Mum took an awfully long time to die, and she made a real mess of it there was nothing peaceful or dignified about the whole business. Her eyes were the only thing that stood out. The closer we got to the inevitable, the darker those eyes became. On the very last night well, they were almost velvety black, as if she could see absolutely everything and understand the lot. Or maybe it was just the skin on her face getting paler by the hour.
One summers end, Id brought her back from the allotment, and since it was late, I stayed the night. Somewhere in the small hours on her way to the loo, she fell and, as we later found out, broke her hip. For someone her age, thats effectively the curtain call.
After that, everything unravelled at breakneck speed: ambulance A&E operation then a swift ten days in hospital.
On the cab ride there, I suddenly remembered staying the night with my old nursery teacher, Mrs Anne Peters, when Dad was killed. Hed taken his rickety Triumph out at night and lost a battle with a lorry on the A3. Mum was twenty-eight, I was three. She didnt want to traumatise me, so she spirited me away for the funeral and told me Dad had gone on a work trip. She never remarried, convinced no one else could possibly be a real father to me.
When Mum was finally discharged, I had to pack in my job to care for her. We couldnt afford a carer wed scraped together every penny to help my younger son buy his first flat.
So I moved in with Mum, to her tidy one-bedroom palace, where I changed her nappies and washed and fed her three, sometimes six, times a day. She never once complained. She just endured it all and made these funny little oohs! like a baby if I rolled her over too clumsily, and then shed whisper, Never mind, love. Its all right truly, it is.
I honestly hadnt realised just how weak-stomached I could be. At night, Id lie on the rickety old sofa next to her bed and quietly sob from sheer desperation. It would be very poetic to claim I was crying solely for her, but in truth, I pitied myself even more.
No help was forthcoming: both my lads were up to their necks in work and family, and my wife Well, she said, Shes your mum, not mine. Shes just another old lady to me. Utter tact.
Oddly enough, that took me back to when I first brought my fiancée, Claire, home to meet Mum. Mum was perfectly pleasant all evening, but afterwards, when I looked at her expectantly, she just shrugged and said, Dont ask me, dear, something feels off But its your business, not mine. Youre marrying her, after all. Despite that, Mum always treated Claire beautifully.
Now, like in the old days, it was just Mum and me again just the two of us, chatting away late into those darkening evenings once the lights were off. She would reminisce about Grandma and Granddad, about the time the Germans occupied their village and how she and her older sister would hide behind the garden fence, peeking at these well-fed strangers laughing loudly and playing harmonicas.
She talked about Dad, whom I barely remembered. Or maybe didnt remember at all Just a shadow. A big man, scratchy-cheeked, who smelled horribly of tobacco, scooping me up when he got home and showering me with kisses crooning, My boy, my lad
But then Mum got worse, and our late-night conversations faded away. I was convinced that it was my fault, that my cooking was just dreadful. So, I started ordering food from the posh local takeaway, everything piping hot and immaculately packaged. When I asked her if it was any better, shed shake her head listlessly and say, Youve become quite the chef, darling, but barely touched a bite.
On the very last night she spent at home, she started reminiscing about the time biros first appeared in our town. I was in year three, all the rage in the playground. Lena Ponsonbys dad somehow got his hands on one. Oh, it was dazzling some sort of scientific miracle, that pen! Naturally, I pinched it. I rushed home, waving the treasure under Mum’s nose. As soon as she found out where it had come from, she spanked me properly, with a belt then marched me, herself, and the pen round to the Ponsonbys to restore it to its rightful owner.
I could hardly recall the whole debacle, but Mum, even now, started apologising, asking for forgiveness for hitting me and explaining shed only been terrified Id turn out a thief.
There I was, stroking her cheek, burning with embarrassment, even though as it turned out one can not become a criminal by coveting a biro.
Towards dawn, when things took a real nosedive, and the ambulance came for her, she surfaced for a second from the haze, grabbed my hand, and said, Oh love, howll you manage here without me? Youre still so young and utterly hopeless.
Mum missed her eighty-ninth birthday by six weeks. The day after she died, I turned sixty-four.
