If I was a comic I’d be dying on my arse. In a tiny, Thirties-themed, immaculately hoovered comedy club. Three people in the audience, two of them arms folded, stony faced, one of them smiling (the one with dementia).
It’s bracing, to say the least.

‘I’m not wearing a bra’ says the elderly woman.
‘That’s alright. Neither am I’
Tumbleweed.
‘Who are you again?’ says the son.

I’d been expecting an easier gig. I’d rung the first listed next of kin, a daughter called Louise. She’d been so chatty and friendly on the phone – sorry she wouldn’t be able to make it down today, she was caught up at the stables… not in a bad way… horses? who’d have them…. that kind of thing… but it was okay… her brother and sister in law would be over to meet me… thanks for ringing… thanks for everything, and so on.

Walking into the house was like walking into a wall. Made of ice.
‘So – what are you?’ says the son.
‘A nursing assistant.’
‘Assistant?’
‘Yes. Well – my official title is Assistant Practitioner. But everyone just thinks that means I’m a doctor. So I never call myself that – unless I’m ringing a surgery, in which case it helps get past the receptionist.’
Another tumbleweed. Probably the same one.
I can feel myself starting to sweat, even though the room is actually pretty cold.
‘Are you registered?’ he says.
‘No. But I’ve got a lot of experience, and the rest of the team are just a phone call away.’
‘I see.’
(I wish I was a phone call away. At the very least.)
‘What team?’ he says.
I describe the make-up of the response team. It sounds inauthentic, like I’m reading off an autocue.

I’m not sure which of them is tougher, the son or the daughter-in-law. It’s not good cop / bad cop. It’s bad cop / awful cop. I have a giddy, out of body experience, where my temporal body carries on talking, but my ghost unplugs, drifts over, raps on their foreheads, and finds – to no great surprise – they’re actually made of tin.

‘…so, we get referrals from the GP, the hospital or the ambulance, and we go in and annoy the hell out of people in the cause of making sure the patient is safe to be left at home.’
A tumbleweed the size of a small planet. I wish I could jump inside and roll away, like one of those big, plastic balls. Zorbing, is it? Geo Balls?

They’re staring at me.

I try to shake myself out of my funk and focus on the patient instead. That’s who I’m here for, after all. I have no idea why they’re being so hostile. It could be any number of reasons – they’re stressed to the gunnels about something, they’re annoyed they had to come out here instead of Louise, they’re angry with each other and taking it out on me, they’re terribly shy and it just reads as defensive – but frankly, I’m here for the patient, and anyway, she’s much warmer and more fun than they are.
I go through the usual routine of taking blood pressure and so on. I use all my best lines. The patient likes it, but Mr and Mrs Medusa just glare at me from the sofa.
‘I just need to take your hearing aid out so I can do your temperature,’ I tell the patient.
The son stands up.
‘Let me do it,’ he says. ‘They cost two thousand pounds.’
‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘I’m scared of those things.’
His wife snorts.
‘Don’t let him any where near them,’ she says, meaning her husband, thank god. ‘He left his in when he went for a swim in the sea.’
‘Oof!’ I say. ‘Apart from that – how was the holiday?’

A tumbleweed of barbed wire.