Don’t You Forget About Me (9 page)

‘Apparently I’ve to tell you that gambling isn’t allowed,’ I begin, but he snorts derisively.

‘Pah, says who?’ he demands, leaning heavily on his cane as he makes his way across to the Chesterfield sofa that’s shoehorned into the corner. It’s far too big for the room, but he insisted on bringing it from his shop. Along with a tailor’s dummy, a framed picture of the Queen at her Silver Jubilee in 1977, and his beloved sewing machine, which has pride of place on the wooden sideboard.

Easing himself down into the well-worn cushions which, according to Granddad, have seen many a famous man’s bottom – ‘I’ve had all the Bonds: Sean Connery, Roger Moore, even that Craig fellow’ – he pats the cushion next to him for me to join him. ‘Life itself is a gamble,’ he says, clicking his tongue.

‘I know, but if you keep getting into trouble—’

‘What’re they going to do? Kick me out?’ He looks delighted at the very thought. Granddad has made no secret of the fact that he resents being in a care home, and the fiercely independent streak that runs right through him, like the letters in a stick of Blackpool rock, rebels against everything it stands for.

But after Nan died he just couldn’t cope on his own. With two hip replacements and a habit of leaving the gas hob on (‘But I could have sworn I turned it off!’), he was becoming a danger to himself, and his neighbours, and last year he moved grudgingly to Hemmingway House.

‘I can just imagine that Temple woman’s face now,’ he chuckles, reaching for a bag of Jelly Babies and rattling them at me. ‘She always looks to me like she’s sucking a lemon. Either that or she’s sat on something sharp—’

‘Gramps, can I ask you a favour?’ Quickly changing the subject away from Miss Temple’s derriere, I sit down beside him and dig my hand in the bag.

‘Go on then, how much?’ he grumbles affectionately, putting down the Jelly Babies and pulling out his wallet.

‘Oh, no, I don’t need any money,’ I protest quickly. ‘I got a Christmas bonus.’

Granddad raises his eyebrows approvingly. ‘Well, aren’t you a clever girl?’

I feel my cheeks colour slightly. Clever hasn’t got anything to do with it. It’s more a case of having a kind boss who took pity on me and turned a blind eye all year to my appalling PA skills.

‘No, the thing is, I wanted to ask if I could borrow your sewing machine? You see, I found this . . .’ Digging into my ancient rucksack that has seen better days, I pull out a length of patterned material, all folded up, that I recently discovered in a charity shop. I can never resist popping into charity shops: you can find all kinds of weird and wonderful things. ‘I thought I might make a bag out of it, as this one of mine is ready for the dustbin and bags are so expensive these days . . .’

Reaching for his half-moon spectacles, Granddad props them on the end of his nose and unfolds the material. ‘Hmmm—’ he nods, turning it over in his hands, examining it – ‘well, it’s possible, but this fabric is a very thick cotton, almost like a loomed hemp, and it appears to be some kind of
sack .
. .’ Frowning, he looks up. ‘I have made thousands of bespoke suits in my time, my dear, but they were made from the finest fabrics, not sacks,’ he says, a little sniffily. ‘Now, if you were talking a nice silk or Italian cashmere—’

‘I want to use this,’ I say stubbornly. ‘And yes, OK, you’re right, it is an old sack. The woman in the charity shop said an old lady brought it in with some clothes inside. Apparently it’s from the 1950s and they used it to store flour when she lived on a farm in France—’

‘And you want to make a bag out of it?’ He looks bewildered.

‘Absolutely,’ I smile. ‘I just loved the design on it and I thought if I lined it with some pretty fabric and then I sew these ribbons along the edges—’ I pull out a piece of ribbon I saved from a Christmas present – ‘so that it gathers up like this . . .’

I’m always going round to Granddad’s so that he can help me with some new project or other. I’m forever making things, partly because I don’t earn much money, but mostly because I get such a buzz from thinking up ideas and recycling someone’s charity cast-offs into something new and interesting.

Bending both of our heads together, we pore over it for a few moments. ‘So, what do you think?’ I ask, turning sideways to glance at him.

Pushing up his glasses onto the bridge of his nose, Granddad peers at me intently, as if deep in thought. ‘You’ve got the gift,’ he says quietly after a moment, a smile playing on his lips.

‘The gift?’ I frown.

‘I’ve never told you this before, but I always knew it,’ he nods, looking very pleased with himself. ‘I used to say to your mother: Tess will be the one to take after me . . .’

‘Oh Gramps,’ I laugh, ‘you were one of the finest tailors on Savile Row. I wouldn’t have a clue how to make a suit!’

‘That bit’s easy: anyone can learn how to measure an inside leg,’ he pooh-poohs. ‘What you can’t learn is the vision.’

‘Well, I don’t know about that . . .’ I smile, a bit embarrassed by his compliment. I’m not used to compliments, except of course from Gramps. For some reason, he thinks I’m the best at everything. ‘I just like making things, that’s all,’ I shrug.

‘You don’t just make things, Tess, you
create
things,’ he corrects, looking every inch the proud grandparent.

I blush, memories flashing back of Gramps coming to see me in the Nativity play at school. I played the donkey and had no lines, and he spent the whole time loudly applauding me whenever I came on stage, much to the annoyance of the other bemused relatives in the audience. To this day he still insists the donkey stole the show.

‘So, you think it can work?’ I ask, looking across at him.

‘Well now, let’s see . . .’ Opening a drawer, he pulls out his fabric tape measure and, easing himself up from the sofa, moves over to his sewing machine. ‘If we cut along this edge and do a double seam here . . .’ As he begins explaining, I scoot across and pull up a little footstool next to him, watching as his pale, papery fingers come to life and begin expertly turning dials and levers on his sewing machine.

‘Cooeee . . .’

We’re interrupted by the high-pitched sound of a woman’s voice and a lavender-permed head pops itself around the door.

‘I saw the door was ajar and heard voices . . .’

‘Oh hi Phyllis,’ I smile.

Considering I made sure to close the door firmly behind me, and Phyllis is hard of hearing, I’m not that sure I believe her, but it doesn’t matter. I love Phyllis. A widow in her eighties, her room’s down the corridor and she’s always popping in to see Granddad with her Scrabble set and gifts of shortbread. ‘Do you know your Grandpa is a natural? I’ve never seen so many seven-letter words!’

Personally I have a sneaking suspicion she has a crush on Gramps, but when I mentioned it to him he told me to stop being so ridiculous. ‘At our age we don’t have crushes, we have angina,’ he said firmly.

‘Happy New Year, how are you?’ I ask, giving her tiny frame a hug.

‘Still alive,’ she chuckles. ‘How are you? Courting yet?’

I can’t help but smile at her use of the word ‘courting’. It’s so wonderfully old-fashioned and conjures up all these lovely images of tea dances and walks along the promenade. So much better than our modern-day ‘dating’, I reflect, thinking about Fiona hunched over her computer, going through profiles on KindredSpiritsRUs.com, looking at a thousand photos of men snowboarding, scuba-diving, bungee-jumping. It would seem that every single man in London is an extreme sports fanatic.

‘I was . . . but we broke up a few months ago,’ I say, trying to make light of it and shrug it off.

She clucks sympathetically. ‘Well, don’t worry, at your age there’re plenty more fish in the sea. Now, when you get to my age, the sea’s pretty much empty; all that’s left are a few old barnacles . . .’ She grins a pink denture smile and gestures towards my granddad.

‘Who you calling a barnacle?’ he grumbles, before turning to me and demanding, ‘What’s all this about a chap?’ like he’s some kind of scary Sicilian godfather protecting the family honour, and not my eighty-seven-year-old granddad.

Phyllis tuts loudly. ‘She doesn’t need your permission, you know.’

‘I know that,’ he retorts hotly, digging out his pipe from his pocket and vigorously knocking the ash from the bowl. ‘I just didn’t know anything about a chap.’

‘You remember Sebastian, I brought him to see you once,’ I remind him, although part of me doesn’t want to.

It’s traditional for the first meeting between your
father
and your boyfriend to be a little nerve-wracking. After all, you’re his little girl and now you’re all grown-up and having mind-blowing sex with the guy sitting on the edge of his sofa, trying to make polite conversation about tractors. (Don’t ask me why my dad brought up the subject of tractors. My dad’s not a farmer, he’s a retired biology teacher. But then applying logic to my dad would be a bit like applying it to Lady Gaga’s wardrobe. Utterly pointless.)

But meetings between your boyfriend and your granddad are supposed to be cosy, genial affairs, with your grandfather reminiscing about the good old days and offering cups of stewed tea and Bakewell slices. They are
not
supposed to involve a scene where your granddad challenges him to a game of poker, interrogates him about ‘his intentions’ and warns him against cheating by waving his antique pistol around.

‘But of course not, Mr Connelly, I would never do that to Tess,’ Seb had stammered in alarm.

‘I wasn’t talking about my granddaughter, I was talking about cards,’ my granddad had replied with a glare.

It was all very stressful. Made worse when the nurses came in and confiscated the pistol for being a dangerous firearm, and Seb went on to win two hands. I’m not sure which was worse, losing the pistol, or the poker game, but either way Granddad was not a happy bunny. Hence I haven’t mentioned it again as I thought it best if it could all be forgotten.

Now, apparently, it is.
Completely
.

‘Sebastian? I’ve never met a Sebastian!’ booms my granddad, jabbing a pipe cleaner backwards and forwards into his pipe as if it’s a lethal weapon.

I feel a seed of anxiety. Hoping he’d forget the card game is one thing, forgetting he’s ever met Seb is quite another. But then Granddad’s memory has been getting worse lately. At first we all just assumed it was his age, but then a few weeks before Mum and Dad left for Australia, they came in to visit and one of the nurses took them aside. Apparently a few of the nursing staff had noticed it was more than him just growing increasingly forgetful, he’d also been getting confused, and there was concern it might be the early signs of Alzheimer’s. There was even talk about him seeing a doctor.

When Mum told me, I got really defensive and refused to believe it. Like I said to her, it’s not that he doesn’t know who I am, he just can’t remember my name sometimes. It’s no big deal. Loads of people are bad with names.

But now I’m beginning to wonder if there might be some truth in it. If it is something more sinister, and I’ve just been in denial.

‘Yes you have, he was American, remember?’ I prod gently. Except, in this instance, it’s not just his memory that’s worrying me; I’ve just had a flash of déjà vu to yesterday and Fiona.

‘Oooh, an American?’ pipes up Phyllis. ‘I went out with an American in the war. Johnny James was his name: big tall fellow with bright red hair and a smile the size of Texas. He used to give me stockings so I didn’t have to draw the seams up my legs . . .’ She trails off, reminiscing.

Granddad shoots her a look that says he doesn’t want to be hearing about Johnny James and his stockings.

Surprisingly, Phyllis gets the hint. ‘Well, best be off,’ she says quickly, ‘I’ve got a pillowcase to embroider,’ and, giving me a wink, she squeezes my hand and promptly leaves.

I turn back to Granddad. ‘You played poker . . . he won.’ I try again. My seed of anxiety is beginning to sprout.

Granddad Connelly looks aghast. ‘Now my memory might not be as sharp as it used to be,’ he concedes, ‘but that I
would
remember.’ He passes me the used pipe cleaner, and wordlessly I take a fresh one from the packet on the table and hand it to him. I’m like the nurse in the operating room, handing the surgeon his implements. ‘Now, have you come to cheer me up or finish me off by casting aspersions on my poker game?’ He peers at me over the top of his glasses, like he used to do when I was naughty, and I suddenly feel about five years old.

‘I’ve come to see you, of course,’ I protest.

‘That’s my girl,’ he winks, and I smile despite myself.

‘And, for the record, it would take a lot more than that to finish you off,’ I tease.

‘That’s what the nurses say,’ he laughs, reaching inside his breast pocket and taking out a pouch of tobacco. He begins packing the bowl of his pipe with it. I’ve seen him do this a million times, but it’s still fascinating to watch. He’s so methodical and precise the way he does it. When I was a child he told me that I had to think of him filling up his pipe like a family of three . . .

A memory begins playing in my mind like a QuickTime movie: me as a little girl sitting on his knee and him saying, ‘First you pat the tobacco gently like a child would, see?’ and taking my finger he gently taps it on the soft, springy flakes. ‘Next you fill it up again and press it more firmly, like a mother would,’ and holding my finger he pushes it down harder. ‘And then finally you fill it up one last time and press it down very hard, like a father would,’ and, wrapping his huge hand around my tiny finger, he squashes it firmly against the tobacco.