Fern goes to the doctor’s:
Camel skirt suit (Vintage Jaeger)
Patent bag (Annie’s Chloé cast-off)
Silk scarf (Hobbs)
Comfy lace-up loafers (Ecco)
Total estimated cost: £450
‘I’m fine! I’m fine!’
‘So, you’re going to be on Channel 4? Presenting your own show? And it starts filming in two months’ time?’ Dinah, sitting in the passenger’s seat of the Jeep, asked her sister once again. She just wanted to be sure she’d got the details right.
‘I know,’ Annie confirmed, more than a little amazed herself, ‘it’s going to be called How Not to Shop.’
‘I still can’t believe it,’ Dinah laughed.
‘Neither can I, but my… a-agent,’ Annie stumbled over the word because it was just so new and so exotic.
‘Your agent?’ Dinah had to chip in, ‘get you!’
‘I know, my agent and Tamsin are talking. I’ve not signed yet because they’re still agreeing details and… the fee. But we’re due to sign later this week.’
‘Oh. My. God. You’re going to be rich and famous!’
‘I think it’s more like I’ll be earning a good wage and people might start giving me those “do I know you?” looks on the street. Let’s not get carried away.’
‘It’s absolutely amazing… but I always knew something amazing was going to happen to you.’
‘Did you?’ Annie asked, surprised.
‘Yeah,’ Dinah assured her, ‘you’re just such a trier. What’s that phrase? “God loves a trier”.’
‘And you are going to have another baby,’ Annie told her with complete confidence, ‘didn’t I tell you that long before Billie arrived, and I was right, wasn’t I?’
‘I’m much older now,’ Dinah pointed out.
‘Oh, forget age. Age is just a number,’ Annie said, trying to sound convincing.
‘Yeah right, I’ll remind you of that on your birthday, Botox babe.’
‘Tamsin says I’m to stop fudging my age and injecting my face. She thinks it’s sexist and she’s very down on sexist behaviour, especially by women,’ Annie said.
‘That’s very interesting…’ Dinah said thoughtfully, ‘I still can’t believe you froze your face.’
‘Yeah and no one, literally not one single person, noticed!’
It was 9.45 a.m., the worst of the weekday rush hour traffic was over and they were heading out of London and into the Essex countryside to accompany their mother to an important doctor’s appointment.
Fern was only sixty-four but she was going to be assessed for early senile dementia. Annie and Dinah were chatting so lightly and jokily because they both felt filled with anxiety about what lay ahead this morning.
Annie had already imagined their mother’s file being stamped with the irreversible word ‘dementia’ from which there would only be decline. When the sisters had gone with Fern to visit her doctor the last time, he had offered hope that perhaps the medication for the high blood pressure was making her confused. But even when the dosage had been reduced, she was still saying and doing things that suggested all was not well. There had even been a phone call from a neighbour who had wanted to know if there was any reason why Fern should be gardening at 11.30 at night with an anglepoise lamp rigged up to an extension cable.
Annie switched on the windscreen wipers to deal with the light drizzle on the glass. When the rubber blades smeared across her vision, she squirted a jet of cleaning fluid over the windscreen.
‘Oh, good grief!’ she turned to Dinah with a pained expression on her face as the vapours drifted into the car, ‘what’s wrong with that stuff? It stinks! It’s making me feel woozy. Maybe I didn’t dilute it properly.’
‘What?’ Dinah wondered.
‘The window cleaning fluid. It’s making the whole car stink,’ Annie complained.
‘Well, open a window if you like, but I can hardly smell a thing,’ Dinah told her.
The test took some time.
Fern sat nervously in her chair opposite Dr Bill, her small patent handbag in her lap. Annie and Dinah sat in the chairs pushed to the side of the room, looking on even more nervously than their mother.
‘Just relax everybody, it really isn’t so serious.’ The doctor attempted to jolly them along. ‘We do this test several times because everyone can have an off day, so really, take a deep breath and let’s try not to worry.’
Annie looked at her mother, all neat as a pin today, her hair brushed and sprayed down into its bulky brownish-grey bob. A silk scarf was tied at her neck and she’d put on her most comfortable lace-ups. Fern had been a podiatrist before she retired, so she didn’t hold with any kind of foot-deforming heel.
Dr Bill began slowly, but soon the questions were rattling along and Fern was doing fine. She was cheered by how well it was going and how much she was remembering.
‘When did the Second World War end?’ the doctor asked.
‘1945,’ Fern answered quickly and confidently.
‘Who’s the prime minister… and what about the president of the US?
After current affairs, came more personal questions: ‘What’s your full name? What are your children called?’
It was all going so smoothly that Annie risked a glance at Dinah and a confident smile.
‘Nearly there,’ the doctor said reassuringly. ‘Now, can you tell me what day it is today?’
‘Erm…’ All of a sudden, Fern looked totally unsure of herself, ‘it’s erm… oh for goodness’ sake…’ she looked round at her daughters, but they weren’t allowed to help, ‘Tues… Friday… no, Wednesday,’ she decided finally.
It was Monday morning.
‘OK and finally,’ the doctor began with a smile, ‘what’s my name?’
Again, Fern looked completely thrown.
Annie and Dinah stared at her with surprise. How had she managed to forget the doctor’s name? She loved him! Ever since they’d arrived at her house to take her to the surgery, she’d been talking about him, convinced that if anyone could help her, it was Dr Bill.
Fern looked deeply uncomfortable. ‘I can’t believe I’ve forgotten this!’ she exclaimed. ‘Apart from anything else, it’s so rude of me.’
‘OK, well not to worry,’ Dr Bill said and made a few notes on the papers in front of him.
In the conversation that followed, Dr Bill offered advice and what he hoped was reassurance. He spoke about the possible need for a home help and wondered how often Fern’s daughters could phone and visit to check up on her. Then there was the matter of more appointments to track the ‘progress’ of the ‘dementia’.
Annie could feel nervous sweat pricking in her armpits. This was her mum. Fern wasn’t even sixty-five yet. She was in good health, Annie had assumed she would have at least another twenty years ahead of her. The thought that she might spend those years in a confused and foggy place, unable to recognise the people around her, her family and friends, was just terrible. She could see the shock registering on her mother’s face as well.
‘So, it’s bad news then, doctor?’ Fern asked at the end of his talk.
‘No, no. Please don’t think of it like that,’ he said with a smile. ‘Your short-term memory is a little weak. It might stay just as it is for years, but we need to keep an eye on you, because if there’s a sudden decline, we need to know and be able to get help or treatment for you. The treatment in this area is improving all the time. I don’t want you to worry about a thing.’
Annie and Dinah smiled at him, pretending to be upbeat, but really both of them could feel their hearts sinking. Mum will have to come and live with us – both daughters were thinking. Well, that wouldn’t be so bad, would it? Much better than worrying if she’d made it to bed or if she was spending the night gardening in her pyjamas.
With these thoughts still uppermost in their minds, the two sisters were quiet on the drive home in the afternoon.
Fern had shooed them away after a quick lunch: ‘I’m fine! I’m fine! Get back to your busy lives and stop worrying about me. I’m not the first person to get old, you know, these things happen. Look at Aunty Hilda,’ she’d reminded them, ‘still living on her own, soldiering on with her bionic hip and she’s nearly ninety! Losing your marbles is probably the best way to go,’ she’d joked darkly, ‘otherwise you just get older and older and more depressed about what lies ahead. I’ve looked after some very depressed old feet in my time and it doesn’t look like fun.’
‘I’m going to have to stop for petrol,’ Annie announced as a service station was flagged up ahead.
‘Great, I can buy peanuts,’ said Dinah.
‘Who buys peanuts in a crisis?’ Annie scoffed. ‘I’m going in there for a bar of Galaxy the length of my arm and I don’t want to hear any objections.’
But as she stepped out of the Jeep and onto the garage forecourt, Annie reeled with dizziness and had to grab at the car door for support.
‘What on earth’s the matter?’ Dinah asked urgently.
‘I don’t know, I feel dizzy… it’s the smell out here, eurgh!’ she said, then retched slightly.
‘Get back in the car,’ Dinah ordered her. ‘Maybe you’ve got a virus or something, there’s some kind of ear infection going around that makes you dizzy whenever you stand up.’
‘Maybe,’ Annie replied and slowly lowered herself back onto the seat.
‘I’ll fill up,’ Dinah volunteered, opening the passenger’s door and stepping out.
But as she did so, with horror, Annie registered the dark stain on her sister’s skirt.
‘Dinah!’ she exclaimed and reached her hand out to stop her sister, ‘Dinah!’ she repeated, hating that she was going to have to deliver this bad news, ‘you’re bleeding. You have to phone your doctor. Now.’