‘She passed away in October,’ he said. ‘Who is this?’
I didn’t want to lie but I couldn’t tell him the bald truth.
‘My name’s Palmer, Sal Palmer. My great-aunt has gone into Kingsfield – she was at Aspen Lodge for a while. My grandmother is beside herself with worry. I thought it might help if I talked to relatives of other patients – then I could tell Grandma what people thought of the care there. She’s talking about going private, you see, but we really can’t afford it.’
He didn’t ask how I’d got his number or anything. ‘Well, we’d no problem with the setup there. They did all they could, lovely staff. But…I don’t know…what happened to Winnie, it’s not going to be that reassuring for your grandmother, is it? She had Alzheimer’s, you see, and there’s no treatment yet. Mr Simcock, he’s the neurosurgeon at the Infirmary, he was very good as well. She went there for a scan, you know; they can see exactly what’s going on. But there was nothing they could do for her really. It’s a terrible thing.’
‘I am sorry. Had she been at Aspen Lodge for a long time?’
‘Three years. I couldn’t manage her at home. I’ve angina myself and she was wandering a lot. She settled in all right. It was a lovely home – well, you’ll know yourself. Then she started getting very agitated, last summer. She became very confused, she wouldn’t eat. She didn’t know who I was any more, couldn’t remember her own name from one minute to the next. Dr Goulden thought she’d be better off at the Marion Unit. Like I said, they really did their best for her. She was in there just two months before she died.’
I thanked him for talking to me.
There were some similarities in the path that both Winifred Saltzer and Lily Palmer had taken, although from the sound of it Winifred had been ill for several years before going to Kingsfield – nothing like the sudden deterioration that Lily had undergone.
Mr Saltzer’s willingness to help prompted me to try contacting relatives of some of the other patients. I thumbed the phone book and started by calling the names listed as living in South Manchester. I spent an intensive hour on the phone. My luck held. It was one of those days when everyone was in and happy to talk. I was flying. Some days I get nothing but answerphones or people being cagey, obstructive, stroppy.
I’ve always wondered what determines the pattern – me or them.
I crowed as I put down the phone after the last call. Did a little dance round the office. I’d found everyone bar Ernest Theakston.
The information I’d assembled didn’t tell me anything earth-shattering but there were some interesting facts.
Of the six patients transferred by Goulden to the Marion Unit at Kingsfield three suffered a slow decline and were moved there not long before the disease killed them. Ernest Theakston was an unknown and the other two people – Lily Palmer and Philip Braithwaite – had become ill more rapidly. Mr Braithwaite had not only had dementia but a scan had revealed a brain tumour. A biopsy had been done at the MRI but Mr Simcock felt it was too late to operate.
‘He was on tablets,’ his daughter had said, ‘to try and calm him down but there wasn’t anything else they could do for him.’ As it was the tumour hadn’t killed Mr Braithwaite: he’d caught flu while in hospital and died there.
Was Ernest Theakston dead too? It wouldn’t be unexpected. These were elderly, often frail patients, so ill that they could no longer be nursed at Aspen Lodge or Homelea.
Time for school pick-up. I still needed to ring Diane back, I wanted to give Moira a nudge over the tablets and I hadn’t done anything yet to find out more about any links between Goulden and Simcock. I didn’t get a chance to do anything until after six o’clock. The kids were both in needy mode. Tom had developed a cold, which gave him a pair of permanent green nose-candles and an uncharacteristic tendency to whine. Maddie couldn’t bear the diversion of attention and promptly came up with tummy ache and a sore ear. I dispensed drinks and toast and honey and proceeded to read stories to them – the only activity they’d both go along with.
At half-five we had beans on toast and when Ray came in I asked him to take over. He loaded Snow White into the video.
I spoke to Diane first, arranging to meet up later in the week. There was no answer from Moira’s. I rang the surgery; she’d appointments booked up until seven o’clock.
Agnes had got through to the hospital, though, and Lily was back on the ward. We could visit any time before eight o’clock but she’d still be asleep.
‘I could get a taxi,’ Agnes offered.
‘No, you’re fine,’ I replied. ‘Are you ready now?’
I explained to Ray and the children that I needed to pop out. Maddie burst into tears and clung to my leg.
‘But I don’t want you to go. I want you to put me to bed.’ She wasn’t going to listen to logic. I promised to come and check on her as soon as I got back. Together Ray and I prised her off.
‘Mummee,’ she wailed, ‘Mummee, don’t go, please, Mummee.’
My stomach curled round on itself. ‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’ I fled.
I was an awful mother. How could I do this to my child? And how could she make me feel so bloody awful?
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Agnes and I made the same long trek to the ward where Lily was. Clusters of visitors gathered round the beds. The curtains were drawn around Lily’s. She was asleep and her head was bandaged.
We pulled up chairs on either side of the bed. Agnes took Lily’s hand in her own. I said I’d go see if there was anyone about we could talk to, left them to it.
There was a new shift of nurses on duty. When I enquired about Lily one of them checked the board. ‘Post-op. She’s had the surgery. She’ll probably sleep through till the morning. We’ll be checking on her throughout the night.’
‘Do you know how it went?’ I asked.
‘Not in detail,’ she smiled, ‘but she’s resting now and everything seems to be going as we’d expect. It’ll be several days before we can be sure. They’ll do more scans to check and so on but she seems to be doing very well so far.’
I reported back to Agnes. Lily lay very still. Only a slight but regular movement in her throat showed us she was breathing.
‘I’ve been finding out a bit about Dr Goulden’s caseload,’ I said. Agnes was listening attentively. ‘He’s referred six patients to Kingsfield in the last twelve months. I don’t know how many beds there are but the place is meant to serve the whole of South Manchester, and those six are from just one GP, just two homes.’
‘Were any of them like Lily? Did any of them seem all right until they went into the home?’
‘Maybe one, a bloke called Philip Braithwaite. He seemed to go downhill quickly, then they found a tumour, they did a biopsy but he got flu and died while he was here.’
‘So it could have been the tumour that complicated things,’ she mused. ‘And the others?’
‘Classic symptoms, nothing unusual, came here for scans, ended up in Kingsfield.’
We were interrupted by the nurse I’d spoken to earlier. She wanted to check Lily’s pulse and temperature.
Agnes asked how long Lily would be in hospital and whether she could tell us if the scans they had done had told them anything about her Alzheimer’s.
‘I’m sorry,’ she made notes on the chart and clipped it back on the bed, ‘I don’t know. You need to speak to Mr Simcock about that.’
At eight o’clock we left, along with the last of the other visitors, and I drove Agnes home. She wanted to speak to Charles and I was keen to find out what he knew. I followed her through to her back room where the phone was. It was bitterly cold and we both kept our coats on. The room was much more lived in than her lounge and still sported an old-fashioned creel suspended from the ceiling where clothes could be hung to dry. Edges of green lino showed around the large Indian rug that covered most of the floor. The wallpaper was some faded leaf design and here and there paintings and old photos hung. She lit the gas fire and left it on full. She found and dialled the number.