WAITING

It takes both nurses to swing me into my armchair and if they don’t notice folds of nightdress gathered under my bottom, I sit on a ball of jagged rock all day. Mostly I sleep and am woken only for mealtimes or when my daughter, Margaret, visits. She comes everyday.

“Hello, Mummy,” her low voice is just audible.

“How are you?” she asks but does not wait for a response.
“It’s Sunday today and Charlie’s at home watching the match.”

I wonder what she is cooking him for his dinner.

She begins her daily routine of preparing my tea: mashing banana, yogurt and jam together to form one gooey lump.

“Here we go,” she announces as the spoon draws closer.
“It’s strawberry today.”

Sometimes I gauge the distance incorrectly and the hard metal spoon touches my lips before I am ready. Sylvie, my granddaughter, retreats when this happens, but Margaret rams the spoon against my empty gums regardless. When she is in such a hurry I swallow my food even more slowly; it’s my only revenge.

“Tea?” she queries, picking up the sturdy dishwasher proof cup. I feel the thick edge against my lips; it is luke warm so I can safely take a gulp. Margaret cradles the cup in her hand waiting for me to swallow. I remember my rose china cups, so thin and delicate, they were nearly translucent. I would much rather drink tea out of those.

When I am finished she brushes my hair and the movement against my scalp causes an itch, which I try to reach.

“Don’t Mummy!” she admonishes, pulling my hand down.

“Hello Gran.” Sylvie bounds in bringing the smell of fresh air with her. She gives me a welcome kiss but not her mother. It is unusual for them to visit at the same time. They talk quietly together and then Margaret speaks to me:
“I know you won’t like this Mummy, but we need to talk about selling your house.”

“No!” I protest. For once I am able to correctly form a word.

Margaret and Sylvie look at me in astonishment.
Then Margaret continues: “We need to cover the nursing home fees. All your investments are used up and there is nothing left. The house has to go.”

It is the worst news I have ever received. My beautiful home! All my things! I don’t want strangers living there, people with no taste, adding ugly extensions and messing about with the garden. I’d imagined Sylvie living there one day and she had too. We used to talk about it; she said she’d have dogs and horses and wouldn’t change a thing.

“If we put it on the market in early September we should have it sold by the end of October.”

I try to wave Margaret out of my room but my arm knocks against something, causing a clatter.

“You’ve knocked over your water!” Margaret says crossly, bending down to mop it up.

“We could move into Gran’s and sell our house instead.” Sylvie suggests.

“Stop it, Sylvie! I lived in that house eighteen lonely years. I’m not doing it again.”

“But you’ve got a car now,” Sylvie argues. “And there are loads of buses in and out of town.”

“This isn’t to do with you. It is between your father and me.”

How dare she talk as if I don’t exist! I want to kick her. But with all my will I cannot force my foot more than a slow inch or two along the carpet towards her; the effort exhausts me.

“It is to do with me!” Sylvie protests.” I was going to live there. Gran and I had talked about it.”

“Had you now?” Margaret glares at me.

I feel no guilt: Margaret always told me how much she hated that house. I decided long ago to leave it to Sylvie.

“The house has to be sold Sylvie and you may as well get used to it.”

“I’ll never get used to it.” She gets up to leave.

“Don’t turn your back on me young lady! We haven’t finished discussing this.”

“Mum, I am twenty-eight years old. Stop talking to me like I am a teenager.”

“Well, very few twenty-eight year olds still live with their parents. You’ll have to accept the downside of that alongside all the advantages.”

The room becomes very still.
Finally Margaret speaks again, calmer now.

“We need someone living in the house to keep it looking well for the showings. You can do that if you like.”

Sylvie stops to consider it. “Can I have the car?”

“Alright, but you’ll be paying for your own petrol.”

“I know.”

Then they remember I am there with them; they glance uneasily towards me and stay a while longer to make something of the visit other than their row. We sit together in silence. I wish they had nothing to do with me, instead of everything. If I had the independence of my own home again I could pretend to be out when people called; I wouldn’t have to sit through ugly scenes between my daughter and granddaughter which only remind me of Margaret and my arguments. I hate to see the pattern repeated. The expectations are too high on either side. With a granddaughter it is easier to love her as she is.

Sylvie returns a few days later without her mother.

“I’m moving into your house today. The car is loaded up.”

She sits before me and I think how lucky she is: she can watch the mist in the morning lie low in the field out front; she can walk to the village for the paper and eggs; can light the fire in the drawing room in the afternoon and have her supper there in the evening. I’d even enjoy polishing the silver; it hasn’t been done since before Christmas. “Don’t worry, you’ll get out of here and be back home in no time. I won’t let them sell it.” She pats my hand but I withdraw it. At eighty-eight the powers of recovery in my body are weak. I have survived this stroke but the days of my bustling around that house are over. I pray to God to take me.

I shouldn’t have gone on so many long healthy walks; I should have smoked more cigarettes. I’d be gone now if I had. Without my house I would rather die. It is the anchor, which keeps me tied to earth. Who am I without my home?

“I’m heading off now Gran.” Sylvie plants a kiss on my forehead.

She must have noticed my distance. I can drift off and forget that anyone is with me. That is what happened. I am sorry to see her go.

I follow her on her journey towards the Dublin mountains and Kilternan; up Newtown Park Avenue to the lights at White’s Cross, then up the Leapordstown road, left on to the Brighton road leading up to Foxrock Village and then all the way up the Glenamuck road to Kilternan. The beach trees will be in full bloom on either side of the drive, the grass in the field will be high and the pond almost dried up in the heat. I wonder how my roses are: Sylvie will need to deadhead them.

It will be cool in the house when she enters. The hall will look bare with no fresh flowers and will smell stale after weeks of being closed up. I imagine Sylvie sliding down the windows in the front rooms and flinging open the kitchen window onto the gravel drive.

I wish she would ring me when she gets there: I’d love to hear the echo of her voice in the hall, where she would stand, with her back to the window that looks out onto the orchard. But she won’t ring: she knows I can’t answer the phone.

Tim, my postman, will call to the kitchen window in the morning. He’ll be surprised to see someone living there again. He knows Sylvie. They will talk about the weather together. I wonder will he have as much fun with her as he did with me.

Margaret doesn’t mention the house to me any more: she talks about everything else and at a lightning pace. But there is no need: I cannot interrupt her. She has complete control over all my affairs, just as I once had over hers.

Then one day Sylvie takes me on a trip.

“We’re going to visit your house.” She is full of high spirits at her brilliant plan. Two nurses lift me into Margaret’s car and Sylvie puts a wheelchair in the boot. In my house the wheelchair confines us to the ground floor, but I still marvel at the glorious space that was available to me. The hall alone is twice the size of my living space now. I gaze lovingly at every dent in the kitchen table and crack in the old walls. I wonder if there is anything in my fridge. Sylvie opens it and I see only milk and half a loaf of bread. She doesn’t eat enough.

We visit the drawing room too. Even in summer the place is cold. I shiver and Sylvie pulls my shawl over my arms. The sofa looks more worn than I remember. I look at my other furniture and dread to think what Margaret has planned to do with it. She’ll take the dining room table of course, and the chairs, but what about the mahogany sideboard? It’s not made for modern houses. I put out my hand to feel the carved wood ridges along its edge; they feel chunky and friendly under my fingers.

When we leave, it comes to me that a house gives of itself to each dweller for a limited amount of time only, after that it moves on to shelter the next inhabitant. It stands docile and allows itself to be chiselled, chipped and converted to suit their pleasure. That house had given me over fifty years. It is someone else’s turn now.

Back in my characterless room I decide not to dwell on my house anymore: it isn’t good for me. This is my home now but in truth it feels like a waiting room between life and death; it is comfortably furnished, warm and there is adequate food but it is not a place in which to live. It is an in between room – separating two worlds. I loved my old world and the people I met during the day in the bank, the post office or even on the footpath. I didn’t know them very well but they made up my life.

But they say that heaven is better than earth. There should be no suffering there: only angels singing and God finally visible to us in all his glory. I will wait for that. My life was good but heaven will surpass it. I want to meet my old friends so that I can laugh again, light and free, unencumbered by my slow body. I feel a shift within me. Nature is preparing me for this. I have looked forward all my life, and I’m doing so again now. Pray that I must not wait too long.