Besides, I’m not running away from home.
I’m here because of Iris.
‘Terry? You okay?’ Iris appears beside me on the bench, and I wonder how long I’ve been sitting here, not noticing the day getting on or paying attention to Dad, and I glance inside the Visitors’ Centre and I see him, still pushing crumbs of Bakewell tart around the plate.
‘You look worried,’ Iris says, sitting beside me.
‘I always look worried,’ I say, and she smiles and nods her head.
‘Everything okay?’
‘Yes.’ If I tell her otherwise, she will say I should go home. I am needed at home. And she will be right. So I don’t tell her otherwise. In fact, I add, ‘Everything is great,’ although I might have gone too far because Iris looks at me with her eyebrows raised nearly to her hairline, which is her sceptical look, and I can’t really blame her because I am not the type of person who declares things great, in the normal course of events.
‘You can see the cliffs from here,’ I say, pointing towards them. I don’t know why I insisted on this detour. Iris won’t be able to walk on that bumpy trail with her sticks, especially after last night. And neither will Dad. Nor do they want to, so why on earth am I dragging them around after me, the way Kate used to drag Egg?
Iris looks at the cliffs. ‘They really are quite spectacular, aren’t they?’ she says and she sounds surprised. Like she wasn’t expecting that.
‘How’s your ankle?’ I ask.
‘It’s a lot better,’ says Iris, rotating her foot. ‘The swelling’s come right down.’
‘Vera will be delighted to hear that,’ I say tentatively. Iris opens her mouth to say something, then decides against it, nods instead.
‘So,’ I say, ‘do you think you could manage a bit of that walk I showed you on the map?’
Iris nods in Dad’s direction. ‘What about himself?’
‘We’ll bring him.’
‘He won’t be able for it.’
‘We’ll chivvy him along.’
‘Chivvy him?’
‘Yes.’
And that’s what we do. Chivvying is linking Dad’s arms and singing a song that he knows – I pick ‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ – so that he stops complaining and joins in. It works every time and soon the three of us are on the trail, like the Lion and the Scarecrow and the Tin Man, on the yellow brick road.
A poem is laminated in a wooden panel along the trail entitled, ‘What brings you here today?’
Which is a good question. And not one for which I have a ready answer.
Sunlight reflects off the chalk of the cliffs so that their whiteness seems fantastical, like the white of once heavily-soiled clothes in detergent ads.
An endless canopy of sky stretches above our heads. It reminds me of a piece of pale-blue lace. Delicate. Easily torn.
Below us, a ferry glides out of the port, leaving a trail of white water in its wake, a line drawn between England and France. Between where we are now and where we will be. The present and the future.
Never has the future seemed more unknowable.
Wildflowers are threaded through the scrubby grass that is kept short by grazing horses. They lift their heads at our approach and Dad stops walking, his face static with anxiety. Dad’s fear of animals is a recent development, whereas I have always displayed nervousness around them. The horses are not tethered, and there is nobody in authority – I am thinking of a man in wellingtons, a farmer perhaps – to supervise them.
‘They look …’ Dad struggles to find the next word. His eyes crease in concentration and he clicks his fingers as if the repeated noise might jolt the word out of its hiding place in his memory.
‘You’re right, Mr Keogh,’ says Iris, walking to the nearest horse and running her hand along its gleaming flank. ‘They look friendly, don’t they?’ The horse tosses its head and stamps its hooves, and I worry that Iris has overestimated the friendliness of the herd, but now she is stroking the horse’s ears, one at a time and the animal stills beneath her touch.
‘I have a bag of apples in my backpack,’ says Iris. ‘Can you grab them, Terry?’
I glance at Dad, who, like the herd, looks like he might bolt at any minute.
‘It’s okay, Dad, there’s nothing to be worried about,’ I say, inching towards Iris’s bag. I stand as far from her as I can and unzip her bag, grope inside for the fruit.
‘Do you want to pet him, Terry?’ asks Iris. So it’s a him. And no, I don’t want to pet him.
‘Sure,’ I say, looking back and beaming at Dad so he can’t see my fear.
‘I don’t think …’ he begins.
Iris reaches for my hand, draws it towards the animal, places it on his coat. I am surprised at the smooth softness of it. And the smell. A warm, sweet smell. Like worn leather.
‘Here,’ says Iris, handing me an apple. ‘Put it in the flat of your hand and offer it to him.’
‘I’m not sure if …’ I think about stepping away, but the horse has smelled the fruit and stretches his neck towards the grip of my hand around the apple. Now I can feel the soft flesh of the animal’s lips and the sensation is like being tickled and I think I laugh and my hand opens and the horse’s mouth opens and I glimpse long, yellow teeth and then the apple is gone and the horse moves away and I realise I haven’t been breathing so I breathe.
‘Do you want to feed one, Mr Keogh?’ Iris says. I don’t think she has any idea how terrified I am. How terrified I was. And for this I am glad. I can cross out horses on my list of things I fear. I’d say I can cross out cows, mules, and donkeys too.
Dad backs away from the proffered apple and I reach for his hand, coax him past the horses. We walk on.
Ahead, there is a bench. Dad makes a beeline for it. Or perhaps for the woman sitting on it. Older than Dad, I’d say. A scarf around her head out of which stiff grey curls poke. A gabardine coat buttoned to her chin. A shopping bag on wheels beside her, her swollen, arthritic hand gripping its handle. Dad smiles when he sees her, sits beside her, and then kisses her. On her mouth.
‘Dad!’ I pull him away, and the woman laughs, two pink circles blooming on her worn, leathered cheeks. ‘Don’t worry, love,’ she says, re-applying her lipstick. ‘I haven’t been kissed like that since VE Day in Trafalgar Square. Oh my, that was quite the day, that was.’ She leans against Dad, squeezes his arm, and I worry that he’s going to swoop in again, but instead he sits back, puts his arm around her shoulder, and lifts his face to the sun with his eyes closed, looking more relaxed than I’ve seen him in a long time. In fact, they look like a couple. The type of couple who complete each other’s sentences.
‘This is my father,’ I say. ‘Eugene Keogh.’
‘I’m Winnie,’ the old lady supplies. She extends her hand and I shake it.
‘I’m Terry,’ I say, ‘and this is Iris.’
‘Are you on holiday?’ Winnie asks.
‘No,’ I say at the same time as Iris says, ‘Yes.’
‘I see,’ says Winnie, as if our response makes perfect sense.
‘The A stands for Albert,’ Dad tells Winnie. ‘Francis Albert Sinatra.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ says Winnie. ‘Are you a fan?’
‘There was an abattoir at the back of the house in Harold’s Cross.’
Winnie glances at me as Dad rambles on. I smile my apologetic smile, but I think Winnie already understands. ‘If you girls want to walk on a bit further, I’ll look after Casanova here,’ she says. ‘You need a rest, don’t you?’ she nudges Dad gently with her elbow. ‘Hard work, I expect, trying to keep up with those two fillies.’ She smiles at Iris and me. Lowers her voice. ‘I looked after my brother for years. He was the same.’
‘That’s very kind of you,’ I say.
‘We won’t be long,’ Iris says.
‘Take your time,’ says Winnie. ‘Me and Eugene will have a fine time here, won’t we love?’ She smiles at Dad as if she has known him for years and is fond of him.
We set off. When I turn back to look, I see Dad lifting his Frank Sinatra story out of his small stock of memories, dusting it off for Winnie’s benefit.
I turn and run to catch up with Iris, surprised as I often am at the speed she can manage on her sticks, especially after last night. ‘Don’t get too close to the edge,’ I shout after her. I tell her about the chalk and the crumbling nature of it and the continual erosion and how the cliff edge is constantly retreating from the sea and how the very ground we’re standing on could collapse at any moment. I know she’s listening because she’s nodding, and then she stops walking, about five metres away from the edge, and I think, this isn’t too bad, we’re safe enough here, and I am just about to wax lyrical about the views and the peace of the place and the wildflowers and all the things people say when they pause for breath in a place like this and that’s when Iris pitches her sticks on the ground and gets down on her hands and knees.
‘Iris! Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ she says. ‘I’m just going to poke my head over the edge.’
‘No!’
‘You don’t have to come with me,’ she says. She’s already crawling towards the drop.
‘It’s three hundred and fifty feet down,’ I call after her.
‘What’s that in metres?’ she asks.
‘It’s … eh …’ It’s hard to calculate in these conditions. ‘… about a hundred and ten metres.’
Iris crawls on.
‘Wait!’ I say, realising I have been duped with distraction. But wait for what? And it doesn’t matter anyway because Iris is not waiting. She is nearly at the edge now and if anything happens to her here it will be all my fault because I was the one who insisted on this ridiculous, stupid detour in the first place. And I’m supposed to be the one who’s hindering her, not helping her.
I lower myself gingerly onto all fours. The grass, toughened by salt and wind, feels harsh against my hands and pricks the skin of my feet through the gaps in my sandals. I find myself thinking about Jennifer with the terrifying eyebrows. If she could see me now, in my lime-green T-shirt with the bright-pink limes that she called ‘ironic.’ In my white ‘skinny’ jeans with – subtle-ish – diamanté detail on back pockets. She might mention how difficult it is to get grass stains out of white denim. And she’d be right.
I glance behind me where I see my father sitting on a bench holding hands with Winnie, chatting away. He is not looking at me.
I don’t know why I do it in the end. Perhaps there are things in your life that you just do and there’s no rhyme nor reason to them.
I start crawling. Towards the edge. Into my vision come Iris’s shoes, soles up. One of her pairs of sensible shoes, as she calls them.
Most of her shoes are sensible now.
If you ask her what the worst thing is about MS, she’ll say, shoes.
I see that she bought these ones in The Shoe Horn for €79.99.
Iris’s legs are splayed on the grass, and she is laid out on her belly with her head over the edge of the cliff, looking down.
Three hundred and fifty feet down. Or a hundred and ten metres. Either way, it’s a long way down.
‘It’s amazing, Terry,’ she shouts.
I crawl until I am at the edge of the cliffs of Dover, which is the exact opposite of the sage advice given in the Visitors’ Centre. I lay my body down, flush against the chalk. There is no grass at the edge. Just crumbling chalk. I grip the edge as if that will protect me from my fate, and then I inch my head over the side.
I lie like that for a while, my eyes clenched shut.
I hear the high wail of seagulls, and, behind me, the girlish pitch of Winnie’s laugh. Beside me, I feel the smooth length of Iris’s bare arm against mine, the warmth of the sun soaking through the cotton of my T-shirt. ‘Open your eyes, Terry,’ Iris says.
‘I don’t think I can,’ I say, and I tighten my grip on the edge.
‘Go on,’ shouts Iris.
And then I do. All of a sudden. I open my eyes.
For a moment, all I see are colours. Blues and whites and blacks and greys. The earth seems to be at a tilt and there are no right angles or straight lines. I blink and try to remember to breathe and the world comes back into focus and everything is as it should be apart from me and Iris with our heads dangling over a cliff in direct contravention of the recommendations of the National Trust.
The water below is a strip of bright, clear green turning to a blackened blue further out. The water pulls out to sea, then slows, stops and turns, reaching now for the base of the cliffs, faltering on the black rocks far below where the top of the waves curl and foam, before covering the stone, obscuring it for a moment before slowing, stopping, slipping back, like hands losing their grip, resigning itself to its fate and pulling out to sea again.
Sound stirs behind the movement, faint, like an echo of sound; the suck and pull of the water, the fizzing hiss of it over the smooth rock.
It doesn’t look like three hundred and fifty feet down. Or a hundred and ten metres.
It looks much more than that. The drop is sheer. Vivid. Almost inviting. That’s when I whoop. It sounds strangled, the whoop, because of the compromised nature of my lungs against the ground. But it is a whoop nonetheless.
‘Did you just whoop?’ Iris turns her head towards me.
‘I did,’ I say.
‘Why?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘I think I’ll whoop too,’ says Iris.
‘By all means,’ I say.
And the two of us lift our heads towards France and whoop. Probably loud enough for Winnie and Dad to hear. I shouldn’t be making such a racket.
Dementia likes the quiet. I picture the disease like an olden day’s librarian; all tutting and shushing. And usually I oblige.
But right now, I am not worrying about the noise. And what Dad might make of it. What he might do. Like for example make a run for it. Or worse, make a run for me. I picture him running to the edge, his surprise as he reaches it, the flailing of his arms as he tries to halt, the tilt of him as he clears the edge, and then the fall, quiet in the end as he becomes smaller and smaller, down, down, down, to the sea, the waters below waiting to accept him.
In spite of this catastrophic thought, I continue to whoop. Afterwards, my throat will be sore, such is the thrust of it.
Somehow, I know that Winnie will sit on Dad if she has to. I know little about her, other than she has been kissed twice that I know of. And that she knows dementia. People who know dementia know what they have to do. And they’re willing to do it.
‘Are you okay, Terry?’ Iris asks when I stop whooping.
I definitely couldn’t describe myself as okay. Terrified, certainly. Dizzy, absolutely. But also exhilarated. Daring. And sort of hopeful, but of what I’m not sure. A little fearless. But also stupid. I’m on a precipice for God’s sake. Then there’s carefree. Or just common-or-garden carelessness.
And of course irresponsible. I am needed elsewhere.
And there’s terrified again. There’s a lot of that. But energised. Youthful. Reckless. Awake.
It’s hard to describe how you feel when you feel so many things. In the end, I say, ‘Yes. I’m okay.’
Iris grins and says, ‘Me too.’
Coming back from the edge proves more difficult. Perhaps I am imagining it, but it seems to me, raising myself onto all fours again, that the wind has picked up. Strands of hair, having secured their release from the tight confines of my ponytail, fall into my eyes, across my face.
I move backwards, left hand right leg. Right hand left leg. When I get a rhythm going, I look up and see that Iris has raised herself into a crawl position, but has not moved back from the edge.
‘Iris.’ I stop crawling. She doesn’t respond.
‘Iris, come on.’ Still she doesn’t answer.
Her face seems frozen in place, all twisted to one side, he
r eyes tightly shut and one side of her mouth pulled down. ‘Iris, what is it? What’s wrong?’
She makes a sort of guttural sound, and her whole body seems to shudder.
Her leg shoots out to the side – her foot misses my face by inches – and I realise it’s a spasm.
‘Iris, what should I do?’ I yell at her, but she can’t speak with the contortion of the muscles in her face. Now the muscles in her arms begin to move, and it looks like an electrical current, running beneath the surface of her skin. She lifts one hand, and the fingers contract and stiffen and her leg seems to collapse beneath her and she hits the chalk, which does not seem as soft as before, and she is so close to the edge and I don’t know what to do and …
I stand up. The world seems to spin and circles of light explode in my peripheral vision. All I can see is the edge. The perilous glint of it. Somewhere behind me, Dad and Winnie, chatting on the bench in the sun. In front, a drop of three hundred and fifty feet to the sea below. It might as well be a drop of three million feet. The result will be the same.
I keep my eyes trained on Iris, get behind her, keeping a wide berth from her flailing limbs. I kneel again and reach for her good ankle. Her leg flings out and her foot connects with my wrist bone. The pain is sudden and intense and sort of invigorating. I make another grab for her leg, manage to catch it, hold it between both of my hands and I’m on my feet now, pulling and hauling at her as if she’s a Santa sack of toys. I feel her foot – her entire leg – strain against my hands, like the thrashing of an animal in a trap.
Iris is a dead weight. I pull and heave. All I can hear is the frantic rasp of my breath and the roar of blood in my ears. But the edge of the cliff recedes and we are on the grass now and I keep pulling and heaving, widening the distance between Iris and the edge.
I lie on the grass beside her, wrap my arms around her and hold her tightly, as if I can squeeze the last of the contractions out of her body. ‘Iris? Are you okay?’ The spasms have subsided to twitches now, up and down her legs, her arms. She makes short, sharp sounds, and I am reminded of a baby bird, chirruping from its nest, waiting for its mother to return with food.
‘It’s okay, Iris, everything’s okay, just breathe, all right? Breathe.’ I whisper the words into her hair, feeling my lips move against the soft thickness of it and thinking that she could do with a haircut and wondering if there’s a hairdresser on the ferry.
Rules of the Road Page 14