The Art of Forgetting

by McLaren, Julie

  She looks around the room, and they look at her, all three of them, as she crumples before their eyes. Laura thinks it is like watching a bouncy castle deflate when the party is over and the last few parents collect their children; that’s when they switch off the generator and it seems that Hilda’s generator has failed. Even though she recovers, apologises, smiles and assures them she is fine and they should take no notice of her, there is no question that it is time to leave. Even though there are as many unanswered questions now as there had been before, possibly more, they can see they have troubled this broken woman enough.

  “Thank you so much for talking to us,” says Laura, putting her arm around Hilda’s shoulder to give her a brief hug and feeling the bones, hard and knobbly through her cardigan. “Now, if Mum mentions Linda, at least we will know who she is talking about. She’s increasingly living in the past, but it’s part of her life she never talked about before and we are so grateful to you, and so sorry for upsetting you.”

  Outside, they say goodbye to Harry, who is looking at Hilda’s garden as if it has grown into a jungle during the hour or so since they arrived, and walk back to the car without a word. They are almost halfway home before Laura breaks the silence.

  “What on earth was she thinking?” she says.

  “Who?”

  “Mum, of course! She must have known who the viper was, and she didn’t say a word - not until it was too late, anyway. How could she sit there with that poor woman and pretend she had no idea what it was all about?”

  “I don’t know,” says Kelly with a sigh. “It looks like there is even more to all this than we thought.”

  Suddenly, Laura has a horrible sensation of things rushing away out of her control. As if she is standing on a bridge, looking down at a flood-swollen river and thinking how easy it would be to fall in. How easy to be swept along like a snapped-off branch, twisting and turning in the currents before the water pulls you under once and for all. She can feel her heart beating faster than usual, and she feels a little sick. This was quite probably a murder, and her mother had known about it for such a long time before telling anyone that the trail had gone cold. Suppose it was the man on the train and he had carried on preying on young girls? Suppose he was a rapist, or had even killed again? It would all be her mother’s fault. And yet there is Hilda, whose life had effectively ended on that day all those years ago, refusing to hate her. What would she feel like in her position? What are they doing, turning over all these stones?

  “You OK?” says Kelly, crunching the gears and swearing at the car as it struggles up an incline.

  “Not really. I’m beginning to think this is all a mistake. Look what we just did to that poor woman. She’s probably still crying now, and to what purpose? Just so we could satisfy our idle curiosity. I think we have to stop it straight away, before we do any more damage.”

  Naturally, Kelly does not agree, and they arrive at Laura’s house with no resolution. Kelly thinks they should at least try to find out whether the man is still alive, but cannot articulate why. Neither can she give any coherent idea about what they would do with the information if they managed to obtain it. Laura has to end the conversation there with one of her characteristically cheery subject changes so they can part without falling out.

  Chapter 4

  It is Friday, and Laura’s day stretches out in front of her. The kids are in school, the house is tidy enough and she knows she has no excuse. She has to both visit her mother and spend some time dealing with the chaos in her house – their house, the house she grew up in, to which she has always loved to return but which now fills her with dread. How pleasant it had been when she first married, to take Patrick there. To her haven, where everything was layered with memories and there were bits and pieces of her past all around, embedded in the fabric of the place. A photograph of her and some friends on a school trip in a ‘friends forever’ photo frame, or a psychology book on a shelf. She would feel like a strange hybrid of adult and child; grown up enough to have a life of her own but anchored, rooted here in this place that signified warmth, protection and love. It made her feel lucky and safe.

  She decides to spend a couple of hours at the house first, to get it over with. She pulls up outside and sits there for a minute, apparently looking at her phone but actually steeling herself to unlock the door and go in to face the sadness alone. From the outside there is little to indicate the state of the interior and it looks as charming as ever. A white-painted cottage with no front garden but quite a lot of land at the back, which her parents had used to extend the property twice during her childhood. It has low beams in places, but is generally bright and quite modern, as her father had been a practical man who liked nothing better than to take a few days’ leave and transform a room.

  Once inside, she carries on the apparently endless task of sorting the carrier bags in her mother’s bedroom. Her strategy now is to empty the contents onto the bed and sort into three piles: rubbish, recycle and keep. This is better, as the first two categories are fairly simple and involve little decision making and the last comprises everything else. In that way, anything she isn’t sure about can be put to one side for Kelly or Robin to examine, and she does not have to agonise over some piece of worthless glassware that may have been a present from someone important without her knowing. Maybe Mum will be well enough to return home and it will be important to have familiar things all around her, even if they do end up in different places.

  Laura fills three black bin bags in an hour and a half and puts the ‘keep’ pile into a cardboard box. She is hungry and grubby. She longs to return home for a shower and something to eat in the calm order of her own kitchen, but she knows that she will miss seeing Mum if she does that. By the time she has driven home, eaten and showered it will be nearly time to picks up the kids, so she washes her face and hands in the bathroom and leaves. For some reason she always feels guilty when leaving the house, and hopes the neighbours will not see her as she loads the bin bags into the car. They might think she is taking away all her mother’s precious things, or they might want to talk to her about what is going to happen next. Lydia next door has called on a number of occasions with unsolicited advice about the need to keep her mother in residential care, and she certainly doesn’t want that conversation again.

  It is only a short drive to The Willows. They were lucky to find somewhere that would take her mother at such short notice, when everything fell apart and Lydia was threatening all sorts. It also means the assessment can continue without Mum being admitted to hospital, which is the only logical alternative. Kelly has no space, Robin is too far away and Mum has developed a strong and irrational dislike of Patrick in recent months. That means he has to avoid speaking to her or sitting anywhere near her to prevent her becoming agitated. Clearly she could not live with them under those circumstances.

  There is a parking space at the front so Laura takes it and rings the front doorbell, but is not buzzed through as usual. Instead, the door is opened by Mrs Benjamin the home manager, a statuesque woman with bright red winged spectacles and bleached blonde hair swept up and piled on top of her head. The combined effect of these fashion choices is to give her the appearance of a fierce secretary from a 1960s sitcom. They had all joked about it after they first met her, but something in her expression tells Laura there will be no laughter today.

  “Ah, Mrs Rowan, please come in. I was about to call you. Would you mind coming into my office?”

  For a fleeting moment, Laura wonders if she could actually refuse this invitation. If she says “No, I’m sorry, I’ve just remembered I’ve got to be somewhere else,” will it all go away? Will whatever it is that has pulled Mrs Benjamin’s mouth down at the sides, deepened the lines that run from there to points either side of her chin, be forgotten by the next time she comes? But no, the question is rhetorical anyway, as they are in the office before Laura can do anything other than smile nervously. She is invited to sit down.

  “I’m af
raid there has been an incident this morning,” says Mrs Benjamin. She removes her glasses and polishes them vigorously for a while, as if this action will distract them both from what she is about to say. Laura watches as she holds them up for scrutiny before replacing them on her nose. She waits, braced for whatever it is; leans forward and grips the handle of her bag tighter. For God’s sake, woman, spit it out!

  “As I say, there was an incident involving your mother. She became agitated, angry, with another resident – we haven’t yet been able to establish what triggered it – and there was some physical contact. Don’t worry, your mother wasn’t hurt, but I’m afraid she went outside during the commotion that followed and somehow managed to leave the premises. We will conduct a full investigation, obviously, but ...”

  “Hang on a minute,” says Laura. “You mean she was outside, on the road? How long was she out there – or is she even back?”

  Panic sweeps over her. The Willows is on the edge of a village, with a drive that leads off a country lane. There is no footpath on that side of the road and it can be quite busy, especially during the morning and evening rush hours and the school run. Her mother would have known the village in the old days, before all this started, as there is a good food pub in the centre and they ate there from time to time. However, Laura doubts she would have a clue where she was if she went outside now.

  “Yes, don’t worry, we found her very quickly. She had crossed the road and was walking back into the village, so there was no harm done. But I’m afraid it has highlighted a problem we were already beginning to see.” She pauses and Laura waits for her to take off her glasses and polish them again, but she doesn’t. She picks up a pen from the desk in front of her instead.

  “You can probably guess what I’m about to say,” says Mrs Benjamin, but Laura does not feel inclined to fill in the gaps for her and says nothing. She watches as she puts down the pen, sits back in her chair and folds her arms.

  “When we agreed to take your mother – Judy – we understood that it would be for a short time, to give you the space to sort out her house and put some support into place. I think we were talking about two or three weeks at the time. You also told us that she was confused and forgetful but mostly quite calm. I know it has proved to be a bigger task than you thought, and we were happy to be flexible about continuing the arrangement, but I’m afraid we have been seeing a different Judy in the last couple of weeks. She is becoming quite difficult to manage at times and we are not a dementia specialist home, as I told you when you first approached us. I’m sorry, and I know it wouldn’t be ideal for your mother to have to move twice, but I’m afraid we can’t meet her needs or guarantee her safety, and I would like you to make arrangements to move her as soon as possible. I really am sorry.”

  There doesn’t seem to be much more to say. Laura feels that she should be angrier. She can already hear the criticism in Kelly’s voice, questioning her passive acceptance of all this, but really she knows Mrs Benjamin is right. They haven’t made anything like the headway with the house that they had first envisaged, that day a few weeks back at the emergency meeting. It had been a couple of days after the Lydia incident and they had all been fired with, well, something like enthusiasm although that did not seem like an appropriate word. It was that feeling that follows the taking of a difficult decision when it cannot be avoided any longer. Everyone was going to help. They would sort out the house, contact the agencies, arrange some kind of a rota and it would all be resolved in a couple of weeks.

  “No! It can’t be that long!” says Kelly, when Laura phones her that evening. But Laura has the invoice to prove it and they spend a few minutes trying to work out where the time has gone. Nearly five weeks since the day they collected their mother from her house, took her out for lunch and tried to explain that she was to have a couple of weeks away from home, just for a little rest.

  “I don’t need a rest,” she’d said, “and I’m perfectly capable of resting at home if I did.”

  It was ironic that it happened to be a good day. Mum had been both lucid and bright and appeared to understand completely what they were saying. Only a couple of days before, she had been so quiet and withdrawn that they had worried about depression on top of everything else, and before that she had been confused and forgetful. But that was just how it was now. It was impossible to predict how she would be from one day to the next.

  Lovely though it was to see their mother in such good form, not her old self of course but at least recognisably Mum, this had posed a problem. She was unlikely to accept the prospect of being left at The Willows, however attractive the grounds were, however friendly and welcoming the staff appeared. There was no hiding the fact that it was an old people’s home or that she would be a good ten years younger than most of the other residents. They could call it a rest home; they could call it anything they liked, but today, with most of her faculties lined up and functioning quite well, she would know what it was.

  They had finished their meals without further mention of The Willows then Mum had risen to go to the toilet. It seemed fine to let her go on her own today, as the door to the washrooms led straight off the lounge bar where they were sitting and she was unlikely to get lost. They seized the opportunity.

  “What are we going to do? She’s never going to agree to it!”

  “I haven’t a clue,” said Laura. “Isn’t it just typical that she’s having such a good day today? Shall we phone The Willows and ask if we can put it off?”

  They had more or less decided on that course of action and were discussing the logistics of fitting a second attempt around Kelly’s teaching commitments, when a loud ringing sound interrupted their conversation. There were only a few other people in the lounge and they looked up as one, trying to decide if they needed to leave. Was this a fire alarm?

  The bar itself had been deserted until that point but then the landlady, who looked no older than Kelly, appeared.

  “Don’t worry, someone’s opened the emergency exit and set off the burglar alarm,” she shouted. “We’ll have it sorted in … ah, there you go, it’s off. Sorry about that!”

  Laura and Kelly looked at each other, realisation dawning simultaneously. Somebody had opened the emergency exit and it was pretty obvious who that somebody would be.

  “Quick, you go and look for her and I’ll pay,” said Laura, knowing that Kelly was unlikely to have enough cash on her. Speed was of the essence now.

  Grim-faced, Kelly grabbed her bag and jacket and hurried off to check the toilet, in the forlorn hope that their mother was not the cause of all this trouble, whilst Laura jigged about at the bar, trying to attract the landlady’s attention. Laura could just see her in the other bar chatting to a man; she was leaning on one elbow and tossing her hair when she laughed.

  “Excuse me!” Laura called, but her voice sounded silly and squeaky. She glanced over her shoulder to see if the other customers were looking at her.

  “Haven’t you paid yet?” asked Kelly, appearing from the door to the toilets. “She’s not in there. She must’ve gone through the emergency exit. Try and hurry up can you?”

  She went out, rattling the latch as she pulled the door shut, then Laura heard her in the public bar.

  “My sister’s waiting to pay. Sorry, but we’re in a rush.”

  It only took a few minutes to find their mother. Kelly was already guiding her to the car by the time Laura emerged, her face red and her neck blotchy with the stress of it all. How could they be so stupid? They had resolved to ensure someone always accompanied her to the toilet weeks ago, when she had become confused in a large food pub and ended up behind the bar. She had seemed so well today and it was such a simple thing, to go through two doors, to come out again and find the door clearly marked ‘Lounge Bar.’

  So they hadn’t put it off after all. Mum’s good day had proved to be short-lived and now she was very quiet. Laura guessed that part of her suspected something was happening and this was further evidence, b
ut there was no way of knowing for sure. Even at the start, when the forgetfulness was increasing and she had started to repeat herself two or three times within the course of an afternoon, her mother had never confessed to any concern. If she had been aware, she certainly wasn’t admitting it to anyone else.

  By the time they left The Willows, Laura and Kelly were both in tears.

  “The look on her face,” said Kelly, as they sat in the car, neither of them able to consider driving for the moment.

  “I know, and when she said she’d be good now. What is she thinking about us? Does she think she’s being punished?”

  And now they are going to have to go through it all again. Another round of visiting care homes. Mentally erasing them from the list if the smell of urine starts at the front door. Peeking into communal rooms and trying to imagine their mother sitting there and staring at the television with all the others, or playing dominoes or knitting. It had been hard enough the first time, when they were only looking for respite, but now the prospect of settling her back into her home seems to be receding further by the day.

  There isn’t a lot more to say and naturally Laura agrees to call Robin. Kelly is teaching tomorrow and has work to do so she will go along with whatever they decide. Then Patrick comes home and she ushers him into the kitchen where the children won’t hear them.

  “It’s Mum,” she says, unable to stop her chin wobbling and her eyes filling with tears. She wishes Patrick would put his laptop bag on the worktop and hold out his arms to give her a hug, but of course he doesn’t. Instead, he stands there, waiting for her to continue, with nothing more than a faintly quizzical raised eyebrow to show he has even registered what she has said.