25 Days 'Til Christmas

by Poppy Alexander

  “Hello, darling,” she said, brightly. “How lovely to see you again. Have I ever told you how much you look like my daughter-in-law? Well my granddaughter-in-law actually. She was such a lovely girl . . . now what was her name?” she gazed out of the window, rummaging through her failing brain.

  “Kate?” suggested Kate, but Maureen was oblivious.

  “Daisy!” she declared at last. “Yes, that’s it. Daisy.” She turned back to Kate delightedly. “I knew I’d remember. I’m good at names.”

  “You are,” said Kate, smiling back at her. “And here is Jack,” she said, getting his hand in her own and pulling him closer. “Say hello, Jack,” she whispered.

  “Hello, Nana,” he said, cheerfully. Kate’s heart swelled with pride.

  “Tom!” she said, beaming. “You gorgeous boy. I knew you’d come back.”

  “I’m Jack,” he said. “But that’s okay, you can call me Tom.”

  She nodded. “My lovely Tom,” and then her face clouded. “He died, you know,” she said, turning to Kate. “My Tom was killed, it was so sad, and this little boy looks so much like him.” A tear welled up and tracked down the wrinkled cheek.

  “I know, Maureen. I know,” said Kate helplessly, patting the old lady’s hand.

  Why did they come? What difference could it possibly make, other than upsetting this poor lady, whose mind was in such tatters that thoughts just drifted through it like gossamer on the wind?

  “He does look like Tom, doesn’t he?” she went on, matter-of-factly. “He’s just like his dad. And he has really been looking forward to seeing you, Maureen.”

  “And we brought you a Christmas present,” said Jack, producing the tin of fudge with a flourish. “Look, Christmas fudge, would you like some?”

  “How yummy,” she said. “You know, my little boy used to like fudge,” she said, conversationally, after Jack had managed to persuade her to take a piece.

  Kate was glad to see her eat something. The main external difference in the old lady was a dramatic weight loss. The differences in her brain function were also quickly becoming tragically apparent. But she was clearly delighted to have them there.

  “Mrs. Thompson, could we perhaps have a brief chat?” said Carol. She had brought Kate a cup of tea and Jack a glass of juice, which he was thrilled with as it was strictly rationed at home.

  “Jack?” queried Kate, as she got up.

  “I’m fine, Mummy,” he said. “Me and Nana are going to eat the fudge and look out of the window.”

  “He remembers her as she was,” remarked Carol. “The children tend to be better than we imagine at dealing with dementia. They relate on a simpler level, which can be quite appropriate and helpful.”

  “She was such a lovely Nana to him,” said Kate, welling up for the first time since she arrived.

  “Look at it from her side, not yours,” counseled Carol wisely. “She is unware of what is happening to her now. She doesn’t question the changes you see. She is living in the moment.”

  “When she’s not living in the past.”

  “Absolutely. If she thinks Jack is your husband as a boy . . . so what? He’s a lovely-looking child, by the way.”

  “Thanks, I know,” said Kate. What would be the point in denying it? “Tom was handsome,” she remembered. “I thought he might be a bit big-headed because he was so good-looking . . . But he wasn’t.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t meet him.”

  Kate shook her head, summoning a smile, with difficulty. “That’s life.”

  By this time, Carol had walked her down the corridor to a little meeting room.

  “Is it the fees?” Kate asked when they sat down.

  “Those and something else . . .” She looked awkwardly at Kate. “Let’s do the money bit first,” she said briskly, snapping open the file she had been carrying.

  “So, as you know, your mother-in-law is funded by substantial social services support along with a top-up fee from the proceeds of her house sale and a small monthly pension, but I believe you are aware that now she has spent nearly four years with us, the money is shortly to run out.”

  “I did know that,” said Kate, picking at a fingernail anxiously. It had been in the background of her thoughts like the ominous mood music in a bad horror film, letting the audience know more doom and gloom was shortly to arrive. She had had little involvement with the matter; there was a bank account with the money in it. Each month an unfeasibly large sum was transferred to the home. Each month, the sand ran out of the hourglass just a little more. There was a grotesque race going on, with all bets off on whether Maureen would get to the finish line before the money did.

  “When does it run out?” asked Kate.

  “Well, you’re in charge of the money, but—according to the conversation we had when Maureen arrived—it won’t last much more than another few months.”

  “Then what? You chuck her out?” The concern and distress seeped out in between her words, making them land more forcefully than she intended.

  “We wouldn’t do that. Not exactly . . . but . . .”

  “What?”

  “The other pressing and potentially troublesome issue is that we have been asked to reapply for the funding, which I have done. The parameters on what constitutes social care and what is medical are constantly shifting and open to interpretation. It is a concern that this reevaluation is taking place.”

  “But she’s worse now than she was when the funding was first allocated,” protested Kate.

  “I know. It’s a nonsense,” agreed Carol. “And let us be frank, it is a money-saving exercise, pure and simple. I have to warn you, I have known residents in a poorer state than Maureen being judged as ineligible for ongoing funding. It is something that has become increasingly common in the last couple of years. It’s very distressing for everyone.”

  “I absolutely will not allow Maureen to be upset over this. I absolutely will not. Over my dead body. You won’t say anything, will you?”

  “Of course not,” said Carol, patting her hand sympathetically, “what on earth would be the point?”

  “So, what do we do?”

  Carol looked relieved, and—with businesslike efficiency—she produced a sheaf of paperwork from her folder.

  “There are a number of other benefits that can be applied for, which will all help. I have filled in the forms as far as I can. You are Maureen’s attorney, of course, so I just need you to sign here and here . . .” She pointed, and Kate duly signed.

  “I will put in the forms and keep you posted.”

  “What will happen when it runs out?”

  Carol wouldn’t meet her eye. “Let’s just . . . do this,” she said eventually and then paused, clearly psyching herself up. “Also, Kate . . .”

  Kate looked up at her inquiringly.

  “Maureen is deteriorating, as you can see—I mean she’s pretty good today, actually—I’m glad you’ve seen her like this—but increasingly now she’s not really with us. Her physical health is failing quite quickly now too. We need to have some difficult discussions . . . Kate, I have to ask you what you think Maureen would want us to do if she became more unwell, this winter. There’s flu going around, for instance, and you appreciate our clients are vulnerable. We take precautions of course. Naturally. But . . .”

  “Could something like the flu kill her?”

  “It could, and”—she cleared her throat—“it especially could if we were not, perhaps, automatically treating her with heroic measures . . .”

  “What do you mean ‘heroic measures’? I want you to keep looking after her if she gets ill.”

  “Yes, of course, of course . . . but if she were to become very unwell then the question as to whether she would want us to take really drastic steps to maintain her life at all costs would have to be asked . . .”

  “What does she say?”

  “Kate, it’s difficult to have that kind of conversation with Maureen now, hence our asking you—as her registered
attorney—to help us make sure her long-term wishes are enacted.”

  Kate shook her head. It had been Tom’s idea that everyone should have power of attorney, him for her, her for him and both of them for his grandmother—just in case something happened to him. Which it had. Now, the responsibility, tackled on her own, appalled and crushed her.

  “Let me see her,” she said, standing up suddenly. “I need to hear what she says for myself.”

  She arrived back in the lounge, propelled by a drive that dissipated as she stood in the doorway watching Maureen and Jack together.

  “Jack,” said Carol. “Let me show you our chickens. Your Nana loves to come and feed them sometimes but today I think I’d like you to help me, so she and your mum can have a chat. How about it?” She held out her hand and cocked her head invitingly. Kate threw her a grateful look and sat down in the chair Jack had vacated.

  She took Maureen’s hand and smiled at her.

  “He’s such a lovely boy, that Tom,” said Maureen, staring after Jack fondly. “I always brought him up to mind his Ps and Qs. ‘Manners maketh the man,’ I told him. It costs nothing to be polite.”

  “You did a grand job,” said Kate.

  “I did, didn’t I? He’s wonderful, if I say so myself,” she said, looking fondly at Jack out of the window. “You look ever so much like my granddaughter-in-law, you know.”

  “I get that a lot,” she agreed. “I’m sorry about Tom. You must miss him.”

  “Oh, I do . . . I do. But you mustn’t worry about me. I’ll be seeing him very soon. And my Derek.”

  Kate sighed. It was pointless telling her that Derek, her husband, had been gone for even longer than Tom. He had barely remembered his grandfather.

  She stroked the old woman’s hand absentmindedly while she wondered how to have the conversation required, but then Maureen took the matter into her own hands.

  “They’re dead, you know,” she said suddenly.

  “Who’s dead?”

  “My family. My husband, probably my daughter for all I know, and then even my grandson, Tom. You would have liked him. It’s not right you know . . . to have your children go before you.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I’m nearly there,” she went on, smiling happily out of the window at Jack, who was holding a pan of chicken food as Carol fiddled with the latch of the coop.

  “Nearly there?”

  “Nearly there,” repeated Maureen. “I want to be with them now,” she said, her chin wobbling like a child about to cry. Kate’s eyes filled in sympathy.

  “Do you want to die?” she asked.

  “Of course I do, dear,” she said, her smile returning.

  Kate stood and kissed Maureen tenderly on the forehead, making her smile even wider, her arms reaching up to cradle Kate’s face in her hands.

  “Be happy,” she said, looking into Kate’s eyes searchingly. For a moment, she could see the younger woman there, the energetic, kind, and wise woman who had welcomed Kate into her tiny family. “You need to find yourself a man,” she went on. “A nice man. Like my Tom. He would suit you down to the ground.”

  “I could never replace Tom,” Kate told her sadly, but the moment of clarity was over. Maureen’s eyes clouded, her mind drifting to some place Kate couldn’t reach. As Kate straightened up, she looked back up at her.

  “You look ever so much like my granddaughter-in-law,” she said.

  Late that night, once Kate had gotten a cold and exhausted Jack home after their long journey, she dug out the sign-in details for the savings account where Maureen’s money was. Carol was right. There were the monthly payments to the home—she hadn’t looked at it since the last fee rise had forced her to go in and change the standing order amount. Other than that, there had been no activity, just a pathetically low interest payment on the balance. They had lowered it again, surreptitiously. She didn’t remember getting notification. The money was disappearing, and at a rate which—according to her quick calculations—meant the standing order would bounce in less than six months’ time. If the social care package was removed or reduced, then funding would hit the wall within just a few weeks.

  She filed the login details back in the folder she used for stuff relating to Maureen and added the copy of the Do Not Resuscitate order to the fat stack of paperwork that was Maureen’s Lasting Power of Attorney. In with it was Tom’s copy of his own. She had kept both of them together, never thinking she would need them. Struggling to push it all back into the file, she extracted Tom’s and put it in the recycling bin instead. It was about time.

  11 Days ’til Christmas

  “You gave him your mobile number? Seriously? You don’t know anything about this Daniel bloke,” complained Wayne when they got to their first coffee break on Monday—the traditional weekend report and download session for them all. “He could be a nut job. Why can’t you just pick up randoms online like normal birds do.”

  “Normal birds who pick you?” teased Kate.

  “Yeah,” he shrugged defensively.

  “Not that normal then,” she joked, “and anyway it’s totally not a dating thing. He’s sad. I’m sad. I sort of know him. Well, I feel like I do . . .” she trailed off.

  “Talking of ‘things to discuss,’” Pat reminded her, “we must catch up about the Apple Café thing. I’ve been preparing for this mince pie bake. My idea is that the workers at the café could make mince pies, bring them to the store and then, I am sure, Mr. Wilkins will allow us to help them give them away and ask for donations.”

  “Can’t they just sell them?” asked Kate.

  “I’m not sure they can, dear,” explained Pat. “I think that’s complicated. Better if they give them away.”

  “Actually, I agree,” said Kate, thinking. “I can see that working really well in fact. It’s not just about the fund-raising. It would be great for the café workers to just chat to people . . . form relationships . . . let them know the café is there and open to visitors . . .”

  “They need to be handing out some information about the café with the mince pies,” said Pat excitedly, warming to the theme. “Who will do that?”

  “I think you should go and speak to Brian about it,” suggested Kate, spotting a matchmaking opportunity.

  Pat flushed. “He’s not got time. I wouldn’t know what to say . . .”

  “Or I could go?”

  “No, no, dear,” said Pat hastily. “You’re busy too. I’ll go, perhaps after work today.” Unconsciously she patted her hair. “I look a right state,” she muttered to herself. “I should have made that hair appointment . . .”

  “You look lovely,” Kate reassured her. “And you look remarkably like your sister, by the way.”

  “Ah yes! How was she?” Pat suddenly looked tight-lipped.

  “Fine. Spoke highly of you.”

  “Did she?” She sounded mollified. Kate and Wayne glanced at each other in surprise. “Ursula’s fine, but we don’t get on particularly well. It’s just a sister thing. She knows her job, though. I hope she can help.”

  “So do I,” said Kate, with feeling. “And my other big thing—going back to the Apple Café project—is to organize this bake-off competition.”

  “Baking competition?” said Wayne, his eyes lighting up.

  “Yeerrs?” said Kate, surprised at his enthusiasm.

  “Count me in!”

  “Do you bake?”

  “Do I bake . . . ?” Wayne gave a disparaging laugh at her ignorance. “I’m a ninja baker. How do you think I pull all those birds?”

  “I thought there had to be something.”

  “Seriously, darlin’, I do bread, pies, pastries, big, massive cakes an’ that.”

  “How about fairy cakes—pink icing, silver balls, swirls of buttercream, I love a fairy cake,” teased Kate.

  “Nah, I’m not doing nothing girlie, I’m not a pouf, innit. I do hard man stuff. Endurance cake baker, that’s me.”

  “I hope you’ll ente
r the Christmas cake competition then,” said Pat. “It’s going to be a fight to the death, mind, I should have thought it would suit you down to the ground.”

  “Yeah,” said Wayne, allowing an endearing smile to break through the machismo. “I’ll do that. Seein’ as it’s for charity an’ all. I’m gonna win, mind.”

  “I am sure you will,” said Pat in the voice she usually reserved for children, “but you will have to work. From what I’ve seen those young people at the café are going to be hard to beat.”

  Daniel was nervous. He now wished he had asked Kate to meet him in a café or something. Somewhere neutral. That would have been better. It probably looked a bit dodgy asking a lone woman back to his lair, and according to Paul he had been inadvertently acting like a stalker already. He wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t show. He astonished himself at the wave of sorrow he felt at the thought she would blow him of f. Somehow, though, he wanted—needed—her to see the real him. A real, live Daniel in its natural environment, he joked to himself, as he did a visual check around the narrow boat’s tiny lounge area. Since Zoe had died, he had taken over the “big” bedroom to the front of the boat, with the shaped mattress which fitted into the whole of the pointed bow to make the most of the space. That meant he no longer had to convert the sofa to a bed every night, and not having to store away the bedclothes had created a bit more space too. The cushions on the narrow, padded bench—you could barely call it a sofa really—were thoroughly plumped and carefully positioned. He had managed to find a poinsettia in the market. Zoe had always asked him to buy one at Christmas, when there was so little else available: it was a welcome splash of color. The tiny galley kitchen, within arm’s reach of the sofa, was scrubbed clean; the kettle, teapot, and a pair of matching mugs—bought specially for the occasion—were standing by. He really wasn’t sure what Kate would want. She looked like a yoga bunny, the kind of girl who drank some sort of decaf, skinny, soy chai, whatever that was, with hazelnut syrup and a sprinkling of mung beans or something . . . He was more of an espresso man himself—hot, black, and a big spoon of brown sugar—so he needed nothing more than his trusty stovetop espresso maker, which he also had standing by now. He had gone out to buy cookies from the fancy delicatessen on the harbor. The cute girl behind the counter, who fluttered her eyelashes at him suggestively, had managed to get him to spring for some astonishingly expensive and complicated looking green tea, matcha powder stuff, which she told him was full of antioxidants and consequently all the rage. Just in case Kate did insist on nondairy—so many girls regarded cow’s milk as akin to cyanide—he chucked in a liter carton of dodgy looking soya milk too.