Author: jim clayton

lola, baxter, suki & the shadow

~ jim clayton ~ 1 Comment

I’m taking photos of a bricked-up window when a woman calls out to me from higher up the path.
I say! she says, then Hello? You there with the camera. Is your dog alright with puppies?
I turn to look.
It’s a woman in her late middle-age, dressed like a countess, lacquered hair and Alice band, navy-blue twinset, the cardigan draped over the shoulders and fixed by a button, the only concession to the walk being a pair of blindingly white court shoes. Her left arm’s crooked up for balance, presumably, the right extended straight out in front, attached to the lead of a porcine little pug, madly scrabbling its paws in its eagerness to make time. I know that pugs’ eyes bulge, but these seem particularly alarming. I put it down to the effort it’s making pulling the woman along.
‘She’s fine!’ I say, hoping to God it’s true. Lola doesn’t seem bothered, though. The pug makes a bunch of strangled yippy noises, describing a perfect arc in the dirt, but Lola lopes by safely out of reach with barely a glance.
‘What about cats?’ the woman says as she draws nearer.
‘Cats? Well – she lives with one. They get along. Why?’
‘Suki follows me when I go out.’
I can see a large, marmalade cat sitting on its haunches in the middle of the path, such an air of self-possession I wouldn’t be surprised if it produced a pair of field glasses and called in an airstrike by walkie talkie.
‘She’s so cute!’ I say.
‘She isn’t. Sometimes she turns and goes back. Sometimes she disappears. For weeks.’
I nod, like – yes – this is definitely something to bear in mind with cats.
‘She’ll be alright with her, y’think?’
‘I think so.’
In fact, Lola hasn’t even seen the cat. I’m not surprised. Last week she walked right past an adult deer over the woods: didn’t even look up. And once, when an entire herd of black and whites fell into line behind me all the way across the field, Lola walked calmly in front, like she expected exactly this to happen all along, and was actually a little disappointed.
I bend down to offer my hand to the pug, which it takes as an invitation to climb all over me.
‘Don’t encourage him,’ says the woman. ‘He’s already much too excited about these things. C’mon, Baxter…’

It’s certainly a day for meeting posh dog walkers.

Cut to: a tall, stooped figure in a tweed gilet and corduroy trousers, standing at the edge of the woods leaning on a rustic walking stick, one hand draped over the other, watching a stately black labrador sniffing around in the long grass. The man has a wide, thin-lipped mouth that barely moves when he talks, and the slightly fuddled demeanour of someone who’d woken up, dressed and made five miles before he knew what was going on.
‘Nice reprieve from the hot weather,’ he says when I draw level. ‘Not that I’m complaining, of course. One just needs time to aclimatise to these things.’
I agree with him and stand there a moment, catching my breath after the climb. Lola goes over to the labrador. They swap cards.
‘Good boy, Shadow,’ says the man, then raises his chin and stares off across the field.
‘Where are the brown cows, d’you think?’
‘Over that far side. Lying down under the trees.’
‘Ah!’ he says. ‘Good! Not that Shadow is troubled by them overmuch. Or they he’
‘No. He looks pretty solid.’
‘The black and whites are the worst,’ the man says. ‘Have you met those chaps?’
‘Absolutely! On the back field. They’re so inquisitive.’
‘Yes. They fell into line and followed us the other day. I think they thought I was going to milk them.’
He takes off his cap, scratches his head, replaces the cap.
‘I shouldn’t think there’s much to it, though. Do you?’
‘Probably not. You’d just have to watch the legs.’
‘Yes! I think I’d be a little twitchy in the old trouser department if someone started fiddling around with my udders.’

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no pickle

~ jim clayton ~ 2 Comments

Jeanette slumps back in her leather tub chair as woefully inert as a deflated balloon.
‘They let me out too early,’ she says. ‘I feel terrible.’
‘In what way terrible?’
‘Hmm?’
‘In what way do you feel terrible?’
‘Just that. Terrible.’
‘Are you in pain?’
She squeezes her eyes shut as if she is, but finally admits that no, not as such, she isn’t.
‘Do you feel sick, or dizzy?’
‘No.’
‘Short of breath?’
‘No.’
‘Any pins and needles, numbness, or funny feelings anywhere?’
She shakes her head.
‘Have you opened your bowels today?’
She says she had. It was all normal. Everything was – is – normal.
‘Good. That’s good.’
‘I’m just – I don’t know. I can’t explain it.’
She puts one hand up to her brow, extending the other arm along the back of the chair in a tragic, broken-winged kind of pose.
‘Are you feeling lacking in energy, or exhausted, perhaps?’
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘They shouldn’t have let me out. I wasn’t ready to come out.’

She was in a fair while, admitted after a non-injury fall at home. All her observations were – and remain – perfectly normal, though. Recent bloods – fine. Swabs, scans, colonoscopy – NAD. Her little flat is bright, clean and well-laid out, with an en-suite wet room and views over the garden. She has all the equipment she could possibly want, carers three times a day, and a son, Peter, who lives nearby and visits often. But perhaps more encouraging than any of this, is the place Jeanette was discharged home to.

Bletchley House is one of the sweetest, friendliest places I know. Two Edwardian terraced houses knocked into one, sensitively converted into a dozen self-contained flats for independent living. Environmentally it’s as spacious and sunlit as a boutique hotel, with lush gardens, an expansive patio and an arbor shaded with vines. There’s a communal TV room, a free library, sofa spaces. Everyone seems bright and awake, inquisitive without being pushy. There’s a co-operative feel to it all that invites you to sit down, have a cup of tea and a chat. And of course, the best thing about Bletchley House is its housekeeper, Abigay.

Abigay is a Jamaican goddess, a manifest spirit of love and good sense. Although she’s in her seventies, she has such a shine to her you could easily mistake her for a woman half that age, merrily crashing around in the kitchen, baking, singing. Her head is shaved, her lips rouged, she has yellow plastic earrings in her ears and on her hands, ornate clusters of silver rings.
‘Why don’ ya sit down and take a cup a’tea, fella? Tell me everytink.’

Jeanette had asked me to come down and speak to Abigay, to see if she’ll send her some food up later.
‘O’ course!’ says Abigay, throwing a red check tea towel over her shoulder. ‘Wha’ ja think me got all this fancy kitchen for?’
She’s sorry to hear Jeanette isn’t feeling well enough to come down – but then her face takes on a pantomime expression of severity.
‘Poor Jeanette. Ya know she never come out dat room so much. We all try to tempt her out wi’ stuff. Me lovely dinners. Me special salad.’
The way she says salad, dipping her knees slightly, like she’s swinging on a big handle. Behind her lined up on the stainless steel counter are bowls of fresh leaves, fruits and colourful things, pots rattling on the stove.
‘O’ course me take it up to her. I wish though – I wish, wish wish she’d come down here and eat wi’ da rest of us. She know she always welcome. Her son, Peter, he such a good boy. He take a lot o’ trouble wid his mama, ya know. It a shame she gat dat problem in her head wi’ this kinda ting. I’m not sure she comin’ out dat room anytime soon.’

I relay the good news to Jeanette about the food.
‘What exactly is she making?’ she says, with the haunted expression of someone asking what manner of poison she’ll be asked to swallow.
‘One of her lovely big salads, I think.’
‘Urgh,’ she shudders. ‘Go back down and ask her to do me a cheese sandwich instead, would you? No pickle.’
She rests her head back and shuts her eyes again.
‘Although quite how I’ll force it down I don’t know.’

nevers of steel

~ jim clayton ~ 2 Comments

There’s an extemporary, Mad Max feel to the front of the house, holes in the concrete forecourt filled in with rubble and crap, a derelict caravan green with mould dumped arse-first, blocking the sitting room windows, missing tiles in the path bridged with scraps of plasterboard, chipboard, whatever. It’s like the occupants started scavenging a skip, then gave up, and went back inside.

I knock on the door.
Immediate, furious barking, shouting.

Eventually, from behind the glass: You alright with dogs, yeah?
‘Yep. Fine. It’s okay.’
The door opens and someone throws an old, brindle-coloured footstool at me – that’s what it feels like, at least – a footstool magically and riotously animated, with a tail and teeth.
‘That’s enough, Nipper! Let him alone, now!’
Nipper springs up and down so enthusiastically you’d think he was on a trampoline.
‘Jes’ ignore ‘im’ says Thomas, waving me inside. ‘He’ll wear himself down eventually.’
Thomas takes his seat on a ruined sofa, in front of a TV showing the Formula One. I put my bag down, and Nipper is all over it. If I’m not careful he’ll be running off down the road with my stethoscope trailing behind him, like a cartoon dog with a string of sausages.
‘I can put him outside if you like.’
‘Nah. He’s alright. It’s nice to have an assistant.’
‘Right’ya then’

Thomas turns out to be an easy patient, if by easy you mean someone who doesn’t want any help, and just wants to sit in all day, drinking and smoking himself into oblivion.
‘What’s the use, fella? I appreciate you coming round n’all, but honestly – there are worse people out there. I don’ wanna waste yer time.’
I ask him if he’d like me to make referrals to various people, for equipment and physiotherapy and so on, especially given his recent hospital admission and diagnosis. It all seems a bit pointless, though.
‘Fair enough,’ he says. ‘It might be worth a punt.’

He stares down at his hands, listlessly prods the heel of his right hand with the thumb of his left.
Nipper – who had retreated exhausted to his basket, suddenly leaps up and starts barking again, trampling straight over me in his eagerness to get to the front door. A second later the door opens, and a guy so huge steps into the room the whole house seems to tilt in his direction.
‘I’m Shaun, Thomas’ son,’ rumbles the guy, leaning down to shake my my hand, making a real effort not to pick me up and shake the whole person by mistake. ‘Everything alright with the ol’ fella?’
‘Yep. All good, considering. There are some things we could do to help – if he’ll let us.’
‘Hear that, da? Don’t keep saying no to everything, would ya now?’
Thomas sneers and bats a hand in the air.
‘Yah!’ he says.

Shaun hesitates in the doorway, like he feels he should do more but can’t think what. It’s astonishing to think that Thomas is his father – not just the difference in size, but in vitality and sheer physical presence. I picture one of Thomas’ sperm, scrub-chinned, spitty roll-up in the corner of its mouth, Stan Laurel twist of hair, idly corkscrewing its tail through the vulval gloom, by sheer blind accident driving its head before the thousands of others through the softly yielding wall of a certain egg.

‘If you want me I’ll be in the van,’ says Shaun.

I can’t believe he means the ruin out front, but it’s true. I see the shadow of it rock alarmingly as he goes inside. How it bears his weight I have no idea. Maybe when they go on holiday, he forces his legs through the floor, his arms through the window, and runs them all there.

‘Do you like the ol’ Formula One then?’ says Thomas, nodding at the screen whilst he fishes his tobacco tin out from behind a cushion.
‘I don’t really follow it,’ I tell him. ‘I’d love to have a go, though.’
‘What – driving one of dem things?’ He grimaces, then attends to the business of rolling himself a fag, holding a paper between a thumb and two fingers, and then shakily losing half the tin of tobacco trying to fill it. ‘Nah!’ he says, giving up, rolling the fag ineffectually, running his tongue along the gummy strip. ‘You gotta have nevers of steel for dem things.’

wild swimming

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Taking the path through the new estate – the right of way that was a condition of the granting of planning permission a few years ago – you’ll pass by an overgrown, waterless pond, pressed into the ground like the footprint of a giant who, in a blind panic, tried to leap over it all but couldn’t quite make it. There’s a pole by the pond with a lifebelt and a sign that says: Beware. Deep water on occasions. Every time I see it I feel like taking a photo and then captioning it with Christmas? Birthdays? or something. I never do, though. It’d be a lame joke, and anyway, I suppose I simply want to ignore the whole thing and get through the estate as quickly as possible. There’s something so joyless about that belt and sign, or worse – anti-joy – actively negating any sense of exploration or change or contact with the earth. It’s not just that there’s never any water in the pond, no doubt because of the desultory way they built it, but based on the remotest chance that after a particularly heavy bout of weather there may be a little residual water with the trash in the bottom, here’s a belt to throw in after you if you climb over the rail to investigate. (And by the way, if anything happens, we’re covered).

It reminds me of that time I was at college. There was a mill pond across the way, and I used to sneak in there to go swimming, despite the signs. One day I was just toweling myself off on the bank when a severe looking guy stopped by.
‘I hope you haven’t been swimming’ he said.
I wasn’t sure what to say. I was naked and soaked. What else would I have been doing? But I thought it was easier just to be honest.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Why?’
‘You’re not allowed. This is private property. If you drowned you could sue.’
‘If I drowned I’d be dead.’
‘You know what I mean. Didn’t you see the signs?’
‘But I’m not doing any harm.’
‘What d’you want us to do? Put a fence round everything?‘
‘I’m only swimming.’
‘We’ll have to put a fence round the whole bloody country at this rate. Is that what you want?’
‘We’re an island. That’s a lot of fence.’
‘You leave us no choice. Now get dressed and clear off. And if I see you over here again I’ll inform your superiors.’

I suppose that lifebelt pole sums up the disquiet I feel when I cut through the estate. The place has a fake, toytown feel, beyond the raw brick and newness of it all. There are tags on the plants in the planters, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see tags on the houses, too, arranged as they are so conspicuously in size and price order, from the starter two-bed to the executive brand with the double garage, portico and balcony. Glum workmen in day-glo jackets walk behind slow-moving trucks doing what, exactly? Positioning life-sized models of people, according to the time of day.

The only thing that buoys me up (deep water on occasions) is the giant oak tree the planners decided to leave in the middle of it all, islanded on a regular patch of chequerboard grass that I suppose is meant to look like a village green. The oak doesn’t care about any of this. It spreads its colossal arms to the heavens, biding its time, waiting on the rain.

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weetafix

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For some reason Jean’s taken her hearing aid out. It squeals alarmingly on the sideboard beside her, an ethereal soundtrack to the scene, like I’ve wandered onto the set of a 1950s Sci-Fi movie. Instead of an egghead alien with pincers for hands, though, it’s her husband, Ted who slowly shuffles in from the living room.
‘Put your hearing aid in!’ he bellows, jabbing a finger at the carpet, for some reason. ‘Your hearing aid! Put it in!’
Jean ignores him, waggling her hand towards the medicines on the table.
‘ I need the new one!’ she shouts. ‘I haven’t had the new one yet!’

I feel sorry for Ted. Jean isn’t the easiest patient in the world. She’s recently back from hospital after a hip replacement, and though I’m sympathetic, and can quite understand how uncomfortable she must feel, how frustrated by her reduced mobility, still – there’s a waspish quality to the way she talks that makes you want to take a step back, or better still, leave the room and quietly close the door.

‘Not that one!’ she yells. ‘The new one!’
Ted grumbles over to the table, clears his throat, slowly lifts his glasses, and starts methodically pressing each bottle to his nose.
‘He’s a fool!’ says Jean – not exactly to me, but to the bench of invisible judges behind her who must surely be recording all these injustices. ‘He doesn’t understand…this is hopeless… NO! THE NEW ONE!’

Quite why she doesn’t have her meds next to her and do them herself, I’m not sure. This way she’s definitely at risk of under or overdosing. The new scrips are for heart problems and pain relief. It’s all in solution because of her difficulty swallowing, and needs careful measuring out into a dispensing cup. But Ted’s sight is poor, his hands are shaky, and when he should be sitting down, calmly figuring out that four times five mls four times a day means a dose of 20 mls now, (and which of these little lines means 20mls…?), he’s flicking his attention between the bottle and the cup, the cup and the bottle, as panicked as if he’d suddenly found himself holding a ferret and a rabbit.
‘Would you like me to do it?’ I say.
‘Yes please!’ he says, almost throwing them at me. Then he shuffles over to the counter to make Jean’s breakfast instead.
‘Do you want Weetabix or Cornflakes?’ he shouts.
‘What?’
‘Weetabix or Cornflakes?’
‘Oh dear God!’ says Jean.
‘Right! You’re getting Weetabix,’ he says, turning away.

jack not ian

~ jim clayton ~ 2 Comments

I’m met at the door by Gus, Ian’s partner.
‘Yes?’ he says. ‘And who have you come to see?’
I must admit I’m a little wrong-footed, because I rang just a quarter of an hour ago to say I was on my way. But then again, maybe there are a few visitors booked-in for the day. Ian has only recently been discharged from hospital, and it can get busy as all the referrals converge. Or maybe Gus has some visitors of his own.
‘Ian’ I say.
‘Ian?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ah.’
There’s a long pause – so long, in fact, I worry I’ve come to the wrong place. I check my notes. It all seems fine, though, and anyway, I’m sure it was Gus I spoke to earlier. His voice is unmistakable, a resonant, booming tone. In another life I can imagine him standing in the middle of a reed bed, honking mournfully.
‘Do you mean Jack?’ he says.
‘Jack?’
Gus has exactly the right face for the voice, a long, lugubrious expression. Strike the image of the bittern. I think I’d cast him as a Basset hound instead, up on his hind paws, in a knitted green waistcoat,  a copy of the Sunday Times tucked under his arm.
‘He was christened Ian but everyone calls him Jack.’
‘I see. Jack it is, then.’
I wait for Gus to show me inside, but he keeps his hand on the door, as if he absolutely needs to set the record straight once and for all.
‘It was rather confusing at the hospital,’ he says. ‘Ian this, Ian that. We kept telling them. It may say Ian on the birth certificate, but everyone knows him as Jack. Could you make a note of it for the record, please? And they bowed and scraped and said they would. But nothing happened, of course, and now look! Here we are, several days later, and you turn up asking for Ian. What does one have to do to get these things changed?’
‘Well…’
‘You see, the irony is, I don’t actually mind. One name’s as good as another. Ian. Jack. It’s much of a muchness. But then again, I think if you’re commonly known as one thing, it will only confuse the issue to continually refer to the other thing. Do you see my point?’
‘Yes. I think so. It’s Ian, not Jack. Sorry! The other way round!’
‘Hmm. I’m not reassured.’
He repositions the newspaper under his arm, and for a second I think he’s going to whap me over the head with it.
‘I hope you don’t think I’m complaining about you,’ he says. ‘I’m simply making a general point.’
‘No. It’s okay. I understand.’
I smile and nod and look past him into the hall – a discreet little mime to say: Shall we go in and see Jack now? But it’s too discreet, and he carries on.
‘I know you’re only going by whatever nonsense they’ve put in your notes,’ he says. What else can you be expected to do? What I’m complaining about is the system, you see. The system’s at fault. There doesn’t seem to be any provision for making these vital changes, and as I say, it introduces avoidable error, and it doesn’t have to be like that. I mean – what’s your name?’
‘Jim’
He reaches out with his free hand, takes up my lanyard, checks my ID.
‘So you see, Jim,’ he says, dropping it again and carrying on. ‘Let’s just say, for argument’s sake, everyone knew you as Frank.’
‘Yep’
‘And they carried on like that for years, and you started to think like Frank, and walk around like Frank. And then someone official, a nurse, for example, someone medical. Suppose this nurse – let’s say – shouted across the room Watch out, Jim! What would you do?’
‘I’d be on my guard.’
‘But that’s my point! You wouldn’t! Somebody else called Jim might look around and wonder what was happening, someone a million miles away from the source of danger, a falling cabinet, let’s say, or a hammer.’
‘A hammer?’
‘Yes. Because they’re having work done on the roof. All that’s incidental. The main point is, the person they want to inform about the danger won’t be the person responding to it, and a death will occur that would otherwise have been quite preventable.’
‘Worst case scenario.’
‘Ah, yes. But these things happen. All the time. I should know.’
‘Why? Were you a builder?’
‘A builder? Good lord, no!’ he says. ‘I was forty years a Civil Servant.’

thora’s calvary

~ jim clayton ~ 5 Comments

‘Do you believe in God?’ says Thora.

I hesitate before I answer – not because I’m afraid of saying I’m an atheist, but more because I know how freighted the question is. Thora is ninety-five, in failing health, her world shrunk to the size of a pressure cushion, a riser-recliner, what light and life the carers bring in, and the occasional family visit. The degenerative changes to her spine are inoperable, as she wouldn’t survive the general anaesthetic. Her pain medication is at maximum stretch, providing temporary relief at best. Thora’s already told me she’s ‘ready to go’, and seems a little bewildered that the days still follow one after the other in an endless line without any prospect of release.

‘Well – it’s not that I don’t believe in God,’ I say, sounding as if I’m hedging my bets. ‘It’s more that I don’t believe in a literal interpretation of the bible – or any religious text, come to that. I think they’re stories people tell themselves to express how they feel about the world and give them a sense of meaning. They’re creation myths, really. Which is fine. But do I think heaven is this sunny place in the clouds with a big, judgy guy handing out justice? I don’t think so. I think all these stories are just a big hangover after we developed consciousness. We’ve kidded ourselves we’re the most important thing on Earth, and we can figure everything out, and we know what’s what, because we learned how to make a hammer and a fire and – I don’t know – a rocket to the moon. So we invent the Gods we think we deserve.’
‘So you don’t believe in God?’
‘Not really, no.’
‘Aren’t you scared you’ll go to hell?’
‘No. I just don’t think it exists. There’s plenty to be scared of here on earth without worrying about a fiery pit.’
‘That’s what you say now.’
I shrug.
She shakes her head and bites her lip. I can tell her back’s troubling her again, but she’s had all her meds, so all I can offer her is a cup of tea.

When I come back she seems a little more settled.

‘Did you see that interview Stephen Fry gave?’ she says, putting the cup down. ‘On some chat show.’
‘Yes. I did see it. A few months back. On YouTube. He made some good points.’
‘He said something about an insect in a baby’s eye. And why would God do that.’
‘Yes. He was pretty emphatic.’
‘What do you think about that, then?’
‘I think he’s right. But I didn’t think he was angry at God. I think he was angry at people who take the bible at face value, in a simplistic, kind of fundamental way. And I don’t think it’s all that helpful, sometimes. Didn’t he say something about the Greeks being better at that sort of thing, because their Gods took into account human frailty? They didn’t try to force God into a corner, to make him this all-seeing, all-loving figure. Because it’s impossible. It just doesn’t square with all the injustice in the world, insects, earthquakes, cancer – you name it.’
‘Back pain?’
‘Definitely back pain.’
‘Well,’ says Thora, picking up her tea. ‘You may have a point. Mind you, I should think God’s got a lot on his plate, what with one thing and another. I’m not surprised I might have slipped his mind.’

of bugs and men

~ jim clayton ~ 2 Comments

‘Just press the button at the top and let yourself in the main door,’ says Giles. ‘I’ll leave my flat door open.’
‘Great. See you in about ten minutes.’
‘Right you are. Goodbye.’

I’m not entirely convinced, though. Giles sounds drunk, speaking with that slow and over-elaborate articulation, tying each word off individually, like balloons.

I know Giles’ block very well. It’s a neat, self-contained complex, a sequence of four, ten storey buildings connected by a corridor and terminating in a bigger, more recent block for residents with higher dependency needs. It’s often the case that patients we see start in the flats at one end and finish in the flats at the other, like they’re being fed through some kind of slow-moving machine.

As I park up outside the entrance to Giles block, I see a gloomy, cadaverous man with long, frayed hair, wearing a string vest and yellow shorts, his left arm in a sling, like he put his shoulder out rolling the stone away from the tomb. He’s struggling to uncoil a garden hose from a drum, and even though it reminds me of a scene from Silence of the Lambs, I go over to help him.
‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘Could you unkink it for me, please?’
I put my book and bag down, and then carefully release the hose as the guy staggers backwards with the nozzle.
‘Are you alright there?’ I ask him.
‘Fine’ he says. ‘Now – could you turn it on when I shout?’
‘Okay. Just don’t be looking in the end when I do.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Don’t look in the end when I turn the water on.’
I jerk backwards in a comedy mime.
‘No,’ he says, then wobbles off round the corner of the block, the hose slithering behind him.
After a while it goes slack.

Time passes.

I start to wonder what’s happened, but just as I’ve decided to put my head round the corner and see what’s happened, he shouts: ‘Okay! Turn her on!’
The hose gives a shudder, and I hear a spraying noise.
I figure he’s watering the grass – which seems pretty futile. The scrubby little patch out front is so brown now it’ll take a monsoon and a bag of seeds to make it better.
I pick up my book and bag and then go round to talk to him. He’s standing there, spraying the grass with a tragic look, shifting his arm in the sling occasionally, staring through the water vapour and the little rainbow it makes.
‘I’m afraid I’ve got to go inside’ I tell him. ‘I’ve got an appointment with someone.’
‘Couldn’t you wait just a few more minutes?’
‘No. Sorry. He’ll be waiting.’
The man gives a desultory little sniff, and then turns his sad gaze back to the grass.
‘Bye then!’ I say, and turn back to the entrance.

Up on the fifth floor Giles’ flat door stands open, just as he said. I knock loudly, shout Hello Giles! It’s Jim, from the hospital!
No reply.
Hellooo-oooo.
When he still doesn’t answer I go inside to check he isn’t on the floor. It’s quickly apparent the flat’s empty, though. I’m guessing he just stepped out for a moment, because there’s a cone of incense smouldering on a saucer in front of his chair, filling the room with so much smoke he may as well have set a bunch of tires alight.

I go back down to the car to make some calls.

The old guy watering the grass has gone, as has the hose. It’s so hot outside, what water there was on the drive has almost entirely evaporated.

I ring the office to check I’ve got the right address (I’m guessing I have, as Giles’ directions had been accurate). The only other explanation I can think of is that he popped round a friend’s flat and will be back shortly. I make a plan. If he still doesn’t answer the phone, I’ll go back up and knock on the flats either side to see if they know anything. Other than that, I can’t think what else to do. It’s frustrating, as I’ve got several more visits to make. I had thought this would be straightforward. But then again, it’s always the straightforward jobs that end up taking the longest.

I make one last call to his flat.
Giles answers.
‘Yes? Giles speaking.’
‘Oh! Hi Giles. It’s Jim again, from the hospital. I called up to see you but you weren’t in.’
‘I don’t understand. I’ve been here all along.’
‘Have you?’
‘Well – yes!’
‘Okay. I’ll be up in a second.’

Of course, Giles is the hose guy. He’s sitting in the chair wreathed in smoke from the incense cone, the same lugubrious expression, shifting the weight of his arm in the sling. He makes absolutely no sign that he recognises me from outside, or even that he’s moved from the chair at all. And for some reason, neither do I.

Just as I’m getting ready to do the examination, there’s a vigorous knock on the door and two huge guys in tight blue t-shirts and white powder gloves thump into the sitting room.
‘Bed bugs!’ the older of the two says. ‘We’ve come to check your mattress, mate!’
‘Be my guest!’ says Giles, waggling the yellowing fingers of his right hand.

The bug guys go into the bedroom.

Giles tells me about his poor health lately. He drinks a lot of whisky, he says. He was assaulted by a blind man at a bus stop. He’s in dispute with the police, the hospital – really, it’s such a long and complicated list, I lose track.

The bug guys come back in.

‘All done!’ they say, and turn to go.

*

Later on, when I’ve finished the examination and left Giles to kipper quietly in front of his cone, I see the bug guys again, stomping down the stairs in front of me. And maybe it’s an effect of the incense, or the sudden blast of fresh air, or both, it’s hard to say, but suddenly I feel quite exhilarated.
‘Beeeeed Buuuuuuug Maaaaaan!’ I sing.
The older of the two looks round at me and frowns.
‘Don’t,’ he says.

the devil & dr smedley

~ jim clayton ~ 3 Comments

I hadn’t thought of Dr Smedley for ten years or more. But when Kath got back from a weekend catching-up with old school friends, and told me all the gossip, including how Alice was coping as a busy GP with an equally busy family life, it made me think about how medics tend to fall into two camps: those that like people, and those that don’t.
‘I mean – why would you go to all that trouble training to be a doctor if you didn’t like people?’ she said. ‘It’d be like setting up as a window cleaner if you were scared of heights.’
‘Or a vet if you were allergic to cats’
‘Or an accountant if you didn’t like numbers’
‘Or a traffic warden. I mean – why would anybody be a traffic warden?’
The thing was, Alice was a complete shoe-in for doctor. Not only was she smart, with that deep and natural intelligence that radiates warmth, but she was kind and funny and empathetic, a winning combination that would make you want to bind yourself to her practice with an unbreakable silver rope.

So in the same way as talking about God almost inevitably leads you on to talking about the devil, I had to mention Dr Smedley.

The best you could say about Dr Smedley was that he washed his hands. I think he was probably knowledgeable, too, of course – you would hope so, anyway, because if he’d made up his qualifications, there really would have been no excuse for having him in-post.

Dr Smedley was a legend. Rude to patients. Rude to staff. Irritable. Impulsive. Aggressive. He was tall and thin with a predatory stoop, like a praying mantis with a set of patient notes, ready to bite your head off for any infringement, real or otherwise. He wore large glasses that gave him better peripheral vision and made it impossible either to sneak up on him or escape undetected.

I only knew him through my role as an EMT with the ambulance service, so I had limited exposure. Still, I had numerous encounters. The worst was when I dropped off a drunk with a head injury to his department.

What happened was, the main hospital was on divert. This meant that only serious emergencies could go there; everything else had to be bussed up country to the next available A and E. Dr Smedley’s A and E. We’d fished a drunk out of a hedge in a park on the northern edge of the city. He was covered in blood from a cut to his head, and had to go to hospital to make sure that his slurred speech and bizarre behaviour was the vodka and not something more sinister. I was the attendant, riding with him in the back of the ambulance. He was already a mess, thrashing around in filthy clothes, wanting to take his penis out and urinate on the floor and so on. When we got to hospital we put him on a trolley and wheeled him through. The nurses were deeply unimpressed, but they understood about the divert and the head injury, so they signed the paperwork and we went back out to the truck to clean up.

A few minutes later, Dr Smedley came striding out.
‘Just what the HELL do you think you’re playing at?’
‘Is this about that drunk head injury we brought in?’
‘Yes, it’s about that drunk head injury. What were you thinking, man?’
‘Ah. Yes.’
‘So what d’you propose to do about it?’
‘Well the other hospital was on divert…’
‘I’m not interested in your pathetic excuses. Get him out of here!’
‘We’ll be happy to take him off your hands and release him back into the wild, but you’ll have to sign a letter to say you take responsibility.’
‘Oh this is absurd!’
‘He’s got a head injury.’
‘He’s drunk!’
‘With a head injury.’
Dr Smedley gave me a sharp and violent look like he was gauging the striking distance, and I couldn’t help leaning back.
‘I’m going to report you,’ he said. ‘This doesn’t end here.’ And he walked off.
Luckily, one of the nurses had come outside for a fag. She waited until Dr Smedley had crashed his way through the A and E doors, then came over to console me.
‘He’s only raging because the geezer got his cock out and started pissing on the floor,’ she said, blowing smoke off to the side and shrugging, like this was just another working day. ‘Anyway – at least you get to drive off. I’ve got another two hours of this shit.’