Free Dream On by Terry Tyler

a
quick browse around while she waited for her mother to pick her up for a visit
to her grandmother, and she'd noticed that Thor were collecting quite a lot of
girl fans in their friends list. Probably added by Shane. Alison Swan, or
whatever she bloody called herself these days, wasn't one of them. She'd only
been at one more of the gigs, too; the last one in The Romany, where she hadn't
talked to Dave much. He hadn't been doing his boggle eyed thing at her,
either; perhaps he didn't still hanker after her, then. Perhaps it was all in
the past for both of them, after all.
    Linda's car pulled up outside and the horn sounded;
Janice logged out, switched off, grabbed her bag, and dashed out.
     
    "When are you going to take me home?" Evelyn asked,
picking at a loose thread on the arm of her chair. "I've got to go home," she
said, "they'll be wondering where I am."
    Janice glanced at her mother and rolled her eyes. "It's all right, Gran, we all know where you are. You're safe here."
    "I don't want to be here.  Why do I have to be in this
place? I want to go home."
    "Mum, you've got to stay here for now. It's
because of your Alzheimer's, we've told you," said Linda, reaching over and
stroking her mother's thin grey hair away from her forehead. It was too warm in
the room. Evelyn jerked away, irritably.
    "Because of my what? There's nothing wrong with me. I don't like it here, with all these people. I want to go home."
    Janice looked at her mother. Since Evelyn had been
in Fenland Lodge, Linda had looked so much happier, less careworn, but on bad
days, like today, her face showed all the signs of stress, just like before.
    It was the guilt, of course.
    During the last year, before they made the
difficult decision to give her up to permanent care, looking after Evelyn had
been like dealing, twenty four hours a day, with a truculent child who tried to
escape every time you took your eyes off her for five minutes, but still it
hadn't been easy.
    Linda rested her head against her hand for a moment.
    "Here," she said, looking up again. "You remember
we told you about Harley starting school?" She rummaged in her bag and brought
out a photo, showing Harley in the royal blue Greyfriars Elementary School
sweatshirt he wore so proudly. "Look! Here he is; I took it on his first
day. I thought you might like a copy of it to put on your dressing table."
    Evelyn took the photo with shaking, age spotted
hands. "Who's that, then?" she said, peering at it. "Is it Ivan?"
    Janice glanced at her mother again. Ivan was Evelyn's
brother; he'd been killed at Dunkirk in 1940, aged just twenty.
    "No, Gran, it's Harley," she said. "My son. Your
great-grandson. You know, I've brought him to see you lots of times."
    "Oh." Evelyn looked away; the picture fell out of
her hands and fluttered to the floor. "Are you taking me home?"
    "No, Mum, you've got to stay here," Linda said,
reaching down to pick up the photo. "I've explained it all to you. I'm
not equipped to look after you anymore. I can't always be there to watch
you in case you fall over, and then there's the accidents in the night - "
    "I can look after myself," said Evelyn, shifting in
her chair. "I've got to go home now. They'll be expecting me to cook
dinner."
    "Gran, no." Janice put her hand on her
grandmother's; her skin felt thin and papery. "Shall I get us a cup of tea?"
    "No, I haven't got time," said Evelyn. "I'm needed
at home." She looked around her. "When's Linda coming in to see me, anyway? She never comes to see me." She leant forward to speak to Janice. "I'll give
you her phone number. You phone her and tell her to come and get me. Linda will take me home, even if the rest of you won't."
    "Gran, Linda's here. My mum. Look."
    Evelyn looked over at her daughter and her face
broke into a smile. "Oh, hello, darling!" she said. "I didn't see you there. Have you come to take me home?"
     
    On the way back to Fennington, Linda was quiet.
    "You okay, Mum?" Janice asked.
    Linda sighed.