The Little Girl in the Radiator: Mum Alzheimer's & Me (13 page)

‘Looks charming,’ I said.

‘Let’s take a look inside,’ said Heather.

We walked up the long flight of stone steps
to the front door, and rang the bell. I was expecting someone like Lurch from
The
Addams Family
to amble down the dusty hallway, but the door was swung aside
by a young girl in a smart, blue and white uniform.

‘Good afternoon,’ she said, brightly. ‘Are
you visiting a resident?’

‘We’re here to view the place,’ I said. ‘My
mother might be coming to stay here.’

I realised I was lowering my voice as I
spoke; I think I subconsciously felt embarrassed to admit that I was committing
my mother to a home.

‘I’ll get the manager for you,’ replied the
nurse. ‘Do come in.’

We were shown into a long hallway, and asked
to wait. The house was spaciously designed with sculptured plasterwork on the
ceiling, and had obviously belonged to someone of some wealth or importance a
couple of hundred years ago. I imagined it was the kind of place that once had
live-in servants; today it was a functional care home for unfortunates like my
mother.

A silver-haired woman of about 60 walked up
to us. ‘Hello,’ she said, shaking hands with us both. ‘I’m Sally. I understand
you’d like to look around?’

‘Yes, please,’ I answered, feeling as guilty
as hell.

Sally began the guided tour, walking us down
a long corridor and waving her hand into various rooms, as though she was
pressed for time: ‘This is the dining room. This is the television room. This
is the kitchen.’

We popped our heads briefly through each
doorway as we passed. The empty dining room was laid out like a small café,
with a few tables here and there draped with plastic covers. A small, blue and
green plastic cup with a lid and spout and two handles had been left on one
table. It was like a baby’s training cup: I wondered if it was for a resident.

Heather looked into the television room. An
elderly lady was sitting alone watching football on the TV. ‘Hello,’ said
Heather. ‘Sorry to disturb you.’

‘Fuck off!’ shouted the old lady.

I popped my head in.

‘You fuck off too!’ she shouted.

‘Pay no attention,’ said Sally. ‘That’s Alice. Everything all right, Alice?’

‘Fuck
off
!’ shouted Alice.

‘We’ll leave her to it,’ said Sally, and the
three of us all toddled off to view the kitchen.

Large stainless steel units were placed
around the walls. There was little to see, but it looked clean enough.

‘Breakfast is at eight, lunch at 12, and
dinner at five. Bed by 10,’ said Sally. ‘We have a dietician who puts the menus
together, and a trained chef who prepares the meals.’

We nodded.

‘Let’s look at some bedrooms,’ suggested
Sally. ‘We can go upstairs.’

We followed Sally up a very narrow and very
steep flight of stairs. ‘My mother would have trouble with these,’ I said.
‘They’re very steep.’

‘It’s an old house,’ replied Sally, ‘but
there is a small elevator for residents who are unsteady on their feet.’

Once upstairs we wandered down another long
corridor. On the wall outside each bedroom door there was pinned a small
photograph of the relevant resident, together with a hand-written note of each
name.

‘This one is vacant at the moment,’ said
Sally, throwing wide a door. On the wall outside was a photograph of an old man
wearing a woollen hat and no teeth.  The note said simply: ‘Charlie’.  I
wondered what had happened to him.

Charlie’s old room was pretty basic. The top
half of the walls was painted a pale green, and the bottom half a grubby cream,
and there was a single bed, a bedside table with a lamp on it and a small
dressing table.

‘The bedrooms are all singles,’ said Sally,
‘but they’re quite serviceable. There is a private bathroom, as well.’

Sally opened the
en suite
bathroom
door. A wet room yawned before us: no bath, just a slanting, tiled floor, where
Charlie would stand to wash himself, the suds and dirty water running away
through a hole in the floor. There was also a toilet and washbasin.

‘Are all the rooms the same?’ asked Heather.

‘Yes, they’re all the same,’ said Sally.

An old man had shuffled into the room behind
her. He was wearing a frayed dressing gown and had a box of dominoes in his
hand. Sally turned around.

‘No, Fred!’ said Sally, in a very commanding
tone of voice. ‘Charlie isn’t here any more, is he?’

Fred looked a little perplexed.

‘Charlie can’t play dominoes with you today,
Fred,’ announced Sally, still in a loud voice. ‘Now run along and find someone
else to play with.’

Fred shuffled from foot to foot, not sure
what to do next.

Sally took the old man by the shoulders and
physically turned him through 180 degrees so that he was facing the door again.
‘Off you go, Fred,’ she said.

‘Dominoes today, with Charlie,’ muttered
Fred, as he shuffled away down the corridor.

Sally watched him go and then returned her
attention to us.

‘Any questions?’

We both shook our heads, too shocked to
speak, and then we drove home in complete silence.

WITHIN A FEW WEEKS Heather had moved in. Neither
of us were spring chickens any more – we were both in our late 40s – and not
under any illusions, but when it’s right, it’s right, and we decided not to
waste time. There aren’t many women around who are willing to try to make a go
of it with a middle-aged man they’ve just met, and his 80-year-old mother with
Alzheimer’s. I always admired Heather for that.

One Sunday morning we were going about the
business of becoming fully awake, mooching around the kitchen trying to decide
what to have for breakfast and which paper to read first. Mum was in her
dressing gown, with odd socks and odd slippers on, talking to the little girl
in the radiator, Heather was pulling out drawers here and there to see where
everything was kept and I was feeding Bruno in the conservatory.

‘Let’s have a traditional Sunday roast for
dinner today!’ said Heather, suddenly. ‘We can have roast beef, Yorkshire
pudding, stuffing, the works… how does that sound to everyone?’

I must admit, after my awful cooking, it
sounded fantastic.

Mum clapped her hands together in glee. ‘Oh,
that would be wonderful, Wendy! We haven’t had a proper Sunday dinner for
ages.’

I hung my head in shame and pretended not to
hear.

‘Bruno really likes roast beef and Yorkshire
pudding,’ announced mum confidently, as though the mental mutt actually ate it
every weekend.

‘That’s settled then,’ declared Heather.
‘Dinner will be at one o’clock sharp.’

Mum skipped into the living room and put the
television on. Bruno, having heard his name mentioned, skipped across the
kitchen looking for a treat, and I skipped out of the way.

Heather really is a great cook, and, in what
seemed like no time at all, our little kitchen had been transformed into a hive
of industry. Potatoes were peeled and sitting in a pot of water, a great slab
of beef was seasoned and prepared, and various clumps of vegetables were being
spread out on the kitchen work surface. The oven was on, and things were
happening. When you live on egg and chips, or fast food from the local
takeaway, a real home-cooked meal can become the highlight of your whole week,
as many a student living away from home will testify. I had done my best for
mum, culinarily-speaking, but my best was not very good.

In fact, as I look back now it’s hard for me
not to criticise most of what I did for mum. My shortcomings stare back at me
reproachfully through the mists of time, and they make me uncomfortable. I
suppose I’m not alone in this. At the time, the very business of everyday
living gets in the way of thinking too deeply about things; we muddle through
and do the best we can. But as we look back at our lives, most of us think we
could have done better – we could have been kinder, less severe, more
perceptive, more in tune with the needs of others, more forgiving, more
patient, a little more chilled out. In my defence, the sad truth is that no-one
is ever shown how to be a carer. There’s no training. When you step in as a
carer, Social Services are grateful – you’re taking a great financial and
logistical burden away from them, and they tend to let you get on with it. This
may be the greatest fault with the system – amateurs like me are left to manage
these situations without help, support, training or even encouragement. I
realise now that this lets both the patient and the carer down badly; but
nothing will ever change until people and politicians are made more aware of
the constant needs of an Alzheimer’s patient. So I don’t entirely blame myself.
I know I could have done better, but that’s life; I have a feeling of nostalgic
melancholy I have learned to live with.

Anyway, as Heather bustled about the kitchen
that Sunday morning, everything in my garden was coming up roses. Mum’s spirits
were buoyant, Heather was happy, I was happy, and Bruno was behaving himself.
What could possibly go wrong?

‘What can I do to help?’ asked mum.

‘You could lay the table for me, Rose,’
replied Heather.

‘I can do that,’ announced mum, and she
started to take the cutlery out of the drawer.

‘Everyone seems to have a job but me,’ I
said to Heather.

‘Everything’s perfectly under control,’
replied Heather. ‘You don’t need to do anything.’ Then, as an afterthought:
‘You can take Bruno out for a walk if you want? He’s getting in my way.’

Bruno had realised that something
sensational was happening in the kitchen, and he had been sniffing around
Heather, trying to be her best friend ever since she had unwrapped the lovely
joint of beef and seasoned it on the kitchen work surface.

His shaven hair had all-but grown back: a
walk was in order.

‘Come on mate, let’s take a trip around the
block,’ I said, rattling his lead. Bruno was at the front door immediately,
whining to be let out.

‘We won’t be long,’ I called back to
Heather, as the dog and I slipped out of the front door.

It was too early to go to the pub, so we
headed for the park. The great, green expanse spread out before us like an
ocean, we had the whole place to ourselves. I let Bruno off the lead, and he
ran and ran. Some dogs seem to just run for the sheer joy and exhilaration of
it, and Bruno sped along the grass, handlebar ears pinned back by the wind. It
was a joy to watch him, as he tore around me in a giant circle, then ran off
and came back, and raced away again. Dogs do seem to get tremendous pleasure
from the simple things in life; I remember standing in the middle of the park
that Sunday morning, watching Bruno and wishing – in that respect at least –
that I could be more like him at times.

Eventually, he came back, with his tongue
hanging out of the side of his mouth, panting like mad, and lay on the grass
beside me. He had run himself to a standstill. I put my arm around him and gave
him a cuddle. Although Bruno could drive us all crazy on occasions with his
little eccentricities, his presence in the household had done my mother a world
of good, there was no denying that, and I was very grateful to him for it.

After a while, I clipped his lead back onto
his collar, and we began a slow walk back to the house. Sooner or later, I
knew, Bruno’s owner was going to sort her life out, and when that happened she
was going to want him back. I knew I would miss him when he went, and I
wondered what sort of effect the return to his rightful owner would have on
mum’s condition. Maybe we could get a dog of our own? Perhaps a puppy that mum
could raise during the day when she was in the house on her own? Perhaps if we
did that she wouldn’t need to move out to a home? Now Heather was living with
us too, she would have to be involved in the decision making process as well. I
wondered as we walked back to the house, if Bruno missed his owner, and if so,
would he miss us when he went back to her?

‘We’re back!’ I called, as we ambled through
the front door.

‘I’ve laid out the table,’ announced mum,
proudly.

Bruno and I went in the kitchen to look.
There were only the three of us going to eat that afternoon, but mum had laid
out four places – probably because our little kitchen table had four chairs
around it. Arranged neatly around each of the serving places were three spoons,
making twelve spoons in all, and no knives or forks.

‘That’s nice, mum,’ I said.

Mum beamed.

‘Mum’s finished laying the table,’ I said to
Heather.

‘Have you seen it?’ she replied.

‘Yep. I’ll change it when she’s not
looking,’ I said.

The dinner was almost ready, and Heather was
busying herself with the final preparations. Bruno sat in the kitchen, leaning
against the washing machine. It seemed as though his run in the park had tired
him out; he had his eyes closed, and he looked half asleep.

‘Bruno’s very sleepy,’ observed mum as she
came in and out of the kitchen. ‘What’s the matter with him?’

‘Nothing. He’s just tired from his run in
the park,’ I said. ‘Leave him while he’s quiet.’

She went back into the lounge to watch TV,
and Heather checked on the dinner. I smiled as I looked at Bruno. He really did
look to be asleep; sitting upright, leaning against the washing machine,
swaying very slightly to and fro with his eyes closed and breathing deeply, he
looked quite comical. We even started to whisper, so as not to wake him. Bruno
opened one eye and looked at me, and then closed it again: it was a long, slow,
winking movement, unhurried, almost in slow motion.

Strange dog
,
I thought to myself. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’ I asked Heather.

‘Just fix the table,’ she replied.

I took some knives and forks from the
cutlery drawer and cleared all the extra spoons away from the dining table.
Then I went into the lounge to sit with mum for a while until the dinner was
ready. It was an idyllic Sunday afternoon, and the smells of roast beef wafted
through the rooms of our small bungalow like a tantalising perfume.

Mum and I passed the time away in the lounge
watching nothing particular on TV until dinner was ready. Bruno continued to
doze in the kitchen, leaning against the washing machine.

Mum had been speaking to the little girl in
the radiator more and more lately, but when I questioned her about it her
responses were cheerful and upbeat. Her time spent with the little girl was
more pleasant these days, and they chatted together about all sorts of things,
mainly about events from mum’s childhood, and she usually seemed to come out of
these engagements feeling happy, although at times this was tinged with
melancholy.

What about that puppy idea? Could that work?
I didn’t want to send her away to a strange place where she wouldn’t know
anybody; could she stay at home if a puppy gave her something to look after and
focus on? But I had to face two facts. The first is that Alzheimer’s is a
degenerative disease which only goes one way – from bad to worse. I was kidding
myself if I thought I had the time and expertise to give mum the quality of
life at home she really deserved. The second was that she was in no position to
take on the responsibility of caring for a puppy. She couldn’t even look after
herself. A puppy’s welfare would have to be taken into consideration as well.

It’s easy to avoid a painful decision in
life if you can find an excuse to postpone it. We all do it, and I was no
exception. I was scrabbling around for ways to keep mum with me, and the puppy
idea was just another way of avoiding the inevitable; but in my heart I knew
that she had come to the end of the road at the bungalow. She didn’t even
recognise the house as hers any more, so leaving it would not be a great
hardship for her; she probably wouldn’t even miss it.

‘Dinner’s almost ready!’ called Heather from
the kitchen.

Mum and I followed that most wonderful of
British aromas, fresh roast beef, into the little kitchen. I noticed
immediately that Bruno had not roused from his half-unconscious state by the
washing machine, but continued to sway gently with the measured tempo of his
own breathing, his eyes still closed.

I shook my head when I saw him like that
again. Most dogs would surely have roused at the thought of some stray titbit
falling to the floor by now; maybe there was really something wrong with him?

Heather was dealing out portions of roasted
vegetables onto the three plates she had laid out along the work surface. Roast
potatoes, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, sage and onion stuffing, and perfect Yorkshire puddings were all evenly spread out, awaiting the hot, sliced beef.

‘Can you open the back door, please?’ asked
Heather. ‘It’s as hot as hell in here.’

The little kitchen always became
uncomfortably warm when the oven had been on for a while.

Bruno opened one eye carefully, and shut it
quickly again – I am certain of it.

‘Sure,’ I replied, and opened the kitchen
door which led to the conservatory. So that the conservatory windows didn’t
become wet with condensation, I went through and opened the back door which led
onto the small rear garden. There was now a clear run from the kitchen to the
garden.

They say that, to those involved, car
crashes can appear to take place in slow motion. Time itself seems to slow down
as the impact becomes inevitable, probably because the brain functions speed up
as nature’s way of giving us a final chance to react and survive. I remember
re-entering the kitchen that Sunday and the same thing happening to me.

As I put a foot inside, Bruno launched himself
from his supposed doze into the air, with the instant reactions of a gun-shot
sprinter. His two front paws hit the kitchen work surface and his head leaned
forward – all in perfect synchronicity. His jaws opened wide, and my heart
sank.

‘Aaarrrggghhhhh!’ screamed Heather, as the
dog’s famously satanic growl boomed around the little kitchen. He barged past
me, through the kitchen door, through the conservatory and out into the garden,
free and clear.

Heather, mum and I stood open-mouthed,
looking at the empty metal roasting pan, where only seconds ago our lovely
joint had been resting.