Final Cut(23)

It’s Daisy’s mother.





14


According to Google, there’s only one care home in the area, Holbrooke House. I take a taxi. The open road is like coming up for air and I realise I’ve been feeling like I’m in a sealed room, holding my breath, anxious for my next gulp of oxygen. I shiver as we drive past the spot where my car ended up in the ditch, remembering the vacant, unseeing stare of the dead sheep. I half expect to see it still there, but there’s no sign anything happened. The view is desolate, just miles and miles of emptiness in the dank afternoon light.

We drive through a village even tinier than Blackwood Bay – just three or four houses and a pub that looks closed – and a little way after it pass a narrow track leading down towards a church. The road winds until we turn off and into a lit drive that curves towards a large red-brick building. It’s more modern than I was expecting and seems to consist of two wings. Above the main door a sign reads Holbrooke House, Residential Care Home. We pull into the car park and I unbuckle, suddenly nervous, and get out of the car.

The doors slide open with a sigh. I introduce myself to the woman at reception. She looks me up and down – I’m glad I’ve put my camera in my bag – and asks if she can help.

‘Yes,’ I say, smiling. She has a pink streak in her hair, a ring through her nose. ‘I’m here to visit Geraldine Willis.’

‘Oh, right,’ she says. ‘And how do you know Geraldine?’

I look her in the eye. ‘She’s my aunt.’

Her head tilts with evident suspicion, but I hold her gaze. ‘I’ve been away.’

She dithers for a moment then pushes a book towards me and asks me to sign.

‘How is she today?’

‘The usual.’

It tells me nothing, but I smile sadly. ‘You must know her well. She’s been here … how many years now?’

She shrugs without interest. ‘At least six. That’s when I started, and she were here then.’

I thank her and she points me up the stairs.

I pause on the landing. The air is thick, invasive like smoke and far too hot, and I begin to sweat. A little way along the long corridor there’s a brightly lit nursing station at which sits a woman in a pale green tunic, and at the end I can see a glass-walled room, a few armchairs, the flicker of a television.

‘I’m looking for Geraldine?’ I say to the nurse.

‘Halfway along. If not, try the day room.’

I head towards the light. An old woman shuffles towards me using a frame, her skin parched and liver-spotted, her hair glowing like orange floss. A little further on I find Geraldine’s room. Her name is on the door, alongside a laminated photograph. I hesitate outside; I want to prepare myself.

I think back to what Bryan told me about the drink and drugs. I know what they can do; I saw it on the streets. People whose addictions had left them with memory difficulties, motor problems, as good as killing them in some cases. People who barely even knew who they were, people who’d never be independent again.

I steel myself to enter. Geraldine is sitting hunched in an armchair, dressed in a tracksuit several sizes too big, staring at the TV that’s bolted to the wall. She seems almost unreal, but recognition shudders through me. Only now do I wonder why I’d assumed Bryan meant she was dead.

‘Geraldine?’

She doesn’t look away from the screen and I call her name once more. This time, she moves her head, her movements slow and uncoordinated. There’s a slight tremor, a doll-like wobble, as if some joint is working loose, as if she’s in danger of falling apart completely.

‘Is that you?’ she says.

I take another step towards her. It’s doubtful she, of all people, would recognise me, but I can’t be sure.

‘Geraldine?’

The remote sits on the arm of her chair and her hands shake as she reaches for it. Up close, she looks much older than her years; her features are sunken, her hair loose and untidy. She seems hollowed out, eaten away from the inside. Her eyes are dull, a grey-green colour, but when she turns her gaze on me they flash for a moment, as if something has sparked, some internal connection made.

‘What is it, love?’ she says. Her eyes have dulled once more and she’s looking past me now, over my shoulder. ‘Is it time?’

There’s a jug of water on the table. I pour myself a cup and, with trembling hands, pass one to Geraldine, too. I shouldn’t have come here, I shouldn’t be disturbing her. I need to retreat. I need to find my safe place.

I take out my camera. At first, I think she hasn’t noticed, but then her eyes swivel towards it. ‘What’s that? Are you taking my picture?’

‘D’you mind?’

She answers only with an ambiguous shrug, so I press Record and put the camera on the dresser.

‘My name’s Alex.’

Her cup wobbles as she brings it to her lips, but when I go to help she shoos me away. She spills only a little, then hands it back.

‘I saw you, y’know?’ She waves vaguely towards the window. ‘I were watching you. That yer fella?’

Does she mean the taxi driver? He’s down there, in the car park. I wonder how much Geraldine sees, what connections she makes. How she fills the gaps that are left.

I think of my own gaps. I managed to piece most of my story together, but so many of my memories seem borrowed, and so many are absent completely. In some ways, that’s merciful. Maybe some gaps are protective.