The Darkening Hour Read Online Free PDF Page A

Dora.’
    ‘It’s all right for you – you have staff to run your home.’
    ‘I’ll get someone for you, if you think that’s the answer.’
    And here she is. Mona. Roger’s ‘gift’ to me.
    ‘Daddy has a kitchen,’ I say, enunciating my words like a nursery school teacher, waving at the small galley area where he has a cooker and sink, ‘and shower room.’
    ‘It’s OK,’ she says, smiling. ‘I understand. You don’t have to speak slowly.’
    ‘Oh. Good. We’re lucky, the previous owners had the basement converted to let out, so it came with the house.’
    ‘Converted?’
    I may not have to speak slowly, but it’s obvious she is nowhere near fluent.
    I don’t elucidate, because Mona speaks next.
    ‘He can’t live upstairs?’
    ‘Daddy’s very proud. He used to live in a big house. Then Mummy fell ill. It was hard moving him at all. He wants to be independent – for his own self-esteem. That’s
where
you
come in.’
    ‘But it’s better he lives with you in the house,’ she says.
    Why does she persist? Does she think I’d neglect Daddy? The man I love more than almost anyone? The man I’ve brought into my home when no one else was prepared to?
    ‘That’s why I’m looking for help.’ I turn and speak firmly. ‘So Daddy can live here. As he wants to.’
    I hold her gaze – a steady look I give my admin staff at work when they’re slacking. She looks back for a few seconds and I wonder if she’s going to be defiant. Has she, with
her soft face and gentle smile, in her headscarf, come to help me? Or is it the opposite? Has she come to ridicule the mess I fear I’m making of life since Mummy died?
    Might she be more a hindrance than a help?
    Zidana flashes into my mind and away again. I don’t want to remember her. But Mona bows her head, clutching her hands together, nods, and smiles sweetly at me. We move on down the
steps.
    Daddy, bless him, is sitting upright in a suit and tie, a champagne flute in one hand.
    ‘Lovely to see you all,’ he says. ‘Such a pleasure. So good of you all to come.’ He looks up at Mona and me. ‘Oh, it’s you. I thought you were never coming.
You’ve missed the vol-au-vents.’
    ‘Daddy, this is Mona. Mona’s here to help me, to help you.’
    ‘It’s a pleasure, I’m sure,’ Daddy says. He holds out his hand. Mona takes it, shakes it, smiles.
    Daddy’s wearing his charming expression – the one in which he holds the eye of the person he’s greeting. It’s as if nothing has changed at all. He’s still the man I
adore. When he’s like this, I wonder if I’ve been imagining his Alzheimer’s. That he’s been putting it on – a little game – and, though I know it’s
foolish, I allow myself to feel relief that the game is over.
    ‘Dora,’ he says, ‘get this lady a drink and pass around some cashews, will you?’
    I glance at Mona. Does she detect anything odd in his request?
    She carries on smiling at him, unaffected.
    Of course, Mona’s lost none of him the way I have. What she sees here, now, is all she’ll ever know. However batty he appears, he won’t rend her heart in two, as he does mine,
each time I witness another step of his deterioration.
    ‘Have you eaten this morning, Daddy?’ I go to his kitchen.
    He’s had nothing apart from the imaginary canapés. There are a few unwashed supper things from last night in the sink but not a scrap to indicate he’s had breakfast.
    ‘Mona,’ I whisper. ‘You must make sure he eats. Every morning, noon, night. OK? Then help put his night things on. It’s important. He’s getting too thin. Look at
him. Come.’ I beckon her into the kitchenette.
    It’s sad to see a parent ageing, terrible to see them leave a beloved home.
    But it’s Daddy’s fridge that breaks my heart.
    A mini-cabinet, perched on the work surface. How small everything has become, as he’s aged! His world has diminished along with his shrinking frame. The fridge contains tiny dishes of
jelly, miniature