Bear With Me

by Jessica Redland

  ‘Your mum’s been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, right?’ I said. ‘Why don’t you tell me a bit about her.’

  Jemma smiled again. ‘She’s amazing, but I’m so worried about her. What do you want to know?’

  ‘Anything you want to share with me. For example, her age, her job, her home life, her health until the diagnosis. Focus on your mum as you know her for the moment and then we’ll talk about what led up to the diagnosis.’ I indicated a pen and notepad on the table. ‘Do you mind if I make a few notes?’

  She shook her head. ‘That’s fine. She’s called Julie and she’s 46. She’ll be 47 in March. She’s divorced. My dad left her when he found out that she was expecting my little brother. I was 18 at the time. Sean’s ten now.’

  I nodded. That made her 28, then: six years younger than me.

  ‘Dad didn’t want another child so Mum bought Sean up single-handedly,’ she continued. ‘Dad isn’t around anymore. He was killed by a drunk driver three years ago.’ She paused and took a deep breath.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ I said.

  ‘It’s been tough. He was a difficult man, but he was still my dad and… well, that’s a different story and not relevant here. Let’s get back to Mum, eh?’

  I nodded, feeling empathy towards someone who’d also suffered loss. I knew all about the guilt that went with it.

  ‘She’s got her own shop selling collectible teddy bears. It’s called Bear With Me and it’s fantastic. She makes bears and runs workshops for anyone interested in learning how to make them, or for people who just want to learn how to sew. She values bears for a couple of auction houses so she travels a lot and Sean stays with my best friend’s mum.’ She paused. ‘Too much detail?’

  ‘No. It’s all good. It gives me a picture of her lifestyle which sounds pretty hectic.’

  ‘You could say that!’

  ‘Tell me about her health. Any problems before the diagnosis?’

  Jemma shook her head. ‘Nothing significant. The occasional cold like the rest of us and she got floored by the flu a couple of years ago but that’s all. She’s never regularly exercised because her work hasn’t allowed her to get into a routine, but she’s pretty fit. She’s on her feet all day and up and down two flights of stairs loads of times. She’s slim and she has a good diet. She’s a bit of a fruit and salad fiend.’

  ‘And what about the diagnosis?’ I listened, scribbling the occasional note, while Jemma told me all about her mum’s rigidity, the frequency of what she called “bad days” and how it was affecting her everyday life.

  ‘It’s not the Parkinson’s I’m worried about, though,’ she said, twiddling with a spare beer mat. ‘That’s a lie. I am worried about the Parkinson’s. Of course I am. It’s just that I’m worried that there’s something else and Mum’s consultant is being an awkward twat. He says I’m not his patient so he won’t take my calls. My question is this: does Parkinson’s cause memory loss?’

  I put my pen down. ‘Not directly. Parkinson’s is a neurological condition so it does affect the brain, but it’s the part of the brain that controls movement, not the part that deals with memory. That’s why patients experience slowness, rigidity, tremors and so on. These are all about movement. However, it’s possible to have another condition alongside Parkinson’s which does affect memory, like de–’

  ‘Don’t say it,’ she cried, grabbing my forearm across the table and squeezing hard. She released her grip and shook her head. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to dig my nails in.’

  ‘Believe me, relatives of patients have done worse. I’ve actually been punched before when presenting a diagnosis that someone’s husband didn’t want to hear.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yes! I looked really professional wandering around with a black eye.’ I took a sip of my drink and gave her my finely-honed empathetic smile. ‘I have to say the word, Jemma. You’re worried she might have dementia, aren’t you?’

  She lowered her eyes and nodded. I wanted to reach across and hug her and tell her it was going to be alright, but years of medical training coupled with my own personal experiences told me that it often wasn’t.

  ‘First thing to say is don’t jump to conclusions. I’m assuming your mum has been demonstrating unusual patterns of behaviour for you to have gone down this path, but it’s possible that it’s just a bit of forgetfulness brought on from the stress of the diagnosis.’

  ‘I wish it was,’ she said, her eyes sparkling with tears.

  ‘Can you give me some examples?’

  She nodded, reached into her bag, and pulled out a notepad. ‘I thought you might ask me that so I wrote them down so I wouldn’t forget.’ She smiled at the irony of the statement.

  I could see she was close to tears and wanted to give her a moment. ‘How about I get us another drink, then you could run through the examples for me?’

  She didn’t argue about who was paying this time.

  While I stood at the bar waiting for our drinks, I hoped that she was going to run through a list of everyday stuff that happens to us all like losing keys, leaving the oven on, struggling to recall specific words, or walking into a room to get something then completely forgetting why you’d gone in there. I could have smiled and reassured her that there was nothing to be concerned about and these things often happened more with age. Unfortunately, when she ran through her list, I couldn’t give her those reassurances. The stealing example and the knickers in the freezer were worrying incidents, although they didn’t necessarily signify dementia.

  ‘It gets worse,’ she said. ‘Some friends joined me back home for my birthday in June. Mum was tired and asked me to look after my brother. She suggested we went to the lido, but it closed when I was little. I asked her if she meant the slide pool on North Beach but she insisted she meant the lido on South Beach and she was talking as though it was still there and… What’s up?’

  I stared at Jemma, mouth open, my mind racing. Jesus Christ! What were the odds? ‘You’re from Whitsborough Bay!’

  Her eyes widened. ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘The lido. The shop. I’m from there! Your mum’s consultant is Dr Steadman, right?’

  Jemma nodded.

  ‘He was my replacement when I moved down here,’ I said. ‘And I’ve met your mum. She’s lovely. My fiancée and I had a bear from her when we got engaged – a Ju-Sea Bear I think it was called – and she made a Hawaiian shirt and a surf board for him because we were surfers.’

  ‘Oh my God! I remember that bear! She sent me loads of photos of him. He was gorgeous. Wow! Small world.’

  ‘You’re not wrong there.’ I shook my head in disbelief.

  ‘I wonder why Tiff didn’t make the connection.’

  ‘I don’t think she knows where I’m from. It never came up. We’ve only had coffee or lunch a handful of times and it’s always been daft banter or work chat.’

  ‘So what made you and your fiancée move down to London? Not many places to surf around here.’

  Oh shit! I’d walked into that one. No lies. No misunderstandings. I’d tell her straight out.

  ‘Bit of a story there,’ I started, wondering whether to blurt it out and be done with it or whether I should steer the conversation back to her mum because I’d spectacularly hijacked it away from the one thing she wanted to ask me about. Bollocks. I was such a chicken. I couldn’t seem to say the words. ‘How about we focus on your mum for now and, if you’re not sick of the sound of my voice by then, I’ll tell you how I ended up in London?’

  ‘I hope you don’t think I’m prying,’ she said, blushing slightly.

  ‘Not at all. I just don’t want to make the evening all about me when you wanted to ask me about your mum.’

  Jemma smiled. ‘Thank you. I do want to talk about Mum, but I’m interested in hearing all about a fellow Whitsborough Bay resident and
how you ended up making the move to London like me. I’ll tell you my story too, if we’ve got time, but it’s not in a pretty place at the moment so you’ll have to bear with me.’

  ‘It’s a deal. Right. Focus. From what you’ve told me about your mum, I suspect that–’

  I jumped when Ring Ring by Abba started playing.

  Jemma groaned. ‘I’ll kill Sean. He keeps changing the ring tone. He’s found a website with phone-related songs on it.’ She delved into her bag. ‘Sorry. Might be Mum or Sean.’ She frowned as she looked at the screen and mouthed ‘Tiff’ to me.

  ‘Hi Tiff, what’s up?… Oh my God! No!… When?… How’s Drew taking it?… I’m not surprised… No, you finish getting ready for work. I’ll come straight home.’ She stood up and attempted to wind her scarf around her neck, getting it tangled around her arm instead. ‘After everything he’s done for me, I can’t not be there… Yeah, I know… Look, I’m leaving now. I’ll be home as soon as I can. Have you rung work to say you’ll be late?… Okay. See you soon.’

  Jemma disconnected the call and tossed her phone into her bag with an angry little cry before yanking her tangled scarf from her arm and dropping it on her seat.

  ‘Everything alright?’ Clearly it wasn’t.

  ‘I’m really sorry, Sam. I’m going to have to bail.’ She pulled on her coat. ‘That was Tiff. We share a flat with her twin sister, Leah, and their cousin, Drew. It would appear that Drew’s ex has just come back on the scene after ghosting him a few years ago.’ She grimaced and took a deep breath as she draped her scarf around her neck. ‘Drew never got over it and he’s apparently in a right state. She’s worried he might do something stupid.’

  I stood up. ‘He wouldn’t…?’

  Jemma shook her head. ‘No, not that, but he’s drinking heavily and he’s a big lad. She’s worried he might go out looking for a fight or something. She has to go to work and Leah’s away at a conference so I need to be there to make sure he doesn’t leave the flat.’ She flung her bag over her shoulder. ‘Sorry.’

  I grabbed my pad and coat. ‘I’ll walk you to the tube.’

  ‘Okay. You can give me your take on the situation on the way. Have you ever heard of being ghosted?’

  ‘Is that like being haunted?’

  ‘No. Don’t worry. I hadn’t heard of it either until it happened to me.’

  We exited the pub and headed in the direction of the tube, while Jemma explained the concept which I had heard of, but I hadn’t known there was a name for it. She told me about how both she and Drew had been ghosted by men who they’d thought loved them. Some sleuthing on her part had discovered the reason why her fiancé had ghosted her, but Drew never knew why his relationship had ended.

  We stopped outside the tube station. ‘This is me,’ Jemma said.

  ‘You said that Drew is a big lad.’

  She nodded. ‘He’s about 6’ 2” and works out a lot.’

  ‘No offence, Jemma, but if he decides he’s going out, I don’t think there’s much you’ll be able to do to stop him.’

  Her face fell. She clearly hadn’t thought about that.

  ‘I’m coming home with you,’ I said, taking my Oyster card out of my pocket. ‘You’re not doing this alone.’

  Jemma headed towards the barriers. ‘Come on then. Hopefully it won’t get nasty.’

  ‘If it does, Thor’s here to protect you.’ I don’t know why I said it. It just slipped out.

  Jemma stopped and narrowed her eyes for a moment, then shook her head and ran towards the steps. I ran after her. Seriously? What the hell had I said that for? The last thing I needed was to start the Thor connection again and carry more memories of Nikki with me.

  Chapter 19

  Jemma

  ‘I’ve just got off the tube,’ I said as soon as Tiff answered my call. ‘I won’t be long. What’s he doing?’

  ‘The good news is he’s stopped drinking lager.’

  ‘And the bad news?’

  ‘He’s moved onto the vodka.’

  ‘Arse!’ I sped up. ‘With you in five.’

  Tiff was waiting at the top of the stairs, propping open the door to our flat with her body, her arms folded across her chest.

  ‘I thought I might need reinforcements,’ I said, taking in her surprised expression.

  She nodded. ‘Good idea. Sorry to abandon you.’

  ‘It’s fine. We can manage it. Get to work and I’ll text you later.’

  She dashed past us and down the stairs.

  ‘Time to introduce you to Drew,’ I said.

  ‘Jemma! My cuddly little bear-maker!’ Drew rose from one of the armchairs, staggered a bit, then sat down again. ‘My ghost’s back.’

  ‘So I hear.’ I quickly removed my coat and hung it on the hook, indicating to Sam that he could do the same. ‘This is–’

  ‘The gorgeous Dr Indiana Jones,’ Drew said, grinning. ‘Can I call you Indi?’

  ‘I prefer Sam, if that’s okay with you.’ Sam walked into the lounge area, hand outstretched to shake Drew’s.

  ‘Sam Jones?’ Drew sat up straight. ‘Seriously? I thought Tiff was joking. Sam Jones as in Flash Gordon?’

  Sam nodded. ‘Well, I’m not actually him, but I have the same name. And the blonde hair. Sadly not the six pack or the rocket cycle.’

  Drew laughed a little too loudly. ‘You know the film?’

  ‘I love the film.’

  ‘Then you’re welcome in our home at any time.’ Drew raised his glass in a toast then necked it and leaned forward to pour another. Obviously remembering his manners, he offered the bottle to Sam.

  ‘Maybe a lager if you have one?’ Sam suggested.

  ‘I’ll get you one.’ I stood up and headed towards the kitchen area.

  I grabbed us both a bottle of lager from the fridge then sat down next to Sam on the sofa.

  ‘What happened, Drew?’

  ‘You know my mate, Evan? The one who does the cartoons?’

  I nodded. I liked Evan. He’d been round to the flat a few times and was an exceptionally talented artist who illustrated comics for a living. A bit of a comic book geek, it was how Drew had met him.

  ‘Well, he was at an engagement party last night for a mate of his; some Dane called Laust who I’ve never met. He put the pictures up today of the happy couple and guess who Laust is bloody well getting married to.’

  ‘No! Oh, Drew.’

  Drew took another swig of vodka. ‘Luukas and Laust. How sickeningly alliterative. There’s photos of them everywhere. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Everywhere.’

  ‘Couldn’t Evan have warned you?’

  ‘He didn’t know Luukas was my ex. I met Evan afterwards. I probably mentioned him, but Evan wouldn’t have made the connection.’

  ‘At least you weren’t at the party. Imagine how awkward that would have been.’

  Drew didn’t respond. He necked the remains of the vodka and placed the empty glass on the coffee table. Phew! No top-up. Or at least not yet.

  ‘I might have sent him a friend request on Facebook…’ he said.

  ‘No! Why?’

  ‘I couldn’t help myself. I wondered if he’d accept. He did. I followed him on Twitter and Instagram too. He followed me back. And then I sent him a message.’

  ‘You didn’t!’

  ‘It was his fault. You don’t disappear off social media and reappear with a new set of profiles and expect that people won’t notice.’

  ‘Dare I ask what you said?’

  ‘Nothing bad. I might have politely enquired as to whether there was a reason why he left me waiting for him at Heathrow nearly three years ago without a word of apology.’

  My heart went out to him and I thought about the hurt email I sent to Scott when I tracked him down to his workplace and realised he was really Adam. ‘By “po
litely enquired”, I’m guessing you mean rudely demanded?’ I said.

  ‘He deserved it. Bloody cheek. Nearly three years, Jem. Three years.’

  ‘Did he reply?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Oh yes. Shall I read it to you?’ Without waiting for either of us to answer, Drew picked up his phone and mimicked what I have to assume was meant to be Luukas’s Finnish accent as he read it out.

  ‘”Hi Drew, I think the years have caused you some memory fade. I would like to remind you that my name is Luukas and not “worthless piece of shit.” I had left the UK because my father took ill but he is well now, thank you for your sympathy. I am moving back to London. I thought we might reconnect as I do remember you being fun but now I think perhaps not. I will not pass on your wishes to my future husband for him to be attacked by a plague of vampire bats. I am sure you will understand why this is not a good conversation to have with the person you love. You disappoint me, Drew. It would appear that you still have not grown up in the three years since we were together. Grown men do not obsess about comic book heroes. This is why I could not be with you before. Grown men do not call each other names. This is why I cannot have you in my life now. It has been three years, Drew. THREE YEARS! Please move on with your life and get over it. It is my regret that I did not tell you we were over. I do not remember now why I did not. I am sad to have caused you so much pain for you to write such an angry message to me. Is this enough to put closure on our acquaintance? Good luck with your future life. Regards, Luukas.”’ Drew’s voice, slurred and wobbly throughout the reading, broke on the last sentence and he slumped back in his chair, sobbing, as the phone slipped from his hand.

  I’d never seen Drew cry. Ever. I leapt up and hugged him, indicating to Sam to get rid of the bottle of vodka. He nodded and quickly hid it behind a cushion. I dreaded to think what Drew actually wrote to Luukas to result in such a response, but it had obviously been pretty vicious. It wouldn’t help for me to point that out, though, especially after Luukas had well and truly chastised him.