The Forever Whale. Sarah Lean

to tell you about the deer.” He says it quietly so only I hear his deep voice through the curlew’s song.

      “Remember August the eighteenth,” he says again. “And one day, I hope you’ll go on the journey and see what I saw.”

      2.

      “READY FOR SOME TOAST, GRANDAD?”

      Grandad likes his toast cooked under the gas grill so it’s dark brown with charcoal around the edge.

      “I’ve got it,” I say because Grandad is staring blankly at the kitchen cupboards. I’ve already found the bread knife and cut an extra piece of bread as always.

      “Watch the toast a minute,” I say and go outside to feed the birds.

      Every morning I still try to do what Grandad and I have always done because it’s helping his memory stay alive. We haven’t been out in the boat again for nearly a year, but there are lots of other everyday things that we’ve always shared. Our early mornings are special, even though things are not exactly the same as they used to be.

      Grandad has Alzheimer’s disease. One moment he is as he’s always been, wise and knowing and safe. Sometimes his memory fades like a ship disappearing into a sea mist.

      Alzheimer’s usually picks on older people, but it’s not fussy about things like how big or bold a person is, or how important they are to their granddaughter. It’s taking all the things Grandad learned, all the things he saw and heard, all the things he loved. Alzheimer’s is a history thief, stealing his past and our future together.

      The hedges shiver with excited twittering as I sprinkle the crusts on the lawn and as soon as I step back the sparrows get busy with the crumbs. I turn the earth with the garden fork that Grandad always leaves there. The robin comes and perches on the fork handle and watches the soil for the wriggle of a worm or centipede. Grandad once said that an ounce of brown and red feathers didn’t seem like much, but it’s the robin’s nature to be fierce like a tiger when it protects its territory. He likes the robin most of all.

      I water our sunflowers. They’re taller than me, but the heads are still fresh and green. I can remember Grandad and I crouched in our wellies the first time we grew them. He’d shown me some small black and white striped seeds, shaped like miniature rowing boats.

      “See this tiny little package?” he’d said, drawing away one of the seeds with his fingertip. “All it needs is water and the sun and in a few short months it will become a giant. And, when it’s a giant, it will have its own tiny seeds and each one can become a giant too.”

      “Like it goes on forever?” I’d said.

      “Just like that, only in a new plant.”

      We’d pressed our seeds into pots of compost and I waited for them to grow. I hadn’t known what to expect and asked him every day when I came back from school where the giants were. Until I saw them for myself.

      But even when the leaves turned dark and the stalks were thick with sap and towered over me, I still had to wait for the new seeds to ripen so that we could store them and then, the following spring, press them into the compost to grow once again.

      Grandad follows me outside. I notice he doesn’t have his slippers on, but it doesn’t matter because the June summer ground is dry and warm.

      I’ve asked Grandad the same question every day for years, even though I know the answer. I ask him again now: “When will the sunflower seeds be ready?” But this is the first morning he doesn’t reply. I say it for him: “When the hearts are golden,” so that one of us remembers.

      Grandad nods towards the hard shadow of the fence in the far corner of our garden where a cat is twitching its tail. He struggles to remember the cat’s name.

      “It’s Smokey,” I say, even though I’m sure Grandad will remember in a minute.

      “Yes, that’s it,” he says. “We can try and keep the birds safe from him, but Smokey can’t help being a dog.”

      I know Grandad meant to say cat not dog. Sometimes the Alzheimer’s makes him muddle things up, but I usually know what he means.

      Smokey is a clever grey cat, and I’ve seen him catch baby sparrows before. Even though Mrs Simm gives him plenty of food, Smokey will take a bird if he wants to. I think of Smokey like he’s Alzheimer’s disease, creeping in and stealing things that don’t belong to him.

      I hiss and Smokey scrabbles over the fence.

      Grandad opens the garage door and he’s trying to untie the tarpaulin over his boat.

      “Fair and fine today,” he smiles. “Shall we launch at Gorbreen?”

      I don’t remind him we haven’t been in the boat since we put it away at the end of last September. I don’t tell him Dad won’t let us go out any more. “I’ll sort the boat out, Grandad. We could go and see the deer again.” And I lead him away, back into the garden.

      “Grandad? Remember you were going to tell me a story?” I say. He doesn’t reply. An ocean of nothing washes into his eyes. “A story about the deer? About a journey?”

      This isn’t the first time I’ve asked him. It isn’t the first time I’ve reminded him of the months passing. August 18th is now only eight weeks away.

      “Journey?” he says. “Where are we going?”

      Suddenly the smoke alarm shrills from the kitchen.

      “Grandad, the toast!”

      I run back inside. Smoke curls out of the grill and rolls up to the ceiling. I turn off the gas, climb on to the kitchen table and jump up to try to turn the alarm off before anyone else comes down for breakfast, but I’m not tall enough to reach.

      Mum runs down the stairs. She stands on a chair and pokes at the alarm with a broom handle until it stops shrieking.

      “Watch what Grandad’s doing, please,” Mum whispers as we try to wave the smoke away with tea towels.

      “It was just an accident,” I say when Dad comes in.

      Dad looks out at Grandad in the garden and I know what he’s thinking.

      “It’s my fault,” I say. “I was feeding the birds and chasing Smokey away and watering the sunflowers and I forgot about the breakfast.”

      “Sounds like you’ve had a busy morning,” Dad says.

      He opens the fridge to get some juice and finds his car keys in there. He takes them out and bounces them up and down in his hand.

      “Will you put those boxes by the front door into the car?” Mum says to Dad. “I’ll be along in a minute.” He and Mum share a long look before Mum says to him, “We’ll talk later.”

      “Save some energy for school, Hannah,” Dad says on his way out.

      Grandad comes into the kitchen. He opens the cupboard under the sink and pulls out a bag of birdseed. He doesn’t say anything about the smoke and the toast, he doesn’t close the cupboard door and the bag of seed is tipping from his hands.

      “Grandad,” Mum says, “they’re spilling and going everywhere!” Dots of seed bounce up from the tiled floor around his feet. “Grandad?”

      Grandad doesn’t seem to hear her and shuffles back outside, leaving a trail of seeds behind him. I hear the sparrows twittering, waiting for him.

      “How is he this morning?” Mum says, sniffing