The Discourtesy of Death: A Father Anselm Novel by William Brodrick

Author:William Brodrick [BRODRICK, WILLIAM]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: a9781468311860
Publisher: The Overlook Press
Published: 2015-03-17T00:00:00+00:00

In those circumstances – in effect pressure – Jenny could easily have wanted to end her life. Vincent Cooper had evoked the most damning and terrible scene … Peter being kind, and Jenny constantly saying sorry. So she’d made a choice. And afterwards – this was Anselm’s fear – Peter had done nothing to dissuade her. He’d given her his support. He’d backed her wishes. And by so doing he’d nudged her towards a calm that no one had properly understood. It was the calm of surrender. And having surrendered, it would have been very difficult for Jenny to tell Peter she wasn’t so sure … that she’d even changed her mind. To the extent that if she did … if she tried … even Peter Henderson wouldn’t have listened. Because bowel cancer when you’re paralysed isn’t very nice. Not for the patient. Not for those watching. The momentum towards a controlled, quick and merciful death was under way and he wouldn’t want to consider the alternative … the undignified, drawn-out suffering, watched by a boy who still loved Spiderman. Had he used the Exit Mask? Not if Jenny didn’t ask for it. Not if she was lingering a bit too long through lack of courage. Perhaps Peter Henderson had found another way when Jenny wasn’t looking. Perhaps Doctor Ingleby had helped him.

Anselm reached down and picked up a fistful of stones. He walked to the edge of the sea and threw them one after the other at a chain of surf. In the distance, towards the mouth of the River Ore, he could see shingle banks breaking the surface of the water: a menace for boats rather than bathers.

There was – he thought, with a sigh – a second narrative. It was the simplest. The weight of evidence leaned heavily in its direction. And it was this: Jenny had, in fact, freely consented to her own death. Peter had helped her. Doctor Ingleby had smoothed over the legal wrinkle – judged a wrinkle by their shared convictions (Jenny’s included) set against the extremely distressing nature of Jenny’s medical condition. And if one item of evidence was needed to support this second narrative, surely it was Jenny’s last testament to Nigel: her seeming avowal that she’d lost hope in any late surprises.

These, then, were the two differing interpretations of Jenny’s death. And Anselm had little difficulty opting for the first. Because – more significant than any letter, be it to Larkwood’s Prior or Nigel Goodwin – Peter Henderson had thrown a brick at his own reflection.

The downside of manipulating someone – consciously or otherwise – is that once you’ve finally got what you want, you’re left feeling ill at ease. At least right-thinking people are. Because ultimately the manipulator would like the weaker party to want what they’d been forced to accept. To prefer the film on ITV as opposed to the documentary on BBC2. Nudge someone into taking their own life and you don’t feel uneasy, you feel awful.

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