by Alison Clink
*
Later, Lucy and I go for a cup of tea (again). In one of the family rooms I confess to having felt jealous when he chose to have Carol at the flat with him during the meeting. I break down and cry and she doesn’t try to comfort. Just waits, which seems the right thing to do. Comforting makes you feel you’re doing something wrong by crying as if the other person wants you to stop.
We discuss my family holiday in Portugal which is getting nearer.
‘Do you think I should cancel our holiday?’ I ask her.
‘If you did, would you be cancelling it for you, or for Adrian?’ she rather intriguingly asks. I can’t quite work out what she’s getting at.
‘Er…for me? But so that I can be with him. I mean supposing he died when I was away…’
‘Do you think he’d want you there when he was dying?’
My God. I have no idea. I’m unable to reply.
*
I return to Adrian’s room. He’s sitting on the bed. ‘There are so many books I haven’t read,’ he says. ‘How many do you think I could read in two weeks?’ I smile indulgently. ‘Or, more to the point, how much beer do you think I could drink in two weeks?’
Is it really going to be two weeks? Surely the consultant didn’t specifically say two.
We sit in this sterile, empty room with its massive dirty window looking out onto the buildings of Tooting talking until four pm. I give him the list of convalescent homes I’ve got from Benenden and some of their details I’ve printed off from the internet. I mention one in Dorset I think looks nice.
‘It’s got a swimming pool, and a bar,’ I say, reading from the description.
‘Oh, I like Dorset,’ Adrian says.
Yeah, right.
*
Adrian gives me a copy of the list of his assets he’s drawn up whilst in hospital. As I’d surmised from perusing his paperwork, he has bank accounts all over the place, as well as shares, here and in the US, and something called ‘loan notes’, as well as ISAs and goodness knows what else. Not only has he composed this list from memory but he seems to have several nurses on his case involved in photocopying sheets of paper for him and one even posting a copy of this to me. Clearly I’m to have two copies of this document.
Adrian goes on to say he’s entrusting me to put a codicil on his will. He wants me to give seven hundred and fifty pounds to The Gardener’s Arms (for folks to drink at his wake) as well as legacies to some friends. I note this down but really I want to leave – the heat of the room, the convoluted money problems are all beginning to wear me down, and now he’s heaping more on top. Codicils and alcohol instructions. And I’m quite keen to get out of these gloves.
But Adrian wants to chat. He enquires after everyone. I tell him the Frome Festival has now finished.
‘Did it go well?’ he asks
‘Yes, and my prize-giving event was a success. And Ken Dodd was on at the Memorial Theatre. And we saw Paul Merton. He was good.’
‘Yeah, Paul Merton used to live near me. I saw him a few times walking about. And I saw Ken Dodd play Yorick in a film version of Hamlet,’ he says.
‘Wow. Ken Dodd as Yorick? But surely Yorick is already dead in the play. You only get to see his skull.’
‘Yeah. It was the Kenneth Branagh film. When Hamlet’s doing the whole ‘Alas, poor Yorick’ speech there’s a flashback to the young Hamlet playing with Yorick. Ken Dodd doesn’t speak. It’s just a visual flashback. It was funny though because the skull Hamlet holds up had the Ken Dodd teeth. I never saw Ken Dodd perform as a stand up, though I would have liked to.’
I nearly say ‘perhaps we could go if he comes to the Frome Festival next year,’ but I don’t. After all, will either of them still be here next year? Will any of us? If I’ve learnt anything today it must surely be that life is fragile. As Hamlet realises when he holds the skull of the dead jester… ‘here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment?’ We all end up as earth, loam.
Adrian starts talking about Phil Gullifer, his business partner, and I’ve come to realise Phil G is also someone he loves dearly. It seems Phil is moving house and Adrian tells me how good Phil’s been to him.
Then he puts on his black leather jacket, the one I’ve brought from his flat.
‘Come on, Ali,’ he says, taking his walking stick. ‘I want to show you something surprising!’
In this hospital, I think to myself, what could be surprising? Or at least what, readily on display, could be surprising?
‘Do you mean the shop?’ I ask, visualising a fairly impressive flower and newspaper shop at the entrance to the main foyer. Duh. How different we are. Me thinking immediately of retail outlets whilst my brother has something far more esoteric in mind.
Tuesday 17th July 2007 continued – The Time Stones
We walk together, through the long tunnels of hospital corridors and a glass corridor linking one building with another where we pass the doctor from the meeting (Mr Non-Existent-Bedside-Manner). I get ready to smile and say hello, but he looks away. Probably thinks I’m the next of kin from hell. Adrian leads me through a door into a memorial garden, which is laid with paving stones and dominated by a huge fish pond containing goldfish the size of trout.
‘Look at the size of these guys!’ Adrian says. In truth I walk nonchalantly past several ponds like this at Center Parcs every week with goldfish as big but I gaze in wonder at Adrian’s fish.
After the Garden of Remembrance he takes me out of the main hospital doors where rows of taxis wait. Here he shows me something else I haven’t noticed before. Twelve stones are arranged on the ground in a semicircle. Each stone has a plaque explaining where it is from and a month engraved on it.
‘Stand on the stone for the month we are in,’ Adrian tells me. ‘We’re in July, so it’s the seventh stone…’
I do as he says, positioning myself on the July stone.
‘Your shadow’s falling on the fourth stone, so it’s four o’clock!’
I look over at the stone for April and sure enough my shadowy outline falls across the stone.
‘This is so amazing, don’t you think, Ali? And yet most people will walk over it without even noticing it. Go round it, rushing into the hospital and then rushing out again and they would have missed something so brilliant.’
As on so many occasions in our lives I am dazzled by Adrian’s passion, his fascination for things. Usually I feel the amount of enthusiasm I can express in return is inadequate. Yet his passion is contagious and I’m in awe of his excitement, especially in view of his circumstances. He has found something historic, artistic and quirky, one of the most inspirational things, as opposed to people, in the whole of this miserable hospital. A building which is home to myriads of corridors like so many tubes leading nowhere. Rooms with frightening sounding labels, grim-faced people on beds, in wheelchairs, hooked up to tubes. My brother has found something special. A bunch of stones that can tell you the time by your own shadow.
I read the inscriptions on the plaque for each stone explaining where it’s from, searching for one I can identify with. Numbers seven and eight are from Dorset. Number three is from Bath. I run my finger along the Bath stone. It feels like it’s mine. It’s come all the way from the West Country. And it’s really worn down.
Adrian says something unexpected. ‘Do you know, I actually feel quite well.’
I pounce on his words. ‘Adrian, they could be wrong. They might be wrong! I’ve known people who’ve been given weeks to live and are still alive years later.’
Slowly he shakes his bowed head. Almost as if he wants it to be true. Has he already had enough of this life? Is the mortal coil too much of a tie? I stand again on stone number seven beside my fifty-six-year-old brother who is stooped, paper thin, white-haired, leaning on a stick, and I kiss him.
‘I’ll have to get going soon,’ I remind him. ‘Do you want me to come back inside with you?’
‘No, it’s okay, Ali. I’ll be alright.’ He smiles a kind of lifeless smile and I turn to go, leaving my brother by his stones, slightly worried that he might not be able to make it back into the hospital safely.
As I walk down one of the side roads leading away from St George’s I pass a pub. I almost stop to turn round. I could so easily go back for Adrian now. I could tell him to just come with me. Sod the lot of them and join the rest of us in the outside world. Remember when we were Cowboys and Indians shooting the passers-by? Let’s shoot them now and make our escape. Aren’t we still invincible? Whatever did happen to those leather holsters Mum made?
*
But I don’t go back. I’m not programmed for running away or doing the wrong thing. Instead I walk round the corner, get a bus to Clapham and then a train to Reading. As the train passes over the River Thames I see a sunlit Barnes where we lived when Jack was born. Where Jack spent the first three years of his life. The train goes through Esher where my Grandpa moved when Grandma died.
After I’ve changed trains at Reading a lady ticket inspector arrives at my table. I’ve already suspected, because of its superior standard, that the train I’m on has come from Paddington and is therefore not the same one I travelled out on. The inspector has various ticket machines, chip and pin machines and other train related paraphernalia hanging about her person. Clearly she is someone who is dedicated to the world of the locomotive.
She scrutinises my ticket. ‘You’ll have to pay a supplement. This isn’t the train you’ve paid for.’
‘But one of the railway staff at Reading directed me onto this train.’
‘Will you be making this journey often?’ she asks. A bit of a non sequitur. I ponder over this one. What’s the number of journeys I’m likely to make in the future got to do with my present predicament? I’m loath to jump in here since there must be a right answer and a wrong one. It’s just a matter of guessing which is which.
‘No?’ I suggest tentatively.
‘So you won’t be coming this way again?’
‘Err…no?’
She produces a map of railway lines and shows me the route I have taken followed by the route I should have taken. She also mentions the sum of forty-two pounds.
‘You mean I’ve got to pay forty-two pounds?’
‘No,’ she snaps. ‘You’ve paid thirty and so you now owe twelve pounds.’
‘I don’t have any cash on me,’ I lie.
‘We take cards. So, let me ask you again. Will you or will you not be coming this way again?’
I’m flummoxed. Her question seems so off the wall I can’t think what to say. Maybe I should come out with something like ‘well, I might be making the journey again. It depends on my brother who is dying in a London hospital. As long as he’s still living I’ll be going up to see him. But if he is no longer there then you can rest assured I won’t be burdening First Great Western with my presence any more.’ Instead I make a befuddled face at the girl next to me. We both laugh.
Big mistake.
‘Right. That’s it!’ the inspector says. ‘I was only trying to help you. You’ll have to pay the whole amount now!’
Damn. She was about to let me off, instead of which I’ve upset her and lost out. I had no idea train fares were calculated so randomly.
‘In fact,’ she continues, ‘it’s only five pounds you have to pay as you came the right way on your outward journey. It’s just on the return journey that you’re on the wrong train.’
I tap my pin into her machine. She moves on down the carriage in search of her next victim, the train rattles along, and I gaze out of the window. When we arrive at Westbury I spot her again – head hunched down, striding along the platform like a corporal in a sandstorm. Where do these people come from and how do they always seem to end up working for railway companies?
*
At home I phone Sobel House, the Dorset home Adrian is interested in (the one with the bar). Andrea Someone answers the phone.
‘I’m ringing on behalf of my brother,’ I begin. ‘I’m looking for nursing accommodation for him for a while.’
‘Oh, I’m afraid I’ve just come from our other home.’
‘Do you happen to know if there are any vacancies at Sobel House?’
‘I don’t know anything about this home, I’m afraid. I’ve just come from somewhere else.’
‘Is there perhaps someone else I could talk to?’
‘I’m not sure. I’m not usually here, you see. Sorry.’
I’m in the study and turn to look out of the window. It’s getting dark. I haven’t had time to close the curtains and I see my reflection staring back at me. Tired hair framing a tired neglected face. I’d scream if I had enough energy.
‘Perhaps I should phone back another time, or maybe there’s someone else I could speak to?’
‘I’m really sorry. I don’t know this place at all…I’m not sure whether there’s anyone else here at the moment…’
Oh, well. Maybe she has recently visited the bar.
Wednesday 18th July 2007
This morning things seem less surreal at Sobel House. When I ring I’m informed they have a vacant room. I tell them, or at least I tell Andrea, (strangely enough, it is she of the nil information once again) that my brother is a high priority case or a ‘Banding One’, which is what Lucy told me to say. Andrea says this is the lowest level of banding, which contradicts what Lucy told me, i.e. that ‘Banding One’ is the highest banding in London terms. So will they take him at Sobel House? I hold my breath…Andrea suggests we pay them a visit.
*
Today four students turn up for my creative writing group at Center Parcs. One is from Wimbledon and one from a place near Reading which my train went through yesterday – Newbury? I come home exhausted from Center Parcs, and the weekly shop at Asda, to Carol on the phone in panic mode. Adrian has gone AWOL from the ward, and made his way (how?) to a bookies in Tooting to collect some money he’d won on a horse. He’s been placing bets over the phone. From there he carried on to a burger bar (not the Algerian one, please) and then went on a spending spree in Marks and Spencer. Carol is with him in a pub now.
‘He’s in here with a glass of wine!’ she says.
‘Good on him!’ I say and we begin to hatch a plan to get him discharged from St George’s asap. He’s had enough. I’ve had enough. This has to be the turning point. If he can get an ambulance to drop him at the flat Peter and I will drive to London tomorrow and fetch him. I should be able to arrange for an ambulance to take him home and up the steps and then we will bring him back here to Great Elm, or to the nursing home in Dorset. Anywhere but St George’s. The only problem is he’s given Welsh Phil the keys to his flat.
I phone Welsh Phil.
‘Oh, yes. That seems like a good plan. A very good plan. But those ambulances are very slow. Very slow indeed.’
I wonder how he knows this. Maybe from experience. But anyway Operation Escape From St George’s will go into full swing tomorrow, even though Carol cannot be involved this weekend. She can’t stay in the flat with Adrian. It’s too stressful for her – she’s already got too much going on in her life at the moment what with moving house and going on holiday. I don’t think she would have agreed to everything in the grand plan if she’d been at yesterday’s meeting.
SOMERSET
Thursday 19th July 2007
Emotions are running high. Lucy has disappeared – she’s on a course (maybe not such a bad idea) – and the hospital want to discharge Adrian as soon as possible. He’s become a liability I guess since he went AWOL to collect his winnings from Ladbrokes. For speed I manage to book him into a nursing home called St Vincent’s over the phone. St Vincent’s is in a village not far from us…Sobel House will have to go on hold for the time being, as it’s such a long way away and we haven’t had a chance to visit.
I arrange for a hospital ambulance to take Adrian back to Putney this afternoon. Peter and I drive up to London
around lunchtime. When we arrive Welsh Phil is waiting in Adrian’s flat as he has kindly gone up there to let us in. This is the second time I’ve met Phil. Like a younger (and thinner) version of Ronnie Barker (but with a Welsh accent) he is a delight. He chatters on and on as we wait for Adrian to arrive, but as the hours tick by it becomes clear Phil was right. The ambulance must be taking the scenic route (via Birmingham). Tooting is only ten minutes down the road.
However, Phil helps pass the time. We discover he’s against health kicks of any kind, is pro smoking, drinking and anti bike riding, jogging or anything remotely healthy.
‘All those people jogging and getting in the way on their bikes,’ he says with his Welsh lilt. ‘They’re just a real nuisance. Clogging up the pavements when you’re trying to get around. And all these so called Government Health warnings. They say drinking is no good for you but it’s never done me any harm. And although I gave up smoking thirty years ago it wasn’t because of any health reasons. I just went off it, I suppose. I can’t really remember why I stopped. I might start again though if I feel like it.’ Phil chuckles and I decide he is a nice man. Adrian does seem to know a lot of nice people. I’m enjoying the way they’re all so laid back up here. In Frome jogging and bike riding are worshipped on a par with wholegrain rice, yoga, solar panels and elderflower wine. This is all so refreshingly naughty.
*
At last, like a long awaited celebrity guest, Adrian arrives climbing the stairs unaided (except for a walking stick) with his thin, stiff legs. We all greet him and as he comes into the living room I watch Peter’s expression. Peter hasn’t seen Adrian throughout all this. In fact they haven’t seen each other for over a year. He doesn’t flinch, though later I catch him looking kind of filled up.
After Phil has gone, Adrian searches around the flat for things to take with him. He has bags full of new stuff with him. Spanking new white trainers, packets of white sports socks, chinos, T-shirts, a leather belt and a wallet full of notes. He usually only places small amounts when he’s betting, so he must have had a very good horse the other day.