“Those two are doing my head in. Last weekend, when I stayed over, did you hear them?”
Noah looked blank.
“Uh, uh, uh, UH! UH! OH! OH! YEAH!” Eric offered, by way of explanation.
“Weightlifting?”
“Shut up, bellend. Empty the shed. Do it tonight. Now.” Eric’s face turned from sly to evil. “I’ll sort Dad and Lisa out.”
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
Noah stared into his gran’s empty room, chest tightening. She was always in here. Always. Where the hell was she?
He turned as he heard Matron clumping down the corridor, stoically maintaining her course despite Tabatha, the resident silver tabby cat, zigzagging in front of her. She was a relentlessly no-nonsense sort of woman, who seemed permanently hot and was fiercely practical. Noah had once heard her say she “never wore make-up” because it was just a “silly trifle” before going outside to chop a tree down in the garden.
“Where’s Gran?” he asked.
“Ah,” Matron said. “You haven’t heard.”
Noah’s heart skipped a beat. “Heard about what?” He looked at her, eyes pleading. “Is she OK?”
“Noah, she’s fine. She’s…” Matron sighed, wearily wiping the sweat from her forehead and undoing the top button of her blue regulation tunic. “She’s formed a … musical group.”
Noah raised his eyebrows as the opening chords of “Wind of Change” by the Scorpions drifted through the building.
Matron rolled her eyes. “See? That’s them rehearsing. She won’t thank you for interrupting, but she’s in the Mayflower Lounge. Look, I’d love to stay and chat, but we’re short-staffed. Plus the boiler’s on the blink.” She looked down at Tabatha, who was winding herself round her ankles, said “I will feed you in a minute!” then turned and continued on her way. “Oh, and Noah?” she shouted back as she was about to go through the fire door. “We love to support our residents in their artistic endeavours, but maybe you could persuade her to change the name?”
Musical group? Noah thought, walking off in the direction of the lounge as he heard his gran starting to sing an approximation of the lyrics down the mic.
He stopped in the doorway to the lounge. Most of the chairs had been shifted to the edges of the room, much to the obvious annoyance of one resident who was stoically knitting in the corner with a face like she was sucking a lemon. Gran was centre stage, mic in hand, wearing leather trousers, a pink tutu, a ridiculous silver metal tiara that she’d had for years, and a ripped T-shirt that bore the slogan “Never too old to rock”. Surrounding her, Noah recognized her mate Dickie, who was sitting on a chair with a small Casio keyboard on a wheely table; Vera, who had worked at Bletchley Park in the War, but who was now standing with an electric guitar in her hand, in front of a music stand; and a woman Noah had never met before, who was sitting precariously on a stool, holding two wooden spoons, surrounded by a table of pots and pans and a portable commode.
“No, no, no!” Gran stopped singing and dropped the mic. “Vera? That’s not the tune!” She stomped over and ripped the sheet music off Vera’s stand. “This here is the sheet music to ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’!”
“Oh,” Vera muttered, “that must be from when those bloody awful kids came to sing at us…”
“And who’s this?” his gran said, looking at him. “Are you from the record label?”
“It’s me, Gran. Noah.”
“Everyone,” Gran shouted, “this is Noah. He’s my manager.”
“I’m her grandson,” Noah corrected her.
Gran rolled her eyes. “I’m just kidding, Peanut. Lighten up. This is my band; what do you think?”
“Great,” Noah said.
“Dickie on keyboard, Vera on guitar, and that’s Babs on drums. Well, they will be drums when the kit arrives.”
“Aye, lad!” said Dickie. “Rock ’n’ roll!” He accidentally hit the “demo” button on the keyboard, and a clunky version of “Happy Birthday” started playing.
“On keyboards” indeed, Noah thought. The only thing Dickie was on was his heart meds.
“Let’s take five, everyone,” Gran said, grabbing her stick and hobbling over to Noah. “I need to shoot the shit with ma gnomie.”
“Gran, really now…”
“’Sup, Elena!” Gran said, seeing one of the younger staff members hurry in. “We’ll take a couple of beers in the conservatory!”
“Actually, can I just have an Earl Grey?” Noah asked.
Elena looked utterly exasperated. “You know where they are,” she snapped. “I need to take Dickie’s blood pressure and give Vera her insulin – this isn’t a hotel!”
It certainly isn’t, Noah thought, as he watched Elena scoop up some teacups, dish out some pills and wrap a blood-pressure armband around Dickie.
Gran tutted and led Noah through an archway into the adjoining conservatory, where they both sat down on the wicker furniture. “So, wassup?” Gran asked.
“Gran, why are you speaking like that?”
Gran leaned towards him. “Noah, if this band stands a chance, and maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t, I have to live the part, make the dream manifest. You get me?”
Noah frowned. “I see.”
She picked a bag of Skittles out of her bag. “Want a little pick-me-up?” She tipped a good handful into his palm. “Now, tell me, what’s on your mind? There’s clearly something, else you wouldn’t have come to see me.”
“That’s not true, Gran!” Noah said. “I come to see you all the time, not just when I have troubles!”
“So, there’s no troubles?”
Noah chewed his lip.
“I knew it!” Gran said. “Speak!”
“It’s about Harry—”
“Lovely Harry?” Gran smiled. Gran was Harry’s second biggest fan, after Noah. They’d totally bonded whilst she was in hospital last year, especially when Harry smuggled a miniature of Scotch in, for her tea. “Harry who loves you?”
“And I love him!” Noah said.
“All’s well, then!” Gran chirped. “I hope you’ve both kept it in your pants?”
Noah flinched. “Yes. Affirmative. But I think that Haz might quite like to… There could come a point, Gran, where, um…”
“Mutual masturbation?”
“Er, well…”
“Oral?”
“Gran, I…” He was bright red. “I’m worried I won’t know what to do anyway, whatever we do. Or that it’ll go badly, I’ll mess it up, or he’ll …” He pulled the zip of his new hoodie up to his neck. “… see how skinny and awkward I really am, under my clothes, and go off me.”
Gran leaned across and placed a hand gently on his knee. “You’re a very sweet and handsome boy, Noah.”
He pulled his hands into his sleeves and looked down at his shoes. “Sure.”
“You should remember, there’s no rush, no pressure. When the time is right – go for it, certainly, if you want to. After completing a full risk assessment and embracing all possible protection, of course. Do you want to?”
Noah looked up at her. “Yes?”
“Yes?”
“Doesn’t… I mean, everyone wants to?”
Gran shook her head. “No, Noah. Some people don’t. And you know what, Peanut? It’s all fine. And the thing with you and Harry, you can work it out together. When, and if, you’re ready and you want to. No rush.”
“Yes, but what if Harry gets sick of waiting for me to be ready? There’s this boy called Pierre and—”
“I’ll tell you a story,” Gran said. “Back in my youth, this new boy moved to town. I forget his name, but he caused quite a stir, as new boys often do. Anyway, it turned out he was really into –” Gran leaned forward and lowered her voice “– mischief and tomfoolery.”
“Mischief and tomfoolery?”
“Mischief and tomfoolery.” Gran nodded, imbuing every word with meaning. She pursed her lips at Noah. “Are you reading me?”
N
oah flicked his eyes to the floor. He guessed the sort of mischief she was referring to wasn’t letting off stink bombs, or hilarious pranks with itching powder.
“Insatiable, he was!” Gran said, staring out of the window. “He’d have mischief and tomfoolery with anything that had a pulse – turned out that’s why he’d had to move house. There’d been some unpleasantness with a young filly called Mary.”
“Gran, calling a young woman a ‘filly’ is offensive.”
Gran looked at him quizzically. “I agree,” she said. “But Mary was a horse.”
“Oh.”
“It was just a shameful rumour, but the mud stuck and he had to get out of town.”
“God,” Noah said.
“Anyway, he was mad keen on me, let me tell you!” Gran smiled. “Always asking me out, he was. Leaving me roses, chocolates, stockings and the like! Oh, he tried it on, let me tell you, but I didn’t give in. And the longer I left it, the more his desire grew. But it become more than desire… It became love. He got to know me for who I was, not just the sexy young woman I at first appeared.”
Noah shifted uncomfortably. This wasn’t the kind of advice he was hoping for. “Right.”
“Want to see a photo?” Gran said, pulling a yellowed scrap of paper from her handbag and handing it to Noah.
“This is a picture of Granddad.”
“That’s right!” Gran said, remembering. “He’s your granddad, that’s right.”
Noah gave her the photo back. “So, Granddad was a horse shagger? Brilliant.”
“No, I told you, it was a rumour,” Gran scolded. “And that incident with the sheep a few years later was just a misunderstanding.”
Noah’s eyes widened.
“Anyway, my point,” Gran said. “What is my point?”
“I don’t know,” Noah sighed. “I feel a bit sick now, to be honest.”
“My point is, no rush, take your time. There are more important aspects to a relationship than sex. And sex doesn’t prove love, Noah. That’s the thing! Lust is transitory. Love lasts.”
Noah nodded. That was an idea he could definitely get on board with. Relationships were about lots of things, all far more important than sex. Shared interests, support in times of crisis. But that sounded a lot like friendship, not boyfriendship. What was being boyfriends really about? Because at the moment, it just felt like endless paranoia that everything brilliant might end.
Noah shoved the rest of the Skittles in his mouth. In times of doubt, sugar.
“How’s everyone at home?” Gran asked.
“Ng…” Noah said, chewing the Skittles. “Nah ng noo, tah oloo gah.”
Gran nodded. “Oh, yes?”
“Gah. Ng da muh dang –” he swallowed “– is a useless, financially inept hag.”
“So you’re all broke?”
Noah took a deep breath. “It’s very hard to maintain any sort of standards with the threat of bailiffs at the door. Mother will probably suggest I become a lady of the night in order to pay the bills. I wouldn’t put it past her.”
“Well, don’t worry, because there’s always this,” Gran said, touching her tiara.
Noah rolled his eyes. It was a running joke with Gran – every time he complained about money, she’d bring out the tiara and say, “This may look like a Kinder egg piece of shit, but the real story is” – and here her voice would drop into a conspiratorial whisper – “my grandfather stole this from a fancy jeweller a long, long time ago. It was made for some disgraced Danish princess, he said, who wanted to flee the country with whatever jewellery she could smuggle out. That princess knew there was no way of getting her valuable diamonds out of the palace, so she arranged for a jeweller to set them in two worthless metal tiaras that no one would suspect contained the valuable stones. But before the jeweller could deliver the tiaras to the princess, my grandfather, helped by his fairy godmother and some clever mice, stole them from his workshop. So don’t you worry, Peanut; if things get really bad, we can risk selling it and live like royalty.” It was obviously all bollocks, but Noah would play along, wearing the tiara around the house and enjoying the pretence of being rich and fabulous. Then Harry would come round, and they’d play a make-believe heist game, with Noah in role as a rich society heiress called Tilly DeVere and Harry as a naughty ragamuffin who would try to steal her diamonds in various cunning ways. If Tilly DeVere caught the ragamuffin, she would get to spank his bottom. If the ragamuffin was successful, he would get to marry Tilly DeVere, who would bizarrely fall in love with the wayward working-class thief and realize that money wasn’t everything. It was all innocent fun, a bit of boyish horseplay.
It was good to see Gran back to herself again, trying to make him feel better with her toy tiara. “That’s true, Gran. Thank you.”
“Remember when you and that charming boy played your game with these?” Gran said.
“Hmm.” Noah nodded.
“You used to dress up in my tweed two-piece, high heels and a pearl necklace!”
“Yeah,” he said, dropping his eyes.
“How old were you?”
Noah shrugged. “I dunno, it was really, really long ago. Fourteen, maybe?”
“So sweet!” Gran said.
Noah stood. “And on that note, I must away. Thanks for the pep talk. And good luck with the band, Gran. Adieu.”
Gran looked up at him, sharply, pain in her eyes. “Don’t go,” she said.
“Gran, I gotta—”
“Please! Please stay for a bit.”
Noah looked at her, small and frail in her chair, and tried to smile. “I’ll be back soon, Gran. I promise.”
“I hate it here. Nothing good happens here. Let me come back with you. Let me come back home.”
Noah sat down again and reached for her hand. “Gran, right now, that can’t happen. I’m sorry.”
Gran stared at him, her eyes draining of recognition.
“Gran?”
“Don’t worry about it, Brian.”
Noah shook his head. “Noah, Gran. I’m Noah. Brian is my dad.”
“I don’t know anyone called Noah.”
His mouth went dry. “Yes, Gran, you do. It’s me. Noah. Your grandson. Peanut, remember?”
“No. No, I don’t know.” Gran sniffed and pulled her hand away from him and started fiddling with the tiara. “Get out, then. Go!”
Noah stared at her, mouth open.
“And don’t come back! GO!”
Noah jumped as she shouted. “OK, OK, Gran. I’ll go now. Nice to see you. Nice to… I’ll come back soon, I’ll…”
He looked at her, but she was far away, staring out into the gardens. He wanted to bend down and give her a kiss, but he was scared it might upset her, make her shout again. He blew a little kiss instead, but she didn’t see.
Noah left the conservatory and plodded back out through the lounge, where Matron was walking through with a gas engineer. “Um, Matron?” he said.
“This isn’t the best time, Noah. I’ve got to sort this boiler out.”
“It’s just Gran seems upset today.”
“She has good days and bad days, Noah. And at the moment, more bad than good, but just be there for her. That will mean a lot.”
“But—”
Matron sighed. “Look, if you’re worried, maybe you should talk to your parents – look at some options.”
“What would they be?” Noah said.
Matron gave him a kindly smile. “Nothing bad. There’s a new home recently opened in West Fobbing, for example. Kingfisher Meadows. They do specialist dementia care there. I’m not saying your gran should definitely go there, but it’s something your parents could look at.”
“OK, but—”
“I’m sorry, Noah – we can talk another time, but if we don’t get this boiler back up we’ll all freeze tonight.”
Noah released an unsteady breath as he watched Matron go. So this was how it was. He shook his head and hurried out, along the corridor towards the entrance
foyer.
“Oi! Watch where you’re going, numbnuts!”
Noah looked up at the person he’d just collided with and narrowed his eyes. “Eric.”
“All right?”
“And what, prithee, are you doing here? And what’s with the bouquet of flowers?”
Eric grinned. “For Millie and the dickheads?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Millie and the— Oh, you don’t know about the band?”
Noah cleared his throat. “Oh, I totally knew that. I know all about the Dickheads. I mean, she is my gran.”
“She’s my gran too.”
“Yes.”
Eric nodded. “Well then.” And he walked off.
Noah watched him go. If there was ever someone up to no damn good, Eric Smith was it.
CHAPTER
TWELVE
Noah weaved along the pavement, head down, deep in thought. The one person he owed most to in this world was Gran. If she needed better care, if her life could be made happier, then he had to do that for her.
He pulled out his phone and searched for the Kingfisher Meadows website. The Willows wasn’t a terrible place, and the staff did their best, but now he found himself looking at the spa, the en-suite rooms, the expert nursing – Kingfisher Meadows was like a hotel! This was what it could be like for Gran. And didn’t she deserve the very best? Didn’t he owe it to her to at least try to get her in there?
But it was also expensive. The Willows was paid for by the council, but Kingfisher Meadows was a private place, charging bigger bucks. From what he could gather, the council might pay for some of it, but they’d have to pay the rest themselves. No point in having that discussion with his mum and dad – they were totally skint – so he was on his own again with this one.
Kids his age started their own companies. Made millions. He didn’t need millions, he just needed a bit. Surely he could do that? Surely he was capable of taking control? Positive action. For Gran.
“Awesome, dude, stay cool now, yeah?”
Noah stopped and looked up at the front door of the house opposite, where Josh Lewis was handing over a tub of protein shake in exchange for a wad of notes. Josh was all smiles and cool, in his jeans and American college jacket – even though they were not in America. “Hit me up when you get low,” Josh was saying to the young man in the doorway. “I’ll sort you out with another tub, no probs.” He tapped his nose. “Special price too, dude. Just for you, so keep it mum!”
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