Author: jim clayton

stairway to helen

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

I’ve never seen so many stairs. The whole place is a monument to them, an Escher wet dream of pointless meandering, a riotous architectural celebration of ascent and descent. It’s a shrine to steps, a mounting Mecca, a pilgrimage to Our Lady of the Handrails and Bannisters.

It’s certainly a lot of stairs.

It’s not simply wilful overuse, though. There’s a simple geographical explanation. Helen and Graham’s house is built into the side of a hill. For a start, the road leads down to it at quite a pitch. Then you have two flights of concrete steps down to the front door, a couple of steps over the threshold onto a landing, and then stairs leading down into the lounge straight in front, or up steeply to the right in two flights to the bedrooms and bathroom. The view from the lounge is an impressive, eagle-eye view of the city; I imagine that’s one reason they bought the place sometime back in the sixties.

I’ve come here with Sye, the physiotherapist, specifically to do a stair assessment (Initial assessment? Too many stairs). Helen has just been discharged from hospital after a total knee replacement. If they haven’t given her the robotically-enhanced version, she’s going to struggle.

‘I’ll be alright,’ she says, shifting uncomfortably on the sofa. ‘It’ll just take a bit of getting used to, that’s all.’

Graham is even more dismissive about the practicalities of the thing. There are two enormous, plush leather sofas in the lounge, meeting at the doorway and making a narrow corridor. It’s awkward for us to get through, let alone Helen, but Graham won’t countenance moving things around to make it easier.
‘You’ll just have to pass the frame over and come through sideways,’ he says.
‘Are you sure we couldn’t just move the sofa over?’ says Sye.
‘Where to?’ says Graham.
We make some suggestions. But it would mean losing a coffee table and one easy chair, something that Graham regards with horror.
‘No,’ he says ‘Absolutely not. We’ll manage.’

And to be fair, Helen seems to be the past master at managing. Once she’s negotiated the Clashing Rocks of the sofas, she hobbles on to the bottom of the first set of stairs.

‘Just remember,’ says Sye. ‘It’s good leg up to heaven, bad leg down to hell.’
‘Heaven. Hell. Got it,’ says Helen.
She makes heavy going of the stairs going up.
‘I think we should make camp here’ I say on the second landing. ‘Strike out for the summit in the morning.’
‘No. Come on, now. Keep up,’ says Helen.
And after a great deal of puffing and swearing, swinging her bad leg off to the side like Long John Silver at musket point, we finally make it to the very top landing.
‘Phew!’ she says, catching her breath. ‘You’d think I’d be used to it by now.’
‘You’ve just had a major operation,’ says Sye. ‘Cut yourself some slack.’

On the return, Helen insists on coming down backwards. That’s the way she got used to doing it in the months leading up to the operation.
‘Unorthodox,’ she says. ‘But it’s the only way I know.’
‘Good grief!’ says Sye, as she turns round at the very edge of the top stair, takes hold of the handrails either side, and begins the slow descent.

Back down in the lounge, there’s the same problem as before, negotiating the narrow gap between sofas before Helen can sit back down in her favourite spot. Graham is sitting the other side of the room, watching a natural history programme, something about bats.

‘All finished?’ he says, as a great flock of them swarm out of a giant cave at sunset.

‘I can’t speak for these two gentlemen,’ says Helen. ‘But I sure as hell know I am.’

the end of the world

~ jim clayton ~ 2 Comments

Suddenly there’s a strange light beyond the office windows, like someone climbed up two storeys when I was on the phone and stuck sheets of yellow plastic across the glass.
‘Storm coming,’ says Helen, standing over there, peering out. And she’s right – but not any storm I’ve seen before, something quieter and more abstract.
‘Apocalyptic,’ she says.
‘I’ve still got visits.’
‘Good luck.’

Down in the car park, I see one of the groundsmen walking towards me. Even though I’ve worked in the old hospital two years now, I still don’t know his name. He always seems so grumpy, plodding along carrying or pushing something, always with an expression as burdensome as his load.
‘Looking pretty stormy!’ I say, as I unlock my car.
‘You’re the third person to tell me that,’ he says.
I find his rooted cynicism helps, though. Here we have this strange and unsettling weather feature, but to the groundsman it’s all just one more thing to piss him off. I bet if we met at the edge of the world, everything and everyone in flames, a terrifying vortex swirling open and dragging the very universe into its maw, he’d be there, plodding along the rim of it all, waving his hand at the Apocalypse: ‘Tossers’.

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By the time I reach the patient’s address, the sky has taken on a brooding tone, the sun burning through it all with liquid fire. Birds are prematurely hurrying back to their roosts, and the street lamps are coming on. The whole thing feels more like an eclipse, like we’re moving towards Totality.

On the sea front, people are stopping in threes and fours, drawn out of their cars to take pictures.

When I go up the steps to the front door of the block where my patient lives, there’s a smart middle-aged couple with shopping bags and suitcases waiting there. The woman is on the phone to someone; the guy looks up and down the street. I’m guessing they’re Airbnb people, confronted with the difference between the web description and the thing itself – a discrepancy made worse by the dark and generally unwholesome atmosphere of the storm.
‘Do you know Dean?’ the woman says to me, hanging up. ‘We’ve been trying to get into the penthouse flat.’
‘No. I’m a nursing assistant come to see a patient. In the basement.’
‘Oh,’ she says, and shares a look with her partner. Patient? Basement? That wasn’t in the overview. They couldn’t look more alarmed if I’d taken out a tin of paint and began swiping a big red cross on the door.
The partner of my patient appears after a few buzzes on the intercom. A slouching, middle-aged man with a prickly chin and a a squint-eyed leer,  like Popeye ten years into retirement, suffering the effects of all the lost ‘spinach’ years. He’s still in his pyjamas even though it’s late afternoon, and he stands on the threshold, scratching the side of his belly, and frowning.
‘What d’yee want?’ he says, distributing a furious eye amongs the three of us, then glancing up at the sky.
‘Jaysus feckin’ chris will yee look at tha,’’ he says.

And, of course, we do.

 

the dentally damned

I suppose I’ve reached an age when I can’t expect a trip to the dentist without needing some kind of remedial work, largely because of all the crappy fillings I had when I was younger. In the seventies, things were different. Dentists were a rowdy, lawless bunch, The Cavity in the Wall gang, hanging out of their windows, touting for trade, drilling you full of amalgam if you dared to walk past, whistling.

We had a terrible dentist then, Mr Parkin, a slick-haired, sleepy-eyed psychopath who treated cavities as playrooms. Put your hand up if it hurts and I’ll stop he used to say. But of course, when you put your hand up, he wouldn’t. Almost done… he’d trill above the grinding and crunching of the bit. Which is why I kicked him in the nuts once. It didn’t seem to bother him, though. Probably because he’d had those filled, too. He had a picture stuck to the ceiling above the chair. To distract you from your agony. The Garden of Earthly Delights by Heironymous Bosch.

So it’s taken me a few years to be able to go into a dentist’s without feeling faint.

I have to say it helps that our local practice is housed in a converted church, with a certain residual prayerfulness about the rafters. The receptionists act a bit like nuns, too, speaking in confessional whispers, moving slowly and precisely. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear them chanting when they review what treatment sessions I need to get booked. It’s all pretty spiritual.

But who needs God when you have lidocaine?

The dentists at this practice have always been good, stabbing up my gums so effectively that when they eventually set to work, up to their arms and elbows in my mouth like scrubbed mechanics in the bonnet of a car, it’s like it’s happening to someone else, and I can either look over their shoulder and offer advice, or sit in the corner and flip through Hello! magazine instead. (Which I did in the waiting room before I went in, by the way. I read an article about the wife of an international shoe plutocrat. The photoshoot was on their luxury yacht, and I must admit felt a bit sorry for her. The shoetocrat wasn’t there, probably away having his conscience laundered, so she was on her own in that gigantic, sterile, curiously empty ship, holding two fluffy white bichon frises in her arms, either on the deck, in the games room, by the hot tub or in the gym, and no-one else was there to take the dogs off her or give her a drink or a massage or anything, not even the Captain.)

My current dentist is the best yet. She’s a tall Egyptian woman with sad eyes and a laconic manner. There’s a weariness about her that I find curiously reasurring, as if she’s spent many years dealing in teeth, and still isn’t any nearer to extracting anything like a resilient, workable philosophy.

For example, at one point she took some x-rays of my mouth. When they were ready she tugged down her face mask and turned to me.
‘Are you interested to see this?’ she said, pointing to a dark smudge beneath the hard white of a crown, upper left second molar.
‘Interested and horrified in equal measure.’
She laughed.
‘This is decay,’ she said, tapping the screen. ‘I will need to re-crown the tooth. I will do this by chopping the old crown in half, clearing out the decay, filling it, then making a new crown to go on top. What do you say to that?’
‘Is there an alternative?’
‘No. There is no alternative. You do nothing, one day the tooth shatter into pieces.’
‘Will it be difficult?’
‘For me – no. For you…’ She trails off, and shrugs.
‘Okay. So my next question is – how much?’
‘On NHS, approximately two hundred and forty pounds.’
‘Does that include VAT?’
She laughs again – which is great. You should always try to make the dentist laugh. If they like you, they might give you more lidocaine.
‘No VAT,’ she says. ‘We don’t charge VAT on teeth.’
‘I suppose that’s some good news, then.’
‘It is something.’
‘Okay, then. Let’s do it.’
‘Okay.’
Whilst she finished writing the ticket out, I ask her if I’m the worst mouth she’s seen today.
‘You? No,’ she says, shaking her head. ‘One man, he came in here, and he sat down, and he said I haven’t been to the dentist ever. Ever. In my whole life. And now I have pain here, here, here and here.’
She stares at me with those sad eyes.
‘Where to start with this?’ she says. ‘Where to start? I am dentist, not miracle worker.’

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the old bird

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

‘Really – I’m fine. I don’t know what you’re making such a fuss about.’
Mrs Roberts has a determined, no-nonsense demeanour, fussing with the arms of her jumper to even them out, then sitting straight-backed in the armchair, distributing a brave smile about the room, bright as a lighthouse, to anyone who needed or cared to see. It would be easy to think that here was a ninety year old woman perfectly and admirably in control of her life, if it wasn’t for the livid, green and black bruises extending from her eyes down both swollen cheeks, the stitches on the bridge of her nose, and the bandage on her left hand.
‘You’re not fine, though. Are you, Mum? You’re very far from fine,’ says Steven, her son, sitting in a chair opposite.
‘Rubbish!’ she says. Then turns to me. ‘You see what I have to put up with?’
Steve buries his face in his hands.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask him.
After a moment he emerges again, his eyes shining, his face red. He straightens in the chair, takes a deep breath, and nods.
‘It’s difficult,’ I say. ‘It’s difficult for everyone.’

The situation has many practical angles and complications, of course, but the crux of it is simply the frailties of old age. Mrs Roberts has managed the early years of her ninth decade with impressive self-determination, only needing carers these past six months, when a dip in her mobility meant she struggled to get ready in the morning. It was a carer who found her on the floor just last week – a heavy fall with superficial injuries, thank goodness, but there’s no getting away from the fact that she’s more vulnerable than before. Steve lives in Germany, has done for many years. His brother is in the UK somewhere, but a family rift means Steve is the one left to sort things out.
‘I’ve just got to go back tomorrow,’ he says. ‘Work…life…y’know?’
His mother smiles at him as she gently dabs at her nose with a handkerchief.
‘Don’t you worry about me,’ she sniffs. ‘I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself.’
There’s talk of getting her into a respite bed for a period of recuperation. She doesn’t want to go, but she’s willing to do it if it means Steve can get back to Germany and not worry himself to death.
‘I wouldn’t go for good, though,’ she says. ‘I’m not ready for the funny farm yet.’

There’s nothing in her observations to suggest a reason for the increased falls. She says she feels well in herself.
‘It’ll be interesting to see what the bloods show,’ I say, preparing my kit to take a sample.
Steve asks me how long it might take to get a respite bed.
‘There’s a bit of a wait,’ I tell him. ‘There just aren’t that many available, what with all the cuts. The few they have they triage pretty thoroughly.’
‘It’s just – what’ll happen when I go back? She’s really not safe. Even with the carers upped to four times a day.’
‘If you funded a place independently you could get one more quickly, but of course that’s only if you have the money. Like a lot of things, I suppose. Without getting too political…’
He thinks about that, both hands flat over his mouth, so that I can hear his breath moving over his fingers.
To distract Mrs Roberts I nod at the mirror just behind her. There’s an old, velvet parrot on a perch hanging down in the middle. One of its eyes has gone, and the whole thing leans precariously to one side. It has a tuft of faded yellow fur in the middle of its head, like a comedy wig. I get the feeling if I unhooked it from the mirror and gave it a gentle shake, much of the colour would come back.
‘I like your parrot,’ I say. ‘And that’s not something I thought I’d be saying today.’
‘Percy? He’s a love, isn’t he? Steven gave that to me when he was a little boy. He saved up his pocket money and he bought it at the school fair. Didn’t you darling?’
Steve nods, reaches over and strokes her knee.
‘Looking a bit tatty now, though’ he says.
‘Oh I don’t know,’ she says. ‘There’s life in the old bird yet.’

met

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Maud’s designated next of kin, Alan, lets me in. A tidy man in his early sixties, his grey beard is as scrupulously clipped and pressed as his Nordic woolly jumper.
‘Just through there, in the living room,’ he whispers, giving a little bow of the head, his eyes closing momentarily behind a glint of steel-rimmed glasses, like a kindly psychoanalyst welcoming a new client. ‘The social worker’s with her at the moment. I don’t suppose Maud will mind the two of you.’

Maud is sitting out of bed in an armchair, still wearing her cat-print pyjamas, looking around with a detached, slightly befuddled air. Beside her, on a hospital table, is a selection of the things she needs: tissues, beaker of tea, remote control, reading glasses, and a copy of Anna Karenina.

I introduce myself. When I shake hands with Maud she holds her hand out limply, looking up at me like someone who thinks they might still be asleep.
‘I can’t believe you’re a hundred years old,’ I say to her, sitting down opposite.
‘Am I?’ she says. ‘Well, then. Neither can I.’
The social worker fills me in on the situation. Maud has Alzheimer’s, but has been coping pretty well with care support and so on. Just recently there’s been a bit of a decline, and people were worried.
‘It doesn’t look like an infection, so that’s good,’ says the social worker. ‘Maud would like to stay in her home, but we’ve just been talking about that, and what we might be able to do to help.’
‘I’m in your hands,’ says Maud, then nods at Alan. ‘You’ll know what to do, won’t you, dear?’
‘It’s whatever you want, Maud,’ says Alan, smiling. ‘But don’t worry. Nothing’s decided til it’s decided.’

I carry out a quick set of observations whilst the social worker reads through the notes. Everything seems fine. Maud seems to be in rude health, considering her extreme old age.
‘The thing that bothers me most,’ says Maud, ‘is I can’t get up the stairs to look after Mum and Dad. And if I can’t do it, who will?’
‘By upstairs do you mean – upstairs? In the bedroom?’
‘Where else would they sleep?’
‘It’s understandable that you’re worried about them,’ says the social worker, pausing a moment to choose her words. ‘But I think they’re safe now. I think they’re pretty much at rest.’
‘I know that!’ says Maud. ‘I’m a hundred years old! I’m not daft!’
‘No,’ says the social worker. ‘You’re certainly not.’
‘It’s just they’re upstairs waiting for me, and I’m stuck down here, and I can’t do anything about it.’

When it’s time for me to go, Alan shows me to the kitchen door. I take this opportunity to ask him what he thinks about Maud. He stops to listen, adopting a thoughtful attitude, supporting the elbow of his right arm with the hand of his left, gently pinching his upper lip.
‘I haven’t met her before,’ I tell him. ‘So I don’t know how much of this is new.’
‘You mean this thing about her parents?’
‘Has she talked about them before?’
‘Off and on,’ he says. ‘I know how it sounds, but I suppose there are two ways of looking at it. One is that it’s all just a symptom of her cognitive decline, some organic disease and so on. The other is to say that perhaps, yes, she can actually see her parents. You might think it odd to hear me say that; other people, in other cultures, with certain religious beliefs, would probably understand it quite well. You see, it’s been my experience in circumstances like this that people nearing the end of life are – how shall I put this? – met?’
‘That’s certainly a different way of looking at it.’
‘It is, isn’t it!’ he says, brightly, patting me on the shoulder. ‘Now then. Good to see you, and thank you so much for coming!’

I walk over the road to my car and throw my bags in the boot. When I turn round to look, Alan’s still there, watching me from the kitchen door.
I wave.
He waves back, then turns and goes inside.

For the life of me, I can’t help glancing up at the bedroom window.

survivor

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Rafa nods a welcome
dabbing at a plate of
crackers & cheese
heavy with the gravity of it all
the illness, the age, the getting by
the day and the distance
sliding past the window
through the bare trees
of the leisure centre
and the lit, late, relentless commuter traffic

‘What you want?’ he says
and gestures for me to sit

Later, after the examination
making conversation,
proving there’s more to me
than a stethoscope, a badge and a yellow folder
I ask him where he’s from
‘Where am I from?’
‘Yes. Where are you from? Originally.’
‘Originally?’
‘Yes.’
‘Guess’
‘Turkey?’
He shakes his head, takes another bite of cheese
Greece?’
‘No. You want clue?’
‘Yes’
‘An island in the Mediterranean.’
He waits for me to speak.
‘My geography is terrible’
‘Former British territory’ he says.
‘God’
He snorts. He and I both know
God can’t help me now
he finishes the last piece of cheese,
puts the plate to the side
and gently smacks his hands clear
‘Gibraltar?’ I say.
‘Gibraltar is promontory’
He stares at me.
‘More clue?’
‘Please’
‘Much destruction in the war,’ he says. ‘British colony.’
‘Guernica?’ I say, thinking of a distressed horse
‘Guernica?’ he says. ‘Guernica is town in north of Spain.’
He mutters something, takes a sip of his tea
carefully places it back on the table
on top of the plate.
‘Although much destruction in Guernica, too, of course’ he says
staring at the cup, the plate, the papers, the mess pertaining
‘Give up,’ I say.
‘Malta,’ he says, turning his eyes back on me
‘Malta!’ I say. ‘Of course!’
He smiles
‘You know, the British, they gave us medal after the bombing.’
He shrugs
holds one fleshy hand out, palm up.
‘The only problem was, where to put it.’

witness

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

the woman’s smile
is as wide and sudden as the door
‘We’d like to speak to you a moment
about the trouble the world is in’ she says
I glance at the others with her
a man held in position by his tie
a girl in a black velvet dress
the three of them as smart as a family
in an advert for something wholesome
‘We’re Jehovah’s Witnesses,’ she says.
‘Can I give you a leaflet?’
‘I don’t think it’s worth it,’ I say.
‘We’re not ah…erm… we’re not
a religious household’
the word household sounding phoney when I say it
like frog or featurette
‘Take one anyway,’ she says
feeling my confusion
‘It looks a bit grim on the front
but I think you’ll find comfort inside.’
She’s right about the cover
Will suffering ever end?
a distressed woman with her head in her hands
I want to say something
if God made everything
he made the pain too
and what can you make of that?
but instead I glance at the man again
he’s looking at his watch
there’s only so far you can go with the lost
he seems to be saying
this wasn’t my idea
I’ve had a busy week
the guy’s obviously not interested
and anyway, God, look at the time

the sheep rock scenario

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On the dog walk this morning I take a route I haven’t used in a while, down an expensive private road on the edge of the village. It’s a different experience along here – grand, detached houses in an odd variety of styles: cod-Tudor, faux-medieval, everything set back behind walls and tall hedges, everything, especially the gates, on a bigger scale than normal. Even the grass verges are wide enough to grow a crop. It seems to be demonstrating a simple economic equation: more money equals more space, needing it in the same way that flowers need sunshine and water, a basic necessity to thrive. Financial potential of this magnitude couldn’t possibly exist in anything smaller.

At the end of the street is a plot of land that’s been in dispute for years. A local pre-school had been using it as a place to play in the summer, but mostly it’s been idle, having its grass mown  in synchrony with the neighbouring cemetery. For years the passage of time has been marked only by the  by the rise and fall of sunlight over the bell tower of the Norman church, and the Hang Seng Index.

I’m used to the expansive views up and down the road. The exotic house names. The teams of gardeners working on the roses. But there’s something else today, something different about the place. It takes a while to realise what it is, but the further I walk the clearer it gets. Today there’s a tall, green hoarding up around the disputed plot at the end. 

I go up to the hoarding to peer through the viewing holes, to see what’s going on. Touching the heavy chain that secures the gates works like the touching of a strand in a spider’s web, because seconds later a sleight and anxious woman is standing by my side.

‘Sorry to jump on you like this,’ she says. ‘My name’s Bunty. I live in that house there, next door to the development.

She points behind me to a long, low, be-chimneyed bungalow with casement windows, a heavy oak porch and a perfectly gravelled drive with a Mercedes parked at the apex. It’s the kind of provincially magical house Gandalf might retire to if he’d quit Hobbiton and spent the last ten years at Lloyds.

‘Lovely,’ I tell her.

‘I just wanted to ask you – have you or your dog ever walked in this field?’

I hesitate, because there’s something legalistic about the way she’s speaking and I don’t want to say anything incriminating. Eventually I decide just to be honest, and say that no, I’ve walked past it many times, but never actually gone in.

‘That’s a shame,’ she says, ‘because I’m trying to get the names of as many people as possible who’ve used the field at one time or another.  I need at least twenty to proceed, and for some stupid reason the school only counts as one.’

I tell her I think it’s a shame, what with one thing and another, but that she shouldn’t give up hope. I tell her I’ll talk to any dog walkers I meet and tell them about her petition.

Bunty launches into a long and complex description of the court proceedings so far. Who was secretly talking to who, the shocking admissions made off record, the corruption at council level, the cynical manipulation of the planning process.

‘I know some people will accuse me of nimbyism,’ she says, ‘But it won’t affect my view of the hills. It’s the principle of the thing. This is a public amenity, in a conservation area. It shouldn’t be allowed.’

I tell her I think the whole thing is disappointing, and I’m sorry it’s come to this.

‘What has everyone else in the street said about it?’ I add, helpfully.

‘That lot?’ she says, batting the air. ‘Oh – they’re happy to have another big house at the end of the street. They think it’ll keep the riff-raff out. But they’re not seeing the bigger picture. And I think that’s so important. Otherwise – who’s to stop anyone doing anything?’

She pauses to take a breath, smiling sadly, the fine lines of her face splashing out across her face like lines from the impact site of an asteroid.

She asks my name, and then the name of my dog.

‘Lovely!’ she says, shaking my hand. ‘Well – sorry to jump on you like this.’

And she’s gone.

*

It’s a relief to make it over the fields.

Lola races on ahead, whilst I take my time.

At the far corner of the field is a stile. The ground dips away sharply there, to a crossing of the stream and then on into the woods. Over the other side I think it might be good to take a few pictures of the ruined stone bridge a little further up. It’s on private land, but there’s no-one about, and the fence is down in one place, so it’s easy to sneak through and creep through the undergrowth.

It’s there that I come across the young deer.

It’s lying on its belly on the earth, breathing rapidly, its legs tucked up underneath. It’s obviously unwell, but I can’t figure out what’s wrong. It hasn’t been shot, as far as I can see; it’s legs all look intact, with no deformity; there’s no blood or vomit or anything else to suggest poisoning. The only thing I can think is that it has stunned itself by running into a tree trying to escape from something. I think it might be kinder and more humane to kill the deer quickly – but quite how I don’t know. It isn’t just that the deer is pretty substantial. I know that I don’t have either the skill or the emotional capacity to commit that kind of violence, so casually. A moment ago I was wandering around, taking sensitive shots of trees and fungi; now here I am contemplating doing something unspeakably violent to a creature that looks as cute as – well – Bambi. The best I can do is hope that the deer will recover its senses and run off. Either that or a predator with much less compunction than me will come across it and quickly put an end to its suffering.

I think about taking a picture of the deer, but that seems cruel and disrespectful, so I don’t. I forget about the bridge, and instead retrace my steps to the stream crossing, and continue on through the wood, debating with myself the tortuous ethical angles of the thing.

Half-way through the wood I meet Stan and his two greyhounds. I tell him about the deer, and what he thinks I should have done.

‘Rung its neck,’ he says.

‘How?’

He demonstrates, planting his feet either side of the thing, reaching down, pulling up and twisting, making a scccrrrrttttch noise.

‘I don’t think I could do that,’ I say.

‘Course you can he says. ‘Don’t forget how much of a problem the deer are in these woods. There’s precious little new growth going on at the moment because they eat it all. It’d be a different place if it weren’t for the deer. They need culling.’

‘I’ll leave it to you,’ I said. ‘You’ve got the technique.’

‘They’re not like sheep, though’ he says. ‘Sheep are a lot squarer and tougher.’

‘More like furniture,’ I say, helpfully.

‘I found a sheep on one of my walks up north once,’ he says. ‘Poor thing. Obviously suffering. Someone had to do something.’

‘So what did you do? Twist its neck?’

‘No. They’re too tough for that. No – I had to go find a rock.’

the ghost of bert

~ jim clayton ~ 2 Comments

Godfrey’s son, Ian lets me in.
‘He’s in the front room watching athletics,’ he says. ‘Go on through. I’m just making some tea. D’you want some?’
‘No – I’m good, thanks.’
‘Okay, then.’

An easy start to things – which is why it catches me off guard to find Godfrey in an armchair, his head thrown back, his eyes closed, his mouth slack, his arms by his side and his legs straight out, twitching and jerking.

If there was one thing I learned from all my years as an EMT in the ambulance service, it’s not to panic. There’s always time – even if it’s just a few seconds – to take a moment and see as clearly as possible what’s happening in front of you.

I’ve seen a great many seizures, and of course they vary enormously in presentation, from absences and automatisms to full-body convulsions. Godfrey’s was different to any of those, though. It struck me as the kind of performance you’d give if you’d only seen these things on the telly. He seemed to think it was mostly about waggling his hands at the wrist.
‘Godfrey? Hello! It’s Jim, from the hospital,’ I say, putting my hand on his shoulder.
He immediately stops, straightens up in the chair, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and shakes his head.
‘Dear oh dear,’ he says. ‘Some kind of nurse you are.’
‘Nursing assistant.’
‘I thought I’d give you a bit of a scare when you come in. But you’re obviously a hard-hearted bastard.’
‘Well at least that’s some kind of heart, anyway.’
‘I can see we’re going to get along.’
‘I hope so. I can always get the big needle out…’
‘Now, now.’
Ian comes in with the tea.
‘You’re not making a nuisance of yourself, are you, Dad?’ he says, handing him a cup. ‘I can only apologise on behalf of my father. I’d say he means well, but I’d be lying.’
‘I’m not getting involved,’ I say, setting out my stuff.
‘Too late. You’re involved,’ says Godfrey, taking a sip of his tea. ‘Ahh! Now then. I suppose you’ve come about this leg?’

Godfrey strikes me as depressed, which isn’t surprising, given the trouble he’s had with his leg. Although he’s elderly now, he’s been pretty independent, living alone, taking care of himself and so on. Now his mobility is seriously compromised, he’s found himself thrown onto the care of his family, which mostly means Ian, being the closest geographically, and carers coming in to help with this and that. It’s obviously as much a torture to him as the pain itself, and it looks like he’s supplementing his Gabapentin and Co-codamol with a little clowning.

‘You wouldn’t think to look at this wreck of a body, but I used to be a diver,’ he says. ‘That’s a hard job. You’ve got to be mentally tough. Not many can hack it, you know, down there in the dark and the cold.’
‘I bet.’
‘I’ve done some things in my time. I remember once we were sent in to find a body. It’d been there so long, the arm came off in my hand.’
He demonstrates, widening his eyes and pulling away from a phantom corpse.
‘I enjoyed the work, though,’ he says, relaxing back again. ‘Kept me busy.’
Ian nods at me from across the room. I can tell he’s heard these stories a million times before.

Godfrey’s quite a handful but I’m warming to him. He reminds me of my Uncle Bert, who had the same mischievous sparkle in his eyes, deliberately saying something provocative and then waiting to see what you’d do. I invoke the ghost of Bert to help me whilst I’m talking to Godfrey, joining in the banter, until it really feels we’re building a good rapport.
‘You’re all right, son,’ he says. ‘I’ve forgiven you for leaving me to die earlier.’
‘I could tell you were all right because you still had your hand on your wallet…’

The phone rings. Ian goes to answer it in the next room. I start filling in the obs sheet. Godfrey turns his attention to the race on the TV.
‘Look at him, running with his arm in a sling,’ he says. ‘That’s good, innit?’
‘It must make it so much harder.’
‘And look at that one,’ he says. ‘Horribly burned.’
It’s a moment before I realise he means the black athlete.
Godfrey grins when he sees the comment has landed. He folds his arms, and watches me.

It throws me far more than the fake seizure at the beginning of the session, and for a moment I can’t think what to say. It’s disturbing and disappointing enough, but what makes it worse is the intention behind it. This is obviously a test, to see if I’m really on his side, part of the crew, one of the gang.
I return his gaze a moment whilst I think.
He’s a depressed, embittered old man in a great deal of pain. I’m not going to pretend that I think it’s okay, but I don’t think it’s going to achieve much if I confront him. In the end I settle for a miserable compromise.
‘You can’t say that,’ I tell him.
‘Oh! Here we go! The thought police. In my own home, too. What’s the world coming to?’
‘It’s just – not a nice thing to say, Godfrey. People are people. You should know that by now.’
‘You and me are gonna fall out, mate.’
‘I don’t care, if you say things like that.’
Ian comes back in the room.
‘What’s happened?’ he says.
‘I said a bad thing,’ says Godfrey. ‘Apparently.’
Ian winces and shakes his head.
‘Once again – I can only apologise for my father.’
‘That’s okay,’ I say, automatically. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
But the way Ian takes his seat again, quietly, with an exhausted hang of the shoulders, I can tell he does.

not exactly Lear

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Zikri and I have been asked to do an environmental assessment on a patient.

‘What is this environmental assessment? What do they mean environmental assessment?’ says Zikri, saying it so emphatically again and again it sounds like a sneezing fit. He rapidly flips the page backwards and forwards like he’s trying to shake the sense out of it by main force. ‘They’ve already said it’s unhygienic and dreadful. Faeces on the floor etcetera, a terrible mess. What more do they think I can add to that? Hmm? A colour chart?’
I love working with Zikri. He’s a zesty combination of warmly humane and emphatically pragmatic. With his slightly greying goatee and his steel framed glasses, and his habit of staring at you with his mouth slightly open, like he’s savouring everything you have to say, and preparing himself to jump in with warm words of praise or a stinging rebuke. He’s the best teacher you never had. He’d have made a great theatre director, or maybe an oncologist. You could take any amount of criticism from Zikri and still think he’d given you a compliment.
‘He asked Anna to leave. So she did. She wasn’t able to complete the assessment, but she was there long enough to get this much done. Nowhere does it say she thinks he lacks capacity. And now we’ve been asked to go in and do an environmental assessment. I think all we’ll be doing is making him angrier and less inclined to co-operate than he already is.’
Zikri takes his glasses off and pinches the top of his nose.
‘Well, okay, alright,’ he says at last. ‘What time do you want to meet there…?’

*

I’ve been to a great many scenes of self-neglect, both in the ambulance and latterly as a community health worker. But I have to say Mr Frederickson’s basement flat is by far and away not anything like any of those places. In fact, I’d go as far as saying it’s actually very nice. It has a warm, stripped pine floor; walls populated with framed playbills, woodcuts of seabirds, watercolour landscapes, family photographs; quirky, vintage furniture; palms in jardinieres, and a view through a bright sash window of a rich and well-tended courtyard garden. I can’t help thinking we’ve come to the wrong house. In fact I’m so certain that must be the case, I quickly check the paperwork as Zikri makes the introductions.

‘It’s lovely to see you both,’ says Mr Frederickson, shaking our hands and then tying his dressing gown more tightly around his waist. ‘You catch me rather déshabillé, but then I suppose it is the weekend, so perhaps you’ll let me off.’

He’s utterly charming.

Zikri looks at me.

I know exactly what he’s thinking.

Environmental assessment.

‘If you’d be so kind to pass my apologies to your colleague,’ says Mr Frederickson, ‘… the girl who came here the other day. I’m afraid she caught me at rather a bad time. I stood there with my hair all over the place. I must have looked like Lear on the heath. I think I scared the poor girl out of her wits.’
‘No worries,’ says Zikri. ‘We will be sure to convey your apologies’
‘That’s kind of you,’ says Mr Frederickson. ‘Now – how can I help you this morning?’
‘Well…’ says Zikri.

stars in battledress

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

‘I’ve never been what you might call quiet,’ says Elsa, tugging the bedclothes up around her neck. ‘That’s one thing you could never accuse me of. I suppose you’re either a talker or you’re not. You never have to worry about awkward silences with me. It’s just the way I’m built. Like being left-handed. Or having a head for heights…’

I’m waiting with Elsa for the ambulance to come. I’d been sent round for an initial assessment, ECG and bloods. But it was clear as soon as I walked in the bedroom that Elsa was acutely unwell. A closer examination led me to suspect she was suffering a serious internal bleed, so I called 999.

‘They’ll be here soon,’ I told her, putting the phone down. ‘Try not to worry. Meanwhile, I’ll get a few things together…’

*

It’s been a while, now. Three-quarters of an hour.

When I go next door to phone ambulance control for an update, I’m told that they’re doing their best, an ambulance will be dispatched just as soon as one is available – only, people are having heart attacks, strokes…. surely I can understand? I know it’s difficult, I tell him, but the fact remains, we need to get Elsa to hospital as soon as possible. She’s compensating reasonably well at the moment, but I don’t think that’ll last much longer. We’re doing our best, they say. Of course, I say. I appreciate your help.

When I hang up I carefully document the delay.

‘Not long now,’ I tell Elsa, going back into the bedroom.

Before what, I wonder. She looks so fragile, lying on the bed like this, the sockets of her eyes ghosting through the pallid stretch of her face.

‘I’m glad you’re here,’ she says. ‘I wouldn’t want to do this on my own.’

‘I’m glad I’m here, too,’ I tell her, sitting beside her to do another set of obs. ‘So – go on. You were telling me about Stars in Battledress…’

She’d always been mad on the stage, she says. Singing, dancing, doing sketches. And that was what they wanted. A friend of hers put her up to it. She said I was just the kind of girl they were looking for. It was such a shame what happened to her.

‘Why? What happened?’

‘It was a famous murder case. She was on a cruise ship coming back from a show in South Africa and she was murdered by one of the ship stewards. He tried to make out she’d agreed to have sex with him, but then died of a fit or something, and he panicked and shoved her body out of the porthole. They never did find her body. He was convicted, of course. I think he only escaped hanging because of some loophole or other. Died in prison, years later. Funny how these things work out. Poor Gay. She was such a kind girl, a lovely girl. But these things happen, I suppose. On a ship or anywhere else. You’ve just got to be careful and lucky and hope for the best.’

Elsa tells me about the shows she was in. About one in particular.

‘As well as performing, everyone had a job to do. Mine was to put together these wooden steps for the big dance number in the second half. I was just tightening up the screws when someone dropped a curtain pole straight on my head. Knocked me clean out! When I came to there was only a minute to go before I was on. I had no idea who I was or where I was, but the lights came up, they pointed me in the right direction, and I walked out into the light. Anyway, the words seemed to come from somewhere, so it worked out in the end.’

‘When that show was over I moved into the intelligence corps. I remember – we were all lined up in the corridor, six girls in front, about thirty men behind. You can imagine what that was like. I was the last girl to be called forward. When I heard my name I thought – right! I’ll show these men a thing or two! – so I marched as smartly as I could up to the desk, swinging my arms and hips. But you see, what I didn’t realise was there was this rug just in front of the desk, and the floor was highly polished. As soon as my feet touched the rug it flew out from under me and I slid the rest of the way on my aris, disappearing up to my shoulders in the footwell. The Major he stood up and peered over the edge of the desk.

‘Are you alright down there?’ he said.

‘Yes Sir!’ I said, and saluted, flat on my back, and everyone laughed. But it didn’t do me any harm, apart from a few bruises. They took me on.’

The flat door buzzes. I’m relieved to hear it’s the ambulance.

Two paramedics walk in.

‘Alright?’ says one I vaguely recognise. ‘Wait a minute… didn’t you use to work for us?’