“What we really need to be thinking about now, is palliative care.”
The words seemed to fall in the unhappy stillness of the consulting room and then evaporate into nothingness. At least, that was how it felt to Roger. He certainly didn’t absorb their meaning, for he was still staring dumbly at the consultant, a kindly looking woman in her fifties with frizzy grey hair who had been seeing his mum from the start, with a look of blank incomprehension.
“Roger?” Ellen prompted gently, and he realised his mother must have said something, and he hadn’t heard.
“Sorry…what were you saying?” He turned to her, trying to focus on her face yet for some reason it blurred in front of him. Still, he knew it so well. A neat grey bob. Faded blue eyes. Skin that was wrinkly and yet soft, a smile that curled up at the corners.
“I was asking Ms Weston if I should look into hospice care,” Ellen said, her tone soft and full of sympathy…for him. She was the one with cancer, and yet she was treating him as if he were the one in need of care and support.
“No, of course not,” Roger answered swiftly. “There’s no need for that. I moved to Wychwood to take care of you, and that’s what I’m going to do.” Belatedly he realised how aggressive he sounded.
Ellen laid a hand on his arm. “Roger…the burden might be too much for you. And the last thing I want is to be a burden, to you or to anyone.”
“There is a very good hospice locally,” the consultant supplied. “A very welcoming and homely place.”
Was that supposed to make him feel better? “I don’t understand why we’re talking about hospices,” Roger declared. He still sounded aggressive.
“Because it’s time, Roger,” Ellen said gently. He couldn’t stand the fact that she felt the need to comfort him.
“But you’re perfectly healthy. I mean, you seem perfectly healthy. I know that is not actually the case, but…” His mum was fine. Yes, she was thin and frail and tired, and she often fell asleep on the sofa several times a day, and going to the ballroom dancing class was just about the only thing she could do all week, but still. She didn’t need to go into a hospice. Not yet.
“Of course, Ellen, you don’t need to go into hospice at this very moment,” the consultant said in a strangely jolly tone. Talk about inappropriate. “I think perhaps after Christmas, maybe January or February would be the time to make that transition. But it’s important to be prepared, and also to contact the hospice in question, to make sure there is space.”
“Book a room like in a hotel?” Roger filled in bitterly. The notion was offensive to him, but the consultant gave him a level look.
“Yes, more or less, I’m afraid.”
“Roger,” Ellen said softly. “We knew this was coming.”
Yes, they did, especially when, six months ago, the consultant had advised no further treatment. But there was, Roger realised, knowing something in theory, in his head, and knowing it in reality, in his heart. The two were worlds apart, and it was the second kind of knowledge—immediate, overwhelming—that was hammering him now.
“We will discuss it, of course,” he said, his voice colder than he intended, considering he was talking to his mother. “But I believe it is rather precipitous, to be talking about matters relating to hospices and palliative care at this stage in your illness.”
“Like I said, it’s important to plan ahead,” the consultant reminded him as she gave Ellen a sympathetic smile. “But I think there is some discussion that needs to happen between you two, so perhaps I should leave you to it? Unless you have any further questions, Ellen?”
“No, thank you, Gina,” Ellen replied warmly. “You’ve been brilliant. I don’t have any questions.”
Roger said nothing.
Neither of them spoke again until they were out in the hospital car park, under a steely late-October sky.
“It’s not her fault, you know, Roger,” Ellen said gently. “You need to stop blaming Ms Weston for the fact I have cancer.”
“Of course I don’t blame your oncology consultant for your cancer diagnosis,” Roger said, stumbling only slightly over the dreaded C-word. “The idea is completely nonsensical.”
“Feelings are sometimes nonsensical, Roger,” Ellen answered. “Even for you.”
“I don’t blame Ms Weston,” Roger insisted.
“It’s tempting to blame someone, though, isn’t it?” Ellen said on a sigh. “Heaven knows I’d like to sometimes.”
“I simply don’t believe it is necessary to discuss palliative care at this precise moment,” Roger said, sidestepping the whole uncomfortable blame conversation, which he definitely did not have the emotional capacity to think about.
“If my consultant thinks it’s necessary, it most likely is.”
Roger unlocked the car and opened the passenger door for his mother before he headed around to the driver’s side. “She sees you once every six weeks,” he stated as matter-of-factly as he could. “Granted she has the expertise, but she does not see you day in and day out the way I do, and so she does not have the familiarity with your situation that I have.”
“Which I believe is exactly the point. You see me every day, Roger, and so you don’t notice. It’s the same with children—you don’t realise they’re growing until you look back and see a photo of them seeming so much smaller, or their trousers are suddenly three inches too short. You always grew out of them so quickly.”
“What is the point you are making?”
“That I have been growing weaker,” Ellen stated quietly. “That I’ve been feeling…like I’m fading. Every day I feel a little less here than I used to. It’s an extraordinary feeling…but it’s also a good one. When I die, it won’t be a wrench. It will be a slipping away.”
Roger’s throat was too tight to speak, and so he simply concentrated on navigating out of the car park at the John Radcliffe. He didn’t want to think about his mother fading. She was only sixty-six.
“I’m sorry, Roger,” Ellen said. “I know this is hard on you.”
He shook his head, an instinctive movement. “It’s harder on you.”
“I don’t think it is. I know where I’m going.” His mother had been a devout churchgoer all her life. Roger did his best to attend with her most Sundays. “You’re the one who is going to be left alone.”
He didn’t need reminding of that. “Still,” he managed.
“It’s why I’ve hoped to see you settled,” Ellen said on a soft sigh. “I know you get impatient with me and my obvious attempts, but you’re a good man, Roger. You’d make a lucky woman a wonderful husband.”
Debatable in the extreme. Roger stayed silent.
“I was hoping something might have happened with Lindy,” Ellen confessed. This seemed to be the time for honesty, but Roger couldn’t rise to his mother’s heartfelt level.
“We’re just friends.”
“That’s a good basis for more—”
“I don’t think there’s going to be more, Mum. Sorry.” Despite—or perhaps because of—their heartfelt conversation a few days ago. He’d talked far more honestly with Lindy than he had with anyone else in his entire life, and he’d felt, or at least hoped, that it had been the same for her, based on what she’d said.
And yet despite that, they were still clearly friends. Just friends. They’d had a lovely time drinking tea and chatting once that brief intensity had passed, but Roger knew he was still firmly in the friend zone, and he definitely didn’t have either the expertise or confidence to attempt to remove himself from that area.
“Well, you never know,” Ellen said with a firm upbeatness that was her trademark tone. “Don’t give up hope quite yet, sweetheart.”
The fact that his mother knew he had any hope was humiliating, although unsurprising. Once again Roger didn’t reply.
*
He could have gone back to work after the appointment, and in fact he’d been intending to, but by the time Ellen was settled back in Wychwood, Roger knew he didn’t feel like logging a few hours at the office, crunching numbers. The reality of his mother’s situation was starting to penetrate the dazed numbness he’d been feeling since Ms Weston had delivered the news about palliative care—and it was being replaced with a swamping sense of desolation he couldn’t bear to acknowledge, never mind actually feel.
And yet he did feel it—it permeated every pore, took over every sense. It was like a fog surrounding him, claiming him, no matter how he tried to fight against it. A man his age shouldn’t feel this devastated, he told himself, to no avail. Losing one’s parents as an adult was the expected course of events. It was natural, more natural than the reverse, at least.
And yet everything about it felt wrong.
“You don’t have to fuss over me,” Ellen chided him as he tried to push a cheese scone on her for the third time that afternoon. “Really, Roger, I’m all right. I think I’d just like to sleep.”
Which he was keeping her from. “Okay,” he said reluctantly. “But call me if you need anything.”
“I will, I promise.”
It was four o’clock on a chilly, grey afternoon, and Roger had nothing to do. He left his mother’s cottage and walked down Wychwood’s high street, feeling at a loss. He was caught up on housework and cooking, laundry and ironing, and the weather wasn’t welcoming for a walk. Besides, wandering alone through the woods or along the river would just remind him of Lindy, and in the state he was in, he couldn’t bear to think about her—her friendliness, his mother’s wishes. His own hopes, because yes, he hoped, even though he had no real reason to.
He kept walking down the street, with nowhere to go, feeling lost in a way that had nothing to do with his physical location. His gaze blurred as he took in the quaint shops, the people hurrying to and fro, the sun blotted behind thick grey cloud. Then he focused on the Tudor-looking building in front of him—The Three Pennies, Wychwood’s remaining pub.
Roger had never been inside; he wasn’t particularly a pub man, although he occasionally made himself go out with some co-workers in Oxford when they went to the effort of asking him. Yet now he headed into The Three Pennies, resolute and on his own. He needed a drink.
*
“It’s not even five,” Emily protested laughingly as the four women headed into The Three Pennies on a wave of reckless bonhomie, with Lindy taking up the rear.
“It’ll be five by the time we get our drinks,” Ava answered blithely. “Or almost. And I’m not even drinking, so the rest of you lot better be, so I can at least watch.”
“That sounds a bit weird,” Alice teased.
It had been Ava’s idea to go out to the pub at four o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon; Lindy had been doing some paperwork at home when Ava had marched up to her door.
“I’m summoning the troops,” she’d announced. “I’ve got baby brain and swollen ankles and stretch marks, and I need sympathy.”
“Okay,” Lindy had said gamely enough. She didn’t know Ava all that well, having only socialised with her in groups, and frankly she was still a bit intimidated by her oozing sensuality and confidence, even when she was six months pregnant, but she was determined to accept any and all invitations, especially after her unexpected confession to Roger that she didn’t really have good friends.
It hadn’t surprised her, really, and yet somehow saying it out loud had been a shock. I don’t have good friends. The kind whom you called for help and they came running.
It was clearly time to start making some deeper connections, and so she’d said yes to the pub at four o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon, although judging by Ava’s breezy attitude, Lindy didn’t think this was going to be a time of deep sharing. Still, a glass of wine—or two—wouldn’t go amiss.
“So what’s everyone having?” Ava asked when they were all settled in a booth in the back. The pub was nearly empty at this time of day, with just a few people at tables scattered around, and a few old guys hunched over the bar. “I’ll do the first round.”
“Is there going to be more than one?” Alice asked dubiously.
“There better be,” Ava replied grandly, and then took everyone’s orders. Lindy settled for a boring white wine, but with a laugh, Emily had agreed to push the boat out and had ordered a passionfruit martini. Alice had gone with a fairly sedate G&T.
“So, how are the plans for your performance going?” Alice asked eagerly. It had been two weeks since she’d floated the idea, and Lindy had been busy making preparations.
“They’re going well, although we’re going to be hard pressed for time.” She’d only just started choreographing routines for each of her classes, and teaching and then perfecting it within two months would be challenging indeed, but one Lindy thought she was up for. It was good to have focus, as well as something to aim for.
“I think it all sounds amazing,” Emily said. “And who knows, maybe I can convince Owen to sign up for classes. He insists he has two left feet, but I think he could be a smooth operator if he tried.”
“All are welcome, no matter what the ability,” Lindy answered. “In fact, the less ability the better—I love seeing people find their groove.”
“Isn’t that one of your students at the bar?” Ava chimed in as she came back with a tray of drinks. “He’s got a grim face, but then he doesn’t look like the type who smiles very often.”
“What…” Lindy craned her neck to get a glimpse of the bar, a jolt of surprise running through her at the sight of Roger sitting hunched over at one end.
“Isn’t he the one you said was unsuitable?” Emily whispered, and a shot of something fierce and determined made Lindy snap, “He is not unsuitable. That was one impulsive comment made after I was pushed into it.”
“Whoa.” Ava held up a pacifying hand while Emily bit her lip, looking far too chastened. “I feel like we just hit a sore spot.”
“Sorry.” Lindy gave Emily an apologetic grimace. “I didn’t mean to lash out. It’s just…”
“You’ve got the hots for your unsuitable bloke?” Ava finished with a grin. “Go for it, girl.”
“I don’t,” Lindy said, not entirely convincingly. She glanced again at Roger, alone at the bar. Ava had said he looked grim, but then Roger often looked grim. But why was he drinking alone at four o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon? He was the last person she’d expect here.
Then she suddenly thought of Ellen, and her heart lurched. “Oh no…” she whispered, and Emily touched her arm in concern.
“Lindy, what is it?”
“I just need to check…” she murmured, barely aware of her friends looking worried around her as she headed for the bar.
As she came closer, she saw that Roger had his hands flat on the bar, and he was staring at the tumbler of whisky in front of him as if it were a chalice of poison.
“Roger…?” Lindy asked cautiously. She slid onto the bar and stood next to him. “Is…is everything okay?”
Roger sighed heavily, not breaking his gaze on the glass as he answered, “No. Not really. And it feels like nothing will ever be okay again.”