Page 25 of Forever, Maybe
Nell’s nervous anticipation ratcheted up several notches.
She’d spent hours trawling forums recently, poring over posts from people sharing their first warning signs.
Experts always cautioned: If you’ve met one person with dementia, you’ve met one person with dementia.
But the commentators had their commonalities, and name-forgetting was always at the top of the list.
Once inside, Nell carried her parents’ luggage to the spare room upstairs before joining them in the kitchen—the large, light-filled room at the back of the house, where French windows opened onto the stone patio.
Bobby flicked the kettle on and rummaged through the cupboards above the counter, searching for tea and coffee.
Nell pulled three mugs from the stand beside the kettle and located the jars for him.
“You alright, love?” Bobby asked, his voice dropping low enough that Cate, who had wandered outside, wouldn’t hear. “You look a bit peaky.”
Nell spooned coffee into one mug and added tea bags to the other two, her hands moving automatically as she opened a packet of milk chocolate Hobnobs that she’d bought especially for them. “Tired, Dad, that’s all. Look, it’s warm enough to sit outside. Shall we take the drinks out there?”
“Good idea.”
Cate was already strolling around the garden, naming plants in both English and Latin with ease.
For a moment, Nell felt reassured. Her mother’s voice carried a familiar rhythm, and the sight of her moving among the flowers brought a flicker of normalcy.
As they settled at the picnic bench—Nell and Bobby with their drinks—she talked them through the changes she’d made to the garden since their last visit.
The garden had been one of the house’s main selling points when she and Danny bought it in 2003: a four-bedroom, semi-detached house in Pollokshields, set within a spacious walled garden.
They’d repaired the greenhouse and shed along the back wall, and Nell had restored a set of ancient picnic benches she’d salvaged from the dump, their rustic charm complementing the polished driftwood she’d artfully arranged.
Wildflowers—meadow buttercups, oxeye daisies, and corn poppies—softened the not-quite-manicured lawn.
As they sat, Cate meandered around the garden, her circuit slow but deliberate.
“Artie’s worried about Mum,” Nell said softly.
Bobby sipped his coffee, his expression unreadable. “She’s forgetful. So am I a lot of the time. That’s all there is to it.”
Ah. The denial Artie had mentioned.
“I promised him I’d convince you to take her to the GP. Are you still with Dr Rivers?”
“Long retired, sadly,” Bobby said with a sigh. “You’re lucky to see the same doctor twice at the health centre these days. That's if you can get an appointment at all. But what about you? Are you sure you’re alright, love?”
His amber eyes searched hers carefully. He looked as he always had: the grey slacks with their sharp pressed line, paired with a maroon jumper over a white shirt, the fleur-de-lys silk tie and the dark brown loafers. Practical and unchanging.
“I’m fine, Dad. Just tired. I’ve been struggling to sleep.”
Cate, having completed her circuit of the garden, joined them, accepting the Hobnob Nell offered. She broke it in half and dipped one piece into her tea.
“Marlene’s garden,” Cate began, confusing Nell’s neighbour with her own again, “is a lot like the Hardys’. They had those… fuch… pink flowers. And such a neat lawn. You were great friends with their boy, Nell, the one who…” She trailed off, her eyes widening as a light of understanding flickered.
“Oh,” she said, fear creeping into her expression. “We don’t talk about him, do we?”
“No, Mum.” Nell’s voice wavered, a note of panic slipping through. She reached across the table and gently patted her mother’s hand, worried by how startled she seemed. “Please don’t mention them or him in front of Danny, alright?”
“We won’t say a thing, Nell,” Bobby said firmly.
Then, as though to steer the conversation, he added, “How is your hubby? Still working all the hours God sends? Your mum and I were in that sandwich shop on Elm Hill the other week. It wasn’t half as nice as the stuff Danny sells.
Didn’t we say that, Cate? The bread in your ham sandwich was stale.
Stingy portion of ham too—not like the Stuffed! sandwiches.”
Cate frowned, momentarily puzzled, before nodding along. More, Nell suspected, to please Bobby than because she remembered the trip.
When Cate excused herself to the bathroom, Bobby leant in closer. “Love, I wasn’t going to say anything, but we ran into the Hardys a few days ago. In Ikea, of all places.”
“How… how are they?” Nell croaked. Sometimes, she struggled to even picture them.
Her only vivid memory was of a middle-aged man—maybe Hardy Senior—waving a bottle of red wine at a garden party one summer evening.
He’d been reciting a filthy limerick about a woman from Nantucket while the women yelled at him to shut up.
“Old.” He smiled, self-deprecating. “Aren’t we all? Though he could pass for a man in his nineties, and the four of us stood there listing all our ailments for the first ten minutes. No-one said anything about Darren. Do you ever think you should tell—”
Anticipating the suggestion, she leapt in. “No, Dad. We said at the time we never would, didn’t we? Please, please can we not talk about it? Let’s concentrate on Mum.”
He sipped his coffee, the non-reply an indication that he thought the opposite but then Bobby was of that generation of men who left conversations and decisions about the emotional stuff to women. And it was he and her mother who’d suggested the secrecy in the first place.
Through the open windows, they heard doors opening and closing, and someone moving about. Cate must be trying to find the bathroom. Nell heaved herself to her feet.
“I’ll go and help Mum. It’s an age since she’s been here, so no wonder she’s not sure where the bathroom is!”
Bobby nodded. “Yes, love. That’ll be it!”
Her dad’s voice echoed the same artificial brightness. Nell headed back inside the house, thoroughly rattled.