LITMIR.BIZ

       7. Jess

      When we reach Windermere, I try not to react when I see my mother’s hair.

      ‘Darling,’ she says, ‘you came. I’m so glad you came. Your dad will be thrilled to see you. Oh, thank you,’ she says as she hugs me tight. I breathe in her scent, relax in her arms, close my eyes and ignore the fact that she has gone from being an ash blonde to a piccalilli yellow. She pats her head, as if she knows what I’m thinking. ‘I haven’t been able to get out, dear, found this colour in a cupboard, thought I’d better try and get rid of the greys before you arrived.’

      Great. It’s my fault she’s yellow.

      ‘And who’s this?’ She looks down to the other end of the lead I’m holding.

      ‘Pug.’

      ‘Is that it?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Is Pug a boy or girl?’

      ‘Girl.’

      Mum sighs with relief. ‘Good, they piss less. I have enough trouble dealing with your father.’

      Leah laughs out loud, comes in for Mum’s second hug of the day. ‘How is he, Mum?’

      ‘Leah, love. Good to see you too. Go on through, he’s in the back, looking forward to seeing you all. Hi Gus. I have lunch ready. Hope you’re all starving.’

      Leah’s eyes roll at me as Gus embraces my mother too. She points to my mother’s hair behind her back and mouths the words ‘What the hell?’ at me, then leads the way with Gus, who hits his head on one of her empty hanging baskets. Mum pulls me back.

      ‘Have you heard from Rose?’ she asks, her expression grave.

      ‘Just a text from Sean to say they’ve got there safely.’

      ‘Oh.’ She looks disappointed on my behalf, then strokes my hair. ‘How are you?’

      Straight away I don’t resent the question that I normally rail against. Instead, I feel some strange primal comfort. The touch of a mother. ‘Not so good.’ I shrug. ‘Yesterday was hard.’

      She squeezes my hand, caresses the edge of my little finger. I miss my mother’s touch. And I miss touching my daughter …

      Dad is sitting in his usual perch, staring out over the lake from the back of the house. There’s a huge expanse of windows that they both put in in the Seventies, way before they were trendy, and the view from this part of the house is spectacular. Today there are too many sailing boats to count. Some glide across the shimmering water like a knife through butter. Others, not quite catching the wind, move more slowly. Dad’s eyes seem fixed on a small, slow one near the edge of the lake, close to the end of the back garden.

      Leah and Gus are already with him. She has her hands wrapped around one of his, is chatting animatedly to him with Gus beside her, prompting stories with witty asides. Dad responds to neither of them but he keeps his eyes fixed on Leah’s face. She’s good at this, pretending that nothing is wrong; pretending that the contracted body of the man in the chair is still Dad, though both of us mourn in private. Both of us hate how the stroke has affected him; how much that tiny part of him that died in his brain, the most minuscule area of shaded capillaries on a CT scan, has really altered him. I lean in and kiss his cheek. I haven’t told him yet. Mum has asked me not to, certain that if he knew – if he had any understanding of what’s happened to Anna – it would kill him. He’d keel over and die. Anna is his only grandchild.

      I focus on the shelf next to us. It’s white melamine; one of a row of three put up by Dad years ago. I remember Mum fussing when he used the drill to put the brackets in the wall, sure he’d puncture a gas pipe or electrocute himself. The shelves are still in place, perfectly stable and horizontal, while my dad sits curved in a chair. I reach out and touch a Dinky car, one of the many he has collected over the years. It’s not in a box like most of the others on display. It is from the Thunderbirds range, Lady Penelope’s pink car. Anna used to love it and it’s one of the ones he allowed her to play with when she was little.

      Mum is pottering, hovering. It’s making me antsy. At seventy-two, she’s ten years younger than Dad and moves at a speed that belies her age. I have no idea how she cares for my father the way she does: her energy is boundless; her love for him so huge that nothing is too much.

      ‘Can I help, Mum?’ I call out after her as she heads to the kitchen to bring another foil-covered vegetable dish to the table.

      ‘No, love. Talk to your dad. He’s been so looking forward to seeing you.’

      Leah looks at me. Neither of us asks the obvious question. Neither of us would, but how can she know what Dad is thinking when he rarely speaks nowadays?

      He moves in the chair. Pug has taken up residence by his feet, lying on the green carpet that must be thirty years old and looks like AstroTurf. Dad’s blanket, a loose lilac-coloured, stitched crochet one I recognize from my childhood, slips forward. I catch it and pull it up on his knees. I notice his fringe is long enough to push to one side and he’s wearing odd socks. Mum is by my side with a bowl of roast potatoes in her hand. ‘Talk to him! Honestly! He’s not daft, you know.’

      I shift in my chair. It’s easy to pretend my father is not a shadow of his former self when I don’t visit. It’s less easy to start a conversation with him right now. I take his hand. ‘How are you, Dad?’ I ask. ‘How are you really?’ I make my eyes move from the plaid shirt he wears to his eyes. Gus, always a little uncomfortable with the changes in Dad, leaves Leah and me to it and follows Mum, insisting on helping her in the kitchen.

      Dad’s face angles a little towards me. Today his speech is not good. He makes sounds, struggles with the formation of words, but I know what he’s saying. ‘The girl.’

      I lean in to him, rest my head on his shoulder. ‘Yes, Dad, I’m the girl.’

      Leah laughs and sticks her tongue out at me. ‘Always the favourite,’ she mutters before she stands and follows Gus.

      Dad repeats the sounds and I catch the question in it this time. I wonder

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