Jill: For fun, Melanie had a painting done of Mitzi for Christmas.
Melanie: Mitzi is my cat, a very beautiful calico rescue cat, and she lives with me. She hasn’t quite worked out that Jill lives next-door.
Jill: Melanie is mother, I am a subordinate. She’s the latest in a long line of cats Melanie has had. She is probably the smartest, I’d say. A dog is your friend and wants your approbation, but a cat doesn’t really care, you’re just there as a useful service-provider. She’ll never use the cat flap if I’m there. She’ll look around for things for me to do. ‘Ooh, the slave’s here, I must utilise her. Come and open the door for me’. When she’s got a perfectly good cat flap! But that doesn’t work if a human can do that job instead. She’s basically a beautiful and occasionally benign tyrant.
But the key thing about Mitzi is that she’s a great leveller. She doesn’t care who’s disabled or who’s a carer - we’re both there to serve her.
Melanie: My condition is a virus that attacks the nerves in your spine. It affects people in different ways. Ten per cent of us it affects our walking. I have neuropathic pain, which means that at night I can’t bear anything touching my feet and my legs can feel burning hot. It’s frustrating because I can’t do things physically. Jill has to get things for me, help me lift things. I’m pretty independent otherwise. We help each other. It’s a symbiotic relationship.
Jill: Melanie struggles with her balance so if she needs something off a tall shelf, I’ll go in next door and get it for her. But she does all her own cleaning. She does the cooking. She drives herself about. She’s pretty independent. She even drove herself to A&E once when she cut her hand open.
Melanie: Once, when I was attending a three-day conference in London and staying at a hotel in Covent Garden, Jill came every evening just to get me into bed. I can get out of bed, but I can’t get into bed.
Jill: It was a small act but as we live a two hour commute into London, I had to plan a two hour journey to help Mel into bed and then come all the way back again to deal with whatever Mitzi needed. But I just thought: OK, don’t make a fuss - just do it. She’s still my family and I personally believe you have a duty to help your family. It’s funny because we hated each other growing up. There’s six years age difference between us. Melanie was good at mental torture; I would just do physical things to retaliate. We loathed each other. But once we grew up, Melanie was very kind to me and gave me treats and things. We once shared a house that our parents helped us buy, though we lived separate lives. We joked it was like that film What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? She was Joan Crawford and I was Bette Davis. But now I think we’re best friends. We do a lot of things together. We’ve got a bond there.But we’re very pragmatic. We’d rather stick pins in our eyes than say “I love you” and all that. So there’s no trace of sentimentality between us. We’re sisters.