Her voice sounded better, stronger. I’m still in hospital, she said. I asked if she wanted or needed anything. A magazine, some sweets or some Rich Tea? She went for a magazine and some biscuits and I said we’d drop them off either that day or the next. I asked her what ward she was in. Straightforward enough. We took a detour and he went in with the Smiths bag of goodies – 3 Take a Break magazines and a pack of Rich Teas – but they couldn’t find her. She’s in the Covid ward, I told him down the phone. No, she isn’t. There’s no one with that name, at least not a woman. She’d told me previously that she answers to a different name there. Her real name. They still couldn’t find here. Where was she? In Tregaron, apparently, in a convalescent home. She’s been here for quite a while the receptionist told him over the phone. The biscuits and mags will have to wait. He wants to take them at some point. Perhaps she’s dementing, he said. Maybe. Or maybe she is just so disorientated, that all rooms she is taken to look the same, are the same. Maybe she is on the way out. But what will happen then? Its been over 6 months and she will be so institutionalised and her daughter has a young child to care for. What a time it has been for her, for both of them. My heart is full for her.
