The Little Girl in the Radiator: Mum Alzheimer's & Me by Martin Slevin Page A

mum. ‘It isn’t
safe!’
    ‘Yes it is! It’s me !’ I shouted. ‘Of
course it’s safe!’
    It was no good. The idea that she shouldn’t
open the door had become fixed in her mind, and no amount of persuasion from me
was going to get her to see things any differently.
    ‘Is everything all right?’ I heard Mary’s
voice call from behind me.
    I stood up and turned around. She was
sitting in her wheelchair in the hallway of her bungalow – she’d obviously
heard the shouting.
    ‘Mum’s locked me out, Mary,’ I said, ‘and
she’s put the snip on the door.’
    ‘Oh dear,’ sighed Mary. ‘Shall I phone her?’
    ‘If you would, that would be great, thanks.’
    Mary picked up the telephone in her hall,
and rang mum’s number. Our telephone started to ring, I could hear it outside.
I was getting soaked.
    I saw mum’s shadowy figure move across the
frosted glass in the front door, and pick up the receiver.
    ‘Hello,’ said mum.
    ‘Rose, it’s Mary, next door.’
    ‘Oh, hello Mary,’ said mum. ‘How are you?’
    ‘I’m fine thanks, Rose. Can you come to the
front door, please?’
    ‘Okay, Mary,’ agreed mum.
    She put down the telephone and walked to her
front door, then just stood there.
    I waited in the rain motionless, and Mary
sat in her hallway with the telephone receiver halfway between its cradle and
her ear. No-one moved; the seconds ticked painfully away. The water was running
down my neck.
    ‘Rose…’ said Mary again, but mum wasn’t near
the telephone now.
    ‘Mum,’ I called through the letterbox again.
    ‘Yes!’ shouted mum.
    I looked through the letterbox: mum’s eyes
were staring out at me from the other side.
    ‘Mum, open the door!’ I said.
    ‘I can’t, it isn’t safe,’ replied mum.
    ‘Mum, go back to the telephone, Mary wants
to tell you something that’s important.’
    ‘Okay,’ said mum.
    Mum went back to the telephone and picked up
the receiver again.
    ‘Hello.’
    ‘Rose, it’s Mary,’ said my patient
neighbour, still sitting in her hallway. She was now getting wet too, as the
wind drove the rain in through her doorway.
    ‘Oh, hello Mary, how are you?’ asked mum
again.
    ‘Rose, I’m fine. Rose would you like to come
over for a cup of tea?’
    ‘That would be lovely,’ said mum. ‘When
shall I come over?’
    ‘Come right now,’ replied Mary.
    ‘Okay,’ said mum, and she put the telephone
down.
    I heard the snip on the Yale lock click
upwards, and the handle turn. The front door slowly opened. I stepped quickly
into the hall.
    ‘I’m bloody soaked!’ I said.
    ‘You should have an umbrella with you on a
day like this,’ replied mum. ‘I’m just going over to Mary’s for a cup of tea. I
won’t be long.’
    She wandered down the drive, and into Mary’s
house.
    I smiled at Mary, and she smiled back.
    ‘Come on in, Rose,’ I heard her say. ‘I’ll
put the kettle on.’
    I went into our house to dry off.
    * * * * *
    The following evening the same thing
happened.
    ‘Mum let me in!’ I shouted through the
letterbox.
    It wasn’t raining this time, but my sheer
frustration at having to repeat this scene again made it seem even worse. The déjà
vu of living with an Alzheimer’s patient drives you mad. You absolutely know something silly is going to occur, because a particular situation has happened
before, and history starts to slowly repeat itself. You are caught in the
middle of the drama, you know the way the scene ends, but you are quite
powerless to change the outcome.
    ‘There’s no-one here!’ shouted mum. I felt
like trying to smash the front door down with my head.
    ‘ You’re in there!’ I shouted, again through the letterbox, remembering my line.
    I say ‘line’, because it is like being an
actor in a play. The Alzheimer’s patient leads and directs the drama, and
everyone else plays their parts, reading from an unchanging script. You end up
thinking you’re living in some fifth dimension; it’s like the Twilight Zone ,