Hard Word (6 page)

‘Is Grandma Vera really that sick?' I ask her after a while.

‘Yes, she is.' And then she stops, and she's got the tea-towel in her hand, but she's stopped whatever she's doing. To look at me. As if this is really big, and she's telling me a secret. Which I already know, of course. In fact we've had this same conversation three or four times already. But we both want to keep having it. And I like it, because it makes me feel grown-up and Katie doesn't know, and Mum's kind of asking me to help. Though she never actually asks. But I feel she might, if that makes any sense. ‘She's dying,' Mum says. Like she still can't get her mind round it.

‘But not soon,' I say.

‘That's the point,' she says. ‘No one knows. It could be soon, it could be as much as two or three years. Longer.'

‘Does Philip know all this?' I say. ‘What does he think?'

‘Philip's a man.'

We think about this for a moment, or I do. And then I say:

And it's because of this … Alzheimer's?'

‘Yes.'

‘But if it's only her memory,' I say, ‘or because she says funny things …'

‘But it's not. You see how stiff she's become, how she shuffles, how she –'

‘That's just old. That's age.'

‘It depends.'

‘You can't die, can you, just cos you're stiff or your memory's bad?'

‘No, it's not that she'll die of. It's what
causes
the disease that she'll die of. It could be something really simple like a cold or the flu or a fall that kills her, but it's what's underneath that matters. In her case it seems like it's a mixture of genes –'

‘You mean we'll get it as well?'

‘Don't be silly. It's a mixture of genes and her own system. And how she's lived. She's got arteriosclerosis – you know, where your arteries all get clogged? – and her X-rays showed she's had lots of little strokes. Silent strokes.'

‘Silent?'

‘You don't necessarily know you've had them. You might just get dizzy, or not remember where you are for a while, maybe have a fall. And then you recover. But blood's been cut off to the brain, and the damage has been done –'

‘And the doctors can't fix it?'

‘No.'

‘And then when there's enough damage … ?'

‘Yes.'

‘Lots and lots of little strokes …'

‘You can only take so much. And something very small can carry you off. A cold, the flu, choking on your food … And she knows this. At least I think she does. And that's why she's so frightened.'

‘How do you know she's frightened?'

‘It stands to reason, doesn't it? Wouldn't you be frightened?' ‘Maybe she likes it. Being looked after all the time. Not having to worry.'

‘Well …' Mum says, like she doesn't want to talk about it any more, ‘I'm sure I'd be frightened,' she says. And she's not talking to me like a grown-up any more but like a child. And that's why I keep pushing her:

‘Yes, but that's
you.
Maybe inside Grandma Vera's okay. Maybe she understands everything and just can't get the words out. How do you
know
she's frightened, or anything?'

‘I don't,' she says.

And that, I suddenly see, is what frightens Mum. That she doesn't know. And I wonder then if she really wants to.

Just for the moment, though, it's actually Toni who wants to know:

‘Is she a bit spaz, or something?' she asks.

‘Who?' I say. I know who, of course. I just say this because it's none of her business. Toni can be a real busybody sometimes.

‘How come I've hardly even met her then?'

‘Ton-ia,' I say.

‘Well, how come?'

‘You're supposed to be my friend.'

We don't talk for a while and then, when she's going home, she says:

‘Are you going to ask her again, then?'

‘Who?'

‘Your Mum, of course.'

‘I don't know,' I say. And I want to, and I don't.

Grandma Vera

Ruth Daley went in a home – was it Daley? – with the ankles. She was such a good friend, whatever happened to Ruth? Was it Ruth? No one ever comes out of a home. You don't see people coming out of a home. You could stand outside a home for years and never see anyone coming out – only visitors and people with flowers and boxes and things, going in. You go
in
a home. You go in. In.

That's what he wants, Prick Philip, I see it in his eyes every time he looks at me. In a home, he's saying, you old stinker. In – that's where you're going, Mother,
in.
That's where you belong. He thinks I can't – He thinks I can't – And he has to pay Mrs Bloodstock to, to, to … Old Fatso, well I've got rid of her. But that won't stop him, only Miriam can stop him. If Miriam can't stop him –

Like Ruth Darby, in a home, he's thinking. Was it Ruth? I remember seeing her there once, in a home, Ruth Darby, in a home, saw her there once, saw her there once – did I see her there once? – with all these people just sitting around and going mad and for their tea they wore hats, that's right, I remember, I remember, I do remember, it was someone's
birthday
– was it Ruth's birthday? – and they wore hats, paper hats, and someone came to shake their hand, the mayor or someone, with a red, a red, a red, a red, but she hated it and didn't know anyone there and didn't have her things with her, things with her, or her dog, what was the name of her dog? Ruth's god. Or was that TV?

Dogs aren't allowed in a home, or cats. If I was in a home, I couldn't have, couldn't have, couldn't have. I like TV, like it. I watch the girl with TV. Watch TV. She's six, six. Katie – there, I do remember. Today I remember
everything.
We were playing school, she likes to play school. She always did. Ever since she was small. That's how I knew she'd be a teacher. Always knew. She'd get her chair and her little table and her board with the white finger things, and make me sit down facing her. I've got Yogi, that's a good idea, that's – I've got Yogi, see I do remember, I'm not supposed to have him in school but he's under my, under my –

‘Now, Mother,' she says. And then she stops and says, ‘No, I can't call you Mother because I'm the teacher' – she was always the teacher, even back then, she would never let me be teacher – ‘and you're the student,' she says. ‘So, I'll just have to call you Vera,' she says.
‘Aloe Vera,
he used to say when he came in. As a joke. Even in the middle of class. When we were in class, he'd still say it. ‘Now, class,' she says – and I remember this so well, like it was yesterday – ‘now, class, we'll see who's learnt their homework.' She looks around the room then but I already know she's going to, know she's –

‘Vera,' she says, ‘Vera Harcourt. Have you learnt your questions?'

‘Yes,' I say. ‘Oh, yes.'

‘Good, now the rest of you can put down your pencils and listen properly. And the first question is, Who won the War?' And I don't know. And I can feel my heart, and it's beating beating just because I'm asked a question, and then there's the fog, and it's all in lines and sparking like the wires in a toaster, and I can't remember anything.

‘Well, Vera Harcourt,' she says. ‘You can't get out of it just by pretending to cry like that. You said you'd done your homework, and you haven't, so now you'll have to be punished. You'll have to go and sit in the corner with your back to the class till the bell goes. You're a very naughty girl, and you'll have to leave the cat behind.'

‘No –'

‘You can't have the cat over there. It's not allowed.'

‘Please,' I say.

‘Cats aren't allowed in the corner.'

‘Please –?'

Miriam

Some days I catch Katie sitting by a window or in a beam of sunlight. She's got the same downy, little-boy fuzz on her cheeks and the back of her neck as Philip still gets, and I think to myself, I could eat you. And sometimes I do. I stretch my jaws on her neck or cheek.

‘Who are you?' she giggles. ‘Who
are
you?'

‘I'm Tigger,' I say. ‘I'm going to swallow you whole.'

She goes into hysterics then, and we end up rolling, locked together, over and over across the floor.

Quality time. Isn't that what we're continually told we should all be after? Like Quality chocolates, or prime cuts from the butcher.

For an hour each day, whether I'm teaching or not, I make time to sit with Mother in her rooms – just the two of us, sometimes talking, sometimes not. She's usually watching TV, which means I can read or do some marking while she watches, but I'm still there beside her, attending, ready to break off. Mostly nothing happens, but once or twice recently she's made a desperate effort to communicate. To say something important.

‘Miriam,' she's said, ‘I know I'm –'

I watch her physically wrestling for the word, the corners of her mouth working, the fingers of one hand twisting and turning in the other.

‘What, Mother?' I try to stay with her, to push her on that next step without harassing her. ‘You know you're what?'

Difficult? Devious? A burden? Is that what you're trying to say?

‘It's just that I can't –'

‘Can't what, Mother?' And suddenly I feel my own panic rising. At what she could say, could still demand – even now.
Can't say what you feel? Is that it? Or love? Can't love —?

In the end it's always me, not her, who cracks and supplies something, if only to still the terror inside myself.

‘Can't help it, Mother?' I say. ‘Is that what you're trying to say, that you can't help it?'

‘That's a good idea,' she says.

And then I'm the one who's left frustrated and close to tears while she's beginning to laugh or clap at something – it's usually an ad – on ‘Wheel of Fortune' or ‘Sale of the Century'.

‘Do you love Grandma Vera?' Laura asks, out of nowhere. And that's what takes my breath.

‘What a silly question.'

‘I'm sorry,' she says, which is unusual enough for her, but I know she's still waiting.

‘Why on earth wouldn't I love her?'

‘I don't know,' she says. ‘There's no need to get mad.'

She's become a great watcher, Laura. People, relationships. Which normally I'd rejoice in. Except that now it's me she's watching. And that's what produces these sudden little eruptions between us.

‘Do you really enjoy teaching?' she says another day. I'm sitting at the dining-room table, marking some exercises. She's just come in after school and has plonked herself down on the couch. She's half-lying there, slumped, at a loose end.

‘Yes, I do,' I say. And wait. That's something I'm learning from her.

‘Lots of our teachers don't. They're always telling us how they'd much rather be somewhere else, doing something else.'

‘Well, they shouldn't be teaching, then,' I say. And keep listening for what this is really about.

‘They say if they weren't teaching, they'd be able to do a lot more things. Without all the correction, and the preparation and things.'

Ah.

‘Like with their families?' I say.

‘Yeh,' she says, dragging a string along the couch for Yogi to catch in his paws. ‘Or just for themselves, I suppose.'

I finish the last of the exercises, pack the papers back in a folder. Laura is still playing with Yogi. But her mind isn't there.

‘Saturday,' I say. ‘Would you like to go swimming?'

‘Yes,' she says, ‘I guess.' And then, after a while, ‘That's if Philip's going to be home. To babysit Grandma.'

We've always swum together, Laura and me. In Greece, first of all, from the time she was tiny, and then later back here. We'd swim three mornings a week – even school weeks – summer and winter. Occasionally Katie'd come with us. After my own laps, I'd teach Katie to swim while Laura chatted with friends – one boy, David, in particular – and snapped the bottoms of her bathers, and looked around.

But it must be months now since we've swum, six in fact. In fact six exactly, if I'm to be honest. Since the day Mother came to live with us. Laura's never once asked or complained about it all this time. Which is how I know she misses it as much as I do.

‘Mum, you're so slowww –' she used to say, sitting on the side of the pool after she'd done her laps and watching me breaststroke towards her. ‘What are you doing, your meditation again? Your Boo-dhist swimming?'

‘Exactly,' I'd say. And that's something I
do
miss. In the centre of my being. My
Boo-dhist
swimming, as Laura calls it.

I have tried to convey to her what teaching means to me.

‘It's not money,' I've told her. ‘Over half of what I earn goes to Mrs Johnson.'

‘What, then?'

And I know I've got to get this across. Because if it's not money, then it has to be something pretty important to weigh against what's lost.

‘First of all,' I tell her, ‘it does a lot for me. It's like swimming. You know how sometimes you go to the pool, and you're not really feeling like it, but you think you should, or someone else makes you go, and by the time you finish your blood's racing and you're just bursting with energy –'

‘Most of my teachers only just crawl out of the room like they're heading for an ambulance, or something.'

‘I'm sure they're not all like that.'

‘Miss Temple's okay. She's got lots of energy left.'

‘Well, I'm like Miss Temple.'

‘She's young but,' Laura says.

‘Thank you.'

‘I didn't mean that –'

‘But it's more than that. It's what gives you the energy in the first place that counts. It's the interaction, the exchange. Everyone working together.'

‘Working
together?'

‘Don't be so cynical, dear. I wish you could just see this one particular class I've got. Some of these women – migrants, refugees – what they've had to do to survive …'

‘What, like wars, and things?'

‘Violence of all sorts. The killing of people they've loved. Their children sometimes …'

‘Really?'

‘There's one class I'm thinking of, it's not just a class. It's a kind of family. Another family for me.'

‘But I thought you just taught them English.'

‘It's what they do with their English. It's what they're able to share when they've got it.'

‘What they've been through? Stuff like that?'

‘Sometimes.'

‘I can't see how that would make anyone strong.'

‘It does, sweetheart. It does.'

‘Just because you share it?'

‘Don't you share things with your friends?'

‘Yes …'

‘Well. Doesn't it make you closer? Stronger together at least?'

‘You mean if it's really bad or something, and you've told it?'

‘Even if it's really bad. Maybe especially if it's really bad.'

‘I guess,' she says. And thinks for a bit. ‘With other girls,' she says. Her chin goes up a bit. ‘Other women, I mean.'

‘Not … men?' I almost said
boys.
Laura is nearly fifteen.

‘Men are hopeless. With things like that. They always want you to be talking about them. What they're doing, their problems.'

‘Yes,' I say. All that terrible ego.'

‘Their dicks just keep getting in the way,' she says.

‘You, what?' I say.

‘Their dicks just get in the way all the time.'

‘Darling, I'm not sure that's the way to talk –' I start, and then I suddenly hear myself. I am my Mother. You pompous twit, I think, you stupid, stupid woman. What are you, thirty-nine years old and shocked out of your bathing suit because this young woman, your own daughter, says the word
dick.
Laura, you're lovely, I think. You understand so much. At your age, I remember, I was still hiding the fact that I had periods.

‘Yes,' I say to her finally, ‘that's right. Their dicks get in the way.'

Though Philip's doesn't. Normally.

* *

‘What are you thinking of, darling?' I say. I realize he's said nothing for ages. And – unusually for Philip – he's not reading. He's lying in bed beside me with his hands on the pillow cradling his head. And smiling.

‘I'm thinking of taking silk,' he says, and props himself up on his elbows to kiss me on the bare skin of my shoulder.

I hesitate for just a moment, then throw onto the floor the lesson plan I'd been reading through for the morning.

‘Okay,' I say to him. ‘Why not? Just give me one second to check.'

‘Check?' he says. ‘What do you need to check? You're still on the Pill, aren't you?'

‘On Mother,' I say. ‘Check on Mother.'