No Place Like Home_a gripping psychological thriller Read online

  I stood for a few seconds more, telling myself to forget other people, that I deserved this, until the water was too cold to bear. The cold or the mantra, something woke me up, and I knew I could do this. I might be on my own now, but I could do it. I got what I wanted.

  I climbed out of the shower and stood in front of the sink, wiping the condensation away from the mirror with the palm of my hand. I looked myself in the eye and practised a smile until it didn’t look like I was being smug. I got dressed and dried my hair, deciding to leave the mattress to dry out a little longer. I planned to go to the shops and buy something nice to eat. I still had one more day before I had to go back to work, so I thought I should make it count. I went to the window and pulled it shut. Although it was an upstairs window, I didn’t dare leave it open while I was out. Don’t make it easy for the burglars, Mum had always said. And Mum was always right.

  4

  I only got to the end of the path before I went back and checked that I’d locked the door. I shook my head at myself, wondering when I’d got so paranoid. Slipping the new keys into my bag, I tried again and crossed the street to the bus stop. For a second my heart stuttered as a man walked past me too closely. I thought it was him. A dozen scenarios played in my head in the split second he looked up at me. But it wasn’t him. This man hadn’t been outside the night before. He was just some guy. He nodded an apology and walked on, head down, tucked into his jacket again and barely missed colliding with another woman.

  I told myself to stop being stupid and got in the haphazard queue for the bus. When it finally arrived, I was soaked through from the sea fret style rain and wished, not for the first time, that I’d passed my driving test. I’d only taken it twice, not a lot in comparison to other people I knew – Sasha did hers six times – but having been failed by the same examiner twice, I decided I was going to be stuck with him forever and would just be throwing good money away; money I could be saving toward a place of my own. I thought I was being sensitive, but whenever I told anyone about the test, they all agreed the examiner was being overly critical, that he was on some kind of power trip. So, I stopped. Besides, there were always buses or people to give you lifts. And since I’d moved I could now get just the one bus to most places instead of two, instead of the daily panic of hoping the bus times will align, instead of running from one stop to another as a bus appeared in the distance. Another reason to love my new home. Excellent travel links, as the estate agents say.

  I climbed on the bus and made my way to the back. There were plenty of seats at the front but were taken up with the bags and coats of the people who didn’t want company, the kind who surreptitiously look from the corner of their eye to see if I’m someone who’ll want to have a conversation. Or just keep their eyes firmly on the window while their headphones do the rest. It’s usually the old folks who sit next to these people. Some, I’m sure, just get on the bus to have someone to talk to, and I wonder if my mum, if she wasn’t where she was, would be one of those people, desperate for attention from strangers.

  A few stops from the care home, an old lady got on, older than Mum, older than most people, and slowly made her way up the bus, nodding hello to people who refused to give up their seats. She lurched forward as the driver gave up waiting for her to sit down and had to reach out and steady herself on the shoulder of a middle-aged woman. The woman shrank away from the old lady’s touch as if she was Death itself. We were at the next stop before the woman had made her way to the back and took the seat beside me. She smiled, shakily but sincerely.

  ‘Nasty weather, isn’t it?’ she said, and I nodded. ‘I wouldn’t have come out if it wasn’t for my Frank. He’s in the hospital. Bad lungs. I go every day.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ I said.

  ‘Are you heading to the hospital?’ she asked, her smile sitting unsteady on her lips, wavering with age. Or maybe it was just the motion of the bus. I looked closely at her face and saw a deep ingrained sadness. I wondered what had happened to her in her long, long life that had made her sad, that made her try to cover it up. I wondered if I’d get to the home and find my mum looking the same way.

  ‘No,’ I said, finally. ‘I’m going to see my mum.’

  I saw a new crease appear on her face. ‘Oh.’

  I could tell she wanted to know more. Where my mum was, why I was visiting.

  ‘She’s in the care home. You know, the one by the hospital?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ the old woman said, and I saw a flash of something. I hated to talk about it, hated the feelings it brought up whenever I mentioned that place. Hated the look on their faces – the look I was seeing now – when I told them she’d been shipped off somewhere, because I could tell they were thinking I was a terrible daughter, that they would never have done such a thing to their mother. But it wasn’t my decision. It wasn’t what I wanted. It was the last thing I’d wanted. But sometimes life just doesn’t happen as we planned.

  ‘She’d started forgetting things,’ I said. ‘Losing stuff. She was getting worse and worse. It’s hard to see at first. But after a while, I’d go round and she’d tell me she was starving, and when I checked her cupboards, they’d be bare. Sometimes, I’d only restocked them a couple of days earlier. I’d find unopened tins and packets in the bin that she couldn’t explain. Or piles of opened biscuits in the airing cupboard that she denied putting there.’ I shook my head, and the old woman put her hand on mine. I smiled down at it, feeling like someone was listening to me, understanding.

  ‘And then, she almost burnt the place down. She’d put sheets in the oven to warm up.’

  The woman’s hand left mine and went to her mouth.

  ‘It was July,’ I said, forcing a laugh as if this detail made it less awful. ‘Fortunately, I came around just in time, before any real damage was done. She had some smoke inhalation so they took her to hospital and assessed her. It sounds terrible, but to me, she was in the right place already – the nuthouse as she called it. But the doctors knew best, apparently, thought she’d be fine at home, thought I could give her all the care she needed.’

  ‘But she nearly burnt the house down,’ the old woman said.

  ‘Exactly. That’s what I said, but they’d just look down at their shiny shoes and say there was nothing they could do.’

  ‘Money,’ the old woman said and shook her head. ‘It’s always about the money. We’re just not important enough. My sister had cancer, and they wouldn’t pay for her treatment because of her age.’

  I shook my head in solidarity. She was right. It all came down to money. Everything.

  ‘You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to convince these people that someone is ill. Until, of course, they’re lying on the floor, unable to move or speak. Then they believe you.’ I stopped talking, hearing the anger in my voice. I’d thought after that they’d do something, that she’d be taken care of. I thought I’d even have some say in the matter. But after her stroke, they decided she wasn’t capable of making decisions about what happened to her anymore. And apparently neither was I. Why doesn’t anyone tell you about these things before something happens? Why don’t they tell you that strangers can come in and decide how you’ll be treated and where you’ll live and how to spend your money?

  I let out a breath and turned to the old woman who looked at me with sympathy. She put her hand on mine and squeezed, her bones fragile like a bird. ‘The world can be a terrible place. But we have to make the best of things, don’t we?’

  I nodded, feeling better for getting things off my chest. And I knew she was right about making the best of things. It was what I’d always tried to do. When life gives you lemons and all that.

  ‘You’ll be fine. You and your mum,’ the old woman said. ‘I can tell.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, and the woman reached over and pressed the bell, trying to get to her feet while the bus was still moving. ‘I hope your husband’s okay.’

  The woman nodded, and I watched her make her way off the bus. She smiled and
waved through the window, and I waved back.

  The bus drove on, leaving the old woman behind as we passed the second stop for the main hospital. The next stop, that was for the new unit. The one that replaced the old unit, the one people said was haunted, the one I remembered visiting with my mum a long time ago. If you got off at that stop, they all knew. It was something with the mind, either you or someone you love. Something had gone wrong up there. I almost stood up to go, before remembering Mum wasn’t there anymore.

  A few stops down the road, I got off, immediately feeling the rain soak right through to my bones once again. I took a shortcut through the bare trees, feeling the mud squelch beneath my boots, wondering if the staff would object to me dragging muck inside. The care home prided itself on being spotless, a reason they probably charged so much, as if cleanliness wasn’t a basic human right.

  I found myself getting wound up with each step, thinking of something else that bothered me about the place, about the situation. It was the same every time. I’d get there and couldn’t help but feel angry about everything that’d happened. How strangers had taken over Mum’s life, how they’d taken everything from her, from me, because she’d had the misfortune to be ill.

  I tried to shake myself out of it. It was hard enough as it was, seeing her like that. I thought about the old building that once stood further up the road, and I recalled walking across the grass, hand in hand with my mum, as we went to visit Granddad. I could almost smell her perfume on the wind, the same one she wore every day…until one day, she didn’t. I remembered her chatter, telling me things I didn’t really care about, and she probably didn’t either, but it was better than thinking about the reality of what we were about to walk into. I remembered her letting go of my hand as we got to the locked door, and she’d press the buzzer and wait to be let in, squeezing her hands into fists as she did. I remembered the look of pity the nurses would give her and the fake smile they’d aim my way as if I didn’t understand what was going on. Someone would point to the end of the high-ceilinged room, and we’d walk through, listening to strangers tell us their secrets, showing us their flesh. No one stopped them, and I’d wondered, even then, why no one cared enough to protect their dignity. But maybe it was too late. There is no dignity in the end.

  I remembered sitting beside my granddad, Mum on the other side, and trying not to slide off the wipe clean seats, trying to breathe through my mouth, the chemical smells burning my nose and throat. I remembered Mum talking to her dad about day-to-day things and him not caring anymore. And then she’d glance at me, as if to say, Say something! I never knew what to say, so Mum would just carry on, and then, when it was time to go and she’d kiss him on the cheek, we’d be buzzed out, and walking back across the grass she no longer reached for my hand. I sometimes wondered why she took me there when Granddad had no idea who I was. I wondered if it was for him or for her.

  I was suddenly standing outside the home, an ugly new building with posters in the windows of smiling carers and even happier residents. It was all a lie, of course. No matter how new, how shiny, how high tech they made the place, inside, the people were the same. Sad, desperate, clinging to life.

  I faltered. There’d be another bus soon, one to take me home. I wondered again why I was here – for me or her. To assuage guilt or to help her? It wasn’t my fault she was here, but still…

  The door to the home opened, and the man leaving held it open for me, so I forced myself to move inside. Maybe things wouldn’t be so bad. Things were looking up elsewhere. I had the new house, after all. Maybe these things were like buses. They always turn up at the same time.

  5

  When I walked in to Mum’s room, Cathy, her nurse, was standing in front of the chest of drawers opposite the bed. She closed one drawer, quietly, and opened the next, rummaging through Mum’s nighties.

  I was about to speak when someone dropped something in the hallway, and it thundered along before clattering to a stop. Cathy turned and saw me standing there, her hand going up to her ample chest.

  ‘Polly,’ she said, breathless. ‘I didn’t realise you were there.’ She closed the drawer and turned to Mum who was propped up in bed, staring out of the window, a blank expression on her face. She didn’t seem to notice me, and I watched her for a while. Beneath the facade of an old woman, I could see the person she used to be, the same face that I wear these days. I thought about how hard it’d been for her, that when she was my age, she was suddenly alone after so many years; she had been thrown out of the house that she loved and into a crappy flat, struggling to manage on the wages she brought home from a job she despised. It took a long time and a lot of hard work for her to get out of there and back into a house she could think of as home. I wondered if the weight of all that was recorded in the lines on her face. She looked old before her time. I wondered if I’d been heading the same way.

  ‘Polly’s here, Margaret,’ Cathy said, her voice too loud, and Mum turned around and almost looked through me. ‘I’ll leave you to it, then, shall I?’ Cathy said, patting Mum’s knee as she walked out.

  Mum smiled at her, and I felt a stab of sadness. She hadn’t smiled at me when I came in, for all I knew she couldn’t smile anymore.

  I walked to the bed, leaned over and kissed her cheek, which was smooth and dry and smelled of institutional soap. I took a seat on the edge of her bed. ‘How are you, Mum?’ I said, and she blinked slowly.

  ‘Not bad,’ she said. Or at least I thought that’s what she said. Her words were still slurred, though getting better all the time. I smiled and tried to think of something to say. I could feel the weight of her stare and picked up a get well soon card from one of Mum’s oldest friends, Joan.

  Joan had been in our lives for as long as I could remember, and although Mum thought of her as one of her closest friends, as I’d got older, I started to notice how Joan looked down on Mum, how she patronised her once Dad had gone, how she used to say, ‘Well done you,’ whenever Mum told her she’d applied for a new job or had managed to fix the sink herself.

  After Mum’s stroke, she’d shown up at the hospital, discussing Mum’s outlook with the doctors, even though she’d been a medical secretary rather than a doctor herself. And then, she started talking about Mum’s affairs, that she and Mum had often talked about being there for each other, that Mum had wanted her to take care of things should anything happen. Mum had never mentioned any of that to me, and so, we’d argued – me believing it was only right that as her daughter, I should be the one to speak for her, Joan believing because she was older and wiser that she was the best person for the job – and all the while, Mum lay there unable to do anything about her own life. Nothing had been signed, and now, it was too late.

  But Joan hung around for a while, organising this and that, giving her opinions on what Mum would’ve wanted, as if Mum was no longer there at all, and we both tried to stay out of each other’s way until one day Joan just stopped coming and the occasional card was all Mum was worth.

  I put the card back and saw Mum’s eyes move back to the window. I knew she was angry with me, knew she blamed me for what’d happened, for her ending up in this place. And though it wasn’t my fault, I knew I hadn’t dealt with things very well, not then and not now. I still got frustrated at my inability to understand her. Patience was never my strong point. But it still hurt that she could smile for a stranger and not for me.

  ‘I’ve got a new house,’ I said, and she finally turned back to me.

  ‘A house?’ she mumbled.

  I nodded. ‘Yep. My own house.’ I smiled and waited for her to do the same.

  ‘How?’ she said, although I wasn’t sure if that was what she meant, her words would get jumbled sometimes.

  ‘Do you mean where?’ I said.

  She shook her head, and her breath quickened, frustration rising. ‘How?’ she said again. Another sound came from her lips, and I struggled to make it out.

  ‘I’ve been saving, Mum.’


  ‘How d…d…’ she stuttered before stopping, frustrated with herself. I leaned in, about to put my hand on hers to let her know it was okay, that she didn’t have to keep going if it was too much. She closed her eyes and fell silent, remaining that way for several minutes, until I thought she’d fallen asleep. I was about to stand up and tiptoe to the door when she opened her eyes again.

  ‘Fire,’ she said, and I froze. A chill went through me, and I pulled back.

  ‘Why are you talking about that?’ I asked.

  ‘Fire,’ she said again, lifting her good hand which trembled.

  ‘Mum, you’re upsetting yourself. Maybe I should speak to your nurse.’

  ‘What for?’ she said slowly, her voice sounding like she was under water.

  I went to stand, but she gripped my hand, her nails digging in to my skin, her mouth twisted as she stuttered and stumbled over her words.

  ‘Stop it, Mum,’ I said, pulling my hand away. I walked to the door. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  ‘Polly.’

  I could hear her calling me all the way down the corridor. I could see the care assistants staring at me for abandoning my poor ill mother. But I couldn’t stand it anymore. I couldn’t take it when she became agitated.

  ‘Miss Cooke?’

  I turned, and Cathy was coming out from behind the desk, hurrying after me. Suddenly, I couldn’t be bothered to speak to her, knowing she’d just say the same old thing about mum – “Give it time”.