My Husband's Wife (37 page)

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 quite 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.

‘I need to see that letter.’ She looked at him, concerned.

‘Ah, don’t you worry. If it turns up today, we’ll be sure to run it straight up to you.’

‘Mu-um?’ Jonty shouted.

‘Yes, love, coming! I’ll be back in a little while, Mum, to get your breakfast. Okay?’

Ida reached for her tea, made with chilled milk, and ignored her daughter.

It was a day like any other.

Nineteen Years Earlier

Her dad was outside, as if waiting to greet her. ‘What time do you call this then?’ His voice was stern, but his smiling eyes gave him away.

Jacks laughed at him as he stood in the middle of the grass, his shirtsleeves rolled high above the elbows, leaning on the handle of the lawnmower and pulling his serious face. The smell of cut grass was intoxicating, reminding her of sunshine and lazy, school-free days. The grass as ever looked immaculate, as did the straight, weedless borders. He never tired from telling her that, like a good haircut, his lawn required regular attention.

The summer holidays were right around the corner and she couldn’t wait! Six whole weeks when she would never be out of shorts and wouldn’t have to wake to the dreaded alarm clock. It was when Weston-super-Mare sprang to life, tourists filling the B&Bs and unfamiliar faces adding variety and excitement as they strolled along the Marine Parade. It was the time of year when everyone seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. Money came in as people queued for ice cream, chips and donkey rides. Laughter and the scent of suntan oil floated in a pungent cloud that settled in even the grimmest of corners, lightening the mood all round.

She looked at her watch. ‘Nearly 5.30!’

‘Good day at school?’ he asked as he lit a cigarette and drew heavily on it, inhaling deeply like it was fresh air and flicking the match twice to make sure it was extinguished, as was his habit.