Before i die, p.12
Before I Die, page 12
Hauling herself out of her chair, Maureen went to the window. No rain. A cold day, and getting on for dark, but she had to get herself out. Ever since her discharge from the hospital, she had felt as though she was living a sort of half-life. Her brain was sluggish and her body, exhausted. Whatever that overdose had done, the effects were lasting longer than anticipated.
She puzzled again over the events of that dramatic day. Despite what the doctor said, she was sure she hadn’t taken anything like the amount of the drug they seemed to think she had. She was sometimes absent-minded, but not dotty. Taking it twice by mistake, maybe, but not more than that. Even now, with her brain operating like a 1950s computer, that thought stayed with her. She wondered if the grim young medic had got his diagnosis right.
Putting her coat on was a slow business. Her movements were awkward. Doing up buttons seemed like a skilled job. She concentrated on the task like a two-year-old. The blast of cold air that met her at the door was almost welcome. The house was heated to tropical levels now that Dolores was in control. Like the rest of her generation, Maureen’s family included, she never seemed to make the link between feeling a bit cold and wearing more clothes instead of slapping on the heating at every opportunity. Maureen wondered how any of them would have survived the Ireland of her youth. She resolved to work out how to reset the controls of the central heating when she got back from her walk. Perhaps that was what made her sleep so much? It didn’t help, anyway.
The cat sidled in the door as she made her way out. ‘Hello, Figs,’ said Maureen. ‘You’re not supposed to be out the front. We don’t want a car to get you, do we?’ She picked the cat up and stroked him, to be rewarded with a deep and rolling purr. Putting him down inside the hall, she thought he seemed a bit thin. Dolores had been feeding him in the mornings. Was she giving him enough? She determined to take back control of that, starting tomorrow. However tired she felt, she needed to reclaim her life. She had seen other people hand over the substance of their lives to their carers, losing interest in the world around them, sleeping more and more each day. She would not let herself slide into that pattern. She was not that old.
How did that poem go? By that Welsh fellow. Dylan Thomas. She struggled to remember; then it came to her. Do not go gentle into that good night/ rage, rage against the dying of the light. A morbid thought. She was not dying, but a bit of rage might be a good thing. She would not give up and fade into the twilight. She would not let them turn her into an invalid.
Outside, the icy breeze felt like an assault. It was unexpected. After so long indoors, she had forgotten what a cold day in March was like. She struggled to the end of the street, fighting the wind, but stopped when she reached the traffic lights of the main road. The shops seemed a long way off. She had to admit that she was finding it difficult. Perhaps that was enough to begin with. She turned and made her way back home. At least she had got out of doors and taken a short walk. Very short. Tomorrow, she promised herself, she would make it to the shops.
Back home, she went to make tea, but found the kitchen rearranged. Nothing was where she expected it to be. It was disconcerting. Dolores had shifted and sorted the contents of entire cupboards while Maureen slept. No permission requested. It was… she groped for the words… an invasion of privacy. She was fuming, but knew that if she complained to her daughter, she would be characterised as ungrateful and difficult. Nothing Dolores did could be criticised since the overdose. As far as Alva was concerned, Dolores was some sort of saint, and Maureen was just old and cranky and perhaps a bit irrational. It didn’t help that her thoughts were so… blocked. That was the word that came to mind. Maureen’s washing machine had blocked once. The pump had laboured on, but the waterlogged machine made no progress. It was how Maureen felt a lot of the time. If she could only clear her head. So much had happened, it was hard to keep track of it all.
Pushing her annoyance at Dolores to one side, she went about making a mug of tea. It took a couple of minutes searching to find the required materials. The tea, coffee and sugar had all been removed from the countertop where Maureen always kept them, and were now stashed in a low drawer under the counter. Maureen bent with difficulty and pulled them out, irritated, then swore as the sugar tin dropped on the floor. Her coordination was gone; it seemed that everything she did went wrong. She stooped to retrieve it, only to end up sitting on the cold stone floor as her tired legs refused to support her. There, at eye level, she found herself staring into the drawer where Dolores had stashed the tea. There was something she had missed, right at the back of it. Reaching in, Maureen’s fingers closed around an unfamiliar small plastic pot with a lid.
She brought it out into the light for inspection. Baking powder. Thrown in with the tea and coffee. Not even Dolores got it right all the time, she thought, with a sense of triumph out of all proportion to the circumstances. The cat rubbed against her leg, determined to gain her attention. Tossing the pot back where she had found it, she pulled herself upright and addressed the needy feline.
‘Yes, you don’t like her either, do you?’ she said, scooping the cat food packet out of the top cupboard, where Dolores had tidied it almost out of Maureen’s reach. At least she still had one reliable friend. The cat had good taste; he had never liked Dolores.
She decided against tea after all. It was a bit late for that; she didn’t want to be getting up during the night. Leaving Figs to crunch the fishy treats, she went to check on the rest of the house. Who knew what Dolores might have done there once she got tired of messing up the kitchen.
She went to the bedroom first. Dolores had no reason to go into it, but remembering how she had treated Frank and stolen from him, Maureen felt a need to check. Although she had slept in the room for the past four nights, she had been too dazed to register anything much. Now, she sat on the edge of the bed and looked around her, struggling to concentrate. The room was cluttered, but in a cosy sort of way, at least in her opinion. She was not a minimalist. Maureen had always thought people who were too tidy were what Ross would have termed ‘control freaks,’ with nothing better to do with their time. They had laughed together at TV ‘lifestyle’ gurus who promised to change people’s lives. She would not be spending her spare time rolling and arranging underwear into lines of perfect symmetry. Not at her age. She was not, and had never been, a tidy person.
She wished Ross were here now. And that he wasn’t leaving for the other end of the earth in a matter of days.
Her brain hurt. She wanted her life back. The life of being agile on her feet, of going where she pleased, of laughing with her grandson. Of meeting friends. The life before Frank’s death. Before her ankle injury. Before Dolores. Hard to believe that was only weeks ago. It felt like years. The urge to lie back and rest was strong, but she resisted. She knew she had to concentrate, but on what? A thought flickered through her mind, then vanished, like a goldfish glimpsed in a mud pool, but she held on to enough of it to remember Frank. Dolores and Frank. Dolores snooping. She was here to check, not to sleep.
The surface tops were filled at random with her possessions. Since she did not arrange things in any particular order, it was difficult to say if anything had been moved. Pulling open a drawer, she inspected the contents with a dazed eye. Did it look somehow more tidy than she remembered? As if somebody had pulled things out and put them back, but somebody who found it hard to toss things at random. Somebody like Dolores? Hard to say.
She scanned the room. Thick dust had settled on a table in front of the window. She would do a clean-up and pull out the vacuum cleaner as soon as she felt a bit better. There was some disturbance in the dust, as if things might have been picked up and replaced. A scent bottle, brought home as a gift by Ciara on her last visit and rarely used, had definitely been moved. A perfect circle in the dust showed where it had been before its migration across the table. Maureen looked at it for a full minute before her slow-moving brain made the logical connection. It must have been Dolores. She focused her thoughts with some effort. It seemed petty to fuss about somebody taking a squirt of scent. That wasn’t it, though. It was Dolores. She didn’t want Dolores poking around in her bedroom. Maureen needed some place that was hers and hers alone. Her refuge, a private space. The thought of that woman roaming loose in it, opening drawers and touching her possessions, set her on edge. It felt, she thought, much like having some stranger read your diary.
It was enough. If anger was what kept people alive, Dolores was certainly giving Maureen an incentive to keep going. With disturbed thoughts chasing one another at random through her head, she lay back and closed her eyes. She hadn’t done much, but she had got out of the house. It was a start. Tomorrow, she would do more.
20
The cat’s banshee wail of fury brought Maureen into the hall at maximum speed. Figs was backed into a corner, his hair standing on end, hissing and spitting at Dolores.
‘What happened?’ Maureen looked at her pet in consternation. He often hissed as Dolores went by, a gesture of hostility that she would have copied herself if it had been socially acceptable to do so, but this was more like a declaration of war. Dolores stepped out of his path and flicked a dishcloth at him as he raced for the back door cat flap.
‘Your cat, he is not nice. A vicious creature. You found him, yes? You should be careful. He might attack you too if he is angry.’
Maureen ignored her comment. She was disturbed to see poor Figs so upset. It was his home too, after all. She tried to disguise the note of suspicion in her voice as she questioned Dolores. ‘What set him off, though? He wouldn’t just… go off like that, with no reason.’
Dolores waved her hand in dismissal of Maureen’s words. ‘This is a wild animal. You should get rid of it.’ With that, she stepped away, cleaning cloth in hand, leaving Maureen to wonder what had happened to rouse such fury in the cat. She followed Dolores into the front room. The incident had reminded her of something.
‘He was outside the front door yesterday evening. Did you see him going out? He could get run over by a car out there, or savaged by a dog. I always keep him to the back garden.’
‘You were out in the street? When? You should not go out alone. You are not well enough for that. This is not a good idea.’ There was disapproval in Dolores’s voice.
Maureen was impatient. ‘I can go out if I want. I’m fine. I feel a bit better this morning. But I am worried about the cat. Please don’t let him out the front door. Okay?’
Dolores gave her a long and appraising look, then shrugged. ‘Okay. I will be careful. Now, sit here in the front room. I will bring in tea. And cake I made myself. Chocolate. A little bit will be all right for you. Today, I cook. I will leave you something to put in the microwave.’
Maureen would have been just as happy to make a sandwich for herself, but knew there was no point in arguing with Dolores. She would do what she wanted, regardless. She sat, sipped the tea Dolores put beside her, ate the cake, and made plans. Today, she would go out. She always felt at her best in the mornings, so she would go soon, while she still had some energy. Her train of thought was interrupted by a rap on the window. To her delight, Ross’s face appeared, pressed against the glass windowpane. She got to her feet as fast as she could, and made it to the front door before Dolores had realised they had a visitor. Maureen hugged Ross as if he’d been gone for a year. He laughed as he detached himself and looked her over.
‘You’re feeling a bit better? You look good this morning.’
‘I feel fine. I’m going to go out soon, while I have the energy. I need to get myself up and moving.’ Maureen felt sure that today was the day things would change.
‘That is not a good idea. Not good at all. Ross, you should tell her. She is not well enough to go out on her own. And it will rain later. I will take her out if she wants. I can drive her to the shopping centre. Or to a café. You must tell your grandmother. She does not listen to me. I waste my time talking to her.’
Shaking her head, Dolores marched back to the kitchen without waiting for a reply. Ross and Maureen trailed after her, chatting. By the time they got there, Dolores had emptied the pot to fill another cup for Maureen and made a fresh mug of tea from a teabag for Ross, which she handed to him without speaking before moving to the front room to beat and shake cushions with a noisy vigour that invaded the kitchen through the connecting door.
‘I don’t think she likes me.’ Ross mouthed the words with a mischievous smile.
Maureen laughed. ‘That’s a recommendation, believe me.’
Ross was good company. He filled her in on the family gossip, discussed the state of the world, and made her laugh. It was a welcome reminder that the world was composed of more than Maureen’s personal concerns. There was a life out there, she just had to get herself out to it, away from the oppressive presence of Dolores.
They had been chatting for about half an hour when a plaintive yowl drew their attention to the hallway. With a furtive glance towards the sitting room, where Dolores was cleaning glass door panels with an angry energy, Maureen leaned forward to fill Ross in on the cat’s morning face-off with his archenemy. Helping Maureen to her feet, Ross led the way to the hall. The cat had retreated under an old cupboard and was growling. It was most uncharacteristic behaviour. They watched for a minute without speaking; then Ross bent down and tried to lure Figs out. The cat retreated farther under the heavy piece of furniture, the growl deep in his throat.
‘Maybe he’s found a mouse,’ said Maureen. ‘They don’t like to be disturbed when they’re hunting.’
‘Maybe.’ There was doubt in Ross’s voice. ‘Could he be hurt? It might explain why he was so angry this morning.’
‘He was out the front for a while yesterday. I suppose something could have happened… but he seemed fine when I let him in.’ Maureen was remembering the events of the previous evening with some effort. ‘I picked him up, so he can’t have had injured ribs or anything serious. Not then, anyway. He was purring.’
Ross looked again at the cat, then shrugged. ‘Come on, it’s cold out here. Let’s go back to the kitchen. We can check on him later.’
Maureen relaxed back into her kitchen armchair. She had enjoyed Ross’s visit, but was feeling tired now. That was the pattern, she thought, okay in the morning for a while, then that heavy feeling of exhaustion, not just physical tiredness, but mental, too, like a blanket dropping down over her thoughts. Looking at the rain beating on the kitchen window, she decided she would not go out after all. Later, maybe. It might be better then. Ross was talking in the background. His presence gave her a sense of well-being, but she couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying. He didn’t seem to mind. As she slipped into sleep, she was aware of him kissing her cheek, and the words ‘… back later…’ filtered through. Smiling, she allowed herself to drift.
It was late afternoon before she heard the familiar tapping on the front window that heralded Ross. To her annoyance, she had slept for a full two hours despite her good intentions about taking a walk. Now, she had just finished microwaving and eating the meal Dolores had left for her, and was looking for the cat, who had not answered her call at the back door. She hoped he had not crawled off somewhere to hide, as sick cats were known to do. Hastening to the door, she thought, with relief, that Ross would help her search for Figs.
His assistance, though, wasn’t necessary. Figs was with Ross, zipped into the cat carrier she kept in the cupboard under the stairs.
‘Where did you find him?’ She was amazed, trying to come to terms with this unexpected turn of events. Ross stepped into the hall and closed the door behind him, then carried the cat into the kitchen before replying.
‘I told you, don’t you remember? I said I would take him to the vet for a checkup. You were pretty zonked, though, almost asleep, so you mightn’t have heard me.’
Maureen nodded, distracted. She had dozed off before Ross left, she knew that. ‘And is he all right? What did the vet say?’
Ross looked grim. ‘He said somebody has given the cat a vicious kicking, in his opinion. Broken ribs, bruising. The poor creature must have been in pain. He’s given him a sedative – he had to, to get near him – and some painkillers for us to put into his food for the next few days. You should keep him in the carrier overnight. Don’t want him wandering off.’
Maureen sat down, shaken by the news. ‘But… who…’ She didn’t finish the sentence. She knew who would do this to Figs. Dolores would do it in a heartbeat. If she had a heart. Ross was nodding at her, knowing what she was thinking.
‘Yeah, well. That’s the question. My guess is Dolores, and I know you believe she would do it.’ Seeing her expression, he put his arm around her shoulders in sympathy and kissed the top of her head. ‘Don’t let it get to you. She’ll be gone soon. It was two weeks, wasn’t it? Only one to go. I’ll talk to Mum; maybe she’ll get rid of her sooner.’
Maureen shook her head. ‘She won’t believe me about Dolores. You can try. Maybe it will help. But your mother thinks Dolores is a saint, not the evil bitch she is.’ She spoke with venom in her voice. Her hatred of Dolores made her feel tense and sick with fury.
Ross looked at her in consternation.
‘Look, Grammy, take it easy. It won’t do any good if you make yourself ill over her. She’d like that. A reason to stay on longer. Remember, you have high blood pressure, and you haven’t recovered from that overdose yet. I’ll talk to Mum. I promise.’
Maureen patted his arm. He was a good boy. Man. She had to remind herself that he was an adult, just about. She hadn’t burdened him with her suspicions about Frank’s death. She had mentioned it, obliquely, to Alva. Not saying outright that Dolores had killed Frank, but just that, if it wasn’t Frank’s son, then the other obvious candidate would be Dolores. That hadn’t gone down well. Alva thought hatred of Dolores was making Maureen paranoid.
