The Girl in the Mirror. Cathy Glass

saw his face crumple as he looked at the bed.

      ‘He’s asleep,’ Gran said protectively, her voice small and uneven. ‘He’s very poorly. I’m so pleased you’ve both come.’

      Her father nodded but couldn’t say anything.

      Mandy kissed Gran, hugging her thin shoulders, and then looked at Grandpa. She could have wept. It was only three weeks since she’d last seen him and although he was in his eighties he’d been fit and well. He’d taken her on a tour of his garden and had proudly shown her the spring bulbs and the forsythia which was about to flower. Now he lay on his back propped on a mountain of pillows, his previous ruddy complexion waxen and his cheeks hollow. His jaw had relaxed in sleep and his mouth hung open as his head lolled to one side. His right arm, thin and wasted, jutted from the sheet and Gran held his hand. It was pitiful how quickly someone of his age could deteriorate, Mandy thought. She looked at her father and saw her own pain reflected.

      ‘The nurse has just left,’ Gran said, her voice slight. ‘He’ll sleep for a while now. It tires him out being messed around with.’

      ‘The nurse was washing him, Mum,’ Evelyn qualified. ‘Not messing him around.’

      ‘It’s all the same to him,’ Gran returned smartly, ever protective of her husband of fifty-nine years.

      They fell silent and all that could be heard for some moments was Grandpa’s heavy and laboured breathing. Mandy looked at her father, who was standing beside Gran, one hand resting reassuringly on her shoulder. She saw his creased brow and the pain in his eyes, and knew he was as shocked as she was by Grandpa’s physical decline. And perhaps, Mandy thought, he saw his own end reflected in his father, for they had been very much alike in stature and temperament, until now. Mandy looked at the outline of Grandpa’s wasted body beneath the sheets and could see none of her father’s strong and muscular frame, nor his pride and dignity. As she watched saliva ran from the corner of Grandpa’s mouth and dribbled on to the pillow. Evelyn took a tissue from the box on the desk and wiped the corner of his mouth. ‘There, there, that’s better,’ she soothed, as though tending a baby. Mandy cringed inwardly.

      She looked at her father. ‘Why don’t you sit down, Dad?’ she asked softly.

      He nodded. Evelyn took the chair from the desk and set it next to Gran beside the bed. ‘I’ll leave you to chat with Mum,’ she said, ‘while I go to the kitchen to see Mrs Saunders about lunch. I take it you will be staying for lunch?’

      The mention of lunch in the sick room where Grandpa lay so ill seemed grotesquely out of place, but again Mandy supposed Evelyn had had time to adjust in the five days since she’d brought Grandpa home from hospital, and of course they had to eat.

      Mandy looked at her father, who gave a vague shrug.

      ‘Yes, please,’ she said.

      Evelyn nodded and, straightening the sheets on the bed, went out of the study, closing the door behind her.

      Mandy hovered for a moment at the end of the bed, unsure of what to do or say, and then sat in one of the two brown leather armchairs at the other end of the room. It was a large study, big enough to retain the armchairs, desk, coffee table, filing cabinet, and a free-standing bookshelf even with the addition of the two single beds. Grandpa was in the bed in front of her while Gran’s nightdress lay neatly folded on the pillow of the other bed, which was against the opposite wall. Her grandparents had lived in a bungalow for as long as she could remember and Mandy knew that although Gran could still manage stairs with her arthritis it was a struggle. Mandy had no idea what the study had looked like before the furniture had been arranged to accommodate the beds, nor did she have any recollection of ever having been in it. But that was hardly surprising, she told herself, for Sarah and she wouldn’t have been encouraged to play in the study, and in all likelihood had probably been banned from it.

      Mandy looked at her father and Gran sitting beside the bed watching Grandpa. All that could be heard was the sound of Grandpa’s laboured breathing, the breaths deeper than normal breaths, with more time in between; exaggerated, she thought, as though each breath was a statement of living that shouldn’t be ignored or taken for granted.

      ‘How’s Jean?’ Gran asked her father quietly after a moment. ‘She didn’t come with you?’

      ‘No. She sends her love, and apologies. She’ll visit next time.’

      ‘Don’t worry, Ray,’ Gran said. ‘I understand. I’m glad you felt you could come. When Evelyn first suggested Dad and I came here to stay I was worried you wouldn’t visit. Evelyn said she would phone you and make it all right. It would have been dreadful if you hadn’t visited and been able to say goodbye to your father –’ She stopped as her voice broke.

      Her father took her hand between his and patted it reassuringly. ‘It’s OK between Evelyn and me now, Mum. Honestly.’

      Mandy looked at them. What Gran had just said – her worry that the past would stop her father from visiting – was the most she’d ever said in front of her about ‘the situation’. First her father had referred to it earlier, and now Gran. She wondered when someone was eventually going to tell her what had happened all those years before. At twenty-three she was able to deal with a skeleton or two in the family closet. She was beginning to resent her exclusion. She doubted that whatever had happened could be that horrendous, not in their family. They were squeaky clean. And Mandy now wondered, as she had before, if it had anything to do with her mother and Uncle John – Sarah’s father. As children Sarah and she had giggled that they seemed to like each very much and always kissed each other hello and goodbye on the mouth rather than the cheek.

      Her thoughts were broken by a change in Grandpa’s breathing. His breaths had suddenly become shorter, and then the next didn’t come. She sat upright, senses alert. There was a short rasp followed by a dry cough. ‘He’s waking,’ Gran said.

      Mandy rose and crossed to the bed where she stood next to her father. They looked at Grandpa and his eyes slowly opened. Turning his head towards them, he smiled. His eyes were moist from sleep and his skin was so pale and thin it was almost translucent. Mandy could see the effort it took for him to speak. ‘Hello,’ he said, his voice catching. ‘Good to see you. Can you get me some water, please?’

      ‘Of course, Dad,’ her father said, patting his shoulder.

      ‘It’s on the desk,’ Gran said to Mandy.

      Mandy crossed to the desk where a silver tray with a water jug was at one end, away from the laptop, printer and phone. On the tray, beside the covered jug, were a glass and a plastic feeding beaker.

      ‘Use the beaker, love,’ Gran said. ‘He can’t manage a glass any more. It spills down his front.’

      Mandy glanced over and saw the shock on her father’s face – that Grandpa could no longer drink from a glass but was reliant on what looked like an adult version of a toddler’s training cup. She took the lid off the beaker and poured the water, then snapped the lid on and carried it to the bed.

      ‘Evelyn usually gives it to him,’ Gran said anxiously. ‘I can’t lift his head.’

      Mandy glanced at her father, wondering if he wanted to help Grandpa with the drink, but he shifted uncomfortably, unsure of what was required.

      ‘Grandpa, shall I hold the beaker?’ Mandy asked, leaning forward so she was in his line of vision.

      He gave a small nod. Her father eased back his chair so she could get closer to the bed. Leaning over, she wriggled her left hand under the top pillow and slowly eased Grandpa forward and upright. His dry, lined lips closed around the funnel of the feeding beaker. Mandy gradually tilted it as he sucked and then swallowed. He took three sips and collapsed back, exhausted. Mandy lowered the pillow and moved to one side.

      It took a moment for him to gather his strength again to speak. ‘I’m pleased you came,’ he said slowly, forming each word separately and with effort. ‘I’m not very good at present. Have you spoken to Evelyn and John?’

      ‘Yes,