandy hair slicked back with just enough gel to tame the waves, and his startling half-green, half-grey eyes stare assuredly into the camera. It was she who’d been behind the lens, she who he’d been flashing his certainty at. His purity. His sincerity. Vera takes a deep breath, and sighs contentedly.

  Dear God, make me better, make me worthy, make me clean.

  She returns to the piles on her desk. There is one labelled Home Care. It was supposed to be her first solo account -a charity that provides carers for sick or elderly people in their own homes, runs activities for them, and is completely under-exposed and under-funded. Two weeks ago, she had been employed to change this, and although everyone agreed it was going to be a PR challenge, she had been excited by it. Vera checks around her desk for the advert she’s spent three days mocking up. The woman in the photograph on it is not dissimilar from Luke’s mother, and it occurs to Vera that Home
Care would be perfect for Lynn, or for people like Lynn, people without a future daughter-in-law to depend upon. Vera feels another shiver of delight as she imagines the joy Luke will feel when he finds out that she has decided to look after his mother. He has been so sad since the news, sad and yet stoic, and more than anything she has wanted to find a way to console him. And he will be proud of her. She is for the first time in many years, a little proud of herself. Stapling the advert to the information pack on the top of the stack, she covers it in her trademark helpful yellow Post-its, and delivers the bundle matter-of-factly to Felicity.

  Sorting through another folder, Vera tucks a few receipts and personal notes inside her top drawer before tidying the rest of the papers into a neat stack. It pleases her that there are no loose strands. She sees without opening it the edges of the piece of paper that is inside her wallet, in her bag, and for half a second considers taking it out. But in the end she kicks her bag further under her desk and glances around on top of it. The surface is already organised: a tumbler full of identical red pencils, which she frequently knocks over; an in-tray that she’s alphabetised and organised with coloured dividers; and a stream of yellow Post-it notes that are like a map of her brain. At the beginning of the previous week, People PR had hired a new office cleaner and when Vera came into work she’d found her Post-its arranged in a vast floral pattern that covered her desktop. Every morning since there has emerged a new design, and every morning it has made Vera smile, but by 10 o’clock, or 11 at the latest, she is unable to resist the urge to restore them to their original contained lines. Whimsically, she removes one Post-it now and sticks it in the centre of her computer screen. She imagines a fat, jolly cleaner finding it there and laughing.

  Chapter

  Seven

  The temperature had dipped again. There were two blankets on her bed, tucked in at the sides so as to keep out the icy air. She had not been feeling well. She had not been out walking. In the room next door, hushed voices rose and fell, feet scrambled. And Emily dreamed: