Кара Хантер - Close to Home

Downstairs, I pour myself a large glass of Merlot and take the DVD into the sitting room. The image on the case is of Daisy. Daisy in a swimming pool, smiling up into the camera. It’s a DVD sent to her mother, and it should – for that reason alone – be completely innocent. But all I can think of is that chilling fairy story. And that birthday card. As the machine loads, I read the note that came with it.

Havenview Care Home

Yeading Road

Carshalton

20th July 2016

Dear Mrs Mason,

Thank you for sending your contribution to Sadie’s ‘treasure chest’. Collecting items that have a special memory attached to them, or which recall times gone by, is proving to be a very effective way to stimulate our residents with Alzheimer’s, and help them keep a connection with their past.

Sadly, I’m afraid this particular item has not been as successful as we had hoped. We showed Sadie the film, and at first there was very little reaction, but when we got to the section featuring your little girl she became extremely distressed and started to talk about someone called ‘Jessica’. She was so upset that we decided, with regret, the film was doing more harm than good. I am very sorry. I am returning the DVD in case you have another use for it.

Yours sincerely,

Monica Hapgood (Care Manager)

So Sharon Mason hasn’t told her mother’s carers she had had two daughters, not one.

I pick up the remote and press Play. There’s a blank blue screen, and then a title: To Mum, From Sharon, Barry, Leo and Daisy. Then

Chapter one: Barry and Sharon’s wedding

There’s no soundtrack, just a saccharine panpipe instrumental, which lasts about three minutes before I have to put it on mute. The film starts with a still of Barry wearing a tuxedo with a red rose in his buttonhole and Sharon in a strapless tight-fitting satin dress and a diamanté tiara, holding a bunch of red roses. Then the camera shows Sharon walking up the aisle in a hotel function room. There are about thirty people in the audience and red bows tied round the backs of the chairs. A banner on the wall behind says HAPPY CHRISTMAS 2005, and there are garlands of holly and ivy, and a Christmas tree. Gerald Wiley is much heftier than he was in the newspaper photo, and escorts his daughter with difficulty, breathing heavily. His face is purplish. Sadie, by contrast, is thinner, and fidgets all the time – with her handbag, her hat, her corsage. I wonder whether she was already in the early stages of dementia. There are shots of the vows, then some of the reception. Barry making his speech, the two of them cutting the cake. Gerald Wiley can be seen in the background. He’s not smiling.

Chapter two: Leo’s first birthday

Leo is sitting in a blue high chair in a kitchen – it’s not the room at Barge Close. He’s holding a yellow plastic spoon in one hand and banging on the chair tray. He has some sort of puree across his chin. The camera moves back and shows a pregnant Sharon holding a birthday cake with one candle on it. The cake is in the shape of a lion. She puts it down in front of Leo and he stares at it and reaches for the flame. She grasps his fist and holds it back. She looks tired. Someone – presumably Barry – blows out the candle. Leo starts to cry.

Chapter three: Daisy’s christening

The weather is wintry. The group standing awkwardly outside the church are huddled against the wind. Sharon is shown holding a baby heavily wrapped up in a shawl. Sadie is wearing the same coat that she had on at the wedding. Gerald is leaning on a stick. There are two other older people who are presumably Barry’s parents. Barry has Leo by one hand. The little boy is in a suit and tie, with his hair smoothed down, but he’s pulling away from his father, and appears to be screaming. Sharon looks annoyed, but then smiles quickly when the camera focuses in on her and the baby. She lifts the baby’s head so we can see her.

Chapter four: Summer holidays and another birthday

This sequence was taken abroad somewhere. The Algarve perhaps, or somewhere in Spain. We see Sharon, in a bikini and high-heel shoes, walking up and down the side of the hotel pool, pausing occasionally and dropping her hip like a beauty queen. She has a tattoo behind her left ankle, and I find myself starting when I realize it’s a daisy. At one point she stops with her back to us and looks over her shoulder, winking at the camera and blowing a kiss, Marilyn-fashion. She’s in great shape, and looks as if she could even have done that sort of thing professionally. Her skin is tanned and she’s smiling. She’s happy. The camera cuts to Daisy, who’s in a little flowered dress and a pink floppy sunhat, and is clapping her chubby hands. She can’t be more than two. Then we see Barry with Daisy in the pool. He’s holding her by her waist above his head and then aeroplaning her low over the water. Up and down, up and down. She’s screaming with delight. Then Sharon in a white cotton dress and a pair of dangly earrings, sitting in a deckchair opening birthday presents. The section ends with Daisy toddling towards the camera, smiling, and holding up a placard that says ‘ I love you Mummy ’.

Chapter five: Christmas

A shot of a tree (artificial) with the fairy lights on. Judging by the gloom, it’s early on Christmas morning. The door opens and Daisy comes in. She must be about four years old and she looks unnervingly like Jessica. I wonder if this is the moment when they had to turn the film off. Daisy glances mischievously at the camera, as if she knows she’s not supposed to acknowledge it’s there. Then she spots the bike, propped up by the tree and covered in pink ribbons. The next shot shows both children surrounded by mounds of wrapping paper. Daisy is talking to camera, pointing one at a time to the presents she’s got and explaining what they are. Leo is to one side, not looking at the lens, stolidly opening present after present. It’s clear from the contents that some of these are not for him. The next shot is outside the front of a small 1960s semi with a blue garage door too small for any modern car. First we see Daisy on the new bike, riding towards us, and later, both children in the snow, wearing bobble hats and mittens and playing snowballs with Barry. Daisy looks unbearably sweet in a pair of tiny Ugg boots. At one point Barry wrestles Leo laughingly to the ground and they roll about together, but Leo fights him off and runs towards the camera crying. Then we see the two kids circling round and round a snowman; Daisy is carefully patting the snow smooth, while a few feet behind her, Leo is purposefully digging chunks out of it with a small red trowel.

Chapter six: Summer holidays again