Part One - A son's sense of duty . . . .

Mum’s health had been declining for a couple of years now and in her late eighties everything seemed to be failing. That was why my sister and I decided she could not look after herself anymore and putting her into a care home was the kindest thing for her.

We had selected one close to where we both lived, in the West End of Glasgow, which would make it easier for us both to visit her and where she would feel most comfortable amongst people who knew the same streets and surroundings that she knew. This was something her Doctor had encouraged – reducing her stress levels was important for her wellbeing and familiarity would keep her calmer than a strange environment.

To that end my sister and I had decorated her room in the care home with the same pictures and décor that had been in her old home. The old family photos, the tapestry she had worked on and framed showing a favourite landscape, even the drawings my sister’s kids had done for their grandma and had been hung on the kitchen fridge for the past 10 years were there next to her bed. All designed to give her a sense of wellbeing as her mental facilities slid away along with her physical capabilities.

Old age sucked but it beat dying young.

Mum had been in the care home for almost a year now and had settled well enough for my sister and I to feel comfortable with what we had done and with the care mother was getting. We were able to get on with our own lives agaian, safe in the knowledge she was being looked after.

I was relaxed that Thursday evening as I walked into the Niaroo Care Home for visiting time and greeted the receptionist I had come to know rather well over recent months.

“Evening Moira! How are you today?”

“Fine, Angus, yourself?”

“Getting there! Is she OK to visit?”

“Yes, bless her, she’s been fed and changed.”

“Thanks, I’ll see you on my way out.”

Care homes always have the same smell. It’s the smell of air freshener desperately working to cover the odour of incontinence and decay - and failing. It’s a strange mixture and after 10 minutes or so of visiting you almost get used to it, but your first few minutes are always the worst.

We had placed Mum into care just at the end of the Covid pandemic restrictions when there were, tragically, vacancies in most care homes in the area. It allowed us a reason to wear face masks to reduce access to the smell but as mother’s mental capacity diminished we removed the face masks to give her better sight of her family to spark the recognition that she was with her children again.

“Hi Mum” I called out as I opened the door to her room and gave it a knock – a token display that she still had some privacy which of course she didn’t. “Its me, Angus.”

“Who? Who’s that?”

“Its me, Mum, Angus. Just popped round to see how you are today” I said as I walked up to her bed and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

“Angus? Oh hello, son, how are you?” she said, sounding quite deflated. I spent the next few moments filling her in on my day and giving her whatever news I thought might have been of interest to her but I could see in her face that she wasn’t really interested in what I was telling her, her world having shrunk to what went on within the rooms she visited in Niaroo Care Home.

Almost before I had finished talking Mum began telling me about some other woman in the care home and what her family did for a living. Her faltering voice and struggle to find words making a sentence take 5 minutes to present. I was used to it, but it still drove a dagger through my heart. “Her son’s in the Air Force, you know, a pilot on fast planes!” I doubt if it was meant to be a barb at my career choices but I took it as one, as I always do. I am a self employed window dresser to trade. I had a decent business going, designing and installing displays for major High Street chains such as Top Shop, British Home Stores, Selfridges and Debenhams. The high street retain decline was gradually reducing my workload of course but when Covid struck I found my customers dropping like flies and soon I was struggling.

Mum was still chattering away about some fellow resident in the care home whose daughter was separated from her partner and how she used to know someone who lived near us but couldn’t remember who that was and I found myself just sitting and nodding and taking no real interest and what she was telling me. Like most visits, it was more through a sense of duty to present myself than a real pleasure. Tick off the hour like a faithful son.

”I told her how you’ve got a little boy and girl and your husband is a successful lawyer, Susan” she said to me and I smiled and shook my head. “Mum, I’m Angus! Susan’s not here at the moment! She couldn’t come today, remember?” Mum turned to me and looked at me with a frown. “So who are you?” she asked, looking more confused. “Mum, I’m Angus – Susan’s away with the kids at the moment because its half term at the school.”

“so why are you not away with her and the children, dear?” she asked, her frown deepening. I shook my head. “Susan’s husband is away with her and their children, Mum. I don’t have any children, I’m single remember?” I said, hoping she would recover her memory and change the topic. However, I wasn’t so lucky. “So who are you, then?” she demanded – her voice getting louder and more urgent. “Where’s Susan? Tell her I want to see her!! Who ARE you? NURSE !! NURSE!!!” she shouted, attracting one of the Care Home staff to enter the room.

“What’s the problem Mrs Harper?” she asked as she reached for my mother’s wrist to check her pulse rate.

“This man has come to see me and he tells me he doesn’t have any children and that I can’t see my daughter! I want to see Susan, will you tell her to come in tomorrow to see me? Can you phone her number – I’ve got a note of it somewhere . . .” and she turned to look for her diary in her bedside cabinet.

The care home worker smiled at me and said “Its OK Mrs Harper, we’ve got a note of your daughter’s number. Don’t you want to talk to your son, here? He’s come to see you tonight!” Mum shook her head and mumbled “Get Susan to come and see me!! Susan comes to see me and she’ll look after me. I want to see Susan!!”

My mother was getting more and more agitated and the care worker made a face to me and nodded her head towards the door as she pressed an alert button at the side of my mother’s bed for assistance. I got to my feet and said “OK, Mum. I’ll need to head off now. Take care and I’ll see you tomorrow, OK?” There was no reaction to what I had said, instead my mum was babbling anxiously about Susan and how she would look after her. I sighed and made my way outside.

I decided to wait and talk to the staff member about what had happened so I sat and waited while another member of the team went into the room with some medication and a glass of water. I could hear them trying to calm my mum down and reassuring her that Susan would be visiting her very soon and everything would be fine. It made me feel frustrated.

I was the first born in the family and always felt I had a bond with my mother but her failing mental health seemed to have excluded me from her cognisance of the family. I was becoming more and more marginalised in her memory. Here tonight she had gotten to the point of almost treating me like a stranger. I knew it was her illness that was making her act that way but it was still hard to hear her voice saying those hurtful words towards me.

Eventually the original staff member came out of the room. She gave me a weak smile. “Sorry, she’s a little confused these days. We’ve sedated her to get her heart rate down and we’ll keep an eye on her tonight to make sure she has a good sleep. Would it be possible for your sister to call in tomorrow? She seems to be adamant she wants to see her and I’m sure that would get her back on an even keel?”

I shook my head. “Its half term – the four of them are away up to the Isle of Harris. They’ve rented a yurt up there and are kayaking and hill walking this week. Susan had explained that to her before she went but its clearly not registered!”

There was a pause and then the reply came “Well, we’ll see. Maybe tomorrow she will remember where she is and will be OK” I nodded and said “Let’s hope. I’ll drop round to visit anyway and fingers crossed. . . . “ She smiled and nodded. “OK, sorry about this.”

I headed back home feeling frustrated and upset. It was never nice seeing my mother confused and I knew that it was unlikely she would ever get back to being the sharp, witty woman she had been most of her life. I wasn’t ready for her to stop recognising who I was and wanted to be able to comfort her and calm her with my presence. I needed that kind of closure and not have her fade away without me there in her life.

I didn’t sleep well that night. My mind replayed the conversations I had had with Mum the night before. First she told me Susan’s kids were mine, then she asked why I wasn’t away with Susan and her kids as though I was her husband and then she had asked me – for the second time in 10 minutes – who I was. It unsettled me.

Susan’s home was a grander place than mine and actually closer to the care home and I had agreed to keep an eye on it while they were away since her husband David got a lot of mail through his charitable work offering legal advice to small trusts who could not afford to employ their own legal team. After I had finished breakfast and cleaned up I decided to walk round to the house to check all was well and clear my head.

On the way I tried phoning Susan’s mobile but I just got sent to her voicemail as there was no connection to her handset. I didn’t bother leaving a message as I didn’t want her to think there was an emergency that would require them to cut short their holiday. I knew with their busy schedules family time together was a scarce and much valued commodity and they had been talking about this trip for some time.

I opened the front doors, quickly disconnected the alarm system and closed the door behind me. I did the customary moving of the morning mail from behind the door and then a check on the back door and kitchen to ensure there was no sign of intruders at the rear of the building. Then I took the mail through to the lounge to sit with the rest of the pile.

That was when I saw it. Framed and on the display case next to Susan’s chair - the photo taken of my sister and myself with Mum on her 75th birthday a few years before. People had commented on it and I had never really paid attention to what they had said but looking at the photos I saw what they had seen - the family resemblance. My sister was a carbon copy of myself. Or to put it another way, I looked just like my sister.

That’s not to say we were identical – we clearly were not! She was a female and I was a male and there was no doubt which of us was which but an idea began to ferment within me and it began to make more and more sense to me. So much so that I immediately went to the door, reset the alarm and departed back to my flat – almost breaking into a run in my eagerness to put my theory to the test.

I headed immediately to the lock up where I stored my works van and my stock of manikins, backdrops, stands and associated accessories I used to frame my window displays. One of the recent store closures in town had been the Long Tall Sally outlet – a store for the taller, larger female which had sadly become another name moving off the high street and becoming “on-line” only. I had received a call telling me I had 3 hours to collect anything that was mine before the doors would be locked and I had grabbed my displays and thrown them into the van with literally minutes to spare.

The thing is, some of the manikins were still dressed. The store manager said it didn’t matter as she would bin display clothing anyway as it could not be sold to the public. That meant I had some female clothing in a larger size. My theory was crazy but with my mum’s poor eyesight and slightly wandered mental state, I could turn up at the Care Home dressed like Susan and looking like her enough to convince her that her daughter was in the room.

I knew Susan’s mannerisms and speech pattern well enough and I knew all her stories and could even mimic her a little bit. Could I be convincing enough to put my mum at ease again and have her relax to lower her stress levels? It might just work and with Susan coming back home at the weekend I would only need to “present” as her a couple of times before the real thing was available once more. I decided it was worth a shot.

From the “Sally Stash” I found a floral peasant blouse along with a display bra and boosters, size 20 skinny jeans that would fit me and a pair of heeled ankle boots in female size 11 which would fit my male size 10 feet. I had a range of wigs in a box for general use and found a brunette example that best matched Susan’s colouring although it was a little shorter than she usually had hers. I would need to remember that when I walked into mum’s room later.

I took my selected clothing and placed them in a bag to carry back to the flat and in the privacy of my room I changed into the outfit. I only allowed myself to look at the mirror once I had placed the wig on top of my head. At first I thought there was some trick being played on my eyes but then I came to realise that the girl in the mirror was me. “Damn!” I said to myself “This might actually work!”