Basingstoke

We are on a plane with a nose rebel. I'm in the aisle seat, Susan is in the middle and this guy is looking out the window, using his mask as a kind of beard guard. He also took a phone call just as we were taking off, so his disregard for flying etiquette is on the flagrant side. I didn't say anything, because I'm the sort of old school Englishman who will tut and bristle behind a newspaper, rather than talk to anybody. The Cabin Crew didn't say anything either, which was disappointing, because that's their job. They made sure everyone's seat-belt was on, and that hand-luggage was safely stowed in the overhead compartment. Freedom Day had not yet happened as we flew, but perhaps the man was medically exempt, though later, when we'd landed, I saw him stride up to a bin in the airport lounge and gob into it. So I'm thinking this is less a medical exemption than a what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it exemption.  

More nose rebels on the train: thirty year old lads in baseball caps and tat sleeves, talking about "characters" they know, masks dangling from their ears like pirate earrings. Cool. I hope they die. 

This modern notion of being a character, appears to have sprung from the loins of reality TV and means the exact opposite of what it used to mean. In the past a "local character" was an eccentric or an oddball, someone known for unusual ideas and behaviours. They might make things, or mend things, or dress strangely or espouse difficult ideas. Madame Arcarti from "Blithe Spirit" is a character. 

Now a character is an uber-normal "good bloke". He gets his round in and doesn't shit-leg it when it all kicks off. Those chaps running around with their tops off when England lost on penalties? Characters to a man. A "strong character" is indistinguishable from a bully or a thug. It's meaning now is the opposite to what it used to mean, an obnoxious inversion that crept in by stealth. 

It was great when we arrived. The house was clean. There was no "hospital" or "old lady" smell. Mum was propped up in her nest, her hair thick and white and clean. She was nicely dressed. She's quite deaf now, and her voice croakier and softer through lack of use. We, Susan and I, went to the shops to buy dinner, and I was happy. I was expecting much worse: bleached bones and a William Hartnell wig, my mum glassy eyed and uncommunicative. But she was bright as a button. 

We wandered around Waitrose, thrilling to its icy A.C. and bought tubs of exciting salad. 

Mum wouldn't touch any of the salads (or "cold stuff"as she called it). She ate three new potatoes and half a chicken Kiev. This would prove one of the more substantial meals she ate while I was there. She looked appalled when Susan and I said we weren't having wine with dinner, but we did ultimately have a glass with her. The heating had been on all day and it was stifling. If I opened the window I could see her bristle and reach for a blanket. So I didn't open the window. It was the height of summer and the temperature outside was in the high twenties, and my mum was going to bed each night with two hot water bottles. 

As soon as I returned from the shops, the moment I got through the front door, I felt a strange tingling on my lip. I ran to the mirror and found my mouth red and twisted like a clown's. A cold sore! My first one in five years. Of course! After my food poisoning from the week before, the virus had taken full advantage of my weakened state. I went back to the shops to find some species of topical ointment. There is, of course, no "face full of V.D." section in Boots, but a nice man appeared, and found some Zovirex for me. Once again I am indebted to my mask. I decided not to shave while I was in Basingstoke as, while I looked like the Elephant Man doing an Elvis impression, I thought it might be best to cover it with hair. So I looked more like an erotically incontinent tramp, which is a good look for me. 

We were expecting mum's evening carer to come at nine to put her to bed. She had already cancelled her dinner making carer, as we were making the dinners for her this week. Fair enough, though the range of things she won't eat is vast. She then told us she's cancelled the evening carer too, so we will be washing her and putting her to bed as well. It transpires, almost immediately, that she hasn't, cancelled the evening carer, as she then turns up, only to be dismissed rudely and quickly. We are paraded in front her her like trophy girlfriends in front of an ex. Susan and the carer go and have a chat, as the carer is worried about the extent of my mum's sores, about her disinclination to take any of her medicines, and her near constant rudeness. This new care team has only been working with her for a week and she's been rude to all of them. While Susan and the carer are talking, I'm trying to distract mum as though dangling car keys over a baby's crib, she still becomes twitchy and paranoid. "What are they talking about? They've got no right to be discussing me."

"Mum," I say, "the woman is your carer and Susan is a nurse whom you've decided is looking after you this week. They will have things they need to discuss, just for continuity of care."

"No they haven't."

And that's that. She stays up till twelve. We're both exhausted as we've been up since five, and the next day so is she. She never again has the same level of energy she did on that first day. I'm touched by the effort. But I wish she hadn't made it. This performative "wellness" has worn her out. 

We spent the evening watching two films at punishing volume, in the still oppressive heat. They're "Strange Awakening" and "To Catch a Thief". Halfway through "To Catch a Thief" mum declares she can't understand anything "that one" is saying. "That one" is Grace Kelly, so she's missing a fair amount of the show. Half the cast were French too, and she can no longer deal with foreign accents. The only people in the film she actually can understand are Cary Grant and Grace Kelly's mother, Jessie Royce Landis (who also played Cary's mother in "North By Northwest". She's about four years older than him).

At midnight we get her to bed. I do very little, of course: hovering in the background, or fetching and carrying things, until I am dismissed. I am on hot water bottle duty for the week. Surprisingly, there's a knack to it, as I found out when I confronted my mother with what resembled a boiling puffer fish. By the end of the week I had mastered the art of the hot water bottle. My skill-set is ever expanding. 

After she's safely asleep we retreat to the calm of the midnight garden, and decompress by the light of the downstairs toilet. All is peace. The evening, full of heat and noise and incomprehension, was like working in a Medieval kitchen. But this is a cool, contemplative place. Later we sleep for a few hours in the super-heated bedroom. The curtains are like a scarf draped over a lamp, like a mood enhancer, and the fierce dawn light certainly enhances our mood. 

The next day the carers arrive an hour an a half late (she has kept the morning ones) so they arrive at the same time as mum's cleaner Rose and the next door neighbour, who has elected to introduce himself at that moment, so there are suddenly a lot of people in the house. Mum seems dopier and deafer today, and I start to realise the enormous effort her bright-eyed and bushy-tailed act the day before must have been. She tells me I'm mumbling, something she's accused me of since I was a teenager. It was probably true then - I didn't really speak at home throughout my adolescence - but I've done flipping voice acting since then! I AM clear. Well, my voice is - the words are another matter. 

The next day the carers are an hour late again. They didn't turn up to put her to bed either. Susan and I are clearly mum's dedicated staff this week. Staffing shortages, holidays and a car crash are to blame for them showing up when they feel like it, apparently. Not very good, is it? I believe they're paid regardless. I think they also get paid when mum dismisses them. You'd think they'd be able to put up with the demands of an old woman in pain, when they often get paid for just showing up. Still, their tasks are genuinely thankless ones, and when they are there and allowed to do their jobs, they are exemplary. 

My family appear on mass and we have a BBQ, getting mum out into the garden, looking unusual in a baseball cap, while the kids run around, and the adults cheerfully bellow at each other in time honoured style. It's been two years since I've seen them too. The children are enormous, and the adults are all smaller and wider than we were. Age is like gravity's meaner brother. My sister presents me with a gift: a vinyl record of Peter Ustinov reading "Blackbeard's Ghost". How did she know? I worry about how to get it home - Susan and I only have hand luggage - but we manage it. Peter is glowering at me now as I type, hand waving, tricorn hat at a jaunty angle. 

Mum goes to bed a lot earlier. She's exhausted. It was a good day.  

Susan has taken on most of the caring roles, while I'm the cook. She handles the laundry, while I handle the food. Yesterday, mum had strawberries and cream, and it was the only thing I remember her actually looking forward to eating. Later I cooked a mild korma. Her portions both times were minuscule, and she still left food on the plate. If you give her large portions she gets a psychological block, and doesn't eat anything. So you give her a small meal, just large enough that she can leave stuff on the plate - she always does - and still eat a reasonable amount. Both meals upset her stomach. I think the richness the food - it was cooked from scratch and not a microwave meal, made her sick. She's not used to food. She barely eats now. She's not even drinking much. She'll take a sip from a can of coke and then discard it, like Prince's socks. 

By the time I've been at the house for four days the carers have either cancelled or turned up late for the morning shift every day. When they show up at night (usually on time) mum sends them away with a dismissive wave. She doesn't bother with names. They're always "that girl", even when they're in their forties. She's barely bothered with them at all since Susan has been here, and why should she - Susan is better, more thorough and there all day. I too am available for cooking, shopping and fetching and carrying. I'm not much use to her, but I can do grunt work. She has very precise demands: her hot water bottle has too much air in it. A cup of tea should be a precise temperature, an undisclosed temperature, and should have milk added, in increments, until it can be safely discarded for having too much milk in it. I stand over her with the jug while she tests the tea. She has a look on her face that suggests she really shouldn't have to deal with this sort of detail work. You can't get the staff. Well, actually you can. And pay them. And then tell them to go away without doing anything. 

There is a grandfather clock in the hall. It has Tempus Fugit emblazoned on the face and, of course, it hasn't worked for a decade. Time is sluggish and lame in this house. I find a book of 16th Century recipes in the kitchen, from a place called Sudely Hall. It is full of recipes for soups and pottages that also cure consumption and "the falling sickness". Buried in the book's guts are cut-out photos of ice creams from what look like an eighties colour supplement. No idea what's going on there, and no one to ask. Mum wouldn't have a clue. 

Mum, after a longish silence, appraises Susan. "You have lovely, straight toes," she says. I laugh out loud. It is as close to a compliment as she gets this week. 

We go out to Sherfield on Loddon for lunch. My brother Barry has just moved to the area - he must be doing alright. We eat lunch in a pub called The White Hart, the sort of country pub where you know the servers have more money than you will ever see, and are slumming it. 'Twas ever thus in the leafy bits around Basingstoke. 

Sherfield is a ridiculous, Midsomer Murders village - a fete was even in evidence, with Last Night of the Proms bunting drooping in the breezeless heat, and a tidal shifting of preserves, batted back and forth between well-to-do matrons. There is a shop, a duck pond and three pubs, plus a bus shelter that looked like a small red-brick house, which was full of teenage boys with their tops off, drinking warm Fosters and trying to look cool. It's good to see some traditions remain (though in my day we never took our tops off). 

Maya, the mental health nurse, is jolly and Eastern European, so mum can't understand her, and can't work out why she's asking her rude questions about how much she drinks and how many brothers and sisters she had. She is twitchy from the off, which is fair enough, as this women has wandered into her house unbidden and is making her do things, when she would much rather be doing nothing, which is what she normally does. The mental health test is exhaustive, and mum is not shy about rolling her eyes and tutting. At one point she declares, with withering hauteur "You have no authority here. You can't just burst into my house and start asking me questions!" At which point Maya wins her over, expertly, by agreeing with her on every point, and in a very compliant and measured way talks herself back into the game. It's very impressive. Mum loves a good charm offensive and is briefly engaged. 

But Maya's open goal is allowing the mum the option of not doing the second part of the test, and saying she could come back another time. Mum likes her irritations deferred. She doesn't care for distractions or diversions (this is exactly what she DOES need, of course...), she is happiest these days doing absolutely nothing. Stimulus is now indistinguishable from irritation. Anything for a dead quiet life. 

To be fair the second part of the test seemed to have isometrics in it. So good luck with that, Maya!

(Maya did come back later in the week after Susan and I had gone home. The test was witnessed by my brother Barry who described it as "brief")

There's an episode of the Twilight Zone where Billy Mumy is an all powerful six year old, terrifying a small rural community. His big threat is that he will send people "to the corn field". My mother's cornfield is the fridge. She'll open a coke or have a mouthful of sandwich and that will be enough, so she'll bid it spirited away, to be enjoyed again at a later date. I can just imagine the look on her face if presented with an opened and flat coke. Quel Horreur! "Put it in the fridge. I might have it later." She never will - that coke has been friendzoned. 

My mother's sense of agency comes through her demands. Her body has failed her, but she can still boss people around, or tell them they're stupid. She likes everything just so, but she feels no obligation to tell you what it is she requires. Education comes through mistake and correction. You learn the hard way, under the lash of her peppery tongue. 

Went out to a friend's house yesterday. There were a couple of bottles of delicious jammy Meerlust out and an extraordinary cheese. Their house was beautiful, the garden enormous and rambling. The scenario would have been perfect excepting Paul couldn't get his Blasted Heath EP to talk to his stereo and we were unable to listen to Eddie and the Boys in the garden. Perhaps, it was perfect after all!

The restless activity in the trees of my mother's garden is extraordinary. It is its own world, full of frenetic business. Chris Packham would be glued to the soap opera antics of the birds: "Gerrout of my shrub!"

My mum has barely said anything without being asked all week. She doesn't really do conversation, though she answers all questions put to her. However, on the last day there, about ten minutes before we were due to leave, she turned to me and said "You have very small hands". 

Spent the dying hours of the last day in the house fighting a protracted duel with a wasp. I don't like killing things, even wasps, but it was pointedly ignoring the open window and just hiding behind my mother's curtains. When we left I was going to have to close that window, and I was not about to leave my tiny mum to the tender mercies of a tired and irritable jasper (admittedly the second most tired and irritable thing in the room). So I battered the bugger to death with a copy of Keith Waterhouse's "There is a happy land". It was one of those mum-lifts-car-off-prone-child moments - no stripey bastard wasp is going to be stinging my mum. 

Saying goodbye to my mum. She is small and shivery in her nest of things. Her eyes are bright, her smile enormous. She's impossibly tiny now, cold at the height of summer, breathing heavily at the slightest effort. I hug her. I am enormous, engulfing her hollow-boned skeleton, and she's sharp, all edges. She feels brittle. 

My eyes fill with tears. 

"Why do you do it?" I ask, "Why do you fight everybody? Why do you never do what you're told, by people who only want to help you?"

"I want my independence." she says. I understand, of course. And I know she'll never go easy. Her sheer bloody-mindedness is keeping her going. So she will continue: in discomfort, bloody knuckled and bare toothed, she'll go out fighting. She is, by any metric save her own, the least independent woman in the world. She can't cook a meal, or take off her shoes. She can barely make it to the toilet on her own, and she certainly can't put herself to bed. This is the independence she has. Her agency is in tight rules and proper preparations. It is the last arrow in her quiver. Insisting on everything being done to a shifting series of specifications. I wish she would listen. I wish she could be reasoned with. 

But I also admire her stoicism, her rigid toughness. She is religious in a way that I am not, and she has faith. She will put up with soreness, disapproval, weeping carers, indignity and expense in order to chase down this phantom of freedom. My mother thinks she's always right, despite a lifetime of contrary evidence. It's admirable. She has proper steel. She is tough as old boots. 

I am not tough and leave in tears. I live in a different country. She's frail and old and doing nothing to stay alive. She hides her medicine like a child. She knows there will be no consequences when she is found out, so why should she do the thing she doesn't want to do? Every time I leave its at the back of my mind that I might not see her again. So I weep all the way to the station and Susan holds my hand. 

Within a week mum's back in hospital, this time with pleurisy and pneumonia. Her phone is on vibrate. Of course. They extract two litres of fluid from her lung. She must have been in pain the entire time we were there and said nothing. Edward calls an ambulance on her and when they arrive she attempts to get rid of them insisting she's fine. 

She's in the hospital now and, finally, admits she needs to be there. She must be really sick for that to happen.