sketches

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.

undercover

~ jim clayton ~ 2 Comments

Staff always joke about the Q word. It’s the community health team equivalent of saying Macbeth in the theatre – a witchy guarantee things will go wrong. But you don’t need to say it’s Q. It’s so Q you can see it. Q has settled over the office like a snow drift, a fog, a magic spell. It’s so Q I can hear the birds outside – although that’s not saying much; the seagulls are lined up on the roof opposite, a raucous, white-throated Chorus of the Apocalypse.

I’m helping the coordinator again, but it’s so Q I’ve even got time to catch up on my e-learning. Unfortunately there’s quite a backlog. I yawn, scrolling through the ones remaining: Adult Safeguarding Level 2; Fire Safety Level 1; Record Keeping; Information Governance… not attempted; not attempted; not attempted… a Sisyphean task, except Sisyphus has been taken off boulders and sat in front of a laptop instead. Immediately nostalgic for boulders.

Grace is suddenly standing next to me, in a diffident, two-metreish kind of way.

Grace is well-named. She’s one of the senior OTs, a therapist whose skill and experience is only exceeded by her great poise and humanity. I’ve never seen her cross or grumpy or out of sorts. She has such an unassuming strength about her it’s positively saintly. I can imagine her standing in the path of a tornado, holding her hair out of her face, smiling so sweetly and directly at the funnel it would immediately pipe down and wander off to kick through some leaves.

‘Sorry to interrupt,’ she says. ‘I just need to book a follow-up visit for that patient I went to see.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘Well – he’s down on the system as John Smith, but he likes to be called Frank Brandenburg.’
‘Wow!’
‘I know! It’s quite strange, but there you are.’
‘Frank Brandenburg? Sounds like a seventies detective. Brandenburg? You’re off the case. I want your badge and your gun.’
‘I think I’d rather be a Frank Brandenburg than a John Smith. Although John Smith is quite anonymous, I suppose.’
She waits with her papers.
‘What’s the story with the name, then, Grace?’ I ask her as I finish off the booking.
‘I’m not sure. His friend was there and they were both – how can I put this? – a bit unusual. I get the impression there’s some kind of street history there that might be interesting to go into if you had the time. He’s got a lovely dog, though.’
‘Oh yeah? What sort?’
‘A lab-collie cross. Although – who knows? It’s probably really a chihuahua.’

tempting

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

It’s the end of the day. The window by the coordinator’s desk is all the way open, and a sultry breeze drifts in off the corrugated metal roofing of the document storage shed next door. I’ve been helping the coordinator through most of the afternoon, answering the phone, processing referrals, sorting out problems. It’s had its manic moments, as it always does, but mostly it’s been eerily quiet. I’ve heard the phrase ‘the calm before the storm’ a few times now. It almost makes me want the storm to come, just to get it over with. I don’t think I’m alone in that.

Ethan, one of the senior nurses, has come back to the office after sending his last patient back into hospital.
‘They’re shoving everyone out, regardless,’ he says. ‘I know they’re supposed to clear the decks for the C19s, but seriously? I wouldn’t be surprised to see a whole herd of them wandering along the prom pushing drip stands.’

Ethan has a fantastic way of saying these things, raising his eyebrows, staring at you for a second with wide eyes, then dropping his jaw, rocking back in the chair and laughing energetically. He’s an experienced nurse, with a background in so many areas of acute medicine – sexual health clinics, A and E, ITU and so on – he’s definitely earned his stripes. He’s a great person to talk to about the pandemic, because as well as all his knowledge and experience and great love of nursing, he has an impish sense of fun that leavens the seriousness of the whole affair and makes it less overwhelming.

So, of course, after a little while talking about the strange businesses of viruses, whether they’re living things or not, the alien way they’ve evolved alongside mammals, we soon move on to some of the other weird organisms he’s come across.

‘The Sexual Health Clinic was good for that,’ he says, one leg crooked over the other, idly tracing the arched line of his eyebrow with a fingernail. ‘I saw some weird things there, I can tell you. There’s one called Trichomonas vaginalis. It’s this ‘orrible little protozoan parasite that lives in the vaginal tract or the urethra. Men can get it but it’s mostly women. Anyway, it’s a disgusting little thing. Shaped like a pear with these flagella whipping about. Lives on scraps of dead cells, causing infection. I saw one under the microscope. It looked happy enough, swimming around on the slide. I think it actually saw me.’ And holding on to the back of the chair with one hand, he suddenly tips back, sticks his legs out and kicks them like he’s doing the backstroke at the pool, waving up at himself looking down through the lens of the microscope. ‘Coo ee!’ he says. Then he straightens again. ‘We had one woman come in. She said she knew she had a dose and had been trying to cure herself.’
‘I hate to ask – but – how?’
‘She’d been rubbing her fanny with raw hamburger. You know – to tempt them out. To tempt them out!’
He stares at me for a second, then laughs.
‘It’s true, though!’ he screams. ‘Honest to God! I’m laughing, but it’s true!’

buckeye bev

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

‘Here I am, mate. In ‘ere. The Top Shed.’

I have to say, Eric looks quite content despite his condition, laid out on the bed long and straight as a railway sleeper, his head elevated on a bank of pillows, his gnarled hands coupled across his belly.

I’m wearing full PPE, so I rustle as I come into the room, waving like a friendly alien.
‘Oh – watch out!’ he says.

If I didn’t know Eric used to drive steam trains, I could’ve made a reasonable guess. It’s not just the memorabilia all around the room, the plaques and models, the faded black and white photos of men in overalls or civic chains, leaning in to shake hands against a background of gigantic engines and so on. It’s that taking him all in – his nineteen fifties black frame spectacles, the gap in his front teeth for holding his pipe, the deeply grooved lines in his face, sculpted by miles of cinder track, years of squinting out of side windows at a hundred miles an hour – well – he absolutely looks like one. All he needs is a neckerchief and a cap. And if it’s true the chassis has been somewhat reduced by age and illness, still it looks like there’s plenty of coke left in the firebox.

‘How are you bearing up?’ I ask him, setting my back down and smiling over the top of my mask.
‘Oh I’m alright!’ he says, cheerfully. ‘It’s you lot I worry about. What a time, eh?’
‘Tell me about it.’

We chat whilst I carry out the examination. He tells me about his long years on the railway, the different places he worked. London. Abroad.

‘’Course – it’s changed a lot now. There’s a lot more women drivers, for a start. Which is a good thing! We always used to have ‘em, of course, but not so many. I remember one ol’ gel. We called her Buckeye Bev. She was funny, she was. And strong? She was stronger ‘n me! She could put her shoulder under a coupling chain, lift it up, and lift the hook with her hands. You should try it sometime. It’s not easy!’

As if to demonstrate, I bend down to fetch something out of my bag. The masks we’ve been issued with are so flimsy and hopeless, it actually unhooks from around my ear and swings free of my face.
‘Oops!’ I say, straightening up again and putting it back in place. ‘Sorry! I’m like some kind of nursing clown.’
‘You’re alright,’ he says. ‘Don’t worry. I don’t reckon I’ve got this thing.’
‘Trouble is, without testing we’ve got no idea.’
‘Why in’t they testing, then?’
‘Who knows, Eric? I don’t think they’ve got the stuff. They test people in the hospital. But so far, out in the community, there’s not much happening. They’re trying to ramp it up. There’s just a shortage of kits.’
‘Poor planning,’ he says. ‘As per usual.’
After I’ve taken his blood pressure he straightens the sleeve of his dressing gown and laughs, a deep and wheezy chuckle.
‘Buckeye Bev!’ he says. ‘Blimey! I hadn’t thought about Buckeye Bev in forty years, and there she is, plain as I see you, uncoupling an engine with her bare hands. I tell you what – she was something else!’

My mask rides up when I smile.

glove up

~ jim clayton ~ 2 Comments

The good news? I’ve got the number to the key safe. The bad news? There are about a thousand of them, row upon row of squat black boxes trailing up the wall like mussels  on a quayside at low tide. Sometimes you get some detail, initials smeared on in nail varnish, a sun-bleached sticker or a smiley face painted on in Tippex, but in this case, they all look the same. The only thing to do is work through them methodically. I put my bags down and start at the bottom. Flip the rubber cover, punch the buttons, press the release catch. Nope. Replace the rubber cover. Move on to the next. Flip the cover, punch the buttons, press the catch. Nope. And the next. And the next. All the way up to the top. That doesn’t open, either.
Maybe I put the wrong number in. Maybe the number was written down in the first place.
I’ve just pulled my phone out to call the office and check when I become aware of an elderly man standing watching me in the lobby. I smile and wave the phone in the air – a mime that’s supposed to tell him that although I’m more than happy to stand there and phone someone to gain entrance, I’d also be happy to speak to him directly. He stares at me for so long that I guess I’d better go ahead and make the call, but just as the office answers he comes to the door and opens it. I ring off, put the phone back in my pocket and hold my ID badge out to him on its extendable line. He grimaces and draws back. It makes me feel a bit like Max von Sydow in The Exorcist. ‘The power of Christ compels you…’
‘Hello. My name’s Jim. I’m a nursing assistant, and I’ve come to visit one of the residents here,’ I tell him.
He pulls the door aside.
‘What am I supposed to do with all this?’ he says, gesturing to a great pile of plastic containers and cardboard trays, donated food of one sort or another, heaped up in the lobby.
‘Where’d it come from?’
He shrugs.
‘Well – is the manager here?’
He shakes his head.
‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘She’s probably buried under this lot.’
‘It looks like nice stuff.’
‘Would you eat it?’
‘I’m okay, thanks. But maybe you should dig in. You might find something you like.’
He’s not convinced. I leave him standing there, staring at the pile of food as I walk up the stairs.

The corridor that eventually leads to Janet’s flat is guarded by two old women, standing chatting outside their doors. They retreat a little when they see me approaching.
‘You come to see Janet?’ says the first one.
‘I have, actually.’
‘Well she’s not in.’
‘She’s in hospital,’ says the second. ‘The amb’lance took ‘er.’
‘Did it? Oh! I heard she’d been discharged this morning.’
‘What – Janet?’
‘Yes.’
‘No.’
‘Oh. Well – seeing as I’m here, I may as well check.’
‘Suit yourself,’ says the first one.
‘You be careful,’ says the other.
I’m aware of them watching me as I reach the far end of the corridor and turn the corner.

* *

When I knock the door opens automatically. Janet is sitting on the far side of the room in her riser-recliner. She gives me a tired, queenly wave. I wave back, then put on my PPE in the corridor.

* *

Afterwards, I undress in the kitchen, bag and dispose of the waste, say goodbye, and leave the flat.
The two old women are still standing guard in the corridor.
‘Was she in, then?’ says the nearest.
‘Janet,’ says the other, helpfully.
‘Yes, she was.’
‘Oh. How is she, then?’
‘Bearing up…’ I tell her, and I tap my chest to illustrate.
‘Ye-es,’ the furthest one says, ominously. ‘It’s that corner virus, in’it?’
‘Actually – she was tested and was negative. So that’s a relief.’
‘Can I ask you a question?’ says the nearest.
‘Of course.’
‘I don’t mean to keep you ‘cos I know you’re busy.’
‘It’s okay.’
‘Why aren’t you wearing gloves?’
‘Well – I did when I went in. I put all the protective gear on, because she’s very vulnerable. But I took it off before I came out.’
‘I don’t mean with Janet. I mean when you’re just walking about the place.’
‘I don’t need to. So long as I’m careful to wash my hands and not touch my face I should be alright.’
‘Oh. That’s a shame,’ she says. ‘Only I like a man in latex.’

the hospice cat

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Mac is sitting on the balcony, smoking a cigar. It’s so bright when I step out to join him I can barely open my eyes. We don’t shake hands because of the virus, and I’m careful to keep my distance, but even as we make the usual jokes we both know the strange quirk of this situation. It would matter to me if I caught C19, but not really to Mac. He’s been sent home to die, with a prognosis of ‘weeks’.

‘What a view!’ I say, sitting down on one of the wicker seats opposite, shielding my eyes.
‘I’ve missed it so much,’ he says. ‘I was going a little crazy back in that hospital.’

I’m not kidding about the view. The balcony overlooks a busy port area, stacks of lumber, pyramids of gravel, warehouses, through-ways, the deep waters of the quayside in contrast to the silvery-grey ocean on the other side. It’s eerily quiet, though. All the cranes and forklifts are parked up. No people, no ships. The pandemic has cleared the place. Even the seagulls look uneasy, gliding past, wondering where the change is, what it means.

I’ve been asked to find out what Martin needs immediately, with the longer-term palliative teams to follow. I was a little nervous coming to see him. It’s never clear from the documentation just exactly what the patient knows or has accepted about their diagnosis. You have to tread carefully, feeling-out the right approach. Martin makes it easy, though. From the outset he’s able to talk freely about the treatment options that gradually closed off to him, the hard decisions, the plan as it currently stands.

‘I don’t need anything for the minute,’ he says, blowing out another, luxurious cloud of smoke. ‘I’m getting by, taking it as it comes. I know it’s going to get harder but for the minute I’m alright.’
I tell him how the service works, how quickly we can get back in touch if anything changes.
‘We’re just on the end of the phone,’ I say. ‘A couple of hours and we’re back.’
‘That’s good to know,’ he says.

His family join us. We sit in a semicircle, squinting out over the silent dockyard.
‘They asked me whether I wanted to go to the hospice,’ he says. ‘But – n’ah! I’m not there yet. Maybe it’ll come, maybe it won’t. I’m not sure.’
‘You could stay at home, if you wanted,’ I tell him. ‘We’d have to change things round a little, nearer the time. Put in a hospital bed. Other stuff. It’s up to you. It’s so lovely here. And you’d have the nursing teams coming in to support you.’
‘Everyone’s been so good,’ he says.
‘But the hospice is always an option, too.’
‘I mean – it’s a nice place and everything,’ he says, leaning forwards and carefully knocking the ash from his cigar against the edge of the ashtray. ‘I went there for a bit a little while ago.’
‘What did you think?’
‘They even had a cat wandering about the place. The way they treated him, you’d think he was one of the consultants.’
‘Yeah! I’ve seen that cat! He’s hilarious!’
‘If you like cats. Which I do. No – I’ve got nothing against the place. But it’s just – I don’t know. You get chatting to the geezer in the next bed, and you think you’re dying. And the guy opposite. And the guy next to you. Stuff like that. It can really freak you out.’

He takes another toke on the cigar. A lone seagull wheels and turns overhead. And in the near distance, and further away, the waters around the dock, the sea running out to the horizon, every last plane and detail of it – everything – it all just crackles and jumps with light.

stand by your beds

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Jack is sitting slumped on the edge of his bed, a huge brown dressing gown draped over his shoulders.

‘I’ll make more sense when I put my teeth in,’ he says. ‘Get ‘em for me, would you? Go through to the kitchen. Hard left. Over to the sink. On the window ledge, by the soap dish. You’ll find ‘em there. Give ‘em a rinse and I’ll bung ‘em in.’
It’s the fourth or fifth trip I’ve made to the kitchen. First it was a cup of tea. Then it was his slippers. He wanted a knife to open the letters I’d pulled out of the letterbox – but not the knife I brought through. He wanted his frame….

I find the teeth, soaking in an old yogurt pot. They look a little scummy, so I run them under the tap.

‘That’s the ones!’ he says, reaching out for them. ‘Jes’ a minute.’
He puts them in – an extraordinary process, his wrinkled mouth gabbling round the plates. It’s like watching an octopus trying to crack an oyster. Finally he gets the teeth into position,  then hands me the yogurt pot again.
‘Done,’ he says. ‘Put that back.’

I don’t mind his bossiness. There’s something about the way he gives all these orders, directly and without an edge, that makes it entertaining. Anyway, he’s had a hard time lately. Not only has he fallen over twice – once in the surgery, once at home – but now his boiler’s broken and there’s no heating or hot water.

‘Never mind that,’ he says. ‘Set that sofa back over there, would you? Not there. There!’

He used to be a motor mechanic and I can quite imagine him up to his knotty elbows in grease, a fag in the corner of his mouth, shouting something across a garage in the nineteen fifties. Something about a wrench.

He’s got so many wounds on his arms and hands it takes me a while to check them all and renew the dressings.
‘There!’ I say at last, tossing the last of the wrappers in the rubbish bag and peeling off my gloves. ‘That’ll get you through the MOT.’
‘You think?’ he says. ‘We’ll see!’

I take the trash out and bring him another cup of tea.
‘Put it there,’ he says. ‘Now – move the table closer. That’s it! Y’know – them girls’ll miss me down the surgery. I was supposed to go there today with my feet. Not that they’d have been open. Not with this virus flying about. You wait till till they hear what happened, though,’ he says, wrapping his horrible brown dressing gown more tightly around himself. ‘They’ll piss ‘emselves laughing.’

His old friend Sally has been keeping an eye on things, but she’s in her eighties, self-isolating, hasn’t been round in a while.
‘I don’t suppose I’ll see her for a few weeks,’ he says. ‘If ever. Did I tell you how we met?’
I’m writing the notes up, so I’m only half-listening when he tells me the story, a long and complicated affair that mostly seems to focus on a guy called Barry. I lose the thread and ask him who Barry is.
‘Oh never mind,’ he says. ‘It was a long time ago.’

The last thing I do before I go is make Jack’s bed up. These days he’s sleeping downstairs on a rickety put-you-up, something he’s adamant he doesn’t want changing.
‘I’m used to it,’ he says. ‘I know its ways.’
I make the bed as well as I can, shaking out the duvet, plumping the pillows, smoothing the bottom sheet, lining up the duvet and tucking it in the wall-side, putting his favourite tartan blanket neatly over the bottom half of the bed, then turning back the near corner so it’s ready. When I’m done, I stand at the head end and salute.
‘Military man?’ he says.
‘No,’ I tell him. ‘I thought about it once, but I’m no good at taking orders.’

next door’s dog

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

I’ve never seen such an old stair lift. It sits at the bottom of the stairs like a traction engine whose wheels have fallen off. It even has a hatch under the seat, which must be where the coal goes.
‘It was my husband’s’ says Maria. ‘Shame it’s broken. It means I can’t go upstairs.’
‘What about getting it fixed?’
She shakes her head.
‘The company went bust years ago.’
‘But surely someone somewhere would know what to do with it?’
‘I know exactly what to do with it. Throw it in a skip and start again. But I’m alright downstairs. I’ve got everything I need.’

I follow her into the living room, almost tripping over a metal milk holder with three pints in it that Maria has brought inside and put in the doorway.
‘Shall I put these in the fridge?’
‘Yes. Sorry, dear. That’s as far as I got.’

Maria is self-isolating, like the rest of our patients these days. She was discharged from the hospital after treatment for a chest infection, referred to us for ongoing care.

‘I do alright,’ she says, when I bring her through some tea. ‘I’m not as badly off as others. I’ve got two gay gentlemen living next door. They’re so lovely and kind. They do my shopping and what have you. Most mornings they knock on the door when they take the dog out. They’ve got this little dog, you see. Don’t ask me what sort it is. I’m not good with dogs. I pretend to be interested but between you and me it’s not that impressive. It’s fur sticks out all over the place and it has this odd, cross-eyed look, like someone clonked it with a frying pan. I wouldn’t trust it as far as I could throw it, but they seem to like it, which is the main thing.’

We chat as I check her over. She tells me about her husband, Jack. A small businessman with a big laugh, apparently.

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘It’s true. I married the boss. That’s him, there…’
She points to a photo in a frame: An elderly man sitting in a chair, Maria standing behind him with her arms around his shoulders, the point of her chin on the top of his head. The picture has stood in direct sunlight for so long the colour has faded. All the flesh tones have merged, leaving a blurry but strangely transcendent quality to their faces. Only the stronger patterns remain: the curve of Jack’s glasses, Maria’s auburn curls, the laces on Jack’s shoes.

‘I still miss him, all these years later,’ she says, carefully taking a sip of tea. ‘Maybe I should get a cat. What d’you think?’

a big change of scene

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

There’s something wrong with the lift. It only says Please…Doors when it arrives, and then Doors when they close. I press the button for the fifth, and wait. After what seems a longer delay than normal, the lift says Going – and we go. I stare at my fragmented reflection in the textured steel door, wondering if I should have taken the stairs.

Doors says the lift when we arrive. It doesn’t say anything when they close behind me.
I wonder if there’ll be a sign on it when I finish the consultation and come back. Existential Breakdown, or something.

When I ring Mr Turner’s bell the door slowly swings open on its automatic arm. The hallway is dark apart from a flickering grey light at the end of it.
‘Hello Mr Turner! It’s Jim – from the hospital!’ I say, and go through.

He’s sitting in a riser-recliner watching TV – an old, black and white war movie, Stanley Holloway in a soldier’s uniform, cockneying around a crowded kitchen making jokes about tea.
‘I like the old movies,’ says Mr Turner. ‘They’re always about something.’

Apart from a bookcase filled with DVDs, the chair he’s sitting in, an adjustable table and the TV, there’s nothing much else in the room. The only decoration on the walls is a framed, three-panel picture set of Donald Campbell and Bluebird – Donald smiling and posing with a team of mechanics around the boat; Donald waving from the cockpit; Donald sprinting across the lake.

After the examination I offer to make him some tea. The kitchen is as bare and functional as the living room. Whilst I’m waiting for the kettle to boil I notice a tea tray on top of the little fridge. It has two tiny plastic figurines in the middle of it: a workman in overalls, a commuter in a suit and hat. The detail is really good. The workman has a tiny wrench in his hand, the commuter an overnight bag. I’m guessing they’re from a model railway scene or something, although there’s nothing else in the flat to suggest it. They’re standing nose to nose, which makes it look as if the workman is about to hit the commuter with his wrench. If he did, maybe the commuter could use his bag to defend himself, buying enough time for him to leap off the fridge onto the kitchen counter (although he’d have to be careful not to land in the toaster). I’m guessing one of the carers found the figures somewhere and put them on the tray for want of anything better to do. Whatever the reason, to freak the carers out, I reposition the figures so they’re now standing shoulder to shoulder at the edge of the tray, looking out. For a moment I wonder what it says about us: the carers putting the figures nose-to-nose, me putting them shoulder-to-shoulder. Although, in my defence, all I really wanted to do was have a big change of scene, so the carers might notice. Which they probably won’t. You can worry too much about these things.

The kettle rumbles wildly, then clicks off. I make the tea.

‘How’s that for starters!’ I say as I go back into the room. ‘A lovely cup o’ Rosie Lee!’
But the mood in the film has changed. The camera is moving from one character to the next, everyone serious – even Stanley – their faces blurry in the old black and white lighting. They’re all leaning-in to an enormous fan-grilled radio, listening to something about Germans marching into Paris.

‘What?’ says Mr Turner.

the pigeons

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Maria’s scream is more of a shock than the pigeons – although, admittedly, there are a lot of pigeons.
‘You see? Do you see them?’ she wails. ‘Argh! Look! It’s disgusting!’

Both houses have a small patio immediately outside the back window, then a few steps down into a sloping garden. Whilst Maria’s lawn is trim and well-kept, the one next door is wild and neglected. Maria’s patio has a neat, white coffee table and two chairs; her neighbour has a rough wooden bird table. The neighbour has covered the bird table in seed, then scattered handfuls more around the base of it. It must have happened just before I arrived, because suddenly the pigeons descend in a great, grey storm, a soft thundering of feathers and excited popping noises. They mass on the table and round the base, climbing over each other, pressing down, using their wings to balance and shoulder advantage, frantically trying to get to the seed. Flapping up. Settling again.
‘Do you see them?’ says Maria, pointing at the window. ‘Do you see them?’
‘I see them. There are quite a few. It must be annoying.’
‘It’s a health hazard! All the poo. The noise. Would you like it?’
‘No. I wouldn’t. Have you spoken to your neighbour?’
‘It doesn’t do any good. She’s not right – up here,’ says Maria, tapping her temple. ‘She wanders. She came to my door in her nightdress. I called the police. All they did was put her back to bed. Her family don’t want to know. Why don’t they take her away and put her in a home? I don’t see why I should have to move.’
‘Have you spoken to environmental health?’
‘Every day. What’s the point? Nothing ever happens. What’s wrong with this country? I work all my life. Build a home with my husband. And now look! He’s passed away and left me with the pigeons.’

I want to ask why she doesn’t draw the curtains on that side of the window, or move the chair so it’s not pointing so directly at the patio. But something about Maria’s expression, the gaunt intensity of it, one eye bigger than the other, the way she grips the arms of her chair so tightly her knuckles whiten, the way she flicks her head between sentences for emphasis, looking for all the world like some giant, hyper-vigilant bird – well, it makes me hesitate.

‘So of course, I fell over,’ she says, as if it was the pigeons’ fault. ‘So the ambulance came and took me down the hospital. Hours and hours on a trolley. Me with my back! And then this person – I don’t even know if she was a doctor or not – I couldn’t understand ‘em – she said she didn’t like the look of my eye, so she packs me off over the road to the Eye Hospital. And I was there for even longer. All these people – walking in, going in ahead of me. I was there first! For what? Five minutes and someone to tell me it looks alright to them. They didn’t even give me an x ray! So they put me in a taxi at four in the morning and sent me home. It’s a disgrace. You wouldn’t treat a dog like that.’
‘I’m sorry you had such a bad experience.’
She stares at the writhing heap of pigeons on the table.
‘You see them, though? Don’t you?’ she says, leaning forward and pointing. ‘You see the pigeons?’
‘I do. I do see them, Maria.’
‘Urgh!’ she says.