The Betrayal of Trust (22 page)

‘No,’ Jocelyn said, covering it with her own. ‘You promised me you wouldn’t do this.’

‘That was before we got here. Mother, please …’

‘No.’

‘How can you sit there drinking coffee? I don’t know
this person you’ve turned into.’

‘Yes, you do. Of course you do. I’m the same person.’

‘You don’t seem to have anything to do with me. You’re a million miles away already, you’re –’

‘Stop it. Oh, do look, that sweet little white dog. What do they call them? I can’t remember.’

‘Shut up, shut up, shut up!’ Penny stood. She had raised her voice. It was not yet a shout, but it might turn into
one.

‘I think we should go now,’ Jocelyn said. ‘Will you pay while I flag down a taxi?’

‘No.’

‘All right, I’ll do both.’

‘I can’t do this …’

Jocelyn faced her calmly. Behind them, a couple of young men took their vacant table, pushing the empty cups and plates to one side, talking hard as they did so. The small white dog was sitting beside its owner while she too talked, talked.

Life.

Normal.

This is normal life.

The words ran like ticker tape through her head.

‘Listen,’ she said. ‘I understand. I do understand. It’s harder for you and maybe I shouldn’t have let you come. But you came and you’re here. So, you can come with me, or we can … part now. You can go home. I’m fine. But decide now and stick to that, Penny. I’m fine but I don’t think I can cope with … you changing
your mind, changing it again. Not knowing if you are going to be with me or not. That’s harder than anything.’

‘And what you are asking me to do is the hardest thing possible.’

‘I understand.’

‘I don’t think you do. I have to live with this. Hear what I’m saying. I have to live with this.’

‘Whereas I don’t.’

They stood looking at one another and each saw the horror of realisation on the face
of the other.

Then Jocelyn stepped forward and raised her arm and the taxi that had been spinning towards them stopped.

They could have walked. It was five minutes away from where they had had their coffee, one of the older apartment blocks, like private consulting rooms anywhere. There was an entrance hall. Reception. Telephone. Computer. Vase of flowers. Bland pictures. Waiting room. Plants.
Low table. Magazines of a neutral kind, in German, French and English. General Interest. Cream paint. Double glazing, muffling the traffic sound.

The receptionist had hair piled up high, tied round with a black band. Formal smile. Perfect, accented English. Neutral, like the magazines, Jocelyn thought. Trained expression. Sympathetic but not involved. No. Never involved.

How many of us come
here? Of ‘us’? Plenty of people must come for other reasons but how many of ‘us’? One a day? One a week? A month? More? Dozens more? Hundreds?

Her appointment was at eleven thirty and at eleven thirty she was ushered into the doctor’s room. High ceiling. Tall windows. Wide desk. Photograph of a wife, two children. Plants. The room of consultants anywhere.

It took perhaps fifteen minutes, and
of those, he spent several reading her notes, turning pages to and fro with a soft sound. He asked her about her symptoms. Movement. Speech. Throat. Hands. Grip. Touch. About changes. Then about thoughts. Mental attitude, she thought.

She expected him to try and persuade her against, to talk about hope and symptom control, about home and disability and care.

He said, ‘It is one of the worst
of many. Perhaps the worst.’

He riffled through the papers once more. Then turned to his computer. Typed briefly. Wrote on a sheet of paper and handed it to her in an envelope.

‘You take this with you to the clinic. They now have the medication approval. You know what is to happen next?’

‘I go to the clinic?’

‘Return to your hotel and wait for the taxi which will call. It will ask for you
by name and you go in that. They will check your details first, then take you. I am not sure exactly when.’ He stood up and put out his hand.

She felt as if she were in a television play. The receptionist came in and ushered her back to the waiting room. It was a play. Penny stared at her, looking into her face for some sign, some answer, some relief.

‘We go back to the hotel and wait,’ Jocelyn
said.

How long would it take? They were in the city centre and the clinic would be in the country somewhere. She had expected everything to take longer but was glad that it had not. She asked Penny if she wanted to have lunch in the hotel bar. An open sandwich. A salad. More coffee and cake.

‘You should have a drink,’ she said.

Penny did not answer. In the end, they sat in the room and waited.
It seemed wrong to go among people in a busy bar. Jocelyn felt it would be wrong. She would be a bad omen. A death’s head.

They waited for three hours and twenty minutes. In the end she dozed. Penny simply sat. The twin beds had pale yellow coverlets. Sunny. The room faced a side street. Jocelyn got up and stumbled. Her left leg was numb.

In the street, a man got out of a car. Lit a cigarette
at once. Walked away. A woman with a suitcase on wheels went towards a house. Rang a bell on the side of the door.

‘We didn’t decide … how stupid. We should decide.’

‘I can’t stand this.’

‘I brought so little but I do have … bits and pieces.’

Toothbrush and paste. Face cream. Lipstick. Foundation. Clothes. Underclothes. Nightdress. Diary. Purse. Phone. Bits and pieces.

‘Are you going to take
them back with you? Home, I mean. Or … you can ask them to … downstairs. Ask reception for a bag and … leave them. Rubbish. There must be a bin. Or just take them home.’

Home.

‘It was a disgrace,’ Penny said. ‘How could that man tell anything from a few minutes?’

‘It was more than a few. And he had notes. A file on me.’

‘Did he read through them – every word?’

‘Of course not, he would have
done all that ages ago.’

‘You think so?’

Penny stood up. Walked across to the bed and picked up her jacket and scarf. Bag.

‘It isn’t here yet.’

‘You said if I wanted to go … if I couldn’t do it … you said that.’

‘Yes. I did. So you should go. Go to the airport. Just get there, look up a flight, you’ll get one, surely. They’ll change your ticket. You may have to wait a few hours. Still, at
an airport – you can buy a book … have a meal … coffee … there are worse places to wait.’

‘Yes.’

‘So, go now. I should never have expected you to do this for me. It was quite wrong. I know what you said but I should never have agreed.’

‘I thought I was … that I could cope with anything. See anything through. It seems I was wrong.’

‘You’re not wrong. You could see anything through.’

‘Not the
one thing. Do you know what it is?’

‘Yes, of course. Fear. That’s all. Are you surprised?’

‘No. Not fear at all.’

‘What then?’

The room phone rang.

‘The taxi,’ Penny said.

Of course she went with her. There was never any question. She got into the waiting cab before Jocelyn.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’

Jocelyn touched her hand.

She did not know how long the journey would be but the
taxi was comfortable. It wouldn’t matter if it took an hour, which she supposed it could. This was a big city. They had to get out
of
it, through the suburbs, before they were anywhere near open country. She wondered if they would go as far as the mountains, though it would not be like the postcard, she knew that perfectly well; this was not winter.

But Swiss mountains were not only wonderful
in snow.

It was not even half an hour.

They had driven through the beginnings of suburban estates, block after block of flats, business parks, industrial units. The taxi slowed and swung left off the main road beside a long row of concrete garages. At the end, two more low blocks of flats, sharing a short approach. Green rubbish bins stood to the right. A Portakabin was parked.

‘Thank you.
Apartment second.’ The driver was pointing. ‘Ring top bell.’

He leaned over and opened the door without getting out, then faced forward again, as if he did not want to register either of their faces. As Penny closed the cab door the wheels were already turning.

‘Now … that bell? Yes. That bell.’

But Jocelyn did not move.

‘This is a terrible place,’ Penny said.

‘We can’t judge the clinic by
the surroundings.’

‘Can’t we? I can.’

‘Inside it will be –’ She hesitated. Nothing here was as she had expected. Imagined. Remembered from the watercolour postcard, even while she had told herself that was irrelevant, that of course she had not expected to be up in the snow-covered Alps. Of course not.

The apartment block was grey. Functional. Three storeys. Metal window frames.

‘Mother …’

Jocelyn put up her hand. She saw that it was shaking. Why was that? It shook so hard she could not touch the bell. She turned to Penny.

‘No.’

She reached her hand up again and this time managed to press the metal disc. There was an intercom on the wall.

‘
Bitte
?’

‘Yes … hello …’ Her own voice sounded husky. Not like her own voice.

‘Name please?’

‘Mrs Jocelyn Forbes.’ She cleared her throat.

‘
Ja
.’

The intercom buzzed and the door moved a few inches.

‘No,’ Penny said again. ‘This is a terrible place. You can’t go in.’

Jocelyn went in. The hallway was not well lit. To the right was a lift. From above a voice called, ‘Press for first floor.’ A door slammed. Penny’s face was ashen. They did not meet one another’s eye.

On the first floor, the lift doors opened onto a landing. Two doors,
both with chipped blue paint. Marks on the doorpost, as if someone had been chiselling.

A dog barked somewhere above.

The door immediately opposite them opened.

‘Ah, yes. Come in please.’

The girl had short blonde hair. A pale green tabard like those worn by dental nurses. Jeans. She held the door open for them.

‘Wait for a moment here.’ She indicated a bench set against the narrow corridor
wall, then went away.

Jocelyn did not look around. Not at the walls or the light or the floor or the ceiling. She looked at her own hands. Her own hands. In an hour, several hours, minutes – she did not know how long – they would be dead hands. She would not be able to lift them, move them. The blood would lie flat and motionless inside her veins. Her hands would change colour. How long would
it take …?

Penny sat as if she herself were already dead, barely breathing.

Someone coughed. A tap was turned on. Off.

Silence.

‘Mrs Forbes.’

A man stood in a doorway. Older. White-haired. His shirtsleeves were rolled up.

‘Come this way please.’ His accent was barely noticeable.

Now, she thought, now is the moment when we leave this place and go to the clinic itself. They should have a
better – what?
Reception
area? Shop front? More like the private doctor’s. Flowers on a desk. Pale painted walls. Pictures. Magazines. The clinic would lead off here. The clinic with the pale walls, pale furniture, the crucifix, the tranquil white pillows, the soft music, the rug beneath your feet, the air of calm. Of reverence even.

It was a small bare room. There was a high couch covered in
a plastic sheet. A sink. A wooden chair. A draining board with a cupboard beneath it. Kitchen cupboard. She thought, is that where they keep the tea, the coffee, the mugs. Or …

‘You have your identity paper, please, your passport?’ He held out his hand.

She fumbled at the front pocket of her bag but her fingers would not grasp the zip.

Penny sat, still motionless. Still barely breathing.

It took a lifetime. He did not offer to help her, simply stood, waiting. In the end, she got the pocket open, her passport, her identity papers that had come in the post.

He took them. Read every word. Turned the pages of the passport. Looked at her face. Then her photograph. Her face again. The photograph. He nodded. Put the papers and passport on the draining board.

‘Mrs Forbes, yes. Now. I
will tell you what will happen. I will go through this step by step and you must indicate at every point that you understand me.

‘You will take off your coat and shoes, and lie down. We will make sure you are comfortable. You will be propped up on the backrest. The pillows. I will then mix the medication in front of you, so that you see everything I do. Your witness … your companion sees. It
will be a glass of mixture. And I will unwrap a square of good sweet chocolate. I will hand you the glass and then I will say to you this. “Mrs Forbes, you have indicated your wish to commit suicide. If you drink this, you will die.” You will tell me that you understand. Then you will hold the glass in your own hand and your own hand only. I cannot help you. Then you will drink it all and as it is
bitter to taste you will eat the chocolate square. You will then lie down and after a moment you will feel drowsy and you will go unconscious. After some more moments, which you will not know anything
of
, you will die. You will be dead. I will not have killed you. You will have committed suicide with the medication prescribed for you. That is all. Do you understand all of this?’

Jocelyn nodded.

‘Say yes, please – the tape is to record this.’

Like the police then. The arrested person interviewed. ‘For the benefit of the tape please state your name.’

‘Yes. I understand.’

‘Thank you.’

She realised how cold the room was.

The man had his back to them and was opening the cupboard, checking her paperwork again.

The young woman came in and spoke to him quietly. He nodded. She too looked
at the papers. Picked up Jocelyn’s passport and turned a couple of pages. Put it down.

That was not a check, Jocelyn thought, that was nosiness. How dare she flip through personal items like that.

Yet in a few moments, twenty, thirty, personal items would not matter. They did not matter now. Her passport would be obsolete. The passport of a dead woman. Dead.