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‘Then don’t look through the window at it,’ said Shay. Her mum’s brain chewed on minutiae these days, as if it were everlasting gum, the flavours refreshing every few minutes to encourage new mastication. Roberta was so much less tolerant of change than she had been even just a couple of years ago. Now, change and her mother were mortal enemies. One night they’d moved the broadcast time forCoronation Streetforward by half an hour and it was right up there with the world’s catastrophes: a volcano erupting in Iceland; a tsunami in the Philippines; Ken Barlow not being on screen at the allotted hour.
‘Skip.’ Roberta repeated the word over and over. ‘Why didn’t I remember the name? They tell you to do crosswords to keep your brain active and all they do is frustrate me. I used to learn a new word every day, now I forget an old word every few hours.’
It hurt Shay’s heart when her mum said things like this. She never knew how to answer, didn’t want to acknowledge it, brushed it under the carpet hoping it would wither and drop through the floorboards so she didn’t have to face it.
‘I thought baked potato and cheese for tea,’ Shay said with a bracing smile.
‘I’m not really that hungry.’
She always said this but she always ate what was put in front of her.
‘You finish off your crossword and I’ll get it ready.’
Her mum did the puzzles in the newspaper every day, but she wasn’t getting the same pleasure from them as she used to. Too many holes had appeared in her vocabulary and her concentration levels weren’t anything like what they once were.
When Shay bobbed her head around the door toannounce that tea was on the table, her mum was still standing at the window, lost in the view. ‘Mum,’ she called again more loudly, and Roberta jumped slightly, dislodged from whatever was occupying her thoughts, and wandered into the kitchen, almost reluctant to leave her post.
‘That looks nice. I haven’t had a baked potato for a long time,’ said Roberta, sitting down to eat. Shay didn’t say that she’d had one only a few days ago.
‘Good, well, enjoy it then. I hope I haven’t put too much cheese on it. I don’t want you having bad dreams.’
‘I’ve got plenty of time to digest it before bedtime,’ replied Roberta, picking up her cutlery in that delicate, cultured way she had. She’d always had such a ladylike manner about her.
Shay took some milk out of the fridge and checked the date on the carton. Left to her own devices, her mother would be eating mouldy bread and green bacon.
‘What could they be doing in there that merits the need for a…’ Roberta shook her head impatiently.
‘Skip.’ Shay supplied the word again as she poured a stream of tea from the old brown faithful pot that’d had its place on the kitchen table since she was a young girl. ‘Maybe they’re having a new kitchen or a bathroom. You said yourself that Doris still had the original 1970s fittings in the house when it was sold.’
Roberta pressed her knife into the potato. ‘They’re up to something. Everyone’s saying they are.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Shay replied, making less of it.
‘Derrick at number five says he looks like a serial killer. Christie. The one that young man was hanged for.’
Shay laughed at that.
‘You’ll have to put it out of your mind, Mum. Let themget on with taking out the avocado bathroom suite or whatever it is they’re doing because it’s not going to affect you.Live and let live,that’s what your mantra was once upon a time. Oh and guess what I’ve got for you – I found you a DVD ofThe Quiet Man.’
‘Oh, wonderful. Thank you, Shay.’ Roberta was clearly delighted by that.
‘Yep. So now you and Dagmara can watch it the next time you have one of your cinema mornings. You have remembered that I won’t be here for the next two days, haven’t you?’ She asked the question but could guess the answer.
Roberta’s jaw dropped open. ‘Why won’t you be here?’
Up until last year Roberta had always sent them a card unprompted; now she couldn’t even bring the date to mind.
‘Bruce and I are going away to a hotel for a little treat. We’re driving there tonight, that’s why I’m here early.’ Shay didn’t mention the anniversary because she’d been taught to try not to bring up the things her mother had forgotten, highlighting them, reminding her of her deterioration. ‘Paula’s coming to see to you. I’ll leave her number by the phone so if you need anything, ring her not me because I won’t be around.’
Roberta’s face broke into a smile. ‘Paula. That’ll be nice. I can’t remember the last time I saw her.’
Neither can I, Shay said inwardly, and her mental faculty was functioning perfectly. But then her older sister did have aproper jobthat made driving twenty minutes to see her mother – or father – on a regular basis very difficult.
Roberta’s smile closed down then at the prospect of not seeing her younger daughter for a couple of days. ‘She’s not as patient as you though, Shay. She snaps at me.’
‘Well, I’ll have a word and tell her not to,’ Shay said tothat. She’d havethe talkthat lovely Dagmara from next-door-but-one had had with her last year, the one that made Shay see things so differently she’d been shamed by it, though she’d been glad of the insight, grateful for the lesson. Shay used to get herself in a bit of a stew about her mother’s failing memory, automatically correcting her at every turn when she misremembered facts until Dagmara, who had nursed her husband through dementia, had taken her on one side and given her a gentle, well-meaning, but essential, lecture.
‘What does it matter if she remembers it that way, Shay? Who is it hurting, what does it change?’ she’d said in her lovely Latvian accent. ‘It’s the new truth she remembers. Don’t cause her stress by telling her she’s wrong when her brain is telling her she’s right.’
