Author: jim clayton

ETOH

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

It’s quite a contrast to see the two of them together – Alex, wraith-like, matted hair, scooped eyes, shivering, hugging his legs in bed with a filthy duvet piled up around him; and Graham, the support worker from the alcohol and substance abuse team, shaven-headed, gym-fit, in a smart grey reefer jacket and leather man bag, perched on the arm of the sofa with his hands in his pockets. It could be a fashion shoot for an edgy magazine.
‘You’ve got this far, yeah?’ says Graham. ‘Hats off to you, mate. It’s no easy thing you’ve done there. Don’t go and spoil it now. After all we’ve been through. You got to realise – this is a disease we’re talking about, yeah? There are all kindsa toxins and shit floatin’ around your body right now. You can’t just expect to jump up and be cured. It’s a long, hard process. And you’re doin’ great, man! Isn’t he? This guy’ll tell ya…’
‘You are. Graham’s right. Alcohol addiction’s the hardest thing.’
‘See what I mean?’
Alex doesn’t seem convinced. He draws his legs closer to him, gives his head a peremptory shake.
‘I don’ know, man. I jus’ feel like I’m wastin’ everyone’s time. I mean – I brought it on myself.’
‘You can’t afford to think like that,’ says Graham. ‘Everyone’s different. You’re totally worth it, man.’
‘Is there a social worker involved?’ I ask Graham, flipping through his folder.
‘No,’ he says. ‘When they see they’re still drinking they pull out.’
He shrugs, scuffs his shoes in the trash.
‘It’s hard, but it’s just the way it is.’
‘It’s not like I’m not trying,’ says Alex.
‘Yeah – but there’s trying, and there’s doing, Alex. You’ve got to be in a position to accept the help. It’s just how it works. You know that.’
‘Yeah.’
‘We’re here for you, though.’

There are several bottles within easy reach of Alex’s bed – a two litre bottle of cider, a couple of quarter bottles of vodka, some other, less obvious stuff in bottles with the labels torn off. A dull yellow light filters through the filthy windows. The flat is an apocalyptic mess; it looks like an extemporary shelter somebody hollowed out with their hands in a landfill site. Here and there you can just make out traces of the orderly life Alex once used to live. There’s a mountain bike in the hallway, quietly fossilising under a press of junk; over by the window-ledge, a tool box, some work boots.
‘We’ve got to find a way to keep you out of trouble long enough to detox properly,’ says Graham. ‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah,’ says Alex. He doesn’t sound convinced.
Graham shrugs, pushes his hands deeper into his jacket.
‘How long’ve we known each now?’ he says. ‘Gotta be nine, ten years.’
‘Is it?’ says Alex, rubbing his face. ‘Fuck, man! Nine years? No! That’s like…’ He screws up his face to figure out what percentage of his life that represents: ‘…that’s like… a fuck of a long time, man!’
‘I think so,’ says Graham. ‘First time I met you you’d just been beaten up and taken to hospital. You were in a bad way, my friend.’
‘Was I?’ says Alex. ‘I don’t remember.’
‘Yeah – well – you don’t remember much, to be fair. You didn’t remember I was here yesterday, so maybe that’s not headline news.’
‘No. You’re right. Probably not.’
‘I’ve seen you in and out of hospital a hundred times. Lost sight of you for months on end when you took yourself off somewhere. You’d always turn up again, half dead, some new injury. And now look.’
He’s right. I’m reading through the latest discharge summary. For someone so young, Alex has a terrible list of things wrong. In fact, it’s a miracle he’s still here at all. Looking at him on the bed, though, it would be easy to think that maybe he wasn’t – that maybe he’d died that last time in hospital, but his spirit was so cussed it dragged itself back across town to find rest in this cold, cold bed.
‘It’s like training, yeah? You can’t just jump on a treadmill and bang out ten K. You might feel great at the end of it, but the truth is, if you don’t get the intervals right you can be setting yourself up for a lot of trouble. It’s all about the interaction between the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous systems, the way your body metabolises the shit and tries to get straight again. Jim’ll tell you. Hey?’
They both look at me – Graham as if he’s about to pick me up and bench press me, Alex with a haunted, shivery look.
‘That’s right,’ I say, ‘Uh-huh.’

cecil & the badgers

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

I was out on a dog walk, hanging around that corner of the woods where the badgers live (or some of the badgers, I should say. In fact, I’ve only ever seen one, hurrying home like someone weighed down with shopping bags, late for an appointment). I was impressed by the amount of work the badgers had been putting in, major excavations by the look of it, a great tract of sandy soil kicked out from one of the burrows, along with all the leaves and twigs they’d been using as bedding. It looked pretty deep. I thought if this was anything to go by, we were in for a hard winter.

I’d just rejoined the main path when I saw Jenny striding along, her pug Cecil waddling out in front. I waved, and waited. Cecil reached me first, checking me over in that abrupt, flat-faced way he has, a border guard demanding my papers.

‘Oh for goodness sake!’ says Jenny, waving him away. ‘Leave the poor man alone!’
‘How are you, Jenny?’
‘I’m fine, thank you,’ she says. ‘I only wish I could say the same for Cecil.’
‘Why? What’s wrong?’
‘What isn’t wrong, more to the point. He’s on antibiotics. For his ears. And now he’s completely off his food. He’s just not interested. I’ve tried everything – even his favourite, raw mince.’
‘Raw mince?’
‘Nothing. Not a sniff.’
‘Sorry to hear it.’
I look down at Cecil. I’ve never seen such a healthy-looking dog. Sleek lines, muscular back. I can imagine him in the Olympics, shoving a javelin through the air, or wrestling another pug flat on its back.
‘He’s wasting away,’ says Jenny. ‘Poor thing!’
Cecil is bored by all the attention. He starts eating some grass, with great relish, his slobbery tongue slapping at the leaves.
‘Cecil no!’ yells Jenny, hauling him away. ‘For goodness sake! You’ll kill yourself at this rate!’
He huffs indignantly, then waddles further ahead to eat the grass there, in peace.
‘He slept with me last night,’ says Jenny, dragging her hair back, making a mime of putting it into a non-existent scrunchie, then releasing it to spring forwards into exactly the same position. ‘It’s so unlike him. I didn’t mind, though. It meant I could keep an eye on him. Anyway. How are you?’
‘Yeah. I’m fine. I was just looking at the badgers. They’re digging deep. I wonder if it’s going to be a hard winter.’
‘Badgers’ says Jenny, glancing over her shoulder with a shudder. ‘I don’t think Cecil is all that good with badgers.’

sig

the works

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

There’s a builder’s truck blocking the mews. It’s up on hydraulic stabilisers as the driver operates the winch, dropping off enormous bags of sand and gravel, the engine labouring as the next load gets taken up, the back of the truck lurching with the sudden change of weight. I can’t imagine what building project would require such a massive delivery – maybe one of those basement excavations you read about, an underground pool and cinema and gym, perhaps. A lift shaft to a cocktail bar and viewing platform at the earth’s core. Whatever the reason, the contrast with the ancient backstreet couldn’t be more extreme. Two hundred years ago these would have been a row of stables with offices, lofts and basic accommodation above; now they’re a mixture of chi-chi businesses, full-scale conversions, and the cobbled street curves down right and left not to straw and manure-heaped gutters but expensive planters, artisanal signs and cutely painted old bikes with geraniums in the basket.

We’ve had to park at the far end by the equipment van that’s here to deliver a hospital bed. They could only have beaten us by fifteen minutes and yet they’re already half-way through. Once again I’m in awe of their efficiency and sheer work ethic, like scaled-up ants in yellow jackets. A hospital bed is no light thing. It comes in sections, of course, but the main frame is pretty heavy. A feature of the flats in these mews is a steep and narrow staircase running straight up from the front door – no doubt originally to a hay loft. To make things even more awkward, the house we’re visiting has a stair lift, so really there’s hardly any room at all to get the bed in. When we stroll up, though, they’ve already got the frame delivered, and all that’s left are the mattress, a cantilever table and a few other bits and pieces.
‘What did you do – commandeer the truck?’ I say to one of them, who is so red-faced I want to lean in and loosen his collar.
He laughs, slicks his antennae back.
‘Maybe you could take the table?’ he says.

The whole thing is something of a rush job. The GP had visited George late last night. George is a ninety-five year old man with a recent palliative diagnosis who has declined rapidly and unexpectedly straight into an End of Life scenario. He was refusing hospital, so the GP had prescribed anticipatory meds, made referrals to the District Nurse and Palliative teams, and to us for urgent review first thing in the morning. Katrina had gone straight there from home and was busy by eight. By nine she’d phoned in to make her report: it was bed care only, so George needed a hospital bed with pressure mattress and slide sheet to be delivered the same day, with someone to be there to help with a pat slide; George needed care support four times a day, double-up; he needed pads, pressure cream, foam lollipops for mouth care – the works. I said I could meet Katrina there at lunchtime to get the whole thing done.

George’s wife Valerie greets us at the top of the stairs.
‘Forgive my hair,’ she says, patting it. ‘I must look a fright. But as you can imagine I’ve had quite a night.’
Both Valerie and the flat have the shocked look of something hit by lightning. Everything is essentially as it was – the pictures, the chairs, the collections of antique pill boxes and books, the Moroccan rugs and tables and lamps, the family pictures on the walls – everything so perfectly placed and orderly the housekeeper must have a tape measure in their pocket. But the furthest end of the flat – the main bedroom end – has a sprawled, disrupted appearance, with a wreckage of discarded packaging, plastic strapping and so on spilling across the hallway, whilst through the open door the sound of construction and the movement of heavy furniture adds to the feeling of emergency. The noise from the builder’s truck outside sounds like a fire engine.
‘What a business!’ says Valerie. ‘But you know, everyone’s been so kind. We really are most grateful.’

There’s a large tabby cat staring at me from the middle of the living room rug. It’s as perfectly groomed as Valerie, and I half-expect it to reach up with a paw and pat itself delicately on the head, as she did.
‘Grammaticus is very put out,’ says Valerie, walking over to him. ‘He’s nineteen, you know? Like us – old and worn out. He can’t tolerate the fuss.’
She bends down stiffly and painfully, scooping him up to cradle him in her arms, just exactly as you would a baby, pressing her nose to the top of his head, rocking him up and down, swinging her hips a little from side to side. He maintains his stare, making little adjustments to accommodate the motion.
‘He looks good for his age,’ I say.
‘Do you think?’ she says. Then – still rocking the cat – she looks off towards the window. Down in the street, the noise from the builder’s lorry has eased. It sounds as if all the deliveries might have finished, and instead there are shouts and raucous laughter, the plaintive whining of hydraulic legs being lifted, the off-kilter clattering of a concrete mixer.
‘Good God,’ says Valerie. ‘When will it all end?’

nobody whistles in cars these days

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

nobody whistles in cars these days
marking their spots in the parking bays
ending their stops, starting their stays
nobody whistles in cars these days

everyone’s hurrying to shuck the corn
and scatter the leaves on the garden lawn
and kiss the crib where the kid was born
everyone’s hurrying to shuck the corn

you say everything comes to those that wait
the sistine chapel, the garden gate
the jack-in-the-box, the slave-in-the-crate
everything comes to those that wait

I hear somebody’s selling a hand-me-down
a torch for the sun, a bone for the ground
a saddle of meat and a bridal gown
somebody’s selling a hand-me-down

anything different is just the same
we spend the rent and spare the blame
and learn the rules and cheat the game
anything different is just the same

nobody whistles in cars these days
marking their spots in the parking bays
ending their stops, starting their stays
nobody whistles in cars these days

IMG_1116

Death comes to call (via mail merge)

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Dear {first name} {last name}

Please excuse this communication
but we’re going through a rationalisation
and as you may have seen in social media
we’re modernising the whole procedure

Where formally you’d expect San La Muerte in a cloak
or a Banshee keening in a swirl of smoke
or Thanatos carrying your shade to a boat
– I’m sorry, but these were early adoptions
and currently no longer available as options

Not to mention Ankou in his corpse laden cart
collecting you when you were ready to depart
with his long white hair and cold, black heart
– well, we’ve withdrawn this model from circulation
(subject to the usual confirmation)

There was Azrail, beautiful or monstrous depending
on the quality of life the client was ending
Giltinė in her black cloak, Śmierć in white
Jogging round the boneyard in the middle of the night.
– picturesque but hardly cost-efficient choices
rarely leading to timely invoices

We had Pesta with her broom, Maaijeman with his rake
Yama on a buffalo with a lasso like a snake
Charon on the Styx for a couple of danake
– all very well but a bit out of date
Now we have fibre optic cables
clean data sets in Excel tables

So if you’d kindly fill in the attached receipt
and I’ll be back to upload you early next week

Yours facelessly,

D.

IMG_1104

 

holy bananas

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

I’m sorry to have to say this, but it’s all Pete’s fault.

‘There you go! Thought you might want something big and hot inside you!’ he says, slopping a huge Arsenal mug of builder’s strength tea onto the desk, then walking off, laughing in that filthy way he has, high and wild and raucous as a drag tea lady in a pantomime.

Pete is the world’s best tea maker – a county-level performer, meticulous, prolific. It doesn’t matter how much I resolve to be the first in with the drinks round, somehow he always manages to beat me to it. It’s in his blood. His DNA sequence is PGT. His mother was a teapot and he was born under the Constellation of the Great Urn. If you x-rayed his torso you’d see two tea bags where his kidneys should be. Pete is the Caffeine King, the Tannin Chief, the author of the Beverage Report. He put the tea in terrific and the milk and two in you. And so on. I have no doubt one day they’ll raise a statue by public subscription (mostly funds re-streamed from tea clubs across the world). A life-size bronze in the marketplace: Saint Peter of the Kettle, mug raised high for seagulls to perch on and provide the laugh.

Anyway. Nobody’s forcing me, I don’t HAVE to drink it. I know it’s going to be a busy morning so if I finish the whole mug I’ll be busting for the loo half way through. But Pete’s tea isn’t something you can pass over easily. Rational thinking doesn’t come into it. By the time I’ve left the department to start my visits, the mug is empty. I rinse it clean, put it upside-down on the draining board, and leave.

 *  *  *

By the time I get to Ralph, my second patient, my bladder is as taut as a helium balloon with Arsenal printed on the side. I finish dressing Ralph’s wound, doing his obs and so on, and I’m just about to ask him if it’s okay if I use his loo, when he says his daughter is due back any minute. She’s just popped out to get a repeat script of antibiotics. I don’t want to be in the loo when she comes in because I think it might look odd. But then I think – maybe it doesn’t matter, because I remember there’s a rehab unit in the next street. They have toilets there. I can use them. Everything’s fine. I pack up my things, say goodbye to Ralph, and leave.

It’s only after I’m parked up and walking to the unit that I realise it recently closed. (A political decision; don’t get me started). But there’s a car parked outside, and I think maybe there’ll be people there packing up or something – even just a security guard. In fact, standing up against the door and shielding the glass with my hand, I can see a mug of tea (how ironic) and a fluorescent jacket dumped on the counter. I ring the bell, knock, ring again. No-one comes. I’m tempted to find some nook or cranny, somewhere discreet I can go without being seen. But I worry the security guard will suddenly appear, doing their rounds, and besides, the unit is surrounded by flats that overlook the place as closely as watchtowers round a prison.

My next visit isn’t for another hour – a double-up with a physio at The Pines, an extensive, sheltered housing place the other side of town. I decide to get there early and use the visitor’s toilet.

The Pines is a busy, friendly block. There are always residents sitting in the gardens, wandering in and out, things going on. A manager in the office. Today, though, it’s eerily quiet. The fact that it’s Sunday means there’s no-one on duty. The weather is bad, sharp and autumnal, so no-one’s sitting out. I can’t buzz the patient’s flat – we’re doubling-up because they have a history of mental health issues and need careful handling. All I can do is wait to see if anyone appears in the lobby. After ten minutes of nothing, I buzz the remote site office. Eventually, after a twenty millilitre pause, they answer. I explain my predicament, trying to sound as warm and authentic as I can.

‘Well – as we have no camera on the door…’ the voice says, ‘… and there’s no way of verifying that you are who you say you are, I have no alternative but to say no. I’m sorry. Goodbye and good luck with all your endeavours.’

The intercom clicks off.

I rest both hands flat on the console, wondering whether to buzz again and try begging. Then I pick up my bags and hurry back to the car. I figure if I drive fast enough I can just about make it back to base, use the loo, then turn around and drive straight back in time for the visit.

For some reason, there is a stationary queue of traffic on the road heading in. I’ll never get there at this rate. I see myself exploding behind the wheel like a hyper-inflated space hopper, and when the emergency services force the door they’ll jump back in horror as my idiotic grin floats out on a torrent of piss.

As soon as I can I make a u-turn and head back to The Pines. It occurs to me that there’s a clinic just round the corner from it: they’ll definitely have a public loo. I can use that, then relax for twenty minutes until the appointment.

I’m forgetting it’s Sunday. Of course the clinic is closed. There are plenty of attractive bushes in the landscaped quadrant just in front of it, but unfortunately they’re overlooked by a community hall, and in the hall are lots of elderly people gathered together for a meeting of some kind. I toy with the idea of banging on the window and asking if they’ll let me in to use their facilities, but it’s just too public and humiliating, so instead I go back round to the main entrance of The Pines, hoping beyond hope there’ll be someone to let me in this time.

There is. An elderly man in a black felt, flowerpot hat, wearing so many disparate and ill-matching clothes it looks like he’s put on everything in his wardrobe at once, for a bet. He is sitting on a bench in the foyer facing the doors, methodically peeling a banana. I stride up to the doors, smiling as warmly and reputably as I can. Put my ID card flat against the glass. Wave and nod for him to come over.

He takes a cautious bite from the very tip of the banana, and stares at me.

I wave at him again, going through such a pantomime of encouraging shrugs and winks and nods I must look crazy.

He takes another bite of the banana, then carefully replaces the skin flaps – one, two, three, four – like he wants to fool someone into thinking it’s an untouched banana. He places it on the bench beside him, stands up, brushes the front of his mac, licks his lips, touches the corner of his mouth with his finger – first the right, then the left – repositions his hat – then makes the four thousand mile journey across the carpet towards the door. I hope he might come via the big silver door release button on the wall, but instead (and – to be fair to the man – quite correctly) he walks in a straight line to the door and pushes his face up close to the glass to read the card, his banana breath fogging on the pane. Then he looks round the side of the card and glares at me. I smile. He looks back to the card again.

‘I’m early for an appointment,’ I say, overly pronouncing my words in an effort to be heard. ‘I’m waiting for my colleague so we can go in together. The thing is, I’m desperate for the loo, and I wondered if you could let me in so I can use the facilities?’

He raises his eyebrows, lowers them again, turns around, and starts walking slowly back. For one, terrible minute I think he’s just going to sit down and carry on eating his banana, but at the last minute he changes course and touches the silver button. The doors slide open.
‘Thank you SO much!’ I say. ‘I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that!’

He shrugs, waves his hand in the air. I hurry round the corner to the loo, and a few minutes later float back out.

The old man has gone. He’s finished his banana and left the skin of it on the bench. It’s peeled into four large petals, white flesh up, yellow skin down, like a sloppy lotus flower blooming on the green baize. It’s a rapturous image. A holy relic. I could kneel before it, kiss it, put it on display in a glass box.

But I don’t. I’m over it. I throw the peel in the bin, and head back out to wait in the car.

now, honey – you KNOW it’s not my time

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

I’m an easy going bloke
but when Death slips off his cloak
dumps his scythe
outside
with a clatter
is all like ‘Death’s here and nothing else matters’
hard-heels it into my hotel room
and then ‘Boom!’
throws his bony arse down on the bed, uninvited
starts bouncing around like he’s utterly fucking delighted
honestly? I’m not the least bit excited
‘Honey?’ I tell him ‘Enough of this shit.
Stop it. Just quit.
Grab your stuff and git.
So you’re the Scourge? The Reaper? The Flail?
Well, good for you, girlfriend. Cheque’s in the mail.
I’m sorry for any disappointment
but next time – okay? – make a motherfucking appointment

IMG_1099

 

The story about Alf & Picasso

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

A day off at last.

It’s pouring with rain, though, so the early morning dog walk is delayed. Instead I have a cup of coffee and take a gentle stroll around Twitter & Instagram, taking the air with my virtual boots and my virtual dogs and my tablet cocked on my arm, before I put the cup in the sink and turn myself reluctantly towards the stairs, ready to go up and write.

The rain has stopped, though. I can take Lola out after all.  Lola doesn’t seem that keen, but it’s good to get it over with. Maybe it’ll freshen me up and help get my thoughts in order.

Turns out, Lola was right. The break in the weather is actually the eye of the hurricane. It’s exhilarating, in an annihilating kind of way, but we both get thoroughly soaked. I stand at the kitchen sink wringing water out of my pants.

It takes a while to dry off. Whilst I’m doing that, I notice the extractor fan over the oven is really greasy and horrible. I think it needs cleaning right away. It takes a lot of scrubbing, but after an hour I have to say it looks pretty incredible. I did a good job there. And so finally, with nothing else to do or say about it, I drag my bare and sorry carcass upstairs to the bedroom, and the monk-like wooden chair and table where I write. Lola follows me, throwing herself down on the rug to steam while I flip the laptop lid, rest my hands on the keys, and prepare.

IMG_1093
fig. 1

Facing me above the desk is a cork board I hung in a faraway and more innocent time when I was at grave risk of buying something like that. My plan was to cover it with things that might resonate with whatever project I was working on: photos, pictures, cuttings from magazines. I could pin up a sequence of cards to map out the structure of the book. Needless to say, the board is still bare, just the drawing Jess made of a little purple ghost I use for my avatar, a friendship band, a Sergeant Pepper pin, a Jack Skellington pin, a pen pin with the word ‘mightier’ down the middle, a business card with a typewriter motif (not mine), and the label that fell off the cat carrier (see fig 1.)

Sometimes I stare at the empty cork and try to see visions in the speckles of light and dark, but the truth is I don’t need cork for that. The bare wall’s just as good. I’ve had a lot of practice, being the sort to stare at nothing in particular quite happily for long periods of time. Maybe I should volunteer for a deep space trip. So long as there was a window, snacks, stationery, and a reading light for the sleeping shelf, I’d be more than happy. I wouldn’t mind a robot, too – who’d be bad-tempered but dry & hilarious. The misunderstandings we’d have, all the way to the Kuiper Belt. Oy Vey!

I take a breath to try to root myself in the moment, and in doing so realise  I haven’t done my morning meditation. I launch the app, do a ten minute session, followed by some exercises, press-ups, scrunchies (crunches?), stretches, etcetera, then a shower, then a cup of tea, then lunch, and when all that’s done and cleared away, drag myself back upstairs, flip the laptop, rest my fingers on the keys, wriggle them expectantly, and prepare.

The first thing I do is review how much progress I’ve made with the book. I play with the table of contents, trying to decide whether something I intend to write should be in bold and what I have written in italics. Make the change through all the documents. Then go back and undo it. Widen the margins. Enlarge the font. Then I take a breath, rest my fingers on the keys – and immediately realise that the single most important thing I have to do is Google Cubism.

The thing is, (and I admit, there is always a thing), I want to write up a little story I remember about Fred’s dad, Alf, something that happened to him in the war, and Cubism is a part of it.

One thing I do know about Picasso was that he had a Blue Period. To be honest, I’d rather he called it a Blue Phase. Blue Period just makes me think of those sanitary towel adverts where they demonstrate the absorbency of the pad by pouring windscreen wash all over it. The fact that Picasso also had a Pink Period doesn’t help, either. His Cubism Phase came immediately after and lasted a surprisingly long time – from 1907 to 25 – although I’d guess he was producing other, non-Cubic stuff at the same time, like ceramic hats and so on. The one thing I know about Picasso was that he was prolific as hell; the only thing that could distract him was a corked bottle of wine, or maybe a bull breaking free of the studio.

In this Cubist Phase, around 1910, Picasso painted the portrait of a guy called Ambroise Vollard. Ambroise was a French gallery owner who promoted a lot of artists early on in their career – Van Gogh, Gaugin, Renoir – so he ended up being one of the most painted men in the history of French art (although judging by the portraits, not the happiest).

It’s a brilliant study. Ambroise comes across as a brooding presence, simultaneously wide awake and profoundly asleep (a condition I sympathise with). It’s more than just the effect of looking at someone through a distorting prism; it’s as if Picasso’s taken a stack of angles and changes of light and perspective, and painted them into one dimension, so that you’re looking not just at a man sitting for his portrait, but at who he was, and thinks he is, and who he’d like to be.

So what does this have to do with Alf?

Alf was the hardest man I ever met. He was a pitiless, dessicated old Cockney, exiled to the Fens, bruised and bitter. He had his schemes and his dodges, his nice little earners, one of them being to work as a rose budder for six weeks every summer. He had a scarred face, flat and uncompromising, with a nose rolled so flat the nostrils were like two finger holes jabbed in a pie crust. His eyes were cut-in, ice blue. He smoked spitty little fags, talked out of the corner of his mouth – when he talked, that is. Mostly he just worked, trampling the roses down with an East End curse, brutally efficient, getting the work done, making progress.

I was terrified of him.

The story, then.

Alf was a despatch rider in Italy during the war. One day he was following a convoy of American trucks when they were ambushed. He ended up losing control of his bike and crashing face-first into a tailboard. Luckily, there was a young American surgeon travelling with the convoy. Ever since medical school, this surgeon had been reading up about maxillo-facial reconstruction, hoping to start his own exclusive practice after the war. He took Alf on as a project, using as his guide the photo of Alf from his military identity card.

‘Are you sure it weren’t a picture of one of them Picasso paintings instead?’ someone said.

And whether Alf smiled, or sneered, or did both at the same time, it was impossible to tell.

sig

large caliber

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

‘Shall I take my shoes off?’
‘Oh no!’ says Rita. ‘This is a real home – not a show home!’
I’m conscious that my shoes are sopping wet, though, so I slip them off anyway.
‘I do it at home’ I say. ‘I’d feel bad otherwise.’
‘This is a real home, not a show home!’ she says, repeating herself – whether because it’s a catchphrase of hers, or because she likes the sound of it, I’m not sure.
‘Follow me!’ she says, and leads me through the house.
It certainly has the feel of a show home. Or even a gallery, given the number of paintings of stags on snowy crags and jugged hares lying among bunches of grapes, all in heavy gilt frames. Ernest, Rita’s husband, sits in a chair at the far end of the house, like a decrepit attendant who dozed through his lunch break and on into his nineties.
‘Darling? There’s a nurse to see you!’ says Rita. She waves me over to him, then lowers herself very correctly, debutante-style, into a Louis Quinze chair, her legs angled to the right, her hands folded in her lap.
‘What happened to your shoes?’ says Ernie, peering at me over his glasses.
‘They were soaking wet. I didn’t want to make a mess on your carpet.’
‘I said to him, darling,’ says Rita. ‘I said to him: This is a real home. Not a show home!’
‘Hear that?’ he says. ‘So now you know.’

* * *

All Ernest’s observations are within normal range – his blood pressure, temperature, heart rate and so on..
‘What were you expecting?’ he says. ‘I’m perfectly fine. It’s this damned back.’
‘Let the gentleman do his job, darling,’ says Rita, absentmindedly playing with her wedding ring, slipping it off, then on, then off again. ‘He used to be a sniper, you know. In the war, of course,’ she adds, hurriedly, to clear up any misunderstanding.
‘A sniper?’
‘What of it?’ he snaps.
‘No. Nothing. It sounds fascinating.’
‘Hmm,’ he says, and watches me closely as I fill out his obs chart. To cover the silence – and to find out more about his sniper years – I dig deep for some personal story I could use.
‘I had a go at skeet shooting once,’ I say. ‘It was a work’s outing. I really liked it.’
‘Skeet shooting?’
‘Yes. Clay pigeons.’
‘I know what skeet shooting is.’
‘It was really good! That bit where they chuck the clays along the ground, and they bounce around all over the place. That was fun. You know. Picking them off.’
‘Fun?’ says Ernest, horrified. ‘Fun? If by fun you mean waving your weapon around like a lunatic, blasting in the general direction of where you think something’s going to end up, well, then, perhaps. But I’m not talking about some random spread of pellets. I’m talking about the precise placing of a single, large caliber bullet. I’m talking about controlling one’s breathing, slowing one’s pulse. Taking a clean shot.’
And he glares at me over his glasses again, eyebrows quivering, drawing a bead.
‘It’s my second marriage’ says Rita. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

spit spot

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

I’m in awe of the equipment company. They have an uncanny ability to put a hospital bed into the most inhospitable place. I’m sure one day we’ll be called to a lighthouse with a bed seesawing on the roof just above the lamp. Looking around Eileen’s small and cluttered bedroom, it seems to me they would only have had two options: lift the roof off and drop it in with a crane, or beam it into position from the transporter deck of the Starship Enterprise.

Nobody needed a hospital bed more than Eileen, though, so it’s great they persevered.
Eileen is rapidly approaching the end of her life, her flesh falling away, the most vital thing about her the glassy shine to her preternaturally large eyes.

‘I want to sit out,’ she says, gripping the sides of the bed. ‘I’m sick of this.’

It’s no small ambition. Aside from Eileen’s general frailty, we’ll need to consider the two lines from the morphine drivers feeding in to her right and left, her catheter, the nasal specs for her oxygen. And if that wasn’t complicated enough, there’s the practical difficulty of the bedroom itself. We had trouble getting in the door, let alone negotiate a complicated transfer. Still, Eileen won’t be dissuaded, and (incredibly) her observations are strong enough.

‘Hmm,’ says Vihaan, looking around.

I’m standing on Eileen’s right, squeezed in between a stack of pads, bedclothes, boxes of stuff, a cantilever table, a floor-standing aircon unit, a wicker bath chair piled with towels and things, a life-sized porcelain dog – really, it’s more like a storage cupboard than a bedroom for the terminally ill. Vihaan is to her left by the window. A little clearer his side, but not much.

‘Actually, Eileen, you know, I think it’s not going to be all that easy,’ says Vihaan. ‘Okay? I think it would be safer for all concerned if you stayed in bed and rested there.’

Eileen stares at him, a little hypnotised. It happens a lot. Vihaan is so striking, with a Bollywood intensity and perfect, crow-black quiff, standing with his hands on his hips, glancing around the place, speaking so rapidly and so musically it’s easy to get distracted, like standing by a stream fascinated by the play of light, utterly forgetting you’re supposed to be catching fish.

‘What?’ says Eileen.
‘Are you sure you wouldn’t want to stay in bed a while longer?’ he says. ‘Okay? You’re absolutely sure about this?’
Eileen turns her head slowly to stare at me, then turns back to Vihaan.
‘Of course I’m sure,’ she says.
‘Okay, then, Eileen. Whatever you say. You’re the boss, actually. We’ll give it a go and we’ll do our best,’ he says. ‘But we’ll take things slowly, one thing at a time – okay? – and then if anything changes, actually, we’ll stop and think it over again. Okay? Okay.’

The hospital bed is in the only possible place it can be, in the centre of the room, the feet towards the door. The best we can do is to cheat it more to the right, making enough space to the left for the wicker chair and a zimmer frame to help with the transfer. It’s a spatial puzzle, where you have to move everything in strict order, this then this, or that over there first, to move these, and that there temporarily, whilst you hand over these – careful – back up a bit, then that can go there…

Eileen watches it all pass backwards and forwards over her bed. She’s on so much morphine I wouldn’t be surprised if she thought the room was reordering itself, flying through the air in a magical, Mary Poppins kind of way. Spit spot. A clap of the hands. Vihaan would make a great Mary Poppins. Not so much the outfit – although he’d be a sensation in that – more his brisk but warm practicality.

‘Okay,’ he says, when at last the thing is done. He leans on the zimmer, one foot up on the strut. ‘So now the room is better arranged for you to sit out from your bed actually,’ he says. ‘The wicker chair is a good height for you and we’ve made it comfortable with cushions and what have you. So let us begin to raise you up on the bed, okay? And we’ll take it very slowly, Eileen. Step by step. And we’ll help you to sit out in the chair for a while.’
She turns her big eyes up to him, and although she doesn’t smile or say anything, you can see her gratitude holding there, at some depth, but poised, and delicate, and perfectly true.