Trish didn’t remember. “At her age?”
“I’m the same age as she is,” Bethany said. “And you were older when you got involved with that Chinese American, what was his name?”
“Lin Da Wei,” Trish said. “But we called him David. He still sends me Christmas cards, lovely American ones. He was such a nice man. Wonderful in bed.”
Bethany smiled. “Good. I’m glad somebody was.”
“Did I tell you about Mark?”
“You did. Please don’t tell me again, I just ate.”
Trish laughed. “Will you be all right?”
“I’ve got the money from the record, remember? It’s not much, but it’s my little savings. You know the food co-op only pays peanuts and the council only pays grifters. I could pay rent somewhere. There are lots of co-op houses that I’d fit into, or even communes. We don’t all have to be as bourgeois as your children.”
“I could give you some money without them knowing. You deserve it. I’d really give you the house if I could, so we could stay here as we have been.”
Bethany looked uncomfortable. “Helen says your mother got incontinent at the end, and also terrified and aggressive.”
“She did. But it was only right at the end. Oh God, I don’t want to end up like that!” Trish wailed.
“You’re nothing like that,” Bethany said. “I don’t want them to shove you in a home, but there’s nothing I can do about it. You’re not my mother—and my own mother I wouldn’t cross the road to shake hands with. She threw me out when I was pregnant with Alestra.”
“I hate to ask, considering what they’re doing to you, but will you come and visit me in the place they’re making me go?” Trish asked.
“I’ll come as long as you keep recognizing me,” Bethany said.
“That will be a long time.”
Trish walked slowly and carefully down to the bank the next day and drew out a thousand pounds, the maximum withdrawal. She put it in an envelope and pushed it under Bethany’s door. She did the same on each of the next six days, writing “ATM” on her lists so she wouldn’t forget. When Cathy asked her the next weekend what she had done with the money she said that she couldn’t remember. It was the first time she had ever used her forgetfulness as an excuse. Usually she tried to cover it up if she had forgotten. Now she knew perfectly well what she had done but Cathy had no way to know that.
The worst thing about going into the home was that they wouldn’t let her take the Mac. “I need it. I need it more than anything else,” she said.
Cathy wouldn’t listen. “Nonsense, Mum, what do you want with that old thing?”
“I send email to Rhodri and Bronwen.”
“You can send them cards when it’s their birthdays.”
“It helps me remember things,” she begged. “My pills. I’ll never remember my blood pressure pills without the Mac.”
“The nurses will remind you,” Cathy said.
She let her take books and clothes. Trish kept pleading for the computer. She called Helen, who she hoped might understand. Helen listened to her for a while then asked to speak to Cathy. Trish waited in anxious hope, but Cathy snapped the phone shut and tossed it down on the counter when she had finished.
“If Helen wants, she can get you a new computer. A laptop. This one with the big monitor is bigger than they’ll let you have.”
“But I won’t know how to use the new computer,” Trish said. “I understand this one.”
“Helen will set it up for you,” Cathy said. “Lot of nonsense anyway. I wish I could do without mine. I hate the things. Do you want to take your china?”
“Am I allowed?”
“They said small ornaments, and I think that would count,” Cathy said.
Trish packed her mother’s china carefully. She also took the gold disk Doug had been awarded for “Getting Married on the Moon” and photographs of all her children and grandchildren. Then Cathy helped her on with her coat—entirely unnecessary help.
The home was up on the Moor with a fine view down over Lancaster. Trish remembered when she first came to the city and learned to drive. As a supply teacher she had driven to schools in all kinds of funny places. She had looked down at the town, and the sea shining in the distance, from this very place.
When she stepped inside the home it felt like prison doors closing behind her. But they were kind, very polite. “Oh, the healthy heart diet,” the nutritionist said. Trish wished fiercely that she had eaten all the things she wasn’t allowed and burst her heart before she had given up her house and turned poor Bethany out.
Her room faced the back, with trees behind. It had a pale green blind and a hospital bed. There was a shelf for her knickknacks, and a little bookshelf and an armchair. She arranged the china carefully.
“This is it, then?” she said to Cathy.
“Yes, I’m sure you’ll be very comfortable. The bathroom is just outside, to the right.”