Grandad's change of heart

Grandad's change of heart

Eventually they brought him home from the hospital and set him in the
bay window. The dining room was his new bedroom. The weak autumn
sunlight shone through him, lighting his skin in translucent grey. They
dropped platitudes around him and if they'd been tangible, they . . the
doctors, nurses, aunts, daughters, uncles, nurses . . . would have been
crunching up to their knees in then, wading around in their reassuring
lies. The only part of him that remained the same to me were his eyes.
They sought me out across the room and laughed with mine. But I was too
young to be allowed anywhere near him. I was a waver on the edges of a
bypass. Standing on the bridge above, looking at all the traffic
flowing underneath, still more and more came until they had to carry me
away to bed.
Not much changed the next day, or the next. His eyes twinkled blue at
me and then shut down as they prodded and poked him. Did I mention that
his mouth was enclosed in an oxygen mask? I'm not sure if he needed it
or if they put it there so they didn't have to hear him speak. Grandad
always said what he wanted; Aunty Maud had looked after him for the
last ten years or so, since I could remember at any rate. She had
burgundy hair that hid her face and smelled of oranges. We'd - that's
my parents and I - would go and visit ever two months or so, 'to keep
in with the old codger' as my father un-tactfully put it. They'd never
got on.
My Mum felt guilty, I guess, about leaving the burden all on Aunty
Maud, running around behind him all day in that huge house that he
wouldn't get rid of. Dad just called her a self styled martyr and
muttered ominously about everyone knowing what she wanted, however many
years it took. I didn't think Grandad was much of a burden, he didn't
do anything. Just sat and looked out of the window and occasionally
asked for things - cups of coffee, sandwiches, the newspaper (always
The Telegraph), his tobacco and pipe, slippers.
Once he let me help him make his pipe, rubbing the sweet smelling
tobacco between my palms, and then stuffing it into the burnt out
barrel. I dropped a lot on the floor but Grandad told me not to pick it
up. 'She should earn her money,' he whispered to me 'or at least make
me pick it up'. He was quiet for a moment and then he said, 'I'm not
allowed to be responsible'. I didn't want to be and couldn't figure out
what he meant. That was years ago, since then I was never left alone in
rooms with him - he had the run of the house and gardens in those days
- in case he made me smoke his pipe as well.
The chances of me getting anywhere near him now were severely limited.
Aunty Maud had set up a rota of guards, which she called nurses, day
and night. They never moved him geographically, just lifted him up
during daylight hours so he could watch the bare trees and unkempt
garden mock him. Everywhere was dying. I asked three times to be let
through, watched by his eyes above the mask, and each time was denied
with petty excuses. Finally I took to staying up and hoping that a
guard would sleep. I just wanted to be able to squeeze his hand.
On my fifth night of guarding the guards, my luck was in. Trudy, born
second to the first daughter - who insisted her name ended with an I -
fell soundly asleep and began to snore so loudly I was frightened she'd
wake herself. She always wore a pearl necklace, long between her rising
breasts, over jumpers or next to her skin, whichever way, it was always
on view. Tonight it rose up and down in harmony with the expanding and
decreasing width of her nostrils.
Grandad lay on his back, I climbed on top of a chair next to his bed
and peered at him in the darkness. The chair smelled faintly of tomato
soup that another cousin, I think one of Trudy's younger sisters, had
spilled over it months before. The smell didn't quite block out
Grandad's odour. Now he wasn't allowed to smoke his pipe anymore, he
didn't smell like he should. He smelled musty and old, not sharp and
bitter.
As always when I was around, his eyes began to laugh and a hand
scuttled out from under the blankets to find mine. His grip was tight
and I could feel his old, leather finger nails pressing sharply into my
young skin. He started to say something under his mask, but I shook my
head and used my free hand to motion silence. Then I unclipped his mask
and bent my head low to hear every word.
'Get my solicitor' he said and collapsed back into the pillows the
effort exhausting him, releasing my hand briefly to wipe away spittle
that fell from his slack looking mouth. When his hand found mine again
it was damp.
'I love you' I said, but he didn't seem to hear me, so I put the mask
back into place, resisting the temptation to ping the elasticated band,
freed my hand, kissed his forehead and slipped back past Trudy. On the
way back to my bed, I slammed a door really loudly because although
she'd done me a favour by being asleep, she should be on guard against
others and to watch over Grandad.
In the morning I rang Grandad's solicitor, the number was kept on a
piece of card in the back of his tobacco pouch along with those of his
gardening club, the local fish and chip shop and bus information.
I asked him to come over, he sounded quite surprised, but I suspect
that not much else interesting happens to people with huge sideburns.
That's why they grow them right? To give them character when life fails
to build it for them?
Anyway, the solicitor and Grandad spent hours cosied away together in
the bay/bed window. Aunty Maud fussed as close as she dared, but
couldn't hear a syllable. As Grandad only spoke two words every five
minutes, she'd have had a pretty hard time getting any sense of the
conversation even of she'd been present throughout. The solicitor came
back for the next two days as well, by this time Aunty Maud had cleaned
the ceiling, waxed the floor and polished all the candlesticks. Did I
tell you his bedroom was in the old dining room? Not that it matters.
No one was eating regularly. Just ready cooked meals in front of the
TV, grabbed when not eavesdropping on Grandad.
Poor Aunty Maud, I almost began to feel sorry for her in her
desperation. Until she called the doctor in. Not the nice doctor that
Grandad twinkled at, even though he swore. No, this man was different,
pallid looking. He shook my hand, as he did everybody's, and his was
like a limp, dead, clammy fish. He said how sorry he was as he did it,
and I didn't know if he meant about his handshake or Grandad. The
doctor came after the solicitor was gone, but Grandad just laughed - I
heard him - and said it would all work out. Later still while I hid, as
I seemed to spend my life doing, Aunty Maud told my Mum it would all be
all right because the doctor had sectioned my Grandad since the
operation and all changes to his will were automatically redundant. At
least, it was something like that, the conversation was rather muffled,
but one thing I was clear on, his previous will would stand
whatever.
That night Trudy was on duty again, so I crept past her as she slept
and kissed Grandad on the forehead to wake him up. He looked dreadfully
tired and I felt so guilty. I told him what I'd heard but he just
smiled and said 'I'm glad'. Then he put his hand to my face, closed his
eyes and never opened them again.
Two days later, we all gathered around for the 'reading', a phrase that
was used only in hushed tones. Grandad's body was in a coffin in the
cellar, along with the good wines and a peculiar cheese that Aunty
Maud's husband liked to eat on flaky crackers. The solicitor and his
sideburns didn't object to the doctor's diagnosis and had no argument
against Grandad not being of sound mind. He did express his
disappointment and asked again if the family were sure that they wanted
to overrule the last will. I was the only one who said 'no', but it was
quietly and under my breath. My mother prodded me in any case and told
me to hush.
So there it was, we were settled on an earlier version of the will,
when Grandad was in sane and reasonable mind, I guess before he changed
his heart.
Poor Aunty Maud. He left nearly everything he had, and even to my
parents' minds it was a generous sum, to an old gardeners home that
none of us had heard of. The other money, ?10,000, was to be divided
equally between his grandchildren. There were 16 of us. I thought Aunty
Maud would need Grandad's oxygen mask right there and then. As the
solicitor left, he winked at me and whispered, 'he changed you know, at
the end, but she didn't.'