Sixteen

Half an hour later Mandy dried her eyes, heaved herself from the bed and pushed her feet into her slippers. If she was staying to help she needed to get a grip and be of some use, otherwise she might as well go home. Putting on a face to mask feelings seemed to run in the family and she was sure she could do it just as well as anyone else. There would be time later to consider the past; now she needed to simply get on with it and help. Smoothing her hair flat, she checked her face in the dressingtable mirror and then returned downstairs.

Evelyn was coming out of the study with the urine bottle. ‘I’m just going to empty this,’ she said. Mandy nodded. ‘Sarah phoned while you were asleep. She and her partner, Simon, are visiting tomorrow.’

‘That will be nice,’ Mandy said, ‘I’ll look forward to it,’ and returned to the study. It was nearly 2 p.m.

Gran was in her usual chair beside the bed. Someone had unpacked Grandpa’s flat cap and it now lay on the coffee table next to his glasses as though at any moment he might step from the bed and put them on. She sat in one of the armchairs and gazed across the room towards the bed and the chair where Gran sat holding Grandpa’s hand. All that could be heard for some time was Grandpa’s breath, then Gran began to doze. Mandy checked her phone and then listened to her iPod. Ten minutes later Evelyn returned with the empty urine bottle and tucked it beside the bed. Gran stirred and Evelyn said she was ‘seeing to the arrangements for our guests’: Sarah and Simon on Friday, and Mandy’s parents on Sunday.

As the afternoon passed Mandy felt a rising sense of occasion. Evelyn looked in regularly to check they were all right and give updates on what she was doing to prepare for the guests: she was having Mrs Saunders give the house an extra clean and polish; she was trying to decide on the menus – did her parents like rainbow trout? She’d have to go into the town rather than order online, and so on and so on. Mandy took her earphones out each time Evelyn came into the study and Gran woke and smiled and nodded politely. ‘She’s a great one for entertaining,’ Gran commented dryly after one visit.

Presently Evelyn reappeared looking concerned. ‘Are you certain your parents like rainbow trout?’

‘I’m certain they do,’ Mandy said. ‘But please don’t go to any trouble.’

‘No trouble. We’ll have the trout with new potatoes and French runner beans on Sunday when your parents come, and the lamb tomorrow when Simon and Sarah visit.’

‘I’m sure that’ll be lovely,’ Mandy assured her.

Without doubt all Evelyn’s preparations were a distraction from what was really going on, Mandy thought, and she hoped her parents could be persuaded to stay for lunch or dinner, or whichever meal the trout was for, otherwise Evelyn would be sorely disappointed, and the tenuous relationship her aunt had with her parents would be strained even further.

After Evelyn’s last visit worrying about the trout Gran gave up trying to doze and stayed awake. Mandy put aside her iPod and took out her sketch pad. She drew a large picture of a trout with its mouth turned down in a sulk. She headed the sketch Trout with a Pout and showed it to Gran, who laughed out loud. No matter how upset you were you couldn’t be sad all the time, Mandy thought, it simply wasn’t possible.

Grandpa’s pain always seemed more manageable during the day, but then during the day the nurse came every four hours to give him a morphine injection, compared to the one at 10 p.m., which, with the sleeping draught, was supposed to see him through the night. When the nurse made his 6 p.m. visit they remained in the study and the nurse said Mr Edwards’s pulse was noticeably weaker in his neck. Gran and John nodded stoically as though they knew what this meant and had been half expecting it, but Mandy didn’t know and thought it sounded bad.

‘My parents aren’t coming again until Sunday,’ she said anxiously to the nurse. ‘Should I tell them to come sooner?’

The nurse looked up from Grandpa and smiled kindly. ‘I don’t think there’s any immediate concern. I’m sure Sunday will be fine. Your grandpa could stay the same for many days, but not weeks. I’ll check again when I settle him for the night.’

When the nurse returned at 10 p.m., after Gran and Evelyn had gone to bed, he took Grandpa’s pulse and said he was ‘holding his own’ and his pulse hadn’t weakened further, which seemed good news. After this 10 p.m. injection Grandpa slept reasonably peacefully until just after 2 a.m., when he awoke with a start and cried out. Mandy was already awake, with her iPod on low, and went straight to the bed, followed by John. John took his shoulders and she took Grandpa’s hands and together they tried to soothe him. But it had no effect and he grew delirious. ‘Get it off me!’ he cried, trying to knock something off his chest. Then, squinting towards the curtains: ‘Close the windows! They’re getting in!’

’The windows are closed,’ John reassured him. ‘Nothing can get in.’

Mandy tried to hold Grandpa’s hands to stop him from hitting his chest while John soothed his forehead, but he kept pulling away. And while Mandy wouldn’t have admitted it she was slightly spooked by Grandpa’s insistence that ‘they’ were getting in, for the threat seemed real. She glanced around the room at the shadows in the corners and then put the main light on. ‘He hasn’t got a temperature,’ John said, feeling his forehead. ‘It’s probably all the morphine making him see things.’

With the main light on Grandpa gradually began to calm down as though the light had banished the demons. The hallucinations stopped and he lay back on the pillows, exhausted, and slowly drifted into unconsciousness. They’d just returned to their chairs when he called out again; they were immediately by his bed. The pain was as bad as the previous night now and although John massaged his shoulders and Mandy stroked his head, all the time talking and trying to calm him, it had no effect. Then his eyes suddenly shot open and he stared up at John. ‘End it now,’ he gasped between breaths. ‘You promised. I’ve had enough.’

Mandy looked at John, who’d visibly paled. He took his hands from Grandpa’s shoulders and crossed to the phone on the desk. ‘Sorry, Dad, I can’t. I’ll call the nurse.’ Grandpa groaned.

As they waited for the nurse they soothed and comforted Grandpa as best they could. The agony drove him in and out of consciousness. In his waking moments he shouted out and stared around, not knowing where he was, then his eyes rolled upwards and he was unconscious again. The minutes ticked by and John kept glancing at his watch. ‘Where the hell is he?’ he demanded, channelling his worry into anger.

At last the pain seemed to peak and was subsiding when he began to retch. Mandy grabbed the bucket and he vomited the thick brown foul-smelling liquid. The doorbell rang. ‘Thank God,’ John said.

Mandy stayed where she was and wiped his mouth on a tissue while John answered the door. ‘The nurse is here,’ she soothed, but there was no reply.

Coming into the study, the nurse took charge. Mandy stood away from the bed as he turned Grandpa on to his side and gave him the morphine injection in his thigh. He opened a sterilized packet containing moistened cotton buds and carefully wiped the inside of Grandpa’s mouth. The smell rose from the bucket. ‘It’s faecal vomiting,’ the nurse said. ‘When the lower bowel becomes obstructed it contracts and forces the waste up through the intestines where it is ejected as vomit.’

Mandy thought she was going to puke.

John grimaced. ‘Can you think of anything more degrading than being forced to vomit up your own excrement!’ he said bitterly.

‘It won’t happen again,’ the nurse promised. ‘I’ll make sure he has an anti-nausea drug in with the morphine. You’re doing a good job,’ he added, touching John’s arm reassuringly. ‘Mr Edwards is a lucky man to be able to die at home surrounded by his family.’

Mandy flinched at the word ‘die’, which they’d all been carefully avoiding.

‘Is he?’ John said tightly. ‘I wouldn’t want an end like this.’

Mandy silently agreed.