‘You could kill a kangaroo
if you feed it gladiolas.’
‘No it isn’t. I read it somewhere. When they were
making that film with that chap with the big teeth. He wears
a dress and spectacles. Australian.’
‘Mum, I didn’t mean that you were lying. I meant
the flowers. They’re gladioli – not las.’
‘Oh! So you know better than me, do you? It wasn’t
your pet name when your father was alive. It was mine. I should
know if it’s gladioli or gladiolas.’
She was right, of course. It was his pet name for her. ‘Come
on, then Gladioli,’ he’d say, ‘time to call
it a day. Up the Wooden Hill.’ And she would. Go upstairs
without another word. Try it now, though, and it’s a
different story.
My mother, Gladys Marriott, 86 years old and in the fourth
year of what she self-styled ’Old Timer’s’,
doesn’t confine herself to pronouncements about flora
and fauna. She’s had her own unique way of twisting
the familiar for years:
‘You can never be certain what’s least expected
most,’ was a favourite when I came home dripping wet
after ignoring her advice about taking an umbrella.
‘If you followed the destructions, your Yorkshires would
be fluffy, like mine.’
‘It’s six and two threes to me.’
‘Never count your chickens before they cross the road’
always raised a few eyebrows no matter where we were.
She also had some kind of phobia about re-arranging the furniture.
My school satchel flung from the half-open front door often
decapitated a couple of crinoline ladies because mother had
moved the sofa. Not to mention the decorating. Pink and yellow
cabbage rose wallpaper at breakfast – red flock Grecian
urns at teatime. They moved into this old house, just off
the town centre, when they were first married 60 years ago.
One in a row of cramped, higgledy-piggledy, grey stone iceboxes
with roses round the front door. The neighbours, both sides,
have been here just as long if not longer and are well used
to Gladys’s little foibles.
‘Your Missus’ll never go mad, Danny Marriott,
she changes her mind too often.’ An understanding smile
as the blonde Gladys changed overnight into a redhead and
on one spectacular occasion a dark-green haired vision, thanks
to not reading the hair dye ‘destructions’ properly.
It is no wonder then, that it took a little time for anyone
to realise her behaviour was getting even more bizarre.
‘Have I had my breakfast, Danny?’
‘Yes, you have.’
‘Did I enjoy it? Don’t give me bananas. We didn’t
have them during the War.’
The dementia took hold quite quickly. Saucepans burnt beyond
redemption. Frozen shoulder of lamb put into a cold oven,
the gas never lit. Dad would come back in from the shed where
he had to go to have his early morning ‘puff’
to find her back in bed convinced that it was night-time.
I didn’t know anything about this. On my weekly telephone
calls from Holland, which mum had always looked forward to,
increasingly she would be ‘having a nap’, ‘in
the toilet’ or ‘just popped next door’.
It was only when Dad came back from doing the shopping one
day, found the freezer door open and the remains of two half-eaten
frozen vanilla slices on the draining board that he phoned.
‘I think you’d better come, Marion, your mum’s
not very well.’
So began the nightmare of getting Social Services to agree
to provide some help, only to have Mum and Dad refuse to accept
it.
‘We’ve never had anything from the Social and
we’re not starting now.’ No amount of persuasion
on my part, gentle or otherwise, could convince them –
until Dad had his first angina attack.
On good days, Mum accepted the ladies who came in to help
with her washing and dressing. Bad days saw them locked in
an almighty battle with a Gladys who refused to let them take
off her nightdress. The shouts of: ‘Dan! Dan! Danny!’
getting more and more frantic until he could bear it no more
and asked the helpers to come back tomorrow.
I’d set up a long-distance fail-safe system with the
neighbours and came back as often as I could – thank
goodness for a kind-hearted boss and a lovely husband who
understood my need to be in England whether April was here
or not. So life settled down into an uneasy routine dependent
on Gladys’s state of mind. With help, Dad did everything.
‘Waits on me hand, foot and finger,’ she would
boast to anyone who would listen and some who didn’t
want to. That happened only when the curtain of dementia lifted
and you could look into her grey eyes and see the real Gladys,
with a smile like bright sunlight breaking through on a winter’s
day. The rest of the time she lived locked in her own world
where no one else could enter. The keys to that kingdom were
Gladys’s and hers alone.
Then, three months ago, without any warning, Dad died. A massive
heart attack. The curtain has been down most of the time since
then. Except this morning, when I needed all the help I could
get. Maybe dad was orchestrating things, a bit of divine intervention.
‘You don’t want this old dressing gown, do you,
Mum? I got you that nice new one, remember?’
‘Why? Are you going somewhere?’
‘No. I’m taking you to… we’re going
to…’
I had taken unpaid leave after Dad’s death and only
then did I realise what he had lived through. Maybe on my
frequent visits she hadn’t seemed so bad, or maybe I
just didn’t want to see the worst. Her Vascular Dementia
was gradually getting worse with bouts of violence increasing.
I have the scratch marks on my arm to prove it. The doctors
and her wonderful social worker, Tom, had explained that there
was really no other choice but to find some residential care.
A few options were offered and finally a place had been found
for her at The Towers, previously a private school now converted
into a nursing home specialising in people just like Mum.
It was set in wonderful grounds, and dozens of trees could
be seen from every window. The day we went to look around,
the sun was shining and Gladys was in beguiling form, smiling
and chatting to everyone.
‘This is my daughter, Marion. Very clever. Lives overseas.
Holland. She can’t swim.’
The Towers seemed just right, plus they had an annex where
mum could go when the time came for her to need more than
just ordinary nursing care. So, today was moving day.
I took a handful of crocheted coat hangers from the wardrobe
to put into the old red leather case just as she was delving
in. Pushing aside the carefully folded clothes, she pulled
dad’s photo out.
‘Why are you taking this? It stays here with me. Dan!
Dan! Danny!’
The awful keening cut through me like a knife. I tried to
hold her in my arms. She pushed me away. This thin, little
old lady in the thick, pale blue, cable-cardigan possessed
by the strength of ten men.
‘Dan! Dan! Danny!’
‘Hush, mum. Come on, hush now.’
It was no use. Looking at her face, the curtain was down.
Tight shut. My mother was gone, a violent stranger in her
place.
Suddenly, the suitcase was on the floor, clothes spilling
everywhere. This was it. The end of this chapter of our lives.
The stark reality. My mother’s life reduced to the amount
of clothes you can get into a small wardrobe and a three-drawer
chest, in a strange room in a strange mansion surrounded by
trees. No wonder she didn’t want to go, even if she
could take ‘a few bits and pieces to make the room her
own’.
Still she cried out. I wept. No help coming from anywhere
now. The matron at The Towers had tried to tell me how awful
it would be, offering to have someone come to take Mum there.
But I’d insisted: ‘She’s my mother. I’ll
bring her. I can do it myself.’
I couldn’t, though, could I? I’d just have to
phone and ask for help. Sitting down on the bed, next to mum,
I tried to put my arms around those oh so thin shoulders.
Her shaking hands held tightly on to Dad’s photo.
‘Come on, Mum. Let’s go downstairs and have a
nice cup of tea.’
‘Here. Let me take dad’s photo. You don’t
want to drop it and break it. Come on.’
But she wouldn’t let go. Hung on for dear life, shouting,
shouting all the time. I helped her downstairs to the old
familiar kitchen, sitting her down on one of the wooden chairs.
Switching the kettle on, I took the biscuit tin out of the
cupboard. ‘Here we are, Mum, have a biscuit. Rich Tea.
You like those.’ I called The Towers. They’d send
someone immediately.
I looked at her face, willing the curtain to go at least halfway
up. Nothing. Then as plain as if he was in the room with us,
I heard his voice.
‘Come on, Gladioli, enough of this. Stop making a fuss.’
Mum must have heard it, too: ‘Danny.’
Up went the curtain and out came the smile. She put his photo
on the table.
‘Danny. Let’s have a nice cup of tea, a couple
of biscuits and I think a spot of quiet wouldn’t go
amiss.’
|
| Shortlisted
Entries shortlisted to final judging stage in the annual Last
Line short story competition were from: Joan Alexander, Newtonabbey,
Northern Ireland; Beryl Armstrong, West Green, Crawley, West
Sussex; Ann Cross, St Brelade, Jersey; Eileen Dickson, Caversham,
Reading; Allison Heward, Morda, Oswestry; Kim Kimber, Leigh-on-Sea,
Essex; Frances Lane,Westgate-on-Sea, Kent; Fiona Lloyd, Horsforth,
Leeds; Jacquelynn Luben, Pirbright, Woking, Surrey; Laurie
McTaggart, Newcastle-upon-Tyne; Carol Purves, Hockley, Essex;
Liz Richards, Prestbury, Cheshire; Mike Smail, Warter, York
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