Resolution

Chapter 15

As Maureen woke up her first thought was of Ella, lying in the bed in the Albert with the sheet over her mouth and her red, vacant eyes. She sat up slowly, trying not to wake Vik. Yellow splinters of morning sun prickled around the heavy curtain and the air felt warm and sticky. She slid out of bed and went to the loo. Si'd be there again today, staring at Ella, frightening her, bullying his seventy-year-old mother. Maureen wanted to go and visit again, just to show him that Ella had a pal, someone who'd cross the town to see if she was okay. Back in the kitchen she made two cups of coffee and realized that she didn't know what Vik took in his. She made an approximation of all the coffee variations: a bit of powdered milk and one big sugar, leaving it unstirred so that he could drink the first half of the cup if he didn't take it.

Vik was still asleep, snoring gently, his face loose, his big hands clasped together on his stomach. She put the cups down on the side table and climbed back onto the bed, stroking his bristled cheek with her fingertips. "Wake up, Vik," she whispered softly. "Your mum's here and she's absolutely furious."

Vik was awake and sitting bolt upright within three seconds.

The day seemed especially bright as Vik drove her across town to the Albert. The white light breezed lazily, deflecting into the shadows, melting the sharp edges of the buildings. Maureen felt normal, sitting in the nice car with her handsome boyfriend and her formal clothes on again. She imagined being seen from the outside by some mystery viewer. She'd look happy, at peace, loved and cosseted, like a real person with a life and a future.

The smell of smoke and gravy lingered inside the Mini. They wound the windows down and sang along to Aretha's "Natural Woman." The song was miles out of both their ranges and they squeaked and growled, stopping and catching the tune whenever they could. The roads were quiet and Vik parked outside the hospital, switched Aretha off and turned to look at her. "Are you sure about the records?" he said, nodding to the stacks in the backseat. Maureen had given him her record collection. Her record player was broken and she wanted to get the dusty, pointless piles out of the house.

"Aye," she said.

"I'll give them back to ye later, if ye like."

"I don't think I'm going to want them."

"They're not all shit."

They smiled at each other.

"I'm sorry," he said, and paused. "I'm sorry things are the way they are with you. Ye seem happier."

Maureen didn't want to remember any of that when she was with him. "Mibi I am. Will ye come and see me again?"

"Well, Shan and I are coming to the trial next week."

"But will ye come and see me afterwards, just yourself?"

Vik raised a salacious eyebrow. "Listen," he said, "after the welcome I got last night, an Ebola quarantine wouldn't keep me away."

Through the open doorway to Ward G Maureen saw a young man in a suit in the center of the ward hammering out a plodding rendition of "Nearer My God to Thee" on an electronic keyboard. She remembered the holy rollers coming round her ward at the Northern on Sundays, and a particular Sunday when Angie, the tiny woman in the bed next to her, emptied a bottle of Lucozade into a box of Bibles.

Maureen tried to remember how she had been with Si McGee. He would have received the small-claims letter and she didn't know what she could say about it. She could pretend it hadn't happened, hope Ella had owned up during a warm chat with her son, but it didn't seem very likely. It was just a mix-up and she was the cheery mug from the market. Getting into character, she sped up her walk and made her way to the nurses' station. There was no one there. A hot cup of tea sat on the wooden desk, burning a damp ring-stain into the surface. The door to Ella's room was firmly shut. Maureen took a deep breath, remembering who she was meant to be, knocked briskly and opened it. Ella's bed was empty, the blankets neatly folded on the end. The windows were open to air the room. Maureen turned to find the nurse standing behind her. "Has she gone?"

Disconcerted, the nurse took Maureen by the elbow, holding her quite tightly, guiding her firmly towards the station. Thinking she was in trouble for passing herself off as Ella's daughter, Maureen tried to act surprised and confused. Si must have found out and corrected the nurses. But they could hardly arrest her for that. She hadn't said she was the daughter, she just hadn't contradicted the nurse.

The nurse sat Maureen down and asked whether she would like a cup of tea, pointing at the steaming cup to illustrate the tricky concept. Maureen refused it nervously. Behind the nurse, standing upright between a filing cabinet and the wall, was a polythene bag and sitting on the top was the blue nightie Maureen had bought for Ella. "Wait a minute," said Maureen, "where is she?"

The nurse sat down heavily on the chair. "I am so sorry," she said, taking Maureen's hand. Her hands were damp and smelled of Dettol. "We didn't have a number for you and your brother couldn't give us one. I'm afraid your mother died yesterday."

"She's dead?"

"I'm afraid so. I'm sorry."

The door opened behind them and the sullen beardy nurse took two steps into the room. "Oh," he said, startled and staring at their clasped hands. "Sorry." He backed into the corridor and shut the door.

"She was all right yesterday," breathed Maureen.

"Are you sure you wouldn't like a cup of tea?"

"What happened?"

"She slipped away yesterday."

Maureen tore her hand from the nurse's. "What the fuck are you talking about? She was all right yesterday."

"Her heart…" The nurse looked confused. "… failed. It can happen in older people."

"What-they just stop living?" said Maureen angrily. "That's it? Is that what you're saying?"

"Maybe you should speak to the doctor," the nurse said, and moved to stand up.

Maureen grabbed her by the wrist, holding it tightly. "When did this happen?"

The nurse looked alarmed. "In the afternoon."

"What time?"

"After four, before teas at five. Please let go of me."

Maureen released her wrist. "Was he here?" she said quietly.

The nurse was bewildered. "Who?"

"Was he here?"

The nurse clasped her hands on her lap and looked at them. "Yes," she said quietly. "He was with her when it happened, with his wife."

"His wife?" Maureen hadn't thought of Si as married. "Are you doing a postmortem?"

"Why?" said the nurse, looking up sharply.

"Could he have smothered her?" said Maureen. "Could he have poisoned her?"

"Look, I'm not in a position to say," said the nurse carefully, realizing she had stumbled into the middle of a bad family feud.

"How do I get a postmortem done on her?"

"Maybe you should speak to the doctor about your mother. He'll be back on in an hour."

"You listen to me," said Maureen, leaning across the desk, pointing in the nurse's face. "I'm going to phone the police and if I find out that her body has been released to him I'll hold you personally responsible." She turned and opened the door.

"It's nothing to do with me," said the nurse anxiously. "It's not even my department. Don't ye want to see her?"

Maureen was suddenly calm. "Yeah. Yeah, I do."

She had to wait in a converted cupboard, sipping sweet milky tea that someone had forced into her hand. The department-store poly-bag sat against her ankle. Si had left everything she had bought for Ella. She was in the bowels of the hospital, deep in the earth, three floors below the lobby. The artificial lighting was bright and, despite the insistent heating, the walls still smarted damp and cold. Maureen was only wearing a vest and jungle shorts and her arms were covered in goose bumps. They would never have let her see Ella's body if they didn't think she was her daughter. Ella's real daughter couldn't have come to see her at all. She sat forward, bending over her knees, wishing she could smoke. Si'd had his wife with him.

Maybe he was married to the foreign woman Ella had mentioned when they were filling in the form. She tried to remember whether he had a wedding ring on his finger but couldn't.

A small black man with tidy features stuck his head around the door. He wore a white coat with bulging pockets and wire-framed glasses. "Hello there. Would you like to come through and see Ella now?" His voice was low, and Maureen appreciated the thought that had gone into reading the toe tag before he came through.

He led Maureen across a hallway, unlocked a small door and took her through a narrow corridor to the Chapel of Rest. Designed to offend no one's religious sensibilities, the chapel had none of the symbols that would have made sense of it. There were no crosses in the room, no doves, no crescents, just a red and white stained-glass lamp, a narrow shelf with a bunch of silk flowers on it and a trolley, prettied up with a sheet.

The sheet was folded down under Ella's chin, tucked in tight as if to hold her in place. The plaster cast had been cut off her leg. Her eyebrows were still missing, her hair brushed back flat against her head. She looked like a venerable old gentleman. Her arms were by her sides, the gold necklace was missing, presumably in Si's pocket. Her teeth were in her mouth and Maureen could see where her lip curled up that the break had been stuck together with clear glue. The soft light made her look restful.

Ella's own daughter hadn't come to see her. Maureen didn't imagine Ella had been a particularly good mother, but no one had mentioned Si's father. Ella had stayed and done all the work, just like Winnie. Maureen thought of Winnie lying there, with everything unsaid between them, nothing resolved. Winnie had stayed and brought them up. Maureen wanted to reach out and pick Ella up, wrap her arms around the pushy old woman and stroke her hair, pet away all the grief and sorrow. Lying in the simple room on a cold table, Ella looked like a monument to the forgotten constancy of women.

"Here ye are," said the wee man, handing her a crumpled tissue.

"Thanks," said Maureen, wiping away selfish tears.

The little man stuck his hands into his pockets and rocked on his feet, thinking about it, choosing his words carefully. "We did a postmortem. We have to, if people die in hospital. She died of a heart attack."

"Oh," she said, and sniffed. "You're very nice to tell me that."

"Aye," said the man firmly. "I am very nice."

Maureen looked at him and snorted a laugh, blowing her nose on her face by accident. "Oh, God, I'm sorry," she said, holding the inadequate single hankie up to her face. "That's disgusting."

The man dug in his pockets for more tissues. "I work in a morgue, hen," he said kindly. "It takes more than snotters to get me sick."

Maureen cleaned her face and the man stayed with her while she looked at Ella again. "Is he taking her home?"

"I don't think so," said the man. "She's just going straight to the crematorium."

Si had made his confirmation, he knew what he was doing. He was leaving Ella here among the dead, with no one to say the rosary for her, no friends or family to hold a wake and fend the devil from her soul until the blessing of the mass. Maureen didn't suppose that Ella had been especially devout – the truly ardent are rarely secretive about it – but in death the old traditions are more than religious observances. The wake is a measure of attachment, when friends and family can prove themselves by reciting tedious prayers for love. And after the prayers the sum of a life and a character, the stories they generate, can be told over and over. Taking the body home meant that even in death someone would claim you for their own. Ella McGee might never have been here at all. Maureen tried to think her way through a decade of the rosary but she couldn't even remember who Mary was blessed among. She blinked back a second wave of tears. "Can I put some makeup on her?" she said.

The man looked at her for a moment. "It's nothing daft, is it?"

"I want to draw her eyebrows in – she always had eyebrows."

"Sure. Just make sure ye don't push her about too much. Want me to leave ye alone?"

She shook her head. "I'd rather ye stayed."

She used the comb from the poly-bag and back-combed the front of Ella's yellowed fringe into a little halo, smoothing it with the comb. She took out the unused eyeliner pencil and pulled off the packaging. It was black, not dark brown like Ella always wore, but she did her best and drew the arched eyebrows on her forehead. Because she was leaning over the body, the faraway eyebrow was a little higher than the other, making Ella look faintly indignant. Maureen thought suddenly that the morgue man would think this was a daft thing to do to a corpse, that she was making the body look ridiculous.

"She did do that," she said, pointing to Ella's forehead as she stood back. "I'm not just drawing all over her…"

She stepped close to Ella again, reaching out to correct the eyebrow, but realized that she would be smearing dead skin. It wasn't disgust so much as not knowing how a dead person's skin would react. If she pressed too hard it might just fall off. She was standing on tiptoe, looking at the body indecisively, and her eye fell on Ella's right hand. It had a deep cut on it where the bandage had been, right through the skin; she could actually see a glint of silver through the hole. It was open like a wordless mouth. "Where did that come from?"

The man stood up and looked at the hand. "Aye," he said, "that was funny. She had that when she came in. It was about a week before she died. She told the nurses she cut herself in the kitchen. We thought she did it herself-it looked kind of deliberate."

"Why would she do it herself?" said Maureen.

He looked at Ella's face uncertainly. "Well," he said, "how could ye do that by accident?" He held up his hand and used the other to mime a stab motion. He had to hold his splayed hand away from himself, his thumb pointing at his feet. "It's awkward, isn't it?"

"Could someone else have done it to her?" said Maureen, holding her splayed hand up in front of her face as if protecting herself.

"Aye, but why wouldn't she say?" The man reached round to his back pocket and held out a battered tin hip flask, watching her face to see if it was all right. She smiled hopefully and he unscrewed the lid, letting out the sweet smell of good whiskey into the disinfected room. He gave her the first slug and she took a drink, giving back the flask.

"Are you sure it couldn't have happened when they were resuscitating her?"

The man shook his head. "They didn't give her resus," he said quietly. "She was down in her notes as 'Not for Resuscitation.'

"Really?"

"Yeah." He looked at her slyly. "I thought you'd know that."

"Why would I?" 'Cause it says on the notes that the doctor discussed it with the family." He looked at her, knowing that she wasn't family and had no business being there.

Maureen shrugged at him and he gave a little shrug back. They sat down on the bench and the man took a tiny nip of whiskey and exhaled appreciatively, raising the flask to the corpse in front of them.

"Poor Ella," said Maureen, feeling awkward.

"Aye," he said, handing the flask to her.

Maureen swallowed. "She did do her eyebrows like that, honest."

"Aye, well." He took the flask back from her and upended it, swallowing three mouthfuls and exhaling appreciatively. "I think she looks lovely."