Who Is Sylvia?

When I visit we
look at old photographs;
babies in prams,
Christmas get togethers,
holidays by the sea.

There’s my Dad.
There’s my sister.
There’s my mum.
There’s me.

Friends and relatives
also feature.

“That’s you,”
mum says.

It is.
I’m wearing
my school blazer.

I like
the one of her
posing on his motorbike
in her Sunday dress.

It’s before they were married.
She’d have been about twenty.

“I couldn’t really ride it,’’
she says.

Then,
“Is your Dad
coming to see me?”

In her head
dead people live on.

Her friend,
“This is Sylvia”
shuffles over.

Apparently she and Sylvia
went to school together,
worked together,
have been best friends
all of their lives.

Really?

One of the carers arrives.
‘‘Agnes,’’ she says,
taking Sylvia by the hand,
‘‘the doctor’s here to see you.’’

We go back to the photographs.
I can’t spot any of Sylvia.


Who is Sylvia?