A Spring Christmas
Today it is Christmas. The tulips are shedding their petals in the garden and the Boden summer catalogue lies on the doormat, but over a festive lunch in the dining room we are opening our Christmas presents. At the head of the table is my mother. Piled around her are the gifts she had ordered before the doctor's car felled her that night in November. They've lain for five months, still in their jiffy bags, in a corner of my old bedroom. We'd resolved not to open them unless she came home and handed them out herself. It never seemed likely that that would happen. Three days ago, however, the woman who was admitted to hospital with little chance of survival left the rehabilitation wing walking and talking. 'I've been reborn,' she observes. 'I've become a baby again.' And in a sense she is right. Once an adventurous cook, she now fears making a cup of tea. Once a journalist, she has now forgotten how to type. She used to be a socialite; now she is...