Sometime in June
I am well and truly buggered from exhaustion. Bet’s birthday party was a day’s drinking – mostly champagne and a train journey. We met at Paddington Station under a sign, which I couldn’t find, but I spotted H. with his dog so I followed him. And lo and behold everyone else was there.
Bet had the tickets and we all piled on the appropriate train out to the country for a slap up lunch. Once on the way the champagne came out alone with hor d’oeuvres and other tasty bits. All quickly scoffed down while the countryside sped by. Once in Tidly-Pomp-upon-The-Thames or whatever the place is called (English place names are really something else at times) we all got out. Half caught a taxi, while the other half decided to sober up and walk. D., an old friend who is a right queen laid on the most spectacular meal. His garden is wonderful and the day decided not to rain so we had a grand time. He very coyly had got hold of photos of Bet from when she was a little girl and photocopied them, then laminated the result for place mats. Trés clever. One got to look at Bet as a pretentious teenager while you got drunk.
I wore my 1960s purple thigh high boots which caused a bit of concern on G’s part. She was most annoyed that I still had legs and a figure good enough to wear them. She, poor dear, has legs that are best left under something long and good at concealing everything.
I don’t know what happened to the time between the end of March and
June. I did my usual trek around the student shows and have decided that
next year I will give them all a miss. I have come to the conclusion that
as a society we are having real trouble dealing with the next millennium.
All the students are doing is re-staging the same ideas and sometimes I
think actual work from 20, 30, 40, even 50 years ago. One piece of work in
particular looked so familiar that I tried to find the student to ask
where he/she had copied it. While I was being redirected around badly
dressed drunks and their parents I realised that the piece that I thought
had been copied actually had been made 30 years ago in another country and
continent! I stopped for a moment and had a think about it. The
probability that there was any link between the two was remote. However,
several days later when I was meeting G. at the tube station before we
started on the Slade private view I mentioned to her my predicament.
‘Umm. You could be right. The same thing has been happening to
me. Last year I saw a piece at a student show that had an uncanny feel
about it. Like I had seen it done before.’
‘Yea, but only better.’
‘Umm, maybe it’s just the Zeitgeist.’
‘How can that be? You mean we just re-cycle everything don’t
you?’
‘Well we do live in ecological times!’
I had to think on that one for a while. But the show we were at turned
out to be just as boring as the others, so we left early not even
bothering to network. G. was getting a bit twitchy, as this was her sixth
student show and she had not found anything that she liked. There had not
been one student/ artist that she felt she could give her card to. Not
even one male student artist that she thought she might fancy enough to
give her card to as a chat up line. So things were pretty dire indeed.
‘Perhaps it’s the fashion at the moment. Everyone is “borrowing”
from the past,’ I said as we slumped at a table outside a trendy
café and drank our white wine spritzers.
‘Umm, but fashion improves on the originals and brings them up to
date. Most of what I have been seeing is just recycling. But the really
sad part is there wasn’t a male student I fancied. They all looked so
young and pimply and trying too hard.’
Well what can one say to that? So we just ordered another drink and
watched humanity walk by.
When I got home Dearest had dinner ready – another one of his great
Italian specials. So we had it out in the garden and watched the
neighbourhood cats leap around from fence to fence and on and off the back
extensions. Our little monster was silhouetted against the street lamp
well aware that he has a great profile. Then dearest dropped the
bombshell:
‘Your sister in-law telephoned.’
‘She’s yours as well.’
He ignored me and repeated ‘Your elder brother’s wife
telephoned this evening just before you got back.’
He stopped. He does that. Just makes announcements of facts and leaves you
suspended waiting for him to finish but he never does.
‘WELLLLL!! What did she want?’
‘It’s your parents. She is worried about them and wants you
to telephone her.’
‘Didn’t you talk to her at all? Weren’t you curious?’
‘Oh yeah! We had a good chat about her garden.’
After consulting my watch I figured that they were 7-8 hours behind us so we could stay out in the garden for another hour before I telephoned her. She should be back from work by then.
The Next Day
My parent’s mental health, in particular my mother’s, is giving everyone cause for concern. Dad just gets more forgetful by the day like he sometimes gets a whole decade behind. But he doesn’t mind and he still is quite capable of driving the car and shopping and is generally very pleasant to everyone. Now you have to understand that my dear old mum is two bricks short of a full load at the best of times and has been for years. Even her doctor calls her a “socio-path” to her face. But she just tells him he doesn’t know what he is talking about and if he won’t give her the drugs she thinks she needs for her condition she will complain to the medical council. They have a healthy relationship as he has had her as a client for 25 years. Like my father who ignores her and just takes out his hearing aids, he also does what she wants. She changes her doctor from time to time and then after a while comes back because she thinks all the others are too rude to her.
My sister-in-law informs me that she contacted the family doctor after Mum said that Dad had throat cancer during the last telephone call she made to them. This state of affairs has caused mother to go even more do-lally. Her anxiety level has reached higher than usual levels and she began to really not make any sense. As my father is her principle carer, it is rather serious.
Sister in-law says she is going to visit them next week and try to sort out home help etc. I reminded her that they have had such services for years and that nobody lasts more than a week because my mother is so rude to them. They probably should look into going into some sort of care situation. But she reminded me that my father wants to die in the house he built. It is the one thing he refuses to give way on with my mother. We have impasse.
The last week of June
I have had my interim exam for this year at college and have been asked to write a paper for the fall to be re-examined. I am not surprised as I got really annoyed at the lot of them over the standard of tutoring I had been given this year. The atmosphere was “frigid” to say the least. My sweet but highly ambitious tutor never had time for me being too busy teaching everywhere and anywhere. I accused the other tutor of reaching beyond her ability. She blanched and gripped the table. One’s hair was on end by the end of the session. I was truly wired.
The whole of this year has continued to be a cock-up since the Head of Department left us high and dry the year before. I should really demand my money back. The trouble is that I am so much older than my tutors are and I can’t take them seriously at all.
End of July
Thank goodness for decent weddings! I am really fed up with modern ones that try to be original and fail in the process. Give me a decent well managed wedding any day with all the proper ritual. One where you don’t have the children of the couple acting as bridesmaids or everyone is in casual wear throwing flowers. I cringe with embarrassment thinking about some of the weddings I went to in the 1960s. One of my mature students from several years back has always kept in contact and often would come for private lesson at the studio. He finally asked his sweetie to marry him after we had long discussions six months ago about commitment and just getting on with life.
He has married into the Scottish aristocracy by marrying a Laird’s daughter. Needless to say the hats at the wedding were absolutely spectacular. I wore my 1950s cocktail dress and matching coat with the big black outrageous hat I made for Em’s wedding. Of course I had to go to Edinburgh for the event which was a hoot in itself. The wedding was held in the restored library at the Scottish parliament on the Royal Mile and the reception was upstairs. But oh the hats!
After the Event
Well that’s what I call a great wedding. Most women’s heads had at least £300 worth of hat on them. But the second in command of the Scottish Episcopalian church made a beeline to me at the cake cutting after the ceremony to rant on about my hat. What a flirt!! I vaguely remembering fluttering a gloved hand at somebody across the room when I first came in. I thought it was the groom but then I didn’t have my glasses on so maybe the bishop thought it was himself that I waved to???? But what I pondered later on the train journey home what does that say about me - being able to attract a middle-aged Bishop? Talk about a glamorous setting and ALL the men were in kilts. I had one conversation with two brothers who had to toss a coin as to which one wore the hunting plaid or the dress plaid to the wedding. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to lose any weight in time for this event. But I did compliment a chap on his outrageous tie (net and sequins) and he turned out to be the head of a very important art establishment so I slipped him my card - which one has to carry at all times! You just never know !?!
The reception was on the floor above. Just after the cake cutting and between the dinner we were allowed to enter the Great Hall of the Scottish Parliament. This is where Government receptions are now held. It had three huge fireplaces in which a small ox could be comfortable roasted plus several enormous marble statues and many epic paintings of the Great and the Good in Scottish history. I was duly impressed. But even though it was a splendid late summer’s day I had the feeling it could get a wee bit damp and very penetratingly cold here, making me understand why whisky and sheep had been invented and why the fireplaces were so large.
The gesture was done as a favour to the bride. The member of the parliament who had the authority to do so thought it might be nice for the wedding guests to see it as he had known the bride since ‘She was a wee lass!’ What does one say? I shuddered at the thought of the fate of some of the people I had known since I was a “wee lass” and just what they could do for me.
When it came time to go up to the reception in the rooms above as we ascended the Georgian staircase lined with marble busts done in the Grecian manner (all male one must add) the ladies took off their splendid hats and placed them upon the noble lords. Which did improve their countenance most admirably. The contrast between their austere appearances and the sheer frivolity of the splendid head coverings had a poetic elegance all its own. And with so many of them gazing back and forth at eachother as one ascended it revealed a sense of the absurd about the otherwise dour northern building.
I shocked them all by being able to dance all and every country reel they played. The Bishop did ask where I learnt to dance and know all the esoteric steps of any of the Scottish country reels. I had to confess that in my dim and distant past I went to square dancing and Scottish country dancing every Friday night from the age of 8 to 13. Ahhhh !! One’s past eventually catches up with one, doesn’t it. But then again refugees from The Highland clearances did settle in the area where I came from.
On the way back to London as I dosed on the train I thought of the last
time I was in Scotland and in Edinburgh for a wedding. That one was so
manufactured by comparison to this one. Then, it was a rich American who
was trying to gain some heritage by renting a castle. All the men wore the
wrong tartans and had rented kilts while this one was the real McCoy. I
smiled to myself and slipped off into the land of nod dreaming of those
gorgeous hats on such stern male heads on the stairs to the reception.
I have almost finished the essay for the fall but it needs some
re-writing. Must find Bet to have a look at it. That’s if I can track
her down with her life so full with her new beau.
September - the last week
Life can not be made up. No one has THAT great an imagination. I think most soap opera writers must just borrow the plots from family troubles and gossip they hear about other people’s relations. They probably just ride the Circle Line tube endlessly listening to mobile phone conversations or have permanent bookings at tables at Maison Bertoux or Valerie Patisserie in Soho tirelessly listening and taking notes. Reality is much more traumatic and riveting than fantasy.
Events with my parents have turned from what are usually tiring and annoying phone conversations into the operatic. My father’s sore throat and hoarse voice is throat cancer after all. He has had one biopsy but they can’t quite find the tumour though they know it’s there, somewhere. So he has to have another one. Mother meanwhile has finally committed herself after realising she didn’t know which pills to take or how many she has taken, if any at all. In the end she just phoned up emergency as she always does. She normally calls emergency at least five times a month endlessly seeking attention and the perfect pill for them give her. Immortality meanwhile is on her mind, one that is slowly turning into Swiss cheese. She fights growing old with such a vengeance that it borders on entertainment. Though her doctors would not agree. They know her voice well on the local hospital emergency line.
After we got a call from the neighbour to say that our mother had called the fire department out at 8am one morning because she the smoke alarm went off when it was only the battery gone flat she thought we needed to come over to Canada and help sort things out. Nearest and I decided on the spot to book a flight. We’d rather renovate the kitchen with the money but things look bad. The kitchen has waited 16 years, so what’s another two or three? A week later a cousin telephones to say mother is in the Hospital and is barking mad and she does mean barking.
A telephone conference with my three brothers confirms my worst fears…..
They are inept when it comes to an emotional crisis. It’s always
women who deal with family crises in the end. My oldest sister-in-law and
I plan a routine of care and visits. Then tell the brothers when and for
how long they must stay at the family home while father has his radiation
treatment and while we try to sort out what needs to be done with our
mother.
’Don’t worry honey. I’ll be there for you.’
Dearest says, as he packs his golf clubs and checks the long range weather
forecast for the area on the internet. It must be genetic with men.
Half way through October
I could not have made up events up if I tried. My father is in a real
state. Very depressed and dispirited, refusing to eat, trying very hard
for death by starvation and alcohol which we are trying to reverse. I am
in the midst of battling with the health system. Most of my problems so
far seem to stem from dealing with social workers, health workers and
doctors under 30. They have no experience with life!!! One wonders why
they pick the profession that they do?
We arrived late at night on the day my father had his biopsy. We found the
back door locked. After ringing the bell several times he came down and
opened it.
‘Who are you?’ he asked.
I looked at him and my first thought was ‘Oh No! Alzheimers!’
Then I remembered, I had changed my hair colour from the last time he saw
me.
Meanwhile mother has become a Hollywood stereotype of a mental patient. When we first went to see her she was curled up on her bed in a foetal position. The poor dear is a scarecrow of her former self. The whole conversation revolved around not going too close to the elevator or one would be caught. After 10 minutes we were told to go or we would never get out. She is so dead earnest about it that one could almost believe it! I had a disturbing conversation with the doctor and head nurse about my mother coming home. The health system here revolves around budget sheets and getting patients home as soon as possible so that those budget sheets balance. I am locked in battle with the health authorities over this issue explaining to them that my father has confirmed cancer and he will start radiation treatment very soon. Under these circumstances there is no way a woman in her condition should come home. She would stop taking the medication and he is in no state to supervise her. The health visitors do not give 24 hours assistance and nurses have never lasted more than two nights with my mother. We are not permanent fixtures and will go away in two week’s time.
Meanwhile I have begun harassing the Veterans’ Hospital to get her “panelled”
so she can be transferred to their psycho-geriatric ward for treatment and
assessment. It has only 15 people and they treat veterans wonderfully. It’s
state of the art so-to-speak for such treatment. Since my mother gave five
years or more of her life overseas in the intelligence corps of the army
in WWII, she is more than qualified for a transfer there. BUT meanwhile I
had another major row with the hospital authorities over the telephone
about my mother’s condition and care. I had to insist that her
medicine be checked as to how efficient it was. I am not convinced her
dosage is high enough to get her back on balance. I had to point out to
them that it takes three weeks to kick in so that coming home before that
time and before her mental state is properly assessed is not an option. If
they insisted then we would be looking at the probability of two dead old
people and they would be responsible for medical negligence. I really didn’t
think I had such fury in me. Dearest was applauding me along with my
father in the background who was raising his beer bottles in praise.
Spurred on, I insisted that she have a scan of her head to see what its physical condition really was. She had been having heart problems for years and they had no idea what damage that had done to the brain. The information could give the family finally an explanation as to certain of her behavioural problems or at least put other worries to rest.
I was so furious when I got off the telephone that I immediately phoned
up the company that delivers the Oxygen tanks that my mother uses to
insist that they take them away. Dearest had become rather alarmed when we
first came as to the sheer numbers and sizes of the various tanks of
oxygen that he kept discovering all over the house. Especially since he
also was finding large grocery bags of matches in the same bathroom as two
such large oxygen tanks as well as in other hiding places around the
house. When I questioned my father about why there were so many matches
about. He said that mother had read somewhere that lighting a match
dispelled a smell as efficiently as a vent fan and that in doing this she
saved money by not using electricity. Besides she couldn’t always get
the air extractor fan to work.
Dearest looked at me with incredulity when this explanation was given.
‘You do realise.’ He said later ’That they
could have gone up like one of the space rockets at any time and that all
that would be left is a big hole. And I mean a BIG HOLE.’
But life goes on and there is a healthy art community in my old
hometown. We have gone to a few openings but stopped as Dearest got too
embarrassed when people began to tell us tales about my mother’s
behaviour in the past. She loved private views and the literati community
and never missed an opening or book launch.
‘Do you think they made it up?’ he asked after one such
private view and new revelations about his mother- in-law.
‘No!’ I shot back, ‘Knowing her. No way!’
They were some pretty incredulous stories floating about. Obviously she
entertained a lot of people.
I have managed however to give two lectures at my alma mater. Art is art no matter where you are in the world and artists are the same the world over. There is never enough money and never enough people who appreciate them. What a miserable bunch we are.
Last week of October
I am on my own having agreed with Dearest to stay an extra week to finish sorting things out. He has gone back and I miss him very much. He was useful in the way that he usually is with that very efficient designer brain of his. He discovered that the chest freezer had food in it that would make an archaeologist pale since it had not been cleaned in years. Meanwhile my mum had just kept piling more food into it. He also discovered in a bag of groceries near the bottom of it my mother’s wallet, all her social security cards, drivers’ licence and various other important documents that had gone missing. We have a consultation with my brothers and agreed that I will come back in December after the last of them leaves but cross over a few day’s care with my sister in-law. By then Dad’s radiation should be in full swing and Mum will have been transferred into the Veterans’ Hospital. The general state of play as far as the health system goes is to get the family i.e. the women of the family to do as much as possible. Or to put it another way to get the health system to do as little as possible even though they have the facilities, expert training and resources. Younger brother has been most helpful in suggesting what language to use but he himself approaches the whole situation most guardedly as does brother no 2. What is it with men? I have found out from various acquaintances and friends that the men in my family are not unique. Whose fault is it? Us women’s?
There are days when all I do is hang on the telephone harrassing various authorities to try and bring father’s radiation treatment forward, or to get mother’s transfer brought to the top of the queue, or to get the oxygen tanks removed before I go, or to get pension payments that should have been paid years ago sorted out. Or whatever one does to bring order to lives which have gone very much out of control. The oxygen tanks have become a real battle between the hospital authorities and me. If they are here, they feel they can send her home anytime BUT if the tanks are not here then she is dependent on the hospital and can’t come home. With a constant flow of people staying for only a week or so at a time, dependent on how much time they can get off work to look after my father, having her home is not an option. I won in the end and the company that supplies them finally came and got all the tanks. We discovered that she had twice the recommended allowance!
So I battle to keep her in an environment that is supportive to her and can meet her needs. I also have discovered from the psychiatrist that my dear mum is borderline psychotic. Nice to have it confirmed after all these years! Also the brain scan I asked for has confirmed that part of her brain is like a piece of Swiss cheese but with a light rotating in the centre. One day it shines out of one hole, the next day another. Which means one day you get a thought about a conversation from two weeks ago and the next day one from yesterday and possibly only half of it at that. Coupled with her personality disorder, this makes life very exciting indeed!
My sketchbook lies in the same place it was put when I first came. Only a few drawings of my father sleeping fill several pages. I am just too drained physically and mentally to do anything. The great part of being here has been my friend who I have known since I was five. We reconnected at the high school reunion and have kept in touch since. It’s nice having somebody who you don’t have to explain any of the background to the situation, as she has known my folks since she was almost born. She lives out of town now so the last weekend that Dearest was here we went to stay with her for four days.
The Four Day Break
Unfortunately a blizzard suddenly swept in from the Arctic so we drove the 200 miles in a snowstorm. We stopped for an hour in a truck stop on our way there and earwigged in on all the farmers and truckers discussing last year’s drought, most enjoyable and enlightening. Finally we got to her place which is in a tiny village near the National Park and found the house key where she stated. It was under a flowerpot at the back door. So we let ourselves in, unwrapped the dog from Dearest where it had placed two huge paws around his neck and licked his glasses off. Then made a strong pot of coffee and turned the heat up.
Later when she came home from being Principal at the local high school we planned our weekend, starting with a local farm auction that was being held in the town’s ice hockey rink. It was billed as the social event of the month and not to be missed. Well, it turned out to be the only thing we went to as not only was it so interesting but I was too exhausted to go anywhere else. I have eczema on my forehead from the stress.
But Dearest was in his element. He walked around all day bidding for antique chests of drawers, vintage china and drinking huge mugs of coffee or just grinning slowly, rocking on his heels, watching people. He loves to watch people. It’s what he does wherever we go in the world, sit down with a beer or coffee and watch people.
Late January
I cannot believe what I have just been through over the past two months. I know, I keep saying it. But the whole experience has been so amazing and wild.
After Dearest left, I continued hassling the medical authorities over arrangements for my mother and palliative care for my father right up to two hours before I left. At that point I was so concerned that no palliative medical staff had actually checked out my Dad to see what his needs were that I insisted they come before I left. Lo and behold, a nurse turned up half an hour later and apologised. I also got his radiation brought forward by several weeks by insisting that if they didn’t start it immediately they would be radiating a corpse.
Then my Ex put me on the plane and I drank all the way back to London. In fact the cabin crew found me a row of seats to stretch out on and kept bringing me more half bottles of wine, completely unasked for. I paid for it for a week afterwards but I got the first undisturbed sleep in a month. Sheer bliss!
My ezcema just got worse. Nothing the doctor gave me cleared it up so I went back to the homeopathic pharmacy. It sort of helped.
At this point in the story my brothers began to take over but came away from looking after Dad feeling that he had only a short time to live and that Mum was soon to follow. Gloom and doom were not too strong words for the situation. Dad continued to try and starve and/or drink himself to death no matter how hard one tried to persuade him otherwise.
I decide to go back at the beginning of December and take care of things
for their last few weeks on earth as we had planned earlier…. How
wrong I was. My sister-in-law was there so her visit could overlap mine by
four days. At this point Mum had been moved into the Vet’s Hospital
for about two weeks. Dad meanwhile had collapsed and stopped breathing in
the car when my sister in-law had taken him to his radiation treatment.
The hospital said enough is enough and he stayed in. He was re-hydrated,
no booze, and drip-fed and put on oxygen and given physiotherapy to get
him moving again. So, my sister in-law and I had the house to ourselves
for a few days. Unfortunately she confessed that Mum had gone from being
on the road to recovery to being her old self again i.e. bloody miserable
and mean.
‘I think she has stopped taking her anti-psychotic pills.’
‘How can you tell?’
‘She has gone real mean again.’
The next day I telephoned her psychiatrist to inquire what the situation
was. Sure enough, my mother had said she wanted to go off them as there
was nothing wrong with her. I paused and asked if he thought that was a
good idea. He assured me he had his long term relationship to think of
with my mother. I paused again. Then I assured him that in the long term
he would make her take them again as she would drive him nuts. My
sister-in-law just shook her head when I told her his explanation.
’‘I pity him,’ was her reply.
‘Me too. But what can you tell someone under thirty.’
So we poured ourselves another cup of tea and opened another packet of
shortbread biscuits and sat silently munching away. Each of us lost in our
thoughts about the situation that was about to be unleashed on the poor
unsuspecting staff at the care home because of a smug-know-it-all young
psychiatrist.
‘Do you think,’ she added, ’that perhaps that
old adage from the 1960s, which was such a part of our youth ought to
change?’
‘What adage was that?’
‘The one about not trusting anyone over thirty should be
re-paraphrased to not trusting anyone under thirty?’
I didn’t even blink before agreeing whole-heartedly.
‘Without a doubt!’
We had our revenge. They had to put her back on the pills again because
they couldn’t cope and basically he had no relationship with her.
Then I found out she would just flush them down the toilet. She took great
delight in telling me so and handing me her days’ take. When I told
him this he got very annoyed at me. So I just handed him the latest bunch
she had slipped into my coat pocket and walked away. But I was right about
it in the end. The day I left six weeks after our first talk, he said
through very terse lips.
‘Your mother is the most wilful person I have ever met.’
‘Yeah! Me too!’ And smiled at him.‘But it’s
good of you to admit it.’
In between the end of October and December
I returned for 8 weeks across the pond, I tried to set my life in order and to recuperate. The bad case of eczema right across my forehead was stubborn and spreading. I tried everything and nothing seemed to budge it. Then I started reflexology and homeopathy. It started to budge. But flying back to the folks in Canada I foolishly put on a moisture cream and by the time I landed I had what looked like a brilliant red birth mark across my forehead. When my sister in law picked me up at the airport she said I looked like the alien.
She suggested I went to an allergy specialist, who took one look at me, heard my story and said ‘Clean out your liver’. Thus began the great liver cleanse, along with some pills that did something to support my liver, and in two weeks I began to look normal. Apparently I easily have a distressed liver so he also suggested I give up alcohol. Now I don’t drink that much but I do like my wine with a meal and a few glasses with Bet and G and a few at private views. Under the circumstances I was in, at present the gin and tonics were helping me from going round the bend. Especially after a day of negotiating my mother and her Swiss cheese of a brain, my father with his death wish and radiation treatment and a health service that was filled with seemingly younger and younger social workers and doctors. BUT it had to be done….so I took to chocolate and put on a stone. Such is life. I now have a healthy liver that is not under stress and no eczema any more.
Christmas
I shall never forget Christmas. There has never been one like it. Both my father and I agreed on that at the end of the day as I tucked him into bed. The plan was for me to take Dad from his hospital, which was across town to Mum’s to have the Christmas meal and then take them both back home for presents. BUT my Mum had not been playing the game. As she was off her medicine or shall I say kept flushing it all down the toilet. She was quite cantankerous and refused to use her cane or a wheelchair. As a result she couldn’t walk very far or very well without being out of breath. She put her heart under such a strain that she was put on oxygen and they refused to allow her out for Christmas day. Her liver was very swollen because her heart was not pumping properly from the strain and her system was backing up. (Just think one has all this to look forward to!). She was furious but not at herself.
When I went to see Dad after dropping off her Christmas stocking on Christmas Eve, he was dressed and in his wheelchair waiting for me to take him home. I checked with the doctor if it was okay and that was it, so off we went back home. At the house a few neighbours who had seen the car come home with him in it came around. I telephoned Mum’s nurse and there was no way they were going to let her come home that night or the next day. So we relaxed and had a lovely little party.
The shit hit the fan Christmas morning. My aunt phoned early. The one with one arm who is affectionately known in the family as the one armed bandit, to see if I could pick her up. I declined the offer as Dad would not get out of bed and it looked like we weren’t going to make the arranged time with Mum for the Xmas dinner at the hospital. So could she go and let Mum know and we would meet them for dessert? AND under no circumstances was she to tell Mum that Dad was at home. Of course my Mum didn’t know Dad was at home. If she did, she would have hit the roof with jealousy. But my aunt true to form told her and within a nano-second of doing so the telephone became red hot with mother wanting to know how come he was at home and she wasn’t. When I explained that she could not come out of hospital as she was on oxygen and that it was as much as a surprise to me as her that Dad could come home she went off into the stratosphere. I hung up. After the fifth phone call I pulled the phone plug out.
Dad was still refusing to get out of bed. So I started to pull his pyjama bottoms off and he suddenly leapt out. An hour later we had progressed to me actually shaving him and wheeling him to the front door to get into his heavy winter outdoor clothes. Then I loaded all the presents into shopping bags, put them into the back of the car. Then I put my father into the front seat, strapped him in and put the white chocolate Yule log I had queued for an hour at the patisserie on his lap with the explicit instruction ‘DO NOT DROP IT’. He just grinned. Then I drove to the hospital with dread to see Mum and the aunt.
Once at the hospital I reloaded him and presents and Yule log into his
wheel chair, up an icy ramp into the building and up to the third floor.
We could hear my mother and her sister defaming my name from the end of
the hall. She was in full paranoia and it was being fuelled further by my
aunt. The nursing staff were looking very grim. She had been screaming at
them all day, had taken herself off her oxygen and it was now four o’clock.
I left my Dad with my Mum and aunt to put the tea on to have with the
cake. When it was all ready I carried the tray with teacups and cake over
to them and placed the tray on the table. I picked up the cake, which was
on a rather lovely plate I had found and was about to wish all Happy
Christmas or anything to get the conversation to change when my aunt in
her true form let rip a particularly vindictive accusation. I paused. Then
bit my tongue before saying
‘Shut up you silly old moo!’
Upon which she whacked me with her cane in the ribs. It threw me off
balance and the cake slid off the plate did a double somersault in the air
and landed on the floor.
There was at last silence.
‘Happy Christmas everyone!’ I said and walked away.
Once down the hall I spied the chaplain’s office and went in. He was
having a cup of tea and just putting his feet up after a long day when I
burst into tears. Before he could say anything almost immediately a nurse
came in and told me to take my father back to his hospital, as he needed
to get back on oxygen. I refused until my aunt had left and continued to
wipe my dribbling nose and feel about five years old.
With great effort, it took everyone on staff an hour to get my aunt out
of there. When I did go to get him, Dad was hooked up to an oxygen tank.
We began to unhook him and wheel him down the hall when my mother suddenly
began to literally rant and rave and cling to his neck. She was wailing
how I had plans to incarcerate her forever and sell all their belongings.
The nurse began to push the wheelchair faster and faster while I ran and
tried to un-peel my mother from my father’s neck. We arrived at the
elevators at break neck speed. The nurse was now pulling Mum from the
wheel chair while she was still wailing accusations about … I don’t
remember but when the elevator door opened I shoved Dad in. As the door
closed my mother hand came thrusting in like something out of a Hammer
horror film and still firing accusations about me. Everyone looked at me.
Their huge eyes getting bigger as her voice followed us down the levels
echoing in the elevator shaft.
‘And she also wants to …:’
When we finally got back to his hospital and I tucked him into bed he came
out with the line of how it was a Christmas he would never forget. I
looked at him wearily.
He smiled back and said. ‘But the best part was the look on their
faces when the cake hit the floor!’
I have learnt many things about lying in these two months that I have dealt with the ageing parents. Or shall I say I learnt a great deal about being economical about the truth. The problem was remembering exactly what I said to which social worker and which parent. In the end I got both my parents in the same Veteran’s hospital/ care home and my mother back on her proper medication.
The nurses email me regularly and reading between the lines my mother is carrying on, still trying to flush her pills down the toilet and my Dad still refuses to wear his hearing aids but they are together and love having everything done for them.
I am looking forward to meeting Bet next week at the Tate Triennial and
having cocktails at a great party afterwards.
All I can say folks is that old age is not for sissies!
Copyright © : n.paradoxa, May 2003
N.Paradoxa : Issue No. 17, 2003