by Jane Holland
KEEP ME CLOSE
by
Jane Holland
Copyright © Jane Holland 2021
This edition published in 2021 by Lume Books
30 Great Guildford Street,
Borough, SE1 0HS
The right of Jane Holland to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
In memory of my wonderful aunt, Marjorie Chapman, whose lifelong zeal for books, reading and storytelling has been a huge inspiration, both to me personally and to all our family.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
CHAPTER ONE
Sometimes, it feels as though life itself is conspiring against me. Back home after a long day in London, I’m hurrying to the chemist’s before they close, hoping to grab some medicine for my mother, when someone catches my eye across the street and my carefully constructed world crumbles around me…
One glance, and the walls I’ve erected come crashing down, possibly to the sound of angelic trumpets. Only I can’t hear a thing because of all the rumbling traffic on the high street as the early evening commute continues. All I can hear is the sick thump of my heart.
My first thought is: run. My second thought is: too late. My third thought is: please, whatever you do, Kate, don’t cry.
But maybe he won’t see me. Or won’t recognise me. And maybe it’s not too late. Perhaps if I were to dive into the next shop or look the other way…
He’s standing outside the newsagent’s opposite, head slightly bent, about to light a cigarette in the chill autumn breeze, when his eyes flash up and meet mine…
As though he sensed my presence. As though this is destiny at work. The universe forcing me to confront my past.
Why, though? Why can’t the bloody universe just let it go for once? The unfairness of it all makes me want to scream in frustration. I’ve tried so hard to move on. God knows, I’ve tried. Yet here I am, confronted yet again with the full weight of guilt and misery, of my failure as a human being. Why can’t life work with me, not against me, just this once?
It’s definitely too late. He’s seen me.
His eyes widen, and he lifts a hand. The one holding his elegant silver lighter, its front panel inscribed with: To Logan, on your 35th birthday, love David and Kate.
I can’t pretend not to have recognised him.
I wave back, forcing a brittle smile to my face. Then I stop and stand there like a shop mannequin, clutching at my shoulder bag like it’s a lifeline, as he waits for a break in the traffic, then dashes across towards me.
He’s pushed the unlit cigarette back into its packet. To my relief, the lighter is slipped into his jacket pocket along with his fags.
I wish I could disappear that easily.
‘Kate.’ He hesitates, then hugs me briefly. ‘How are you? I haven’t seen you since…’ He stops, and we both suck in a breath at the same horrible moment. Then his mouth quirks into a crooked smile. ‘Well, not for ages.’
‘Hello, Logan.’ My smile feels like it’s stuck in place with glue. I feel rigid too. Do I look as stricken as I feel? ‘I’m fine, thank you. Work is quite stressful, but that’s nothing new.’ I pause. ‘How are you?’
He tells me how he is while I nod politely and study him, devouring every inch while my brain shrieks at me in anguish.
Up close, there’s a shock to the powerful sense of familiarity.
His dark hair is maybe cropped a little tighter; his face and neck are lightly tanned, perhaps from a summer spent mostly outdoors; and there’s a dark shadow under his eyes, not unlike the shadow under my own. Otherwise, he’s essentially unchanged. I always thought him attractive, though never as attractive as David. Tall, broad-shouldered and lean, with a face that turned women’s heads, Logan could almost be a Mills and Boon hero, I used to say.
Two years. And it might as well be the day after the funeral for all the difference I can see in him.
Those two years have been a little less kind to me, and I know it. Those dark shadows under my eyes, for instance…
Why does life have to be so cruel?
‘I see you still haven’t kicked the habit,’ I tell him, struggling feebly against the subject we’re both avoiding.
His frown is confused.
‘Smoking,’ I elaborate, feeling awkward now for having mentioned it. ‘I saw you across the street, about to light up.’
‘Oh, that.’ He looks embarrassed. ‘Yeah… I’m actually trying to quit.’
‘You were always trying to quit.’
‘I suppose I was.’ His smile, too, is fixed, like my own. A mimicry of polite friendship. ‘Maybe one day I’ll manage it.’
‘You should take up running instead. That will help. Or swimming. Once your lungs get a taste for exercise, you’ll quit more easily.’
He’s silent for a moment.
‘I’d forgotten that about you,’ he says at last, his eyes narrowed on my face.
‘My obsession with fitness?’
‘Your need to fix people. Whether they want to be fixed or not.’
Now it’s my turn to be embarrassed.
‘I’m sorry.’ I take a step backwards. ‘You’re right, of course; it’s none of my business.’
‘No, that was unfair of me,’ Logan says quickly, half-putting out a hand to stop me from leaving. ‘You just… care, I suppose. About other people, I mean. I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s not something I’m used to, that’s all.’ This time, his smile reaches his eyes, and his whole face lights up. ‘Swimming, you say? I haven’t been to the pool for years, but… Yes, maybe it’s time I finally did something about my nicotine addiction. Do you swim?’
I’m taken aback by the question.
Of course I swim. I swim, and I jog too. I take aerobics classes twice a week at the local sports centre. I try to get in at least an hour’s yoga every week. And sometimes I cycle, though not as often as I’d like these days. I used to belong to a club. But that was before…
I nod, wary. ‘Whenever I can find the time.’
He looks at me very directly. ‘We could try and find the time together some day. May
be one evening next week?’
‘Oh, erm, that’s…’ I flounder and stop.
Swimming together. Half-naked in a warm pool. The intimacy of it all…
‘Or dinner, if you prefer,’ he suggests.
I’m standing there like a statue, I realise. Clutching the strap of my shoulder bag so tightly it feels unnatural. Rude, even. As though I’m expecting the poor man to pounce on me at any moment. Which is insane. Not to mention insulting.
He’s just being friendly.
But before I can say anything, Logan gives a groan and shakes his head. ‘I shouldn’t have asked you. I’m sorry.’ He runs a frustrated hand through his hair, looking away down the street. There’s a brooding quality to the man, which I’d forgotten about. ‘I think about him all the time. Do you?’
I open my mouth, and then close it again.
There are no words.
‘It’s like my brain can’t quite get used to the idea that he’s not around anymore,’ he continues, frowning. ‘I’d known him since primary school, of course. Thirty-five years or so. You can’t just switch off a friendship that old, can you? He’s still there, at the back of my head, even now. Something funny happens at work, and I find myself thinking, I must tell David about that. And then I remember.’
‘Don’t,’ I mutter.
We say nothing for a moment, both wrapped up in our own intense thoughts and memories. People flow past us.
I wonder how I can escape politely.
‘Well, Kate,’ he says, as though reading my mind, and sticks out a hand, oddly stiff and formal, like we’re business colleagues meeting on the street, ‘it was wonderful to see you again.’ He hesitates, temporarily lost for words.
‘Friday,’ I say.
He stares at me. ‘Sorry?’
‘You suggested dinner.’
‘I did,’ he agrees swiftly, catching on. ‘You’re free Friday evening?’ His smile widens, suddenly confident. ‘Are you still in the same place? I can swing by and pick you up at seven.’
‘That would be lovely, thank you.’
‘Any preference for food?’
I feel flushed and uncertain now. ‘Surprise me.’
His eyes widen slightly, but he nods. ‘I will.’
Briefly, we embrace again, the handshake forgotten, and then he’s gone, moving back into the stream of people going about their business.
I stand there a moment longer, breathless and flustered. What have I done? Why on earth did I agree to meet him for dinner?
I’m a mess. I mean, I can function at work, just about. But inside, when I look in the mirror, I’m in pieces. I’m certainly not ready for… whatever this is.
Dinner. A date.
Oh god, a date?
Panic sweeps through me.
I start walking compulsively, head down, so fast and blindly, I march straight past the chemist’s and have to turn back a block later, bumping into people in my haste.
This is wrong. I should cancel.
But another voice inside me says more firmly, no. Don’t be silly. Work has been mad recently. Permanent white-water. I’ve barely come up for air in months. And it’s been so long since I thought of myself in that way. As date material. This dinner with Logan may be what I’ve been waiting for. An excuse to do something about my hair, my tired makeup, my dreary wardrobe.
It’s only dinner. And it’s only Logan.
After collecting the prescription from the chemist, I hurry on to the mini supermarket to grab a few essentials, and then stop dead on the way back to my car, staring at myself in the window of a small boutique.
In the excitement and near hysteria of a dinner date for the first time in forever, I’ve forgotten something rather important.
My mother.
CHAPTER TWO
My mother, Celeste Kinley, is only sixty-eight years old. Once, I would have called that being still in her prime. Except that, three years ago, my darling mum, my lively, dramatic, funny, brilliantly clever mother, was diagnosed with early onset dementia.
I’d known something was wrong for several years before that, of course. Mum had started to forget words occasionally, or to muddle them up in a quasi-comical way, like saying ‘bread’ when she meant ‘bed’. We all do that now and then, of course, and have a good laugh about it. But for Mum, it began to happen with increasing frequency, her linguistic lapses accompanied by other, even more disturbing symptoms.
She would forget where her keys were or what her postcode was, or even which year we were in, and a few things I told her would sometimes slip away too, so I kept having to repeat information I’d already told her. Things I’d seen on the news, or local gossip overheard in the post office, or everyday domestic stuff.
It was like being caught in a time warp, where the same things get repeated ad nauseam. Only there was no magic reset button to get us out of the deadly loop…
After nearly a year of this ‘muddled thinking’ as Mum referred to it, I took her to our local GP, Dr Forster, a rather severe young female doctor, and was reassured this was all within the parameters of normal behaviour for a woman of Mum’s age. Until she developed a urinary infection and took to her bed with a high temperature.
Her speech became slurred and incoherent, and for a while, she didn’t seem to entirely recognise me. At the time, I thought this was because of her infection. But later, when the antibiotics had done their work and she was able to get up and walk about, I realised Mum was still confused about where she was, and even who she was at times. That was particularly unsettling.
So back we went to the GP.
This time, I put my foot down with Dr Forster and demanded a referral. And I was proved right. Once Mum had seen a consultant and taken a few tests, we finally received a diagnosis.
She had early onset dementia, possibly exacerbated by a stroke or ‘cerebral event’ during her illness.
Not knowing what was wrong had felt pretty bad.
But knowing is almost worse.
We live a few miles outside Guildford in leafy Surrey, as people love to refer to it, in a relatively green part of the county, not too built up.
I drive home from the chemist’s in my flashy red Mazda and pull up on the gravelled drive, observing with a flash of irritation that the man who does our garden hasn’t been to mow the lawns yet. It’s nearly a fortnight since his last visit.
We have two large lawns at the front and back of the house, bordered with long-established flower beds, shrubs and a few trees. The last of the summer blooms are languishing now under foliage turning yellow and brown for autumn.
The house is detached, late Victorian with twelve rooms and pretensions of grandeur. Wisteria covers much of the south-facing wall at the front, softening its sharp lines with trailing greens and yellows, while an open portico with two white pillars lends an air of distinction that pleased Dad enough to buy it twenty years ago, when I was thirteen and still easily impressed by displays of wealth. Nowadays, I’m more likely to fret over how much it costs to maintain such a large house.
Mum is watching television with Nurse Giorgios in the living room when I walk in.
That is, Giorgios is watching his latest Netflix crush, some new American cop show everyone’s raving about, and Mum is staring into space with an abstracted expression on her face.
Guiltily, Giorgios snaps off the sound and stands up when he hears me come in. ‘Miss Kinley,’ he says, and his gaze shoots to the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘I didn’t expect you back until seven.’
‘I took an earlier train back,’ I tell him coolly. ‘I wanted to collect my mother’s prescription.’
I also wanted an excuse to avoid my boss’s birthday party, hosted in a nearby restaurant with the rest of the office staff. Last year, Mark had made me sit next to him and then groped me most of the evening until I ‘accidentally’ knocked my water glass into his lap.
I throw my keys and the meds down onto the coffee table and bend to kiss Mum on the cheek. ‘That’s a pr
etty dress. How’s your day been?’
‘Fine,’ she says, nodding.
‘Fine’ is one of her favourite words. She seems to have worked out that it stops most people from enquiring further.
It doesn’t stop me.
I don’t forbid Giorgios from watching telly with Mum. That would be absurd, considering how many hours he spends with her on those few days that I commute into London. But he’s supposed to be keeping her mind active, not putting it to sleep with trashy TV drama she can’t possibly hope to follow.
‘Did you do the crossword puzzle with Giorgios like I suggested?’ I ask, surreptitiously pressing her hand to check if she’s warm enough.
Her skin is chilly, and I make a mental note to put the heating on.
Mum stares up at me blankly from her high-backed armchair, then looks across at Giorgios in mild surprise, as though she’s only just realised he’s in the room with us. Or perhaps she wasn’t immediately sure who I was talking about. Some days her mind is sharper than others.
‘I don’t know,’ she admits, and looks pleadingly at Giorgios. ‘Did I?’
‘We tried a few lines,’ Giorgios tells me quickly, using the royal plural as always when talking about my mother, his large eyes expressive, ‘but we weren’t in the mood.’ He shrugs. ‘So we try harder next time. Not a problem.’
‘I see.’
Right from the very start, Mum stubbornly refused to accept that she had dementia.
She still refuses to accept it.
One of the main issues is that she can’t actually remember being tested and diagnosed. And because she’s now struggling with the written word, her ability to understand the doctor’s reports, even when shown to her as evidence that she’s genuinely unwell, is limited. Which doesn’t help when I’m trying to persuade her to take her meds or explain why she can’t fly out to Spain or Greece for a solo holiday, something she’s become obsessed by in recent years.
