Mother nearly sets the house on fire

It is essential Mother doesn’t feel like a lodger in our home if this experiment in our family life is to work. According to my wife, she must have full citizenship, not just a second rate settled status.

‘She has to feel this home is as much hers as ours. We must encourage her to have her friends around. Have parties. Be herself’

‘What about sleep overs?’ says my Son.

‘Them, too,’ says Wife refusing to rise to his bait, while I imagine half a dozen elderly people here for a sleep over. Would they wrapped argue over which Cary Grant movie to watch and stay up all night wrapped in their sleeping bags like teenagers?

Should we get an online booking system?

‘We need an online booking system to manage this new situation. I’ve got a few parties booked over Christmas and we don’t want diary conflicts,’ says my Daughter, who’s on a flying visit from University.’

‘Which parties? Where?’ I ask.

‘Here. Why else would I be suggesting a family booking system?’ says my Daughter, looking at me as if I’m an inferior species.

‘Try to keep up,’ says my Son. 

Later that week, Mother tells me that two of her former neighbours, who now live in South Africa, are coming at the weekend to see her.

‘Are they staying with us?’ I ask hesitantly.

‘If they were staying, I would have asked your wife first. Just because I’m old doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten my manners,’ she snaps. ‘It’s just lunch.’

‘Would you like me to do anything to help?’

She wants us out of the house

‘Yes. Make sure everyone’s out by 12.30. I don’t want you fussing around me or the boy slumming in front of the TV playing one of his ghastly video games. Just buy me some lemons and makes sure there’s a full bottle of gin in the cupboard.’

It is clear Mother has embraced Wife’s philosophy of ‘Mi casa, su casa’. In fact, it feels like she’s taking it one step further. Not only has she invited her friends into our home but she’s also throwing us out. This feels more ‘Mid Witch Cuckoo’ than ‘Su Casa’. I wonder how this will go down with my Wife?

‘Perfect,’ she says. ‘This is just how it should be. She wants to be in control of her party and to have some privacy. You can take me out for lunch.’

There’ll be no slobbery this Sunday

‘What about me?’ says my Son. His usual Saturday morning routine of slobbing around on the games console is in tatters.

‘You’ll have to be up and dressed before mid-day for once. It’s nothing to be scared of,’ replies my Wife.  I can’t resist chipping in. 

‘Daddy will be there for you through this trauma. Just like we were when the internet went down for two hours last week and those other big turning points in your life.’

Boomer is the biggest insult

‘Boomers,’ he sneers and walks out.

Wife and I arrive back at teatime to find Mother triumphant from her lunch party. Three hours of uninterrupted, good old fashioned gossip about the old days, the old neighbours and my old man. What’s not to like?

‘They loved your house, by the way. They think you’ve got marvellous taste and soft furnishings.’

I don’t need to turn around to know Mother is talking to my Wife not me.

‘They loved the new wood fire, especially. In South Africa they only need fires to barbecue on,’ she laughs.

‘Wood fire?’ says Wife alarmed.

‘Yes. I put some logs on the fire in case it went out. Such a wonderful, woody smell, isn’t it?’

Mother has been building a funeral pyre

Our fire isn’t a real. It’s a ‘Wood Burner Gas Fire with Realistic Flame Effect’. Unfortunately, it looks so real Mother has been laying wood logs onto it, almost as if she wants to build her own funeral pyre. The smell Mother is referring to is actually smouldering plastic. God knows what might have happened if the fire hadn’t been made out of fire retardant materials.

Later, with Mother upstairs exhausted with fun, my Wife sweeps up the ashes.

‘Thank God for EU safety standards. They could have been burnt alive. You must warn her about not doing it again.’

Mother’s sister died of severe burns after candles set her night gown alight. Telling her she’s almost burnt our house down will remind her of that. It’s going to make her feel foolish, too. Is that helpful? Will that stop her making the same mistake again or just humiliate her?  My son, who has changed back into his pyjamas, is booting up the PS4. He pipes up.

‘Shall I have a chat with her instead of Dad? It’s easier for me to tell her she’s a silly old bat than you and I won’t make it sound like a lecture.’

There are only a few moments when you realise what a great parent you’ve been. This is one of them.

‘Perfect,’ I say. ‘Deal.’

‘Coward,’ says Wife, as I rush upstairs.

‘Just going to check if the insurance policy,’ I say. ‘Want to see if we’re covered for arson by elderly relatives.’

Burning the evidence

Mother is sitting in the window leafing intently through a stack of loose leafed old photographs. She studies the picture on the front and then slowly turns it over to check the back like an archeologist gently handling an ancient artifact for clues. 

Her chair has high wooden armrests and a deep seat so the chair seems to swallow her. The light on her white hair looks ethereal and she’s so absorbed it takes a while time for her to realize I am in the doorway. When she does she snaps.

‘Don’t you know it’s rude not to knock before you come into someone’s bedroom? I thought I’d taught you better than that.’

‘You did. But I knocked three times and decided I couldn’t wait any longer.’

‘You’re as impatient as your brother,’ she sighs. ‘And as rude.’

Being as rude as my brother is as bad as it can get. It puts me at the top of the table in the League of Rudeness & Poor Manners alongside Prince Philip and Frankie Boyle. But she’s right. I shouldn’t have snuck in and spied on her.

‘Would you like me to get an album for those photographs?’ I ask shifting into compliant, helpful mode.

‘There’s none left,’ she says portentously.

This isn’t an answer to my question so I am confused. Is this a line from ‘Waiting for Godot’? Or the moment dementia took control?

 ‘Destroyed them all,’ she says.  

Acting runs in Mother’s family. Her sister was particularly successful at ‘treading the boards’, as my father called it. Mother is not beyond occasionally hamming things up, especially if she’s feeling bored or mischievous.

‘What are you talking about?’ I ask, gently.

She reminds me of one day in the early eighties when my brother came back from University and burnt all the photographs of us. He made a funeral pyre of them outside the garage while my parents were asleep. Unusually for him, he did a thorough job and set light to the negatives, too. I call him up to see if he remembers. He does, proudly.

‘Why did you do it?’ I ask. 

‘Self preservation.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘From five to fifteen Mother cut our hair,’ he says. ‘Only she wasn’t Vidal Sassoon. Bowl haircuts. In every photo.’

Embarrassed memories begin to stir. I remember a picture of my brother and me in pajamas standing next to our beds. I am holding our cat against my chest and my brother is pulling on its tail, one eye red from the camera’s flash. Mother is standing behind us ruffling our bowl haircuts. She’s smiling, proud of us and, perhaps, even of her hair handiwork.

‘Christ, she made us look like medieval monks,’ he says. ‘If those photos had got into the wrong hands, we’d have been ruined. Girl friends lost. Friends shamed. They were so embarrassing they could have even ruined careers. I did us both a favour.’

On the book shelf opposite her bed, there’s a photo of my god father, whisky glass in hand talking to my god mother who married an Argentine diplomat and was never short of corned beef during the Second World War. I wonder why she has chosen this photo to be the last thing she sees before she goes to sleep? I wonder if she remembers the picture of me and my brother and the cat having his tail pulled, if that’s what he was doing? I am about to ask her about all these things but then I hesitate and decide that some stones are best left unturned, some evidence best left destroyed.

Calls from beyond the grave

Photo by Mitja Juraja on Pexels.com

Mother is having a problem with her new phone or rather with the people who are calling her on it.  She thinks she’s the victim of a sustained hoax.

‘Ever since I moved in with you, the only people who call me talk in strange foreign accents. I don’t understand a word they say.’

‘It’s your long-lost Irish cousins calling. Their Irish brogue is confusing you,’ I say.

‘Don’t be stupid, darling. They’re all dead or beyond caring about me,’ she replies contemptuously. 

I can’t work out why anyone calling Mother would pretend to be foreign unless RADA have introduced a new course called ‘English with a Funny Foreign Accent’ and mischievous trainee actors are rehearsing on her. Perhaps she has accidentally agreed to be an oral examiner for the course?

 ‘It’s that new phone you put in my room. It doesn’t work. I told you we should have kept the old one in my flat’ she says.

The old one was 30 years old and its twisted wires a death trap according to the electrician. But rather than debate this again, I promise to launch an investigation into the problem. Investigations are my new knee jerk response to Mother’s complaints, which are increasing in number and complexity since she moved in. Like a politician, I know that launching an investigation will allow me to kick the can down the road until the problem disappears or is forgotten.  

 ‘It’s probably the doctor calling her about an appointment,’ says my Wife, later that day.

‘Or Extinction Rebellion threatening her to turn her electric fan heater off,’ says my Son. 

‘No. I think it might actually be the new BT Rotary phone I bought her. The reviews on Amazon weren’t very good,’ I say sheepishly.

‘Have you ruled out demonic possession?’ says my Son.

‘Of Granny?’

‘No. The phone. In horror movies spirits or demons use phones to communicate from beyond the grave with the living.’

‘I’d like to reassure the people of Midsomer that I have ruled demonic activity from my investigation,’ I say in my best DCI Burnaby impersonation.

This aimless boyish banter is annoying my Wife.

‘Do you mean to say that you bought her a duff phone even though you’ve just splashed out on a subscription to ‘Which?’ magazine?’ 

‘It was only £25. That’s hardly splashing out.’ 

‘But you’ve just admitted the reviews were poor. What’s the point of subscribing to ‘Which’ magazine if you then ignore the reviews?’

Pointless subscriptions are one of my Wife’s hobby horses. Impractical husbands are another. Fearing that she may be about to turn the spotlight on him, my Son puts in his earplugs and exits the conversation.  I am wondering if I can escape, too. Preferably with my dignity intact, like the retreat Dunkirk, when Mother appears in the kitchen doorway to save me.  

‘The phone’s sorted,’ she says triumphantly. ‘I listened to the ansaphone. There were five messages on it from Specsavers about my appointment for a hearing test. They’re so diligent aren’t they?’ 

‘So the phone works?’ I ask.

‘Of course, I just needed to turn the volume up. It’s much better than the old one at the flat. Actually, it reminds me of the one your father and I had in our first flat all those years ago.’ 

Mother has handed me the Dunkirk miracle I was hoping for. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Wife reaching for a large frying pan. For a moment, I am not quite sure what she is going to do with it. 

‘Anyone fancy an omelette for supper?’ she asks sweetly.