“He never writes to me no more,” she says.

“How can he write to you when he’s been dead for fifty years?” I say.

Then she cries a bit.

After a while, she brightens up, and says: “He never writes to me no more.”

And I say: “How can he write to you when he’s been dead for fifty years?”

And she cries again.

“Grandma,” I say, “Korea was a long time ago. Grandpa was a long time ago. It’s 2004, Grandma. We’ve got iPods. And texting, so you don’t need letters.”

“Oh,” she says, and she’s quiet for a bit. The clock tick-tock-ticks in the corner and I think about the door and tonight’s telly. To be honest, this place frightens me. It smells of old wee. Down the corridor, someone else’s grandma is screaming that goblins are using her toothbrush.

“He never writes to me no more.”

“Grandma,” I sigh.

My mum says that Grandma’s got a disease called Alzheimer’s which makes her forget. She says it gives her a kind of amnesia, if you know what that is. She says she can’t cope with it anymore, cos Grandma keeps forgetting that Grandpa’s long dead. We have to keep reminding her. And it’s news all over again. And she cries for him. And forgets again. And wonders where he is.

It’s like Grandpa’s dying over and over in her head, every few minutes.

But really he died millions of years ago. There was a war in a country called Korea. He was on America’s side. He died when they were attacked at Yalu River on the 25th October, 1950. I know all about it, you see. I looked it up. Grandpa died of drowning, they reckoned, and they didn’t find his body. One day, his letters to Grandma just stopped.
“He never writes to me no more.”

Grandma says this and cries, and for the billionth time shows me the bundle of brown letters she keeps in a biscuit tin in the corner. Funny, but she never forgets where that is. Personally, I’d prefer it if the letters were biscuits. That’s what normal grandmas would give me. Normal grandmas’d pat me on the head, say “Ooh, you’ve grown,” and give me grandma-type biscuits, like Rich Tea or Digestives. And perhaps a few quid. But no, not my Alzheimer’s grandma. I just get smelly old letters.

The letters are the letters Grandpa sent her from Korea. The last one, on top, is from the 24th October, 1950. He must’ve been already dead when she got it — kinda spooky, I reckon. It’s very short, and he says: “Dear Glad, thanks for your letter. Tomorrow’s a biggish day. Will write when it’s over. Mosquitoes nasty as ever.” Then there’s some blah-blah-lovey-dovey stuff, and he signs off once and (I suppose) for ever: “Love, Frank.”

“He never writes to me no more.”

Mum lost it yesterday when Grandma said that for the trillionth time. She burst into tears and said she hated seeing her mum like this. Then she shouted at Grandma: “He’s dead, don’t you get it? Dead dead dead dead dead.” I thought the word sounded weird, repeated like that. It goes sort of funny, as if you’re not sure what it means any more. But no-one else was laughing. Everyone else was shouting and crying at once. Even the hard nurse with the tattoo. And Grandma was in floods cos Grandpa had died again.

I didn’t know what to do. It was horrid.

So – and I know you’ll think it’s really weird what I’m going to tell you. But anyway, let’s get it over with, and you can think whatever you like. Who cares.

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You see, last night, I sat down and wrote a letter. Never written one before except at school. And not even at school a love letter. They don’t teach you that in Year 5.

I’d nicked one of the old letters from the biscuit tin, and I did my best to copy Grandpa’s ancient style of writing — squiggly “Ts” and spidery bits. It was dead hard and took ages, I tell you. Then I folded it in an envelope, got a stamp from my mum’s purse, and addressed it to Grandma in the home. I didn’t write “Grandma” on it – I put “Mrs Gladys Hallwood” plus the home’s address. Then I shoved it in the pillar box down the street.

Feel free to think I’m weird when you find out what it was about. Maybe I am. All I know is that when I went today Grandma had stopped saying “He never writes to me no more.” Instead, she was smiling in a long-time-ago way, if you know what I mean. She even offered me a Rich Tea. Though still no cash.

Anyway, here goes. What I wrote went like this:

Dear Glad,

Hello from Korea. I’m sorry I haven’t written you for the last fifty-five years, but I’ve been a bit caught up with some stuff. You know what wars are like. So sorry about that.
But here I am again. Things are cool in Seoul. Wish you were here.

I just wanted to say that I miss you truck-loads. You’re great and we’ll see each other again very soon.

With love and all that, Frank.

Jonathan Taylor is an author, editor, lecturer and critic. His books include the memoir A Physical Education (Goldsmiths, 2024) and the short story collection Scablands and Other Stories (Salt, 2023). He directs the MA in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester.
He Never Writes to Me No More is taken from the collection Scablands and Other Stories (Salt, 2023).