Lady Anne was our very own Mata Hari on a bicycle, to whom dementia was life’s greatest gift
One chilly afternoon, I drove with my mother on a narrow, winding backroad in Ireland. It was just after lunch, but the pale winter sun was already declining, casting soft shadows on the road ahead. White sheep dotted the green hills around us; ivy-enrobed trees stretched skeletal fingers to the sky.
Yet my mother was, by this time, deep in dementia and the frosty manner had thawed. She had a sharp memory for people, places and events in her youth, but almost no recollection of what happened a few minutes ago. Sad as this was, it made for some interesting, loopy conversions. Once, when my fiancée Carol Ann and I announced our recent engagement, she beamed with joy, “Oh, that’s wonderful!”“Oh, that’s wonderful!” she said again.
She lived in Dublin during the Emergency, which was what neutral Ireland called the Second World War. As a secretary in an insurance company, she revealed one night, after a couple of gin-and-tonics, that she used to ride her bicycle to the German Embassy every Friday, to deliver a package.“Um … it was for, um, a Herr … Blighter.” I think she made that up, but Terry ran with it.Blighter? The famous German spy?” She put her hand to her mouth and giggled, flirtatiously.
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