Chapter Seven #2
“If you must know,” Mum continues, “about seventy thousand pounds. You are her only grandchild after all.”
It’s something of an achievement the way she says it, like that’s also my fault.
But then I’m thinking about that amount of money in real terms. That’s a life-changing amount of money.
It could be a life-saving amount of money.
I could do more research into some of the drugs they’re trialling in the USA and Germany and other countries.
We could go there. I wouldn’t need to work for years if I was smart about how we lived.
Not to mention the alternative medicine treatments we can now afford.
“When will that money clear?” I ask before I can stop myself.
My mother scoffs down the phone and I can’t determine if there’s a hint of pride in it as well as the apparent shock. As if she hasn’t already asked this question herself. She’d been living off my bubbe ever since my father left.
“You’ll find out at the meeting,” she says.
“Will you be there?”
There’s a long pause. “I will be sending my lawyer.”
And that’s confirmation that I am making the right decision. She didn’t want to see me anyway.
“Fine. Well, thanks for letting me know.”
“That’s it?” Her voice is shriller than it was a moment ago.
I sigh and I don’t know when it shifted from me making her sigh all the time to this conversation which has seen me sigh considerably more than her.
“Yeah, Mum, that’s it,” I say. “I’ll wear black next week, and I’ll cover all my mirrors.”
It’s an offering, but not to her, to Bubbe.
I can’t tell if the noise my mother makes is a snort or a sniff, but it’s a sound steeped in derision. “Goodbye, Sharon.”
And she hangs up.
I never normally like to let people have the last word, but she can have it because God knows she doesn’t have much else.
*****
The following morning, I’m in Shepherd’s Bush Library before Danny has emerged from his bedroom.
I heard him stumble in around three o’clock in the morning and I hated how my body relaxed a little more once I’d determined that he was alone.
I listened for his noises to stop and then I tiptoed into his room and saw him under his covers, lying on his side.
It took a while for me to fall back asleep, but when I woke this morning I thankfully didn’t feel too tired. Not that that would stop me doing what I now know needs to be done, can be done.
I finish typing up my resignation letter on one of the three computers the library installed not a month ago.
I read through it twice and then send it to the communal printer a few metres away.
I’m there when it emerges and I read it again.
Each time I read it, I feel more justified in what I’m doing.
It’s the right thing to do. It will make a difference.
After folding the letter up and tucking it in the envelope I brought with me, I stash it safely in my bag and then log out of the computer. With my bag in my hand, I head to the non-fiction section and study the spines of long rows of books until I’m seeing what I want.
Alternative Healing & New Age Medicine, How to Heal Yourself The Oriental Way, Eastern Medicine for Western Sicknesses, The Principles of Chinese Medicine. I pick up a small pile and take them to a nearby table.
Sunday morning in the library is always a quiet time – I’ve been here at such a time of day many times before – and it doesn’t take long for me to get absorbed in one book that appears to be a comprehensive introduction to Chinese medicine.
Hours pass, people come and go, but I stay where I am rooted to my seat as I learn about qi, and yin and yang and so much more.
I don’t know at what point my mind drifts to Kate Chiu, but once it finds her, it doesn’t let her go. Like a stubborn dog with a juicy bone.
I looked up her surname. I know it’s Chinese.
I wonder if she knows about Chinese medicine. Or is that a reductionist way to think about her? Is that offensive?
I tut out loud at myself. Whether it’s offensive or reductionist or not, I shouldn’t be thinking about her. Hopefully now that Danny’s no longer a patient on the ward, I’ll never see her again and she’ll fade in my memory, dwindling down to nothing but a small blip.
When I glance at my watch it’s past lunchtime and that will explain why my stomach is growling and churning angrily.
After checking out three of the books and putting them in my bag, I head to the top of Shepherd’s Bush Market which is empty today.
It always feels strange seeing this street, which runs parallel with an elevated railway line on one side, without its rows of market stalls, without the hustle and bustle, without the noise of people trading, talking, meeting.
But I like it. I like seeing a place stripped down to its bare bones.
I like seeing it like this and feeling a small sense of ownership over this neighbourhood which I have made my home.
When I walk into Mohammed’s Falafel Shop, I’m greeted with big smiles, loud and hearty welcomes and a handshake from grey-haired Mohammed himself.
I don’t have to tell him what I want, he’s already punching it on his till and taking my ten-pound note without it being talked about, likewise when he returns my change.
I also know I’ll be getting two extra pitta breads and a pot of hummus that I don’t pay for.
When I finally leave with a white plastic bag full of food, my cheeks are hurting so much from smiling and talking with Mohammed and his sons and nephews that I feel almost strange letting my smile drop.
But then I remember my mother’s phone call. And that my grandmother died. And that I’ll not be going to her levaya or sitting shiva.
Not that I forgot. I just busied myself with my resignation letter and my research, and now I have to go home and, as Danny would say, face the music.
But at least I have falafel to help me do so.