Her dog’s nose gave her away, poking out from behind the wall, along with the tips of her trainers.
Skulking in the communal bin area near my mother’s house, she watched me back my car out of Mum’s drive from her hiding place. Waiting for the coast to be clear.
As I turned the corner, I stopped the car and looked back down the road – and sure enough, there was Angela, and Daisy the dachshund, scurrying up the drive and sneaking through Mum’s front door.
There was no need for her to ring the doorbell; Angela knows the combination to the key safe, installed for carers and emergencies. Now she was in the house – and there was nothing I could do about it. I pounded the steering wheel in fury. ‘Why can’t she just leave us alone?’ I raged.
But why wasn’t I racing back to rescue my 87-year-old mother from this woman who might be about to help herself to the contents of her purse, jewellery box and whatever else she could find?
Well, I don’t think Angela was there to steal anything – or at least, nothing material anyway. No, it’s my mother she’s trying to steal – or that’s how it’s beginning to feel to my sister and me.
Stealthily, over the past three years, Angela – who lives three doors down from my mother Valerie in a small town in Southern England – has managed to burrow, parasite-like, into Mum’s life, taking over what’s left of our diminishing family from within.
The invasion was imperceptible at first – and even welcomed by us – but now I’m in absolutely no doubt about how sinister her campaign for my mother’s affections is.
At first Alice was grateful for the help of her mother’s neighbour Angela, but she says her behaviour was ‘more insidious’ than she realised, as Angela wanted to replace her
She doesn’t covet Mum in order to inherit her estate – she’d be sorely disappointed if she did. The thousands Mum pays in carers’ fees each month are eating into what’s left of her savings, and a not-too-distant care home will see off whatever’s left.
No, Angela’s takeover is much more insidious than that.
I feel she wants to usurp my sister and me as the most important, trusted and loved person in Mum’s world. She wants to be her daughter.
She’d like town gossips to whisper how ‘lucky’ our Mum is to have a guardian angel like her – what with her selfish daughters living their fancy-pants lives in the city, leaving their poor widowed mother to fend for herself.
Being Mum’s ‘saviour’ has given her validation and status she’s never had before – and it’s become what she lives for. I am fully aware of how paranoid, ungrateful and downright nasty this makes me sound. I have spent years trying to stem these poisonous thoughts and force myself to try to see Angela as the sweet, selfless neighbour everyone else does, including my mother.
But I can’t. I even caught myself thinking the other day how much nicer it will be when Mum – who has myriad health problems and the early signs of dementia – is in a care home, safely under lock and key, and away from her.
Horrible, I know.
My sister and I grew up in the small, three-bedroom end of terrace that Angela is now invading. It was a happy home. My parents were well known and respected in the town, having grown up there themselves. But like good parents, they instilled ambition in my sister and me, and as soon as we hit 18 we headed for college, and London and never looked back.
I forged a good career in accounting, and my sister in marketing. Angela, meanwhile, moved into the street 40 years ago, around the time I left.
Of indeterminate age – at my best guess, I’d say she’s now in her early 60s, a few years older than me – and limited intelligence, life hasn’t been kind or easy. She’s single, with three sons – none of whom seem to have held down a job for very long.
Sadly Mum was widowed in her early 50s, when my father died suddenly of cancer. But with my and my sister’s support, she managed to build a new life for herself.
After retirement she joined the Women’s Institute, took up cake decorating, swam daily at the local pool and became an enthusiastic grandmother. My sister and I would visit regularly, helping her out with any house maintenance or tech issues.
But then she hit the hump-back bridge of 80, and her health started to go downhill fast. Her hearing deteriorated, then she developed arthritis in her back and needed a knee replacement.
The wheels came off totally three years ago when, aged 84, she fell and broke her hip.
My sister and I took turns looking after her, juggling our jobs and family obligations, and during this time we noticed Angela walking her dog by the house every day. She’d stop to chat and ask after Mum, and we invited her in for a cup of tea.
She seemed sweet and harmless. Okay, a bit prejudiced (her views on Covid and illegal immigrants make Trump look positively enlightened), but Mum seemed to enjoy having her around. She especially loved Daisy, the dog. In fact Daisy became the highlight of Mum’s day. She asked us to buy some dog treats and put a special blanket for her on the sofa.
With a new hip, physio, carers and a cleaner, Mum grew stronger, and my sister and I managed to retreat a little. But as we left, Angela oozed into the space we left behind.
We’d phone every morning to check on Mum and Angela would be there, in the background, calling out a cheery ‘Yoo-hoo!’ Within a few weeks she was answering the phone for Mum.
Every time one of us called round – my sister lives nearer and visits three times a week, while I live 70 miles away, and go every weekend – Angela would be there to greet us.
When Alice and her sister called their mother, Angela would always be there and, after a few weeks, she was even answering the phone on their mother’s behalf
We’d arrive to find she’d done Mum’s washing, been to the supermarket for her, ordered her prescription online, opened her post and even paid her bills using her debit card, for which Mum had given her the PIN – tasks I’d just driven two hours to do.
‘Oh, don’t mention it,’ she’d say, as I thanked her, rather uncomfortably. ‘She’s an absolute diamond your mum, she means the world to me.’
Alarm bells started sounding. I switched all of Mum’s utility bills to direct debit, changed her PIN and set up online banking so I could keep a close check on her accounts. But nothing seemed amiss. ‘Am I being really awful,’ I confessed to my sister one day, ‘but sometimes I’d really like to tell Angela to sod off. I don’t trust her.’
‘Thank God you said that,’ she replied. ‘I thought it was just me! I really miss being able to speak to Mum without her being there all the time.’
My husband and close friends, especially those with elderly parents, were aghast when I complained. ‘You’ve no idea how lucky you are!’ they constantly reminded me.
And we are lucky; Angela proved how invaluable she was six months ago when Mum had another fall and ended up in hospital, thankfully with just bad bruising.
It was Angela who noticed her bedroom curtains hadn’t been opened in the morning and used the key safe to get in and raise the alarm. My sister and I both raced down there, gushing thanks, to find Angela at her bedside. The nurses greeted us as Valerie’s ‘other daughters’. A mistake? I don’t think so.
A month later when Mum was discharged, my sister and I were back to sharing shifts caring for her. By now, Mum was also becoming incontinent, bringing new challenges.
At 7.30 one morning last November, completely frazzled after another sleepless night, I walked into the front room in my underwear to find Angela sitting on the sofa with Daisy, watching TV and eating biscuits.
I admit I was a bit short with her. I told her it wasn’t a good time. I also asked her to ring the doorbell in future.
She stormed off, but later that evening she was back – with a couple of her bull-necked sons in tow.
There was much finger-jabbing and shouting. I was called a stuck-up b****h and informed how ‘everyone in town’ knows how much Angela does for my mum, and what a ‘nasty piece of work’ I was.
If anything, having witnessed first-hand the casual menace that seems to be her family’s default method of communication, I felt a little sympathy for Angela. Perhaps Mum’s quiet, happy home had become a sanctuary for her.
I grovelled and bought flowers, but it was no good. As far as Angela was concerned, I was now the enemy, and therefore Mum needs her protection all the more.
Now, if she sees my or my sister’s car in the drive, she hides and waits. And all we can do is watch, as she tries to steal our mother from under our noses.
- Alice Rolson is a pseudonym. Names and identifying details have been changed.
