Her jewellery box is like nothing I’ve ever been through. I thought Mrs Lehtinen’s was incredible but my grandmother’s is out of this world. I want to run my fingers through it, feel the different textures dribble through my fingers. I have been to see her on ten of the past fourteen days. Sometimes she has had to struggle to the door, because it is not a day when she is visited by the district nurse, and I have sensed her mortification at being helped back to bed.
My guilt at not being in touch properly with Abi grows every day, but my visits are not just so I can get to know my grandmother, but also for Abi and the rest of her family, too. It might not be much, spending time with my grandmother to get to know her, seeing if I can stop her thinking about what she wants to do, but if I get this right they’ll never even know what she was planning. And they will have their grandmother, mother, mother-in-law – whatever role she plays in their life – around for as long as possible. I know she thinks I have been doing this to steel myself to be able to do it, but in reality I want her to see that life is worth living. I am being selfish, yes, but like I wanted Dad around as long as possible (and he wanted to stay as long as possible), I want my grandmother around as long as possible, too.
I have looked through her jewellery – every piece is real – and she has told stories related to every item. The multi-strand pearl choker and matching bracelet that she wore to meet the President of Nihanara at the Nihanara High Commission in London when my grandfather, Ivor, was still alive: ‘I wore traditional Nihanara dress in a royal blue silk. Ivor had it made for me.’
The gold and emerald necklace – each of the twelve emeralds the size of a penny – that she was given by her husband after she had her first son, Douglas: ‘He was so proud I had given him a son that he spent far too much money on that necklace. I had nowhere to wear it, of course.’ Then there were the large, twenty pence-sized diamond earrings that she wore to my birth father’s graduation from law school: ‘It was one of the proudest days of my life.’ The lily-shaped brooch studded with rubies and sapphires that she had worn to my brother Ivor’s graduation from university: ‘Another of the proudest days of my life.’
I had brought some dividers from my workshop and put them in the jewellery box – on the days she could barely speak, I would go through it all, untangling what I could and organising them into categories and colours. On the days she couldn’t speak, I would simply go through the jewellery and make up stories about the items I found – the white gold tennis bracelet, the plaited white gold and yellow gold necklace, the diamond-studded cuff (which seemed quite radical for someone as conservative as her) – as I might have done if I’d had access to the box as a child. The days she could speak, she would try to give me whichever piece of jewellery I had been looking at and I would always have to say no.
On the eleventh day, when I did not want to pore through her jewellery any more, listening to the stories that came with each piece, I sat and looked at her. She seemed better, stronger. Maybe this is what she needs: someone to look after her, spend time with her, rather than simply feeding her, medicating her, ensuring her basic needs are met. I could be that person. Or I could try. I could fit in these visits around my work, which would bond us and would allow her to think that maybe carrying on for a little longer may not be so bad. They are only snatches of time that I have spent with her, but with her jewellery and her stories, I feel like I have got to know her a little better, I can see her as my grandmother rather than simply the woman who gave birth to the man who impregnated my birth mother. I have a sense of what she is like, but that doesn’t bother me. Maybe if I did spend more time with her, if I did listen to her worries, she might come to realise that carrying on for a little longer need not be so bad. I am being arrogant, I suppose, arrogant and selfish, but I have developed a kind of grudging admiration for who she is, how uncompromising she has been throughout her life. I like her in the way I would possibly like my cousin Nancy if Nancy hadn’t spent what felt like her every waking moment trying to destroy me. My grandmother may not be likeable or to everyone’s taste, but I have found myself enjoying the time I have spent with her these past couple of weeks. It’s been at the expense of seeing Abi, who I would love to spend time with, but this has been necessary and far more urgent.
‘I am not scared of dying,’ my grandmother says to me, as though we are in the middle of a conversation.
I nod at her, I feel she has more to say. Today is a day when she can speak with long gaps to gather herself. And I think she can sense that today is the day where we have reached a crossroads with this arrangement. It’s been miraculous that it has lasted this long without us being caught out, and it can’t continue.
‘You asked me to tell you something about myself that no one knows,’ she continues. ‘I am not scared of dying. I am scared of merely existing.’
‘But haven’t you felt better this past little while? You seem better.’
‘I am existing. Not living. I am counting down time until the end.’
‘But if you got involved in more things, found stuff that you enjoyed doing, you might not feel like that,’ I say.
She lifts her arms, reminds me of the quaking in her hands – the way she is not in control of herself. The way that even if she does find something she enjoys it would have to be suitable for her needs.
‘Clemency, I am not scared of dying. I am scared of being locked into this body, unable to escape, unable to tell anyone to let me go.’
That horrific image of being in trapped inside myself – unable to move, to speak, to let anyone know how much I still understand and feel – sends chilling vibrations through me and reminds me again of that terror of mine of being trapped and having to claw my way out of anywhere, but to have my prison be my own body … I shudder again.
‘You could leave a living will, a do not resuscitate order? Tell people now that’s what you want.’ Doing that would be better than what she is asking of me. I am not a person who is impressed by money and position, like my grandmother is, we have very little common ground, but she is still a part of my family I have only recently found. I do not want to have to live with the memory of her death when I have only had a glimpse of her life.
‘Yes, I could,’ she says sadly, disappointed that I’ve even suggested this when it feels like a suitable middle ground.
‘Why isn’t that a good option?’ I ask.
‘My illnesses, they have taken over my body, I am at their mercy … I can be sure of nothing but the knowledge that when this disease is good and ready it will take me … I do not want to leave this to chance … I do not want to linger … I want the chance to choose. My one last decision that my illnesses cannot take away from me.’
I know what she is saying because these past few days I have learnt she has a need to be back in control, in even the smallest way possible. But it still feels so wrong, wanting me to do this. ‘Why didn’t you see me when I was born?’ I ask. This still niggles at me. She wants me to do something so huge for her, but she did not want to see me when I first came into existence. And, in some ways, it feels like she only wants to see me now because she wants something from me – if she did not need me, I would not exist for her.
She stares at me, gathering herself to produce a chunk of speech that is coherent and fluent, not halted and slurred. ‘I was a proud woman. I wanted to see you, my first grandchild, but … I was scared of what people would say. I was worried about what our family would look like. An unmarried young girl is suddenly with child months after moving into my home. I thought people would believe that my husband, not Julius, was responsible. Most of all, I did not see you because Julius … he was not ready for the responsibility. He was too young.’
He shouldn’t have had sex then, crosses rather uncharitably through my mind. When I started having sex at fifteen, I wasn’t ready to be a parent. I probably would have done it if it was necessary but I wouldn’t have been ready for it.
‘Did he want to keep me?’ I ask her.
She manages to pull her twitching face into a smile. ‘You do not want to know the answer to that question,’ she replies.
‘I do, I really do.’
‘Clemency…. I do not know you well. I wish I did not have this clock above my head that will stop me from getting to know you. I would like the time to know you, so I could explain the answer to that question. But even if my body lives on, locked in or not, my mind will not allow me to know you more than this. This is the most well I will ever feel again. This is the most I will ever get to know you. I will never know you enough to explain.’
That causes tears to spring into my eyes and my stomach swirl with a fluttering of ice butterflies. No matter how much time I spend with her, this is the most she will ever get to know me.
‘I am grateful I have lived long enough to meet you. I wish I had not been so proud. I wish I had more time.’
‘I don’t know what to say,’ I confess when I have gathered myself together.
‘Say you will think about what I have asked of you,’ she says. ‘I am not scared of dying, remember that. I am scared of merely existing. Say you promise you will think about what I have asked of you.’
I sigh deeply, take a deep breath to replace the air my sigh has stolen. This time, I know when I say it, I will mean it – I will be doing nothing but thinking about it. ‘I promise,’ I state.