It must be strange when you get to the age where every day is pretty much the same as the other, with nothing to differentiate between them, apart from knowing that trips to the post office happen on a Monday, laundry gets collected on a Tuesday , the GP pops in on a Thursday morning, Ocado man on a Wednesday, there’s always fish on a Friday lunchtime, and so on. When your previously busy life starts to shrink, little things become big things to fill the gaps, gaps that were once full of books, newspapers, friends, gardening, driving to the shops, going to church once a week, and belonging to a community, to a village.
As time went on, downsizing became an inevitable and a necessary evil, and I doubt whether either my dad or stepmother would still be here if they hadn’t moved into the supported living apartment where they now live. They are safe, warm, in an easily maintained ground floor flat with alarms in each room, a walk in shower with seating, a study each and french windows that open out into the grounds. There is a warden on duty who keeps and eye on their comings and goings, and someone knocks on their front door each day to check all is well. Despite having been there recently during one of these visits when my dad slammed the door in the wardens face and shouted ” YES, I’M FINE” these calm and patient people persevere with smiles and good nature. There is a hot lunch provided so at the very least I know that they will have had something to eat each day, even though they spend a great deal of time complaining about how revolting the food is ( as they devour each last mouthful). The whole set up is perfectly nice, people are friendly, my stepmother visits the mobile hairdresser on a Friday and has coffee with the woman who lives upstairs afterwards.
However, it will come as no surprise to learn that the pair of them are just plain miserable and are going downhill with alarming speed. Though it wasn’t feasible in any way for them to stay where they were, at least there they were part of the community. Now my dad spends most of his time sitting at his desk looking out over the garden. This isn’t very different to what he used to do at their old house but at least then the garden was his. He has, by choice, and because he is very deaf, not made the effort to make any kind of connection with his fellow residents , and since writing off his car 18 months ago is dependant on taxis to get to and from the nearest shops, so spontaneity is not an option and the days when he could nip into town to get a paper are over. Unfortunately rather than make the most of things, he has taken the ” I hate it here, there’s no point in making any kind of effort and I may as well take everyone else down with me ” option, so their lives have become increasingly separate and solitary and emotionally barren.
My stepmother, an avid bookworm, no longer has good enough eye sight to read, and despite attempts to introduce her to the delights of kindle and audio books, is now without the ability to lose herself a good book, or to keep abreast with current events by reading the Times, that is still delivered each day for my father to hide behind in his study. Struggling with the onset of some kind of dementia, she has become a demon paperwork shifter and sorter. Every day she empties her office filing cabinet, spilling bank statements and receipts in her wake, laboriously poring over each piece of paper with a magnifying glass, poring over bank statements, laundry bills and letters from investment companies. Piles get piled into other piles , papers get put in the wrong order, things that were very much in order start to unravel and spiral out of control, the more she muddles things up the more confused she gets and the more convinced she becomes that someone else has been in and messed everything up, that someone is out to whisk all her money away from under her nose. We tidy up, put things away and show her that all is well, there is no need to worry, we go through the statements and reassure her that nothing is amiss. And yes, don’t worry, I know where your will is, what drawer it lives in, who to call when you have died. Because you have showed me a hundred times.
The phone calls, sometimes seven or eight in succession become more regular. The questions get more and more random. Did I steal all her clothes when I left to drive back to London? Why had I been taking all her pills? Did I empty the freezer of chicken before leaving? The lovely woman who drops in every day to help calls to say my stepmother is wearing her clothes inside out and back to front and says she wants to go home.
And now we get on to the funeral. Not her funeral but my dads funeral. This started a couple of months ago when we were having lunch. My stepmother suddenly said ” I have good news, I’ve found a good place to have tea after dads funeral”. Not only did she announce this to the whole of the dining room but also to my dad who though not in the prime of his life is certainly still alive. This has become a regular occurrence and has a large file to go with it . My dad sits through these conversations without saying a word, as she tells me ( and anyone else who happens to be listening) about the caterers she wants to use, the opera singer, the organist, the speakers, a jumble of contact numbers and names, none of whom my brother and I have ever heard of. I tried distracting her by asking her once what she wanted for her own funeral. ” Nothing” she said.
It is impossible to know what to do, other than what I am doing already, which is to drive down once a week, to listen and clear up the piles, hunt in the bins for missing fortunes, make sure there is food in the fridge and check that the bruises on my stepmothers legs are not getting worse ( she falls over constantly these days). The option of them moving up here to live with us is unthinkable on every level so I am destined to drive past Stonehenge on the six hour round trip on a regular basis for the foreseeable future. It’s just what you do isn’t it.
My dad shouts and tells me to ‘bugger off’ and then in the same breath says he loves the jar of marmalade I made for them. We remember people from the past and they ask me if I still see anyone from school days. My stepmother sends me to the bank to check her accounts and then gets me to look through the bin for her necklace as she swears the cleaner threw it in there. I make them tea and my dad has three slices of cake. She shows me her Will and I show her photos of the kids. My dad says everyone has gone mad with this Brexit nonsense and my stepmother starts on about funeral arrangements. I say ” Well, he’s still here actually” and give my dad another bit of cake.
When its time to leave I tell them to stay where they are as its chilly and drizzling. I get in the car and when I turn the corner there’s my dad who has hobbled out into the road with his walking stick in the rain to wave me off.
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