On the Bright Side

by Hendrik Groen

  After the mildest horror winter ever, spring has been in the air for the past several days.

  Saturday, 21 February

  Leonie walked up to Stelwagen and in her most innocent voice asked when the renovation work was going to start.

  ‘Which renovation do you mean, Mrs Van der Horst?’

  ‘I heard that two years ago, before I came to live here, it was announced that the place was to be refurbished.’

  ‘That’s right, but not long after that the plan was postponed.’

  ‘So then when will it start?’

  ‘That is not yet known.’

  ‘But it is happening?’

  ‘That is not yet known either.’

  ‘Then is it known when something will become known?’ Leonie was just coming into her stride. ‘I’m only asking on account of the boxes.’

  ‘The boxes?’ Stelwagen was starting to lose the thread of the conversation.

  ‘The moving boxes. For when we might temporarily have to switch rooms.’

  ‘Mrs Van der Horst, don’t worry, you won’t have to temporarily move into another room.’

  ‘Do you mean the home is to be torn down?’

  ‘Oh … that won’t happen, but if you’ll excuse me …’

  ‘But it’s logical, surely – either it’s a refurbishment, or it’s a tear-down.’

  ‘I really am sorry, but I have someone waiting.’

  ‘Refurbishing a building just before it is slated for demolition would be a waste, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘I’ll be happy to discuss it with you another time,’ said Stelwagen. She nodded goodbye, turned and strode hastily to her office.

  I witnessed the entire exchange because Leonie had announced she was about to do it. ‘Stick around, Hendrik, here she comes.’

  In asking Leonie to join our Club, we gained a brilliant actress who promises to be a great asset to us, and a barrel of fun.

  Sunday, 22 February

  At teatime yesterday it was decided: The Old-But-Not-Dead Club will take a trip abroad in May.

  It’s to be cancelled only if one of the members is on his or her deathbed, or being laid to rest. Otherwise we’re going. At our age, everything needs to be provisional; it’s best not to make too big a deal of it. There are old people who tend to overemphasize the adverse outcome. Every ‘see you tomorrow’ addressed to Mrs Quint is answered with: ‘Yes, if I’m still here, that is.’ According to Evert, I shouldn’t be surprised if Mrs Quint’s body is found floating in a ditch nearby some day soon.

  Several destinations suitable for elderly travellers were suggested for the springtime trip. We put three of them to a vote – Luxembourg, Maastricht or Bruges – and Bruges emerged the winner. A committee was formed to look into the feasibility. Now you see how ‘with-it’ the Old-But-Not-Dead Club is, how keen we are to give a professional impression. Everyone expressed full faith in the committee. I am its one and only member. When I put myself forward as a candidate, all the members nodded in agreement, and smiled at me fondly.

  There are a few provisos attached to the trip:

  Not too long, and not too short.

  Not too expensive, and not too cheap.

  Not too serious, and not too trivial.

  The committee has already googled Bruges and established that one of the city’s main attractions is a Belgian fries museum. Then I rang Edwin and asked him if he’d be our chauffeur for three days for a modest fee.

  ‘No, I won’t do that,’ he said bluntly, to my dismay. But he added, ‘I will gladly drive you, but without the modest fee.’

  A pamphlet entitled A Dignified, Self-Determined End of Life from The Euthanasia Society came through my letterbox. I shall read it at my leisure some time when I find myself in an upbeat mood.

  Monday, 23 February

  A man has moved in on the fifth floor who plays the violin, but badly. And often. The director received seven complaints within the first week, six of them from a single neighbour. The violin, or rather the concept of ‘noise nuisance’, has become the topic of the day in the lounge. We can state that the tolerance level is rather low here in general. If someone with Parkinson’s happens to splash a little coffee into his saucer, some will shake their heads in disdain. People are quick to whisper behind one another’s back about sweaty feet, dawdlers who take too long getting into the lift, people who hack and wheeze too much, or other important matters.

  When Graeme suggested that each should ‘look to the beam in their own eye’, it drew mostly puzzled looks. ‘What’s he on about now, talking about beams?’

  ‘Mr Gorter means that perhaps we should pay a bit more attention to our own actions, and less to that of others,’ the tea lady piped up. This was greeted with nods from the good-natured among us. A more or less equal number looked away, scowling. You could tell what they were thinking: How’s it any of her business? They’re the ones who always stick their noses into everyone else’s affairs.

  There was nothing specific in the house regulations about violin playing. Musical instruments are mostly allowed, ‘as long as the player does not cause a nuisance’. Whether this was indeed a nuisance was up to the management to decide. Mrs Stelwagen came up with an elegant Solomonic solution: from now on, musical instruments may be practised for a limited number of hours in the space that is home to ‘Feel-Good-Fitness’ and the watercolour class. It’s located downstairs, between two storage areas.

  The man who plays the violin and the lady next door are not reconciled. He now resorts to playing his radio extra loud. She has already made several complaints about it to the director. Meanwhile the building supervisor has been roaming the halls with a sound level meter. It’s expected that the noise regulations will shortly be modified.

  Tuesday, 24 February

  ‘The slavink is being demonized,’ said Evert, ‘and not entirely without justification, in light of its ratings.’

  The Consumer’s Association has subjected the charcuterie delicacy we call ‘slavink,’ a bacon-wrapped burger that is still popular among the elderly, to a thorough investigation. It turns out that it not only contains far too much fat and salt, but is also often spoilt and past its expiry date.

  ‘The best slavink scores a 5.6, and the worst a 2.5,’ Evert said as he read the results of the pork product test. ‘It’s practically a bacteriological weapon, especially in senior care homes.’

  He said it loud enough for everyone to hear.

  ‘Time to stir the pot a little, Henk,’ he whispered to me later. ‘Next time Cook puts slavink on the menu, he’ll be left with a mountain of spoiling meat.’

  On Friday the Old-But-Not-Dead are off to the Home Show. Our first outing of 2015, not counting the international dinners. I sense a healthy excitement amongst the Club members. The minivan is coming to pick us up at eleven. I had considered organizing a meal afterwards, but have decided against it. I have learned from experience that the activities should be kept on the short side. Otherwise we won’t make it to the end. The average over-eighty citizen has to be frugal with what energy remains.

  I wish I could try one of those new-fangled pills that make it possible for youngsters to dance and rave for hours on end, but I don’t dare. Not that I want to rave for hours on end, but I would like to spend a little more time partying at an acceptably dignified and serene pace.

  I once asked my former GP for one of those pep pills. He was hesitant, but finally wrote me a prescription. I suspect they were placebo pills. I tried them, but felt just as tired as usual.

  Wednesday, 25 February

  It should be a comical sight: Evert in his wheelchair, buried under eight enormous shopping bags of Home Show freebies. I’m going out later today to buy the shopping bags. The Old-But-Not-Dead Club currently travels with a slew of rolling equipment: one wheelchair and three rollators. Graeme, Edward, Leonie and I are the only ones still walking without support, or in my case, just a cane. Evert always insists on remaining self-propelled for as long as he can, but
at the end of an outing is often grudgingly forced to ask for a push.

  ‘Oh, fine, don’t ask for help, then!’ Leonie once nagged him as he lagged behind, panting and wheezing. ‘We’ll just let you have a heart attack. More room for the rest of us in the van.’

  Evert gave some thought to having the heart attack, then changed his mind and asked if someone could please give him a little push.

  A mini-scandal: Mrs Slothouwer ‘fell’ in the corridor, and another lady just stepped right over her into the lift without looking. It’s lucky she wasn’t on a mobility scooter.

  The staff are looking for the heartless hit-and-run offender, but there is some doubt that she actually exists.

  ‘First she pushed me and then I fell and then she stepped right over me.’

  ‘What did she look like?’

  ‘It was Mrs Van Diemen. She hates me.’

  At the time of the incident, however, Mrs Van Diemen was at the hairdresser’s in the shopping centre 2 kilometres away. When the staff later informed Mrs Slothouwer of Mrs Van Diemen’s watertight alibi she said, snidely, ‘Then it was Mrs Smit. She hates me too, that one.’

  Thursday, 26 February

  ‘If you believe what they said about Sir Cliff Richard, then there’s no hope for this world.’ Mrs Smit threw her hands in the air and sighed in despair.

  ‘Yes, dreadful, wasn’t it … such ridiculous allegations …’ Mrs Van Diemen nodded back.

  They make a good team.

  ‘It wasn’t true, even he himself said it wasn’t true. It was just sour grapes.’

  Yes, Cliff has quite a few fans in here. He’s one of the last living idols. Almost all the rest of our heroes are dead. Being old is a lonely road in that regard too. Mark Rutte is no Winston Churchill, Ali B. is no Frank Sinatra, and Linda de Mol is no Sophia Loren. Come to think of it, is La Loren dead, or not?

  Brigitte Bardot is still alive, but the bloom is off the rose a bit there. I used to wish I could hang a big poster of her in my bedroom, but I didn’t have the nerve. It just wasn’t done. Besides, I was just married. My wife definitely would have taken it the wrong way.

  I can taste the spring out there in the great outdoors. With gorgeous Dutch skies that every once in a while let the sun through. Later today Geert and I are going out for a long ride. The batteries are fully loaded. We’ll stop for pancakes in Broek-in-Waterland, a lovely name for a lovely village. Life can still be so beautiful.

  Friday, 27 February

  I am quite nervous about what my friends will think about my Old-But-Not-Dead Club outing. It is my first Home Show, but it’s entirely possible that Ria and Antoine, for instance, have already seen it fifteen times. In which case they’ll show us where to go, anyway.

  Mrs Van Diemen had the hairdresser dye her hair a reddish purple, and enthusiastically asked me what I thought of it.

  It isn’t easy to avoid lying sometimes. I think I may have mentioned this before, but people tell fifteen lies a day, on average. I have been paying attention lately, and it’s true that little white lies keep tripping off my tongue. Surely it must be possible to get by with fewer lies than that per day. The simplest solution is often just to keep one’s mouth shut. In the case of Mrs Van Diemen’s hair, I just nodded brightly but said nothing. She was satisfied with that.

  ‘I think it’s an ugly colour and it doesn’t suit you at all,’ would have been the only correct answer. But you can’t say that to her. Sometimes lying is just the decent thing to do. An elegant evasion that doesn’t actually distort the truth doesn’t always occur to me in time, you see. Difficult, difficult. I really ought to try it sometime: going a whole day without lying. And avoiding human company in order to accomplish it doesn’t count.

  Saturday, 28 February

  Let’s just say it was quite fun, my outing. And informative.

  It was incredibly crowded, for a start. Thousands upon thousands of rather tubby women had descended on the show from every village and town in the country. They all had that healthy shopping impulse in their eyes, or was it greediness? Endless queues for the Boursin on toast samples, hands grabbing free candy, a bottleneck for the mini-soaps. Our procession of Old-But-Not-Dead rollators threaded its way through the throng, with Evert’s wheelchair in the lead clearing a path for the rest of us. Graeme brought up the rear and made sure we didn’t lose anyone. Fortunately there were plenty of places to sit and rest, with massage chairs and all.

  ‘I think you’re absolutely delightful people, and I’m all for having you put up your feet, but you’ve been sitting here having a chat for twenty minutes,’ said an exhibitor with some desperation in his eyes.

  After that our strategy was to coffee-crawl from café to café, watching the endless parade of women from the provinces, heavily loaded with freebies, traipsing by with the occasional downtrodden husband shuffling along behind. Evert and Leonie kept up a running commentary. Whenever we happened not to be sitting down, it was impossible to drag Ria and Antoine away from all the kitchen appliance and pot and pan demonstrations.

  Edward feigned a great interest in the streak-free glass cleaning shammies. The girls had their nails and make-up done, giving the men a head start on the beer and wine. By 4 p.m. we were knackered. We decided to skip the Parent and Baby Show because we couldn’t wait to go home.

  That may have been the biggest blessing of yesterday’s trip: our home isn’t all bad. On the ride home we broke into song. Evert turned out to have brought a bottle of port, and some plastic glasses. We raised our glasses to a lovely and informative day. The driver stared at us wide-eyed in his rear-view mirror, but didn’t say anything.

  Sunday, 1 March

  Today is the start of the meteorological spring, and yesterday, when it was still winter, I sat out in the sun for the first time. In the little park up the street, on a sheltered bench, my face tilted to the light, Eefje’s headphones on my ears, listening to her music. Joy and sadness all at once.

  I could have sat on the bench by the front door of our home. But then I’d have had someone pulling the headphones off my ears every five minutes to say, ‘Lovely weather, isn’t it?’ People assume that you should be eager for a chat at all times.

  In advance of the provincial elections, I took the online Stemwijzer survey to find that the D66 party comes out on top with a narrow margin of fifty-eight per cent, only slightly ahead of PvdA and GroenLinks. I don’t know … D66 is a bit boring. 50Plus is somewhere down at the bottom, next to the Pirate Party. That’s just as well. I have been sounding people out but have found no one who has any idea what the ‘States-Provincial’ elections are about. It’s mainly a horse race between Rutte, Samson, and the rest of the pack anyway.

  Let’s not forget to thank God for Mark and Diederik. Even a confirmed atheist such as me is forever grateful. Just imagine if we had Putin as our president. He filches about 10,000 times our own leaders’ annual salary cap from Russia’s coffers. Here someone will get kicked out for embezzling a €127 bottle of wine. I’m not an alarmist, but Putin is a dangerous bloke. Mark Rutte is a saint in comparison, enjoying his cheese sandwiches in his ivory tower in The Hague, phoning his mum every day, loving his job and enjoying the occasional tiff with Diederik over a few marbles.

  ‘Putin could put away a million biscuits a day if he wanted to,’ Mrs Schaap remarked shrewdly.

  ‘If only he would,’ grunted Graeme.

  Monday, 2 March

  Yesterday I saw several residents intently studying the escape route maps. After two nursing home fires in one week, some of us are feeling a bit worried.

  ‘That fire will have to be an extremely slow-smouldering one if I’m to reach the exit in time,’ said Mrs Duits, who employs an old-fashioned Zimmer frame to get around. ‘From my room on the fifth floor, I’ll need about half a day to get down the ten flights of stairs. There will have to be a chair on every landing to rest my poor legs, or I won’t make it.’

  There was loud agreement. Some of the oldies started braggi
ng that it would take them even longer.

  Mr Pot announced he would write to the Residents’ Committee, demanding that management be made attentive to fire safety.

  ‘Great idea, Pot,’ said Evert, ‘only, we haven’t had a committee for the past year and a half.’

  That is so. After a fierce quarrel about the scheduling of the annual day trip, the Residents’ Committee was ‘disbanded’ by the director. The subsequent election of a new committee was cancelled for want of candidates. No one was willing to work together with anyone else any more.

  I shall ask Stelwagen to call an election again. There’s a plan brewing, see.

  Tuesday, 3 March

  ‘In light of the rat and mouse infestation, feeding bread to the birds in the common gardens is no longer permitted.’ The new prohibition, underlined in red, was pinned to the noticeboard.

  ‘There goes yet another of life’s little pleasures.’ Mrs Bregman gave a deep sigh. She is in the habit of buying an entire loaf of bread every day, three-quarters of which she feeds to the birds. Bread from Aldi, but still.

  ‘That’s five hundred euros a year you’re just throwing away,’ a thrifty nurse calculated.

  ‘But I get a thousand euros of pleasure from it – so what?’ That ‘so what’ was a rather surprising retort, I thought, coming from her.

  Besides, the rat argument does not persuade me. Dozens of sparrows and starlings, a good number of pigeons and even a couple of herons mill about in the garden every day waiting for Bregman to dump the meticulously cubed bread from her second-floor window at 2 p.m. sharp. There’s not a crumb left over for the rats. She also trots to the poulterer’s twice a week for a pound of kidneys and gizzards, for the herons.