I finished reading this today. It is very good. The crazy lady’s behavior is oddly familiar in family members, particularly Grandpa.
The author has a very long career in British TV. He allows a homeless lady to live in an immobile van next to his house. The book is from entries in his diary over the 15 yr she lived there. It is touching that he was worried about her and in the end allowed her to move in there.
She is very obviously mentally unbalanced. Trying to study to be a nun and ending up in various mental hospitals and running away until she could live homelessly on her own.
Her living space was full of half-eaten food, clothes, and general trash. This is not too unlike the way Grandpa lived in the Pink house and the house in the country. Though Grandpa always had Chihuahua inside and maybe a Chow outside. There was dog pooh everywhere.
In the end, the author lived near her almost more than anyone else. Her death is so neat as to appear staged. As she aged and began using a wheelchair, she developed a friend who arranged for professional care. They came and picked her up, bathed her, and put fresh clothes on. That night she escaped one last time to return to the van where she died that night. As if she knew it was time and found a bath and clean clothes to prepared herself.