The Unseen(115)

About a mile out of town they turned south across one of the fields near the village, where the stream had been marshalled into neat, manmade cuts between the gravel pit lakes. They watched the water birds, squinting as the sunlight shone from the water’s surface. There was nobody else in sight now, and no noise.

‘It’s strange to think how much this has all changed since your great-grandmother was here. None of these lakes. The A4 still just the London Road, with hardly anything on it that wasn’t pulled by a horse,’ Leah said. She felt so close to the woman, when she read her letters. Could almost hear her voice. Then she looked around and found herself a hundred years, a whole world, away. ‘And The Bluecoat School, full of children, full of life. It looked kind of sad today, didn’t it? Sitting there with all that traffic thundering past it.’

‘Well, that’s what the council is trying to change. There’s a charitable trust now as well, raising money to extend it and use it as community space,’ said Mark distractedly, snatching up a long stem of grass and picking last year’s dry seeds from it, a thumbnail full at a time. High above their heads two buzzards circled, their faint cries carried down on the wind for a split second, and then blown away.

‘Are there any pictures of Hester? Or Albert? Back at the house?’ Leah asked suddenly.

‘I don’t think so. Sorry. I think I remember some from when I was a child, but … I haven’t seen them for years. It’s possible Dad got rid of them. When the dementia started he did some odd things. We could look, if you like?’ he offered. Leah nodded. She was putting her piece together already, though there were more blanks to fill in than filled. A long article, with pictures, and extracts from the letters. Laying it all bare, making it all clear. And without thinking about it explicitly, Leah felt she would be doing this for Hester Canning; a favour for a long-dead stranger.

‘How did it start? His dementia?’ she asked gently.

Mark took a slow, deep breath. ‘So gradually. Around about the time I went up to university, I suppose. That’s the last time I remember him just how he used to be. And Mum was still alive – they were so chuffed. Nobody ever thought I’d make it through A-levels.’ He smiled, wryly.

‘Why, were you a tearaway at school?’

‘No, I was as meek as anything. But I’m dyslexic, and the school I was at didn’t believe in dyslexia.’

‘Oh, I see. Forward thinking of them.’

‘Quite. But numbers – numbers I can deal with. So I did maths, and then went into investments … it all worked out better than anyone had predicted, and they were so happy for me. By the time I graduated, Dad was starting to forget words. He’d get halfway through a sentence and get stuck, trying to find the next word. Not difficult words either. “Car”, or “then”, or “February”. Random little words that just sneaked away from him. We all laughed about it for the first couple of years,’ he said, bleakly. Leah had no idea what to say.

‘At least,’ she began, hesitantly, ‘at least the care home seems nice. You hear such horror stories … at least you’ve found him a clean, friendly place where they look after him,’ she ventured.

‘Sometimes I think it’d be better if he’d died,’ Mark said, bleakly.

‘Don’t say that.’ Leah frowned. ‘You don’t know what he’s thinking – it’s quite possible that a lot of the time he’s quite content.’

‘Do you really think so?’ he asked, with an edge of desperation in his voice. They stopped walking, and turned to face one another.

‘Yes, I do. Wrong to call it a blessing, of course, but at least with dementia the person suffering from it is unaware of it. At least, most of the time,’ she said gently.

‘Very wrong to call it a blessing,’ Mark said sadly. ‘I just … whenever I go and see Dad I get into a spiral of … rotten thoughts. Why him? Why so young? What did he ever do to deserve this?’

‘I don’t think it works that way. Not unless you believe in karma. Which I don’t,’ Leah added, firmly. Mark nodded slowly, his face so stricken that Leah’s heart ached in sudden sympathy, and she touched his hand briefly, running her thumb across his knuckles. ‘Come on. Let’s go and look for photos,’ she said.

They walked back to their cars in Thatcham and drove to The Old Rectory, made coffee and started to search the house for family photographs. Leah thought of the boxes in the attic rooms, but after a fruitless hour she had searched barely a fraction of them, and her nose and eyes were streaming. She gave up and went downstairs, her jeans smeared with dust, her fingers grimy. In the library, they shamelessly rifled through the many drawers of the vast desk, but to no avail.