Open Ticket
Author
Rebecca Clements
Author Bio
Christine Baker (writing as Rebecca Clements) was born in 1956 in London to Polish refugee parents. Whilst she was living in the Czech Republic in 1997-2004 the idea for her first novel, Open Ticket, was formed and the story underwent several transformations before being published in November 2014. As Rebecca Clements, she has also produced a number of short stories (which will be published as an anthology in 2015) and a screenplay. Her next novel, Does He Eat Broccoli? – a satire about over-parenting – is due to be published in 2015.
Description
‘We’re the same, you and me,’ said Douglas, ‘we’re hard to kill off.’ Eva McKinley is faced with agonizing choices. Can she bear to accept her father-in-law Douglas’ plea for assisted suicide? But time is running out for her too. Diagnosed with a terminal illness, she struggles to decide whether to continue life with an unfaithful husband or break free to take her last chance to discover the truth about her family’s origins in Prague and why they had to flee the 1968 Prague Uprising. Flung together with her best friend Roz who is escaping from her own complicated life, the women cope in different ways with the unwelcoming atmosphere of a Czech culture undergoing its own transformation. Their relationship comes under pressure when new people enter Eva’s life and she is faced with a tangled web of secrets and half-truths. Who can she trust? Where does she really belong?
Book excerpt
Thursday 25 November 2004
Douglas rasps: ‘Got your passport?’
The slow oozing of the morphine drip continues. Eva nods and blinks fast.
He drifts in and out of consciousness. Sometimes he smiles, eyes closed, as if at a private joke she can no longer share. Eva grips herself around her middle. Douglas’ eyes open, search her face, squinting and bleary. ‘It’s good, lassie. Like a good malt. I won’t hold you up long.’
The heating is turned up high for the late November morning, but still she cannot help but shiver. She will perform the final act of love, the washing and laying out of his body. Alex will not be able to complain she had left his father in a mess for him to clear up. I do this for you, Douglas, so you know that the hands which touched your body for the last time belonged to someone you loved and who loved you.
The beep of a text intrudes. ‘Can you pick up my dry cleaning before 6?’ Alex.
Her Eurostar train would have arrived in Paris by then. She and Roz would have melted into the crowds and be on their way to Gare de L’est station for the next link to Prague.
Douglas raises a finger and his dry lips are forming some word.
‘It’s OK. Just rest,’ she whispers, smoothing his hair.
His finger that used to be steady enough to wield a scalpel now trembles as it descends slowly to the blanket.
Douglas’ note had been written a few days ago when his hand was still strong enough to hold the pen steadily. Brief. Direct. He wanted to protect her from blame and repercussions. She had wanted to leave a note of her own as well but Douglas had said, ‘what’s the point? The more you say, the worse it could be for you. Let Alex think what he wants to think. Let me absolve you. The rest doesn’t matter.’
This morning, when Douglas had had more strength left in him, he and Eva had talked properly for the last time.
‘I wish I could come back to visit your grave.’
‘Sure, lassie, but I won’t be there anyway. You must be where you need to be. I just hope that what you find will bring you what you want.’
No time or energy for continuing that conversation now. His breath is leaving him slowly and her body and mind are drained. Whatever might still be left unsaid would have to be conveyed by a squeeze of the hand. Could he even see her properly now, she wonders, through this morphine fog? Has she given him enough of a dose to ease his exit? And then other thoughts crowd into her mind uninvited – has Roz packed? Has she left a note of her own?
She should be thinking of Douglas and how she has just shattered her professional oath to protect life, and not about what is to come for her and Roz. She should be thinking of what she is going to do when her own time comes soon, when the doctors will purse their lips and admit that it’s time to put her own affairs into order. Who will be there at her own end? Will she have to beg Roz to do what she herself is now doing for Douglas?
Just how far off that day might be, no one can tell her. In that lies both a blessing and a curse. If she is going to leave Alex and set off on this particular journey, she cannot afford to procrastinate.
Eva wakes with a jerk. The suffocating heat of Douglas’ bedroom had induced drowsiness and she leans forward urgently seeking proof of his continuing life. Breath that is barely there, but still present.
She glances at her watch, anxiety mixed with guilt at the slow pace of Douglas’ passing and the nagging deadline of her departure for the train. She recalls how some of the other nurses in her team used to fret about the bed-blocking by patients hanging on to the last shreds of life competing with the urgency of new admissions. Death had become just a part of the medical production line for some of them, disconnected from the feelings they had about the patients as real people.
She almost misses Douglas’ last seconds but turns her head to him just in time to hear his last major intake of breath. A final kiss of goodbye, stroke of the cloud of white hair and she sets herself to work, wishing she did not have to rush these last moments with him.
In her haste she kicks aside her handbag and her passport falls out. As she performs her tasks a tide of anguish threatens to choke her at the injustice of the situation. She will miss Douglas’ funeral, memorial service and all the rituals that would have brought some comfort and closure. She loathes Alex for the pain his affair had brought to his father as well as to herself. And she resents the illness that is slowly obliterating her own flame and is forcing her to make choices no one should have to make.
The process is finished. Douglas looks handsome again now that the absence of pain has relaxed his features. Her hand traces his prominent cheekbones and the heavily-veined hands whose grip used to reassure his own patients, once upon a time. Reluctantly, she draws the white bed-sheet over his head. His note is positioned against the night-lamp.
She doesn’t want to leave him. She sinks to her knees and offers a silent rebuke to the God who has allowed such needless suffering.
A muffled beep from her handbag. Roz’s text tells her she is leaving home for Waterloo station. She remains on her knees, reluctant to leave but now under pressure to make her planned move. She had wondered last night what this moment would feel like when it came. Everything and nothing. Just an aching void.
She knows she should go now. But her body disobeys, transfixing her.
And then a key rattles in the front door.
Author Website
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rebecca-Clements/1533831350192594?fref=ts
