Just Last Night(40)

“Hello, Eve!” he says. He looks a little more sunken in his sweater than I remember, a little thinner on top, but otherwise incredibly well and unchanged, all considered.

“Hi!” I say. And “I wasn’t sure if you’d remember me,” which is meant as politeness and, I think, maybe not what you say to someone with Alzheimer’s.

“Of course I do. You’re Susie’s lovely friend.”

I am momentarily so wrong-footed I can’t speak, both by him knowing my connection to his daughter, and the mention of his daughter.

“Yes!” I say. “Well. Hope I’m lovely, haha.”

“Come in, come in, good to see you.” He hustles me in, seemingly with real enthusiasm and pleasure.

The hallway beyond is a time capsule to me—the same round table by the side of the wide stairs, with the cream plastic rotary landline sitting on a doily kind of mini tablecloth. The thick plushy pile beneath our feet is the color of a hamster.

Fashions of all kinds passed the Harts by. Susie’s glitzy, ritzy mum liked Dubonnets and lemonade, a Dynasty blow-dry, and her downstairs loo to be a symphony of shrimp-pink. Adolescent Susie declared it all “tacky”; I loved it as pure exotica.

“I wonder if you wanted any shopping getting in, see how you’re getting on?” I say.

“Hah, thank you, I’m not that useless yet! The only drive out the car gets is to Sainsbury’s.”

My plan with Mr. Hart was simply: make him this non-specific offer, which, if he seems entirely lucid and announces he has no need of such help, I can row back from without too much embarrassment. It didn’t seem worthwhile plotting out a strategy when I had no idea what his state of mind would be like.

Now what?

“No, I’m very well, thank you, Eve. But how are you? I’ve not seen you in ages! Susie never brings you ’round.”

I flinch at the mention of her. I had guessed he wouldn’t have held on to the fact she’s dead, but it’s still a shock for him to demonstrate it.

“I’ve been busy,” I say.

“Sure you two haven’t had a falling-out?” he says.

“Definitely not,” I say, and then, haltingly: “Close as ever.” As I say those three words, my voice suddenly thickens and my throat closes up, and I pray he doesn’t notice.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” he says, and I accept, thinking, I will get a look at the state of things, domestically.

Susie insisted that while her dad didn’t have a grasp of which year it was, or correspondingly, his time of life—thinking he was off work, marveling that his holidays felt so lengthy—he was absolutely himself in regards to every practicality. She’d been through his bank statements, made sure his clothes were clean, checked the fridge. There was never anything to do. Chunks of his memory had fallen away like masonry, but tasks right in front of him were fine.

I follow him through to their sunshine-yellow kitchen with its frothy white blinds—tart’s knickers, my mum used to call that style—and watch Mr. Hart fill a kettle, get a polka-dotted cup from the cupboard.

“Has everything been OK with you?” I say.

“Not too bad,” he says. “Some aches and pains, you know, but that’s age, isn’t it. I’m still managing the garden. Eric still comes over once a month for the heavy lifting.”

“Oh yes!” I step forward and peer out the window at a garden that’s every bit as manicured and brochure-perfect as I remember. “It looks wonderful.”

“How are things at college?” he says. “Not too worried about your exams?”

Aside from the lack of understanding about Susie being gone, he’s not said anything overtly odd until now and I try not to look startled. I’m pretty sure Justin’s told me that with dementia, following the person into the delusion is preferable to fighting it and upsetting them.

“No, no. I’ve done my revision,” I say. “Feeling confident.”

Extra confident given I got my three As and two Bs, sixteen years ago.

As Mr. Hart’s finishing dunking the tea bag and is about to hand the cup to me, the doorbell goes again.

He trots off to answer it and I hear male voices in the storm porch in a conversation that becomes, in pitch, if not a quarrel, then certainly more fraught than a chat.

One line becomes distinct:

“Look, I’ve told you. You’ve got the wrong house.”

Finlay Hart looks as overjoyed to see me, hovering behind his father, as I am to see his moody visage in the darkening evening.

“Can you tell this young man who I am, please, Eve?” Mr. Hart says. “He’s convinced he’s some relation. I’ve never seen him before in my life. Oh, hang on, your tea will be getting cold.”

He disappears back to the kitchen and Fin steps inside and closes the door behind him.

“What are you doing here?” he says, in a low, forbidding voice.

“I came to see how he is.”

“And what do you think?” Fin says, though there’s no genuine inquiry in it.

“He seems OK, I think? Not distressed, anyway.”

“Well, he’s . . .” Finlay stops as the door moves.

“Here you go,” Mr. Hart says, reappearing with the Tetley’s, which I accept. He seems momentarily taken aback that Fin is now in the door and says to me: “Ah, I see—do you know this man?”