Last Train from Liguria (2010) by Christine Dwyer Hickey

it was described to me on the phone when they finally tracked me down in London: ‘I’m afraid there’s been a bit of an incident.’ And that’s what they’ve been calling it ever since. ‘The stroke was most likely the result of the incident.’ ‘Certain tests had to be carried out on foot of the incident.’ That’s the sort of thing I’ve been hearing. What I haven’t been hearing are the finer details: the whys, wherefores and, most intriguing of all, the how in the name of Christ could such a thing have happened in the first place?
    Regarding the incident, this much I do know: it bruised her face and it broke her arm. It left long scratches and cuts all up her legs and across her knees. It fucked up her new hip. Despite all this damage, it has to be admitted that for a while there before the incident, she was a total rip. And since it, apparently, has been a complete ‘sweetie pie’.
    I lean towards my grandmother. ‘Nonna,’ I say, ‘I take my eyes off you for a few weeks and look at all the trouble. What are we going to do with you at all?’
    I sit back and try to remember the other Nonna, what she was like before all this. But I can barely recall her younger face, which ironically looked older than the face she now has. I can only seem to get back as far as the nursing home where she lived for a year or so before she was sent here. Where we both thought she would end her days. A far cry from this hole, it has to be said.
    She’d picked it herself, after first checking out God knows how many other homes. ‘
Now
this is it,’ she had said. ‘This is the
perfect
place.’ Then she had proceeded to make all the arrangements, financial and otherwise. I couldn’t get over her forking out that type of money or that she had that kind of money to fork out. Not that she’d ever denied me anything, but it had been scrimp and scratch all the way with Nonna, and I had often got the impression that spending money gave her a pain in the stomach. Not this time though. This time she couldn’t whip out the cheque book quick enough.
    She had seemed almost happy there, in her perfect nursing home. A veranda in summer where she sat like a memsahib on her bamboo chair, occasionally smiling and nodding at other people’s conversations. The lawn to look at, trees to contemplate, the sound of water. An occasional party in the main drawing room - some eejit in a dickie bow telling corny jokes and banging on an electric keyboard. But still. A bright bedroom all to herself, and her own radio, although she always preferred to sit in silence. She was treated as a pet there, was, I believe, almost loved. They liked her neatness, her soft green eyes, what they saw as her acquiescent disposition. Of course they got over that soon enough.
    They tell you to do that in magazines and care advice brochures, they say - try to remember your loved one in happier, more positive times. Try to choose one or two things a day your loved one used to enjoy. It’s interesting I think, the way they always use that expression ‘loved one’ - an undertaker’s expression - like they’re acknowledging that he or she has already died.
    The buzzer goes on the door of the ward, and I hear Thelma coming out of the office to answer it. Thelma, a sort of nurse’s aide, is a bit on the simple side. I suspect she may be a former patient, shoved in here a long time ago and for not that much of a reason. The door is unlocked and I can hear Thelma’s loud excited whispers from here. A voice I recognize - that of the bunty little staff nurse - is admitted. The door is then locked again with a touch more ceremony than usual, and I can’t help wondering if this is for my sake.
    I get up and stretch my arm to tap on the window. The geometric line of starched caps falters and breaks apart. One startled eye turns towards me, like the eye in a shying horse. I give the nod that says,
The battle-axe has arrived, girls, better get yourselves back