Chapter Twelve
April 2016
Lydia woke up with a headache. She’d slipped into a blissful slumber after a day in Wiltshire visiting a spa – work-related and paid for – and had expected to feel rejuvenated for at least a few days. But somehow she’d ended up dreaming she was sitting in church of all places – she couldn’t remember the last time she’d even entered one – and Jonathan came and sat next to her. Then there was a bride she didn’t recognise, but Theo standing with the bride at the front of the church, holding both her hands. Next up had been Connor, her boss’s brother-in-law, officiating the ceremony, which ended with the bride having a head massage from Theo and a simultaneous foot massage from Jonathan. Then she’d taken off her dress and thrown it to Lydia and yelled the word ‘Choose!’
Theo’s accident four months ago felt in many ways as though it had only just happened, and Lydia knew it was because she was in limbo, never moving forwards or backwards. Somehow she’d learnt to plod along and take each day as it came.
Anita was being more polite with her these days at least. She’d asked after Lydia’s family, they’d talked about Lydia’s job, Theo’s colleagues who had visited that morning, and the promotion he’d wanted but hadn’t managed to get.
Lydia dragged herself out of bed and popped two Nurofen tablets. She ran a bath, filling it with bubbles, and as she relaxed in the water her headache gradually began to subside. She’d already called Ian and said she’d be in late and he told her to take the rest of the day off given how hard she’d been working. She hadn’t wanted to point out that at yesterday’s spa not only had she interviewed visitors and staff, but she’d also been treated to the most heavenly Indian head massage known to man, followed by a glorious foot massage which apparently enhanced the ‘natural flow of energy’, according to the therapist giving it.
Lydia hadn’t taken any time off since she’d started the job, which couldn’t even be called a ‘new’ job now she’d been there a few months. So today she would visit Theo for a couple of hours and then she planned to use her free time to do some chores. She’d run herself ragged over the last few months and the house was in desperate need of a vacuum, she barely had any food in the cupboards and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d done a big supermarket shop. All she had in the fridge was the corner of a block of cheese, an almost empty bottle of milk and various condiments that probably needed their best before dates checked.
Lydia was much better at cooking for herself these days. Once the winter misery lifted at the end of February she’d even downloaded a few easy recipes, usually making up at least four portions every time and freezing meals she could grab later. She took out the last piece of meat lurking in the freezer and set it on a plate to defrost, ready to make a chicken goulash this evening, once she had more fresh ingredients. She opened the back door to feel the temperature and decide whether she needed her jacket. It was early April so there was still a chill in the air but the weather app on her phone said sunny and no sign of rain, so when she only felt a slight breeze she grabbed a lightweight cardigan and her bag and left the house to visit Theo.
As she walked through the park, daffodils bowed in appreciation of the season and she took a deep breath in to inhale the aroma of the blooms that would soon flourish in flower beds and line the sides of the pathways. Spring was always such a happy season: full of hope and optimism and the promise of summer with its long nights and lazy days stretching ahead of them.
She sat on the bus on the way to the hospital, the sun warming her through the window, and thought about the past few months. What no one ever told you about having a loved one in a coma was how useless you would feel. You have a continual one-sided conversation without even a returning smirk, grimace or murmur of agreement. At first you wonder what’s the point but you soon get into a routine and realise that if you don’t talk, nobody else is going to. And somewhere, deep, deep down, you hope the person can somehow hear at least part of what you’re saying.
Today Lydia was going to tell Theo all about her trip to the spa in Wiltshire. She’d been given a discount voucher too, which was perhaps to ensure she wrote a decent write-up, but already Sally had leapt at the chance to accompany her for the day. They’d be able to book in for afternoon tea, use the swimming pool and sauna, perhaps have a treatment or two and even sip a glass of bubbly as they sat around in their white fluffy robes and nattered the day away.
At the hospital, Lydia followed the familiar route from the front entrance, winding through corridors she knew like the back of her hand by now. She nodded to a nurse she recognised and made her way to the high-dependency unit but as she approached Theo’s ward and saw Anita, she knew something was different.
Her legs felt weak and she slowed. Was this it? Was this the time she would have to let go completely?
Her face tensed as she told herself to put one foot in front of the other to join Anita and the consultant.
‘What’s happening?’ Lydia demanded, looking first at Anita, then the consultant. She wanted to push past them to Theo’s bed, see if he was still there, for once hoping to hear the words ‘no change’.
Tears ran down Anita’s face. She had a hand across her mouth but the consultant was called away on another case and so he patted Lydia lightly on the shoulder and said he’d let Anita explain and that she should find him if she had any more questions.
‘Anita, what is it? What’s happened?’ She didn’t want to let herself get too excited.
Anita sniffed, took a deep breath. ‘Theo opened his eyes. My darling boy opened his eyes.’
May 2016
The other thing people never tell you is that when a person comes out of a coma, it’s nothing like it is in the movies. In Hollywood the person would open their eyes, look at you and ask what day it was before going on to leave the hospital a few weeks later and resuming a normal life. You never hear that for some patients the eye opening is the first stage of a long, difficult recovery, and you never hear that for some, the eye opening is a stage at which their journey will stop. They won’t make any further progress, it’s the best you can hope for, and they could go right ahead and die anyway.
Lydia had always thought there was either being in a coma, or being fully alert and awake, but now she knew differently. There were various states of consciousness a patient could fall into, and it was a confusing state of affairs, categories filled with shades of grey, and none of it made her feel any better as she looked across at Theo. She’d been living with hope and optimism since the day those police officers had knocked on the door, and she wondered whether she’d used up her quota for the foreseeable future, because everything was much the same as it had been sitting at Theo’s bedside a month after he’d first opened his eyes.
Theo was now classified as in a vegetative state, a description Lydia hated with a passion. Anything to do with a vegetable didn’t sound like a label Theo would’ve been particularly happy with and it was hard to stomach. He was no longer in a coma and was having cycles of sleeping and waking, which was why his eyes were sometimes open, sometimes shut. Occasionally he’d make sounds, moaning low and throaty, and sometimes his face changed as though he was happy, at other times it looked as though he was upset. He was still unconscious but the functions of the body, including pulse, blood pressure and breathing – those known as vegetative functions – were working in the normal way, it’s just that Theo still wasn’t responding to what was happening around him.
If he could, he’d tell them to stop using that wretched description, Lydia was sure of it.
So here she was, still having one-sided conversations, except every now and then Theo would open his eyes. She’d get all excited, leap up and lean closer to him and ask, ‘Can you hear me? Theo, it’s me, Lydia?’ and Anita would more often than not come over in an instant – she barely left the hospital inside the visiting hours on the general ward where Theo was now placed – but then nothing else would happen.
Anita was desperate for another sign. She’d had the first one when he’d opened his eyes and had told Lydia it was because she’d been talking to him, but Lydia had talked with the consultant and this wasn’t necessarily true. The consultant had told Anita the same but she was choosing not to believe it at the moment and Lydia guessed, as a mother, it was her right and possibly even her job to think nothing but positive thoughts and hope for the best outcome for her boy.
Anita had made a subtle dig at Lydia the day they moved him to the general ward, talking about how the ward was filled with people who’d be walking out of here any day now and getting on with their lives, and how glad she was that Theo would have a chance to do the same. Looking at Theo, not moving, not talking, not doing anything much at all, Lydia wasn’t sure it would ever happen, but she’d learnt to keep her mouth shut.
‘So work is full on,’ she told Theo now, trying to ignore the visitor of the teenage girl in the bed next to them, who very much liked the sound of his own voice. So far the pair had talked about the wicked dragon tattoo on his calf and how it hurt like fuck, his night on the town with someone called Travis and how they’d been barred from entering a nightclub, and how when the girl got out of here they’d be on an all-inclusive holiday to Benidorm.
Lydia drew the curtain around Theo’s bed for privacy but unfortunately it wasn’t soundproof. She did her best to ignore any other sounds as she carried on. ‘My week in Devon and Cornwall was harder work than I thought, lots of driving around,’ she told him. ‘I had to visit glamping sites and meet a photographer at each one, but I’ve got plenty of material to put together a feature on the posher side of camping. I’m off to Somerset next week and then we’ve covered the south-west. Someone else has taken the east of England, another person the north.
‘I’ve been doing a lot of editing too, when I’m not out and about or putting together my own articles. The boss has been hiking and climbing mountains in the Scottish Highlands.’ If Theo could respond he’d do his terrible Scottish accent, which never failed to make Lydia laugh and talk about how it wasn’t right for men to wear skirts, full stop. ‘He took so many notes and pictures and did a great write-up for a feature, but let’s just say the article needed a fair bit of shaping into something meaningful that the general public will read.’
More relaxed in the general ward, Lydia took a sip from her bottle of water, put it back in her bag and held Theo’s hand again. Every time he opened his eyes it made her jump. You’d have thought she’d got used to it by now, but she hadn’t. It was taunting her almost, like he was coming back and then at the last minute thought, ‘Oh no, all too hard, I’m going back to sleep.’
A nurse poked her head around the curtain. ‘How’s it going in here?’
‘All good, thanks.’
At that moment Anita bustled in. ‘You’re here at last,’ she said to the nurse. ‘It’s disgusting the way you’d left him,’ she told the woman as though Theo was solely her responsibility.
In the ICU and then the high-dependency unit there had been a top standard of care. There had to be. Those patients were the most at risk and the ratio of nurses and doctors to patients was far better than this lower-categorised ward. Lydia had returned from her glamping investigations to find Anita strung out, not only as she tried to adjust to the reduced visiting hours on this ward compared to the other, but also because more than once Theo had been neglected and left dirty, smelly and unclean.
The nurse looked about to say something but changed her mind, apologised profusely and left them to it again.
Anita bent over and kissed Theo’s head, their faces so close you couldn’t miss the family resemblance.
‘They’re understaffed,’ Lydia said, if only to say something.
‘I don’t care. It’s undignified, that’s what it is.’ She fussed with the sheets around him and when there was nothing else for her to do, she reluctantly sat in a chair.
Lydia sat while Anita talked to Theo about what she’d been up to. She’d been to Bournemouth for the day yesterday with her friend Sabine who was over from Jersey visiting family, last week she’d slept the night at her own house in Walberswick that she missed more than she realised. She talked about the garden and how she hadn’t planted new bulbs this year but the peonies and the delphiniums were adding enough colour. She told Theo how she’d taken up cross-stitch of all things and was getting good at it, and she was learning French because she’d always wanted to go to one of those remote villages where they didn’t speak a word of English.
‘Oh I’ve been to Paris, I know,’ Anita rattled on. ‘But they all speak English there. I want to go where I can put my French into practice.’ She only stopped talking when she saw Lydia watching her.
‘I’d better be going.’ Lydia got to her feet and picked up her bag and thin-weave cardigan.
‘You don’t have to leave.’ Was it Lydia’s imagination or was Anita craving company? Her talk of taking up a craft, learning a language and visiting another town were all signs that she was getting as tired of this as Lydia was. Not that either of them resented it. It just wasn’t easy.
Lydia sat down again. ‘You’re right, you know.’
‘About what?’
‘Paris. It’s an amazing city, incredibly beautiful, but they are far too proficient at the English language.’
Anita smiled and it was nice to see. ‘You went with Theo last summer, I remember. He sent me a postcard he’d written halfway up the Eiffel Tower.’
‘We loved climbing it but I wouldn’t go all the way to the top. It was windy and we stopped midway for something to eat and he wrote to you. He sent a postcard to his dad too, and nagged me to write a few.’ She noticed Anita didn’t flinch at talk about his dad. Maybe when you’d loved someone deeply once upon a time, you weren’t pained when you spoke or thought about them. Perhaps you tried to remember the good times. He’d given her Theo after all. ‘Theo took me to an exquisite café, we ate macaroons, drank hot chocolate. He then made me walk miles and miles. He gets restless if he has to stay put for too long.’ Lydia’s smile disappeared with the stark reminder that because of decisions made by medical practitioners and by them, here he was doing what he would’ve hated most.
‘His name is down for rehabilitation,’ Anita explained, ‘to get him into a special centre.’
When Lydia thought of rehab she thought of people trying to walk, trying to move an arm, trying to perform physical functions at a more able level. She wasn’t sure how rehab was going to work when he was lying there not moving. ‘That’s great.’ What else could she say?
Anita stroked Theo’s forehead. His hair had grown back a bit and Lydia hoped next time someone cut it they’d take a bit more care so it would look more like Theo rather than a young boy who’d had a bowl placed on his head. The staff sometimes shaved him if Anita hadn’t already, and they washed his hair and body, they took care of his teeth. But it always felt rushed and Lydia knew Anita thought it should be done more often than it was. She wanted more, so much more for her son. And that’s why Anita’s next comment didn’t take Lydia by surprise at all.
‘I want to get him away from this place,’ said Anita. ‘I don’t think it’s making him any better.’
Hang on a minute. How was she going to do that? ‘You mean when he’s recovered more so he’s ready for rehabilitation?’
‘I want him near me. I want to be at home in my own house with him nearby. It’s been so long.’ Her voice was beginning to crescendo, wobble in uncertainty, either of Theo’s prognosis or Lydia’s reaction, Lydia didn’t know.
Lydia kept telling herself the waiting lists were long and he wasn’t ready to be moved but Anita carried on.
‘I’ve floated the idea with a senior consultant and they’ve said he’s stable and can be moved.’
Lydia suddenly felt hot all over, her hands clammy with panic. ‘But the rehabilitation lists are too long.’
‘There are other options.’ Finally she looked at Lydia. ‘And I’ve spoken to Graham, he’s left the decision up to me. He’ll come over in the next couple of months.’
‘What other options?’ she demanded.
‘A care home.’
Lydia stood up, eyes wild with rage. ‘You want to put him, like this, in a home for old biddies?’
‘Keep your voice down,’ Anita reprimanded and Lydia remembered the curtains were far from soundproof. ‘It’s an option. You were away for a couple of weeks—’
‘I was working!’
‘I realise that, Lydia. And I know your life is carrying on.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘You don’t need to be so defensive. I’m not doing any of this to hurt you. I’m simply saying that I’m his mother and I understand you need to work, but when you were away, oh the state they left him in…’ Tears pooled in her eyes but strength scared them away again. ‘It was awful. You would’ve been as upset as I was if you’d seen him. He smelt, his hair was greasy. He was just left most of the time. I know they’re understaffed but heaven forbid I couldn’t come in for a few days or longer. He’d be ignored and the thought breaks my heart.’
‘You know he’d hate it if you put him in a home with old people.’ She tried to say it in a way that would make Anita smile and remember her son the way he once was, not the way he was now. ‘And I would miss not being able to see him.’
‘You could travel up whenever you wanted. The care home isn’t far from my house and you’re welcome to stay with me any time.’
Oh God, she’d really thought this through, hadn’t she?
‘I’d better go.’ Lydia was suddenly desperate to get away. ‘Don’t do anything yet, please. We need to think about it. We need to think about what’s best for Theo.’ She pulled back the curtain and before Anita could say anything else, she escaped to the other side.
Perhaps if they’d been thinking about what was best for Theo from the beginning, they wouldn’t even be having this ridiculous conversation right now.
Lydia got all the way down to the lobby and the main entrance before she turned back. She couldn’t go home, not yet, she needed to get some answers. Instead of leaving the building, she asked at reception whether they could page the consultant who had dealt with Theo’s case in the early days and still was to some extent, presumably. The woman behind the desk clearly thought it was too much to ask and huffed and puffed and in the end Lydia made her own way through the hospital corridors and up to the ICU. She was familiar enough with the place and the nurses recognised her, asked after Theo, and when the consultant emerged from the room on her left she cornered him.
They went into an interview room for privacy. ‘What can I do for you?’ he asked.
‘I know you’ve probably told Anita everything but I wanted to ask you questions myself, so I can sort everything out in my own mind.’ She heaved a sigh of relief that she hadn’t fallen apart and demanded answers, but explained exactly what she needed.
‘Of course.’ He gestured to a chair and when they were both sitting he asked, ‘What would you like to know?’
‘In your opinion, is Theo going to make a full recovery?’
He took her blunt question in his stride. ‘I can’t make any guarantees. Brain injuries are different and we know a lot but there’s still a great deal to learn. In Theo’s case we simply don’t know why he hasn’t regained full consciousness yet. Having said that, it is a positive sign that he’s out of the coma.’ He looked at her and she could see the sympathy in his eyes. ‘Lydia, what I will say is that patients recovering from brain injury have various phases they may or may not pass through, and this is one of them.’
It sounded hopeful but Lydia was here for better answers than that. She had hope in spades, had done since the accident, but now she needed cold, hard facts. ‘You don’t have to mollycoddle me.’ She smiled tentatively. ‘I’m not like Anita. I can take whatever you throw at me.’
He nodded and pursed his lips together then said, ‘This could be a stage Theo passes through and goes on to regain consciousness, but as you probably already know, there are cases that stop at any stage and the patient will remain in that state.’
He was right, she did know this already, but hearing it again made her shut her eyes and breathe deeply. Maybe she wasn’t quite as ready to hear the news as she thought she was.
‘We are doing everything we can,’ he explained, ‘and I’m a great believer that family and loved ones help by visiting and doing exactly what you’re doing. You’re talking to him, you’re hoping and you’re carrying on. It’s all you can do.’
‘Anita mentioned rehabilitation, but the waiting lists are long.’
He nodded solemnly. ‘They are, unfortunately.’
‘Do you believe rehabilitation could help Theo?’
‘Every case is different Lydia, but it’s certainly what we’d hope.’
‘And do you know she’s thinking of moving him to a care home?’ She shook her head as though this was ridiculous. ‘Can she do that?’
‘Again, each patient is different. In some cases the family chooses to care for the patient at home, which is a tremendous ask and one I personally wouldn’t recommend. Others pay to have a private rehabilitation facility because government-funded places are hard to come by, and then some relatives, like Anita, request their loved one be moved to a care home.’
It sounded like it was already happening and Lydia wasn’t sure how much she could or should fight Anita on this. Bath was Theo’s home, her house was his home, but that Theo wasn’t here anymore. Everything had changed.
And, she realised, dread forming in the pit of her stomach, this could be it for Theo. This could be as far as he ever went.