The Memory Book Read Online Free PDF Page A

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    ‘Gran,’ I say, taking a step between her and Mum. ‘Gran, Mum knows that.’
    I don’t understand why Gran is so angry. I can see why she would be sad, and at a loss, unable to deal with this allhappening again, but the anger I don’t get. The anger makes no sense.
    ‘Well, I just went out for a walk and …’ Mum waves at the door. ‘And I forgot the colour of the curtains.’
    ‘Mum, why don’t you have a hot bath, I’ll run it for you.’ I gesture towards the stairs, but she doesn’t move.
    ‘I can run my own bath still,’ she says. ‘And anyway, I don’t want one.’
    ‘I know, but, you know … I’ll run it for you. You can relax, warm up a bit.’
    Just as I think she is about to agree, Greg comes in through the kitchen, back from work. He’s carrying a bag. ‘Hey, babe,’ he says. ‘You’re soaked through.’
    ‘Winning awards for stating the obvious!’ Mum looks uncomfortable, self-conscious, as soon as she sees him. ‘I’m just going to have a bath actually, so …’ She looks at me, hoping I’ll whisk her straight upstairs and out of the path of her husband. But I don’t. If there was just a way to make her see him again, feel good around him again … If I knew she at least felt safe, then, then I could talk to her. I could tell her about me, like I used to, like I always have. A sudden surge of loss threatens so I turn my face away from Mum’s silent but obvious pleas and I look at her husband.
    ‘What’s in the bag, Greg?’
    He smiles, pleased with whatever it is. ‘I just wanted to give you this.’ He reaches into the brown paper bag he’s carrying and brings out what I recognise at once as a notebook. It’slarge, A4 size, with a smooth, shiny, deep-red leather cover.
    Greg has chosen the perfect notebook for Mum, because red is her favourite colour. She wears it all the time, even though she is a redhead and it’s not supposed to work: red hair, red dress, red lips and nails, to school, the most glamorous teacher in the county, possibly the world. When I was little, I used to wish Mum would be less obvious when she came to pick me up after school; I used to wish she’d wear a parka and jeans like everyone else’s mum. But now the fact that she always dresses up for everything seems like something precious, something special. Mum will always be Mum as long as she is dressed right up to the nines. Once, when I’d complained about how she always stuck out like a sore thumb, she told me that red was her warrior princess colour, and red lipstick was her warpaint. She felt braver when she wore it, and I understood that. I understood needing to feel brave; it was just a shock to me that it didn’t come naturally to her. I’m not sure how old I was then, maybe around ten, but I remember it because I remember feeling like I knew something that made me a little bit more grown up. And the older I got, the more it made sense, the more I understood. Mum’s been fighting for something for as long as I can remember.
    This is the first battle she’s ever engaged in that she knows she cannot win.
    ‘It’s a memory book.’ Greg holds out the notebook to her. ‘For you – for all of us – to write in. Remember how Diane said it would help you?’
    I had not been there when Mum first met her counsellor, Diane, or heard about Diane’s idea for her to write down everything that seemed important to her – everything that had ever meant anything. The idea of a book of memories had intrigued Mum, who’d joked at the time: ‘I wish I’d thought about doing that before I lost the plot.’
    ‘Yes, I remember the memory book to help me remember,’ Mum says now, smiling carefully.
    It’s her polite smile, her meeting bank managers, greeting parents at parents’ evening smile. It’s not real. I wonder if Greg notices that too, and I think he does. I used to be the only person in the world who really knew Mum, and she used to be the only person in the world who really got