The Little Girl in the Radiator: Mum Alzheimer's & Me (6 page)

One evening, when Bruno had been with us a
couple of weeks, I came home from work and looked at him. Have you ever seen
something so unexpected and strange that you just can’t take your eyes off it?
You keep staring at it, because you really can’t believe the evidence of your
own senses?

Bruno was in the conservatory and I was
watching him through the kitchen window. I kept looking at him, trying to
understand what I was seeing. When he turned sideways I saw the full picture. I
think my mouth dropped open. From the top of his hind legs to the base of his
tail, all his hair had gone. He had a completely pink bottom. I continued to
stare in disbelief.

‘What’s happened to Bruno’s backside?’ I
asked mum, unable to take my eyes off the dog’s rear.

‘I don’t know,’ said mum.

‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’ I asked.
‘He’s got no hair on his backside!’

‘Ask Peggy!’ replied mum, defensively.
‘Maybe she did it.’

I went out into the conservatory. Bruno was
pleased to see me. I knelt down in front of him and ran my hand down his flank.
His backside had been shaved as clean as a whistle, right down to the skin.
Bruno licked my face and skipped about. When mum came out to the conservatory
Bruno immediately sat down and looked at her warily. He wasn’t about to go
through that again, was the obvious message.

Mum shook her head. ‘Isn’t Peggy a bitch for
doing that?’ she said.

In the bin in the bathroom I found one of my
disposable razors, several tissues, and piles of Bruno’s hair. It was all so
bizarre I didn’t know what to say.

I thought about the intimidating and
snarling canine Bruno had been when I first met him a few short weeks
previously. Here was the hound the old lady had been pleased to see the back
of. Here was the fierce guard dog who had tried to eat the postman and the
paper boy every morning. Yet he must have stood calmly by and let my mother
shave all the hair off his backside.

‘Why did you do that, mum?’ I asked. ‘What
for?’

‘I didn’t do anything!’ she replied. ‘What
are you asking me for?’

It was pointless to try and get to the
bottom of it, if you’ll excuse the pun. Mum would only have got confused and
upset. It was best to try and ignore it, if that were possible.

We now lived in a house festooned with
dozens of my socks hung from every ceiling and wall, with a Christmas tree in
the lounge – by now, it was almost spring – an invisible six piece Irish band,
a little girl trapped inside the heating system, and a dog with a shaved
backside.

Normality is a subjective concept.

I was chatting one night with Bruno’s owner
on the internet, and she asked me how he was getting on. I emailed her a
picture of Bruno and my mother sitting together in the armchair. I carefully
cropped the photograph so Bruno was only showing from the chest up, and told
her he was doing fine.

Towards the end of January I met a new
friend on the dating site. Her name was Heather and coincidentally she lived
only a few miles from me in Coventry. We had gone to a local curry house for
our first date, the first week in February, and I had told her about mum. She
didn’t seem fazed about it at all, and said she would love to meet her. I took
the decision to tell mum about Heather.

‘Mum,’ I said casually, one evening. ‘I’ve
got a new girlfriend, and her name’s Heather.’

‘You can’t do that!’ she said, shocked.
‘You’re married to Wendy.’

‘I’ve told you,’ I said. ‘We’re getting
divorced.’

‘Who is?’

‘Me and Wendy.’

‘Have you told Wendy that?’

It was probably about this point where I
started to sigh again.

‘Of course, I’ve told her. She told me! I’ve
moved out. I’m living here with you, aren’t I?’

‘Well, I don’t know!’ said mum. ‘Nobody
tells me anything!’

‘You don’t know whether I’m living here or
not?’ I said.

Mum shook her head. ‘No-one told me.’

‘Mum, it’s only a two-bedroomed bungalow,
how could you not know I was living here?’ I asked.

‘Peggy should have told me, shouldn’t she?’
observed mum.

I ignored that one. ‘What did you think I’ve
been doing here for the past three months?’

‘I don’t know!’ said mum, she was getting
irritated. ‘There’s so many people in here, sometimes it gets so confusing. All
this coming and going.’

‘There’s only the two of us,’ I said.

Mum smiled at me as though I was having a
joke. ‘Now, you
know
that’s not true,’ she said.

I decided to steer the conversation back to
its original point. ‘Heather’s going to come round one evening,’ I said. ‘She’d
like to meet you.’

‘Well, bring her around, then,’ said mum.
‘We’ll just have to find some room for her, from somewhere.’ And then, as an
afterthought, ‘Does she like chocolate biscuits?’

BRUNO SOON CAME to think of the bungalow
as his own personal kennel. He was in many ways a wonderful dog, and he did mum
a world of good just by being around, but there were a few times when I
wondered if his real owner had been entirely honest about him.

He would do what he was told if he happened
to feel like it at the time; if he didn’t, then he either pretended to be stone
deaf, which was entirely implausible given the size of his ears, or he would
just begin that awful deep growling, and bare his teeth.

‘I think I’m going to enrol Bruno in some
obedience classes, mum,’ I said, one evening after supper.

‘That’s a great idea!’ agreed mum. ‘Can I
take him?’

I felt the icy, cold warning of catastrophe
flood over me like a wave. Mum and Bruno out together for the evening would end
in disaster for sure. There would be a lawsuit at the very least.

‘We’ll all go together,’ I said, trying to
keep the sound of rising panic out of my voice.

I scanned the local papers, and found a
class which met every Tuesday evening at a junior school gym not too far away.
I rang the number.

‘Oh, Mr Bruno sounds
too
delightful,’
cooed a soft and melodious female voice, when I had explained why I was
calling. ‘Do bring him along on Tuesday… You never know, he might even meet
some lovely lady doggies here.’

I tried to explain to the woman that I
thought Bruno had some real behavioural problems, and that she should be
prepared for what he was like.

‘Please do not distress yourself, Mr
Slevin,’ she assured me. ‘We have been dealing with gentleman dogs and their
rakish ways for some time now (giggle), and I can honestly say that we are
always able to improve their social skills to a remarkable degree. After a few
weeks with us, our students can be taken out to any event at all with the
utmost confidence of their owners. Think of us as a finishing school for our
doggie friends.’

A finishing school! She wasn’t even
listening to me. I agreed to be there next Tuesday, and put the phone down. I
looked at Bruno. I could swear he was smiling at me.

‘Oh, bless him!’ said mum.

When Tuesday rolled around Bruno and mum sat
in the back of the car. He didn’t make a sound as we pulled away from the
house, and simply looked casually out of the window, mum’s arm around him. I
began to relax.

‘I don’t think Benny needs these classes,
anyway,’ said mum, at length. ‘He’s very well-behaved really.’

‘Well, it might be fun,’ I said, ‘and he
might enjoy it.’

We drove through the school gates, and went
in to the car park. A silver Mercedes had pulled in just before us, and we
watched a middle-aged woman in a well-cut trouser suit get out. She went around
to the front passenger door and opened it. Very gracefully, a snow-white
standard poodle with a pink ribbon in its hair exited the car, with
considerably more poise than most people can manage. The woman took a long pink
lead from her jacket pocket and clipped it neatly to the poodle’s matching pink
collar. Together they walked towards the gymnasium building as though on the
seafront at Cannes or the catwalk of some canine fashion show, probably in Hollywood. My heart sank.

‘That’s a beautiful dog, over there,’
observed mum.

‘Yes it is,’ I agreed, ‘but I’m beginning to
wonder if this is really the right place for Bruno.’

‘Of course it is,’ said mum, defending the
good name of her new best friend. ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’

A black Jaguar rolled into the car park,
stopped and let out a beautiful golden retriever who looked like he had just
won a rosette at Crufts.

Bruno was watching all the dogs arriving
with great interest. We got out of the car, and I took Bruno’s lead from mum.

‘Let me hold him,’ I said, trying to think
of all eventualities.

The school gym was like every other school
gym: a large, rectangular building with a wooden floor, and taped lines for
volleyball, football and various other games marked out on it. Small goal nets
stood empty at either end.

In a militarily straight line, about a dozen
people queued with their dogs, all of whom were perfectly behaved – I wondered
why they needed to come here. Besides the white poodle and the retriever, there
was a little white lhasa apso – he looked like it had taken his owner a month
to brush him to perfection, with not a single hair out of place – and a brindle
Staffordshire bull terrier, who stood so proud it was obvious he was on show
and he knew it. There were other breeds I didn’t know, some I had never seen
before, but all were immaculately groomed and turned out, and all equally
beautifully behaved. Their owners were dressed up, too; I got the impression the
entire class might be going out to a top restaurant afterwards.

I didn’t think mum, Bruno and I would be
invited. I was in a pair of old jeans and a t-shirt with a hole in the back,
and a brush-stroke of dried paint on the front, mum was mum and Bruno, especially,
was Bruno. His horizontal ears and indeterminate lineage drew a few quizzical
stares down the noses of the lined-up owners. His overall look was not improved
by the fact that the hair on his backside hadn’t quite grown back yet.

At the head of the line was a middle-aged
woman, with a blue rinse hairdo, tweed skirt, beige cardigan and brown sensible
shoes; she was taking money, and marking everyone’s name down into a register.
She was leaning over a school desk writing in the book, and had her back to us.
I decided we should let her know that Mr Bruno and we had arrived. As it turned
out, Bruno had his own way of introducing himself. I walked forwards, with as
much dignity as I could manage. I could feel them all watching me, and I was
enormously relieved when Bruno trotted along very nicely beside me. He was
going to behave himself, thank God.

As we got to a couple of feet from the woman
taking the money, it happened. Such is the sudden nature of catastrophe that
you can find yourself in the middle of a full-scale disaster before you even
know it’s happening. One minute the school gymnasium was like an elegant and
beautiful ocean liner, sailing majestically through an azure sea with her
bejewelled passengers sipping dry Martinis and making small talk with the
Captain; the next, she was listing at an angle of 30 degrees to starboard,
klaxons were going off and all the passengers were running along the deck,
screaming.

With the speed of a striking cobra, Bruno
leapt forwards and caught the woman around the waist with his forelegs. He
pressed her down onto the desk with such violence her glasses flew off and
skidded along the floor and began to pump his thighs. As he pumped, he let out
an horrific, satanic growl which filled the hall.

There was immediate uproar. The poor woman
gave out a sort of strangled squeal, and all the dogs started to bark at once.
The owner of the white poodle picked him up into her arms, but the dog was
either so startled or frightened that it urinated a great jet out of her arms.
The owner tried to aim it away from the people and animals who surrounded her,
but everyone got some. The Staffordshire bull terrier immediately started to
fight with every other dog in the place, and the retriever got loose and ran
out of the gym, with his frantic owner hobbling after him in her high heels.

I dashed forwards and got hold of Bruno by
the collar. I was going to pull him off the traumatised woman, but his snarling
reaction was so vicious that I had to let go. The whole time Bruno was still
pumping madly on the poor woman’s leg and growling so loudly and baring his
teeth that it literally terrified everyone, human and canine alike.

‘I’m so sorry about this!’ I shouted. ‘He
does this sometimes… Don’t worry, he won’t be long!’

There was bedlam all around us. The noise in
the gym was deafening. The owners were shouting and trying to control their
pets. The dogs were all barking, yelping, fighting and running around in all
directions. Bruno was still growling and pumping the lady’s leg with such violence
that she had been reduced to a rag doll. I was shouting at Bruno, and mum was
just standing there, saying nothing, but casually observing the mayhem with the
detached professionalism of a seasoned war reporter. She was the calmest person
in the whole place.

Eventually, Bruno finished and dropped down
to all fours. He stood there with his horizontal ears cocked sideways, panting,
and seemingly surprised at the uproar all around him.

I grabbed his lead and hauled him away from
the woman who had been pinned to the desk throughout the entire proceedings.

‘I can’t apologise enough!’ I said.

The woman stood up, she was squinting at me,
as her glasses were still lying on the floor. I saw the spectacles, only a few
feet from me, and walked forwards to retrieve them, but Bruno saw them first
and dived on them.

‘Give me those!’ I said to him, as sternly
as I could.

Bruno had the delicate spectacles in his
mouth, and whenever we played this game at home with a stick, a play-fight
would ensue, and Bruno would fight me for the toy.

‘Let go!’ I said, gently taking hold of one
lens. As soon as I did so, Bruno shook his head violently and the spectacles
snapped in the middle.

The sound of the little crack made my
stomach turn over.

‘For fuck’s sake, let go!’ I bawled into
Bruno’s ear.

‘Tut, tut, tut, tut,’ said someone behind
me. I ignored it.

Bruno opened his mouth gently, allowing me
to retrieve the broken spectacles.

I held up the two broken pieces to the
woman. She said nothing, but held up her hand to stop us approaching any
further.

Around us the carnage was evident. The bull
terrier had been dragged into a corner of the room away from all the other
dogs, and was now being quiet. The beautifully brushed little lhasa apso looked
like it had just fallen into a cement mixer, and the white poodle was still in
her owner’s arms. The owner herself had dark circles and lines around her eyes
where her mascara had run; she looked like she had been crying.

The molested instructor was now standing up
at the desk, trying to salvage what was left of her dignity. Her tights were in
shreds, and hung from her legs in long streamers across the floor.

‘I think we’ll go,’ I said to the woman.

She didn’t reply.

‘Come on, mum,’ I said. ‘Let’s get out of
here.’

I walked Bruno back towards the door, and he
trotted along very nicely on his lead. The bastard. Then mum said the line that
will go down in our family history. Shielded by the armour plate of her
Alzheimer’s, and blissfully unaware of the social situation we were in, mum
raised her arm as we departed and called out, ‘It was lovely to meet you all.’
And then, as we exited the room, ‘See you all next Tuesday!’

Once in the fresh air, I breathed a sigh of
relief. We reached the car.

‘Get in!’ I said to Bruno, holding the rear
door open for him.

‘Well, that went very well, I thought,’ said
mum. ‘I’m not sure what he learned, though.’

I didn’t say anything. I just started the
car and drove away, with the reckless determination of a get-away driver after
a bank job. In the rear view mirror I could see mum and Bruno cuddling on the
back seat. Mum leaned down and gave Bruno a great big, lingering kiss on the
top of his head. When she had finished Bruno gently licked her nose. There was
a love light passing between them.

‘Oh bless him!’ she cooed.