I’m forgetful! I’m eighty-seven, young man! And Maddie here, she’s forty-one; she has some of those symptoms!’
Maddie let out a snort.
‘Look, Olive, Dr Cable is only trying to help.’ Maddie squeezed her knee.
The young doctor rubbed his glasses with his tie and took a deep breath.
Olive shifted in her seat. ‘I know that! But honestly, I’m not stupid. There’s a lot going on; you just can’t always see it.’ She could feel the onset of tears and she desperately wanted to be in control. She’d even forgotten she had a doctor’s appointment until that lovely nurse, that girl – yes, Clare – came to get her. Why was her brain letting her down so much?
‘Mrs Hunter, Olive, if I may, I understand it’s a hard time.’
‘Do you? Do you really understand what it’s like, when you’re – what? Thirty years old? How it feels to have fifty years of marriage bundled up into a small suitcase, to have one cardigan, two jumpers, a woolly skirt, a favourite seagull ornament and a pot plant as your companions – all that to show for sixty years of being in one house? Do you? I might have a spot of dementia, doctor, but what you lack is bedside manner!’
She was trembling when she got up. That poor specialist doctor really didn’t deserve that outburst, but it had just spilled out of her. Months of angst, knowing in her heart something wasn’t right. Knowing the nurses were monitoring her. She’d been trying to dismiss it as old age. And finally, here was a diagnosis.
‘Olive, let me help you…’ She took hold of Maddie’s small, warm hand and felt calmer touching her soft skin. She was not going to cry in front of this doctor. No. She walked towards the door, but when she got there, she turned around.
‘And I’m not going into the “safe” area, that name you give for all the gaga patients. Don’t think I don’t know what goes on in the East Wing. I will not go there. I may be losing my marbles, doctor, but I intend to lose them in my own room.’
She saw Maddie and the doctor exchange glances but she didn’t stop to analyse them. She would do what she wanted!
‘Maddie! I’m going up to my room.’
Maddie hurried out after her and they walked slowly to the lift. Olive could never make a hasty retreat nowadays. Arthritis had seen to that. And a fall in the garden years ago, making her left ankle something that constantly gave her pain.
When the lift doors opened, they both got in.
‘Where do you want to go, Olive?’
Well, there was a question! On a flight to New York with Stan, on a cruise to Egypt, to look out over the Thames from the top floor of the tea rooms at the Tate Modern, to a concert at the Sydney Opera House. Where, indeed? She looked over at Maddie. The girl looked pale and drawn, as if the lifeblood had been taken out of her. When was the last time she and Tim had done anything spontaneous? What did they do for fun? It had been tea dances in her day. Maddie was with that choir; now that sounded all right, but there had to be more. Olive blamed Tim – all that travelling. Just then she noticed the posters in the lift. Pet Therapy.
‘Let’s go to the conservatory. There’s “pet therapy” on – I call it “pet comedy”. We’ll have a laugh at the woman who can’t control those dogs.’ She winked at Maddie. ‘Press the ground-floor button, there’s a good girl.’
As they got out of the lift there was a lady in a tartan gilet trying to shush two barking spaniels in the conservatory. They were both straining on their leads and yelping.
‘Rupert, down!’ The woman was smiling, but Olive could tell she was harassed; she had a big strawberry rash on her neck and was sweating slightly across her forehead. ‘Heel!’
Olive and Maddie took their seats on wicker chairs with purple plastic-covered cushions – oh the luxury – and Olive had to bite her lip to stop her giggling at the silly shrieking dog woman. ‘Pot plants’ lined the conservatory: plastic foliage covered in a fine layer of dust. Ivy trailed from the pelmets and geraniums sat forlornly in pots surrounding the chairs. Olive had always thought it was an odd idea. They were living things you were meant to look after. They grew, you cut them, you fertilized them,