The Exit (6 page)

As soon as I saw Chris, I decided I’d get it right this time, and tried my best to ooze Rebecca. I relaxed my shoulders and put on the ‘life’s so fucking boring’ face Rebecca always had. ‘Your gran asked me to bring you a drawing.’

‘Come away in. I’ve got a brew on.’ Inside was as cute as out. Stuff everywhere, all pretty but nothing that seemed purposeless. An antique bread bin, for example, lid off, seedy German-looking bread inside. He closed the laptop lid on the wooden kitchen bench and poured me some tea. ‘I feel terrible. I usually see her every day but I’ve been in Aberdeen. How is she? Is she all right? There’s nothing wrong, is there?’

‘No, no, she’s fine. Well, I’ve only known her a couple of days, but I don’t think anything’s changed. She just wanted me to give you this drawing. She said to look at it carefully.’

He opened the envelope. As before, Tilly was in a bed in Room 7 and the woman with no facial features bar bright red lips was by her bed.

Chris read the text out loud.

‘“I’ve had enough of this game!” said Tilly. “I’m tired of it. I told you, this is not how I want things to go.”’

‘“Oh, so full of woe,” said the Queen. “All right, all right, we’ll have an intermission. Let’s get the kettle on.”’

‘She seems scared of Room 7, Chris.’

‘Room 7 has damp problems. Not fit for the living.’ Chris folded the picture, put it aside, and sipped his tea. ‘After a resident dies, they put the corpse in there till the undertaker arrives.’

‘Ah.’ Well that made sense. ‘Your poor gran, everything’s so scary and mixed up. Oh, I promised I’d tell you that the truth is in her drawings.’

Chris’s expression mirrored Natalie’s after I said the same thing to her. They’d both probably heard it a hundred times before. ‘Have you read the Tilly books?’

I nodded. The Tilly books were set in 1940. Tilly was ten. Her full name was Mathilda Greenthorn. She was an evacuee from London. She’d been placed in a country house in Staffordshire with some other children. She was always doing things she shouldn’t and getting into trouble. She was always trying to help the other kids. ‘They were my favourite books as a kid.’

‘Mine too. It’s so sad what’s happening to her.’ His mobile buzzed. ‘Sorry, better get this. Work.’

He was talking to a cop or a lawyer, by the sounds. He mentioned a perpetrator and something about an iron key and an unknown male victim and a MAPPA score of ‘very high’. ‘Right, will do.’ He hung up.

‘Are you a police officer?’ I had stopped myself using the word cop, and felt proud.

‘No, I run my own IT business. The police use me as a consultant on internet cases.’

‘Like fraud?’

‘I wish. Sexual offenders. Someone’s gotta do it. There’s something for everyone online nowadays.’

Chris had been planning to visit at his usual time, seven, but decided to go immediately. He dropped me at the shops on the way, and I didn’t manage to say a full sentence the entire trip. I know it’s ridiculous, to be so in awe without knowing much about him other than that he was obviously gay. How did I know this? Just trust me. I’m not sure I have a gaydar, but even the gaydarless would know. I was star struck. He had a gorgeous stone cottage with the coolest interior I’d ever seen. His handsomeness was edgy and intriguing, a shaven, happier looking Johnny Depp, with juicy lips that’d be ace to kiss if he was up for kissing girls. He gave off a confident, kind, loveliness vibe. I had a fag crush. And I loved how much he admired his gran, mad old bird that she was.

I’m not sure I’d admired mine, but I loved her. She was a fifties housewife. She wore tight floral dresses. She ironed underwear, sewed buttons, removed stains, baked cakes, made curtains. I guess it’s no surprise that my mother rebelled against this. Everything her mum had done, she refused to do. Everything her mum hadn’t done, she did with gusto. For example, my mum vetoed bras and skirts, wore jeans and men’s shirts. She marched against Thatcher at medical school, she quit medical school, she lived with a guy who had a tattoo, got a tattoo, lived with a guy who had a drug problem, got a drug problem, studied international relations, got pregnant, married a guy she didn’t love, and kicked him out a year later. She brought me up to be nothing like her mother, because women like her mother were dependent and weak and I would be an independent woman, she’d told me.

‘But, Mummy, I’m only five!’

‘And you are your own five-year-old,’ she’d said.

At school that day, I wondered what being my own five-year-old meant. I still wonder.

Mum was crying in her bed when I got home. I heard the wailing sounds as soon as I opened the door, and resisted the temptation to go straight back out again. ‘Mum, what’s wrong?’

She rubbed her face against the pillow. ‘Oh, nothing, menopause! Sorry. How was your day?’

I’d already decided to keep Rose’s money a secret. Mum’d probably tell me to give it back and I couldn’t, having spent two hundred and thirty of it on beach clothes and make-up at Buchanan Galleries on the way home, and the rest of it in my head. ‘Someone died.’

‘Oh.’ Mum’s eyes welled up. In twenty-three years I’d never seen her cry (maybe ’cause I was in Tenerife when Gran died, but it wouldn’t surprise me if she hadn’t then either), and all of a sudden she was a crying machine. Funny, menopause was bringing out the woman in her, not the other way round. ‘Who?’

‘A woman called Emma. She sang all the time, that Loch Lomond song. She seemed fine yesterday. I saw her arm. It was grey.’

Mum just could not control her lower lip. I felt like grabbing it and holding on to it for her.

‘Was Emma scared?’

‘I didn’t see her die. I’m sure she would have been. Who wouldn’t?’

Mum put her face deep into the duck feather pillow, but not deep enough to muffle the sobs.

Menopause!
I thought, heading to my room, putting earphones in to drown out Mum’s crying, then trying on the first of three bikinis (red polka dot, halter-neck, this one). I’d rather die than be old enough for menopause.

Chris had come out to her first. He was seventeen, and happy as Larry about it, not tortured at all. Rose had hugged him and said she’d known since he was seven and was glad he was finally able to say it out loud. Only to you, he admitted. It would take him five years and a large bottle of whisky to tell his parents.

From the moment he was born he was her favourite thing in the world, even more than her own girls, who’d filled her with worry as they squealed their way into adulthood. Unlike them, he’d always been self-contained, hard working and happy. Beautiful boy. Right now, he was dying her hair blackcurrant. ‘But it’s already blackcurrant!’

‘Your roots aren’t, Gran.’

Once the timer went off, Chris rinsed her hair thoroughly, and gave her a shampoo and head massage that made her lose herself, bliss.

‘What are the drawings all about? Is there something going on in that noggin of yours?’

He dried her hair and ‘distressed’ it with Fudge. He helped her into the new koala onesie he’d purchased in town that morning. Ta-da! He turned her towards the mirror. ‘You look fabulous!’

Rose had to agree. ‘I bloody do, don’t I?’

‘Now get into bed and tell me what those drawings are about.’

She was so comfortable, sleepy. Chris often made her feel calm. She closed her eyes.

‘Gran, you told Catherine to show me a drawing. Why? You know you shouldn’t be sending letters and things to people.’

‘Catherine?’

‘The new girl. You sent her to my house, remember? Blonde hair, pretty.’

‘The dull one.’

‘Yeah, her.’

Rose had no interest in her. She wanted to know about Chris’s work. ‘Tell me about one of your cases. What are you working on?’

‘It’s confidential.’

‘I’ll forget anyway.’

‘Okay, I was monitoring this BDSM site: that’s Body Discipline Sado-Masochism, and traced it to this bloke in Aberdeen. You would not believe the stuff that man was making.’

‘Tell me.’

‘No, it’s too gross, honestly. Not the stuff of bedtime stories. Suffice to say his actors didn’t seem too happy. He was producing as well as distributing videos.’

‘Actors, producers, directors. You make it sound like Hollywood.’

‘Well, it is a business. Folk make money.’

‘Actor’s the wrong word, though, no?’

‘Words, words . . .’

‘How do they make something like that happen?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well when you bought that shirt, for example, you bought it from a shop. The shop owner bought it from the wholesaler who bought it from the boss of the wee boy in China who made it.’

‘Works the same.’

‘No!’

‘Aye. It’s like this . . . The actor’s connected to the producer, and the producer connects to the customers, when the customers connects to the internet.’

‘BDSM, I must remember that.’ Rose was drifting off.

‘No, Gran, you don’t need to remember that.’

She didn’t know what he was saying. All she knew was that his voice made her smile. She felt him kiss her forehead.

She couldn’t believe she’d fallen asleep. How could she have done that? Rose jumped out of bed and raced around the house looking for Margie. She wasn’t inside, must be in the sheds. She ran across the wet lawn and there she was, standing at the fence looking towards the river.

Rose nudged Margie into the water, knowing she’d be too frightened to take the plunge, and waded in after her. If they could get across together, they’d get there in half the time. Holding her little sister’s hand, she pulled and pulled until they were waist-deep.

‘Rose, I said stop!’ Margie said.

There wasn’t time, but she had to take a second to convince her. She had to be responsible, caring. ‘Okay, look at me, Margie, if we don’t keep going you could die. Let me carry you if you can’t walk. Jump up onto my back.’

‘Rose, no. Let’s just go back.’

‘NO!’ Rose let go of Margie’s hand and pulled at her own mousy brown hair, screaming, ‘Margaret Isabel Price, you must do as I say!’

Oh dear, the water was getting deeper, now up to Margie’s straining chest. They were only a quarter of the way across, and it was probably quite a lot deeper in the middle. Rose grabbed her sister under the shoulders, hauled her back to the riverbank, and sat her against a tree. She gathered all the twigs and dry scrub she could find, and formed the sticks in a teepee over the scrub. ‘Wait here, I’m just going to go and get matches. I’ll be back in a minute.’

Rose raced as fast as she could back to the farmhouse, snuck in the back door, crept along the hall, into the empty kitchen, and searched for a box of matches. Where were they? Not above the stove, or in the utensil drawer, or under the sink. Ah, in the bread bin! When she got back to the tree, Margie’s shivers had graduated to wild shudders. Her lips were turning blue. It took three matches to light the twigs. ‘Stay by the flames. I’ll be back soon. Margie, stop it, don’t say that – “Hold my hand as I die!” What nonsense, you’re not going to die! And that’s because I’m going to fetch the doctor now. So you see I can’t stay here with you. On Dad’s life, I swear you won’t be alone for long. I know, sing “Imagination” twenty times, and you won’t be finished when I get back.’ Rose started the song.

Once Margie had opened her mouth in an attempt to join in, Rose ran down to the riverbank and walked in, plunged forth when the water reached her thighs and began to swim to the other side.

They had a fancy word for what they were doing but in fact it was assault. Rose was tied to the bed. She screamed and attempted to kick, but she couldn’t move beyond the plastic bands across her torso, arms and legs. Dull Girl was standing at the door, wet, and looking terrified, insipid idiot.

They’d called Chris. He barged past the dull girl and ordered them to untie his grandmother NOW. ‘Get those off! For God’s sake, she’s Rose Price, not some criminal! I’m going to ring the police if you don’t take those off her now!’

Nurse Gabriella unbuckled the bed restraints and Chris leant down and hugged her. Wee soul, no matter what, he was always there.

Bitch Nurse left after a few minutes, leaving Chris and the dull blonde one, Catherine, to calm her down by going through photo albums. Strategies, maybe, but they worked, and she welcomed them.

‘Gran, maybe it’d help to talk about what happened when you were ten.’ Chris had turned the page to a photo of Rose and Margie at the train station before they left for the farm. Margie was holding a small doll dressed in a pretty pink frock and tiny lace bootees. She looked on the shelf beside the Tilly books – the very same doll, Violet, was there. It was the only memento she had of Margie. And she had none of her parents now, either. Not even any photos, as she’d given the large chest filled with such things to Elena after Vernon died. Rose was moving to her mews house, and had very little room. She trusted Elena to look after them. Alas, Elena had emigrated to Canada, culling ruthlessly beforehand, and had given the chest and its contents to a charity shop somewhere in York. Elena apologised. She hadn’t realised she’d left the photos in the chest. Rose forgave her, and tried not to be angry. But what she’d do to see her father’s face. In it, perhaps she’d see kind eyes that told her stories at night, and not the eyes that said: ‘You’re a selfish girl, Rose Price.’

The doll was her most precious possession. So pretty, with a shiny little face and rosy cheeks. She took the doll from the shelf and settled into bed.

‘Maybe it’d help to talk about it, Gran?’ Her grandson was repeating himself. He did that a lot.

Rose nestled Violet into her shoulder, turned on her side, put her knees up to her chest. ‘I want to be by myself.’

I was taking a selfie by the river when Rose snuck up behind me and pushed me into the water. I don’t know where her strength came from, but it took ages to get back out. I was too cold and shocked to move when she sat me against the tree, running off to steal matches from the kitchen. After they saw the smoke from the fire she’d lit, Nurse Gabriella and another young care assistant called Molly raced over, got her out of the river, and restrained her – well, that’s what they called it. They pinned her down and carried her to her bed, and tied her there till Chris came. Although I’d earned more in three days than most of my mates would in a month, I was starting to realise this job was hard and stopped feeling guilty because I deserved it.

At least once a day, Rose relived a two-hour event from her childhood, Chris explained after Rose had fallen asleep. She’d run away from the farm with Margie to get medical help, tried to get her across the river, failed, left her by the tree, stolen matches from the farm’s kitchen, lit a fire, left Margie, and swam across the river to get the doctor. Once in town, Rose had tossed a rock through the doctor’s window because he wasn’t answering the door. When they finally got back to the tree, Margie was dead. Run, river, matches, rock, dead. She didn’t always relive the whole thing, didn’t always start from the beginning, or go in order. Run, river, matches, rock, dead. Matches, river. Dead, run. Rock, river, dead, run, matches.

‘The illness seems to make her fixate on the worst things that happened to her,’ Chris said. ‘Her dad telling her she was selfish, and Margie’s death. If only it made her relive my mum’s first steps, or getting her first book published – apparently she skipped all the way to the pub after her agent phoned!’

I spent the rest of the morning helping with tea and getting people to the activity room to watch some local pianist play badly for an hour while tubby Harriet danced badly in the middle of the room in order to encourage joy.

There were seven bedrooms altogether After lunch was cleared up. I decided to check them all out. At the very front of the house were two large bay-windowed rooms: the kitchen/dining room to the right, with a disabled toilet off the back of the dining room, and the office to the left. Behind those rooms were six bedrooms, three on either side. They varied in size, but all smelt and felt the same: a hospital bed on wheels in the centre, one landscape painting above the bed and one on the wall opposite, handrails and alarms everywhere. They all had an en-suite bathroom with a seat in the shower and a raised toilet-seat frame with handles over the normal one. Rose’s room, Room 1, was the first on the left behind the office. Opposite her: the catatonic woman, Nancy, and her depressed husband, Gavin. Jim the ex-rocker was in Room 3, behind Rose. Room 4, opposite Jim, had been Emma’s, and was now empty. A twenty-one-year-old with leukaemia was in Room 5, behind Jim, but he’d gone home for a few days, so I hadn’t met him yet. Room 6, which lacked an en suite, was used as a television room. And the activity room was at the rear, adjacent to the back door.

But it was Room 7 that I was interested in. It was hidden away down to the right off a badly lit corridor, all on its own. The water cooler was outside the door. To look purposeful, I pulled out the rubbish bag, which had ten or so empty paper cups inside, checked to see if anyone had noticed me, and turned the handle to Room 7 slowly. It was locked.

‘You looking for something?’

Nurse Gabriella scared the shit out of me. ‘Yes . . . no.’ I held up the small bag of paper cups. ‘I was just getting the rubbish.’

‘You were trying to get in there.’

‘Okay, I was curious.’

‘It’s not in use.’

‘Why do they bring people to this room when they die? Why not just leave them in their rooms till the undertaker comes?’

‘What a morbid question.’

‘Isn’t that why Rose is scared of it?’

‘Rose is scared of everything. And you, young lady, are wasting my time.’

Sticking out of her chest pocket was a black and gold fountain pen. So, maybe she was the anonymous weirdo in the logbooks. Creepy bitch.

‘Go check on Nancy. She fell out of bed earlier today.’

As I made my way to Nancy’s room, I wondered how this place was a viable business. Marcus obviously earned a fortune, but there were only seven rooms, four of them currently empty. Maybe he was doing it for the love of it. No! No one could love this job.

I’d spotted Nancy several times. In the activity room that first day, staring ahead, not even blinking (How weird is that, not even blinking), mouth slightly open, not moving a muscle. Then later that day in the garden, her husband wheeling her down the path, same face, no expression. And this morning, being fed a scone, her husband pushing her mouth open to pop a piece inside, then chewing in front of her in the hope that she’d copy him, and she did, but she still looked dead. Honestly, if her husband loved her, why didn’t he crush twenty paracetamol into that scone? I would.

Maybe I should have knocked on Nancy and Gavin’s door. Promoting dignity should include knocking. I wish I had. Gavin had his shirt on, but no trousers or pants. His bony arse was bobbing up and down on top of Nancy’s naked yellow flesh. Holy shit, the image of her face would never go away. It would stop me sleeping at night. Her eyes were wide open, not blinking. Her lips slanted downwards, slack. She wasn’t moving a muscle. And her husband was having sex with her.

I shut the door and put my hand over my mouth in horror. What was that? Was it rape?

Nurse Gabriella was heading towards me. ‘Is Nancy all right?’

‘Yes. Well. Is Marcus around? I need to talk to him.’ I didn’t tell Nurse Gabriella. I realised by now there was no point talking to her about anything.

‘He’s writing upstairs and doesn’t want to be interrupted.’

I waited till she was in the office then raced round the back, opened his door and yelled: ‘Marcus! Marcus, are you there?’

‘I’m in the office – come on up.’

When I blurted it out in a panic it didn’t sound like something that required blurting or panic: ‘I just walked in on Gavin having sex with his wife!’

Marcus was working at his PC on a huge polished walnut desk. This room was like the others – smooth and sterile, everything hidden.

He saved what he was doing. ‘And?’

‘And she’s a vegetable! It’s not right to have sex with a vegetable!’

He scratched his head. ‘I see where you’re coming from. I do, but they’re married, and in her advanced care planning statement she said her sex life with Gavin was important to her.’

‘In her what?’

‘Advanced care planning statement. Like a death plan. And she said no matter what, that her sexuality was the thing she didn’t want to lose.’

‘But—’ I didn’t have my thoughts in order, but if I did, it probably would have sounded wrong anyway. She’d lost her sexuality, had she not? It had gone the way her blinking had gone.

‘She was very clear about it. Look, I do understand where you’re coming from. It’s tricky. I’ll check on Nancy. I’ll talk to Gavin about it and I’ll make a note of your concern.’

I felt nauseous but I wondered if I was just being stupid. The idea of any old married couple doing it made me slightly queasy, the queasiness increasing with the age of the couple in question. Maybe it was just my ageism that made it so horrific to me. Maybe all old people having sex looked like that. Blah . . . All I could say was: ‘But . . .’

‘I’ll deal with it. Leave it with me. Are you okay?’

‘Sure, just a bit shaken.’

‘How ’bout a drink after work?’

The day went slowly after that. I watched Gavin wheel his wife around the garden, looking for signs of evil. He was gentle with her, loving. He sat on a garden bench and read to her. He moved a strand of hair that was in her eyes. He shooed a bee away from her arm. He walked her around and around, slowly. He seemed to care for her. But.

Nurse Gabriella noticed me staring out into the garden and sent me off to do several loads of washing. Ick. I wore gloves to put the clothes in the machine. Huge pants. Smelly socks. Wet trousers. After hanging them out, she suggested I listen to Jim play his guitar.

I didn’t know any of the songs Jim sang but it wasn’t agonising to listen to him, unlike two boys I dated who just happened to have their guitars at hand and ruined what might have been two perfectly good evenings. One sang obscure songs very quietly, maintaining intense eye contact, so I couldn’t sing along and felt I had to listen. The other wrote a song for me called ‘Feel It’ – not dissimilar to Emma’s rendition of ‘The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond’ in that it repeated one line over and over, and was very bad. (I didn’t feel it again after that.)

Not Jim – he was good, a performer. I laughed, and joined in when required. I liked him. He was the most normal of the bunch, as far as I could tell. He asked me questions about myself and was interested in my answers. ‘Costa Rica! Oh, wow! The grass there is to die for. Roll one for me, won’t you, and dig into a huge platter of seafood after.’ Plus, his life was fascinating. He’d toured with famous bands, although I’d never heard of any of them, and told stories about overdosing lead singers, about getting kicked out of hotels in Prague, about getting rich enough to retire one year, and blowing it all partying the next.

‘So did you have groupies, Jim?’

‘I had fun! Call me Jimmy. And listen, if you get any draw, will you bring me some?’

I found myself being professional. ‘That’s illegal. And bad for you.’

‘Aw, c’mon, just enough for one joint. I’m on my way out anyway. I could do with a giggle.’

I promised I would, and made him promise not to tell.

He was funny, Jimmy – told me three jokes that all made sense and while I’d heard all three many years ago, it wasn’t too difficult to conjure a laugh. I decided to spend as much time with Jimmy as possible. He was old right enough, but not in a stinky, crawls-on-the-ceiling kind of way. He didn’t freak me out.

I had a lot of questions for Marcus and I didn’t hold back when we got to the Brunswick Bar.

‘Nurse Gabriella said you were writing?’

‘Oh – aye, but don’t tell anyone. Sounds kind of pathetic, a wannabe novelist. I tell you, I’m Googling some crazy stuff for the story I’m working on. And that, My Lord, is the case for the defence.’

We were drinking bright green cocktails in fancy glasses. I don’t know what was in them, but they were strong and he was paying. ‘So, where are your parents?’

‘Retired to France two years ago. Left me the house and the business.’

‘If you don’t mind me asking, how does it make money, with so few patients?’

‘The house is paid off, so that helps. And it’s expensive, the fees. We get by.’

He was doing better than getting by. He drove a Mercedes FFS.

‘But wouldn’t you rather do something else?’ Looking at him now, drinking cocktails in the bar like a normal young bloke, I could not imagine why he would choose to stay there. It wasn’t as if he gave off caring vibes.

‘That’s why I’m writing! Hey, enough about me. Tell me the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done.’

Maybe if I hadn’t had two of those green drinks I wouldn’t have leant in as if to kiss him, then flicked his nostril: ‘That.’

He flinched. ‘Ow, I’m your boss, Miss Catherine.’

‘And I’m your feisty wage slave, Mr Marcus.’

He dropped me off at six, saw me to my door, and kissed me like a gentleman, ‘Goodnight, Catherine.’

Hmm. He was rich, he had a Merc, he was fun, he was my boss (which I found kinda naughty and naughty made me horny), but his kiss had inspired no tingles. That wasn’t unusual, mind. The tingles had only happened once, with Paul, last summer. We were drunk, and alone at my place after a comedy night at The Stand. We were giving each other marks out of ten for certain parts of our bodies and were both being flirtatiously generous.

‘Nine definitely!’ He’d touched my legs.

I touched his chest. ‘Nine.’

Lips were the last body part we marked. He said ‘ten’ as he moved in and I felt them: the tingles.

‘Woah!’ I jumped up from the sofa, scared to death by what had just happened. I felt something, for Paul. I couldn’t afford to do that. He was the only real friend I had, the only one interesting and interested enough for me to be friends with for ever.

I told him to go, and he did. We never played that game again.

But I have two confessions. After the almost-kiss, I sat in bed and found myself writing him an email.

The second confession is that I have written him an email every week since. That’s thirty-six altogether. I never sent any of them, they’re in the drafts folder. Some of them get quite soppy. Some of them get quite rude.

Mum was asleep when I got in. She’d obviously been tidying the house. It looked like there was hardly anything in it. No bits of paper on surfaces, no dirty clothes in the washing basket. She’d done one hell of a spring clean.

Ping
, and Marcus had requested my friendship on Facebook. I deleted all the posts I’d done about work, and pressed Confirm. Yes, Marcus, we are now friends, and I am online and I am ready to chat.

Ping!

Right, so this wouldn’t turn into a sex chat. I was glad – I wasn’t very good at those. Once you start them, there’s no going back so you have to pretend to be getting excited for at least twenty minutes (
Yes, I’ve taken my bra off,
etc. etc.) and then pretend to come at the same time as the person on the other end does and I’m not very convincing. (
Yep, that’s me too. Wow, amazing, seeya
.)
Okay
, I messaged.
Everything all right?