sketches

peanut

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

I press the bell and wait. The porch door is shut but the inner one is open and I can see through into the house. A dark hallway with a baby gate halfway. It’s all pretty quiet.
I press the bell again. The button is held together with weathered tape and doesn’t look too healthy. It’s only then I see there’s a piece of paper tacked to the window. The writing has faded almost to nothing but I can just make it out: Bell not working. Please knock.

As soon as I do, there’s a wild yapping and snarling from the front room, and a caramel coloured Jack Russell hurtles out into the hallway and throws itself at the gate. Although ‘hurtles’ isn’t quite right – more a cross between hurtling and a skitterish kind of wobble. At any rate, the expression on its tiny face is one of the purest and most pitiless hatred.
‘Peanut! Be quiet! Go in the garden, darling! Go on! In the garden!’
Peanut pays no attention, but spreads its paws, daring me to come any further.
‘I’m in here!’ says the man.
I put my hand on the handle.
Peanut narrows her eyes and gives a hectic sneeze.
I open the door.

Peanut goes completely nuts. She swells to twice her size, her eyes bulging out, like I’ve inadvertently cracked the outer door on a space station, and the catastrophic change in pressure is making her pop.

I’m good with dogs but I’m not stupid. I wait for the man to appear, to give me some credibility. Instead I hear him cry out in pain from the front room. There’s nothing for it but to go forward and brave the beast.
‘No, Peanut!’ I say in an Alpha wolf voice. ‘No.’
Peanut obviously doesn’t care for wolves. As soon as I open the baby gate it goes for me. The only thing that saves me is the fact that Peanut is old and fat and her range of movement is seriously compromised. It also helps that she doesn’t have any teeth. All she can manage is a furious gumming of my shoes, which sounds horrendous but is actually quite pleasant, how I imagine it would feel like if I stuck my foot up through the sunroof when I put the car through the car wash. The only real danger is that when I carry on walking she’ll trip me up. Maybe that’s the plan. Maybe the moment I’m down she’ll roll up onto my face and suffocate me. Luckily I manage to stay upright, though, lifting my legs like some kind of fastidious wading bird, high-stepping through a lake of hostile fish into the front room.
‘Good girl!’ says the man, approvingly.
Whatever made the man cry out has passed. He’s perfectly calm.
‘On the sofa, Peanut. On the sofa. Hup!’
The dog is too exhausted from the shoe wars. Anyway, if there was ever a dog in the history of dogs less likely to jump onto a sofa at the word Hup it’s Peanut. She completely ignores the man, choosing instead to wobble exhaustedly over to the far side of the man’s chair, collapsing on the carpet with an audible whump like someone delivering coal.
‘Oh Peanuuuuut!’ says the man, drawing out the last syllable into a tortured wail. Of all the things to despair about, this is the least worst thing. Peanut’s obviously used to it. She gives another of her disdainful sneezes, then settles her face onto her paws. With her huge eyes and curled lip, she’s a spit for Peter Lorre.
‘What are we going to do with you, Peanut?’ says the man.
‘Does she have a harness?’ I ask him.
‘There. Behind you,’ he says, gesturing to the sofa with his scrubby chin.
I pick it up. It’s a complicated affair, heavily-padded corduroy, confusing straps and velcro and snappy fixings. It looks more like a Victorian straitjacket.
I hold it up.
‘Peanut! Who’s a good girl…?’

heavy duty medication

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The two most startling things about Morris are his height and his baseball cap. The cap is for the Toronto Blue Jays. I only know that because when he turns round the name is printed in big letters on the fastener. That bold splash of red, blue and white seems to draw the colour out of the rest of him – a great, stooping stalk of a guy, dressed in brown slippers, grey slacks and a leached, off-white shirt.
‘In here,’ he says. ‘Follow the bear.’
We go through into the lounge. It’s orderly but lonely, the kind of place that doesn’t have much but what there is falls easily to hand.
Morris takes his cap off and points to a scabbed wound a cinch above his left eyebrow.
‘Ouch!’ I say. ‘How’d that happen?’
‘I fell,’ he says. ‘It’s a long story.’
‘But you didn’t go to hospital.’
‘Nah. What would I want to go there for? It’s full of sick people.’
I have to nod at that.
I go through the usual questions, with a slant towards someone with a head injury. Everything seems fine. He’s getting over it. The doctor adjusted his meds. Things are happening.
‘Everyone’s been very kind,’ he says, slapping the cap back on.
I start the examination.
‘Tell me a bit more about this fall,’ I say. ‘Was it a trip kinda deal? Or did you have a funny turn?’
‘Neither. I fell outta bed and cracked my head on the side table. It bled like a bastard so I called the paramedics. But these things bleed a lot. So. Apparently you need a lot of blood up in your head to keep your brains afloat. There was just one paramedic. He was very, very good. Surprisingly cheerful, even though it was the middle of the night. I said to him, I said: How d’you manage it? Being so cheerful n’all? And he turned round to me and he said: Morris? I love my work – but I’m also on some heavy duty medication. Which I thought was a good answer.’
‘I like that!’
‘Heavy duty medication. That’s what I need, I think.’
‘You’re not doing so bad.’
‘I suppose you’ve got to have a sense of humour in that line of work.’
‘Have you fallen out of bed before?’
‘Never. This was my first time. But I won’t be rushing back to repeat the experience.’
‘What happened exactly?’
‘Promise you won’t laugh?’
‘I’ll try.’
‘Okay. So. I was having this dream. I was playing at Old Trafford, I was running up the pitch with the ball at my feet, taking them all on. I could see George Best making a play for it way over on the right. And I was just about to cross when some bastard came studs up from nowhere and took me down. And when I woke up I was lying on the carpet  covered in blood.’
‘That’s a red card, right there.’
‘When I told the paramedic what happened he laughed and said he’d seen some bad tackles in his time, but never one that knocked someone sixty years into the future.’
‘I wonder who he was.’
‘What? The paramedic? I don’t know.’
Morris sighs and straightens his cap.
‘The way things are these days, I probably dreamed him, too.’

jarring

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Muriel had a fall recently. She hurt her neck, so they put her in a support, a fat, white fabric affair that pushes her chin up and makes a presentation of her face, a modern riff on the Elizabethan ruff. Muriel doesn’t look too happy about it. In fact, her expression is intensely mournful. You could draw her face pretty quickly as a series of downward curves: two for the eyes, two smaller ones for the nostrils, one big one for the mouth.

‘I’ve popped in to see how you are, Muriel. And the physio asked me to give you this zimmer frame.’
‘Oh yes?’ she says, leaning forwards but not actually opening her eyes. ‘Why would I want that, then? I’ve got my stick.’
‘Your stick’s great, but this is safer,’ I say, slapping it twice, like some kind of dodgy market trader. ‘They say you’ve had a few falls lately, Muriel, so hopefully this’ll help.’
‘Everyone’s been so kind,’ she says, turning away and heading back to the sofa. ‘I don’t know. I just don’t know.’

The referral had come from the ambulance, but we’ve had plenty of follow-up calls, especially from the neighbours. They’ve seen her wandering outside the house at all hours, distressed, confused. At least now there are several people on the case – the GP, social services, mental health and other nurses. A night sitter has been booked to keep an eye on things tonight, but a decision will have to be made soon as Muriel isn’t safe to be home alone.

I help her settle back on the sofa. I offer to make her a cup of coffee and find some biscuits.
‘You don’t mind if I watch my quiz?’ she says.
‘Of course not.’
‘I like my quizzes.’
‘I bet.’

The TV is playing one of those afternoon shows where the set is so emphatically neon it makes you feel hysterical. I wouldn’t be able to answer with my own name, let alone who played James Bond in Dr No. The quizzes always have to have a gimmick. This one seems to be about lists. The contestants answer questions on a subject, and either go through and win some money, or not. Warwick Davis presides over the whole thing with a smile as bright as his shirt.
‘Let’s play Lists!’ says Warwick.
I escape into the kitchen.

It’s so orderly in there I wonder whether this confusion is more an acute thing, or whether Muriel already has help of some kind. Everything’s exactly where you’d expect it to be. Utensils hanging in height order from a rack. Chopping boards neatly aligned. There’s even coffee in a jar marked ‘Coffee’. When I fetch the milk out of the fridge, the souvenir magnets are all lined up in alphabetical order. There’s a big ceramic bear on the counter. When I twist its head off I find it’s filled with mini cookies. I grab out a handful, arrange them in a circle on a saucer, and take it all through on a tray decorated with kittens.

On the telly lights are flashing and klaxons sounding, so I’m guessing someone is going home empty-handed.
‘There you go, Muriel!’ I say, putting the coffee and biscuits on the table beside her. ‘I’ll just write up my notes in the folder then I’ll leave you in peace.’
‘Righto,’ she says, tossing down the cookies one after the other, crumbs already sticking to the powdered hairs on her chin.

The yellow nursing folder is in the middle of a circular dining table on the far side of the room. There are no chairs round the table, except for a green plastic garden chair with a wooden box on it. The box has a brass plate – commemorating the ashes of her husband Frank who died just a couple of years ago. It’s strange to see the box there. It’s such a formal, substantial thing, like a miniature coffin. I wonder whether Muriel’s taken it down from somewhere to clean it, or whether she moves it about and talks to it. I try to imagine how I’d feel, having it around the place, like I’d been interrupted on the way to the cemetery. Something like the cookie jar would be friendlier and less – well – jarring.

‘Let’s play Lists!’ says Warwick.

the fourth date

~ jim clayton ~ 2 Comments

Jan is chatting to the care coordinator about her patchy dating history.
‘I’ve kissed my fair share of frogs,’ she says. ‘Frogs. Trolls. You name it. A whole long line. One guy I saw had one and a half ears.’
‘On the same side of his head.’
‘He looked alright but he wasn’t the kind of guy I normally date. I just didn’t fancy him. Not ‘cos of the ear thing. I didn’t notice the ear thing till the fourth date.’
‘You made it to four dates?’
‘Yeah – well – it was a slow month.’
So – what? On the fourth date you asked him back to your place, ran your fingers through his ears, and that was that.’
‘We didn’t get that far. I only noticed the ear thing when he turned to get his coat. And anyway – even if he had told me I wouldn’t have believed him. When we met on the first date I asked him what he did and he said he was a dust man.’
‘A dust man?’
‘Yeah. Why? What?’
‘I dunno. Dust man sounds odd’
‘Refuse collector, then.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Anyway. I didn’t care what he did, so long as we got on. Only in his case, we didn’t.’
‘Shame.’
‘But you know what he said on the fourth date?’
‘What?’
‘He said he wasn’t really a dust man.’
‘What was he, then?’
‘He said he was a financial adviser. He said he only told me he was a dust man to check I wasn’t going out with him for his money.’
‘Tosser.’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘Still. I don’t think that’s any reason to bite his ear off.’

the december deadbeat club

~ jim clayton ~ 2 Comments

Walking up the steep stone steps to the Gaynors’ front door is like ascending to heaven – a drowsy, sweet-scented, brightly-coloured heaven, with bees thrumming drunkenly flower to flower, and the afternoon sun laying so thickly over everything I just want to lie down in the shade of that azalea and sleep.

The oldest thing about the house seems to be the door – a worn, iron-riveted oak construction that would look more at home on the front of a medieval abbey. As it is, I can only think the door was here before the house, standing on its own on top of a small hill, before the garden and the other houses and the road and the lines of parked cars. And it was such a perfect door, they thought they’d build a house around it.

Mrs Gaynor is as old as the house. She hobbles to the door and then steps back whilst I put on my mask and gown. She tells me about her accident – or non-accident, actually, as she can’t remember anything about it. Only she caught her leg on something and now it’s swollen up. Mr Gaynor is there, too, a gaunt figure in the background. He hasn’t got much to add, other than that the thing happened, and Mrs Gaynor is on Warfarin, and it’s a bad business all round. The ambulance came and dressed it, she says. They just need something a little more permanent, and some advice.

They show me through to the front room. Oak panelled, a carved settle in the bay window, a Windsor chair, and a spread of framed family photos around the room, daguerreotype to digital, a hundred and fifty years of the same beaky nose and quizzical look, give or take a bonnet or a ludicrous moustache.

‘Let’s have a look,’ I say, after setting up my wound care station on the settle. ‘Does it hurt?’
‘No, no,’ says Mrs Gaynor. ‘I’d hardly know it was there.’
‘Until you fell over,’ chips in Mr Gaynor.
‘That had nothing to do with the leg’ she says.
‘Ah!’ he says. ‘There we are.’

The whole thing is pretty straightforward. We chat about things whilst I work, how long they’ve lived here (they can’t remember exactly), how they’re coping with the lockdown (business as usual, really). I’m overwhelmed with sleepiness again, probably because it’s so hot in the front room, especially in the apron, mask and gloves. I have to wear glasses to see properly, but then they steam up.

‘I’ll be glad when all this is over,’ I say, straightening up and trying to clear my glasses by wiggling my eyebrows and then pushing the glasses back up with the back of my wrist.
‘It’s certainly dragging on,’ says Mr Gaynor.
‘And then my leg happens,’ says Mrs Gaynor.
To force myself to stay awake I jump on another subject – the fact that I share a birthday with Mrs Gaynor.
‘The fag end of the year,’ I tell her. ‘My dad was the same.’
‘He wasn’t!’
‘Well – not exactly. His birthday was the day before. The joke was that I delayed coming out till I could have a birthday of my own.’
I hold my arms out left and right to illustrate how I did it.
She laughs.
‘Your poor mother.’
‘I’m a December baby, too, you know,’ says Mr Gaynor, in case Mrs Gaynor decides not to tell me.
‘So we’re all Capricorns!’ says Mrs Gaynor. ‘How extraordinary!’
‘The December Deadbeat Club,’ says Mr Gaynor. ‘Present company excepted, of course.’

angela’s secret

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Using the key from the key safe I let myself into the hallway. A steep flight of stairs rises up in front of me; Angela is waiting at the top. I wave, introduce myself.
‘I’ll put my mask and things on in the hall,’ I tell her.
‘That’s right,’ she says. ‘The other nurse did that.’
Angela watches me carefully as I tie on the apron and mask. She’s propped up on an elbow crutch, the light from the maisonette kitchen a bright halo of white around her. Her glasses are enormous – great pale circles – accentuated by her bouffant hair and red lips. It’s like being scrutinised by a species of giant domestic fowl.
‘All done? Good! Into the living room…’
Despite the crutch and her advanced age she vaults the second set of stairs and is well-ahead of me by the time I reach the top.
‘Let’s sit at the table in the window,’ she says. ‘You there, me here.’

I’m already sweating. The room has a close, two-dimensional feel, like the set of a sitcom. Every time I say something I expect to hear canned laughter – except, I don’t get much opportunity, as Angela has all the lines, limiting me to a few nods and uh-hums. In fact, she’s so chatty I have to talk over her to ask a question, apologising for my interruption each time.

I’ve been sent round on a mission to get some clarity. Angela had been referred to us recently for care support and a little physio, but the therapist who did the initial assessment found that actually there was nothing for us to do, and with Angela’s agreement, ended the referral. But then Angela had rung the office to ask where all the help was. It had proved too difficult to figure things out on the phone – for reasons that are now becoming clear – so I was asked to attend.

‘Apologies for being déshabillé. You wouldn’t normally find me waltzing around in a dressing gown at half past ten in the morning,’ she says. ‘But everything’s been so muddled lately. I have this condition you see. Not exactly narcolepsy, but near as damn. Chronic Fatigue syndrome? There are lots of names for it, but it’s really neither here nor there. Take last night, for example. I read through the paper and decided what I wanted to watch. A documentary. On whales. And I settled down in my chair – which isn’t nearly as comfortable as you might think – and I turned on the television set to enjoy it. Well – you see – the next thing I know I’m opening my eyes and it’s half past four in the morning! And I wasn’t just awake, but absolutely and completely awake! So I got up, made myself something to eat, and then sat here at this table, and decided to do the crossword. I had just opened the dictionary to look up a word – I can’t remember which one – but that doesn’t matter – the point is, the next thing I knew, I was opening my eyes again and it was nine o’clock! I’d simply put my head on the dictionary and pfft! The lights had gone out! Well of course this isn’t at all unusual for me. This has happened quite a bit. The doctors are flummoxed. They’ve run all kinds of tests and things but nothing seems to stick….’

I can feel my eyes becoming heavy, too. In fact, I can’t think of anything better than putting my head down on the dictionary and snatching a few hours myself.

‘…I was always a bit of a live wire,’ she says, then stares at me. I’m worried for a second I might have had a microsleep and started snoring, but the moment passes.
‘What did you do before you retired?’ I manage to say, pathetically.
‘Private secretary,’ she says, with a proud snap of her jaws. ‘To an extremely high-profile businessman.’ She taps her nose and winks at me.
‘Goodness,’ I say.
‘Yes. It was a different time altogether. I was on the go from dawn to dusk. Angela! my friends would say to me. Angela! What’s your secret?’
‘And what was the secret?’
‘Oh – the usual! A steady nerve, a cool hand and sturdy boots.’

the switch

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A high-pitched, whistling kind of voice picks up. I’m guessing it’s George’s wife – although I don’t remember reading in the notes he was married. She repeats the number like it’s nineteen fifty or something.
‘Two four two nine one six’
‘Hello. My name’s Jim. I’m a nursing assistant with the Rapid Response service at the hospital. I’ve been asked to come and visit George this morning. Is he there?’
‘Speaking.’
‘Oh! I’m sorry, George! This phone line’s terrible. I can barely hear you. Let me move position…’
I hold the phone away from my face for a second, then bring it back again.
‘There! That’s better! How are you feeling today, George?’
‘Not bad, thank you. Excepting for this damned leg.’
‘Ah! Well it’s the leg they want me to look at.’
‘Do they?’
‘Absolutely. And to see how else we can help.’
‘That’s very kind of you.’
‘It’s a pleasure. I could be round in half an hour or so…’
‘Lovely. See you then.’

*

I park up on the estate and haul all my bags out of the boot. An elderly woman staggers past, walking a small dog at the furthest extent of the lead. The dog must have recently been showered or something because its fur sticks straight out all over. It drags the woman in my direction, produces a nose from somewhere, and begins sniffing my trousers.
‘He’s cute,’ I say. ‘Or she.’
‘She,’ says the woman. ‘Come on, Marilyn! Leave the nurse alone.’
‘She’s alright! She can probably smell my dogs.’
‘Oh!’ says the woman. ‘What sort?’
‘Lurchers,’ I say, patting Marilyn where I’m guessing the top of her head would be.
‘I love lurchers!’ says the woman. ‘I used to be a volunteer walker at the shelter. Before my hip.’
‘That’s a nice thing to do.’
‘We got up to all kinds of mischief. Mind you – life’s not boring with Marilyn, either. Is it? Hey? Is it?’
She hauls on the lead, and then rolls onwards, rocking from side to side like her legs were on retractable springs.

*

George opens his flat door and stands there watching as I put on my PPE.
‘I’ll be glad when all this is over,’ I say, hooking the mask round my ears.
‘I hope you won’t get too hot in all that,’ he says. ‘Only I put the radiators on to dry my pants.’

It certainly is hot in the flat. George is in his nineties and doesn’t seem to feel it. He is tiny and frail, perfect, in a bloodless kind of way, immaculately dressed in black slippers, sharp-creased slacks held up by braces and a shirt buttoned to the neck. George’s front room is equally squared-away, spectacle cases in a line on the table, neat piles of letters and things, pencils and biros in size order, and a stack of socks so well-ironed they look fresh out of the box. There’s not much in the way of decoration. A simple cabinet with a few photos and things, a couple of old model locomotives, two campaign medals in a display case, a television, a copy of the Radio Times, and then draped over the radiator under the window, a line of baggy white pants.

‘Excuse the mess,’ he says, then carefully lowers himself into his chair.

We chat as I work. He tells me what Hamburg was like in the months just after the war.
‘Everyone scratching around. Using whatever they could. It’s terrible, what people can do to each other.’

After the war he worked on the railways, first on the track, then as a driver, then as one of the station staff. After he retired he made model railways, the scenery and buildings and things. I imagine him hunched over a bench, working on the tiny scenes with a pot of enamel paint, staring through a bendy magnifying glass, his eyes huge and intent.
‘I used to sell them,’ he says. ‘Kept a few for myself, of course. But then when I moved here I had to get rid of them.’
‘That’s a shame.’
‘Well,’ he says. ‘One learns to adapt.’

*

Back out in the car I think about George and his model railways. It makes me think of a short story I read a long time ago. It was called ‘The Chicken Switch’ or something. It was about a journalist who interviews a guy who’s just about to go inside an underground box for a month. As a stunt. And later the journalist suffers terrible claustrophobic panics – almost loses his mind. Until the underground guy gets exhumed, steps out, looking perfectly fresh and relaxed. The journalist asks him how he did it, and the underground guy says he has this trick. Just before he goes into a situation like that, he mentally switches places with the last person he talked to. At least – I think that’s what happens. He transfers his stress and anxiety onto that person.

I can imagine George doing something similar, switching places with one of his station figurines. I wouldn’t mind betting there’s a model railway somewhere, a perfect thing, with trees and barns and cows and people waiting with their bags on the platform. And the station office, with a tiny little George staring contentedly out of the window, every detail perfect, the shiny black cap, the mug of tea, the chain of his fob watch, the medal on his jacket, standing securely on his plastic base that only rocks a little as the giants come thundering up the stairs again, and the lights come on, and the transformers crackle and hum, and the trains start rolling  again, round and round the track.

Frank’s nest

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Sixty years ago, when Frank was a young man, he worked in the shipyards, on the cranes. At least, I think he did. He’s got such a strong Geordie accent, and speaks in such a slurred and rumbling kind of way, it’s impossible to be sure. There’s a half empty bottle of whiskey tucked discreetly on the floor behind his legs, too, and I’m sure that’s not helping things.
The kitchen is oppressively hot. I’m wearing full PPE. My apron feels so tight I feel like a big, blue sausage beginning to squeal under the grill.
‘Ah’ was fitter in them days,’ he sighs, staring out of the kitchen window. His little flat is on the uppermost floor of a converted house, with plane trees so close to the front it’s as if we’re sitting in the cab of a crane high over the street. ‘I didn’t gi’a shit about nuttin’!’ he says, swatting the air with his good hand. ‘Ah was scamperin’ about like one of them squirrels there. Ah used ta stand wi’ ma legs on the girders, swingin’ ma’ hammer, snakin’ out the wire…it was like ah’ was buildin’ a big nest for meseln’ in the sky.’
‘Wow,’ I say, wiping the sweat from my forehead with my arm. ‘That sounds amazing!’
He stares at me for a second, like he’s trying to get me in focus.
‘D’you mind if ah’ smoke a tab?’ he says, reaching for his tin.
‘Could you wait a bit, Frank? I’m almost done.’
‘Oh. Okay.’
He pushes the tin back, and sighs again.
‘I can open the window if you want?’
‘If yer don’ mind.’
It feels good to let the air in. Frank closes his swollen eyes and turns his face in the direction of the breeze. He had a fall in the kitchen a couple of days ago. Got taken to hospital and kept in for observation. To look at him you’d think he’d pitched head first out of the window. Livid purple bruises distort his eyes and face, there’s a steri-stripped laceration to his forehead, a bandage on his hand.
‘Ah’m sick of it,’ he says, opening his eyes and turning to look at me again. ‘Sick of it! Ah jes’ don’t want to go on, to tell ya the truth.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that, Frank. It’s understandable, though. You’ve got a lot on your plate. Do you want to speak to one of our mental health nurses about how you feel?’
‘Nah – what’s the point?’ he says. ‘Ah’ll jes’ carry on as I am, thanks very much. Tess’ll be in later wi’ ma things.’
I imagine her labouring and cursing up the six steep flights to Frank’s flat, shopping bags filled with microwave meals, fags and whiskey.
On the wall behind him is a calendar with a picture of a Matchless motorbike, one of the small, single cylinder machines, drop handlebars, bucket seat, cafe racer style.
‘Nice bike’ I say, nodding at the calendar, then wiping my forehead on my arm.
‘Ay’ he says, turning stiffly in the chair.
‘Did you ride?’
‘Whey aye! Ah tell ya, man – I was that fast – I’d be there a’fore I left.’

about george

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I’d met George a few times in the past, so I had my doubts.

‘You have to take him,’ said Lyra, the manager of the rehab unit. ‘He’s been here six weeks and it was only supposed to be a couple of days.’
‘But you say he’s hoist only now?’
‘Yes.’
‘In that house?’
‘Yes.’
‘And it’s been cleared? It was so tiny and cluttered. You’ve actually managed to fit a hoist and a commode in there?’
There’s an ominous pause.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I wouldn’t be sending him home, otherwise. Would I?’

The conversation hadn’t started well.

George had been referred to us for an initial assessment. I’d phoned the unit to clear a couple of things up. When the first person answered I went through the usual spiel: Hello. My name’s Jim. I’m a nursing assistant from the Rapid Response team. I’m just calling to find out about George’s discharge today.
‘Oh. Hold on. You need to talk to another nurse.’
She put the phone down on the desk without muting it, so I could hear her calling out (although the other person was too far away to hear): I don’t know. Some guy asking about George…. I don’t know what he wants…. Why don’t you speak to him?…. Well where IS she?…..
Then some general clattering, muttering, background noise. Laughter. Eventually someone else picked the phone up from the desk.
‘Hell-oo?’ she said, in that drawn-out, slightly hesitant voice you might use for a sales call or worse.
‘Oh – yes – hello! My name’s Jim. I’m a nursing assistant from the Rapid Response team. Sorry to bother you. I’m just calling to find out about George’s discharge today.’
‘Who?’
‘George Masters.’
‘No. Who are you?’
‘Me? I’m Jim. Nursing assistant. Rapid Response Team.’
‘Just a minute…’
She puts the phone back down on the desk, again – without pushing the mute button.
I don’t know. He says he’s a nursing assistant called Jim. Asking about George.
There’s some toing and froing between the two, then she picks the phone up again.
‘What is it you want exactly?’
‘Well – two things. One is that on the discharge summary they give an address that’s different to the one we’ve got. So we need to clear that up. And the other thing is to find out what time he’ll be home.’
‘Just a minute…’
She does the same thing. This time, I’m waiting for five minutes, hanging on the phone, listening to all the traffic and fuss of the unit. Just as I’m about to hang up and call again later, the phone gets picked up by someone else.
‘Hello?’
‘Hello. Erm. Yep. My name’s Jim. I’m a nursing assistant from the Rapid Response Team. Erm.. can I ask who I’m talking to?’
‘My name’s Sheila. How can I help?’
‘Are you a nurse, or …’
‘Yes – I’m a nurse.’
‘Great! Do you know about George Masters?’
‘What about him?’
I take a breath, then go into the two things I need to know about George so we can be there to do the initial assessment.
‘You need to speak to Lyra,’ she says.
‘Who’s Lyra?’
‘The unit manager… LYRA…!’ she shouts, so loudly I have to lean away from the receiver. She slams the unmuted phone back down on the desk.
Another five minutes.
Eventually the phone gets picked up again.
‘Hello? Lyra speaking?’
‘Hi Lyra. Can I just say, before I go on – I’m not all that happy with the way this phone call has gone. I’ve spoken to three different people. They’ve all put the phone down without even muting it, so I can hear them shouting across the unit…’
‘Don’t get clippy with me,’ says Lyra.
‘I’m not clippy, I’m just saying…’
‘I don’t appreciate your tone…’
‘All I’m saying is that it’s been really frustrating ringing your unit today….’
‘We’re busy. What d’you expect?’
‘Everyone’s busy.’
‘I think you need to look at the way you speak to people. Who did you say you were?’

We struggled on with the conversation, but by the time I hung up I was sweating more than a pilot who’d spent half an hour fighting to stop a plane crash.

‘So – when’s he home?’ said Anna, who was due to handle the initial assessment with me.
‘She’ll call me,’ I said. ‘Maybe.’

To be fair, from that point on Lyra was more amenable. I think it was because she was desperate to discharge George, who’d been a disruptive presence on the unit, constantly ringing his button, throwing tissues everywhere, generally playing up. I’d met George before, of course, and I knew he could be difficult. But when I’d known him he was still at home – a tiny, cluttered house with a kitchen whose ceiling was halfway down and whose downstairs toilet was so unspeakable you wanted to clean it up with a flamethrower. He had a cute dog, though – a perky little brown and white Jack Russell called Lily, so it would be nice to see her again.
‘I’m sorry about the way the phone call went,’ said Lyra. ‘We’re completely rammed here, as you can imagine. And I’m having to get by with agency nurses, and they don’t know the routine.’
‘That’s okay. I’m sorry if you thought I was clippy.’
We laugh about it.
End the call.

Later that day I’m sitting in George’s front room. We’ve just hoisted George from the wheelchair onto the hospital bed, but already he’s talking about putting himself on the floor because ‘it’s too early for bed,’ even though he couldn’t sit in a chair without three feet of rope and a crash mat. The neighbour who we were told would be coming round with shopping and generally keeping an eye on things is actually self-isolating and not leaving his house. To add to the woeful picture, we’ve just found out the boiler doesn’t work. Our team have been asked to provide bridging care four times a day, but even so you couldn’t say with any confidence that George would be safe between calls. He really needs some kind of residential facility. Still – at least Lily the dog has been rehomed.

There’s nothing else for it.
I ring Lyra.
She answers.
I tell her the situation.
There’s an ominous pause…

The nightlife of Berlin

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

‘How are you getting on, Jorge?’
‘Fine. I’m just finding somewhere to park. I won’t be a minute.’
‘See you in a bit, then.’
‘Yes.’
I put the phone back in my pocket.
Take a breath.
Lean against the railings.
Look around.
I can’t see Jorge’s car, though, which is odd. There’s a clear view up and down the road, and of the D-shaped green just opposite.
I wonder if I’ve got the right address.
I have a sudden feeling of dislocation. Everything seems unnaturally still, like I’ve wandered into an old plate photograph in the short walk from my car to these railings. But instead of a frozen horse and cart, a geezer in a bowler hat, a woman in a hooped skirt and bonnet, there’s a guy in a T-shirt sitting in his van staring at the front door where he dropped his tray of groceries, and across the road, a man in white surgical gloves staring at a rack of rentable bikes.
I wait.
Re-shoulder my bag.
Look around some more.
I can’t see Jorge’s car anywhere. Maybe I have got the wrong address.
I ring him again.
‘Yes, yes. I’m just coming. Look! I can see you…’
But I can’t see him!
It’s peculiar – then, suddenly, bursting through the paper of the photograph, there he is, waving his phone in the air from the centre of the grassy D, and everything comes back to life. The delivery driver slams his door and moves off. The guy begins wiping down the saddles of the bikes.
‘Have you been here long?’ says Jorge.
‘Hardly any time.’
‘Come on. Let’s see if he’s in this time.’

We’ve teamed up for the assessment because there’s a safety caution both for Gary and the address. Gary had suffered an injury to his leg and gone to A and E, but it was obvious from all the collateral noise around the referral – emails between the hospital, surgery and social services – that no-one knew what to do with him or felt able to take responsibility. Gary had such a long history of non-attendance, non-compliance, non-cooperation, non-everything, you’d think it would be easy just to type NON in big red caps on his notes and leave it at that. Except Gary wasn’t quite so definitively NON that he wouldn’t stop presenting at the hospital complaining he couldn’t cope. As a last resort he’d been referred to us. We’d tried over the last few days to get in touch with him, but he didn’t answer the phone, didn’t reply to messages. Then his phone was switched off. None of his other contact numbers worked, or the people who did answer either knew where he was and didn’t want to say, or didn’t know, or didn’t care, or all of the above. A couple of days ago a therapist had let themselves into his flat with the keysafe, but there was no-one in. The next day there was no key in the keysafe.
Today’s visit from Jorge and me is the last throw of the dice.
I ring the intercom.
And again.
And we’re just about to turn round and leave when it crackles into life.
Come up he says. Make sure you put your masks on.

Gary looks a bit like Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam – or would do, if Eddie Vedder had spent the last thirty years shooting up, smoking crack and eating chips. He stands unsteadily at the flat door, an unlit joint clamped in the corner of his mouth, his puffy eyes squeezed shut like a sick and denuded mole coming up for air. He’s naked, except for a threadbare dressing gown and a velcro support boot.
He waves his hand in the air.
‘Come on in,’ he says.
We rustle after him, stand hopelessly in the middle of the room as Gary waddles to the sofa and eases himself down into it.

These days we have to gown and mask up for every patient – to protect them as much as us. And normally I hate it. Not only is it uncomfortably hot, but it also acts as a barrier to that open, human interaction you depend on so much to get things done, move things on. Now I’m glad of it. The room is as fetid and unkempt as Gary, ropes of old spider web hanging down so thickly you could jump up and swing from one side of the room to the other. There’s a case of beer on the kitchen counter, scatterings of pill packets, smoking gear, not much else. The TV looks like it’s been punched off.
‘Hello Gary,’ says Jorge. ‘You know – everybody’s been trying to get hold of you.’
‘Before you start,’ says Gary, shakily hooking his lank hair to one side. ‘Before you have a go, I’ve just got to do this. Alright? I’m breathless. I need to do my puffer. Okay? Is that okay?’
‘That’s fine,’ says Jorge. ‘You need to take your medication. We can wait a minute.’
‘Thank you,’ he says.

There’s a glass coffee table in front of him. On it is a spacer device with an aerosol of beclomethasone in one end, a glass of water, a mug of tea and a DVD of a guide to the nightlife of Berlin. Gary picks up the spacer device, gives it a shake, squirts the aerosol, puts the business end of the device in his mouth, and starts breathing through it, slowly and deeply, for five goes. Then he lowers the device. Gives it another shake. Another squirt. Puts it to his lips, repeats. When that’s all done, he gently and reverently puts the device back on the table.
‘Good. Well done,’ says Jorge.
Gary holds a finger up.
‘Just a minute,’ he croaks.
He picks up the water, takes a mouthful, puts the glass back down, leans back on the sofa, tips his head, and begins to gargle – a long, deep sound, like a lumpy old British motorbike. It seems to go on forever. Me and Jorge exchange looks over the line of our surgical masks. Gary takes another sip of water. Repeats the gargle. Swallows loudly.
‘Better?’ says Jorge.
‘Just a minute. Please. Just a minute,’ says Gary.
He takes the tea – very slowly – and takes a sip of that. Then he takes the DVD of Berlin and places it on top, to keep the tea warm.

A man appears from a room just behind us. He’s as grey and ruined-looking as Gary, except longer in the body, more stooped.
‘I’ll keep outta your way,’ he says, and ducks back inside.

‘So – Gary!’ says Jorge, clapping his blue gloved hands together. ‘You’re a difficult man to get hold of. Why didn’t you answer your phone when we’ve been calling?’
‘I was in too much pain.’
‘Yes – but – you see, if you don’t answer your phone, we start to get worried. One day you weren’t even in the flat.’
‘I’d gone out.’
‘Of course. But then the next day there was no key in the safe.’
‘I told you. I was in too much pain.’
‘But when we can’t see you we start to worry. And then we think about calling the police.’
Gary opens his eyes and looks straight at us – but then lets it pass with a shrug.

Jorge starts trying to explain to Gary who we are and what we do as a service, but Gary already has firm ideas. He doesn’t want physio or nursing – he knows his own body. All he wants is a carer to come in every day to wash his good foot, and maybe give his foreskin a freshen-up with a personal wipe.
‘Excuse me? Your what?’
‘My foreskin!’ says Gary. ‘You know… down there.’
‘Well! I think you can do that for yourself, can’t you?’ says Jorge. ‘I mean – for goodness sake! You need to be as independent as possible.’
‘Where’m I gonna get the wipes?’
‘From the shops. Any of the supermarkets round here will sell them.’
‘They haven’t got any.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because Stu does my shopping.’
‘Is that Stu in there?’
‘Yes. But he’s not there all the time.’
‘But he is there some of the time.’
‘Yes.’
‘So maybe Stu could buy enough for the week when he goes.’
‘I just told you. They haven’t got any.’
‘It’s not the sort of thing we do, I’m afraid, Gary. We’re an emergency service. We have to look after very sick and vulnerable people. People who don’t have other people around them to help. You’ve got Stu. So that’s good.’
‘What you’re saying is, basically, you can’t do nothing for me?’
‘On the physio side, maybe. Do you have a support worker?’
Gary shakes his head.
‘That’s gone, now,’ he says. ‘That’s all finished.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
Gary bristles.
‘If you’re not going to help me with the things I need, then what use are you? Just get out.’
‘Okay. That’s fine, Gary. We will go. And we’ll refer you back to your GP.’

Back outside, the air is wonderfully cool and fresh.
‘What a complete waste of time,’ says Jorge. ‘I think he was playing some kind of stupid game with us. What do you think?’
‘He was using that spacer device like a crack pipe.’
‘Yes! And my God – when he started gargling like that! I didn’t know where to look!’

A young couple pass by on the pavement, both of them hugging cardboard boxes of supplies. There’s such a tangible air of competence and vitality and neighbourliness about them I can’t help smiling.
‘Where did you park?’ I ask Jorge.
‘Over there! Under that tree!’
‘Let’s walk together!’
So we do.