Page 55 of The Golden Girls’ Road Trip

‘You’re the artist,’ Simon says, and their words converge, although I hear all of it.

‘Sorry?’ he says, bemused.

‘Yes,’ she says, as I squirm like a teenager. ‘I’m the artist. I’m sorry to hear about your grandmother. It sounds like you had a few years getting to know her, though. I hope they were good ones,’ she says.

‘Thank you, Alex,’ he says. ‘They were.’

They both turn to look at me then and I feel ridiculously small and insignificant, no longer in control of those around me. Alex looks disappointed as if she didn’t quite get the introduction she was hoping for.

‘I’ll go and wait out with the van and Bardo,’ she says and, without waiting for a response, she walks back out through the main door.

‘How come you’ve never mentioned her before?’ Simon asks in a tone that suggests he has something to be wary of. Instinctively he senses a threat, which almost makes me laugh. I’ve avoided introducing him to anyone over the years. He’s never had the ‘Come and meet so and so’ introductions. Any relationships I’ve had have been fleeting and private. Simon was the one who introduced me to Leo. In fact there’s been a couple of times he’s pointed me in the direction of a nice man he works with, but I’ve always declined the offers of coffee, theatre trips, meals out and once, oddly, a day at Thorpe Park. It was only Leo who I’d said yes to and I’m still wondering if I’d just run out of steam to say no.

‘She’s a very old friend I haven’t seen for years. But tell me about you and Elizabeth. I think that’s a bit more important don’t you? You certainly didn’t mention anything about her.’ I try to keep my tone as light as possible. My feelings of annoyance are directed at me not him. I’m ashamed that he felt he had to get in contact and wasn’t able to tell me about it. Then I remember the silent eyes beside us and take Simon’s arm and walk him a little way away. I’m sure these women are used to all kinds of family dramas in this place, I tell myself, trying to ignore the whispering coming from them.

‘Well, I did say several times over the years that I wanted to meet my grandparents. You can’t say that I didn’t. But, you just kept shutting your ears to the matter. You made it more than clear you didn’t want any kind of reconciliation, but when I split up with Nikki, I was lonely and sad, and you were away. I did some digging and found a recent obituary for my grandfather.’

I hadn’t anticipated how hard this would be to hear, and I have to keep my breathing steady to stop myself from becoming emotional.

‘Mum, I went to the funeral to meet my family, such as they were.’

There it is, the first tear slides down my face and I wipe it away.

‘Look,’ he says. ‘I know that you didn’t get on with your parents, but it’s not like they ever did anything bad to me.’

And absolutely nothing to help either, I think, but sensibly I keep my mouth shut. The problem is, I realise, that I blame everything on my parents. Even though I never really told them the truth about that night, I still expected them to guess what actually happened. He was their friend after all. And to be sent away like a naughty girl and then having to leave Alex and return home. Being dismissed with a wad of cash and then losing Alex for fifty-two years. I blame them for it all, and that is going to be incredibly difficult to let go of.

‘She’s been here for three years,’ he says. ‘She had a stroke and then after a few weeks in hospital it was clear she wasn’t going to make a miraculous recovery, so Diana and I helped to choose this place for her to move into, not too far from us.’

‘You and Diana?’ I say sharply.

‘Yes, she’s my wife!’

Suddenly, Diana’s cutting remark and her look at the restaurant on my birthday make a lot more sense. I feel a bubble of anger rise up in me for all that was going on behind my back.

‘Mum, someone had to do it. She was completely on her own and she made me her next of kin.’

I scour my memory for all the times that Simon would raise the thorny subject of my mother and after every rejection from me, I do remember a time when he stopped talking about her altogether. I thought he’d just resigned himself to my way of thinking. I should have known him better.

‘So, what’s wrong with her now?’ I ask.

‘The stroke weakened her, and she’s mostly been in bed since then. She’s got pneumonia now and that’s pretty much it, I’m afraid. She’s not really with it, but do you want to come and see her?’ Simon asks me, and I have to fight the urge to tell him that of course I don’t want to see her. Do it for him, I tell myself. Once she’s gone it won’t matter anyway.

‘Okay,’ I say, ‘just for a moment.’

27

The room is surprisingly light. Maybe I imagined I’d be walking into her bedroom, her curtains pulled closed, on one of her late afternoon naps with just her velvet bedside lamp lit. One of her cocktail parties would do that to her – leave her needing beauty sleep to recharge her batteries ready for the next one.

I look everywhere but the bed.

She has a corner room with two windows: one looking out over the gardens at the front and one over the car park at the side. I glance down and see Ruby in her spot and Alex with the side door open, sitting on the ledge, Bardo drinking from his plastic bowl by her feet. Alex has her phone out and is tapping away on the screen. I lean against the window ledge and turn back to face the room. It’s surprisingly hotel-like for end of life. I think I’d been expecting a more hospital-like set-up, but this room has plush carpets and curtains and some dark wood furniture. The only nod in a medical direction is a chart on the wall and one of those hospital-type tables on wheels that swings round and across the bed when needed. My mother’s is firmly against the wall.

Simon walks straight in and over to her bed, picks up her lifeless hand and sits down in the chair beside her. I take a step closer.

The woman in the bed is not my mother, or not as I remember her. Where is the rouge, the perfectly coiffured hair, the painted fingernails? This woman is elderly, decrepit, with an oxygen mask strapped to her face. I take another step. Her hair is short and white, barely more than a few wisps across her scalp. She’s eighty-nine years old, but looks surprisingly older.

I feel a twinge of guilt and also annoyance. Guilt that I haven’t seen her sooner, meaning Simon had to take on her care, and annoyance that she looks so pathetic that I’ll have to be the bigger person. Who could possibly not forgive a woman on her death bed? I suddenly very much wish I hadn’t come.