She sits and stares. There’s a brightness in her eyes that belies her situation, but they’re the same eyes I fell in love with more than sixty years ago.
‘Alice.’ I say, ‘We should get your coat.’
She cocks her head. She frowns and there are lines on her brow that I never remember forming. Then she smiles and nods but makes no effort to stand or to go and find the coat she’ll need when we leave soon. Outside snow is falling, quickly settling on the ground and the branches of the trees.
‘It’s cold out there,’ I say.
Alice looks out of the window and instinctively shivers. She asks, ‘Is it Christmas?’
I shake my head and remember more than half a century of Christmases with her. Not once did we have snow. It always arrived in that miserable dip when all the festivities are over. She always wished for a white one. Now I wish I’d taken her somewhere it was bound to snow. Somewhere far north. Scotland perhaps, but more likely Scandinavia. Maybe even Lapland, but that’s for children seeking Santa, isn’t it? Alice was always realistic about what magic could actually be found.
They’ll be here in a minute. They’re sending a car for us, so I go to the hallway and get our coats. Alice looks surprised when I come back into the room.
‘Are we going out?’
‘In a minute,’ I say. ‘Let’s get you wrapped up warm.’
She winces but she’s not in pain. Alice doesn’t like to go out. She likes her chair and the view from the window. She starts to clench and unclench her hands. Piano fingers even if now she denies she ever knew how to play.
‘We’re going to the place we visited a while ago,’ I say. ‘Where they have the nice rooms and lots of entertainment. You remember.’
I know she doesn’t remember. I hate myself every time I slip up and ask because I see fear in her eyes.
Alice says, ‘Oh,’ and stands for me to pull her coat on.
She smells of newly washed hair and perfume. I hug her and close my eyes. For a moment she’s not an octogenarian. She’s still the Alice I loved until she was lost her to the disease that crept up on us and overtook her. She stands perfectly still in my embrace. Her arms remain at her sides, and I miss how we used to hold each other. Then a car horn sounds. They’ve arrived. I pick up the old suitcase packed with her things, take her hand, and we walk out into the snow.
Alice doesn’t speak on the short journey. The driver makes conversation about the weather and having to drive slowly to be safe and I politely respond. Then he says, ‘You okay there, Missus?’
She reaches for me. ‘I don’t know him,’ she tells me.
‘The gentleman is driving us,’ I say.
Her face fills with panic. ‘But he doesn’t know where I want to go. He didn’t ask me where I want to go.’
‘It’s okay, love. He knows the way.’ I squeeze her hand gently.
‘The way to where?’ She cocks her head again, like she always does when she doesn’t understand. I just stop myself asking her to remember.
The driver butts in. He tells me, ‘It’s alright, me old mate, my gran was just like that. She couldn’t remember anything from one moment to the next. She’d have her meal and then ask if it was time for dinner. Didn’t know my name most the time. Course, she’s dead now, love her.’
I look at Alice, and I’m thankful to see that none of what he says registers with her.
‘Do you mind if we don’t talk?’ I ask him.
He shrugs and turns the radio up. ‘Suit yourself.’
*
We stop outside the main entrance of The Willows, and Alice shows no sign of recognising having visited here before. When we’re out of the car she links her arm through mine and looks up at me with the unspoken questions in her eyes.
‘This place is lovely,’ I tell her, and we wait for electric doors to be opened from inside.
Trudy, the woman who greets us, is warm and welcoming. She’s gentle with Alice and lets her take in her surroundings without rushing her. Alice fixes me with those questioning eyes again. I whisper to her that everything is fine, but then an old man shuffles by, whistling loudly and Alice neither knows where she is or why.
‘Shall we take you to your room now?’ asks Trudy.
Alice turns to me. ‘Are we staying here? Is this our holiday?’
I shake my head. ‘Not a holiday, sweetheart. This is your new home.’
‘But I don’t want a new home,’ she says and grabs my arm, looking at me with confusion and pleading.
‘Shush, now,’ I say, gently. ‘I’m here. I’m here.’
By the time we reach Alice’s room she is crying and begging me not to leave her there. It’s one of those times when I think my heart might break watching her afraid and trying to understand what’s happening. The bed, the furniture, the curtains are all foreign to her. But then it stops. Suddenly Alice notices the vase of flowers on the windowsill, showing vibrant red against the white of the snow covering everything outside.
‘Oh, Tom, they’re beautiful. You shouldn’t have.’ Alice doesn’t know it was the home that put them there. She goes to sniff them, and a bright smile banishes the tears. Then, someone comes in and offers to bring tea and cakes and Alice’s smile widens.
‘This is going to be a lovely holiday,’ she says. She picks up the TV remote and switches it on, as if she hasn’t looked at a similar device in utter bafflement for months now.
She watches a programme with people renovating old French chateaus while she sips tea and nibbles at fruit cake. I unpack her clothes and the few belongings they told us would be good to have around her. The hairbrush set she’s kept all her adult life. The ballet dancer figurine she’s had since childhood. Photo albums. As I place a framed picture of our wedding day on the dressing table a carer arrives and offers more tea. Maybe Alice doesn’t hear. She doesn’t answer.
‘We’re fine, thank you,’ I say.
The carer points to our wedding photo. ‘Well, look at that. What a handsome couple.’
‘It was a long time ago now,’ I say. So much has happened since then. So much of her has been lost, but not the eyes. Never her eyes.
He smiles. ‘Alice was absolutely beautiful. If I’d have been around in those days, I’d have given you a run for your money.’
I look at my wife and she smiles before turning her attention back to the TV. Just then I see how beautiful she still is. The years haven’t diminished her beauty; they simply changed how it’s presented. Her stoop only reminds of the days when she walked like a fashion model. Her fingernails are still painted the same scarlet she’s always favoured. Behind the lines in her face, framed with white hair, Alice is still there. Her beauty was never only skin deep. It’s ever present, even if much of her mind has gone.
‘I’d have fought you for her,’ I tell the carer, with a wink. He laughs and says I should keep on eye on the old fellows who live at the home, in case she runs off with one of them. Then he asks Alice if she’d like to go to the communal lounge and meet some people. She takes his offered arm when I tell her it’s okay.
There are more than a dozen residents sitting in wing-backed chairs in the lounge. Two ladies hunch over a jigsaw puzzle. A few are reading books or newspapers. Some are staring into space like Alice does so much of the time. And in the corner the old man who was whistling earlier is picking out a hesitant tune with one finger on a highly polished piano.
The carer suggests that now would be a good time for me to leave and allow Alice to settle in. I take a breath, trying to find the words that won’t make her feel I’m abandoning her. And then it happens. Alice walks over to the piano. She taps the man on the shoulder, and he makes way for her. Then she sits and begins to play, and every note and phrase are perfect. The music is as beautiful as when she played so long ago.
She looks at me and smiles, her eyes alive, as her fingers dance across the keys. And just for a moment, though I know it cannot last, all of my Alice is there.
About the author
Tony has written a number of plays, published by Lazy Bee Scripts, that have been performed across the world. His credits include the Derek Jacobi Award for New Playwriting and being a three-time winner of the UK CDFF Best Original Script Prize. He has also had many stories published in anthologies and magazines. You can follow him here -https://www.facebook.com/tonydomaillewriting/
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