Where I Found You (43 page)

‘I’ve been telling my husband how you pull that pram along the road. I’ve never seen anything like it. Are you sure it’s safe?’

Maggie didn’t trust herself to respond but simply nodded her head. She was starting to think that going home wasn’t such a bad idea.

‘So today’s the big day then?’ continued Lorna, unabashed.

‘Yes, I’m looking forward to it,’ Maggie said, hearing the lie even if Lorna didn’t.

The truth was that she wasn’t looking forward to returning to work at all. Jenny kept telling her that it wouldn’t feel so bad once she was in a routine, but her response had been to remind her friend about the time she had walked out of the salon bawling. Maggie was allowed a wobble too, although she would be damned if she would let Lorna know that.

‘At least you’ve got your mother-in-law to help.’

Suddenly Maggie’s false bravado felt a little less forced. ‘Yes, I’m so lucky. I can’t believe Judith offered – so much for easing herself into retirement.’

‘And you’ll be able to find out all the gossip once you’re back in the salon,’ Lorna said, her voice lowered, although unfortunately Maggie could still hear it above Josh’s shouts and Aiden’s squeals. ‘Is it really true that Kathy was adopted?’

‘I believe that’s what she told you,’ Maggie answered carefully. Kathy had decided that she wanted everyone to know the basic facts of her adoption, if not the detail. She had Anne’s permission and although Elsie was now rarely in a state of mind to form a view of her own, Ted had given
his
blessing.

‘It’s so sad that she should find her mum now,’ Lorna said. ‘She has Alzheimer’s, by all accounts.’

‘Yes, but at least they found each other.’

‘And Kathy has two new sisters to boot. I bet they weren’t happy hearing about all the secrets their mum had been keeping from them.’

‘Actually they’re absolutely delighted,’ countered Maggie. Kathy had seen Yvonne at Christmas and they were getting on like a house on fire. She had even been in touch with the elusive Nancy and there were plans to all meet up once Kathy was back in the old house. Not that Maggie was prepared to share any of this information with Lorna, so she deliberately changed the subject. ‘Will you be calling in at the salon soon?’

‘Oh yes, I’m well overdue a massage.’

Maggie’s ears pricked as she detected the sound of feet splashing in the water. Harvey whined. ‘I think Josh is about to go in the lake again,’ she warned and then the strangest thing happened. To accompany a fluttering shadow, she could feel the air in front of her face being wafted one way and then the other. There was a faint smell of soap. ‘Did you just wave your hand in front of my face?’ Her question was followed by a shocked laugh.

‘Sorry, Maggie! It’s just that I can’t believe you’re really blind sometimes.’ Lorna shuffled her feet in embarrassment.

Maggie opened her mouth to respond but Lorna was already on the move to rescue her son. Screeches of excitement had transformed to those of horror as Josh found himself floundering once more. There was a hurried goodbye as Lorna dragged a howling child away and in the calm that followed, Maggie turned her attention to her own family. She took hold of the pram but didn’t immediately take hold of Harvey’s harness. She knew her way to the bench.

The smell of wet paint was overpowering as she reached over and let her hand hover inches above the freshly painted wood. There would always be doubters in her life but as her mum had taught her, a person’s true strength was hidden beneath the surface. With a glint in her eye, Maggie pressed a finger down into the sticky paint and smiled. The bench had been leaving impressions on people’s lives for decades. She was simply returning the favour.

As Elsa stepped over the threshold, she kept her eyes cast down. The black-and-white tiled floor was covered in muddy footprints and there were drifts of sawdust gathering in the corners of the vestibule. She was afraid to lift her head only to have her suspicions confirmed. The house felt empty and if she looked up and didn’t see Aunt Flo there to welcome her with open arms she knew she would cry. She missed the old lady who knew better than anyone how Elsa had lost everything including herself.

‘It might look a bit of a mess now, but it’s going to be amazing when it’s finished.’

When Elsa did find the courage to look up, she tried to return the smile of the woman who had spoken. There was something familiar about her face but what that might be she couldn’t quite recall. Panic bubbled. She knew she must fight to remember but still the memories slipped from her grasp like squirming eels. Panic was replaced by fear and she turned in a bid to escape but there was a man blocking her way. She wouldn’t look at him as she wrestled from his grip.

‘Elsie, it’s going to be all right. I’m here, love.’

Lifting her eyes, Elsie was captured by the gaze of the man who had saved her all of those years ago. One singular thought sliced through the fog of her dementia like a swan gliding across the water. Aware how quickly that thought would slip away she held on to it as if her life depended on it. She didn’t quite understand why, but for the first time in sixty years she felt whole again.

Acknowledgements

I am lucky to have some very good and immensely supportive friends who have helped me through the tough times and, more recently, tempted me away from my computer screen every once in a while. One such friend is Donna Hall, whose son Dylan is visually impaired and was very much on my mind as I wrote this book. I don’t know how Donna manages to be such an amazing friend to so many people but she does it with ease … if not the occasional glass of wine.

It was through Donna and her connections with Henshaws Society for Blind People that I was able to meet Dawn Hartgen and I would like to thank her for helping me gain a better understanding of being a visually impaired parent. Writing this book from a blind person’s perspective was quite a challenge but also a voyage of discovery as I set about describing the world which my main character Maggie inhabited without any visual context. I have such respect and admiration for mums like Dawn and I hope my novel does justice to them.

As always I would like to thank my family and especially my daughter, Jessica, who is my world, and my son, Nathan, who is my guiding star. I should also mention Ted and Betty McCulloch who were the best nan and granddad I could have wished for and it’s no coincidence that one of my characters is called Ted.

For their help, guidance, encouragement and perseverance, I would like to thank Kim Young and Martha Ashby at HarperCollins who played no small part in squeezing every ounce of emotion out of this book and often out of me too. I would also like to thank my agent, Luigi Bonomi, who took me under his wing and whose advice and guidance is invaluable.

Last, but by no means least, I would like to thank Karen Sutton, Kath Woolley, Pauline Hewitt, Sue Jones, Pat Gibson, Nee Parker and Julie Parry for their friendship and support over more years than any of us would care to admit.

About the Author

Amanda Brooke is a single mum in her forties who lives in Liverpool with her teenage daughter Jessica. It was only when her young son was diagnosed with cancer that Amanda began to develop her writing, recording her family’s journey in a journal and through poetry. When Nathan died in 2006 at just three years old, Amanda was determined that his legacy would be one of inspiration not devastation. Her debut novel
Yesterday’s Sun
was inspired by her experiences of motherhood and her understanding of how much a mother would be willing to sacrifice for the life of her child. It was chosen for the Richard and Judy Book Club in Spring 2012.

Also by Amanda Brooke

Yesterday’s Sun

Another Way To Fall

The Keeper of Secrets (ebook-only novella)

1. What was your inspiration for the novel?

My initial inspiration for
Where I Found You
actually came from a park bench! I was out jogging through a local wood one morning (which makes me sound far more healthy than I am …) when I noticed a bench tucked away next to a duck pond. I imagined all the people who might have sat down on it and the stories the bench could tell. It made me think of another bench that I used to sit on at the side of the lake in Sefton Park. It was a favourite spot of mine and it was little wonder the park had already featured in my second novel,
Another Way to Fall
. I distinctly remembered sitting there alone on the bench, heavily pregnant with my first child and wondering how my life was about to change and how I would cope. As I continued on my run, I could almost imagine a ghostly impression of myself still sitting there all those years ago …

When I arrived back home huffing and puffing, I was still thinking about that bench, only now I was imagining what would happen if two strangers sat down and began talking: what if they shared the same kind of problems and sparked up a friendship but then, what if they came from completely different eras? It was all those ‘what ifs’ that developed into the premise for the story and a couple of years later it had grown into a full length novel.

2. Maggie is visually impaired and Elsie suffers from Alzheimer’s; how much research did you have to do into these areas?

For Maggie, most of my research was through reading autobiographies, websites and online forums but I also have a friend whose son is blind and she helped too. My friend volunteers for Henshaws Society for Blind People and she was able to put me in touch with a mum who is visually impaired and has two daughters. I met the mum and she gave me a lot of ideas for the finer detail I could add to Maggie’s day to day life, the help she might receive and also some of the barriers.

In terms of Elsie, again I did a lot of reading up on the disease but I was surprised how many people I know who have had personal experience and speaking to them helped too. I also have some personal experience and used that to inform my writing but more about that in the next question.

3. Are Maggie and Elsie based on anyone in particular?

Where I Found You
is dedicated to my grandparents and with good reason. My nan had dementia in her latter years and I thought a lot about her when I wrote about Elsie. I wouldn’t go so far as to say Elsie was based on Betty McCulloch - my nan certainly didn’t have the same chequered history - but some of those early signs of dementia were from my own recollections of my nan’s illness. And I should also add that Elsie’s husband Ted is very much based on my granddad who, unsurprisingly, was also called Ted. One of my aunts lived in Surrey and whenever she came to visit, my granddad would always ask her when she was going home as soon as she arrived - it wasn’t that he wasn’t pleased to see her, it was just ‘his way,’ and my fictional character just happens to have adopted the same kind of traits.

Maggie on the other hand is pure fabrication but if I was ever lost and alone sitting on a park bench, I’d quite like to have someone like Maggie come up and sit next to me.

4. Is Judith’s behaviour towards Maggie a critique on society’s understanding of blind people?

Where I Found You
is a work of fiction and I think there are quite clear lines between the vast majority of my characters who accepted Maggie and saw beyond her disability and those who didn’t. I’d like to think that I’ve taken a good measure of poetic licence to exaggerate some of the prejudices that Maggie’s mother-in-law Judith displays, but having spoken to a mum with partial sight and reading some of the forums online, unfortunately there’s evidence that suggests that there are real-life versions of Judith out there. My only hope is that, like my character, prejudices can be overcome with enough perseverance.

5. What is the significance of aromatherapy in the novel?

It was a real challenge to describe Maggie’s world from her perspective and not rely on visual descriptions. I dabbled with aromatherapy in my earlier years and it seemed the perfect career choice for my heroine. It was certainly a voyage of discovery as I set about writing the scenes with Maggie and very early on I came up with the idea of how she might colour her world with scents. I loved creating scenes with lavender blue skies and a lemon sun and could have written so much more into my descriptions but I had to restrain myself otherwise the novel would have been twice as long. I hope what the reader is left with is tantalising glimpses of how Maggie’s mind creates imagery through aromas.

6. Maggie’s mum had a huge influence on her life. What has your mum taught you?

My mum certainly taught me how to be independent and as a single mum it’s a characteristic I’ve had to rely upon. I come from a family with very strong women who will put their hand to anything; from cleaning gutters and laying flagstones, to making curtains. My mum is very much into her crafting these days and on the day I sent back the final page proofs for
Where I Found You
, I met her for lunch and she showed me a quilt she had just finished making … And if you’ve read
Where I Found You
then by strange coincidence you’ll know this particular craft Maggie shared with her mum! I have definitely inherited the crafting bug but I can’t say I can lay flagstones like my mum quite yet.

I also have my mum to thank for my love of dogs and Harvey is the first dog I’ve added to a storyline. Because I work fulltime, I don’t have the time I would need to take care of a dog but I do come from a dog-loving family and my mum bred German Shepherds for a while. I absolutely loved living vicariously through Maggie and I really do wish I had a dog like Harvey in my life.

7. What would you like the reader to take away from this novel?

I do hope readers will grow to love Maggie as I have and admire her for the way she helps Elsie. As I said before, it would be nice to have someone like Maggie take a seat next to me on a park bench and be able to share my troubles with her. Of course each reader will form their own opinion of Maggie but I would like to think that the last thing they think about is the fact that she is blind; that they judge her as a person and not a person with a disability.