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THE MEMORY CURE website had excellent advice written out in handy actions and clear language that anyone could understand:

ACTION NUMBER 1:
Talk to your loved one about times gone by. Use old photos of family and friends to initiate conversations about the past. You'll be surprised the things that such conversations will awaken.

In the corner of the living room there were photographs of all of us—pictures of my mum and my uncle Ted when they were young, and there was one of Granddad Kevin and Granny Deedee when they were not that young, but not that old, either, both of them looking into the distance in the same direction. There were also quite humiliating shots of me when I was a naked baby, with my brother, Brian.

I wouldn't have minded being named Brian. But it was my brother who got the nonpathetic name, not me. I said to my gran that I thought it wasn't fair, especially now that he didn't need his name anymore because he was dead. She said, “Darling, I know you don't mean that about your
lovely brother, whose name will always belong to him,” and I said, “No, no, of course I don't,” even though I actually did.

“Granddad, who's this?” I said to him, pointing at one of my baby pictures.

“I don't seem to be able to recall,” he said.

“Do you know who I am
now
?” I said, prodding my chest.

“No,” he said. “I'm really very sorry.”

I told him not to worry, that it was okay, even though obviously there's nothing okay about forgetting your own grandson.

People go through phases, and a lot of them come out the other side perfectly fine. I don't think you should write someone off just because they occasionally get a bit mixed-up and have to be shown where the toilet is.

At dinner that night Granddad frowned and chewed his food very slowly, not saying anything for ages. Then he looked up at my gran and he said, “Where's Brian?”

“Oh dear, now, don't distress yourself,” my gran said to him, which was kind of condescending as far as I was concerned.

“Brian fell out of a window,” I said helpfully.

“Did he?” said my granddad.

“Yes, my dear,” my gran said, moving closer to him and softly patting him on the hand, “I'm afraid he did.”

“He's dead now, isn't that right?” he said.

“Yes, he is,” my gran replied.

“Oh,” my granddad said. He clenched his jaw, and he kept brushing something invisible off his sweater. “Yes, that's what I thought. I mean, of course. I knew that.” And he put his hand flat on his forehead and let out this shuddery sigh, and we all stayed quiet for a while, listening to the ticking of the clock on the wall.

There was nothing on the Memory Cure website that showed you what to do if talking about the past made the person you love start to cry, so me and my gran tried to move quickly on to cheering him up by talking about other people that Granddad loved, which was a bit difficult, seeing as many of them had disappeared off to San Francisco or Australia.

ACTION NUMBER 2:

Label common household items and images clearly.

As long as your loved one's reading capacity remains, this is a good way to help out with their day-to-day functioning.

I set up this quite good system by writing instructions on Post-its and sticking them all over the place. They said things like: “Open the fridge and take out the CHEESE,” “This is the TOILET, which is for PEEING into,” and “This is the DISHWASHER (for washing DISHES).”

I also wrote out people's names and stuck them on all the photos:

“Brian (your grandson—DEAD)”

“Uncle Ted (your son—in San Francisco)”

“Sophie (your daughter—drumming up business in Sydney)”

On my gran's picture I wrote, “Deedee (your wife).”

Those signs worked pretty well, except for Brian's, which didn't have that great an effect on any of us. I had to take it down quite quickly. It's one thing knowing that you've got a dead brother. It's another thing having to read it every single time you sit down to eat a bowl of cereal.

So I wrote a new sign that said: “Brian (your grandson—gone away for a while).”

That seemed to comfort Granddad, and in a funny kind of way it comforted me, too. If you read something often enough, part of you can start to believe it. Even if it is a lie and even if you've written the lie yourself.

My gran said I worried about the strangest things, like the house falling down. Everyone said it was because my brother had died. They thought that me worrying all the time was my way of being sad. I disagreed. Tragedy isn't the thing that makes the world a stressful place; it's the
chance
of tragedy that makes it stressful, and I guess that's what tormented me. Constantly being frightened about losing the things that I needed most—it was exhausting.

But it was never so bad when I was with my granddad. Whenever I started to get freaked out about something or other, he always used to notice. He would spot this little
bead of worry rising from somewhere deep inside me before I'd even noticed it myself. And whenever he saw that, he would come over a bit closer to me and then he would say, “Cosmo, my old pal, I think it's time for a bit of rest, don't you?” And he might suggest that perhaps I'd like to have a bath. And sooner or later I would say, “Yes, I think I would.” And then I would have a bath and he would light this big ancient old candle and put it on the shelf.

He'd have lit a fire by the time I came out of the bathroom, and I'd feel all clean and warm. Granddad liked to read stories to me from old books with hard dark covers by people like Charles Dickens. The stories usually had children in them who were stuck in orphanages or who were sick and poor but very cheerful all the same. They were about people who were forced to work in terrible conditions but loved each other and were polite and did not complain and were very loyal to their family members no matter what.

I would listen to his croaky old voice and I'd feel pretty cozy, and I would have been led away from whatever it was that was making me feel panicky, and instead I would feel soothed and cared for. I'd look at his old face, and the shadows would flicker and flash all around us because the fire would be big and lively by then. I'd feel calmer and more okay. I'd go to bed, and by the next day I'd be more or less fine again.

There was clattering and banging in the kitchen. I came down to see what all the noise was about, ready for the next
emergency. But Granddad was making a cheese sandwich for breakfast. He grinned at me. I was delighted. My memory cure tactics were obviously beginning to kick in, and he was suddenly making fantastic progress.

“Trust you to keep me on the straight and narrow,” he said, munching away, pointing at my signs.

Gran was pretty pleased too, even though she usually preferred me to take zero initiative when it came to helping out with the Granddad situation.

“Thank you, Cosmo, for the new signage system; that's such a kind thing to have done, isn't it, Kevin?” she said, and Granddad nodded with his mouth full, and Gran patted me on the head as if I were a kitten or a dog or something.

Later that night when I was helping to tuck him into his bed, he looked at me. His eyes had a paleness about them that I'd never seen before. “Bloody hell,” he said. “Who are you?”

And I said, “Granddad, it's me. Can't you see it's me? Me, Cosmo.”

“Well, hello, Cosmo. It's very nice to meet you. My name's Kevin, Kevin Lawless.”

I pulled the duvet right up over his shoulders. I told him to try to get some sleep. He said he'd do his best.

Some people might think it would be depressing and miserable to live with people as old as my grandparents—all ticking clocks and hot chocolate and radio quizzes.
But it wasn't like that at all. Mostly it was excellent. They bought a big green lava lamp for my room, which made the light in there look wobbly and interesting, and when I told them the blankets on my bed were a bit scratchy, they immediately got me this huge soft white duvet and a whole load of green pillows. They said that this was my home now and I could bring my friends over whenever I wanted. I decided not to mention the fact that I didn't have any friends. I didn't want them to know that their only living grandson was a complete loner. They already had enough on their plates without having to worry about things like that.

My granddad did a lot of nice things for me, but the best thing of all was this: the exact same day I moved in, he drove off to a farm, and when he came back, he had a horse. He reckoned there was no sense keeping his money in the bank anymore.

“There's nothing quite like owning a horse to take your mind off your troubles,” is what he said then, and he was right. If you take horse ownership seriously, you have lots of responsibilities, like feeding and exercising and foot care, so you can't waste your time worrying. Whenever I started to brood on anything, my granddad told me how the past is frozen, like ice, and the future is liquid, like water. And how the present is the freezing point of time.

“Make the most of the present,” he said. “It's usually the only place in which you can get anything worthwhile done.”

I still like to think about that sometimes. The entire human race—all of us—warriors of the present, every moment turning liquid future into solid past.