The Date

by Louise Jensen

  Ben’s door was ajar and in the soft tangerine glow of his nightlight I could see his small body tucked up in his bed. Ollie the Owl had slipped onto the floor; despite having just turned nine, Ben still slept with him. I was about to pick it up, rest it back on his pillow, when I heard it. A noise. A whispering, growing louder and rising in pitch.

  I kept my steps long and tiptoe light as I crept towards Mum’s room. The door was tightly shut. I pressed my ear against the wood and listened.

  There was the sound of muffled sobbing and, at first, I thought it was Mum. My fingertips brushed the handle as I deliberated whether I should go and comfort her, when she spoke and I knew it wasn’t her crying. I knew she wasn’t alone.

  ‘You have to, Iris.’ Mum’s voice was thick. Slow.

  More and more she’d been having difficulty swallowing, speaking. The muscles of her throat and jaw growing weaker. ‘Sometimes the voice can be the first thing to go.’ The doctor hadn’t looked up as the nib of his fountain pen scratched on Mum’s notes. ‘You’re lucky.’ He had said without irony as though Mum should be thankful she could no longer use her left arm, barely use her right. Her legs were too weak to support her. The softness in her tone that used to soothe me back to sleep had long since disappeared.

  The crying grew louder.

  ‘I know it’s hard. But…’

  ‘Hard?’ Iris’s voice was scathing. ‘You’re asking the impossible.’

  ‘But you promised.’

  ‘You can’t hold me to that. Remember my first job when I got fired for kissing the assistant manager in the stationery cupboard and you said you wouldn’t tell Mum but…’

  I pulled a face. I couldn’t imagine Iris ever kissing anyone. Mum bit back chasing the image away.

  ‘You can’t possibly compare—’

  ‘I know.’

  A silence. I held my breath, angled my feet towards my bedroom so I could bolt if Iris came out, but the sound of crying drifted through the door once more.

  ‘I love you,’ Iris said. ‘And if there’s the slightest chance…’

  ‘There isn’t,’ Mum said. Her tone strengthened by the finality in her words. ‘You know there isn’t. You’ve been giving the kids false hope. Clinging on to—’

  ‘False hope is better than no hope.’ Iris’s words catch in her throat.

  ‘But you know.’ Mum’s voice is pleading but clearer than I’ve heard it for months. ‘You know.’

  There’s silence again. I shiver, drawing the belt of my dressing gown tighter.

  ‘I need you. Please. You have to say yes.’

  There’s a pang in my chest at the sound of Mum begging.

  ‘I’m here, aren’t I? I’m looking after the kids. The house. You. I’m doing the best I can.’

  ‘I know you are but it’s only going to get harder.’

  ‘You’re my sister.’

  ‘That’s precisely why I’m counting on you. I’d do it for you if the roles were reversed.’

  ‘But Ali. Ben. He’s so small.’

  ‘It’s for the kids. I’ve already lived longer than they thought I might. I’m going downhill quickly. Do you want them to suffer too? Without Justin, you’re all they’ve got, Iris. Please.’

  There’s a beat. Two. Mum crying. ‘I can’t,’ Iris said. ‘I just can’t.’

  Footsteps thudded towards the door and I darted into the shadows, scooching down by the side of the bookcase. Iris pounded down the stairs. There was the chinking of keys, the slamming of the front door, the firing of a car engine and then nothing but an animalistic whimpering that cut me to the very core.

  I was tempted to scurry back to bed, give Mum her privacy, but the sound drew me to her side and, skirting around her wheelchair, I slid into bed beside her, put my arm around her shoulders, and let her sorrow soak my dressing gown. My own cheeks were wet too.

  My arm tingled pins and needles by the time Mum lifted her head and her bloodshot eyes met mine.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said and there was the familiar slur to her speech as though her conversation with Iris had taken everything from her.

  ‘What’s going on, Mum?’ Apprehension prickled like the sting from the nettles that grew wild at the bottom of the garden.

  ‘I remember so clearly the day you were born,’ she said painfully slowly, a faraway look on her face. ‘I was in labour for seventy-two hours and the contractions were unimaginable, almost unbearable but throughout it all your dad kept squeezing my hand, telling me to hang on, reminding me that eventually the pain would end and we’d have something wonderful. You.’ Her eyes misted again. ‘It was worth it. Every single second. As soon as I saw your face I knew I’d go through it all again in a heartbeat.’

  She swallowed hard. I remained silent not wanting my voice to jar her out of the memory she was enveloped in. She so rarely spoke of Dad.

  ‘I love you, Ali. Please know that but…’ She shook her head.

  ‘What, Mum?’ She was scaring me.

  ‘But this. It’s unimaginable, unbearable and there’s no one to tell me to hang on.’

  ‘I’ll tell you to hang on. So will Ben. Iris.’ I rummaged around in my mind for other names to pluck out, friends, neighbours, but it had dawned on me that over the past three years everyone had drifted away and I wasn’t sure whether it had been what happened with Dad before, or what was happening with Mum then. Sadness washed over me. Mum was always so social. I thought of the times lately I’d raced upstairs to do my homework, shouting a hello as I passed by her door. Calling ‘see you later’ whenever I went out as though that was enough. Failure overwhelmed me. I’d let her down.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mum.’ Desperately so. ‘I’ll spend more time with you.’

  ‘I could have a million days with you and Ben, Ali. Live to be a thousand and it would still never be enough, but…’ She was hard to understand then. Exhaustion paled her face, deepened the grooves that ran from the corners of her mouth to her chin. ‘I’ll have to leave you some time. It’s the natural order of things.’

  ‘But not yet. The doctor said…’

  ‘I’m not going to get better, Ali,’ she said flatly. ‘However positive Iris tries to stay, whatever she tells you and Ben, I’m not going to get better. Two to five years the experts said, and it’s already been three.’

  ‘I know but…’ I trailed off. I wanted to say ‘but I want you to get better’ as if that could possibly make a difference. Unlike Ben I was old enough to understand. I’d googled. Read the statistics. Mum was going to deteriorate further before she died. It didn’t bear thinking about.

  ‘Is it awful?’ I’d never asked her before, as though, if she didn’t say it out loud she couldn’t be suffering. But she was.

  ‘Yes,’ she said simply and there was none of the self-pity that would have come if it were me or Ben answering the questions, and I felt a stab of shame at the fuss we both made when we had chickenpox. ‘My muscles cramp, there’s spasticity in my hands, my joints ache. I’ve sores where I’m stuck in one position unless someone helps me move. I’m helpless. Reliant on Iris to do everything for me.’

  ‘I’ll help more.’ I’d always known it must be awful for Mum being so dependent, but I’d only ever considered the lack of mobility. Her frustration with not being able to do things for herself. I’d never really thought about the physical pain she must be in and I felt horrible. ‘It must be difficult when you can’t move around.’

  ‘It’s not just that.’ It was an effort for her to force her words out. ‘My speech is going. I’m lucky it’s lasted so long. Soon I won’t be able to communicate with you all.’

  ‘But you will. On the last home visit we were told about the apps, remember? There’s options.’

  ‘Like the feeding tube when I can no longer swallow? As it is I can only eat soft things. What kind of life is it to not be able to move, speak, eat? It’s been three years since my diagnosis, I’m luckier than most but I’m tired, Ali.’

  ‘Sorry. It’s late.�
� I shifted my weight ready to leave, let her sleep.

  ‘Not that sort of tired,’ she said. ‘I’ve been stockpiling sleeping tablets.’

  ‘Do you want one?’ That was something practical I could do for her.

  ‘Iris was going to help me take them. All of them.’

  There was a silence as I turned her words over as though they were written on paper, and it was a gradual unfolding, and even now I don’t know whether I didn’t understand or whether I didn’t want to understand. I covered my mouth with my hands, as though I was the one who had spoken, as I stared at her in shock as though she had betrayed me, and it almost felt as though she had.

  ‘You can’t leave us.’

  ‘I will be soon anyway and how long do I wait? Until I can’t tell you what I want. I can’t bear it anymore, Ali. I want to slip away with what dignity I have left. But Iris. She… she…’

  ‘Shhh.’ I held Mum in my arms, her cheek resting against mine, breathing in the rose-scented face cream Iris massaged into her face twice a day. My mind whirred as panic built while I tried desperately to think of ways to help her, but I returned time and time again to the sleeping tablets. I pushed the thought away once more, my skin becoming slick with sweat at the prospect of being without her, as memories gathered and retreated.

  Mum outside on a winter-dark morning, hands stinging and raw as she scrubbed at the graffiti sprayed on our garage. Mum shielding me from the baying reporters who pushed and shoved as she took me to school each day during the trial. Eastenders, hot chocolate and custard creams. Movie evenings when we could no longer afford cinema trips, curtains drawn, popcorn in bowls, me and Ben lining up at the lounge door as she took the tickets she’d made. So many memories but they all dipped and weaved, carving their own path in my mind, always, always leading to the same conclusion. Mum loved me. And my stomach whirred like the Catherine Wheel Dad had nailed to the fence all those years ago as Mum heaped beans onto jacket potatoes, hot chocolate simmering in the pan while fireworks whizzed and popped.

  ‘You can’t just give up.’ On us, I wanted to add, but I knew that wasn’t fair.

  ‘This isn’t something I’m taking lightly, Ali. Leaving you and Ben. I’ve been mulling it over for the past year. Me and Iris have talked about it tirelessly. I love you and Ben more than anything, you know that, but I want you both to remember me being able to tell you I love you. As the person I was, not the person I’m becoming. Dad’s in prison and yet he has more freedom than me.’

  She closed her eyes and I had lain back, head sharing her pillow, staring up at the hoist hanging from the ceiling, and I was furious with God, with the universe, with everyone. Furious but certain.

  ‘Are you sure?’ I asked. Her eyes met mine and I saw pain and regret but the overriding emotion was a flash of relief. She nodded, her eyes flickering to her bedside cabinet.

  ‘It will be classed as an expected death,’ she’d whispered. ‘My GP can come and sign the death certificate tomorrow. As I only saw him last week, legally there isn’t a need for a post-mortem. No one will ever know.’

  Hearing the research Mum had clearly done, the thought she had given to what will happen after, made up my mind. Wordlessly, I pulled open her drawer. My hands were shaking so violently I could barely open the bottles. I tipped the white pills that looked so innocent onto the duvet and snapped each one into four. Mum could no longer swallow them whole. I cradled her head as she forced them down with the warm water that was stale with dust and bubbles – but if I’d gone to fetch her a fresh glass I’d have followed Iris. Run away. Like a coward.

  When the tablets were gone we locked eyes.

  ‘Ali,’ she said, and I lifted her hand, pressing her palm to my cheek. ‘Sarah.’ And it had been so long since I had heard my real name I dissolved into tears.

  ‘Don’t cry, sweet girl. It’s not your fault. None of this is your fault.’ I didn’t believe her. I thought back to the hours I’d spent hunched over my laptop, pouring over Google, reading page after page of research into MND. The theories stating damaging genetics and environmental factors, including stress, could play a part in the onset. It all circled back to me. Dad stealing to pay for my birthday presents, me letting the police in. However much my heart felt like it was being torn in two this was the least I could do for Mum. I owed her.

  ‘Talk to me,’ she murmured and there were so many words I wanted to say but this was the last thing I could do for her, so I said what I had always said in the small, lonely hours as I held Ben and he’d drifted back to sleep. ‘The owl and the pussy-cat went to sea…’ But my whole body was shaking with shock as the enormity of what I’d done hit me time and time again. I kept losing my thread, starting the verse again, while Mum lay beside me, but like one of Dad’s scratched vinyls I kept getting stuck. Then, I don’t know when exactly, her muscles were no longer twitching. Her breath no longer rasping.

  Dawn finally broke. The sun streaking the sky red – the colour of my shame. Ben would be awake soon and I slid slowly off the bed, noticing the yellowing stain of egg yolk on Mum’s nightie, her slippers half-tucked under the divan, the grey hair clogging her brush on the bedside table.

  Everything has stayed with me from that night. The big details and the small. The whole tortuous mess.

  Oh how I long to forget – to forget who I am. What I’ve done. But how can I? I cried for me and for her as I kissed her on lips that would never smile again. Tears blocked my throat as I wished her good night. I never once thought of Ben. He’s right. I’m a murderer and I deserve to be punished. I think I always knew I would be. Craved it, almost.

  But still, in spite of everything I have to feel guilty about, it’s the fact I didn’t finish the poem that endlessly rises again and again. In my head it’s always there, spinning around, as though saying the words might have made a difference to her. As though it might have made things easier.

  And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,

  They danced by the light of the moon,

  The moon,

  The moon,

  They danced by the light of the moon.

  53

  Realising that Ben has been behind everything, and why, is like uncorking a bottle. My memories from that night begin to flow freely. The queue at the bar was thinning as I waved my twenty at the barman before taking a sideward glance at James. James! Who’d have thought we’d be having such a good time? I was still hovering between anger that he’d deliberately tricked me into a date, and gratitude that he had, knowing I’d never have agreed otherwise and underneath the myriad emotions writhing for attention was a sense that, perhaps, this could be the start of something.

  ‘Chrissy’s coming over,’ he shouted in my ear above the throbbing beat. ‘She doesn’t look happy.’

  ‘Ali?’ I had turned as Chrissy tugged my arm. ‘I need to talk to you.’

  ‘Can’t it wait?’ I yelled over the music, but the look in her eyes told me that it couldn’t.

  ‘I’ve been seeing someone,’ she said.

  ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ I smiled but she didn’t smile back.

  ‘It’s…’ She looked at the floor and for a horrible, sinking moment I had thought she was going to tell me she was seeing Matt, but instead, she said: ‘It’s Ben. We didn’t want to tell you until we were sure it was serious. That it would lead to something.’

  ‘I’m happy for you.’ And I was.

  Until she said: ‘You know that conversation we had the other night, the things you told me—’

  I couldn’t help myself; I pushed her. Hard. Wanting to stop the words I knew were coming. ‘Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.’

  Mum. Whether it was the fact it was my birthday that night – always a difficult time – or the wine, or the sharing of confidences, it had all spilled out, and afterwards I had waited for her to judge me, but she’d begun to cry. ‘I never imagined you had it so hard.’ I had made her promise never to tell anyone and she had crossed her heart, the way I used to
at school, and I had believed her. I shouldn’t have. I couldn’t believe she had told Ben. How betrayed he must feel. How angry.

  She stumbled, regained her footing and took my elbow. ‘This isn’t the time or the place. Come on.’

  Dazed, I told James I’d see him later, before collecting my coat and bag from the booth.

  * * *

  The corridor was quieter. The music vibrating through the floor rather than heard. Chrissy stopped by the fire door.

  ‘Ben’s outside.’

  ‘I can’t go out there.’ I was crying.

  ‘You have to talk to him.’

  ‘I. Don’t. Want. To.’ I was one step away from placing my hands over my ears like a child. I couldn’t face him. I just couldn’t.

  ‘Ali.’ Chrissy grabbed my arms and squeezed, shaking me hard. ‘You. Have. To.’ She pushed open the fire exit, and I stepped out into the dark. Into the rain. The smell of rotting food from the industrial bins made my stomach roil. The alley was black except a rectangle of light emanating from the door Chrissy was propping open with half a brick and the green glow of the fire exit sign. Ben wasn’t there.

  ‘We shouldn’t be out here. I want to go inside. I don’t want to do this. Please don’t make me.’ Crying, I had turned and stepped towards the door, but Ben loomed out of the shadows, kicking the brick away from the door so it slammed shut. His fingers dug tightly into my elbow as he dragged me towards him. My heel slipped; my shoulder scraped against the slimy bricks. I could hardly bring myself to look at Ben. His hair was plastered to his head, his cheeks wet, and I chose to believe it was rain and not tears, for I couldn’t bear the bewildered expression on his face. I couldn’t help myself. I wrapped my arms around him, but he pushed me backwards, hard, against the wall, one hand snaking tightly around my throat.