“Mrs. Parsloe, my apologies. I actually didn’t give you the name and address. I forgot.”
“Oh, thank fuck for that.”
“Daisy!”
“I’m sorry, Doctor.”
He waved away the profanity. “Oddly enough, you were right about the name. It was a color. Brown. John Brown. 42 West Street, Kensington.”
“Well, I don’t remember him at all.”
“You wouldn’t, Mum. He didn’t tell you. He forgot!”
“He forgot? Dr. Eggstain, you really must try to get more sleep. Those dark rings under your eyes. Daisy was the same as a little girl.”
Eggstain and I looked at one another, and it was true, there were dark rings in the space between where his beard ended and his eyes began. Something wry and amused was twinkling inside them.
“Your mother would make an excellent diagnostician. She’s perfectly correct. I barely slept at all last night.”
“A mother always knows!”
“A few more questions, Mrs. Parsloe, if I may.”
“What you need is a good strong cup of tea with lots of sugar. We can’t allow him back on the streets in this state, can we, darling?!”
“You’re very kind. But if you could just read the words on this piece of paper and do what they say.”
He passed her a note. She smiled. “Doctor, heal thyself,” she said. And closed her eyes.
Do I need to tell you what was in the note? (“Close your eyes.”) We all laughed, even Dr. E.
There were more brainteasers. Can you tell me about something that’s been in the news lately? I’m not sure Mum’s reply scored especially highly—“Yes, interest rates. They’ve gone up. Or am I thinking of sea levels?” Who is the present prime minister?—“That chap. You know, him in the suit. Who never answers the question. I didn’t vote for him, but I suppose somebody must have.” Zero points, I’m guessing.
But then he asked her to write a sentence; it could be about anything so long as it contained a noun and a verb. She spent a long time on the calligraphy (“everyone used to tell me I had beautiful handwriting”) and when Eggstain read it, he smiled and passed me the paper.
I got a bit teary when I saw what she’d put.
Life is but a dream, but don’t wake me.
“Very wise, Mrs. Parsloe.”
“My late husband was fond of saying it.”
“He’s not late, Mummy. He’s in Italy.”
“Is he?”
“You know he is.”
“Well, I shan’t need to take any more of your time.”
It was lovely—and at the same time a little heartbreaking—to see flashes of Mum’s old self against the encroaching darkness.
“I do wish he’d do something about that beard,” she said after Dr. E had beetled off to visit the next confused elderly party. “It’s like trying to see someone through a hedge.”
A peculiar episode after Daisy leaves her mother’s house.
I have been a witness to the scene Daisy describes above, and because it’s more interesting than brooding in the cold and dark, I, as it were, “follow” her to Whetstone High Street, where she spies, sitting alone in the window of a local greasy spoon café, this very same Dr. Eggstain, staring into space over the remains of a fried breakfast.
She stops in her tracks, startled perhaps by the sight of the bearded memory man so evidently alone with his thoughts. Taking a pace toward him, she brings off a comedic slow-motion wave through the plate glass—but when the doctor shows no sign of breaking from his reverie, she does something that to my mind is truly extraordinary.
Or nuts, possibly.
It’s for others to decide.
She steps up to the café window and smooshes her face against the glass, rolling her eyes and for a couple of seconds generally carrying on like the town madwoman. The effect from Dr. E’s perspective—he’s certainly noticed her now!—perhaps puts him in mind of one of the gurning monsters at the summit of Notre Dame de Paris, should he have had occasion to visit that city. But his surprise is quickly tempered by amusement when he realizes who is behind the lunatic performance and he waves her inside, indicating the empty chair opposite the ruins of his breakfast. Two cups of tea and two rounds of toast are ordered, and it is at this point we may join the conversation (audio courtesy of Daisy’s mobile; impeccable vision generously supplied by the traffic camera on the lamp-post opposite: establishing wide shot, master two-shot, singles, what more could you ask for?).
“I really don’t know why I did that. You probably think the whole family’s off its trolley now.”
“Not at all. You should probably do something about your face, though.” He hands her a paper tissue from the dispenser. “Dirt from the window.”
Daisy takes a few moments with the forward-facing camera on her mobile phone; a dark smudge of soot lies across her right cheekbone, but her eyes are shining.
“I’m glad we have this chance to talk about your mother.”
The disheveled young physician really is something of a mess today; hair like he’s slept on it, knitted tie at half mast, beard growing in many separate directions. Were Mr. Anil Gupta present—and he cannot be far away!—I feel certain he would have clocked Dr. E’s shoes in an instant, horrible boat-like trainers that along with the baggy trousers and the rest of the ensemble, speak powerfully of the opposite of vanity. As he outlines his early conclusions about Daisy’s mum—a mixed picture is what it boils down to; some impoverishment of vocabulary and a degree of cognitive impairment but plenty of vim in other departments—Daisy’s head, I can’t help noticing, has dropped to one side. A slow smile takes its time spreading itself across the broad map of her face.
The doctor recommends that Chloe undergoes further tests and, depending on the outcome, pills may be appropriate to help arrest the decline. “She has to remember to take them, of course,” he adds.
“Do you mind if I ask you something?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Do you find your work depressing?”
Dr. E’s eyes are level as they gaze at Daisy through the shrubbery.
“People losing their minds,” she continues.
