The Exit (11 page)

Her name’s Maureen. Funny I’ve not mentioned that. Maureen Mann. And I’m Catherine Mann. You’re a Mann, Catherine! You’ve got balls, my Mann? Thanks for the surname, Grandpa. Why my man-hating mother didn’t take Martin’s surname and give it to me for Christmas I never understood. Catherine Watson. Now there’s a girl who wouldn’t be bullied. Or my father’s name: Catherine Marks. That’s a girl who’d make a mark. Or something new, altogether, to be feminist about it. Like Chalmers. My name is Catherine Chalmers.

So this house was mine now. Just mine. Thanks, Maureen Mann.

I dropped to the floor of the hallway and cried into the recently repolished floorboards.

It was her clothes I went to first. Folk do that, don’t they, gravitate to the garments that had last covered their loved one, hoping the Persil non-biological liquid had not wiped out their scent completely, that the flat arms of a jumper, the crumpled legs of a pair of jeans, might suddenly fill. Mum’s wardrobe was always neat. A huge walk-in number that she’d had built one rainy November when she last revamped her bedroom. I shouldn’t have been surprised when I switched on the light. All her clothes, and all her shoes, were gone. She hadn’t even left me the things I stole regularly at that bloated time of the month – a windcheater from the Great Barrier Reef, a pair of yoga pants from H&M, a baggy blue T-shirt from I don’t know where. I bet she considered keeping these things, but decided it’d just make things harder for me. She’d have imagined me agonising about throwing them out, being unable to, locking the room as a shrine, thereby wasting a very well-proportioned and brightly lit room that could house a gym set or a painting studio or a room-mate or a baby. The wardrobe smelt of bleach and carpet shampoo. I checked in the en suite, hoping for a half bottle of Chanel 19, or that lip liner I loved. There was nothing in the bathroom. Not even a toothbrush. As I went through the flat, I realised that my mother had wiped the scene of the crime. Her DNA was not to be found here.

In the study she’d left three photo albums, but had cleared everything else. She’d left a pile of envelopes, each labelled, containing copies of the documents I’d already seen at Dear Green.

The skip was still at the front of the flat. I jumped inside it, ripped at black bin bags, but none of her clothes were there, just papers and broken kitchen utensils, shit like that.

I grabbed Mum’s keys, ran to her car, and drove too fast to our local Oxfam, crying all the way. I didn’t know the shop assistant who approached me carefully and picked up some of the clothes I’d tossed to the floor, but she was quite kind about it, asking: ‘Are you okay?’

‘Do you know Maureen Mann?’

‘Of course.’

‘I’m her daughter. I think she brought some things here by mistake.’ I realised I was in my PJs. I must’ve looked crazy.

The labelled boxes I’d seen in the hall last week were in the back of the shop, empty, the contents piled onto tables with other donations. The shop assistant, over fifty but not the usual twin-set type, assured me they hadn’t been washed yet, and shut the door to give me privacy while I went through them.

Those grey trousers were hers. She wore them last time she went to London. The green T-shirt was hers. She wore that around the house all the time – slob wear. Her Barrier Reef windcheater, her baggy blue tee – phew! I put it on over my T-shirt. One by one I identified her clothes, folded them, smelt them, linked them with a memory.

I gave the assistant all the cash in my wallet, and drove home to put my mother’s clothes back where they belonged.

Paul was waiting on the step when I arrived home with a huge laundry bag of clothing in each hand. ‘Sure-fire way to get someone to read your previous email?’

His smile looked a little guilty: he shouldn’t feel so happy at a time like this. ‘Please ignore previous email.’

I put the bags down by the door and sat beside him. ‘Mum tried to give all her clothes away.’ He put his arm around me, and pushed my head gently till it rested on his shoulder. ‘This might have ended quite romantically if I wasn’t going to tell you I had sex with a revolting creep before I sent that email.’

I could feel his shoulder stiffen a little. I lifted my head, waiting for a response. Eventually, it came. ‘Have you showered?’

‘For about an hour.’

He pushed my head back on his shoulder.

Paul helped me put the clothes back in Mum’s wardrobe, then went to the kitchen to defrost some soup for me. I must have fallen asleep on the sofa before he brought it back. I woke mid-afternoon to find a note on the coffee table. (
Get some rest. I’ll call you later, Love Pxxx.
) The telephone rang. ‘Is Maureen there?’

‘No.’

‘Can you leave her a message? It’s Davy, back from holidays. Just to say I can fix the tiling in the bathroom. Can you get her to call me?’

I hung up and went to the main bathroom. How annoying it must have been for her to leave a room imperfect. A tile had fallen off above the sink about three weeks ago. I touched the wall behind it. For the first time in her life, Mum had failed to complete all the things on her list. I loved it! I would never fix that tile.

There were a lot of missed calls on the landline. I scrolled through the numbers; it was obvious that people knew now. Her friends from work, her aunty in New Zealand, her best mate, Antonio, and a few of my old school friends, including Gina and Rebecca. Paul had left about ten messages from before today.

I got dressed, grabbed my bag and drove to Natalie’s house. She didn’t answer the door, so I poked my head over the side gate and spotted her reading on the back decking as her six-year-old jumped on the trampoline.

‘Catherine! Come in. How are you?’

I hadn’t told her about Mum, and cried when I did. ‘Oh, you poor thing. That’s just awful.’ I didn’t know Natalie at all, but when she hugged me I felt like I did. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’

‘Well, I’m really thirsty.’

Home-made lemonade poured and iced, I gave her Rose’s latest drawing, which she read with the same sad sigh as last time. The picture featured mangled faceless figures clambering around a bed in Room 7.

‘She’d be much happier somewhere in the city. Could you talk to Chris about it? He won’t even take my calls. Surely he could find somewhere else.’

When she asked how Rose was doing, I was surprised by my answers. Since we’d last spoken, she’d run away to the police, tried to phone them, her grandson had put an electronic tag on her ankle against her wishes, and her bedroom door had been locked from the outside so she couldn’t get out.

‘Electronic tag? Jesus! They locked her door?
Jesus!
’

‘Mummy, can I watch
Dr Who
?’ Wee Joey’s jumping didn’t ease as he spoke. He was the cutest boy I’d ever seen.

‘Sure thing, my darlin’. Let me get you down from there.’ Natalie unzipped the trampoline safety net, and helped him down. We followed him inside. Natalie switched on the TV and kissed him on his chubby cheek. ‘The others will be back soon. Mind if I get some food organised? You would not believe how much these boys eat.’

I sat at the bench while she chopped onions. ‘I can understand how frightening it is for relatives when a loved one wanders off, but what about consent? Even offenders have to agree to tags. I’d complain, but they wouldn’t listen to me. Could you? It’s not right.’

‘Yeah, okay. I will. You’re right, it’s out of order, isn’t it?’

I noticed some framed illustrations on the wall in the kitchen, all of a pretty little blonde girl doing normal things – eating strawberries, playing games, looking happy. I homed in, noticing something they all had in common. ‘These look like Rose’s?’

‘Yeah, she drew them between the ages of ten and seventeen. They were never published.’

‘She gave you them?’

Natalie nodded.

‘Are they the originals? They’d be worth a fortune.’

‘She gave me the originals, yeah, but I don’t have them any more. These are copies. Long story.’ Natalie wiped her eye – the onion, I supposed.

‘Hey, Natalie, have you got the other two Kings and Queens ones she drew?’

Natalie fished them out of a box file on her bookshelf. I scrutinised them beside the ones of Margie on the wall. ‘Why does she put green wellies in all these pictures? She didn’t do that in Tilly books, did she?’

Natalie stopped chopping onion, and put her hand on her mouth, shocked. ‘Oh my God, I completely forgot. She told me about the wellies when she gave me the ones of Margie.’

‘What about them?’

‘If there are green wellies in her pictures, it means she was there, that it happened, that the picture is the truth. It was a kind of secret code she had, to help her remember Margie.’

I looked at the one of Beatrice. In the drawing of the room, there was a framed picture on the wall – inside the frame, a large pair of green wellies. ‘So this picture means she saw someone putting lipstick on Beatrice.’

I looked at the next one. This time, the wellies were on the Queen’s feet. The picture on the wall of the room was a map of Loch Lomond. ‘Loch Lomond. Bonnie, bonnie banks.’

We both said it at the same time. ‘Emma.’

‘Which means she saw Emma in Room 7 as well? What does “Oh, so full of woe” mean?’

‘Wednesdays child. Was Emma born on a Wednesday?’

‘Don’t know. She died on a Wednesday.’

‘So what’s the latest one about?’

I homed in on the figure on the bed. Small, bony, and – I hadn’t noticed this the first time I saw it – with a black beanie, the Billabong label in beige lettering. ‘Oh, that’s Jason’s hat, exactly. I think she’s drawn the boy who just moved back in. Why has she drawn him? But there are no wellies, so it’s not something she’s seen.’

We put the three pictures on the bench, side by side. The only other thing they all had in common was the Queen and her bright red lips.

‘I wonder if this is that nurse, what’s her name?’

‘Gabriella.’

‘I know dementia patients suffer from paranoia, but do you think there’s a chance something is going on there?’

I told her about the log entries for people who’d died, and how they had been written in a fountain pen – the kind Gabriella used; and then there was her attempt at euthanasia with her son.

‘I’m going to do a bit of snooping. Brian might help.’

‘Who?’

‘My husband. He’s in social work too. High up: wears suits. And I need to see Rose. You think you could take her for a walk along the river tomorrow afternoon, say at two? They wouldn’t find out, I’d be careful.’

‘Sure. If you park at the petrol station, you can take the path down to the river by the bridge. We’ll meet you at the huge tree about fifty feet from the road, by the bend in the river. You’ll see it.’

Back at home, I checked my mobile phone for the first time in days. One text from Marcus (
Thanks for that, smiley face, etc., etc.
). I deleted his text immediately, as it reminded me . . . ew. There were twenty-eight from various school and college mates. A bunch of texts and missed calls from Paul. And a voicemail from Mum: ‘Hey, Cath, I’m feeling good! Hope you’re getting some rest. Just ringing ’cause I finally got hold of the tiler and he can fix that tile in the bathroom at three today, that’s Wednesday. Just make sure you’re there to let him in, yeah? His name’s Davy. I’ve paid him already.’

I couldn’t help but smile.

Oh, it was the weirdest thing. Not a feeling, an absence. Rose had enjoyed a few lengthy periods of lucidity recently, but this one was the best. She’d been at her desk for an hour, and she really felt like writing something new. That morning, she’d begged Gabriella to let her out of her room so she could use the computer in the activity room. With Gabriella keeping a ridiculously close eye on her, she searched sites and read posts in forums from people like her, or from carers of people like her. After being locked back in her room, she’d sat at her desk and tried to write about it. Her latest attempts at children’s books were laughable. Perhaps she should start a blog. Tales of the demented! Good one. The pen was in her hand, but nothing was coming. She just couldn’t describe it. It was . . . She tried to think of something to compare it to, some feelings related to things she’d been through.

Not Margie’s death, that was vivid as all hell. Not the news that her father was missing in action, which came two months after her mother collected her – and Margie’s body – from the farm. Not the time her mother accused her of losing Margie’s locket, the one she’d been given for her fifth birthday. Rose’s mum and dad had spent half a month’s wages on the locket, overwhelmed with joy that their sickly little girl had survived a near-fatal asthma attack. Inside the locket was a photo of her mum and dad. It was a beautiful photo, taken just before the war, when the girls were wee and there was nothing to worry about. Her dad was beaming in it, just like he did when he told Rose stories at bedtime. They’d told Margie to wear it around her neck always, to touch it and think of her parents when she was feeling unhappy or breathless, that the locket would keep her safe and calm and healthy and happy. When Rose’s mum arrived at the farm, her baby girl was laid out on the dining room table, Violet the doll tucked beneath her crossed arms, but there was no locket around her neck. For the life of her, Rose could not remember when she’d last seen it. She felt implicated in its loss.

‘Do you know where it is?’ her mother asked. ‘Please try and remember!’

Before leaving the farm to go home, Rose had scoured the farmhouse, the sheds, the riverbank. She’d even trawled the river with a colander. She’d questioned all the other children, certain that one of the little twerps had stolen it, recalling Margie saying that Bridget had taken it one night when she was sleeping, and Margie had to fight with her to get it back. But she couldn’t find it, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen it, probably because she’d been self-absorbed at the time. Selfish, selfish girl.

There were so many feelings related to this experience, but none of them helped her write about this illness.

It wasn’t a feeling, the disease, that’s the thing. It was a lack of it. A lack of everything. It was like writing about a shapeless shadow.

She looked at the photos on her wall. There was Vernon at a restaurant table on his fortieth birthday. Such an old-fashioned name, Vernon. How she’d fancied that tall dapper man when they first met at the dancing in the East End of London. He spoke so little! Rose immediately assumed this was because his mind was overwhelmed with thoughts that were too complex and strange to share with others. He’d share them with her, she decided, and she’d understand. He half-smiled all the time, a witticism taking place in his head, no doubt, that she assumed was the same one she’d just thought. He intrigued and enticed her and she set about creating a story for him, writing his biography at night in bed, imagining him painting works of secret genius in his basement, explaining his philosophical views in university journals, making heartfelt and hilarious speeches at charity events. Vernon was the best character she ever wrote. And purely fictional. They married before she realised that his little smile was due to the shape of his lips, not a complex internal social commentary, and that his silence was because he couldn’t think of a thing to say. They had two children together. He did his law degree in Glasgow and stayed there to become partner in a conveyancing firm. She was soon glad he didn’t like talking much, especially about his work.

She wasn’t glad when he died, aged fifty-two. He was a kind, hard-working family man. He provided and he spent time with the children. A week after his death, she was planting tulip bulbs in the garden. The sun was shining, and stories started filling her head. She’d done the wife-and-mother thing, perhaps to try and make up for her failure at the daughter-and-sister thing. She’d done well. But husband and children were gone now. She almost ran to the desk in the corner of the living room. She finished her first book in one month. Two months later, she had a three-book deal.

She’d met Vernon at seventeen, and stopped drawing pictures of Margie with wellie boots in them. Marriage, then motherhood, doused her grief and her guilt, and her father’s last words didn’t seem so important any more. She came to terms with what had happened. She was a good wife, a good mother, a good person and then, after Vernon died, she was a good writer. It was the dementia that brought her father’s words back. He whispered them over and over as she wandered the maze.

The page in front of her was still empty. How could it be that she couldn’t use this hiccup creatively? She’d always used everything that ever happened to her, no matter how awful. Being an evacuee. Losing a sister. That time the farmer fed them her favourite cow for Sunday dinner, and she knew the beef was Josie, but she was so hungry she ate anyway. She’d used childbirth, widowhood, even the coming out of her gay grandson (this particular plotline was vetoed, not surprisingly). But she couldn’t use this, because she couldn’t feel it.

Rose had often worried about getting arthritis, like the farmer’s wife, whose hands had set in a gnarled knot. What if that happened to her? What if she couldn’t draw? But arthritis would have been fine. She wouldn’t have been able to draw, but she could have written, used an assistant, like the new girl, or dictated into a tape.

She looked on the wall for inspiration. There was Janey, her first born. So sullen and shy, like her father. So very serious. A millionaire now. There was Elena, happy with her partner in Canada and their two little girls. Rose would love to get on a plane and visit them again. And Chris, always here for her, bossy boots that he was.

Rose looked at the calendar on her wall, one of the devices the idiots in here used to keep her oriented. It was Thursday today.

Thursday morning! Oh, that’s right. Thursday morning. She left the desk and stood at her window, waiting for the inevitable.

And it was only forty-five minutes before it came. When the trolley passed, the new girl unlocked her room, came in, and took her hand. ‘Let’s go and wave him off, Rose.’

Rose was beginning to like this girl. Tragedy had pummelled the dullness out of her. Rose took her hand and they watched Jason’s body being rolled towards the ambulance. Just twenty-one. She’d achieved nothing at twenty-one, except killing her sister. She wondered if Jason had achieved anything.

She turned to Catherine as the ambulance drove off, his parents and his sister in the car behind. ‘I remember now. That’s what I was trying to tell you.’

‘What?’

‘That Jason would die.’

‘Is that why you drew the picture of him in bed?’

‘Yes, because he was going to die. I knew it. I was trying to stop it.’

‘But we all knew he was going to die, Rose, even he knew. No one could stop it.’

‘No, that’s not what I meant at all.’

‘What did you mean?’

‘What?’

‘What did you mean then?’

Rose leant in so close that she could feel the girl’s breath on her cheek.

‘Your breathing’s getting worse, Margie.’