Margot Mander would never forget the night near the end of Marcus’s final university term, because she knew it was the night she had nearly lost him for good.
He had come home for the weekend; mostly, it seemed, because he wanted to tell Margot and Mother that he had been offered a job with a firm of translators in south London.
‘I’ve been for one or two interviews with other companies, but this is the one I wanted. They do a lot of conference work – interpreting for businessmen at conventions – which would be brilliant. There’ll be a good deal of grunt work as well, of course – translating textbooks and manuals. I’ll probably be on that at first, until I prove my worth.’
‘How lovely,’ said Margot.
‘And I’ve found a flat, quite near to the office,’ said Marcus. ‘Well, it’s a few tube stops along and you have to change lines midway, but it’s not so bad.’
‘It all sounds very exciting.’ Margot was daring to hope that this might be what she had waited for; that he might tell her they could be together at last. Would she dare to actually live in London? But she would be with Marcus. She would do it if he asked her. And something could be worked out about Mother, surely.
But after Mother had gone up to bed, Marcus said, ‘The flat I’ve got is pretty basic. Not much more than a couple of cupboards, but London prices are terrifying, and it’ll do for the time being.’
Clearly Margot was not going to be part of this new scenario, and disappointment rose up, but then Marcus said, ‘I haven’t forgotten what we talked about that night, Margot. When we found the letter to Lina about that house, you remember. It was in a German town called Lindschoen’
‘I remember.’
‘Have you still got the letter?’
‘Yes. Oh, yes.’
‘We got a bit carried away that night, didn’t we – well, I was pretty potted, I remember. But I said that all we needed …’
He stopped, but the sentence finished itself in Margot’s mind. All we need is for Mother not to be here any longer …
‘I remember everything,’ she said, a bit breathlessly.
‘Good girl. It can be our goal, that house.’
‘When do you start work?’
‘As soon as term ends. I’m moving into the flat as soon as I can.’
‘That’s nice. I’m really pleased for you. I’m glad about the flat, too.’
She waited for him to say she must come to see it, even spend a weekend there, but he did not. A vicious disappointment sliced through her. Again, thought Margot. He always does this; he always lets me down when I’m expecting something. She was aware of a stab of anger, because he should have sensed her feelings.
But he did want them to be together. He had said so. Margot reached for that memory and held it hard. All we need is for Mother not to be here any longer, he had said.
‘I’ve got a cold starting,’ said Margot’s mother, a couple of weeks later. ‘Actually, I think it might be flu.’
‘Go to bed early. I’ll bring you some paracetamol and some hot milk with whisky.’
‘I might need the doctor in the morning. You’d better phone the office and tell them you can’t go in. Flu shouldn’t be neglected. Not at my age.’
Margot’s mother was nowhere near an age where you had to worry about neglecting flu, but Margot helped her into bed, then went downstairs to heat the milk. Pouring it into a mug, she had the oddest feeling that it was not her hands that were doing this. Here were the paracetamol; the box said two tablets every four hours. How many would knock you out? Six? Eight? How many would tip you beyond being just knocked out?
She carried the tray upstairs. ‘Drink the milk while it’s hot. And I’ll leave the box of paracetamol on the bedside table for you.’
‘Could I make an appointment for my mother to see a doctor, please? Mrs Mander, Forest Avenue.’
‘Next Tuesday at ten?’
‘Couldn’t it be sooner? It’s Thursday today, so—’
‘Is it an emergency?’
‘Not exactly. She’s had a touch of flu, I think. A bit of a high temperature. It’s been a couple of days now.’ And then, because it was important to keep as close to the truth as possible, she said, ‘She was sick yesterday, as well.’
The receptionist said there were a lot of those kinds of viral infections around at the moment. Stomach bugs, if you wanted a layman’s term for it. They generally cleared up within four or five days.
‘It’s left her very low, though. Very depressed,’ said Margot.
‘I expect it will. But unless you’re telling me it’s an emergency, next Tuesday’s the earliest date I can give you.’
‘Yes, all right. What should I do in the meantime?’
‘Make sure she has plenty of fluids for the vomiting. And paracetamol for the fever. Only six paracetamol in any twenty-four hours, though – at the absolute maximum, eight. It’s important to remember that.’
‘Yes, I understand. I’ll be careful,’ said Margot.
‘If the condition deteriorates severely, phone back, and if it’s out of surgery hours, the out-of-hours number is on our voicemail. Or, in a real emergency, 999, of course.’
‘Yes, of course. Thank you.’
Margot rang off, and went into the kitchen to make a hot lemon drink for her mother.
It rained for the whole of Thursday, and for all of Thursday night. When Margot got up on Friday morning, it was still raining – a ceaseless, despairing drizzle that turned the rooms into dim underwater caverns, and seeped through badly fitting window-frames, dripping on to the floors directly beneath. The house was in a shockingly run-down state. Margot mopped up the rainwater, and put down a couple of old bathroom mats to catch any more drips.
She took her mother breakfast on a tray, which her mother said she could not eat because she still felt sick. When, later, she complained of stomach pains, Margot brought hot milk with brandy, then fetched a hot-water bottle, because her mother said she was cold. No, she did not want the electric blanket on. She might be sick all over it, and electrocute herself, had Margot thought of that? Margot left a bowl by the bed, in case of sickness, then suggested bringing the small radio in – it could go on the bedside table and it would be cheerful and company. Or something to read, perhaps? But her mother could not be doing with raucous voices telling her about the dreary events in the world, and her head ached too much to read.
‘Close the curtains, would you? The light hurts my eyes.’
Margot closed the curtains. In the dim light, her mother looked shrunken and her skin was sallow.
‘I’ll fetch Lina’s walking stick, shall I? You can use that to knock on the floor if you need anything. I’ll come up later, though.’
She found the walking stick, which Lina had used when her rheumatism was troubling her, and took in a jug of lemon barley water and the paracetamol. Six only every twenty-four hours.
She was doing everything a devoted daughter should do. It was important to keep that in mind.
Later, when she went upstairs again, her mother was asleep. That would be the paracetamol; they could build up, everyone knew that. Margot counted the pills left in the box.
She tiptoed in again at midday, but her mother was lying in the same position, so Margot closed the door and went out.
It was nearly nine o’clock that evening when she heard a tapping from overhead. It was startlingly loud in the quiet house, and Margot’s heart lurched. It could not be her mother, it could not. Not after three days of so carefully administering the paracetamol. Of counting the pills so diligently. Staggered dosage, it was called. It built up in the body.
Margot pressed her hands over her ears, so she would not hear the sounds, but she knew they were still going on. And if you were a dutiful daughter, you would not ignore such a sound. You would go up to see what was wanted, or whether anything was wrong. It was the kind of thing you would tell people afterwards. ‘I heard her knocking on the floor,’ you would say, ‘so I went up to her room.’
But you might not immediately hear the knocking. You might be in the kitchen clattering crockery around, or you might be watching television with the sound high. You might be washing your hair, water splashing around your ears. In any one of those situations, it might be quite a long time before you heard the tapping. Could it be as long as an hour? It was now quarter past nine. At quarter past ten Margot would go upstairs.
At ten o’clock the tapping came again, but Margot waited doggedly for the clock to crawl round to quarter past, then took a deep breath, and went out to the hall.
And once there, she almost laughed with relief, because she could hear the sound more clearly now, and she knew what it was. Something called water hammer. It had been a nuisance earlier this year, and a plumber had eventually come to the house. He had sucked his teeth and shaken his head, and said, short of ripping out floorboards and relaying the old pipes, there was not really a cure. The pipes were out of true with one another, that was the problem; they juddered when water was forced through them.
A dutiful daughter would go up to her mother’s room about now, though. To make sure her mother was comfortable for the night, to see if anything was wanted. Margot made her way up the stairs, moving slowly.
The bedroom was almost exactly as she had left it. Well, not exactly, but near enough. She made sure the curtains were still closed against the rainy night, and she collected the used cup and saucer from the bedside table. She took away the jug that had contained the lemon barley drink so it could be thoroughly washed along with the cup and saucer, but she left the box of tissues, because they were things people wanted to hand when they had flu. After thought, she fetched a book from her own room and put that by the tissue box.
Then she said goodnight to her mother. There was no response, of course.
Margot went back downstairs, knowing that she had done absolutely everything right, everything a devoted daughter could have been expected to do.
At eleven o’clock she reached for the phone and dialled the number of Marcus’s flat. There were several anxious seconds when she thought he was not going to answer – that he was not there, or perhaps he was too busy to pick up the phone. But then she heard his voice, and she said, a bit breathlessly, ‘Marcus, I’m really sorry to phone so late, but I think you ought to come home. Right away, I mean. This weekend. Mother’s quite ill and I’m not coping very well.’
‘I can’t possibly come this weekend,’ said Marcus. ‘A deadline’s been brought forward for a client, and I’ve said I’ll go in to the office tomorrow morning to finish things, so the printers can have the final cut first thing on Monday.’
‘But—’
‘Marg, I can’t. I’ve been given sole control of this project, and I’ve only worked here five minutes, so I’ve got to prove my worth. You can understand that, surely?’
He sounded impatient, so Margot said, ‘Oh, yes.’
‘In any case, Ma’s always being not well. What’s wrong with her this time?’
‘She’s had a cold. She thinks it might be flu.’
‘She always thinks a cold’s flu,’ said Marcus.
‘No, I think it really is. And she’s been sick and she’s got stomach pains. The surgery said it would be a stomach bug.’
‘If it gets worse you can call the doctor, can’t you? No, all right, not at this time of night, but aren’t there emergency paramedics or something? There’s no need to panic.’
I am panicking, thought Margot. For pity’s sake, just for once, can’t you understand what I’m feeling! But aloud, she said, ‘Marcus, I really don’t know what I should do. Couldn’t you manage to come? Could you bring the work with you?’
‘I suppose I could bring the laptop,’ said Marcus, a bit reluctantly. ‘Ma’s a sodding nuisance, though. She’ll be as right as rain in a couple of days – she always is. But OK, I’ll collect everything from the office early tomorrow, and drive straight down. Reach you around lunchtime, if the weekend traffic isn’t too snarled-up.’
Tomorrow. Only twelve hours away. Say fourteen. But the entire night to get through, knowing what lay upstairs …
But Margot said, ‘Thanks. I’ll have some lunch ready for you.’ She would not dare leave the house to get extra shopping, but there was food in the fridge and the freezer.
‘How about if I speak to the old girl now? I can usually cheer her up. Take the phone in to her.’
‘No, I won’t do that. She’s fast asleep at the moment, and I don’t want to wake her.’
After she put the phone down, Margot discovered she was afraid to go to bed. Around half past eleven she switched off all the lights, though, because neighbours might notice if lights were shining into the night. People noticed each other’s routines when they lived in the same road. They might notice the lights, and say afterwards that it had seemed a bit unusual, because Mrs Mander and her daughter usually went to bed around eleven each night. So the lights all had to be switched off, and ordinary things like putting out the empty milk bottles had to be remembered.
Margot did all this, trying to be systematic, trying not to forget anything. She was still quite frightened, but it helped to focus on these details. It helped even more to remember the exact conversation with Marcus, and how she had said her mother was asleep. And that phone call to the GP’s surgery – she had asked that anxious question about what best to do for flu, and she had confirmed she understood about not exceeding the dose of paracetamol.
The house was dark and creaky all around her, and she huddled into a corner of the sofa in the living room. Around midnight she went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea, trying not to creak the doors, moving as quietly as she could. Turning on the tap sent the water hammer juddering and knocking again. It was important not to wonder if it might be frenzied knocking on the floor from the bedroom above.
The water hammer had a horrid macabre rhythm, and the cold tap started dripping as well, and Margot could not turn it fully off. The hammer would die away, but the dripping tap would go on maddeningly all night. Drip-drip. Like the drip of all those poisoning memories throughout her entire life. Christa Cain. A murderess …
Rain was still lashing against the windows, like frozen finger bones, tapping to get in, and the dripping tap was like a horrid sly voice saying, We-know-what-you’re-doing. You-can’t-run-away. We’ll-find-you …
Marcus arrived shortly after lunch next day, bringing the cold wet morning in with him, setting down the laptop case and a small bag with his overnight things. He threw his jacket over the banister, and said, ‘I suppose you’re going to tell me she’s recovering by now, aren’t you?’
‘She’s asleep,’ said Margot. ‘So I haven’t disturbed her. It’s good to sleep when you’ve got flu, isn’t it? She didn’t even want the curtains opened, so I didn’t.’
‘I’ll go up.’
He went up the stairs, two at a time, as he always had done. Margot stayed downstairs, clenching her fists. What if—
It felt as if centuries passed – as if worlds were born and died – before he came back downstairs. Margot found she was offering up a silent prayer. Please let it be all right. Please …
When Marcus appeared, his face was white, and there was a look of shock in his eyes, but when he spoke, his voice sounded normal.
He said, ‘Phone the ambulance, will you? Now – this minute. Didn’t you bloody realize?’
‘What’s happened? She was asleep—’
‘She isn’t asleep,’ said Marcus. ‘She’s unconscious. I think she’s in a coma.’