Glass And Peace

Chapter 3. Fiction.

Veronica sits in her favourite chair, and she sits very quiet and still
And they call her a name that they never get right, and if they don't then nobody else will

But she used to have a carefree mind of her own, with a devilish look in her eye
Saying "You can call me anything you like, but my name is Veronica"

Do you suppose, that waiting hands on eyes, Veronica has gone to hide?
And all the time she laughs at those who shout her name and steal her clothes?

Veronica by Elvis Costello and Paul McCartney, from the album Spike, © Warner Bros 1989.

I'm driving Nana home at 6pm on Christmas Day, this lady who held me tight the moment my Dad died. Hiding her own grief for my sake that day, she had hung on to me, as if to prevent me slipping away too, so fierce was her embrace that I wondered at the gall of the reaper, to challenge this formidable woman for the life of one of her own: her son, her Bill. "You're not getting another!" her hug said, as aged ten I discovered the fragility of life: how like glass was our family, how delicate our peace. My Dad had gone that day, my Grandad the previous year, and while losing the man I called Ganda had been devastating, I had found Dad's death both inexplicable and intolerable. Engulfed with grief I had buried my face into Nana's lavender-scented cardigan, the wool whorls making lines on my yielding face, and she had crooned "Hush now, Danny-boy, Nana's got you", and rocked away my shuddering sobs.

Today my name seems no longer to be Dan or Danny-boy. Today it is Arthur, because Nana's memory is fading from front to back, and she now resides in a time before I existed - or at least before I was a fully-grown man. The most recent memories went first, she forgot her great-grandchild, what jobs we all did, how to work the TV. None of this really mattered, Nana was still happy and bounced "my little brother Cam" on her knee as happily as she had me, and we all went along with the pretence to keep the peace. But then she forgot my sister and me, the frowns began to blemish her face as she wrestled to reconcile the presence of strangers in her house with the absence of fear and mistrust. She both knew these people and didn't, and why were they calling her Nana? It's Doris, or Mrs Bennet if you please! The agony - what was hardship to watch must have been torture to endure - always peaked at Christmas. But today she has forgotten Grandad is dead, and I have to drive her home, assuming the name Arthur and the identity of her late husband's best man, because Nana is distressed that Alf will soon return wanting his tea.

We drive home in silence, for the most part, but arriving at her sheltered housing brings trouble. Despite ten years' resident, half with Grandad, it is unfamiliar to her. She won't come inside. I press the warden's buzzer and with Maureen's help we persuade Nana into her own home. "See, this is your chair, Nana. And there's your old China cabinet and your collection of spoons!" I offer, probably too pleadingly. "Here's the one I brought you back from my school trip to London when I was ten, just before Dad died." I wonder if mentioning Dad's death is a mistake, what time period does her mind inhabit today, is Dad alive, or even born yet? She takes this in, dark shadows seem to cross her face briefly, and then with almost insane intensity it brightens. "Lovely!" she exclaims. Nana's smile could always illuminate a room and it's back, acute as ever. She has made some sense of the situation and Maureen and I breathe once again. The warden indicates the call button on the intercom, I nod, and she says her goodbyes.

I close the door and turn to Nana, my dad's Mum now smiling brightly in recognition, and I'm glad the illness has subsided enough to ease our parting. But my reading is off. "I'd better get your Dad's tea on. You will stay for tea, won't you Bill?". I crumble. The smile of recognition is for my Dad, not me. Nana still believes Grandad is coming home for tea, is hoping to serve a hot meal to the "two favourite men in her life" as once we were. She's anticipating a family meal with love and laughter and light and life. And I must now break that spell, smash that glass, destroy Nana's peace. I choke back tears which won't help Nana now, I must be strong, but grief - both mine, and hers by proxy - spills out and rolls down my cheek. Nana frowns: "Oh son, what's wrong?", I shake my head but she's close now, reaches out, pulls me to her and we sink in embrace on the sofa, my sobs growing in depth now, I was taut with the tension of tightrope-walking amid truth and fancy that conserves Nana's comfort, fatigued from performing ceaseless comforting fictions, now I snap, surrender to the sorrow, press my head into another lavender-scented cardigan as she croons "Hush now, Billy-boy, Mama's got you", and she rocks away my shuddering sobs.