Chapter 1

It was never part of Ruth Ross’s plans to return to the UK in the middle of November. She could not have chosen a time of year more juxtaposed to the place she left behind. Barely four o’clock in the afternoon and the streets of Dumfries were dark, save for the headlights and lampposts whose beams illuminated the rain-beaten pavements and roads. Here and there, umbrellas on sticks darted between vehicles that had been stopped in their tracks by a red light.

Ruth was, however, grateful for the anonymity the dark and the heavy rain afforded her. With her daughter, Seke, dangling happily in the baby carrier, Ruth tightened her grip on the dome of her transparent umbrella. Meanwhile, drops of rain bulged then plopped off it, right in front of her little girl’s delighted eyes. 

Happiest when facing the rest of the world, Seke bounced in rhythm with the movement of her mother’s walk. Ruth tried to imagine what could be going through her daughter’s infant mind. Lifted from her birthplace and transported to this dark, dank place, would Seke ever be able to conjure up the bright sunshine and wonderful colours she had hitherto known, wondered Ruth. 

“Ruth Ross, is that you?”

A face peered through the cover of Ruth’s brolly; a bit too close for comfort. 

“It is you! What are you doing back here?” The familiar voice was tinged with sarcasm.

Oh God! What was she supposed to do now? Ruth knew, sooner or later, she would bump into someone from the hospital where she worked prior to embarking on her African adventure.

“Hello, Nigel,” she responded with little effort at disguising a sigh.

“Well, you didn’t waste much time, did you?” Nigel looked at Seke with amusement.

Ruth forced a smile. She had no words.

“So, are you back for good then? Spill the beans. Cat got your tongue?”

“Just a couple of weeks. Sorry, Nigel, I can’t stop to chat.”

“Right, well, can’t wait to tell the others I’ve seen you. Maybe you’ll find time to chat to Graham, eh? Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink.”

Ruth wanted to protest, but she knew it was no good. Instead, she smiled and side-stepping her former work colleague, moved on. It would not be long before tongues wagged now that Nigel had seen her. The sooner she could settle things with her parents, the sooner she could take Seke and get on a plane back to Tanzania where they belonged.

***

“Hi, Mum, I’m home,” Ruth called as she let herself into the welcoming warmth and light of her parents’ home an hour or so later.

Anita appeared in the hallway, looking drawn, a worried frown embedded onto her forehead.

“Oh, Mum, what’s he done now?”

Anita shook her head sadly then turned to look at Seke. 

“And how are you, wee lassie?” she said, reaching out to stroke her granddaughter’s cheek.

Seke giggled with delight, caught Anita’s hand mid-air as she waved her arms around and grabbed at her grannie’s finger, pulling it up and down, up and down, laughing as she did so. 

“Ooh, that one doesn’t half do the soul good, Ruthie,” Anita said.

“Where is Dad?” Ruth enquired, as Anita and Seke continued to indulge each other.

“In there.” Anita tilted her head towards the lounge. “He’s watching that homes renovation, DIY programme. He’s obsessed. I don’t know why because he couldn’t do anything here if he wanted to.” Anita’s tone was unusually acerbic.

Seeing her mum was at breaking point, Ruth handed Seke over and wandered into the room where her dad was sitting. He was slumped in the well-worn armchair, staring at the television screen.

“Hello, Dad,” Ruth spoke as gently as she could. There was no response. She went closer and knelt down on the carpet next to his armchair. “Dad, it’s me, Ruth. How are you doing, Dad?” Again, no response; Tony simply carried on staring straight ahead at the screen. She touched his knee and his head turned slowly, dragging reluctant eyes around with it. When his face was opposite Ruth’s, his expression was one of puzzlement. Even the suggestion that her dad might not know who she was, was something Ruth could not accept. Tony’s head turned slowly back to face the television as if being pulled by a magnetic force he had no power to resist.

Ruth remained patient, every now and then prompting her dad to look her way, until he broke into a smile – a brief recognition perhaps – before reverting to the blank expression, his eyes appearing to look through, rather than at, the television screen. She wondered how much of the programme he was actually taking in.

Back in the kitchen, Ruth spoke candidly. “Do you have a diagnosis for him, Mum?”

“Well, yes, sort of.” Anita waved at a letter pinned onto the side of their fridge with a large giraffe-shaped magnet – one of the small gifts Ruth had sent over when she first went out to Africa. 

Ruth lifted the magnet to release the letter, which she read carefully. There was one word that stood out, demanding her full attention – ‘Alzheimer’s’. So, now she knew. 

Before Ruth had chance to consider the implications of her dad’s diagnosis, a sudden thud from the lounge sent Anita rushing out of the kitchen. Dropping the letter and grabbing Seke, Ruth followed closely behind.

“Call 999!” Anita was bent over her husband whose body lay slumped on the carpet. Tony was making whimpering noises like an animal in pain.

When the paramedics arrived around forty minutes later, Ruth and Anita had managed to place Tony’s head on a folded towel and drape a blanket over him. He was expertly helped back onto a chair and various vital tests performed. All colour had drained from Anita’s face. Ruth persuaded her to sit, placed Seke on her lap and disappeared into the kitchen to make tea. 

“Has he had a fall before?” Karen, one of the paramedics, asked Anita.

“Yes, he’s often falling.”

“Mum!” Ruth chastised, as she reappeared with the tea. “You never said.”

“What good would it have done? You couldn’t have done anything.” Anita faced her daughter head-on.

Ruth decided to ignore Anita’s poorly veiled accusatory tone. “I didn’t realise things had got so bad, Mum, I’m sorry,” she said.

Apologetically, Anita reached her hand out to comfort Ruth. “It’s okay, I didn’t want to admit it to myself. Telling someone else would have meant I had to accept it too.” 

“Oh, Mum.” Ruth knelt on the carpet next to Anita and squeezed her hand. 

Seke was unusually quiet. 

“Mrs Ross,” Karen spoke gently, “we are not going to take Tony into hospital now. We don’t believe he is physically injured. But we do advise that you contact your GP surgery in the morning to talk it over with them. It looks like you may need some help around here, going forward.”

Anita nodded sadly. 

In that moment, Ruth understood that everything was going to be different from then on.

***

Seke and Tony were settled in their own beds before Ruth had a chance to question her mother.

“When did you first realise there was a problem, Mum?” she asked.

Anita sat thoughtfully. “Looking back, there were signs as far back as two or three years ago,” she said eventually.

“Really! Like what?” Ruth could not believe this was happening whilst she had been living there. How had she not noticed? She felt suddenly ashamed.

“Oh, not being able to bring a word to mind or not remembering how to do something really simple in the house.”

Ruth sat patiently waiting for her mother to continue.

“I remember this one time; I was hanging washing out in the yard. Your dad was supposed to be making us a meal…” Anita’s voice trailed off.

“Go on,” Ruth urged.

“Well, I turned around to go inside and saw him standing at the back door – just standing there with a look of sheer confusion on his face.”

“Why?” Ruth asked.

“He’d forgotten how to switch the oven on.”

“How did you get to a diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s?” Ruth queried, recalling the words of the letter she had been reading earlier.

“I made an appointment at the surgery and our doctor referred him to a memory clinic. We went and…” Anita bent her head and sighed. As she looked up, Ruth could see tears in her mother’s eyes.

“I’m sorry, Mum, I know this is hard for you.”

“It was awful, Ruthie. They asked him a lot of simple questions like, what year was he born, what was the year then, his address, who was the Queen. Then they did lots of exercises like repeating numbers in sequence then backwards and…”

“And?” Ruth was keen to know more.

“I remember it was very thorough. We were there a long time. They had pictures of animals and asked him to identify them.” Anita stopped to think. “They did this thing where they’d given him five random words to remember and at the end of the other stuff, they asked him to repeat them.”

“So, how did he get on?” Ruth asked.

“He couldn’t answer the simple questions and got very frustrated with the exercises. Oh, except for the animal pictures! It was like talking to a very young child.” Anita began to sob, her tears falling uninhibited with the pain of remembering.

“Oh, Mum!” Ruth moved close to Anita and held her mother as if she were the child, “Just cry, Mum,” she said as she tried to comfort her. “You need this.”

***

Sleep did not come easily that night and Ruth was unable to settle. She got out of bed to go to the kitchen. Seke was away with the fairies in her large cot that Anita had borrowed for their stay. Ruth stared down at her daughter who lay flat on her back, legs and arms splayed out, bed covers pushed aside and thankfully oblivious to the family’s torment. The love Ruth felt for that small human being could not be put into words.

Suddenly, the bedroom door opened. Ruth’s father stood in the doorway, looking bewildered.

“Dad!” Ruth whispered loudly. “What are you doing?”

“Ruthie love, erm, where’s the bathroom?”

Ruth took her dad’s hand and led him along the landing. “Are you okay? Can you manage?” she asked.

Tony laughed then. “Of course, I can manage. What do you take me for?” he said.

Downstairs in the kitchen, Anita was already up.

“It’s like Glasgow Central in this house,” Ruth joked. “What’s going on?”

“Your dad often wanders about in the middle of the night, love. I just wait until I can get him safely back to bed.”

“How long will that be?” Ruth asked.

“Oh, I don’t know, anything up to two hours.”

Instructing her mum to sit, Ruth made them both a drink. If this is what Anita had been living with for the past year or so, it was no wonder she was so exhausted.

Whilst Anita went to check on her husband, Ruth sat contemplating the situation they found themselves in. How could she possibly even think of going back to Tanzania now?