Jacqueline P Vincent

After a disturbed night, I woke bleary eyed and with a sense of dread. Today, mum and I will be returning to Dorset driving on motor-ways. UGH! After Mum opened the curtains at five am, she announced she was awake and why wasn’t anyone else? Outside, the leaden clouds were depositing their contents, and the wind was dashing the rain against the window. I pulled the covers over my head and muttered negative vibes, in the hope my family would leave me alone for another half an hour. Nope, first the dog leapt onto the bed I’d shared with mum, then Seb, the oldest of my son’s boys, poked his head around the door and said, “Are you getting up, nanny?” I muttered a reply and buried myself further under the duvet. Mum’s whistling when she returned fresh from the shower and disturbed me further. I surfaced but felt like death.

I remember as a child, mum was always up, cheerful, and out of bed early. Whereas, I take my time rising from the depths of sleep to waken and function. However, on this trip I’ve shared a room and a bed with mum for four nights because I didn’t want her to be on her own. At eighty-six, with a dodgy back and hips, I worried she would fall. At this point in our trip, I regretted that decision.
She doesn’t sleep well, takes several trips to the bathroom during the night, turning the overhead lights on each time. Then when she gets back into bed reads until she falls asleep, leaving the lights on. In the meantime, I’m counting sheep, cows, horses, children, and ways of murdering her in my futile efforts to sleep.
My only consolation is, according to one of my sisters, I’ve earned several brownie points and given them a break.

After a shower, I dressed, packed and took our bags downstairs to the hall in readiness to leave. Then I returned to our room and stowed away the bed-settee, folded sheets and duvets. Pete, my son, came in headphones attached, ready to begin work. Whilst I checked the room, he switched on the computer, plugged himself in and I heard a chorus of voices calling out ‘morning’. Surprised, I turned around and glanced at his screen. He was already in a meeting with his team. I was now in the way. He gave me a smile and a thumbs up before I left him to his conference.
Downstairs, I glanced out of the window and the rain continued to lash against the glass. The little spirit I had sunk without a trace. Kelly, my son’s partner, was sitting on the sofa with their youngest. She looked dreadful. Pale, dark eyed and feverish.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Not really. I think I’ve got the flu. I’m going to ring in and tell my team I’m working from home.”
After making her a cup of tea, I asked if I could do any more. She gave me a half smile, shook her head, and set up her first zoom meeting of the day.
It’s time to go. We enjoyed catching up with family, but it was time for us to head south. We packed our stuff, not much, into the little jelly mould 3CV, waved a quick goodbye and left.
The rain was too light for full wipers and too heavy for intermittent wipers, so they squeaked in arcs across the windscreen.
The M62, the first of our motor-ways, was chock-a-block, with lorries heading away from the docks and onto the Humber Bridge. After the bridge turning, and without the heavy traffic, the next hour was peaceful.
The next motor-way the M18 disappeared, or rather, I asked mum to keep a lookout, but she’d fallen asleep and I missed the turnoff. We almost reached the Leeds M1 without seeing the M18. I think I’ve just added two hours to an already long journey.

The M1 stretches from Leeds to London. Every lane carried lorries, and more lorries. Two of these giant beasts bore down on me within twenty miles of turning onto the motorway. Squashed between the two, I gripped the steering wheel, gritted my teeth and prayed they could see me. Drizzle, spray from the lorries obscured my vision, making the road ahead a mystery to me.
I unclenched my teeth, rolled my sore shoulders, spied a service station and pulled in. The rain returned and mum woke up.
“That was a nice snooze. Where are we?”
“A rest stop on the M1.”
“Oh good, we can have a cup of tea and I’m peckish.”
I parked close to the front entrance. Thank you mum, for the use of the blue badge. Mum hopped out and limped to the loos, our first stop. Next, we found a coffee shop. Mum sat at a table and hung her stick on the rear of a chair, whilst I gasped at the high prices. I bought a sandwich to share and two coffees, and no change from twenty quid. My poor credit card has certainly had a hammering these last few days.
After a quick text to John, we continued down the M1 refreshed. Soon the turning for the A43, which leads to Oxford and the start of our journey west, appeared. Yay! We’ll be leaving the lorries on the M1.
Mum, who was snoozing once more, woke as I arrived at the next service station. She was no company in the car. Fuel this time, but we stopped for another coffee and a wrap, another twenty quid gone, and I’m overdosing on carbs. I climbed out of my mum’s tiny vehicle, red-eyed from lack of sleep and bloated from carbs. Pulled a pump pistol out of its cradle, jiggled it into the opening and squeezed the trigger. A lot of money later, the trigger jerked, the tank was full, and I replaced the pistol.
My heart stopped. Had I filled the car with the right fuel? I didn’t think to ask mum before I filled the tank. My face paled, and I asked, “Mum, what type of fuel do you use?”
“Petrol, why?”
“Because at home I only use diesel, and I think I’ve just filled your car up with the wrong fuel.”
Now what do I do? I have to contact AA or whoever mum is with, to drain the tank. It will be expensive. And I only want to get home to John. We still had more than half the journey left, and I was done with travelling.
“Oh, don’t worry, you can’t get the diesel nozzle into the opening. I’ve tried.”
I breathed a sigh of relief and paid.

Turning westward onto the A45, the traffic slowed to a crawl. Mum and I were packed in between four lorries, the spray from their wheels making it impossible, once more, to see. The lorry on my right indicated he was coming over, so I slowed down. The three lanes merged into two and our speed decreased. On the other side of the road, I saw the remains of an accident. Then the traffic sped up to its normal speed of seventy and I realised we’d slowed just so people could get a good look at someone else’s misfortune.
Evening descended, and the rain let up, but the roads were sodden. As we journeyed westward via the M3, our second-to-last motorway, the traffic intensified with vans leaving the cities returning home. The spatter from their passing, the sun low in the sky, made it almost impossible to drive. I slowed and the other drivers raised their fists and mouthed obscenities as they rushed past. At one point a lorry was pressuring me from behind, a van trapped me in the middle lane and tears brimmed on my eyelids.
Mum had fallen asleep once more. I stopped at the service station on the M27. She awoke as we arrived and we walked into the cafe where a very nice waitress brought over our coffees. I think she could see I was struggling, and before we left, I messaged John to say I’d be with him within the hour.
With a perk of energy from my strong coffee and a ‘Love you’ from John, although my head pounded, we drove through the familiar territory of the A31 to Wimborne Minster. The rain had stopped, the sun had set, my body ached, and I was desperate to finish this interminable journey.

At eight thirty pm, we arrived at mum’s house and she asked me in for a cup of tea. I refused and said, “John is waiting. He knows I’ll be with him within the hour.” We hugged, said our goodbyes, mum as fresh as a daisy, and me, a quivering exhausted wreck.
I drove towards Wareham, where we were staying, and my phone pinged. So I stopped in case there was a change of plans.
‘I’m covid positive.’ The message came from Kelly in Hull. Of course this explained why she looked so poorly, poor girl. I burst into tears and realised I couldn’t see John because I may be positive as well. Whilst up north, we did everything in vain – mask wearing, hand washing, and avoiding crowds.
I cried, balled, screamed and sobbed as I sat by myself in the car, in the pitch black, with nowhere to go and exhausted after five days travelling with mum. I phoned John and hysterically told him what had happened. Unfortunately, I didn’t know his phone was on speaker and the rest of his family heard me ranting.
“I thought you were staying with your mum tonight.”
“No, we’d agreed I’d come to yours.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“And Kelly’s covid positive.”
“Oh, God! That changes everything.”
I burst into tears once more.
“Drive here and we’ll sort it out together.”
After another blurry eyed ten minute drive, I arrived outside Margaret’s, where we were all supposed to be staying, house. John came out in his pyjamas and all his belongings, threw his stuff onto the back seat, climbed in and hugged me. Exhaustion, pressure from caring for my mum, driving, and spending too much money led to me breaking down. John took the wheel and drove us to the original small flat to start another five days of isolating.
Travelling to the UK to see family is always tiring, meeting both sides and spending as much time as we can with each one. This visit was unusually stressful because of a family member’s illness, and our fear of the unknown, the outcome, and the treatment.
I also realised that as I’m knocking on for sixty-five, I can’t rush about looking after others like I have in the past. Taking mum on a whirlwind trip up north has made me aware of my limits. Perhaps I’ll take it easier next time and take a co-driver, or at least someone to map-read whilst mum catches up on sleep.