The Trouble With Dying Page 4

  He finally relents. “I saw her at breakfast, but we were supposed to meet for lunch. Some shopping expedition,” he adds with a dismissive hand-flap.

  “Supposed to? So you didn’t actually meet with her?”

  “No. She rang and cancelled.” He shrugs. “Suited me fine. I had better things to do.”

  “I see. Did she say why she had to cancel?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t ask?”

  “No. Is that all?”

  “Not quite,” the officer says mildly, scrawling in his notebook.

  My husband folds his arms. Rat-a-tats his fingers against his arm.

  The policeman eyes the offending fingers. “How did your wife sound when she rang? Upset? Distracted? Tense?”

  “No more than usual.”

  The policewoman speaks up. “So she just said she couldn’t make it, with no explanation?”

  My husband gives an abrupt nod.

  “Did that strike you as odd?”

  He rakes that bloody hand through his hair again, exhales. “Not really.”

  They wait.

  “Faith wasn’t—I mean, isn’t—always . . . predictable.”

  Foreboding settles in my gut.

  “Does she make a habit of doing—” the policewoman pauses “—unexpected, irrational things?”

  “Look. When she gets in one of her moods anything’s possible.”

  What does he mean, ‘anything’s possible’? Do I swing from chandeliers? Perform public indecencies? Torture small animals?

  “We don’t see a lot of each other. I work very long hours and she . . .” He trails off. “Well.”

  Well what? What exactly do I do while he’s working his very long hours?

  “I see,” says the policeman, and I’m glad he does because I sure don’t. “When you left for work, did your wife seem distressed in any way?”

  “No.” Then, “Well, maybe. She was a bit uptight.”

  “But not unusually so?”

  “By her standards or everyone else’s?” My husband’s mouth turns down at the corners. “Faith is fairly . . . highly-strung.”

  “Hmm.” The policeman clears his throat. He glances at his notebook, his partner, Faith-in-the-bed, and back to his notebook before finally meeting my husband’s eye.

  “Mr Carson, I don’t want to alarm you—” and something in his tone has the hairs on my neck shuddering to attention “—but as her husband it’s best you know . . . sir, we have reason to believe this may have been attempted suicide.”

  Chapter Six

  White noise invades my ears, clanging and crashing and rushing and rumbling and pushing and shoving. Suicide? I taste bile. No. No way. Black spots dance in front of my eyes, taunting me, teasing me. You can’t remember, you can’t remember.

  Pressure builds in my chest, a constricting band of disbelief. Suicide? My heart fights against it, pounding too fast and too hard. It’s trapped. I’m trapped. Trapped inside a life—death—whatever— that has nothing to do with me.

  Meanwhile my husband, pale-faced but calm, talks past me as if I’m not even there, discussing my failed suicide attempt with the police officers. Their words fade. All I hear is the rush of blood in my ears. My pulse skitters. My mind is numb. I have to get out. Out of this body. Out of this room. Out of this nightmare that just won’t end. I wildly search the room for I-don’t-know-what.

  And then, at last, she’s there; my last link with sanity.

  “Gran!” It erupts from me as a shriek.

  She smiles, Mother Theresa calm in a nun’s habit. A nun’s habit?

  “Ssh. Be calm, child.” She moves close. Her gaze holds mine. “Deep breaths. That’s it.”

  She glances at the monitor, which I suddenly realise is having a shrieking fit to mirror my own. That noise spells danger. I do what she says and focus on my breathing. The beeping stops.

  Gran rewards me with another serene smile. “Well done, darling. Now, what’s going on?”

  I shoot a wild look at the cops. “They think I’m suicidal. But I can’t be. I’m not.” My eyes beseech her. “Am I?”

  Every instinct tells me I’m not. I’m desperate to live, not die.

  “Ah.” She smooths a hand over her cross pendant. “Does it matter?”

  “Of course it matters.”

  “Why?” Her eyes lock on mine with hypnotic intensity.

  Why, indeed? I focus on her question and the dregs of my panic expel in a long, shuddery breath. “I don’t know. It just does.”

  “So you need to show them you’re not suicidal?”

  “I—yes.”

  Satisfaction flits across her features.

  “Good,” she says, and I feel like I’ve just passed a test.

  Not for long, though. Moments later she’s barking at me, “Well? What are you waiting for? Get on with it. Show them.” She indicates the cops who, questioning concluded, are thanking my husband for his time. “Before they leave.”

  I blow out my cheeks.

  “But Gran,” I say through gritted teeth, “I can’t move.”

  “Of course you can. You simply have to focus. Really focus. Imagine yourself moving, and concentrate all your thoughts on moving. All your thoughts. Tune in so deeply nothing else exists.”

  “It’s not working.”

  “Then try harder.”

  Anger lasers through my chest. I am trying.

  “Pffsht.” She dismisses my thought with a hand-flap. “Determination, Faith. You’re an Osbourne. Start acting like one.”

  My face pinches tight. I close my eyes. No, I’m not going to read anything into that. Gran’s always called a spade a dirty, beat-up spade. She’s just agitated.

  “Damn straight I’m agitated,” she says. “You shouldn’t be here, and neither should I. Now we have to deal with it.”

  “I’m doing my best.”

  Her eyes lose their ferocity. She sighs. “I know. I just hope it’s enough.”

  “Gran . . .” My voice falters. I swallow, regroup, try again. “This not being able to move thing . . . are you sure it doesn’t mean my real body—in the bed—is paralysed?”

  “Of course I’m sure. It simply means you’ve got a lot to learn on this plane.”

  “Right.” I take a rallying breath. “Fine. I’d better keep practising, then.”

  I stare down at my legs, willing them to move.

  “Imagine it, Faith. Decide where you want to move. Visualise it. See yourself doing it.”

  I nod, then look at the spot I’m aiming for. I screw my eyes closed and imagine myself flying to it: point A to point B. I ignore the ventilator’s rhythmic p-shhh, I ignore the craziness of my dead Gran floating in front of me, I ignore everything my skittery brain is thinking. Shut up, I tell it. Be quiet. Be still.

  I open my eyes in time to see the police walk off down the corridor.

  My chin trembles. This is too hard. Not only have I somehow lost the connection with my own body: I’m rooted to the spot, with people walking straight through me, police calling me unstable, and only occasional glimpses of the woman I’m meant to be.

  Unshed tears clog my throat. I want today to be over. Except tomorrow’s going to be just as bad. And the next day. And the day after that. Forever and ever, Amen.

  Until someone switches the machine off. Switches me off.

  Fear unfurls in my gut. I’m not ready to die. I’m not ready to look down on me lying on a slab in the morgue. I’m alive. Sure, I’m up here and my body’s down there, but that’s a technical hitch. I’ll work it out. I’ll find a way to reconnect.

  But what if I don’t?

  Terror, a tight-fisted punch, hits me square in the throat. I want to throw up.

  “Faith.”

  I wish I could feel Gran’s hands on my shoulders, but I can’t. And I guess I never will. My heart aches. What I’d do right now to feel the physicality of a touch. A simple touch.

  “Faith,” she repeats. Then, more sternly, “Loo
k at me, Faith. You can do this. Practice. And soon you’ll be flying around, free as a bird.”

  “Until they flick the switch.”

  Her smile dies.

  “No, Faith. That is not going to happen. Because you won’t let it. You. Won’t. Let. It.” She punctuates each word with a head-nod, her eyebrows up near her hairline. “Are you listening?”

  I nod.

  “Right.” Her eyebrows settle. “Good. Try again.”

  # # #

  Mid-afternoon, and the nurses’ station is a hive of activity as the night staff arrive and go through handover with the day nurses. And here I stand, in the exact same spot I’ve been all afternoon.

  I’ve tried, really I have. For hours I’ve calmed my mind and wished and prayed and focused hard, I’ve visualised, I’ve thought teleportation thoughts, I’ve bargained with God, and have I shifted? No. Not so much as a worm’s-length. What if I never work it out? How will I make it back to my body, wake up, live the rest of my life?

  A yawn escapes. And another. How can I be exhausted? I’m not even using a body.

  “You’re still expending energy.” Gran appears out of nowhere.

  “Oh, hello. Nice of you to show up.” It sounds barely civil, even to my ears.

  She shrugs, flicks her now-frizzy red-tipped locks off her face. “No point me being here until you’re ready to move.”

  “Ready to move? Ready to move?” My jaw tightens. “You’re so busy doing fifty shades of hair . . . Do you have any idea what I’m going through?”

  “I might have an inkling.”

  I barely register she’s spoken. “I’ve been ready to move ever since I woke up in this nightmare. I’m desperate to move.”

  Frustration and fury swirl in my mind, harder and harder to quash. “I’ve tried all day, every which way, to get my useless body moving, and nothing works. Not a blinking thing.”

  She regards me with warmth and love, but I laser her with my eyes. “And now you show up, hours later, playing happy freaking hair day, and you’ve got the gall to say I’m not ready? Thanks, Gran. Thanks a bunch.”

  “Are you done with the foot-stamping?” she asks, so mildly I want to slap her.

  “Foot-stamping?” Heat creeps up my neck and across my face. “You know what? It’s been a pig of a day, and thanks very much but I can do without your petty put-downs and condescending attitude. Find someone else to bug.” Then, in a mutter, “Witch.”

  “Oh, darling.” Her tinkling laughter grates like fingernails down a blackboard. “There’s nothing quite like an Osbourne woman riled, is there?”

  She chucks my chin, a provocative move because she knows I can’t feel it, let alone prevent it.

  My fury explodes.

  “Leave me alone,” I yell, swatting her hand away and leaping back several feet. Just like that.

  Just like . . . I gasp.

  Gran’s smile is laced with relief. “You always did hate being talked down to. I see nothing’s changed.”

  I pause, process, give a slow nod. “I get it. Wanting to move isn’t enough, is it?”

  “No.”

  “But add in some really strong feelings . . .”

  “That’s right.”

  I look up at the ceiling expectantly. “So. Think angry, focus, and I’ll move.”

  It sounds easy. But exactly how does one dredge up anger, like little spitballs of venom, on demand? I don’t have a bunch of memories to draw on. No childhood bullying, no adult injustices; nothing. All I have is what I’ve been through today. Will it be enough?

  Eyes closed, I let my rage grow. Rage at being trapped outside my body. Rage at being labelled suicidal. Rage at being only half-alive. Rage at that incessant p-shhhing. Rage at Gran for her incendiary comments. I don’t hold back. I give my fury free rein, and it courses through my veins like a class A drug. I feel a brief stab of alarm: will I be able to claw myself back? Then it’s gone, engulfed as the riptide of anger consumes me. And just when I’m about to tip over the edge into sheer insanity, it happens. I move.

  My breath whooshes out. My shoulders relax. I’m back near the ceiling, exactly where I wanted to be.

  “See?” she says. “Easy.”

  “It didn’t feel easy.”

  “Well, no. Not yet. But it will with time.”

  I shoot Gran a think-about-what-you-just-said look. Because the truth is, I don’t have time on my side. Look at me. I’ve got a split personality—or split something—and, not to be a killjoy, Faith-in-the-bed’s looking hellish pale. We could be dead before I know it.

  “You’re not dead yet, Faith.”

  “I have to get back to my body, Gran. There’s stuff I need to do.”

  “Yes. More than you realise.”

  I search her eyes. “You know what’s going to happen?”

  She looks away. “Er . . .”

  Her body turns transparent and then she’s gone, leaving me wondering just what information Gran is privy to, dead as she is and all.

  Chapter Seven

  A new day dawns, and I’m still up here with my body down there and no idea how to reclaim it. At least I’ve got visitors to distract me from my predicament. Tess is here with Kathy—my mother; Mum, though I’m still struggling to think of her as that.

  “Morning, Kathy, Tess.” Geoff strides into the room, man on a mission.

  Tess leaps to her feet and rushes at him. “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!”

  It feels so wrong for her to call him Daddy, but that’s who he is, I guess.

  Kathy gives him a half-smile. “Hello, Geoff.”

  Geoff. Geoff Carson. I roll my husband’s name around in my head. It feels—strange. Like a left shoe on a right foot.

  “I can’t stay long,” he says.

  Kathy’s lips purse. “Of course not.”

  “Daddy!” Tess repeats, pulling on his legs. “Guess what we saw!”

  He rubs her shoulder but doesn’t answer, focusing instead on Kathy. “Any change?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Daaa-deee,” whines Tess. “Guess!”

  Kathy crouches down next to her. “Give your father a moment, darling,” she murmurs, and my heart is full as I watch Tess jiggling with barely-contained excitement.

  Kathy stands again and, her voice low, addresses Geoff. “You said the police spoke to you again?”

  He nods and replies, also in a murmur. “Yesterday.”

  “How did it go?”

  “They think it’s suicide.”

  Kathy’s face blanches. “Suicide?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “Why on earth would they think that? It’s ridiculous.”

  Geoff nods. “I thought so too, until Cynthia told me all the things Faith’s been saying. And—well, maybe they’re right.” He shakes his head, rubs at his temple. “I know Cynthia’s her best friend, but . . .”

  He meets Kathy’s gaze, his expression tortured. “Faith didn’t tell me she felt like this. I had no idea.”

  “Geoff,” says my mother, voice low, “I know my daughter and she is not suicidal.” Then, louder, “For heaven’s sake, she’s scared of heights.”

  Tess tugs on Geoff’s pants.

  Kathy places a gentle hand on Tess’s shoulder, leans closer to Geoff and adds, up against his ear, “Even if she was suicidal—which she’s not—she’d never be able to throw herself off a third-storey balcony.”

  A sharp jolt jars my body, as if I’ve hit the ground all over again. Good grief. That balcony memory—I survived a three-storey fall?

  And they think I jumped. Horror clamps my throat. No way. If I was about to top myself—which I can’t imagine myself doing—I’d pop a bunch of pills and go out on a high. Far less messy all round.

  I shudder. Someone would’ve had to clean up the mess afterwards. Splattered body mess.

  “Da-ad!”

  “And yet,” says Geoff, ignoring Tess, “Faith apparently asked Jackie on level two to look after Tess when she went. Not if.
When. She told Jackie she’d failed as a mum and that Tess was better off without her.”

  I pause. Think. Feel.

  No. It still doesn’t gel. It’s like he’s talking about someone else. And, head injury or not, I simply cannot believe the person I am today wouldn’t, in essence, be the same as the person I was . . . before.

  My mother blinks, opens her mouth to speak then closes it again. Frowns.

  “Faith would never say that,” she argues, but I see the uncertainty in her eyes.

  “You’re right,” I say, hoping that, on some level, she hears me. “I would never say that. Never. Kathy—Mum—I’m not suicidal. No way.”

  “Cynthia must be mistaken.” She brushes the hair from her face with jerky movements. “I know my daughter, Geoff. Faith would never plan her own death.”

  “I saw a princess!” Tess bursts out. “A real live princess! And, Daddy, she had a magic wand, and magic dust, and she was so pretty, and she was looking for her prince she said, and she gave me this!” She flourishes a chocolate frog in front of him.

  “Wow,” Geoff says, his mind clearly not on the frog.

  Tess looks about six, I guess, but even six-year-olds know a fake ‘wow’ when they hear one. Her animation dies, her face falls, and her chocolate frog drops to the floor. It breaks. She gasps, sinks to the floor and cries.

  Geoff looks at this daughter and closes his eyes. Mutters under his breath. Then returns his gaze to my mother. “Cynth says Faith had it all worked out. How to do it so it would be quick, the best time of day, what to wear; everything.”

  Tess’s sobs become loud wails.

  Geoff heaves an exasperated sigh. “For goodness’ sake, Tess, it’ll still taste the same.” Then, talking past her, “Faith even talked about the height of the balcony, how easy it would be to fall, that it would feel like you were flying . . .”

  I’m torn. Part of me wants him to shut up and hug his daughter better. Another part of me wants to hear more about my confidences to Cynthia. Confidences that, frankly, have me worried. I must have been in a god-awful space to think all that stuff, let alone discuss it.