The Proper Procedure and Other Stories

by Theodore Dalrymple

  After she had spent entire weeks at a time at home, without the faintest sign of the return of her madness, everyone was forced to agree that, there being no reason any longer to keep her, she should be released.

  Virginia returned home. It was as if the burden of age and care had been lifted from her. She was young and free again. Her parents were now the legal guardians of Waylene and Evander, and looked after them full time.

  Virginia went into her small kitchen to make a cup of tea. She looked around her with contentment. Before leaving the hospital, she had mentioned to the social worker that her cooker, fridge and washing machine were old and unreliable and needed replacing. The social worker had obtained a grant to do so, and they were installed just before Virginia’s release.

  On Friday evening, Virginia put on her best clothes and went down to the Insomnia night club, her favourite. Behind her in the queue to get in was a man a few years older than she, with a heavy gold chain round his neck and a winning smile that revealed a gold front tooth with an inlaid diamond.

  4 - Social Housing

  The tower blocks rose at intervals from the ground, creating wind tunnels between them. Most of the land around had been concreted over; the grass in the few remaining patches was a scrubby brown-grey-greenish colour, scattered with plastic bottles, constantly swirling pages of tabloid newspapers, and packaging of half-eaten takeaway meals. Metal notices, now rusting, were planted at intervals in the ground:

  DO NOT WALK ON THE GRASS

  IT IS AN AMENITY TO BE ENJOYED BY EVERYONE

  and:

  NO BALL GAMES

  Somewhere between Jane Austen House and Charles Dickens Tower, however, was an incongruous row of little terraced houses, of dirty bluish brick, each with a tiny back garden. It was this kind of house that the tower blocks had replaced. All of the houses, save one, were abandoned and boarded up with grey metallic sheets. The only still-occupied house was where Mrs Hardcastle lived.

  Mrs Hardcastle was Mr Hardcastle’s widow. She never thought of him, much less addressed him when he was alive, as anything other than Mr Hardcastle. He had been a good solid worker who drank once a week but was cheerful in drink; he put on a tie before going down to the pub; he in turn never called her other than as Mrs Hardcastle.

  Unfortunately, there had been no children. This was not their wish, but there was nothing to be done about it. They had to find another source of content.

  Mr Hardcastle had kept, bred and raced pigeons, until the doctor told him that it was bad for his chest, which had always been his weak point. It seemed as if his chest was where all his illnesses, when he had any, met and congregated; but, strangely enough, his chest grew no stronger when he gave his pigeons away. Perhaps it was too late, the damage had been done. But once he had given the birds away, he lost interest in life, and illnesses attacked him remorselessly. He died of what the doctor called double pneumonia, which Mrs Hardcastle took to be twice as bad as the normal kind.

  His death hit her hard, of course; you don’t live with a good man for fifty-four years without feeling an inconsolable grief at his departure. But no one would have known it to look at her; she had cried, but not in public because, she said, ‘It wouldn’t be right.’

  One by one, the other residents of Sebastopol Villas – for such was the row of workmen’s dwellings, erected in the 1880s, was called before the terracotta plaque fell off – had either died or been lured away by the promise of a modern flat with every convenience, such as central heating and indoor lavatories.

  Mrs Hardcastle ignored the letters (she wasn’t a great reader) that came offering her the same advantages, a new and better place to live, if she would agree to move out; and she thanked the man who came one day to her house to explain to her why it was uninhabitable for a number of reasons, chief among which was the outdoor water closet that must have been freezing in winter. But she said she was perfectly happy where she was, she had lived there all her married life, and hardly noticed the difficulties with which the man seemed obsessed.

  Small as her garden was, she loved it and tended it with care. True, a lot of people these days seemed to throw rubbish into it, but she removed it as soon as it arrived. All things considered, she would rather stay where she was, thank you.

  In fact, her garden was the only one that had not returned to urban scrub of tough, ugly plants, growing knee-high and concealing broken headless dolls, rusting bicycle wheels and broken electrical appliances.

  Mrs Hardcastle’s garden was neat and well-kept, a small lozenge of grass surrounded on three sides by narrow flower- beds in which there were some rose bushes and the pride of her life, a pear tree.

  A flourishing tree – let alone a pear-tree – was an astonishing thing in this landscape. It is true that saplings had sometimes been planted in it by the council, but they always failed to take, either because of vandalism or some other cause, and they never grew beyond the spindly skeletal stage. The pear-tree, by contrast, burst into glorious blossom every spring, a joy that somehow dissolved the ugliness of the surroundings. Mrs Hardcastle’s tree was unique.

  She looked after it as though it were a child, encouraging it with words of endearment as she watered it, and cleared the weeds from around it. Perhaps this attention wasn’t really necessary, but Mrs Hardcastle liked to think that it was and that without it the tree would decline and die.

  The tree bore fruit as well as blossom. No doubt the strictest judges would not have awarded prizes for the pears, but in such a place a home-grown fruit was by that very fact a marvel. The local children thought that food came in multicoloured plastic wrapping, and milk in cartons. The idea of the growth or cultivation of food was alien to them; Mrs Hardcastle’s tree came as a revelation to them.

  Accustomed as many of them were to taking what they wanted, whether from the refrigerator at home of the nearby shops, they often stole the pears from Mrs Hardcastle’s tree, but she didn’t mind: they’re only kids, she told herself. When she caught them at it, she ticked them off and told them that she would have given them the pears anyway if they had asked; but licit fruit never tastes as good as illicit, and only some of them thenceforth asked her permission.

  One year there was a severe drought. The rains did not come to the normally damp land. The earth dried, the leaves began to shrivel, her lawn lost its greenish hue. The radio said that there had never been anything like it, at least not for twenty years or more. The levels in the reservoirs dropped, and the government ordered that no one should use more than half an inch of water for a bath. The watering of gardens was forbidden.

  Mrs Hardcastle, who heard this on the radio, was very worried about her tree. How would it fare without her care and attention? It was used to as much water as it wanted. And how much the children would miss if it died! Mrs Hardcastle decided that she would continue to water the tree, but only with water that she had already used and would otherwise have thrown away.

  Several times a day, then, she went out to the tree with a small bowl of water, or the saucepan in which she had boiled an egg or some potatoes, and pour it carefully at the base of the tree. While she was at it, she thought, she might as well water the roses too. After all, no one was the loser by it.

  A few days later, as she poured some potato-water into the ground round the pear tree, she was startled to hear the impudent voice of a child say, ‘Look what ’ardcastle’s doing now!’ She stood up straight, as quickly as her arthritis permitted, and looked around for the child. His voice had been unpleasantly mocking in tone, and furthermore Mrs Hardcastle didn’t like the rude way in which he had called her Hardcastle. Children these days had no respect, and if she caught him she would give him what for.

  She couldn’t see where the little tyke had hidden himself, however. Probably he had run away. But all the same she said out loud ‘I know where you are,’ and that she would tell his mother. Then, with all the dignity she could muster, she returned to the house.

  The little tyke was waiting
for her when she went out next day to water the tree. As she poured the water, he said, ‘Look, she’s at it again,’ and then laughed in a nasty, derisive fashion. Surely he had something better to do than to wait for her and insult her like this?

  ‘Now look ’ere,’ said Mrs Hardcastle, but she couldn’t think of anything else to say. She fled indoors: children these days could turn nasty when you crossed them.

  From then on the boy, who seemed to have secreted himself very cleverly behind Mrs Hardcastle so that she was never able to catch a glimpse of him, mocked her each time she went into the garden, even before she had watered anything. ‘Here she comes again,’ he would say. ‘She hasn’t learnt nothing.’

  Who was the boy talking to? Presumably he was the leader of some kind of gang. If that was so, you’d think (Mrs Hardcastle thought) you would catch sight of at least some of them as they ran away. But try as she might – she looked everywhere for them – she never did. They were just too quick for her.

  Well, she’d lived through the war and had seen the bombs fall; she wasn’t going to let a few kids get the better of her. She would show them what she was made of.

  So she continued to go out into the garden, expecting that sooner or later the gang would tire of its silly game, tormenting an old woman like that. Instead of this, however, the leader became cheekier and more insulting as time went by. If you asked her, it was because no one brought the strap to children nowadays, as they had when she was a girl, so that they thought that they could get away with anything. And they were right – they did get away with everything.

  ‘’ardcastle’s at it again,’ the leader would say, or ‘’ardcastle’s breaking the law, she’ll go to prison like she deserves.’ She shouted back that she’d already used the water, it was no use to anyone now, so it wasn’t really watering the garden at all, not in the sense the government meant, but the boy only sneered at her. ‘What’s she saying now, the old biddy?’

  The more Mrs Hardcastle tried to ignore the leader of the gang, the bolder he grew. Now he began to follow her into the house. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘’ardcastle’s going back inside because she knows she’s not supposed to be doing what she’s doing. Good riddance!’

  When she put the kettle on for a cup of tea, he said, ‘’arcastle’s making herself a cup of tea.’ He made it sound as if it were a crime. ‘She’s only doing it to have some water left over.’

  The rudeness of the boy distressed Mrs Hardcastle all the more because she had always given boys pears when they wanted them. Surely one of the gang, better brought up than the rest, would tell him to shut up and be a little more respectful? Instead of which, a couple of weeks after the mockery began, the boy said, as she went out to water the pear tree, ‘Shall we call the coppers now?’

  The final straw came when she went into the garden without any water, just to have a look, and the boy’s voice, clearer than ever, said:

  ‘Buzz off, ’ardcastle, and take yer effing roses with yer.’

  Mrs Hardcastle uttered a little scream, rushed back into the house and out of the front door. She hobbled along the street – Inkerman Road – as fast as she could, and several other streets, until she came to a more frequented thoroughfare. But the boy followed her, and the gang as well, because she could hear several of them laughing at her. The leader said, ‘Look at ’ardcastle, she’s a real sight, she is.’

  Mrs Hardcastle was a sight. She had begun to neglect herself in the last few days, her old flowered apron tied round her waist was now none too clean, and her hair was unkempt. No one took any notice of her, though, because they were used to strange sights round here, where even young people responded to invisible persecutors, where violent quarrels broke out over nothing, and shopkeepers chased shoplifters who slalomed through the crowds.

  ‘’ardcastle’s on the run,’ said the leader. ‘Let’s get after her.’ And there was more derisive laughter.

  Mrs Hardcastle was out of breath, and though sheer fright had loosened her joints for a time, her arthritic pains now slowed her down. Then she had a stroke of luck: she saw a policeman coming towards her. She went up to him.

  ‘Them boys,’ she said, between gasps for breath. ‘It’s a disgrace. I never done them no ’arm.’

  The policeman looked puzzled.

  ‘What boys?’ he asked.

  ‘Them what’s shouting at me all the time and following me everywhere. They’ve got no respect even though I used to give them pears whenever they asked. You’d think they’d be grateful.’

  ‘Where are these boys?’ asked the policeman.

  ‘They’re be’ind me. They ’ide be’ind the fence when I come out into my garden. They’re following me now.’

  ‘Can you point them out?’

  Mrs Hardcastle looked behind her, and then all round her. There were no children to be seen, only adults going about their self-absorbed business.

  ‘They must’ve run away,’ said Mrs Hardcastle. ‘They must’ve dodged into the shops, they’re crafty beggars. They’re too quick for me.’

  The policeman understood.

  ‘How long’ve they been following you?’ he asked.

  ‘They been at it for over two weeks,’ said Mrs Hardcastle. ‘A joke’s a joke. You’d’ve thought they’d ’ad enough of it by now.’

  ‘I can’t see them either,’ said the policeman.

  Mrs Hardcastle stood stock still for a moment and put her hand to her ear, as if catching something in the distance.

  ‘There,’ she said to the policeman, ‘didn’t you ‘ear that?’

  ‘No, what?’

  ‘Didn’t you ’ear them say, ‘’arcastle’s shopping us to the rozzers, let’s scarper.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said the policeman. ‘I’ll protect you from them. You come with me, you’ll be all right.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to do nothing about them. It oughtn’t to be allowed, it oughtn’t. They’re only young, too.’

  ‘The first thing is to make sure you’re somewhere safe. We’ll send someone out afterwards to catch them.’

  This didn’t seem a good idea to Mrs Hardcastle because they might have got far away by then. But she said nothing and the policeman radioed for a car. He whispered that one of the people who came out to fetch ought to be a woman, to reassure her.

  The hospital was a large Victorian building with a Gothic tower in the middle. The police helped her up the steps to the entrance hall. Inside was a counter at which sat a man in a tie and a v-necked jumper. He was the telephonist as well as the receptionist, and was always engaged upon at least two conversations at once.

  ‘Hello, petal,’ he said to Mrs Hardcastle, and then ‘Dr Brown’s on annual leave,’ into his mouthpiece. ‘I’ll call the duty doctor,’ he said to the police on either side of Mrs Hardcastle, and then, ‘Putting you through’ to a telephonic interlocutor.

  Mrs Hardcastle waited on a bench with orange imitation leather upholstery pockmarked with cigarette burns. The policeman and policewoman who had brought her stood around, chatting about the love affair of a colleague at the station. Apparently it was not going well, and they derived some pleasure from this. At least it gave them something to talk about during their fallow periods.

  The duty doctor arrived, the policewoman had a word with him just out of Mrs Hardcastle’s hearing, and then the police left. The doctor approached Mrs Hardcastle.

  Having established that she believed she was being pursued by the boys of her neighbourhood, the young doctor, who had not shaved that morning, asked Mrs Hardcastle strange questions, such as whether she knew who the Prime Minister was, or whether she knew what a hundred less seven was. Having satisfied himself on these points (Mrs Hardcastle took no interest in politics), the doctor suggested that she stayed in hospital for a few days, ‘just for a rest.’ She must be tired out, he said.

  She soon became a favourite on the ward, almost a pet. A few tablets taken every day were sufficient to dispel her fears: and she was very relieved that th
e impertinent little boy had stopped commenting on her every action, and the others had stopped laughing at her. She began to take care of herself again – she had always been a neat and tidy person, indeed had taken pride in it. She joined in willingly all the activities that the nurses said were good for her. This was in contrast to most of the other patients, who preferred to sleep all day and resented it if they were roused.

  Mrs Hardcastle was sitting in the dayroom of the ward one day, in which a television was advising viewers about how they might dispel their cellulite, when a woman in her forties approached her and asked whether she might sit next to her.

  ‘Are you Mrs Hardcastle?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Mrs Hardcastle.

  ‘Can I call you Ivy?’

  Mrs Hardcastle must have agreed, because she didn’t say anything.

  ‘Well Ivy, I’m Ms Smith, the social worker for older adults.’

  ‘Older adults?’ said Mrs Hardcastle.

  ‘You probably call them old age pensioners,’ she said with a slight laugh. ‘We call them older adults because it sounds more hopeful and optimistic, less negative and stereotyped.’

  Despite having made what the doctor called a full recovery, Mrs Hardcastle looked puzzled, even bemused.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ms Smith, ‘these days, old age isn’t what it used to be. It’s all about empowering the elderly. That’s why I’m here. We’ve got to do a bit of discharge planning and establish a suitable package of care.’

  Mrs Hardcastle, it was clear, was not fully up to date.