‘Yes!’ I say enthusiastically. ‘I think that’s the perfect word for whatever it is. He invented a flange bracket, and made a lot of money from it, and now he’s bought Briarwood.’
She’s silent for a moment, stroking the pressed flower petals on the front of her notebook. She looks up at me, and asks: ‘Are you going there tomorrow? Or to the café?’
‘Possibly both. You can go and see Carole again, if you like.’
I never force her to go to the day centre – her life choices are narrowing rapidly now, so I try to give her as many as I can. There’s funding for two days a week there, but she doesn’t always use them. We work around it. There’s a local agency that provides carers, and a lady called Katie who moved to the village a while ago sometimes comes and sits with her.
Katie used to be a nurse, and is now a single mum to her almost-three-year-old, Saul – she doesn’t want to go back to work yet, but helping me and Mum out keeps her busy. The added bonus is that Mum adores Saul and he thinks she’s some magical witch, so it works well. Other times, she comes with me, depending on what I’m up to.
She’s turning it over in her mind, and I hope she chooses Carole. It’s late to ask Katie for help, and having seen the state of Briarwood, I’m not sure it would do her any good at all. It was weird enough for me, even though I’m aware of the passage of time. If she arrives there thinking it’s the summer of 2006 or something, she’ll be completely freaked out by it its ruined condition.
‘Yes,’ she says finally. ‘Carole. But maybe one day, you can take me to the House on the Hill again? I’d like to meet the famous inventor of the flange bracket.’
‘You will, I promise,’ I say, yawning halfway through the words. ‘He’s really nice.’
Mum stands up and stretches, long and tall. She yawns too, and I realise we are both exhausted.
‘Time to turn in?’ I ask, raising my eyebrows. She nods, and comes over to give me a cuddle – or a muddle, depending on your word choice. I sink into her arms, and let my head loll on her shoulder, and close my eyes.
Just for a minute, I let myself forget – forget the real world, and all its problems. Forget that I am the carer and she is the one in need of care. I forget everything, and just allow myself to feel like a little girl, safe and content in her mum’s arms at the end of a busy day.
‘Love you, Pillow,’ she says, dropping a kiss on my head and leaving the room. Pillow. That wasn’t one of her nicknames for me – it’s just one of the words that seem to have got messed up on the way from her brain to her mouth. She’s probably thinking about bed, so that makes sense.
‘Love you, Mum,’ I reply as she pads off to her room at the end of the corridor. ‘Sleep well.’
I stay in the chair for a few minutes – it is super squishy and comfy – and let my mind wander. I make a little check-list of all the things I have yet to do, before forcing myself to my feet to actually do them. If I sit for even a minute longer, I’ll actually fall asleep. I’ll wake up at 4 a.m. with some bonkers infomercial for ab-crunching exercise machines on the TV, my hair glued to my cheeks and my eyes stuck together with gunk.
Sighing, I push myself upright, and start my usual Bedtime Patrol. I switch off the TV, and have a very perfunctory tidy-up, mainly picking anything from the floor up and putting it away. Removing trip hazards has become a way of life, as much for me when I’m walking round half-asleep as anything.
I check the windows are locked with the little keys, which I keep in my room with me. Same with the front door, and the back door. It feels weird – as though I’m keeping my mum a prisoner – but I just can’t rest if I think she’s going to sneak out. I mean, she does anyway sometimes – she’ll remember where I keep them and find a way to get them in the night. Mostly she doesn’t, but I feel better if they’re close to hand. I should probably invent a flange bracket that keeps them safer.
I go into the kitchen, my favourite place in the house, to get ready for the morning. It’s a big room, with an old stone-flagged floor that’s been worn shiny by generations’ worth of feet traipsing across it. The ceiling is a bit on the low side, and beamed, but I know it’s high enough to avoid me banging my head unless I’m on a pogo-stick or wearing stilettos – neither of which I am often doing.
The sink is a massive, ancient Belfast affair, and the surfaces are all made of thick old slabs of pine. It’s a kitchen that’s been well-used and well-loved, for a long time.
Outside, through the window with its blue gingham curtains, I can’t see much now – it might have been a beautiful day, but it’s still only spring, and it’s already dark out there in the wilds.
In the daylight, though, it’s a beautiful view. Our cottage is on the edge of Frank’s farm, and all you can see beyond our garden is fields, stretching for miles in myriad shades of green. Our own garden used to be spectacular – Mum was a dab hand – but now we try and keep it simple.
She still has her vegetable patch, but is hit and miss with how much interest she has in it. Frank often comes round to tend to it himself, pretending he does it purely for the fresh fruit and veg we pay him with. I know that’s not true – Frank has a whole farm to himself. I know it’s just a kindness and I accept it, gratefully. I like to be as independent as I can, but weeding when you don’t need to is taking independence too far.
There’s a bench and a table and a couple of old chairs out there, positioned so you can watch the sunset over the hills, and even a scarecrow that has been there longer than we have. He’s called Wurzel, and when we were kids we used to dress him up for the different seasons – a Santa hat at Christmas, monster mask at Halloween, that kind of thing. I remind myself to find something gorgeous and spring-like for him to wear very soon. Maybe a daffodil-shaped hat, or a jaunty Easter bonnet.
I get everything ready for the next day. I place two bowls, two spoons, and a big tub of Laura’s home-made granola on the table, along with two mugs. Too many questions can confuse Mum first thing in the morning, not to mention myself, so I try to plan ahead and keep it simple for both of us.
I make sure the ‘Monday’ section of her pill box is empty, and check that everything is stocked and ready to go for Tuesday – she doesn’t always like to take her medication, but as they’ve yet to find a way to alleviate Alzheimer’s through a nice ginger tea and a nettle poultice (her traditional approach to healing), it’s a small battle we have to face regularly. Some days she’s absolutely fine about it – others, for some reason, she’s not. She’ll hide them, or even hold them in her mouth and pretend she’s swallowed. Those are fun times.
I wipe down the counters, and change the sheet on the page-a-day calendar. It’s huge, and plainly printed black-on-white, and the alleged idea is to provide a simple reminder of what date it is without having to try too hard. Of course, that depends on me remembering to tear the old pages off.
I check the dryer, and fold out a load of laundry into the basket. Mum will get up and usually comes through into the kitchen in her llamas, at which point I’ll sneak into her room and lay out some clothes, in the order she needs to put them on – knick-knacks and bra, then socks, and whatever else she’s wearing.
She doesn’t always take notice, and emerges wearing something completely different instead – and who can blame her? It’s every woman’s right to choose a fuchsia feather boa and hounds-tooth tweed jacket combo if she wants to. As long as it’s weather-appropriate and covers her modesty, I don’t really care. Nobody would ever accuse me of making conservative choices on the wardrobe front, that’s for sure.
Once I’ve sorted the clothes, I make sure Bella’s water bowl is full, and tucked under the table where it’s out of the way.