The Second Life of Sally Mottram

Ali led her along the corridor, her shoes squeaking on the lino – they were in a time warp – and took her into the tiny kitchen. Oli was seated at the table, watching television. She tried to get up, not easy. Ali and Oli had lived in the kitchen, in the tiny claustrophobic house, ever since the moment had come when Ellie could no longer go upstairs.

‘No, no, Oli, it’s all right. I’ve just come to have a word with Ellie. You keep watching. How are you?’

‘Very well, thank you, Mrs Mottram.’

Oli was twenty-one stone three. It didn’t help that she worked in the cake factory. Ali was a cleaner at the hospital, where cleaners moved slowly. They both worked antisocial hours, so arranged that one of them was always at home to care for Ellie. They were adamant that they didn’t want any help from anyone else. They were proud people. Only Sally was welcome, and she felt now that she was almost on the verge of being considered a friend rather than a voluntary social worker.

‘I’ll tell her you’re here,’ said Ali.

Ali went through into the front room, which had once been the lounge when Ellie could still get upstairs. A thought occurred to Sally now, a thought that astonishingly had never struck her before. What would happen when first Oli and finally Ali could also not get upstairs? How would they sleep?

Sally heard the television set go off in the front room. Ellie had been watching something. She shouldn’t have come.

There was always a very faint smell of festering humanity in the house, a sense that not enough windows were opened often enough, a feeling that rather too much air was being used up and not replaced fast enough. On the whole, though, it was clear that their standards of cleanliness were amazingly high, considering the circumstances. Sally never felt an overwhelming urge to leave, and now, sitting and waiting, she felt less traumatized than she had been all evening.

Ali came back in.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘She’s ready for you.’

Sally’s heart sank slightly at Ali’s words. She was still Ellie’s voluntary social worker, calling not out of love but out of the goodness of her heart. Maybe there was further to go than she had hoped, before she became a friend.

She entered Ellie’s room.

‘Hello, Ellie,’ she said.

‘Hello, Mrs Mottram.’

Ellie’s face was now so fat that it was hard to tell if she was smiling. Her huge body was hidden beneath the vast, specially made duvet. It stretched over the mounds of her fat like dunes in the desert. She hadn’t been able to get out of bed for more than two years now. She was thirty-three years old. It didn’t do to think about her weight. She was fat because she couldn’t help it, not because she wanted to be in the Guinness Book of Records.

It also didn’t do to think about the toilet and bed-linen arrangements. Ali and Oli looked after her brilliantly, did everything necessary with never a complaint. Easy to make fun of Ali, Oli and Ellie but beneath all the blubber there beat hearts of gold, and how many of those are there in this stony world of ours?

In fact it didn’t do to think about Ellie’s life at all, and Sally realized why she had needed to call here rather than anywhere else on this terrible night. She wasn’t proud of her motive. She had needed to feel sorry for someone else, because she couldn’t stand how sorry she felt for herself.

‘I hope you weren’t watching something,’ she said.

‘It were rubbish.’

‘Oh dear.’

‘It’s all rubbish.’

‘Oh dear.’

‘I only watch it cos there’s nowt else.’

‘Oh, Ellie.’

‘You’d think they’d put good things on, wouldn’t you, for folk like me?’

‘You certainly would.’

‘They haven’t a clue, have they?’

‘They haven’t. They haven’t a clue.’

‘None of them have. Politicians, clergy, doctors. None of them have a clue.’

‘You tell them, Ellie.’

‘I would, but they wouldn’t listen.’

‘So, how are you, Ellie?’

‘Mustn’t grumble, Mrs Mottram. Sit yourself down.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Make yourself comfortable.’

‘Thank you.’

‘And how are you, Mrs Mottram?’

‘Well, I suppose I too shouldn’t grumble, Ellie. I … um … something’s happened, Ellie. Something terrible.’

‘Oh, Mrs Mottram.’

‘Yes. Terrible. I …’ She swallowed. ‘Barry’s killed himself.’

‘Oh, Mrs Mottram.’

‘I know.’

She told Ellie the whole story of how she found him, of the police, of the Sparlings and Kenneth. Ellie was too upset even to laugh at the story about Kenneth.

Oli came in with plates of cake.

‘Not just now, Oli,’ said Ellie.

Oli looked at her sister in astonishment.

‘Not just now?’ she said.

‘Not just now.’

‘But it’s cake.’

‘Later, Oli. Oli, Mrs Mottram’s husband has committed suicide.’