By the time we get home, everyone is tired, and in Auburn’s case possibly a bit tipsy.
Mum has accepted her presence here as completely normal, which is both lovely and a little confounding. A petty part of me feels like my nose has been put out of joint: I’m the one who stayed, but Auburn gets to waltz back in here and resume business as usual.
I give myself a telling off for that, because it’s not a noble thought. The most important thing is that Mum seems happy. She’s had an enjoyable night out in company. She played with Saul, and created a whole florist’s shop of crepe paper flowers, which she drapes around the cottage like exotic decorations.
She kisses us both, sings us a song about the sandman, and takes herself off to visit him.
Auburn automatically heads for what she clearly thinks of as still her room – but I notice her do a quick course-correct and push open the door to the boys’ room instead. I still think of it as that – the Boys’ Room – even though the boys in question haven’t set foot in there for a while.
We were planning on redecorating it, but Mum’s diagnosis overtook us, and it remains much as it was back in the day. There are still two single beds, still two blue duvet covers, still a thick line in yellow duct tape down the middle of the room where Van and Angel demarcated their turf. Van’s side is draped with tatty-edged posters of grunge bands from Seattle, and Angel’s with his Cameron Diaz shrine. I’m not sure it’s possible that it still smells of sweaty socks and puberty, but somehow it seems to.
I walk into the kitchen, and make each of us a mug of tea. Auburn follows me through, boots off, revealing feet clad in Little Miss Naughty socks.
‘I swear it still pongs in that room …’ she says, wrinkling her nose. A-ha. It’s not just me.
She wanders around the cottage, holding her tea, investigating. I realise this must be very odd for her as well – being back here after so long. I don’t think much has changed – there’s just a lot less clutter. She stares at the framed family photos on the walls, smiles at Mum’s paper flower arrangements, and inspects our DVD collection.
‘This is weird.Since when did you guys become such big fans of Hannah Montana?’
I shrug, and sip my tea.
‘She finds them relaxing,’ I say, glancing at our stacks of boxed sets. ‘What did you expect? That we sat at home watching Still Alice on repeat every night?’
‘I don’t know what I expected, Willow, and it wasn’t a criticism, okay? This isn’t going to work if you’re so bloody defensive all the time. I’m going outside to blacken my lungs. Come if you like.’
It’s hard to storm off when you’re wearing Little Miss socks, but she does her best. I follow her through into the garden, and sit next to her on the bench.
That almost-full moon is hanging low and yellow, casting an eerie glow over the vegetable patch and Frank’s fields beyond. Superwurzel is looking fine though, and I know he’ll keep us safe.
‘Sorry,’ I say eventually, as she smokes. ‘You’re right. I am defensive. But old habits die hard, and I’m used to needing to defend myself. It’s not like we had a dream relationship as kids, is it?’
‘No,’ she replies, tapping ash into the saucer she’s brought out with her. ‘I was a grade A bitch. But we’re not kids any more, are we? So maybe I can try being less of a bitch, and you can try not to snap into combat mode every time I open my mouth. How does that sound? And why have you got pink hair now? It looks weird as shit in the moonlight, and I’m actually a bit scared of you right now.’
I pull a horror-movie face, and let out a villainous cackle. A small one, though, because I don’t want to risk waking Mum up.
Auburn’s still waiting for an answer on the hair front, and I suppose it’s as good a time as any to start being the caring, sharing sister I ought to be. It’s a harmless enough story, but for some reason I’ve never told anybody.
The day I walked into the café with neon pink hair, Cherie simply looked at me, nodded, and said: ‘Suits you, love – get some nice new lipstick to match.’ I suppose between the nose ring and the boots and my generally random wardrobe choices, people weren’t at all surprised when I changed my hair from its usual light brown. For sure, nobody asked me why.
‘It’s for Mum,’ I tell Auburn, as I watch the glowing red tip of her cigarette move around in the darkness. ‘So she knows who I am.’
‘What do you mean? Explain further,’ she instructs.‘And in simple words, as it’s possible that I’m slightly drunk.’
I think she might be – she definitely drank enough wine in the café, once we’d rejoined the curious hordes – but she hides it well. I wonder how much practice she’s had at that, and it makes me sad for her.
‘Okay – well, I’m guessing you know something about Alzheimer’s from your training and your work?’
She nods.
‘Then you know it’s very unpredictable. Some people struggle with physical coordination. Some have problems with speech. Pretty much everyone has issues with memory – sometimes just words, or actions, or finding their way around. With Mum, she tends to remember things from the past really vividly – but her timeframes get messed up. She’ll remember me as a little girl, but sometimes not know who I am as an adult. That’s not nice for me, but it can be terrifying for her – sharing her life with a person who can be a stranger to her.
‘So we’ve tried various techniques. Her nurse and psychologist have been really good, and suggested things to use. She has a notepad, and fills it with pictures and keepsakes and her life story. And in the notepad, she also fills in important stuff – addresses, phone numbers, that kind of thing.
‘One of the ways she seems to locate people in her brain is by association. Like, she sees a small child with curly blonde hair, and she thinks it’s Angel. Or people with red hair, she thinks they’re you. So I thought perhaps I’d try and use that to our advantage, by giving myself hair that nobody else has. In the front of all her notepads, she always writes ‘Willow is my daughter. Willow is the girl with the pink hair’. So when she looks at me, eventually, she’ll figure it out.’
Auburn is silent for a while, as she thinks it through.
‘Does it work?’ she asks, eventually.
‘Not all the time, no. If she doesn’t look in her notepad, for instance. Or if she thinks I’m Joanna. But a lot of the time, yeah, it does. She knows I’m the one with the pink hair. It makes me different from everyone else, and that helps. I did make a bit of an error a while back, where I gave Cherie and Laura some pink tips, but luckily that didn’t result in her thinking a woman in her seventies was her daughter – that would have been confusing for us all.’
Auburn sips her tea, and stubs out her cigarette, and nudges me with her shoulder.
‘That,’ she says, firmly, ‘is pure genius. And anyway – it really suits you. I think you should always have pink hair. Now, sis, I’m going to bed. I’ll probably dream of Cameron Diaz singing “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, so wake me up if I start screaming …’