Free The Art of Forgetting by Julie McLaren Page A

an intelligent and caring person. How this behaviour is the disease, not the person. It does not mean that this horrible, thoughtless Judy has been lurking around inside her for all these years, waiting to be let out. The disease has symptoms and they are no more part of Judy than a tumour is part of a cancer sufferer.
    They wait a little longer. Laura dabs at her eyes and nose for a while, hoping she doesn’t look too much of a mess, but logic tells her that all the family members here will have been through something similar and will understand. Nobody appears to pay her much attention but she catches the eye of a middle-aged man leading an elderly woman by the hand. He gives her a sympathetic half-smile as he passes, gently resisting the old woman’s attempts to pull free. This is what I have to look forward to, thinks Laura with a sigh.
    By now, her mother has been coaxed away from the bushes and there is no sign of the plastic bowl as she is led down the steps to meet them.
    “Look, Judy. Here’s Laura come to see you. Why don’t you sit down here whilst I go and find the Sellotape?” says the other nurse. Ruby shuffles along to the end of the bench to make space and Laura watches recognition dawn in her mother’s eyes.
    “Oh, how lovely to see you, love,” she says, a smile lighting up her face.
    Later, Laura tells Lily how much her grandmother had liked her picture. She misses out the bit about it getting ripped, especially as the nurse made a fantastic job of matching the two halves and sticking them together at the back so the join was hardly visible. She tells her how delighted Granny had been to see herself at the centre of one branch of her family. How impressed she’d been with the bright colours and the shiny sequins. She even tells her that Granny asked about Lily’s age at least five times and marvelled anew at such artistic skills in one so young. There is no point in hiding her condition from the children even if they must be protected from its worst effects, and it doesn’t matter that Lily laughs. Sometimes that is the only thing to do.
    Although she feels better by the time she has cleared up and the kids are in bed, she can’t quite banish the image of her mother gathering leaves. It pops back into her head every time her attention wanders from the television, so she starts to tell Patrick about it. She has reached the bit where Mum ripped Lily’s picture when she becomes aware that Patrick has at least half an eye on the news. Something has happened in the world of football, something about a manager sacked unexpectedly, and this is apparently vying for his attention. She winds up her story quickly and leaves him to it. There is no point in having an argument – Patrick rarely rises to the bait anyway – and she lacks the energy. Kelly will listen.
    Kelly does listen. Of course it is different for her, Laura tells herself later, when she is running through the events of the day in the hope that sleep will follow. Of course it is different when it isn’t your own mother. A little voice tells her that she would be a lot more sympathetic if it were Patrick’s mother in this state and he was having to deal with it, but she suppresses it. Kelly is shocked and sympathetic in equal measures, says all the right things, and helps her to focus on the positive. Lily’s picture was rescued, wasn’t it? It has pride of place on Mum’s mantelpiece, doesn’t it? And hadn’t Laura said that their mother took it round to all the groups of residents and families in the garden, as proud a grandmother as you could hope to find?
    Yes, Laura concedes, all those things are true. It was a lovely five minute oasis of calm and normality, when the old Mum appeared to have fought back for a while. Everyone said the right things about Lily’s picture, especially the families and staff. Even the old lady who had walked past when Laura was crying appeared to cease her attempts to escape when Mum showed it to