The Woman Next Door

by Liz Byrski

  ‘And who’s Nancy?’ the woman asks, steering her towards the chair.

  ‘My . . . my . . . you are . . .’ she looks at Polly, lost for a moment.

  ‘This is Dorothy,’ Polly says. ‘Nancy was your aunt, she looked after you when your mother left.’

  ‘Yes, and she was brisk, like you, Dorothy,’ Stella says, pleased that she has everyone in order now. ‘I like that.’

  ‘That’s why we get on so well,’ Dorothy says. ‘I see you’ve brought some more of your things, so when you’ve had a rest I’ll come back and help you unpack.’

  ‘Thanks, Dorothy,’ Polly says, and she bends down to kiss Stella’s cheek. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow,’ she says, ‘have a good rest.’ And she straightens up, turns and walks very quickly out of the door.

  Stella looks back to Dorothy. ‘Poor Polly,’ she says, shaking her head. ‘I worry about her, she feels responsible, you see . . . for me, I mean, but of course I’m fine. In fact,’ she leans forward and lowers her voice, ‘I like it here. I like the company and I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I forget a lot these days and I worry about that. I feel safe here. That’s what matters, isn’t it? In the end, that’s what matters, knowing someone’s looking after you, knowing you’re safe.’

  *

  Outside the main entrance Polly pauses, leans against the wall, eyes closed trying to hold back tears and failing miserably.

  ‘Are you all right, Polly?’

  She looks up to see Dorothy standing beside her.

  ‘I don’t know how to do this,’ she says. ‘For years we’ve been so close . . .’

  ‘It’s very hard,’ Dorothy says, ‘but Stella does need to be here. And I promise you this is a good place, Polly. We care for our residents, they become like family to us. Stella will always be treated with respect and kindness. We don’t infantilise or patronise.’

  ‘I know, I know, but Stella . . . She should be at home in her own house where she can still feel a bit independent. I’ve let her down so badly . . .’

  ‘No,’ Dorothy insists, ‘you’ve done the right thing, you and your friends all agreed on this when you came to discuss it with us while Stella was still in hospital. Stella is not unhappy. She’s well, and comfortable and she does understand that she needs this sort of care. She knows she can’t live alone, and she knows she’s safe here. You’ve seen how much the other residents love her. Some of them have been her fans for years. They love having a star in their midst.’

  ‘But that’s not the real Stella, the Stella I know.’

  Dorothy sighs. ‘No, it’s not. I understand that and I know it’s hard for you, but it’s the truth. This is who she is now. You still see the old Stella and you grasp at that but you can’t make her come back and you shouldn’t try. Every time you argue with her and try to set her right you put her and yourself under pressure. You can’t make her remember, you can’t force her to have the correct version of things.’

  ‘But I want her to understand,’ Polly says. ‘She has a right to have the correct information . . . it’s a basic human right, isn’t it, to make your own decisions, or at least have a say?’

  Dorothy grabs Polly’s hands and holds them firmly in her own. ‘Polly, you are trying to convince yourself that those moments of rationality mean you can force the old Stella back to life. What you have to learn is to accept who she has become, and from now on that’s something of a work in progress. If you insist on correcting her, trying to make her understand where she’s wrong, you’ll spoil your last months or years with her. I know this because I did it with my parents, my father especially. I needed him to be rational, to be in charge as he had always been. I couldn’t accept the way he had become and so I fought him over every little illusion or distortion, and all it did was hurt both of us. I spoiled our last months together with my insistence that he should accept what I told him and see that it was right. I hurt him, Polly, and I hurt myself. Each time I corrected him I diminished him – he felt that, very keenly I think. Every time you try to set Stella right you diminish who she is, who she has become.’

  ‘But what can I do?’ Polly says, her voice hoarse now. ‘I want to do what’s best for her, honestly I do.’

  ‘Then learn to love and accept her as she is now, alongside the memory of how she was. Make the decisions for her wellbeing, reassure her, don’t try to wring decisions from her or force her to understand. Go along with what she says, it doesn’t matter that it’s wrong because five minutes later she’ll have forgotten it and there’ll be something else on her mind.’

  ‘It’s so chaotic, Dorothy, it feels like madness . . .’

  ‘Yes, and if you love her you enter into it with her. Let her have her way if it’s not dangerous to her. Grant her some peace in her confusion and delusion. Because you can’t change this, Polly, it’s not going to get better, you are not going to get the old Stella back. Don’t lock yourself into a battle for her rationality because it’s a battle that is already lost.’

  *

  On a sweltering morning later that week, they sit in the solicitor’s office where the air-conditioning is almost too cold.

  Polly shivers slightly. ‘Could you go through that again, please?’ she asks.

  ‘What Jack is saying, Polly,’ Mac cuts in, ‘is that because you have power of attorney and you’re also both the executor and the sole beneficiary of Stella’s will, you’re free to do whatever you think is best.’

  ‘Well yes, within reason,’ Jack says, leaning towards them across his desk. ‘You have to make proper provision for Stella of course, you’ll need to manage her finances and set up arrangements for the payments to the care home, make sure she has money for extras – clothes, outings and so on – pay the medical insurance, but as you can see the money is not going to be a problem. Stella’s been a solid saver, despite – or maybe because of – the fact that she was always going on about the unreliability of her profession.’

  ‘And the house?’ Mac asks.

  ‘Again, it’s up to Polly. It will become yours on Stella’s death, Polly. You could sell it now and put the money into Stella’s account – it will all come to you in the end – or you might want to think about renting it out until . . . well until . . .’

  ‘Yes I see,’ Polly says, nodding. She rubs her hands over her face. ‘I had no idea . . .’

  ‘You didn’t know she’d left everything to you?’

  She shakes her head. ‘I didn’t even know she had a will. I was always intending to suggest that she should make one. But she’d asked me to do the power of attorney and after that I felt uncomfortable, I didn’t want to seem to be pushing her into something she might not want to do.’

  ‘She made her will seven years ago,’ Jack says. ‘It went into our safe then and it’s been there until I took it out this morning.’

  Polly sighs. ‘Clearly I misjudged her, she was way ahead of me.’

  ‘So how did you come by this?’ he asks, holding up the envelope that she had handed him half an hour earlier.

  ‘A few days ago I took Stella back to her house to see if there was anything else she wanted for her room. She went straight to the dressing table drawer, took out that envelope addressed to you, and gave it to me. I said I’d put it in the mail and she said, “No, I want you to go and see Jack, make an appointment and take this with you. I asked her what it was about, and she said, “Jack’ll give you some papers”, and she wouldn’t talk about it anymore. It’s so weird, she’s all over the place, forgets things, confuses things, sometimes she’s like a completely different person, difficult, grandiose, aggressive. But in that moment she was totally focused.’

  The three of them sit in silence and Polly gazes out of the office window to the park where a couple of young women are watching their toddlers playing in the shade of the Norfolk pines. She feels empty, drained of the ability to think straight.


  ‘So what do you advise, Jack?’ Mac asks. ‘What do you think Polly should do next?’

  Jack smiles. ‘Well, obviously, this is all a bit of a surprise,’ he says. ‘I think you need time to think about it, Polly. Talk it over with Joyce and Mac. Then come back and see me. We can tidy up the legalities and we can set up a framework to manage Stella’s money, and we’ll discuss everything else then. If you feel you want to involve Stella in the decision-making we could go together and talk to her, although from what you’ve told me I do think that, in the end, the decisions will have to come from you. And frankly you look wiped out, so give yourself a while to think about it. As long as you are making proper provision for Stella, there’s no rush to do anything.’

  ‘Coffee?’ Mac says as they walk out into the street. ‘I’m sure you need one, and Joyce’s students will still be there, so I’d like to stay out of the way.’ They stroll up towards the cappuccino strip in silence and Mac steers Polly to the one free table on the pavement outside Gino’s. ‘You sit down and I’ll get them. Large flat white?’

  ‘Please,’ she says. ‘And could you get me a croissant? I didn’t eat breakfast.’

  Mac disappears inside to order and she sits there watching the mix of locals and tourists around her, the traffic crawling along South Terrace, the book hunters rummaging through the trays of books outside the second-hand bookshop. Gino’s was Stella’s favourite spot, the heart of Fremantle, she’d called it, and no matter how many cafés came and went, Gino’s was always her first choice. The best coffee, the best risotto, the best potato skins, she insisted, but when Polly had brought Stella here last week the café had been erased from her memory.

  ‘Is this place new?’ she’d asked. ‘I don’t think I’ve seen it before.’

  ‘It’s Gino’s,’ Polly had said, ‘your favourite. Remember your favourite – risotto marinara?’

  But Stella had looked at her in amazement. ‘Not me, Polly, you must be thinking of someone else.’

  It spoke volumes: such an essential part of their past together, an iconic place in the history of their friendship, had disappeared, cauterised from Stella’s memory, unlikely to ever return.

  ‘Hey,’ Mac says, slipping down into the seat opposite her. ‘Are you crying, Poll?’

  She nods, rubbing her hands across her eyes. ‘Just thinking about Stella, things we’ve lost, how much I miss her.’ She shrugs. ‘I can’t get my head around her not being there, next door. It’s horrible.’

  ‘I know, Joyce and I feel it too. She’s been part of our lives for so long, and it’s harder for you because you were so close. I’m so glad she left you the house.’

  Polly grimaces. ‘I’m very grateful but it makes me feel so guilty. I was so pissed off with her these last few months, so addled at the thought of being responsible for her. And I’ve been grumpy with her because she stopped being the Stella I loved and relied on and a lot of the time she seems like someone the old Stella wouldn’t really like.’

  ‘Don’t beat yourself up about this,’ Mac says. ‘We’re the same. Over Christmas, she was playing the famous actress thing. It was so unlike her. I remember Joyce said that she was becoming the sort of showbiz bore that Stella herself used to hate.’

  Polly nods. ‘She hated it when people behaved that way, but now that’s . . . well, it’s part of her now. It’s so sad.’

  ‘But I don’t think Stella herself is sad,’ Mac says, as the waiter brings their coffee and croissants to the table. ‘I think she’s pretty content most of the time. I was watching her last week when I went to hang her pictures. The other people there all remember her and they make a huge fuss of her. She was loving it. And anyway, she deserves it. She’s always been very modest and restrained, maybe this was always a part of her that she kept hidden.’

  Polly nods, breaks off a piece of croissant and dunks it in her coffee. ‘She’s gone, hasn’t she? Our Stella’s gone, devoured by this other personality that the dementia’s created. But maybe it is easier for her, she does seem okay, it’s just so hard to get used to someone you love changing so much.’

  They drink their coffee in silence and it reminds Polly how much at ease she has always felt with Mac, and how often, when she is with Leo, she feels on edge, as though he is wanting something, expecting something from her, something she doesn’t understand.

  ‘How’s Leo?’ Mac asks, seeming to read her thoughts.

  ‘He’s fine.’

  ‘When are you going to Paris?’

  ‘It was supposed to be the end of April but he wants to bring it forward. Last night he was saying we should meet up again as soon as possible. Have some time in Paris and then I should go back to London with him.’

  ‘Do it,’ Mac says decisively. ‘It’s just what you need. Stella’s settled and apparently pretty happy. Do what Jack said, give yourself some time. I don’t think your visiting every day is necessarily a good thing, let her get into her new life, start easing off a bit.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘I do.’

  She hesitates. ‘You didn’t really like Leo, did you?’

  Mac looks awkward. ‘I didn’t dislike him, Poll, I just didn’t really get him – didn’t get to the real person. He seemed to be trying to impress us. Perhaps it was uncomfortable coming here and being surrounded by your friends. But I’m sure we’ll get through that and get to know him better next time.’

  ‘He does take a bit of knowing. I wonder how well I know him myself, but for the last month things have seemed better between us. It’ll be good to have more time together, and to see him on his own stamping ground.’

  ‘Go then,’ Mac says. ‘You won’t work him out at a distance.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ Polly says, and as she says it she feels how good it would be to be away from here, away from the emptiness next door, from the sinking feeling that besets her whenever she walks in through the door of the nursing home, and to have time to think about Stella’s future, and how to manage her own feelings about it.

  ‘Of course I’m right,’ he says with a grin. ‘I’m a man, I know about these things.’

  Polly splutters into her coffee. ‘Oh yeah,’ she says, ‘I forgot about your vast experience in relationships. How many have you had exactly?’

  Mac laughs. ‘One. Well, only one that matters.’

  She laughs. ‘Maybe I’ll talk to him when I get home. I certainly need to do something to move myself along.’

  Half an hour later Mac turns the car into the top of Emerald Street and pulls up a little way back from their houses.

  ‘What’s up? Why have you stopped?’ asks Polly, who has been silent during the short drive back from town.

  Mac indicates his own house where Joyce’s students are trailing out along the path and into the street. ‘Class is over, just letting them get on their way.’

  The women are laughing as they make their way out across the garden, a vibrant, colourfully clad group, with Charlie weaving between them giving an occasional excited bark.

  ‘That dog is such a flirt,’ Mac says. ‘He adores them.’

  ‘And you don’t?’

  ‘On the contrary, I love ’em. They’re terrific, the stuff they’ve been through . . . amazing. See that big woman in the middle . . . fiftyish; her name’s Marla, she’s from Somalia. She’s here with her daughter and granddaughter. Her husband and son-in-law were murdered in Somalia. She’s a nurse, and she has the most wonderful singing voice, really deep and resonant. How she got her daughter and granddaughter out, and then here . . . oh well, I won’t go into it now. But they are lovely women, and rather full-on. You know me, Poll, I like a quiet life. The first week they were so shy and cautious they hardly spoke at all, now they never stop. It seems as though just a little language makes a huge difference and of course they’ve made friends here.’ He glances at his watch. ‘The class should have
finished almost an hour ago but they’re so involved and they enjoy each other’s company so the time just runs on. Joyce has made this happen, I’m so proud of her.’

  ‘But it’s taking over your home?’

  He sighs. ‘Oh well, they occupy the main living area of the house three mornings a week, and now Joyce wants to run an evening class for some of the men who have jobs and can’t come during the day.’ He takes a deep breath, straightens up in his seat. ‘But I’m just being selfish; we own two houses and most of these people have lost everything, in the hope of finding a better life, safety for their children . . . It won’t hurt me to concede to temporary occupation of a bit of my space, but I am wondering how it’ll be when we have Gemma and a baby here as well.’

  Polly is silent for a moment, watching him.

  ‘There’s always Stella’s studio,’ she says.

  ‘The studio? Oh, the place she built for that artist who was going to move in with her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘It would make a great classroom. It needs clearing out of course, but the stuff could be moved into the garage. It’s actually a lovely room, air-conditioner, heater, little sink and fridge and all that stuff. It hasn’t been used for years . . . might need a coat of paint to freshen it up. It’s even got its own little shower room and toilet.’

  ‘We could get some trestle tables and chairs,’ Mac cuts in. ‘A kettle or an urn, perhaps, for their morning tea.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘It’d be perfect, plenty big enough.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘D’you think Stella would be okay with that?’

  Polly gives a long sigh that feels somehow comforting. ‘I think that the old Stella would love it and wish she’d thought of it herself. Now . . . well hopefully she’ll still think so. More to the point, what would Joyce think about it?’

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Early March

  The spring sunshine is inviting but, as Leo discovers when he settles himself on the terrace, the air is still pretty cold. He takes the sweater he’d slung around his shoulders and pulls it over his head, thrusting his arms into the sleeves and pulling it down with a shiver. It’s his favourite sweater: navy blue oiled wool, the traditional fisherman’s sweater bought in northern France about ten years ago. It’s one of what he thinks of as his signature garments purchased in various parts of the world and identifiable by anyone who travels and is sensitive to quality, culture and reputation: the sweater, the Drizabone, an Italian cashmere scarf, his British Warm overcoat, a Louis Vuitton overnight bag, a cream linen jacket from Milan, his Rolex watch. These things, he feels, define him to anyone who matters, they demonstrate his taste, and contribute to his sense of himself as a citizen of the world.