Motherlove (2 page)

Kelly lit a couple of scented candles and sat on an embroidered cushion, holding her mother's hand while they waited for the doctor.

A siren. She heard it, muffled by distance and a bank of trees, the brief blast of an ambulance edging a car out of the way up on the narrow road. Of course, Joe wouldn't have had the sense to find a GP's number, he'd have gone straight for 999. Kelly gave her mother's hand another squeeze and went to the window. Blue pulsing light. Then she glimpsed the white van bumping its way along their track.

It was too drastic, an ambulance. Not what she'd wanted. But her instinct told her it was what her mother needed. She went down and out to the yard to greet the paramedics.

‘All right, love? Where's the patient?'

Midnight. She had never known the house so silent. Which was absurd, because, if she chose to listen, there were all the usual noises of the night, the faintest creaks and rattles, the wind outside, an occasional bleat. Just like any other night. But there was an emptiness, something missing, so fundamental, the house seemed dead without it.

Kelly switched on the light, leant back against the door, out of energy. ‘Go home,' they'd insisted. ‘There's nothing you can do here. We've got her stabilised, just waiting for the test results, so you go home and get a good night's sleep.'

Joe had brought her back, thought he'd stay the night, but she'd waved him away. Joe wasn't the right companion for dealing with this – this thing. This was a lesson in being alone. As she would be, if Roz died.

It wasn't loneliness that Kelly feared. Happy and easy-going, she would always have friends, companions, lovers. But the loss of Roz would be the loss of a part of herself. She would have this place, but what sense would it make without Roz?

Carregwen, the cottage, battered and patched, tasselled cushions, wooden bowls and sandalwood and patchouli disguising the smell of damp, was Roz's home. Home in its deepest meaning. Kelly loved it as a comfortably unconventional retreat, a place to do her own thing, the good night's rest after adventure. But for Roz it was far more, totemic, something that had made her whole. Carregwen meant she was a home provider. She had filled it, obsessively, with little things, but most of all with the one prize that mattered – a family. Her daughter.

And now that daughter slid down the kitchen door, slumped on the floor and contemplated how meaningless the place would be without Roz.

‘Of course your mother seems to have a comparatively healthy life style.'

Dr Choudry pulled up a chair for Kelly. She had spoken to three hurried doctors since her mother's admittance and received a dismissive grunt from a fourth. Dr Choudry had been the most convincingly human one, so Kelly decided to corner him for explanations. He was ready to oblige; Roz's medical notes needed some urgent padding.

‘I gather she's a vegetarian.'

‘Yes, these days.' There had been a burger and chip interlude in Milford Haven, but mother and daughter had returned to the diet they'd enjoyed in the commune. ‘But she's not a vegan,' she added. Roz would have been, but Kelly had insisted that it made no sense to keep chickens and goats if they didn't eat eggs and milk.

Dr Choudry nodded. ‘She's certainly not overweight.' Tactfully put. Roz was skeletal. ‘She gets plenty of exercise?'

‘Oh yes, in the garden, you know, and she walks everywhere, and she teaches yoga. What's this got to do with her being sick?'

‘It may have helped conceal her condition for a long time. Of course if she had been signed up with a GP, gone for regular check-ups, it would have been caught long ago. This sort of diabetes can often be dealt with by simple—'

‘Diabetes? I thought it was a problem with her kidneys.'

‘That is one of the long-term problems that can arise with diabetes. Your mother agrees she has been getting increasingly tired over the last few years. There are other signs. A lot of trips to the toilet in the night?'

‘Those were symptoms? I should have done something earlier.'

The doctor smiled. ‘I'm guessing your mother would not have been very amenable. She's not a great fan of doctors. As far as I can see, the last time she had any dealings with the orthodox medical profession was at your birth. Am I right?'

Kelly tried a smile that she hoped wasn't too apologetic. ‘She likes to do things naturally. I didn't think it would matter if someone wasn't really ill.'

Dr Choudry raised his eyebrows in response. Enough said. Roz had been ill, but they had never known.

‘It's called Maturity Onset Diabetes of the Young,' he explained. ‘It usually develops in the late teens or in early adulthood – at about the time your mother disappeared off the NHS radar in fact. No rapid rush of symptoms, so she probably never appreciated them. Until now, unfortunately, when things have progressed to a relatively serious level. A very simple medication might have prevented this. No need even for insulin to start with. But now her kidneys are damaged. Eye problems too, but the kidneys are the real problem.'

‘Will she need dialysis?'

‘It may come to that. Dialysis or a transplant.'

‘A kidney transplant? She can have one of mine.'

He smiled at Kelly's instant eagerness. ‘Let's not jump the gun. She's a long way off being in urgent need of one. For now, we'll manage her condition by other means. She will need to stick to a careful diet, but I don't suppose that will be a problem.'

‘No, no problem.' Kelly was sounding calm. Could he tell, she wondered, that her insides were dissolving in panic? She needed the toilet.

Dr Choudry's hand was on her arm as she started to rise. ‘That's your mother. We also need to think about you.'

‘I'm fine. Really. Never a day's illness. I can cope with one kidney. Wouldn't that solve everything? Wouldn't that make her better? Having one of my kidneys?'

He was calming her, a hand on her shoulder. ‘Even if that were the best solution for your mother, it's not an automatic option. You might not be a suitable donor. We would have to see if your blood and tissue are a match, but first we would need to consider whether your own health would allow it.'

‘I told you, I'm fine.'

‘This type of diabetes is hereditary. Any child of a parent with MODY has a fifty per cent chance of inheriting the condition. You are, what, twenty now?'

‘Twenty-two.'

‘You should sign up with a GP, Kelly. A doctor to help you deal with any symptoms, or with any other medical complications in your life. Yes, conventional medical help, but I'm sure you can see the sense of having the option of both worlds.'

‘Yes. Maybe. I'll think about it.'

‘Think seriously. Meanwhile, there is a simple predictive test that we can do, to establish whether you have inherited the gene from your mother. That has to be the first step.'

The first step, so innocent. A simple blood sample, almost forgotten by the time the results came back. Roz was home, being nursed and bullied by her daughter, having good days, sometimes almost back to her old self, tramping the fields and counting lambs, talking to her herbs, serenely meditating. But having bad days too. While Roz had still been too weak and vulnerable to object, she and Kelly had signed on with the local surgery. As Kelly had explained, it didn't mean they ever had to see a doctor unless they chose to.

Free will. It was enough for Roz to allow Dr Matthews to call once or twice to check on her.

The surgery notified Kelly that the results of her test were back.

‘I'm clear,' she said, bursting in on her mother who was pottering gently in the kitchen. ‘No trace of your naughty genes.'

Roz sat down heavily on the farmhouse chair, dislodging the disgruntled cat. ‘You mean – what did they say? That you and I—'

‘It means I haven't got this MODY mutation. It was fifty-fifty, and I got the right fifty. Don't worry, I'm sure you've passed on plenty of other nasties to me.'

‘I have?'

‘Who knows? Do you have any more nasties you haven't told me about? Sudden baldness at forty? We'll find out soon, won't we.' Kelly filled the kettle, feeling light as a feather herself, and baffled that her mother wasn't similarly elated. ‘Anyway, this test was just for the one gene, so I may never know about the others.'

‘Oh.' Roz was smiling at last. ‘And you're clear. Oh, Kelly.' She was up and hugging her, with a small wince of pain.

‘Come on, sit down again. What sort of tea do you want?'

‘The nettle and parsley? Kelly, I am so pleased. But I knew that you would be all right.'

Kelly smiled. Back to normal – her mother sublimely confident again that things would sort themselves out. ‘The best thing is that maybe I can help you.'

‘You do help me, sweetheart. All day and every day. You help me too much.' There were tears in Roz's eyes as she reached out for her daughter's hand. ‘You shouldn't be here, stuck with me. You should be away, at college, getting that degree, making a life for yourself.'

‘I am making a life for myself. The life I want.'

‘But you don't want to be nursing me for the rest of my life.'

‘Yes, but maybe I won't need to. That's the point. Now that I know I'm not going to get this moddy noddy thing, there's nothing to stop me giving you one of my kidneys.'

‘No!' Roz looked appalled. ‘No! I won't hear of it.'

‘I've got two, you know, both as healthy as the rest of me. I'll be just as good with one and if you have the other, you'll be back to normal. See?'

But Kelly knew that look on her mother's face. She didn't want Kelly to have a needless operation. The mere mention of it was filling her with an undefined fear. Kelly could feel it. She could read every fleeting nuance of her mother's feelings; the telepathy of their lifelong closeness. ‘Surgery doesn't kill, Mum. It's all safe these days. You won't lose me on the operating table.'

‘You can't be sure of that.'

‘I am sure.' It was important to be firm and confident when Roz's anxieties took hold. ‘Look, nothing's going to happen any time soon. I'm not rushing off to hospital tomorrow. But we can be prepared. They can at least do tests, to see how well our blood and tissue match. Then—'

‘Don't, Kelly.' Roz stood abruptly. She leaned on the sink, staring out of the window. ‘Don't let them do any more tests, please.'

‘It would just be a simple test, Mum.'

‘Don't do it, please. I don't want to lose you.'

‘A test isn't going to kill me. An operation won't kill me. Nothing will kill me.'

Roz turned, tears streaming down her face.

Kelly hugged her. ‘I promise; it's just a test to see if there's a match.'

Roz's breast was rising and falling like a stormy sea. ‘What if there is no match?'

‘Then they can't use my kidney, that's all. But I'm hoping there will be a really good match.'

‘And if there isn't?'

‘I told you.'

Roz pulled back, covering her face with her hands. ‘I don't want tests. I don't want to know.'

‘Mum?' Kelly took her hands, lowering them from her face. This terror wasn't about kidneys or operations. It was something else. ‘What's the matter? What don't you want to know?'

‘I don't want you to give me a kidney.' Roz's blurred eyes were wandering, looking at anything but Kelly.

‘No, that's not what you meant. What don't you want to know?'

For a second, she could feel the great wall of resistance in her mother, straining for survival, before it crumbled like a collapsing dam.

‘I don't want to know if you're not my daughter!'

Kelly stared at her, aghast at the terror engulfing her mother. Then she absorbed the words. ‘What do you mean? Of course I'm your daughter. Why on earth—?'

‘Because.'

Roz returned to the chair. She sat, looking at her hands.

‘When I was in hospital, in the maternity ward with you… They put labels on all the babies. I woke up one night. There was some row going on outside the room. I went out, stopped a nurse, asked her, what was the fuss about. She told me that someone had muddled up some of the labels. On the babies. She said it was all right, I wasn't to worry. I tried not to worry, Kelly. I tried. But I always kept wondering, what if they'd mixed up your label and given me another baby? I kept looking at you, looking into your eyes and I was so sure I knew you. But I couldn't stop worrying. I tried to tell myself it didn't matter. As long as I didn't know for sure, they couldn't take you away. I didn't want to know. But now… If you have these tests, I'll have to know. Don't you see?'

Kelly took this in, automatically tending the kettle and the tisanes and the mugs, mopping up spilt water. It explained so much – her mother's neurotic fears for Kelly, her perpetual anxiety. A seed of terror planted in a young girl, in hospital, in a state of hormonal riot. A girl not capable of understanding that it didn't matter.