Itching

“Ah, bless, would you look at him.”

“Mom I’m perfectly aware of him, and please stop looking at him.”

“He’s …what is it you youngsters say? Ah yes knew it would come back to me, like a bungalow, nothing upstairs. The lights are on, but nobody is home isn’t that another one ye like to say?”

“Mom, will you have some cop on, stop it.”

“I’m only saying – “

“It doesn’t need saying, and you’re saying it loud enough for anyone to hear.”

“Were the only people at the bus-stop, him, me, and you? He won’t even know we're talking about him, not least because those earmuffs he has on keeping the wind and rain out are stopping us from hearing him, and he’s not all there anyways. Who cares because he doesn’t?”

“How do you know what he does or doesn’t understand? When did you get your degree? Change the subject, or I’m not saying another word.”

“I wish that were true, silence from you, huh, that will be the day, same old Lindsay, drama queen. Can’t say bleeding anything to you?”

I chose not to answer, or talk to her, for what seemed a lifetime wait for the bus, and the journey on it. My selective silence and ignorance only seemed to serve her getting louder and more effusive.

I bet people on the bus think I’m the height of rudeness, but I bet there’s some nodding to themselves who understand my predicament. I should imagine there’s one or two calling my mother a bungalow. I wish I lived in the said bungalow and not in the three-bed semi-detached I grew up in, I am what I never wanted to become a kidult, all grown up and still depending on Mom to put a roof over my head.

Oh lord, I’ll have to answer her now, she’s started haranguing some poor, innocent stranger. I’ll have to stop her quick the next question will probably consist of, “Do you live in the land of singleton?” If he does, he’ll be regaled with qualities my mother imagines I have or ones she’d like me to possess. If not, he’ll be regaled with all my faults and the myriads of cruelties I have inflicted on my mother, which will, of course, help explain my single status. Oh dear, I’ve started scratching my ear, a sure sign that winter is here and that I’m getting stressed.

I interrupt her by inquiring about her friend’s daughter who is the epitome of perfection in my mother’s eyes. Sheila has been thrown at me so many times over the years, it’s a wonder we ever became such good friends ourselves. Come to think of it I don’t know how her mother and mine ever became friends.

Compared to my mother who has a limited sense of boundaries Sheila’s is the opposite, she’s the type of person who sneezes and apologises to the empty room in case she disturbed it. She will always be the person that tries to lift you of the doldrums, she’ll quite happily share her own woes but unlike my mother who only shares, Sheila can also empathise with yours.

Oh Lord, I’ve just realised I idolise Sheila’s mother, as much as my mother idolises Sheila. Am I turning into her? I get my mirror out of my bag, and I suppose there are similarities, no denying we are related, my mother is not a bad looking woman. My dad always said I was as beautiful as her but kinder, someone else said to me she’s a fine thing until she opens her mouth. I hope that’s where the similarities stop. Dear Dad, he would hate to see me still living at home, given my situation I’m sure he would have no problem with it, I don’t think he’d see it as a hindrance in anyway. I was always his little girl, but he always encouraged me to study so I could avail of every opportunity. We talked about travelling around the world while I was young.

He also with a wink said that once I had spread those wings and come home to roost, he hoped it would be somewhere he could visit and give his ears an auld break. We shared a conspiratorial laugh at that point. I miss him so. My situation that I alluded to earlier is basically illness, I was nineteen and, on the way, to be a highflyer and escaping. It was a stressful job and one day I noticed a little spot on my knee, a dry skin patch really. I thought nothing of it and smothered it in moisturising lotion. Next, my back started getting a mad itch, the letter opener at my job was used often for purposes it was not intended. This went on for a while, and I just tried to get on with things. Then one winter my body just decided to shut down. I was covered in red, raised skin. Patches of bleeding skin on my elbows, knees and ankles, and my hands and knees seemed to have ballooned in size. I could ignore it no longer. I made an appointment with my doctor, and he thought it was mild psoriasis. He knows people who had it a last worse.

Mild my whole body is covered and in pain and he calls it mild, in what state do I have to be for it to be labelled bad. I’d love to ask him to forget about these invisible people as his appointment is with me. He always knows people who have any ailment a lot worse than me.

Him saying that was causing me stress because unlike my mother I hate bothering people needlessly, I like to pretend I’m superwoman and would never make a trip to the doctors unless things were serious. It was then as I began scratching my head that I dislodged a patch of dry skin from my scalp.

“Ah, I see you have it on your scalp as well. I can give you something for that, a tar shampoo it should help, you won’t need a prescription I’ll just write down the name for you, but for the skin I’m going to give you some cream for the itch but it's only to tide you over until you get looked at properly by a dermatologist.

I want you to keep coming to me once a month and we’ll try and get something that works for you because you could be years waiting for an appointment unless you can afford to go private. Can you?”

I can literally feel my house savings dwindling from my fingers I’m not ready to give up on them yet. I’ll wait.

“I’ll try and wait for a while see how I feel. Does this condition, what did you call it, psoriasis wasn’t it? Does it flare up and die down, or will I permanently be in this pain?”

“I’m no expert but it was widely thought that psoriasis can be triggered by stress. Didn’t you lose your father not too long ago? How’s your mom and work? If we can cut down on anything that’s causing you to stress that can be a good thing. Cold and its side effect of the central heating being put on, doesn’t help either.”

I started crying couldn’t help it. He suggested some counselling wouldn’t do any harm. He told me it’s about time I signed up for some self-care. That was years ago and after a concoction of steroid creams, multiple tablets, and blood tests, it’s been decided that I have Diabetes and High Blood Pressure on top of my Psoriatic Arthritis. It is not just a skin thing as they think it’s all linked. Funny enough I only have Diabetes the last year and a half and it’s my only illness that’s considered long term, any treatment related to it is free but the Psoriasis which I have for years is expensive. There is something wrong there. It’s time-consuming as well, so my hospital appointments got me demoted and any hope of saving for a mortgage went out the window years ago. We seem to have some sort of control of it the moment, but I am on a cocktail of tablets. I’m sure some days I rattle when I walk. The one thing it hates, which I am grateful for because it gives me an excuse to get away as often as I can save for is the sun. It loathes it and my body seems to regress at least ten years in age, maybe it’s not the sun but the stress-free environment, whichever it is it relieves my symptoms. I digress back to Mother who is in full flow. Great I don’t have to do anything except nod in agreement now and again. I’m off the hook, for now.

We get home and I unpack the shopping. Mother says she’ll make a cuppa. The odious cat jumps on the table and glares at me. I’m guilt-tripping already, for flip’s sake Lindsay, get a hold of yourself, it’s only a cat.

A cat that either licks me or tries to take any skin left, off, depending on what food I’ve bought. Which changes like her mood so it’s always a game of Russian roulette? I had hoped one of the tests would come back saying I was allergic, and the cat would have to go, but no such luck. In fact, I was told having a pet can be a source of stress relief, they obviously hadn’t met Frieda. I decide to get it over with and search for her food, wow, she’s purring and rubbing her head against my hand, I’ve done well, phew. Just like Mother and I, Frieda and I have our good moments.

I can hear Mother in the sitting room, she even talks to herself these days I wonder if she argues with herself who wins, if anyone, or is it perpetually ongoing with no known winner. I bet she’s trying to get the telly sorted, she thinks it’s great being able to time her programmes and record one if she’s watching another, she just hasn’t figured out how to do it. There will a wrestling match and she’ll complain that if I showed her how to do it, she wouldn’t have to annoy me, I have shown her countless times it just never registers.

“Right Mom what’s all this noise about? Let me guess its Saturday so we’ll start with Ireland’s Got Talent, and then onto The Voice, is that what you’d like? Grand, thought so.”

I loved these programmes that some call crap telly, to me their great escapism. It’s a bonus that it’s at least two hours we can spend together in relative harmony. When there over she’ll probably want Netflix and watch some serial killer documentary or something. She can watch them for hours but one now and again is enough for me.

Oh, I never checked the post box I wonder if my delivery has arrived. I get the key from the hall table and go outside, yep; I can see Amazon’s logo before I must open anything.

My wireless earphones, I hope there the godsend I’m hoping for. See when I put on normal ones, my mother seems to hate the sight of them, without them she sometimes doesn’t talk that much because she’s engaged in whatever she’s watching and I can just nod, with them she’s gesturing every two minutes and complaining that Frieda gives her more attention than I do. She’ll often do her Shirley Valentine and start talking to the wall. I’m hoping that the fact that these are supposed to sit right in my ear, means she won’t even notice that I’m wearing them, and I can go back to be the nodding person in the opposite chair playing with her phone. I thank her for the tea and tell I’m popping upstairs with it, going to have a quick shower. I put the shower water on, feeling like a bold two-year-old as I sit on the loo and try to figure out how these bleeding things work. Seems simple enough they go into my phone and operate of Bluetooth. Yes, cool, I pop them in and go over the mirror, pull my hair over my ears a bit, great, she’d need a magnifying glass to spot them. I turn off the shower and wet my hair, I’m proud of my adult behaviour today. No need for blow-drying I’ve got curls, and it just grows to unnatural width if I try, natural has always been its way.

I walk into the sitting room and not a peep out of her. Something is wrong, I run over, and she’s stooped over in the chair. Her mouth has gone all lopsided and drool is oozing out of it and running down her chin, leaving a mark like a snail’s trail. I grab my phone out of my pocket and dial 999. It’s answered on the second ring.

“Hel - hello, come quick please it’s my mother I think she’s had a stroke. I can’t get any sound or movement out of her.”

They do their best to calm me and eventually extract our address and other relevant details from me; I leave the front door open and rush to Mother’s side. Mam died before they could even get her into the ambulance. I’d give anything to hear her reproach me, just once more. Frieda’s cool glare will have to do, she accompanies the snowfalls success in making me feel blue.