Mavis knew that Maudie was frightened. Her one good hand — not so good now — made tiny fluttering movements, like those of an injured bird, and the sounds that she made were the cries of a distressed child. Her face was frozen into immobility, but her eyes, bright with life and fear, seemed to beg for help.
“Please, can she have something?” Mavis asked the sister. “Something to make her less — afraid.”
The sister patted her shoulder and told her not to worry. Maudie’s movements were random. They didn’t mean anything. “And if we did give her drugs, they would mask any improvement,” she added.
“But you said there probably wasn’t going to be any improvement,” Mavis reasoned. “So what harm can it do?”
“I think it’s best to leave these decisions to the doctors, don’t you?”
Mavis felt small and patronised and utterly helpless. She wished very much that Gabs were still with her, but Gabs had had to go to work.
Mavis thought it likely that this kind of situation brought out the best in Gabs; she had an insouciance, a strength, a capableness that made her seem far older than her years, and she had the knack of getting things done. Although she had looked exhausted (“man trouble; don’t ask”), it was Gabs who had argued until Maudie had been moved from a trolley in A & E into a proper bed in a ward, Gabs who had demanded a comfortable chair for Mavis, and Gabs who had found her a welcome cup of tea. And when one of the nurses had asked whether Gabs was her daughter, Mavis had been rather pleased. Gabs’ occupation apart (and even that seemed less important now that they knew each other better), Mavis would have been rather pleased to have her as a daughter.
The following morning, Maudie had a scan, and the doctor told Mavis that she had suffered “a massive brain haemorrhage”.
“We’ll just keep her comfortable,” he said, his eyes already wandering towards his next (and probably more interesting) patient, and even Mavis knew that keeping someone comfortable was hospitalspeak for having reached the end of the road. Maudie wasn’t going to get better; she didn’t even have to ask.
“Can’t you give her something?” she asked again. “She seems so frightened.”
The doctor consulted Maudie’s chart, and then shook his head. “I’m afraid not. And it wouldn’t make any difference. Stroke patients are often like this. It doesn’t mean anything.”
So Maudie was no longer Maudie; she was a stroke patient, behaving the way stroke patients behaved. When tears leaked from Maudie’s eyes, that too was apparently normal.
“Stroke patients do cry a lot,” the staff nurse told Mavis. “It doesn’t mean they’re unhappy. They just get emotional.”
“What’s the difference?” Mavis asked.
The nurse smiled. “When you’ve been doing this job as long as I have, believe me, you’ll realise that this is all par for the course.”
Since Mavis was never going to do the nurse’s job, this seemed a ridiculous thing to say, besides being particularly unhelpful. Maudie was a stroke patient, and stroke patients were miserable; therefore Maudie must be miserable. Well, Mavis didn’t know anything about other stroke patients, but she wasn’t going to sit by and see her mother suffer. There had to be something she could do.
When Gabs called in later on to see how things were going, Mavis told her what had happened.
“It seems that they’re quite happy for her to suffer like this,” Mavis said. “I can’t bear it, Gabs. I just can’t bear it. I promised her I’d always make sure that she was all right, and now she really needs help, there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do for her. They’re just — leaving her. Nobody seems to care. It’s as though she doesn’t matter.”
“Oh, she matters all right. Our Maudie certainly matters.” Gabs thought for a moment. “Leave this to me, Mavis. I’ll sort it.”
“You won’t — you won’t make a fuss, will you?”
“If that’s what it takes, I’ll certainly make a fuss. But don’t worry, Mavis. It’ll be my fuss, and if anyone gets into trouble, it’ll be me. You wait here.”
She went off, and returned ten minutes later with a young doctor in tow.
“You see, Doctor, we really need to do something to relieve her suffering,” Gabs said. “We hate to see her like this.”
The doctor dragged his eyes away from Gabs’ bosom. (Didn’t he see enough bosoms in the course of his work?)
“I’m sure we can do something,” he said.
“Oh, that’s so kind of you,” Gabs simpered. “My godmother was always such a strong woman” (godmother?) “and we hate to see her like this.”
“I’m sure you do.” Briefly, the doctor’s gaze found its way back to her bosom. Gabs caught his eye and winked at him, and he blushed. “Yes. Certainly. I’ll see what I can do,” he said, and scurried off with Maudie’s chart.
“How do you do it?” Mavis asked when he’d gone.
“Do what? Oh, the man thing, you mean?”
“Well, no. I didn’t mean that. But that, too.”
“I vowed that I’d try and change,” Gabs said, “after — after what happened. But somehow I can’t help myself, even when I’m feeling miserable. It’s like a reflex. ‘Born to flirt,’ Steph says, and I suppose she’s right.” She sighed. “Change is a darned sight harder than you think.”
“Oh, I know.”
“Do you?” Gabs asked. “Do you want to change, Mavis?”
“Doesn’t everyone? In some way or another? I’d love to be more assertive, for a start. Like you. Get things done. Not be afraid of authority.”
“What’s to be afraid of?”
“I don’t know. Not being liked, perhaps. I’ve always been afraid of not being liked.”
“I couldn’t give a damn,” said Gabs. “What people think is their problem.”
“That must be wonderful.”
The doctor returned with promises of a nurse with an injection to calm Maudie down. He looked embarrassed and kept his eyes firmly on Maudie.
“Poor lamb,” said Gabs when he’d gone again. “I know what he needs. Quite nice-looking too.”
“I thought you were going to change,” Mavis said.
“Wasn’t it Saint Augustine who wanted to change, but not yet? I guess I’m a bit like that. It’s a kind of work in progress,” Gabs said. “Right. I’m off. Oh, by the way, I phoned your Mr. Strong to tell him you wouldn’t be in. He wasn’t very pleased.”
“Mr. Strong is rarely pleased,” said Mavis.
“He said that he’d probably have to bring in his wife.”
“Oh dear.” Mrs. Strong was thought by some to be suffering from early dementia. She occasionally ‘helped out’ in the shop, but Mavis thought that this was more therapy for Mrs. Strong than help for Mavis, since she tended to put everything away in the wrong places and give the customers too much change. Mention of bringing in Mrs. Strong was a threat, albeit a veiled one.
But Mavis no longer cared. “Bugger Mr. Strong,” she said boldly. “He can stew for all I care. He’s been precious little support to me, and if I lose my job, well, I’ll probably live.”
“Good for you, Mavis,” Gabs said. “You tell ‘em.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much.” Mavis touched Gabs’ hand. “I don’t know what I’d have done without you.”
“Don’t mention it. Besides, you’ve done me a favour. I was having a bit of a crisis, and you’ve helped take my mind off things.”
Maudie appeared to settle after her injection, and when she seemed to be sleeping peacefully, Mavis called for a taxi home so that she could have a bath and something to eat. She also phoned Clifford to tell him what had happened.
“Oh dear. And we were going to meet up tomorrow, too,” Clifford said. “How disappointing.”
“Is that all you can think about?” asked Mavis.
“Well, I’m sorry about your mother, Mavis. Of course I am. But we knew this was going to happen, didn’t we?”
“Did we?”
“Yes. She’s old. She was bound to have another stroke sooner or later. Perhaps better sooner, all things considered.”
“And you know all about strokes, do you?”
“Well, I did do some research on the internet.”
“Oh yes.” That would have been the time when Clifford had had a headache for several days and had taken it upon himself to diagnose the problem. In the end, he had decided it was a brain tumour, but the stroke was very much in the running, as was something terrifying called a ‘subarachnoid haemorrhage’. Clifford had taken to the idea of the subarachnoid haemorrhage. Mavis had not. (Dorothy, apparently, had laughed and told him not to be so silly.)
“Clifford, have you any idea how unkind you sound?”
“Not unkind at all. Practical. I’m being practical, Mavis. Facing reality. And I think you might find it helpful if you could do the same.”
“What I would find helpful would be some support, some understanding.”
“Yes. Yes of course.” Clifford seemed to pull himself together. “Perhaps I could fetch you from the hospital tomorrow, and we could have an early dinner together.”
“That would be nice. Thank you.”
But the evening was not a success. For a start, Clifford declined to come up to the ward to see Maudie, which Mavis had thought might help him to understand her situation a little better.
“Oh no, Mavis. It’s a little too soon, I’m afraid.”
“What do you mean, too soon?”
“It — it brings everything back,” Clifford told her.
Mavis thought that hospital visits would be just up Clifford’s street, and as for bringing everything back, well, since he spent much of his time doing just that, what was the problem?
But no. The new, sensitive Clifford couldn’t cope with Maudie in her hospital bed (Mavis privately thought that he couldn’t be bothered to make his way up to the fourth floor, even though there was a perfectly satisfactory lift), and so they met downstairs by the reception desk.
“You look pale,” Clifford said, kissing her cheek.
“I’m just tired,” Mavis said. “I haven’t had much sleep.”
“You must get your rest,” Clifford said as they made their way to the carpark.
This sounded promising, and so Mavis told him about her two nights sitting by Maudie’s bed and how difficult it was to sleep in a chair.
“No one sat by my bed,” Clifford said.
“Well, I suppose in intensive care, you have so many nurses you don’t really need anyone.”
“That’s not the point.” Clifford opened the car door for her. “It was the fact that no one wanted to sit by my bed. If you’d been my wife, you’d have been at my bedside, wouldn’t you, Mavis?”
“Well, yes. I’m sure I would.” How was it that nowadays, Clifford managed to turn all conversations back to himself?
“If only we’d been younger when we met,” Clifford sighed, driving off down the road.
“I was young,” Mavis reminded him.
“Well, yes. But you know what I mean. I think we’d have made a good couple.” He paused. “I could still leave Dorothy, you know.”
Mavis looked at him, surprised. “It’s a long time since you’ve said that,” she said.
“Well, I still mean it. And I’m sure Dorothy could manage without me.”
Mavis too was pretty sure that Dorothy could manage without Clifford, but she didn’t say so. More to the point was the fact that she was beginning to realise that she too could probably do without Clifford. It had taken some time for her to realise this, for Clifford had been around for so long that he was an intrinsic part of her life. Clifford’s phone calls, their meetings, their little anniversaries (Clifford was good at marking these), the visits to Dennis’s flat — these had all been woven into the fabric of her life, and for years she had thought that they were essential to her happiness, but now she wasn’t so sure. Clifford’s self-absorption had become burdensome, his conversation increasingly dull, and as for the sex, that too appeared to be dwindling in frequency, as well as in any pleasure it brought to Mavis. Perhaps Clifford’s libido was wearing off with age, but such lovemaking as they managed was so restricted by boundaries pertaining to Clifford’s physical problems that Mavis often thought that it was hardly worth their while bothering at all. By the time they had waited for Clifford’s little blue pill to work and he had been settled comfortably, with pillows in all the right places, it was often nearly time for him to go home. As for Mavis’s little device, that hadn’t seen the light of day (or anything else) for weeks.
“Well?” said Clifford now.
“Well, what?”
“What about me leaving Dorothy?”
“Oh no,” said Mavis at once.
“What do you mean, no?”
“Just what I said. It would never work. It might have worked once, but not now. No. We’re much better off as we are.”
“Are you saying I should have left Dorothy before?”
“I’m saying nothing of the kind. I’m just saying that it’s too late, Clifford. For both of us. Besides, there’s Mother.”
“But she’s dy— she’s not going to get better, is she?”
“I don’t know. But I’m not going to start planning a life without her.”
Clifford drove on in silence. Mavis hoped very much that he wasn’t sulking. Clifford’s sulks always took time, and she was anxious to get back to the hospital.
After a few more miles, they found a pub that promised GOOD FOOD, and Clifford pulled in.
“Will this do?” he asked.
“Fine,” Mavis said. She hadn’t had a proper meal for two days and was quite hungry.
But the food, despite its promise, wasn’t particularly good, and Clifford was annoyed and complained. The waitress got upset, the manager was defensive, and at the end of an unpleasant ten minutes, neither party was satisfied.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Mavis said when they were safely back in the car. “The food wasn’t that bad, and it wasted our evening.”
“I don’t believe in settling for second best,” Clifford told her.
“If you eat at a random pub, that’s a risk you have to take,” said Mavis.
“But honestly! Salad with fish and chips! And grated carrot!”
Back at the hospital, Clifford accompanied Mavis as far as the entrance, where they encountered Gabs.
“Oh, hi!” Gabs greeted Mavis with a hug. “I’ve been looking for you. You must be Clifford.” She held out her hand. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
Clifford was obviously torn between admiration of Gabs’ legs (which were sandwiched between the tiniest of skirts and a pair of scarlet calf-hugging boots) and annoyance at her knowing who he was. The struggle was brief, and the legs won.
“Hello,” he said, taking her hand.
“I’m Gabs.”
“Gabs is one of my best friends,” Mavis said.
“Oh.” Clifford had difficulty in concealing his astonishment.
“Yeah. You wouldn’t think it, would you?” Gabs grinned.
“Well…”
“You don’t have to say anything.” Gabs turned to Mavis. “I went up to see her. I think she recognised me, but it’s hard to tell. Poor Maudie. I’ll go back up and wait for you, shall I?”
When Gabs had gone, Clifford turned to Mavis.
“You never told me about — her.”
“I told you I had new friends; I just didn’t describe them.”
“But really, Mavis. She isn’t your type at all.”
“How do you know what my type is? Gabs is kind and generous, and I don’t know what I’d have done without her.”
Clifford bridled. “You know you can always turn to me. You don’t need — people like that.”
“People like what? How dare you, Clifford! How dare you insult a friend of mine — someone you don’t even know! Especially when you could hardly take your eyes off her.”
“That’s rubbish!”
“D’you know, Clifford, I don’t care. I don’t care what you think of my friends or whether or not you enjoy ogling their — assets. I’ve got more important things on my mind. I’m going up to see Mother now.” She paused. “Do you want to come? No — of course you don’t. It brings back all those painful memories, doesn’t it? Well, I mustn’t keep you. Goodnight.”
In the lift, Mavis felt a surge of something like triumph. While she was both hurt and angry, and what she had said to Clifford had probably been very childish, he had had it coming. Since his operation, everything — everything — had been about him: his health, his problems, his needs. Gabs, too, had had her problems, and yet she had managed to put them aside for Mavis — something no one else had done in years. Gabs might be a “bad girl,” but in the essentials, she was good in a way that Clifford would never be.
When she reached the ward, Maudie was awake.
“Hello, Mother.” Mavis sat down and took her hand.
“She’s trying to say something,” Gabs said.
“Mother? What is it? What do you want?”
Maudie mumbled and coughed, and shook her head in frustration. Her eyes were fixed on Mavis’s face, as though pleading with her to understand what she was trying to say.
“I don’t know. I can’t make it out. Gabs, can you?”
“What is it, Maudie?” Gabs said, leaning over her. “What can we do to help?”
Tears trickled onto Maudie’s pillow as the mumbling became more frantic.
“Perhaps she wants a priest,” Gabs whispered to Mavis. “Has she seen a priest?”
“Oh, goodness! I never thought. Mother, would you like to see a priest? Would you like — confession?”
Maudie’s lips twitched as though she were trying to smile, and her face seemed to relax.
Late as it was, the Catholic chaplain was sent for. He was reassuringly elderly, and seemed pleasant and sympathetic.
“Shall we — may we stay?” Mavis asked.
“Let me talk to her on my own for a few minutes. Just a few minutes. Confession is private, as I’m sure you know.” He smiled. “She’ll be all right; don’t worry.”
“She may not understand,” Mavis said.
“Never mind. That doesn’t matter.”
The curtains were drawn around Maudie’s bed, and Mavis and Gabs waited outside, listening to the soft murmuring of the priest’s voice.
“There.” The priest finally emerged. “I think she understood. I’ve given her the last rites, and absolution. She’s settled now.”
“Did she — did she say anything?” Mavis asked.
“It was rather odd, actually. I couldn’t hear properly, but I think what she was trying to say was ‘bad’ something. Could it have been ‘bad girls’?”
Gabs and Mavis looked at each other and smiled.
“Yes. It could have been,” Mavis told him.
“Well, she certainly doesn’t seem to have been a bad girl. Perhaps her mind was wandering.”
“Perhaps it was.”
The priest nodded, packing his things away in a small black bag. “Whatever it was, she’s sleeping now. She’s at peace.”
Maudie never regained consciousness. The doctors said she must have suffered a further stroke, but Mavis preferred to believe that the chaplain’s visit had, as it were, given her permission to go. Her small sins forgiven, her poor exhausted body anointed, Maudie was ready to be with the God she had worshipped so faithfully all her life.
Mavis was at her bedside until the end, and wondered at the smallness — the unimportance — of her mother’s life and of her death. Her passing would go largely unnoticed, as though the world she had lived in had closed gently over her, leaving only the slightest of ripples to show where she had been. And yet she had made her contribution: she had lived a good life, been a loving wife and mother and a loyal and entertaining friend.
Some lines of a poem came to Mavis — something she had learnt at school and that she had always remembered: lines about another small, unimportant woman, who had lived, like Maudie, “among the untrodden ways,” but who had nonetheless been deeply missed when she died.
“But she is in her grave, and oh,
The difference to me!”
“Oh, the difference to me,” Mavis whispered, gazing at that still, beloved face. “Such a difference!”
And sitting by the bed, still holding her mother’s hand in her own, she buried her face in the counterpane and wept.