Have you ever used the bottom of a glass as a magnifying device? Mum did. She worked out that she could spy on her carers and see what numbers they were pressing into the security locks. And then, when nobody was watching, she escaped. I still feel bad for that poor locksmith who started his day thinking he was just installing a new front door lock and ended up the victim of a furious, flame-haired harridan accusing him of burglary and kicking his shins. Mum had been in her new care home for about a month and she’d had enough. Tony and I were decorating her pretty 1-bed retirement home as she’d left it in a pretty poor state before being committed. I was out buying net curtains when I had a nervous husband whispering down the phone … “Err .. your mum’s here.” WHAT? “Yes, she’s here and has been giving the locksmith hell.” Can you imagine the pain of driving her back that evening? I tried putting myself in her position at being under lock and key in a vast care home, surrounded by strange people and came to the conclusion that I too would have done anything to escape and go home.
Now we’re all in lockdown the world around us is changing. I walk my little dog every night when it’s deathly quiet outside and the wildlife are wandering the streets freely. Last night there was five or six foxes having a foxy conference in the middle of the road, owls were hooting and the air smelled of blossom and plants. I saw two empty buses and three cars pass me throughout the half-hour I was out on my once-a-day permitted exercise trip. Our Prime Minister is in intensive care due to the Covid-19 pandemic, almost all my friends, colleagues and relatives have lost all foreseeable work and we’re all avoiding each other like the … well, actually yes … like the plague. Our homes have become our offices, our maps, our sanctuary and our prison.
Back when Mum lived a few miles away from me, she used to pop in whenever she felt the urge. No amount of begging her for a little notice ever worked. Sometimes she’d shout through the letterbox – “Ooo – ooo – Sonia”, but most of the time she just appeared. And she’d always have something for me, from a plated meal that she’d obviously ordered someone to assemble and cover in clingfilm to an expensive statue that she’d carted all the way from Selfridge’s on the bus. The other way round for the popping in thing? Forget it. Her house was like Fort Knox and she was continually having the locks changed, because she was convinced that all her neighbours were spies and out to steal everything from her. When she moved to her little retirement home (now miles away on the West Sussex coast), we agreed that her selfless neighbour Heather could have her front door key just in case she ever needed help or I wanted her to check in on her. That lasted about a week as Mum had put together a spy story where Heather was passing information to all her children who would, whenever they felt like it, appear and nick her stuff. Exasperating though that was at the time, I can understand her need for feeling secure and safe and doing what she needed to do to make herself feel empowered.
I know what Mum would have said if I’d explained the lockdown to her. “So now you know how I feel, Sonia darling. Bring toffees when you come to see me, won’t you?”