‘In what way?’
‘It’s curious – I’ve never been religious but to me there is something fundamentally wrong with ending your life early, unless you really are in extremis. But you had a Catholic upbringing – and I know that some traces still remain. Yet committing suicide doesn’t seem to bother you?’
Marianne thought about the question. What was left of her Catholicism was largely emotionaclass="underline" a sense of the transcendent when she entered an ancient cathedral; a well-developed capacity to feel guilt; and in the past – but less now – an instinctive prayer in a moment of crisis. Yet somewhere inside her there remained a need for absolution. Not the kind a priest could give, but something she had to achieve for herself; the only sacrifice she had left to make, a means to atone finally for what she had done wrong in her life.
‘Seems now I look only for utility,’ she said, ‘and here I am confident the balance favours what I’m doing.’
Dorrie sat down at the table and poured herself some more tea. ‘The Hindus have a concept called Prayopavesa – where an old person is permitted to starve themselves to death when they have no desire or ambition left, and no responsibilities remaining in life – is that how you see yourself?’
Marianne pondered for a moment. She still had ambitions but it was too late now to fulfil them; as for responsibilities, hers all lay the other way. ‘Well, I don’t fancy starving myself,’ she said. ‘I prefer to get on with it. Anyway, we weren’t going to talk about it anymore.’
‘That’s fine, but only if you promise me another opportunity to try to dissuade you.’
Marianne duly made her promise to Dorrie; she was relieved to put the whole subject to one side and talk about something else.
‘It’s good to see you’ve got those old wartime diaries of your mother out; that was the big project you were working on.’
‘It has been, but it’s all too much for me now.’ Marianne gazed at her desk with its pile of notebooks and her pages of typescript, and wondered again what she would do with all the material. It was to have been her last project, only it had come to her too late. She had started with enthusiasm – it made her feel her life had a purpose again – and she had expected to complete the project within a year; but bouts of ill health, combined with a certain slothfulness that seemed to have overtaken her in the last year, meant that it remained unfinished. Now she must type up her remaining notes and leave the material in a state where someone could take over the task. It seemed that person would have to be Claire, though she doubted Claire would have the interest or energy to do much with it.
‘No more surprises – like your father?’
Marianne shook her head.
‘Has it bothered you much in life – about who your real father was?’
‘Not at all. My mother told me when I was very young – before I was old enough to understand. I just shut the knowledge away in a little box inside me. When I was older – well, I had always known, so it didn’t seem so important. My father wanted the world to think he was my natural parent and that was fine with me – I didn’t want any ghost coming between me and my papa. Personally, I’ve never set too much store on the whole blood thing – the idea that you don’t know who you are unless you know your natural parents.’
Marianne continued her explanations to Dorrie, repeating the answers she had spent a lifetime giving. But as they talked, she sensed a growing tension in Dorrie – a suppression of what she wanted to say but had agreed not to. Finally, when Dorrie got up to leave she looked Marianne in the eye. ‘You’ve got to stop this nonsense. I am going to speak to Callum.’
Marianne sighed. ‘I don’t think that’s necessary.’
‘Well I am sure that it is necessary. Indeed, it’s vital. There’s nothing wrong with you, Marianne. Snap out of it. Sometimes a child has to stop a parent doing something stupid, just as parents do for their children, and there is something stubborn and – dare I say it? – almost childish in your desire to end your life prematurely.’
‘Prematurely – at nearly ninety…?’
‘Age isn’t the test; it can’t be. Legally, age is irrelevant. You are eighty-eight…’
‘Eighty-nine in January…’
‘…and fundamentally you are quite healthy. Stacks of people are living to a hundred now and you have more to live for than most.’
Marianne said nothing, only shaking her head.
‘Stupid and selfish – that’s the only way I can describe it.’
‘Selfish? It’s the complete…’
‘…I shall speak to Callum – and I shall be waiting your call to say that you’ve come to your senses.’
‘Callum understands…’
‘If he thinks he understands, he’s badly mistaken.’
‘He has promised…’
‘Wake up, Marianne! Wake up and see how wrong this is. Stupid, selfish and wrong… I’ll let myself out,’ she added, as she stomped from the room.
Marianne moved from the kitchen to the living room and slumped into her chair. She hated quarrelling with Dorrie. But how could it be otherwise? She wrapped herself in her cashmere blanket, dimmed the light and tried to force herself to sleep.
The air is damp and misty, the sky heavy with yellow clouds and the light more like dusk than mid-morning. She stares over the top of the white picket fence to where the small boy is trying to repair a snowman, now dissolving fast in the morning drizzle. She finds Pony and pushes the toy horse up against the fence. Holding onto the wooden struts, she stands on Pony’s back and puts her stomach onto the pointed fence top; it’s not comfortable but her winter jacket cushions the pain and she brings up her legs and rolls forward, landing sideways onto the soggy ground. Getting up, she walks over to where the boy is digging slush with a plastic spade from around what is left of the snowman, as if trying to rescue a sandcastle with wet sand from the remorseless approach of the tide.
For a few minutes she tries to help him with her bare hands, then, getting bored, she starts to wander down towards the pond at the bottom of the garden. A few seconds later the boy runs past her and they are both now staring out at the ice through the high wire fencing. She is still peering through the wire when she sees that the boy has moved to where a bush is growing up against the fence and is on his knees scrabbling at the bottom of the wire. Now she is beside him and they are both digging like chipmunks, scraping away the last of the snow and exposing a strip of wire which doesn’t quite reach the ground.
When they are both under the fence they stand together looking at the frozen surface of the pond. A thin layer of melting snow covers the ice which has trapped various twigs and small branches, fallen from the overhanging trees. ‘I can slide,’ says the boy, as he steps out onto the ice. Groaning and creaking noises come from the surface but the ice holds. The boy pushes off and slides a couple of feet; smiling, he turns back towards her as if seeking her approval. Cautiously, she tries to slide herself and then they are both sliding and laughing and clinging to each other and trying to use each other to push off as they move further towards the centre of the pond. Is it her foot, or is it his, which catches on a twig protruding from the surface of the ice? Whichever it is, they reach for each other and together they fall heavily onto the ice which breaks all around them. Both her arms go down into the icy water. She tries to stand up but there is nothing solid under her. The water grips her legs, then her stomach, now up to her shoulders as her arms flail at the broken ice, trying to find something to grip onto. Beside her the boy is also struggling, but this is not helping her. The water is gripping her around the neck, now swilling against her face and in her mouth and nose. She coughs violently; she needs to do something. She reaches out a hand to the boy’s shoulder and as she does so she sees his face – surprised, frightened, the blue eyes questioning her. For a moment she hesitates – caught in the grip of his pleading eyes – then she pushes down with one hand while with the other she desperately tries to dig her nails into a rough part of the ice. The movement helps lift her body and now her knee is on something soft and yielding and as she pushes again her stomach is on the surface of the ice and one hand has found some purchase on a piece of wood. Something is clinging to her leg, pulling her back down, but with a final kick she frees herself and is out of the water and lying on the surface of the pond.