My Husband's Wife

by Amanda Prowse

  ‘Righto.’ She sighed, reaching for her mug and draining the contents. The best cup of tea in the whole day was undoubtedly this first one.

  ‘Mu-um?’ Jonty hollered from behind the bedroom door.

  ‘I give up.’ Jacks closed the paper and placed her empty mug and toast plate in the sink. ‘Yes, love?’

  ‘I need to take in some things to make a model of a famous building!’

  ‘What?’ Jacks spun round and marched from the kitchen into their narrow hallway, avoiding the sports bag that blocked her path and the stack of boxes, hoping she had misheard.

  ‘Mrs Palmer says we need to take in things from our household rubbish and recycling that we can use to build a model of a famous building.’ He was precise, probably reading from whatever scrap of paper he had discovered bearing this information.

  ‘When do you need it by?’ Not today, please not today...

  ‘Today!’ he answered.

  ‘God, Jonty! And you are telling me now?’ Jacks snapped. Placing her hands on her slender hips, she tried to think of a solution: what had they thrown away recently that might resemble a building?

  ‘Thought we weren’t supposed to shout up the stairs?’ Martha poked her head around the bathroom door, her hand gripping the straightening irons that were plugged in on the landing.

  ‘Don’t be sarky to your mum,’ Pete interjected as he thundered down the stairs in his baggy sweatpants, thick socks, long-sleeved T-shirt and body warmer, the uniform of a man who worked outside.

  ‘I would have told you before, but I forgot!’ Jonty explained.

  ‘We out of milk?’ Pete called.

  Jacks turned her head towards the kitchen. ‘No, it’s on the side, near the kettle!’ Then she trod the first stair. ‘Forgetting is no good, Jonty. I’ve told you to let me have any notes or pieces of paper as soon as you bring them out of school. That way we can make sure we have a bit of notice for things like this.’

  ‘Yeah, we don’t want a repeat of the Harvest Festival embarrassment!’ Martha laughed.

  ‘Thank you for that, Martha! Just get yourself ready.’ Jacks felt her cheeks flame as she remembered sending him off for the grand Harvest Festival service with an offering of a tin of pinto beans and a Cadbury’s Creme Egg. It was all she could lay her hands on at the last minute as they had walked out of the front door. Apparently Mrs Palmer had sniffed at the items and asked what pinto beans were. To which Jonty had replied, ‘They’re for making pinto.’ Jacks had grabbed them in error from the supermarket shelf and was secretly quite glad not to have them lurking in the cupboard, taunting her with their fancy label, confirming her lack of culinary knowhow.

  ‘Sorry, Mum,’ Jonty offered.

  ‘That’s okay.’ She smiled, the sound of his eight-year-old baby voice and his contrition twisting her heart. He was a good boy, her baby. ‘Can you both come down and have your breakfast as soon as you’re ready, I don’t want to be late today!’

  ‘I gave you a piece of paper a week ago, about that art trip to Paris and you still haven’t said if I can go or not!’ Martha said.

  ‘Your dad and I are still discussing it.’ Jacks nodded. She placed her hand on her forehead, simultaneously trying to think about what Jonty could take in and how to explain to Martha that there just weren’t the funds for a trip to Paris. The savings-account money was for a rainy day or any expenses her mum might have. Her own conservatory was a pipe dream and so, sadly, was her daughter’s desire to go to Paris. Paris indeed! It made her chuckle. In her day they’d had a trip to Oldbury Power Station, with a packed lunch thrown in.

  ‘What are we still discussing?’ Pete asked from the kitchen.

  ‘Martha’s trip to Paris!’ Jacks replied.

  ‘So I can go?’ Martha said.

  Jacks shook her head. ‘No, we are still discussing it!’

  ‘I don’t know why anyone would want to go to Paris!’ Pete joined in from the kitchen table. ‘Dirty, ’orrible place where you’ll get mugged and you need a mortgage just to buy a cup of tea!’

  ‘Dad, you think I’m going to get mugged everywhere! You said I’d get mugged if I went to Worle on my own on the bus, and I didn’t!’

  ‘You was just lucky, girl. And just cos you survived Worle, doesn’t mean you’ll have the same luck in Paris.’

  ‘And anyway, how do you know what Paris is like, you’ve never even been!’ Martha pointed out.

  ‘No interest in it, love, that’s why.’

  ‘God, Dad, you think going up to Bristol is a big day out!’

  ‘’Tis when the mighty City are playing.’ Pete clapped his hands together, making a big noise.

  ‘Can I come with you tonight, Dad, to see the mighty City?’ Jonty asked.

  ‘No, mate. No midweek games till you can stand a round at The Robins, them’s the rules.’

  ‘I think you make up the rules as you go along.’ Martha jumped to her little brother’s defence. ‘It’s not up to Dad if I go to France or not, is it, Mum? You know what he’s like!’

  ‘I can hear you, Miss Martha!’ Pete yelled.

  ‘What building am I making, Mum?’ Jonty asked.

  ‘Errmm...’ Jacks was trying to think of something when the bell rang out, loud and clear above the chatter and accusations flying back and forth up and down the stairs.

  ‘Nan’s ringing!’ Jonty and Martha shouted in unison.

  I know. I heard it.

  When Jacks’ mum, Ida Morgan, had first come to live with them eighteen months ago, she had seemed disorientated, uncomfortable and confused, so Jacks had given her a small hand bell, to be rung whenever she needed tending to. Turned out she needed tending to quite a lot.

  When Ida’s dementia had first become apparent, several years ago now, it was ignored. Jacks’ dad, Don, had trivialised it and they had all just gone along with it, joining in the banter of distraction. What did it matter if Ida forgot where she lived and served frozen oven chips without cooking them first? Called everybody by the wrong name, put eggs in the tumble dryer and the car keys in a jar of coffee? Jacks’ dad had made light of it as he tried to keep things ticking along, not wanting to frighten his wife or distress their only daughter. But after he died, Ida declined rapidly; or maybe it was that Jacks’ dad had shielded her from the extent of her mum’s condition. Either way, it was a shock.

  To begin with, Jacks would go round to Addicott Road and sit with her mum during the day and Pete would pop in on her every night, checking up on her and locking the doors and windows for bedtime. One night he found her in the garden, wearing nothing but her nightie as she placed food on the small patch of lawn. He watched as she piled up uncooked potatoes, scattered cereal from boxes and threw down an old chicken carcass and some cheese on to the grass.

  ‘What are you doing, Ida?’ he had asked gently.

  She looked at him without recognition. ‘I’m putting food out for the rabbits,’ she replied. ‘They don’t feed themselves, you know!’

  ‘You really shouldn’t do that, Ida. It will attract rats,’ he said softly, racking his brain, trying to recall if they had ever had a pet rabbit.

  ‘Don’t be stupid!’ she snapped. ‘This isn’t food for the rats, it’s for the rabbits!’

  He had guided her inside the house, where she made a cup of tea as though nothing had happened.

  Not long after that, Jacks and Pete decided she should move in with them, to Sunnyside Road. Eighteen months on and her mum was now frail. She was quiet mostly, with the odd burst of lucidity, preferring to be in bed than on the sofa and favouring things that were familiar and routine. Sometimes she recognised her family and at other times not. For Ida it was a dark, difficult and lonely way to live. And, awful though it was to admit, for Jacks, Pete and the kids it was as if a ghoulish spectre lurked in the rooms Ida occupied, visible and scary; given the choice, they avoided sitting in its shadow. They loved her of course, but the kids could find little to recognise in the old lady who yelled and whistled; she was qui
te unlike the nan who used to make the best apple pie in the world and who would sneak them sweets before bedtime when their mum wasn’t looking.

  *

  Jacks placed her cupped hands at her mouth and hollered, ‘Shan’t be a minute, Mum!’ before dashing into the kitchen. ‘Mum’s ringing, Pete. Do me a favour, try and find Jonty something he can make a building out of. You’ll need to sort through the recycling in the boxes out back.’ She disappeared into the hallway.

  Pete stopped shovelling his cornflakes and stared after his wife. ‘What?’ he called, but it was too late, she was already running up the stairs.

  Jacks stood on the small square landing and gripped the door handle. She inhaled and painted on a smile.

  Holding her breath, as she did every morning, unwilling to breathe in the claustrophobic fug of ammonia, wind and something akin to rotting, she marched over to the curtains and pulled them wide as she opened the window a little, welcoming the cold blast that hit her face. It was a decent-sized bedroom, with built-in wardrobes along one wall and a double bed facing the window. The floral rugs were from her parents’ house, as were the pictures on the walls and the cluster of photographs dotted along the windowsill showing Jacks through the ages.

  She turned to the wizened figure in the middle of the bed. Ida was shrinking month on month, slipping further and further down the mattress each night, to the point that Jacks imagined she might one day turn to dust and disappear altogether. At least then Jonty could have his room back. She swallowed the wicked thought. This was her mum after all.

  ‘Morning, Mum!’ she chirped, not expecting a response. Jacks adopted a note of false joviality for when she addressed her mother. It made it easier somehow to smile and be jolly, just as it did with any boring job or tricky customer. ‘How did you sleep? Good? Come on, let’s get you up.’

  She pulled back the pink candlewick bedspread that had graced her parents’ marital bed for as long as she could remember. She had a vivid memory of being scolded by her mum for picking off the pattern, pulling the tiny threads between her fingernails until there was a square inch of missing ripple and a bald spot in its place. This treasured cover was one of the few things that had travelled with her across town.

  ‘It’s a lovely brand-new day!’ Jacks beamed as she pulled her mum’s pale lilac nightie up above her nappy. She was no longer embarrassed or even noticed the sodden bulk that sat between Ida’s emaciated limbs. Her actions were purposeful, matter of fact, focused. This hadn’t always been the case. The first few months had been a steep learning curve. Jacks had felt very uncomfortable and, shocked by her mother’s body, her hesitancy and reluctance to touch her had served only to heighten the grim reality for them both. They had never been over-demonstrative, not the kind to hug or kiss, and nudity had been a big no-no. Prior to the monumental shift in their relationship, she had seen her mum in a bathing costume maybe once or twice and that was the extent of their intimacy. Yet all of a sudden she was forced to clean under the flat, sagging, triangular-shaped breasts with their long nipples pointing towards the floor; to touch the ancient, leathery skin that was almost translucent, stretched over brittle bones and peppered with protruding, purple veins; and to clothe her private parts, now hairless and defunct. At first this was repellent, shocking, but it soon became just another area that needed soaping and drying before being eased into the demeaning adult nappy that reduced her mother to the status of a helpless baby.

  ‘Let’s get you comfy.’ Jacks smiled as she turned her mother gently on the mattress until she was lying on her back. The crackle of the plastic undersheet provided the familiar background noise. Jacks pulled a clean nappy from the basket on top of the chest of drawers and grabbed the wet wipes that sat next to them. ‘I’ll get you shipshape, Mum, then I’ll bring you a nice cup of tea, how about that? I’ll drop the kids at school and then I’ll do your breakfast when I get back. I shan’t be too long and Pete will be here for a bit. You’ll only be on your own for a few minutes.’ It was similar to what she repeated every morning, with no idea how much of it went in, offered more to reassure herself than relay information.

  ‘I... I’m waiting for that letter,’ her mum stated, clearly, eloquently.

  ‘Oh, right. Well, the postman’s not been yet, but I’ll keep an eye out for him and if he brings you a letter, I’ll pop it straight up to you.’ She kept a singsong note to her words, as though addressing a petulant child. Waiting for letters that never came was one of Ida’s more recent obsessions. It had started one Sunday lunch, when she’d suddenly burst into tears and shouted, ‘I’ve lost them! I’ve lost them all! They were in a bundle, all my letters. I tried to keep them safe, but now they’ve gone!’ No one had any idea what she meant, but they soon found that humouring her was the best response.

  ‘I’ve had an idea!’ Pete shouted up the stairs. ‘What about the Leaning Tower of Pisa? I can do that with four beer cans and an empty Cornetto.’

  ‘I don’t want to do a tower! That’s rubbish. It’s just beer cans!’ Jonty replied. ‘Mu-um? Mum? Tell Dad I can’t just do a tower, that’s just rubbish!’

  ‘It’s supposed to be rubbish, you wally.’ Martha laughed.

  ‘Just one second, Mum.’ Jacks pulled the blankets and bedspread over Ida’s semi-naked form. She thrust the soiled nappy into an empty carrier bag and tied it with a double knot. Popping her head out on to the landing, she spoke quietly but firmly.

  ‘Martha, don’t call your brother a wally. And Jonty, you don’t have much choice at this stage in the game, love. Dad is doing his best to find stuff for you to take in at very short notice. Now go and eat your breakfast, both of you.’ She smiled at her little boy, who stood with his arms folded across his chest.

  ‘But I don’t want to do a tower, it’ll be pants.’ His eyes brimmed with tears.

  ‘What do you want to do then?’ Jacks spoke quickly, encouraging her son to match her pace. She had her mum to see to, the breakfast things to tidy away and only sixteen, no, fifteen minutes in which to get both kids in the car.

  ‘I want to make the Clifton Suspension Bridge.’ He rallied, eyes bright at the idea.

  ‘Clifton Suspension Bridge?’ Pete guffawed. ‘You’ll be lucky, son. I’m afraid it’s the Leaning Tower of Pisa, or the Angel of the North if you bend these three coat hangers.’ He held them up.

  ‘The Angel of the North isn’t even a building!’ Martha shouted as she bolted down the stairs with her jacket and bag over her shoulder.

  ‘Well, excuse me! We can’t all be clever, can we, Jacks?’ He winked at his wife from the bottom of the stairs.

  Jacks bent low and mussed her son’s hair. ‘Your tower will be fine, Jonty. You can paint it and cover it with foil and bits and bobs. It’ll look lovely. And I think it’s your best bet in the circumstances.’

  ‘Okaaay,’ he mumbled, finally heading downstairs for his breakfast.

  Jacks straightened up and returned to her mum’s room. As she opened the door, the smell of faeces hit her in the face, offending her nose and making her retch. ‘Oh God!’ she whispered as she placed her hand over her nose and mouth.

  ‘I have passed water,’ Ida stated nonchalantly, as if she was announcing the day of the week.

  Jacks nodded and drew back the covers, trying not to inhale through her nose. ‘That’s okay, Mum. Quick change of plan: we need to get you into the shower for a quick once-over before I take the kids to school. Okay?’ Pulling the sheet from the bed, she wrapped it around her mum and manoeuvred her into a sitting position.

  ‘I’m expecting a letter.’

  ‘Yes.’ Jacks nodded as she helped her mum to stand, supporting her feather-like weight as she leant against her. ‘When it comes, I’ll bring it up to you, don’t worry.’

  With the bathroom now thankfully empty, she used her elbow to open the door, then switched on the shower and removed the sheet and her mother’s nightie, bed socks and vest, rolling them into a ball in the corner of the room. ‘Here we go.’
She guided her mum under the deluge.

  ‘Oooooooh! It’s too hot! You are burning me! Help! Someone help me!’ Ida shrieked.

  Jacks smiled and thrust her own hands into the running water. ‘Look, Mum! Look! If it was too hot, it would be burning me too and it’s not. It’s fine. I checked it. I promise you it’s not too hot.’ She reached for the shower gel that hung from its natty little plastic hook on the shower bar. ‘It’s fine, Mum, just the right temperature. See? It’s fine.’

  She no longer panicked when her mother yelled that she was getting scalded, even though her heart still leapt at the tone of Ida’s shrieks. She was used to it, even expected it. And now that she’d explained to their next-door neighbours Angela and Ivor that they might hear this on a regular basis, she no longer felt the lurch of fear that she might get into trouble. She tried not to look at the dark clots of waste that gathered in the plughole of the shower cubicle where her children stood. Instead, she concentrated on building a lather between her palms and covering every inch of her mother’s skin as quickly as possible.

  With four minutes to spare, her mum was returned to a clean bed, smelling of talc and wrapped in her fleecy bed jacket with Radio 4 on for company.

  Pete knocked and entered, carrying a tray with a cup of tea and three Rich Tea biscuits on a saucer. ‘Morning, Ida. Here we go, a nice cuppa for you.’ He placed the tray on the bedside cabinet.

  ‘Thank you, Toto. So very good to me.’ Ida patted her thin hair into place.

  ‘Thanks, love.’ Jacks smiled at her husband, whose small acts of kindness when time was at a premium made all the difference.

  ‘Toto?’ Ida called from the nest of pillows on which she was propped.

  ‘Yes?’ Pete stopped in the doorway and turned. He didn’t mind being confused with Ida’s long-dead brother. Toto had been in the RAF and, truth be told, Pete quite liked her thinking he had a more dashing career than laying patios up on the new estates that were springing up all over the place.