Friday

“I’m half expecting Mum to be asleep when I get there today. I shouldn’t be long.”

I knew there was going to be an “event” for Children in Need at The Home today. I timed my visit so that I would just miss the “entertainment”. Most of the staff were still wearing fancy dress. Reggie was still wearing his teddy-bear ears.

“NIIIIICK!!! I haven’t seen Iris yet today. I’ll come up with you to see her.”

Mum had barely managed to last 48 hours before going into another Sleepy phase this morning. Her nurse told us that she’d had a full bowl of porridge for breakfast and had talked all night.

By the time we got there she was just about aware someone was with her and opened her eyes when Reggie and I talked to her but there was no hint that she recognised either of us. Mum was doing the kind of slow-motion fidgeting that she does just before going completely unresponsive.

In spite of that she was just about with-it enough to try to refuse her carer’s offer of some yoghurt.

“Do you want a cup of tea now you’re here Nick?” Reggie asked.

“Go on then.”

“Do you take sugar?”

“You must be the only person here who doesn’t know I take two. All the girls know and they all tell me off about it every time.”

Unfortunately, our discussion had lured me too close to the door of the lounge. Eleanor spotted me.

“I don’t know what to do! Will you help me?”

“Of course I’ll help. What do you need?”

“It’s my children. I don’t know where they are!”

I’d seen all her soft toys lined up on her bed as I’d walked in.

“They’re in bed, sound asleep Eleanor.”

“Are they!? Who put them there then!? Who’s been touching my babies!!?”

Before I could answer, there was a very stern voice from the other end of the lounge.

“Have you come to talk to ME!? I hope you’ve come to talk to ME!!”

“Yes Audrey. Of course I have.”

Audrey was, as always, very keen to discuss her latest project. As always, her struggle to find the right word and her habit of making a word up to fill the gap so as not to ruin the pace of her story prevented me from understanding much of what she said. But the tale finished with the words:

“And I think that might be illegal. I think I might be in trouble.”

“No, no. I think you’ll be fine. There are often little wrinkles in the law that let organisations get away with stuff like that. You’ll be fine. I did a project for the HSE years ago. We were in the computer room and I was telling their engineers what to do. Then they did something that I thought wasn’t quite right. When I asked them whether I should worry about the safety of doing things that way they told me health and safety legislation doesn’t apply to the Health & Safety Executive. “Mental, ain’t it!” they said cheerily. And I did a project for the Home Office too once. What an absolute bloody shower they were as well.”

Dropping some names seemed to impress her. Not enough to prevent her from telling me whole story again but there you go. It was odd to see Audrey so anxious though. She’s normally so forthright about giving the high jump to people working for her.

And all the while, Eleanor scowled at us and shouted “GET OUT!!” at me.

On my way out of the lounge, Annie waved at me.

“Excuse me Sir, as you’re being so helpful… Can you help me please?”

“Of course! What can I do?”

“Well, I’m here but I have houses…”

“Ah, and you’d like me to go and check to make sure they’re all safe and sound?”

“Ooh yes! Would you?”

I used the same routine that I do for Mum. Walk out, count to ten, go back to say everything’s fine. It worked.

On my way back to Mum I found Betty’s son in the corridor looking confused.

“Hello Nick! I’ve found this photo in my mum’s room. It’s not one of ours. I can’t see who it is though.”

“Let’s take it out of the frame. There might be something written on the back.”

“Ah, there is! It’s Annie’s”

“Annie’s!”, said Betty, “Annie’s a bloody nuisance! She keeps coming in here and going through my stuff.”

“Well at least she’s bringing stuff in and not taking it!”

“I think Annie’s feeling a bit lost at the moment. She normally patrols the corridor with Eleanor but Eleanor’s been shouting at her. Eleanor’s been shouting at everybody.” I said.

Then his phone pinged. His wife had just left Tesco with the shopping.

“That’s where I’m going Betty. I’ve just had my orders!”

“What? From your mum?” asked Betty.

“No,” said her son, “I know Lesley. They’ll be from her!”

With Mum asleep and pretty much unresponsive, I should’ve only been there ten minutes tops. Nearly two hours it was.

Bloody hell.

Author’s Note

My Mum is in a nursing home in a small village in the Thames Valley. The photo is not of the home. I used an AI image generator to give the reader some idea of the home she’s in.

All, some or maybe even none (you’ll never know!) of the names have been changed to protect privacy and hide real identities. If you think you recognise someone then let me know and I’ll edit the post or remove it entirely