“I don’t know,” Bee said. “This isn’t a situation they’ll have space for on their forms.”
At last Pat decided to put the family on a more secure financial footing by going back to teaching. Bee was back at work by then, at least part time. Their children were at the village school, an easy walk, and the girls could safely escort Philip. On days when Bee was going in, Pat drove her to New College and then went on to her own work, and at the end of the school day collected Bee and took her home. It worked out relatively smoothly. Pat’s old school had no vacancies, but there was an independent day school for girls desperate for somebody to teach English to the fifth and sixth forms. Pat had always enjoyed teaching and she enjoyed taking it up again. In addition to English she taught General Studies—which she turned into a course on Classical and Renaissance art and civilization. The pupils loved it.
She could no longer take her mother out for lunch, but her mother had never seemed to enjoy it much. She continued her weekly visits on Sundays, generally alone as Bee preferred to save her energy for things she enjoyed, and because her mother was generally so savage to the children. Sometimes she recognised Pat, greeting her as Patsy. Other times she was sunk into a world of her own. She would confide that the nurses and the other patients stole her things. She would ask for help in escaping so that she could get home. She often wept and seemed desperate.
Pat tried to sell her mother’s house that spring. The money would have been useful to maintain her mother in the home. They all drove down to Twickenham and cleared it out, taking carloads of things to the local charity shops. Then Pat visited an estate agent to get the house put on the market. Everything went smoothly until Pat told them that the house belonged to her mother. “Has she owned the house longer than five years?” the agent asked.
“She’s owned it since the 1920s,” Pat said. “I think my parents bought it when they married in 1925.”
“In that case there will be no certificate of ownership, and she will have to come in and authorize the sale herself,” the agent said.
“She’s very old, and in a nursing home in Cambridge,” Pat explained.
“Then she could fill out these forms and give them to you to bring back,” the agent said, producing a thick stack of forms.
“I have the deeds for the house,” Pat said.
“Even so, we need these forms,” the agent said.
“My mother won’t understand them,” Pat said.
“Well then you fill them in and just get her to sign.”
Getting the forms signed took a struggle that lasted for weeks. Pat’s mother was in a suspicious phase and refused to sign anything. When Pat caught her on a happier day, she seemed to have forgotten how to write and sat chewing on the end of the pen. At last she did sign, but she signed them “Love from Gran” in big sprawling writing. Pat visited the solicitor who had seen to the wills she and Bee had made setting up the guardianship of the children and asked what she could do. The solicitor was unhelpful. “You could set up a power of attorney so that you could do things on her behalf, but you should have done it before, when she was well enough to agree. If this comes before the courts as things are they will appoint somebody to advocate for her who will take control of her estate—a social worker and a financial planner.”
“But I’ve seen her will and she has left everything to me!”
“She’s still alive,” the solicitor pointed out. “If I were you I’d leave her house alone until it’s yours to sell.”
“I’m paying out of my own money to keep her in the home,” Pat said.
“You could put her somewhere cheaper if you chose.” But Pat couldn’t bring herself to do it. Her mother couldn’t be said to like the home in Trumpington, but she was at least used to it by now, and any change would be worse.
As the summer came they made preparations for Italy. “Should we drive or take the train?” Pat asked in one of their early morning conversations.
“I keep hearing about cars adapted to be driven by hand. Cars with automatic transmissions.” Bee devoured everything she could find on assisted technology for the handicapped.
“Here?”
“In the US,” Bee admitted.
“Well then, if we drive I have to drive the whole distance, which will mean it will take nearly a week. And our old car is still there. Sara said she’d sell it for us, but she overestimated the demand for right-hand-drive cars in Italy.”
“So we could drive back,” Bee said.
“We could. The kids loved the train. There was a compartment with four beds, two on each side. I think we could manage.”
“What was the bathroom like?”