The Son-in-Law (29 page)

We parked near the river and climbed a set of billion-year-old steps towards street level. We were halfway up when Gramps stopped dead.

‘Ah! Zoe, look at this,’ he said.

Zoe.

‘Scarlet,’ I reminded him.

‘Mm?’

‘I’m Scarlet.’

I don’t think he even heard me. He was going a bit deaf. ‘See this lichen?’ he said. ‘This small patch, just the size of a saucer?’

I squinted over his shoulder as he talked.

‘It might be as old as this piece of wall. Medieval. It grows very, very slowly—but it lives an unimaginably long time. Unlike people. Did you know that lichen can survive in outer space?’

I didn’t know that. He’d put his glasses onto his nose, and was peering at the patch of grey-green on the stonework. People were edging around us on the narrow stairs, and the cold was starting to trickle in through the seams of my coat. ‘It’s actually made of two organisms,’ he said.

I gave him a subtle tug. Too subtle, apparently, because he didn’t budge.

‘A fungus and an alga.’ He seemed to be lost in wonder about a patch of stuff that most people would clean away with bleach. That’s Gramps all over. The tiniest things—aphids, caterpillars, algae, people—are magical to him. That’s one of the reasons I love him so much. He sees beauty everywhere and in everybody.

Eventually we walked on, with him talking about how they can use lichen to date things. I was still feeling a bit funny about him calling me by my mother’s name. Once we were in the restaurant he took off his cap and smoothed down his hair. We ordered some lunch at the counter, and then he pulled out a chair for me as though I was a duchess. He’s always done that, ever since I can remember.

A bus rattled the bay window. It had an advert for some holiday on the side, with a picture of a woman in a white bikini, sipping a cocktail by a glittering sea.

‘Vienna’s going to Thailand soon,’ I said.

‘How is young Vienna nowadays—still a chocaholic?’

I told him about Vienna’s latest addiction, which was Crunchie bars, and we gossiped until the waitress brought our drinks.

‘Lovely,’ sighed Gramps ecstatically, lifting his coffee cup. ‘Nothing like that first shot of caffeine.’

‘That’s exactly what Mum used to say.’

‘Is it? I didn’t know. I suppose there are many things about your mother that you remember well, and which I know nothing about. Those are your own precious treasures, those memories. Hold on to them.’

‘I’ve never thought of memories as treasures before.’

‘Oh, yes!’ Gramps’ whole face became a gentle smile. ‘Good memories are treasures to be hoarded. They bring light when life seems dark.’

I used my teaspoon to dig out froth from the hot chocolate. The bubbles dissolved into sweetness on my tongue. ‘Gramps?’

‘Present and correct.’

‘Can I ask you something?’

‘Fire away.’

‘Promise you won’t be upset?’

‘I’ll do my best.’

I looked down at the froth in my cup. ‘Do you think we should start staying over with . . . um . . . our dad? Or is now the time to put our foot down?’

The silence went on for a long time. I stole a glance at him. He was staring out of the window, and there were valleys running from his nose to his mouth. I’d never noticed them before. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Silly question.’

‘Not at all. A good question.’

I let him think for a minute. We both watched the traffic pass by.

‘I’ve experienced many wonderful things in my life,’ he said in the end. His voice was hoarse. ‘I’ve travelled, made mistakes, learned from people better than myself. I’ve been in love with beautiful women. I’ve married Hannah and shared forty years with her. It has been my privilege to work with many brilliant individuals, but the most extraordinary magic of all was your mother. The fact of her existence gave meaning to mine. She was, quite literally, the light of my life.’

I felt so guilty. I was kicking myself for even mentioning Dad when the waitress came by with our order. She seemed to sense something was up. ‘Everything all right?’ she asked. ‘Like some ketchup?’

‘No thanks!’ I gushed, sticking up both my thumbs like a prize geek.

After she’d moved on, Gramps gave a great heaving sigh that seemed to shake his body. ‘That radiant light went out.’

‘I’m so stupid,’ I muttered. ‘I shouldn’t have asked you.’

‘No, no.’ He turned away from the window and looked at me. ‘I didn’t mean . . . I am not trying to tell you what to do, Scarlet. I was merely trying to explain why Hannah and I are finding this so very difficult. We mustn’t make decisions out of bitterness, though. We must think about what’s best for you children.’

‘But what
is
best for us? Hannah was asking me last night and the truthful answer is I don’t know. I don’t want to be disloyal to you and Hannah. I don’t want to be disloyal to Mum. But he’s the only dad we’ll ever have. I don’t know what to do.’

Gramps’ eyes looked saggy, as though weights were pulling down the skin below them. ‘What do you want to do?’

‘I want to
not
hurt anybody’s feelings.’

‘You three have suffered the greatest loss. If you can forgive, then surely so can we.’

‘It isn’t about forgiving our father,’ I said, choosing my words carefully. ‘It’s about living with
not
forgiving him.’

Gramps reached across the table and took both my hands in both of his.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s eat up. Your wedges are getting cold, and there’s nothing worse than a cold potato wedge.’

We didn’t mention Dad again, but the subject was so massive that it didn’t go away. It hung around, making everything else we talked about seem false and twittery-shallow. Dad was what Hannah would have called the Elephant in the Room. Actually, he was fast becoming the Elephant in my Life, and that wasn’t a good feeling.

‘Shall we take a constitutional along the walls?’ asked Gramps, as he paid the bill. ‘There’s nobody at home, after all.’

I didn’t feel like going home yet either. Gramps wrapped his scarf around his neck. He dropped his cap and seemed to have trouble picking it up, so I did it for him. As we stepped outside, dark dishcloth clouds were scudding across the roofs of York. The air felt refreshing after the hot café. Feeling happier, I put my arm through Gramps’ and we headed along the pavement towards Bootham Bar.

‘The air must be very cold,’ said Gramps, shaking his free arm in the air. ‘Gone numb.’

‘I don’t think it’s cold. Just damp.’

Those old walls take you to secret places. You climb the steep staircases, and then you walk along the narrow path and feel as though you’re invisible. Gramps and I were soon suspended high among the trees, spying on back gardens. Leaves were starting to unfurl, and birds nested at eye level. A pair of neat little squirrels ran along a branch right beside us. We could hear them chattering.

‘Theo and Ben,’ chuckled Gramps. ‘Squabbling over an acorn.’

Four young men in stripy pyjamas and old-fashioned dressing gowns were walking towards us.

‘Hi,’ they said, one after the other, like wind-up dolls—hi, hi, hi, hi!

Once they’d passed, I turned to take another look. ‘
Pyjamas?
At lunchtime?’

‘Students,’ replied Gramps peacefully, as though that explained everything.

From our lofty height we looked down upon compost heaps, garden sheds and lawns. There was the ruined pillar that Gramps always said was Roman—a Roman pillar, in someone’s back garden! In the yard of a restaurant, two chefs sat smoking in white jackets. We spied on them for a while, making up stories about what they were saying. Gramps thought perhaps they were planning on putting a laxative in the soup.

‘Shall we take a breather?’ he suggested, as we came to a corner with a seat. ‘I feel a little worn out.’

He did sound puffed. As we sat down, a family came past. There was a mum and a dad holding hands, and a yelling little boy who ran ahead. The mum carried a baby in a sling. I could just see its red bobble cap and matching red bobble nose.

‘Excuse me,’ the mother asked us. ‘Do you have the time?’

I looked at my watch. ‘Exactly two fifteen.’

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Don’t want to get a parking ticket.’ A minute later, they’d disappeared around the corner.

I felt a spot of rain, and then another. I held out my hand. ‘Uh-oh,’ I said. ‘I think we’re going to get wet.’

No reply from Gramps.

The raindrops grew heavier. After a while, I stood up. ‘D’you want to go back?’

‘Mm.’ He pushed his hands onto the wooden slats of the seat, as though he was planning to stand up, but then his arms gave way and he fell sideways so he was slumped with his face pressed onto the back of the bench. The wood was digging into his cheek as he looked up at me. It distorted his whole face.

At first, I laughed. I can’t believe that now. I actually laughed. I thought he was play-acting, being a clown. You never quite knew with Gramps. But suddenly it seemed as though the joke was going on too long. There was something not at all funny about it.

‘Gramps?’ I asked. ‘Are you okay?’

He made a weird gabbling sound, and one leg pedalled as though he was trying to put it on the ground. I grabbed his arm and helped him up. He leaned on me.

‘Okay?’ I asked.

‘Dunno,’ he mumbled. ‘Where we . . .?’

‘On the walls, Gramps.’

‘Paris?’

I felt really scared then. It was like a terrible dream. ‘No! The York city walls, Gramps. Look, there’s the Minster. See?’

He didn’t see at all. He didn’t even look. He slumped down all the way to the ground, and I shrieked in fright. He lay there, crumpled and helpless with half of his body in a puddle. His coat was wet.

‘Oleer,’ he moaned. It was sad, as though he was a scared child. He couldn’t say the words
oh dear
, and tried again. ‘Odurr.’

‘It’s all right!’ My voice was a squeak of fright. ‘I’ll get help. Um . . .’ I didn’t have my phone—it was plugged into the charger in my bedroom—so I leaned over the wall and screamed: ‘Hello? Anybody . . . somebody . . . I need help!’ But we were above a garden and there was nobody around to hear. On the other side there was only the inner ring road, with traffic and those useless bloody daffodils. No people.

‘Zoe,’ mumbled Gramps. He tried to say something else, but it came out like no words I have ever heard. It could have been a foreign language. It was what Hannah might have called gobblydegook.

‘I don’t understand you, Gramps,’ I wailed. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll find someone. Just lie still.’

I tried to move him from the puddle but he was too heavy, so I took off my coat and put it under his head.
Oh God, Oh God
. I was sobbing in my mind, but without any tears. This was no time for tears.
Mum, are you there? Please help me!

I don’t know whether God heard me, or maybe Mum, or perhaps both. All I know is that I have never in my life been so pleased to see a party of Japanese tourists. They burst around the corner like a chattering flock of birds, taking photographs and exclaiming about the view. They were led by a beautiful guide in a rain mac. She had a tiny waist, a rosebud mouth and black hair rolled into a tight bun. She looked at Gramps as he lay across the path.

‘There seems to be a problem. Can I help?’ she asked, in perfect English.

It turned out that there were two doctors in her party. Two! It was a miracle. They didn’t need her to tell them what to do. Both of them dropped down beside Gramps and spoke to him. They did things with his arms, and they took his pulse. They moved him into a different position, muttering to each other. Then they called something to the guide and she got out her phone.

‘Ambulance,’ she said. At the sound of that word, I almost burst into tears. I knew what an ambulance meant. I’d called one before. It meant Gramps might be dying.

Those people stayed with us until help arrived. I will never, ever complain about tourists in York again because they were so kind. I sat on the ground beside Gramps, and one of the women put her jacket over him, which soaked it. I kept saying thank you, and they shook their heads and clicked their tongues to show that they cared. One of the doctors suggested I talk to Gramps, so I held his hand and babbled rubbish about the weather and how he was probably just getting a cold. The pretty guide let me use her phone to call home. I spent a minute listening to our answer machine message (Gramps’ voice, so calm and lovely) before it hit me—of course! Hannah and the boys were out to lunch. How could I have forgotten? She’d be gone for at least another hour. I didn’t know her mobile number. It was stored in my contacts, so I’d never bothered to learn it.

I wondered whether it would be the same ambulance crew who came when Mum died, but it wasn’t. First a man arrived by himself; then two more, carrying a kind of chair. One of them—a woman—crouched close beside Gramps.

‘What’s your name, Sir?’ she asked.

Gramps pursed his mouth as though he was trying to force it to work. ‘While.’

‘While?’

‘My . . .’ he said, pointing at me.

‘Granddaughter,’ I said. ‘His name is Frederick Wilde.’

She looked down at him again. ‘Can you hear me, Frederick?’

‘’Es.’ muttered Gramps, with a big effort. He was dribbling from the corner of his mouth. It was horrible. I looked away. He must have realised about the dribbling, because I heard him desperately trying to say ‘sorry’. It broke my heart. He was such a gentleman, even at a time like that.

‘Don’t be sorry, Gramps,’ I whispered. ‘There’s nothing to be sorry for.’

One of the doctors leaned towards the ambulance lady and murmured a word. He said it in a Japanese accent, but I knew what it meant. Oh yes, I knew.

‘Stloke,’ he said.

•

Apparently, if you get someone who’s had a stroke to the hospital really fast, they sometimes give them this stuff that dissolves the clot. I looked it up later, because I wanted to understand. Two million brain cells a minute can die during a stroke. Two million. That’s a lot. I’m glad I didn’t know about that when it happened.

I rode in the back of the ambulance with Gramps. He was frightened, that was the saddest part. I could see his eyes rolling around, trying to focus, trying to understand. The side of his face had collapsed. I held his hand and murmured, ‘It’s all right, Gramps.’ But I knew it wasn’t all right, not at all.