The secret touch!

‘Where am I?’ my granny asked as we popped our heads around the hospital door to see if she was awake.

‘You’re in hospital Barbara, you’ve just had your hip done!’ her 1:1 special answered with a sigh.

I’m guessing that to be the question of the day, by the way she answered. She hadn’t noticed the door open yet, so we closed it again and myself and my aunt Cathy looked at each other wide eyed as we prepared ourselves for the questions that were bound to be flung at us once we entered.

When we finally nodded to each other in silence, we opened the door again, the special seeing us this time rose from her chair, her eyes closed tightly, as if relieved to get away from the handful of questions that she has been constantly answering over and over again!

‘Where in the name of God have you two been?’ my granny asked with an air of expectancy in the loaded question.

‘We’re here now mammy!’ Aunt Cathy answered.

I noticed the bars on the sides of the bed were up and knew straight away that she had been trying to get out of it whenever took her fancy!

‘Where in the name of god am I?’ she asked with such confusion in her tone that I truly felt for the woman.

‘You’re in hospital mammy!’ my aunt echoed what the special had said, ‘you’ve just had your hip done!’

‘Why would I need my hip done? It’s my arm that’s sore!’ she said lifting up her right arm which she had broken years before, but the bones knitted in an unfortunate way leaving her with a massive bump where they jutted out.

Rather than get into an argument with her, I put my two scents in, ‘we brought you your favourite, I announced and produced the tomatoes!’

Her face suddenly turned from a grimace to a smile, ‘ah great!’ she said, ‘they’re not feeding me in here you know!’

I looked at my aunt who was looking back at me and we smiled at each other. On the hospital table were the remnants of a dinner that she had obviously had only minutes before our arrival as when I touched it, it was still warm.

‘Well, you have your tomatoes now nanny!’ I stated, retrieving a small salt cellar out of my bag as Cathy moved the table in front of her.

She quickly swiped the knife off the plate and began to cut the tomatoes one by one, then poisoned them with salt before putting them into her mouth. I was beginning to regret the debate I lost in the shop, where I wanted to buy her two punnet's of tomatoes, Cathy insisting one would be enough.

‘Look at that!’ she said, ‘there’s a lovely plate of food that is obviously not mine and I would have loved to have had that bit of chicken!’ she poked the remainder of the chicken with her knife and muttered, ‘what a waste!’

I chuckled silently, Cathy doing the same as my granny inhaled the tomatoes like she hadn’t eaten in days.

‘Where am I?’ she asked again.

Knowing her mind was resetting itself like a fish in a fishbowl, Cathy answered, ‘you’re on the moon!’ with sarcasm.

‘What am I doing here?’

Cathy pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger, ‘do you not remember falling?’

‘Don’t you start!’ nanny answered with aggression. ‘You know well that I didn’t!’

‘But you did mammy!’ Cathy persisted. ‘You tripped on that Godforsaken rug you insist on having in the sitting room and fell and broke your hip!’

We both knew this had been explained to her a multitude of times already, but Cathy was secretly hoping that some of it would be recalled if she just heard it once more!

‘Excuse me now!’ my granny’s voice got heated, ‘if I had fallen, I would have remembered! Stop putting thoughts into my head!’ and ate another tomato.

Cathy looked at me, a sombre expression on her face.

Thankfully, in came a nurse! ‘I have your medication for you here Barbara!’ she announced.

‘What medication?’ my granny answered.

‘Well, we have some pain relief and something for the agitation!’ The nurse smiled at her; patience written all over her face.

‘Why agitation!’ my granny got combative, ‘I don’t have agitation! I just need to go home now; I’ve had enough of this place!’ She flung the bedclothes off herself and began to shake the bar that was up for her own safety!

‘It's just a tiny tablet that will make you more relaxed!’ the nurse kept trying.

‘Why in the name of God is this thing up? Cathy, please, take it down!’ she begged as she rattled it, trying desperately to release the locking mechanism.

As I saw poor Cathy’s eyes fill with tears, I asked her to go to the shop and get me a drink, so she could remove herself from the situation. She looked back at me gratefully. ‘I’ll be back in a minute mammy!’

‘You’d better be coming back to get me out of this shithole!’ my granny responded.

‘We’re not that bad now, are we Barbara?’ the nurse asked with a smile.

‘It's Mrs. Murphy to you!’ my granny snapped, the young nurse not flinching.

‘Excuse me Mrs. Murphy, but we’re not that bad! This tablet here is your strong painkiller and this little yellow one will just help you relax so you can heal quicker.’

With one quick swipe, the medication hit the floor. ‘You are trying to drug me up so that I don’t know where I am!’ My granny spat.

After the nurse picked up the two tablets, with my aid, she asked my granny, ‘well where are you?’

‘I’m obviously in prison for killing her!’

‘And who’s ‘her’, who did you kill?’

‘You know…her!’ she looked at me, desperate to find the name of the one she had killed.

‘Is it one of the girls?’ I asked trying to calm her down by going down through the names of aunts, in wonder as to why she would have killed this particular ‘her’ she was talking about!

‘Yes!’

I went down through all the names of her nine girls, saying the name Rose last.

My granny pointed at me, ‘yes!’ she said in a menacing tone.

Rose is the only daughter who has given up on my granny! She throws money at the situation instead of doing something as simple as visiting her when she’s in town!

‘Why would you have killed Rose?’ I asked.

‘I must have, because she doesn’t come anymore!’ I rolled my eyes, desperate for Cathy to return.

The day she fell was the first time Rose had visited since Christmas! She only stayed for thirty minutes and didn’t even take my granny up on the offer of a cup of tea.

‘Rose is in her own house with her own family!’ I tried to explain, hoping she had forgotten about her visit the previous day.

‘Ten minutes!’ my granny cried. ‘She stayed for a mere ten minutes!’

I inhaled deeply and handed her a tissue, ‘it would have to be the one piece of information she would retain now, wouldn’t it!’ I said to myself.

I personally don’t get on with Rose because of the way she treated my granny. Who in their right mind would come to their 93-year-old, dementia ridden mothers house for half an hour when you are in town anyway. Surely to God the woman that raised her meant more to her than a mere thirty minutes!

‘Wouldn’t have a cup of tea or anything!’ nanny informed me, the hurt in her one remaining good eye visible from a mile away!

I didn’t know how to answer, my mouth opening and closing like the fish we thought nanny’s memory resembled!

‘I’m sure she’ll come for longer next time!’ I was clutching at straws.

She grabbed my hoodie and pulled me close, ‘that ungrateful bitch will never step foot over the threshold to my house ever again!’ she said in a hushed tone.

What could I do but agree with her and reassure her that I would relay that information to Rose. ‘Please nanny,’ I said to the frail woman lying in the bed in front of me eating her tomatoes, ‘please will you take the tablets the nurse is offering you?’

Tears welling up in my eyes, she looked at me, ‘when can you bring me home?’ she asked like a child who was at a function they were uncomfortable in!

‘Once your hip is fine and dandy again, you’ll be home! I promise! Remember, we still have all of that vodka in the shed to drink, and our stilettos and miniskirts are still behind the dryer!’ The expression on her face turned into a smile, it was a running joke we had with each other that we laughed about on a regular basis. I could see the nanny of old in front of me once more! ‘Besides, these tablets…if I can let you into a little secret?’

She nodded.

‘These tablets will make you feel like you’ve just downed a whole bottle of vodka! When you take them, and keep taking them, they will heal your hip enough that you will be the first one onto the dancefloor, and the last one off of it!’

She smiled and let out a little of her signature laugh. ‘Only if you promise to come with me!’ she said, putting her index finger to her nose.

‘Absolutely!’ I smiled back. I loved it when she was lucid, and we could joke and play games with each other!

She took the tablets with ease after that and washed them down with a nice juicy tomato!

The nurse looked at me, her face expressed an urge she had in wanting to know how I did that!

I smiled at my granny, as Cathy returned.

‘You see this one!’ she pointed at me. ‘She’s a great young one altogether!’

Cathy took nanny’s hand in hers and looked at me with gratitude. I just smiled!

We began to laugh and joke about the vodka in the shed, nanny made me promise not to let Cathy have the key to the padlock of the container we kept it in because, ‘she’d have it gone on us in a second!’

Cathy, only letting go of nanny’s hand so she could continue to devour the tomatoes, her eyes visibly heavy. Somehow, she still managed to cut the tomatoes and pour so much salt on them that it was no wonder she had a pacemaker! Once they finally closed, she lifted the last one in the punnet up to her lips and said, ‘that’s the business!’

I looked at Cathy, who took her frail mother's hand in hers, and smiled.

‘I stood outside and heard everything!’ Cathy admitted. ‘You are so good with her!’

I smiled, my gaze on the woman who was like a second mother to me and noticed that there was a smile plastered on her sleeping face. I was proud to have ‘the touch’ and delighted that the tomatoes went down well!