Mark: Pick you up in half an hour.
I better get ready, the new underwear I bought is waiting for me to slither into before the date. I switch off the TV. It’s bullshit anyway. They really ought to do some proper research before they make these shows. Why would anyone think my ideal Saturday night would be freezing my tits off outside a care home? I should sue that bloody Netflix. Defamation. Misrepresentation. Liable. In fact, we should all get together and file a class action.
Beeeeeep
Oh, not again. Not tonight. I picture Mark’s disappointed face if I tell him that I have to cancel on him yet again. Will he even think a third date is worth the hassle? How can I have any normal relationship with this job?
Beeeeeep
I pick up the phone: Code Blue, 44 Wellan Way.
According to the Google Maps app, it’s twenty minutes away. Well, that doesn’t give me long. So much for the ten-mile radius. I bet someone’s called in sick again. Nice for them. I fire off a text to Mark before I have a chance to change my mind: Really sorry, can’t make it. My job is a bit nuts. Maybe we should call it a day.
The drive is tedious and I’m tired, so I lower the window and turn up the radio, Club Mix. Of course, it is - remind me of the good time I’m not having why don’t you! My phone vibrates in my pocket. Mark. My stomach knots wondering what he’s said.
As I near the street, I turn off the sat nav. I can feel the way from here, drawn as if by the slither of a spider’s web. God, what I wouldn’t give for a 9-5, where my boss wasn’t a total narcissist. I mean, try telling him that you want to book a holiday.
When I pull up at the house, the blue fog is thick. It won’t be long. I’ll never get used to the smell. Imagine fox poo mixed with rotten eggs, and you’re still not there. All the lights are on and glow through the mist like a demon’s eyes. The house throbs with sadness and fear and too many things unsaid.
I look through the window like some sick voyeur. They have made her up a bed in the living room, no hospice for this old girl. Around the bed, two adult daughters clasp onto a papery hand each as if by holding on they can stave off the inevitable. They will start pleading soon, bargaining for just one more day. God, I’d rather be watching Strictly.
Before they can tell her it’s okay, that there’s nothing to be scared of, it wells in me like a contraction. Crushing. Cramping. Constricting.
I breathe, in through the nose, out through the mouth. It eases, a brief reprieve. The daughter with the lollypop head looks at me for a second, venom in her eyes. She knows why I’m hovering by the window. The Boss says it’s not us they despise, it’s themselves and their fragile grasp on this world. But what does he know about humans?
I fall to my knees, my stomach tightening. Then all fours, swallow down the bile. It burns as it moves into its final position. My sinews and nerves stretched and squeezed.
The daughters shroud their mother in love and tell her that she’ll be remembered always. Her life meant something. To them. I roll onto my back and know that all anyone will remember of me is that I’m the harbinger of death. No one will mourn or tell fond stories about me in the pub after the ‘service’.
Then, at last, I scream into the blue cloud of death. The wailing is shrill and singes my throat. But I can’t stop until it’s out. Until the soul inside the house is gone.
Keening, I feel her go.
Once it’s over I’m sick into a bush. My throat is raw, and I won’t be able to eat for a couple of days.
I crawl back into the car, depleted. How can anyone think I’d actually do this because I wanted to? With a shaking hand, I pull out my phone. Mark: Hey it’s just a job, we can make it work 😉. I wish he was right and that heralding death wasn’t threaded into my DNA.
The need to feel something other than grief is like the need for water. God, I want someone to hold my hand when the banshee hovers at my door. What have I got to lose? I text back: I’m finished now if you’re around? Rough shift.
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