The Little Girl in the Radiator: Mum Alzheimer's & Me (16 page)

‘Where are we going?’ asked mum.

‘To a very nice restaurant,’ replied
Heather. ‘We’re going to have a lovely dinner.’

‘Oh, that sounds wonderful,’ said mum. ‘Is
he coming?’ She nodded towards Bruno, who was sitting watching the proceedings
in the hallway.

‘No, they won’t let Bruno in the restaurant,
mum,’ I said. ‘He has to stay here and guard the house.’

Mum seemed to understand this. She nodded
and said, ‘Never mind, I’ll bring you back a doggie bag, Bruno!’

We all laughed at the joke. The atmosphere
was very light and jovial, and I wondered why we hadn’t done this before.

We got into the car and set off. Bruno
watched us go from the bedroom window.

The table was booked for 8.30pm, and it was
only 7pm. Feeling the lightness of the occasion, I said, ‘Let’s have a drink
first.’

We called into a local pub and the three of
us stood at the bar. It was already starting to fill up with drinkers, and
besides us there was a large crowd of men who looked like they had been
drinking all day. They were singing rugby songs at the top of their voices, and
enjoying themselves.

I bought the drinks, passed Heather hers and
then turned to give mum the bitter lemon she had ordered. She was nowhere to be
seen. Then I suddenly heard her singing. She was standing right in the middle
of the rugby lads, singing some old Irish ballad, and they were all listening
to her; no-one spoke, you could have heard a pin drop. When she had finished,
they gave her a huge cheer and a round of thunderous applause. Mum finished off
the turn by kissing every single one of them.

When the time came to leave they waved us a
hearty farewell, and they all kissed mum again. She was having the time of her
life.

We reached the restaurant dead on time, and
the head waiter took our coats. Heather and I had eaten there before, and the
waiter had often laughed and joked with us. When he saw mum he began by being
very respectful, but as soon as he realised that mum was ‘not quite right’ his
manner noticeably changed towards us. Maybe I was being oversensitive at the
time, but I am certain that he thought mum shouldn’t be there, and I found his
attitude to be both insensitive and insulting.

We had a drink at the bar, and scanned the
menu. The food sounded wonderful, and mum was unsure of what to have. The
waiter came over, and asked us if we were ready to order.

‘Not just yet,’ I said. ‘Can you give us a
couple more minutes?’

‘Certainly, sir,’ he replied and went away.
I noticed as he went, he cast a curious glance over my mother. I thought,
If
he does that again, I’ll say something to him
. But then I reasoned that it
was probably just my imagination, so I forgot it. Later, I discovered I wasn’t
being paranoid: Heather had noticed all of this, too.

He came over in a little while, and asked us
if we were ready to order yet.

Mum asked him a question: ‘Excuse me,’ she
said, ‘is the salmon from Sainsbury’s?’

Heather and I both giggled like a couple of
school kids.

The man looked shocked. ‘We don’t buy our
salmon from a supermarket, madam,’ he replied, looking mightily offended at the
very thought of it. ‘Our salmon is caught in a Scottish river and shipped down
to us the same day. All our produce is fresh and home-made.’

‘Oh, I see,’ replied mum thoughtfully. ‘I’ll
have the pork chops, then.’

The head waiter blinked a few times in rapid
succession, as though something had just landed in his eye. ‘Very good, madam,’
he said.

‘Me name’s Rose,’ said mum.

He smiled at mum.

Heather and I ordered and the man went away.
Over the next few minutes the three of us chatted in the bar as they prepared
our table. I could see this waiter whispering to other staff members and
sniggering; I was beginning to become angry.

Mum called the man over again. He stood next
to her.

‘Is it Christmas yet?’ asked mum.

I think Heather began to sink a little lower
into the plush armchair. The waiter began to blink as fast as his eyelids could
open and close. He looked at me.

‘My mother has Alzheimer’s,’ I said,
although I shouldn’t have had to mention it at all. ‘She wants to know if it’s
Christmas yet. Perhaps you could tell her?’

By this time his eyes were opening and
closing so quickly that I thought he was going to have some sort of seizure.

‘No, madam,’ he said, at last. ‘It won’t be
Christmas for another nine months.’

‘Oh, I see,’ said mum. ‘Thank you very
much.’

As he went away, I thought how much nicer a
person she was than he. Heather and I felt uncomfortable during the rest of the
meal; we could hear them talking about mum, and looking over not too
discreetly, though neither of us wanted to say anything. The head waiter didn’t
even come over to ask if we were enjoying our meal, something he had always
done before.

I have wondered since why Alzheimer’s makes
some people so uncomfortable. Generally, the patients are great fun: there’s no
harm or malice in them, and they’re almost never dangerous to others. Why,
then, do they generate such fear? I think it’s that it strips away the veneer
of all personalities which surround it. That is to say, the best and worst
character traits of each of us come to the surface when we are unexpectedly
confronted by the condition in another. That may sound crazy, but I have seen
it happen so many times. Nice people react with kindness and joviality; the
not-so-nice react with cynicism and scorn. If they only knew the figures! If
they only knew the percentage of the population over 60 that contracts
Alzheimer’s, they might not be quite so condescending; there is a world of
confusion waiting patiently in the future for a great many of us, who today
think we have life well and truly sorted out.

After the first course, mum had two
desserts, a large bowl of jam roly-poly and custard, followed by a huge slice
of Black Forest gâteau and fresh cream. At last we were preparing to leave and
called for the bill. The head waiter came over to return my credit card.

‘I trust sir found the meal to his liking?’

‘We all enjoyed it,’ I replied.

He smiled the kind of smile people give when
they don’t really mean it. It’s as false and valueless as a two-tailed
tuppence.

We got up to go. ‘Shall we leave a tip?’ I
said to Heather.

‘I think your mum already has,’ replied
Heather, looking down at mum’s seat.

Mum had urinated all over the plush velvet
covered chair. There was a huge, wet stain spreading across the pale beige,
velvet seat. Heather and I just started to giggle, and by the time we got out
of the restaurant door we were in hysterics of laughter.

‘Well done, mum,’ I said. ‘That will teach
them to be so silly.’

Mum looked at me; she was smiling a massive
smile and looked really pleased with herself, as though she had just done
something really clever.

The rest of that week is lost to me now.
Nothing momentous could have happened, because the next thing I remember is
Sunday morning. Mum came into her bedroom after breakfast and saw me packing a
suitcase with her clothes.

‘What are you doing?’ asked mum.

‘I’m packing your case,’ I replied
truthfully.

‘Why?’

‘We’re going on holiday,’ I lied.

‘Oh, how lovely!’ said mum. ‘Is Wendy coming
too?’

‘Yes, Heather’s coming with us. She’ll be
here in a minute.’

Mum clapped her hands, and did a little skip
around like a delighted child. I have never felt more worthless in all my life.

‘Will we be by the seaside?’ she asked, her
eyes wide in anticipation.

‘Not very near,’ I said.

Heather walked in.

‘We’re all going on holiday together,
Wendy!’ cried mum.

Heather and I looked at each other.

‘Yes, Rose,’ said Heather.

I carried mum’s case out to the car, and mum
sat in the back. As we drove away, Bruno was looking out of a bedroom window.

When we got to the home, I pulled in around
the back, and helped mum out of the car.

‘What a very grand hotel!’ said mum. ‘You
shouldn’t have got somewhere so posh. This must be costing a fortune!’

We rang the old-fashioned bell before the
huge door. Presently, another young nurse admitted us and ushered us inside.
The door was locked behind us.

‘You must be Rose,’ said Sally, as she
strode down the long hallway towards our little band.

‘Yes, that’s me,’ agreed mum.

Sally took mum by the hand, and began to
lead her away, leaving Heather and me standing together at the end of the
hallway. Mum followed Sally without question.

‘I want you to tell me all about your very
interesting life, Rose,’ said Sally, ‘and then I’ll show you up to your room.’

Sally and mum disappeared through a white
door at the other end of the corridor.

‘There are some papers for you to sign,’
said a young nurse who had suddenly joined us, ‘as the next of kin.’

I nodded and signed the papers; I am sure I
never even read them.

‘Your mum is on the first floor in room
six,’ explained the nurse. ‘You can bring her things up straight away.’

Heather followed the nurse up the sharp
flight of stairs, and I went back to the car to retrieve mum’s suitcase.

I had to ring the bell again to be
re-admitted.

The nurse who opened the door smiled at me.
‘Security,’ she said.

‘Room six?’ I said.

‘First floor, turn left,’ she said, before
disappearing into a small office and shutting the door behind her. I was left
standing alone in the hallway. As I approached the stairs someone grabbed my
hand. The grip was weak and cold. I looked up to see a very old lady, her
cheeks badly tear-stained.

‘Please!’ she said, in a voice broken with
age and emotion. ‘
Please
!’

‘Now, now, Maud,’ remonstrated a nurse, as
she prised the old lady’s hand from my wrist. ‘Leave the nice man alone.’

Maud was led away through another door,
sobbing as she went. I hauled my mum’s suitcase up the stairs with my
conscience in torment, and a heart as heavy as concrete. Room six was Charlie’s
old room, but his photograph had been removed from the wall outside. There was
no trace of him anywhere, no evidence of his existence at all, except for
threadbare Fred, who wandered past the room as I entered. Again he had a box of
dominoes in his hand, and as he passed the room he glanced in. When he saw my
mum and Heather sitting on the bed together he shook his head and moved on.

‘This is very nice, indeed,’ said mum,
looking around. ‘How long are we staying?’

‘Just for a few days,’ I said, feeling like
Judas.

Heather began to unpack mum’s suitcase and
to put her clothes away into the wardrobe and the chest of drawers.

‘I haven’t brought my swimsuit,’ said mum.

‘We can get one tomorrow,’ I lied.

Sally strolled into the room.

‘Hello, Rose,’ she said cheerily. ‘Are you
settling in all right?’

‘I haven’t brought my swimsuit, and I’d like
to go to the beach,’ said mum.

Sally took it all in her stride.

‘Oh, Rose, it’s much too cold for the beach today,
we’ll see what the weather’s like tomorrow, alright?’

‘I suppose it will have to be,’ replied mum.

When mum was unpacked, Heather and I sat
with her for a while. We didn’t know how long we would be allowed to stay, and
neither of us wanted to leave. Sally resolved the dilemma.

‘Rose, Heather and Martin are coming
downstairs with me now, there are some papers to sign. You wait here and make
yourself comfortable. They’ll come back and see you in a little while.’

I kissed mum goodbye. At least,
I
knew it was goodbye; she thought it was just a kiss.

Sally closed mum’s door behind us, and we
walked slowly down the upper landing towards the stairs.

‘It’s best you don’t come back and see mum
for a week or two,’ said Sally. ‘If you keep popping back in, she will never
settle in properly, she’ll keep thinking that you’ve come to take her home, and
then she’ll be upset. That’s not fair to her, is it?’

We nodded in agreement that it wasn’t fair.

‘Come back and see us in a week or two when
mum has settled in, and we can give you a progress report, okay?’

We nodded, shook hands with Sally, and left
my mother still upstairs in Charlie’s old room, thinking she was in a hotel on
her holidays, and that she might be going to the beach tomorrow.

I wonder how long she sat on the bed waiting
for us to come back.

HEATHER AND I DROVE home from that place
in silence. My mind was in turmoil: I felt as if I had just betrayed and
abandoned my mother. What would my dad have made of my behaviour?

I was lost in this mental morass when
Heather broke the spell.

‘We won’t leave it two weeks, no matter what
that Sally says.’

I agreed at once.

‘We’ll go and see her next weekend, shall
we?’

‘Yes, that would be better.’

When Heather and I walked back into the
house the silence was crashing. Bruno sat and looked at us. He greeted me, then
Heather, then looked around. We both knew who he was looking for. I made a fuss
of him that night, and took him out for a walk.

Later that evening, as the sun went down, we
switched on the Christmas tree lights, purely out of habit. It was the middle
of March.

Heather and I stood with our arms around
each other just looking at the fairy lights, neither of us speaking. At last I
broke the silence.

‘I think it’s time to take the Christmas
tree down,’ I said.

Heather nodded. That night she and I took
down the eternal Christmas tree. When all its little lights were carefully
stored away, and the bedraggled tree itself was broken down into sections and
put back into its box, and the tinsel removed and bagged, the room looked so
lonely and bare. I think I realised in that very moment that I couldn’t live
here any longer.

We were saying goodbye to Bruno, too.
Someone once said that people come into your life for a reason or a season.
When the reason for their visit ends, they leave; or if their season is over,
then they move on, and so do you. Some people wander into our lives to support
us in a time of crisis and then they fade out again. Others come to teach a
lesson, and when the lesson is learned, they leave. I wonder if the same is
true of animals? A few days later, Bruno’s owner asked for him back. She was
settled now, and, while she was very grateful to me for helping her out, she
was now able to give the boy a home again. We arranged to meet the next day at
a spot convenient for us both, and Bruno was handed over. It may be fanciful,
but that dog was a great comfort to my mother when she needed one; he seemed to
arrive at exactly the right time for her, and as soon as his services were no longer
required he went home. I suppose mum arrived at the right time for Bruno, too.
It’s funny how things work out.

Heather and I passed the week by going out
every night, either to the pub or for a meal. Neither of us really liked to
stay in the house any more; it felt empty, lonely and cold, and it had been so
long since we had spent an evening with just the two of us that we tried to
make the most of it.

Towards the end of the week, she started to
organise another suitcase full of stuff we could take to mum at the weekend.

‘Shampoo and conditioner,’ called Heather,
from the list she had prepared.

‘Check,’ I said, and the shampoo and
conditioner were tossed into the case on the bed.

‘One large bath towel, one medium-sized
towel, one hand towel, one facecloth.’

‘Check.’

‘One orange cardigan, one blue cardigan, one
brown pleated skirt.’

‘Check.’

We worked our way down a list that had been
put together with military forethought and precision – Heather had done a much
better job of imagining mum’s requirements than I ever would have. When
everything on the list was found to be present and correct, and the case was
full, I slammed the lid shut.

‘I hope she’s been all right this week,’ I
said. ‘On her own, I mean.’

‘I hope so, too,’ said Heather, ‘but what
happens if she hasn’t been?’

‘I know. I’ve been thinking about that. What
if she hates it in there? We can’t just take her home again, we’d all be back
at square one.’

‘We’d have to find her another home, and
quick,’ said Heather.

I shook my head. ‘There wasn’t anywhere
else.’

On Sunday morning, we put mum’s suitcase
into the car and set off. I was a little apprehensive when I rang the
old-fashioned bell this time. I had no way of preparing myself, no idea of what
to expect.

Sally bustled into the hall to greet us
again. ‘Mum’s settling in very well,’ she said, cheerily. ‘She’s even made a
new friend.’

I think both Heather and I must have
breathed a loud sigh of relief. We went up the stairs again to room six, where
I noticed a Polaroid snapshot of mum pinned to the wall. We opened the door.
The room was empty. The bed had been remade, but the clothes we had put away
when mum first arrived all seemed undisturbed. I wondered what she had been
wearing all week. There was a very strong smell of urine; we traced it to a
litter bin under the window, which contained a heavily soiled pair of mum’s
pants wrapped loosely in a polythene bag. Mum had been incontinent for some
time now, and we had been buying disposable ones.

‘I’ll find mum and get rid of this,’ I said
to Heather, as I picked up the bag from inside the litter bin.

Together we went in search of my mother.

We found her wandering down one of the
home’s many corridors, hand-in-hand with an elderly male patient. He was taller
than mum, had a good head of snow-white hair and a brown, suntanned face.

‘Hello, Richard,’ said mum, smiling broadly
when she saw us, ‘and hello, Wendy. I wondered if you would come and see me.
This is Terry.’

Terry put out his hand and Heather and I
shook it in turn. He was wearing his sweater inside out and back to front; the
label was under his chin and the name ‘John’ was written in black ink across
it. I looked down. His shoelaces were tied so that the bow was under the sole
of the shoe.

‘Storm’s coming up,’ announced Terry, or
John. ‘Going to be choppy.’

We nodded. It was a lovely spring day
outside.

‘So how have you been, mum?’ I asked. ‘How
are you settling in?’

She broke into a huge smile at me, and then
at Heather. Then she looked up with great affection at Terry. Then she looked
back at me.

‘I have something to tell you,’ she said.
‘I’m going to have a baby.’

Under normal circumstances, such an
announcement made by someone’s 80-year-old mother would probably be the cause
of a certain amount of alarm. But I had been looking after her for nearly three
years by this point, and wasn’t so easily thrown.

‘Jesus,’ I said, as Heather laughed. ‘You’ve
only been here a week.’

‘Terry and I are going to call it Martin, if
it’s a boy, and Peggy, if it’s a girl,’ announced mum. ‘We’re very happy, aren’t
we Terry?’

‘Have to secure the hatches,’ replied Terry.

We all nodded, as though we knew what he was
talking about. Terry then let go of mum’s hand and leaned against the corridor
wall. I thought he was going to fall, and I sprang forward to catch him by the
arm. A nearby nurse saw this and came over.

‘Come on, Captain John,’ she said. ‘Leave
Rose and her family to enjoy their visit. You can see Rose again later.’

The nurse began to guide Terry away from us.
As they went the old man and the young nurse began to sway to the side, and
Terry grabbed the wall again.

‘Oh, it’s a bit choppy today, Captain,’
remarked the young nurse.

‘Storm’s coming,’ remarked Terry, as they
wandered away.

Another nurse, who had been standing with
her colleague had witnessed this, and came over to us.

‘Take no notice of Captain John,’ she said.
‘He’s one of our longer-term residents.’

‘So he’s not Terry?’ I said, looking at mum.

‘No, it’s John,’ replied the nurse. ‘He was
in the Royal Navy for years. We call him Captain John. He thinks he lives on a
boat.’

We all watched Captain John and the young
nurse disappear away down the corridor together, he grabbing the wall again as
he walked and the imaginary deck rolled under him.

The nurse smiled at me. ‘The sea’s rough
today,’ she said, and moved away.

‘Isn’t he lovely?’ said mum, with a romantic
sigh when they had turned the corner at the end of the corridor, and were now
out of sight.

‘His name’s John, not Terry,’ said Heather.

‘I know, Wendy,’ said mum. ‘I get confused.’

‘Well, I’m glad you’ve made a new friend,’ I
said.

Mum smiled at me. ‘Terry brings me such nice
presents, Richard.’

‘That’s nice,’ I said, and the three of us
wandered back to her room.

We sat mum on the bed and unpacked her case.
We hung up the new clothes we had brought for her, and went through the list of
the things we had brought the first time. There were a lot of items missing.
Skirts and blouses that had belonged to mum were no longer in her room, and in
their place we found some items that were not hers.

‘It’s very difficult to keep track of who
owns what,’ explained a nurse whom I had called into the room to ask her about
this.

‘But you asked us to mark all her clothes
with her name before she came in,’ replied Heather. ‘We’ve done that, and there
are still things missing.’

‘But they wander in and out of each other’s
rooms all the time,’ replied the nurse. ‘Sometimes they just take things and
forget to bring them back. Of course some of the missing items could be in the
laundry.’

‘Can we see the laundry?’ asked Heather.

‘It’s closed today,’ said the nurse, quickly
– a little too quickly, I thought.

Later we were to discover why we were not
allowed to see the laundry.

‘Are you getting enough to eat, mum?’ I
asked.

‘Oh yes, there’s plenty to eat,’ replied
mum. ‘Are the band coming to see me?’

Heather and I looked at each other. ‘Er…
They’ve gone home,’ I said.

Mum nodded. ‘She’s come here with me.’

‘Who has?’ asked Heather.

Mum nodded her head slowly towards the
radiator in her bedroom.

‘Is the little girl still stuck in there?’ I
asked.

Mum nodded.

Captain John walked in. ‘I’ve brought you a
present, Rose,’ he said.

He handed mum a long, black, plastic box,
designed to store 10 cassette tapes in a row. The box, which was empty, had
lost its lid and was split down one side. It looked like someone had stood on
it.

Tears sprang into mum’s eyes. ‘Oh, Terry,’
she said, kissing his cheek. ‘It’s absolutely beautiful. Thank you very much.’

Mum ran her fingers lovingly down the length
of the broken box.

Captain John looked directly at me. ‘Wind’s
freshening.’

I nodded and smiled.

‘Terry brings me beautiful presents, doesn’t
he?’ said mum.

‘It’s lovely,’ agreed Heather.

‘I want you to arrange a priest to come here
and marry me and Terry,’ said mum. ‘We’re going to have a baby.’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ I replied.

We bade farewell to mum and Captain John and
the nurses, and made our way out.

* * * * *

There is a sense of progressive
hopelessness surrounding dementia that I believe not even cancer can rival.

We visited mum every week for the next 18
months, on each occasion bringing her clothes from home and boxes of
chocolates. On one particular visit we opened her wardrobe door to find the
compartment completely empty.

‘Where are all your clothes?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know, ask Peggy,’ came the familiar
reply.

The nurse looked very sheepish when we
questioned her about this. ‘They might be in the laundry,’ she ventured.

‘Can we go to the laundry?’ asked Heather.

‘I think it’s closed today,’ the nurse
replied.

‘It’s always closed when we want to see it,’
replied Heather. ‘Can we speak to Sally?’

‘I think it’s her day off,’ said the nurse,
looking down at the floor.

‘Okay, thank you,’ I said, and the nurse
left.

‘I’m going to get to the bottom of this,’
said Heather. ‘You wait here with mum.’

She went in search of some answers.

Mum and I sat on the bed together in
silence. When every conversation you have with someone is filled with fantasy
and delusion, and finding the truth is as tricky as herding cats, sooner or
later you run out of things to say.

‘How is the little girl in the radiator
these days?’ I asked, lamely. It was the only thing I could think of to say.

Mum shook her head sadly. ‘She’s all right,
I suppose,’ she replied, looking at the radiator in the room.

‘She’s still in there then?’ I asked.

‘I think they’ll never let her out now,’
replied mum softly. ‘They’ve all forgotten about her.’