The old woman in her wheelchair, leaning so far forward that she very nearly spilled herself onto the floor: I want to go over there, pointing at the set of low drawers not four feet away, reaching out to them and almost capsizing herself again.
Mother (nearly always 'mother' but sometimes 'mam') for God's sake, how many times have I told you not try to get out of chair? The man a tense picture of pent-up frustration as he pushed her across the carpet and towards the drawers she'd been stretching for as though they were a distant star. Directed there with the deliberate precision of a bowler aiming at the jack.
Ancient hands rifling through the contents and producing, in triumph, a small white envelope. Well, mother, what's so special about it? It's a five-pound note, David, that's what it is. Taking in breath: yes, I know that, and it was alright where it were, in the drawer. Well, there's no need to get bloody nasty, is there? I wa only telling you.
Dragged back across the carpet towards the door, until two seconds thereafter: I want to go back again. The whole cycle of raised voices, angst and sighs repeated, the unsteady woman engaging for a second time in the lucky dip: look, David, some chocolate brazil nuts.
Moments later, in the middle of the room - you need to tek me downstairs because they're coming. They? Who's they? Didn't I tell you? I'm bloody sure I told you. I had my photograph in the thing, in the thing, in the paper, and they're coming to give me a prize.
Oh, no, mother, not again! I've told you before - I really don't think there's a prize. You're either dreaming it or somebody's puttin' ideas in your head. There is no prize. Well, we need to go downstairs soon, because they're coming. Quarter-of-an-hour later, the silence only broken by the exceptionally loud soundtrack of an early Sunday evening film: I-told-you-there-weren't-no-prize!
Are you going to go nar, then? I don't know why you do this, tryna get rid on us as soon as we arrive. I do me best to see yer....
The two of them descending the lift with their low, mumbled conversation, then the man and I navigating the maze of dark-carpeted corridors, looking for the one door that would let the cold seep into our eyes and throats and bones. Leaving the woman behind, half-present and half-absent; more at ease with the chatter caused by her Alzheimer's and the orbiting molecules of drugs than with anything another person could say.
A head moving with horizontal motion. I don't know what up with thi gran sometimes, son. I know I shun't say that. She can't help it....
