I Bring Nanna cuppa tea. She's sitting in a chair, glasses on, reading the newspaper. Is she even taking any in ? I can’t be sure.
The sad thing being that the same paper will occupy have days on end. She won’t remember having read the story before. She will however get cross with me if I try to talk to her while she's reading a paper. In some ways this is a blessing we don't have to go through the same questions over and over again. I sip my tea in silence.
“Don't let it get cold Nan”. I'll have to remind her again in a minute. I've become quite practised in making sure her tea is just right.
This took some getting used to. Flavoured milk Dad used to call it. I smile as I remember him emphasising the process of dunking the teabag in and out of the cup. “If the tea is anything more than off white in colour she’ll never accept it.” He would grumble. I have to get used to doing more than just making cups of tea, for her and for me. Everything changed. Three years, ten months and fourteen days ago.
***
I was in my room. Music on as loud as I dare, taking best advantage of being the only one in the house. Despite what Mum and Dad said about it being impossible to working in din, or ‘loud enough to wake the dead’ I was immersed in revising for my religious studies GCSE. Exams on Wednesday would be my last. Signifying the end of my secondary school education. The nervous wait that my friends would endure as they ticked off the days until results were posted was not to occupy my summer that year. My life, my hopes, dreams and everything I had taken for granted would be snatched away from me. To me that change, the split from my expected future to the life I have been living, changed the moment I heard banging downstairs.
I was singing along very badly to a track from the 1980s about some guy who’d been done over telling someone he loved them at Christmas. My friends and I used to mimic the song miming exaggerated reactions and playing out the words. After that day we wouldn't any longer.
I stopped the music. The split second of silence giving me enough time to think that I had imagined the sound. If only I had. I was reaching for the play button again when the banging repeated. Purposeful bangs in quick succession coming from the front door.
I raced down the stairs already conscious that whoever was there had been waiting for some time. They might give up and go away. Mum and Dad were forever ordering things online for home delivery. Although it was unusual for them to forget to tell me they were expecting something, it was not entirely unheard of. There would be many arguments where Mum had sworn she had told me and that I ’couldn’t have been listening’ or forgotten. I’ve wished many times since that this would be just another book for Mum or computer gadget for Dad.
I was eager to prevent Mum or Dad having to go to the Post Office to pick up some random item, and all the grief that they would give me for not fulfilling my role as on hand delivery maid. I was in such a rush that I didn’t even look through the spy hole to see who was on the doorstep before opening the door. This alone would award me a half hour lecture about how I should not open the door without checking. ‘An impressionable young girl in the house on her own… anything could happen !’ they would say.
Something did happen. Something that made everything else pale into unimportance. In my mind, my expected future drained away as I opened that door. I’ve tortured myself that had I not done so things would be different. Funny how our own minds torture us like that.
So it was that I pulled the door open, without even registering who was standing there.
I remember saying that my parents weren’t home, that I was expecting them back in a couple of hours. I also remember the look the two police officers exchanged when I said it.
It’s funny isn’t it. Even when you know in your heart of hearts that you’ve done nothing wrong, whenever the police turn up you’re still expecting to be arrested and carried away. That day did nothing to lighten my feelings whenever I see the police. To this day I am overcome with heavy despair and dread when I see them. Still my brain raced through all the things I had gotten up to, or seen other people do. Oh for the carefree and reckless teenage life I had before.
I’ve played this moment back in my mind a thousand times or more. Over and over. We must have made our way to the front room, not that I can recall us getting there. Next thing I can remember we are sitting down. The officers have removed their hats. I’m on the sofa, with the lady police officer sat next to me. The man is sat facing me, in Dad’s chair. I’m starting to think that I should be offering them a cup of tea or something when he starts talking.
For some reason my memory of the words he spoke are locked in with my close focus of his mouth as his lips moved making the sounds come out. The sounds that would change my life. He looked like he needed a shave. Maybe he had been on shift all day.
He said my name. I didn’t even understand how he knew my name. ‘I’m sorry, but I have some very bad news for you…’ The heart that had been pumping furiously from my race down the stairs suddenly stopped. I didn’t breathe. I don’t think I even blinked. He explained to me what had happened.
My Mum, Dad and younger sister Becky had been killed in a car accident. There had been a pile-up on the motorway and a lorry had gone into the back of them. My mind flashing for a millisecond that they had come to rush me to the hospital to sit distraught by my parents’ and sister’s bedsides as a dutiful daughter and sister. Before I even scrabbled together two words asking how badly they were injured, he stopped me.
They had all been killed. I would later find out that my sister had died mercifully in an instant. My parents had been alive for a few moments longer, but I was assured that they would have been unconscious and not in pain. I have struggled so long to deal with my inability to believe that to be true. I so desperately wanted it to be the case, but there was a part of me that kept fighting, kept popping images of them screaming in agony into my head. Of them calling my name, calling out to Becky. So many times I had wished that I had been there with them.
It seems so pointless now, that I had stayed behind to revise for the exam I would not take. For the grades that did not matter. For the future that I would never see. If only I had gone with them.
Becky would be starting her exams now. Knowing her she would have been frantic with all the stress of it all. I would have been able to share my experience with her. To help her see past the fear. So petrified of getting it all wrong and messing up your life. She’d have had her laid back older sister to share tips on how to survive the impossible exams. How to deal with the transition to college and beyond. I’d have have been sharing stories with her of parties and nights out, of boys. Swapping secrets about how to get the clueless bastards to see that you liked them, but still get them to do all the running.
None of these things would happen for her. They wouldn’t even happen for me. The banging on our door that day killed the dreams and futures for both of us.
Here I was, nearly twenty, sipping tea and looking after my Nan. My Nan may be the only person I have left in my family, but she’s not really a whole person. My Nan, you see, suffers from dementia. There’s nothing I can really do for her other than to keep her comfortable and humour her when she asks me for the fifth time that day how school is going, or what time Mum will be home. I have to remind myself it’s not her fault. It’s the illness. It is hard though, to keep my emotions, my temper in check. The number of times I’ve shut myself in the bathroom, sat on the floor next to the bath, hugging my knees as I sob my heart out.
In some ways, as painful as it is for me, Nan’s condition is a blessing for her. She can’t remember the pain of the last few years. In her mind she’s reliving constantly some glorious part of her past. Sometimes it’s back when I was younger, sometimes it’s all the way back to Mum’s childhood. Sometimes I wish I could join her blissfully reliving the past.
I try to keep things as much of a routine for her as I can, but that is next to impossible with the varied shifts at the hotel and the late nights in the pub.
There are times when she doesn’t know who I am, and is talking to me about how proud she is of her granddaughter Evie. She tells me with a sparkle in her eye how clever Jessica is, and how she’ll be the first person in the family to go to university. “Just you see !” She’ll tell me.
***
If the weather’s nice enough, I like to take Nan out for a walk. She’s nowhere near strong enough to walk herself, so I manage to get her into a wheelchair.
It’s the end of the holiday season now, and although the wind’s getting up a bit the promenade is at least clear of the bustle of tourists. I sigh at the thought that this would also lead to the reduction of my hours at the hotel. I’ll have to start finding something else to help fill the gap.
‘Fancy an ice cream Nan ?’ We’ve come to one of the traders still bravely selling Ice Creams in early September. She doesn’t respond. It’s not really a two way conversation with Nan. I lock off the weeks on her chair and nip inside.
I am concentrating on catching any drips from the 99s I have in each hand when I come back out. I do not see until the last minute the two police officers. Their presence prevents me from seeing Nan. I try to dodge round them, but they follow my attention.
‘Jessica ? Jessica Thompson ?’ The first one asks me. My mind is struggling to comprehend what is happening. What more catastrophe is there awaiting me ?
‘Jessica, we’ve got someone here who’d very much like to speak to you.’ The police officers move out the way. Hidden behind them is a woman that is kneeling on the floor to be at eye level with Nan. She is holder her hand. Nan won’t understand this will confuse her, upset her. I start to get agitated.
The woman stands up as she turns round to face me. ‘Hello Jessica. I’ve been looking for you for a very long time. Why did you leave like that ? Why ?’ She is getting upset, starting to cry.
‘Hello Mum’. Is all I can say as I lick the ice cream drips off my hand.
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