‘Yes, please.’
‘Okay, leave it with me.’ He smiled again before leaving me alone outside Olly’s ward.
I left without seeing Olly, but hoped he could feel my presence.
CHAPTER TWELVE
FIVE MONTHS, ONE WEEK AFTER DAVID
There were thirty or so members of the Northants Women’s Circle inside the function room of Great Houghton’s village hall.
They queued at a table, on which was a tray of biscuits and an urn of hot water. They dropped teabags and spoonfuls of instant coffee and sugar into mismatched mugs. Most of them looked as if they were knocking on heaven’s door, and they’d come to hear Mary and me discuss our voluntary work at End of the Line.
Janine had only sent me there with Mary out of spite. She was well aware that my comfort zone extended only as far as charming local businesses, applying for National Lottery grants and organising bake and jumble sales. It most definitely did not include this decrepit audience.
Mary had more in common with them than I did. Most old people made me feel uncomfortable, as if their years of wisdom and experience gave them the capacity to see right through me. Mary, however, was an exception. I could have been a serial killer working my way around the room and euthanising every last one of them, and she’d still find some good to see in me.
We sat side by side on two plastic chairs at the front of the hall. I fixed my gaze on her as she used brightly coloured cue cards to remind her of the subjects she wanted to address. Her voice was confident, like she was comfortable among her own kind, whereas I just wanted to be back in the office waiting for the next call.
It was more than five months since I’d helped David and I was craving a new challenge. Steven was supposed to have fitted the bill, but his all-important third call still hadn’t come.
In an ideal world, I’ll only ever take on one candidate at a time. But sometimes, like buses, two can come along at once and juggling them is exhausting. Like Michael and Helena, two of my early candidates. He was a middle-aged man with late-stage prostate cancer. It was a Monday evening when he suffocated himself with a plastic bag and a gas canister. The next morning, Helena took an overdose of painkillers. She was a twenty-something having an affair with a married dad-of-two who had reneged on his promise to leave his wife for her. After I helped her see that her death would teach him a lesson, I made sure to hammer the point home by placing an obituary in the local paper on his behalf, using his full name and making sure to describe her as his ‘beautiful girlfriend’.
As luck would have it, their funerals fell on the same day in neighbouring churches. I had walked from one to the other, and still got to the office in time for my afternoon shift.
‘Do you need a lot of training or can you start answering calls straight away?’ asked a woman in the front row. Her ankles were as thick as her calves. I wanted to tell her that there were many pointless bureaucratic hoops to jump through first, which taught you to go against your instinct and to listen rather than advise. But I didn’t.
‘Yes, there is a lot of training to be done to prepare you for what you might hear,’ I replied. ‘Some calls we get are quite hard, so we need to be ready for anything.’
After my first interview at End of the Line, I did my homework and read up on the answers expected in their psychometric and personality tests. I was asked my opinions on everything from abortions to what I’d tell a terminally ill friend who didn’t want to continue treatment. All were designed to see how open-minded, liberal and non-judgemental I was. The truth is that I am judgemental, but I went against my real self because giving advice isn’t listening. Only once did I slip up and say the words ‘commit suicide’. ‘Commit’ is a word we never use, as it makes suicide sound like it’s a crime, which it isn’t.
I passed, and then came the training – one day a week for the best part of two months. I was quick to get the measure of my mentor Mary. Her adult son had long flown the nest and the country, leaving her with a husband who’d rather spend time on the golf course than with her. I sensed she was aimless and empty and in another life, I’d have fast-tracked her as a candidate.
She filled her days between now and death by offering a friendly ear to others. Her body was slimmer than mine but she hid it away under frumpy clothing and abided by the World War II slogan ‘make do and mend’. I’d see her quietly green-eyeing the fashions I wore, and I’d make a point of telling her where I’d bought them and how much they cost.
Mary wore little make-up, ageing her further, and all the fillers in the world couldn’t have ironed out the wrinkles in her face. She didn’t even colour her short, silver hair, as if she didn’t see the point of making an effort anymore. When she was considering a question or was lost in thought, she’d move her jaw from left to right like she was easing her loose dentures back into place. I’d rather be dead than become Mary.
Together, we embarked on an exploration of hypothetical depths of despair to see how much I knew about the types of problems callers were experiencing. It wasn’t in my nature to try to cheer someone up or tell them I knew how they felt, so that wasn’t a habit I needed to break.
Despite her maturity, Mary was easily hoodwinked; that’s the problem with those who only ever see the good in people. I found it easy to appear saddened as she recounted some of the horrors callers had told her. Secretly, I couldn’t wait until she let go of my reins and I could experience their suffering first-hand.
When the time arrived, I had to stifle my excitement. Not every call came from someone with suicidal thoughts, but when my first one arrived, I had to clench my fists to stop myself from clapping like a sea lion. For the first of my eight probationary shifts, Mary wore an earpiece to listen in on my conversations. Occasionally she’d pass me a suggested line of questioning on a Post-it note, and once the call was over she’d debrief me and offer constructive feedback. Well, she found it constructive. I found it time-consuming nonsense. Finally, with the wool well and truly pulled over her eyes, she unscrewed my stabilisers and I was off on my own.
There were many guidelines to follow, and even now I obey them, by and large. I don’t agree with them all but there’s no point in trying to break the rules just for the sake of it. Remain below the radar and no one will ever see you for what you are. And just to be on the safe side, I took three, maybe even four months before I began playing by my own rules.