How Many Camels Are There in Holland?: Dementia, Ma and Me. Phyllida Law
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They are fine about missing the read-through. I’m not the only one, but I shall be three days late for rehearsal. Make-up and Wardrobe will ring me here but I’m not on camera till Monday next, which gives me a bit of breathing space. Mildew will have to take me through lines on the plane. It seems most of my stuff will be shot in one week because of the location. Brilliant. I could be back up here in less than two weeks. Then I want to move Ma downstairs to Uncle A’s room. Much easier for her and a straight run to the loo. I will get rid of the old sad wardrobe, the bed and that distressing chest of drawers. I’ll have to borrow the blue van. The room will need repainting. Magnolia? Boring? Different curtains and decent lampshades. Wish I could start now but that would be rude.
Sleepless night. I’d forgotten about the car. Mother can’t and shouldn’t drive it. There’s still a rusting scrape on the offside door. She was driving home one evening and, thinking the lighthouse was an oncoming car, she pulled over and fell into a ditch. I decided to drive it back to London and get rid of my mine. Now, at breakfast, Mildew points out that I’ll need the car when I get back here. CURSES.
Passed the Glory Hole on my way into Dunoon and, seeing it was open, wandered in to snoop and enquire about what they think they might take from the pile of stuff we’ll need to shift. Anyway, there was Mrs Beggs, the good and glorious.
I think it was the minister’s wife who told me about Mrs Beggs (the good and glorious). Apparently, she ‘looks after people’, and when I timidly sketched out my situation, she understood immediately and offered nights for the week I’ll be away. I didn’t ask, she offered. That means Mother will have Marvellous Marianne in the morning and Mrs Beggs at night. Result! Beggsie can come to tea tomorrow, but Ma knows her well of old when she used to run a bakery in Dunoon, so that doesn’t worry me. What does is that she’ll have to sleep in Uncle Arthur’s gloomy bedroom. I explained. Fine. I love her.
It was a wild morning. Window wide, polish akimbo, Marigold gloves and Frish. I took all the linen, curtains and coverlet to the laundry. The coverlet is really nice and at least the curtains will smell fresh. I’m going to throw away the electric blanket. It’s got a huge brown singed corner where Ma left it on and it caught fire. Pong was frightful, but nobody died.
That white tray-cloth with the crocheted edges will cover the top of the dismal chest of drawers and then a jug of fresh flowers – no, they won’t last. I’ll get a pot of something. An African violet perhaps. Mildew says the dingy drugget is a hazard.
Glory Hole? I’ll clean the carpet. Bex Bissell is on the shopping list. Feathers keep bursting out of one of the old yellowing pillows. I’ll stitch it into a clean pillow case but it should be cleaned. It’s disgusting.
Mother, thank heavens, barely noticed the disruption. We gave her coffee sitting in the doorway of the shed, out of the sun, before her morning walk. I shouted at her as she trotted down the path with Marianne, waving her stick, ‘You haven’t got your distance glasses on, Mother.’
Good word for Scrabble, ‘Drugget’.
Hat on backwards today
‘Don’t worry, dear,’ she said. ‘I’m not going any distance.’
Turning our attention to larder and fridge: we’ll do a basic shop at some point but I think a visit to the Oyster Bar on Loch Fyne would do us good, whatever the weather. Smoked salmon and a piece of Bradan Rost are on the list and they will keep. I could make a kedgeree before I go. It will have to be Dunoon for a piece of ham. If I boil and bake it, I can use the stock for lentil soup and put some in the deep freeze. Lentils go off so suddenly and start to bubble volcanically. I suggested a pot of mince but Ma isn’t keen. Indigestible, she said. She asked for mushrooms on toast for lunch and I made it, with supervision, as she used to do, with cream and nutmeg.
Must get more cream. I’ll get peppers, tomatoes and anchovies for that Delia Smith recipe. And garlic. Uncle A forbade it. Ma used to try and sneak it into everything, tucking it under the leg of lamb or near the bone. ‘He’ll never know,’ she’d say. He always did. He hated it so much I gave him a handsomely illustrated book on garlic for Christmas one year. Lovely photos. That was where I got the tip to push a clove up your bum if you had piles. Nor would he eat avocados. He said they tasted of soap. There are some days when I agree. He thought he didn’t like Brussels sprouts either but Ma used to put them with soft boiled potatoes and create a sort of beautiful pale green mash, which he loved. If he asked her what it was she’d say, ‘A whim-wham for a goose’s bridle’, which was always her lie about rabbit when we were kids.
I’ll buy a couple of packets of Jus-Rol pastry for a ‘perhaps pie’. And two dozen eggs as I bet she’ll make us a soufflé on our last night. It always makes me sad. A soufflé. She always made one for supper the night before I left for boarding school. Followed by apple crumble. She saved the fat and sugar specially. I’d just have liked baked potatoes and salad. There’s tons of cheese. In fact, I’ll grate all the dry old bits of this and that and make potted cheese.
DEVILLED CHEESE
½ cup cream 2 cups tasty cheese 1 tsp English made mustard Dash of Tabasco (bet we have none) 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
Melt all together over low heat until smooth and creamy. (Ma has written in a firm young hand DON’T BOIL.)
At breakfast this morning (we had breakfast this morning), and looking to hear the weather forecast, I listened to a very moving account of someone with the fatal disease Huntington’s Chorea. It’s difficult to diagnose but early symptoms include a funny walk, when you veer off in odd directions, leaving taps running or lit fags everywhere.
That’s me. Aside from the fags. When I got up this morning I was definitely veering. Like the weather forecast ‘veering south and losing identity’.
Mildew says her elegant friend Iris found herself on a bus, neatly dressed as ever, with a plastic bag of potato peelings on her lap. Trying to appear nonchalant, she put them in a bin and, greatly relieved, tried to open her front door with her Freedom Pass.
However, I did remember to put the milk can out for Jimmie Helm and ran down to see him when I heard all the clanking. He doesn’t like this dry spell. ‘It’s nae guid for dumb animals,’ he said. I think he waters the milk: it’s a bit blue.
In the back of his van there is this little creature, straight-backed and silent, with solemn, unblinking blue eyes under a hand-knitted bonnet. The only thing about her that isn’t knitted is her wellies. I could eat her. She doesn’t belong to Jimmie, she’s just there for the ride. A mascot, guarding his milk can.
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