CHAPTER THREE
On the drive home, memories from the day keep popping into my head.
I chuckle at my dip in the duck pond, flush hotly all over again thinking of Zak and the tree, and then reflect on how lovely and unexpected it was to meet Sylvia.
When I promised to return her clothes, she said not to worry, only if I was passing and fancied another hot chocolate. As we said goodbye, she smiled a little wistfully and said, ‘Be happy.’
I keep thinking about the flat above the café; imagining what it would be like to live there. But I know I’m only attracted by the idea because my life is such a mess at the moment. You can’t run away from your problems, however much you might wish you could.
It might seem simple to move to a brand new place and make a fresh start, but it would never be as easy as that. There’s my job as a medical receptionist, for a start. I’ve been there a long time and I earn good money now. Then there’s the joint mortgage that ties me to the house in Newtown, and the fact that Richard is sure to return once he’s had enough of ‘bachelor living’. No doubt we’ll slip back into our old routine and everything will get back to normal.
I’ve known Richard for seven years and we’ve lived together for the past five.
I grew up in a much smaller place than sprawling Newtown, called Farley’s Edge, where Mum still lives. It’s only thirty miles from Newtown, and I see her most weekends. When I left school, I studied graphic design at college nearby and had dreams of setting up my own business, but then I met Richard and fell in love for the first time.
Richard was two years older than me and my first serious relationship. He’d just graduated and started work at a law firm in Newtown when we literally bumped into each other in a pub. I was drawn to his endless energy and the knack he had for lighting up a room with his charm and daft jokes. And the way his smile made my heart skip a beat. At first, I found it hard to believe he could be in love with someone as ordinary as me. I always forgot the punch-line to jokes and I never seemed to have any fascinating stories to tell.
But gradually, I started to trust him when he said he loved me because I was different to the other girls he’d gone out with. He said he could relax with me and be himself and he liked that.
A year ago, when he started talking about having a family, I was over the moon. I’ve always loved kids and I knew from an early age that I really wanted to be a mum. And when Richard confessed he couldn’t wait to be a dad - well, that just made me even more certain I’d found the right man for me.
Emotion clogs my throat. Since I discovered his fling and he moved out, all of our lovely plans for a baby are up in the air now. I’ve been more down about this than anything, to be honest, which has really surprised me. I hadn’t realised just how much the idea of becoming a mum meant to me . . .
These days, I hate driving back to the cold, empty house. Not that I’m going straight there because I promised I’d call in on Mum. Farley’s Edge, where she lives, is mid-way between Sunnybrook and Newtown, so it’s on my route back.
There’s just something I need to do before I see her. Get my photos printed out.
As I drive into Mum’s estate, I automatically straighten up in my seat and compose my smile. Keeping the conversation upbeat is important – for me and for her. It helps to preserve the notion that nothing is amiss; that we are both how we have always been. She greets me with her usual dimpled smile of joy to see me and I hug her tightly.
‘Come on through. Have you had anything to eat?’ she asks, and I shake my head.
‘I had a hot chocolate earlier but that’s all.’
‘I’ve got some lovely fresh scones from the bakery. Cheese ones. Your favourite.’
I grin at her. ‘Go on, then. And a cup of tea would be lovely.’
How can there be anything wrong with her when she still remembers little things like cheese scones being my favourite?
‘I’ve got something to show you,’ I add. ‘Can you guess where I took these photos?’ I lay them out on the kitchen table.
She picks up the one of Harrisons department store and frowns, shaking her head.
‘What about this one?’ I show her the war memorial photo, which seems to spark some sort of a reaction, although she doesn’t seem sure.
Then she spots one I took of the tree with the cottage in the background, and her eyes light up. ‘Sally Bacon and I used to sit in that tree for hours. That’s where she lived. We could see the duck pond from there and the village green.’
I nod happily. ‘You did. You always used to tell me about that. Look, this is the view from that tree. Where you used to sit.’
She looks at it and laughs. ‘Well I never!’
‘I even found your initials carved into the tree trunk. And Sally’s.’
She gazes at the photograph in wonder and my heart clenches with love for my gorgeous mum, who’s been through so much heartache in her life. We lost Dad when I was twelve and she brought me up on her own. And now, at the age of just fifty-six, she’s facing another enormous challenge that can only end in more heartache.
She’d been having problems with her short-term memory for a while. But we just used to joke about it when she forgot a word in mid-sentence or repeated herself without realising she’d already told me the story.
I’d noticed that telephone conversations with her weren’t as easy and fun as they once were. We used to jabber away about anything and everything when I phoned her mid-week. But lately, I found I that I was having to do most of the talking. I would ask her what she’d been up to and she’d just say, ‘Oh, nothing much,’ then there’d be silence. I told myself it was just because she was at home a lot with not much of a social life, so her world was naturally growing narrower and she therefore had less to talk about.
All these niggles were fairly easy to explain away.
Then one day, we went to an out-of-town shopping centre together. I was at the till buying something and when I turned around, Mum was nowhere to be seen. I spent an hour pacing around that bloody shopping mall, becoming increasingly desperate, trying to find her. Phone calls went straight to voicemail. She seemed to have completely disappeared.
The staff at the centre got involved but they had no luck either. They advised me to go to her house and wait for her to return, so I did but I couldn’t rest. It wasn’t like her not to phone me immediately, if she’d got lost somehow.
Red lights were starting to flash and I was so scared for her.
Finally, just as it was getting dark and I was at my wits’ end, a taxi drew up and Mum got out. She seemed dazed and couldn’t answer my questions properly. She said she’d found herself alone and didn’t know where she was so she’d just walked around and eventually, ‘a nice man’ had asked her if she was all right and found her a taxi. She remembered she lived beside the big hill and the taxi driver obviously knew where she meant.
What struck the most fear into me was that Mum didn’t even seem to think there was anything wrong with her behaviour. I made her something to eat and she went off to bed quite happily and slept like a baby.
But afterwards, I couldn’t get the ‘nice man’ out of my head. He obviously had been a nice man because he found her a taxi and she got home, but what if he hadn’t been? What if someone else had found her, wandering lost and alone? It chilled my blood to think about it.
Next day, I took her to the doctor’s and eventually, after lots of tests, it was confirmed.
Early-onset Alezheimer’s.
I think deep down I’d suspected dementia for a while but I’d refused to acknowledge, even to myself, that this could be the reason for Mum’s absent-mindedness. She was only fifty-six. People that young didn’t get dementia.
Apparently, they did.
In a panic, I went online to search for a ray of hope. I needed to find something I could do to try and combat this wretched disease that was going to steal my lovely mum away. That’s when I saw the idea of a ‘memory book’ for people suffering from dementia. Apparently, sufferers could often recall the distant past far better than things they did just the day before.
Mum had always talked to me so lovingly of Sunnybrook, the place she grew up. So I decided that’s what I’d do. I’d take lots of photos to remind her of her childhood, so that in the future, she’d have a record of her past that might spark memories if the going got tough.
Seeing her smiling at the tree photos, clearly recognising where they were taken, brings a lump to my throat, and the shadow of the disease hanging over us recedes a little. That sixty-mile drive to Sunnybrook was well worth it just to see Mum happy and engaging with the pictures.
She looks up at me. ‘Have you had anything to eat, love? I’ve got some lovely fresh scones from the bakery. Cheese ones. Your favourite.’