Cath Staincliffe - Go Not Gently

I spoke to Diane first, arranging to meet up later in the week. There was no answer from Moira’s. I rang the surgery; she’d appointments booked up until seven o’clock.

Agnes had got through to the hospital, though, and Lily was back on the ward. We could visit any time before eight o’clock but she’d still be asleep.

‘I could get a taxi,’ Agnes offered.

‘No, you’re fine,’ I replied. ‘Are you ready now?’

I explained to Ray and the children that I needed to pop out. Maddie burst into tears and clung to my leg.

‘But I don’t want you to go. I want you to put me to bed.’ She wasn’t going to listen to logic. I promised to come and check on her as soon as I got back. Together Ray and I prised her off.

‘Mummee,’ she wailed, ‘Mummee, don’t go, please, Mummee.’

My stomach curled round on itself. ‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’ I fled.

I was an awful mother. How could I do this to my child? And how could she make me feel so bloody awful?

Agnes and I made the same long trek to the ward where Lily was. Clusters of visitors gathered round the beds. The curtains were drawn around Lily’s. She was asleep and her head was bandaged.

We pulled up chairs on either side of the bed. Agnes took Lily’s hand in her own. I said I’d go see if there was anyone about we could talk to, left them to it.

There was a new shift of nurses on duty. When I enquired about Lily one of them checked the board. ‘Post-op. She’s had the surgery. She’ll probably sleep through till the morning. We’ll be checking on her throughout the night.’

‘Do you know how it went?’ I asked.

‘Not in detail,’ she smiled, ‘but she’s resting now and everything seems to be going as we’d expect. It’ll be several days before we can be sure. They’ll do more scans to check and so on but she seems to be doing very well so far.’

I reported back to Agnes. Lily lay very still. Only a slight but regular movement in her throat showed us she was breathing.

‘I’ve been finding out a bit about Dr Goulden’s caseload,’ I said. Agnes was listening attentively. ‘He’s referred six patients to Kingsfield in the last twelve months. I don’t know how many beds there are but the place is meant to serve the whole of South Manchester, and those six are from just one GP, just two homes.’

‘Were any of them like Lily? Did any of them seem all right until they went into the home?’

‘Maybe one, a bloke called Philip Braithwaite. He seemed to go downhill quickly, then they found a tumour, they did a biopsy but he got flu and died while he was here.’

‘So it could have been the tumour that complicated things,’ she mused. ‘And the others?’

‘Classic symptoms, nothing unusual, came here for scans, ended up in Kingsfield.’

We were interrupted by the nurse I’d spoken to earlier. She wanted to check Lily’s pulse and temperature.

Agnes asked how long Lily would be in hospital and whether she could tell us if the scans they had done had told them anything about her Alzheimer’s.

‘I’m sorry,’ she made notes on the chart and clipped it back on the bed, ‘I don’t know. You need to speak to Mr Simcock about that.’

At eight o’clock we left, along with the last of the other visitors, and I drove Agnes home. She wanted to speak to Charles and I was keen to find out what he knew. I followed her through to her back room where the phone was. It was bitterly cold and we both kept our coats on. The room was much more lived in than her lounge and still sported an old-fashioned creel suspended from the ceiling where clothes could be hung to dry. Edges of green lino showed around the large Indian rug that covered most of the floor. The wallpaper was some faded leaf design and here and there paintings and old photos hung. She lit the gas fire and left it on full. She found and dialled the number.

‘Charles? It’s Agnes Donlan here. I’ve just been to see your mother. Have you spoken to the hospital today? That’s right, bleeding in the brain and the operation is to clear it up. Was it Mr Simcock you spoke to? Yes, and what did he say? Good, and what about the Alzheimer’s? Really? Oh dear. When did they tell you about the fall? Well, I wish you’d let me know. I had no idea until I went to see her at the Marion Unit and she’d gone. It was an awful shock…Yes, I realise that but I really wouldn’t have minded. You can ring me at any time, I want you to…Pardon? Consent, what for? Oh, I see. Well, I suppose they have to check…She was fast asleep but the nurse said she was doing as well as could be expected. Are you planning to come up? I see.’

Agnes wasn’t best pleased by his answer. She looked over at me and raised her eyes to heaven. ‘Well, please let me know what you find out,’ Agnes was saying. ‘It’s hard for me to get any decent information and I would like to be kept informed. I’ll be going to see her again tomorrow.’ She said her goodbyes and put the phone down.

She sighed with exasperation. ‘They rang him about the fall as soon as she was admitted but he didn’t like to ring me late at night. Honestly!’ She shook her head impatiently. ‘When I’ve made it plain all along that I want to be told what’s happening. I’m the only friend she has left.’ She took a deliberate breath. ‘He says Mr Simcock said the operation had gone very well. She isn’t out of the woods yet but he said they were hopeful. But the scans confirmed she has Alzheimer’s and he said it was pretty advanced.’ She sighed again, massaged her temples with her fingers. She looked drained.

‘He’s planning to come up at the weekend and keep in touch with the hospital by phone.’

‘What was that about consent?’

‘Oh,’ she pulled a face, ‘they had to make sure Charles knew that Lily was an organ donor and see if he had any objections to her wishes.’

‘You’re joking!’

‘No, a precaution apparently, but as the doctor pointed out to him Lily is getting on in years and it’s better to think about it now than at the time of death. Lily always said she wanted to help others if she could. She gave blood for years.’ She stood up. ‘It’s so frustrating having to hear everything second-hand from Charles, when he’s miles away.’ She tutted. ‘Would you like some tea?’

‘No, I’d better be getting back. I’d like to know why Goulden was at the hospital with Mr Simcock today. I could do a bit of digging.’

‘Yes,’ said Agnes, ‘I’d like you to. And the tablets?’

‘I’ll try and talk to my friend again – she might be able to hurry things up a bit.’

The car had iced up again and the pavement glittered dangerously with black ice. I scraped the screen and turned on the fan. My shoulder ached with fatigue, I rolled it around, stretched my neck, leant my head back against the head rest. It was slightly more comfortable but I couldn’t see as much of the road surface as I needed to. I hunched forward over the wheel and drove slowly home.

Maddie was asleep, lying flat on her back, her arms flung above her head. I sat there for a few minutes gazing at her. In the other bed Tom snuffled with his cold, coughed now and then, but Maddie slept on undisturbed.

‘Moira. It’s Sal. Any news on those tablets?’

‘No. But I didn’t put them in as urgent so they wouldn’t hurry – and they’d certainly not have touched them over the weekend. Other jobs will get done first. I told you it’d be a few days.’

‘I know. Just impatient. What do you know about the neurosurgeon Simcock?’

‘He’s famous – brilliant reputation. Keeps threatening to leave and work overseas. Reckons the profession’s being bled dry. He’s had a lot of stuff in the Lancet – keen on the new technology: lasers, biogenetics too, if I remember right. Why do you ask?’