Scissors, Paper, Stone (20 page)

But the worst thing of all was that Maya, with her easy phone manner, her colour co-ordination and her inherent sense of style, appeared so confident, so powerful and so very much in control of things. She did not look like a woman whose beloved husband had walked out on her. And, all at once, Charlotte started worrying that it was not Gabriel who had done the leaving, but Maya. What if he had been lying to save face? What if he was still in love with his ex-wife but had to ignore it, push it to one side and pretend it no longer mattered? What if . . .

Just at that moment, Maya turned her head to look over her shoulder, the hair swinging back slickly to reveal the contours of her face. She seemed to stare directly at Charlotte without seeing anything. They looked at each other for a second, uncomprehending; two women disconnected and yet inextricable. Then Maya turned and carried on walking.

It had only lasted for the briefest of seconds, a barely perceptible crease in the flatness of the day, and yet something about it stayed with Charlotte. It reminded her of another memory, another moment, another uncomprehending stare. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but it made her feel strange; unsettled and sad. It was something about the look through the windscreen, the fact that Maya had shown no recognition or understanding despite the level of Charlotte’s own intensity.

It was only when she had revved the engine and was backing out of the tight parking space that Charlotte remembered. The vision came to her with such shattering force that her bumper crashed into the car behind.

It was her mother. It was Anne, looking at her, meeting her gaze without acknowledgement. It was Anne’s eyes that seemed so cool, so weirdly detached, so impassive. Her mother was looking at her and her eyes were blank, vacant, dug like deep holes into her face. And it was Charlotte, cowering in the corner, small, lonely, scared, who was asking her for help.

Anne; Charlotte

Anne had a favourite doctor at the hospital. His name was Dr Lewis but he insisted that she called him George. ‘It makes me feel less old,’ he explained. Anne, to her embarrassment, heard herself giggling.

Dr Lewis was young with florid cheeks and an imposing physique that looked as though it might run to fat in later life. His black-brown hair was curly and slightly too long, hanging just below his earlobes so that he resembled a 1970s footballer. But he was undeniably attractive. There was something about his manner – reassuring, authoritative, kind but not overly familiar – that she responded to. She felt that he did not patronise her. He did not, like the nurses, call her ‘dear’ or ‘sweetheart’ or ‘love’ or any of those infantilising terms of professional friendliness that she so hated. Instead, he scrupulously referred to her as Mrs Redfern. She had never asked him to call her Anne.

They were sitting in Dr Lewis’s office. It was a small room overlooking the river, furnished in shades of pale birch. Thick certificates and medical textbooks populated the shelves. A photo frame stood on the desk, its face turned inwards so that Anne, to her frustration, could not see whether the picture it contained was of a wife, a girlfriend or a child she never knew he had. There was a wilted rubber plant in a pot by the window, its leaves dusty.

‘You should spritz some water on that,’ said Anne, pointing vaguely at the plant.

Dr Lewis looked momentarily mystified and then turned to follow her gaze. ‘Oh,’ he said, his face breaking out in a smile. ‘Yes, I know. I have been rather remiss. I’m not a natural gardener. You?’

‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I mean, I’m not brilliant at it. But I like growing things. I find it calming.’

It felt as though she had confessed something deeply intimate. Why was she wittering on like this, she wondered? Dr Lewis was a busy man. He had better things to do than talk about gardening.

‘Sorry. You wanted to talk to me about Charles?’

‘Yees,’ said Dr Lewis, stretching out the single syllable and steepling his hands. ‘There is no easy way to say this, Mrs Redfern . . .’

‘You don’t need to worry. I’m quite prepared.’

He nodded his head politely, as if acknowledging his relief that she was a superior sort of woman who wouldn’t get hysterical but who could be trusted to remain calm, dispassionate and logical. Anne drew herself up in her chair, taking a deep breath and steeling herself to remain impressive at all costs. She wanted Dr Lewis’s good opinion.

‘I know that we’ve had a few conversations over the past weeks about your husband’s condition. We are now getting to the point where difficult decisions need to be made,’ he paused, allowing this to sink in. Anne met his eyes with level coolness, waiting patiently for him to continue. ‘In general, the longer the coma, the less likely it is that the patient recovers. Mr Redfern suffered a severe brain injury and has now been in a comatose state for six weeks. He exhibits no voluntary movement or behaviour. We did all we could to reduce the swelling and bleeding in the brain, but the prognosis is – and I’m sorry to have to tell you this – extremely poor.’ Another pause. ‘It is my professional opinion that Mr Redfern will never fully recover. The risk is that he will spend the rest of his life in a persistent vegetative state unless –’

‘Unless we switch him off,’ said Anne, matter-of-factly.

Dr Lewis looked taken aback. ‘I wouldn’t put it quite in those terms,’ he said, an understanding smile creeping across his face. ‘And naturally, we will continue to give him the very best level of care as long as you consider that the best course of action –’

Or as long as the private health insurance keeps paying, thought Anne.

‘It might be time for a conversation with your family about what would be in his – and, indeed, your – best interests.’

She had known it was coming, of course. She watched too many of those prime-time medical dramas not to realise the implications of Charles’s prolonged absence from consciousness. But there was something about hearing it explained to her in such stark terms that shocked her. Suddenly, Anne found herself confronted with the reality of making a choice, rather than simply carrying on as she had been, obscuring any thoughts of the future with the deadening monotony of routine. She realised she would have to talk to Charlotte. The thought of it filled her with dread.

The chat with Dr Lewis meant that she was home later than usual. It was 3 p.m. by the time Anne got back and her stomach was grumbling noisily. One of the most irritating things about getting older, she found, was her increasing inability to go for more than a couple of hours without a regular portion of food. Someone had once told her it was to do with blood sugar. She rather feared it was simple greed.

She had just got the bread out from the fridge to make a ham sandwich when the doorbell rang.

It was Charlotte. The surprise of seeing her daughter on the front doorstep, arriving unannounced in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon, was so startling that Anne was momentarily unable to speak.

‘Hi, Mum.’ Charlotte said. Anne noticed that Charlotte was trying to smile, to pass off this unexpected visit as an entirely natural turn of events, but that the smile was tight like overstretched elastic.

‘What on earth are you doing here?’ It came out as an accusation when she had meant it to be robustly affectionate.

‘I thought I’d surprise you.’ Charlotte walked inside, wiping her feet on the doormat. She strode down the hallway, her old leather handbag slung over one shoulder and looking as though it needed a polish. She didn’t turn back, so Anne was left standing foolishly in the open air, holding the door in one hand as she tried to get her thoughts in order. She closed it carefully and padded down the hallway to the kitchen in her socks – she always took her shoes off to avoid trailing dirt through the house.

‘I was just making a sandwich,’ she said, raising her voice in what she hoped was a suitably nonchalant fashion. ‘Would you like one?’

‘No thanks,’ said Charlotte, who was leaning with her back against the Aga, her arms folded in front of her chest. ‘I’ve just had one.’

‘Let me take your bag –’ said Anne, reaching towards her. Charlotte seemed to flinch and draw back and then, deliberately checking her abruptness, passed the bag over. Anne gripped its straps tightly, willing herself not to do or say anything stupid that might push her daughter further away. She placed the bag carefully on the sideboard. It was so rare that Charlotte ever dropped in. It felt to Anne as if an exquisite faun had appeared in the middle of a dense forest and the slightest noise of snapping twigs would scare her off.

Charlotte stood silently, staring abstractedly out of the window and into the garden.

‘I’ve just come back from the hospital,’ said Anne, trying to make conversation. ‘I had a chat with that nice doctor – you know the one? Dr Lewis?’

‘Mmm.’

Anne tittered self-consciously. ‘He’s such a nice man. And so young. I don’t know if he’s married or has a girlfriend, but –’

‘Mum, don’t.’

‘Don’t what?’ said Anne, her hand with the butter knife freezing mid-air.

‘I know what you’re trying to do.’

‘What?’

‘All this talk about the eligible Dr Lewis –’ she put on a funny voice when she said his name. ‘I know you’re trying to pair me off with a man you deem suitable.’

Anne was genuinely affronted. ‘I was doing no such thing. I was just saying how nice he was.’

‘Well, Gabriel’s very nice too,’ Charlotte said, before adding, under her breath but loud enough that Anne could hear, ‘if you’d give him a chance.’

Anne carried on buttering her bread furiously, but the butter was too cold and made big holes in the dough. It was impossible, she thought bitterly, simply impossible to do or say anything that would please her. She might as well not even try.

‘You’re in a very bad mood all of a sudden.’

Charlotte didn’t reply.

‘Why aren’t you at work?’

‘Board meeting. They let me have the afternoon off.’

Anne didn’t believe her. There was something about the tense set of her shoulders, the square, determined jut of her jaw that suggested she was upset about something. And when Charlotte got upset, she became stubborn and recalcitrant. Anne decided not to pursue the conversation any further and took a slice of ham out of a plastic packet, laying it neatly on top of the bread before folding it in two. She took a small bite, catching the crumbs in a cupped hand, and waited for Charlotte to say whatever she had come to say. She was mildly anxious that her daughter might confess to being pregnant, but she wasn’t prepared for what came next.

‘Did you ever think of leaving him?’

At first, Anne couldn’t think who she was talking about: Gabriel? Dr Lewis? And then the realisation dawned: she was talking about Charles. She was stopped short by the question but she was not surprised by it. Part of her had been expecting it, just as part of her had been expecting Dr Lewis to tell her it was time to let go.

‘No,’ she said, calmly. She took another bite. She could have said more, but she didn’t yet know where this conversation was heading, so she stopped herself, waiting for Charlotte to set the next parameters.

Her daughter turned to look at her and Anne could see all at once that her eyes were watery and squinting with something in between anger and hurt.

‘No?’ said Charlotte, her voice quietly incredulous. ‘Not even after everything he put you – us – through?’ Her voice dropped to a whisper.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know what I’m talking about.’

Anne took two small steps backwards. It was a barely perceptible movement, but the tiny physical retreat enabled her to adopt her usual cool detachment when faced with the unpredictable squalls of emotion. She took herself out of the sphere of sentiment, removed herself from its clawing grasp, and acquired a lacquered coating of impenetrability. When she spoke, her words were deliberately dry, denuded of intensity. She spoke as if Charlotte were no longer her daughter – at least not recognisably so. She had to do this, otherwise she would feel too much and it would all dissolve in front of her – all the carefully constructed half-truths and acceptances would crumble. She could not, for this moment, allow herself to love her daughter too much. She had to gather herself together. She had to buy some time to think.

‘Charles was – is – not perfect,’ she found herself saying. ‘No man can lay claim to that particular character attribute. But I made a decision and I stuck by it.’

Anne paused. And she thought about what she had said and she truly believed it. She had to – otherwise, what had any of it been worth?

‘Which was?’ Charlotte said, staring straight at her, her face impassive.

‘I meant what I said when I took my wedding vows. Marriage is not something to be disposed of, thrown away, when things start to go wrong. It’s something your generation doesn’t seem to understand.’ That hit home, Anne thought, looking at Charlotte wince as she made the inevitable connection to Gabriel. ‘And really, dear, I don’t see that it’s any of your business.’

She took another bite of her ham sandwich and it was this studied gesture of normality, this seeming trivialisation of everything that had been said, which finally pushed Charlotte over the edge.

‘None of my fucking business?’ she hissed and the swear word was so unexpected that it lay there between them, slick as an oil spill.