The Dreaming Place

Ally woke with a start.  What time was it? Glancing at the clock beside her bed and absorbing the bad news, her heart sank; it was after 6am and she knew she’d been beaten again.  She pulled herself together and made her way across the corridor to the bathroom in the hope that this morning might be different to the dozens that had gone before.

 

She hadn’t taken two or three steps when her hopes were dashed.  A quavering voice could be heard from behind the closed door, “You are the promised kiss of springtime that makes the lonely winter seem long.”

 

Since her grandfather had come to live with them, Ally’s life had changed dramatically.  No longer could she think of this bathroom, the smaller of the two in the house, as her own.  No, she had to share with grandad, and nobody in the family realised how awful that was.

 

The bathroom had always been a special place for Ally.  All teenage girls need a special place, where they can go to be on their own, a place where they can enjoy a long, indulgent bubble bath and think about the great mysteries of life, a place where they might come to terms with the heartbreaks and disappointments which seem to be part and parcel of young womanhood.  It was also a place where Ally could take her mobile phone and talk and text with her friends without restraint or censorship, and without the danger of someone bursting in and disturbing her.

 

In a moment of romantic fantasy, Ally called it her Dreaming Place, and she certainly did dream there: private dreams she shared with nobody, not even her best friend.  She wanted to be there, in her Dreaming Place, now, thinking of the boy who had chatted with her at the bus stop on the way home from school, pouring her heart out to whichever one of her friends she could contact at this hour of the morning.  Lately, the only dreaming she did was how great it would be if Granddad went to live in a nursing home and she could have her Dreaming Place all to herself again.

 

But, no!  That wasn’t likely to happen.  Mum was too worried about the stories she heard listing the problems in nursing homes. She often said that her dad would go to a nursing home only ‘over her dead body’. Ally would just have to put up with the inconvenience.  Mum had even said, “If it wasn’t for your Grandad’s help, we wouldn’t even have this house with two bathrooms.”

 

And, in the meantime she would just have to wait until the old man finished what he called his ablutions and left the bathroom free for Ally.  And, again, Ally’s heart sank when she anticipated getting her turn in the bathroom.  It wouldn’t be the same as it had been before: there would be the pile of old-man, stained pyjamas in the corner, all the towels would be wet and strewn across the floor, there would be the old man smells and, perhaps, even the old man false teeth on the edge of the sink. She knew he didn’t have his teeth in this morning because she could hear it in his singing: ‘you are the anzhel glow that lightsh a shtar’.

 

If only she could get first turn at the bathroom. She didn’t really mind sharing but having to put up with the mess that Grandad left behind was too much.  She had tried getting up earlier and that had worked for a while but the old man seemed to have worked our her strategy and had taken to rising even earlier so he could get to the bathroom first.  It wasn’t a competition, for goodness sake.

 

At last the singing had stopped.  That meant he was drying himself off and it would only be a few more minutes and she could have her bathroom back.  She gathered up her toiletries and the clothes she would need and waited for Grandad to announce he was finished.  She used to leave her toiletries in the bathroom but, since she had to share with Grandad, she kept them in her room.  Somehow she felt uncomfortable knowing that Grandad might be pawing through and smelling her personal things.  She felt guilty aboutthat but couldn’t change how she felt.

 

He seemed to be taking a long time.  She hoped he was alright.  Maybe she should call her mother.  What if he had died in there, just crumbled to the floor in a heap – a heart attack or something?  It could happen, you hear these stories all the time.  There was something on TV about it just last week.  She had just opened her mouth to shout “Mum!”  when she heard the bathroom door open at last.

 

“Good morning, sweetheart,” her Grandad said. “You look a little dreamy this morning.  What are you thinking about?”

 

“Nothing,” she lied.