Mother's ruin
Jeremy Clarke
Afortnight ago my mother had a cancerous growth removed from her calf and a section of skin grafted over the hole. The doctor advised her not to put any weight on that leg for a while so she's been lying on the sofa with her leg up. My mother is living proof of the old adage that nurses make the worst patients.
Last week my boy's mother's partner fell off a ladder and broke his ankle. So he's been on the sofa with his leg up as well. As our nearest hospital is nearly 40 miles away, I try to kill two birds with one stone by arranging the times of their check-ups so that I can drive them there together. My car won't accommodate two people with a leg up very easily, but if Mike winds down the back window and rests his plaster cast on the sill, and if my mother slides the front seat right back and rests her bandaged leg on a cushion in the footwell, we can just about manage to fit everybody in.
At the hospital, the wheelchairs are stacked like supermarket trolleys and are released likewise by pound coins. Getting my passengers out of the car and sitting them in their respective wheelchairs, in a sloping, icy, overcrowded carpark, is a potentially dangerous and usually acutely painful business, during which I come in for a lot of criticism, much of it unwarranted, particularly that from my mother. Nor does the criticism cease as I wheel her the considerable distance from the carpark to the hospital entrance, or on the long journey from the hospital entrance to Reg Pratt ward. To make matters worse, she insists that the role of navigator should be performed by the person sitting in the chair rather than the person providing the motive force.
I drove them to the hospital again yesterday and I made an even worse hash than usual of getting them out of the car and into their wheelchairs. I hauled my mother out first and got her into the chair, but failed to apply the brake firmly enough. While I was dragging Mike off the back seat by his plaster cast, she started freewheeling down the hill. Unable to distinguish between propulsion by human agency and forward motion due solely to the laws of gravity, she was straining forwards, flinging criticism and advice behind her as she went. Mike and I watched her gathering speed with absorbed interest until she collided, outstretched foot first, with the rear of a Renault Megane Scenic.
That was the start of it, Relations deteriorated still further just before we headed for home, when I accidentally shut her bad leg in the car door. I was subjected to a stream of criticism all the way home. It was the usual character assassination starting with my indolence, continuing with my lack of personal hygiene and my atrocious table manners, touching briefly on my self-righteousness, and coming to rest, finally, as usual, on my profligacy with money. I was paid well enough, wasn't I? What did I do with it all? Was I gambling? How could I respect myself coming to her continuously for money like I do at my age? I was just like my father. He was never any good with money. . and so on and so forth for nearly 40 miles.
I pulled up outside my boy's mother's house, got Mike out of the car and helped him into the house. Then we drove on to our place and I helped my mother out of the car and supported her into the sittingroom, Feeling a pang or two of remorse (she's right, I'm hopeless with money), I said how sorry I was. Then [lit the fire for her and plumped up her cushions and helped her off with her shoe as gently as I could and fetched her a pouf to rest her leg on. Then I said, 'How about a nice cup of Rosie Lee, Mum?' and I went out to the kitchen and put the kettle on.
When I returned with a cup of tea each, there was a young man standing over her in a threatening manner. He was wearing a black bomber jacket, a black bobble hat and big black combat boots. My mother's face, in contrast, was chalk white. It was a good job she was already lying down because she said, 'This man says he is a bailiff acting for the county magistrate and he'd like to have a word with you. He says the door was open so he let himself in.' He turned round and showed me a laminated photograph of himself under a coat of arms. It was attached to his coat by a metal chain. My unctuous grin froze on my lips. Tea?' I said, offering him mine.
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