The Forever Whale. Sarah Lean

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      6.

      “GRANDAD?” I CALL AFTER SCHOOL, WHILE I FLICK on the kettle for him. I’m still thinking about the statue on the quay. Mrs Gooch said we could all try and find something of ourselves in the statue, but I’m thinking of Grandad instead.

      The back door is open. At first I think I see ashes outside on the patio, and I remember the burnt toast from this morning. But they aren’t ashes. They’re tiny red and brown feathers.

      My stomach turns to stone. I call Grandad’s name and run upstairs and look in all the rooms, but I’m already thinking that Smokey wouldn’t dare come so close to the house to take a bird if Grandad was here.

      I come back to the kitchen. Grandad’s newspaper isn’t on the table.

      Grandad doesn’t walk as well as he did, but most days he used to go as far as the shop down Southbrook Hill to get a bar of chocolate and a newspaper and some birdseed. On the way to the shop he’d stop to talk to Mr Howard who clips his box hedges with tiny shears into Christmas puddings and cones and clouds.

      I run down the street. Mr Howard is clipping his hedge as usual.

      “Have you seen my grandad today?” I call.

      “Yes, he was headed thataway.” Mr Howard points with his sharp snippers towards Southbrook Hill. “I wished him a good afternoon, but he walked past without so much as a friendly word. I told him he looked a little peaky, but … well, that was nearly an hour ago.”

      I am already running towards the hill.

      Grandad isn’t at the shop. Suddenly my mind is racing, thinking of how he was when I left this morning. Had he heard me after all? Would he have gone to see the statue at the quay by himself? I take the road that leads down to the old town.

      Papers rustle and tumble along the cobbled street, blown by the sea breeze coming through an alleyway between the shops. At the end of the alleyway I stop to catch my breath and look both ways. I hear boat masts clanking along the quay like alarms. In the distance I see Grandad shuffling unsteadily away from the new statue towards Hambourne slipway. I keep running.

      Coming towards Grandad from the opposite direction I see Megan, Josh and Linus, who is on his scooter. As they pass Grandad, they speak to him. Megan watches over her shoulder, but Grandad doesn’t turn round so she stops and walks back to him. He looks down at the slipway, then out to sea.

      “Grandad?” I call as I reach him. “What are you doing here?”

      I hook my arm through his. He looks down at his other clenched hand. The ocean of nothing is in his eyes.

      “Come on,” I say. “You’ve walked all the way to Hambourne slipway. Let’s go home now.”

      I try to lead him away, but his arm is heavy. Megan, Josh and Linus stand uncomfortably nearby. “What’s wrong with him?” I hear Josh say to Linus.

      “Grandad?” I say. “Let’s walk home together.”

      “Do you want us to go?” Megan says.

      But they don’t go and I can’t think what to do.

      “Mr Jenkins,” Linus says. “Hannah and me will walk you home.”

      Linus lays down his scooter and tries to take Grandad’s other arm.

      “This way,” he says, but Grandad trembles.

      “Grandad, please, it’s me, Hannah,” I say as a tear falls from his eye. “You’re safe.”

      “Shall I get someone to help?” Megan says.

      He’s fine, I want to say. But I see the unstoppable grey-green tide rushing away from the slipway steps, in the same way that Alzheimer’s is dragging Grandad away from me. Grandad doesn’t know who I am.

      “Grandad, it’s me, Hannah. Remember, we’re going to go on a journey?”

      I see a flicker in Grandad’s eyes. “The whale … it’s coming,” he says. He tries to speak again, but a sore groan comes from his lopsided mouth. He opens his hand.