Shadows of the Workhouse

to turn round, and he was looking straight at me, his sunken eyes bright in their dark sockets.
    “I mean I’m not gonna get better an’ I don’t want Peg to know until she has to.”
    “But Frank, what makes you think you won’t recover? The radium treatment ends next week and then you will begin to feel stronger.”
    I hated myself for this pathetic falsehood. I felt degraded by it. Why do we have to be like this? In India, apparently, a man often predicts his own death, says farewell to his family, goes to a holy place, and dies. Yet we cannot admit to someone that he is dying, so we have to play false, and I have been as big a deceiver as anyone.
    He didn’t say a word, but closed his heavy eyes. We heard the kitchen door open. He hissed fiercely, “Promise. Promise you won’t tell her.”
    “I promise, Frank,” I whispered.
    He sighed with relief.
    “Thank you.” His voice was husky. “Thank you, now I can rest easy.”
    The radium treatment halted the malignant growth for a while, but could not be continued beyond six weeks, as it would destroy other organs. Frank’s deterioration was rapid when treatment stopped. The pain became more intense, and the morphine was increased to one grain, then two grains every four hours. He could barely eat, and Peggy sat beside him feeding semi-solids into his unwilling mouth.
    “There, Frank love, just another little spoonful, put some strength into you.”
    He would nod, and try to swallow. She washed and shaved him, turned him, cleaned his mouth and his eyes. She dealt with his urine and his bowels, and kept him clean and comfortable, all the while humming the songs he liked. He no longer looked at travel brochures, nor had the mental strength or interest to listen to Dickens, but he seemed to like to hear her singing. He rarely spoke and was drifting in and out of consciousness.
    Frank was quietly slipping away into that mysterious border land between life and death where peace and rest and gentle sounds are the only needs. One day, in my presence, he gazed at Peggy for a long time as though he did not recognise her and then said, quite clearly: “Peggy, my first love, my only love, always there, always when I need you.” He smiled and drifted away again.
    More than anything else a dying person needs to have someone with them. This used to be recognised in hospitals, and when I trained, no one ever died alone. However busy the wards, or however short of staff, a nurse was always assigned to sit with a dying person to hold their hand, stroke their forehead, whisper a few words. Peace and quietness, even reverence for the dying, were expected and assured.
    I disagree wholly with the notion that there is no point in staying with an unconscious patient because he or she does not know you are there. I am perfectly certain, through years of experience and observation, that unconsciousness, as we define it, is not a state of unknowing. Rather, it is a state of knowing and understanding on a different level that is beyond our immediate experience.
    Peggy was aware of this and, in ways that neither she nor anyone could explain, she entered into Frank’s mental state in the last few weeks and days of his life.
    One day, as I was leaving, she said, “It won’t be long now. I shall be glad for us both when it’s all over.” She did not look unhappy. In fact she looked as serene and as confident as ever. But all pretence was gone.
    I asked her, “How long have you known that he was going to die?”
    “How long? Well, I can’t say exactly. A long time, anyway. From the time the doctor first said he should go into hospital for tests, I suppose.”
    “So you’ve known all the time, and never let on?”
    She did not reply, but stood on the doorstep, smiling.
    “How did you guess?” I asked, intrigued.
    “It wasn’t a question of guessing. I just knew, quite suddenly, as though someone had told me. I’ve had so much happiness in life with Frank, more happiness than anyone can expect. We’re more than brother and sister, more than husband and wife. How could I fail to know that he was going to die?”
    She smiled, and waved to a neighbour who was passing, and replied to her enquiry, “Yes, he’s getting on nicely, thank you; he’ll be up and about soon, you’ll see.”
    The last evening of his life came surprisingly quickly. Rash is the professional who will predict death. The young can die while your back is turned, yet the old and frail, who you think