Don’t Tell Mummy: A True Story of the Ultimate Betrayal. Toni Maguire

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      ‘We have some problems with your mother’s treatment and we hoped that maybe you could shed some light on them. The pain-control medication is not working as well as it should. And, to be frank, she’s on the maximum dosage we can prescribe.’

      He paused to gauge my reaction. Receiving none he continued. ‘In the daytime she responds well to the staff, lets them take her to the coffee lounge, shows an interest in her appearance, and she has a good appetite. It’s the night-time that’s the problem.’

      Again he paused and still I kept what I knew was a neutral expression on my face, not yet ready to give anything away. After a few seconds he continued, with slightly less confidence.

      ‘Your mother has very disturbed nights. She wakes extremely distressed and in more pain than she should be. It’s almost as though she’s fighting against her medication.’

      Oh, the witching hours, I thought. I knew those hours so well, where control over thoughts disappears to let the blackest memories surface, jolting us wide awake to feel despair, anger, fear or even guilt. In my case I could get out of bed, make a cup of tea, read or listen to music. But what could my mother do now to allay those dark thoughts?

      ‘Twice she’s asked the nurse to call the minister out. But,’ he turned to the man beside him, ‘my friend tells me that by the time he arrives she’s changed her mind about her need to talk to him.’

      The minister nodded to confirm this, and I felt the impact of two pairs of eyes searching my face for answers; this time it was the minister who broke the silence, leaning across the desk and putting the next question.

      ‘Toni, is there anything you can tell us to help us help your mother?’

      I saw the genuine concern in his face and chose my words carefully.

      ‘I think I understand why my mother’s nights might be disturbed. She believes in God. She knows she has a very short time before she meets Him, and I think she is very frightened of dying. I want to help but there is little I can do. I hope for her sake she can find the strength to talk to you.’

      The doctor looked puzzled. ‘You mean your mother has something on her conscience?’

      I thought of just how much my mother had in her past to feel guilty about, wondering if her memories haunted her. I fought not to let my thoughts show, but felt a sigh escape me as I replied.

      ‘She must have. She should have. But whether she’d ever admit she’s done anything wrong I don’t know. She never has.’

      The doctor looked troubled. ‘Well, it’s certainly affecting the pain control. When the mind is as restless as your mother’s seems to be, the medication simply does not work to its full effect.’

      ‘In that case you will just have to monitor it and my mother more closely,’ I said, more abruptly than I should as a feeling of helplessness rose in me. With that I returned to my mother’s ward.

      On entering her eyes held mine.

      ‘What did the doctor want?’ she asked.

      Knowing that she knew, I looked at her squarely in the face.

      ‘They told me you had called the minister out twice in the middle of the night and that you were very distressed.’ Then my courage failed me as it always did. ‘But we don’t need to worry about it now do we?’

      The childhood habit of pandering to her wishes of ‘no discussion’ remained unbroken.

      The rest of that first morning she was very tearful. I knew it was common with terminally ill patients, but it still moved me unbearably. Tenderly, I wiped away her tears, remembering days when as a small child she’d done the same for me. She was more affectionate than she had been for many years: she wanted to hold my hand, she wanted to talk and she wanted to remember happier times. I looked at her now, an old lady whose limited days were unlikely to end as peacefully as I wanted, and realized how badly she needed me.

      ‘How long are you going to stay?’ she asked.

      ‘For as long as you need me,’ I replied lightly, trying to cover up what I really meant.

      My mother, who could always read me, smiled. With a jolt I was reminded of her much younger self and the times when we’d been so close. I felt the surge of my old love.

      ‘I don’t know how long that will be,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘But I don’t think it will be very long.’

      She paused, looked at me and asked: ‘You’ve only come, haven’t you, because you know I’m dying?’

      I squeezed her hand, and rubbed the back of it gently with my thumb. ‘I’ve come because you asked me to. I would always have come if you’d asked. And yes, I have come to help you die in peace, because I believe I’m the one person who can do that.’

      I hoped she would find the willpower to talk honestly, and for a short time that first day I believed she would.

      Pulling on my hand she said: ‘You know, Toni, the days you were a small baby were the happiest times of my life. I remember it as though it was yesterday. When you were born I sat in that hospital bed feeling so proud that at the age of twenty-nine I had produced you. You were such a small, perfect little person. I felt such love for you. I wanted to hold you. I wanted to look after and protect you. I wanted a good life for you. I felt such tenderness and love, that’s what I felt then.’

      A lump rose in my throat as I remembered many years ago when I had been encircled by her love. Then she was a mother who cuddled and played with me, read stories and tucked me into bed; a mother whose scent I breathed in as she bent down to give me my good-night kiss.

      A child’s voice infiltrated my memory until the sounds became words whispered in my ear.

      ‘Where did that love disappear to, Toni? Today is your birthday. She says she remembers when you were born. She says how she loved you then, yet fourteen years later she tried to send you to your death. Does she not remember that? Does she not think you do? Has she really blocked it out of her mind? Have you?’

      I closed my ears to the voice and willed it to be silent. I wanted to leave my memories in the boxes where they’d been stored for thirty years, never looked at and never thought of except when the witching hours allowed them to escape, when they would hitch a lift on the end of a fading dream. Their ice-cold tentacles would then stroke my subconscious, leaving dim pictures from another time until I awoke to banish them.

      Later that day I took her out in her wheelchair around the grounds. She’d always loved creating beautiful gardens; it was as though all her nurturing instincts, which had ceased towards me long ago, went into them.

      She asked me to stop at various plants and bushes as she told me their names. Sadly she murmured, more to herself than to me, ‘I’ll never see my garden again.’

      I remembered visiting her at the onset of her illness. I’d gone to Northern Ireland with a friend. Taking advantage of the fact that my father was away for the day, playing golf, I had visited my mother. She had proudly shown me photographs of how her garden had looked before she’d started work, a desolate area with clumps of coarse grass and not even a wild flower to enhance it.

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