He wondered what further discoveries he might make if Matron were not present. Getting rid of her was impossible, however, because he was supposed to be chaperoned. He could not very well even demand the help of a nursing aide instead of her, while she was available.
An ordinary visitor would, however, not be chaperoned.
It was this latter thought which, on his return home, made him pick up his phone to talk to the pastor of the nearest church: he remembered from the records that over half of the patients were Protestants of one denomination or another; a minority were Roman Catholics.
The pastor was shocked at his descripton of the sterility of life in the home, and at the lack of physical therapy or mental stimulus.
‘And they are united in saying that the food is awful.’
‘I must say that I have never visited it,’ admitted the pastor. ‘It is privately owned, you say? I do not usually go to such places unless invited.’
‘It’s like a human warehouse,’ the doctor told him passionately. ‘Some of those patients could be sent home. But it is obvious that they are afraid to speak up, and ask for what they need.
‘The six I have examined thoroughly had no bruises, thank God. But most of them are anaemic and some of them are, I believe, being forced to take sedatives.
‘I’m going to talk to the Ministry of Health; and I’ll examine every single one of them within the next week or two, to see what can be done to help the poor souls in there.’
‘More strength to your arm,’ responded the minister.
‘But they need someone to talk to freely, without the Matron listening in. Could you chance a snub from the owner, and go to see them?’
With some amusement at being asked to conspire with the doctor to get more information out of his patients, the pastor was at the same time a little worried about the breaking of the usual confidentiality between himself and his fellow believers.
He promised, however, that he would try to visit each one as a private person. ‘Many of them have probably got relations keeping an eye on them,’ he warned.
‘As far as I can see, very, very few. But nobody minds a pastor visiting in a hospital, do they? Or a priest?’
‘No. I visit public hospitals regularly and talk with each patient. They seem to enjoy a visitor, and the nursing staff are very cooperative. Quite often they need spiritual help.’
‘Well, go for this, too. At worst, you could tell the Matron that I had asked you to visit all the Protestants. The woman can’t very well object to a pastor being concerned with the spiritual welfare of her charges, can she? Keep a note for me of anything that you think I could help them with.’
‘OK. Would you like me to talk to Father Thomas for you? You said there were some Catholics there.’
‘Rather! I need all the help I can get. There’s an old dear there called Connolly – I’m sure she would welcome a priest. She was so tense that she was clutching her rosary all the time Matron and I were seeing her.’
The doctor rang off. He leaned back in his chair to rest for a few minutes, before his evening surgery began.
While he sat looking at his loaded desk, he considered the Matron of the warehouse. She wasn’t a wicked woman, he felt: she simply lacked any real warmth or compassion. She looked on her home as a business, say a boarding house, to be run efficiently and make money. She had probably imagined, when she began it, that visitors and relations would fill the emotional and social gaps.
When his wife brought him a cup of tea, he asked, ‘Where, in the name of God, could I get at least two wheelchairs, preferably electric, free?’
‘For free? Who for?’ She sounded incredulous. She put the cup down in front of him.
‘Yes. And probably a piano, some radios, a television set, some packs of cards, some board games – and, most of all, friendly volunteer visitors – and good therapists. Maybe the National Health would provide a physiotherapist, though the patients are supposed to be beyond help.’
His wife looked at him aghast. ‘Gosh! Is it that place you called the warehouse, which you’ve been so worried about lately?’
‘Yes, I’m doing a very careful survey, and it’s pitiful.’
‘Sounds as if you need Father Christmas.’
The doctor’s wife saw the earnest appeal in her husband’s tired eyes, the prematurely lined face, and she appreciated the tangle he was in.
Something had to be done. But say the wrong thing and he could be sued for libel: from what he had told her about the Matron, she sounded both shrewd and ruthless. He should never have agreed to take the job in the first place, dear fool.
Simply to cheer him up, she grinned mischievously, and promised, ‘I’ll find out. There are hordes of charities in the city I can ask.’
‘Could you, love? It would be so worthwhile. There are probably other places, equally bad.’
‘Well, to be honest, now that Josh and Emelda are married, I really need something to do. It will give me an interest.’
‘It could be a lot of work,’ he warned.
‘Let’s talk about it in detail tomorrow, when you may not be quite so busy. I would need to know more about the place and to visit it myself.’
And so it was agreed.
And thus the word went round; she knew her Liverpool.
A small advertisement for a wheelchair for a woman who could not afford one produced five within a few days, most of their owners having departed for the cemetery.
In no time the doctor’s wife had formed a small committee, consisting of a physiotherapist, Lavinia; a speech therapist, Edwina, and several other friends who had kindly volunteered. It was agreed that Lavinia and Edwina would visit the care Home and report back.
‘At least, we two can go as private visitors and take a look,’ Edwina said, unaware that this willingness had drawn an approving smile from a Dear Lady.
THIRTY-NINE
‘Rubbish’
1965
‘Well, I’m buggered!’ exclaimed Martha to Sheila, after the pastor had called on them two days after the doctor’s visit. She cackled with laughter. ‘Never in me life did I imagine I’d be talking to a Prottie sin-shifter!’
A dozing Sheila smiled vaguely. ‘He were nice, though,’ she said with an effort. ‘And he can’t help being a Prottie: he were probably born one.’
‘Oh, aye. Nice, he is. You saw how I told him I got out of bed after Angie finished with us last evening, and went for a little walk down the passage, though me poor knees creaked something awful. And I said how much I wished I had a walking stick.
‘And he said he got a spare and would bring it in if the doctor said I could walk. I can’t get over it.’
‘Right.’ Sheila made an effort to rouse herself. She felt so lethargic after the pills she was being forced to swallow each night that even Martha could not get any further response from her. She closed her eyes and was soon asleep again.
Two days later, for the same reason, she missed two ladies who tiptoed into the ward.
Downstairs, they had told Rosie, the cleaning lady, who had answered the door bell and had let them in, that they were visitors to see Mrs Connolly, first floor.
She had directed them up the fine mahogany staircase to Martha’s room, and had then continued mopping the tiled floor of the entrance hall. After a moment, though, she stopped work. Should she have let them in? she worried: it was not her job and Matron might not like strangers coming in.
She hesitated. She knew that Matron was in the basement kitchen, talking to the cook.
She decided that she would do nothing: the ladies would probably leave within half an hour. Matron would never know about them. She resumed her mopping.
Matron, therefore, had no idea that her domain was being inspected.
Since they had never seen Martha, Edwina, speech therapist, and Lavinia, physiotherapist, stopped by the first bed they came to, which smelled like a latrine. The person in it opened her eyes, stared bewilderedly at them and muttered i
narticulately.
‘She said she’s Florence,’ explained the speech therapist. She smiled at the patient and nodded at her understandingly.
‘Mrs C can talk properly,’ whispered the physio. They both smiled again at the incapacitated patient and then passed to the dementia victims tied by short ropes to their beds. On seeing strangers, they retreated to the length of their ropes and gibbered threats at the strangers.
Slowly, softly and distinctly the speech therapist replied gently to them. Nobody ever spoke to them like that, and, after looking at each other like frightened monkeys, they relapsed into surprised acceptance of their presence.
‘Who you wanting?’ asked a harsh voice from the other side of the room.
They both jumped and turned. ‘Mrs Connolly?’
‘Oh aye, that’s me. Come on over. Who are you?’
They approached a little shrimp in an untidy bed, the only untidy bed in the room.
No doubt about this one being able to talk. She was already saying, ‘One of you can sit on the commode, and you bring that chair from the other side of Sheila’s bed.’ The shrimp pointed to a chair on the far side of the next bed. ‘It’s nice to see yez.’ She then inquired again, ‘Who are you?’
They explained that Dr Williams had said that she might like a visitor, so they had come.
The physiotherapist sat on the commode and hoped that she would not smell too badly when she left. She leaned over and put a small parcel in Martha’s lap. ‘I’m Lavinia,’ she said, ‘and this is Edwina.’
Martha bobbed her head in acknowledgement. This was proving to be quite an entertaining day, she decided. She looked down at the parcel.
‘It’s for you,’ Edwina assured her. ‘We thought you might enjoy a few chocolates.’
The pinched little face, surrounded by a loose mass of white hair, was turned slowly upon the two women. The light-blue, bloodshot eyes were filled with tears.
‘Well, I never! That’s real nice of you.’ Then Martha burst out with sudden confidence, ‘I haven’t never had a present since I been here – nor a visitor till a few days back. A priest come – a Prottie. It were a real surprise.’
She paused to look down at the pretty box in her lap, and then said, ‘Can I open them?’
The parcel was unwrapped, the little box opened and, upon Martha’s insistence, the visitors had a chocolate each pressed upon them. Martha felt that they were now her guests, and she beamed at them, as she popped a chocolate into her own toothless mouth, and slowly savoured the first one she had tasted for years.
She then put two chocolates down on the clean sheet beside her pillow. ‘Them’s for Sheila when she wakes up,’ she explained, and gestured towards the next bed.
‘That’s very thoughtful of you,’ praised Lavinia.
Both ladies were then inundated with an almost unbelievable story of how Sheila in the next bed had been given a pill each evening for the past four days. ‘Just because she spoke up and asked for her pocket money and then swore at the Matron when she didn’t get it. She’s sleepin’ most of the time, poor dear.’
Feeling a little smug at being able to tell the tale to an outsider, Martha leaned back and folded her hands on her stomach. She said indignantly, ‘You can’t hardly believe it, can you? She done no harm and she tried not to take the pills, but she were held down. And her with no legs, poor soul!’
‘No legs!’ Lavinia winced, and glanced round towards the sleeping woman.
‘That’s right.’
‘Perhaps Dr Williams prescribed a painkiller?’ suggested Edwina.
‘Rubbish! Not him. He were talking about a wheelchair for her.’
Martha looked righteously outraged, as she unclasped her hands and shook a knobbly finger at Edwina. ‘If Matron don’t want to be bothered with you, you get a pill – so, believe you me, you mind what you do and what you say.’
Martha picked up the box of chocolates and again proffered it to each lady in turn. They both politely refused, but suggested that Martha herself have another one.
Martha did – on the theory that you never knew what Matron might get up to if she found contraband chocolates in the place: best to eat them now, before she heard about them.
After hearing the story of how she had broken her hip and lost her home, Martha’s visitors took their leave.
Martha’s expressions of thanks for their visit were almost pitiful. As she clung to their hands, they promised to come again.
They then tiptoed in and out of the other rooms on the floor, staying a few minutes with any patient who seemed able to communicate with them. They were made politely welcome. They did the same in the wards on the top floor.
Feeling completely depressed after looking into the faces of so many old, obviously fairly helpless patients, they slowly descended the stairs. Nowhere did they find anyone attending to the residents: and, in two cases, they themselves poured glasses of water for patients who asked for them.
Lavinia swallowed. Then she said slowly, ‘It’s the silence that gets me. And their awful look of patient resignation. I’ve always found that old people love to talk their heads off.’
Edwina smiled in response. ‘It’s true,’ she agreed.
Finally, down in the hall, the indifferent Rosie, who was now cleaning the glass doors, unlocked them and ushered the ladies out.
At the bottom of the front steps, Lavinia took in a great breath of fresh air. In the trees birds sang, and in a nearby flowerbed early pansies bloomed.
‘Poor devils!’ she ejaculated. ‘They should be out here, enjoying the sunshine.’
Edwina slowly pulled on her gloves, as she nodded agreement. ‘I wonder how many places there are like this?’
‘Too many, I suspect,’ replied Lavinia soberly.
As they walked slowly back to her car, she said, with considerably more spirit, ‘But we can see what we can do for this one.
‘You know, we should make our committee as strong as we can,’ she continued. Her voice lightened. ‘Get a VIP to be president, at least a duchess. What do you say?’
Not to be outdone, Edwina replied, ‘What about our MP? He’s a member of the Opposition. He could ask questions in Parliament about the care of the elderly, couldn’t he?’
Lavinia cheered up considerably. ‘Brilliant! That would draw attention to other similar Homes, wouldn’t it?’
‘It would.’ Edwina sighed a sigh as gusty as any that Martha could produce. ‘I don’t know how either of us is going to find the time for all this – both with kids and full-time jobs.’
They were, of course, unaware that a far more important lady than any duchess was taking an interest in two humble elderly women from the waterfront, who represented so many others. She thought a local Roman Catholic duchess, whose humble prayers she received from time to time, would be an excellent choice, and could perhaps be motivated to become a patron. She was a very capable woman.
To Edwina and Lavinia that afternoon it seemed that they suddenly received a huge infusion of physical and mental energy. They both felt imbued by a sense of power for which they could not account.
As Lavinia unlocked the car door, she said thoughtfully, ‘You know, one day…’
Edwina smiled at her, as she immediately interjected, ‘One day, we’ll be old, too.’
Their laughter was rueful, as they acknowledged this fact.
FORTY
Dreams of a Plate a’ Ribs and Cabbage
1965
A few days after Edwina’s and Lavinia’s visit, Martha emptied the box of chocolates, except for one, which she had determined to save for Angie.
To fill in the time and with an unfocused sense of gratitude for small wonders which seemed to be occurring, wonders like the promise of a walking stick, three nice visitors and a box of chocolates, she decided to say a full decade on her rosary. She was still at it, with eyes closed, when Angie came in with a tea tray for her.
‘Bread and margarine and jam and a slice of plain cake!’
Martha put down her rosary and looked disconsolately at the tray. It was what she would have eaten herself at home, provided she had had a main meal at lunch time. But a small portion of liver and boiled potatoes, followed by inadequately cooked rice pudding, had not felt particularly filling.
‘What I wouldn’t give for a good plate of ribs and cabbage cooked meself,’ she sighed. Then, as she picked up her knife, she remembered Angie’s unexplained day off the previous week. Out of curiosity, she asked, ‘Where were you, Angie? I missed you the other day.’
Angie was shaking a lethargic Sheila into wakefulness. ‘Just took a day off,’ she replied absently. ‘Come on, Sheila, girl.’
As Sheila slowly sat up, Angie turned back to Martha, and added with an elfish grin, ‘Said I was sick to me stummick.’
‘Holy Mary! Matron’ll fire you if you do that very often.’
‘I don’t care. I went and got another job.’
‘You never!’
‘I did. Start in a month’s time.’
Martha felt like someone about to be bereaved.
‘Where?’ she asked dully, through a mouthful of bread and margarine.
Angie’s face lit up.
‘Oh, Martha,’ she whispered, ‘it’s real nice. It’s to look after an invalid lady. There’s a little cottage by the gate where me and Star and Dad can live. And he’s going to be the gardener – he’s that set up about it. It’s near a village.’
‘Humph!’ grunted Martha. ‘You’ll be run off your feet with two houses to keep.’
‘No, I won’t. She’s got a housekeeper, too. All I got to do is look after Mrs Bowen herself, personal attendant – like I have to do for you and the others here. And look after Dad and Star, what I do now.’
Even sleepy Sheila, struggling to make her eyes focus, turned her head towards the aide, as Angie stood between the beds, and went on.
‘When I answered the ad, it were for a husband and wife; I thought I’d better tell her we was father and daughter. And I said we was black, ’cos some folks can’t stand us.’ She shrugged at her last remark, as if she accepted that it was a fact of life. ‘I really didn’t think she’d answer. But she did – and we liked each other on sight.’
A Cuppa Tea and an Aspirin Page 28