sketches

playing it safe

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Aaron doesn’t believe me when I tell him he spent the night in hospital.
‘I’m not crazy,’ he says, folding his arms. A massive figure in khaki shirt and trousers, he occupies the entire sofa. Despite his size, his monkey boots seem disproportionately enormous – although they’re nearer to me, so it’s probably just a matter of perspective.
‘Where do you think you were, then?’ I ask him.
‘A holiday camp,’ he says. ‘I remember it distinctly. Everyone had their own chalet – except, we had to share the toilet, for some reason.’
His friend Marcus shifts uneasily on his chair.
‘Don’t worry,’ I say, trying to reassure them both. ‘This sort of thing’s quite common with urinary tract infections.’
‘What – thinking a hospital’s a holiday camp?’
‘Getting confused about things, yes. Hallucinating, sometimes.’
‘But I can see it all so clearly. Everyone was deliriously happy. They were walking around in couples. And there were these beautiful people in shining white uniforms giving everyone delicious things to eat, beautiful things, off trays.’
‘Doesn’t sound like any hospital I know,’ says Marcus.
‘I’m not crazy,’ says Aaron.
‘No-one thinks you’re crazy,’ I tell him. ‘We just think you’ve got a bit of an infection and you’re not quite yourself.’
Aaron rubs his face a couple of times, making it seem even redder than it was.
‘It was just the toilet arrangements that struck me as odd,’ he said. ‘I certainly didn’t think I was in any kind of hospital.’
He takes a deep, sighing breath, then restlessly scratches his head – something he’s been doing off and on the whole time. His hair is matted and wild, like he worked in a fistful of gel and then hung upside down from a tree. I’m worried he might have a fever, but the temperature comes back normal.
‘So – what happened to me exactly?’ he says.
‘You went round to see some friends…’
‘…I wasn’t there,’ says Marcus, carefully, like if he had been, none of this would’ve happened.
‘How did I get there?’
‘You drove. Apparently.’
‘I drove?’
‘Someone standing outside A and E saw you pull up, open the door, and fall out.’
‘Did I?’
‘The car’s still there.’
‘I’m picking it up this afternoon,’ says Marcus. ‘Don’t worry.’
‘I’m not worried about the bloody car,’ says Aaron. ‘I’m worried about my sanity’
‘Like I say – you’ve got a UTI. They can seriously throw you off your stride.’
‘So then what happened?’
‘So then this person got a wheelchair and took you inside. The doctors treated you. And you were sent home. They asked us to come in and keep an eye on things, to make sure the antibiotics kick in, but other than that, you should be okay.’
‘I’m staying tonight,’ says Marcus. ‘So that’s good.’
‘I don’t know,’ says Aaron, taking one more colossal breath, and then blowing it out again almost immediately, like a whale before it dives, nose down into those uncertain depths of ocean the sun struggles to reach.

-oOo-

I’m just back at the car getting ready for the next appointment when I get a phone call from Marcus. He has a few meandering questions about the treatment and so on, but I can tell he’s stringing it out, and there’s something else bothering him. Eventually he gets round to it.
‘You’re a man of the world,’ he says.
‘Oh? Okay! Maybe. How can I help?’
‘This thing is – this thing – Aaron has. This infection. If I lie with him tonight – can I catch it?’
‘Well – a UTI isn’t a sexually transmitted disease, so it doesn’t work in the same way. A condom’s not a bad idea, though, just to play it safe. You don’t want to get a UTI of your own. Bacteria that live in the bowel are one of the main culprits.’
‘Okay. Thanks. I’m just off to get his car back.’
‘That’s good of you.’
‘I know. So. D’you think it’ll be clamped?’
‘The car? I hope not. You know what those parking people are like.’
‘Yeah. Anyway. Who knows? Maybe I’ll be lucky. Maybe they’ll just put a massive condom on it. To play it safe.’

daryl’s granddad

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A dozen concrete steps lead down through a front garden littered with bottles and cans and a scattering of fag butts, everything so methodically piled into discrete pyramids, it’s as if the house beyond had been excavated by badgers, blindly paddling the trash out behind them in three particular directions.

Wendy opens the front door.
‘Can you just go through to the sitting room?’ she says. ‘I’m helping Dad in the bathroom. I won’t be long.’

I carry on deeper into the house, down another dark set of stairs. The whole place has such a chambered, subterranean feel I wouldn’t be surprised to see a twisted network of tree roots instead of a ceiling, and a family of badger cubs curled up in some straw. Instead, I find a large young guy in a tiger onesie, lying on his tummy on the floor, nose to nose with an obese, brindle coloured staffie. The staffie struggles to its feet to investigate, but the guy doesn’t react, too engrossed in his phone to look up or even say hello.
As I’m looking around for somewhere to put my bags, Wendy appears in the doorway holding on to her father.
‘Daryl!’ she says. ‘Get off the floor! You should be getting ready for work.’
‘Keep your hair on. I’ve got plenty of time,’ he says, pushing himself up into a standing position just high enough and long enough to topple straight back onto the sofa, one leg onto the coffee table.
‘Daryl!’ says Wendy again.
‘Whaaaat?’ he says, getting back to his phone, which suddenly and unexpectedly rings.
Yeah mate! Yeah….so what happened? You never! So then what….
‘I’m sorry about Daryl,’ says Wendy, guiding her father to the far end of the sofa. ‘Teenagers, eh?’
‘Don’t worry about it.’
Meanwhile the staffie has managed to haul itself into something resembling a walking position. The poor thing is so fat it can only move by waddling from side to side, like a comedy boat made out of a beer barrel and four paw-ended oars.
‘I was out in Egypt,’ says her father, as if I was part of a conversation that had been going on for some time.
‘I’m sure the gentleman’s too busy to hear your war stories, dad,’ says Wendy, smiling and straightening his shirt.
‘I don’t mind’ I say. ‘What was that, then? Suez?’
‘I didn’t like it,’ he says, not looking at me, but rather addressing his words to a spot in the middle of the room. ‘I was bloody glad when it ended. And on the last day, d’you know what I did? I marched up to the desk where they was all sitting, and I saluted, all smartly like. I give ‘em my name, rank and serial number. And they handed me my wages, and I saluted again, turned about, and marched back the way I come in. I got as far as the door, and these other two fellers, sitting over there like, they said something or other, under their breath, laughing and making some clever comment like look at him, saluting and carrying on. So I turned around, marched straight up to them, saluted, and then I leant right in, and I said ‘Listen! Today’s the last day of me being in the army. I’ve done my duty alright, and that’s that. So now you can take your smart remarks, and you can blow them aht’ your fuckin’ arses. And then I saluted them again, turned smartly on the spot, and carried on out the door.’
‘That’s great!’ I say. ‘That showed them!’
Daryl glances up at us both, then groans and sinks lower into the sofa.
Nah…don’t worry mate! he says, putting one hand over the top of his head to grab the ear the phone is pressed to, like he’s trying manually to keep it open. It’s just granddad and his war stories. Yeah! A million times, mate. A million times. So what were ya sayin’…? Yeah, sweet, man, sweet.

mae and the mirror

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Ralph the Jack Russell trots round and round the room like a robotic dog gone haywire, his furry brown ears bouncing up and down.
‘Once he’s got his harness on, that’s it’ says Gina, Mae’s granddaughter. ‘We’ll just go for a quick one round the block. See you in a minute.’
Mae settles back in the sofa.
‘What a to-do!’ she says.

It all started three days ago when Mae fell in the kitchen.
‘My knees just gave out,’ she says. ‘I landed on my derriere. Got a real shocker of a bruise there, but nothing broken, the doctor reckons.’
‘So you didn’t go to hospital for an x-ray?’
‘They all wanted to cart me off but really – what’s the point? If I’d broken one of my sitting bones they’re hardly likely to put it all in a cast down there, are they?’
‘You’ve got a point.’
‘So I thought I’d brazen it out at home. Where it’s warm and I’m surrounded by all my things.’

Mae is ninety-six but looks twenty years younger.
‘What’s your secret?’ I ask her.
‘I made it a rule a long time ago. Only look in the mirror long enough to straighten your hat.’
‘I love it!’
‘Everything else might be packing up, but so long as I’m forty-eight up here,’ she says, tapping the side of her head, ‘I’ll be alright.’

I carry on with the assessment. Really, all things considered, Mae is doing remarkably well. Her family lives nearby, which helps, of course. A domestic comes in to clean the house once a week. Healthwise, she takes an aspirin a day, and that’s it.

‘I like the name Mae,’ I tell her. ‘You don’t see it that often. Where’s it from? Is it Welsh?’
‘There’s a story behind it,’ she says. My father was in the marines. He became good pals with a French colonel whose wife was Japanese. They had a daughter called Mai, which I think means brightness in Japanese. So when I was born they named me after her, although they changed the i to an e, because they thought there might be some confusion in the registry office.’
‘It suits you.’
‘Do you think? I’ve often thought what an odd business it is, naming people. I suppose you can grow into a name. Although sometimes you don’t. Everyone knew my husband as Stanley, but his real name was Jim.’
‘Same as me!’
‘Yes, but you look like a Jim. He was more of a Stanley. Although quite what the difference is, I couldn’t say.’

The back door opens and a second later Ralph trots back in, doing a lap of honour round the sitting room in his scarlet harness. Gina follows behind, bringing with her a swirl of freezing air.
‘How are you getting on?’ she says, tugging off her gloves and throwing them onto the radiator.
Ralph jumps up onto my lap and starts licking my face.
‘Ralph! No!’ shouts Gina, coming to haul him off.
‘It’s okay,’ I tell her. ‘I needed a wash.’

back into spit

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It’s a difficult situation. Everyone’s tried persuading Edward to go to hospital. The manager, another resident, the domestic – even Ray, the gardener, standing in the doorway with a lawn rake in his hand.
‘Why don’t you just do like the gentleman says? He knows what he’s talking about. I should hope. What’s to be gained, hanging on like this?’
‘I am NOT going back into spit and that’s that,’ says Edward.
Ray looks at me and shrugs.
‘It’s a free country,’ he says. ‘‘I’ll be outside if you need me.’

Edward was only discharged a few days ago following a spell in hospital with pneumonia. Now it seems as if the infection is back and more widespread. All the red flags associated with sepsis are fluttering loudly around his bed: temperature, tachycardia, low blood pressure, low SATS and so on. The trouble is, Edward hated it in hospital. He couldn’t get any sleep. The nurses were forever bothering him. The bed was uncomfortable. It was too bright.
‘Well – no-one would book a holiday there,’ I tell him.
‘They certainly would NOT.’
‘But sometimes hospital is the only place to be.’
‘No, no, NO.’
I can see I’m going to be here a while.
‘I can’t just leave you, Edward.’
‘Why not? I’ll be fine.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘What’s the worst that can happen?’
‘You could die, for starters.’
‘Nonsense! I’m fine. I’m a hardy old soldier, you know. I’m perfectly able to look after myself.’
‘When did you last get out of bed?’
‘A few days ago.’
‘So you haven’t been to the loo since you came back from hospital?’
‘Not really, no. But then I haven’t been drinking much, so there you are.’
‘Except a little wine, I see.’
‘Only a snifter. But one thing’s for damned sure, I am NOT going back into spit.’

I call Edward’s daughter, Jenny, using his ancient phone with the rotary dial. I explain the situation to her, then pass the handset over. He holds the phone slightly off to the side, staring at me as she speaks, shaking his head sadly.
‘It’s no good you keeping on,’ he says. ‘I’m not going back to that dreadful place and that’s that. I’d rather expire here in bed, in comfort.’
He hands the phone back to me. I try to reassure Jenny that I’ll do my best, and promise to call her again with an update.
‘Sorry’ she says, sounding tearful. ‘He’s never been what you might call easy. And to cap it all, our dog died this morning.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
She pauses to blow her nose.
‘Sorry,’ she says again. ‘But Dad’s got to understand – we can’t go on like this.’
The phone pings when I put it down.
‘Jenny says you’ve got to go.’
‘Does she?’
‘Yes. She told me she’s at breaking point.’
‘Breaking point!’ says Edward. ‘Women don’t break.’

Antoni the cook comes in, a huge figure in black and white check trousers, enormous rubber shoes and a blue plastic cap.
‘Oh – what now?’ says Edward.
‘My man!’ booms Antoni. ‘Mister Edward sir! What is this I am hearing? You are very very sick and you will not go to hospital? What is this nonsense?’
‘Why would I go back to hospital? I’ve only just come from there. They wouldn’t have let me out if they didn’t think I was well enough.’
I shake my head.
‘These things can happen quite quickly. You were okay then. You’re not now. That’s it.’
‘Can’t you just get the doctor out? I’m sure he could give me something?’
‘Yes he definitely can!’ says Antoni, putting two fingers to his temple and triggering his thumb. ‘This is what they do to stubborn old men who won’t do as they’re told. They shoot them like the sick horses.’
He looks at me and laughs.
‘I am not going back into spit and that is final,’ says Edward.
Antoni leans in to me and speaks in a lower voice.
‘What is this spit? To what is the meaning, please?’
‘I’m not sure. I think it’s an old army term for prison.’
‘Ah! I see! This is the brave soldier on the beach who carry his leg in his arms and he shoot with it.’
‘Something like that, yes.’
‘Well good luck to you sir!’
He pats me on the shoulder with a vast, floury hand, then taps the side of his nose a few times, and winks.
‘Come see me in the kitchen,’ he says.

the sarcophagus in the room

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I knew I’d seen him before. He’s the father of someone I used to work with in the ambulance.
‘How’s Gracia? It’s a shame we lost touch.’
‘Fine,’ he says. ‘Same as ever.’
‘Tell her I said hi.’
‘I will.’
So how’s her daughter, Lily?’
‘D’you mean Sofia?’
‘That’s it. Sofia. How’s Sofia?’
‘She’s fifteen now.’
‘Is she? Fifteen! Where does the time go?’
‘If I knew I’d go there, too.’
‘Is Gracia still in the ambulance?’
‘Nah. She works in a surgery. She’s a practice nurse.’
‘A practice nurse! That’s great!’
‘She likes it.’
I close the yellow folder, put it to one side, then pause a moment to chew the fat, hooking my hands around my knee, rocking forwards and back.
‘That must’ve been when I met you for the first time. Fifteen years ago, at Sofia’s first birthday party.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘In a function room over a swimming pool.’
‘I think it was at the Buddhist centre.’
‘Was it?’
‘I think so.’
‘Maybe I’m thinking of someone else.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Didn’t Gracia’s husband work in the fashion trade? Wasn’t he a buyer or something like that?’
‘He’s a dentist.’
‘A dentist?’
‘But they’re not together any more.’
‘Oh. Sorry to hear that.’
He sighs and pulls his cardigan more tightly around him, even though the room is stiflingly hot.
‘I’m glad I’m on the mend,’ he says. ‘I’ve got a cruise coming up in a couple of months.’
‘Have you? How lovely! Where’re you going? Somewhere warm?’
‘Egypt.’
‘Great! I’d love to go to Egypt. The Valley of the Kings and all that.’
‘I’ve always been fascinated by the Ancient Egyptians. As you probably guessed when you walked in the door.’
I glance round the room – mostly at a well-stocked bookcase to his left, crammed with Egyptian art and history books, each shelf lined with a selection of soapstone figurines, cats and bulls and miniature obelisks, and on the very top shelf, either end of a row of smaller books with golden and black hieroglyphs on the spines, two pharaoh head bookends cast in resin.
‘I see what you mean!’
‘Not that,’ he says, ‘That!’ and nods to my right.
And for the first time I see it – a life-size replica of King Tutankhamen’s sarcophagus, standing floor to ceiling, brilliantly lit by four spots.
‘Oh!’ I say. ‘Wow! I totally missed it!
‘He takes a deep breath, sighs and shakes his head.
‘Well. Hidden in plain sight, then,’ he says. and folds his arms. ‘All done?’

head to head

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‘Shall I take my shoes off?’
‘No! Why? Why would you take your shoes off?’
‘I don’t know. It’s what I’d do at home…’
‘Are you at home?’
‘No.’
‘Is it raining outside?’
‘No.’
‘Then leave your shoes on and stop making such a fuss.’
‘Okay.’
Masha turns round in the narrow hallway and shuffles ahead of me down the hallway. I feel uneasy, like I’m being led into a cave by a ferocious old bear I’ve accidentally woken from hibernation.
‘Where shall I sit?’ I ask her, stepping into a bright and clinically tidy room.
‘Not in my chair!’ she says. ‘The sofa – perhaps.’
I put my bags down, take my jacket off.
‘There!’ I say. ‘That’s better!’
Masha sits on the edge of her armchair. She’d be an extraordinary figure in any circumstance – her hair dyed a rich, autumnal red and swept back off her head into something like a horn; her face slack and mournful – but illuminated as she is by the sunlight sparkling in through the window behind her, she seems hardly real at all, more like a brilliant, cartoon illustration from an article about a lonely clown. She reaches for a box of tissues, takes one out and starts folding it on her lap, over and over and over, into a tight little pad. I half expect her to reach for a pair of scissors, make a few adept snips, and unfold it to reveal a chain-word. грустный, perhaps. несчастье
‘How are you today?’ I say, throwing my hands wide, smiling as warmly as I can.
‘How do you think I am?’ she says. ‘Terrible. I am terrible.’
‘Oh! I’m very sorry to hear that.’
‘You’re sorry. Everyone is sorry. But no-one does a thing to help. So I am left here on my own, with nowhere to go, and nothing to do.’
And now I learn what the pad is for. She starts to cry – not an open sobbing so much as a discreet overflow of tears, oozing out through the myriad folds of her face, like her sadness was a water table of misfortune, high after a particularly long and inclement season.

Masha has a chronic condition that surgery hasn’t helped. She’s been in and out of hospital over the past few years, enduring several interventions that haven’t worked. This would be hard enough in itself, but the way Masha describes her experiences, it’s difficult to resist the feeling that her rather blunt way of talking has only made things worse.

‘…. an Asian consultant, he appeared at the bottom of the bed with a nurse, and he talked and talked without looking at me once, and at the end of all this nonsense he said Does that answer your question? So I said no it does not answer my question. I did not understand a single word you said. And I looked at the nurse, and she just clamped her mouth shut, like this… and shook her head from side to side, like this… and then they both went away. Later on I could hear them all talking about me in the office, because my bed was at the end of the ward. When the nurse passed my bed again I called her over. I told her I heard everything she said, and how she was a disgrace to her profession, and if I was in charge she could be sure I would throw her out, and good riddance. And she cried then, and everyone made a big fuss about it, but I’m not afraid of saying when something is wrong. Like yesterday, when I telephoned the hospital to find out why I had been forgotten, and the woman who answered the phone, she asked me what my problem was, and I told her I would not talk to her about it because what was she? A doctor? No – she was a silly little taker of messages who had no business asking intimate questions about someone’s health. And please would she fetch a manager, because I would not be spoken to in such a manner….’

And all the while Masha talks, she punctuates her sentences with a little dab of the tissue to the end of her nose.

She talks at great length. Her tone is curiously unsettling – self-assertive to the point of hostile, but with the occasional upward inflection that’s pitiful, almost childlike. She lists all the dreadful things that have happened to her, from rude reception staff and patronising community nurses to incompetent paramedics.

‘My sister said to me before I came to this country, she said Masha? You will find yourself in trouble over there. But I have never been afraid to speak the truth. I will not dress a thing up just so that people can feel okay.’

Masha pulls a fresh tissue from the box, and I take advantage of the pause to ask if she has any family nearby. She nods to a framed photo on the sideboard. It’s a photo of a young woman, forehead to forehead with a horse. On the left of the picture is the enormous eye of the horse; on the right, the young woman, her eyes closed, her left hand pressed affectionately to the angle of the horse’s jaw.

‘My niece, perhaps,’ says Masha, smoothing out the tissue on her lap and starting to fold it as meticulously as the first. ‘But she is busy.’

annie and the clocks

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It’s hard to ignore the ticking of the clocks. Annie’s back room is crowded with them – a longcase over in the corner, something like a rickety old school clock on the wall, an ornate mantel clock on the sideboard, and an alarm clock on top of the fridge. I’m even conscious of the ticking of my fob watch, the smallest component in this dizzying syncopation of tocks and clicks and ticks. It feels as if I’m not just marking Annie’s pulse, but the passage of Time itself.
‘Alright?’ she says.
‘Fine’ I reply, releasing her wrist. ‘So far, so good.’

There’s a line of toys on the chair facing us: teddy bears of varying heights and condition, a rag doll, and squatting at the front, the monkey from the PG Tips adverts.
‘Quite an audience,’ I say, writing down the results.
‘Keeping an eye on you,’ she says, rolling down her sleeve. ‘So watch out!’

‘How long have you lived here?’
‘Seventy year or more. We came just after Lily died.’
‘Oh. Sorry to hear that. Who was Lily?’
‘Lily was our little girl. She died just before her seventh birthday.’
‘That’s awful. What happened?’
‘We couldn’t wake her up one morning. I knew something was terribly wrong, so I scooped her up and ran with her to the hospital. There was nothing they could do, though. We were too late.’
‘What did she die of?’
‘They didn’t say.’
‘Didn’t they do a post mortem?’
‘No. We never did find out. But now I know what it was. I’ve watched enough of them real-life hospital programmes. She died of a bleed on the brain.’
‘Had she had a fall or banged her head?’
‘No. Not that we ever knew. It was probably just something she was born with.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Well.’

Annie reaches forward and sets the monkey a little more upright, arranging his arms neatly in his lap, and patting his head.

‘We had to move,’ she says. ‘I couldn’t have any more children. But we did alright. Eventually. And now Harold’s gone I don’t know what to do with myself.’

She smiles.

‘The thing is – I’m tired and I just want to go n’all. I’m ninety-four and not a sausage out of place. My nephews and nieces, I know what they’re thinking. They see me shuffling around this empty old house and they think what a waste! Not that I blame them. Truth is – I completely agree! It’s all gone on too long. If you ask my honest opinion, it’s high time I went!’

a pocket full of pits

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Jack is sitting at the kitchen table, the bright morning sunshine intensifying the yellows and greens of his tracksuit, and the silvery lustre of his magnificent, Edwardian, handlebar moustache.
‘You don’t look ninety-five’ I tell him. ‘If you’d have said seventy-five, maybe’
‘Who do I make the cheque out to?’ he asks, then takes a sip of tea. ‘No – really – that’s most awfully kind of you to say so,’ he adds, carefully sweeping his moustache for drips, once to the left and once to the right.
There’s a helium balloon tied to the corner of his chair.
‘Happy Birthday for the other day!’ I tell him.
‘Thank you,’ says Jack, closing his eyes and nodding. ‘D’you know – the funny thing is – I never really celebrated birthdays. They used to pass me by, quite unnoticed.’
‘That’s a shame’
‘It just never seemed that important to me. Perhaps that’s why I’ve reached this preposterous age. I lost track of how old I was sometime around thirty.’
‘Well – whatever the reason, I’m very impressed. I hope I’m as good when I get to ninety-five. If I ever do.’
‘Oh – you’ll be fine,’ he says, finishing off the tea and wiping his moustache again. ‘Of course, there are no guarantees.’
‘Did you score any good presents?’
‘Do you know I can’t remember!’ he says, then folds his arms and leans back. ‘I tell you one birthday present I do remember, though. The best one I ever had. No doubt you’ll think me quite daft.’
‘What was it?’
‘It was nineteen-forty one. I was eighteen or thereabouts. On a warship somewhere in the Atlantic. Well – one of the chaps got wind of the fact it was my birthday. Why didn’t you tell us he said. We’d have made a fuss. And he hurried off. The next thing I knew, he’d come back with an enormous tin of plums. Greengages, in syrup. He’d been to the kitchen, you see, and made a fuss about it being my birthday and so on, and that’s all they had spare. So we took the plums up on deck, to the sunniest spot we could find. And we sat down and we ate them with our fingers, one after the other. It doesn’t sound like much, but it meant the world to me.’
‘I like plums.’
‘Yes, well, there were rather a lot,’ he says. ‘You’d have been alright.’
‘That reminds me of a story about my Uncle John,’ I tell him. ‘He’d been fighting in Italy when he got captured and thrown in a POW camp.’
‘That’s a shame’ says Jack. ‘Was he a marine?’
‘No. Regular army. Anyway, the story goes he escaped from the camp and fought with the partisans.’
‘Good man!’
‘Yeah – but the thing is, when I asked Auntie Ollie about it, she said that wasn’t what happened at all. She said he shacked up with a farmer’s daughter and finished the war picking peaches. It’s a shame I don’t get the chance to see her more often. She’s all the way down in Exmouth.’
Jack looks startled.
‘I heard the exact same story!’
‘Did you?’
‘Yes! My wife comes from Devon. One of those villages where you can’t walk five paces without bumping into a second cousin or what have you. Now, Rachel’s brother – one of her brothers – he disappeared in the war and they all thought the worst. But then he turned up in the Woolpack with nothing more than a grin and a pocket full of peach pits.’
Jack strokes his moustache, then slaps the table.
‘I’ll bet you a pound to a pinch of snuff it was the same farm!’ he says.

sold

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Rachel brings her tea over and sits with me.

‘What’ve you been up to?’ I ask her.

‘House hunting’ she says.

‘How’s that going?’

‘Terrible. I had the worst day the other day. I saw nine houses.’

‘Nine?’

‘I know. I just booked out the entire morning and went’

‘Did Ben go?’

‘Ben? No! He can’t stand it. But you play to your strengths. I’m what you might call the triage nurse in this relationship, especially as far as houses go. I sift out the crap. Which is all of them.’

‘It’s a thing, that’s for sure.’

‘I had the weirdest estate agent show me round. She was only young. About twenty, I’d guess, her hair all piled up. And she had this heavy makeup that stopped at her chin, circling her features, which made her look a bit like a giant egg. I couldn’t help asking about it. I do it like that so I don’t get raped she said’

‘What a thing to say!’

‘I know! She was wearing an extraordinary outfit. White fur jacket split at the sides, bright pantaloon trousers and leather boots. Although she was barefoot when I met her at the office. She was sitting on a chair digging her toes into the carpet. Mmm she said. Feel that!’

‘Weird!’

‘That’s not the half of it. When we got into the car she said she knew right off we’d get along because she gets a feeling about people. She said she thought I was a florist, and when I said I was a nurse, she said yeah, I’m not surprised, because you totally look like one. And anyway, she said, I’m just glad you’re not like the usual stiffs I have to show round.’

‘Wow!’

‘And then there were the houses. Honestly, Jim – it was like a roll call for the damned. The first one was a bungalow right the other side of town, down by the river. I mean literally by the river. On the flood plain. Don’t worry, she said. It only floods when it’s tidal. What – you mean like twice a day? I said. You’re up some steps so you’re good, she said. Anyway, it’s an unadopted road, which people love. It means you can do what you want with it. I reckon it’s more that the council know it floods and have washed their hands, I said, but she ignored that and showed me round. A dismal, lightless hole that should’ve been condemned, let alone put on the market. No? she said – okay – I’ll show you some more.

The next one was worse. It had this terrible atmosphere, creepy and sad, like someone had died or been murdered. I asked her if anyone was living there at the moment because I couldn’t tell. There was a mattress on the floor, and the sheets were thrown back, odd things scattered about. She said yeah, a woman and her kid. She’s getting divorced or something. Honestly, Jim – I wanted to start taking some details so I could call social services. I mean – it was getting a bit like work. Anyway, that was no good, so we drove over to the next house and out of the blue she asked me if liked macaroni cheese? I said yep, love it. I said we’re vegetarian, so we have macaroni cheese quite a lot. Have you tried it with bacon on the top? she said, because that is the absolute nuts. And I said well…no, because we’re vegetarian. So she said did I know why Muslims don’t eat bacon? I said I thought there was something in the Quran about it, and she said yeah – it’s because they eat their own shit.

The next house she showed me had an enormous crack right down the middle. I mean huge, like if you slammed the door it would fall apart in two halves. Oh that? she said. That’s just subsidence. I sold a house exactly like this the other day for four-fifty. Then she laughed and said there’s no way they’ll be able to resell. I wanted to say to her – you do know that’s not a good story to be telling me in this situation, right? But what was the point?

The last house she showed me belonged to this elderly couple. The estate agent stayed outside stomping up and down having some huge argument on her phone whilst I looked round. It was run-down, like all the others, but of course I was going through the rooms making lots of encouraging noises like you do. Oh – I love what you’ve done in the bathroom. Those brown tiles are really so, I don’t know, quirky – kind of thing. The elderly guy followed behind me the whole time, breathing down my neck, which was unnerving. Every time I turned round he was right in my face, smiling. I went into the bedroom and there was this enormous cactus in a pot. I mean gigantic – the same height as me. I turned round and there he was, smiling away. I can see you like my phallic cactus he said. And that’s when the estate agent came in. What d’you think, she said, clapping her hands. Sold?’

one for the vault

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

It’d been a year since I last saw Vera. I remembered her clearly, though. A bracingly independent woman in her nineties, Vera had been non-compliant with everything – meds, treatments, appointments – and so utterly resistant to any offer of help she’d physically ripped up the paperwork in front of Marion, the physiotherapist, and handed back the empty folder. Reports were that Vera had declined a great deal since then, unfortunately. Several admissions to hospital with falls and so on. A recent stay for increased confusion, reduced mobility. Ill health had softened her up a little; she’d accepted a couple of care calls a day, and we were in the process of ordering a hospital bed, and doing whatever we could to set up a micro-environment so she could stay at home.
‘The doctors are saying palliative, not quite End of Life phase, but not far off,’ says Marlene, the lead nurse. ‘See what you can do.’

As soon as I let myself into the flat I know something’s wrong.
‘Vera? Hello? It’s Jim, from the hospital.’
A muffled voice from the bedroom.
I’m on the floor.

Vera’s lying so close to the door it’s tricky getting in. I have to take my jacket off, put my bag down, cheat a gap just wide enough to squeeze through sideways, and then reach back through for the bag.
‘Have you hurt yourself, Vera?’
‘No. But I can’t get up.’
‘Let’s just have a look at you.’
Vera has slipped off the bed, dragging the quilt down with her and landing semi-recumbent on the carpeted floor with the quilt rucked-up behind her back. As landings go, pretty neat. I check her over, just to be sure. She has no power in her legs, and she’s too big for me to help up on my own.
‘I’m going to have to call the ambulance, Vera.’
‘Look – never mind that. Just listen closely. There’s a leather suitcase over by the window. I want you to take it to the bank. To the manager. The manager will then lock it in the vault. D’you understand me? A leather suitcase! For the vault!’
‘Okay – but – first things first, Vera. I’m just going to call for an ambulance along to help with the lift, and when we’ve got you up and everything, we’ll think about the rest.’

The ambulance call taker goes through the usual triage algorithm, as tedious as ever, but I understand the reason behind it. Except – this particular call taker has an unfortunate tone, robotic and quite aggressive.
‘How long has the patient been on the floor?’ he says.
‘It’s hard to say. Vera’s not a particularly reliable witness, I’m afraid. But the flat’s nice and warm, she’s comfortable and not in any distress, so I don’t think any of that’s a problem.
‘Can you place your hand in the middle of the patient’s chest and tell me if they’re cold or not.’
‘I’ve got a thermometer in my bag. I could do a temperature if you like.’
He simply repeats the question, a little more slowly.
‘Look,’ I tell him, feeling riled, ‘I’m sorry but I’m not going to be placing my hand on her chest or anywhere else.’
‘Are you telling me that you’re refusing to carry out my instructions?’
‘I just don’t think it’s necessary.’
‘In that case I shall be making this case a higher priority.’
‘Great. Suits me. I don’t particularly want to be waiting here for hours.’
‘The patient has now been triaged as a Category Red 2 response: possible hypothermia.’
‘Fine. She’s not, but – whatever.’
I feel like telling him I used to be an EMT, but I don’t. It’ll probably make him worse.
He carries on with the algorithm, even though I offer to do a set of obs for him.
‘An ambulance will be with you shortly’ he says, giving me some worsening care advice and a reference number. ‘Thank you for your assistance,’ he says, coming to the end of the screen, and then adds, with a little shiver of personality: ‘Have a nice day,’ and rings off.

I’m halfway through my examination when the buzzer sounds. Five minutes later two paramedics come through the door – the lead one, Chloe, an old workmate of mine I haven’t seen since starting the new job. We kiss and hug and how are you and everything.
‘This is Prina’ says Chloe, introducing me to her colleague. We shake hands.
‘Me and Chloe go way back,’ I say to her, blushing slightly.
‘I didn’t think you were strangers’ says Prina.

I show them into Vera, who’s so comfortable on the floor she’s virtually asleep. I tell them the story of the fall and as much background information as I have. Between the three of us getting her up is easy. She has to go in to hospital, though. She’s not safe to be left at home – and really, shouldn’t have been discharged in these circumstances. Still, it’s always a difficult judgement call, complicated by issues of mental capacity and the incessant demand for beds.

Vera seems happy to go in – or if not happy so much as passively accepting. She’s cocooned in a couple of cell blankets on the paramedics’ carry chair, her frosty white hair spiking up out of the top, making her look like an enormous alien chrysalis retrieved from a glacier.
‘Don’t forget that suitcase!’ she says to me, suddenly perking up and wriggling dangerously from side to side on the chair like she’s about to break out and spread her wings. ‘It has to go to the vault!’
‘What suitcase?’ says Chloe, resting a hand on her shoulder. ‘What vault? Sounds intriguing.’
‘There’s nothing intriguing about it,’ says Vera, desperately chinning enough of a gap in the blankets so she can glare at Chloe. ‘It’s where I keep my manuscript!’
Chloe laughs.
‘I miss working with you,’ she says, smiling at me. ‘There’s always something – I don’t know…’ But then she straightens up and nods to Prina. ‘You’re great, too,’ she says.
‘Oh – get a room’ says Prina.