by Ruth Eastham
There were trees and grassy fields leading to the tops of white cliffs. We’d used real sand to make the beach at the bottom of the cliffs, and we’d spent for ever using clear plastic bags and blue and green sweet wrappers to make the sea look the way we wanted it.
Grandad and I had created a whole world, right there in that room, and I loved it more than anyone. Hours we’d spent, Grandad and me, adding this detail and that, painting and repairing and nailing new track. I loved that room, but right then I felt too upset to appreciate it much.
Lia pulled me from my brooding. “Look and learn, Alex!”
Grandad handed her the control box, a square black thing with dials and buttons. An engine gathered speed around the track, sending out orange sparks, pulling its string of carriages. There was the familiar smell of hot metal.
“I’ve to watch you like a hawk, my girl,” said Grandad, smiling. “You’ll be beating my record if I let you in here too often!”
And Grandad was just like his old self. Cracking jokes, having Lia in stitches. It rubbed off on me. Soon I was screaming with laughter. I couldn’t stop. I probably sounded demented. I guess it was a release of tension or something.
Lia had me in a headlock. I pushed her chair towards the sofa and she grabbed at the pile of pillows. She slapped one down at me and I dodged her, took a pillow and got her on the shoulder. Pillow raised, she launched herself forward with a screech and landed a blow on the side of my head. Grandad roared with laughter. He had a pillow too and was swiping at us with it. There was a tearing sound and a white cloud whooshed upwards and there were feathers everywhere. Me and Lia started scooping up handfuls of them and throwing them into the air and pelting them at each other …
… I’m not sure what happened next, but one minute we were all in hysterics, then the next Grandad was screaming at us. He was shouting, angry, his face all red and his black eye even more puffy-looking so you couldn’t see the eye at all. “Get out, the pair of you!”
Lia and I stopped to gape at him.
“I told you never to come in this room. Never! How did you get in here anyway, eh?” Grandad stood with his hands in fists and a wild look. His breath came out in stabbing bursts. I was scared, seeing him like that. “The key’s lost, I tell you. You had no right. Get out, I said. Get out!”
“Come on, Alex.” Lia nudged me towards the door with her chair.
I didn’t move. I kept staring at Grandad. I felt Lia elbow me in the ribs. It must have hurt.
In a daze I let her guide me out until we were both back in the garden.
“Well, I wonder what all that was about.” She blew at her fringe.
I shrugged. Didn’t trust myself to speak. We were in the shade, but I felt my face burning.
Lia wheeled herself a bit closer to me. “Alex, your grandad …” She paused. I knew she was trying to think of something to make me feel better. “I don’t think he can help it. What with … well … you know, the Alzheimer’s.”
I nodded, biting my lip.
Grandad reappeared, all apologetic smiles, gripping the door frame with his big, scarred hands. “It’s nothing,” he said, and I heard his voice shake. He tried to laugh it off. “Sorry, you two. No harm done.” He slapped his palms and rubbed them together. “Hey, anyone fancy a Coke on the way to the fête, after I’ve finished off my photos?”
“The fête’s finished, Mr Smith,” said Lia gently. “I think you got your photos all done, didn’t you? I heard they sold like hot cakes.”
I nodded at Grandad, faking a smile.
He nodded back slowly. “I see. I see.”
There was an awkward pause and then Lia said, “Well, I’d better be going to help my dad out now. He’s had a delivery and needs to price things up.”
Grandad nodded again. “Best go then, my girl. Don’t keep your dad waiting.”
“Thanks, Mr Smith!” Lia moved off, shouting back over her shoulder. “Thanks, Alex. See you tomorrow.” She sighed. “Unless my dad comes up with loads of jobs for me to do in the shop.”
“Nice girl, that Lia,” said Grandad.
We watched her go, and then both seemed to find something extra interesting about the patch of Mum’s moss-free lawn between our feet.
“Sorry, Alex,” Grandad mumbled at last. “In front of your friend and all that. It’s just …”
“What did you mean about us not being allowed in the room?” I asked him. “About the key being lost?”
Grandad looked away. “It was nothing, Alex. I …” He stared into the distance.
He’d meant the attic room, I told myself. He must have done. For a minute his mind must have been playing tricks on him and he’d thought we were in there. But why would that have upset him so much? Why would he never talk about that room? What was there inside it?
Grandad slapped my back. “Ready to help me get the photos for the fête done then?”
I paused, deciding whether to push him more, but he looked so miserable right then, with his bruised eye and his hunched shoulders, so confused, so lost, that I decided not to. I thumped his arm gently. “Course, Grandad.”
But at the door of the Den he paused and turned to me, all afraid. “Do you think they know what I did, Alex?”
He was talking about nearly burning the house down, wasn’t he? Or had he forgotten already? Had he forgotten what he’d made me promise?
I started to speak but then he said, “I need a walk. Fancy a walk?”
We walked in silence along the footpath that ran along the side of a field to the cliff tops. I wanted to reach out and touch his shoulder, tell him everything would be all right. But I knew it wouldn’t be. I didn’t believe in fairy stories. I gave up believing in those when I was seven.
Now and again, Grandad looked back over his shoulder. He got me doing it after a while.
The view spilt open in front of us. The slab of blue-grey sea, the white curve of the cliffs to either side. The special cove where we’d spent hours collecting our fossils. Dark clouds hovered over the water, covering the sun. The wind pulled at my hair and made my bare arms feel cold.
They’re putting him in a home. They’re putting him in a home.
We passed by a small concrete building sunk into the ground, with slits for windows facing the sea. There were more of them dotted along the path. They were lookout bunkers, pillboxes, Grandad had told me once, from the Second World War. People had used them to watch for enemy boats, or planes flying in. He’d told me there were hundreds of wrecks of planes and boats on the bottom of the Channel from the war. I stared down from the cliff and watched the tide lick at the grey sand.
A boy in my class had found a rusted hand grenade washed up on the beach a few summers ago. He’d wanted to bring it in to class, but our teacher had said no, she didn’t care how safe his dad, who was ex-army, said it was.
Grandad sat down on top of the bunker. “Do you think they know what I did?” he said again. He turned to me. “I wanted to tell you a few things, Alex,” he began. “About our family. About things that happened during the war, and after.”
This was something important to him, I could feel it. Something very important, and it was difficult for him to find the words. He stared out to sea and pulled at his beard.
Seagulls circled overhead and he reached into his pocket and flung up a handful of bread scraps and they swooped and snapped for them.
“The memories are there, somewhere.” He tapped his head. “Have to be, don’t they? Somewhere.”
He tossed up more crumbs and the seagulls squabbled and flapped over our heads. “I’ve just got to find them and stop them getting lost.”
Grandad stood up and the seagulls screeched away.
“My mind’s like the tide,” he joked grimly. “It keeps coming and going, and I’ve no damn control over it.”
I nodded at him and tried a smile.
Grandad sighed. “I’m afraid that the tide’s out most of the time these days, Alex.” He held up his hands towar
ds the sea. “It’s something like that King Canute bloke – you know the one? He commanded the tide not to come in.” He gave a short laugh. “Maybe he’d built a sandcastle or something and didn’t want it wrecking! Anyway, even old Canute should have known that to try and stop the sea was a pretty daft thing to do.”
I nodded again. I waited. We sat in silence. Grandad stared out at the sea some more.
I looked down at the beach. The wind had picked up and sand was being blown across it like smoke. Somebody had written something there. The letters were big enough to read from right up where we were. Jo was here. I watched the tide creeping in, the slow, dark spread of water starting to lap at the edges of the words.
The sea was like Grandad’s Alzheimer’s. Coming to wipe away everything that was written in someone’s life. All the things they’d done. All the people they’d known. All the things they’d felt. Stealing away their memories.
What was somebody without their memories?
William Smith was here. I imagined water swirling over the letters, filling the troughs until the sides of the letters crumbled away and there was nothing left.
Grandad cleared his throat.
“My brother … Your grandma …”
I realized my fist was clenched and when I opened it there was something caught in the moist crease of the palm. A single white feather.
“During the war …”
He stopped. He stared at me. That look again. Only this time I realized what it was.
It came to me like a wasp sting. Worse. An axe in the head. A bullet.
He was staring at me with that ugly purple-red eye of his, as if he’d never seen me before.
My body went tense with shock.
He didn’t know who I was.
Pain heaved through my chest. Grandad had promised he’d never forget me.
He’d promised.
His face changed again. Relaxed into a smile. But it was too late. I’d seen the way he’d looked at me, even if it was only for a few seconds.
He’d forgotten who I was once and it could happen again. What if next time he didn’t ever remember me? Leonard’s words shunted into my head. He’s getting more and more braindead by the day.
That’s when I knew I had to do something.
Right away. I just had to.
Before it was too late.
I led Grandad back along the cliff edge as the storm clouds moved in from the sea like enemy boats, and the grey tide turned on the beach far below.
Grandad promised he’d never forget me. The thought kept spiralling round in my head as we walked home. But how could I expect him to keep a promise like that?
It began raining. Cold drops speckled my T-shirt and I shivered. How could I ever hope to keep my promise either? How could I ever hope to stop Grandad forgetting?
We got to the village and passed the post office, the village shop, the train station with a sign that said Lost Property. If only you could go in there, I thought, and get back lost memories instead of umbrellas. If only it were that easy.
The road continued alongside the tracks a while. My trainers splashed on the wet pavement and I thought about the tracks and houses and plastic families of Grandad’s train set.
We got home. I left Grandad to go in by himself. I couldn’t face it. Not right then. I heard voices as the door swung open. Smells of one of Mum’s casseroles wafted out.
I heard Mum say, “William, you’re soaked. You’ll catch your death,” and then, “Wasn’t Alex with you?”
I crouched against the wall where there was a bit of shelter from the rain and pulled the damp collar of my T-shirt around my throat.
Water ran down the side of the house from a cracked gutter and splashed on to the ground. Little rivers of rainwater branched along the tarmac of the drive before swirling in dark pools where the drain was half clogged with mud and leaves.
Alex. A voice. From inside my head. Nicu?
Help me, Alex.
I gripped my knees and rocked myself.
Forward and back. Forward and back.
Upomoć, Alex! Upomoć!
I watched the water swirl and churn.
I stayed there, not wanting to go in. The thought of not being able to do anything, of having to explain to Grandad that he was a lost cause, that I’d broken my promise to him and he was being sent away … Better not to think about that. Better not to.
I stood up. My knees were stiff from the cold and the crouching. I could see everyone in the lounge through our big bay window.
Victoria on the phone. Grandad sitting in his armchair with his feet up and a blanket over his legs. Mum and Dad and Leonard watching telly in a line. Sophie cutting up Dad’s newspaper, scrubbing at the pieces with a glue pen and slapping them into her scrapbook.
I patted my jeans pocket and pulled out the crumpled Alzheimer’s leaflet. It ripped as I tried to open it. It slipped out of my fingers and dropped into a puddle. I lifted out the soggy mess of words …
… tangles … connections … memory loss … old photos … scrapbook …
I looked up from the leaflet.
Gulls circled in the fading light.
Grandad’s words came back to me.
The memories are there, somewhere … Just got to find them … Stop them getting lost …
An idea started forming in my head, a spark of hope.
Maybe there was a way to stop Grandad forgetting his life. Maybe there was still a chance to keep him with us and keep my promise.
I needed a real way to bring his memory back. Some way to keep his memories alive for him and keep them safe. My heart pounded as my plan took shape.
I was going to make a scrapbook.
I would find out as much about Grandad’s past as I could and put it in. I would write stuff and cut out stuff and stick in pictures and postcards and leaflets. Places he’d visited, people he knew. I would show Grandad the scrapbook. Keep reminding him of where he’d been and what he’d done.
Keep reminding him who he was.
I wasn’t going to give up on him. I wasn’t going to sit around and let things happen. I was going to do something!
Maybe I was desperate. I told you, I don’t believe in fairy tales. But at that moment I really thought I could do it. I really thought I could change things. That I could still keep my promise. I had to believe it.
Had to.
And I had one week.
– PART 2 –
A SCRAPBOOK OF MEMORIES
– CHAPTER 7 –
FREDA AND TOMMIE
In the Den. Losing track of time.
I started with photographs.
Grandad and I sat in the Den and went through the family albums, one after the other.
At first there were pictures of things that I remembered too. Waving from the turret of Dover Castle. Mum pregnant with Sophie, resting a plate of chocolate biscuits on her belly. Rowing the Little Swift along the river.
There was the family holiday when Dad had slipped on a cowpat and fallen backwards into a hedge. We had a good laugh about that. There was a photo of us all sitting on a picnic rug in the garden, smiling at the camera, with me sandwiched between them, and I couldn’t help thinking, They’d already got two kids, why’d they want me?
Grandad was a bit shaky on some of the details, but he soon got into the swing of it and, with a few reminders from me, he managed to come out with all these funny stories, even remembering things that I’d forgotten.
I’d told Mum that I was trying to cheer Grandad up and she had agreed that I could take pictures out of the albums, so long as I was careful with them, so I got a few of the best ones and Blu-tacked them into Grandad’s scrapbook. I’d bought it from the village shop and it was really thick with coloured sugar-paper pages and a steam train on the front.
Next to where I’d stuck in the photos I wrote little reminders at the side of them in biro about who, where, when, what, that kind of thing.
We kept going back. Further and
further back. Until eventually, when I turned a page of one of the albums, I found the photo of me and Grandad collecting fossils on the beach near our house. The first picture there was with me in it.
Grandad looked confused as he leafed back through the album. He must have realized some were missing. He raised an eyebrow at me. “Where are the others? From when we first met? The camp in Bosnia.”
I could have told him that I hid them. Hid them in the box under my bed with all the other stuff. That they were from my other life. The one I didn’t want to remember …
But I think he must have understood from the look on my face, because he gave a slight nod and then returned to the album.
So we kept going back. There was Leonard in red wellies sticking Grandad’s pipe in a snowman. Victoria on a toy telephone wearing a fairy costume. Mum and Dad all dressed up and dancing. Grandad pulling a funny face while Leonard held up a pumpkin lantern with jagged teeth. Leonard, Victoria. Victoria, Leonard.
The further back we went, the weird thing was, the clearer things seemed to Grandad. The longer ago it was, the more he could tell me about it and the more detail he went into.
“I can remember that as if it were yesterday,” he said.
We kept going back. Back further and further still. To before Dad and Mum met. Grandad got younger and younger. He had more and more hair with less and less grey in it. His wrinkles started to smooth out; he stood more upright, less hunched up. But you could tell it was him. He had the same cheeky grin, and I teased him that he was wearing the same cardigan he still wore now, only with no patches on the elbows.
When was this? I asked him. What’s going on? And he could tell me, and I really felt I was getting somewhere. At first.
Two days went by. He seemed to be repeating himself less. He said nothing about his invisible stalker or Moggy the cat. Even Dad commented how Grandad seemed less grumpy. The swelling round his eye went down and the bruise got smaller.
And there was no mention whatsoever from Mum or Dad about Saturday afternoon or the Sunflower Care Home.