The Switch(15)

I reach for the laptop again. Every time I remember that I can’t go to work on Monday I feel wretched, useless, afraid. I need something to do, to help, to stop me thinking about all the ways I’ve messed up.

I change the search area on the dating site, and suddenly: hello, four-hundred men between the ages of seventy and eighty-five, looking for love.

‘I have an idea,’ I tell her. ‘Hear me out, OK? There’s hundreds of eligible men in London.’

Grandma turns her empty mug between her hands. ‘I told you, Leena – your mum needs me here at the moment. I can’t come down to London.’

‘Mum will be fine.’

‘Oh, she will, will she?’ Grandma says.

‘You need a break, Grandma. You deserve a break. Come on. Tell me: why was it you wanted to go to London when you were younger?’

‘I wanted to change the world,’ Grandma says, with a little smile. ‘I suppose I thought London was the place where the … big things happened. And I wanted an adventure. I wanted to …’ she waves her arms grandly ‘… to hail down a cab with a dashing stranger and let him take me home. To walk across London Bridge on a mission with the wind in my hair. I suppose I wanted to be somebody important.’

‘Grandma! You are important! Hamleigh would fall apart without you, for starters. How many times have you saved the village shop, now? Five?’

She smiles. ‘I’m not saying I never did anything useful. I made your mother, and she made you and Carla, and that’s enough for me.’

I squeeze her hand. ‘What was the job? The one you turned down, for Grandpa?’

Grandma looks down at the table. ‘It was for a charity. They set up community centres for youngsters in deprived areas. It would have been typing and fetching coffee, I expect. But it felt like the start. I had chosen a flat, too, not far from where you live now, though the area was rather different back then.’

‘You were going to live in Shoreditch?’ I say, fascinated. ‘That’s so …’ I can’t imagine what my grandmother would have been like if she’d taken that job. It’s such a strange thought.

‘Hard to believe?’ she asks wryly.

‘No! It’s so great, Grandma. You have to come and stay with me! We can have an adventure in Shoreditch, just like you wanted to.’

‘I’m not leaving your mother, not now,’ Grandma says firmly. ‘And I’ve got far too much on my plate here to be going away. That’s that, Leena.’

There she goes again, that’s that-ing. I’m feeling a little buzzy, the way I used to feel at work; I haven’t felt this rush for ages. I know this is the right thing for Grandma – it’s exactly what she needs.

I think suddenly of what Bee said, about finding myself, getting myself back. I’ve been hiding in London, buried in work. I’ve been avoiding my mother. I’ve been avoiding it all, really. But I’ve got two months to sort myself out. And given that I can’t even look at the house where Carla died …

It feels like this might be the place to start.

‘Grandma … what if we swapped?’ I say. ‘What if I came up and looked after all your projects, and you had my flat in London, and I stayed here?’

Grandma looks up at me. ‘Swapped?’

‘Swapped places. You do the London thing! Try dating in the city, have your adventure … remind yourself of who you were before Grandpa Wade. And I’ll come up here. Switch off for a bit in the countryside, try to – to get my head around everything that’s happened, and I’ll look after your little projects, and … help Mum out if she needs it. I’ll do whatever it is you do for her, you know, any errands and stuff.’ I feel a bit dizzy, all of a sudden. Is this a good idea? It’s quite extreme, even by my standards.

Grandma’s eyes turn thoughtful. ‘You’d stay here? And be there for Marian when she needs you?’

I can see what she’s thinking. She never says as much, but I know she’s been desperate to get Mum and me talking again ever since Carla died. As it happens, I think Mum is coping a hell of a lot better than Grandma thinks – she certainly doesn’t need to be waited on hand and foot – but if Grandma needs to feel I’ll do everything she does for Mum, then …

‘Yeah, sure, absolutely.’ I twist the laptop her way. ‘Check it out, Grandma. Four-hundred men just waiting to meet you in London.’

Grandma pops her glasses back on. ‘Gosh,’ she says, looking at the pictures on the screen. The glasses come off again and her gaze drops to the table. ‘But I have other responsibilities here too. There’s the Neighbourhood Watch, there’s Ant and Dec, there’s driving the van to bingo … I couldn’t ask you to take all of that on.’

I suppress a smile at Grandma’s grand list of responsibilities. ‘You’re not asking. I’m offering,’ I tell her.

There’s a long silence.

‘This seems a bit crackers,’ Grandma says eventually.

‘I know. It is, a bit. But I think it’s genius, too.’ I grin. ‘I will not take no for an answer, and you know when I say that, I one hundred per cent mean it.’

Grandma looks amused. ‘That’s true enough.’ She breathes out slowly. ‘Gosh. Do you think I can handle London?’