Max & Olivia Box Set

by Mark A Biggs

  I had taken again to checking the newspaper each morning; a ritual of my lifetime stopped only when Olivia, my wife of 63 years, and I were first confined by our children to this nursing home. Was it a desire to be needed or a fantasy for a life now lost that caused me to peruse the paper in search of a secret message? Why after all of this time would there be one? For a short period each morning, as I scanned the papers, I was transported back to those days now long ago. In that dream my body no longer ached, my balance was steady and my mind was sharp. In that fantasy, I didn’t fear the prospect of dying the slow, cruel and painful death of old age—but saw instead the resurrection of a dormant soul.

  With the paper read and breakfast finished, the seconds, with great effort, became hours and soon midday would bring the second highlight of my day—lunch. I knew that I must not complain, for I was luckier than most; the love of my life was here with me. But we were prisoners, not through locks and doors, but through bodies and spirits that no longer heard or responded to the call of adventure. Nowadays, I was elated if I responded to the call of nature without a mishap, let alone responded to escapades, but I scanned the paper for a sign of adventure nonetheless.

  Growing old is peculiar to the individual. For some, eighty-seven is frail, while others jump from airplanes at ninety-six. Being old is nothing more than a lottery of when venerability ends and degeneration wins. Reduced mobility, increased unsteadiness, falls, near falls, confusion, uncertainty, incontinence and social isolation… Oh, what a mouthful, made worse when the mind is sharp and you see and feel the decline. I had always thought that it would be a gradual waning—but you’re independent one day and frail the next. The swiftness exceeded my wildest expectations, unlike the gradual decline of sexual desire. We still had sex, the reduced mobility and fear of falling not yet an insurmountable barrier. The fear of falling came from sneaking to Olivia’s room at night… Oh, did I neglect to say? No one expects a husband and wife to move into a nursing home together so we had adjoining rooms. Or, we would have, when Betty next door shuffled off her mortal coil. She’s a tough old bird so there was no expectation of it happening any time soon. In the meantime, if the twinge of sexual desire moved my penis, the wheelie and I had to navigate the corridors. But mostly the erection came from holding on to go to the toilet. In truth, it was not sex that drew me to Olivia’s room at night. I added sex in defiance, to cry out: We oldies still do it! WE HAVE SEX! Perhaps it was to cause offence to our children who would be revolted by the image. OLD PEOPLE HAVING SEX!

  When you have been with someone for nearly sixty-three years there’s an intrinsic security, an inner peace, which comes from sleeping together. When on my own, my thoughts and dreams were disturbed by vivid memories from a distant past, haunting the relentless minutes and hours of the night. The empty room, filled with anxiety and fear of its own choosing, a recent experience for which I had no control.

  After a lifetime of playing the doddering old vicar, even as a young man, I had long since forgotten where the acting ended and the truth began. When staff members caught me and my wheelie visiting Olivia, prowling the corridors at night, it was with ease that I slid into my role. They saw only a doddering old Max and when they asked me to go back to my room I’d tell them, feigning mild confusion, ‘I’m going for breakfast.’

  ‘It’s almost midnight,’ Nurse Ratched replied, while gently encouraging me back to my room. While on my nightly clandestine missions I imagined all nurses as Nurse Ratched, a character from the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest—but, in truth, most were gentle and kind, although sometimes a little impatient.

  There was no rule to stop me visiting Olivia, it’s just nursing home convention. The only people staff-members expect in the corridors at night are dementia guests who wander in search of lost moments, for memories that are gone again in an instant. And so they’ll wander, in search of nothingness.

  I didn’t complain when sent back to my room but was annoyed for being sloppy and being caught. Providing I had not fallen asleep, the nightly raid on Olivia’s room was my game of youth, the last vestiges of rebellion. When all went quiet, I was transported back in time, sneaking out behind enemy lines, evading the Gestapo or the Russians. It’s a small consolation but, when I was discovered, it was mostly on the return journey. The evasion skills had not totally left me yet. The night-time visits were not an overnight affair—sharing a single bed in comfort, at any age, is a pleasure only enjoyed for a short time. After an hour, maybe two, I fled the scene and my memories of a wonderful past. Wheeling my way back through the corridors, time moved forward, and I reluctantly returned to the realities of the present.

  I was not the only guest moving through the corridors at night. As statistics command, men die earlier than women so there are fewer men than women at these ‘Hotel Royals.’ Of these men, there are fewer still who are inclined to or can offer “services”. An interesting observation; those providing amenities are not always the ones you expect.

  One enduring myth is women don’t enjoy sex in the way men do and an even greater myth: older people don’t anticipate sex. Age is liberating. Sexual taboos that often accompany youth and adulthood are forgotten. Consenting desire with foreseen pleasure becomes a rightful end in itself. The sexual acts—even the sex of your partner—are irrelevant to anyone but those engaged in the play. Of all of the sex myths, one that does hold truth is that older women don’t openly discuss sex in the way men do but even this is only partially true. At our Club Paradise the women had a women’s only book club—secret women’s business I called it. It was through the book club that the taboo of talking about sex faded away. Here under the guise of literary reviews women read passages of erotic encounters that stir the loins. Olivia sometimes read aloud to me excerpts from their latest books:

  Then as he began to move, in the sudden helpless orgasm, there awoke in her new strange trills rippling inside her. Rippling, rippling, rippling, like a flapping overlapping of soft flames, soft as feathers, running to points of brilliance, exquisite, exquisite and melting her all molten inside. It was like bells rippling up and up to culmination. She lay unconscious of the wild little cries she uttered at the last. But it was over too soon, too soon, and she could no longer force her own conclusion with her own activity. This was different, different. She could do mothering. She could no longer harden and grip for her own satisfaction upon him. She could only wait, wait and moan in spirit as she felt him withdrawing, withdrawing and contracting, coming to the terrible moment when he would slip out and be gone. Whilst all her womb was open and soft, and softly clamouring, like a sea-anemone under the tide, clamouring for him to come in again and make a fulfilment for her. She clung to him unconscious in passion, and he never quite slipped from her, and she felt the soft bud of him within her stirring and strange rhythms flushing up into her with a strange rhythmic growing motion, swelling and swelling till it filled her cleaving consciousness, and then began again the unspeakable motion that was not really motion, but pure deepening whirlpools of sensation swirling deeper and deeper through all her tissue and consciousness, till she was one perfect concentric fluid of feeling, and she lay there, crying in unconscious inarticulate cries. The voice out of the uttermost night, the life! The man heard it beneath him with a kind of awe, as his life sprang out into her. And as it subsided, he subsided too and lay utterly still, unknowing, while her grip on him slowly relaxed, and she lay inert. And they both knew nothing, not even each other, both lost.

  ‘Very raunchy, Olivia,’ I proclaimed. ‘I’ve never read Lady Chatterley’s Lover, but I think I might enjoy this book. It’s a classic!’

  It was our anniversary tomorrow, not for our wedding, but it was two years since we had the pleasure of moving into this ‘Club Med … ication,’ our ‘La Abattoir,’ for discerning men and ladies.

  Our two children, Melissa and Gordon, visited today as they did on a weekly basis. Gushing, smiling, hugging and wondering why or how we cling to what must be a mis
erable existence. We have never wanted to live with our children. Caring for aged parents is not part of the Australian culture. Long before we came to the nursing home, and while still living in our own house, Gordon suggested we sell up and help build his new house, onto which we could build ourselves a granny flat. Better still, we could help both the children build houses and have a granny flat at each location. They said that this would help them share our care arrangements—guaranteeing a Rolls Royce of support and attention from the family. It was a compelling argument. After talking it through, Olivia and I came to the conclusion that we would prefer the company of people of a similar age and that we would move into a retirement home. I am ashamed to say we also feared that our care may not be the children’s primary motivation. Although I spent the best part of my career as Minister in the Anglican Church, we, unlike many of our colleagues, were not short of money. The source of wealth, so we told the children, was a modest portfolio of shares purchased fifty years ago. Over time the shares had grown by the miracle of compounding dividend reinvestment and were now worth a tidy sum. Until two years before, we were enjoying our retirement and spending what the children believed was their inheritance. Our suspicions of the family’s “care” motivations were not helped by Jane, Gordon’s wife. On occasions too numerous to count she reminded us that it was our responsibility, as parents, to leave the children an inheritance. It was, and I quote, ‘Irresponsible to squander money in the way you do.’

  We had recently seen a film, Mrs Caldicot’s Cabbage War. The son, following the death of his father, persuades his mother to give him power of attorney. The son then sells his mother’s house, puts her into a home, and takes off with the rest of her savings. This story, despite a happy ending, did nothing to ease our harboured fears.

  CHAPTER TWO

  European Odyssey

  ‘Well that’s lunch, the second highlight of my day.’

  ‘Sometimes you complain too much Max,’ Olivia replied before bidding me a good afternoon as she headed off to book club.

  With Olivia gone I settled into my favourite chair for a quiet afternoon nap. With the anniversary of moving into the home only a day away, sleep did not come easily. My mind was filled with thoughts and memories of the circumstances which conspired to bring us here.

  So much had changed over the last three years; we had gone from being eighty-five-years-young to eighty-seven-years-old. Before the nursing home, retirement had been fulfilling and not without the occasional derring-do adventure. Perhaps our greatest passion, especially in those early years, was riding our vintage motorbike and sidecar exploring and terrorising Australia, the United Kingdom, Europe, and the USA. We were a sight to behold, the two old farts, the doddering old vicar astride his motorbike and his nutty wife in the sidecar, her hair flailing against the wind. Although the events that would bring us to the nursing home were yet to occur, Olivia and I recognised during our eighty-fourth year that the days of riding the bike were drawing to a close. These thoughts would align with other circumstance and so, to celebrate our eighty-fifth birthdays (we are the same age, with birthdays just one month apart), we wanted one final trip.

  The dream was to ship the 1948 BSA A7 motorbike and sidecar back to the UK for an epic ride across Britain and Europe. Our swan song; the farewell ballad of Max and Olivia. We still intended to travel within Australia, but those long-haul flights were becoming difficult. This last trip would be an opportunity to say farewell to colleagues and people who had become friends over a lifetime. Some I met while serving together on clandestine missions in WW2 and others were part of Cold War activities. Most shared in the secret side of our lives as we shared in theirs and it was for these people that, each morning, I still searched the newspapers.

  The planning for the odyssey happened from our Maldon home shortly after our eighty-fourth birthdays. Maldon is a small town in Victoria, Australia. It’s notable for its nineteenth-century appearance arising from the gold rush days. With a population of just over a thousand, it provided an ideal hideaway where people pay little attention to your past or day-to-day activities. As I have done for most of my life, I wore a dog collar from the moment we arrived, which was some twenty years before. We took the opportunity and joined the BSA motorcycle association, which had quite a following in Western Victoria and was one of the reasons we chose Maldon for our retirement hideaway. I wore my dog collar even when riding—always with the sidecar—and wearing my leathers I played the eccentric old vicar. I displayed little mechanical aptitude for my bike, despite, in truth, being reasonably skilled. My apparent ineptitude and need to pay for repairs was a notoriety I was pleased to wear. Olivia’s favourite line was, ‘Oh, if something breaks, I call for a man,’ despite both of us being far more competent than we made out.

  The odyssey was to take us from London to Cornwall and then up to Scotland, visiting secret places from WW2 and the Cold War on the way. From the UK, we would travel to Brittany and, after a detour through Paris, on to Holland. From there we’d make our way to Poland and Walbrzych near the border of the Czech Republic. Leaving Poland, the plan would be to travel through the Czech Republic, en-route to Germany. Then, from Germany, we would cross the Alps into Switzerland, before the autumn snows, travel through to France and finally end in Spain. This was a daunting enough trip for persons of any age, let alone two octogenarians with a 1948 motorbike and sidecar. It was during the planning for this trip that our children first mentioned the need for a power of attorney. What happens, they said, if you are ill while away, or you have an accident? Who will make decisions on your behalf, take care of things back in Australia, or even get you back to Australia?

  The motorbike and sidecar was packed carefully in a crate and travelled to the UK by cargo ship. It cleared Customs and the forwarding agent had it waiting at Heathrow airport the day of our arrival. I still remember it clearly—Olivia’s eighty-fifth birthday.

  To help us recover from the long haul flight we normally spent one night at Heathrow. This time, however, two nights were in order; the privilege—or is it consequence?—of age. We chose our much-loved hotel, the Renaissance on Bath Road, a favourite because we liked the name. Renaissance: a revival; a definition that summed up our dreams perfectly.

  The early part of the European odyssey was a reminiscence for another time. My memories were drawn to that time six weeks into the trip. We had spent four days exploring a network of secret tunnels buried deep within the mountains on the border with the Czech Republic. Locating the Janus Key was the true purpose of our trip and a matter of national security. The search had taken longer than we expected and we wondered, at the time, if our information was wrong. Seeing the Janus Key again, which had lain undisturbed for nearly sixty-three years caused an uneasy feeling which swept through us both. Holding it once more brought back the memories of travelling to Russia on Convoy JW59, retrieving the key from a brothel in Murmansk and taking it back to the UK and our headquarters in the village of Cliff where it remained until 1945. With the war nearing the end, a decision was made to hide the Janus Key. I, myself, hadn’t hidden it in the tunnels near Walbrzych from where we retrieved it, but I had been entrusted with the names of two people, each of whom knew one piece of information. The combination of these two fragments led us to the key’s location. As guardians, Olivia and I understood the secret of the key—what it could do and why it should remain hidden until called for.

  Leaving the tunnels, our plan had been to cross into the Czech Republic and on to Prague, a 207 kilometre journey, to meet a contact waiting to take delivery of the item. Ever since arriving in Walbrzych though, we’d had a suspicion of being followed. This was confirmed on our second day when the same black Mercedes Benz followed us out into the countryside. It was not difficult to lose the tail but we knew we needed to be extra careful.

  Having retrieved the Janus Key from the tunnel, rather than heading into Prague, we detoured back to Walbrzych and manoeuvred through the narrow laneways, courtyards and tigh
t spaces until we were confident we were not being tracked. I stopped briefly for Olivia to scramble out of the sidecar. I then continued my circuit of the back streets of Walbrzych. Olivia, remaining vigilant to evade any unwanted company, made her way to the post office, sending the Janus Key, once again, en-route to a small and nondescript cottage in Cliff, Cornwall, courtesy of the mail service. I picked her up in a quiet street, confident we had been unseen. After the safe disposal of the package, we stopped for a coffee before starting the ride to Prague.

  I remember it as if it were yesterday. It happened just outside of Walbrzych. How, I don’t know. We’d had no signs of being followed and we hadn’t seen any vehicles. Without warning the left wheel of the sidecar came loose and, a split second later, the left-front fork of the bike gave way, sending it and sidecar cartwheeling down the road. With each impact the bike and sidecar, now separate missiles, flew back towards the heavens before coming to rest. Plywood and metal scattered across the scene like seeds blown in the wind while Olivia lay injured and unconscious in what was left of the sidecar. Ten metres away, my body remained motionless in the vegetation. Although I have no recollection of the event, it was reported that I somersaulted over the handlebars, slid across the gravel and then tumbled down the road. It was a catastrophic accident for anyone but particularly for people our age.

  We learnt later that, despite the accident occurring on a major road, it was some time before we were discovered and help arrived. Amazingly, other accidents had closed the highway in front of and behind our crash site. If it were not for the distinctive motorbike and sidecar, it may have proved more difficult for the authorities to identify us. All of our possessions—passports, money, clothes, even the number plates from the bike—everything was missing, presumed stolen. Twenty-four hours of investigation drew a blank. Police are reluctant to make identification appeals to the public because of the distress caused to family members by discovering, through the media, that something tragic has befallen a loved one. It was with hesitation that the police made an appeal to the public for any information about Olivia and myself, which would help identify the elderly couple travelling by vintage motorbike who had been involved in a serious accident. The calls flooded in and the story of us, the eighty-five-year-old husband and wife riding across Europe, went viral. If the coincidence of two separate accidents on the same stretch of road with a third—ours—in the middle raised suspicion of a coordinated strategy against us, our age quickly dispelled such thoughts.