The drumming on the roof is easing off now, although the sky is still dark. She is about to look at her watch again when Peggy’s little blue Fiesta pulls up behind her. The driver’s door opens and Peggy gives Eleanor a tense smile. ‘Hello, sweetheart. We’ve had a bit of an adventure.’ Then Marjorie climbs out of the passenger side, looking wet, cold and slightly bedraggled.
‘Hello, Mum,’ she says. ‘I thought you’d forgotten I was coming.’
Marjorie looks at her blankly for a moment, as though she doesn’t know who she is. But then she smiles and says, ‘Eleanor! You came.’
‘Of course I came. We spoke on the phone last night.’
‘Did we?’ Her mother shakes her head in irritation. ‘I don’t remember, I’m afraid.’
‘Come on,’ Peggy says, ‘let’s get in out of this sodding weather.’ She lets them in at the main front door, and then, using her own key, the inner door to the downstairs maisonette. ‘I’ll put the kettle on, Marjorie. Give me that shopping.’
Eleanor follows her mother into the chilly living room, hoping Peggy won’t be long – Peggy always helps to fill the space between them. With its high whitewashed ceiling and enormous bay window, you’d think there would be a feeling of light and space in this room, but instead it is gloomy and claustrophobic, especially as it’s almost dusk now. Her mum has walked straight past the light switch, and there are no lamps.
‘Bloody hell, Marjorie,’ Peggy says, setting the tea down on a side table and flicking on the overhead light. ‘It’s as dark as a dog’s guts in here.’ The light is inadequate against the dark, patterned carpet and chocolate-brown vinyl wallpaper, which has been up for as long as Eleanor can remember. Why change it, her mother argued, when it was perfectly serviceable?
She realises Peggy is looking at her hair. ‘I didn’t notice at first. You look lovely, Ellie. Not that you don’t always, but . . .’
Eleanor smiles and shrugs. ‘I don’t know how long it’ll last.’
Marjorie, who is still standing uncertainly in the middle of the room, turns to look. ‘It’s awfully short, darling. I think I preferred it longer.’
‘Yes, but that was a wig, Mum. This is real.’
Marjorie seems about to say something, then hesitates, looks slightly puzzled, and turns away again.
Now she can see her mother properly, she notices that she’s a little thinner and her hair is greyer, but apart from that she appears to be reasonably well and is dressed much the same as always in navy trousers and an apricot roll-neck jumper. Peggy is wearing black jeans, a scoop-necked black sweater and bright red lipstick, set off by her softly styled hair, now a silvery blonde. She’s always looked striking. Her figure is more rounded than Marjorie’s, not fat but fleshy, well covered. The first time Eleanor sat on Peggy’s lap as a child, she noticed how comfy it was, how she couldn’t feel bony knees like she did when she sat on her mum’s lap.
‘You’re both looking very well.’
‘You want your eyes tested, Ellie.’ Peggy peers critically in the spotted mirror that hangs over the mantelpiece and prods at her face. ‘Should have gone to Specsavers.’
Marjorie sits in the armchair and gestures towards the coffee table on which is a large, half-completed jigsaw puzzle on a wooden board. ‘I have to try and stop my brain from rotting too fast. Hence the jigsaw. And,’ she picks up a book from the arm of her chair and waggles it, ‘I’m getting to be a whizz at chesswords. Aren’t I, Peg?’
‘Crosswords.’ Peggy smiles. ‘You certainly are.’
‘Crosswords.’ Briefly, a cloud crosses Marjorie’s face. ‘A whizz at crosswords.’
‘Bloody things,’ Peggy says. ‘I couldn’t do one to save my life.’ She sips her tea. ‘I’ll fetch that cake in a minute. Marjorie, tell Eleanor what happened. Just now, before I picked you up.’ She turns to Eleanor. ‘It’s good for her to exercise her memory.’
‘I am here, you know.’
‘I’m only explaining. Don’t get your knickers in a twist.’
Marjorie tuts, but it’s good-natured. ‘Well,’ she says to Eleanor, ‘I got lost, is the long and the short of it. Coming back from the Co-op, if you can believe that. Good job I had Peggy’s spare phone.’
‘They’re digging up the road round there again,’ Peggy says, ‘so it all looks different, especially when it’s raining so hard you can’t see your hand in front of your face. It’s a bloody miracle you remembered to use the phone, though.’ She turns to Eleanor. ‘Eventually, anyway – but by that time she’d walked the whole length of Hither Green Lane and was in the middle of Lewisham, right down by the clock tower.’
‘I knew where I was, but couldn’t remember what bus to get.’ Marjorie sighs. ‘With all this carry-on, I’ve not had a chance to go shopping or I’d have bought a cake or something.’
Eleanor and Peggy exchange glances.
‘You’ve just bought one at the Co-op,’ Peggy says. ‘Remember? Victoria sponge. I wouldn’t mind, but you bought exactly the same thing from the baker’s yesterday.’
‘The same thing? You mean . . . I’ve bought two Victoria sponges?’
‘One yesterday and one today.’ Peggy smiles. ‘So I think we’ll be all right for cake.’
Eleanor smiles too, but is then horrified to see her mother’s eyes fill with tears.
‘Oh, Peg,’ Marjorie murmurs. ‘Whatever’s happening to me?’
*
It’s strange being back in her old bedroom. It’s been painted – white – since she was last here. But it makes very little impact. Gloominess is inevitable in a basement room where the only natural light comes from a tiny window that gives on to an alleyway.
It’s freezing in here, the same as it always was, despite the electric fire she switched on earlier to take the chill off. The hot, burnt dust smell combined with the slightly mouldy dampness that is so familiar sends her hurtling back thirty years. In winter, the smell was so strong it would sometimes keep her awake. She remembers one or two of her school friends being envious that she had a room all to herself. She’d tried to explain that it wasn’t as nice as they thought, but she hadn’t been able to put into words quite how bleak she found it, and how lonely. She’d been envious of them because they had siblings. She’d often lain awake wondering what it must be like to have a brother or sister. Sometimes, especially when things were difficult upstairs, she’d become quite tearful thinking about it. If only she’d had a sibling to talk to, perhaps she would have minded less about not getting on with her mum.
A deep sadness wells up inside her as she thinks about Marjorie, and about what happened to her today: getting lost on her way back from the shop she’s visited two or three times a week for as long as anyone can remember; using the wrong words so many times this afternoon; her distress when Peggy told her she’d bought a cake yesterday and again today. How horrible this disease is; how unsettling to have no recollection of something you’ve done. But then she realises that she knows how that feels. Obviously Alzheimer’s is a different type of memory loss, but yes, she knows only too well what it feels like not to remember your own actions. As a teenager and even as a young woman, she’d felt manipulated, foolish for allowing the psychotherapist to dictate what should happen to the thoughts inside her head. She’d been angry with her mother. How would her mum feel if it was she who’d had to throw her memories in the dustbin, she used to wonder? But she took no pleasure now in witnessing Marjorie’s diminishing memory. With maturity came acceptance that her parents had genuinely thought they were doing the right thing, and her anger had given way to an empty feeling – not quite grief, not quite sadness, but a void of which she was perpetually aware.
Now, as she lies shivering in the darkness, a single tear leaks out of the corner of her eye, and she isn’t sure whether she has shed it for her younger self, or for her poor, fading mother.
Marjorie, May 1970
Marjorie and Ted stood on opposite sides of the room as they prepared for bed. Ted was wearing ju
st his pyjama bottoms – it was too warm to wear a top tonight, he said. Marjorie glanced quickly at his chest then looked away again. Was it her imagination, or did he look thinner? She’d lost weight herself these past two years, but she hadn’t noticed the change in Ted until tonight.
‘You look tired, love.’ He looked at her with concern as he took off his watch and put it on the bedside table, laying it on top of a paperback he hadn’t picked up in months.
The book looked dusty; Marjorie struggled to keep on top of the cleaning these days.
Ted switched on the radio alarm. ‘How have things been today?’
‘Not too bad, I suppose.’ Marjorie sat at her dressing table, opened a pot of Pond’s Cold Cream and dotted tiny blobs over her cheeks, nose and forehead. She hardly ever bothered, but she’d noticed how dull and lifeless her skin was looking, and while she was in Boots today picking up her tablets, she spotted a display of Pond’s and remembered seeing an advert saying it would ‘melt away tired lines’, so she’d bought a pot. This meant she cared what she looked like, she realised. Perhaps she was getting better. She’d certainly felt better since she’d been back at work, and Eleanor seemed perfectly happy going to Peggy’s in the afternoons. It was a godsend having Peggy and Ken up the road, and it would be even easier when they moved in upstairs, at least until Peggy went back to work. ‘It’s just this tiredness. I know I’m only doing a few hours a day, but by the time I get home and pick Ellie up, I’m good for nothing.’ She paused, caught Ted’s eye in the dressing-table mirror. ‘I wish . . . I wish I could do more with her, Ted. I was watching her today, playing with her dolls as happy as anything, and I wondered if I would ever be able to . . . if I could bear . . .’ She put a fist to her mouth and bit her knuckle hard to try to stop the tears.
Ted was across the room in two bounds and enfolded her in his arms. ‘Shush, it’s all right, love, it’s okay.’ He stroked her hair. ‘Remember, one day at a time.’
She nodded against his chest, comforted by the warmth of his body and the clean, laundered smell of the cotton vest. She sniffed and wiped her eyes.
Ted kissed the top of her head and stroked her hair. ‘It’ll get better, in time. And we’re getting there, aren’t we? Slowly.’ He kissed her head again. ‘Just keep trying, step by step.’ He knelt down next to her and held her face in his hands. She caught a whiff of whisky on his breath.
‘I know it seems impossible, Marjorie, but you mustn’t give up.’ He searched her face with his eyes. ‘I haven’t; it’s hard for me too, you know.’
‘I know.’ She let out an involuntary sob. She understood that it was hard for him, of course she did; but it was different, and no matter how kind and loving he was, she would never be able to explain that to him.
‘We’ll get through this, love, the three of us.’ She could see tears in his eyes. ‘We just have to take little steps.’
She looked into his dear, kind, sad eyes. She leant forward and kissed him lightly on the lips. He kissed her back, a firmer, more lingering kiss. She touched his face with her fingers. ‘Ted,’ she whispered, feeling the tiniest flutter of desire.
He kissed her palm, then reached for her other hand. ‘Come on,’ he murmured, pulling her slowly to her feet. She allowed him to lead her to the bed where he pulled back the blankets and gently, gently, kissing her all the while, pushed her down so that her head was on the pillow. He slid under the covers and lay next to her, kissing her neck, kissing her shoulder.
‘Ted, hold me,’ she murmured.
He put his arms around her and gathered her to him, kissing her harder now. His hand slid under her nightgown and he began to pull it up, exposing her thighs, her stomach, her breasts. She held her arms up automatically as he pulled her nightdress up over her head and buried his face in her breasts. ‘I’ve missed you so much,’ he said, kissing and kissing, I’ve missed us. Oh, Marjie, darling Marjie.’
But although in her head she ached for him, it seemed her body was betraying her. Just seconds ago she’d been almost ready, caught up in the forcefulness of his desire, yet now she felt almost repelled by his nearness, the whisky on his breath, the slight roughness of his chin. She pulled away from him and sat up. ‘I’m sorry.’ She could feel the tears on her cheeks. ‘I’m so sorry.’ Ted stopped and searched her face. ‘What is it? Why? What’s changed?’
She shook her head, crying properly now. ‘I don’t know. It’s just . . . I can’t. It doesn’t seem right that we should . . . I’m sorry.’
Ted seemed frozen for a moment, then he sighed heavily and swung his legs out of bed. She looked at his beautiful broad back, the smooth skin she used to run her hands over while they made love. She wanted to touch it now, to soothe him, tell him how much she loved him and how much she really did want him. Because she did, she truly did. But she couldn’t do it, not yet. ‘I’m sorry, Ted. I . . . I think it’s still too soon.’
‘How can it be too soon?’ His voice sounded hard. He was sitting on the edge of the bed with his back towards her. ‘It’s getting on for two years, Marjorie. I thought being in that place . . .’
He always referred to it as ‘that place’, she noticed. But then it was virtually impossible to name it without dragging up awful connotations. In fact, many moons ago, before her life twisted out of shape, she’d joked about it herself. She could almost hear herself playfully scolding Ted for trying to waltz her round the kitchen while she was cooking the dinner, or Eleanor for lying in bed singing the chorus of ‘The Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly’ over and over at the top of her voice instead of going to sleep: You’ll drive me round the bend one of these days, she’d say, laughing. I’ll end up in Bexley. But she wasn’t sure if she was actually mad now, or just sad. Maybe it was a little of both.
‘I thought that a few weeks’ rest was supposed to make you better.’
‘I am better, Ted; much better. I just don’t . . . not yet.’
He sighed again.
She looked at the sprinkling of freckles across his shoulders. Oh to reach out and touch him! But the silence was blocking her way; it may as well have been a raging ocean between them. She tried to slip her nightdress back on discreetly, so he wouldn’t notice the action and see it as an insult, as further evidence of rejection. She wasn’t rejecting him, though. It was something about herself she was rejecting.
Eleanor: the present, south-east London
Her mum is already making breakfast when Eleanor goes up to the kitchen in the morning. The ancient central heating has come on but it isn’t very efficient and she doesn’t fancy showering in the icy bathroom just yet.
Marjorie turns and smiles when she comes in. ‘Did you sleep well?’
‘Yes, thanks. I was very tired – driving always knocks me out.’
‘Well, you can have a nice rest today. Sit down and I’ll make us some toast.’ She takes four slices from a loaf of white bread and puts them in a red, modern-looking toaster, a little out of place in this shabby kitchen with its mismatched units and fluorescent strip light.
‘Nice toaster,’ Eleanor comments. ‘Is it new?’
‘Peggy made me buy it. Fair enough, I suppose. I kept putting bread under the grill and forgetting it, and she got fed up with the burnt smell drifting upstairs.’ She pours water from the kettle into two mugs, then pauses, looking at them before turning to Eleanor. ‘I know I shouldn’t have to ask, but I can’t for the life of me remember whether you take sugar.’
‘No, no, thanks.’
Marjorie puts the toast onto plates. ‘Peggy’ll come down for coffee at eleven, and then I think she said we could go up to her later for . . .’ She becomes perfectly still as she concentrates. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, what’s it called? Not breakfast – the other food time, the middle one.’
‘Lunch.’
‘Lunch. Yes, that’s it. Lunch.’
*
By the time she’s showered and dressed, has washed up the breakfast things and allowed Marjorie to walk her round the wintry g
arden, it’s time for coffee. Peggy is already in the kitchen when they come up the steps to the veranda. They can see her through the French doors, pouring water into a cafetière. ‘Morning.’ She smiles. ‘I thought we’d have a proper coffee, Marjorie.’ She winks at Eleanor. ‘Instead of that instant muck you usually give me.’
‘So rude,’ Marjorie mutters as she picks up the tray Peggy has prepared. ‘Let’s go into the dining room, it’s warmer in there.’
The dining room is only slightly warmer than the kitchen. The sideboard is virtually hidden under an assortment of papers, books and other stuff that’s piled on its surface along with a glass fruit bowl and two ashtrays. Eleanor has a sudden mental picture of her father sitting in the armchair, half hidden by a cloud of choking blue smoke, a Senior Service in the nicotine-stained fingers of one hand, a glass of whisky in the other. When she thinks of her father, she remembers first the smell of whisky and cigarettes, but it wasn’t always like that: she has an earlier, much vaguer memory of him smelling of peppermint creams, coffee and Wrights Coal Tar soap.
Marjorie stands in the middle of the room as though she can’t recall why she’s come in here. ‘Are you all right, Mum?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Sit down now, Marje,’ Peggy says. ‘You’re making the place look untidy. Speaking of which,’ she tuts and gestures towards the sideboard. ‘I blitzed it in here for her the day before yesterday, but you wouldn’t know it. Why do you keep emptying all the drawers and cupboards, Marjorie?’
‘I keep telling you, it isn’t me.’ She turns to Eleanor. ‘The trouble is, when you’ve got this senile dementia thing, they can accuse you of all sorts, and you can’t argue because you can’t remember.’
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