“I saw it,” she lied.
Helen came to see her the next day, bringing a laptop. “Cathy was right that the Mac would be too big. This is a MacTop, it’s the same thing only smaller.”
“Oh bless you, darling. Thank you for bringing it so quickly.” It was small and folded, but it had the familiar Apple logo on it, and the aesthetics of it reminded her of her beloved Mac.
“Well, you sounded as if you really desperately wanted it. And I can still get a discount in the shop,” Helen said.
“What’s wrong in the shop?” Trish asked.
“Oh Mum, I’ve told you a million times that Don and I are getting a divorce,” Helen snapped.
“Sorry,” Trish said. “I’m sorry. My silly brain. I forget these unforgiveable things. I keep doing it. But the computer will help. Rhodri put all my programs on the Mac. Can you put them on here?”
“What programs?”
“My to-do list, which beeps to remind me to do things. And the diary program so I can write down things I want to remember. Of course, all that will be on the Mac so I’ll have to start again. And Safari for Google, and email.”
“You won’t have net access here,” Helen said, then seeing the incomprehension in Trish’s face. “You won’t be able to go online. You won’t be able to use Google or email. What did you use Google for, anyway?”
“To remember things,” Trish said with all the dignity she could manage, though she was starting to cry. “You can look anything up on it, even things you didn’t ever know.”
“Yes, it’s—I use it all the time,” Helen said. “I had no idea. You were using the Mac to make up for not being able to remember? Using Google to fill the holes?”
“Yes,” Trish said. “Rhodri showed me how.”
“He’s a smart kid,” Helen said. “That’s how you stayed so functional so long. I’m impressed. They ought to write programs especially for old people. And as we get older and we already know computers, there’ll be more and more use for them.”
“Do you think you’d be able to set it up on here for me?” Trish asked.
“No. I’m sorry. The to-do list and the diary, yes, no problem. I might even be able to get your old diary off the Mac and transfer it for you—is there a password on it?”
“Moonday. With two Os,” Trish said. “Rhodri put it on.”
“Well unless Cathy has thrown it out already I’ll get the diary off it and load it on here for you so you’ll have what you saved,” Helen said. “And I won’t read it, don’t worry.”
“It’s nothing you couldn’t see. Just things I wanted to remember,” Trish said. “But Google?”
“Well, as far as the internet goes, you have to be connected, and you have to pay for that. You have to dial-up to connect. There has to be a phone line. You had that at home, but there isn’t any here, and I can’t see how I could get them to set it up. You don’t even have your own phone line. It’s just not possible.” Helen opened the MacTop. It played exactly the same little song on boot up as her old Mac had. Helen juggled icons and brought up the same “to-do” and diary programs that she knew.
“That’s something at least,” Trish said, taking it. “Thank you so much.”
Helen managed to save her old diary too, and brought it in a few days later and added it to the MacTop, which meant she had that to look at when she wanted to check things.
The only problem with the MacTop, apart from the persistent lack of Google, was that there was no desk in her room, so she had to use it in the armchair, and she kept forgetting to plug it in to charge so it was often out of batteries when she wanted it.
Bethany visited her often, and so did Helen. Donna and Tony came sometimes. Tamsin came when she was at home, and Alestra called in occasionally. George and Sophie brought the twins a couple of times every year. Time passed, every day like the last. Trish grew frailer and more easily confused.
33
The Last Gelato: Pat 1998–2015
They had their last day, on which they ate so much granita and gelato that Pat was almost sick. They went to the Uffizi and stared at the Botticellis and the Raphaels. They watched the sky fade from the Piazza della Signoria, and looked up at Machiavelli’s office window and the shape the Palazzo Vecchio made against the sky. Pat said goodbye to Cellini’s Perseus and to the copy of Michelangelo’s David. They ate dinner at Bordino’s with Jinny and Francesco, and told Francesco, who was nonplussed by the story, how they had decided to conceive Jinny right there. She said goodbye to the Duomo, and at Giotto’s tower Pat couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. They had one very last gelato on the way back.
The next day Jinny drove them to the airport and they flew home.
A week later Philip and Sanchia got married in a registry office in Cambridge, very quietly. “Did I know this was going to happen?” Pat asked Bee.