Hi Guy,
I don’t know if you are aware but I spoke to Mummy, who had just returned from hospital and she has a blood-poisoning issue that may be very serious. At present she is back from the hospital, resting in bed awaiting blood-test results. She asked me not to tell Jane.
That was from my brother. I called France. It rang for a long time before Susie answered. She sounded unusually weak. She liked to present a confident tone on the phone. A few years ago she had a car accident and ended up upside down in a ditch. It was the fault of the surface of the road. Suspended by her seat belt she managed to find her phone, and after trying one or two other people, called me in the UK. She asked after my kids, and whether they had received their birthday presents, there being a thank-you letter subtext. She spoke for at least five minutes before I asked her how she was and – slowly – it came to light that she was hanging upside down in a ditch. She said she really didn’t want to bother me but could I get hold of someone to come and help her. I said one word, and it was all OK: pompiers.
This time I brushed off talk of the trellis being blown off the terrace and the solution to this problem, and asked her how she was.
‘I am ill actually,’ she said in a tender, vulnerable voice, which I knew to be a terrifying state for her to be caught in. I got a fleeting glimpse of the girl who had endured an appalling childhood neglected by her parents during the war. ‘They haven’t found what it is, but they say it is an unusually aggressive infection, sending my body into trauma. I was taken by ambulance to hospital last week, all totally unnecessary. They did a lot of tests and I said I would go home. I wasn’t going to stay there.’ The adult Susie was taking back control.
A superbug. Not something to put my mind at rest.
‘How are you feeling now?’
‘I haven’t eaten anything for six days, so I’ve lost some weight. Bit of a bore as it’s made me terribly weak. The doctor came twice. She’s so nice and so friendly and has got so much time that she stayed for half an hour.’
She can’t be that bad, I thought to myself, she can still get a swipe at the NHS in.
‘This is a right bugger as it’s come at the wrong time,’ she continued.
When is the right time for a superbug? I didn’t say.
‘Right in the middle of the replanting scheme.’ She paused and lowered her voice. ‘We simply must make arrangements. Stanley couldn’t remember where the torch was and he had forgotten where the light switch is. I slept for five days, and he had to try and look after me. It was a terrible mess. He kept spilling things on the carpet and all my nighties were dirty because he couldn’t find the washing machine. I was afraid to wake up because of what’s happened. There was this terrible smell. From inside me … I had terrible dreams of spiders coming up my throat and men stealing babies.’
Stan couldn’t find the washing machine. Mum dreaming of spiders in her mouth in dirty night clothes.
‘That sounds awful,’ I said. ‘I’m so sorry I wasn’t there. You should have rung me.’
‘I didn’t want to worry you. Anyway I’m fine. And you mustn’t tell Jane.’
‘Why?’ Jane, my sister, was a musician who had a part-time job in geriatric care to make ends meet.
‘I don’t want her dropping everything and coming over here. She must earn money.’
‘I think Jane would want to know.’
‘No!’
‘She cares about you. When people love you they want to know what’s going on.’
‘She will just worry. Don’t tell her.’
I wanted to say I wasn’t going to lie to Jane, and try to explain that love was truth, but thought why get into an argument about the definition of love? It seemed counterproductive.
‘We always kind of avoid these conversations,’ Susie said. ‘The obligatory moments, as your father would have said. I was given one hour to get an overnight bag and toothpaste before getting in the ambulance and that has never happened before. I have been such an incredibly organised person. I thought I might never come home. I can’t pretend it’s not happening now. I got out, anyway. I refused to stay. Better at home than in hospital. I have a wheelchair now. We both do. Stanley’s declining much more quickly. He just is incredibly forgetful. And he has been choking so badly and he will not eat small mouthfuls.’ She took a breath, not enough of one to allow me to get in a word of sympathy. ‘Apart from that I am having a real row with the Brancusse plant nursery in Britain, as the plants they sent were not what I asked for. I wrote and said in your catalogue they are 1.5 m tall and they arrived 75 cm high. They replied with no offer of compensation or change, just some idiotic gardening advice. I said I found their reply flippant, and they should check up on who they were talking to before they told me how to plant a garden.’
‘Can’t you compromise the design?’ I asked.
‘I can’t. People will run over them or steal them. So I ordered a berberis with a sharp spine. So no one can steal it. Well they can try.’
We finished the conversation. I pictured them both in wheelchairs with Stan losing his mind. It was like Robot Wars, with them bashing into each other to get to the drinks trolley, which I remembered was also on wheels.
I phoned her back, and told her I was coming straight out to see them.
I decided to drive. I was fed up with the self-abuse of flying Ryanair. Before I left I received an email from her. It was titled I have a little list of things for you to bring.
I braced myself for the word cyanide or strychnine. But no. This is what it said:
English pork sausages. Any flavour. 2 lb.
Pork pie. 2 large ones.
Bacon. 6 packets.
Boned gammon joint × 2.
Oh my god, I thought. She’s going to euthanise them with pork products.