Eighteen

THE NOW

I’ve pulled up the handbrake of Andy’s car when I spot Veronica hurrying along the pavement. She has a satchel over her shoulder and is wearing a pair of bright white trainers, with thick dark tights.

Mum’s bungalow is among a collection of thirty or so that are occupied by people who are of, ahem, ‘advancing years’. Mum doesn’t like the term ‘elderly’, let alone ‘old’. It’s a gated community, where cars have to either be buzzed in or stop to type a code into a metal speaker box. The security detail is slightly compromised by the fact that anyone can simply open the pedestrian gate and walk in, though it gives a veneer of sanctuary, which is probably the most important thing.

Veronica visits six days a week to make sure everyone is healthy and has what they need. She’s a mix of warden and companion, with a large aspect of babysitter thrown in. She is also the most patient person I’ve ever met and does a job for which there is not enough money in the world to tempt me.

As I get out of the car, she stops and offers an impressed smile.

‘Nice…’ she says.

‘It’s not mine,’ I reply. ‘I’m borrowing it for a few days.’

She hoists her satchel higher and smiles politely, ready to get back to whatever she was doing.

‘Were you here yesterday?’ I ask.

‘On and off.’

‘Did you see anyone new around?’

Veronica shakes her head. ‘I don’t think so. It’s pretty quiet around here in December.’

She pulls her cardigan tighter as if to emphasise her point. While she’s doing that, I unlock my phone and find the photo Jane took the other evening. I deleted all the old ones of David and I have no idea what happened to the wedding photos. I certainly don’t have them. I zoom in on the face of the man who looks like David and turn it around for Veronica to see.

‘I don’t suppose you’ve seen him around, have you?’

She squints and then slowly shakes her head. ‘I don’t think so… is there anything to worry about?’

I put the phone back in my bag. ‘Not at all.’

Veronica eyes me for a moment, but I can’t explain much more than that. She wasn’t working here when David was around. She probably knows my husband disappeared – everyone seems to – but I don’t want to get into it today.

‘Bit chilly out,’ I say, which is enough to break our impasse.

Veronica pulls her satchel higher again, agrees with me, and then heads off towards the furthest of the bungalows.

I let myself into Mum’s, though she barely looks up as I enter the living room. She’s in her chair, arms folded, watching an auction show on TV.

‘Look at this,’ she says. ‘He’s trying to get £200 for that flowerpot. No chance.’

I go through the basics – filling the kettle and setting it on the stove before cleaning away the cups and plates Mum’s left in the sink. Veronica does it some days, but it’s not really her job. When the kettle starts whistling, I make a pair of teas and then head back into the living room. Mum takes hers without a word and sips from the top before putting the cup on the side table.

‘Do you want another pillow?’ I ask.

‘I’m not an invalid.’ She takes a breath and then nods at the screen. ‘I told you he’d never get £200.’

I sit on the sofa and shuffle around, trying to get comfortable. I only stop when Mum tuts loudly in my direction and it feels like I’m a scolded six-year-old again.

‘Mum…’ I say.

She doesn’t turn from the screen.

‘You said you saw David…’

She snaps her reply: ‘Who?’

‘David. My ex-husband.’

Mum’s attention switches to me momentarily but only for a second until she looks back to the screen.

The thing is, she’s not been diagnosed with anything like dementia or Alzheimer’s. First, she would refuse to go to the doctor; second, she wouldn’t acknowledge any diagnosis anyway. Third, she can sometimes be frighteningly clear about things that actually did happen in the past. Finally, there’s a horrible part of me that doesn’t want to push for any sort of confirmation because I don’t want to know.

Sometimes, she will talk about things from a decade ago as if it’s happening now. Once, she spoke as if Dad was still alive and he was in the other room. She can forget that she now lives in Poynton-on-Sea instead of Gradingham, where she spent her previous fifty or so years. She thinks she’s on holiday and talks about looking forward to getting home. And then, twenty minutes later, she’ll have forgotten we ever had the conversation.

There’s obviously something not right – and it’s getting worse. That doesn’t mean that I know what to do. Her own stubbornness will win over anything I could suggest.

She doesn’t speak for a good thirty seconds as she watches the TV – and then, from nowhere, she says: ‘David…?’, making it sound like a question. It is as if she doesn’t know the name, like it could be a character on television about whom she is unsure.

I show her the photo on my phone from the other night. She takes it from me, her hands shaking as she tries to grip the screen.

‘I hate these things,’ she says.

‘Do you remember David?’ I ask.

She squints over her glasses at the photo: ‘Course I do.’

‘Was he here, Mum?’

‘He made me a nice cup of tea.’

The hairs rise on the back of my neck. It feels as if there is someone behind me, blowing a gentle breeze.

‘When?’

The delay is interminable. On the television, someone in a red shirt is running along a street, waving a lamp at someone else in a red shirt. Mum is captivated by it, her gaze unflinching.

‘Oh, y’know…’ she says.

I wait to see if there’s anything more, but that’s all she has. This is the type of response she gives when she doesn’t know the answer but will absolutely refuse to admit she is unsure. I won’t get a better reply.

For a while, we sit and watch the television together. We’d do this when I was young, but, back then, it was something like Art Attack or Fun House. I was an ITV girl.

The auction show ends and then, amazingly, another begins. I wonder if this is all that exists on daytime TV. Mum gives a running commentary on everything that’s on screen. Everyone is an ‘idiot’, ‘stupid’, ‘ugly’ or wearing something ‘hideous’. She doesn’t seem to have a good word to say about anyone.

I don’t interrupt because it will be met by an indignant silence. Sometimes it is nice to hear her voice, regardless of what she’s saying.

It’s only after we’ve been sitting for twenty minutes that I spot what’s sitting next to the TV. I get up and pick up the small frame and return to the sofa. Mum doesn’t move and it takes me a short while to figure out what it is. It’s a strip of white cardboard that’s scuffed and a little battered, which has been framed by dark cherry wood. As best I can see, it is a ticket for a New York Mets’ baseball game from 1979. It takes me a good minute to understand what the black squiggle across the centre actually represents.

I hold it up, waiting until Mum turns slightly towards me.

‘Where did you get this?’ I ask.

‘Get what?’

I don’t want to pass it over in case she drops it. My fingers are shaking as I hold it up for her to see.

‘This ticket, Mum. Where did you get it?’

‘I’ve had that for ages.’

‘You haven’t. I was here two weeks ago and it wasn’t here.’

She crosses her arms and turns back to the TV. I wouldn’t usually push an issue like this, but it’s too important.

‘Where did it come from?’ I ask again.

The frown lines deepen around the rim of her eyes. ‘Just put it down.’

I move until I’m standing in front of the television, blocking her view. ‘Did David give this to you?’

With a speed I’ve not seen her produce in years, Mum reaches forward and snatches away the frame. ‘It’s mine!’

She holds the frame to her chest, cradling it like she’s clutching a newborn.

It wasn’t that hard to figure out once I realised what the scrawl on the ticket actually was. The ‘J’ at the beginning was as clear as could be.

It was the one thing she told David she always wanted.

The one thing she always said she regretted not getting.

The one thing she craved.

John Lennon’s autograph.