ASK ME WHO I AM

Life at Waverly House isn’t easy for care assistant Sarah. Shifts are hectic, and it seems like her elderly charge, Nancy, can’t even read or write. But there’s much more to Nancy than meets the eye.

SARAH

I look around me – is this finally a chance to take a quick break? This shift has been hectic. As I scan the lounge room, nobody is wandering, nobody is shouting – it’s a rare quiet moment.

I check my watch. It’s 11am, a good time to take a break before the lunch rush begins. I sink down into one of the chintz armchairs – remembering too late the incontinence mat placed on it. Luckily it’s dry.

I lean my head back and close my eyes briefly. I tune into the gardening show playing on the TV, and the gentle snores coming from Ethel’s direction.

I try to take some slow, deep breaths, and I become aware of the faint smell of urine mingled with disinfectant. I really noticed that smell when I first started working here. Now I rarely do.

I hear footsteps coming in my direction. Oh crap, already? Before I even open my eyes, I hear Nancy’s frail voice.

“Julia dear… Julia, is that you? The dog’s escaped again, you’ll have to help me find him.”

I sigh, and open my eyes. Nancy stands in front of me, her slippers on the wrong feet.

“Good morning, Nancy,” I say, as brightly as I can muster. “I’m not Julia, remember. My name is Sarah and I’m a care assistant. We’re at Waverly House. We don’t have a dog.”

At first, Nancy stands there with a puzzled look on her face. Then she beams.

“Sarah!” she says, and it seems like she’s really pleased to see me. “It’s lovely to see you again. Can you excuse me for a minute, the dog’s run off again.”

I tune out as I feel my patience wearing thin. This is the third time today we’ve had this conversation, and probably the 20th time since Nancy moved here last week.

I ball my fists up tightly and take some calming breaths so that I don’t snap at her. The team leader approaches us.

“Sarah, why don’t you try an activity with Nancy, as a bit of a distraction?” she suggests.

I scan the room for ideas, and see today’s newspaper. “Let’s have a look at the paper,” I say.

We sit down and read a story about Scott Morrison winning the election. “What kind of name is Scott for a Prime Minister?” says Nancy. “So Robert Menzies is out then?”

I’m not sure how to respond to this – I’ve never heard of this Robert bloke. I was born in 2000 and I don’t remember a PM by that name.

I flick through the paper and find the crossword section.

“How about we do the crossword, Nancy?” I say.

Her eyes light up and she smiles. Clearly she loves puzzles. I reach into my pocket for a pen and she eagerly takes it from me. She looks at the clues and her lips move soundlessly – but suddenly the smile drops from her face and is replaced with a look of confusion. She gazes at me hopelessly.

“Here – I’ll read the clues and you can write the answers,” I say. “One across, an instrument for viewing distant things. Nine letters.” Nancy just looks at me.

After a long pause, I say, “It begins with a ‘T’, we use it to look at the stars…”

“Stars? Is the answer moon, then?” she asks.

I suppress another sigh. “The answer is telescope, Nancy,” I say. “Can you write telescope?” I watch as she puts pen to paper and writes down a random series of letters, not even in the crossword squares.

Oh. She never learned to read and write. Suddenly I feel so tired. This job is draining. The old people are mostly sweet, but life is just so hard for them now. Look at Nancy. She can’t dress herself properly, she’s losing her marbles, she writes gibberish. God, I hope I never get old.

NANCY

I must’ve dozed off. I look around me now, still groggy with sleep. I can’t quite get my bearings. The place looks familiar, but not quite right.

Maybe Julia has done something to the place – rearranged the furniture, perhaps. I glance down at my feet, expecting to see Buster. He always naps by my feet when I’m dozing. He’s not there. My pulse starts racing and I feel a sense of panic. He’s run off! Not again! That bloody dog!

I’ll need Julia’s help to go after him. I reach for my slippers so I can go find her. I try to pull on my left one, but it won’t seem to go on. What the heck’s wrong with it? Eventually I pull it on, then have the same problem with the right one.

I feel embarrassed and take a furtive glance around, making sure that nobody has spotted my struggle.

I walk out of my bedroom and down the hallway. Halfway along I stumble, but when I look down, I don’t see anything there. I continue on, and see a door to my right. I don’t remember that being there. What room is that?

I feel disorientated and panicky, so I stop to calm myself down. I walk on into the lounge room. The TV is on. The volume seems too high, it’s so distracting that for a moment I forget what I’m doing.

Then I see Julia sitting in the armchair. I cross the room – but as I approach, I’m filled with doubt. It doesn’t look like her, but who else could it be in our lounge room?

“Julia dear… Julia, is that you? The dog’s escaped again, you’ll have to help me find him.”

As soon as I hear her voice I know it’s not Julia. She tells me her name is Sarah.

Sarah… where do I know Sarah from? Of course, Bletchley Park! It’s been 10 years since we worked together.

I smile at the memories – we did some truly remarkable things together. “Sarah!” I say in pleasure. I try to tell her about Buster, but we’re interrupted by someone who gives Sarah an order. Her new boss is a woman?

Sarah asks me to sit down, then she starts looking through the paper. It seems a bit rude to me – the first time we’ve seen each other in years, and she’s burying her head in a newspaper.

“Look at Nancy. She can’t dress herself properly, she’s losing her marbles, she writes gibberish. God, I hope I never get old.”

She reads a story aloud to me, it’s about some bloke called Scott who’s the new Prime Minister. I don’t remember a politician with that name, I must be losing touch with current affairs. I guess that means that Robert Menzies is out again.

Sarah suggests a crossword. This makes me smile. It will be just like old times, me and Sarah solving puzzles together.

She hands me a pen and I look down at the clues. The first one makes no sense to me. I make out the words

‘instrument’ and ‘distant’, but the rest just looks like a foreign language to me.

I feel like an idiot, especially when Sarah reads it aloud to me. It doesn’t help though – I hear the same words I read. I feel the familiar sense of panic. It seems to be happening more and more these days, those moments where I don’t understand what’s going on. Am I losing my mind?

Sarah says something else to me, but I barely make it out over the ringing in my ears. I fight to stop the tears from coming. All I hear is the word “stars”.

I grab onto this word like a life raft and say the first thing that pops into my head. Sarah looks at me with pity, and I feel disgusted with myself for being so stupid. How did it come to this?

Sarah asks me to write the word ‘telescope’, and suddenly I realise what she’s doing! Yes, that explains the situation. Relief floods through me, and I pick up the pen and start translating.

I feel alive again, doing what I love best.

JULIA

I open my diary to see what’s happening today, and realise it’s already the 25th. Nine days since I moved Mum into the home.

That familiar feeling washes over me. Guilt. Despite what my friends and doctor said, I do feel ashamed that I couldn’t cope with Mum at home anymore.

But I’m no spring chicken myself – my arthritis plays up most days. It was just too much looking after the grandkids as well as Mum.

The house feels so empty without her. Every room holds reminders of her. Her place at the dining table, her lounge room chair, her china trinkets lying around. Poor Buster feels it too, he sits at the foot of her chair every day and whines. It’s like she’s gone, but she’s not gone. Her mind is going but her body still lives. I don’t know how to grieve for her.

I’ve been avoiding Waverly House. It hurts too much to see Mum there. I dropped her off, and I haven’t been back. I still remember the look on that carer’s face, full of pity. She doesn’t see Mum for who she is, she has no idea. She just sees a failing old lady.

I remember the first signs. Mum forgot an appointment – she never does that. She started to call things by the wrong name. Then she started losing things. By the time we went to the GP, I was half-expecting the diagnosis, but it still hurt like hell to hear it.

I looked up Alzheimer’s online. It was depressing reading, but at least now I understand the progression of the disease in the brain, and why Mum acts the way she does.

She denied it at first, said it was just old age. But there was a period where she came to accept it, tried to fight it even. But then it progressed further. Nowadays she doesn’t even read or write, let alone understand what dementia is.

Before I can change my mind, I walk to the car and start driving to Waverly House. I’m dreading it – but I need to put Mum’s needs before my own.

The only parking spot left is next to the rubbish skips. I ring the bell and ask for Mum, and a girl called Sarah goes off to find her. I step into the hall and the smell of urine hits me. I wait by the grandfather clock, and the slow tick-tick makes the wait seem endless. Sarah and Mum approach, and Sarah tells her she has a visitor. Mum just stares at me blankly, and I realise with horror that she doesn’t recognise me.

“Mum, it’s me, Julia,” I say, and I hear my voice break as I say it. A tear rolls down my face and drips off my chin onto my cardigan.

“Julia!” she says. “Did you pop out somewhere? The dog’s run off again.” I know better than to correct her by now. I change the subject instead.

“I saw Hannah today, you remember Claire’s oldest girl?”

“Of course I remember,” she says. I hear the tone of annoyance in her voice.

“She was telling me about her history presentation. She chose to talk about the role of women during the war – particularly the code-breakers at Bletchley Park. She was so incredibly proud to be able to tell her classmates that her Great-Granny Nancy was one of them.”

Mum beams. “Those were some of the happiest days of my life. By the way, I saw one of the other Bletchley girls today. We worked on another project together.”

I know this can’t possibly be true, so I just change the subject again.