Pushing through a crowded hospital corridor behind my father, I heard a voice calling me.
Then a nurse grabbed me and threw her arms around me. She had heard my father’s name and recognised me, her old school friend from St Joseph’s.
As we walked and talked, she told me, ‘We all read your articles’ and I thought: ‘Oh dear I’m about to be exposed as an anti-vaxxer in the middle of A&E while my father’s having a heart attack.’ But she was smiling, pleased to see me. In fact, she was beaming as she said, ‘I remember Alma!’ referring to my maternal grandmother.
People would come in for a shampoo and set and book in again for the cabaret
I haven’t heard someone talk about my nan for many years but she was a well-known character in my small home town.
A larger-than-life figure who helped my mother run her hairdresser salon, she was so popular with her brand of earthy humour that we often thought most of the customers were coming for the entertainment.
She would sit behind the reception desk taking calls, or at the manicure stool doing nails, or shampooing hair at the sink. But wherever she was she would be telling the most extraordinary stories and risqué jokes.
People would come in for a shampoo and set and book in again for the cabaret.
A tailor’s daughter from Coventry, Alma married an Italian immigrant from the Abruzzo called Antonio – a handsome devil, she called my grandfather. She was a devout Catholic convert and took me to church with them every Sunday, but she was never sanctimonious. If my grandfather upset her she’d wink at me as he went out the door to confession and say: ‘He’ll be in there for hours this week.’ She believed profoundly in the spirit world and would often take herself off to see a psychic. I think she had the gift.
When I was very young she gave me a framed Serenity Prayer. It hung on the wall of my bedroom throughout my childhood.
Many years later I saw the prayer on the front table of my first meeting and realised what she had foreseen, perhaps.
As I followed my father down the hospital corridor, the nurse recounted a memory. I looked at her, not quite recognising her face. But the voice I knew.
This was the little girl with cropped hair and horn-rimmed spectacles who used to stand in my nan’s front room and belt out songs from West End musicals.
My nan lived opposite the school and Claire would go to her for respite from the strict girls convent school regime.
Quite a few lost souls and misfits went to Alma’s house, including me.
I’d pack a case and my mother would find me there, or else my nan would ring her and I’d hear her saying: ‘It’s alright, our Pauline, she’s here.’
What she loved above all was fun.
‘Come on Claire, sing “Memory”,’ I still remember her saying to the girl in glasses.
And Claire would belt the song out and it was like Elaine Paige was in the room. How that huge voice came out of that tiny child was extraordinary.
‘She used to give me pocket money to sing for her, you know,’ the nurse said to me as we followed my father past the triage station. I know, I said. I remember.
We arrived at the cubicle and they hooked my father up to machines as Claire ordered blood tests, pain relief, X-rays. If my Nan was looking down, which I believe she was, she would have been proud of her.
Then the doctor came and confirmed a heart attack. She was in her twenties, a bit sour. Was he a smoker? ‘No,’ I said ‘and please don’t try to lay this off on him being unhealthy because that’s not what this is about.’
‘Oh?’ She asked, pinning me with a stare. ‘Is there something you want to say?’
I stared back at her and said I had nothing further to say. I could have said something. But I didn’t. Because it would have upset my father who was already in enough distress.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. I can’t change any of this. No amount of me running my mouth off is changing anything.
My mother has a tumour and dementia. My father has a blockage in his heart. It’s all completely normal.
‘Are you impressed by how good the NHS is?’ my father whispered, very quietly, holding his chest. Yes, yes. Very much so.
They’re marvellous. Thank goodness they’re here to deal with what’s happened to you and Mum this past two-and-a-half years. Isn’t that easier? So much easier. I tried. But I couldn’t say it. I said: ‘No. I’m not impressed with what has happened to you.’
‘Why do you say these things?’ my father said. We have never understood each other, less so than ever since Covid. The reconciliation I dream of is a fairy tale. My father is so angry at me for being an anti-vaxxer he barely speaks to me any more. I slumped back in the chair and shut my eyes.
After the morphine my father started to talk about his father. I sat and listened. How strange this day had been, and how full of memories.
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