When I was growing up a popular movie on at bank holidays, Xmas and weekend afternoons was The Great Escape. We watched it whenever it was on. Me and my brothers lived in the hope that Steve McQueen would finally manage somehow to ride over the fence to freedom. Of course he never did but I am sure that film instilled in me a lifelong love of motorbikes and a passion for freedom. Therefore it strikes me as rather ironic that one of my current daily tasks is to make sure my mum doesn’t escape the safe realms of either the apartment in Colombo or the house down south. Recently she won. First the shoes went then she went.
She had had her
white sandals since she got to Sri Lanka. She didn’t wear them at first but
gradually they became her favourite shoes. This suited me because they were quite wide, didn’t
put pressure on her toes (which helped the ongoing toe issue) and could be
slipped on and off easily. That was until the buckle started acting up on the
left shoe. Instead of catching, it would
slip out in a matter of seconds which meant that her shoe could not be
fastened. Drastic action was required
and the shoes were sent to the cobblers via tuk tuk to be fixed. Our trusty tuk
tuk driver Ranjith was despatched to solve the problem. I forgot about it until
hours later a rather sheepish Ranjith turned up and explained that the shoes
had fallen out of the tuk tuk and, despite going up and down the route he had
taken continually for a few hours, could not be located. I am now on the lookout
for a person in Colombo wearing my mum’s white sandals!
This did not go
down too well with my mum. In fact she didn’t really take it on board at all.
Repeatedly she would ask me where her white shoes were and repeatedly I would
tell her that they had fallen out of the tuk tuk and they were lost. I would then get this accusing look that said
, “You have hidden my shoes because you are an awful person put on this earth
to piss me off”. This went on for about a week. I then took her to Clarks in
Crescat, a shopping mall in Colombo, to get her a new pair. We must have tried
on all the shoes in the shop. Either they
weren’t wide enough or she hated them or they didn’t have them in her size or she couldn’t
walk in them. Eventually I bought her one pair of brown rather smart looking
shoes which she was quite taken with. I
now can't get these off her feet. They are cutting into one side of her foot but
she refuses to wear slippers and immediately puts these on in the morning so
she is sporting a continual plaster to cover where they are rubbing.
She must have been
wearing these when she escaped. I was in
Chennai on work when it happened. I didn’t know anything about it until I got
back though my suspicions were raised when I got a text message from a friend asking
when I was back – this was unusual as it was a very short trip. Shamalee, mum’s carer, was with her and the baby was with Shamalee.
Shamalee was ironing in another room,
the baby was sleeping, and the next
thing she knew mum had gotten up, unlocked the front door (something she has
never been known to do before), gone out the door, locked the door after her, and taken off. For an 85 year old lady who is incredibly
unsteady on her feet and has no clue where she is going at the best of times (even
inside the apartment) this was indeed rather remarkable. Goodness knows where she was going. Usually when
she tries to escape down south she is on route to either her friend Evelyn’s in
Hamilton or her friend Flora’s in Edinburgh.
Shamalee phoned
some people on the emergency backup list for when I was away and one started
for the apartment immediately. Mum had taken Shamalee’s keys with her of course.
Luckily the kitchen door opens onto the apartment block hallway (in order that
you can put your rubbish out). This is the biggest secret in the apartment as
mum could easily just walk out of it as you can’t lock it from the inside.
However she doesn’t know where that door goes and has never attempted to open
it; it has also never been opened in her presence. So Shamalee with the baby,
who had been woken up abruptly and was howling by this time, went out this door
and started looking for her. The apartment is on the third floor. Eventually
she found mum who had managed to climb down the three floors using the stairs
and was sitting on the bottom step being watched by the building security guards. By this time my friend she had
phoned had turned up and started the
long process of calmly coercing mum back into the apartment. Can’t hurry this
or get angry as that is totally self defeating.
A long conversation about dogs, trains, boats, babies, caravan holidays
and all sorts was had by mum, Shamalee and my friend, under the rather perplexed
gaze of the security guards, until finally the offer of a cup of tea got her
into the lift and back into the apartment. All was well again.
The key is no longer
left in the front door and is well hidden.
