from the back of the house. There’s a huge expanse of windows that they both put in in the Seventies, way before they were trendy, and the view from this part of the house is spectacular. Today there are too many sailing boats to count. Some glide across the shimmering water like a knife through butter. Others, not quite catching the wind, move more slowly. Dad’s eyes seem fixed on a small, slow one near the edge of the lake, close to the end of the back garden.
Leah and Gus are already with him. She has her hands wrapped around one of his, is chatting animatedly to him with Gus beside her, prompting stories with witty asides. Dad responds to neither of them but he keeps his eyes fixed on Leah’s face. She’s good at this, pretending that nothing is wrong; pretending that the contracted body of the man in the chair is still Dad, though both of us mourn in private. Both of us hate how the stroke has affected him; how much that tiny part of him that died in his brain, the most minuscule area of shaded capillaries on a CT scan, has really altered him. I lean in and kiss his cheek. I haven’t told him yet. Mum has asked me not to, certain that if he knew – if he had any understanding of what’s happened to Anna – it would kill him. He’d keel over and die. Anna is his only grandchild.
I focus on the shelf next to us. It’s white melamine; one of a row of three put up by Dad years ago. I remember Mum fussing when he used the drill to put the brackets in the wall, sure he’d puncture a gas pipe or electrocute himself. The shelves are still in place, perfectly stable and horizontal, while my dad sits curved in a chair. I reach out and touch a Dinky car, one of the many he has collected over the years. It’s not in a box like most of the others on display. It is from the Thunderbirds range, Lady Penelope’s pink car. Anna used to love it and it’s one of the ones he allowed her to play with when she was little.
Mum is pottering, hovering. It’s making me antsy. At seventy-two, she’s ten years younger than Dad and moves at a speed that belies her age. I have no idea how she cares for my father the way she does: her energy is boundless; her love for him so huge that nothing is too much.
‘Can I help, Mum?’ I call out after her as she heads to the kitchen to bring another foil-covered vegetable dish to the table.
‘No, love. Talk to your dad. He’s been so looking forward to seeing you.’
Leah looks at me. Neither of us asks the obvious question. Neither of us would, but how can she know what Dad is thinking when he rarely speaks nowadays?
He moves in the chair. Pug has taken up residence by his feet, lying on the green carpet that must be thirty years old and looks like AstroTurf. Dad’s blanket, a loose lilac-coloured, stitched crochet one I recognize from my childhood, slips forward. I catch it and pull it up on his knees. I notice his fringe is long enough to push to one side and he’s wearing odd socks. Mum is by my side with a bowl of roast potatoes in her hand. ‘Talk to him! Honestly! He’s not daft, you know.’
I shift in my chair. It’s easy to pretend my father is not a shadow of his former self when I don’t visit. It’s less easy to start a conversation with him right now. I take his hand. ‘How are you, Dad?’ I ask. ‘How are you really?’ I make my eyes move from the plaid shirt he wears to his eyes. Gus, always a little uncomfortable with the changes in Dad, leaves Leah and me to it and follows Mum, insisting on helping her in the kitchen.
Dad’s face angles a little towards me. Today his speech is not good. He makes sounds, struggles with the formation of words, but I know what he’s saying. ‘The girl.’
I lean in to him, rest my head on his shoulder. ‘Yes, Dad, I’m the girl.’
Leah laughs and sticks her tongue out at me. ‘Always the favourite,’ she mutters before she stands and follows Gus.
Dad repeats the sounds and I catch the question in it this time. I wonder if he’s asking about Rose. Or if he’s asking about Anna …
‘No, darling.’ Mum is on it like a hawk on a vole. ‘No, Anna’s not here today.’
My lips tremble. I catch my mother’s eye as she shakes her head at me. ‘No.’ I squeeze Dad’s hand. ‘Not today.’
My father nods and his eyes veer back to the boats. I sit back, still holding his hand, am cast back to the many times I sat here on his knee watching the same scene. It was an idyllic childhood, both Leah and I lucky enough to grow up in this beautiful place. And Anna loves it here. Right now as I look at the green space between the house and the water, I can almost hear her laughter; see her running as her granddad chases her. He taught her so much; taking her out on the water in a tiny dinghy, so small it made my heart skip a beat when they both left shore. It was my father who taught Anna to sail. It was my father who took us all on what was Anna’s first snow holiday. It was my father who taught her to ski.
I stand up, pass the table, filled with enough food to feed an army. My mother has used a white tablecloth; has place settings in her best bone-handled cutlery, linen napkins with tiny embroidered daisies. A pitcher full of home-made lemonade sits in the centre and I pray that she also has something stronger as well as I head to the loo.
In the cloakroom, an apple-scented diffuser does its job so well, I almost gag. My heartbeat is rapid and I have a sudden and overwhelming urge to leave; just open the front door and go. Anna is telling me to calm down, but I’m talking back to her telling her that I’m okay, I’ll just sneak out for a bit and take Pug for a walk.
There is a gentle knock on the door and I grip the edge of the sink. ‘Coming,’ I say.
My mother opens the door anyway, shuts it behind her. ‘Food’s ready, darling. Who were you talking to?’
‘Myself.’
She hugs me again. ‘I do that all the time.’
‘I pretend she’s here. I pretend she’s here and talk to her,’ I whisper to her lined neck, to her soft piccalilli curls.
‘I know … Don’t knock it if it helps. C’mon.’ She rubs my arms up and down with her hands. ‘Let’s eat, we’re all famished.’ She goes to leave.
‘Sometimes,’ I tell her, ‘it feels like I’m losing my mind. I just need to see her one more time. Just once – to tell her how loved she is and if she has to go, then, I …’ I shake my head. Our eyes meet and my mother’s fill. I smudge her tears away with my thumb.
‘I talk out loud to your father all the time,’ she says. ‘And I imagine him talking back to me the way he used to, not in the broken sentences he can manage now. I imagine him and me arguing during Question Time. Jess, he’s here physically, but I lost a big part of him in the first stroke. We both understand loss, you and I.’
‘God, Mum.’ I pull her back to me. ‘Am I ever going to be able to feel again?’
‘You will. Because you have to. You have Rose.’
‘I’m sorry I’ve been staying away. Everything. Anna, Dad, it’s all so hard. I feel like an exhausted ninety-year-old.’
‘You’re still a young woman, Jess.’
I attempt a laugh. ‘Not that young any more.’
‘You have a life to lead. Don’t waste it; don’t wither on the vine. Anna would never forgive you. Your beautiful girl would hate that.’ Her tears have traced thin parallel lines down her cheeks. She reaches forward, pulls some toilet paper from the roll and wipes her face.
‘I
