Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
‘Kay, look at the antlers, they are lovely,’ Janey, the lady sitting at the reception desk, says.
‘They jingle and everything,’ I add, shaking my head from side to side.
She laughs. ‘Then that is perfect.’ She pushes the sign-in book in front of me, looking at my festive dress and red Doc Martens with glittery laces. Don’t tell me I don’t know how to make an effort. As this is one of the first events in my book drive, I wanted to pull out all the stops.
‘People are very much looking forward to this book event, you know?’ she tells me.
‘Some of our residents get a little lost at this time of year.’ It’s probably the reason why I made this home my first port of call because I saw it with my own eyes last year when visiting Nana.
It wasn’t people who’d been abandoned per se but ones who missed out on the magic that led up to Christmas, because it should be a season, not simply a few days.
‘I’m glad,’ I say, trying to balance the boxes of books near the counter.
I gaze up and around at this place. I love the effort they put in to make it look as colourful and homely as they can at Christmas, the fact that every colour is represented in their decorations, the fact none of it really matches.
Behind the reception are bits of string holding cards up, tinsel around every door and window frame, and coloured lights flashing hypnotic patterns.
‘Is it just you?’ she asks.
‘Oh, no. I’ve brought Santa,’ I say.
She peers around me until she sees the door of the home open again and, in costume and holding two boxes of books expertly under his arms, in walks Santa himself. Janey stares up at me and then back to him. Yes, I know. He looks more like an underwear model but work with me here.
‘Janey, this is Nick.’
She giggles. ‘Well, I knew that already.’
‘A pleasure, Janey,’ he replies, and she adjusts herself in her seat.
‘Where am I going with these?’ he says, turning to me.
‘Right down that corridor to the day room. It’s signed, you can’t miss it. I’ll join you in a second,’ I say.
He smiles back at me. Since Nick rescued me from that lay-by with his brother, I’ve leant into him offering me help with this book drive but with renewed reservations, now that I remember he’s that idiot I spoke to on the phone when Nana had that massive Christmas tree delivered.
I haven’t said this to him, but it’s certainly diluted any attraction I have for him.
Anyway, today he picked me up from the library, dressed as Santa, and we drove over in his Christmas-tree van and I’m finding out many things about his driving habits.
He changes the radio station when Christmas music comes on, he carries a healthy supply of gum and his truck is very clean.
It’s nothing like my beat-up old Renault 5, now to be scrapped because of a fatal oil leak.
I think you can also tell a lot of things about a man from the way he drives and what I’ve learned from him is that he’s not a speeder but doesn’t take lightly to bad wazzocky drivers.
He’s sensible but will also wave at a child on a zebra crossing.
I watch as Janey leans over the counter and follows his figure down the corridor.
‘You do know where we are, right? Half our lot have pacemakers and are on all sorts of cocktails of drugs. They’ll see him and pass out. ’
‘Or maybe he’s exactly what they need to see to cheer them up,’ I joke.
‘Are you and him courting then?’ she asks.
‘No.’
‘What’s wrong with him?’ she asks. ‘He looks like the sort who’d get about.’
You know what, Janey? He very well could be, but I don’t really know a lot about this bloke. I know parts of his family history, he’s a bit serious, he’s good at wrapping gifts and knows a lot about Christmas trees. We hang out together now, it would seem.
‘You’d have to ask him yourself. He’s just…’ I’m not even sure I can call him a friend. At present, he feels like a seasonal acquaintance. ‘…Santa. I’ll just pop up and fetch Nana. I’ll come back for these books in a moment.’
She smiles broadly as I make my way to Nana’s room on the second floor, treading through these familiar hallways of beige carpets and floral prints on the walls.
This place will never really fill me with a sense of comfort, but it’s bright, the staff have become familiar, and like the social bunny she is, Nana’s always participating in bridge or karaoke night.
As I approach her room, the door is ajar and I see her sitting up in her chair, watching Loose Women.
As soon as she sees me through the door, she jumps up and shuffles over in her slippers to greet me.
‘Oh, my Kitty Kay. Look at you, all Christmassy! How are you, lovely?’ There is something about her arms wrapped around me that will always feel right. ‘Have you grown or am I shrinking?’
‘It’s Christmas. With the amount of chocolate I’m eating, it’s likely that I’m growing,’ I joke.
She hits me playfully. ‘Less of that, you’re lovely looking. So Christmassy. I love it. Let me look at your face.’
She does this more and more now each time I visit, taking prolonged looks at my face, as if she’s hoping it’ll help her failing memory. ‘Katherine Michelle Redman. Twenty-first of July,’ she says.
‘You are right,’ I say, and she kisses me on the forehead.
I go into my bag and get out some things for her that I always buy.
She likes a gossip magazine, hand cream and those gummy foam sweets shaped as teeth and lips.
Sometimes she gives them out to her mates who don’t have teeth so they can sit around the day room and laugh.
She goes around her room, straightening out things, her silvery-brown hair still tightly curled on her head, her glasses on a string around her neck, nestled in a lavender cardigan.
‘These scones are from Helen,’ I say, putting a Tupperware on her bedside table.
‘Helen. Your mum was called Helen?’ she says.
‘Mum’s called Diane, Nana. Your daughter-in-law, Diane?
Helen is someone I work with,’ I remind her.
Her eyes look into mine, searching but completely lost, and I try and smile to reassure her.
‘It’s alright. You know Diane. She married your son, Fred.
’ She nods but I’ve lost her. And this is the bit that always hurts.
It’s a sign that she’s not with me, I can see the frustration in her eyes and it floors me that I can’t do anything to help her, I can’t rebuild those memories as much as I can’t fix this, any of it.
‘Who are the flowers from?’ I ask, nodding towards a vase by the window, trying to change the subject.
‘Oh, that’s Jim, one floor up. I think he’s a bit sweet on me but he’s a bit dim.
When we play Scrabble, he’s a four-letter-word man, maximum.
’ I marvel at what she does know, what she does remember.
As long as she remembers me. ‘You also need to explain that thing over there,’ she says, pointing to a basket in the corner of the room.
‘That arrived in reception last week, they all thought they got this place confused with Buckingham Palace.’
I look down at the Harrods hamper in the corner.
After our little visit last week, Old Nick arranged to send this here as a gift for Nana.
After his big gesture of the earrings, we walked around Harrods and Nick spent the hour buying things.
Not that I asked for any of it but we went to the food hall and he filled a basket full of cookies and tins of tea and truffles, telling me it was all for family and friends, asking me for advice.
Advice? I drink three types of tea: normal tea, Earl Grey when I feel posh and fruit tea that sits in the back of my cupboard.
And then he said he’d send something to my nana.
Harrods didn’t do those teeth sweets apparently. Funny that.
‘Who’s Nick?’ she asks, asking me to sit down on the edge of her bed. ‘Kay and Nick, imagine my surprise to see a young man’s name there on the gift card.’
I have been here in the weeks since I reconnected with Nick but I’ve not said a word, mainly because when we did break up the first-time round, Nana declared him a mortal enemy for life. ‘Nana, do you remember when I was at university and I dated that boy…’
‘Nick,’ she says, his name dripping out of her mouth with disdain.
‘Yeah, we bumped into each other again and we might be going out. Kind of.’
Nana stares into space. ‘Was he the one with the earring like a pirate?’
‘No.’
‘Shorts in winter?’
‘No.’
‘This white wine tastes like lighter fluid,’ she says.
I laugh. ‘Yeah, that’s the one.’ I hadn’t remembered that. Nick had come round for Sunday lunch at Nana’s and had been snooty about the wine. Nana left the table and went to find a bottle of lighter fluid so Nick could make the comparison for himself.
‘Explains Harrods then. He used to buy me flowers though. Is he still posh? Snooty?’ she asks.
‘I think he’s mellowed a little. He’s very generous, kind. We went ice skating. You’d have loved it. What’s in the hamper?’ I ask, not mentioning that we share baths now too.
‘Oh, all sorts. That lovely lad, Milosh, who works in the kitchens here, I gave him some bits – the gourmet chutneys and nuts. And Ivy upstairs, I gave her the loose tea so she can do her readings.’ I smirk to know everyone’s futures in the building will be a lot posher.
Nana takes my hand. ‘I won’t comment but is he nice to you? Are you happy, lovely?’
‘I’m happy because I’m here with you.’
‘That’s a shit answer.’
‘Nana!’ I retort in shock.
‘We’re always happy when we’re together,’ she says, resting her head on my shoulder.
I curl my body into hers. Am I happy? Who knows?
At this moment, I want to snuggle up on her bed, read out trashy magazine articles together and then watch a bit of a TV show while she makes fun of everyone’s clothes.
That will always be my definition of happy.
But Old Nick is showing me that he cares, and I feel looked after, and that is a good thing.
A knock on the door suddenly gets our attention and we both glance up.
‘Hi. Yeah, the woman at reception told me you’d be here. They’re ready in the day room,’ Nick says. ‘They all thought I was a stripper. They all wanted to come and sit on my knee. I thought I’d best come and find you.’
I laugh as Nana leans into me. ‘Kay, I’m not going completely doolally, right. That’s Santa at the door, yeah?’
I nod. I don’t think I have the energy to tell her how he fits into the story though. Four-foot-eleven Nana stands and looks up at six-foot Santa. ‘You’re a big fella, eh?’
I smirk and look down to the floor. ‘Santa, this is my nana. Nana, this is Santa.’
Nick looks at me. ‘Your grandmother.’
I nod. I wasn’t entirely clear with him why we were coming to this particular nursing home, but he knows now.
‘I know you,’ Nana says. ‘I’m sure I know you.’ I see her searching through her memories, a pained expression on her face. I exhale because I don’t want to confuse her any further.
I put an arm around her immediately. ‘Nana, remember you got a Christmas tree delivered once to your house. That big one? This was the fella who delivered it.’
Nana seems relieved that her mind isn’t playing tricks on her but Nick looks confused that I haven’t mentioned this connection before now.
‘Oh, that was a lovely tree. How are you, young man?’ she says, her eyes sparkling.
‘I’m very well…’
‘How have you forgotten my name? I’m supposed to be the one with dementia. I’m Doris.’ As soon as Nick hears that she has dementia, he looks over at me, studying my face. ‘I guess I only remember the naughty ones. You’re far too good.’
‘Then you don’t know me very well at all,’ Nana says, cackling. ‘How come you two know each other then? Did I miss something?’
‘I went to his farm one day and got stuck choosing a tree and Nick helped me.’
Nick smirks to hear the word ‘stuck’. But Nana looks at me for a moment. Yes, you heard that right. This is another Nick. She shifts her gaze between the both of us trying to work us out, a cheekier glint in her eye than I would like to see.
‘Can I walk you over to the day room, Doris? It would be my pleasure,’ Nick says, offering her an arm.
‘A polite Santa too,’ she says, her eyes widening at me. ‘Can I offer you something to eat before we head over? I’ve got truffles from Harrods.’
Nick takes one look at the box and pulls a face. ‘Oh, that’s far too fancy for me. Save those for your important visitors. I see you’ve got those teeth sweets though. I’ll take one of them.’
Nana leans over to her bedside table and opens a packet. ‘Here you go.’
‘Thank you kindly,’ Nick says. He puts the teeth sweet in his mouth, then grins. ‘Do you like my new veneers?’
I stay quiet and watch both of them laughing together. Nana does the same thing with her sweet.
‘Did you get those in Turkey? They’re beautiful,’ Nick says. Still chuckling, Nana turns back to me. She just winked at me, didn’t she?