Dad wasn’t very partial to Bakewell tarts which was a shame, because Mum had twenty-three encased in thick ice in the drawers of their small freezer in the kitchen.
Leek and potato soup had unanimously been voted above all other options for lunch, so I climbed the footstool, stretched forward and brought the can to the front, revealing in the gloom, tin upon tin of Portuguese sardines. “Heavens above Mum, talk about feeding the five thousand, you’ve got enough sardines here to feed an army! One, two, three, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, fifty-seven tins!” I was aghast, and waited for an explanation, but her dull eyes and deadpan expression said it all, and I knew none would be forthcoming and not to press this further.
It grieved me to note that their previously spotless flat was definitely looking more than grubby. ‘Old’ Mum’s beautiful needlepoint tapestry cushions weren’t getting their essential daily shake. Their cleaner, a well-spoken educated lady by all accounts, had died suddenly and Mum hadn’t found anyone of the same caliber to fit the bill. I was more than happy to do ‘my bit’, especially in the kitchen and bathroom on my weekends visits, but ‘new’ Mum begrudged me spending any of my time doing such menial tasks when I could be chatting aimlessly to them over a cup of tea, perhaps obligingly consuming one of the Bakewell tarts! This predicament forced me to become a silent night shift cleaner while my parents slept, scrubbing the kitchen sink, bleaching the bathroom from top to bottom and defrosting the freezer at 2am. The downside of my efforts, apart from the lack of sleep, was that no one noticed, but at least I felt better and slightly smug at my deception. Unfortunately, I rarely managed a lie in, as despite ‘new’ Mum’s greeting that “I must be exhausted”, she always woke me before 7am with a cup of tea and a torrent of verbal perky prattle. I never knew what to say when friends said, “Oh, how lovely, a weekend away with your parents”.
Mum’s health was deteriorating fast, and her wish that she be taken out of their flat “in her box”, was becoming less and less a reality. Frequent falls, probably due to mini strokes and crippling arthritis, had taken their toll, and talk of care homes had become a necessity. ‘New’ Mum was getting physically tired, yet had the ability to talk the hind legs off a field full of donkeys, oblivious as to whether Dad was engrossed in the newspaper or not. She never sensed his wearied glances in her direction, and he was too kind to complain.
I am sure my mother thought their chosen care home would be like a hotel, having all their needs waited on hand and foot, so consequently she enthusiastically counted the days to moving in. In reality it was a bit too chintzy for my taste and my nostrils picked up an odd washed wool smell down the corridor. However, the staff were friendly, but it was not a hotel, and certainly not home. My family doesn’t ‘do’ emotions, so the move didn’t appear to be a big trauma, and it was eased somewhat by my mother ‘testing the waters’ by moving in a few months before my father.
Living in a care home meant adjusting to a complete new lifestyle including separate bedrooms, though, as the clouds thickened, this was probably a blessing in disguise. ‘Old’ Mum’s solid practical aptitude, already fading fast before the move, completely disappeared on Day One. She was totally unable to comprehend that the contents of her four-door wardrobe, stuffed to the hilt in their flat, wouldn’t squeeze into a modest two door version, even if a magician had been around to assist. Dad, exasperated said, “Oh, she won’t listen to anything I say”, and shrugged his sports-jacket clad shoulders, and I realised her condition, was indeed, slowly defeating us all.
Having failed the wardrobe battle, her room permanently resembled the first half hour at a chaotic jumble sale. It was at this point I started confiscating items I knew she wouldn’t wear in future. A cheeky voice in the back of my head said, “Now this item will not be returned before the end of term, unless… you notice it is missing in the first place!” I really felt she could live quite happily without the smart suit she wore to my school speech day, a mere thirty-five years ago, not to mention the ensemble proudly chosen for my brother’s graduation! She was reluctant to part with any dresses because of the parties that, not might, but would take place in the home. I was torn between pointing out the harsh reality that care homes usually didn’t have those sort of parties, or letting her keep them because it gave her hope there might be parties of that variety coming up any day. ‘Compromise’ became my second name, so cowardly, I plumped for the latter option.
‘New’ Mum’s timekeeping went totally awry, perfectly illustrated when I visited to take them both out for a pub lunch. When I arrived mid morning, she’d already been sitting with her hat and coat on for an hour and insisted on departing immediately, despite our protestations that the location was only ten minutes away and didn’t open until mid-day. Dad played his usual delaying tactics, going to the loo, not finding gloves, looking for the Blue Badge, while she became more agitated and her pained scowl intensified. I helped her into the back seat of the car, manipulating her inflexible swollen legs exclaiming that “they’d turned to rubber!”. Fleetingly, ‘old’ Mum returned, and burst into an uncontrolled fit of giggles.
It was difficult to envisage the colour co-ordinated, smartly dressed woman she’d once been. The left-hand cuff of her coat revealed an unidentifiable stain and one of the buttons was missing. She’d taken to keeping her purse in her coat pocket despite always carrying two handbags, and spent much time searching for items between the two. We teased her gently about becoming ‘a bag lady’, but disappointingly this comment prompted only a momentary artificial smile. We removed our coats, but ‘new’ Mum refused, content to sit there in her Donegal tweed and fur hat, despite the fact that the pub was warm and it was the month of June.
My skin must have been getting thicker even at that stage, because the three swarthy youths who sniggered at her from their table next to the fruit machine didn’t trigger murderous thoughts anymore. I didn’t feel the urge to sweep across the room thumping my fist on their table and shout, “It may interest you to know, that that woman could make a meal for five hundred at the drop of a hat, darn a dozen socks in one evening with her eyes shut, has witnessed bears skating on ice in Russia long before perestroika and glasnost, knows the intricacies of drawn thread work, would recognise a Burne-Jones masterpiece at five hundred yards and, if that’s not enough for you, would happily have ‘fallen on her sword’ for Lady Margaret Thatcher herself!”
I ordered a bitter lemon with ice.
Waiting whilst the pub food was prepared, nearly always led to Mum’s ‘bee in her bonnet’ speech concerning the appalling demise of fish knives and forks in public houses, and her genuine consternation that anyone could eat such food without the essential equipment! Pointing out that she managed perfectly adequately without such crucial cutlery, did not enter the equation and, was likely to cause more commotion that any cod war, so we chose to let it lie.
Over several months, regular reports about Mum’s unacceptable behaviour to both staff and residents continued to come our way. In a nutshell, tactful, kind, thoughtful ‘old’ Mum had been replaced with an impossibly difficult and demanding stranger. ‘New’ Mum was often embarrassingly rude, developed selective hearing and worst of all, was woefully dogmatic and intolerant of my father who was certainly slow, but a saint for not losing his rag with her. In retrospect, I wonder if an occasional, albeit uncharacteristic retort would have brought her to her senses. If nothing else it might have made him feel better, or would he have ‘paid for it’ in the following weeks? We would never know. Her cruel outbursts were interspersed with going to the other extreme and declaring that my father was the absolute ‘bees knees’ and could do no wrong. It would have been beneficial to graciously absorb these little moments of adulation, but it was difficult when the more fractious variety were just hovering round the corner. Regular assessments with psychiatrists proved fruitless, particularly as my mother had a strong aversion to such ‘crackpots’, and was surprisingly skilful at pulling the wool over their eyes. We never succeeded in getting a written report, or more crucially an action plan, and I was forced to concur in part with my mother’s opinion of the profession.
The leaves were drifting off the trees when the axe started to fall. The letter stated she would have to seek accommodation elsewhere if her behaviour did not improve. My mother’s prophetic words, “Oh, gosh, I hope I’m not too much trouble in my old age”, echoed in my ears. It wasn’t a great scenario for anyone, but if a move was imminent, Dad would go too, albeit lemming style.
Eventually, all the leaves fell from the trees and the axe decended. No amount of camouflage could conceal that we were talking about eviction. It was a powerful word I’d always associated with poverty, homelessness or unruly students, not a geriatric, albeit a difficult one. After three stressful weeks, miraculously another care home was found which, even more miraculously, was willing to take on another couple, one of whom had, er, confrontational conduct. Things weren’t easy but forewarned is forearmed. I undertook my second round of devious confiscation, the first one having proved remarkably successful. ‘What the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over’, became my mantra.
Life in ‘hotel number two’ was an improvement, even though nightwear was not left folded on the pillow with a foil wrapped mint at the end of the day. Occasional bus excursions were enjoyed and they were entertained in the lounge with varying success. Mixing with educated professionals was important for Mum, and as there was a professor, Justice of the Peace and neurosurgeon all under the same roof, this fitted her snob values perfectly and meant she could still hold her fur hatted head up in public!
Mum was too thin, having taken on an erratic pattern of either eating the wrong things, or not at all. Memories of ‘old’ Mum’s generous delectable dinner parties at home seemed a million miles away. Detailed planning, lists, stoked Aga cooker, polished silverware and Waterford crystal glasses shimmering on a linen tablecloth, beef olives, copious conversation, clink of cutlery and gleeful guffaws. In the care home, meals were often picked over, but the creases in her much loved leather armchair revealed a history of salted crisps, cheese straws and chocolate biscuits. The regularity of the appearance of a smeary glass tumbler on a drink’s mat on the windowsill at all times of the day, told another story, but one I chose not to read.
Losing a parent is never easy, and Mum’s demise was no exception. Her distressing, but hollow suicide threats spoke volumes for her wish to resign from life. In her last days, the tumult of recent years abruptly cleared and ‘old’ Mum reappeared and apologised profusely to everyone for having been so difficult. Forgiveness was of course granted, in equal measure.
In contrast to my father, I felt more drained than grief stricken, and concerned about the price he had paid for stoically tolerating my mother’s ‘chameleon’ characteristics for so long. It took a while for the memories of more recent painful episodes in Mum’s life to subside, but time heals.
Mum’s exquisitely embroidered picture hangs in our bedroom and her thick home-made oven gloves are still in use in our kitchen today. The Bakewell tarts have long gone and there are only thirteen tins of Portuguese sardines left, the rest having been devoured gradually over a number of years – and all without a fish knife and fork in sight.
