sketches

peter & st david

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

It’s a long climb up but it’s worth it. Peter’s flat is meticulously neat and spare, perched like the lamp at the top of a lighthouse, high above the world on this bright, blue, early spring day. Peter keeps the place immaculately, a pierced mirror over the fireplace, a vibrant figurative painting above the sofa, well-made chairs placed just-so, an oak writing desk under the window, and on the desk, a small ceramic vase with half a dozen stems of daffodil, yellow and gold in the mid-morning sunshine.
‘I brought those,’ says Stephanie. ‘I wanted to make the place look bigger.
‘Or further away.’
‘But at least we know the desks was always going to be strong enough.’
‘Well I think they look absolutely charming, Stephanie. And nobody has to feel the slightest bit guilty about air miles.’

Stephanie is an old friend of Peter’s. She’s come round to have lunch with him before his big day tomorrow. He’s been called back in for surgery. He fell ill out walking in the street, and a scan confirmed what everyone was dreading – the return of the cancer he thought he’d beaten a couple of years before.
‘At least they didn’t tell me I was riddled,’ he says. ‘I was fully expecting that conversation – you know – the one where they tell you it’s metastasized everywhere, from your liver to your socks, and there’s nothing more they can do.’
‘Rubbish. There’s always something,’ says Stephanie. ‘You can always go barefoot.’
‘You’re right,’ he says. ‘But listen. It won’t come to that. Tomorrow I’m under the knife again, so there’s hope yet.’
‘You see – that’s the other thing,’ says Stephanie.
‘What?’
‘I didn’t want to get you a fancy bouquet because I knew you weren’t going to be around.’
‘You could’ve taken them home with you.’
‘Some friend I’d be, buying you flowers and taking them home again.’
‘Some friend you are buying me daffs.’
‘It’s St David’s day!’
‘Yes – and St David can shove them up his arse!’
‘That’s not very patriotic, is it?’
‘Who cares? I’m not Welsh.’
‘Well you won’t be at this rate’
They both laugh.

breaking down under questioning

~ jim clayton ~ 2 Comments

If you hadn’t guessed from the wall-mounted displays of cap badges, ribbons and medals, the fading photographs of men on parade, smoking in hospital beds or raising tin cups sitting on the sides of a tank, from the shelves filled with books on the Second World War to the cabinets ornamented with polished anti-tank shells, riding crops and the like – well, then, you’d probably still guess Mr Bradford was an old soldier by the way he sat in the chair, hands draped over his walking stick, feet planted shoulder width, back straight, his two bruised eyes glittering.

‘Tell me again who you are, please, and what you have come to do,’ he says.

Mr Bradford has been referred to us by the hospital. The story was that he’d gone to catch another elderly resident as she fell backwards in the garden, putting himself between her and some plant pots, the geriatric equivalent of taking a bullet. He was lucky not to break anything (‘…but then I always was quite lucky in that regard,’ he says). What the episode has highlighted, though, is Mr Bradford’s growing frailty. He’s been struggling to cope at home, too proud to ask for help, gradually drifting in terms of personal hygiene, nutrition and so on. The good news is there are lots of practical things we can do to help, and Mr Bradford is happy to accept.

‘You’ll appreciate this story, being a military man,’ I say to him, taking a pause and resting on my laptop.
‘Go on,’ he says. There’s a sudden chill in the room, as if he’d turned the angle-poise light into my face and slowly lit a cigarette.
‘Where I grew up, in Wisbech. Cambridgeshire. The Fens…’
‘I know where it is,’ he says.
‘Well…the guy who ran the local electrical repair shop – this very unassuming man, little round spectacles, bald head – used to fix the Hoovers and radios and whatnot…’
‘Ye-es,’ says Mr Bradford.
‘Well…his name was Mr Cox.’
‘Mr Cox?’
‘Yes. Anyway, all these years we just knew him as Mr Cox, the guy who fixed your radio and where you could buy those little pifco torches, you know? The red square ones with the big slidey white switches…’
‘Tell me about Mr Cox,’ says Mr Bradford.
‘Well…turns out he was a war hero.’
‘A war hero?’
‘Yes. Have you heard of the Bruneval Raid? When a team of commandos went over to France to dismantle a radar station?’
‘I know what the Bruneval Raid is.’
‘Well…Mr Cox was the technician who went with them. To dismantle it. Even though it was packed full of Germans. I mean – it was quite a daring thing.’
‘Yes. The Bruneval Raid,’ says Mr Bradford, picking an invisible piece of lint from his threadbare trousers, dropping it off to the side, and then slowly directing his attention back to me. ‘The only operation successfully led by a parachute battalion, I believe.’

carp in a cap

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Bill is standing so close to me I can feel his breath. With his thick, downturned mouth and straggling beard, he looks like a specimen of ancient carp, navigating the river by use of feelers.
‘D’you know what this badge is?’ he says, rolling his eyes upwards, directing me to his cap.
I have to pull away to focus. Right in the middle above the brim is a tiny enamel pin badge, two flags leaning out either side of a date.
‘I don’t know. A civil war thing?’
‘Nine eleven,’ he says. ‘The day the towers came down.’
‘Ah!’ I say, frowning a bit closer. ‘Of course.’
‘We used to sit up there, me and Rita. They had chairs and tables and everything. You could look out, right across the city. The Empire State. You could look down on it.’
‘Was that on the North tower or the South?’
‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘One of them.’

I feel a little cornered by Bill, if I’m honest. I’m waiting to bring the hoist back in whilst the physio and another carer make Bill’s wife Rita ready for the return journey from the armchair to bed. Rita has advanced dementia. When we hoisted her from the bed she held the straps as lightly and happily as a child in a fairy story being carried off by a balloon.
As soon as there was room, Bill had shuffled in from the kitchen.
‘I travelled a lot, y’know.’
‘Did you?’
‘The Far East. Russia. United States. Everywhere.’
‘What were you? A spy?’
‘No. I was a courier. I took the job when I retired. They paid me to carry important letters round the world. I don’t know what was in ‘em. Could have been anything. Egypt. Japan. You name it. All the security people got to know me. They’d see me coming and they’d be like…’ He nods slowly and raises a finger in the air.
‘Sounds great,’ I say.
We both watch as the physio and carer make a few final adjustments to the sling.
‘Sixty years we’ve been here,’ says Bill, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets and leaning in to speak directly into my ear, as if this was a thing as confidential as any of the letters he carried. I’m tempted to say: what – leaning on this hoist, d’you mean? but instead say: ‘Have you really? I bet you’ve seen some changes.’
He leans back.
‘There used to be an abattoir next door.’
‘Oh yes? How was that – living next door to an abattoir?’
‘They killed pigs. Cows. Mostly pigs.’
‘Oh.’
‘You could hear them screaming. They used a fixed bolt, y’know? Through the head.’
‘And if that didn’t work I suppose they let them off,’ I say, nodding at the physio who’s waving me over.
‘Oh but it did work, though,’ says Bill, taking off his cap and slowly pushing his fingers backwards through his greying hair. ‘It worked a treat.’

diving in

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‘Just do what you can,’ Michaela the co-ordinator said. ‘It’s a tricky situation. Jeremy’s wife Serena has got dementia, Jeremy’s the main carer. The doctor says Jeremy has to go to hospital in the next few hours, something about his breathing. Apparently none of the rest of the family can step in, and Serena’s too volatile to go to a respite bed, so what they’re saying is she’ll just have to go to hospital with him in the ambulance. Which is a terrible idea, obviously. If you could just go there and try and sort something out that’d be great. You’ve got a couple of hours before the ambulance arrives. Good luck.’

* * *

When I lived in London I used to go swimming in the ponds on Hampstead heath. I’d try to keep it up as late as I could through the year, not just in the easy summer days, but on into October, November, December, when the weather drew down, and the crowds thinned, and the whole thing started to feel like a wanton act of madness to take my clothes off and walk outside the changing rooms into the frosty air, let alone walk to the end of the jetty and throw myself in the water. It didn’t matter how many times I stood there with my toes curling and flexing over the edge of the concrete, staring down into the dark green water; it didn’t matter that I’d done it only a few days before, and everything had turned out okay, I hadn’t drowned or frozen to death, and I’d even started to enjoy it, that electric buzz around my body when I climbed out and hurried back inside. Despite all that, the seconds before I dived in, I would still be gripped by the same sickening feeling that this was crazy, tantamount to suicide, and what I really needed was for someone to rush out, grab hold of me, and save me from myself.

* * *

I’m reminded of that end-of-jetty feeling as I reach out to ring Jeremy’s bell.

Anna, Serena’s tearful, middle-aged daughter, comes to the door, barely stopping long enough to hear me introduce myself before turning around and hurrying back into the living room. I stand in the oak panelled hallway and tried to get my bearings. A substantial house, with a large number of doors leading off into various rooms, and a forbidding staircase rising in the middle of it all. Elderly people are busy coming and going through the doors or walking up or down the staircase, each one of them preoccupied, mumbling or cursing to themselves, holding bits of paper or bags, a shirt, an overcoat, bumping into each other, shouting out – so many of them I’m suspicious, and wonder if it this isn’t some kind of set-up, and they’re swapping jackets or hats backstage, finding a different door or staircase to walk through or down again, like a manically paced but well choreographed West End farce.

Bracing myself, I go through to the kitchen where some of the relatives have gathered round the table with Serena at the head end. Serena has the quick movements and filmy white eyes of a large, albino crow, hopping from the table to the cabinets and back, randomly picking up bits of paper, blinking down at them uncomprehendingly, then carrying them back again.
‘Try to settle yourself, Serena’ says one relative.
‘Come on. Drink your tea,’ says another.
But Serena sees me approach and hops up to speak, as fluently as if we’d only broken off a moment before.
‘…you see, I can’t be bothered with all of this!’ she says, looking up into my face, tipping her head from side to side and blinking rapidly, as if she can’t decide whether to talk to me or peck me up like a worm. ‘It’s such a nuisance! I’ve got so much to do today. D’you see?’
‘Yes. I can imagine it must be pretty stressful.’
The relatives fix me with a collective frown.
‘Sorry! Hello! I’m Jim, from the hospital response team. They’ve asked me to come and see if there’s anything I can do.’
‘Well unless you’ve got a magic wand in that bag I’d say no,’ says one elderly man.
‘Or a tranquiliser dart,’ says another. ‘Welcome to the madhouse.’
Just then Jeremy wanders in. He’s a morose, red-faced man in pyjamas and dressing gown, trailing the cord of it behind him like a tail.
‘They’ll be here in a minute,’ he says. ‘What have you done with my medications?’
One of the relatives sighs and pushes himself up from the table. Another one appears briefly behind me in the doorway, then disappears just as quickly.
‘Come in to my study and we’ll chat there,’ says Jeremy.
I follow him, avoiding the tail.

Jeremy’s study is a plush room, like something out of a gentleman’s club, with brass fittings, spot-lit paintings, and antique rifles and muskets on display along the walls. Jeremy goes to sit behind an enormous desk, complete with green velvet pad and a crystal glass ink and pen stand.
‘You know the situation I take it?’ he says, putting some half-glasses onto the end of his nose and then tipping his back to look at me. ‘Hmm?’
‘Essentially – you have to go to hospital, but you’re Serena’s main carer and there’s no-one else to step in and look after her.’
‘And I mean no-one,’ he says. ‘She gets very distressed by any change, so it’s out of the question for her to go to a nursing home. I’ve told them this. Out of the question! And neither can she be left on her own. She’d burn the house down in a matter of minutes.’
‘How about arranging for a twenty-four hour carer?’
‘No,’ he says. ‘Any strangers in the house and she reacts. She’s very difficult. I’ve had years of it.’
‘The trouble is, Jeremy, going to hospital with you is the worst thing that can happen. You’ve been to A and E before. You know what it’s like.’
‘I know exactly what it’s like. It’s hell on earth.’
‘They do get very busy there, that’s for sure. And that’s why Serena can’t really go with you. She’ll be sitting in a chair for hours and hours whilst you’re on a trolley, surrounded by potentially distressing scenes. And there’ll always be the chance she might wander off…’
‘Well that’s it! I’m not going, then!’
‘The doctor thinks you should go, though. It won’t help Serena if you get worse, will it? So what I suggest is you look at getting a twenty-four hour carer to stay whilst you’re in hospital. They’re trained to look after difficult patients. She’ll be happiest and safest that way. It’s the best solution, Jeremy. I’m just being perfectly frank with you here.’
I can see him weakening.
‘But where would they sleep?’ he says.
‘I’m sure you could squeeze them in somewhere.’
‘And how much would it cost?’
‘I think it’s about twelve hundred for the week.’
‘One thousand two hundred pounds?’
‘I think so. It’s just a little more than a residential home would be – but you’ve got the benefit of Serena being at home in familiar surroundings, so she’ll find it much less stressful…’
He huffs and grumbles, pushing papers around on the desk a moment, then shoots me a look as directly as if he’d rammed the words into the muzzle of one of those muskets and fired them at me.
‘And who pays for all this? Me, I presume!’
‘I think it’s worth it. For peace of mind. And hopefully you won’t be in hospital long.’
‘Hmm. Well. Get me some actual figures, would you?’
‘Certainly.’

I phone the office to talk to a social worker about it. She rings me back five minutes later with the name and number of an agency who’d be able to step in at short notice.
‘I can’t pay up front,’ says Jeremy. ‘I’m good for the money as you can probably see but I’m waiting on a deal coming through. It’s complicated. A cash flow thing.’
‘Fine. I’ll talk to the manager of the agency and see what he suggests.’

The manager sounds cautious.
‘We want to help,’ he says. ‘Of course we do. But we need at least half up front as a gesture of goodwill. And then a guarantor of some description for the rest. It doesn’t look good for a care agency to be chasing down clients for money, y’know?’
‘No. I can see that.’
I tell him I’ll call him back after I’ve talked to the family. Back in the kitchen, one of them says he’ll stand for the other half. ‘ Anything to get this bloody mess sorted.’
In the study again. Jeremy says he can only manage a cheque for four hundred, and asks if I’ll haggle with the manager over that.
Meanwhile the ambulance arrives; two paramedics crash into the study carrying resus and obs bags and an ECG.
‘Where’s the patient?’ says the first.
Jeremy starts shuffling papers on his desk, avoiding eye contact.
The paramedics turn to look at me, holding the phone in the middle of the room.
Serena hops in, pursued by three relatives, one of them The Guarantor, who frowns at me and holds his hands out, palm up.
The phone starts ringing in my hand. I hold up a finger for silence.
‘Just give me a moment!’ I say. ‘One moment…’

life is strange

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Just to the right of Ian’s basement door, set back in an alcove lined with astro turf, is a large, plaster of paris copy of the Venus de Milo, pink and white fairy lights wrapped so tightly round her head and body it’s like the cabling cut off her circulation and caused the arms to drop off. And Venus isn’t the only one suffering. Every conceivable fabulous beast or mythical creature, cast in iron, plastic or stone, has been staked out in the porch area, some in conversational groups, some peeping out from behind fake rocks fitfully lit by solar lamps, some staring down in attitudes of petrified indifference from the few plants still alive in the raised bed behind me. Coming from the dark street down these basement steps into such a muddle of light is like sneaking into a cheap psychedelic grotto without paying. I ring the doorbell – disappointingly normal – and wonder what Ian will look like, as I stand back and wait.

Eventually – after such a long time I wonder if I should ring again – Ian shuffles into view, his pallor and exhaustion made more striking by the colour and fuss around us.

Come in, come in! he croaks. Go through to the bedroom, would you? He waves me through, then slowly closes the door, pausing for a moment to press his nose to the glass, as if he half expected the illuminated Venus to turn and smile back at him.

The flat is like a long and extensive burrow made entirely out of books, Tiffany lamps placed strategically here and there for illumination, along with a glowing square above the messy bed: a large reproduction of a Greek tableau – a naked warrior wrestling a satyr – the whole thing wrapped in white neon rope.

Ian moves to the side of the bed, then collapses back onto it, gradually finding the energy to draw his legs up into a half-tuck foetal position.
‘I won’t ever do it again,’ he says.
I think he means answer the door, but I’m not sure, so I say: ‘Do what, Ian?’
‘Run backwards’
‘Is that what happened when you had the accident?’
He nods, then pushes himself up onto one elbow so he can see me more clearly.
‘Yes. It was such a lovely evening I thought, why not? But then I tripped and fell and cracked my head. When I awoke I was lying here in bed with blood all over the pillow. So I called that number – you know – whatever it is – and the next thing I knew there were two burly men in green standing over me, taking notes. We think you should come with us they said. Oh really? I said. Why should I come with you? Because we think you might have a bleed on the brain. A bleed on the brain? I said. Whatever next? But suddenly I was in hospital, you see? Weeks, I was there. Weeks and weeks. Months, quite possibly, I couldn’t really say. And now here I am, talking to you. Isn’t life strange?’

He smiles at me, and at the same time the lights around the tableau buzz and flicker, as if somehow the neon rope was connected to Ian in some way. Then they blaze on again as brightly as before.
‘Let’s see how you are today, Ian,’ I tell him, unpacking my bag.
‘Oh – if you insist,’ he sighs, then rolls onto his back.

the biology & ecology of the asteroidea

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Mr Woollens mobilises slowly and with great precision, inching his way along the great mass of textbooks on the book shelves; along the backs of chairs and cabinets covered with fossils and specimens in jars and ethnic carvings; tentatively feeling his way along the walls hung with diplomas and certificates and photographs of awards ceremonies and antique taxonomic prints; moving hand by foot by hand, securing each purchase and only then transferring his weight, as slowly and meticulously pinpoint as a giant starfish moving over a span of uneven coral – ironic, given that starfish were his speciality.
‘Yes,’ he pants, pushing his wild white hair over to one side, exposing the great tangle of his eyebrows and the partially paralysed slant of his mouth. ‘I spent years looking at the damned things.’
I ask if there’s anything I can get him, some water perhaps, a cup of tea?
‘There is one thing,’ he says. ‘You can get me a package of something to enable my own destruction.’
Those great eyebrows tremble as he studies my response.
‘No?’ he says. ‘Thought not. In which I suppose I shall just have to settle for a cup of tea.’

joan & agnes go shopping

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Joan is sitting in the sunshine on an antique walnut chair, an aluminium walking stick planted squarely in front of her, both hands resting on it, giving her the appearance of a graven warrior leaning on their sword. I have to say she’d look pretty good in a helmet, with a nose-piece and slits for eyes; as it is, her only armour is a tweed skirt, silk blouse and metallic hairdo.

And if Joan is a warrior, her declared enemy would be Sciatica.

‘I’m a martyr to it,’ she says, thumping her stick on the carpet twice, which she does periodically, to emphasise the key points.

‘Not that I let it win. I know what you, the doctor and everybody else will say. You’ve got to keep moving Joan. Physiotherapy and pain relief, that’s the ticket. But all these pills and potions turn me into an absolute zombie, dragging myself around the place, moaning and carrying on. And when I’m in that state I’m afraid all I really need is shooting. 

Thump, thump.

‘I must tell you something, though. You’ll like this. My friend Agnes came round the other day. She visits every now and again. Like the flu. She wanted me to drive her to the mobility shop to help her choose a three-wheeled walker. I said can’t you just order it online like everyone else? But she hasn’t the faintest idea what online means. She thinks it’s something to do with the railway. Still, I don’t mind the odd excursion. I drive, of course. Everything’s a fuzz close up, but so long as the sun’s high enough I get by. So we drove over to the mobility shop, and spent an absolute lifetime looking at their range. I suggested the most solid looking thing with a basket on the front and a seat to sit on if it came to that. But Agnes being Agnes she went for the racy red affair, a three-wheeler, something that wouldn’t look out of place at Brands Hatch. Whilst she was fiddling around with a cheque book – a cheque book! I mean, honestly. She’s like something out of the Middle Ages! – Anyway, whilst she was driving the assistant absolutely insane with her chaotic bag and her endless requests, I took the opportunity to nip next door to the paper shop to get my copy of the Financial Times. Whilst I was in there chatting to the shopkeeper about call centres or somesuch, a woman came into the shop and asked me if I knew a woman with a red three-wheeled walker. So I said Yes, I’m afraid I do. So she said Well she’s just fallen over!’

Thump, thump.

in the house of alma

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‘How much do you know about – the situation?’
Charlotte is standing with me and my colleague Olufemi where we agreed to rendezvous outside the house. She seems anxious, her long blond hair tied back in a purposeful ponytail, her eyes drawn and tired.
‘Not much, only that Alma has been going downhill a bit lately, at risk of self-neglect.’
‘If it wasn’t for me she would’ve died already – sorry to be so blunt.’
‘No. That’s okay. It’s good to be clear.’
Charlotte unconsciously moves Alma’s keys from hand to hand, as if they’re too hot to hold for long.
‘The fact is we’re moving,’ she says. ‘And I’ve no idea what’ll happen when we’re gone.’
‘Does she have family?’
‘No. A niece somewhere. I’ve never seen her.’
‘That is a pity,’ says Olufemi. ‘That is sad for the lady.’
‘What about carers?’
‘You’re looking at her. Not that I meant to do it, or even wanted to, really. But what can you do? I used to be a nurse, too. About a thousand years ago.’
‘So you’ve been providing a measure of care for Alma? Doing what, exactly?’
‘It started off just buying her food. Bit and pieces here and there. Clearing up. Domestic stuff. She never paid for any of it, but what could I do? I couldn’t just let her starve. But then lately she’s been unwell and I’ve had to start cleaning her up. She’s started falling, staying in bed. Been incontinent – that sort of thing. I’ve changed the sheets and quilt any number of times. Thrown them out, bought new. It’s been quite stressful. On top of all the hassle of moving. That’s why I had to get social services involved.’
‘Sounds like you’ve done everything you could and more.’
‘You are a good friend and neighbour,’ says Olufemi. ‘The best.’
‘The other thing I need to tell you is – she says hurtful things.’
‘To you?’
‘And I know it probably comes from a place of fear. I don’t doubt she’s scared people are going to take her independence away. It just makes it all even more difficult to handle.’
‘What hurtful things?’
‘Well. No doubt you’ll see when we go in. Don’t get me wrong. Deep down Alma’s okay. A little eccentric, in her own way. But erm…you really have to brace yourself.’
‘Okay. Thanks for the heads up.’
‘Let’s see what she’s like today, then, shall we?’
Charlotte gives us both a brave smile, then pushes open the gate and we all walk in a line down the overgrown path to Alma’s front door.

I’m guessing the house was built sometime in the thirties. A little down-at-heel now, it still has that air of moneyed class-consciousness you see in some suburban homes. When Alma dies I imagine it’ll be sold off and re-developed into separate flats. There’s certainly space for it. Inside it’s hard to imagine one person living on their own here, let alone a ninety-five year old confined to one room upstairs.
‘It’s cold,’ says Olufemi.
‘I put the heating on but she turns it off again,’ says Charlotte. ‘Doesn’t want to spend the money.’
‘But a person needs heating,’ he says. ‘This is not good. Not good at all.’
We’re all of us standing in the gloomy hallway looking round. Archways leading off into dark, unoccupied rooms. It’s early morning, and a thin light sparsely illuminates the kitchen.
‘It’s a mess,’ says Charlotte. ‘I’ve done my best, but…’
She stands at the bottom of the staircase with one hand on the balustrade.
‘It’s no good calling because she won’t hear you,’ she says. ‘We may as well just go up.’
So we do.

The landing is as cold and resonantly empty as the rest of the place. All the doors stand open and dark apart from the door to Alma’s bedroom, which is closed, with a little light spilling out from under it. A radio is playing loudly – a gardening programme, something about azaleas.
Charlotte knocks, then turns the handle.

Alma is lying on the floor.
‘Oh Alma!’ says Charlotte, hurrying over.
‘Get away from me!’ says Alma. ‘And whilst you’re at it, lose some weight.’
‘Don’t be like that, Alma. Look. I’ve brought some people to see you. Some nurses from the hospital.’
‘Nurses from the hospital? Whatever for?’
Olufemi and I go over to her to introduce ourselves and see if she’s alright.
‘How did you end up on the floor?’ I ask her.
‘I slipped! D’you think this is some sort of game? Concentrate, boy! Why not try using your mind for once? You might like it.’
‘Let’s help you up…’
She’s obviously uncomfortable, though, because once we’ve ascertained she hasn’t hurt herself, she lets us gently help her up and back onto the bed.
She’s wearing a t-shirt and nothing else, her withered legs scarcely able to support her.
Alma catches her breath, and when she’s ready, divides her attention between me and Olufemi. It’s like being scrutinised by a giant, partially denuded chicken, her eyes preternaturally bright and sharp.
‘You!’ she says to me, suddenly clawing at the air between us so unexpectedly that I have to lean back. ‘Pah!’ she says. ‘You’re no use.’
‘Please, Mrs Alma. We’ve only come here to help you,’ says Olufemi, kneeling beside the bed.
‘And as for you,’ she says, turning slowly to smile down at him in a horribly leering way. ‘YOU – my little pickaninny friend. You can go and kneel somewhere else.’

the twopenny hangover

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Kenneth’s house is so ancient and well-heeled it has its name stencilled on the curving corner brickwork of the street. Black railings lead round from the sign beneath tall windows to the porticoed entrance, three wide steps up to a black and white tiled threshold, a wide oak door and worn brass bell-pull. The keysafe to the side is a glaring modern expediency whose installation I imagine took some persuading, but given Kenneth’s age and poor state of health I’m glad he agreed. When I’d called earlier to arrange a time, Kenneth told me to retrieve the key and let myself in. ‘I’ll be in the drawing room’ he said, room pronounced rum. ‘Just holler out when you’re in the hall so I’ll know it’s you,’ he said. ‘There’s a fellow.’

The hall is as sumptuous as you’d expect from the exterior. A wide, softly curving staircase, smooth as the whorled interior of a whelk, rising on plush red treads past paintings, prints by Gillray, fading family pictures dating from the age of the plate, up past a gilt and crystal chandelier to the honey-moted tones of the upper storeys. Another jarring note, though – the stair lift, whose track starts by a walnut table for keys and things, where there’s a silver framed photograph of Kenneth as a young airman, leaning forward in that earnest, David Niven way, cap jauntily back, arms crossed and resting on an immaculately pressed trouser leg.

‘Up here!’ he says when I call – then subsides into a series of rattling coughs.
I squeeze past the chair where it’s come to a stop at the top of the stairs, and walk into a bright and beautiful room, where Kenneth is waiting for me in his favourite chair.
‘Thank you so much for coming,’ he says, shaking my hand. ‘Do take a pew.’

* * *

Kenneth’s observations are below normal range but unsurprising given his COPD and recent chest infection.
‘It doesn’t help that I smoked for fifty years or more,’ he wheezes. ‘Well everybody did. It was almost compulsory. And during the war one tended to live day to day. I loved to smoke, though. It was one of the few things I was good at. If I didn’t have a cigarette I’d smoke a pipe. And if I didn’t have any pipe tobacco I’d jolly well cut up some old carpet and smoke that. I managed to quit in the end, though.’
‘How did you manage it?’
‘Funny story. My wife had arranged a family trip. A pauper’s experience of Paris she called it. Didn’t sound at all like my cup of tea but I went along with it as I often did. I’d read George Orwell of course. Down and Out in Paris and London. Marvelous book. I remember him talking about the twopenny hangover, which was a rope you could lean on whilst you were sitting on a bench. And then at the end of the night they’d untie the rope, and there you were! Orwell smoked like the proverbial, of course. Didn’t do him any good either, although I think he had a touch of the old TB. Anyway, there we were, checking into this blackened ruin in the Place de la Contrescarpe – or the Can’t Escape, as I called it. Awful. Indescribable. And I remember lying there that night, staring up at the ceiling, smoking cigarette after cigarette – A because I couldn’t think what else to do and B because I thought it might discourage the fleas. And I thought to myself Kenneth! What on earth are you doing, lying here like this, killing yourself! So we checked out and went somewhere a little more civilised, I gave my last pack of Chesterfields to the person sleeping in the doorway, and I never smoked again. And now here you are telling me my breathing’s no good!’
‘Well – it’s not great.’
‘I’m ninety-five, Jim. I don’t think you could truthfully describe any aspect of me as being great. But there we are. You’re a smashing fellow and I thank you for your time.’

a proper west ender

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

‘What’s the verdict, doc? Still alive? You can tick that box, then. But I can tell you what the problem is, without none of your fancy nonsense. I’m ninety-four! Yes! That’s what the problem is. Ninety-four and fucked, ‘scuse my French. We’re all living too long, y’see? Weren’t too long ago I’d have popped off by now. But we’re all hanging around in limbo and no fucker knows what to do with us and I don’t see no end to it – d’you? I don’t mind, though. I’ve had my life. I was in Germany, just after the war. You talk about hard times now, but you should ‘a seen it back then, mate. Terrible. All them kids, scratching around the ruins for someink’ to eat. We did that, and worse. Bodies everywhere. I’d never seen nuffin’ like it. People talk about war like it’s something grand, something to be proud of. I weren’t proud. Far from it. I still have the dreams. But then again, y’see, I was just a kid myself, twenty years old and no sign of a razor. We lived day to day, though. We went dancing and tried to forget about all the bad stuff. It’s just the way it was and that was that. There weren’t nothing you could do about it. When I made it back home for good I followed the family trade. In the theatre. I weren’t a hoofer like me ol’ man. Nah! I liked all the backstage stuff, the lighting mainly. Dad was the real thing, though, a proper West Ender. He had this nice little thing going with Gertrude Lawrence. You’ve heard of her, I suppose? They did pretty well, but then she nicked off to America and and he ended up stage doorman at the Winter Gardens. Still, she never forgot him. When she come back he was the first one she’d look up. She’d be outside knocking on the door in her pearls and furs and mum’d be shouting up the stairs Oi Billy, your fancy bird’s back! I loved it in the theatre, though. I was at home there. It was in me blood. I remember one day, I was sitting out front watching them sort out the flats, and Alec Guinness was sitting next to me with his feet up. And he says to me Jack. Look at me. I’ve got no legs to speak of. I’m starting to lose my hair. I’ve been working myself ‘alf to death and still I ‘int got ten shillings to me name. What are my chances, d’you think? But I set him straight pretty quick. That was an easy one. I mean – c’mon! Alec Guinness!’