The Little Girl in the Radiator: Mum Alzheimer's & Me (2 page)

The brutality of ignorance: later, much
later, when I understood better how Alzheimer’s worked, I was more tactful.

Mum simply continued to stare at me, shaking
her head slowly from side to side in disbelief. ‘Your father will be
very
angry with you when he gets home.’

I finished emptying the cupboards out, there
was nothing left. I made a list of stuff we needed, and then turned to my
mother.

‘We have to go shopping now, mum,’ I said.
‘It’s cold outside, put a coat on.’

Like an obedient child, she rose from the
kitchen table and went into the hall. She took a pale beige belted raincoat
from the closet and put it on. It should have reached down to her knees, but as
she stood there in the hallway I saw that it ended at her waist. Underneath the
beltline it was all tattered; it had been cut in half.

‘I’m ready,’ she said.

‘What happened to your coat?’ I sighed.

‘Peggy shortened it for me,’ she said.

I took a deep breath. ‘You can’t wear that,’
I replied.

I went into her bedroom and removed another
coat from her wardrobe. ‘Put this one on,’ I said, handing it to her, without
looking at it too much.

‘You’re being very bossy with me today,’
replied mum. She took off the half-a-raincoat and dropped it on the floor,
slipping on the other in its place. It was a dark blue cashmere affair; I
remembered my father buying it one year for her birthday.

‘Now can we go?’ she said.

The stitching around the left shoulder seam
of the blue coat had been unpicked and the sleeve removed.

‘For Christ’s sakes, mother!’ I exclaimed.

‘What’s the matter now?’ she shouted.

‘It’s only got one fucking sleeve!’ I
screamed.

‘Don’t you dare swear at me!’ she yelled
back. ‘You wait until your father gets home!’

‘Dad’s fucking dead!’ I bellowed.

Mum ran into her bedroom and threw herself
down on her bed, sobbing louder and harder than I can ever remember. I stood in
the hall feeling like a complete shit. I went into her bedroom and held her in
my arms, and we cried together.

Eventually we stood up, and I went back to
her wardrobe. I took out another coat, checked to see that it was okay, and got
her to put that one on. It was bright green, it didn’t match anything she was
wearing, but I didn’t care. At least it was intact.

‘Peggy must have taken the sleeve off the
blue one,’ said mum. ‘She’s a bitch for doing that, isn’t she?’

We drove to Tesco and parked the car.

‘Can we buy some cream cakes and chocolate
biscuits?’ asked mum brightly, seeming to have forgotten the events back at the
house.

‘Sure we can,’ I replied. ‘We can buy
whatever you want.’

She beamed at me.

It was Saturday morning, a cold, late
November day, and Christmas was only a month away. The supermarket was packed
with shoppers, and the shelves were stacked with fancy Christmas knick-knacks.
Mum was like a little girl again. In the centre of the store stood a huge
Christmas tree with tinsel and streamers all around its splayed branches.
Hundreds of little fairy lights winked magically on and off.

‘That’s so beautiful,’ observed my mother,
standing and gazing at the tree. ‘I wish we had a tree like that.’

‘We will have,’ I replied. ‘I’ll put our
tree up in a week or so, we can decorate it together.’

She opened her mouth wide with delight.

‘Can we really?’ she gasped.

I nodded.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, she hugged me. Mum
had never really been one for hugs, and it took me by surprise.

We started to shop for tinsel and cream
cakes. Mum would see a chocolate éclair and put it in the trolley. Then we
would move on to another aisle, suddenly she would rush back and get another
cream cake.

‘Just in case,’ she would say, putting the
extra one in the trolley.

We wandered around Tesco that morning
stocking up on all the healthy stuff: chocolate biscuits, chocolate bars, jam
sponges, éclairs, jam doughnuts, and ice cream. I think we bought one or two
bits of the boring stuff as well, for form’s sake – a chicken and some potatoes
come to mind – but they were more of an afterthought.

‘This is lovely!’ declared mum, as we
wandered about. I had not seen her this happy in ages.

When we came to the Christmas decorations
she really went to town, strewing tinsels of a dozen glittering hues around our
shopping trolley. She found an illuminated pair of plastic elf ears, and put
them on. She looked like Mr Spock on acid as we bustled through the busy
supermarket. She was clearly having the time of her life.

‘You didn’t tell me it was Christmas,’ she
said. ‘I haven’t bought anyone a present yet.’

‘We can sort that out later,’ I replied,
hoping she would forget about it. The thought of buying presents for all our
dead relatives didn’t really appeal to me.

Mum nodded thoughtfully and pressed on
through the busy aisles, totally heedless of the amused glances she was drawing
from passers-by, her elf ears flashing like mad as she went.

THE NEXT FEW weeks were idyllic. Mum was
very well into the festive spirit, and each afternoon I would return from work
and be met at the door with a beaming smile, and the same question: ‘Is it
Christmas yet?’

But a couple of incidents left a sour taste
in my mouth. Alzheimer’s patients lose their grounding in time (as their rug is
continually rolled up); as a result, they’re often confused and become very
suggestible. This makes them vulnerable to unscrupulous salesmen.

I came home one afternoon to find the house
looking like it had been hit by a tornado. Bits of the front fascia and
guttering were spread across the lawn, a ladder was propped against the roof
and a young man of around 20 years of age was busy ripping down the rest of the
gutters with a crowbar. His mate stood in the front garden, throwing the debris
onto the back of a flat-bed truck.

‘What the hell’s going on here?’ I asked.

‘The old lady’s having new soffits, fascias
and guttering,’ replied the man on the ground.

‘The hell she is!’ I shouted. ‘Come down
from there!’

The two men stood next to me in the garden.

‘Who gave you permission to do this?’ I
said.

The lad who had been on the roof seemed to
be in charge. ‘The old lady did,’ he said.

‘Wait here, and don’t do anything else,’ I
said. ‘By the way, how much do you think you’re charging her?’

‘What’s it to you?’ he said.

‘I’m her son,’ I replied, ‘and “the old
lady”, as you call her, happens to be my mother. She also has Alzheimer’s
disease, and can’t tell you what day of the week it is.
I
decide what
needs to be done around here. It’s me that pays the money.’

‘She’s already agreed it,’ said the one in
charge.

‘That makes no difference,’ I said. ‘How
much?’

‘Two thousand, five hundred pounds,’ came
the reply. He said the figure so casually he made it sound like two pounds and
fifty pence.

‘
How
much?’ I shouted. ‘We’ll see
about this!’

I went storming into the house.

‘Is it Christmas yet?’ asked mum, beaming.
She was wearing the flashing elf ears.

‘Who are those men in the garden?’ I asked,
trying to ignore the ears.

‘I don’t know,’ replied mum. ‘Who are they?’

‘They’re tearing the roof off the house!’ I
shouted. ‘They say you’ve agreed to pay them two and a half thousand pounds.
The roof is perfectly fine, it doesn’t need replacing.’

Mum shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t know,’
she said. ‘Maybe it was Peggy.’

I picked up the telephone and dialled
enquiries. ‘Trading Standards for Coventry, please.’

They gave me the number. I spoke to a
Trading Standards officer who told me they had received a number of complaints
in the area regarding rogue traders. I told him what had happened. As luck
would have it, he said, one of their officers was in the area dealing with
another incident. They would call him and ask him to visit me next. I gave them
our address.

‘Did you sign anything?’ I asked mum.

‘Like what?’

‘Like a contract of any kind. A piece of
paper, anything. Did you sign your name on anything for those men outside?’ I
was nearly hysterical.

‘I don’t know,’ came back the standard
response. ‘Ask Peggy.’

I went back outside.

‘Right,’ I said to the two men, who had
stopped work and were waiting for me. ‘Let me explain something to you. My
mother has a disease called Alzheimer’s. It affects the brain. People with it
are very confused and suggestible. It also means that they cannot enter into
any sort of legal contract because they are not of sound mind. Therefore any
contract she has with you is not enforceable at law, so I suggest you pack up
your stuff and leave right now.’

They looked at each other. ‘We need paying
for our work,’ announced the one in charge.

‘You’re not getting a penny,’ I said. ‘In
fact, I should have you both for criminal damage.’

‘We’ve got a contract!’ piped up the other.
He pulled a single sheet of paper from the inside pocket of his jacket and
handed it to me. It was an A4 sheet which had obviously been produced on a home
computer. It was full of spelling mistakes, bad grammar and had no business
address anywhere on the sheet. At the bottom was my mother’s signature.

‘This is useless,’ I said, handing it back
to him. ‘It’s not a legal contract.’

‘Yes it is!’ said the other one. ‘We’re
doing the work that the old lady asked us to do! If you want us to stop now,
that’s okay, but we need paying for our time up to now.’

‘My mother didn’t ask you to do anything,’ I
replied. ‘You have taken advantage of her. You told her the work needed doing,
which it did not. She didn’t understand what you were saying, and simply agreed
because she’s suggestible. She doesn’t even remember signing that, and doesn’t
know what the work is for anyway.’

‘We can settle this in court, if you like,’
said the one in charge.

Feeling this was his final threat, I decided
to call his bluff. ‘Fine. Let’s do that,’ I agreed. ‘Let’s take it to court.
And I’ll stand up and tell the judge that you coerced an 80-year-old lady with
Alzheimer’s disease to have unnecessary work done to her house, so you could
charge her two and a half thousand pounds. You’ll be lucky if you both don’t
end up in prison.’

They looked at each other; suddenly, they
didn’t seem so sure of their ground.

A car pulled up outside the house, and a
dark-suited man got out. He walked up the front path and joined us. He pulled a
wallet from his jacket and showed it to all three of us.

‘Trading Standards,’ he said.

I watched the two lads visibly pale. ‘Thanks
for coming,’ I said.

He smiled at me. ‘What’s the problem?’ he
asked.

‘He won’t pay us for the work we’ve done,’
said the one in charge, before I had a chance to speak.

‘We’ve got a contract with the old lady,’
chimed in the other. He held the single sheet of paper out to the Trading
Standards officer, who took it and read it slowly.

Without a word he refolded the paper and
handed it back.

‘Is the homeowner inside the house?’ he
asked me.

‘She is,’ I replied.

‘I need to speak to her,’ he said, and
headed towards the front door.

Like three schoolchildren not sure if we
were in trouble or not, we trooped in silence behind him up the garden path.

He rang the bell. I just knew what would
happen next.

Mum opened the door, resplendent in a new
one-sleeved cardigan, odd slippers, and flashing ears.

‘Hello,’ she said, with quiet dignity.

‘Hello, Mrs Slevin,’ said the man, ‘I am
from Trading Standards. May I come in and have a word?’

Mum retreated back into the house, and he
entered. Just as he shut the door behind him, we all heard mum ask him quietly,
‘Is it Christmas yet?’

The three of us stood staring at each other
in silence. Around our feet lay the shattered remains of the guttering and
fascia boards from the front of mum’s house. I wondered what my dad would have
said.

‘We’ve got a contract you know,’ said one of
them.

‘We’ll see,’ I replied.

The door opened and the Trading Standards
chap came out.

‘You two gentlemen seem to have a problem,’
he said quietly. ‘I’m sure you’re both aware that there are certain sections of
the community with whom you cannot by law enter into a legal contract. Minors,
for instance. Anyone under the age of 18 cannot enter into any agreement
enforceable at law; neither can anyone of unsound mind, a mental patient,
whether they are institutionalised or not. This lady has been medically
diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, and therefore is of unsound mind. She
cannot be a party to a legal agreement without her official carer’s consent and
approval. In short, gentlemen, the paper you have is worthless.’

I breathed a sigh of relief.

The other two looked at each other and
shrugged their shoulders.

‘What about the work we’ve already done
today?’ asked the one in charge.

‘That work was not properly and legally
authorised,’ he replied. ‘Therefore, technically, you have damaged the
property. But that’s something for you and the homeowner’s legal guardian to
sort out between yourselves.’

‘I’m not paying a penny!’ I said. I knew
there was little hope of getting
them
to pay
me
.

Eventually, with much muttering and
grumbling, they packed up their gear and left. The front of the property still
looked like NATO had been testing rockets on it.

‘I know a professional builder who can put
this right for you,’ said the officer. ‘I’ll give you his number.’

A few days later the house was as good as
new, though it cost me £650 to repair the damage. I thought about suing the two
men, but it transpired they were working out of a flat, had no savings, no
proper credentials or qualifications and no insurance.

It was an expensive lesson – that, sadly,
there are people who have absolutely no regard for the dignity or rights of
others, especially if those others are weak or vulnerable. It was a lesson I
was to learn over and over again. (In fact, it was one of the reasons I decided
to write this book – to raise awareness of the Alzheimer’s patient’s
vulnerability. If they are to live in the community, then some consideration
must be made for this vulnerability; they and their carers must be protected by
the law to a greater extent than they are at present.)

* * * * *

Christmas got closer, and it was time for
me to keep my promise to mum, and put up the old tree. It was a six foot tall,
artificial thing which my dad had dutifully dragged out of the loft, year after
year, for as long as I could remember. It came in three separate sections which
slotted together and then fitted into a plastic base; I remember dad carefully
assembling it each year, before standing back, shaking his head sadly and
swearing that we’d get a new one in time for next Christmas.

I assembled the thing fairly quickly, and
found myself unconsciously imitating my dad, with a shake of my own head. It
had probably looked quite good in around 1975; now, though, it was so
bedraggled that it was fit only for a skip. Half of the little green plastic
spines were missing and its branches and bits of metal frame poked out at the
most bizarre and unrealistic angles from the disintegrating trunk; it looked
like no tree on earth.

It occurred to me that it was as eccentric
as my mother – who was wearing her nightie under a new one-sleeved cardigan –
and as worn out and frayed at the edges as I was.

‘Oh, that’s beautiful!’ she cried, clapping
her hands together in genuine delight. ‘We must decorate it straight away.’

‘There’s a box of tinsel and some glass
baubles in the loft,’ I said. ‘I’ll get them.’

But when I returned from the loft I found
she had already started. She was dancing around in front of the tree with a
roll of Andrex in one hand; with the other, she was ripping off great streamers
and casting them gaily across the plastic branches. The tree was already barely
visible beneath a shroud of randomly-placed strips of pink loo roll.

‘That’s nice, mum,’ I said.

‘Do you like it?’ she asked innocently, and
stood back to admire her handiwork. ‘Personally, I think it needs some lights.’

We hung glass baubles on the branches, and
we wound an old set of fairy lights that I’d found in the attic around it. I
switched them on, and mum squealed like a little girl with the pure, innocent
delight of it all.

‘It’s so lovely!’ she cried, performing a
little dance in front of the oddest Christmas tree in the whole world.

I was expecting the lights to set fire to
the toilet paper at any moment; I couldn’t take my eyes off it.

‘We must invite some people around to look
at our tree,’ said mum. ‘What about Mary next door?’

The elderly, wheelchair-bound lady who lived
next door had been a good friend to my mother. We had become firm friends
ourselves, too – she had telephoned me at work at least twice a week for the
last few months to tell me that mum had locked herself out of the house, and
could I possibly come home and let her back in? She also saw more clearly than
I did the truth of mum’s position.

‘She shouldn’t be left on her own when you
go to work,’ she had said firmly to me one day. ‘She can’t be trusted on her
own. She could fall asleep and leave the cooker on. She could have an accident,
anything could happen. You need some help.’

She meant putting mum into a home; I knew
she was right but I just didn’t want to think about it.

‘Er… Mary’s asleep right now,’ I said.
‘We’ll ask her over tomorrow.’