Inside Grandad

by Peter Dickinson

  "Yes, of course. Can I draw the curtains? It'll feel more like I'm alone with him, the way we usually are."

  "Better not," said Donald as he lounged off. "Nurse needs to be able to check on him."

  He sounded surprised, amused, sympathetic, all at the same time.

  Gavin felt frustrated. He'd been planning to perch himself on the bed, where Grandad could see him, and he was fairly sure he wasn't supposed to, which was the real reason he'd wanted the curtains drawn. Best he could do was get hold of Grandad's fidgeting hand and stand and lean over the bed, which wasn't very comfortable. He'd packed another Model Boats in his satchel, but he didn't get it out at once. Instead he told Grandad about going down to the harbor that morning to ask the selkie for permission to name the trawler after it.

  "I felt really stupid about it," he said. "I still do. I'm not going to tell anyone else about it, but…"

  As his voice trailed away the hand stopped trying to fidget and something seemed to change in the still, blue eyes—a flicker, a gleam, barely there for an instant, then gone.

  His heart missed a beat. He waited, holding his breath, but the gleam didn't come back. Grandad's hand let go of his own….

  Grandad's hand let go of his own … ?

  Grandad had been holding his hand!

  It hadn't been just a fidget that felt like that—it had really happened.

  When?

  Just when the gleam came, it must have been—he'd have noticed at once, earlier. So it was only for a moment. Like the gleam, there and gone. Both almost nothing, but for Gavin they changed everything. Grandad had heard him, and understood. He didn't think talking to the selkie was stupid, if it was what Gavin wanted to do. Until now, whatever people had said to him, he had never really believed in his heart that he would get Grandad back. Now, in that glimmer, that soft grasp, he had seen that he could.

  He looked up for someone to tell the news to, but the nurse was on the telephone now. He could tell from the way she was doing it, laughing a bit, moving her free hand around, shrugging her shoulders, that she was chatting to a friend, so she might be going on for ages. He turned back to Grandad.

  "Hi, Grandad, that was great. You heard me, didn't you, talking about going to the harbor and saying thank you to the selkie … ?"

  Nothing. The blue eyes stayed blank. No, not nothing. The hand …

  The hand wasn't trying to fidget anymore. It didn't even twitch. But it still felt all right, like Grandad's hand, not like the other one, only as if he'd napped off for a bit. When Gavin let go the fingers opened slightly, as if they were making themselves comfortable in their new position, and lay still.

  He looked at the nurse, but she was still chatting away, so he took hold of Grandad's hand again and started to tell him instead, saying how exciting it was, just knowing Grandad was there, inside his body, and had heard him. But this time there wasn't any response at all, nothing he could feel or see, and his voice began to trail away, so after a bit he used his foot to pull the chair as close as he could get and sat down and read bits of Model Boats in a low voice so as not to disturb the other patients. For some reason that little burst of excitement seemed to have left him feeling extraordinarily tired and dispirited. It was difficult not to mutter, as if he were only reading aloud to himself. He had to keep thinking of Grandad, really there inside that dead-seeming body, listening to every word.

  When he looked up for a rest he saw that the nurse had stopped writing and was watching him. His heart sank as she rose and came over.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "Am I making too much noise?"

  "No, is fine," she said. "What you read him?"

  He blinked. He hadn't realized she was foreign. She looked perfectly ordinary, dark-haired, with a rather bony face. She had a nice smile. He showed her Model Boats.

  "He held my hand for a moment," he said. "And now it's stopped trying to move around. Is that all right?"

  "Of course. He is asleep now."

  Gavin had been sitting too low to see Grandad's face properly. Startled, he half rose and saw that, yes, the lids were closed over the blue eyes. He felt a bit of a fool, reading all this time to a sleeping man, but maybe Grandad understood him just as well in his dreams as he did waking. And it was a huge relief to see him peaceful at last.

  The nurse was still looking at Model Boats.

  "Is funny for kid to read," she said.

  "It's what Grandad reads at home," he explained. "He makes the most beautiful boats. He was making one for my birthday when he had his stroke. He'd almost finished. It was going to be lovely."

  "I like to see it."

  "Okay, I'll bring some photos in when I've finished her," he said. "It might do a bit of good, him just seeing them. Remind him. Who he is, I mean. He's there—I'm sure he's there, only he doesn't know what's going on. That's why I'm reading Model Boats to him. To remind him. I can't do that while the others are here, and they won't let me come alone. We spend a lot of time together when we're at home. I'm … I'm what he's used to…. I'm right to try, aren't I?"

  He stopped because his voice had gone croaky. The nurse was still smiling.

  "Best you talk to physio," she said, and went back to her writing.

  Fat chance, Gavin thought, with Mum or Gran there. He started reading Model Boats again, but almost at once Gran showed up, telling Donald over her shoulder all about Cathy Munro at work, and how she'd come in on her afternoon off just so Gran could get away and catch an early train to Aberdeen, which meant she and Gavin could go back by train and Mum didn't need to drive over. Gavin gave her his chair and moved down to the foot of the bed and started in on his homework. After a bit Donald got tired of listening to Gran and said he'd got to get back to Edinburgh and he'd like to see Mum on the way. Gavin said he'd go with him. He felt a bit guilty about this—he'd had Grandad all to himself for half an afternoon, hadn't he? It was Gran's turn now, surely. But he couldn't help minding.

  "Did they tell you anything?" Gavin said as they were walking out across the car park.

  "Bit. I had a word with the physio. They're still working on the scans, so they're not saying anything definite yet, but I had a look too. They're not that promising, I'm afraid, Gav. I only know what I've been taught, mind, but even I can see there's a fair amount of damage. The actual damage would have happened pretty suddenly, but sometimes there are warning signs. They haven't got his GP's notes yet. Did he say anything about having the odd little blackout?"

  "No, but he wouldn't. He might've gone to Dr. Moray, but he'd have kept it to himself. Does it mean he's not going to get better after all?"

  "You can't say that. Chances are he'll get better, but maybe not as much as we hoped. Astonishing things happen, mind you, and he's a determined old bird."

  "But, suppose it's only a bit better … or not at all… ?"

  "Well…"

  They had reached the car. Donald paused, jiggling the key ring up and down in his palm.

  "Please, Don. I've got to know. Don't try and be kind, like everyone else is doing."

  "Okay, kid. Normal form is they'll keep him in the stroke unit for a month, with the physios working on him, and at the end of that time they'll assess where he's got to. If he's made no improvement at all, or very little, they'll move him out to a general ward, probably to the Kincardine if they've got room for him, so you can visit him easier. He'll be looked after there okay—it's a good little hospital—but the chances are he won't last long. If he's still making definite progress after a month they'll keep him on in the stroke unit, if they can spare the bed, and go on working on him. After that, there's a range of options, depending how much care he needs. He could go into a home with full-time care, or he could go home to Arduthie Road with some care coming in, or if he's done really well he could simply go home, though that would mean shuffling the house around so he's got a room on the ground floor, and so on. If you want me to guess, I should think you'd have him home in the end, with Gran working part-time and someone els
e coming in to cover for her. Right?"

  "Thanks, Don."

  They got into the car and drove off in silence. Gavin didn't feel as depressed as he might have been. He'd seen that gleam, that flicker of the real Grandad, behind the unanswering eyes. And Grandad had held his hand, known he was there. It was a bit like that moment down at the harbor when the seal had blinked at him as if it understood what he was saying, he thought. And then it had dived out of sight and you'd never have known it was there. But it had still been there, somewhere below the surface. And Grandad was still there too.

  Perhaps Gavin was the only person who really believed that, he thought. And maybe that meant he was the only person who could get Grandad back. How? How to be alone with him for a while, day after day, when it would always be Gran taking Gavin to Aberdeen and Mum coming to fetch them … ?

  "What's the physio like, Don?"

  "Fine. Obviously knows her stuff, but human with it. They're a pretty good bunch on the whole."

  "Do you think you could persuade her to tell Mum it's a good idea for me to be alone with Grandad some of the time ?"

  "You want him for just yourself?"

  "Course not. But …"

  Gavin hesitated. Donald hadn't sounded disapproving, just amused and surprised, but he was right too, in a way. Maybe there was something a bit selfish about thinking he was the only one who could really help Grandad, get through to him. Still…

  "I'm what he's used to, you see," he said. "We don't talk a lot, so he listens to me when I say something. Mum and Gran will just go and sit by his bed and talk and talk and talk, but that's no help because he's used to shutting them out."

  Donald laughed.

  "I suppose it's a point," he said. "I'll brood on it."

  Gavin plowed on. He could hear from Donald's voice that he was being pushy about this, but he'd thought the whole thing through, over and over, and he couldn't have stopped it coming out, even if he'd wanted to.

  "Don't try and tell Mum yourself," he said. "You'll just get into a row. But if you could get onto Dad and get him to say to Mum that it's okay for me to go over on the train after school. And then Mum and Gran wouldn't have to rush away from work but one of them could come over and be with Grandad for a bit and bring me back…."

  "Okay, okay—you'll be telling the consultant what to do next. Look, I was going to call Dad anyway—tell him about the scan. I'll see what he says."

  "Great. You can e-mail me on Grandad's PC. I've got an address there. I'll write it down."

  Gavin watched Donald roar away on his motorbike, then went in and got a take-away lamb stew out of the freezer. Mum always said supermarket instant meals were full of chemicals and stuff, but she'd stocked up with them for now, while they were having to go over to Aberdeen most evenings. Gavin guessed she secretly preferred instants to real cooking anyway.

  The sound of the freezer door woke Dodgem from his normal stupor, so to make up, sort of, for wanting to have Grandad all to himself when he mattered just as much to Gran, Gavin took Dodgem out on the usual snail's-pace round to sniff at every other gatepost for doggie messages and leave his own messages on top of them. That left just enough time to go up to the attic and put a final coat on Selkie's wheelhouse.

  fter all that it was Gran who really did the trick, but Don helped too. When she picked Gavin up from Mrs. McCracken's next day she started telling him pretty well at once about Katie Wilson who dispensed the medicines at Boots and what a bright kid she'd been—mad about chemistry, and getting a scholarship to Cambridge University and how everyone had expected her to go on and get to be a professor and win the Nobel Prize and so on, but all she'd really wanted to do was come back and live in Stonehaven and marry Bobby Wilson and have six children only she couldn't because Bobby, despite him being such a fine upstanding lad to look at, had a sperm count which was pretty well zilch, but they adopted anyway and seeing them together with the kids you wouldn't ever guess it if you'd not been told.

  That lasted them till they got to the station. Gavin tuned most of it out, though other times he might have been interested because Tod Wilson had been in Arduthie Primary till last year, though Gavin hadn't had much to do with him, being a couple of years younger. Gran had to stop to buy the tickets and ask the clerk whether their cat had had kittens yet and had they found the homes for them because she knew some people they might ask, and that lasted till the train came in.

  Then it was back to Katie Wilson and her friend Nan who used to work at Boots only now she worked in the dispensary at Aberdeen General Hospital, and Gavin started paying attention, though he still had to sift out stuff about Nan's brother Tom who was a champion bagpiper only he'd married this Dutch lassie who couldn't bear the sound of the pipes, and so on. But by the time they reached Aberdeen he'd got all the stuff that mattered. Katie's friend Nan worked the early shift in the dispensary. The man who did the late shift was called Robert, and he lived at Catterline, just down the coast. The changeover time was five o'clock, so he'd be coming past Stonehaven on the bypass a bit after four o'clock. It wouldn't be more than a few minutes out of his way for him to come by the school and pick Gavin up and take him direct to the hospital.

  "Oh, Gran, that's great!" he said. "Thanks so much! That was clever of you."

  "Some use, sometimes, knowing one or two people," she said. "And I daresay you'll do Grandad more good than either me or your ma would. He's forgotten how to listen to me, you know. Trouble is, the more I say the more he doesn't listen, and the more he doesn't listen the more I say, and neither of us can help it somehow. Ah, well, I suppose it's better than quarreling all the time the way some folks do. Remember Betty and Bruce Stickling?… No, of course you wouldn't…."

  The Sticklings lasted her all the way up to the ward and while they were waiting outside because there was stuff going on with one of the other patients. Gavin found he was thinking a bit differently about Gran now. He hadn't got how miserable she was, underneath, but there'd been something in her voice just before she'd started telling him about the Sticklings….

  Quietly he took her hand. She stopped what she was going to say and looked down at him, surprised.

  "I'm sorry, Gran," he whispered.

  "What about, darling?"

  "Grandad not listening to you any more."

  "No need, darling. We've had a very good life together, and I daresay it's my fault as much as it's his. He's a lovely man, I still think."

  "Do you think you could tell Mum what you said—about it being good for him to be alone with me? I think she's still going to take a bit of persuading, you see. She'll say stuff about not knowing Robert, and so on."

  Gran smiled, pursing her lips. Gavin could see her starting to plan her campaign.

  Mum came and fetched them. She said Dad had called, saying he'd be home the weekend after next, while his ship was in port.

  They picked up a pizza on the way home and microwaved it, so supper was almost instant. Gran didn't say anything about Robert, and it wasn't Gavin's turn to wash up, so as soon as he'd cleared his dirties he said he had homework to do. In fact he'd done most of it at Mrs. McCracken's, waiting for Gran, which meant he could go upstairs and start doing the last little bits of touching up on Selkie's stand.

  Grandad had made it out of a bit of bookshelf he'd got out of a skip, so there were a few tiny scratches here and there, and a couple of deeper ones. Gavin used a knife blade to squidge in a little ready-mixed filler from a tube, and while he waited for it to dry enough for sanding he thought about how to do the name. He was worried about getting it neat enough, and the same each time—once each side of the bow and again on the stern with the name of the home port, Stonehaven, below. The first thing, he thought, was to experiment on the PC to find letters that looked right. While he was at it he looked to see if there was anything from Donald on Grandad's e-mail. There wasn't, but there were several messages from Grandad's model-making cronies about different things. There was no reason they could have known what
had happened to Grandad, but it still felt amazing that they didn't. He e-mailed them back, telling them, and asking them to keep writing, and printed their letters out to read to Grandad the next day.

  Next morning while Gavin was making his sandwiches for lunch Mum said, "Gran's found somebody to drive you into Aberdeen after school. He actually works in the hospital, and he's going to call in at my office on his way past and I'll come up with him and make sure you meet up. I've got to say I'm still not entirely happy about this—I mean, it's not as if it's someone we know…."

  "I bet you Gran knows more about him than his own mum does. Like Don says, it's a good thing she never went in for blackmail."

  Mum laughed but shook her head.

  "I'm afraid you can't ever tell," she said. "Men you'd've thought were absolutely safe …"

  "I'll be really careful, Mum. And I'll tell you if anything at all funny happens. Promise."

  "That's what I was going to ask you. All right. Now, they don't want kids wandering all over the hospital unattended, but I've talked to the ward sister, and she's going to leave a message with reception to let you go up. Her name's Sister Taylor, if there's any problems."

  (That was typical Mum. Knowing how the system worked, thinking it all out and knowing what to do.)

  "Thanks, Mum. That's great. It's what I really wanted."

  "Yes, I know, darling," she said, turning away. It was the way she did it, more than anything in her voice, that told him. She didn't want him to see her face, because that would have told him that since she'd talked to Donald she was beginning to worry about him hoping too much. (That was typical Mum too.) Perhaps Donald had told her stuff he hadn't told Gavin, or perhaps she was just worrying because she was like that, worrying about how much he'd mind if Grandad didn't get better, and the more he hoped and hoped the more he'd mind. She was right, of course, but it wasn't going to be like that. It absolutely wasn't.