home in Warwick was a microcosm of my childhood memories. On the wall over her bed was a nineteenth-century original watercolor of a child feeding chickens that had once hung over the mantelpiece in the family sitting room. Photographs in silver frames stood alongside little porcelain pots and other knickknacks on her antique chest of drawers as they had always done in my grandparents’ bedroom. A framed tapestry of the Queen in her coronation coach shared wall space with a hand-painted plate that I had given them in celebration of their ruby wedding anniversary.
Each item was so familiar to me. It was only my grandmother herself who was unfamiliar. As unfamiliar to me as I sometimes was to her.
“Hello, Nanna,” I said to her, leaning down and kissing her on the forehead.
She briefly looked up at me with confused recognition and said nothing. The nurses told me that she could still chat away quite well on some days but not at all on others, and I personally hadn’t heard her speak now for quite a few weeks.
“How are you feeling?” I asked her. “Have you been watching the racing on the television? And the Queen?”
There was no reply, not a flicker of apparent understanding. Today was clearly not one of her good days.
The decision to place her in a nursing home had been both a difficult and an easy one. I had realized for some time that she had been losing her memory but had simply put it down to old age. Only when I was contacted by the police, who had found her wandering the streets in her pink nightie and slippers, had I taken her to the doctor’s. There had been a period of testing and several visits to neurologists before a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s had been confirmed. Sophie had abdicated all responsibility in the caring department, which was fair enough as she had her own problems to worry about, so I arranged for a live-in nurse to look after my grandmother in her own house. I was determined that she shouldn’t have to live in a care home full of old people who sat in a circle all day staring at the floor.
Then one day, when I went to spend an evening with her, she became very agitated and confused. She didn’t seem to know who I was and continually accused me of stealing her wedding ring. It was more distressing for me than it was for her, but it was her live-in nurse who was the most upset.
The poor girl was totally exhausted from the ever-increasing workload and was at the end of her tether. Between bouts of tears, she had told me what life for my grandmother was really like. Above all, she was lonely. Keeping her in her own home had been no real kindness to anyone, and certainly not to her. So the following day I had made arrangements for my grandmother to go into permanent residential care and had promptly sold her house to pay for it.
That had been two and a half years ago, and the money was starting to run out. I hated to think what would happen if she lived much longer.
As usual in the evenings, she was sitting in her room with all the lights full on. She didn’t like the dark and insisted that the lights be left on both day and night. As it was, on this midsummer day, the sun was still shining brightly through her west-facing window, but that made no difference to her need for maximum electric light as well.
I sat down on a chair facing her and took her hand in mine. She looked at my face with hollow, staring eyes. I stroked her hand and smiled at her. I was beginning to think this had been a waste of my time.
“Nanna,” I said to her slowly, “I’ve come to ask you about Peter. Do you remember your son, Peter?”
She went on looking at me without giving any sign that she had heard.
“Your son Peter,” I repeated. “He got married to a girl called Tricia. Do you remember? They had a little boy called Ned. Do you remember Ned? You looked after him.”
I thought she hadn’t registered anything, but then she smiled and spoke, softly but clearly. “Ned,” she said. “My little Ned.”
Her voice was unchanged, and I felt myself welling up with emotion.
“Yes,” I said. “Your little Ned. Nanna, I’m right here.”
Her eyes focused on my face.
“Ned,” she repeated. I wasn’t