The scoundrels had each taken one floor. Several residents had noticed them, largely because they greeted everyone so politely. The descriptions of the suspects were not that helpful to the police, since they diverged quite a bit. The estimated age varied from twenty to about forty, and they couldn’t even agree on the colour of the men’s skin. Somewhere between white and dark brown, that much was certain.
‘It would never have happened if the porter had been there,’ many a resident opined, having momentarily forgotten that about a year ago, a young man had commandeered a resident’s brand-new mobility scooter and ridden out of the building in broad daylight while the porter was engrossed in his Football International. At the time management had taken ‘appropriate action’ against the porter. They told him he wasn’t allowed to read at work any longer.
Saturday, 3 October
The Rollator-Walk is on the march across the Netherlands. Today it’s in Amersfoort, I read in the newsletter at the doctors’. Employees of YourHomeCareShop.nl are on hand to oil the wheels and inflate the tyres to the correct pressure. I read that they’ll even lend you a rollator if necessary. Am I being too suspicious if I wonder: why would someone take part if they don’t actually need a rollator? What do the competition rules have to say about that?
Amersfoort’s mayor fired the starting shot for the race, a 450-metre course. Some participants managed a whole six laps. It didn’t start raining until the end, fortunately, since your average rollator-pusher doesn’t have a hand free for an umbrella. The newsletter adds: ‘Everyone had fun, and in spite of the ambulance crews’ presence, there were fortunately no accidents.’ In Amersfoort, apparently, ambulances, just by being there, often cause accidents.
‘All participants received a medal and a goody-bag. Won’t you join us next year?’
No, no, no and no. And, just in case that wasn’t clear enough: no bloody way.
A new nurse has been taken on as a stand-in for a colleague who is ill. She’s quite a nice girl, but ends every other sentence with ‘lovely’. It is getting on my nerves.
‘Oh yes, will do, lovely.’
‘Nice cuppa, inn’t it. Lovely.’
‘It’s a nice day out there. Lovely.’
I’m doing my best, but I just can’t seem to ignore it. Recently I even overheard a faint ‘lovely’ coming from the far corner of the lounge. And in spite of having adopted my father’s motto, ‘Don’t get mad, just marvel that it’s so’, I can’t help myself and it’s driving me up the wall. After a week of ‘lovelies’ I screwed up the courage.
‘Sister, this may be a strange thing to ask, but could you possibly refrain from saying “lovely” quite as often? It rather touches a nerve, you see.’
She stared at me in surprise. After a short silence she said, ‘I’ll certainly try. If that makes you happy, Mr Groen. Lovel … Oh, sorry.’
She hadn’t done it on purpose.
Sunday, 4 October
Yesterday the Old-But-Not-Dead Club dined at Restaurant Mario, in the village of Neck. I had the feeling that this was supposed to be Evert’s last supper. He had booked it himself. And even though he is a self-confessed hater of codswallop, a word he pronounces with huffy contempt, he had chosen a restaurant with almost one Michelin star for a fancy seven-course prix fixe repast. And that doesn’t mean seven variations on hearty Dutch fare, but seven delicate works of art sparkling with colour and flavour.
Don’t ask me what we ate. At the start of every course a lady came to explain what the bits and bobs on our plates were supposed to be, but by the time she’d listed the fifth ingredient, I had already forgotten what the first one was. Also, the waitress was in rather a hurry and not very used to old folk, since if she had been, she would have known she should speak clear-ly, slow-ly and LOUD-ly. Not in a hurried mumble! We were all soon of one mind: no need to bother, lady, as long as it tastes good. We also had Ria and Antoine, our own culinary experts, with us to explain patiently what we were eating.
Evert ate little. He can barely get anything down these days. The body is finished, but not yet the spirit. He was obviously enjoying himself, and kept looking round our circle with visible satisfaction. I knew that he’d taken an extra dose of medicine beforehand in order to make it to the end of dinner. He has stockpiled a good supply of drugs at home, an assortment of legal and illegal pills, painkillers and pep-pills, and takes them as needed. On the advice of his GP.
With the seven courses came seven different wines. The sommelier was friendly, and he did speak loudly and clearly, but that didn’t make much difference as far as we were concerned. To be honest, after two glasses we no longer cared that much which grape hailing from which region was in the bottle.
Upon departing at about 11 p.m., we did experience some difficulty climbing back into the minivan without any mishaps. By the time we arrived home, a happy chorus of snores was heard coming from the back seat. It wasn’t easy to shake Evert, Geert and Edward awake.
Leonie and I pushed Evert to his room, undressed him and tucked him into bed. He was too tired to put up much of a struggle, even if only for form’s sake.
‘Bye, me darlings,’ he slurred.
Leonie swallowed. I swallowed too, in solidarity.
Monday, 5 October
Our home’s clubs are in crisis. The bingo afternoon remains as popular as ever, but the rest of the activities are ever more sparsely attended. The knitting club has only eleven members, the bridge club has already given up the ghost, and the Klaberjass club, the shuffleboard club and billiards club are all desperate for new members in order to stay in business. It isn’t the cost: even the most tight-fisted resident is capable of coughing up 50 cents for an afternoon’s entertainment. The real problem is that the home’s population is shrinking. There are fewer residents, and those who are left are on average older and more passive.
The Residents’ Committee was asked to come up with a solution. We suggested opening our home’s activities to outsiders, other old people in the neighbourhood. The response revealed a latent fear of strangers.
‘You don’t know what sort of rabble you’re inviting in,’ said Mr Dickhout anxiously.
‘Well, hopefully, billiard players, shuffleboard aces and knitting enthusiasts,’ said Ria, ‘because that’s the whole point.’
It was especially those alien billiard players that Dickhout was against. He’s afraid he’ll be toppled from his championship perch by ‘someone on the outside’.
A rival old-age home in North Amsterdam had two inmates who both turned 100 in the same week. Some people were envious. Not so much because of the mayoral visit, but because of the cake the mayor always brings on such occasions for all the residents to enjoy.
The number of 100-year-olds in the Netherlands keeps growing. In 1950 there were only about forty. Now they are 3,500 strong. And on their 100th birthday, each receives, besides that cake from the mayor, a letter from the King. Well, it comes with the King’s signature, anyway. If this pace keeps up, Willem-Alexander will be left with no time to do anything but sign letters for 100-year-olds.
I felt sorry for King Willem recently, when he had to read a speech before the UN General Assembly: almost everyone seemed to have chosen that moment to take a break. The room was three-quarters empty.
Tuesday, 6 October
We are of the generation that thought it sensible to have all, or almost all, your teeth pulled before they started giving you trouble. ‘And then it won’t cost you any more money going forward’ was the second reason. You had to grit your teeth initially to get through the first phase, although gritting your teeth was the one thing you weren’t supposed to do. But after that it was plain sailing. Or so everybody thought. But the reality is less rosy. Only too often here do you encounter dentures grinning at you from a saucer or a glass. The puckered mouths they belong in tell painful stories about dentures that no longer fit because of shrinking jaw bones. All in all, not a pretty sight.
(I read somewhere that in the Amer
ican state of Vermont, women have to have permission in writing from their husbands to wear false teeth. Rather a strange law, wouldn’t you say? Is it meant to protect the women or the men? Another strange American law: in Florida, unwed women are thrown into jail if they decide to go parachute jumping on a Sunday. No, I am not making this up.)
I myself possess, besides the odd remaining tooth, a set of dentures, or rather, two sets; one upper and one lower. I would rather die of the pain in my mouth than sit downstairs at coffee time toothlessly sucking on a dunked biscuit. Alas, some fellow residents are past all shame. They’ll put their teeth down on the table for everyone to see, and then open wide to show anyone who’s interested exactly where it hurts.
Another Old-But-Not-Dead Club outing later today.
‘It may well be my last,’ Evert said this morning.
I wanted to say something consoling. Such as ‘that’s still a long way away, surely.’ But Evert looked at me, raised his hand, and shook his head.
Wednesday, 7 October
‘Yeah, it’s still got that swing,’ said the drum teacher at the music school, cheerily looking round the circle. ‘When it comes to percussion, age doesn’t mean a thing. In Africa there are drummers who are over 100. Although they’re not always sure what year they were born, of course.’
The Old-But-Not-Dead Club outing was a djembe drum workshop, taught by a man called Jan-Dirk.
‘Funny name for someone from my background, but I’m only half Surinamese,’ he said apologetically. An amusing bloke. He threatened to do a striptease if we didn’t do our best, upon which the two ladies went about botching it up demonstratively.
It wasn’t easy to beat the drum and keep the rhythm, and after fifteen minutes everyone’s hands were bright-red, but that didn’t make it any less fun. Those whose fingers hurt too much were allowed to continue with drumsticks. Evert sat behind a drum set, as pleased as punch.
‘This happened to have been on my bucket list,’ he announced cheerfully, producing a little drumroll.
‘What’s a bucket list?’ asked Antoine.
After a moment’s hesitation, Evert answered, ‘That’s the list of things you want to do before you die. I’ve worked down my entire list now.’
We were all quiet.
‘OK, let’s hit it!’ Evert called to Jan-Dirk.
When we were done, the teacher declared himself extremely satisfied with the accomplishments of the oldest students he had ever had the pleasure of teaching, disregarding the fact that we hadn’t been able to keep it up for very long.
Afterwards we headed for a café. Not for too long, because Evert was knackered.
Thursday, 8 October
This morning was the new director’s official introduction to the inhabitants of our home.
‘Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Mr Van de Kerkhof, MPA, and I have been appointed by the board of governance to take over as the new director of your care home.’
Next came a rather bland speech about his management experience and the excellence of our parent organization.
Kerkhof means ‘Churchyard’. ‘The name isn’t too promising,’ Graeme whispered in my ear. The fellow didn’t seem to have a first name either, at least, not one he cared to reveal to us.
My initial impression: a stiff, formal-looking man in a dark grey suit with a saucy light grey tie. This one won’t have us slapping ourselves on the knees with laughter, that’s for sure. After only five minutes I was already longing for Stelwagen’s neat woollen suit. That suit had started the meeting by introducing the new strongman as a very capable manager with a great deal of experience in the care sector. Those aren’t exactly qualifications requiring a kind heart. I would so like to see management and board members show some real affection and attention for old people, even if it’s just a little. But that, it seems, isn’t the qualification needed for this job. Managerial skills alone don’t make for better care, it only makes for cheaper care.
No, it wasn’t an uplifting meeting. Forgive me for doing what I myself detest: complaining and being gloomy. On the positive side: Mr Van de Kerkhof can only turn out better than he seems at first blush. The Residents’ Committee has its first meeting with him in three weeks. Come, I am only moderately pessimistic.
To celebrate meeting our new director, we were offered a piece of cake instead of the usual biscuit with our tea. Brilliant, I’d almost dare to say!
Friday, 9 October
Oh, the cheapskates! At the end of the day, most residents have quite enough left of their meagre old-age pension to put it away for God only knows what; but the proposal to double the bingo cards’ price from 50 cents to €1 did not pass. Could it not be raised to 75 cents first, was one suggestion, so that people could get used to the hike?
This is the generation that never eats fresh bread because the stale bread has to be finished first, that cuts the brown bits off an overripe banana because it’s ‘still perfectly OK to eat’. A generation that thinks ‘throwing out food is a waste’, even if they have to swat away the flies or scrape off the mould first. People who would rather sit day in and day out in a chair with broken springs than buy a new one. And who are always moaning about how dear everything is, once they’ve converted the euros into guilders.
And the worst thing is: I belong to that generation myself. I have to talk myself into the occasional splurge, and into allowing myself to enjoy it too. But – there’s hope yet – I am getting better at it all the time! Two weeks ago, for instance, I bought myself a pair of shoes costing €130. That’s 286 guilders. (Sorry.)
Saturday, 10 October
The leaders of the Union of Dutch Seniors are at one another’s throats again for a change. ‘Swindler’, ‘bungler’ and ‘embezzler’ are just some of the terms they bandy about, not to mention other insults such as ‘crook’, ‘agitator’, ‘pilferer’ or ‘conman’. Understandable, therefore, that there isn’t much time left for advocacy. How is it that for as long as I can remember, there has never been peace and harmony in the senior henhouse? Surely one would expect more common sense, patience and respect from the Netherlands’ elders! With old age comes wisdom, goes the adage. Ha! Let me modify that: with old age comes the mudslinging.
Let me just quickly give the word to Mrs Schansleh, our queen of the newly minted proverb. Her two latest creations:
You can’t clap with one hand.
Clumsiness is the mother of the bull in the china shop.
Well, all right, I would be remiss if I failed to add this superb one from Antoine: A dog’s breakfast is the cat’s meow.
Mr Pot won’t come down to the conversation lounge any longer because of the din. He can’t stand it. He brayed his resolve at the top of his voice today at coffee time.
It doesn’t seem an insurmountable problem to me. Why doesn’t the hearing-aid shop Hear-More, for instance, open a branch called Hear-Less? Something to do with cotton wool, perhaps. That’s what I do, anyway. Sometimes I secretly stuff cotton wool into my ears, because the conversation does get rather thunderous, with all the deaf and hard of hearing in our midst. It can be a torment to the people who still have their hearing. But if that’s the worst thing we have to worry about …
Anyway, let’s not make Mr Pot seem any smarter than he really is. Everyone is better off if he stays in his room to enjoy the silence in solitary bliss.
The Netherlands is somewhat divided in its view of the refugee resettlement policy. I suspect the government officials who are saddling a village of 120 inhabitants with 700 refugees (after the same villagers had reluctantly taken in 700 to start with), are really supporters of Geert Wilders. Our national fear-of-foreigners-monger. If they aren’t, I would say that with enemies like these, Geert doesn’t need any friends.
Sunday, 11 October
It isn’t simple to get some eighty old codgers to agree on anything. The Residents’ Committee has proposed three choices for the annual daytrip. Perhaps we shouldn’t have, because it has sown grea
t division. We now have the ‘Port of Rotterdam Tour’ camp, we have the ‘Billy Elliot, the Musical’ contingent, and the ‘Christmas Market in Aachen’ enthusiasts. No matter which one comes out on top, I can predict that lavatory stops will take up the most time anyway. Finally, we also have a petition brought by a number of residents to have an extra Christmas bingo afternoon, with great prizes, instead of the trip.
‘If it’s the tour of the harbour, I’m not coming,’ Mr De Grave announced loudly. If we hadn’t offered them a choice, most of them would have signed up without grumbling. Instead, there are now several secret lobbies afoot. Many have voiced their support of the democratic vote we promised, but only as long as their own preference comes out on top.
To tell you the truth, I don’t really care where we go. My own preference would be to plead a migraine the day of the excursion, but as a member of the Residents’ Committee, I feel I have an obligation to go. The polls close on Saturday, 17 October. For some it is the most important decision they’ll have to make this year. At least the daytrip is creating some ferment, and that can’t be all bad.
Monday, 12 October
‘Congratulations!’ said the letter from the National Postcode Lottery, which I have been entering for years. The prize: a gingerbread from Peijnenburg, with accompanying Peijnenburg gingerbread tin. I had two tickets, so I won two gingerbreads and two tins. To be redeemed at the Primera Post Office shop.
Like so many others, I play the lottery mainly so that I won’t be the only one who doesn’t win when my postcode hits the jackpot. Although with a prize this measly, I wouldn’t have any trouble overcoming my disappointment. Since all the residents live in the same lucky postcode, we must have at least fifty happy gingerbread prize-winners in here. There are some who can’t resist waving their gingerbread spoils under the noses of those who did not take part. One of the inmates always takes five lottery tickets, so that she can make the less ticketed of us green with envy if there is a prize. She’s got enough gingerbread now to last her half a year.
On the Bright Side Page 27