E-Book, Englisch, 152 Seiten
Fremlin A Lovely Day to Die
Main
ISBN: 978-0-571-31284-9
Verlag: Faber & Faber
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
And Other Stories
E-Book, Englisch, 152 Seiten
ISBN: 978-0-571-31284-9
Verlag: Faber & Faber
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
Celia Fremlin (1914-2009) was born in Kent and spent her childhood in Hertfordshire, before studying at Oxford (whilst working as a charwoman). During World War Two, she served as an air-raid warden before becoming involved with the Mass Observation Project, collaborating on a study of women workers, War Factory. In 1942 she married Elia Goller, moved to Hampstead and had three children. In 1968, their youngest daughter committed suicide aged 19; a month later, her husband also killed himself. In the wake of these tragedies, Fremlin briefly relocated to Geneva. In 1985, she married Leslie Minchin, with whom she lived until his death in 1999. Over four decades, Fremlin wrote sixteen celebrated novels - including the classic summer holiday seaside mystery Uncle Paul (1959) - one book of poetry and three story collections. Her debut The Hours Before Dawnwon the Edgar Award in 1960.
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IF ONLY SHE’D known that it would be as easy as this, she’d have done it long ago. Still holding the pillow firmly down over the old woman’s face, Millicent allowed her eyes to travel warily down the length of the wide, old-fashioned bed. Beneath the blankets and the worn, limp eiderdown, the emaciated body raised scarcely a hump; a long, thin irregularity was all it was, not as high as even the shallowest of the graves in the nearby churchyard.
She had been afraid that there would be some sort of a struggle; that at the approach of death the feeble, almost useless old limbs would be infused with demonic strength, that the old worn-out body would thresh about like a great fish beneath the blankets, refusing to die. Most of all, she had feared that there might be gasps, and chokings, and moans of protest from under the pillow. If this had happened, would she have been able to go on with it? Or would her nerve have cracked, forcing her to abandon the resolution that had cost her so many heart-searchings, so many self-questionings, over so many weeks?
If only she’d known that in the event it was going to be like this—the victim so peaceful, so cooperative almost, the bedroom so quiet—had she only known that this was how it would be, she’d have done it months—nay, years—ago.
But how long did she have to stay like this, clutching and pressing down on the pillow? How long do you have to hold a pillow over a person’s face before you can be sure—quite, quite sure — that the last breath is gone from them? For the first time she comprehended the awful loneliness of the task she had undertaken, with no precedents to go by, no one in all the world to give advice or guidance.
She bent low, pressing her ear against the pillow, as though trying to catch some whispered last words, some final message from her once-beloved mother.
It was breathing she was listening for, of course; and there was none. No sound; no stir of movement … and yet still she dared not release the pressure, not just yet. Edging the weight of her body further over the pillow, to make sure that it stayed in place, she slid her hand beneath the blankets and felt for the old woman’s heart. The ribs stuck out like the slats of a plate-rack, the pouches of wrinkled skin that had once been breasts lay still and flaccid beneath her touch.
No heartbeat. No flutter of breath. Nothing. It was over! So quietly!—so decently! It was beyond belief!
And then, suddenly, like a great yellow sea-monster rising from the deep, her mother’s face lurched upwards, grimacing, contorted … a howl like a wolf burst from the parched lips as with hands like claws the creature wrenched the pillow from her daughter’s grasp, and flung it to the ground …
*
Millicent woke, sweating with terror, to find herself safe in bed, in her own neat, austere little bedroom just across the landing from her mother’s; and for a moment she lay still, breathing deeply, recovering from the nightmare: reorientating herself, reassuring herself that she was awake, and that none of those awful things had actually happened.
Yes, it was all right. It had only been a dream—one of those unnerving nightmares that had been troubling her increasingly of late.
She really ought to consult Dr Fergusson about these bad nights she was having, get him to prescribe something. He was a kind man, and, so far as his busy schedule permitted, concerned for Millicent’s plight. Always, after his routine visit to her mother every Wednesday, he would make a point of asking Millicent how she felt? Eating all right, was she? Not overdoing it? She must remember that she wasn’t getting any younger—sixty-two wasn’t it, this year? More than once, he had insisted on taking her blood pressure, had tut-tutted, with slightly raised eyebrows, at the result, and had urged her to take things easy for a while, to try not to do too much. He had known as well as she had that with a senile, bed-ridden old mother of ninety-two in her sole charge, there was no way Millicent could take things easy, no way she could not do too much; but since there was nothing that either of them could do about it, they had smiled appropriate politenesses at one another, and he had gone on his way. At least it was nice to know that he cared.
*
It was useless to hope for any more sleep that night. Already the light was beginning to show round the edges of the curtains, and outside the twittering of the first birds had begun. Through the open door across the landing (both doors were kept wide open at night now, lest Mother’s low moans of distress should fail to rouse her) Millicent could see the outlines of Mother’s vast mahogany wardrobe, glimmering greyly in the half light of early dawn; and beyond it, deep in the shadowed heart of the sickroom, she could hear the harsh, rasping snores that for so long had been the backdrop of all her days and nights. Only occasionally, now, did the old woman rouse herself from this ugly, uneasy sleep; to moan, or babble, or sometimes to plead wordlessly, unavailingly, staring desperately into her daughter’s eyes, begging urgently for Millicent knew not what. A bedpan? A loving kiss on her cracked, smelly lips? Or merely a nice cup of tea, to be fed, tepid and sickly-sweet, through the spout of a feeding-cup, trickles of it dribbling down the wrinkled, flabby jowls onto the pillow, whose cases Millicent often had to change four or five times a day as they became brown and damp and disgusting?
There was no knowing; and often Millicent, who had once loved her mother so much, had drawn from her such strength, and love, and comfort through the long years of family crises, family rejoicings—often, Millicent would eagerly proffer all three—the bedpan, the kiss, and the wet, cool tea—almost simultaneously: and when, afterwards, the old woman sank once more into noisy, unrefreshing sleep, it was hard to tell which, if any of them, had done the trick.
Perhaps none of them had. Perhaps the invalid had fallen asleep from sheer weariness, exhausted by the futile effort of asking … asking … asking for the one relief her daughter would not, could not give.
Or could she? More and more often lately, through the long, wearying days of nursing, and housework, and more nursing; and through the even longer anxious, insomniac nights, for ever on the alert, for ever half-listening through the two wide-open doors for sounds of distress—more and more, during these past weeks, Millicent had found herself turning over and over in her mind the ethics of her impending decision.
There was no doubt at all about what her mother would have wanted: her real mother, that is, the loving, energetic, courageous woman who even at eighty had tended her home single-handed, and her half-acre of garden; had invited grandchildren and great-grandchildren on long visits, and had even found time to do voluntary work at the local hospital as well: about the views of this vigorous, life-loving person there could be no question at all:
“You won’t let me get like that ever, will you, darling?” she’d more than once said to her daughter after a particularly harrowing session on the geriatric ward. “It’s wicked, it’s obscene, to let a person linger on like that … just a hulk of flesh with fluids pouring in and out of it … all meaning, all dignity gone! It’s a wicked thing … it’s the one and only fear I have about getting old … that I might end up like that! You won’t let it happen to me, will you darling? You’ll make sure, won’t you, if I’m past doing it for myself, that they bump me off good and early?”
Such an easy promise to make, with the August sun streaming in through the kitchen window, and the putative victim up to her elbows in flour, knocking up a batch of jam-tarts for the impending visit of her two great-grandsons, aged nine and eleven, and with appetites like wolves.
“Of course I promise,” she’d answered, and meant it; for in fact she agreed entirely with her mother’s attitude, admired and respected her for it. Besides, it all seemed so incredibly unlikely. Mother was the kind of person who would die in harness when the time came; drop dead wheeling the library trolley along some polished corridor, or while sawing too vigorously at a dead branch overhanging her beloved garden …
*
But it hadn’t happened like that: and how could you be sure, now, that this mumbling, senile old wreck was still of the same mind?
Once, several years ago now, while Mother had still been her sane and sharp-witted self, Millicent had posed to her this very question: and her reply had been immediate and unhesitating:
“You must do what I’ve asked you to do, darling—I myself—the real me. This person talking to you now—the one you see in front of you, she’s the real me, the one you must listen to. Pay no attention to the views—if any—of the mindless, dribbling old loony I may one day turn into, because she won’t be me any more, not in any real sense. Do you think I’d allow that senile old hag to decide how I am going to die?”
Proud words; and unanswerable. Quietly, Millicent had resolved that, should the occasion ever arise, she would do exactly as her mother had asked. For so brave, so indomitable a person, how could a loving daughter do less?
*
“Aah … Aah ..!”
The snoring had ceased, and at the familiar, urgent summons, Millicent scrambled...
