Mum in the Middle: Feel good, funny and unforgettable. Jane Wenham-Jones

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СКАЧАТЬ it. Mo, sworn to silence until my mother had told me herself, had been on the phone for over an hour.

      She’d been worried about my mother’s forgetfulness, peculiar statements and occasional lack of coherent speech for some time. But Gerald had appeared unbothered (‘typical man! They don’t notice anything unless it’s in a mini skirt’) and my mother had dismissed her concerns, while insisting I was due to visit any day, so Mo had hoped I’d turn up soon and pick up on it myself.

      ‘I’m so sorry,’ I’d said guiltily.

      ‘Nothing to be sorry for, Pet,’ Mo interrupted me. ‘Wouldn’t have made a ha’pence worth of difference.’

      It seemed nothing would. I was hanging onto the word ‘slow’ I’d found on the internet. A slow, degenerative neurological condition. Perhaps it would take a long time and my mother would stay at this stage, where she lost her train of thought and stood staring. Maybe all the other horrors I couldn’t bear to imagine, listed under symptoms and outlook, happened to other people’s mothers and not mine.

      I hadn’t told the kids yet. I told myself it was best to wait till we’d had the full prognosis, but really I couldn’t bear to say the words out loud.

      I wouldn’t have told Jinni if she hadn’t looked at me so directly and said I seemed upset.

      ‘She looks normal,’ I said. ‘She sounds the same, but there’s this …’ I stopped, struggling to put my finger on it. ‘Lack of interest …’

      I’d shown her photos of the house, suggested dates for her to come and stay. Usually she’d have been on her diary like a tramp on a kipper.

      Now she nodded with distance in her eyes.

      ‘She’s afraid too,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what will happen. Alice is already talking about carers but Mum says she just wants to keep everything normal for as long as she can …’

      I’d read about people with mothers who’d simply gone a bit doo-lally and couldn’t be trusted with a gas supply, but who were happy enough in their own little world. I’d tried to picture my mother like this and failed.

      Then I’d found horror stories of aggression and incontinence and smashed furniture, and switched off the computer, unable to bear the tales of rage and tears and family breakdown.

      ‘But I don’t know how long that will be …’ I said.

      Jinni shook the plaster dust from her hair. ‘Come and see a fireplace.’

      I followed her obediently up a wide staircase to a bare back bedroom overlooking her tangled garden. A large chunk of ceiling was missing.

      ‘Look!’ She waved an arm at a pretty iron grate surrounded by flowered tiles. ‘Victorian! Been boarded up.’ She kicked at the sheet of painted hardboard she’d hacked away from the chimney breast. ‘Philistines!’

      She threw open one of the cupboards either side of the chimney breast. ‘It’s the third one I’ve uncovered. Don’t you just love all this storage?’

      ‘It’s going to be gorgeous,’ I said, looking around at the long windows and cornice work, grateful to be distracted.

      ‘Yeah,’ Jinni pulled a face. ‘If I don’t drop dead of exhaustion first. I’m knocking through here to make an en suite.’ She slapped a palm against the wall. ‘If you ever want a stress-buster, grab the sledge hammer.’

      Back downstairs, my fingers curled around the leaflet in my pocket. The reason I’d plucked up the courage to bang on Jinni’s door.

      ‘Did you get one of these?’ I held out the flyer for a Wine and Wisdom evening for the local theatre group. Individuals welcome! ‘Do you fancy going?’

      Jinni stiffened. ‘Eurgh. Those am-dram types get on my wick – all emoting and “getting in the zone” as if they’re Dench or Olivier – and if I see Ingrid once more this week, I might swing for her.’

      She took a large mouthful of wine. ‘She’s the bane of my bloody life. Still objecting to my change-of-use application on all sorts of insane grounds and she’s been up and down the street trying to get everyone else to protest as well.’

      ‘She put a note through my door about it,’ I told Jinni uncomfortably. ‘Said she was worried about extra vehicles and you chopping down trees.’

      Jinni scowled. ‘Don’t listen to that environmental crap,’ she said. ‘It’s sour grapes. Her creepy son tried to buy it before I managed to. I outbid him. That’s the real reason the old witch is so bitter and twisted.’

      ‘Oh!’ I waited while Jinni took another swig from her glass. ‘What was he going to do with it?’

      ‘Turn it into flats probably. Or demolish it – one of his mates owns the place behind me so I expect the plan was to flatten the lot and build a whole new cul-de-sac. Even more cars, even more of the dreaded DFLs tempted here. Not that they need much tempting now we’ve got the fast train. And a whacking great profit for him. Wanker.’

      She poured some more into her glass and pushed the bottle towards me. ‘I wouldn’t mind if she was honest about it. But it’s so damn hypocritical. I’m making this place beautiful again, bringing out all the original features. I’ve been advised to take out one tree because it’s diseased and it might bloody fall on me. I’ve got huge plans for the garden. It’s going to be stunning. And if I had his money, yes, I’d keep the whole place just for me but I’m going to have to do B&B to afford the upkeep.’

      She stopped and took a deep breath. ‘Sorry to rant on.’

      ‘He’s a builder, is he?’

      ‘David?’ she said, with a comical sneer. ‘He’s an architect. Got some flash practice in town. But fingers in all the local pies. Ingrid’s always storming the council offices talking about all the new commuters ruining the area and there not being enough affordable housing, while her precious boy is the first one to mop up any bargains and make a fast buck. They both make me sick.’

      I looked at her, startled by the real venom in her voice. I made myself smile. ‘So that’s a no, then?’

      Jinni grinned back.

      ‘Sorry hun – you’ll have to be brave and go on your own.’

      ‘Bravery’s not my strong point.’

      The Wine and Wisdom Evening was in a function room at the back of a pub called the Six Pears. I walked the half mile there, looking in the old-fashioned shop fronts, as I crossed the cobbled market square onto the High Street, still finding it hard to believe this was now home.

      The town had changed and spread over the years since I’d first come here to visit my friend Fran. There were rows of houses where once there were fields, more traffic and speed bumps and the lovely old ironmongers had closed down now. But Northstone always kept its charm. Even in the years when Fran was in Italy, we’d got into the habit of stopping off on the way back from the coast for coffees or ice-creams, to poke about among the antiques or simply find a loo, and I’d often imagined living here.

      The fantasy had grown legs the moment I’d read about the new high-speed link to the city. СКАЧАТЬ