Jacqueline Winspear - This Time Next Year Well Be Laughing

Books by
Jacqueline Winspear

Maisie Dobbs

Birds of a Feather

Pardonable Lies

Messenger of Truth

An Incomplete Revenge

Among the Mad

The Mapping of Love and Death

A Lesson in Secrets

Elegy for Eddie

Leaving Everything Most Loved

A Dangerous Place

Journey to Munich

In This Grave Hour

To Die But Once

The American Agent

The Care and Management of Lies

Non-fiction

What Would Maisie Do?

Copyright 2020 by Jacqueline Winspear

All rights reserved.

Published by

Soho Press, Inc.

227 W 17th Street

New York, NY 10011

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Winspear, Jacqueline, author.

Title: This time next year well be laughing : a memoir / Jacqueline Winspear.

Description: New York, NY : Soho, [2020]

Identifiers: LCCN 2020019804

ISBN 978-1-64129-269-6

eISBN 978-1-64129-270-2

Subjects: LCSH: Winspear, Jacqueline, 1955Childhood and youth.

Winspear, Jacqueline, 1955 Family. | Authors, English21st century

Biography. | Working class familiesEngland20th centuryBiography.

Classification: LCC PR6123.I575 Z46 2020 | DDC 823.92 [B]dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020019804

Interior design by Janine Agro, Soho Press, Inc.

Printed in the United States of America

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For my brother, John James Winspear

And in memory of our late parents,

Albert Frederick and Joyce Margaret Winspear

My heroes

Childhood is, or has been, or ought to be, the great original adventure, a tale of privation, courage, constant vigilance, danger, and sometimes calamity.

Michael Chabon, Manhood for Amateurs

Prologue

I t was our third visit to A&E, the accident and emergency department at the local hospital. The aggressive blood disorder that had been claiming my fathers life day by day was bringing us to our knees. Months of regular transfusions were now wreaking havoc on every bone in his body. My mother was snappy, her temper breaking down faster than his veinsand I was doing all I could to care for them both, desperate to keep the ship on an even keel even as it was crashing against the rocks. My brother, John, was still trying to come to terms with what was happeningonly a few months earlier Dad had hiked for hours with John in the mountains near his home in Ojai, California, and my strong, sturdy father had kept up a young mans pace, not even broken a sweat. His doctor had always said, Mr. Winspear, you are one of the fittest men I see here in my practice, and I dont mean for your age. We had all felt quite smugthose Winspear genes were pretty darn good, werent they?

Annette, the senior hematology nurse who had been our point person from day one, had called the house earlier that morning.

How are you all holding up? she asked.

Not so great, I replied, feeling as if I were letting the side down. We didnt admit defeat in our family. I explained that Dad was being stoic, Mum was by turns sarcastic and argumentative, then compassionate and caring.

And you? she asked.

I shrugged, as if she were there with me. Im all right, Annette, but

No, youre not, JackieI can hear it in your voice. Youre exhausted. Its time you all had a break. Lets get your dad in for a transfusion and some pain meds, and Ill arrange for his transfer to the hospice for respite caregive you all a chance to draw breath. But you must tell him were not packing him off to hospice to diejust for respite. The ambulance will be with you in about twenty minutes, and Ill be down there in A&E to meet you when you arrive.

I told my mother to get ready to leave, then went to my parents room and knelt alongside my fathers bed. Dad, its just for respite carea bit of a break. Youll get a transfusion at the hospitalthatll perk you upand theyll give you something stronger for that pain in your back. Ill be with you all the time, Dad. Mums just getting dressed.

I helped my dad get up from the bed and steadied him as he made his way to the bathroom. I put out a fresh, ironed shirt, his best trousers and one of his favorite jackets. His leather shoes were polished. Dad was a dapper man, and unless he was working in the garden, he always wanted to be well turned out. Even at seventeen, when he was first conscripted into the army, he took the uniform to a local tailor for alteration because he didnt like the cut. And now, though he could barely stand, he insisted upon dressing himselfno, he didnt want help from anyone, and certainly no one else could pull off that all-important Windsor knot in his tie.

At the hospital my father was wheeled to a cubicle, where Annette took his hand and explained to us that they were just getting a quarantine room ready for him because A and E is full of people coming in with all sorts of germsand we dont want your dad catching anything. Then she said shed like a moment alone with my father. I watched from a distance as Annette sat next to Dad, their heads almost touching while she spoke to him. Ive wondered if this was the moment she told him, Albert, its almost time. I imagine it might have been.

In the quarantine room my mother and I sat on either side of Dads bed. I watched as blood and platelets drip-drip-dripped into my fathers arm, his shirtsleeves rolled up, his tie removed. He lay on top of the bedlinens, and I remember thinking, Hes such a smart, dear, lovely man . The plan was that as soon as the transfusion was complete there would be a short wait and a cup of tea and a pastry for Dad before another ambulance would come to take him to the hospice. In the meantime, we waited. Drip, drip, drip, blood and platelets entering my fathers body, giving us all a little more time.

We spoke of this and that for a while, ordinary things, subjects of no great import, then Dad turned and reached toward my mother, taking her hands in his own.

Havent we had a great life? he said.

She leaned her head toward his, pulled back one hand and rested it against his cheek. He moved his head and kissed her palm. As quietly as I could, I stood up and crept away from my chair, my footfall silent as I left the room, turning the door handle without a sound so as not to interrupt their moment. Instead I stood in the hallway reading and rereading the wall-mounted instructions for evacuation in case of fire.

Havent we had a great life?

And in that moment, as I turned and focused on the red-backlit exit sign, I felt my chest ache and my breath become short, and I wondered if I shouldnt be admitted into care without delay. My heart had swollen, and I felt a weight on my chest that took my breath away. I loved them not only because they were my parentsI loved them for who they were, for their resilience and capacity for endurance at the very worst of times. I cherished them for their love of each other, for their love of lifeand of us. I would have moved mountains to keep them safe, together.

Havent we had a great life?

About Me and Memories

M emories appear in flashes of light, in short scenes, in reflections that can make us laugh or bring us to tears. They might come in on a sneaker wave of grief, or be buoyed up from our past by a certain fragrance in the air, or a sound from afar. The essence of memoir, I suppose, is that it could better be described as re-memory. We dont just look back at an event in our past; we are remembering the memory of what happened. Its a bit like putting the laundry through two wash cycles.