‘Oh, that will be absolutely lovely.’
I don’t want tea but she hates leaving and I’ve discovered it helps her to slow down her departure. Make her feel as if she isn’t a woman racing out the door for freedom – a concept she hates – but merely a woman who is taking a little normal ‘me’ time while her daughter visits her father.
She is, I think, trying so hard not to think about the reality of their situation, even if she handles the logistics of it all so well.
‘I’ll make a cup for your father too,’ she says cheerfully. ‘Just in the last few days, his swallow isn’t so good so we’ll just go very slowly with the little sippy cup.’
I should have made the tea and not Mum, I thought as I sit down beside Dad and begin to talk to him. It was, as ever, aone-way conversation, but I have learned to be good at it because Mum has taught me.
Con still finds it hard to sit and talk to Dad, because he needs that response. But Scarlett, Maura and I are better.
‘Talk to him as if he’s still listening to every word you say,’ Mum had said fiercely in the beginning. ‘Maybe he can hear you, maybe he can’t move anything but he will find comfort in listening to us and we will be there.’
I tell him about my day, about how that naughty little Teddy had got into the shoes and had decided that several of mine were much better off in her room. She’d painted quite a few of them, both the inside and the outside with nail varnish. It’s Lexi’s nail varnish and she’s supposed to keep it up on a high shelf away from Teddy’s reaching arms. The colours, because they’re Lexi’s, are all terribly delicate and pretty, but still there are quite a few pairs of shoes that will never be worn again. The nail varnish did not come off with remover or any sort of kitchen cleaner.
‘Look what she did,’ Lexi said, furious at her things being purloined.
I tell this story, then move on to Dan and me piecemeal painting the upstairs of our new house, which my father had not seen and probably never would.
Dan and I are almost back to where we were before Elisa returned to Ireland but not quite. She’s still here, WhatsApping him and Lexi, avoiding me and with Lexi at least, I have to pretend that this is all right.
With Dan, it’s between us, a subtle wall that exists because I don’t trust Elisa and he feels he must let her into our daughter’s life. Yet I have moved a millimetre away from my rage against Elisa. My children are all alive. Healthy. In the grand scheme of things, as per my Thursday night support group, I can live with Elisa’s presence.
‘Teddy’s bedroom is closest to ours and I have managed to paint the walls a subtle pale pink, and not the Peppa Pig colour she wanted, and put up very nice curtains. She still has one of those little princess net yokes over the bed. Remember it, Dad? She loves that thing. It’s a complete nightmare because if she wriggles up in the night the whole contraption is in danger of falling down. I’m going to try and move it back a bit so it’s less over the bed and more of a decoration that shouldn’t be pulled around.
‘Anyhow, my shoes were all over the bed and the smell of nail varnish was unbelievable. And poor Angela who minds them for me in the afternoon, well, she was in bits at this having happened on her watch. As if she could stop Teddy when the child moves at the speed of light. If you take your eye off her for a minute, she’s into some mischief. Angela kept apologising: to me, to Lexi, then to me some more. Then she kept saying, “Teddy, I thought you were being good having a little rest with your teddies where I left you.” And you know me, Dad?’ I say. ‘Well, I laughed, I can’t help it, laughing gets me into trouble in the worst situations. So then Teddy laughs and Lexi’s not impressed and Angela finally laughs and I have to warn Teddy that nail varnish is for big girls.’
Mum arrives with tea in an ordinary cup for me and in what looks like a child’s cup, but is really a special invalid’s cup for my father. She brings it over to him and carefully helps him to some tea.
Another sight that makes me want to cry: he’s young, he shouldn’t be in a wheelchair being fed, staring into the great unknown.
‘This hand cream is lovely, Mum,’ I say, as I open the tube and take a sniff.
‘There’s lavender in it,’ she says. ‘I love lavender. I know you’re not such a big fan of it, Lorcan,’ she says lovingly to her husband. ‘But it’s so calming.’
Dad doesn’t react either way.
Can he smell the lavender, can he hear my voice?
It doesn’t matter. He will be talked to and have his hands stroked and caressed as I rub the cream into his skin.
‘You go and have a rest now, Mum,’ I say. ‘I’m going to sit here for an hour and you just lie down on your bed.’
‘I have things to do, pet,’ she says.
‘No, I’m here for the morning. You’re going to lie down and then I’m going to make sure the baby monitor is turned on and I’m going into the kitchen to do some cooking. Because what’s the use of having a trained chef for a daughter if you don’t get a bit of good out of her?’
For a moment, I think I see tears glitter at the corners of my mother’s eyes, but I must be mistaken because Mum doesn’t cry, not anymore, not since the early days in hospital. Which is unnatural. Maura, Scarlett and I all agree on this.
‘You’re dead right,’ she says with unnatural brightness, ‘what’s the use of having this fabulous chef if I don’t get the use out of her. I’ll go up and have a little lie down, sweetie, but I won’t be that long.’ Smiling brightly, she twirls and is gone.
No, I thought, she couldn’t be crying.
An hour and a half later, with the ingredients I’ve brought, I have twelve shepherd’s pies made and in the oven, all in separate little tinfoil containers, so that they can be defrosted. A single portion each. I was making chicken soup now as well as a lamb stew. The freezer will be full, even if I can do nothing else.
‘Women’s work,’ says Eddie, appearing in the doorway and sniffing the air. ‘Any tea and biscuits going?’
‘Sure, Eddie,’ I say cheerfully, ‘as long as you sit with Dad.’
