Gift: A Son's Story (extract) - 'Memories' (ii)

(continued from (i))...

      I stepped out of the shop and walked along the High Street towards the supermarket.  I was dazed - my eyes fixed ahead as I found a path through the Saturday crowds.  This was the worst news that anyone could have given me.  It almost made me feel the way I'd felt that afternoon in the consultant's room at the hospital.  The same words were tumbling over and over in my mind:

            Did I cause this?

            Was this my fault?

            Had I lost this thing that was more precious to me than anything else in the world, apart from mum herself?

            When I got to the supermarket, I couldn't remember what we needed.  I wandered along every aisle, picking up the stuff as I saw it.  Near the checkouts, I stopped by the flowers.  I grabbed the biggest and most colourful bunch I could find - a mixed one, with mum's favourite carnations and tulips, plus some lilies which were close to blooming.  I went through the self-service checkouts.  While I was putting the things through, someone tapped me on my arm.

            "Hello, Will."

            I turned and saw a woman of about forty standing at the checkout next to me.  I knew who she was, but the messages in my head wouldn't connect.  Her face was warm and attractive, with a large smile.

            "Jill," she said, her forehead creasing in a sudden frown.  "From the Waverley."

            Of course.  She was a carer at one of the homes I'd worked at.  She could obviously see how upset I was.

           "Is everything alright?"

            "Sorry," I said.  "No... not really."

            I told her briefly what had happened.  She put her hand on my arm again and gave it a squeeze.  Usually, I'd flinch at such gestures.  I didn't like being touched like that.  But at that moment it was welcome.

            "These things happen.  Just keep doing what you're doing.  Talk to her about those times again, and then you can write it all down.  It won't be lost."

            She smiled again as she walked off.

            "Just take care."

            And in that instant, I fell back into the world again.  A chance encounter with a half-acquaintance.  She'd grounded me.

            I got back as quickly as I could.  When I stepped in, the first thing I heard was Russell's voice.  I stalled - but he was just leaving and was coming through the living room door.  He saw me with the huge bunch of flowers, which made me feel awkward.  Lynn was a florist.  He usually called in on a Saturday morning.  I could have rung and got him to bring some over from the shop.  He didn't seem bothered by it, though.  He said cheerio to mum and stepped through the hall to go.  Outside, I collared him and told him what had happened.  He didn't seem overly perturbed.

            "I just grabbed these flowers on impulse.  She doesn't know anything, but I felt so overwhelmed I just wanted to do something.  Otherwise, I'd have called you.  But it wasn't planned."

            "That's alright," he said.  "Don't worry about it."

            Don't worry about it.  That's what I did, though.  I worried about such things.  With all the other stuff going through my head at that moment, I was worried that he'd be upset that I hadn't used Lynn's shop for the flowers.

            "Mum seems in good spirits," he said, as he turned to go.  "They'll cheer her up even more."

            I went in and gave her the flowers.  You'd have thought I'd given her the world.

            "What did you want to go spending your money like that for."

            "I just saw them and thought you'd like them."

            She took them through to the kitchen and busied herself trimming them up.  It was such a big bunch that she ended up using two vases.  She put one on the table by the window, the other on the trolley beside her chair.  She was really made up with them.

            "It makes me think of spring coming."

            Later, I got a call from the shop and nipped out to go and collect the laptop.  I managed to get everything looking as it had before.  The only thing missing was that file.  I slipped the old hard drive into my suitcase.  I was going to guard that with my life until such times.  I just hoped mum wouldn't notice anything.

            That evening, I rigged it up to the TV again and we watched the Rachmaninov video.  Mum was transported by it.  There were tears in her eyes by the end.  Mine, too.

            "I really should use that laptop more often," mum said.  "I used to have it on such a lot."

            I thought of something.

            "Have you still got the memory stick you bought for it?"

            "It's around somewhere," she said.  "Don't ask me where, though.  Probably in one of these drawers somewhere.  Why?"

            "Did you ever use it like I showed you?"

            She shook her head.  "I can't remember now.  It was a long time ago."

            "I just wondered," I said.

            After she'd gone to bed, I quietly opened all of the drawers in her wall unit - the place where she would most likely have put such things.  Nothing.  I checked the cupboards, too.  The one closest to her chair was cluttered with all sorts of stuff: old books, boxes of candles and tealights, packets of sweets.  I turned it all out with increasing resignation.  Again - nothing.  Finally, I tried her bookcase drawer, which was also cluttered.  She kept saying she meant to tidy it all out someday.  I pulled the whole thing out and laid it on the floor.  Notebooks, envelopes, paperclips, stamps, Blu-tak.  A ball of string and a couple of rolls of Sellotape.  Pens and pencils.  Greetings cards.  A couple of magnifying glasses - one of which had belonged to nan.  Batteries of various sizes.  And there, right at the back, a small zipped fabric case.  It rang a bell with me, and I opened it with trembling fingers.  Inside: a wireless mouse, a USB extension lead... and the memory stick.  I took it out, plugged it into the laptop, opened the folder.

            There was only one file on it.

            'Memories'.

            I opened it... and there they were, on eight pages.  I went to the end, which looked like the place where mum had finished up the last time she'd written anything.  I couldn't be sure that it was the entire document, but it seemed about right.

            The relief was overwhelming.  I could have cried out with joy.  I cried, anyway. 

            Quickly, I put a copy onto the Desktop.  Then I transferred a copy to my own memory stick and copied that to my laptop, too.

            Then I shut it all down and put everything away.

            And then I went to bed and slept as soundly as I'd slept for weeks.