Gluck by Diana Souhami (most interesting books to read .TXT) 📗

lack of magazines or flowers, the pathetic little bolster, the sagging mattress, the ‘frightful little pillow one would not have given to a skivvy in the bad old days’, the high-handedness of the nursing staff, the shocking lunch –

I could hardly bear the sight of it. Mother however wolfed it. There can only be two explanations for this, both of them horrible … I truly cannot endure this any longer … However ill anyone is you cannot take them suddenly from a life that included coming from an unrestricted personal room to a public restaurant with hundreds of people and a band playing and throw them into a strange place without a soul they have ever seen before and bereft of every personal contact and possession …

Gluck did not see that, spam or no, her mother was at least eating it, whereas all the smoked salmon in the Cumberland had not tempted her. She internalized her mother’s anguish and made it her own. She saw her as a victim of a vile injustice perpetrated by wrongdoers. The scribbling on the bed linen was Gluck’s evidence of crime. She insisted that her mother’s mind was clear: ‘Not once did she say anything but wonderful and truly noble things.’ This was the Meteor, whom she thought beautiful and remote, from whom she got her idealized view of women and who should have been a great opera singer. It was intolerable to Gluck to see her mother stripped of all status and so reduced. She could not accept what a leveller such illness is:

I have had sleepless nights for two months now and I can’t go on … You I am sure have done what you thought was for the best, under advice and pressure. That you have suffered much I have no doubt, but dearest Luigi do realise that for us to have done this together would have been easier and safer. No one can know her as we do. The present state of affairs is shameful and I certainly cannot let it continue. Let us meet in amity and without anything to distract us from the one purpose – to see that Mother is safe and allowed some sort of comfort and peace at the end.

I am too upset to write any more

My love to you …7

In the same post Louis got a letter from Dr Solomons reiterating his clinical opinion about his mother – that she was physically much better, but mentally as confused and disorientated. He had found her conversation incessant, rambling and tangential. At one moment she said she had gone there for a rest and was well, and eating well, the next that she was in prison. She thought she had been in Court ten days recently, that Solomons was a well-known barrister and Dr Gilmour, whom she saw every day, his junior.

He reiterated that her condition was irreversible, that she would have to be ‘kept in some suitable place’, but that this did not have to be Moorcroft. And he again urged Louis and Gluck to come and see him ‘… while doing the right thing for your mother I want both you and her to feel that I can carry you both with me in any course of action.’8

Louis wrote formally to Gluck (10 May 1950), whom he was totally unprepared to meet except in the presence of a disinterested professional. He sent her a copy of Dr Solomons’ letter, asked her to suggest a date for a meeting and to send, before then, ‘any positive suggestions or definite proposals for dealing with this very difficult problem, so that I may have time to consider them’.

Gluck wrote back that she must see Louis alone before any meeting with Dr Solomons. Louis ignored this request and made an appointment, which he asked Gluck to confirm, for them both to see the doctor.

13th May 1950

My dear Luigi

… Perhaps my letter was not clear, but it is essential that I see you alone before I see you with Dr Solomons, so will you let me know when I can do this, preferably on Wednesday or Thursday. I have to be at Victoria by 5 pm in order to catch my return train here. At the moment I cannot stay the night in London, so perhaps you could give me some time in the morning or early afternoon, and at 199 Piccadilly. We could then also arrange another appointment with Dr Solomons

With my love

Hig

15th May 1950

My dear Hig

Your letter of the 11th was quite clear. Until we have seen Dr Solomons together I do not propose to see you alone.

As apparently you cannot keep the appointment with him on Thursday at 4.20 I am cancelling it.

When you are prepared to agree a joint interview with Dr Solomons and let me know convenient dates and times I will arrange another appointment with him.

Yours ever

Luigi

17th May 1950

My dear Luigi

… Not only have you ignored everything I told you in my letter of May 5th, but now you refuse my entirely reasonable request to see you alone before I meet you with Dr Solomons …

I had asked to see you as my only concern is to make things better for Mother and if possible prevent you from making an irretrievable mistake.

… Your overriding desire only to see me with Dr Solomons is a little belated. It would surely have been better if this meeting, to which I have twice agreed, had taken place before you carried out your plans for Mother, of which, with ample opportunity, you gave me not the slightest hint.

… I had indicated in my letter that she was in danger in circumstances I would explain to you privately. You have chosen to ignore this, as also the evidence of something I found in her room, preferring to try to force me to speak on matters intimate to us both in front of a third person …

Should you reconsider your decision I should still be glad to