by Sara Barnard
Deep breaths into your ribcage, Hugo. Let it all wash over you. Focus on how your feet are connected to this ground, this solid ground, notice how it feels, concentrate on that.
‘The stupid man still thinks he’s in love. It’s ridiculous; he needs to grow up.’
She carries on with her favourite topic – telling me what a dreadful, cowardly, deceitful arsehole my father is. It’s been well over a year and still she is not tired of it. I’m not sure what she expected to happen – after she publically outed him and dragged his name through the mud for months. I mean, Dad is an arsehole. And what he did was a really arsehole thing to do, and I really don’t understand why Mum’s now so confused about him moving in with this stupid intern and asking for a divorce but . . . oh God . . . the stress . . . No, deep breaths, Hugo. Let it wash over you.
I give her a smile and a hug to interrupt her. She looks surprised and pats my back awkwardly before pushing me away, clopping out of the kitchen in her high heels.
‘I meant what I said about those rosary beads,’ she calls behind her. ‘Really, Hugo, it’s a tad embarrassing. You can’t wear them to your politics lectures when university starts.’
I sigh a deep and healthy sigh and take myself to the bathroom to check out my reflection. I probably need to wash a little before I meet the others for dinner. Mum greeted me with the words, ‘Hugo, you stink,’ instead of, ‘Hello.’ She’s been so UNSUPPORTIVE of all the changes I’ve been through in India. In fact, everyone has. I mean, I know it’s cliché for a rich white boy like me to spend their gap yah in IndYA, and come back all chanty and bollocks, but, like, it is ACTUALLY different in my case. I’m not like the others. I went to a proper ashram and everything. I mean they made me scrub the floor! EVERY DAY! David and I’d flown over to Goa and started as we meant to go on – getting wrecked and meeting other travellers who wanted to get as wrecked as we did. But things have been weird between us for years now, and I just wasn’t feeling it, really, and then . . .
Then I met Gretel.
I can feel my body melting as I remember Gretel. I’ve never fallen for anyone like I fell for her. Not that she let me in her pants, mind. That’s probably why I fell for her. I laugh and watch myself laugh in the bathroom mirror. She taught me so much about myself. She yanked me away from David and the drugs. She didn’t care about how much money I had or who my parents were or which college I was going to in Cambridge. None of my lines worked on her, or my smiles, or my negging, or, when all else failed, my all-out begging.
‘You’re hot, Hugo,’ she’d told me, wrapping a finger around her blonde dreadlock. ‘But your soul is ugly as fuck.’
I followed her to the bloody ashram in what I thought was going to be the biggest knobstacle course of my entire life. I’d never CHANTED my way into a girl’s pants before. But that girl – I’m telling you, that girl – I’d have done anything for. And yet, within days of arriving, pulling Gretel fell away. All of me fell away. This, like, really amazing guru taught me how to meditate, and I had to sleep in this dorm full of normal people, and get up at five and do chores, and at first I thought it was the biggest pisstake of my life. I’d try not to laugh through all the chanting, and I’d swear under my breath while scrubbing the stupid floor, but then look up and smile and pretend I loved it whenever Gretel walked past.
But then, one morning, not very far into the whole shit show, I was up at 5 a.m., doing the freakin’ Guru Gita again and . . . well, there’s no easy way to admit this, but I’m done hiding from it . . .it all came back. That day in the lift, all of it came back. The look on Steven Jeffords’ face as he died, the panic of us accidentally hitting the alarm button, being locked in that space with some dead guy and a bunch of other teenagers I’d never talk to normally. I started shaking and crying and got up and ran out, and Gretel came running out after me, and I found myself howling into her lap, telling her all about it. About how I’m scared to die. About how I’m scared I’m a terrible person. About how I’m so scared about what people think of me, but the opinions I care most about are from people I don’t even like. I’ve done shitty things and treated people like a joke and I thought it was making me happy, but, actually, I’m not even sure what happiness even is.
I never did get to shag Gretel.
She left the ashram, but I stayed.
‘You coming?’ she’d asked, booking her flight to Cambodia at the crappy Internet cafe we had to ride a bus to get to. ‘The killing fields are, like, supposed to totally blow your mind. It really makes you cherish what’s important, you know?’ She smiled at me like maybe I had a chance. I’m good with girls and knowing when I’m in with a chance. I’d somehow, through weeks of contorting myself into yoga poses, chanting like a mofo, and eating vegan food, managed to eke my way into her affections. I could sense that she genuinely wanted me to go with her. Maybe, after a day looking at the skulls of loads of murdered people, we’d go back to a hostel and talk about how sad it was, and then I’d get laid. And Past Hugo would’ve been totally up for that morally ambiguous situation, but there was a New Hugo growing at this ashram. A Hugo that had been sprouting since that weird, terrible day in the lift, and I felt I owed it to myself to finally give that Hugo a shot.
‘I’m staying here,’ I told her. ‘I think I need to.’
She raised both eyebrows, all suit yourself. ‘If you think you need to, then you do.’
So I stayed. Alone. Sleeping in a cruddy dorm, making friends with loads of women in their forties who kept banging on about some book called Eat, Pray, Love. I got up at 4 a.m. and I chanted, then I scrubbed the floor for hours, then I meditated, then I meditated some more, and ate some vegan food. I felt several layers of skin shed off me. I began to realize that my problems aren’t so very terrible compared to everything else that’s going on in the world. And, look – I know. I get it. I AM a cliché. But, you know what? I’d rather be cliché and a better fucking person than the jerk I used to be.
So now, here in Manchester, I’m looking at myself in the mirror, and I like what I see. Not just my looks, but my insides too. I’m about to go to Pizza Express of all places! We’re going there because Kaitlyn found a COUPON online!? Three courses for £12.95. Old Hugo would’ve actually, literally, shuddered. But New Hugo couldn’t be more relieved that he’s leaving this miserable flat for the evening to hang out with some genuinely decent humans. Humans I was lucky to get another chance with.
I wash my hands and use the water to style my hair a little. I turn my face this way and that, a tiny part of me worried that Mum is right about the rosary beads. I spot the bath behind me, reflected in the mirror. The one Sasha hid in that night I spent with Velvet. Man, I am worried about seeing her again. I still feel like a prize prick about all that, even though the past is the past is the past.
‘Bye, Mum,’ I call, collecting my keys and phone off the countertop. ‘Good luck with the lawyers.’
She doesn’t reply.
I’ve had a missed call since I was in the bathroom, but I swipe it away. It’s been over a year since the scandal, but there’s still the odd journalist sniffing around wanting to do a ‘colour piece’ about it being one year on, or something. There’s some messages on the group chat though.
Sasha:
MY BODY IS READY FOR DOUGH BALLS!!!
What the hell is a ‘dough ball’? I guess New Hugo is about to find out.
JOE
‘Is it OK if I have a bit of time to think about it?’ I ask.
I’m sitting on my bed wearing underpants, a T-shirt and one sock. I was halfway through getting dressed when Catrina from the HR department at Champion Biscuits called.
‘Of course,’ she says. ‘Close of play tomorrow suit you? It’s just that we’re going to want to get going with contracts.’
‘Oh, right, course. Er, yeah, tomorrow’s fine. Thank you.’
‘Excellent. I’ll look forward to hearing from you then, Joe.’
I hang up and try to work out how I feel –
if hearing from Catrina has tipped things in one direction or the other. If anything though, it’s made me even more confused.
I finish getting dressed and venture out on to the landing.
Mum is still in the bathroom.
‘Are you OK?’ I call.
No reply. All I can hear is running water.
Shit.
‘Mum, I’m coming in.’
I open the bathroom door slowly, just in case she’s right behind it. Dad removed the lock last year after Mum slipped over getting out of the shower and hit her head on the towel rail.
She’s standing by the loo, a clump of toilet paper in her right hand, the other hand clutching the folds of her skirt. The incontinence pants she now wears instead of normal knickers are crumpled around her ankles. Both the hot and cold taps are running, steam rising from the sink.
‘Are you OK?’ I repeat, turning them off.
She looks at me, her forehead creasing as she gropes for my name. I realize I’m holding my breath.
‘Joe,’ she says finally.
I breathe out.
One specialist described Mum’s brain as being full of tiny bonfires that the Alzheimer’s is extinguishing one by one. Some of the bonfires (her ability to set an alarm clock or poach an egg, her home address, how to send a text message) went out long ago; others (the memory of her wedding day, the lyrics to almost every Beatles song in existence, the name of her youngest son) are still burning. They won’t burn forever though. I try not to fixate on it, but sometimes, when I’m lying in bed at night mostly, all I can do is visualize Mum’s brain a few years from now – full of nothing but smoke and ash and lost memories.
‘What do I do with this?’ she asks, holding out the toilet paper.
‘You wipe yourself then put it in the loo, Mum,’ I say. ‘Then flush the chain, remember?’
‘Wait, what? Say all that again.’
I begin to repeat my instructions.
‘Not so fast!’ she snaps.
That’s another thing that’s changed. Pre-Alzheimer’s Mum hardly ever snapped. Dad was the one with a bit of a temper – Mum always on hand to calm him down with soothing tones and a cup of tea and a biscuit. Now it’s the other way around. Before Mum got her diagnosis, I thought dementia was just an extreme form of forgetfulness – old people losing their glasses and wandering off in the supermarket. I didn’t have a bloody clue.
I take a deep breath and repeat my instructions as slowly and clearly as I can. It’s no good though; I may as well be speaking a foreign language. And as I help her pull up her pants, I can’t help but picture yet another bonfire being doused with water.
Back downstairs, I suggest we watch some telly for a bit. I install Mum in her armchair and stick on an old episode of Dinnerladies. It used to make her laugh like a drain without fail, but today she just frowns at the screen, like she’s in pain almost.
‘Who’s she?’ she asks.
‘Which one, Mum?’
All five dinner ladies are in the scene.
‘That one. The one with the thingamajig on her head.’
‘You mean hat.’
‘What?’
‘The things they’re wearing on their heads, they’re called hats.’
She stares at me like I’ve just grown an extra head.
I glance up at the clock in the shape of a sunburst that hangs over the fireplace. It’s not even 10 a.m.
Immediately, I feel guilty. Since packing in his job at Champion Biscuits last year, this is what Dad does every single day. He plasters on a smile, but I know it’s killing him seeing her like this, not to mention the fact money is tighter than ever without his salary coming in. He point-blank refuses to take any of my student loan for food or board. He reckons it’s not fair when I sacrificed my first-choice uni so I could stay living at home to help him out with Mum. I stick the odd twenty in his wallet or coat pocket every once in a while to try and make up for it. It’s not enough though. But then nothing I do feels enough at the moment.
My concentration is shot to pieces. I like my uni course, and despite not being in halls, I’ve made some decent mates. But when I’m there, I’m worrying about home; and when I’m at home, I’m worrying about what I might be missing out on at uni. I still want to work in telly, but it’s no longer the thing that burns most brightly in my brain. It’s been shoved aside by all the stuff with Mum, and tiredness from commuting back and forth to Manchester every day, and the sneaking suspicion that maybe people like me don’t get to be hotshot TV producers after all.
Dad’s out with the carers’ support group he belongs to. A day trip to Chatsworth House. He won’t be back until late, so Craig’s wife, Faye, is taking over from me at six o’clock so I can head out to meet Sasha, Dawson, Kaitlyn, Velvet and Hugo. I feel bad for skipping off early (Faye is seven months pregnant and absolutely massive). Not bad enough to cancel though – I’ve been looking forward to tonight for weeks. Ever since Carly dumped me, and Ivy moved to Canterbury for uni, this lot have been more of a lifeline than ever. Plus, I need their help figuring out what I’m going to tell Catrina tomorrow.
‘These people,’ Mum says, gesturing angrily at the screen. ‘I don’t like them.’
‘But you love Dinnerladies,’ I say. ‘It’s one of your favourite programmes.’
She throws me a look of disgust.
‘Do you want to try something else instead? Vicar of Dibley? Ab Fab?’
She stares at me blankly, the names of her favourite television shows barely registering. I put on series one of Absolutely Fabulous anyway, hoping the familiar theme music will perk her up a bit.
‘I’m going to the loo,’ I say. ‘Back in a minute.’
I don’t actually need to go. I just want a break. Cue another stab of guilt. I bet Dad doesn’t do this – hide in the loo every time he gets frustrated with her. I grip on to the sink and look at my reflection in the mirror. I remember when I had to stand on a stool to reach the taps. Now I’m the tallest person in our entire family – taller than Craig even, who, until only recently, always felt like such a giant to me. The other day I was walking down the high street, and some little kid on a scooter swerved in front of me, and his mum said, ‘Mind out for that man.’
Man.
Not a boy. A man.
I’d always assumed that I’d love being an adult; that it would suit me in a way that being a kid and then a teenager never really did. But I was wrong. I may look like an adult, but I’ve never felt more useless in my entire life than I have done this year, mucking about at uni making stupid short films I doubt anyone will ever see, while Dad watches the woman he’s loved since he was fifteen slowly fade away, knowing there’s nothing he can do apart from hold her hand and pretend it’s all OK.
I count to five and head back downstairs.
Mum’s armchair is empty, and the patio doors to the garden are open.
She’s in the middle of the lawn with her back to me.
‘Mum, come inside,’ I call. ‘You’re going to get your socks wet.’
It’s been drizzling since dawn.
Slowly she turns around, her eyes flickering with confusion before coming to rest on me.
‘Has my mum come to get me?’ she asks.
I hesitate. Mum’s mum has been dead for eight years now. We used to tell her the truth, but it would break her heart every time. So we stopped. The specialist says it’s OK to play along. Validation therapy, they call it.
‘Well, has she?’ Mum demands.
Her socks must be soaked.
‘Not yet,’ I say. ‘She’s on her way. Why don’t you come in and wait?’
She hesitates for a few seconds before making her way across the lawn towards me. I sit her down in her chair and peel off her wet socks and find her a new pair.
‘How long will she be, do you think?’ she asks as I roll them up her ankles.
‘I’m not sure,’ I say. ‘It could be a while. Hey, why don’t we do some colouring in while we wait, just
to make the time go a bit faster?’
‘Colouring in?’ she asks uncertainly.
‘Yeah. You really liked it when you did it with Dad that time, remember?’
About a month ago, I came home from uni to find the two of them sitting at the kitchen table colouring in pictures of flowers and birds.
‘I was only going to do it with her for a bit,’ Dad confided. ‘But then I got right into it. Proper therapeutic, like.’
‘Do you know where Dad keeps the colouring books and crayons and things?’ I ask.
Mum just shakes her head and looks worried.
I rummage under the coffee table and in the junk drawer in the kitchen with no success.
‘I’m just going to look upstairs,’ I say, pocketing the patio door key and sprinting up the stairs.
I go into Mum and Dad’s room. Before Mum got poorly, it used to be spotless, the bed always neatly made, complete with hospital corners, the bedside tables empty apart from a paperback on Mum’s side and an alarm clock on Dad’s. Today, the curtains are still drawn and the sheets rumpled. Dad’s bedside table is cluttered with Mum’s pill boxes and empty mugs and glasses of stale water and books with titles like Learning to Speak Alzheimer’s and Keeping Mum: Caring for Someone with Dementia, dozens of Post-it notes sticking out from the pages.
I kneel down and pull out the drawer under Dad’s side of the bed. The colouring books and a jumbo pack of pencil crayons are right on top. I’m lifting them out when I notice what they’re on top of. Bills. Dozens of unopened bills. Swallowing, I set aside the colouring books and pick up an envelope at random. It’s from the water board and has ‘Final Warning’ printed on it in big red letters. I pick up another. It looks like it’s from the bank. Before I can talk myself out of it, I slice it open with my fingernail. It’s dated three months ago. I turn it over, scanning the transactions until I reach the final balance. We’re nearly a grand overdrawn.
