Authors: Mark Mills
We’re nearing my flat when Ralph announces out of the blue, ‘Don’t take any shit from Tristan. If he starts throwing his weight around, just come to me.’
‘Thanks, I will.’
‘He’s a smart guy, just not as smart as he thinks he is. Doesn’t always know when to keep his mouth shut. Like this afternoon, kept sticking his bloody oar in, trying to run the show. Patrick did well not to lose his rhythm.’
Ah, so that explains the cruel dig at Tristan earlier.
Later, lying in the bath, it strikes me that Ralph was on a recruiting drive. A bit of tension at the top can be a healthy thing for any organisation, but I resolve to keep my head down, to stay out of whatever’s brewing between the two alpha males. It’s one of history’s many valuable lessons: the foot soldiers tend to be the casualties in any conflict, not the generals.
It hardly warrants a tip-off to the pencil-pushers at Trades Descriptions, but you’d have to be perched high on one of its ugly brick chimney stacks for the Seaview Rest Home to stand any chance of living up to its name.
Maybe there was once a view of the sea, when the cumbersome Edwardian pile was first put up by some merchant or other on the rising ground to the north of Seaford. No longer. The town has spread, sprawling across the downland slopes like an ugly stain, and the house is now hedged in on all sides by other properties, reducing the view to a patch of sky.
You have to sign in and out, and beside the visitors’ book in the entrance hall is a flip chart of daily quotations. Today’s reads: MONEY ISN’T EVERYTHING, BUT IT SURE HELPS KEEP THE KIDS IN TOUCH. An old boy, bent by age, hovers nearby.
‘They lie, you know? They all lie.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘When they get here, when they leave.’ He flashes me a set of perfect dentures. ‘They’re never here as long as they say.’
I glance at my watch and enter the time in the book: 11.32. He checks his watch, checks the book and seems satisfied, for now at least. ‘We’ll see,’ he croaks mistrustfully.
The place is all swirly carpets, handrails, wheelchair ramps and eastern European carers on minimum wage. It has the distinct whiff about it of someone, somewhere, making a fast buck. It’s hard to kill a cactus through neglect – they’re hardy buggers – but the one on the windowsill in the corridor leading to my grandfather’s ground-floor room is definitely on its last legs.
His room stinks of stale piss, which is upsetting and unacceptable. Even if he’s had a mishap, forty thousand pounds a year (or is it fifty?) should buy a thorough cleaning job. Let’s face it, all they have to do for their money is feed him terrible food three times a day, wipe his ass every so often and bath him twice a week. The rest of the time he spends in his armchair, dozing or staring blankly at the blue-and-white-striped wallpaper (hats off to the decorators for their bars-of-a-cage theming).
There are a lot of grim diseases around, but Alzheimer’s is right up there with the worst of them. They call it ‘the long goodbye’ and I can see why. Over the past couple of years I’ve watched Grandpa’s mind wither away. The steady stream of anecdotes for which he was known has all but dried up, and only if you’re lucky will you catch a flash of his wicked sense of humour. I did the last time I visited, when a cute young carer poked her head into his room to check if everything was okay.
‘Ah, Magda. Can’t stay away. Any excuse to drop by. She says it’s my body she’s after, but I know it’s my money.’
‘Very funny, Mr Larssen.’
‘I’ve told her I’m married, but does she listen?’
These momentary flarings of his old self are becoming increasingly rare. Soon they will stop altogether. He’ll be reduced to a husk, a series of bodily functions and little else.
He looks so peaceful in his armchair, head back, eyes closed, that I decide to leave him be. I perch on his bed and observe him. Even at the age of eighty-two, there’s nothing frail or shrunken about him. He’s a solid block of a man, tall, broad, impressive. The jagged scar on his left hand looks strangely livid today. I know the story behind it, even if he can no longer recall it. It’s a souvenir of the German bombing of Coventry on the night of 14 November 1940. He was seven years old at the time, the eldest child of first-generation Danish immigrants. He lost his best friend in the explosion that vaporised the neighbours’ house and brought the best part of their own crashing down on their heads (and his hand).
As a young boy I listened in rapt horror to his tales of that night, of the terrible things he witnessed. They’re my stories now; they’re no longer his to tell. Maybe I’ll pass them on to my own children, but just how long they survive before they fade forever into nothingness is anybody’s guess.
He opens his eyes, smiles weakly. ‘Oh, it’s you.’
‘Hi, Grandpa. How are you doing?’
He stirs, stretches out his long legs. ‘The strangest thing happened the other day.’
‘Oh?’
‘A small volcano appeared, just here …’ He gingerly lays a hand on his left knee. ‘It gave off two tiny puffs of smoke – pfff, pfff – then it disappeared.’
I’m struggling to keep a straight face. ‘Wow.’
He frowns at me. ‘It’s amazing, Annie, you look just like Daniel today.’
Annie is my mother, his daughter. ‘It’s me, Grandpa – Daniel.’
‘How is he?’
‘Grandpa, it’s me, Daniel. I’m fine.’
‘Have you heard from him?’
I give up and go with it. ‘Yes, he’s got a new job.’
‘A new job. That’s good. Good boy. Has he married that girl yet?’
‘Clara?’
‘The one with the long hair. The one you don’t like.’
Well, that’s news.
‘No, not yet,’ I reply.
‘And his book? Has he finished it?’
Finished? Try started. ‘It’s getting there,’ I lie.
‘I can’t wait to read it. I like a good book, and I know it’ll be a good book.’
It’s a beautiful day, so I suggest a drive – to Alfriston maybe, or Birling Gap, places he often took me to when I was a youngster. The names no longer seem to mean anything to him. ‘Birling Gap? I don’t think so, Annie. Not today. I’m very tired.’
He closes his eyes and drifts off again. I wonder if they’ve got him on something. This thought is enough to drive me to my feet and down the corridor, where the head sister (who clearly doesn’t appreciate my tone) assures me that he’s not drugged up to the eyeballs; it’s just that he’s not sleeping well at night and therefore dozing more during the day to make up for it. Expecting to scoop Grandpa up and bolt, I’ve left Doggo in the car. I now go and grab him. He’s sitting in the passenger seat, sulking at being abandoned. I know the look – a heavy-lidded sidelong glance – and I’ve learned that mimicking it is the best way to defuse his mood. It’s still a good minute before he finally cracks and follows me inside.
Doggo seems taken with the sight of Grandpa slumbering in his armchair. He pricks up his ears, turns to look at me and then does something completely unexpected: he hops up on to Grandpa’s lap.
Grandpa stirs. ‘Hello, you. What’s your name?’
‘Doggo,’ I say.
‘Doggo, eh? God, you’re an ugly little bugger. Yes you are … yes you are …’ Doggo doesn’t seem to mind having his ears fiddled with and his snout scratched.
Grandpa looks up at me suddenly. ‘You haven’t told him, have you?’
‘Who? Doggo?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. Daniel, of course.’
‘Told him what?’
His eyes narrow mistrustfully. ‘You have, haven’t you?’
He looks so distressed that I find myself saying, ‘No, no, of course I haven’t.’
‘Thank God,’ he says, visibly relaxing. ‘One father is enough for any man.’
I don’t expect to get through to her, and because I’m phoning Spain on my mobile, I’m not too unhappy when it goes straight to message.
‘Mum, it’s me, Daniel. Give me a call when you’ve got a chance.’
I’ve let Doggo off his lead and he’s zigzagging along beside me, happy as Larry, sniffing out God knows what in the long grass trimming the pathway beside the river.
This may well be my favourite place on the planet: Cuckmere Haven, where the Cuckmere river meets the English Channel. It’s an affection bound up with all kinds of childhood memories. We used to come here and drop into the river and be swept out to sea, where ridged sandbanks would magically rise up beneath our eager feet, allowing us to stand and stare back at the pebbled shoreline and the blinding white chalk cliffs flanking the low river valley.
The geography is just the same, but the trimmings have changed. The pathways are now of compacted gravel designed to take a wheelchair (nothing wrong with that), there are rubbish bins every hundred yards or so (when once we all knew to lug our litter back to the car), and the place is bristling with signs. There are signs pointing out the oxbow lake where the meandering river has cut a corner at the end of its journey, others indicating exactly how far it is to Seaford or Eastbourne by foot along the coastal path, yet more listing the local flora and fauna. Worst of all, there are signs in red beside the river that read: DANGER! NO SWIMMING. There’s even some small print recording the local by-law you’ll be infringing if you dare to ignore the warning.
We were made to feel like spineless little cowards if we didn’t hurl ourselves into the Cuckmere and brave the clash of fresh and salt water. Nowadays, there are laws forbidding it. Has the world really changed that much in my brief lifetime? Evidently, and that realisation saddens me.
To the east of the beach lie the Seven Sisters, the oscillating stretch of chalk cliffs that film-makers have always used to stand in for the white cliffs of Dover because they’re so much more photogenic than the real thing. Doggo and I are now standing at the exact spot where Kevin Costner, in the role of Robin Hood (complete with cape, dodgy mullet and American accent), once prostrated himself on returning from the Crusades in a rowboat.
I re-enact it for Doggo’s benefit, rolling around laughing and proclaiming loudly, ‘I’m home! I’m home!’ Doggo looks on with the same mix of scorn and bewilderment that Morgan Freeman brought to the character of Robin’s Saracen buddy in the same scene.
We’re heading back to the car when the urge suddenly takes me, fired by those words stamped in red capitals: DANGER! NO SWIMMING. I strip off down to my boxer shorts, and leaving no time for common sense to take hold, I leap into the river. Christ, it’s cold. It’s also swollen and fast-flowing after the recent rains. Doggo bounds along, keeping pace with me as the fierce current carries me off. He draws to a sudden halt, his whole body twitching in anticipation, then he launches himself off the high bank and belly-flops into the water. He seems to be smiling as he paddles furiously to draw alongside me.
‘Do you come here often?’ I ask.
He barks twice. It sounds remarkably like ‘Fuck off.’
The best bit is when the river gives way to the sea and the water suddenly corrugates. You switchback through the crests and troughs, rising and falling, the force of the current at your back gradually diminishing until you can finally affect the course of your trajectory. The sandbanks are still there, and the sensation of the gloopy sand mingled with river mud oozing between my toes carries me back twenty years. I reach for Doggo and draw him to me. It’s the first time I’ve ever held him in my arms. Amazingly, he doesn’t growl.
We’re making our way back up the path to my abandoned clothes when I spot the man hurrying towards us. His green uniform suggests he’s an official of some kind.
‘Can’t you read? It says no swimming.’ Puce with indignation, he stabs his finger at one of the signs.
‘I wasn’t swimming, I was rescuing my dog.’
That throws him, but not for long. ‘I don’t believe you,’ he blusters.
‘It’s true, he just jumped in.’ I turn to Doggo. ‘Doggo! Bad Doggo!’
It’s the wrong thing to say, because they’re the exact words I used in reprimand when he bit Megan, and on that occasion he was rewarded with a Choc Drop. Maybe anticipating the same, he promptly leaps back into the river.
I give the man a shrug, then jump in after him.
It’s even more fun the second time.
‘Ems, it’s me.’
‘Hey, Dan.’
‘Bad time?’
‘Only if you’re driving.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ve got you on speaker.’
‘Hang up. I’m not going to collude in a criminal act.’
‘What the hell, Ems?’
‘Just pull over and call me back.’
My mother has been with Nigel for fifteen years, most of which they’ve spent in Spain, living a life of luxury in a sprawling old farmhouse in the hills behind Malaga. Nigel is very wealthy, wealthy enough to foot the bill for Grandpa’s nursing home without even blinking. The talk has always been of a hefty inheritance from a bachelor uncle, but this has done nothing to dampen my suspicions that the antiques business Nigel used to own in Arundel was a front for some far more nefarious business activity. It wouldn’t surprise me. For all his many charms, there’s something essentially shifty about him.
They rarely return to England, and when they do, the two of them are pretty insufferable, flaunting their leathery permatans and distributing bottles of virgin olive oil pressed from the fruit of their own trees. Emma has always been much better at staying in touch with them than I have.
‘I think they might be in Morocco.’
I’m now standing in a lay-by near Lewes. ‘Morocco?’
‘They’re thinking of building a house near Essaouira.’
‘Why would they want to do that?’
‘Er, because they want to, because they can.’
‘Lucky them.’
‘Lucky us, too, if they decide to go ahead. When you speak to Mum, be enthusiastic. Come to think of it, don’t bother, she’ll know you’re putting it on. Anyway, why are you suddenly so keen to talk to her?’
‘It was something Grandpa said.’
‘What?’
I want to tell her, and I almost do, but the implications are way too big for both of us. ‘It’s probably nothing.’
‘Facebook her if it’s urgent.’
‘Facebook? Mum?’
‘Only for three years. And it’s time you signed up, luddite. How is he?’
‘Grandpa? Oh, you know, not getting any better. You should come and see him before it’s too late.’