If I were human, I might understand better what is causing all of these different reactions. But I think I would also lack the patience to persist with her. My attention would wander, or I would become frustrated. As I have one task, and no distractions – no life outside this care home and my work – and nothing calls to my emotions and lures my thoughts away, as I have no emotions and I control my thoughts – for all these reasons, I can give Margaret my full and undivided attention at all times.

It’s not enough. We don’t know what’s going on inside her, and if we’re to learn what we need to learn, we have to go further.

We’re going to have to get inside her brain. That’s the next step.

March 2022

John

‘We need to go and see Mum, Charlotte.’

Nothing. No reply. I’m sitting on the sofa with my feet up, watching the robot vacuum trundle round. It’s a long way from this to Winifred. I suppose it’s a long way from a mouse to me, but we’re both mammals.

I thought Charlotte would have been keener to go and see what all the fuss was about. But once she’d read the news reports, and decided I’d been telling her the truth, she lost interest. It’s a long drive, and, to be honest, boring and depressing when you get there.

I feel guilty. When we put Mum in the home, I promised my brother and sister we’d go there regularly, and they’d visit when they were over here.

We started off well enough. At the time it was possible to have a reasonable conversation with her, for the most part. The children found it hard to endure, though. They’d be OK for a while, then start agitating for food and drinks, and want to go out and play, and so on. Mum seemed not to mind, but I found it distracting and difficult.

I started going alone. Charlotte needed to be with the children, and anyway, she and Mum haven’t always seen eye to eye.

Then Mum had a fall, and another, and she was bed-bound for a while. And in fact, when not in bed, she was in a sort of hi-tech, padded wheelchair, and didn’t go much further than the dining room, or occasionally outside. At the same time, it got harder and harder to communicate with her. She was drifting off somewhere.

I missed a couple of visits, and when I next went, Mum took a while to surface, and then to recognise me. She didn’t seem aware that I hadn’t been for a while.

Then we had to move her into a home – Evergreen – with better facilities for her level of dementia. I say better. I mean they had some, as opposed to none. They promised to give her therapy, etc, etc.