Since the delivery of the envelope, the day there were three bottles of whisky in the box, the booze has come, a relentless tide of it. Marie’s given up the Monday morning race, unable to deal with the abuse Janice gives her if she tries to interfere. Even if she gets to one bottle, Janice will have another squirrelled away. Janice’s body can’t take it the way it once could. Too old to be able to handle it in any quantity now.
The silence seems to grow.
Marie jumps out of bed and rushes through to where Janice is sleeping, in the single bed that mirrors her own on the other side of the wall. The older woman is lying still, so still that Marie’s heart misses a beat when she sees her as she opens the door. She rushes forward and puts her hand to Janice’s cheek, suddenly struck with panic.
She’s out cold.
Marie has always been grateful for her ability to sleep through anything, but that gratitude flies out of the window in a heartbeat. She should have known how ill Janice was from the sound of her awful coughing and retching. She should have come to help earlier, perhaps it wouldn’t have got so bad. There’s a strong smell of vomit and alcohol coming from her, and the bedding is encrusted in sick.
She puts her hand to Janice’s neck, feels for a pulse. Nothing. She doesn’t think so, anyway. She tries her wrist – a flicker, nothing more. She forces her fingers into Janice’s mouth and pulls out gobbets of vomit, trying desperately to clear the woman’s throat, to let her breathe. Pulling her into the recovery position she thumps at her back, hoping to dislodge anything Janice might have inhaled.
There is no reaction from Janice, despite her efforts.
Should she perform CPR? Not if Janice’s heart is still beating. She thinks she’s read that somewhere. The thought of putting her mouth to Janice’s, tasting that stinking sick on her own lips, inhaling the stench of whisky so close . . . Marie swallows down a sour bile that rises at the back of her throat.
Let me die. The words that Janice spoke to her that terrible, drunken night come back to her now.Let me die.
Think. She’s got to think. Janice needs a doctor, immediately. To go straight into hospital. What the hell is Marie going to do?
She looks at the cameras situated around the house. Maybe they’ll see, send medical assistance. Maybe it’s on the way already. In her gut, she knows they’ll be more interested in observing, watching life or death play out without intervention. Like a nature programme. Captive apes.
At least it’s delivery day. Maybe she’ll be in time to catch someone. She’ll run down to the loch, watch out to see in case it’s being brought late this week, so she can stop the skipper of the boat and ask for help.
Leaving Janice in the recovery position, Marie secures the duvet around her, touches her face and promises that she’ll be back as soon as she can. Then she takes to her heels and runs.
The sheep aren’t used to such activity. They look up as she puffs past, almost startled. She’s trying to keep her footing on the uneven path, but finally catches the edge of her shoe on a loose rock, almost crashing to the ground. She needs to slow down. If she injures herself . . . it doesn’t bear thinking about. Neither of them would make it through.
A moment of hope when she arrives by the loch – the box isn’t there yet. She isn’t normally so early to collect it, she can tell that by how low the sun still is in the sky, making its way up from the east. She’ll wait, get their attention, make sure that they know they need to come back with medicine. With a doctor.
With any help at all.
She finds a hollow that gives a good view across the landing stage, unwilling to make herself too obvious in case she scares them off when they see her waiting on the jetty. This isn’t how it was meant to be. She can’t believe she didn’t take the warnings seriously.
You’ll be pretty much on your own up there.If you need urgent medical assistance, it may not be forthcoming.She hadn’t paid any heed at the time. Still young enough, still fit enough to think she was invincible. Not much caring if she wasn’t. She didn’t think about Janice, though. She should never have agreed to this. The peace of it, the tranquillity – all the factors that once most appealed to her are now fraught with threat.
It’s all right, though. Someone will be here soon. They’ll be rowing, maybe, or powering in on a motorboat. They’ll stop the boat, climb out with the box of provisions, prepare to leave it on the shore, at which moment she’ll jump up, run down, catch hold of them before they leave.
She can see it now, the surprise on his face, or maybe hers, the person who’s been their lifeline for the last years.Are you sure you’ll be able to deal with the isolation?When they’d asked her that, she’d brushed the question aside, impatiently. Of course I can, what do you think I’ve been dealing with for the last eight years? Maybe they expected her to try and find human contact sooner, lie in wait like this years ago. But she’s had her fill of human contact, more than enough of it to last a lifetime.
Until now. Now, the idea of something bad happening to Janice is the only thought in her head.Let me die, let me die, a relentless drumbeat running through her mind. Marie thought she wanted to be free of the responsibility of caring for Janice, but now the thought terrifies her.
34
The sun’s high in the sky by the time she gives up waiting. It’s beating down on her, but she can’t get warm. She needs to get back, check on Janice, make sure she’s still alive, still in bed, safe. Or as safe as Marie can make her.
Maybe it’s because she’s here. They can sense her presence somehow, won’t come until she leaves. Best to proceed on that basis. She grabs the notebook and pen out of her pocket and scrawls a note:MEDICAL ASSISTANCE REQUIRED URGENTLY, JANICE SERIOUSLY ILL. That will have to do. She waves it under the camera for a while before she shoves it under a rock on the pier and starts to climb back up to the house.
They should have discussed protocols. They should have put guidelines in place. They should never have delivered whisky to a recovering alcoholic.
Maybe you want her to die. She stops in her tracks. No. That’s not right. She’s never wanted Janice to die, never resented her care of her. Sure, there’ve been times she could have done without it, hankering for the quiet of her own company, but it’s not like she couldn’t leave the room, go and sit on her own for a bit. Or go walking, foraging in the endless wilderness.
I don’t believe you. You’ve always hated her.That’s not true. Not true at all. She’s not going to accept that. She keeps on walking.
You’re going to have to take action when she’s gone. Can’t keep using that as an excuse to hold back. This one’s unanswerable.Fuck off, she shouts back at her head.Not now.
She’s nearly back at the house, but she needs to stop, catch her breath. Normally she’s so fit, but panic is driving up her heart rate, making her breaths shallow, not allowing in the oxygen she needs. There’s a rattling of stones in the distance; she hears them fall, looks round to see if someone is there, someone who could help, but it’s nothing. Only a sheep, staring at her. Accusation in its eyes.
Fuck’s sake. She’s losing it now. The sheep is not staring at her in accusation. The sheep doesn’t give a shit. Neither does the sky, the mountain or the massive rock off to her left, which she climbs sometimes, just for something to do. The landscape is impassive, untouched by her. Filled with sudden rage, she picks up a stone and hurls it at the sheep, screaming as she does. The noise she emits doesn’t even scare the sheep, which keeps eating grass regardless. The stone she’s thrown lands harmlessly on the ground metres in front of it.
