The Girl Who Came Back (12 page)

Jules didn’t want to admit that she had, in fact she was on the point of denying it, but burying her head in the sand was going to help no one, least of all her mother. ‘She’s always been the nervy type,’ she said, as though this well-known truth might explain the oddness of how her mother had seemed unwilling to answer the phone lately, or the way she repeated herself, or constantly lost things. ‘I know she’s forgetful at times, but we’re all guilty of that …’

‘Tell me about it,’ Aileen sighed, rolling her eyes, but her tone remained serious as she said, ‘I just think it might be worth her having a little check-up with Dr Moore. I mean, we’re none of us getting any younger …’

‘But she’s only fifty-eight,’ Jules protested, as though her mother’s age were some kind of protection against the awful possibilities her imagination was dragging up.

Aileen took another sip of tea.

Finally realising that Aileen was asking her to take a lead on this, Jules braced herself and said, firmly, ‘OK, if you’re saying she should see a doctor then I agree, but how am I going to persuade her if she doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with her?’

Aileen regarded her gravely, as though she’d expected the question. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ she replied, ‘that it might be a good idea for you to start by having a little chat with Dr Moore yourself. You can tell her what’s bothering us, and ask her advice on how to proceed from there.’

Accepting that was probably the best way forward, Jules swallowed hard as she looked into Aileen’s eyes. In her heart she knew what Aileen was thinking, it was what she was thinking too, but neither of them was prepared to speak the words aloud in case fate overheard and turned them into an unthinkable reality.

Now, all these years later, Jules was signing herself into the Greensleeves Care Home where her mother was a permanent resident. Since there was no one in reception she went on through to the manager’s office, where she dropped her workload on his desk and decided to wait a few minutes in case he came back.

Her mind was filling again with that first time Daisy and Amelia had met, reliving the strangeness of it, while realising that she hadn’t remembered it all, because she was recalling now how at some point Daisy’s eyes had sparkled as she’d said, ‘Is your name really Amelia? Like naughty Amelia Jane?’ and Amelia had smiled in a sly sort of way as she’d replied, ‘Yes, exactly like that.’

Something else that was coming back to her was the memory of Stephie and Dean hurtling into the bar in their usual overexcited way and coming to a dead stop when they’d spotted Amelia. It was as though they too had realised, in the instinctive way children have, that there was something different about this girl.

She couldn’t remember how Amelia had reacted to their arrival, or if they’d spoken to one another, but she was sure now that when Daisy had gone racing off to the kitchen calling out to Misty, Stephie and Dean had followed.

Did any of it matter now?

She guessed not, and yet the memories were there, staging themselves sketchily, unreliably in her mind – feeling like an early warning that she’d failed to see. Even if she had seen it, she’d have had no idea what the warning was about.

Deciding to leave the manager a note to let him know she’d arrived, she went upstairs to the dementia wing, using the security code to release the door. The communal lounge was sunny and crowded with wing-back chairs, though not so many people. The TV was showing an old Gregory Peck film and half a dozen or so grey- and white-haired women along with Alan, one of only four men in the unit, were being served afternoon tea.

‘Jules!’ Chona the senior nurse declared cheerily as she came out of her office. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m fine,’ Jules assured her, trying not to wince as one of the old ladies let out a piercing scream.

‘Your mother was asleep when I went in just now,’ Chona was telling her. ‘There were a few episodes of wakefulness during the early hours, which will account for her tiredness today.’

‘Is she eating?’

‘She managed most of her lunch, and if you want us to we’ll try waking her up for tea.’ Chona’s watchful eyes came inquisitively to hers. ‘How about you, Jules?’ she asked softly. ‘Are you managing to eat and sleep?’

Jules forced a smile. Obviously news of Amelia Quentin’s release was spreading. ‘I’m fine,’ she assured the nurse. As well meaning as Chona was, and as much as she liked her, the last thing Jules wanted right now was to get into a discussion about her own state of mind. It was why she hadn’t returned her therapist’s calls this past week, and probably wouldn’t in the foreseeable future. ‘I should go and see if Mum’s awake,’ she said.

Her mother’s room was at the end of a wide, pale green corridor with stuffed animals perched on the handrails that lined the walls, and all sorts of memorabilia pinned to various boards. The photograph on her mother’s door was of a seventy-year-old Marsha looking smart and alert (though she hadn’t been) in a navy pinstriped blouse and knee-length pleated skirt.

Marsha Symonds
, her name tag read, and underneath,

Marsha is from Kesterly-on-Sea. She likes animals, music, bedtime stories,
Strictly Come Dancing,
having her hair brushed and daisies.

Seeing the last always made Jules’s heart ache to a point that could bring tears to her eyes.

Though Marsha had been at the home for over three years now, Jules still wasn’t finding it any easier to see her here, had probably never quite accepted that the stranger who looked like her mother but wasn’t was the woman who’d brought her up single-handedly, had loved her unconditionally and would have far rather died early than end up like this.

She found her fast asleep with her mouth half open and her tiny, claw-like hands bunched together on her meagre chest. The skin on her cheeks sagged in papery thinness, the healthy gloss of her silvery hair seemed an impossible accomplishment for such a fragile skull.

Going to sit on the bed beside her, Jules gently lifted one of her hands into her own and held it to her cheek.

Marsha didn’t stir, and in truth it was such a relief not to have to try and engage with her today that Jules’s eyes burned with a painful mix of sadness and guilt. All too often when she came in her mother would cower away in fear, saying sorry over and over as if she’d committed some sort of offence, or she’d shout at someone only she could see to go away and leave her alone.

‘Please, Nurse, please, please, make him stop,’ she’d cry, and Jules could only look on helplessly, having no way to comfort her, or to convince her that what she was seeing wasn’t real.

Deciding to sit with her for a while, Jules moved to the armchair next to the bed and used the remote control to find a classical-radio station on the TV, something soothingly spiritual that might help to untangle at least some of the chaos in her own mind.

As her eyes closed she almost smiled at the memory that drifted into focus. ‘What are you doing with that?’ she’d asked her mother once when she’d found her prodding at the buttons on one of the remote controls.

‘I’m voting on
Strictly
,’ her mother had breathlessly replied. ‘I want her to win.’

The news had been on at the time, and the remote had actually been to operate the electric bed, but at least her mother had been able to utter sentences that made some sort of sense back then. It was rare for her to manage any now.

The diagnosis of early onset hadn’t happened overnight. The tests, appraisals and endless consultations had seemed to go on for ever before a psychiatrist had finally confirmed that Marsha had Alzheimer’s disease. Jules would never forget the look of horror that had come over her mother’s face, as though she hadn’t expected it, when she’d been living in dread of it since the tests had begun.

Yet, in spite of the tragedy of what was happening to her, over time she’d begun showing a courage and stoicism that Jules would never have believed her capable of, had she not seen it with her own eyes.

‘You know my biggest fear?’ she’d once confided to Jules. ‘It’s that I might reach a point where I won’t know you and Daisy any more.’

Unable to bear the thought of it herself, Jules had embraced her hard. ‘That won’t happen,’ she’d promised her, never dreaming that one day Marsha’s tormented oblivion would be a blessing.

Her memories of Daisy were intact.

‘How’s Amelia?’ Daisy asked Anton Quentin, surprising Jules that she remembered the name and the father, when more than a year had passed since she’d first met them.

‘She’s very well, thank you,’ Quentin had replied stiffly. After a moment he looked down at her. ‘Daisy, isn’t it?’ he asked.

Daisy nodded. ‘Is she really like naughty Amelia Jane?’ she whispered with a giggle.

The barrister’s hawkish eyes glinted.

‘Daisy, that’s enough,’ Jules said, going to take her hand.

Looking up at her, Daisy said, ‘She said she was, but I don’t expect she is really, do you?’

‘Probably not,’ Jules smiled, while thinking she probably was.

‘MUMMY! MUMMY!’ DAISY
shouted as she came bursting into the kitchen with Stephie, Dean, Millie, Max and three other children Jules hadn’t seen before hot on her heels. ‘Guess what, I think Ruby’s a mermaid and she …’ She stopped suddenly, lighting up as she spotted her second cousins, Robbie and Tilde, at the table with cookies and squash. ‘I didn’t know you were going to be here,’ she cried, going to throw her arms around them.

Everyone was always made to feel welcome in Daisy’s world.

‘Auntie Aileen brought us,’ five-year-old Tilde told her. ‘Mummy and Daddy have got some things to sort out.’

‘Why weren’t you in school today?’ Stephie asked Robbie. ‘You were supposed to be my partner in the three-legged race.’

‘It was OK, I did it twice,’ Dean piped up, ‘once with Daisy, which we won, and then with Stephie. We came second in that race. Did you bring your football cards?’

‘Yes, I got them all.’ Robbie dived into his holdall. ‘I’ve got two Michael Owens so I’ll swap one if you’ve still got two Thierry Henry.’

‘Where’s Dad?’ Jules asked Daisy.

‘Downstairs talking to Granny Aileen. Are you going to stay here?’ she asked Robbie and Tilde. ‘Mummy, can they sleep in my room?’

‘If they want to,’ Jules assured them.

Thrilled, Daisy turned back to them. ‘You can have the bunks, or the lilo or the hammock, I don’t mind,’ she announced generously. ‘I can sleep anywhere.’

‘Will Ruby be there?’ Tilde asked worriedly. She was no doubt still remembering the playgroup outing to the Mermaid, when they’d come to learn all about Ruby the ghost and Kian had gone overboard with the sound effects. While half the group had screamed in delight, the other half had ended up having nightmares. Kian had felt so terrible about it that he’d arranged another trip to show them exactly how he’d made the noises, and as an added bonus he’d produced an enormous box of dressing-up clothes from Nora’s costume shop. That day had been a far greater success than the first, with impromptu little plays being staged all over the place, a rowdy picnic in the family room and to top it all Kian’s cousin Finn, the Brightest Spark, had turned up to show off some of his magic tricks.

Now Daisy was saying to Tilde, ‘Honestly, you don’t have to be scared of Ruby. She just sits around watching us …’ She suddenly gasped, remembering what she had started to tell Jules earlier. ‘Mum! I think Ruby was a mermaid, you know like in the story, and because she couldn’t kill the prince she’s turned into a daughter of the air, you know like a ghost. Have you seen the film?’ she asked Tilde.

Tilde shook her head.

‘It’s brilliant,’ Stephie told her. ‘We’ve seen it about a thousand times, haven’t we, Daise?’

‘Can we watch it now, to show Tilde?’ Daisy asked her mother. ‘We’ve got it on video,’ she added grandly to Tilde.

‘Do the boys want to watch it too?’ Jules asked, as the girls began hurrying off to the TV room.

‘No way, not again!’ Dean protested. ‘We’ll go down on the beach and play with our cards and collect crabs and sea worms and shells and stuff.’

‘Are you staying for tea, Dean?’ Jules called after him.

‘Yes please,’ he called back. ‘I’ll have three of everything.’

Thinking how adorable he was, Jules went to start preparing Daisy’s mermaid emporium for its new ‘underwater’ guests. With its walls painted to resemble waves, its sand-coloured carpet with shell-like rugs, lacy fishing-net curtains, foaming ceiling and moody lighting to create bubbles and shadows, it could have been a set straight out of the movie. Although Daisy had been given many posters from the Disney film by friends and family she hadn’t wanted them to spoil her mermaid cave, so Kian had helped to place them in a large artist’s portfolio which she could pull out any time she wanted to look at them or to show her friends. The rest of her amazing mermaid collection, most of which had come as Christmas or birthday presents, was laid out carefully on the rugged-rock shelves Kian had commissioned a set designer to fashion for her. It ranged from snow globes to musical figurines, bracelets, headbands, caps, jigsaw puzzles and a set of dolls representing the rest of the cast from the movie, including Eric, the prince, with whom Daisy was currently passionately in love. She even had a
Little Mermaid
swimsuit and swim bag, and the cutest imaginable mermaid jellies that Em had sent over from the States.

In the midst of this treasured hoard, holding pride of place, was Ruby’s cream leather shoe, which didn’t seem to wander about the place half as much as it used to.

‘There you are,’ Kian sighed, finding Jules on her knees inflating a lilo just in case one of the children might prefer it to a bed. ‘So Robbie and Tilde are staying with us while their father moves out of the house to go and shack up with his girlfriend?’

Knowing only too well how furious Kian was about the situation, Jules said, ‘It’s better than them having to watch him go.’

‘You’re right about that. So who’s there for our Terry? I hope she’s not having to cope with this on her own.’