Читать книгу Pandora’s Box - Giselle Green - Страница 13

Miriam’s mum came round this morning. When she came through the door I thought she was someone else. She didn’t look the same. Her hair has gotten much thinner than it used to be, much lighter, almost white. Her face has been leached of all its colour, of all its life. I think she was wearing a thin beige jacket; the kind that the old ladies wear who queue up at the post office on a Thursday morning. She’s gotten old.

She’s not that old, though. She’s only the same age as my mum is. She shouldn’t look like that.

‘I’m getting there,’ she said, when Mum asked her how she was coping. ‘Slowly.’ She wanted to see me, to say hello, and I wanted to see her too, but when I came into the hallway she looked at me so long and hard I felt she might be X-raying me with her eyes. It was as if she was trying to look right through to my bones, to see how they were holding up, assessing just how much longer I might have left.

She told me I was looking well, but she didn’t say it with any happiness in her voice. She made me feel guilty. When they went to drink their tea I left them and went into my bedroom, which is downstairs nowadays. My heart was pounding. My arms felt all weak. I needed to stay there for a minute and just rest. I didn’t want to be with them, but I still peered at them from where I was behind my door. I felt hypnotised.

Miriam’s mum and her husband David have split up now, apparently. She said they didn’t know how to be together any more; they couldn’t remember who they each were.

I wondered if my mum would remember who she was, once I’d gone. It seemed a strange kind of thing for Miriam’s mum to say, and it stayed with me for a long time afterwards.

‘Well at least that’s one bridge I won’t have to cross.’ Mum had smiled tightly at her. She had no one to split up with. I guess that’s what she meant.

‘Splitting with David was the least of my worries,’ Miriam’s mum had shrugged. ‘I’m leaving for Spain in three months. I’m leaving this country for good. I’m taking her ashes with me. I plan to plant them beneath an olive tree under the glorious Mediterranean sun.’

‘I’m sorry about David,’ Mum said.

‘Look, I just don’t care any more. When you see someone you love—your child—go through that suffering, everything else in the world…it just turns a shade of black or white or grey. Nothing matters. In the end,’ she looked at my mum sharply, ‘I just wanted her gone.’

‘Was it that bad?’

They had lowered their voices. They were talking in loud whispers but this house is full of echoes. I could still hear every word.

‘It is far worse than they told us to expect, I’m afraid.’ She shot Mum a pitying look. ‘I won’t go into the details but you will have to brace yourself for it. We were desperate, in the end. To say that her passing away was a blessed relief would be an understatement.’ She stopped, then, as Mum put her hands over her face and began, noiselessly, to cry. I wanted to go and smack that woman in the face just then. I would have liked to storm in there and tell her to get the hell out. What business did she have, coming in here doing that to my mum, just because she’d been through a terrible time?

All that she’d been through—it must have changed her. She never used to be like that, and now she was regretting it because I could hear her saying, ‘I’m so sorry, Rachel. I shouldn’t have said that. I wanted to warn you, that’s all, so that you would be prepared for what is to come. Maybe there is something you can take some strength from?’ She hesitated. ‘Do you ever go to church?’

Mum shook her head at that. She blew her nose into a tissue. ‘It might not be the same for Shelley,’ she said when she put her face up. ‘Research is giving us new medicines all the time, things are getting better. And maybe the new doctor, Ari Lavelle, maybe he’ll be able to come up with some things that Doctor Ganz never thought of?’

‘I won’t hear a word spoken against Doctor Ganz,’ Miriam’s mum flared up and you could see Mum had hit on a real nerve there. ‘Doctor Ganz was the only one out of the lot of them who really cared. If you had your eyes open you’d know they’ve only taken away his consultancy and his research post to allow that Lavelle man to come in and…’ Our visitor sniffed loudly. I could see her fingers clutching tightly on to the handles of her bag. ‘I blame Doctor Lavelle, personally, for what happened to Miriam. She only started getting much worse when he came in and began messing around with her dosages and asking questions that Doctor Ganz never asked us. Messing things up, basically.’

‘I really think that might be a little…’ Mum didn’t know what to say, I could tell.

‘You got Doctor Ganz back for a little while, though, didn’t you?’ There was a hint of resentment in Miriam’s mother’s voice now. ‘I heard Doctor Ganz came back because Lavelle had some more important work to do at his other base in the US. But I hear the old man’s back at the department now, causing mischief again?’

‘I…I really don’t know about that. I believe that Ari Lavelle has very good credentials. And I still think…I think maybe there’s hope for Shelley yet. She may react differently to the drugs they give her. Everybody’s different you know.’

‘They are. You watch out for him, that’s all I’m saying. At least you can’t say I didn’t give you fair warning.’ Miriam’s mum stood up then and pushed a small white card into her hand. ‘Anyway, I’ve taken up enough of your time. We’re having a memorial service for Miriam. The details are on the card. Let us know if you can come. Shelley, too, of course, if she’s able.’

‘Why would I be coming if she weren’t able?’ Mum’s voice had a new energy to it. I watched her as she shoved the front door closed with her foot. It slammed more loudly than seemed polite. I hoped Miriam’s mum hadn’t got offended. I don’t know why I cared, but I did. I thought maybe we should still try and be kind to her.

I remembered how many times she had brought Miriam to our house and what good friends we had all been then, Miriam’s mum and my mum, Miriam and me. The last time they had been here Miriam had been laughing and joking because she’d just made her mum buy her a bright green coat which made the ginger of her hair stand out even louder. She might have been sick, but she was still so full of life.

Now Miriam was ashes. I tried to think about that but it was more than my head could take. Where did the person go if they were ashes? Where was I going to go? What if I didn’t want to go there?

I’d talked about this sort of thing before, with Solly. Solly is very spiritual. He told me that Miriam would probably reincarnate sometime; that I shouldn’t worry. I told him that if I’d had the shit life she’d had then I wouldn’t bother reincarnating. Besides, it might sound selfish but I was more worried about myself just at that moment. It was going to be my turn next. I didn’t want to disappear into a pot of ashes under an ornamental tree.

‘I suppose you heard most of that?’ Mum reappeared from the front door looking tired and worn; and angry. I nodded.

‘Just who the hell does she think she is?’ she stormed.

‘She hasn’t come to terms with it,’ I muttered. ‘She’s angry that she had to go through seeing Miriam suffer so much. It’s that which has made her bitter.’ And the change of doctors, I thought. She hadn’t got over that yet, clearly. What if she’d got a point, though? I pushed that thought out of my mind quickly.

‘I know, I know. I feel sorry for her too. Even though I’m angry with her.’

‘Don’t be.’ I looked Mum straight in the eye for a minute. ‘She’s just jealous, you know, because you’ve still got me.’

‘You’re right.’ I could see Mum had tears in her eyes, though she was trying to hold them back. ‘It’s just…why do people have to change so much?’ she muttered under her breath. ‘First Annie-Jo, now her.’ She picked up the cushion where Miriam’s mum had been sitting and gave it a good punch then set it back down again. ‘Why can’t things ever just stay the same?’

They don’t, though. The unspoken thought hung in the air between us. I wasn’t going to stay the same, either, even though we were both in the habit of pretending otherwise.

Sickness.

That’s what was coming.

I looked at Mum’s face and I could tell exactly what she was thinking.

‘It’s not going to be the same for me, Mum, I promise you that.’ I don’t know if that made her feel any better, me telling her that I wasn’t going to suffer. It made me feel better, though, knowing that I wouldn’t be putting her through that final hell. It strengthened my resolve, as she would say.

Maybe Miriam’s mum had done us a favour after all.