Helen Lyne
writer, spoken word poet
Jennifer
This prison is less confining than the first one I knew. True, it has bars on the windows, but that’s not to keep the inmates in.
Most of us couldn’t physically get out of a window. The bars are there to stop addicts from coming in to take the drugs they imagine are lying all over the place. They might also imagine we have valuables worth taking. Some of us do. Some women wear jewel-encrusted family rings – easy to slip off wrinkled fingers while they’re asleep. My precious possessions are on my bedside table. I’ve been in here two months now. The sentence is life.
This place is actually better than my own home. Home is supposed to be safe, isn’t it? It didn’t feel so after the diagnosis.
‘Two weeks in bed with the medication,’ the doctor said, ‘and then we’ll see.’
I’d been counting the days till I could get up, but when the day came, I swung my legs over the side of the bed too
vigorously and fell on the floor.
Jane came rushing in, crying, ‘What are you doing, Mum? Trying to give me a heart attack?’
She hefted me onto the bed.
‘No. I have to go to the bathroom. I can do it. I’ll go slowly.’
‘No, no. You’ll have an accident.’
She shunted me into the bathroom, complaining all the while about the strain on her back. A mobile toilet and a
wheelchair were delivered the following week.
My age qualifies me for things I don’t have to pay for. Jane is happy not to spend my money. She intends to inherit.
I didn’t have enough strength to wheel my chair. Bob Larkin agreed that I could afford an electric one, but Jane got
some assessors to look at the house and they told her it wasn’t suitable. They didn’t talk to me.
Bob is my solicitor and, well before the diagnosis, I gave him power of attorney to act on my behalf if I became incapacitated. One of many reasons that Jane loathes him is his refusal to tell her what’s in my will. You’d think I’d been ungenerous to her and the granddaughters. Not from my point of view. After her divorce they moved in with me. I don’t know what she did with the money she got from the sale of her house. I offered to pay the girls’ fees for a private school. Jane said the local high school was good enough. That was after I proposed paying the private school directly. Why put the fees into her account first?
Jane
My dear, darling sister is flying in from America today. What prompted that sudden decision? Mum going into a nursing home? Probably. Lucy always likes to interfere with what I do. She pooh-poohed the first place I chose. Perfectly clean it was. Mum would have got her three meals and shower every day.
Why go to the expense of a posh place in Mosman? How did Lucy find out about that? From Larkin probably. He should mind his own business. As for Lucy, she never hung around long enough to look after Mum. Had the hide to tell me it was fair enough for me to do it since I was living in the house rent free. Rent free! Yeah and what about cooking and meals on a tray and taking her to the doctor’s in that clunky wheelchair that does my back in?
The other day, Mum called me Maureen. That’s her sister’s name. If Lucy sees she’s losing it, maybe we can team up and talk to Larkin about the family money. Mum inherited it from Dad. Said she worked for it. Did a bit of bookkeeping as far as I could see. Not enough to earn the millions. My girls could do with that.
It’s a bit scary. Mum and I never got on that well, but I don’t like to see her losing it. Then what? Larkin will take over?
The other day we were having a bit of a chat, Mum and I. It doesn’t happen often. I mentioned how funny it was our family was all girls. It’d be nice if there’d been some boys.
Mum said, ‘I had a boy.’
‘No you didn’t, Mum,’ I said. ‘You had Lucy and me. Remember?’
She looked at me so strangely.