We had all grown up in the same generation and we were all old now. I looked around and saw only one young face in the audience: Pamela’s. Everyone else was stoically wearing a crumpling, wrinkling, sagging mask of skin on the front of their skulls, keeping the knowledge of their inevitable path towards death away from their consciousness. We all knew that one day we would be where Peter was now, but none of us could allow ourselves to contemplate on that fact. To do so would have led us all to an even greater depression than that induced by the death of the beloved friend and colleague for whom we were gathered today.
Love. Peter had loved Agnes, and Agnes still loved Peter. Jimmy had once described love as a passion, a burning, wild pain which needed to be fed or else it would devour one’s insides. Such an image was visible in Agnes right now. Her fire could no longer be fanned towards Peter, so it consumed her entire soul with insatiable fury and undying pain. She was wincing, crying, weeping as if she had received a mortal, physical wound; yet her only suffering was emotional.
Love. It kills us all, in the end.
Chapter 19: October 17th, 1998
“I love you.”
The little bundle in my arms could not respond, of course. Her name was Jessica and, at a mere three months old, she had not yet developed the power of speech.
Pamela had kept her a secret from us. She had even kept it a secret that she was married. To be fair, we hadn’t seen her for years, so she had not had any opportunity to tell us, even if she had wanted to. The last time we saw her was on a brief visit to her commune six years previously, and the last we had heard from her was a note declaring that she was off to travel the world and she would see us when she got back.
So when she had turned up on our doorstep announcing that this charming gentleman was Darrel, her partner, and this adorable child was their daughter, Jessica, Gracie and I had been shellshocked.
We were used to Pam’s surprises and secrets, though. Ever since her impromptu flight to the commune on her twenty-first birthday we had learnt that impetuousness was part of her personality. She would disappear in the middle of the night only to reappear several months later clutching an African mask she had picked up from Kenya with no explanation whatsoever as to what she was doing there or how she had found the money. We had long ago shed our disapproval of her lifestyle. She was, after all, an adult of fifty one years old. Practically a pensioner herself now, seeing her on the doorstep made us feel our age.
Yet if her body was old, her outlook on life certainly was not. She quickly apologised for her silence over the past five years and began to tell her story.
She had left the commune five years previously with her then boyfriend Darrel. They had embarked on an epic trip around the world with almost no money to fund them, living off the kindness of strangers to provide them with food and transportation. Gracie and I winced as we realised that our daughter had been living as a hitch-hiker, a vagabond, a tramp. If she was in her twenties, it may have been acceptable, but for a woman in her late forties it seemed slightly unsettling.
Nevertheless, that was her life. About one year ago, she and Darrel had found themselves in China working in a factory simply to earn enough money to survive. Their epic adventure, four years in, had become mere drudgery at the hands of a slave-driving capitalist. Neither of them were happy about it, but there was little they could do. Their money had dried up and they had no way of getting home.
Then news came of Jessica. Three months into the pregnancy, Pam had noticed her stomach beginning to grow and put two and two together to make four. This life, she had suddenly realised, was alright for two aging adventurers, but for a baby it was unacceptable. So, with new resolve and two months wages saved up, they set out west along the open road; their destination: Britain, so that could raise their baby at home around her family.
On their journey they had trekked through the deserts of Iran, hitched rides on the motorways of Turkey and camped in the forests of the Ukraine. Once in the EU, they had quite illegally hopped onto the carriage of a freight train and rode it all the way from Poland to Calais, where they had promptly procured a lift from a lorry driver and sailed, victorious, straight into Birmingham city centre. One simple half hour bus ride later, they were home.
Their story was breathtaking, if appaling to the ears of a parent. Jessica had been born in a tent in the Bialowieza national park in eastern Poland. We were therefore, technically, the proud grandparents of a Polish child. Pamela told us that the British authorities had been a bit iffy about Jessica entering the country on the basis of this fact. Nevertheless, given that both her parents were from the UK, it had seemed unfair to the kindly border official to deny Jessica entry simply based on the accident of her birth place, so he had bent the rules and let them in.
At the end of her story, Pamela announced that her bohemian lifestyle had now come to an end and she was ready to find a house and settle down, like normal people did. Our aged hearts had been set racing by her story, frequently terrified by the kind of life our daughter had chosen to bring our granddaughter into, so her news came as sweet relief. It seemed that we had spent our whole lives worrying for Pamela, waiting for her to bring an end to her arrested development, and now that she had chosen to do so a weight was lifted from our hearts.
Chapter 20: March 31st 2005
“I love you.”
That was the last time Gracie said those words to me. We had just found out that she had dementia. She didn’t say as much to me, but I had heard her and the doctor talking. Although I couldn’t make out every word that was said, I heard that one word, loud and clear: “dementia”.
Gracie had been crying. The word must have hit her hard. She looked at me as if saying goodbye, as if this was the last time we would ever see each other.
In a way, it was. From that day on things have felt different. She has not been herself, gradually fading away until she could no longer even recognise me. To be honest, now I think about it, her dementia came on rather suddenly. My memory is foggy now, but even so I have the distinct impression that even the day after receiving the news she had been struggling to remember who I was, merely annoyed at my affections.
The news was not surprising. Things had been growing confusing to us for many years. It had started properly in 2002 and grown worse from there on in. We had begun to have arguments all the more frequently, where she would insist it was one way and I would insist it was the other. We would both end up in tears as I realised that she could not remember what had really happened, and she realised that her mind was slipping.
So, really, ‘dementia’ was just a label. The fact of the illness had been accepted and understood long ago.
Our home was fitted out to cope with the newfound discovery following the doctor’s diagnosis. Now I think back, it feels like since that day everything has been different: Gracie, my home, the decorations, the television. We have had a lot of visitors, too, coming to help me look after her. It is strange, though, for they are all equally as old as me; some even more so. How they can be expected to cope with her when I can’t is anyone’s guess.
I told her that I loved her too, and we kissed and hugged. Then she went away to converse with a strange woman in a white shirt. They were too far away for me to hear what they were saying, yet I could see that the discussion was becoming heated. Gracie seemed to be disagreeing with whatever the woman was saying; for her part, the lady was replying with as much passionate force as my wife. Eventually their argument died down and the mystery woman patted my Gracie on her shoulder and smiled comfortingly at her.
Two men approached me. They were gentle, friendly, and escorted me out of the doctor’s surgery into a waiting van. It was a strange privilege to be given such an entourage on my way home- yet something was wrong. Gracie wasn’t coming with me. As I looked back I saw her waving sadly, tears streaming down her sombre face. I protested, I shouted: why wasn’t she coming with me? They would not answer me, my escorts, but merely closed the do
ors and drove away.
In the end, my confusion was inconsequential. I must have dozed off during the journey because I woke up at home with Gracie sitting to my left and the television on. It looked different, but it was unmistakeably my home, for there were the pictures of our life together on the mantelpiece and the familiar wallpaper on the wall. It perturbed me that the furniture had changed, but I didn’t let it show. They had clearly changed it while I had been sleeping so that it would be more suitable for my wife.
Yet something has been different ever since that day. Something imperceptible that I can’t quite put my finger on. All I know is that since that day, there’s been something wrong with Gracie; every day, she has seemed to recognise me less and less. Even on that first day, in fact, when I found her at home, I had to remind her who I was. Something had changed in her persona between when I had seen her waving at me from the GP’s surgery and when I had found her in that armchair. That’s what dementia does, though, I suppose.
Chapter 21: September 7th, 2011
So that’s my life. Our life. Our long, happy, loving existence, in which we were married for just over seventy years and made life in the form of our beautiful Pamela and her lovely daughter. Our granddaughter. It’s so wonderful to be able to say that.
I look to my left. There she is, my Gracie, still sitting there. She has no idea what she means to me. All those memories I can still wade through are gone for her. If I were to show her my diary, she would look at it blankly and ask me who it was about.
“I love you,” I say to her once more. She just glances back at me, annoyed that I have interrupted her television viewing. She looks different now, almost unrecognisable as the pretty girl I met at the tender age of sixteen working in a sweet shop. Her face is almost a different shape, her hair a different colour and style. I suppose that’s what old age does to you.
We are watching Cash in the Attic on BBC2. There’s nothing else to do when your legs don’t work and your hands just hurt. I must have seen this show a hundred times, and it’s always a little bit more boring than the last time. I remember looking at old people when I was young and noticing how they always seem to fall asleep, to spend their lives napping. Well, now I understand why.
A woman approaches me. She is a nurse by the name of Margaret. She visits occasionally, always wearing the same top: a plain, blue t-shirt with the words “Oakwood Retirement Home” printed on it. I have never been able to fathom why she wears that insignia or comes to visit us at home, but it’s always welcome. When you can’t get up to cook anymore or make yourself a cup of tea, it’s nice to have someone to do it for you.
“How are you today Pat?” she asks kindly. “Feeling okay?”
I nod towards her in the affirmative. She smiles, and points her hand towards the doorway.
“There’s someone here to see you. She’s come a long way.”
With that, Margaret the nurse leaves me and is replaced by another lady with long, grey locks and a smiling visage. She looks nervous, but friendly. I wonder who she is.
“Hello Pat,” she says lovingly. “How are you darling?”
“Fine, thank you,” I reply, confused. She talks to me as if she knows me, as if I mean something to her. I feel awfully rude not knowing who she is.
“I’ve brought you some sandwiches. Tuna and cucumber, just the way you like them.”
“Thank you,” I say, greedily grabbing at her generous gift.
She sits down next to me and goes to hold my hand. I jerk it away. Only Gracie has the right to do that.
“Pat,” she says, worried. “What’s wrong?”
I don’t reply. I simply glare at her with undeserved hostility. She can’t take the place of my Gracie.
I point to my wife beside me. “My wife,” I say, by way of indication. “Only she can touch me.”
The stranger’s face falls as if she has just heard some terrible news.
“Pat,” she says, her voice now weak. “Don’t you know who I am?”
I shake my head. “No, I’m sorry but I don’t.”
Tears well up in her eyes and she pulls her hand away from mine. Her eyes fall upon the woman beside me, the woman upon whom the memories of a lifetime are attached, and she says bitterly:
“It’s me, Pat. I’m Gracie. I’m your wife.”
***
Message from the Author
Thank you for reading my story. I hope you liked it. This is the third book I’ve written in a very short space of time and by all accounts it’s the best so far. It’s had the most downloads, anyway, so I’d like to thank you for having read it. It really is very satisying to come home from a weekend in Wales and see that 130 people have thought my little story was worth a look.
If you liked ‘I Love You’, or even if you didn’t, I would very much appreciate it if you could go back to the web page you downloaded it from and give me some feedback in the form of a review and a star rating out of five. It will give me pointers on how to improve my next story and what to keep doing, as well as letting your fellow readers know just how smashing this story really is and encouraging them to take a peek too.
Once more, thank you so very much, and I look forward to speaking to you again when you read my next book.
About the Author
Andy Marlow is a twenty year old third year Law (European) student at the University of Exeter in Devon, UK. He counts writing among his hobbies as well as jogging, cycling, reading, painting, playing guitar and going travelling when he can afford it. He is also something of a political activist, having taken part in the recent wave of occupations against rising student tuition fees in English Universities. If you would like to get in touch with Andy Marlow, you can follow his twitter feed at https://twitter.com/_BlueBeard_.
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