A House Built on Sand, page 15
‘Hello?…Yes.’
Rose can’t help herself. She twitches the phone away from Maxine. ‘Sorry, doctor, it’s Rose here, would you mind holding on a moment while I put us on speaker?’
‘No need for that,’ frowns Maxine, ineffectually reaching for the phone.
But Rose has taken charge and holds it at arm’s length so they can both hear what the doctor has to say.
‘Is there news?’
‘Well, Maxine—hello Rose—we’ve had further information from the scan.’
The doctor’s even voice explains that she has come to a new conclusion. No longer thinking about ‘mild cognitive impairment’, she now suspects something more serious. She would like to refer Maxine to a specialist.
‘Because…?’ Rose begins, though can’t say the word out loud for fear of giving it life.
Maxine, beside her, remains silent, hands clutched in her lap.
‘Yes, I think we are now looking at early-onset dementia. And Maxine, it’s also concerning what Rose has told me recently about your hallucinations…’ Maxine shoots her a look that Rose avoids. ‘That suggests a form of dementia known as Lewy body dementia, though the specialist will be better able to confirm the diagnosis.’
‘Why bother?’ mutters Maxine.
‘Mum,’ hisses Rose.
Quickly, she thanks the doctor and ends the call. So, definitely dementia. Of course. Things are falling into place—the strange visit the other night, for example, and the odd ideas her mother has been coming out with recently. Possibly even her work dramas. Rose wonders how far back it might go? She brings up a search of the disease to see what kind of symptoms are involved, what kind of time is involved…
She is interrupted by Maxine reaching out to grip her wrist.
‘Don’t,’ she pleads.
‘We should find out what we’re dealing with, Mum.’
‘What will happen to me, Rose?’
She recognises the shadow of fear in her mother’s eyes and her words feel fake. ‘We’ll, um, work through it, don’t worry.’
Maxine shakes her head. ‘It’s the end of the road, isn’t it? Time’s running out.’
Tears prick Rose’s eyes and she makes an effort to force them back, to put on a cheery smile, the kind she uses at Little Poppets with the fearful children.
‘It may not even be that,’ she says quickly, ‘I mean, you heard the doctor, she isn’t sure. Let’s wait to hear what the specialist says.’
‘If you say so.’ Maxine’s attention has drifted elsewhere. ‘I’ll need to get a move on,’ she mutters, ‘it’s a make-up call. Things to do, people to see.’ She’s climbing down from her stool.
‘Where are you going?’ Rose feels suddenly desperate. ‘What about the soup?’
‘I need to…what?’ Her mother seems genuinely lost, a single forlorn bird in a wintry sky. ‘We had a dog on the farm that went a bit stupid, maybe it ate some poison…Dad took it out the back of the haybarn and shot it.’
Rose wants to reach out to grab her mother into a hug, yet she is already moving away.
‘I need to go, Rose.’
‘But where?’
Maxine merely waves her hand, regal, and exits, stage right.
OUTSIDE, THE LIGHT shears down at me and a bird lets off a racket of tweeting somewhere in the macrocarpa and not on a phone. Dad planted that—in his singlet, digging the hole. I helped him, we lifted the tree in together, set it snug into the dark hole. And look at it now…
‘Dementia,’ I say out loud.
Plopping onto the old couch on the deck, front or back, who gives a toss, I poke at the word. It’s hardly a surprise, but still, bloody hell. Worse than the big C, then. Least with cancer you’re not going to forget you’ve got it.
So I really am losing my marbles. Fuck. There’s been something wrong for a while now, circuits shorting in the old brain. The lists that kept changing, the one-way street. Even Hat Trick knew. All those meetings behind hushed doors. Sotto voce chat around the water cooler that dried up whenever I mooched over. No wonder she wanted to get rid of me. She probably planted that file in the café so the media could find it—I wouldn’t put it past her—and next thing you know I’m history.
The chop-chop of Dad over in the corner, digging. Mother going across the grass in her print dress to take him a glass of homemade lemonade.
The black dog—not the depression dog, but another one—visiting me in the night…Did I tell Rose about that? Is that how Doctor Prod found out? I knew that doctor wasn’t to be trusted, and now she’s got information about me that I wasn’t aware of releasing.
I wipe my face, hand against skin making a dry sound like a snake slip-sliding across sand.
Fuck.
Well, time really is running out, Maxine old girl. Time to pull finger and get a move on. My brain’s a ticking bomb. Don’t know how long before I won’t remember a thing and there’s something important I have to do before then. Dementia be damned, that’s not going to stop me. Didn’t I get all the way over here to Kutarere by myself? I’m not a complete vegetable yet!
That cheers me up. A little.
Nuggety goodness going into the pot. Aunty Katie giving me a wink.
Dad props his elbow on the spade handle and lights a rollie. Good job, Maxine.
‘SO I’VE BEEN thinking,’ says Rose, sitting across from her mother at the breakfast bar, ‘when we get back to Auckland we could go round a couple more retirement places.’
She expected her mother’s face to fall at the mention of rest homes, but instead she simply nods and clasps her hands together like an expectant child.
‘You’re right, Rose.’ A pause. ‘I’m going to need help. I’ve been a burden on you for too long.’
‘Not at all,’ she says quickly. ‘You could move in with us, only…’
‘You live in a shoebox.’ Maxine sighs. ‘It’s going to be a, what?…downhill slide, I can see that.’ Her gaze is alert. ‘It’s not like a cold case when you wake up one morning and, bingo, you’re suddenly better.’
Rose gets a lump in her throat—her mother is being so brave, and what must she be feeling with this terrifying diagnosis? She ploughs on anyway, starting a search on her phone to distract herself from crying. ‘Here, this one’s got a pool.’ She hands the phone to Maxine who swipes to look at the pictures.
‘They all look so happy, don’t they?’
‘Who?’
Maxine holds out the phone. ‘Those actors they get to play old people in these places.’
The photo shows an older man and woman, tanned and smiling, both of them white and wearing casual but nice clothes as if they’re about to go to a tennis party or pre-show drinks, and perhaps they are. Most of these places even have happy hour.
‘They don’t exactly look like residents,’ Rose admits.
‘Too right they’re not.’ Maxine does some more swiping. ‘Actors. Not dotty at all. Hardly decrepit. And look at this Indian woman.’
The photo shows an attractive older woman tending a flowering rose bush.
Which reminds Rose. ‘Some places, you can have a little garden.’
‘Garden,’ snorts Maxine. ‘Who would’ve thought I’d spend my dotage tending vegetables.’ She gives Rose a crafty look. ‘Get it? Dotage, vegetables?’
A throttled laugh issues out of Rose. She doesn’t understand how her mother can joke around on the back of this news. Maybe it’s a coping mechanism.
‘Look at this one.’
On the screen is a picture of more white people holding glasses of sparkling wine in a sun-filled dining room while a smiling young woman presents a tray of canapés.
‘They look like angels,’ says Rose, thinking of the older folk—actors too? Possibly. Or maybe these people really are happy to be living in this place—Magnolia Heights—among their peers and away from the stresses and chaos of life, and you can see this in their relaxed faces and pleasant pastel outfits, showing that they are without care, in fact, they are reaping the rewards after a lifetime of working. Fleetingly, Rose longs to live in such a place. The photo caption scrolls across the bottom of the page in a modern copperplate font.
‘A place to call home,’ she reads out loud. ‘A place to enjoy.’
Maxine snorts and pushes the phone away. ‘Who comes up with this crap?’
‘Advertising agencies,’ Rose responds without thinking.
Her mother wags a finger at her. ‘Exactly.’
Damn, this isn’t going the way Rose intended. She goes to check on the soup, turning down the heat.
‘The place with the pool,’ says Maxine, ‘do you think I can afford that one, Rose?’
Thank God—the conversation isn’t completely derailed. ‘I’m sure you can.’ Rose sits at the bar again. ‘The townhouse is worth a small fortune on the Auckland market, and there’s your Kiwisaver account.’
‘So it’s all sorted then.’
Rose can’t read her mother’s expression. ‘Well, not entirely. We’ll have to visit and get on their list.’
Maxine’s hands, swiping over one another and making a dry papery noise, make Rose grit her teeth. She wants to get away from the sound—her default setting, she knows, whenever things are difficult or uncomfortable—but this isn’t something she can escape. Like what is happening with Paul at the moment—they had that big row, and as soon as she got the call about her mother, it was excuse enough to run—leave the city and not face what is happening at home. Rose turns away from her mother, who always sees too much, and looks out the window to the harbour. You can’t run forever, Rose. But she can—she can. She can bury her head in the sand as much as she wants to!
Then another thought occurs to her: might this automatic reaction of hers be somehow linked to the claustrophobia? She could ask Marius. But she probably shouldn’t keep wasting good money on a treatment that’s only bringing up false memories.
‘Has he put you up to it?’
‘Sorry, what? Is Maxine talking about Marius?
Maxine’s expression is impassive, not giving anything away. ‘You know. He’s after my money. Wanting to shove me into a rest home and sell the townhouse. Once you go doolally, other people take over, it’s a known fact. And who holds my power of…’ she frowns, struggling, ‘thingamy?’
‘Um, power of attorney?’
Rose is trying to catch up as her mother races towards some kind of weird conclusion of her own making. One of the online sites talked about how the dementia brain tended towards paranoia—like Maxine thinking that Doug and Natalie’s marriage is on the rocks—and now she thinks Paul is plotting to get her money? Rose creates some space for herself by going back to the stove and giving the soup a stir. Fuck, what next? Maybe she’ll think Aaron’s in on the scheme too? Rose huffs out a silent laugh. It’s ridiculous… isn’t it?
Then she starts to analyse Paul’s recent behaviour. It’s not entirely her imagination that he’s been, what, different? Short with her, so impatient about Maxine, spending more time than he probably needs to at the office. Wait—
Rose looks up from the pot of soup. Maybe it’s not her at all, or the baby thing. Could he be having an affair? No, surely not. But then…She scans back over the last few weeks for any obvious hints or clues she might have missed. Like the time he came in late from work while she was curled up on the couch watching Netflix, and went straight to the shower, not even stopping to give her a kiss. Or that time he got some random call on a Saturday morning when they were about to go jogging round Western Springs and said he had to go in to work. The moments of coolness, the increasing lack of interest in sex.
Rose is so shocked she has to remember to breathe and the air comes in fast, catching at the back of her throat. No wonder he doesn’t want a baby! The bastard.
‘Rose?’ Her mother’s quiet voice recalls her to the present.
‘What.’
Maxine is watching her intently. She looks so sharp and knowing, you would almost think she has been following Rose’s rollercoaster thoughts step by nauseous step.
‘Are you all right, baby?’
It’s been a long time since Maxine has called her baby and something crumples inside Rose, wants to sob into her mother’s shoulder. But she’s a grown woman, and she can’t do that—she won’t.
‘It’s him, isn’t it?’ Maxine’s eyes narrow. ‘The shadow man…he’s back, I knew it.’
Rose shakes her head, not knowing what to say or think. They have gone down another track altogether, and it feels too much for her to handle right now. That urge to flee rises up in her again, and she clutches the bench with both hands, as if to root herself to the spot. And then a man’s face flashes into her mind—the giraffe man. Not a shadow man, but real flesh and blood, and maybe it was her father. The sudden insight is enough to knock the breath out of her for a second time.
She can’t stop herself coming out with it. ‘My father… what did he look like?’ It seems suddenly really important.
Maxine blinks in surprise. ‘Your father?’ She wipes one hand over another, the rinsing starting up again, then pauses in mid-rinse. ‘He was…’ She looks troubled. ‘Douglas didn’t like him.’
Rose lets out the breath she has been holding, and goes to put the kettle on. ‘You never talk about him—Tony.’
‘Well, no.’
She can see that Maxine is wrestling with something. Is she sorting through her memories and trying to decide what to tell Rose, or is she simply trying to remember him?
‘Did he have dark hair like me, or was he fair, maybe ginger?’
It’s a simple question, though it startles Maxine. ‘Tony?’ She starts to speak, then changes her mind. ‘He was like that,’ she snaps her fingers. ‘A snappy dresser.’
Rose joins her at the breakfast bar, waiting for more. But Maxine is looking into the distance, gone again. Food and drink, thinks Rose, casting around the kitchen. She should make toast to go with the soup.
‘We went on a road trip once on the bike, to the Caitlins.’ Maxine smiles thinly. ‘Who would have thought that seals could be so quick on their feet. Big lumbering creatures, but then, boomph, off they go.’
‘We saw a seal earlier today,’ says Rose, wondering if her mother is conflating the past with the present.
Maxine’s pale-blue eyes find her. ‘We did.’ She nods. ‘And wasn’t it magnificent.’
‘And what else about Tony?’
‘Leave it now, Rose.’ The hand-rinsing starts up again. ‘It’s so long ago.’
Rose turns off the soup, goes out to the hallway and makes a call to Sunset Vista. She gets put through to the manager.
‘I’m sorry about the noise,’ the woman responds. Construction sounds are going on in the background. ‘I’ll just find somewhere quieter…’ Rose waits through a clatter of what sounds like saucepans, then the opening and shutting of a door. ‘That’s better, now how can I help you, Rose?’
‘The thing is—’ She explains about the diagnosis, possibly Lewy body dementia, and how they are looking for a place sooner rather than later, but the manager interrupts her.
‘I remember Maxine,’ she says abruptly. ‘We were at uni together, doing the same psych course. It was a long time ago,’ she adds wryly, ‘so I’m not surprised she didn’t recognise me.’
‘Really? That’s quite a coincidence.’
How odd, thinks Rose, that the manager didn’t say anything to Maxine the day they visited. Surely that would have been the normal thing to do. Reminiscing about their uni days might have made her mother feel more at home in the place, view it more kindly. Yet the manager met them in the foyer, shook their hands, then handed them over to a passing orderly for the tour.
‘A funny thing happened,’ says the manager smoothly. ‘Some of us had gone to a party at a house on Tinakouri Road one night, a gang of us girls from the halls, all fresh to the city, Maxine was on our floor though she didn’t hang out with us, she was always off out doing her own thing, I suppose. So one day we heard about this party, it was quite a big deal, our first party—I remember a long flight of wooden steps that went up to a first-floor flat—and it was packed. We didn’t know anybody, then I saw Maxine—she was dancing in the middle of the room with our lecturer, of all people. I was so impressed to be at a party where our lecturer was that I pushed my way through to say hello. But when I got to Maxine, she barely acknowledged me. Who’s this then? asked the lecturer. And Maxine grinned like it was a huge joke and said, It’s nobody.’
‘Small world,’ Rose mutters, amazed she would remember something so mundane.
The woman pauses and Rose hears running water—my God, she’s in the bathroom.
‘To this day, I still don’t know what that was about. Was she high? That was the only explanation I could come up with.’
You were probably boring, thinks Rose unkindly, and Maxine didn’t want to know you.
The woman’s voice drones on. ‘In this line of work, I find that family have a tendency to look back, searching for when the dementia might have started, trying to determine how long the person has been affected, when it might have started. It’s human nature, undoubtedly, wanting to know the origins of a condition that is so debilitating.’ Again with the running water. ‘It probably won’t make sense to you, Rose, I mean how could early-onset dementia show itself so long ago, but the first thing that sprang to mind when I saw Maxine the other day was that party.’
Rose doesn’t know how to respond to something so blatantly crazy and, frankly, inappropriate. Is that why the manager didn’t show them around Sunset Vista that day? Because Maxine snubbed her at a student party a hundred years ago? At the time, Rose assumed she was simply too busy to show every potential customer around.
But this explains why the woman studied Maxine so intently in the foyer, a piercing look that must have been assessing the damage of the years. The manager herself was smartly turned out in a mauve skirt suit and perfect make-up. Maxine was wearing a pair of battered jeans and an orange top she’d grabbed off the floor when Rose went to pick her up. In hindsight, had it been a smug look on the manager’s face as she turned away from them?
