‘Leah…’
‘I love you, Gran,’ Leah said again through her choking sobs. ‘I love you.’
Helen slowly prised her from the bed. ‘Come on, darling…’
Leah stood and turned. ‘I hate you,’ she said, looking at her mother. ‘Both of you… Why are you letting this happen?’
Callum looked at Jake who came forward and took Leah in his arms. ‘I think we should leave now,’ he said.
‘So, so wrong…’ she said, as Jake led her from the room.
There was a moment of silence when the door closed behind them. Then Callum said, ‘I’m sorry, Mum.’
‘Don’t be. She’s a wonderful child. You should be proud of her.’
When Jake and Leah had left the room, the doctor returned and began to explain the procedure while Callum and Helen hovered in the background.
‘I am now going to put an intravenous line into your arm,’ he said, and putting on his gloves he applied a tourniquet to her upper arm, wiped the skin over her expanded vein, and inserted the needle. With a flick of his wrist he removed the tourniquet and put some strapping around the line, bandaging it to her arm. ‘I am first going to connect this to a simple solution of saline, but when the time comes it will be connected to two separate lines.’
Ah yes, she thought, when the time comes; not so long now.
‘One of the lines,’ the doctor continued, ‘connects to a powerful anaesthetic. When the anaesthetic reaches your brain, you will become unconscious. This takes around thirty seconds at the most from when you turn it on. A small computer-controlled machine, attached by electrodes, which I will apply to your scalp, will detect when you are unconscious and then release another drug which relaxes your body to such an extent that after about five minutes you will stop breathing. Shortly thereafter your heart will stop. Once you are asleep you will not be aware of any of this.
‘Now I need to attach these monitors which will record your heartbeat and blood pressure.’ He applied a clip to Marianne’s finger and wrapped a cuff around her upper arm on the opposite side. She could hear a machine beeping in time to her heartbeat. The doctor muted the volume. ‘When the time comes’ (ah, that time again) ‘the line will be connected here,’ he said, pointing to a large piece of apparatus near to the bed, ‘and you will turn this dial one half turn to the right.’ He showed her the small hand-held device the size of a mobile phone, attached to a connecting cable. ‘You understand that once you have turned the dial your death becomes inevitable and cannot be halted?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I understand.’
The doctor looked down at Marianne and smiled. ‘Now you’re all set. I’ll leave you alone with your family for a while and they can let me know when you are ready.’
Marianne was not sure how much more time she needed with Callum and Helen, but suddenly they were alone together and all three seemed to realise that this was indeed almost the end.
‘Still absolutely sure about this, Mum?’ Callum said.
‘Yes, darling, still sure.’
Helen came to stand by the bed. She squeezed Marianne’s hand and bent forward to kiss her. ‘Goodbye and God bless you, Marianne,’ she said, before turning away. She seemed genuinely distressed.
Callum then began a little speech about what a wonderful mother she had been to him and she let him go on, although somehow she seemed to have lost the ability to connect the words to any meaning. When he had finished he also kissed her. She asked for a few moments alone to compose herself.
So, this is it, she thought. I wish I could say that I am filled with some profound thoughts or some unique spiritual insight but my mind is all fog and emptiness. My heart, though, seems to have become a furious engine, pulsating through my body with unnecessary and unexpected urgency. My breathing is fast and shallow.
They say the anaesthetic is like a tsunami sweeping over you, but I imagine it as a huge waterfall – like the one in Brazil that Edward and I visited with Izzy when she was quite young. I started my river journey when I came to the clinic a few weeks ago and I have been paddling my canoe slowly down stream since then. Once or twice I have been tempted to manoeuvre to the side and climb out, but every time I’ve been close to the bank the jungle has looked dense and unappealing; so I have just gone on paddling. At times, I have stopped paddling entirely but it makes no difference; the current just sweeps me on.
Now I am almost on top of the falls. I can hear the roar of the water as it cascades into the abyss below but the edge is hidden in the mist. I find I have Izzy in my arms. Her hands are clinging around my neck. I lie back and shut my eyes, clasping her tight to my chest. The noise is overwhelming and I feel the spray, soft and cool on my face. I sense I am on the brink and the boat is beginning to tip forward, and as it does so I open my eyes and through the mist I see huge blue butterflies circling in shafts of multi-coloured sunlight, but as we start to fall I shut my eyes again; there are no butterflies now as we plunge into the dark void.
Marianne heard the door open; they were coming back into the room.
‘Mum?’ Callum’s voice, distant. ‘Would you like more time?’
‘No, come in.’ A whisper.
‘The doctor and nurse are here now…’
Silence.
‘Just a little bit of this gel on your head, and now I will attach the pads.’ The doctor’s voice. She felt the cold of the electrodes on her temples. Silence again.
‘Just connecting up to the pumps.’
Another pause.
‘All set now.’ She felt the control box in her hands. ‘Whenever you feel ready, Mrs Davenport.’
‘I love you, Mum.’ Callum’s voice, whispering.
Marianne tried to turn the dial but her hand, slippery with sweat, slid off.
Silence. The sound of whispering. The doctor’s voice: ‘…must do it herself.’
She wiped her hand on her hospital gown.
A long silence. Someone coughed.
She tried again. A hum, a growing roar – then nothing. Nothing ever again.
36
Two men sat at a table near the window. They appeared to be playing cards. One of the men was old, a small amount of grey hair covering an almost bald head. His face was lined and looked distorted, one side drooping down to where a dribble of saliva hung suspended from the corner of his mouth. Using one hand he carefully took a card from his pile and placed it face up in front of him.
He looked across to the younger man, one eye staring intently, the other wandering unfocused around the room. The younger man, who might have been approaching fifty, smiled and gave a slight shake of his head. Then the younger man took a card and placed it face up in front of him. The old man stared at the card, then up again at the younger man, who once again shook his head.
The process was repeated several times. Then, after the old man had put down a card, the younger man looked up and smiled and the old man started to wave his hand around. ‘SNAP,’ he shouted. ‘Snap, snap, snap. Whit dae say tae that, laddie? Ah won that – didn’t ah?’
The younger man picked up a pile of cards and tucked them under the old man’s pile. ‘Good one,’ he said.
They seemed to have stopped playing now and the younger man was talking, though whether to the old man or to himself wasn’t clear. Fragmented sentences drifted across the room. ‘…miss her, you know… so much. But now I’ve found you, eh? Need to look after you, don’t I…? Won’t desert you. Promise.’ The old man’s face moved into a crooked smile.
Two nurses looked on indulgently from the doorway. ‘It’s wonderful to see. You know he come two or three times a week.’