Changing Speed

CHAPTER FOUR: TELEPHONE CALLS

The first summer in our new house was as hot as any I can recall. My wife took to buying a multitude of bushes and shrubs that I obligingly planted. I was by now accustomed to being at home. The thoughts of returning to work, which had haunted my sleepless nights, had rescinded since the psychiatrist had advised me to apply for an ill- health retirement pension. Whilst confident that my employer, never known to be overly compassionate at the best of times, would not accede to granting the application, I followed the advice convincing myself that there was some hope of its success.

Life however has a nasty habit of allowing one to be happy without just cause. Such unstable foundation for emotion doesn't help one keep matters in proportion. Proportions have never been something that I could handle. Being happy in excess, sad in excess, working in excess, loving in excess, nothing in moderation and most often without justification. The ability to understand my moods, whether upbeat or not, was obvious in its absence as was my ability to control those moods. 

I began to miss some of the fortnightly self-help group meetings. They no longer served any purpose. Even the weekly counselling sessions had become a burden and I'd had occasion to forget to attend. I was prescribed more tablets to help me keep things in proportion, to help me relax, to keep my moods constant. They did at least keep my moods constant, constantly low. I would have found it all amusing if it wasn't for my being so miserable. I could see little in the way of positive effects from the tablets. Then again what good could they do? I had manufactured my illness, created the symptoms. At least that's how I thought it was. I wasn't even sure of this anymore. Whatever, I was being paid not to go to work, the house was finished and much of my time was my own. I almost felt in control of my life again, temporarily.

It was two o'clock in the morning. My wife was bedded down on the sofa. I was flicking through the channels of the television. The remote control being in my hand seemed good enough reason to be using it. The telephone rang without warning. I stared at it willing for the silence to return. I've never known a telephone call at such a time to be carrying good news. The ringing didn't stop. My wife woke. Jumping up, she stretched over me and answered the call. It was for me. I was right. It wasn't good news. It was my oldest sister telling me not to panic. She was at the hospital where my mother had just been admitted. My mother was ill, very ill. I was not to panic but she had been passing blood, lots of blood. I was told that I wasn't to rush straight down because for some reason my mother, seeing me, would think that things were worse than they actually were. Six weeks later she was discharged from the hospital with a malignant cancer that they couldn't treat. 

For the first time since being a child, I prayed. I prayed not for her to get better, I knew that she wasn't going to get better. I prayed for her pain to be mine. She was in agony. I'd heard the word before but never really seen it. Of all the people I'd ever known, my mother was the last person to deserve this. I accept that most everybody claims that his or her mother is special but mine really was. Her love for me was truthfully unconditional as was her love for the rest of the family and to God. How he could let this happen I didn't know. The injustice of it all had to be laid at somebody's door. Mine was as good a place as any. I stopped praying. I'd had everything, a beautiful wife, beautiful children and a beautiful home. Still I'd been whatever it was that I'd been. I didn't feel sympathy for my mum. I felt sorry for myself. My mother was dying of a cancerous tumour and I felt sorry for me. I told my psychiatrist. I told my counsellor. Somehow I thought that by admitting to this, the feeling of guilt would fade away. It didn't. My wife said that everybody handles these situations differently. She told me that I wasn't the reason for my mother being the way that she was. It didn't help.

I began to tidy the house in excess, vacuumed the garage and cut the grass already too short to meet the mower's blade. There was nothing left to tidy, to decorate, to do. I'd always smoked twenty cigarettes a day. Now I smoked forty. My mother never smoked nor drank. I drank cans of strong beer. I'd promised not to drink vodka. The children were at school, my wife at work. Nobody was there to see what I was doing.