The woman in the queue behind us in the supermarket glared angrily as my mother tried and failed to tap her credit card.
We had tapped it in the chemist successfully, but she must have been on her last tap, again, and now she was out of taps. I felt my chest tightening. Here we go.
My mother started arguing about why her card should be working, and when I got my card out, she said: ‘No, don’t be silly! I’m getting this!’
A few years on from a vague diagnosis of some sort of vascular dementia to do with blood flow to the brain, she has no idea what a PIN is, never mind what her PIN is. She kept tapping the card and the machine kept rejecting it with what seemed like deafening beeps as the woman behind us in the queue started talking in hushed, angry tones to the woman behind her.
I could well imagine from their faces what they were saying. Something about me not paying for my mother’s shopping, probably. People who judge your way of dealing with a situation like this rarely watch or listen properly to what is going on. They simply decide they could do it better.
I have this when I visit my parents at their home and the helpful neighbours all find a way to tell me how sad it is for them. It being the situation as these neighbours see it.
People who judge your way of dealing with a situation like this rarely watch or listen properly to what is going on
‘We put their Christmas lights up for them,’ harrumphed the large bossy woman who lives opposite them. ‘My husband (by which she means ‘not yours’) saw your father struggling to get on a ladder and he got on the ladder and put them up for him…’
‘That’s nice of you,’ I said, clutching a bottle of good red wine as I perched on her sofa. I had knocked on her door to ask if they had fitted a lockbox to the side of my parents’ house since I was there last. I had been meaning to try to fit one, or get the builder boyfriend to fly over to fit one, and then one appeared.
No, the lockbox was not them, she said. That must have been the neighbours next door. She eyed the bottle and I clutched it. I clutched that bottle and I thought: ‘You’re not having it. I would have given it to you if you had not judged me. But you’ve judged me, so I’m keeping the thank-you wine for the couple next door.’
We sat in silence for a moment and her eyes attempted to bore a hole through my soul, so I said: ‘We asked my parents to come and live with us, you know, and they refused. Their idea was that I move into the house next door to them when it came on the market last year. Leave everything to come here and care for them. I said no.’
The woman stared back at me, unflinching, unimpressed. ‘Oh, I know all about old people,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing you can tell me about what they’re like. I’m a care professional. I’ve worked in the NHS for years.’ Forget it, lady. You’re not getting the wine, I thought.
In the queue, my mother began arguing that she did not want me to use my card because she was taking me out to treat me. All the nice items in my trolley were things she wanted to buy me. She was becoming tearful. I hurriedly tried halving the items into two lots, and gave her another go tapping for a total that was just under €50, the tap limit in Ireland, but that didn’t work either.
The woman behind us in the queue now made a loud gasping sound that was really quite nerve-shredding. ‘It’s no fun getting old, you know!’ I said to her, daring her to speak back to me, but she didn’t. She turned her back on me and began talking with the woman next to her.
My mother was going wobbly. I felt close to tears myself. I’ve asked my father for the PINs to her cards many times to no avail. Perhaps he can’t remember what they are, or work out how to get them.
‘Mum, I’m going to pay with my card just for now…’ ‘Oh no don’t!’ wailed my mother. I tapped, then started madly flinging the shopping into bags as she argued, making a right mess of it, for I knew I was now in a race against time to get my mum out of the shop before she became inconsolable.
As I dropped items on the floor and flung items about, the horrible woman in the queue pulled an incredulous face, smiled a smile that said ‘these people’ and shook her head. As we walked away, my mother clutching my arm, I put my middle finger in the air at her, which she pretended not to see. This is what I’m reduced to.
She eyed the bottle and I clutched it. I clutched that bottle and I thought: ‘You’re not having it’
I am quite worried that on one of these trips I shall do a crime. Once, in a Marks & Spencer on a godforsaken retail park near Rugby, my mother was having a fit of tears by a T-shirt display next to the entrance to the food hall and was shuffling about panicking, with me trying to console her and move her gently forwards, when a smartly dressed man with a bag full of food shopping marched up behind us and shouted: ‘You’re in the way! Move!’ And my mother howled with distress at being yelled at.
The red mist descended. If I hadn’t had my mother clinging to me, I would have chased him out of the shop. I fantasised for days about what would have been a poetic comeuppance for him. Of course, in my right mind I wouldn’t wish ill on my worst enemy. While half-wishing the opposite as he pushed past my mother, I shouted: ‘I hope you never get dementia!’
But there are also people who are unflinchingly kind in these moments. The cashier in the supermarket, a young girl covered in tattoos and piercings, did nothing but smile and tell my mother to take her time.
‘I’m so sorry about this,’ I said to her, the sweat pouring off me. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said cheerfully. But it did matter. One person smiling at me mattered very much.
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