Chapter 37
THIRTY-SEVEN
SCOTT
THE DAY SHE DIED
‘Oh hey. What are you doing here?’ I ask Mum when I see her open Grandma’s door.
‘Er,’ she replies before her sentence fails and she just stands and stares at me, totally mute, looking like she’s seen a ghost. I mean, sure, I look scruffy because I’ve just come straight from work and I have got more car grease on my face than usual that I struggled to wipe off beforehand.
But apart from that, I’m still her son, so she should easily recognise me.
So why is she looking at me in such a weird way?
‘Mum, what’s wrong?’ I ask her nervously, having never seen her acting this way around me before. But she still doesn’t answer, and it’s only when I look past her and see what is lying on the floor behind her that I realise what the problem is.
‘Grandma?’ I cry before pushing past Mum. ‘Grandma? Are you okay?’
I can already see that the answer to my question is not a good one based on how my grandmother is lying on the floor. Her body is twisted and her eyes are closed and she is not responding to my calls.
‘What happened?’ I cry as I lean down to get a closer look, hoping Mum can fill in the blanks where Grandma clearly can’t. But based on the proximity to the staircase, I already have a suspicion that it involves a fall. Then Mum goes and confirms it.
‘I just got here before you and found her like this,’ she says. When I look back, I see my mother has tears in her eyes. ‘She must have fallen down the stairs. I don’t know how long she has been here.’
I touch my grandmother’s face and she still feels warm, so this accident can’t have occurred too long ago. That gives me hope, although that quickly fades when I try to feel for a pulse but can’t find one.
‘Have you called for an ambulance?’ I ask Mum, assuming one is already on the way. But the silence that follows is not promising.
‘Mum?’ I cry, standing back up and rushing to her. ‘Have you called for an ambulance?’
‘No, I just got here and I’m confused and…’
My mother’s voice trails off, and I realise she is in shock. That’s understandable, but it’s also not going to help the situation. The only thing that can help it now is having a trained medical professional here who might be able to save my grandma’s life.
‘I’ll call one!’ I say as I take out my phone.
‘Wait!’ Mum cries, surprising me.
‘Why?’
Mum stares blankly at me again and she really isn’t being of any use to me or her stricken mother in this state, so I ignore her and continue making the call.
‘I need an ambulance quickly,’ I say breathlessly to the operator who answers. ‘We’re at number 52 High Cross Road. It’s my grandma. I think she’s fallen down the stairs and she’s not moving, and I can’t feel a pulse. You have to be quick. Please!’
As I say all that, I notice Mum standing and staring at what lies between us on the floor, and it’s a sobering sight.
I’m used to seeing my mother be strong and in control, but right now, she looks totally helpless.
Shock and grief is a terrible combination and while I am experiencing it myself, at least adrenaline seems to have kicked in for me.
But not for her. She just looks like a zombie.
‘No, I don’t know CPR!’ I scream back at the operator, who has just asked me if I might know how to try and resuscitate somebody who isn’t breathing.
They tell me they’ll talk me through it, and I have no choice but to go along with it, so I put them on speakerphone and then get to work, despite feeling like it’s futile.
Grandma’s neck looks horribly twisted and her eyes carry no light or life.
But what else can I do?
As I follow the instructions, my hands on my grandmother’s chest and tears in my eyes, I cannot believe I am here trying to save her life.
How did this happen? I only came over here because I’d been feeling guilty lately about not seeing her for a while.
I’ve been so busy with the business and trying to keep things going there that I have neglected my grandmother.
My dear grandmother, who has always been so nice to me.
The one who used to pick me and my brother up from school whenever my parents couldn’t make it.
The one who used to feed us both and gave us treats in this house when we played here on weekends.
The one who was always there to offer some words of wisdom as we got older and made mistakes of our own as adults.
My dear grandmother, who I love but haven’t seen enough lately.
Today was supposed to be about me making that right.
I came here for a cup of tea and some cake, and I know she was excited to see me.
But now it’s too late.
Now, despite the best efforts of me and the operator on the phone, Grandma is still not breathing, and even when the ambulance arrives and two paramedics enter the house, I already know it’s been way too long.
When they confirm it, I sink backwards against the wall and cry.
It’s only when I look up that I see Mum isn’t crying.
She’s talking to one of the paramedics and they are asking her what happened.
She’s twirling a finger through her hair with her left hand like I’ve seen her do many times before.
She does it when she’s nervous.
She also does it when she’s lying.
As I listen to Mum tell the paramedic that she just got here and found her mother like this, a terrible thought occurs to me.
She isn’t telling the truth. She’s telling a story. But it’s not the real one.
I’ve been able to tell when Mum is lying since I was twelve.
That was the age I was when I first noticed that she always did the same thing when she wasn’t telling the truth.
My mum always twirled her hair with her right hand.
But occasionally, I noticed she twirled it with her left hand.
Eventually, I realised there was a pattern to it.
The first time I noticed it was when she told me that my brother wasn’t going to school one day because he was ill.
She twirled her hair with her left hand as she said it.
The next day, I learnt my brother had not been ill but had actually been taken out of school to attend a trial at a local football club.
My mother hadn’t told me the truth because she knew I would be annoyed or jealous or some combination of the two.
That was the day I realised mums could lie to their kids.
But the thing I remember the most was the left hand in the hair.
It had always been the right hand. So I looked for the pattern again.
And I found it again, and again, and again.
I noticed it when Mum lied about all sorts of things, from big to small.
Like why we couldn’t have a certain meal for dinner, or why Dad wouldn’t be home to tuck us into bed, or any one of a hundred different things a parent says to their child.
Sure, most of them are white lies designed to make the parent’s life easier, but the key thing was that I had noticed the pattern.
Of course, I never told my mum that I had noticed the hair twirling thing.
Why would I give away something very useful to me?
It would be like a poker player telling the other players at the table to stop making it easy for them.
I’ve never actually told anyone about the hair thing.
Not even my brother. I guess I’d always liked having that small advantage over my sibling, even though I love him dearly and tell him almost everything else in life.
The hair twirling thing is my secret.
And right then, as I stood and watched Mum using the left hand instead of the right, I knew it.
Mum was lying about Grandma’s death.
There was only one good reason why she would do that.
Because it hadn’t been an accident.
She didn’t fall down the stairs.
She was pushed.