My mother’s acting genes had not gone to waste. My character research was well underway before I made that first phone call to the care home. I watched a few old episodes of TOWIE and hung around Brentham High Street, listening to people in shops and eavesdropping on teenagers in Starbucks. Mimicry had always come easily to me. By the age of five I could spook Isobel with my impression of her. Don’t be naughty, darling.
After plenty of rehearsal, I called Birch Grove. Hiya. Are you looking for any care workers at the moment?
18
Monday, 26 October 2015
The e-mail arrives just after 8 p.m. [email protected]. The subject line reads Forms n Stuff. Hands trembling, I open it.
Hiya sorry too hassel u. Hope its OK to e? Got your add from the office. Was gonna print out my application stuff and give it too u at the wknd but you didn’t turn up. Hope u r OK? Attached my statement thing but no probs if u r to busy too look. Cheers if u do. See u soon? Ems.
The warm laptop hums against my thighs. I shift to the edge of the sofa and resettle it on my knees before reading the e-mail again.
Hope it’s OK to e?
Not really, but I suppose all the staff have access to my contact details.
See U soon? Ems.
Sweat coats the back of my neck. Over the past nine days, I’ve managed to put what happened in the passageway to the back of my mind. Now this e-mail has sabotaged my efforts. I don’t know what’s worse, the memory of having a panic attack or the fact I followed a girl I hardly know back to her home for no reason.
I could put off answering the message, but that wouldn’t be fair. Emma’s a decent girl and deserves the help I promised. The application must be important for her to contact me.
Hi, Emma. Thanks for your e-mail. Good you’ve made a start with the forms. I’m happy to take a look. I won’t be in to visit Mum this weekend so I can either e-mail my thoughts to you or we can speak when I come to Birch Grove the weekend after next. Hope all is good with you. Best wishes, Grace.
After hitting send, I sit in silence for a while before placing the laptop on the coffee table. I get up and switch on the overhead lights, flushing the darkness from all corners of the room.
My mobile rings. Hesitant, I pick it up from the breakfast bar and see John’s name on the caller display.
‘Hi, gorgeous,’ he says when I answer.
‘Didn’t expect to hear from you today.’
‘Just been to the gym. Thought I’d call before I head home.’
Home to eat dinner with his wife. Home to play with his kids. I should hang up but don’t want to be alone with my thoughts.
‘Grace? You there?’
‘Sorry. Yes.’ He will be calling from his car as usual. I don’t ask where he’s parked. A quiet side street maybe, a lay-by, a secluded corner of the gym car park.
‘I’ve been thinking about you all day,’ he says.
‘Really?’ I can’t help smiling. ‘Shouldn’t you have been finding devious ways to move rich people’s money around?’
‘I did a bit of that too. Seriously though, I’ve been thinking about our last phone call. That was quite something.’
‘I aim to please.’
He laughs. ‘Satisfying as these calls are, I hope I’m going to see you in person this weekend?’
‘Sorry. I’m not planning to come down.’
‘What kind of daughter doesn’t visit her mother two weeks in a row?’ he says, mock serious.
‘The kind whose mother is driving her nuts.’ My reply sounds lighthearted, but I mean it. The stress of dealing with Mum has finally got to me. Why else would I do something as bizarre as following Emma? ‘I’m just having a bad few days,’ I say.
A fine line glitters. Will John cross it? Will he insist I tell him more and let me make emotional demands not covered by our arrangement?
‘What are you wearing?’ he asks. His question is my fault. That day in the laundry room, I ordered him not to climax inside me. Confused, he asked if I was on the pill. Yes, I told him, but we had to have boundaries. He understood right away. Our sex had to be different from the sex he had with his wife. We couldn’t get too involved.
‘I’m wearing tracksuit bottoms,’ I say, ‘with an old sweatshirt and very warm socks.’
‘Sexy.’
‘That’s me.’
‘You’d look good in anything.’ His voice is deep and breathy; I can tell he is raring to go. Probably has his zip undone already, tissues at hand to remove the evidence. ‘Tell me a story,’ he says.
I’m not in the mood but don’t want the call to end. ‘Once upon a time.’ I return to the sofa and lie down.
‘Once upon a time, what?’ he says.
I make up a fantasy, the two of us meeting as strangers in a park on a hot summer’s day. Me in a floaty dress without underwear. Sitting on his lap under the shade of a leafy tree. His fingers inside me.
John groans with pleasure as he touches himself. I usually enjoy my inventiveness, the variety of settings, characters and positions that pour out of me, but tonight I need to talk about other things. I need to tell him I don’t feel right, that I haven’t felt right for some time. I need to talk about Mum and my fears for the future, but instead I gasp and moan and pretend to be touching myself too.
***
After John hangs up, I fish my Marlboro Lights from my handbag, slip on my coat and step out onto the balcony. My cigarette is lit within seconds; the old habit back in my life as if I’d never escaped it. I exhale the first drag into the raw, damp air, at one with the teenagers in the park below. By the time the cigarette runs out, I’ve resolved to put the past couple of weeks behind me and pull myself together.
I return inside and take my laptop to the breakfast bar, determined to read through Emma’s application and get it out of the way.
What I think will be the best about the foundations in Health and social Care is I will get too learn about what I luv. I have not been a worker with the eldarly for very long but it really is fun and I think im pretty good at it!!!!!! I wood like one day too maybe manage a care home or train as a nurse.
I stop reading. Emma’s statement will take more than a few tweaks to get it right. Some of my intermediate-level students have a better grasp of English. I open a blank document, intending to jot down a few suggestions, but instead I stare at the empty screen, fingers quivering over the keys.
A tremor in my guts as the buried fault line shifts and cracks. I see myself crouching on smooth, cool flagstones, surrounded by fag butts, greasy chip paper and empty Carlsberg bottles. The bottles clink as I press myself against the rough stone wall of the passageway. I shiver in the darkness. I hear wheels rumbling over the cobblestones of the street nearby. Hiding is pointless. She will find me. She always finds me.
The image erases itself. My fingers stab at the laptop keyboard.
My name is Grace Walker. It is 9.16 p.m. I am wearing grey tracksuit bottoms and a black sweatshirt. I am in my living room.
I stare at what I have written. Then I delete it all.
19
Tuesday, 5 September 1995
Royal Edinburgh Hospital
My name is Grace Walker. It is 5.19 p.m. I am in my room on Simpson Ward.
I know who I am. I know where I am. That’s something. The flashbacks come and go. One minute the past and the present are in their proper place, the next they are trying to trick me.
My name is Grace Walker. It is 5.20 p.m. I am wearing jeans and a navy T-shirt. Writing down simple facts seems to help. Makes me feel grounded.
This morning I had a flashback to the passageway. Saw myself on the floor like an animal, back against the wall. Eyes squeezed shut, hoping that would protect me from her. She called my name as she got closer. That sweet, high voice only I could hear. I told her this couldn’t go on, this behaviour had to stop. She replied with her hands, her small, soft hands on my thighs, on my belly, at my throat. Where did all the air go?
I’m safe
from her in here. That’s something. Must remember this at nights when terrified I will never get out.
She and I are done. It’s over.
Simon (Dr Jamieson) gave me this notebook and pen this morning. He told me to keep a diary, write stuff down, get things out of my head. Said some patients find this useful. I asked if I had to let him read the diary, and he smiled and said, no. Said this was a hospital not a prison. He also reminded me I came here voluntarily. Thank God they kept me at the police station long enough for me to calm down. Long enough for me to understand that if I didn’t agree to go with them to the hospital, I would be admitted under section.
Simon is young and has a kind face, and I believe what he says. He has a soft, well-spoken voice. He wears beige chinos with a blue-and-white-striped shirt and brown deck shoes. The room we met in had bare blue walls, a desk and two swivel chairs. He doesn’t know much about why I’m here. When the police dropped me off, they handed me over to a stern nurse in her fifties, who took me to a room and asked me to get undressed. Once naked, I crossed my arms over my stomach, scared she might examine me, but she handed me a gown and then weighed me and took my blood pressure. She seemed in a rush.
Simon described what happened to me as an episode. A brief psychotic episode. I asked if it would happen again. What if I kept losing myself? He said he hoped it was an isolated incident, but he couldn’t guarantee it. He said it would help to have some idea of what had triggered the episode.
‘Maybe you could write down what you remember?’ he said. ‘Try and establish a narrative of events.’
‘Like a confession?’ I said.
He removed his round, wire-framed glasses, leaned towards me and said, ‘Do you consider yourself a criminal, Grace?’
20
Wednesday, 4 November 2015
Black, thunderous clouds crowded the sky outside my grandmother’s window, but we didn’t care. We had News 24 on with no volume and Neil Diamond singing ‘Forever in Blue Jeans’ full blast—a song about how being with the people you love is much more important than money.
‘Well true, Neil,’ I said, ‘well true.’ I always kept up Emma’s accent, even when it was just me and Grandma. Better to be on the safe side and besides, she liked Emma. Everyone liked Emma.
My grandmother hummed along, a totally different tune to the one blaring from the CD player, but she seemed happy enough. She didn’t protest as I rubbed off the remains of her latest manicure with nail varnish remover. The pearly pink had begun to chip, and I didn’t want her looking scruffy.
‘Why was Grace a sinner?’ I asked, trying to catch her off guard. Every now and then I threw in a question like this, to try and discover how much she knew. As always she responded with a vacant look. Poor woman. Even if she had known anything, she’d probably forgotten it by now.
My phone buzzed in my tunic pocket. Carrying our mobiles around with us on duty was forbidden, but everyone did it.
Hey! How’s ur Gran? Tell her to get well soon so I can see more of u!!xxx
‘Have I shown you a picture of my boyfriend?’ I asked Grandma.
She pointed at the TV. ‘Lorraine Kelly’s lost a bit of weight.’
I held up a selfie of Ryan and I standing next to Kylie Minogue’s statue in Madame Tussauds. ‘Ryan said he’d always wanted to be in a threesome with Kylie, so we took this picture.’ I explained our thing of going to each other’s favourite places. ‘Tussauds was his choice, not mine,’ I said. ‘I’ve never been before, but it was actually quite fun.’
My grandmother paid no attention.
‘Honestly,’ I said, ‘you could at least look. It’s not easy me coming down here all the time.’ I put my phone away. ‘Ryan’s not happy about it, you know.’
A bit of an exaggeration, but when I’d told Ryan that my gran in Brentham was out of hospital but in need of my help a few days a week, he did ask questions. How come I had to do it? Shouldn’t my gran have proper carers or other relatives to assist her? Did I want him to come with me one time? I insisted that helping my gran was no problem; after all, I’d wanted to do something worthwhile. He thought my nights away were spent in my grandmother’s house.
I fetched her hairbrush and moved it gently through her sparse hair.
‘Grace?’ she moaned.
Irritation flashed through me. ‘You won’t be seeing her for a while,’ I said for the tenth time that morning. ‘She’s not coming this weekend.’
The arrival of my mother’s e-mail in my inbox last week had left me euphoric. My first ever written communication from her. Then I’d read it and anger kicked in. Twelve more days until I saw her. How would I stand it?
‘Grace?’ said my grandmother.
‘Shut up.’ I was sick of hearing my absent mother’s name. She was never there when I needed her. Grandma squealed as I dragged the brush hard against her scalp. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, dropping the brush on the bed. ‘Sorry.’
‘Only trying,’ she whispered.
‘You can be…’ I pinched her cheek so she’d know I was joking. She could be infuriating at times, but I never stayed mad with her for long. Wasn’t that always the way with family?
‘I suppose my mother does deserve a break,’ I said. ‘She was so stressed when I saw her, she cadged a fag off me.’ My grandmother was lost to the TV. Just as well, I didn’t mean to grass my mother up for smoking. ‘Maybe I’ll send her a gift to cheer her up. Her job must be proper draining with all those students sucking her dry.’
Grandma shifted position and ended up slumped across her pillows.
‘Don’t want you falling out again,’ I said, straightening her up. Finding her on the floor last time had upset me. Seeing her lying there, fragile and helpless like a wounded bird. I’d stayed with her, reading out quotes from her Bible to calm her down. I picked the ones she’d underlined, and despite not being a fan of the Good Book I appreciated her choices. One of the proverbs stayed with me. ‘The crown of the aged is their grandchildren.’
Afterwards, all the staff praised me for helping her. Kegs said I had a gift for caring. I enjoyed the attention, even if was meant for Emma and not me. The gift voucher my mother sent here for me showed I’d gone up in her estimation.
After the fall, Vera had instructed us to pull up the safety rails at either side of Grandma’s bed whenever she was alone. As I settled my grandmother back into her pillows, I considered leaving the railings down and hanging around in case she fell again, and lo and behold there I’d be like a guardian angel. Or, a more merciful option, I could help her out of bed, ease her down to the floor and pretend she’d fallen. Kegs would ring my mother again, and maybe she’d come down sooner.
I yanked up the safety rails. ‘See you later, Grandma.’ I kissed her soft, warm cheek. ‘I could never hurt you. We’re family.’
***
I headed for the kitchen. Morning tea break approached, and I needed to get the trolley ready. My Birch Grove keys clinked in my pocket as I walked. A noise that made me feel important and responsible. Like I belonged.
In the corridor, I met Surinder.
‘Hiya, babes,’ she said.
‘Hiya, babes,’ I said back. A typical Emma–Surinder exchange.
‘Oh my God,’ she gushed, ‘I love your leggings.’
‘I know, they’re well lush. H&M.’ I longed to boast about the gift card from my mother, but I’d already told everyone at Birch Grove my mum was dead.
‘The purple swirly bits totally match your tunic.’ Surinder tucked her long black hair behind her ears and pointed to the gold studs that decorated them. ‘You like?’
‘Well nice.’
‘Arun got me them. He’s in my good books now.’ I liked Surinder. She was only two years older than me but had two sons already. She and her husband, Arun, didn’t have much money but they loved their kids. That was all that mattered.
‘Sure you can’t come to the fireworks tomorrow?’ she said.
‘Nah, sorry.’ She’d invited me to
a Bonfire Night event with Arun and the boys, but I’d pretended to be attending one in Colchester with some old school friends. I’d also refused Ryan’s invitation to join him and his mates for the fireworks in Hackney, claiming I’d be with my grandmother. So many excuses to keep track of.
‘Fag later?’ Surinder called out as she carried on down the corridor.
‘Totes.’
On my way past the TV room, I spotted Mrs Palethorpe doing her slack puppet impression in one of the armchairs. I called most residents by their first names, but Mrs Palethorpe didn’t invite that sort of intimacy. She could be scary when she was on one, but today she appeared to have the whole of Birch Grove’s medicine cabinet inside her. Drool sparkled on her chin and her vacant eyes gazed at the wall. Poor old thing. Being pumped full of sedatives was no fun. I should know.
In reception, Brenda and Memory were having their usual argument—Memory wanting to wipe down the desk and Brenda telling her she didn’t have any record in the diary of cleaners coming into the office. I admired Brenda, messing with Memory like that; I wouldn’t have dared. Memory always looked at me like she knew what I was up to.
The door to Kegs’s office opened, and Kegs showed out Mrs Palethorpe’s son, John. Vera once described John as dishy, but I didn’t think he was anything special.
‘Cheers, mate,’ John said to Kegs as he left, ‘we appreciate everything you’re doing.’
‘Emma,’ Kegs said when he saw me, ‘have you got a minute?’
My heart stuttered. ‘I was just off to get the tea trolley sorted.’
‘Won’t take long.’ Kegs returned to his office. I followed him and waited in the doorway, legs trembling. What if he was on to me?
‘Don’t look so worried,’ he said. ‘I just want a quick chat.’
A quick chat about what? My references? I closed the door behind me and claimed the only chair not covered with cardboard boxes.
‘Sorry about the mess,’ Kegs said. ‘Some of the Christmas decorations arrived this morning.’
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