by Ruth Hay
Yes, he could dance a little; enough so that I wasn’t embarrassed to be seen in his arms, but with his skinny build, pale complexion and tentative manner he really wasn’t that impressive.
I can see now that he was as nervous as I was. Our conversation was limited to comments about Marion and Gus at first. We were the foils to their brilliance and our role was to divert unwanted attention from the romance that was bursting into bloom before our eyes.
We both knew what was going on when Marion and Gus disappeared from the dance floor.
Gus would be running his fingers through his hair and Marion’s face would be red on one side from Gus’ chin stubble when they returned.
Marion’s whispered confidences over sandwiches in the college cafeteria confirmed that their ‘petting’ sessions were getting hot and heavy. I told her she was taking risks, but she was afraid to cool things down in case her ‘dreamboat’ would find another girl to love.
I was not shocked at her use of the word love. We were young and the world conspired to make love the only thing worth living for. The radio poured out ballads of love and longing by the hour and in those days, when life was hard for most families, the dream of love warmed all but the hardest hearts. I could hardly blame Marion. I was already half-way in love with Gus myself.
* * *
“There you go, Gigi. This table is free and your wheelchair fits in nicely. I can see the menu on a chalk board on the wall. It’s lamb stew tonight with carrots, peas and mashed potatoes and custard with apple pie to follow. Doesn’t that sound good?”
Caroline looked around at the dining room’s occupants. No one was talking. It was like a science-fiction movie where the inhabitants of a town have been taken over by aliens.
Old women and a few men sat immobile waiting for the food to be served. In the small kitchen area nearby, staff were pouring cold drinks and chatting to a younger woman who seemed to be helping them, although it was obvious from her weird clothing and bedraggled hair that she, too, was a resident.
God help me, Caroline prayed silently. What a place to spend the final years of your life. How did my great-grandmother get here?
Bidding farewell to Gigi as soon as the plates of food began to arrive in the hands of the kitchen staff, Caroline fled to the outside door and stood there, afraid to turn around, until someone in the office noticed and came out to punch in the code that released her.
Chapter Two
“I am really sorry you had to wait, Caroline. A customer came into the shop at the last minute
and I couldn’t leave until she had paid the bill for her holiday to Spain.”
“It’s OK Mum. I wasn’t outside very long.”
“How did it go with your great-grandmother? You seem very quiet. I expected an outburst at least, if not a protest statement, complete with banner.”
Sarah glanced briefly at her daughter’s face and knew immediately that something significant had happened to her. It was rush hour and the traffic was heavy as commuters from London returned home to the small towns in Sussex where they lived. Sarah decided it would be safer to let her daughter simmer silently rather than provoke a full-scale war in the car.
If there was going to be an explosion, they could both deal with it more calmly at home after a meal and a cooling-off period.
It was ten o’clock by the time Sarah noticed that Caroline had not emerged from her room for hot chocolate, the usual week-night ritual before bed. Mike was already in his room, as she could tell from the low-level thumping that reverberated through the walls, and David was nodding off in the easy chair, oblivious, for the moment, to the bad economic news emanating from the television.
Sarah turned down the sound and headed upstairs. She tapped gently on the door to Caroline’s room but when there was no reply, she knocked rather more forcibly. Caroline was probably on the phone to her friends, she thought, but it’s better to get this settled now, rather than risk an argument in the morning when everyone is rushing out the door.
“Caroline? We need to talk.”
“Come in, Mum.” The subdued tone alerted Sarah to the serious nature of her daughter’s feelings. Caroline had not yet learned the art of deception. Whatever she thought or felt was displayed on her face, and in her voice, and her mother was an expert sign reader.
“What happened today? I could tell you were upset. Did someone say something to you or frighten you in any way?”
In the moment it took for Caroline to frame an answer, Sarah imagined a series of horrors involving strange men and inappropriate touching. It was with a sense of relief that she heard Caroline say, “No, it’s just confusing. I am trying to understand why all those poor old folks are locked up in that awful place.”
As if a dam had broken she began to talk faster and faster while her mother sat on the bed and waited till the flood had abated.
“Why are they there? Where are their families? Why isn’t your grandmother living here with us or with her own children? Mum, you should have seen her. She talked to me and she even sang for a moment. I called her Gigi and she smiled, and she made a joke about not being a horse, but she is so alone there. The others are so old and they sit around and sleep. It’s a hateful place. I’m never going back but I hate, hate, hate, that she is there.”
Sarah was startled at this outburst and the effect it had on her daughter’s emotions. She was trembling and flushed. Sarah reached out and wrapped her arms around the slim shoulders. She felt a wave of guilt for sending Caroline to the nursing home unprepared.
“I am so sorry, Caro. I will try to explain about your great-gran but first I need to ask how you managed to get so much response from her. The carers have told me she has not spoken to anyone for days at a time and just wants to sleep.”
“I don’t really know how. I just told her who I was. She said your name, Mum. Do you think she thought I was you?”
“It’s not likely. I don’t really visit on a regular basis. Your Gran Lynn is the one who spends the most time there, when she can, but she is in Greece with Grandpa Stavros and that’s why I am on call. It wasn’t fair to rope you in without me there, my sweet, and that is the problem we all face.”
“What do you mean?”
The next ten minutes were an education for Caroline on the facts of family life in the 21st century. Sarah tried to be fair to all the parties involved, but it was hard for Caroline to take in the implications.
“You mean it’s a mistake for people to live too long?”
“That’s putting it rather harshly, my dear.” Sarah’s face coloured up at her daughter’s frankness although they both knew there was some truth in the statement.
“Look at it this way for a minute. There are four generations of our family living at this point in time. In past generations this would be unheard of. Poor nutrition and dreadful working conditions, for those who could get work, resulted in early deaths. No society in England has ever before had to deal with the consequences of huge improvements in health care and less-punishing physical work for people.
Caroline’s brow was wrinkling up as she attempted to come to grips with her mother’s reasoning.
“Are you trying to say these improvements are a bad thing Mum? How could that be?”
Sarah realized she would have to use a different approach. It was clear that a social history lesson was not getting the job done.
“You are old enough to understand our own family situation. Your father and I both work to pay the bills for the home you are sitting in right now. We can’t afford a larger home and you know we have no free space here. Where could we put your great-grandmother even if we tried to?”
“Does no one in our family have space for her? Did she not have a house of her own?”
“That house was where your Gran Lynn and her brother were brought up and where Isobel and Kyle lived for many years but when Gigi, (by the way I really like that name Caroline), when she became ill, and her husband died, the house was sold. Some of that m
oney pays for Gigi’s nursing home care.
“But Mum what’s wrong with her, and why can’t she stay with one of her own children?”
Sarah sighed and walked over to the window. How could she explain mental deterioration to a teenager without scaring her, yet her sensitive, concerned child deserved an honest answer to her sincere questions.
“You never knew your Great-Grandfather Kyle. He passed away long before you and Mike were born. My mother told me how devoted he was to Gigi and how he did everything for her to conceal from the family how much she had changed.”
“What do you mean? How had she changed?”
“Well, at first it was only forgetting to do things and losing track of items.”
“You mean like you lose your keys all the time, Mum?” They both laughed and Sarah found it easier to go on.
“It was a bit more serious than that, Caroline. Once she walked to the local shop for milk and didn’t come back for twelve hours.”
“What happened?” “That’s just it Caroline, Gigi couldn’t tell anyone what happened. She just lost her way home and wandered around in the dark until Kyle found her sitting in the park under a street light.”
“She must have been terribly upset.” Caroline and her mother were both remembering the time Mike had followed a woman out of the grocery store into the parking lot because he thought she was his own mother. Mike had sobbed for two hours when he realized what had happened and had seen the effect on his terrified family.
“No, that’s the sad part. My mother, your Gran Lynn, told me she took her mother’s hand and led her back home and she never mentioned it again or remembered it happening.”
“Are you talking about Alzheimer’s Mum? They call it Old Timer’s Disease. I’ve seen ads on TV. They have medicine for that.”
“There was no diagnosis or treatment back then, Caroline, and Gigi was better some times and functioned quite well. The trouble was that she needed to be watched, just in case.”
“Was she really crazy?”
“From what I have heard, I don’t think she was crazy. Dementia is quite common as people get older and short-term memory problems are a common symptom.”
Caroline pulled at a loose thread on her duvet cover while she tried to absorb this information.
She knew nothing about old people. This was the first time she had given aging any thought at all. Her grandparents on both sides of her family were healthy and active, enjoying busy retirement lives and travelling whenever possible. The thought that they might end up drooling in a nursing home was more than she could bear.
Her father’s voice broke into her grim imaginings.
“Anyone home? I’m all alone downstairs and it’s spooky quiet in my daughter’s room. Has anyone seen my wife?”
Sarah jumped up to open the door and divert her husband with a hug and a whispered warning. Caroline thought her father, at least, still knew how to find his way upstairs and that was a good sign for now.
“Let’s talk more about this tomorrow, Caroline. It’s getting late and you need your sleep.
You have swim team practice after school. We’ll go for a burger after and see what we can do.”
Sarah bent to give her daughter a swift kiss and closed the door behind her with the silent prayer that Caroline would be able to sleep.
She could see from her husband’s expression that explanations would be required before either one of them would close their eyes.
* * *
The Leisure Centre was next to the Community College so Caroline was in the pool, warming up, within fifteen minutes from the end of her last class of the day.
Coach Lawson’s training system was based on individual needs. Caroline had a set number of lengths to do, and times to beat, for breast-stroke, back-stroke, front crawl and butterfly stroke. As the latter was the hardest for Caroline, she always started there while she was comparatively fresh. Coordinating the arm action with the dolphin leg movement took so much concentration that she had no room, or energy, for thinking of anything else, and today she was glad of the temporary relief.
By the time she was sitting on the edge of the pool recovering for the required minutes, the subject of Gigi’s imprisonment returned with her restored oxygen supply.
It was a puzzle to Caroline how much she had been affected by the visit to the nursing home. She must have been in a daze when she went there before, with her mother and Gran Lynn. Other than noting the heat and the smells, she couldn’t remember even seeing her great-grandmother. Nothing had upset her then. Was it because she had no responsibility on that prior visit? All she could recall was walking out to the garden and complaining on the cell to her friend Janine about the total waste of time while she waited for the adults to take her home.
Whatever! Something had changed this time for sure. Caroline could still feel the anger surging through her at the thought of the poor old woman, helpless, in that grim place.
She jumped back into the pool and put her anger to work, beating the water in fierce fashion.
A froth of white water followed her legs down the pool lane and her hands sliced through the surface with such power that Coach Lawson left his office and waited on the pool side to congratulate her on her times.
“Looks like you’ll be competing in the meet in Eastbourne next month, young lady. Keep up that pace and you’ll be our star swimmer!”
Well now, thought Caroline in surprise. A little physical action to work off steam can be a healthy thing in more ways than one.
By the time she had showered and washed her short, dark hair twice, to get rid of the chlorine, she was feeling the pangs of exercise hunger and hoping her mother was waiting outside in the parking lot for the promised burger.
She spotted the family car right away but discovered her father behind the wheel.
“Hello, Dad. What’s up? Where’s Mum? Now don’t try to back out of the burger tonight. I’m starving.”
“I’ll bet you are Caro!” Her father laughed as he reached over to open the car door. “Your mother asked me to pick you up so we can have a bit of a chat.”
“Oh, oh! That sounds ominous. Which of the famous Fenton Family lectures is it tonight?
What have I done now, or rather what has Mike done that he is blaming me for?”
Her father deftly backed the car out of the parking spot and soon joined the traffic streaming down High Street toward the bus station. Caroline smiled as she calculated this direction could only mean McDonalds restaurant and the high-fat meal she now craved.
“I am reasonably sure you have done something worthy of a lecture, Caroline, but it is on the ‘undiscovered’ list for now, as far as I am concerned. I just want to talk about your visit to the nursing home yesterday.”
Caroline knew at once there was no point in protesting that she had nothing to discuss.
Her father and mother were an efficient tag team and insisted on dealing with their children’s issues as soon as possible. Her father must know already, everything her mother knew.
Caroline was sent to the counter with a twenty-pound note and approval to order what she wanted provided it included a salad. She recognized this as a bribe of sorts for which she would be expected to ‘fess up’ about her feelings.
As she devoured the promised burger, replete with every possible topping so that the contents dripped out of the bun onto its cardboard container, her mind was as busy as her mouth.
Her father waited patiently until she had reached the stage of slurping a strawberry milkshake and then he proferred a handful of paper napkins and sat back in his chair for the reveal.
“It’s like this, Dad. I got a shock when I saw Gigi in that place. It seems to me families should take care of old people and not shut them away in nursing homes. Do you know they are locked in all the time? How would you like that, Dad? It would drive me crazy for sure.”
Caroline stopped for breath and sipped her milkshake. Her eyes never left her father’s face as she watche
d for his reaction. Would he tell her to grow up, or try to fob her off with some platitudes in the way most adults dealt with teenage questions?
Her father reached for some of his daughter’s fries and dipped them in tomato sauce.
“These are good,” he began, adding quickly, “but not good for you. This is a special treat.”
Caroline smiled. It was going to be all right. Her father’s sense of humour would soften whatever he had to say to her.
“I am not going to argue with you, Caro. I think you need to explore the subject in more depth before you rush to judgment. I suggest you spend more time with your great-grandmother and try to see the problem from at least two other perspectives.”
Caroline knew better than to accuse her father of forcing her to fill in for her mother at the nursing home. He was not a manipulative person. In fact, she had already decided to return on the weekend and see if she could persuade Gigi to talk again.
“I have already decided to do just that, Dad. In fact, I have found a way to help out Mum, please you, keep away from Mike, get to know Gigi, and earn extra credits.”
Caroline sat back with a satisfied smirk and watched her father’s face reflect his astonishment.
“Haven’t I always said,” he replied, “you would make an excellent lawyer, or perhaps a union negotiator. That is a stunning achievement you have just outlined. Pray tell, how does my exceptional daughter score extra credits?”
“I am glad you asked, dad. I saw a notice on a bulletin board at college today. I can get a Community Service credit by spending 15 hours volunteering with any form of social work, before the end of term. You will need to sign a form for me and I have to write a proposal and do a final essay about what I have learned during the experience.”
“That is brilliant, Caroline! I am so impressed. If you follow through with this option, your mother and I will have to come up with a special reward for you. No, don’t offer any ideas right now! This will take some consideration but I am sure you will approve of the result.”