What Not to Do If You Turn Invisible. Ross Welford
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of course, I never do.
Great-gran’s name is Mrs Elizabeth C. Freeman. Gram told the staff that she was never called Lizzie, and would prefer to be called Mrs Freeman but I think they thought she was being snooty.
I know I shouldn’t dislike going to see Great-gran, but I do. It’s not her. Great-gran is a sweet and harmless old lady. No: what I dislike is me. I hate the fact that I find going to see her a chore, that I get bored, that I feel uncomfortable.
What’s worse is that that day should have felt special. One hundred years old? That’s pretty awesome. I was wishing I felt more stoked about it.
Then Gram started talking. It’s nearly always a monologue, because Great-gran so seldom responds, preferring instead to look out of her window and nod, a little half-smile sometimes appearing. Sometimes she even falls asleep. She looked tiny in the big armchair, propped up with cushions, her little head with wispy white hair emerging from a woollen blanket.
‘So, Mum, how have you been keeping? Have you been out for your walk today? It’s some blustery weather out there today, isn’t it, Ethel?’
‘Yes, very windy.’
Usually I’m not required to say much, and I just sit in the chair by the window, looking at the waves and watching the minutes tick by on the clock next to her bed. I’ll chip in a comment now and then, and sometimes I’ll sit next to Great-gran and hold her thin hand, which I think she likes because she responds with a weak squeeze.
That’s basically how it went this time too, except at the end when something weird happened.
After a few minutes of talking, Gram said something about heating up the sausage rolls and she left to go and talk to the kitchen staff.
That’s when Great-gran turned to me and for a moment her watery, grey eyes seemed to sharpen and she was really looking at me carefully. At first I thought she was looking at my spots and I shifted my position ready to move away, but she gripped my hand a little tighter so that I stayed, and I realised she wasn’t studying my skin. Instead she was looking right into my eyes, and she startled me by coming out with a whole sentence.
‘How old are you, hinny?’
(Hinny is Great-gran’s name for me. It’s an ancient Geordie term of affection. I reckon Great-gran is the only person left alive who uses it. She never calls me Ethel. Only hinny.)
The words came out as a very quiet croak – the first that Great-gran had spoken to us all morning.
‘I’m nearly thirteen, Great-gran.’
She gave a tiny nod. Gram had come back into the room, but Great-gran hadn’t seen her.
Great-gran said, ‘Tiger.’
Just that: ‘tiger’.
And then, with a huge effort, she said, ‘Pss-kat.’
I leant in a bit and said, ‘What was that?’
Again, slightly more distinctly: ‘Tiger. Pussycat.’
She pointed to me and gave a weak smile.
I looked up at Gram, and her face had gone white. I mean really – the colour had drained from her face. And then, as if she’d caught herself out, she went super-loud, super-energetic, and all ‘Right, the party is about to begin. Let’s sort you out, shall we, Mum? I’ve told them we don’t want the sausage rolls straight away …’ And so on. A long monologue of busyness that was obviously meant to distract from what Great-gran had just said.
I had no idea what it was all about. None at all. Tiger? Had she said ‘pussycat’? Or something else? Thing is, Great-gran is a hundred and not everything works like it should, but she’s not actually senile.
She turned her head to Gram. Her eyes still hadn’t lost their intensity and, for just a moment, it was like looking at a person half her age.
‘Thirteen,’ she repeated. There was something about all this that I wasn’t getting, but I’d have let it all go if Gram hadn’t suddenly come over all brisk and matter-of-fact.
‘Yes, isn’t she growing up fast, Mum?’ said Gram with a little forced laugh. ‘How quickly it all happens, eh? Goodness, look at the time! We’d better get into the sitting room. People will be waiting.’
AN ADMISSION
So there’s another problem with visiting Great-gran, even on a happy occasion like a birthday. Old people make me sad.
It’s like: I’m starting to grow up, but they finished all that ages ago and they’re growing down. Everything is done for them, to them, and they don’t really get to decide anything, just like little children.
There’s a man who is very old and very deaf, and the staff have to shout to make themselves heard. So much so that everyone else can hear as well, which is sort of funny and sort of not.
‘EEH, STANLEY! I SEE YOU’VE HAD A BOWEL MOVEMENT THIS MORNING!’ bellowed one of the nurses once. ‘THAT’S GOOD! YOU’VE BIN WAITIN’ ALL WEEK FOR THAT, HAVEN’T YOU?’
Poor old Stanley. He smiled at me when I went past his room; the door is always open. (Most of the doors are open in fact, and you can’t help looking in. It’s a bit like being in an overheated zoo.) When he smiled he suddenly looked about seventy years younger, and it made me smile too, but then I felt sad and guilty all over again, because why should it make me happy that he looked young?
What’s wrong with being old?
Great-gran was wheeled out of her room by one of the staff, Gram scuttling behind her, and I was left alone, staring at the sea.
There was something missing. Someone missing.
My mum. She should have been there. Four generations of women in the family and one of them – my mum – was being forgotten.
How much do you remember from when you were very little? Like, before you were, say, four years old?
Gram says she hardly remembers anything.
I think of it like this: your memory is like a big jug that gets gradually fuller and fuller. By the time you’re Gram’s age your memory’s pretty much full, so you have to start getting rid of stuff to create room and the easiest stuff to get rid of is the oldest.
For me, though, the memories I have of when I was tiny are all I have left of my mum. Plus a little collection of mementos, which is really just a cardboard box with a lid.
The main thing in it is a T-shirt. That’s what I always see when I open the box up because it’s the biggest item. A plain black T-shirt. It was Mum’s and smells of her, still.
And when I open the box, which stays in my cupboard most of the time, I take out the T-shirt and hold it to my nose, and I close my eyes. I try to remember Mum, and I try not to be sad.
The smell, like the memory, is really faint now. It’s a mixture of a musky perfume and laundry detergent and sweat, but clean sweat – not the sort of cheesy smell that people say Elliot Boyd has but that I’ve never smelt. It’s just the smell of a person. My person, my mum. It’s strongest under the arms of the T-shirt, which sounds gross but it isn’t. One day, the smell will be gone completely. That scares me a bit.
There’s also a birthday card to me, and I know the rhyme off by heart.
To a darling little