Page 2 of The Pieces of Us

My mother’s house is past its best, just like she is.

I didn’t notice until today how dirty the windows are.

She told me half an hour ago (while I was filling a bin bag with shredded newspaper) that she told the man with a spear to stop trying to kill her, because even though she’s an old woman, she’s stronger than she looks.

She said it casually as anything, like she was letting me know we were out of milk.

At fifty-eight Minnie Jean McAllister isn’t an old woman, and the man was no murderer – it was Kevin, who’d been cleaning her windows for ten years, whose weapon was a squeegee on a pole, and who I’m fairly sure would trap a spider between a sheet of paper and a glass and carefully dispose of it outside rather than crush it under his foot. He’s never given off a murderous vibe.

Minnie doesn’t know how long it is since she got one up on Kevin the killer lurking in her garden. By the looks of it, those windows haven’t seen a squeegee for months. I add this new measure of guilt to the perpetual hoard I lug around.

‘Where are we going?’ she asks as I start the engine.

‘We’re going home, Min,’ I tell her. She likes me to call her by her name – one of the many inexplicable quirks of her changing brain I’ve had to get used to.

‘It’s about time,’ she mutters.

I can’t help but smile. I indicate and check my mirrors before pulling out, with the same nervous, how-the-hell-am-I-going-to-do-this feeling in my gut that I had on the drive home from the hospital sixteen years ago, when my daughter Ruby was born.

Like my brand-new baby was then, my mother is swaddled – in a knee-length padded coat, with too long sleeves and a high collar.

Today’s precious cargo has a tiny chin and a delicately pointed nose, like a little bird.

Her cheeks are flushed from the January chill.

I turn the heating on even though we’ll probably be home by the time the car warms up.

It’s rush hour; I’ve timed this terribly. I say a prayer to the parenting gods that Ruby has fixed herself something to eat or we’ll get home to a grouchy teenager.

‘Where are we going?’ Minnie asks again as we join the queue of traffic crawling towards the crossroads.

‘We’re going home, Mum,’ I tell her.

She’s moving in.

I’ve rented the same first-floor flat at the neglected end of one of Glasgow’s longest and busiest streets for ten years. I pull up outside and turn to my mother. ‘Well, here we are. Home sweet home.’

Her eyes flicker beyond me, unreadable. ‘My mouth feels like my throat’s been cut.’

I laugh. Minnie might not know what day it is, but the cheeky quips roll off her tongue as easily as they did decades ago, albeit a lot less frequently. ‘OK then. Let’s get you in and I’ll stick the kettle on.’

She nods. ‘A nice cup of tea.’

I glance at the back seat of the car, at the bags and suitcases and shoeboxes crammed into my tiny Clio.

A fraction of the belongings Minnie has accumulated over her lifetime.

The bigger boxes will come later, because some things do take a village – or at least my best friend’s boyfriend and his transit van.

‘Let’s leave this lot for now, yeah? Get you settled, then Ruby can give me a hand to take it all upstairs. ’

‘Ruby.’ It’s almost a question.

‘Your granddaughter.’

‘I know who Ruby is,’ she snaps, pulling at her seat belt.

I slide my hand across, press the button.

‘Well, would you look at that,’ she says, her eyes wide, as the seat belt slides over her shoulder. ‘I’m free.’

That’s the last thing she is. No part of her brain or body isn’t at the mercy of her illness.

Five years on from diagnosis, her moments of lucidity are sporadic and none of us knows how this move will affect her.

I simply don’t know , we don’t know for certain , there’s no way of knowing is the language of her doctors, usually underscored by a sympathetic head tilt or a concerned brow furrow.

I take a deep breath, suddenly reluctant to leave the sanctuary of my car and face whatever comes next.

‘Come on, let’s go.’

She holds on to my arm with one hand, clutches her trusty red-leather handbag with the other, and we walk slowly together up the uneven path. I look up and see my daughter’s face at the window, a mixture of hope and apprehension.

Ruby meets us in the entrance and helps us navigate the stairs up to the flat. Minnie won’t ever be able to do this on her own – I knew this before social services highlighted it during the extensive risk assessment they carried out two weeks ago.

‘How are you, Gran?’ Ruby asks as we make our slow, careful ascent.

‘Aren’t you pretty?’ Minnie replies distantly, like it’s a thought she’s not realized she’s shared.

I smile, noticing that Ruby’s olive skin – inherited, along with her dark brown hair and eyes, from her absent father – looks paler than normal. ‘She is indeed.’

My daughter briefly makes eye contact with me. ‘Come on, Gran. Let’s check out your new room.’

Inside the flat, we lead Minnie into the smallest of the three bedrooms – just big enough for a single bed, bedside table and slim wardrobe.

It’s half the size of her bedroom at her house, but the decision for us all to live here comes down to basic numbers: a three-bed flat trumps a two-bed house.

Six weeks ago, Minnie forgot she left butter in a pan over a high heat and almost set her kitchen on fire, and the decision I’d long been wrestling with was made. She had to move in with us.

I’ll paint the walls of Minnie’s room a peaceful green or a gentle blue, whatever she wants. In the meantime, I’ve made the bed up with a new duvet cover and matching pillowcases in a delicate floral print.

Minnie stares at me, then Ruby. ‘Where are my things? Where’s my room?’

‘This is your room, Gran.’ Ruby opens the wardrobe door and shows off the row of empty hangers. ‘Look. For your clothes.’

Minnie stares into the empty space. ‘I don’t like it.’

‘Let’s get this up.’ From the bag at my feet I carefully remove the photo collage that’s been on the wall next to Minnie’s bed for the last five years.

Below each photo is the essential information: the person’s name, their relationship to Minnie, something about them to spark a happy memory.

I know she’ll need this visual reminder of her loved ones now more than ever.

The first photo she chose for the collage was of me, taken on a day so nondescript I can’t remember it.

I’m fourteen years old, with my first perm and newly pierced ears.

Leaning against my bedroom wall in our old house, my arms folded across my chest, my expression one of being caught off guard by the camera.

My daughter Catriona, born in 1977. She’s beautiful and she makes me proud every day .

I remember Minnie writing the words carefully, trying to control the tremble in her hand.

The photograph of my grandmother, who died when Ruby was a baby, is an old one, the decades casting a yellow tint across the monochrome.

She’s sitting on the grass in a park, wearing a floppy 1960s hat and a silk scarf knotted at her neck.

The card below tells us that she loved a sing-song and playing Scrabble. That Minnie was her only child.

Most of the time, Minnie believes that both her parents are still alive, which is best for everyone.

The next photo is my grandparents’ wedding picture, Nana smiling shyly on the arm of her brand-new husband, a tall, thin man who died of cancer in his mid-fifties.

My own dad, Hugh, died before I could form any memories of him.

He and Minnie were childhood sweethearts, got married at twenty and welcomed me two years later.

Dependable, hard-working Hugh left home for his night shift one winter evening and didn’t even make it to the pharmaceutical factory where he worked.

He was hit by a drunk driver and died before the ambulance arrived, a month before his twenty-sixth birthday.

I’ve always imagined that Minnie handled the loss with the strength and courage she displayed throughout the childhood years I can remember.

Or maybe that’s just what I needed to believe to help me deal with the absence of a man I know would have been a great father.

I wrench myself back to the present. ‘It will feel more like your room when you have the rest of your things. Lisa’s boyfriend Charlie has a van. He’s going to help us collect the bigger boxes over the weekend.’

‘Lisa.’ Minnie’s eyes search the collage, but there’s no photograph of my closest friend.

I dig up an old memory to share: Lisa and I leaving school at lunchtime, deciding to hang out at my house with our boyfriends while Minnie was at work.

Trying not to giggle as we slipped through the back door (we had to avoid Skinny Maureen from next door, who sat at her front window the entire day, monitoring all activity as far as her beady wee eyes could see).

Going into the living room to carry out our master plan of drawing the curtains, watching Cape Fear on VHS, eating our crisps and maybe getting a kiss or two.

Instead, we found Minnie and her friend Ada on the sofa having a cup of tea.

‘Lisa and I were mortified. The boys were out of the back door as quick as a flash. And you were furious.’ I laugh.

‘For God’s sake,’ Ruby mutters, but there’s a hint of a smile on her lips and a bit more colour in her cheeks than there was ten minutes ago.

I don’t think Minnie remembers my teenage mischief, but something has triggered a spark of recognition in her eyes. ‘Lisa … I think she had beautiful blonde hair, like the girl from the princess film. Right down her back. The ice queen?’

Ruby smiles. ‘Elsa.’