Dead City: Outbreak. Chapter 3
Neither had banked on the system turning against them
The elderly man’s hand shook as he placed the telephone on the table beside his chair, the conversation ended. Drained of colour, he sagged back as though winded. Amy waited for him to speak with an overwhelming sense of dread, noticing how the crinkle of laughter lines that had ridged as they’d shared a joke before the telephone rang, had flattened and grown deep, and the skin at his jawline, covered by three days of white and stubbly growth, was now slack. Suddenly he looked every day of his seventy-eight years.
“What is it, Grandpa?”
Eyes that had been clear and bright, sparkling with mirth only minutes before, were now a faded blue. He flinched as their eyes met. She took his hand and crouched at his knees. “What did she say?” The question was rhetorical. Amy had known the day would come.
“I only asked for a little more help.” Matthew’s hand trembled within hers. “That’s what she called for—to return my call.” A tear glistened in his eye. “They … The woman on the phone said they could offer medical assistance …” Matthew took a deep breath, “to end my life if I was struggling!” He blurted the last words, unable to keep the emotion from his voice.
A sinking sensation flooded Amy’s bowels. “Don’t listen to them!” The words tumbled out with a hint of the fierce rage that was churning inside.
“I’m a burden, Amy.”
“You’re not!” she replied, then soothed her voice to add, “Of course you’re not. They’re just-”
“But … but maybe I am a burden … What with the food shortages and the housing …”
She placed her hand over his, the bones felt like rising peaks beneath their papery covering. “You’re not a burden, Grandpa. You’ve paid your dues. Worked all your life. This country owes you.”
He placed a hand over his eyes and leant against the side of the high-backed chair. “Oh …”
She felt his rising despair as a wave. “Don’t listen to them. They’re just following a script. Protocols …” She searched for a way to explain the nurse’s callousness without causing her grandfather more pain. How did you explain it? That insidious creep of opinion that had shifted from caring for men like him to resenting them and now seeing them as a threat to the very existence of Humankind? The new bogey man of the carbon zero crazies! You couldn’t. Not without breaking his heart and that was something Amy would never do. “I’ll take care of you … always.”
He let out a low sob. Her heart returned it with a pain of her own.
“If Elsie were here, she’d know what to do,” he said.
Elsie was Amy’s late grandmother; the woman Matthew had treasured for most of his life. Married for fifty-four years they had lived a happily married life. Elsie staying at home to raise their four boys. Matthew working each day at a local engineering factory. Both had worked hard throughout their lives. Paying into the system, expecting it to treat them fairly. Neither had banked on the system turning against them, then biting down with razor-sharp teeth.
Amy held back the unravelling rage held in a tight knot deep in her belly. “And she would have laughed at you for even thinking of it,” she replied. “And then she would have given you a good telling off.”
Matthew wiped at the wetness on his cheek and managed a smile. The tension in Amy’s stomach released a little.
“Aye,” he chuckled. “She’d have called me a few names along with it, no doubt.”
“She would. Now, stop being daft and let me help you change that dressing.”
Matthew leant forward, slow, and stiff, giving a groan as his hands clasped the bottom of his trousers. Amy helped ease the cloth over the large square of white gauze where an uncooperative venous ulcer was festering. As she pulled it away with gentle ease, it appeared smaller and less angry than when she had put it on. “I think it’s getting better.”
He sighed. “Then that’s all down to you,” he said.
“I tell you what, Grandpa,” she said with a forced lilt in her voice as she dropped the soiled dressing in the refuse bag at her side, “if they’re just offering to kill you because they can’t be bothered to come round and change this dressing, then we’ll sort it out ourselves.”
He glanced at her with a flicker of confusion. “Oh, aye?”
“Yeah! We could just chop your leg off. They’d have nothing to complain about then.”
To her relief, Matthew laughed. “Aye. Chop it off lass. Let’s be done with it.”
Amy spent the next minutes bathing and re-dressing her grandfather’s sore leg, ruminating on the scathing words she would pour over the head of the uncaring ‘carer’ who had suggested he submit himself for euthanasia.
“Why don’t you pop the kettle on, lass,” Matthew suggested as he eased back into the chair, his hand hovering over the television controls.
“Okay,” she replied. “I’ll make us a cup of tea and bring in some biscuits. We can watch a film if you like. You choose.”
He nodded then held out the remote. She heard the television click to on as she walked through into the kitchen. As music filled the living room, she busied herself making the tea. Despite his stiff joints and pain from his leg, Grandpa kept the kitchen neat and tidy, just as his wife had always done. See! See how wrong you are! This is not the kitchen of a man who needs help to die! As she filled the kettle, Amy’s thoughts churned, picturing the nurse on the other end of the phone, imagining wrapping the cord around the woman’s neck. She dropped a couple of teabags into the pot as the woman’s eyes began to bulge, then turned to the fridge for the milk as her face turned puce. Forcing the image from her mind, she focused on the fridge. Inside was a paltry collection of food; half a block of cheese, a tub of margarine, several carrots, an opened packet of bacon rashers, and a can of beer that had been in the fridge since Christmas. She checked the freezer compartment. Its three drawers were mostly empty although there were still several containers of food from her batch cooking spree last month: two of cottage pie, three with ground beef in bolognaise sauce, and one with beef stew. She made a mental note to cook more meals, some with chicken. Meat was becoming unaffordable, but there was no question of letting Grandpa Matt go hungry.
“We’ll make a list of food,” she called through to the living room as she closed the fridge door. “I’ll go shopping. We can cook together if you like.”
“I’d like that,” he called back.
She made the tea and placed mugs and the teapot on a tray, then grabbed the biscuit tin from the counter top and returned to the living room.
The television was tuned into the news channel. She resisted the urge to groan and instead placed the tray on the coffee table. “What shall we watch?” she asked as she poured tea into his mug. “It’s one of those rainy afternoons that’s perfect for a film.”
When Matthew didn’t answer, she turned to the television. On the screen was a scene from a horror film. A man was flailing, gasping for breath as fire travelled up his sleeve. A man sprayed foam whilst beside him a blonde woman clawed at her throat. “I’m not that keen on horror, Grandpa. How about a comedy?” she suggested.
“It’s the news, lass,” he said without taking his eyes from the screen.
“Are … are you sure?”
“Aye. Some posh chef caught on fire whilst he was filming. It went out live on one of them video channels.”
Amy shuddered. “That’s awful! I can’t believe they’re showing it on TV.”
“They said it was viral. What does that mean?”
“It means lots of people saw it. Millions probably.”
“Poor sod! What a way to go.”
To Amy’s relief, her grandfather switched the channel and began to look for a film. They settled on a comedy. As the film progressed, Matthew relaxed and lost himself to the film. As it neared the end, his head nodded and Amy realised he had fallen asleep. She placed a blanket over his knees them went through to the kitchen, took out one of the frozen containers of cottage pie and set it on the draining board to defrost. She found a pen and paper and began to make a list of food to re-stock the bare shelves until the telephone rang.
A handset sat in the kitchen on the counter. She answered it, hoping the ringing hadn’t woken Matthew. “Hello.”
“Good afternoon. I’d like to speak to Matthew Bowman, please.”
“He’s asleep. Can I help you? I’m his granddaughter. Amy.”
“Good afternoon, Amy.” The woman’s voice was lilting. “I’m calling from the Medical Assistance team at the Department of Life Enhancement. A referral has been made for Matthew from his primary care agency.”
Her belly did a watery flip. “A referral?”
“Yes. A suite of rooms has been made available at one of our facilities. We can offer the most technologically advanced care to help end Matthew’s suffering … Hello? Amy? … Amy, are you still there?”
Gut wrenching on how parallel this is to real life.