A is for Angelica Read Online Free PDF Page B

skip full of branches. I can see the colour in the milkman’s cheeks. They’re red from the cold. His lips pursed
with whistling.
    I look at Angelica’s window. The curtains drawn. The flowers on the sill.
    The branches are gone.
    It’s better than nothing.

Escalation
    Georgina has had her second stroke in eighteen months. It happened on New Years Day. The day before Angelica moved in and the day before my birthday. Angelica’s birthday.
We’d spent the afternoon in the garden with our coats on. She wore the mittens I’d bought her, even put them on herself. It was bitterly cold, but we didn’t mind. Georgina
didn’t mind. Kipling sat on her lap while I planted the Christmas tree. Don Donald came across in his pyjamas. He said he’d run out of pickled onions and would I make him up a new jar.
Then Georgina stood up, walked to the wall of the house and around the garden. She used the fence to keep her balance. I almost cried.
    Hours later, I found her on the bed, her towel on the floor by the dresser. She’d just had a bath on her own. I’d dried her hair and she’d dried her legs. Then I’d left
the room to get her a glass of water so she could take her tablets. It had been a long day. I’d expected her to fall asleep while I was downstairs. I thought I’d have to shake her
shoulder to wake her up. But when I got back, she wasn’t asleep. She was still in position, pillows plumped as always. Just how they needed to be. She was awake. Her eyes glazed over, her
mouth disfigured. One side lower than it should have been. Perfectly still. Perfectly calm.
    I sat with her for a while. Less than a minute. Then I walked back downstairs to the kitchen, opened the cupboard under the sink and took out my manual. There were no tears. No ambulances.
No-one saw it happen. She’d been getting better.
    *
    ‘Why don’t you try writing things down, Gordon? It might help you remember.’
    ‘What am I supposed to write?’
    ‘Anything and everything. Just jot down what you need to. Get yourself a notebook you can put in your pocket. If there’s something you need to remember, you can write it down.
You’ll always have it. Structure, Gordon. You need structure.’
    ‘Okay. I’ll think about it.’
    ‘Well make sure you do. Let me write that prescription.’
    I went straight to Wilkinson and bought a children’s notebook. It was all they had left. It was pink with a cartoon bumblebee in the top right hand corner. I put my thumb
in its face each time I opened the book. The first thing I wrote was a shopping list. I can still remember it. Milk, bread and a tub of wet wipes. Then on the way home, I ran into Mick Batty. I
used to work with him. He stopped me and asked me how Georgina was getting on. I said she was doing fine. I told him she was talking properly again and that they thought she’d make a full
recovery. He told me nothing had changed in the office. My desk was still empty. I wasn’t worth replacing. He laughed when he said it. And I laughed with him. Then he told me he’d
married an ‘Oriental piece from down south’. I asked him what her name was. He said he couldn’t pronounce it, so he usually called her Roy, ‘Because that’s what it
sounds like’. When I got home, I opened my notebook and transcribed our conversation. I wrote ‘Roy?’ in the margin. Underlined the question mark.
    Over time, my notes gave me structure, purpose and something to do. Like I had before the stroke. Like I was told I needed. They took my mind off Georgina. They kept me sane. I made lists of my
clothes. Colours, materials and sizes. Underpants and overcoats. And I set myself challenges. I went to the mini-market, wrote down the names of all the checkout staff. I went there every day, even
if I didn’t want to buy anything. The aim was to collect a full seven days’ rota. Charlotte, Christopher, Donna, Emily, Hannah, Katy and Lisi with an ‘s’. I can remember
them all. Not one from M to Z. I made