No One Should Die Alone

Pippa stood at the door, heart fluttering in her chest. The hands grasping her handbag to her chest were slick with sweat and she wiped them on her jeans before ringing the doorbell.

The instructions were to wait; it could take him some time to get to the door. She took some deep breaths and tried to calm herself. He didn’t know it was her first time sitting with the dying, and he didn’t need to.

After a few minutes she could hear a dragging, shuffling noise, inching closer. Her anxiety was drowned by a flood of compassion in that moment; that someone so unwell was living alone broke her heart. His file indicated he had several living children, though his wife predeceased him. Why was no one here?

She had no more time to ponder this though, as the sound of shuffling gait halted, replaced by fumbling fingers, sliding a chain, turning a key, a handle.

Her sense of smell was assaulted before the door even cracked it seemed. Urine, rotten food, cigarette smoke, the thick musk of unwashed skin and hair and underneath it all, a more elusive scent. Sweet and a little fruity, sharp and a touch bitter. Acetone? Why would this old man that couldn’t even clean himself need nail polish remover?

“Are you coming in girl or are you just going to stand catching flies?” His voice sounded like the gravel that had crunched beneath her tyres when she had pulled up, but with a strong Yorkshire accent.

Pippa nodded and smiled, reaching out a hand to shake despite her inner voice screaming about what might be on his hands. Contact was important; they had really driven that home in the training.

“You don’t want to shake my hand girl, I’ve not washed them in a year.” He chuckled to himself as he turned and began his return shuffle.

Pippa didn’t enjoy being called girl, but decided a man’s dying days were probably not the best time for a feminist lecture. She doubted he’d take the lesson with him.

“The name’s Pippa. Pleased to meet you,” she answered instead, stepping across the threshold and shutting the door. What had been an assaulting gust became an enveloping miasma, and she had to settle her stomach. Starting the visit with a large amount of vomit was probably not the best way to endear herself to her new client, and she would likely be spending many hours here.

He snorted. He reached his favourite chair, clearly marked by the scuffed fade of the leather, absent from the pristine sofa perpendicular to him, and lowered himself in, arms shaking.

Pippa hovered awkwardly, stomach still roiling, taking in him and the surrounding room. Every surface was cluttered, and thickly layered with dust, excepting the wheeled table which he pulled closer to him, before pulling a lever to recline his chair.

He himself wasn’t that old, once you looked past the veneer of impending death that glazes everyone in time. His hair was thin, but not entirely grey. His face was wrinkled, but not in that sunken, almost collapsed way seen in older age, so much as someone who had spent too much time in the sun and was aging early because of it. She could still see the myriad freckles covering his forearms, chest and face, even with the heavy jaundice pigmenting his skin, and what could have been grey dust powdering his features. She had been warned about the visage of impending death, but seeing it up close was still something of a shock. It was as though he had been desaturated of colour, and then someone turned the dial up to eleven on just the yellow tones.

He lit a cigarette with trembling hands and fixed his eyes on her. The blue of them struck her to the core, contrasted as they were with whites so yellow they could have been dyed with pure saffron. She suspected his was a piercing gaze even without the contrast.

“A pleasure I’m sure. Enjoy watching people die do you?”

Pippa’s eyes narrowed. Now she was annoyed. They’d exchanged all of three sentences and he’d already insulted her. Her face had always offered subtitles to her thoughts even when she muted her voice and to her surprise the old curmudgeon broke out laughing, gravelly peals interspersed with barking coughs. He waved his hand at the sofa between hacking up half a lung, a clear invitation for her to seat herself.

There were clothes piled on both seats and she shunted some across to make room for herself to perch.

“Finally, an honest expression!” He clapped his hands once to punctuate his statement, either oblivious to or uncaring of the cloud of ash freed from his burning cigarette, settling on his stained clothes and bulging knuckles.

“I’ve no time for dishonesty girl. I’ve no time at all, really. Let’s agree to be ourselves in these last hours of mine, eh?” He took another drag, gimlet eyes trained on her face. She wasn’t expecting him to be so present. Perhaps he was not so close to death as they thought.

“Ok,” answered Pippa, “honesty it is.”

He nodded, and gestured around him.

“What do you think of my pit of filth? Charming, no?”

Pippa squirmed and looked around again. She noted the picture frames lining the mantle, the corner tables, hanging on the walls. Girls and women in varying phases of age, all bearing a strong resemblance to each other. Even through the layers of dust, she thought the smiles seemed forced. His absence was conspicuous.

“I think it must have once been lovely...is there no one to help you? Social services? Family?” She nodded towards the largest picture, hanging over the grimy fireplace, filled with the ghosts of fires burned. It wasn’t a lie. If you could look past the clutter, dust and grime, the furniture was beautiful; mahogany, she thought. The wallpaper was peeling and stained yellow, belying what was once rich shades of gold and soft, eggshell blue. The curtains were heavy gold brocade, and the carriage clock that took centre place on the mantle was intricately carved. The fireplace itself was lined with strikingly patterned tiles, and the mantle looked to her to be marble. These were not the accoutrements of a lifetime of poverty. The house itself was a large detached property, four bedrooms at least from the size of it.

He grunted.

“The wife decorated, she died five years ago. My daughters don’t have time for me. The social are as much use as a chocolate teapot; been on a waiting list for home support for a year now. I tried hiring a maid but she ran away crying.” He barked out another laugh that devolved almost instantly into another round of hacking coughs. He had a water bottle with a straw on the table beside him and he lifted it to his lips with trembling hands, slurping a few sips before laying back, exhausted. Pippa noted the myriad bottles around him, some empty, some filled with water, others with a yellowish brown liquid.

He noted her roving eyes and gave a barely perceptible shrug.

“Can’t make it to the bathroom most of the time girl. You make do when you’re in my position.”

Pippa nodded. She would probably do the same. Just the shuffle to and from the door seemed to have taken time off his life. His face had slackened a touch, and she could hear his breath starting to rattle as what little tension he was holding dissipated. She could see the outline of his ribcage even through the many layers he had bundled himself in.

“It’s not too late you know. I can take you to the hospice ward, they can make you more comfortable. I’ll stay too, you won’t be alone.”

He grunted again, managing to inject scorn into the brief, guttural sound.

“Why would I want to die there? I saw those wards when the wife went. Rows of hollow bodies gasping their last, without even a nurse to give a shit. One nurse for twelve people and she was never to be seen. They won’t even let me smoke! What’s the point?”

“Hmm. I hear the drugs are good?” Pippa gave him a wink and a smile, which he returned, broadly, displaying as many gaps as there were teeth. Those remaining were a symphony in yellow and brown. Pippa reminded herself for the millionth time to quit smoking.

“Oh don't worry darlin' I've got the good drugs. Once they confirm you're kicking the bucket they stop being so shy about handing them out. Here, look for yourself. The bag of joy is right there.”

The drawl he placed on darlin' was disingenuous to his Yorkshire accent. But Pip smiled anyway, both for amusement and for pity. He deserved a smile. He waved his hand towards a canvas bag set near his chair, in arms reach of him.

She picked up the satchel and held it out to him with a question in her eyes.

He shook his head.

"It's alright, open it up and have a look." She unzipped the tough canvas and had to stop herself gasping at the layers of boxes of different medications. She didn't recognise most of them but some stood out. Oxycodone, oromorph and fentanyl all jumped out at her.

“See, told you I have the good stuff. You want some? I won't tell anyone.” He waggled his eyebrows at her and she broke into a laugh, him joining in and then promptly breaking into a hacking fit. She set down the bag of joy and helped him lean up and forward, rubbing his upper back until it subsided. She held his water bottle and straw to his lips. They clamped around it, quivering, and she felt his body straining just from the effort of pulling the water up the straw. He laid back, panting, and she tried to look stern.

“No laughing yourself to death on my watch mister!” She couldn’t stop a smile lifting her lips though as he waggled his eyebrows at her again.

“I'd rather go out laughing than crying girl. You'll feel the same when it’s your time.”

She realised then that the sharp, fruity acetone smell was coming from him. She saw now more clearly the deep purple spider veins threading their way up from under his neckline, the way the swollen flesh of his ankles bulged around his socks.

“Can I get you something from the bag of joy? Or something else to drink, or eat?”

“Not yet girl. I want to feel what time I have left. I’ve had a little to stave off the squits but that’s enough for now. I've no interest in food anymore."

“Aren’t you in pain?”

“Yes, but this might be my last chance to feel it! I’ve grown somewhat attached to it. My last constant companion.”

They passed some hours talking, him telling her about some of his myriad life experiences, her sharing some of her own. His family was notably absent from his tales but she didn’t comment on that. It had to be terrible to be abandoned by those you love in your final hours, she thought. She offered a few times to tackle some of the mess, which he declined. He told her about his time in the army, serving abroad in Africa. She suspected the accounts were highly sanitised but enjoyed the tales anyway.

The sun was drawing in, when there came a sharp rapping at the door. He halted his riveting tale of being illegally smuggled out of a country under regime change in the dead of night, and Pippa saw resignation envelope him.

“That’ll be my eldest, Grace,” he said with a sigh. “Comes every day to see if I’m dead yet. You’d best go answer, it would take me a while to get there and back.”

Pippa found her eyebrows drawing together and her mouth settling into grim lines as she headed back to the front door, and tried to compose her expression into something more neutral. Why was his daughter coming every day and not helping him? Sitting with him?

It was only when she opened the door and was met by a gust of fresh, frigid air that she realised she had in fact become accustomed now to the reek inside the house, and she inhaled gratefully, the air like nectar to her beleaguered nostrils.

“Stinks, doesn’t it.”

The woman outside was clearly the elder of his daughters, whose youthful face she had become quite familiar with over the past few hours. Decades had passed since the capturing of the images that lined the almost mausoleum behind her. Her mouth was set in hard lines, and her eyes had no sympathy that Pippa could discern, though the piercing blue was a mirror of his.

“Finally gone then has he? What are you? Social worker? You don’t look like a copper.”

Pippa frowned now, she couldn’t help herself.

“No, he’s still here. I’m Pippa, a volunteer here to sit with him.” Pippa tilted her head. “He doesn’t have long. Are you coming in?”

Grace snorted and shook her head.

“I just come to see if it’s finished yet. Still life in the old bastard then.”

Pippa shook her head, partly in disbelief, partly in answer.

“Not much.” Pippa felt her lips pursing and reminded herself to keep that neutral expression.

“Don’t you go judging me. He deserves every second of this.” She raised her voice, directing her next words over Pippa’s shoulder. “You hear that you evil fuck? You deserve every second of this!”

Pippa stepped over the threshold, pulling the door to behind her and hissed her next words through clenched jaw and gritted teeth.

“That man is dying, in agony. He could very well pass tonight. You want those to be the last words he hears from his daughter?”

Grace looked at her with level eyes, shoulders squared, chin raised, top lip curling. Pippa saw a scar, faded white by age but still very visible, lining the underside of her jaw and snaking back into her hairline.

“I want those to be the last words he hears from anyone. You know what he did? Do you?” she spat the words with pure venom.

“No one deserves this! Have you seen how he’s living? How can you just watch it and feel nothing?”

Pippa tried to remind herself to be professional, calm, but the memory reel of the afternoon was still seared into her mind, his pain, his suffering, his loneliness, and she couldn’t keep the anger out of her voice, or off her face.

Grace almost growled in response; she was seething with rage, fists clenched, skin almost puce, making her scar stand out even more in contrast.

“He. Deserves. It.”

Each word was laced with hatred, like nothing Pippa had ever seen before, and the shock of it pulled her out of her own anger somewhat.

“He killed her. You know that? He killed her, as effectively as if he had stabbed her in the heart. He deserves everything and more. Don’t you dare stand in judgement of me!”

She turned on her heel and stormed out of the driveway, gravel crunching and cracking with every furious step, leaving Pippa open-mouthed and reeling, or as he would have put it, catching flies.

Grace turned her head as she yanked her car door open, shouting back over her shoulder.

“Go back in there and ask him. Go on! Then see how keen you are to sit with him!”

With that she slammed the car door and peeled off down the street, tyres sending up clouds of smoke. Pippa had never seen that actually happen outside of a tv or movie screen.

She stood for a moment, breathing deeply, trying to centre herself. She wondered how much of the exchange he had overheard. Her hands were shaking, she noted distantly, as she re-entered the house, more overwhelmed than before by the oppressive odour.

She settled herself back on the couch, tried to meet his eyes and failed. She stared down at her hands, realised she was twisting her fingers together so much they were apt to become knotted and forced herself to relax them, and lay them flat on her thighs. The easy camaraderie of only minutes before was gone, replaced by the heavy weight of words yet unspoken.

“You have questions.”

He delivered the statement with a flat finality.

Pippa shook her head, though it was a lie. She was bursting with questions, but lacked the words, or the courage, to ask them.

“Come on girl. We promised each other honesty. Let’s not go back on that now.”

Pippa met his eyes briefly. They were burning with intensity that belied the lifelessness of the rest of him. He lit another cigarette with his palsied hands and waited.

“You heard, what she said?”

He nodded.

“Aye. My hearing isn’t what it was but her voice always did carry.”

He tapped his cigarette, took another drag, exhaled. His hands shook so badly the plumes of smoke rising from it made zigzags in the dying light of day. Pippa didn’t know how to ask the question, so remained silent. The silence grew, stretching between them like a physical substance.

“I didn’t murder her. But I suppose I did kill her, just the same.”

He paused, gathering himself perhaps. Pippa didn’t interject.

“She died of an aneurysm. Bleed on the brain. I hadn’t hit her for years by then, but the damage was done.”

He wasn’t looking at Pippa anymore, but she could see that some of that burning brightness had faded from his eyes even so.

“I was an angry, angry man girl. It’s not an excuse. I was monstrous, to her, to them. I made their lives hell every day and wouldn’t admit, to myself or to them, that I’d done anything wrong. They won’t accept my sorrow now. I don’t blame them one bit.”

His voice was shaking now. His cigarette had burned to a stump, and his tremors had knocked the cylinder of remaining ash all over his lap, but he seemed not to notice.

“It took her dying for me to admit to myself what I’d done."

He met her eyes again, and the fire seemed almost out.

“You saw the scar?”

Pippa nodded, hesitantly. Her heart was hammering and her mouth was dry. Not in fear of him, but in fear nonetheless. Fear of his confession. She wondered if she was the only one to ever hear it.

“She put salt in my tea one day. She was twelve I think. Always a spitfire that one. My daughter for sure.” Pippa saw the ghost of a smile cross his face, the warmth of pride. She was viscerally uncomfortable at the dichotomy of his pride alongside the horror of his words.

“Always trying to get between me and her Mam. The only one of them all who would fight back when I went off. Tried to stab me once! Feisty little fuck!”

He chuckled at the memory, and Pippa’s core grew colder.

“Lucky for her, that particular day I was in a good mood.”

The cold in Pippa’s stomach solidified into a stone and she felt dizzy. She wasn’t breathing she realised, and forced herself to drag in a few deep breaths. He stubbed the dead cigarette and tried to light another but his lighter just clicked, flint and sparks meeting only inert air. Pippa slid her own from her pocket and leaned over to light it for him. He nodded his thanks.

“You smoke too huh? Want one?” He nodded to the pack on the table. Pippa shook her head. She didn’t think she would smoke ever again.

“Smart. These things will kill you, you know. Would have been the death of me if the whiskey hadn’t gotten there first.”

He paused, seeming to gather himself.

“So the crazy little shit put salt in my tea, and that day I wasn’t in a good mood. That day I was looking for an excuse anyway. So I bounced her face off the corner of that mantle and left her laying there in a pool of her own blood. Went for a drink. You couldn’t have convinced me then that it wasn’t her fault. The wife couldn’t, that’s for sure. Ended up bouncing her head off a few things when I came home that night and she started screaming at me about shattered jaws and emergency surgery. Kid couldn’t talk for six months. I was glad for the quiet at the time. None of them made much noise at all after that.”

Pippa was aghast. What words could she possibly offer up in return? He shrugged, aware of her feelings no doubt.

“I told you, I was monstrous. The kid’s right. I deserve every second of this. I deserve this pain, and I deserve to die alone.”

Pippa shook her head in response, but couldn’t muster any words to support it.

“Yes, I do girl. I deserve it all. That’s why I’m sat, alone, in my own filth, just waiting. I’m trying to pay what penance I can before my soul is weighed against my crimes.”

Pippa found her voice finally.

“Why am I here then? What changed?”

He didn’t answer for a long time. Were he not smoking still, she might have thought life had departed, so still was every other part of him.

“I knew it was here, finally. I knew my day had come. I...I was scared to be alone.”

He looked at her again, the fire almost out now, eyes somehow both glassy and dull.

“But she’s right. I don’t deserve for you to be here. I don’t deserve your pity or compassion. I deserve to die alone.”

Pippa had so many feelings swirling inside her she could barely separate them to make sense of any of it. Disgust, anger, contempt, yes. But also still, compassion, caring, pity. It wasn’t to her the harm was done. She couldn’t stop herself seeing the reality of the man before her, his pitiful, tiny, agonising, lonely existence. She couldn’t quell the urge to comfort and ease, even now.

“You should leave.”

His voice was flat, small, diminished. The power and intensity of before reduced to a mere shadow. Pippa pushed to her feet and looked around her, spotting a nearby ottoman and dragging it to the side of his chair. She seated herself and with only the briefest hesitation, reached out and clasped his hand. She felt his swollen knuckles move under his loose skin, felt his own hesitation before he curled his fingers around hers in return.

“I can’t offer you forgiveness. It isn’t mine to give. But I can offer you compassion. I can show you kindness. That’s my choice to make.”

The last golden rays of the day were slipping away, but there was enough light to illuminate the solitary tear that slid down his cheek.

“I don't deserve it.” His voice cracked on the last syllable, voice strangled and choked by that solitary tear.

Pippa shrugged.

“That's not for me to decide. You have my compassion anyway. No one should die alone.”

“Thank you, Pippa."

It didn't take long, from then. She held his cold hand in silence, until the last breath rattled from his throat, and the faint, fluttering pulse departed his wrist.

She cried a single tear for him too.