The Half Sister Page 33

  The remaining discussion revolves around the fact that Diana is refusing antidepressants and whether or not an ethics committee meeting should be convened to overrule her wishes and administer them anyway, just to break the cycle. In which case, thinks Edmund, there are plenty of other decisions the ethics committee can make and plenty of other cycles it can break.

  ‘Now, let’s invite Diana in and see what she has to say.’

  Chapter Forty

  The waves queue up in straight lines along the length of the coast, inconspicuous little arrivals, hurrying through life with their heads down until their time comes, finally making it to the shore only to be broken against the beaten brown of the breakwaters, losing all identity amongst the million shards of shingle who have gone before. Death is not unusual. Every second across the world, untold numbers of people die. In the scale of requests, it is not such a big thing: it would cost nothing, or everything.

  The beach is almost empty. Edmund walks because walking usually helps. To his right, a windsurfer has caught the keen breeze and allowed himself to be spirited towards the sly horizon, but now he is struggling with the sail, straining his bodyweight against the bar to bring himself back to land. He said no, Diana, no, she shouldn’t think like that, life would get better, just see how he is holding her hand, and he can feel her fingers almost closing on his, listen to how she can speak, it may be a croak or a rasp, but there are memories, aren’t there, and words, whispered words loud enough to scare the sandpipers picking for a living along the edge of the surf.

  Further on, the beach is trimmed with bungalows, shells in the front gardens and painted pebbles and one with a For Sale sign leaning in the offshore wind in the way that black widow trees turn their backs on the cliffs in Cornwall. The curtains are pulled and the paint is peeling – it was somebody’s home, once. Edmund imagines the grown-up, married and moved-away children putting the house on the market, everything going in the skip, her recipe books, Mother’s Day presents from the old days, her odd stockings. Home. He brought some Chanel for Diana today. When he kissed her cheek, the smell of home was stronger than the smell of air fresheners; it was the scent of Wynhope, early evening before heading up to London for the opera, fastening her jade locket around her long white neck, his swan, he called her, at times like that. She didn’t actually say that what she wanted was to return to Wynhope, that if that was not possible then death was the next best thing, but surely that was what she meant. She said very little, but she said enough. At the window in her room, which only opened so far, he looked down on the ordered rows of bedding plants and lurid forsythia bushes which lined the immaculate paths through the Angeline’s terraces, a little like Mikey’s plastic plants, each pressed into the correct Lego slot. Those sterile beds are no substitute for the richness of the gardens at Wynhope; they are like the nursing home itself, modelled on a country house, but with no soul, no history. He often thought that the English obsession with the past was unhealthy, but to live without it? Maybe that is how Diana feels, a contemporary structure of a woman, empty inside, memory uncertain, history denied, future defined, in which case, who can blame her for asking? When you tap the Angeline, it is hollow, it has taken the word ‘home’ and abused it for its own ends. He has done the same with the word ‘husband’.

  Stepping to one side to let an old man pass him on the boardwalk, Edmund has his own moment of illumination as the sun temporarily transforms the sea into white gold: the pensioner has a Dachshund in one hand and a plastic bag in the other. We are all of us looking for somewhere to dump the shit.

  He cannot – will not – bring her back to Wynhope. He is not prepared to lose Mikey in order to save Diana. It is as simple as that. Nor did she expect him to. It was her selflessness which was the most painful thing about the whole hideous conversation. Her lips blurting the words and her tongue getting in the way, short splurges of speech and saliva, each one apparently exhausting her, and any platitudes offered in reply ignored as Diana summoned yet more energy from her depleted reserves.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Just the two of you. Happy.’

  ‘This is the way I want.’

  The stones he skims across the sulking sea barely skip more than once. He used to be the best, collected the smoothest, flattest, roundest pebbles from the beach in Cornwall where they went on holiday and brought them back in his suitcase to Wynhope where he could make them dance from one side of the lake to the other. Perhaps he can take Mikey there one summer, teach him to skim, to swim, to hit the tennis ball for six and send the fielders wallowing into the waves, to fall asleep with the window open and hear the roar of the surf in the shell at your ear. There is a whole world of happiness waiting for them both if they are allowed to inherit it. Wet shoes. Edmund jumps back. Without him noticing, the tide is flooding in, pools of foam leave scallop patterns in white lace all the way along the canvas beach. A childhood poem comes to mind: ‘King Canute sits down by the sea, up came the tide and away went he.’

  With Diana propped up in her specially adapted chair, he tried to talk to her. Her head rocked against its cradle continuously, it made it hard to know where to look. He crouched opposite her, close to her, leaned in towards her, touched her senseless knees.

  She isn’t to worry.

  She’s been unwell ever since the earthquake.

  He should never have left her.

  ‘Listen, Diana. Are you listening? If you’re worried about what I’ll find out,’ he said, ‘then you mustn’t be. Because I know everything already. I know and I understand everything.’

  Spasms engulfed her upper body.

  He thought she might no longer be able to smile, that the system of pulleys which heave our cheeks into position were snapped, but he was wrong. She smiled that proper Diana smile which had always won him over no matter what, and that was when she asked. Out loud. Quite audibly, quite clearly, no doubt about it.

  ‘Help me die.’ Then, as if to rule out any possibility of misunderstanding, she repeated her request. ‘Help me die, Ed. Please.’

  Entering the neuro ward he used to wish for her death, he prayed for her death as he knelt in his chapel, he condemned the medical profession for failing to let her die, he blamed her for struggling to survive and fantasised about dealing with her himself, but not once had he realistically considered doing that. Not once. The wind is picking up, the swollen waves are sucking the shingle down the beach. Reaching a smooth swept patch of sand, Edmund squats down and lets the grains run through his hands. Ovid. The classics always had a lot to teach him: the Sybil who asked to live for as many years as the grains of sand she held, but made the terrible error of forgetting to ask for eternal youth, her body withering until it was so small it was kept in a jar and only her voice was left. I yearn to die.

  Doing nothing is always an option. The sin of omission appeals to Edmund. He can pull the waters over his head night on night, year on year, allow himself to be washed up with the driftwood, a flotsam and jetsam sort of human being, tangled in orange rope and hung with seaweed, an ordinary man of whom too much was asked and so did nothing. Nothing except hopefully keeping his boy on an even keel and visiting his shrivelling wife from time to time until the visits become so few and far between the past is no longer enough.

  Stone after stone, Edmund the fielder, the rock the stumps. Miss. Miss. Hit and split and bounce in to the water. Howzats. Another hit, another. He has his eye in now. The other option is do as she asks. If she had muscles to hold tight, as tight as his hand grips this pebble, she would do it herself, dash herself against the stones; all she is asking is that he will be her right-hand man.

  Once there may have been absolutes: thou shalt not kill, for example. Today there are only lines in the sand, gone for good with the last wave, but back again tomorrow. The sea thrashes its history against the shore again and again, relentlessly regurgitating, recycling, reliving; its only future to repeat, its only outcome, the grinding down of stones. Edmund feels he has live
d too long in the ocean, swimming against the tide; he has always preferred the river.

  Turning his back on the coast, he finds his car and sits for a moment, reluctant to start the engine. A driver looking for a space calls out, ‘Are you moving, mate, or what?’, so Edmund crawls out of the car park towards the main road, past a garish notice board welcoming everyone to a Sunday service at the Baptist church on the corner.

  ‘In my father’s house are many mansions,’ it says.

  As usual, it is a question of interpretation.

  ‘Is she talking? What did she say?’

  The three wise men, as he calls them – Mikey, Monty and the bronze boy – are lined up waiting for him when he gets home. The report card reflects a bad day at school, and Edmund kicks himself for not having let the staff know he was visiting Diana. It’s no excuse, he tells Mikey, you can’t have a meltdown every time I go to the Angeline.

  ‘But did she talk? What did she say?’

  ‘No, she didn’t talk, not properly,’ he lies. Some truths are too difficult. There must come a point when if you fold darkness upon darkness you will leave a child blind. ‘I suggest you go and do your homework to make up for today’s performance at school and we’ll catch up over supper. Take Monty with you, go on.’

  Getting his coat out of the car, Edmund feels in the pocket. ‘Hang on. Come back here, you. A present from the seaside.’ The stone is a perfect oval, thin as silk and as smooth, one of the best he has ever found. ‘It’s for skimming,’ he explains.

  Examining his gift more closely, Mikey observes and reads. ‘M for Michael, how did that get there?’

  Edmund did that, the old childish habit of getting one stone and using it to chalk your initial on another. The writing never stayed, but at that moment he always used to feel he was worth something. He was wrong.

  ‘You look worn out,’ says Grace, once they are alone in the kitchen. ‘All that driving up and down to see Diana, you’ll make yourself ill.’

  ‘It’s been a long day,’ says Edmund. ‘Do you want a cup of tea? I’m making one.’ It sounds so casual, but fails to conceal how desperately he needs her to stay.

  ‘I should be off in a moment,’ she says. Grace avoids talking about Diana, Edmund has noticed that before. ‘Still, a few minutes won’t hurt. Is Diana worse then? Mikey was wondering if she’s talking?’

  Taking his time, filling the kettle, getting the milk from the fridge, Edmund replies from the larder, ‘Yes, she’s talking, but I haven’t told him.’

  Grace plonks herself down at the kitchen table.

  ‘Well, very few words. But she’s lucid. She asked me a favour.’

  There is some sort of non-committal grunt from Grace, who no doubt thinks Diana is capable of being a grasping woman even from a wheelchair.

  ‘She asked me to help her finish it all.’

  ‘Finish what? Oh, you don’t mean . . . Have I got the wrong end of the stick?’

  ‘No, you haven’t. She doesn’t want to live any longer.’

  ‘It’s so gloomy in here today and it’s not even that late.’ Grace turns on the lights and hovers close to the switch as if everything might suddenly go dark. ‘Oh, Edmund.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he replies, ‘I shouldn’t have said.’

  ‘No, don’t apologise. Poor you. But I suppose with her disabilities and all, you can’t blame her. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. And not being able to live here with you at Wynhope, that must be the worst. Having to be in a home.’

  Grace is not making things any easier.

  ‘Anyway, there’s nothing I can do to help her. The medical profession won’t oblige, Dominic made that clear enough, and I can’t exactly go taking things into my own hands. I wouldn’t know where to start for one thing.’ Edmund allows the Aga to warm him as he sips his tea, he felt chilled to the bone all the way home.

  ‘I hate to say it, and I know you can’t or anything, but it would be a release, wouldn’t it, and not just for Diana, but for you and Mikey? He worries the whole time about her, doesn’t he? But, as you say, it’s a non-starter. Listen to me, rabbiting on.’

  From here Edmund can see the railings through the kitchen window and beyond them the field, the pale pregnant sheep and the white flowers in the blackthorn trees by the winter wood, iridescent in the fading light. Diana used to stand here like this, talking, often with her back to him. If he had been here then, he would have seen her fall. Did she stand here and see herself falling?

  ‘I hope that young man’s not eavesdropping, he’s a devil like that.’ Grace checks the dining room, pokes her head out of the back door. ‘All clear,’ she says. ‘He’s not doing his homework but he’s playing with that little Down’s boy who you said could keep his pony here, bless him. They’re quite good friends. The mum’s there too so he’s quite safe.’

  The remains of his tea go down the sink, the mug in the dishwasher, the milk in the fridge. His one pathetic act of local charity is not going to weigh much against manslaughter when the scales are brought out.

  ‘Thanks for the company, Grace,’ he says. ‘Life is so busy now Mikey’s here we never seem to have the time to chat. You should head off.’

  He shouldn’t have said anything. Diana would hate him for it, and Grace is a very moral woman, she will think less of him for it. The television allows news of worse things happening elsewhere to fill the space left by her leaving, but then unexpectedly Grace is back, a few things from the washing line over her arm. She drapes them on the Aga rail.

  ‘I forgot these,’ she says. ‘They needed a good airing, but now they’re damp.’ Feeling one of Edmund’s shirts as if to check it’s dry, she presses it to her cheek. ‘I don’t know how much you know, but I’ve plenty reasons for hating Diana. But I wouldn’t wish a life of suffering on anyone. I’ll have a word with John.’ And before he can object, she’s gone.

  Searching the corners of the past few years, Edmund fails to come up with anything which might have led a woman such as Grace to spit such a commitment with such venom. Her relationship with Diana appeared to sour after the wedding, some time during that summer anyway. He had put it down to differences of opinion about the house – Grace’s sense of ownership, Diana not being used to managing staff – but none of that accounted for this outburst. Nor does he really want Grace talking to John. True, John is a man not unaccustomed to death, but it hasn’t done his mental state any favours pulling soldiers out of bombed-out buildings in Northern Ireland, patrolling the killing fields of Afghanistan. It’s left him always with one foot in the past. Killing is not even the right word for what Diana is suggesting. If Edmund is considering anything it is from a different genre: painted yellow rather than splashed in red; played out to piano music heard from a distance over a spring garden, not to the rattle of war; it is barely physical at all. In the clinics in Switzerland, they use chocolates to sweeten the pill. If he loved her, it would be easy; it is the hating that damns him.

  Chapter Forty-One

  It never rains but it pours. February is heading towards being the wettest month since records began. The river floods the meadows, its dull thunder thudding out the soundtrack to Edmund’s aimless walks through the sodden park; it is so far out of its banks it is impossible to tell where it begins and ends, and he keeps Monty on a lead for fear of him being swept away. Even when the rain stops, Wynhope echoes to the persistent spluttering of blocked gutters and water butts. Everything is wet, the kitchen floor permanently filthy with paw prints and pools shaken out of Mikey’s soaked coats. Last night’s deluge has even carved a miniature stream through the gravel and water is seeping under the front door and pooling around the feet of the grandfather clock. The main line to London is out of action. Edmund has nowhere to go but here, and here is a difficult place to be. Grace has not followed up on her hints of help, but she has planted a seed which is growing as living things tend to do. On top of that, there is now some palaver at therapy and he is expected at school for a review meet
ing.

  It started when Mikey insisted on taking something into the therapy room with him. It looked pretty innocuous to Edmund, just a yellow plastic bag with a book or something in it which he refused to show him. Edmund was surprised when Sofia made such a big thing of it. Apparently, the agreement is that children take nothing into the therapy room and take nothing out. As a result, Mikey didn’t go in either and cemented himself in the waiting room for the entire hour. To Edmund, the child and the therapist were both as stubborn as each other, but he didn’t say so. The next week, having given it great thought and consulted her supervisor, Sofia allowed him to take the mystery bag in after all, and that, Edmund hoped, would be that. Except nothing is ever simple with Mikey, and Edmund has been summoned to meet Sofia himself because something went on in that session and Mikey has refused to attend since.

  ‘Is it something he said?’ he asked on the phone.

  ‘More what he hasn’t said,’ Sofia replied.

  They meet in her office, not in the therapy room, which is a disappointment for Edmund. This is too ordinary a room with its computer and phones and dirty mugs. In carefully arranged easy chairs, at ninety-degree angles to one another, they take their seats. On a little coffee table to her left is a box of tissues and Mikey’s therapy notes in a bound blue A4 book, which, however hard Edmund tries, he can’t read from here. They start with an offer of coffee, as well as a few words on the ubiquitous subject of the rain, and as she puts the kettle on, Edmund comments that Mikey never tells him anything about therapy except one occasion when he was asked to tidy his room at home and he’d replied that he’d already tidied up in therapy. Sofia laughs, she remembers that session very well; he’d created chaos in the room, all the art stuff everywhere, the sink overflowing, the playhouse wrecked, then he tidied the whole lot up. It was very hopeful, Mikey having the experience that things can be messed up and then put right. What can Edmund say, except that he can see that must be so. She must be a bit of a mind reader, this Sofia; God knows she’ll probably have him arrested if that’s the case. The water has just boiled when a high-pitched alarm goes off and Sofia needs to pop out and see if any assistance is needed with the children.