The Little Girl in the Radiator: Mum Alzheimer's & Me (12 page)

(This is true; the Alzheimer’s Society says
that in more than 99% of cases heredity is irrelevant. The major risk factor is
simply age.)

‘Oh, I think it is,’ he replied, as though
it were a certainty. ‘Trouble is, I’ll never know if I have it or not, will I?’

I shook my head. ‘No, everything will seem
the same to you.’

We fell into a silence again.

‘I was thinking!’ announced mum suddenly. ‘I
could put the machine in the conservatory, then I could work out there.’

‘What machine?’ I asked.

‘The machine for embroidering my baseball
caps, of course,’ said mum. ‘Look!’

She pulled the red baseball cap off her head
and thrust the front of it at me.

‘Very nice, mum.’

‘It says “Rose” on the front!’ she said,
excitedly. ‘The man did that for me.’

‘Yes, I can see that.’

‘Well, I must be going,’ said her latter-day
knight.

‘Let me pay you for mum’s ticket,’ I said,
taking out my wallet.

‘Not at all, I wouldn’t dream of it,’ he
replied, gallantly. ‘Besides, she’s very good company.’

‘Well, let me buy you a drink, or a sandwich
or something,’ I asked.

‘Actually, I was thinking of having a drink
before I went,’ he said, relenting.

‘Great,’ I said. ‘We’ll all have one.’

The three of us adjourned to a small bar not
far from where we were sitting.

‘I’ll have a whisky, if you don’t mind,’
said the man.

‘I’ll have a whisky too!’ piped up mum.

‘You’ve never drunk whisky in your life!’ I
said.

‘Oh, yes I have!’ she said, indignantly. ‘I
always have a whisky at bedtime.’

This was completely untrue. Her annual
intake of units of alcohol had always been close to zero, and even at family
weddings or parties she would only ever have one small glass of sherry, for as
long as I could remember.

‘Right,’ I said.

I started to move towards the crowded bar
counter.

‘Make them large ones!’ she called after me.

At the bar I ordered two large whiskies – taking
care to put some water into mum’s. I had a beer.

Mum and the man in the grey macintosh
chinked their glasses together to seal their new venture. Mum seemed to have
got the idea into her head that this man and she were going into business
together.

‘Cheers,’ said the man, and knocked his back
in one.

‘Cheers,’ shouted mum, and did the same.

The man reached over and lifted up mum’s
baseball cap. ‘The street kids wear them like this,’ he said, turning it around
so the peak was sticking out of the side.

Mum smiled.

‘Well, I really must be going,’ said the
man. He shook hands with both of us, doffed his hat to mum, in a very gallant
and gentlemanly way, and disappeared through the crowd. It occurred to me then
that I didn’t even know his name. I still don’t, sadly.

‘Let’s have another!’ said mum, and thrust
her empty glass at me.

Alzheimer’s patients can often exhibit
dramatic changes in character like this.

‘Don’t move from here!’ I said, collecting
her glass and heading for the barman.

‘I won’t,’ she said, leaning on the bar-rail
like she was a regular at this.

I came back with another whisky and water;
mum snatched it off me and downed it like Wild Bill Hickok.

‘Time we were going!’ I said, and we moved
towards the exit. I held her by the sleeve all the way back to the train
station.

The train was not nearly as crowded on the
way back. We found two seats easily, and within a minute of sitting down mum
was fast asleep, her red baseball cap crushed against the side of her head and
the back of her seat.

And as we rattled and swayed our way back to
Coventry, I thought about the man in the grey macintosh, his wife and his
parents, and all the other sufferers of Alzheimer’s disease that we never hear
about, but who struggle on, day after day, coping with a condition that no-one
in power seems to be doing very much about.

I HAD BEEN CHATTING to Heather one night
on the net, and had rashly invited her around to the house for a bite to eat,
and to meet mum. The day she was due to come over it occurred to me that maybe
I should do something about the décor in our house.

I stood on a kitchen chair and started to
remove the rows of socks from the ceiling; carefully withdrawing the small pins
so as not to chip the paint or plaster. We had got into a routine, mum and I,
with this sock thing. I would take a pair down, wear them and then put them
into the washing basket. Mum would wash and dry them, and then pin them back to
the ceiling or a wall.

‘Can we start to put my socks back into my
sock drawer like we used to, mum?’ I ventured as I stood there, painstakingly
removing them. ‘It’s better, don’t you think?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said, predictably. ‘Ask
Peggy. She’s the one who puts them up there.’

‘Aunt Peggy says she’ll put them back in the
drawer from now on,’ I said.

I was learning how to play this game.

‘That’s all right then,’ replied mum.

When the socks were all put away I went into
the lounge to dismantle the Christmas tree: after all, it was the middle of
February.

‘What are you doing?’ cried mum.

‘I’m putting the tree away until next
Christmas,’ I said.

Mum put her hands to her face and started to
weep. ‘Please don’t,’ she sobbed.

I put my arm around her, trying to comfort
her. ‘We can’t leave it up all the time, mum,’ I said.

‘Why not?’ she said.

A good question, when you stop to think
about it.

‘People just don’t,’ was the best I could
do. ‘A Christmas tree is supposed to be just for Christmas. People take them
down again afterwards.’

‘It’s so pretty,’ she said, ignoring my
argument. ‘Turn the lights on.’

I switched on the dozens of little coloured
lights. Mum stared at the sparkling tree. She never really paid any attention
to the tree when the lights were off; but when they were lit she would just
stand and stare at it for long periods, lost in the land she now inhabited. It
was a bit like the way people tend to stare into the flames of a real fire.

‘It’s magical,’ she observed.

Alzheimer’s seems to have a way of
compensating its sufferer for the carnage it inflicts on their everyday memories.
It often leaves them with childishly fresh eyes, which bestow an infantile
wonder upon creation, as though they were observing life for the very first
time. Little things the rest of us take for granted they see with a new and
enchanted vision, discovering charm and wonder everywhere in this tired and
unfair world of ours. Perhaps the new vision is not so much a corrupted sense,
but a heightened or sharpened one; perhaps there really
is
magic left in
the little things still, but the rest of us do not have the terrible affliction
of Alzheimer’s and therefore have become immune to the spell. Sadly, the
compensation for the damage is a passing phase, whereas the wreckage is
permanent, and on the whole the exchange of new eyes for old memories is a
terribly unfair one.

‘Okay, I’ll leave the tree up,’ I said.

Bruno was now a part of our family, and he
had his little ways too. He would run out into the back garden and wait for me
to come out to him. This was a game he enjoyed. I would run at him (a few brief
steps, as the back garden was not large) and clap my hands, whereupon he would
bark and run into another corner of the garden and wait for me as before. Then
I would clap my hands and chase him again. He would keep this up for a good
half-an-hour. Of course, poor Bruno didn’t know that this game was designed to
give him some exercise; I had stopped his nightly walk down the street for a
while, being too embarrassed to be seen out with an Alsatianish mongrel with a
shaved bottom. But his rump was no longer piglet pink, and was now a sort of
misty grey, like a five o’clock shadow: designer stubble for dogs. I’d have to
start walking him again, I thought.

It was around this time that a worrying
incident occurred. I was awoken one morning around 5am by a very loud and
persistent knocking on the front door. I jumped out of bed, hurriedly put on my
dressing gown and went to the door. I remember being surprised to discover it
was not locked.

I opened the door to see a man standing
there whom I instantly recognised as Joe, a guy I’d gone to school with 35
years earlier. Mum was standing beside him, dressed in just her nightie. She
was holding a strappy sandal in one hand. I braced myself, as the air was
freezing.

‘Hello, Martin,’ said Joe. ‘I found your mum
wandering around the shops down there.’

He jerked his head to indicate the row of
small shops at the end of our street.

‘She seems quite confused,’ said Joe. ‘I
thought this was the house.’

‘Come inside, mum,’ I said. ‘Thank you very
much, Joe. I appreciate this.’

‘Ah, it’s nothing,’ said Joe. ‘I was going
to work anyway.’

A quick wave and he was gone.

‘Sit by the fire, mum,’ I said. ‘You’ll
freeze to death out there dressed like that. What did you think you were
doing?’

‘I was looking for the shoe man,’ she
replied, starting to shiver. ‘I need to get these sandals fixed.’

She held one of them up. The ankle strap had
been sliced through cleanly. I didn’t have to guess who had done it, and it
wasn’t me or Aunty Peggy.

This incident brought the harsh reality of
our situation home to me. The truth was simple: I just couldn’t cope.

I wasn’t in the house often enough, or long
enough, to supervise my mother properly. Even when I
was
there, like
now, she still wasn’t safe. Mother could not live at home any longer. I’d known
this decision was coming, but that didn’t make it any easier. I tried to tell
myself that it would be for the best, that she would be much better off if I
could find her a place somewhere where they could take care of her properly;
that she would be safer there, happier. As I said earlier, we can get used to
almost anything. I also think we can find ways of justifying anything, too, if
we try hard enough. My mother had always been the first to help whenever anyone
she knew had ever needed support; now, she was the one who needed help, and all
she had on her side was one stupid, useless son. The guilt I felt at this time
was overwhelming; she had never given up on me, but here I was giving up on
her. It was all so bloody unfair.

That afternoon, with a heavy sense of
defeat, betrayal and weakness, I telephoned the social worker who had contacted
me months ago to ask me if I needed support when mum had first been diagnosed.

‘No, I’ll be fine,’ I had said back then,
without even thinking about it.

How wrong I had been.

‘I’ll come out next week and have a chat,’
she said cheerily.

* * * * *

Mum was still staring at the Christmas
tree when Heather knocked on the door.

‘I’ve brought you both some supper,’ she
announced as she came in. ‘Home-made lasagne. I hope you both like it.’

Mum and I just thought it was Christmas all
over again. She ate as though she hadn’t had a proper meal in weeks, which she
probably hadn’t. My cooking is basic at best, whereas Heather’s was
sensational. Mum set about the dish with a frenzied zeal, eating a huge portion
and then going back for more – something she never did with any of my
offerings. She usually talked through a meal, too, but tonight she was silent.
She simply ate and ate, until the whole dish was empty.

‘That was wonderful, Wendy,’ she enthused.

‘My name’s Heather,’ said Heather, though
she appeared not to be in the least offended.

‘I never knew you could cook like that,
Wendy,’ remarked mum.

‘I’m a chef,’ she said – which explained the
quality of her cooking. ‘And my name’s Heather, Rose. I’m not Wendy.’

Mum nodded as though she understood.

‘You’ve put on an awful lot of weight since
I saw you last,’ she said, sagely. ‘You really should get more exercise.’

‘Thanks,’ replied Heather, smiling.

Strangely enough, this was the start of a
great friendship between my mum and Heather. Mum continued to call her Wendy
every time they met, and even Heather began to think it was funny in the end.

A few days later the social worker called at
the house to speak to us, and an era for my family drew to a close.

The social worker was a pretty, middle-aged
woman with a genuine smile, an unconquerable sense of humour and an observant
manner.

‘How are you keeping these days, Rose?’ she
asked.

‘I’m doing great,’ replied mum,
emphatically.

‘That’s good. The last time I talked with
your son, Martin, he said you were a little confused sometimes. Is that still
the case?’

Mum looked perplexed. ‘But you couldn’t have
talked to Martin,’ she said. ‘He lives in Africa.’

The social worker looked at me. I shrugged:
there’s your answer.

‘This is Martin,’ said the social worker,
pointing at me.

‘That’s not Martin,’ laughed mum. ‘That’s my
brother, Richard.’

The social worker shook her head. She didn’t
have to play along with mum’s delusions like I did. ‘No, Rose. That’s your son,
Martin. He’s been looking after you.’

Mum shook her head. ‘I don’t need anyone to
look after me. I can do everything myself.’

‘But you know this is, Martin, though. Don’t
you?’

‘I don’t know who everybody is in here,’
said mum. ‘This house is more like a hotel than a home. There’s always people
coming and going. I don’t know who half of them are.’

‘I see,’ said the social worker, turning
towards me. ‘Do you want me to start looking for a place for your mum to stay?’

So this was it. If I said yes, there would
be no going back.

I looked at mum, and she just sat there,
oblivious to the fact that her entire future was about to be decided. I nodded.
I couldn’t bring myself to say the words out loud.

The social worker closed her folder and
smiled. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ she said, standing up from the kitchen table.
‘I’ll give you a call next week.’

We shook hands formally, and she left.

‘She was nice,’ I said to mum, when the lady
had gone.

‘Who was she?’ asked mum.

I felt my face get suddenly hot. ‘She was
someone from the council,’ I said. ‘She came out to make sure that you’re
okay.’

Mum nodded and seemed satisfied with the
explanation. But something about the social worker had unsettled her. She was
very thoughtful thereafter for a couple of days, and each evening when I came
in from work I found myself locked out of the house again, a kitchen chair
propped under the handle.

That recurring drama was still being played
out, but only in runs of a day or two and often with several months between episodes.
This time she had a new motive.

When I complained that she was locking the
door, she replied, ‘I have to. I have to protect myself!’

‘From who?’ I would shout back, in
exasperation.

‘From those who want to put me away,’ she
would shout back.

‘No-one wants to put you away,’ I would
argue, feeling the guilt sweep over me like a tidal wave.

‘Ah, you don’t know everything,’ she would
reply. ‘I hear things. People tell me things. They warn me. They tell me to
protect myself.’

‘Who tells you these things?’ I once asked
her, trying to reason with a mind that now worked to its own rules, and not to
the world’s.

Mum would look at the radiator quickly, and
then look down at the floor.

‘The little girl in the radiator?’ I said.
‘She ought to mind her own business.’

I couldn’t believe I had actually said that.

‘She knows things,’ whispered mum.

I changed the subject, and got on with the
business of life in our house, until the next evening, when the entire
performance would be repeated, often blow for blow, and word for word.

* * * * *

About a week later, I got a call from the
social worker, who gave me an address of a care home which specialised in cases
of dementia. She asked me to drive out at the weekend and give the place the
once-over.

I asked Heather if she would come with me.
She and I had started seeing each other properly now, and although we’d only
been together for about a month by then I had quickly come to trust her good
judgment and solid sense.

We agreed to drive out together the
following Sunday afternoon and found a large, isolated house, standing on a
small hill overlooking the road. As we turned into the driveway, the abandoned
mansion in the film
Psycho
came to mind.