was feeling unsure. Suze just wanted Marigold to be the mother she had always been; but from now on she wasn’t going to get what she wanted.
Then there was Daisy. Daisy who was good at everything. Daisy who was even-tempered and genial. Everyone heaped praise on Daisy. No one heaped praise on Suze, they just rolled their eyes. Daisy knew how to look after their mother. She had patience, compassion and a strong sense of responsibility and duty. Suze had none of those things. She’d never had to acquire them. She’d been able to stand back and let Daisy do everything for her.
Dementia meant an end to Suze’s childhood. She was going to have to grow up.
Batty was now looking to rent a flat locally so they could have a space of their own. Suze was a little anxious about this because she knew she’d have to be responsible. She wasn’t used to tidying up after herself, or washing and ironing her own clothes, and she hated cooking. It wasn’t that she couldn’t do all those things, rather that she didn’t like to.
What if they decided to have a baby? Who would help if Marigold wasn’t capable? Suze liked her mother-in-law, but she wasn’t cosy like Marigold. She wasn’t as maternal as Marigold either, or as generous, and she was very busy with her job as a teacher. The mountain of homework she had to mark was horrendous. Suze realized, with a sinking feeling, that Marigold was irreplaceable.
Suze hadn’t telephoned her mother, because Daisy had told her that she found the telephone confusing. Suze couldn’t really understand why, but for some reason Marigold was unable to recognize her voice or follow the conversation without seeing her. So, a few weeks had gone by without contact. And because Suze felt guilty, she had ignored her sister’s calls. She had shut them out and justified her actions by telling herself that she was very busy with her blog and the articles she was writing and being a wife (which, in reality, wasn’t at all different from being a girlfriend). Therefore, it didn’t really come as a surprise when Daisy turned up at the house without prior warning. ‘Let’s go and get a coffee,’ she suggested, and Suze couldn’t very well decline, seeing as she had been caught in a pair of slippers, holding a copy of Vogue magazine.
They took a table in the local café by the window. A pair of enormous seagulls squabbled over an ice-cream cone discarded on the pavement. ‘They’re the size of dogs,’ said Suze with a smile. She hoped that humour would crack her sister’s scowl. But it didn’t. Suze asked the waitress for a caffè latte then began to pick at the scarlet polish which was peeling off her thumbnail.
Daisy ordered an espresso. ‘Why haven’t you been to see Mum?’ she asked, looking at her sister steadily.
Suze flinched at her hard tone and reproachful stare. ‘I’ve been busy,’ she answered curtly, looking at Daisy with the same steady gaze, hoping to stare her down.
‘You’ve been ignoring my calls as well. No one’s too busy to take a call or to reply to a text. Certainly not you, Suze. You spend your life on the phone. What’s going on?’
‘Nothing,’ came the swift reply. But Suze knew her body language told a different story.
‘Mum and Dad are longing to tell you about their stay at the hotel. They loved it. It was the best present ever. Aren’t you even curious?’
Suze averted her gaze as the waitress returned with the coffees. She took the opportunity to gather her thoughts as the waitress placed the mugs in front of them. Turning her eyes to the window she noticed that the seagulls had flown away, leaving a large piece of cone. There was no such thing as a hungry seagull in this town.
Suze decided it was futile hiding her fears from Daisy. She’d prise them out of her in the end, one way or another. ‘I just can’t deal with this, Daisy,’ she said with a sigh.
‘With Mum’s illness?’
‘Apparently it’s not an illness.’
‘You’re splitting hairs, Suze.’
She sighed again and sipped her coffee, then looked at her sister with big, anxious eyes, now shining with tears. ‘I’m sorry. I just can’t cope with Mum’s decline.’
‘What do you mean, you can’t cope? This isn’t about you, Suze! Mum needs you. She needs all of us. You can’t just walk away because things get tough. Family look out for each other. Mum’s looked out