Hard Word (20 page)

‘No –' Grandma Vera shouts and pushes Mum's arm away.

‘Mother, please,' Mum says, and I know she's saying it as much for Philip's sake as her own.

‘It means,' Katie says, ‘she wants to go to church.'

‘It what?' Philip says.

‘Grandma Vera,' Katie says. ‘She's saying she wants to go to church.'

Katie doesn't even look up when she says this. She's buttering her own piece of bread.

‘But, darling,' Mum says, ‘how can you possibly know that?'

‘It's obvious,' Katie says, putting bread in her mouth.

‘Is that right, Mother?' Mum says.
‘Do
you want to go to church?'

‘Church,' Grandma Vera says. ‘That's a good idea.'

‘It's like the fish in the lake,' Katie says. She picks up her spoon and puts it in her soup. ‘You can't see them, but they're there. Talking to one another all the time. With their fins.
They
know what they're saying.'

‘Darling, what … ?' Mum says to Katie.

‘Just because you can't see them. They're still there. Under the surface, that's all.'

I see Mum shrug her shoulders at Philip.

‘Grandma Vera always means
something,
' Katie says. ‘You just have to listen properly.'

‘I see,' says Mum, but I don't know if she does. Any more than Philip or me. ‘Well,' says Mum, ‘we can certainly go to church, Mother, if that's what you want.'

And she says it so nicely but I know what she's thinking, and I see the quick face she pulls at Philip.

‘However …' Mum says to Grandma Vera, ‘you'll have to follow the rules of the service this time, Mother, and not go wandering all over the altar while the priest's giving the sermon.'

‘Or chasing the man with the plate,' Katie shouts. ‘That was so –'

‘Katie!' Mum says. ‘Please keep your spoon over your plate. That way you won't drip your soup on the cloth.'

‘Or –' Katie's in hysterics now, she's not listening to Mum. ‘Or standing up and starting the hymn,' she splurts, ‘when everyone else is kneeling down –'

‘Katie! I won't tell you again.'

Katie bends over her soup again, but her face's red and about to splurt and I can tell she won't be able to eat for ages, and Mum's wishing she'd never even heard the word
church
, and I bet if she didn't say anything, Grandma Vera would never think of it again. But Mum will take her to church, I know, because she always does what she thinks is right for Grandma Vera. No matter what.

One place she does have to take her this week is to Dr Gerontics because Grandma Vera had a fall and, even though Dr Lazenby came, he said he couldn't tell if she'd fainted or had a seizure or what, except she wasn't paralyzed or anything but Mum ought to take her back to the specialist. To be on the safe side. Whatever that means. ‘Safe side for him,' Philip said, ‘safe from a negligence suit.' But Mum said he was only trying to help, and we shouldn't be so critical. Anyway, what it means is, we have to go and see creepy Gerontics again. And this time I can't get out of it – I have to go because Grandma Vera's always calmer when I'm there. Mum says it's because somehow she remembers the first time, and she thought it was me not her that had to see the doctor. Well, she doesn't
remember
it so much, but she associates me with Gerontics and she doesn't cause nearly so much trouble if I go. Normally I get out of it because I have school and sport or music lessons after, but this is mid-term break and I don't have any excuse, but when Mum tells me she wants me to come with her and Grandma Vera to see the white man in the coat – that's what Grandma Vera sometimes calls him because she wouldn't remember Gerontics or even his real name – I say to Mum:

‘Okay … I'll come but only if you tell me something.'

‘If I can,' she says.

‘But it's got to be the truth.'

‘I always try and tell you the truth, Laura. You know that.'

‘Yes, but sometimes you leave bits out.'

‘What do you want to know?'

‘That first time we went to see Gerontics, when you went back at the end and left Grandma Vera and me outside, what did you talk about?'

Mum looks at me for a long time, as if she's trying to decide something, and I wonder if she's deciding which bits to leave out.

‘I wanted to ask him something that had been worrying me at the back of my mind.'

‘Why, were you sick as well?'

‘No, but I wanted to know – if this disease often ran in families – what were my chances in getting it, later on?'

‘If you had a mother who got it –'

‘Yes. What the chances were.'

‘And what did he say?'

‘At first he tried to fob me off. I shouldn't be worried about a thing like that –'

‘A pretty young woman like you.'

Mum laughed then. ‘Laura, you're wonderful,' she said.

‘And what did you say to him?'

‘I said I might be young now, but I'd be old one day and I wanted to know. Well, he pulled a face at that –'

‘The lemon one.'

‘And he said that figures were very deceptive, they were merely averages, statistical indices, nothing could be deduced from them about any individual … there were a lot of factors involved, environmental as well as genetic –'

‘Blah-de-blah.'

‘Yes, but I said I understood all that, and in the end I left him no choice. I wanted to know. One in five, he said, and then he thought for a second and said:
Or better
.'

‘Or
better –?
What did he mean?'

‘One in four.'

Mum and I laughed at that, but halfway through – while we're looking at each other and still have our mouths wide open – we get embarrassed for some reason, and just stop. Which must have looked pretty stupid, and neither of us knows where to look then. But that's when I keep my side of the bargain and tell her, ‘Okay, I'll come with you to Gerontics,' and I'm glad I do because she looks so pleased and kisses me on the side of the head, and doesn't say anything. And I think I'll even put up with Gerontics for my mother, and start to get all soppy about myself and how martyrous I am and imagine myself marching into Gerontics' room and saying, No thanks, I really prefer to stand, when he's rushing round trying to get four hundred chairs under my bottom. But I'll wear my sleeping bag or one of Philip's shirts that's miles too big and doesn't show anything.

On Wednesday morning, when we do get to Gerontics' place, the first thing Grandma Vera says is: ‘Home, now.'

‘Soon,' Mum says.

‘Home now.'

‘Soon.'

It can go on like this for twenty minutes. It's like something gets stuck in Grandma Vera's brainbox and the record keeps turning but the same sound comes out, over and over, and if Mum ever gets sick of it and doesn't answer, Grandma Vera gets more anxious and upset and starts yelling or crying, so Mum just goes on answering and answering and I don't know how she does it without going mad herself. Like at home Grandma Vera will follow Mum around the kitchen when she's cooking and she'll pick things up that Mum's just put down, and it's like Grandma Vera's trying to let us know she's all right, she's still there inside, but she might ask the same question twenty times in five minutes. Like she'll hold up the milk carton, and say ‘Milk?' And Mum'll have to say, ‘Yes, Mother, that's milk.' And it goes on and on. ‘Milk?' ‘Yes, Mother, that's the milk.' ‘Milk?' ‘Yes, Mother, that's the milk.' ‘Milk, Miriam, milk.' ‘Yes, Mother, you're holding the milk.' Or sometimes Mum might say, ‘That's milk you're holding, all right.' It's just lucky Mum's a language teacher.

‘Home. Home now,' Grandma Vera says, as we go into Gerontics' surgery.

‘Soon. We'll go home soon, Mother,' Mum says, and as long as she keeps saying this, like two parrots in neighbouring trees, Grandma Vera will be all right. It's only now, that we're here at Gerontics' place, that she's not. Driving here she's been fine, she's been singing the same song over and over. This came back to her after her fall, and she sings it all the time now. Mum says it's an old lullaby or love song, and Grandma Vera used to sing it to Mum when she was a girl, and I notice how tense it makes Mum in the car – her knuckles go white on the steering wheel she's gripping it so hard – and I wonder what the song makes her remember.

And that's about as far as she gets, and starts all over again. ‘
Goodnight sweetheart, Sleep will banish sorrow
…' And this can go on for hours, and once or twice even in the car I notice Mum's lips moving, and I'm wondering if she's like Philip and saying ‘For Christ's sake, shut up,' or if she's actually singing along under her breath, and maybe not even noticing it herself. I don't mind too much myself because Grandma Vera's actually got a nice voice and after a while it's like carols in the Mall at Christmas and you don't notice it unless you happen to tune in for some reason.

Gerontics hasn't changed at all. I bet he's even wearing the same jacket and tie as the first time we saw him. Which is strange for a doctor because you'd think he'd have got blood and intestines and things on it by now. But he's just as creepy and smarmy as ever and says, ‘Ah, the lovely Trent-Harcourt sisters' to Mum and me, and I say, ‘My name's Vassilopoulos actually,' and he shakes his head and I see him sneak a look at the folder on his desk like he's wondering if he's got his patients in the wrong order or something, but he must have worked it out because he says, ‘And here's Mum' to Grandma Vera, and Mum goes, ‘It's Mother actually, or Mrs Harcourt,' and he says, ‘Quite,' and I see him sighing when Mum says this, and I know he's thinking, Oh, yes, I remember this lot. But he still can't help fussing about chairs for Mum and me, and for a moment it's crazy because he's so busy pushing chairs against the backs of our lovely knees that he forgets all about poor Grandma Vera who's standing around like a music stand after a concert or a missing lamp or something, and then begins to wander off. ‘Thank you,' Grandma Vera says to Gerontics, ‘Home now,' and he only just catches her at the door, and in the end it's Mum who's got to take over and get her into a chair while Gerontics goes back behind his desk and gets out a hanky and dabs at his forehead.

‘Wandering?' he says, as he starts taking down notes from Mum. ‘Yes, well that's …'

But he doesn't finish or say what it is.

‘And the fall? How long would you say she was unconscious?' ‘Home now,' Grandma Vera says, but nobody's listening to her any more, and she takes my hand.

In the end, after all these questions and Gerontics acting like he's taking a dictation test or practising for a court reporter or something, Mum says, ‘Aren't you going to arrange for some tests? Some scans, or something? See whether there
was
some sort of seizure?'

‘Mrs Harcourt-Trent …' Gerontics says.

‘Trent-Harcourt,' Mum says.

‘Miriam,' he says, ‘I have to say to you that the last tests we did were very conclusive. Atrophy – shrinkage if you like – is very pronounced, as are manifestations of plaque, of lesions, thickened vessels, cysts … Now your mother almost certainly suffered some kind of further cerebral damage either before or after her fall the other day – I mean, she may just have fainted, it's quite possible – but either way, don't you see, there's little point in doing more blood tests or imaging. We know what's there, we know it's irreversible, and that it's progressing fairly rapidly. This may sound cruel – though it's not meant to – but there's not much more to find out. And given the stress that Mum –'

‘Mother,' Mum says.

‘That Mrs Harcourt goes through in going into hospital, it's simply in my judgement not worth it. If you insist, of course …' ‘No, no,' Mum says. ‘I accept all that. So, what are we to do?' ‘Well, nothing,' says Gerontics. ‘Nothing but care, care and more care – as it's obvious you're already giving her. Her reflexes are poorer, her general tonicity, but she's not in pain or excessively anxious so far as I can see.'

‘
Goodnight sweetheart,
Grandma Vera sings, and Gerontics nods and smiles at her and goes on talking to Mum.

‘That's all assuming, of course, that you are determined to continue with home care.'

‘Home now,' Grandma Vera says. And starts.

‘In a moment, Mother,' Mum says, and helps her back into her chair.

‘And these falls?' she says to Gerontics. ‘What can we do about them?'

‘I don't know,' Gerontics says. ‘Apart from taking special care when she stands up after getting out of bed or out of a chair, clearing furniture from cluttering the rooms she normally spends most time in – just the obvious things. The bathroom especially. In a nursing home, you see, everything is purpose built for this, rails on the walls, special rubberized, non-slip floors in wet areas, soft furnishings only –'

‘Well, we don't have those things,' Mum says. A bit sharply, I think. ‘But I'll do what I can.'

And as she says this, I can see the whole house being rearranged. Again. Rubber going down on the floors in Grandma Vera's bathroom and laundry, all the stools and coffee tables going out to the garage, the piano upstairs, all the table edges being padded. Mum's a demon like that once someone gives her a suggestion. Philip's always walking in the door and saying, ‘Oh, I'm sorry, I thought this was my own house,' and going out again, then ringing the bell and when Katie goes to open it, standing on the front step with a flower that he's just grabbed from the garden and saying, ‘Is this Royal North Shore Hospital? I'm looking for the woman in four-one-two.'