Last Rites

Twenty-seven

The first time Lynn woke and rolled over on to her side, reaching for the radio alarm, the face read 4:17. She tugged at the quilt and turned away again, pulling her knees up toward her chest: 4:43, 5:07, 5:29. Beneath the occasional whistle and call of birds, she could hear the hum of traffic, faint yet constant, as it wound its way along the inner ring road, from the old Boots building round by the ice rink and the bowling alley toward Ritzy’s and the Victoria market. Living where she did, in a small block of modern flats near the center of the city, there was never any forgetting where she was or what she did, the choices she had made.

“Oh, Lynnie, pet, why?” Concern deepening the lines on her mother’s already lined face. “Why there of all places? When you’d be so much better closer to home.”

“Let the girl be, woman,” her father had said, one of his rare interjections. “She’s got her own life to live, hasn’t she? Let her be getting on with it.”

So Lynn had applied for her first ever post after finishing training, been measured for her uniform, finally climbed in the battered old Vauxhall, back seat jammed with bags and boxes, one of her dad’s best chickens, double-wrapped in plastic from the freezer, sandwiches and a thermos tucked in by her mum at the last moment, just in case she felt peckish on the journey. Four hours at most, west to east across country.

She could still see her mother lifting her apron to trap the tears; her father squeezing two ten-pound notes into her hand as she raised her face to kiss him, the scrape of his bristles against her lips and cheek.

“You’ll come back and see us, Lynnie. You won’t forget us now. Come back soon.”

And, of course, she did drive back across that familiar landscape skirting the edge of the fens, a slow dual-carriage road bordered by farm shops and market gardens, carrying her to a home from which she felt increasingly remote. Her mother, with round face and fleshy, freckled arms, baking something in the kitchen, making huge jugs of tea, helping out in the packing shed, hosing down the yard; her father wandering with less and less purpose between the long lines of hen houses, weight falling off his bones a little more each time, the skin around his Adam’s apple wrinkled and loose till it resembled that of the birds he raised.

Without even realizing at first, Lynn would make excuses-not this weekend, Mum, I’m sorry; no, not that-a friend’s party, a dinner invitation, overtime. And when she had lived with the cyclist, so much of her time had been wasted, standing hunched in her parka by the side of some arterial road, stop-watch in gloved hand, stamping her feet to keep away the cold.

Almost, she would dread her mother’s weekly call, the painstaking recounting of events so unimportant and small, the pressure to return, the love and need. And when she did-one Sunday a month now at most-the long silences which neither of them could fill, until she would walk out to find her father, who seemed to spend more and more of his time outside now, and sit with him in a silence that was somehow less strained, broken only by the clack and ragged cry of birds with nothing else to do but peck and shit and die.

“Look after your mother, Lynnie. I don’t know what might happen to her, else.”

The nobbled coldness of his hand, dry scrape of his cough, yellow film that spread slowly from the corners of his eyes.

At the Norfolk and Norwich hospital, the registrar had been all smiles behind his rimless glasses, an accent buffed by years of breeding and expensive education. “The one thing I don’t want you to do is worry. Not unduly. This little problem of your father’s, the kind of thing we deal with every day. Run of the mill. Ten a penny.”

Lynn turned the knob round to full and stepped into the shower. Eyes closed, she soaped her body, rubbed shampoo into her hair, the steady stream of water bouncing off her shoulders, coursing down her back, between her legs, splashing across her face. Driving back from the hospital after that first consultation with the doctor, vision obscured by heavy rain and the spray of water from the road, eyes stung by sudden tears, she had swerved from the slipstream of a lorry into the side of the road and cannoned against the verge, thankful for the seat belt which held her fast. She had still been sitting there, shaking, minutes later, when Michael Best had tapped against the window, anxious, smiling, wanting to know if there was anything he could do to help.

Lynn could never forgive herself for the foolishness of what happened next, how she had allowed herself to be charmed by this all too plausible stranger, tricked into believing his soft-spoken half-truths and promises, lured by his smile and his easy lies.

It had ended in an open field, helpless inside a caravan, a prisoner, a metal bucket and a chain. A man who had killed and would likely kill again. For the first time since she was a young child, Lynn had prayed. And over Best’s insinuating voice, she had heard it, the rattle of the helicopter; the run, then, forced, across the rutted field. And Resnick, running toward them, arms flailing as he struggled for balance, the helicopter overhead sucking at his clothes and hair. And then he had held her, lifted her into his arms and held her, like her father and so utterly unlike her father, safe against his body.

One day, Lynn thought, she would be able to think of one without the other.

Climbing from the shower, she toweled herself briskly and then, tying another towel around her hair, went into the kitchen to make tea. Unless she got stuck behind a tractor or a caravan heading for the coast, she should have a clear run. A bacon sandwich with her mother and then the hospital well before noon. She finished off her hair under the drier, put on jeans and a T-shirt, grabbed a sweater at the last moment just in case. When she crossed the Trent over Lady Bay Bridge less than five minutes later, the sky behind her was eggshell white.

Lynn’s mother was sitting just inside the back door, coat on, hands resting on the bag in her lap; she looked as if she’d been sitting there for hours. When Lynn bent to kiss her cheek, the skin felt heavy, like dough. Her fingers were bloodless and cold. “Mum, don’t you want a cup of tea?” “I was sure you’d want to go straight off, see your dad.” Lynn touched her lightly on the shoulder. “I think we should have a cup of tea first, don’t you?”

She found half a loaf of Sunblest, several days old, and made toast, which her mother made little attempt to eat.

“Mum, you’ve got to have something. You can’t just starve.” “I’ve not fancied anything since your dad’s been away.” “If you’re not careful, you’ll end up in there with him. Here, have some more of this.”

Her mother took a bite, then pushed the plate away.

There were two drips attached to her father’s arms, one at either side of the bed. He was lying with his head to one side, mouth slightly open, a stain where his face met the pillow. His lips were cracked and dry, pulling away in brittle patches. The whites of his eyes were covered by a milky yellow film; the skin that hung loose about his neck, stretched tight along his arms, a darker, murkier yellow. Lynn caught the sob that rose to her throat, but could do nothing about the tears.

Her mother busied herself with the bedside table, putting the fruit she’d brought into a bowl.

Lynn sat close and held the fingers of her father’s hand. Between the knuckles, the flesh seemed to have fallen away; the nails, unclipped, were long and hard.

“Dad? Daddy?”

His eyes moved a little, a slow blink, and she could just feel the pressure as he squeezed her hand.

It was a different registrar, a woman not much older than Lynn herself, three pens of various colors side by side in the pocket of her white coat. She spoke slowly, not unpleasantly, the way an aunt might talk to her small niece, the one who wasn’t very bright. “Your father was quite weak when he came in, really rather poorly. That’s why we didn’t operate straightaway. Let him rest, regain a little strength.”

“He looks terrible. My mother’s convinced he’s going to die.”

The registrar smiled, something almost violet in her eyes. “In your father’s state, anything invasive … well, it will take him time to recover.” She looked at the watch that was pinned to the front of her coat. “I’m sorry, I really should be getting on.” She held out her hand.

“There isn’t anything else?” Lynn asked at the door.

“How do you mean?”

Lynn didn’t know.

The registrar’s touch on her shoulder was surprisingly firm. “One thing at a time. Let’s get this cleared up, get him home. All right? If there’s anything else, anything worrying you, well, you know where I am.”

While her mother sat in front of the small black-and-white television in the front room, watching a program about migrating birds, Lynn opened a tin of tomato soup, warmed shop-bought apple pie. The top of the cooker and all around the grill pan were rich with grease; tea-leaves and potato peelings clogged the sink. How long had it been like this, Lynn wondered? Since her father had gone back into hospital or before? Look after your mother, Lynnie. I don’t know what might happen to her, else. They ate with a pair of metal trays balanced across their laps, free gifts with the coupons from however many packets of Huntley and Palmer biscuits. Conversation was sparse and bleak. Over the sound of the television, they could hear the whistling of the lad paid to come by and feed the hens, make sure they were all battened down safely at night. On the small curve of screen, a flock of young birds, like moving particles across the pink and purple of an equatorial sky, following their magnetic compass to a home they’d never seen.