Remember, Remember

by Hazel McHaffie

  ‘Wow, Mum. You’ve certainly made inroads today.’

  ‘Scrubs up pretty well, huh?’

  ‘Certainly does.’

  ‘I’m impressed. I’ll heft these boxes out to the car, then we’ll have the space to see what’s what.’

  He picks up the shoebox.

  ‘Not that one, James.’

  ‘I hope you’re not taking more of Gran’s junk back to your house,’ he says, looking at me sharply.

  It’s fair enough. I can only pray I live long enough to sort everything out in my own home, so that he’s spared this task. I often think Mother will outlast me. She’s a tough cookie. She’s survived having twice as many children as I had. Her diet has been frugal but wholesome, whereas I’ve fallen into the bad habit of comfort eating. And her life now is far less stressful than mine. In a way I envy her this final freedom from responsibilities for bills, relationships, tax returns, meals, inherited genes…

  But then, she’s already paid her dues. As I tried explaining to Aunt Beatrice.

  ‘Remember all the years she struggled. Look at everything she did for everybody else. I want her to have some luxury now.’

  ‘Luxury’s wasted on her. So’s sacrifice, come to that.’

  ‘Even if she doesn’t appreciate it, I want to know she’s getting what she deserves.’

  ‘Doris would have wanted her family to have everything, not to waste money on her.’

  I don’t tell Beatrice the other reason. The guilt I feel.

  Chapter 2

  GUILT, REGRET, DESPAIR – I experienced them all in this front bedroom. It was so hard to come back. I thought I’d left it for good when I walked out of it as a bride 40 years before. But that mad autumn there was no other viable option. Neighbours, strangers, the emergency services – it wasn’t their responsibility to rescue Mother from the predicaments her chaotic mind got her into and no one else in the family could find space in their lives for her. So that left me.

  Having a bolt-hole of my own had become a dangerous indulgence.

  Today this room feels naked compared with the rest of the house, although the burgundy throw I brought with me from my own home is still on the bed. The piles of unused gifts, the broken implements, unread magazines, 29 bottles of oil and eleven containers of bleach, boxes of corsets, liberty bodices and vests, Lego, blankets, icing sugar, four wirelesses, a slashed pouffé… all this clutter had to go before I could reach the bed. I couldn’t afford to dither around recycling things, I simply pushed everything into the garden shed and disposed of it in the refuse collection surreptitiously, so as not to let another living soul glimpse the extent of the pandemonium in my mother’s head. Not even James.

  I clung to the hope that, once she settled down with me in constant attendance, she would become more biddable, my dislocation would become more bearable. It never did. I sank exhausted into bed, rarely getting more than a couple of hours’ sleep before I was summoned by sounds of the prowling insomniac.

  I bundle up the quilt and squash it into a black sack.

  The furniture is flimsy in here, but my lower spine still protests as I inch it into the centre of the room. It would make excellent timber for a bonfire. I must ask James. His boys used to love making fires with him at the bottom of the garden. I picture them, swathed in the bright scarves and hats I knitted for them, crouching alongside their father, toasting marshmallows.

  Perhaps not. The ‘children’ are scarcely that any more. Leanne is taller than me now. Blake ended up in a police station in December, for shoplifting a box of Roses chocolates – ‘for his nana’, he said. And where Blake goes, his younger brother, Rafe, aspires to go.

  I peel back the carpet. An antique smell leaks into the room. I throw open the window but once I start to strip off the first sheets of wallpaper, I no longer notice it anyway. This is one DIY job I do enjoy. I don’t know why – a psychologist probably would. The paper is so old and dry that it lifts off in crispy swathes.

  It bears the marks of nail polish and felt-tip pen and latterly, tomato paste.

  Mother was supposed to be dozing in the conservatory. I’d been out in the garden hanging yet another row of sheets on the line, but… the wicker seat was empty. This bedroom was like a scene from Armageddon. I wonder, now, was she trying to paint herself back into her own territory?

  From the window I can look down on the garden. The memories are kinder. Mother kneeling on the lawn, weeding; Mother raking the autumn leaves; Mother pushing the children on the swing.

  ‘Higher, Granny D, higher!’

  I see Pandora’s pigtails being flung around in the sheer effort to touch the sky. I hear my mother’s laughter floating across the lawn as she sends her granddaughter swooping upwards, the creak of the chains, the child lifting herself right off the seat, my breath catching in fear.

  Pandora. Why did I take so long to notice my daughter’s obsessive streak? She has always yearned for prestige, always cared about appearances. Aged eleven she changed the names of the family cats from Poppy and Smudge to Lady Petunia and Lord Montmorency. Should I have insisted she seek professional help when the fads evolved into compulsions? It hurts – both the behaviour, and the responsibility for it.

  I keep hoping that age will soften some of the excesses but I see no sign of it. Gym-toned and botox-rigid, she finds my ‘slovenliness’ a sore trial. She’d like me to be an elegant granny for her children but I do not answer the job description. Privately, I’m a disappointment to myself as well. Why can’t I manage to keep in shape – mentally and physically? But ageing is disappointing. Health fails, memory lets you down, everything sags, the children don’t need you, friends die, dreams fade. Maybe Mother’s been spared something worse than confusion: clarity of vision! Why don’t we revere and respect the elderly in our culture, value their wisdom? Mother is why. I am why.

  Pandora has consigned her grandmother to the past tense. I can understand that, but it still hurts. This is her old playmate and ally, the person who used to be first on her prayer list.

  Thank goodness for James. He remains totally in league with his beloved Gran. And he seems to know intuitively how to treat her. I’ve had to learn.

  Once we had the diagnosis, they gave me lists: all the things you should never do with someone who has Alzheimer’s. Absolutes, they call them.

  Never argue; always agree.

  Never reason; always divert.

  Never lecture; always reassure.

  Never condescend; always encourage or praise.

  Never force; always reinforce…

  Ten commandments. I pinned them up and kept looking at them, catching myself in error at least 15 times a day. They started to sink in… only to desert me when she drove me beyond reason.

  Never shame; always distract.

  You try not showing disgust when your toes slide into somebody else’s poo in your slippers!

  Never say ‘You can’t’; always do what they can do.

  When she’s brandishing a carving knife? Hello! Reality check!

  Never command or demand; always ask.

  Yeah, right! ‘Mother, would you be a dear and consider letting go of my neck? You seem to be strangling me.’

  Never say ‘I told you’; always repeat.

  Always repeat! How many millions of times can a human being cope with saying, ‘No, Mother, you didn’t invite me. I’m your daughter, Jessica. This is my home.’

  If I hadn’t ever heard of the commandments I’d have been spared this additional layer of guilt at least. But it did get easier to trust my instincts and accept compromises. Nothing was going to restore Mother to her pre-dementia lucidity, so I could happily agree to anything. And because she wouldn’t either understand or remember what I said, I could release my frustration by adding nonsense of my own.

  ‘Did I invite you?’

  ‘No, but do please feel free to invite me in next time you decide to empty all my geraniums into the sink.’

  ‘Is that you, George?’


  ‘Well, not last time I looked, but I’ll keep checking.’

  ‘Where’s my purse?’

  ‘Let me see, it might be under the holly bush, or in the bath, or burnt to a cinder. Or it might never have existed.’

  As she withdraws further and further from reality, I do periodically take stock and check that I’m not wandering into unacceptable realms. Especially when she and I are all alone.

  Stay calm and patient, they say.

  Try that when you’re permanently deprived of sleep, tormented and exhausted yourself, I say.

  Focus on a word or phrase that makes sense, they tell you.

  And just how many times a day would that apply to the same word?

  There is no off-duty, no annual leave, no retirement. At least there wasn’t, until I put Mother into The Morningside.

  Which is why I’m stripping this room and closing down the family home.

  There, that’s the paper all off. A cup of tea calls.

  I take the mug outside and look up at the house from the garden seat. It’s a solid building, well proportioned. It should fetch a good price. Enough to pay… say it quickly… £968.80 a week – a week! £50,000 a year. As long as she doesn’t live too long beyond the doctors’ predictions, and inflation doesn’t double that figure.

  Given the sums involved, I needed my siblings to help me make the decision about selling. Eugene left the final word to me.

  ‘Jess, you’re the one who’s seeing Mother all the time. If it means selling the old house to pay for the care, that’s fine by me. You’re the boss. I must try to get back before she forgets who I am.’

  It’s probably too late for that, Eugene. But how about coming for me?

  My sister, who ‘pops up’ from London once a year and has never taken responsibility for Mother, didn’t let that hold her back.

  ‘I don’t know, houses are a sound investment. Once it’s sold, that’s that. If we hang on to it, it will keep appreciating in value. You could think about letting. There must be a big demand for rented properties in Edinburgh.’

  I shouldn’t have been surprised. Her response to Mother coming to live with me had been even more breathtaking.

  ‘How about if I try to free up a week in the summer? We could go shopping, do things together like we used to. A bit of retail therapy works wonders.’

  ‘What about Mother?’

  ‘She’d be OK for a couple of hours, wouldn’t she?’

  ‘No, Adeline, she would not. She can’t be trusted alone for a couple of minutes, never mind hours. She needs constant supervision.’

  ‘Oh. I see. Well, why don’t we buy in some help for that week? I’ll share the cost. They could look after her while I take you out shopping. My treat.’

  I kept the explosion for James, who was typically pragmatic.

  ‘Don’t give it another thought, Mum. Gran has to go into care, and the only way we can afford the kind of care we want for her is to sell her house. Full stop. Adeline’s loaded, she doesn’t need Gran’s money. Uncle Eugene says do what you have to do. You – and Pandora and me – all say, sell up to pay for somewhere decent. End of story.’

  Aunt Beatrice rang at 11 in the evening to add her opinion. I’d just battled Mother back into bed for the third time and flew to stop the phone wakening her again.

  The preliminaries were cursory. She clearly had an agenda.

  ‘D’you know what’s in her will, Jessica?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘What if she’s specified who the house goes to?’

  ‘While she’s alive her own needs take precedence, surely? Whatever the house makes is for her benefit.’

  ‘You’re her executor, aren’t you?’

  ‘James and I both are.’

  ‘And that was Doris’s choice?’

  ‘It was. We did it all properly when she was perfectly competent to make that decision and hand over power of attorney against the day when she couldn’t decide for herself.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘It makes sense, doesn’t it? I’m on the spot. And James is good on the money side.’

  ‘And he’s your son.’

  ‘But we’ve consulted Eugene and Adeline on everything. We’re presuming Mother will have left the house and her possessions to all three of us children equally – or our heirs. If you know differently, now’s the time to say so.’

  ‘It’s just that I know Adeline isn’t happy.’

  My sister was defensive when I reported this conversation.

  ‘I only asked Aunt Beatrice what she thought because you didn’t seem to be listening to what I wanted at all.’

  ‘I was listening, but all you could talk about was shopping! Mother’s a danger to herself and everyone around her these days. I don’t seem to be able to get you to accept the fact she needs supervision 24/7. We don’t want to dump her in some grotty place.’

  ‘No, of course we don’t…’

  ‘Even if we went for no more than the basics, we’d have to sell. I thought you agreed to go for the best. She’s our mother!’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘She doesn’t need her house any more. And it’s her house. Her money. For her care.’

  ‘Aunt Beatrice reckons we ought to know what’s in the will before we decide.’

  ‘Well, we can’t. The lawyer told us that we can’t. Mum insisted.’

  ‘You might be going against her wishes.’

  ‘Adeline, if you have a problem with me dealing with Mother’s affairs, why don’t you come right out with it? I can’t be doing with all this...’

  ‘It’s not easy, being down here…’

  ‘OK, how about a swap? You come up here and take care of Mother and I’ll stay in your flat until you’ve decided what’s best.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. What about my job?’

  ‘I used to have a job too, remember? I was a teacher six years ago.’

  ‘How much money does Mother have in the bank? Is there enough to keep her in the home for a couple of years, and then see if… well, if she’s still around?’

  ‘For goodness sake! If James and the lawyers say it isn’t enough and we have to sell the house, that’s enough for me. This is James we’re talking about. Her grandson. Look, if you can see any other way of finding the money, then talk to the lawyers yourself. But remember, Mother’s still here needing round-the-clock care, so it’d better be this week rather than next year.’

  ‘There’s no need to snap, Jessica. I’m only asking. I’m reliant on other people to fill in the gaps.’

  ‘So tell me, what do I do with Mum? Because something has to happen. Things can’t go on the way they are.’

  ‘Let me think about it. I’ll get back to you.’

  Adeline has an unnerving ability to shake my confidence. What if Mother has left the house to someone specific? I ring the lawyer, but he reiterates: ‘Mrs Mannering’s stipulation is, none of the family may know the contents of the will while she’s alive.’ He can’t go against that instruction without her consent, and she’s in no position to consent to anything, but he confirms that the sale of her house in the current circumstances conforms with the spirit of her wishes.

  On hearing that, Adeline sniffed; Aunt Beatrice maintained her silence.

  Neither can find a slot in their busy schedules for a trip to Scotland. Not even for shopping.

  Today when James arrives, the will crops up in conversation and he has another conundrum for me.

  ‘I’m not sure if I’m meant to tell anybody about this, but since we’re talking finance… over the years, sums of money have been deposited in Gran’s bank account. Sizeable sums. Anonymously. Do you know anything about them?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Hmm. Odd.’

  ‘Have you asked the lawyer?’

  ‘Yep, but he doesn’t know – or won’t say.’

  ‘Maybe it’s Adeline’s conscience-money!’ I say.

  ‘Without broadcasting her generosity? I don’t t
hink so.’

  ‘Maybe Mother has a secret admirer.’

  ‘A billionaire toyboy!’ he laughs. ‘Way to go, Gran!’

  ‘It’s not impossible, you know. Just because a woman’s past her prime, doesn’t mean…’ I didn’t intend the heat.

  I turn away and apply myself to filling another hole.

  ‘Mum?… Do I smell a story?’

  ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘The kind of nothing that makes my mother blush? Come on.’

  I can’t.

  ‘Unless I’m very much mistaken, this isn’t about Gran, is it?’

  ‘It’s all in the past now. There’s nothing to tell.’

  ‘What’s in the past?’

  I sigh. ‘There was someone. It’s over.’

  ‘Someone?’

  I turn away, searching for the next crevice. James moves till he’s facing me directly.

  ‘So?’

  ‘It’s history. The timing was all wrong. Gran needed me.’

  ‘Who was he?’

  ‘A lawyer I met in my solicitor’s office. He came from down south, but he was involved in some drawn-out court case up here at the time.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Aaron. Aaron Wiseman.’

  ‘So…’

  ‘He was… very kind. And he gave me some good legal advice. And his mother went to the same school as Aunt Beatrice.’

  ‘Small world. I’m surprised she didn’t warn him off.’

  ‘James!’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘And for the record, his mother said nice things about Gran. Mum was older but his mother knew her by sight and heard about her after they’d all left school. And it was all complimentary. Or at least the things Aaron told me were.’

  ‘Well, that’s no surprise. Gran’s always been special. So what happened? Between you and Aaron, I mean.’

  ‘It became too difficult. I never knew when I could be free. And then… as she deteriorated… I couldn’t go off out enjoying myself when she might be wandering the streets, or burning the house down.’

  ‘So you let him go.’

  ‘You can’t string people along.’

  ‘But Gran doesn’t need you now. Not full time at least. Does he know?’

  ‘You can’t ring somebody out of the blue and say, “I’m free; can we pick up where we left off?” Anyway, he’s probably married by now.’