‘So you’re saving them up?’
‘I’ve saved a few. Do you know how big a dose of morphine I’d need to make sure I won’t wake up again?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘No, I haven’t the slightest idea.’
‘Could you find out for me?’
Rex was beginning to feel desperate. ‘I can’t ask around about that, can I? Is that the help you’re asking me to give you?’
‘Yes, amongst other things.’
‘What other things?’
‘You will help me?’
Rex nodded. He couldn’t refuse her and he wanted to protect Chloe from being asked in his stead. ‘Yes,’ he told her.
‘I want you to buy me over-the-counter painkillers, aspirin or something I can use instead of the pills prescribed.’
‘I hate to think of you doing this.’
‘I think all my pills are strong; I don’t think I’d need very many to kill me. People can die if they take a lot of aspirins.’
Rex hastily drained his tea cup. His mouth was dry again. ‘I don’t think . . .’
‘There is another way. Every so often Marigold collects new prescriptions from the chemist for me.’
‘But she’d know if I took the bottles from the pantry and gave them to you.’
‘Marigold can be forgetful too; she’s left them by my bed more than once. I’d just want you to take three or four out of each bottle. She wouldn’t notice that.’
‘To add to your hoard?’
‘There’s no other way. I’ve saved two of my sleeping pills and four of the daytime pills.’ She took a small green suede Dorothy bag from her pocket to show him. ‘I have to collect them in this so I can carry it around with me. They treat me like a child.’
Rex shuddered at the sight of the pills tipped out in Helen’s hand. ‘It’s their way of caring for you,’ he told her. They believe it’s for your own good.’
‘Yes, but I wish they’d listen to me. I keep telling them I don’t want any more chemo, that I’d rather things were left to take their natural course.’
‘Helen!’
‘Everybody else believes that the next course will cure my cancer, and I get encouragement from all sides to go ahead and try it.’
Rex shivered. ‘They could be right.’ He was still clinging to that hope.
‘The doctors talk of surgically rebuilding my breast as though that will restore my body to what it used to be. It won’t. Nothing can put the clock back now. I shall take my overdose before they cart me off to hospital again.’
Rex wanted to cover his face with both hands. ‘I’m so sorry it’s come to this. I wish there was something I could do that would really help.’
‘You do help, just listening to me. I couldn’t keep all this to myself, could I? I want to make it easier for all of you. I want it to be organised. I hope you don’t mind – it’s your birthday in two weeks’ time . . .’
‘Yes,’ Rex agreed. ‘Nobody ever did anything to celebrate my birthdays until you started making me cakes and having little tea parties.’
‘Chloe has offered to bake your cake this year, and she’s going to arrange a little party round my lounger in the summerhouse.’
‘That will be nice.’
‘I want to make it my send off, my chance to say goodbye to all my family, but only you will know that.’
Rex’s fingers tightened on her hand. ‘Helen! No!’
‘I’ll try and stay up for dinner that night. Then I’ll say I’m tired, that I’ve enjoyed it and I’ll ask you to carry me up to my room. When Marigold has settled me down for the night, I’ll take as many pills as I’ve collected and hope I’ll not wake up again.’
‘Oh God, Helen! I don’t want you to do that.’ He put his arms round her and pulled her close.
‘I’m sorry. It’ll be your birthday, but . . .’
‘You know it’s not that.’
‘You did say you’d help me,’ she whispered and pulled away from him. He could see the doubt and disappointment in her face. ‘Have you changed your mind?’
‘If that’s what you really want, I’ll help you in every way I can,’ he promised.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
F
OR CHLOE IT WAS proving to be a terrible summer. Her mother had always been small and slight, but now she was painfully thin and frail. Although she still had the occasional good day, she seemed to have many more that were bad.
She didn’t complain, but they all knew she was often gripped by pain. Auntie Joan was coming round regularly once or twice a week to keep her spirits up. She used to take her back to her own house occasionally for a meal and a change of scene, but recently her mother hadn’t wanted to go. Aunt Goldie was the first to put into words what they were beginning to think.
‘Poor Helen, I don’t think she’s going to get better. She has no energy, and all she wants to do is sit in the garden or in the summerhouse. And even getting out there is becoming more than she can manage.’
Chloe hadn’t given up hope that her mother would recover. She talked of their future plans for the garden. Rex didn’t need any encouragement to come round. She’d heard him mention the holiday he’d take Mum on when she felt better. Chloe encouraged her to eat a few extra mouthfuls at each meal and tried to buoy up her spirits.
Dr Harris was coming to see her frequently, and prescribing ever more tablets for her pain. Chloe and Goldie made sure she took them and followed all his advice. They’d all tried to believe that Helen would get better, that it was only a matter of time until she did. But when Chloe took the week off work to spend more time with her, it gave her a clearer picture of how things really were.
She was sitting in the garden with her mother when Dr Harris made one of his calls. Chloe looked up to see him striding across the grass towards them. Helen perked up to talk to him, but though he discussed the drugs he was prescribing, Chloe thought his call had no more effect than a social visit. When he stood up to leave, she went with him to show him out through the house.
‘Mum seems to be getting worse,’ she said. ‘All the bounce has gone out of her. Is there nothing more we can do?’
They were crossing the patio to the back door. ‘Sit here for a moment, Chloe,’ he said.
She perched on the edge of a chair. ‘I’m worried about Mum.’
‘And I’m worried about you both. Your mother’s made her decision. Has she told you that she’s refused to have another course of chemo?’
‘No!’ Chloe was aghast. ‘No! Only yesterday Aunt Goldie asked her when she’d be starting it and she said she didn’t know.’
‘She knows it’ll upset you and that you’ll try to persuade her otherwise. She feels she can’t hold out against you any more. She hasn’t the strength.’
Chloe felt tears burning her eyes. ‘She has said it makes her feel worse than the disease itself.’
‘I know, and we have talked it through. I tried hard to persuade her to carry on with the treatment, but this is her decision and she didn’t make it lightly.’
‘I know she doesn’t think it will cure her and she doesn’t want to lose her hair again and be made to feel sick.’ She was biting her lip. ‘It’s as though she’s lost all hope of getting better.’ She felt a tear run down her face. ‘Is there no more hope?’
‘There’s always hope. Your mother wants it this way; she’s decided to leave it to nature. We must respect her wishes and help her to face with dignity whatever comes.’
‘It’s so unfair,’ Chloe railed. ‘Why her?’
Dr Harris’s dark eyes were kindly. ‘Your mother seems at peace, but this is something you have to face too.’
She sighed. ‘I wish I were stronger.’
‘You’re strong enough,’ he said. He patted her arm and stood up. ‘I’ll ask the Marie Curie nurses to come. They’ll help you make her as comfortable as possible. Helen likes visitors, doesn’t she?’
‘Always has.’
Chloe showed him to the front door. She closed it quickly behind him and had to run to the cloakroom. She wiped her face on the towel and then decided to splash cold water round her eyes. She didn’t want Mum to see she’d been crying.
She went back to sit with her and hold her hand, but her mother was dozing off. She was doing more of that these days.
Two days later, a Marie Curie nurse came round and introduced herself as Felicity. She made Helen comfortable and sat and talked to both of them. She said that on her days off it would be her colleague Gail who would come. They talked about Helen’s medication and what the family could do to help.
When she’d gone, her mother said, ‘She’s a sweet girl. She’s going to give me a bath tomorrow and wash my hair. She says there’s a lot she can do to style it. It’ll save Marigold the job. I’m afraid she’s having to work very hard these days.’
Chloe was pleased that her mother had taken to the nurse, but suddenly she was fading away before their eyes.
Since Chloe had said he must have his dinner with them, Rex had made it a habit to look in on Helen late every afternoon, even when he was working elsewhere. When he thanked Chloe again for this, she said, ‘I’ve got a confession to make. There’s an ulterior motive. We need your help.’
‘You know I’ll be glad to do anything I can.’ He smiled. He couldn’t do enough for Chloe.
‘Mum likes to get up and spend the day downstairs or out in the garden, and while Aunt Goldie and Peggy can get her down the stairs, by evening Mum’s tired and the stairs are proving difficult. They’re too narrow for us to get one each side of her.’
‘That’s easy,’ he told her. ‘And no bother at all.’
Sometimes when he came, he’d find that Chloe was already home from work and that she’d have walked Helen as far as the kitchen, where the children would be eating a light supper. Peggy had extended her working day to five thirty so she could prepare this for them before leaving.
He knew that Chloe’s evenings were busy. She played with the children, bathed them before getting them ready for bed and read them a story before tucking them in. Marigold usually collapsed with a cup of tea in front of the television, exhausted after being on the go all day.
It had been Helen’s routine to sit with Marigold and stay downstairs to have dinner with the family, but she said she was so tired these days, she’d rather go straight up to her bed and have dinner there.
Over the last few days, Rex had walked her to the bottom of the stairs and then swung her up in his arms and carried her up to the bedroom he’d once regularly shared with her. He’d sit and talk to her until dinner was ready and then fetch up their meals on two trays.
Tonight, when he lowered Helen on to her bed, he said, ‘I’ve been to the library today. I browsed round for ages trying to find out how much morphine you’d need to guarantee a fatal dose. I’m no wiser about that, but I did discover that it’s a derivative of opium and that it often causes vomiting. Also, death by poisoning is never pleasant. You’re wrong about that, Helen. It’s not a matter of floating off to sleep and never waking up.’
‘You won’t scare me off,’ she told him.
Rex told her of what he’d read. ‘It’ll be painful. You might have spasms or fits and be fighting for breath.’ He painted a dire picture for her, in the hope of persuading her not to do it.
‘At least it will be over quickly, in hours, rather than waiting months or years for nature to drag out its course.’
‘Helen, I wish you wouldn’t. We all of us love you and want you with us for as long as possible.’
She was cringing. ‘I can’t face it. Please get me more pills. It would be too awful if I suffered all that and then woke up again.’
It went against all Rex’s instincts, but one afternoon when he was making a cup of tea for them both and there was no one else in the kitchen, he looked on the top shelf in the larder for the two pill bottles. He took four out of each and gave them to Helen to add to her hoard. With what she had, it gave her twenty times her normal dose.
‘I think that should do it,’ he said as he watched her slide them into her little green suede Dorothy bag.
‘I’ve got to be sure it will.’ He could see anguish on her face. ‘Will you buy me a large bottle of aspirins too?’
Rex was dreading his birthday and was well aware that it was approaching fast.
He went home to toss and turn in bed. What Helen was doing was giving him nightmares. He should not be helping her in this way, but now he’d done what she’d asked, there was no way he could stop it. He had to admire her guts, but he feared for her too. He was horribly afraid she was going to have a very painful death. Four more days to wait before she staged it.
Rex woke up in a tangle of bedclothes, hot, sweaty and dry-mouthed. He didn’t at first realise that it was the ringing telephone down in the hall that had woken him. He lay back, willing it to stop. When it didn’t, he switched on his bedside light. It was half past three.
He leapt out of bed, and pulling his eiderdown round him, ran down to the hall still feeling fuzzy.
‘Yes, hello,’ he said into the phone. Chloe’s voice jerked him back to wakefulness. She was crying and hardly coherent.
‘Rex, it’s Mum. I think she’s going.’
‘Going?’
‘She’s slipping away. Dying. She’s asking for you.’
He stood half paralysed with shock. This was not what Helen had planned. He almost said, she can’t be, not yet, but pulled himself together sufficiently to say, ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can,’ before running back upstairs to throw on his clothes.
His mind raced. Helen knew he wasn’t convinced it was the right thing for her to do. He’d never stopped trying to dissuade her. Had she been afraid that at the last moment he’d tell her family about her plan? Was that why she’d jumped the gun?
It was a dark night, and there was no traffic on the road. Rex hardly knew what he was doing; he was in an emotional tumult. Every light shone out of the windows of 8 Carberry Road. Marigold in a scarlet dressing gown had the front door open before he reached it.
‘She’s at the gates of heaven,’ she said. ‘I’ve rung for the doctor.’
He shot upstairs to Helen’s room and Marigold followed. Chloe had been sitting by the bed; she rose to her feet. ‘Rex, thank goodness you’re here, Mum’s asking for you.’
Helen was a tiny figure under the bedclothes. She looked half comatose, and her face was deathly pale with a blueish tinge round her mouth. Marigold went to the other side of the bed. ‘We’re all gathered round you, Helen,’ she said in a sonorous voice.