She Who Cares – Part Two

You can find part one of this novella here. The following is part two of six. Thanks for reading!

She Who Cares

Part Two

My parents named me Violet because I came out purple. They didn’t have any other names in mind for me because my mother didn’t even know she was pregnant until I came screaming into the world. I’ve seen photographs from around that time and her stomach is flat. She looks beautiful and carefree. The story goes that one day she had a deep pain from within and I popped out premature and to the surprise of absolutely everyone. A miracle. But it wasn’t without complications, and I spent my childhood sickly. Doctors could never fully decide what was wrong with me and therefore couldn’t treat me. For a while it was assumed I would die, and I nearly did several times. I grew up with the notion that this was an inevitability and sooner rather than later. It has affected me more than I care to admit.

            When I was seven my mother was killed in a car crash. I thought it was fitting because it was the year Princess Diana also died in the same way. In a way, that soothed me. The whole world mourned for weeks after my mother died, and I told myself it wasn’t for the people’s princess but for my own personal queen. The day after she died, although I was as upset as you can imagine, I suddenly became better. The symptoms of my unknown illness subsided instantly, and doctors couldn’t figure out why. They decided I must have finally grown out of my premature state and my body had simply caught up. My dad decided it was a miracle. I quietly knew that my mother had inadvertently sacrificed herself for me.  

            I continued to feel great until I was about twenty-five and then familiar aches and pains began to creep back into my bones. It was the year I got this job which was unfortunate, and I struggled through the long hours of hard manual labour until one day I was given the task of spoon feeding a man who had recently had a stroke. He couldn’t do a thing for himself except blink and swallow, and I felt nothing but pity as I spoon-fed him unseasoned mashed potato like you would an infant. They told me he was at risk of choking and therefore thought nothing of it when he did indeed choke to death on his dessert of blended banana and custard. I saw the life leave his eyes like two candles blown out with a birthday wish. That night I skipped home with a lump in my throat but also a lightness and for a short while after I felt rejuvenated as if reborn and I remembered the last time I felt this way and why. Once I knew the solution to my problem, I was faced with a terrible choice. To die young would mean my mother died for nothing. Why should I have to die young when a small selection of people can die old just a little bit sooner? Is it really so terrible?

            Yes. It is. I know that. But I am just doing what I have to do to survive.

—

Margaret’s funeral was held a mere five days after her passing which is quick, but not considering that her funeral plans had been in place for the last decade, and no one autopsies someone pushing one hundred years of age. The ceremony was solemn but not sad and brief, unlike her life, with only a small gathering of twelve including myself. Perhaps many people who loved Margaret in her life are already dead or maybe you just grow apart from people over a span of nearly one hundred years. Being the last person to have ever seen Margaret alive and considering I saw her more than anyone, I felt that I should make an appearance. I’m glad I did because on reflection she was probably my favourite client which is what I told her family and to which they thanked me for everything I had done. I told them that I do what I do because I care and that’s the honest truth.

            Two days after the funeral, the familiar feeling of fatigue began to stir up inside me again and settled in my lungs. It came as a surprise and knocked the wind out so much that I had to take a day off work and miss a day’s pay even though every penny counts. My boss told me it was grief of Margarets passing. She was right, but not for the reasons she assumed. Disappointment filled the cracks in my shattered body and the depths of my mind. It felt like someone turning off the light.

            There’s no rest for the wicked and nor is there for care workers. Margaret’s residency and care slots were replaced almost immediately by a woman called Ivy. Considerably younger than Margaret at only 67, Ivy recently suffered a stroke which had robbed her of some independence. It’s no age really, but she’s still double the years of my own mother and probably older than I will ever be. At least she still has her mind.

            It was oddly disconcerting stepping in to Margaret’s former apartment and seeing the sleek mahogany furniture and classic fixtures replaced with flat pack pine-coloured dressers and fluffy cushions on the faux leather sofa. Its new interior didn’t match the overall ambience of the building and felt very juxtaposed. I sign the log book by the door and call out to Ivy, passing the mawkish eyesore on the wall that was a framed cross-stitch saying Live Laugh Love and indicative of what was to come. The air feels thick and cloying with an artificially sweet smell like warm candyfloss. It was like entering a certain kind of hell run by Little Bo Peep.

            Margaret would be rolling in her grave.

            Worlds away from Margaret, Ivy is a heavy-set woman with a tendency to exclusively wear pyjamas bearing images of characters from Winnie the Pooh and the likes. For breakfast she eats supermarket own-brand cereal washed down by a chipped mug of builder’s tea with one spoon of sugar and milk. She is the salt of the earth type with no airs and graces. A proper Yorkshire lass, born and bred.

            “Evening, love. It’s good of you to come again.”

            She seems to have a way with words, so far. This morning I was a stranger to Ivy, but she already treats me like an old friend. It is a skill some people never care to acquire. I could see already that Ivy was a nice lady, a classic grandma type, the kind who displayed proud photographs of ‘the bairns’ as she called them. From the living room door, ten pairs of eyes stare at me from photo frames placed in every nook and cranny.

            “That’s Millie,” she beams at the photograph which I had happened to glance at. It sat wedged between a porcelain figure of a ballerina and a wooden block ornament that spelled out the word ‘dream’. “Isn’t she bonny.”

            Not-so-bonny-Millie unfortunately looks neither like a ballerina nor a dreamer. “Is she your granddaughter?”

            “That she is. She’s an absolute character.”

            “Are these all of your relatives?” I gesture around the room broadly.

            “Yes duck, I’ve two kids and eight grandchildren plus another one on the way.”

            “Do they visit often?”

            Ivy’s face falters, “ah, not so much, no. I haven’t seen Millie since she was a bairn, actually. Marie and her kids live a long way away. In Cambridge.”

            “Oh. That’s a shame.”

            Cambridge wasn’t more than a three-hour car drive and even less time on the train. I couldn’t imagine not visiting my mother for years because of such a minor inconvenience, and it was even worse to deprive children of their grandmother. Marie should be here making Ivy supper and helping her to get ready for bed. Some people don’t appreciate what they have when they have it, and sometimes not even afterwards.

            I help Ivy into her night clothes and leave her in front of the television with a cup of tea and buttered crumpets. She chomps mindlessly, butter running out the corners of the mouth, staring at a rerun of Keeping Up Appearances.

            “I’m going now, Ivy.”

            “Will you come tomorrow?” She turns her head, her eyes wide with hope.

            “Yes, bright and early. I’ll see you then.”

            I pass by the Live Laugh Love cross-stitch once more and wonder if all this sickly-sweet décor is simply Ivy’s way of trying to make up for all that she desperately wanted but could never have.

—

A few weeks after first meeting Ivy and almost entirely out of the blue, her son started making a regular appearance. The first time I let myself in to Ivy’s apartment and saw him, I thought he was an intruder. My fight or flight response kicking in, I almost threw the porcelain ballerina at his head.

            “That’s David, my son.” Ivy beams a mostly toothless smile, “Oh, you’ll just love Violet. She can’t do enough for me. She is an absolute angel.”

            He doesn’t stand to greet me and shake my hand or thank me for all I have done for his dear old mother. Instead, he grunts from the sofa where he sits legs outstretched, leaning all the way back like he has no spine at all. He looks homeless, slovenly in a grey stinking tracksuit and grubby untied trainers. At a guess, he is forty, forty-five perhaps.  

            “Nice to meet you” I utter through gritted teeth.

            David nods, barely glancing away from the television.

            I hate him.

            “Well, we better get on with things, Ivy. Has David already made you breakfast?”     “No, he was waiting for you.” Ivy at least has the good sense to look embarrassed. Although breakfast is indeed part of my job, imagine not making your own mother breakfast when you are more than capable of doing so. It is pitiful. It is wrong. Doesn’t he care at all?

            “Okay, no problem” I keep my feelings veiled behind a smile. It is my place to care, not judge. “Let’s get you washed and dressed and I’ll then I will sort breakfast before I go.”

            Almost everyday thereafter David would be sitting on the sofa when I arrived. Sometimes he would sneak out for a cigarette, but he never actually lifted a finger for Ivy. He didn’t seem to have a day job either or any responsibility at all despite having several children. Ivy kept tight lipped on the subject. I wondered if she was protecting David, and why she would bother. Of course, my own mother protected me at the expense of herself, but I was a sickly innocent child. David could quite easily save himself. It was clear from even an outsider’s perspective that he was a waste of space.

            One day I was washing up Ivy’s breakfast bowl that I found festering on the counter top at my lunchtime visit when I heard a mumbling from outside. Through the frosted kitchen window I could see David’s shoulder as he crouched down almost out of sight.

            “Yeah. Well she had a stroke a few months back which has knocked her for six and so she’s moved into this assisted living place. She’s got some lass helping her round the clock.”

            Cigarette smoke plumes overhead. I hear him take a long drag as he listens to the person on the other end of the line and then exhale a reply.

            “Well, the council are paying for it all. That’s how I know me Mam has money, but she’s told me all she has is her pension and a little bit saved over for a rainy day. What she doesn’t realise is that cash could give me a new life, could get me off her sofa and into a flat of my own again. It’s always pissing raining from where I’m standing, do you know what I mean?”

            The clock shows it’s time to leave. I wash the bowl once more even though it is already clean. My hands sting from the continual rush of hot water.

            “I’m going to take her to town next week for a bite to eat and that, and then I’m going to take her to the bank and make her see it’s the right thing to do. I’ve changed now, I’m different. Surely, she can see that. I won’t mess things up this time.”

            “I know that money goes to our Marie when Mam pops her clogs, ever since I got myself landed in jail that one time. But why should Marie get a penny? Little miss uppity doesn’t even visit. I’m here twenty-four-seven at present. Mam hasn’t been right since the stroke. Another one might bump her off. I need to act now before it’s too late.”

            “She will hand over the money. She doesn’t have a choice.”

—

I couldn’t concentrate for the rest of the week, and it wasn’t just from my usual brain fog and fatigue. David’s words permeated my every waking thought and even my dreams. I could barely look Ivy in the eye, had to bite my lip to stop telling her everything. Worse still, I had to act neutral around David and pretend like I didn’t know he was planning to rob his own mother. It was nauseating. Ivy didn’t deserve this. I didn’t deserve this.

            “Are you okay, love?”

            A tone of concern in Ivy’s voice snaps me out of my thoughts as I find myself taking off her stockings and slippers on autopilot, ignoring the smell of calloused and swollen arthritic feet wafting up my nose. She looks down, eyes full of pity. I am supposed to be caring for her, not the other way around. The rush of burning shame almost knocks me over.

            “I’m fine,” I smile, trying my best to paint on a happy face for her. “It’s just been a long day.”

            “You work so hard. I feel awful. I’m a burden on everyone.”          

            “Ivy, don’t you say that. I love caring for people, for you. You aren’t a burden at all.”

            “I am. I know it.”

            “Well, I’m sure David doesn’t think that.”

            Almost reflexively, Ivy glances to the direction of the living room where David can be heard watching The Price Is Right. I have put her to bed while he camps out on the sofa yet again, shoes inexplicably still on his lifeless feet as if they are a second skin.

            “I’m sure he doesn’t,” she sighs unconvincingly. “He’s a good lad, you know.”

            I turn to tidy her dresser, busying myself with straightening up her various lotions and potions, almost knocking over a crying clown statue with unsteady hands in the process.

            “He’s taking me out on Monday.”

            “Oh?” My heart stops just as the clown springs to life on its own, twisting slightly, sending out an eerie twinkly tune from its wind-up base. “Anywhere nice?”

            “Just to town for a bite to eat. I haven’t seen the outside since my stroke, so that will be lovely.”

            Out of nowhere my body seizes up and I have to grasp the edge of the dresser to stay standing. For a moment I don’t know if I can carry on. Something feels deeply wrong.

            “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

            That night I don’t dream of David but instead that crying musical clown going round and round, slower and slower each time, only it has my face.

—

I think of all the trauma and pain Ivy most likely went through having David. The blood, sweat, tears. The pain of tearing new life into the world. Neither pregnancy nor childbirth is ever without risk and sacrifice to the mother in particular. David walks this earth today thanks to Ivy. He owes her everything.

            I believe some people aren’t meant to be mothers. They don’t ever fully adjust to motherhood and the child suffers for it. In the animal kingdom, some mothers eat their young. But David sleeping on his mother’s sofa in his middle age, mooching off her even now at a time where he should be taking the reins. It is proof that Ivy is a loving mother. Misguided perhaps, too soft definitely. But loving.

            My own mother only experienced motherhood for a few short years. I was robbed of knowing the mother she would be as I developed into a teenager and then an adult. I like to think I would be the strong independent woman I am today even with her support to fall back on. I like to think I would have helped her as she succumbed to ageing as I help other people’s mothers, like Ivy. It seems only right to give back.

            The day before Ivy’s trip out with David, he is noticeably absent from the sofa although his indent remains as well as an unmistakably foul odour. The room feels lighter, the air fresher, but I can’t settle and keep expecting him to pop up at the window in a plume of cigarette smoke like a pantomime villain.

            “He’s gone to see his ex-girlfriend. They have two bairns together, the ones in the green school jumpers.” She gestures at two photographs on the mantel. I can’t help but notice the absence of anything behind their eyes betraying their obligingly upturned mouths.

            “Do you think they will get back together?”

            “Oh, I bloody hope not. One minute they’re loved up and the next they’re throwing furniture and screaming in the street at all hours. I wish they would focus on their kids for once instead of each other.”

            “That’s a shame.”

            She suddenly looks tired and sallow, “Anyway, I’ve said too much. Sorry, love.”

            “Don’t be.”

            “It’s not your problem. You do enough for me.”

            There are many things I do for my clients that aren’t strictly in the job description. I’m not required to give birthday cards, decorate Christmas trees, top up bird feeders, or water plants. I do these things because I care. Ivy was troubled by her no-good son and his actions, that was clear enough to see. She would continue to be troubled by him for the rest of her life. But if I could reduce this burden, then I should. I owed it to Ivy.

            I leave Ivy peaceful in her bed and make my last walk past the Live Laugh Love. On the walk home, I wondered if David would grieve first for his mother or her money. I wondered if her daughter Marie would drop everything and rush up from Cambridge like she could have done at any time in the last few years. Perhaps in death Ivy could finally be appreciated as she wasn’t in life. I did this because I care.

END OF PART TWO