by Alison Clink
I touch him tenderly on the arm with rubber-gloved hands as if he were my child. How often Em and Fran say ‘love you!’ Those two words come so easily at the end of every phone call, every text. Love you. Love you Mummy. Ly. And here we are, two adults who have known each other all our lives and neither of us is capable of saying those words. I feel tears coming again – so many during the course of this very long day. I manage to compose myself before speaking.
‘Phil rang me,’ I say.
‘Which one?’ Adrian asks.
‘Gullifer.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He just wondered how you were because you ended the call when he was speaking to you.’
We sit in silence for a moment.
‘What are the others doing?’ Adrian asks eventually, meaning Peter and Jack. ‘Playing golf?’
‘They have been but they’re in the pub now. They’re in The Bell at Buckland.’ I know Adrian likes to hear about pubs. ‘And the girls are at a friend’s house. I’m going to get them soon.’
I leave, sensing he wants to be alone.
*
Phil G rings at ten-thirty on the land line. He’s rung Carol too. I think he’s worried about me.
Carol texts to say she’ll leave her phone on all night. I’ve told Phil not to rush down here, but to have a good night’s rest. He can ring me tomorrow.
I switch my mobile off and if the house phone rings during the night I hope I don’t hear it.
Friday 10th August 2007
Thank goodness, there are no messages on either phone. After breakfast I ring Matron. Adrian is a bit better but still had incontinent diarrhoea during the night. She seems to enjoy describing the mess all over the carpet (again) rather than focusing on her patient’s feelings.
I spend the morning walking the dog and lying in the garden in the build-up to going to St Vincent’s. I arrive at two-thirty and go in the side entrance, which means I don’t have to wait for the door to be opened by a member of staff. I’ve recently discovered this unorthodox method of entry that means I don’t sign in either, thus flaunting the fire regs. Very naughty.
Dr Jenkins, the only other visible living resident of St Vincent’s, is slumped in her wheelchair under a parasol. I wonder what she was like in her day. Presumably a very intelligent woman.
Adrian’s in his room. I put the gloves and pinny on. I’m reminded of Peter’s last visit when he said they only had a box of size small gloves. The thought of him squeezing his big man hands into these tiny gloves makes me smile.
Adrian looks better and is propped up in bed. His voice is clearer, less strained perhaps because he hasn’t been talking so much for the last couple of days. I tidy up a bit and Gift comes in offering tea. The tea arrives with the now predictable offering of wet cake. I suck my way through yet another slice of damp Victoria sponge.
Then I try to get the two gadgets going. The radio and the laptop. Adrian is frustrated with both. He used to be an expert at IT. He set up my first computer for me. But now he seems even less techy than me. I decide to take them home so one of the children can sort them out. Adrian’s angry – everything’s ‘fucking useless’.
I sit down beside him. ‘Matron said if you drink alcohol the work of the antibiotics is undermined, which is why the C.diff keeps coming back.’
‘I won’t drink again,’ he says. ‘Anyway just thinking of alcohol makes me feel sick.’
He needs the loo while I’m there. He’s been given a commode to use at night which has the words ‘Mrs White’ written on the side. Was it she I passed in the hallway dressed in a body bag two days ago, I wonder? And where are Miss Scarlet, Rev. Green and Colonel Mustard? Anyway the commode doesn’t look especially clean but when I arrived I put my handbag on it without realising what it was. I have a good rub at my bag with the disinfectant gel while Adrian is out of the room.
When he comes back from the bathroom we get on to the inevitable and unending topic of his will. In his new version he wants to increase the legacies to some of his friends and to include some of their children. I suggest we make his new version legal otherwise it will mean nothing. He has his address book and a piece of paper from his notebook. He’s sober and tetchy. Laboriously, he copies the beneficiaries’ postcodes down before handing it to me.
I look at the back and recognise this as being the same piece of paper he used to list the details of his funeral. I had decided not to look at this but can’t help noticing the first piece of music. It’s the old Pink Floyd favourite Dark Side of The Moon.
I feel bleak. Bleak at the thought of having to stand and listen to Pink Floyd on what will be one of the most horrible days of my life. Bleak because my brother is still stuck in the seventies and has chosen this far-off music to explain his life. I look further down his list. His other choice is Minnie Riperton – “Midnight at the Oasis”. Another seventies song. There are a few other choices for his wake plus the Beatles “Let It Be” and “A Day In The Life”, then something by Bobby Darin called “Beyond the Sea”. I already feel heartbroken in anticipation of listening to this music. But I must put these details to the back of my mind and concentrate on what he needs now.
‘Oh, Ali. I’d like you to take over my affairs now. And I’d like some chocolate. And a dressing gown. And would you mind taking all the will stuff to be updated? Thanks.’
I feel overloaded and a bit distant. I still haven’t done anything about his claim for Disability Living Allowance or the other thing he wanted me to apply for – can’t even remember what it was.
Before I go Adrian tells me Bryony has cancelled her visit tomorrow because of the C.diff.
He gets up to go to the loo again. ‘It’s fatal,’ he calls to me from his en-suite – a place I have not yet ventured into.
‘Oh, you mean you’re thinking about Bryony’s boyfriend’s mum?’ I ask, knowing such a person exists and that Bryony is worried about carrying the infection back home.
‘No. I was thinking about me,’ he says.
‘Oh.’
The bathroom wall is still between us and I wonder why he’s saying this now. Has he only just realised C.diff can be fatal? My reaction is inadequate, to say the least. But I’m shocked at his scant understanding of the condition that has taken over his life.
I get ready to go home, equipped with all Adrian’s stuff I’ve got to sort out.
*
I pop into Asda to see if they have a black towelling dressing gown. They do have a small-sized towelling men’s dressing gown but it’s mud colour. Well, shit colour to be precise. ‘Light Diarrhoea’ would be a fitting description. I give the dressing gown a miss and just get him a folder to tidy up his bits of paper, and some lounging pj. pants, size ‘extra small’.
By the evening I have a headache. Phil G rings to say he’s coming on Sunday. He says Adrian would like to go to the races. I suggest Wincanton, which is reasonably near.
‘I really do want to take him. Even if I have to push him in a chair…’ He means wheelchair and of course wheelchair is one of those words we all like to avoid using. In fact wheelchairs are one of those things we all like to avoid using.
In the evening I feel the tension and the enormity of all this in my marriage. When I came in tonight everyone was sitting around the dining table eating a McDonald’s. They’d got me a cheeseburger Happy Meal which is cold. From the point of view of the rest of the family it must seem as if I’ve disappeared off their planet. I haven’t done much around the house in weeks and now I keep getting phone calls from a man called Phil.
‘Will you be there when I come down?’ Phil asked me.
‘No, I doubt it,’ I told him. ‘I think I might have a day off.’
Saturday 11th August 2007
A heatwave has finally arrived here, and in Portugal, Madeleine McCann has been missing for one hundred days. This is a real landmark for her poor parents and speculation in the papers about what may have happened to her dominates every tabloid, every broad
sheet and all the news programmes.
Outside the sky is pure blue. I take the radio I bought for Adrian back to the shop, as it only seems to tune into Radio Wiltshire, and get a refund. I take the laptop back because it doesn’t connect to the internet. But I’m in a hurry. Today is the day of the visitors. Both Bryony (who has obviously changed her mind about the threat of infection) and Carol are coming to Somerset.
I meet Carol at Westbury station. It’s strange seeing someone after a while when you’ve been talking a lot on the phone. We kiss and it’s good to have a woman with me who is involved in Adrian’s plight. I feel for her because she’s about to have a difficult emotional experience.
As we’re driving along Carol has a call from Bryony. I momentarily wonder whether these two are friends, or weren’t they at one time rivals for Adrian’s affections? He’d courted them both at different times in his life without offering either the security of marriage, children, a shared home. But the past seems irrelevant now.
Bryony tells Carol she’s seen Adrian, has been greatly upset and decided to leave early. Now she’s walking back to the station. Maybe she wanted to be gone before Carol arrived. Are they chums or not? Adrian met Bryony at a Spanish evening class in London, whereas Carol was from the Cheltenham years. Bryony turns down my offer of a lift. It seems she wants to walk to clear her head.
As we approach St Vincent’s I spot a woman with reddish hair, slim, in a black top and leggings walking in the opposite direction. She’s carrying a shoulder bag, the sort you might take on a long journey.
‘Is that Bryony?’ I ask Carol. The last time I met her I was pregnant with my girls.
‘I don’t know.’ Carol hasn’t seen her for years either – or has maybe never seen her? Why would she? I don’t ask.
We drive past the woman in black. It’s too late to stop but I think it is Bryony. The way she’s walking, her whole demeanour is of someone striding purposefully away from something horrible. I’m sure it’s her. After all, there’s no one else around the area of St Vincent’s Nursing Home, except for the staff and I don’t recognise this woman as one of them. As we drive down the sweeping circular road leading to St Vincent’s, Carol talks enthusiastically about the things she’s seen on the train. The green fields, woodlands, cattle and sheep. She gasps as she spots a group of horses grazing around the land at the far end of the garden.
Then leave London, Carol, is what I feel like saying. There’s a whole world out here. Trees, horses, fresh air, double your living space for the same money. Still, I suppose she has to stay in London for her work.
*
As I park the car we exchange train travel anecdotes and have a good laugh. Carol has had some hilarious mix up over seat numbers on her way down. The calm before the storm…
We go into St Vincent’s and I show her the protocol for signing in, the gloves, the apron, the hand gel, and last but not least, the escape route to the garden. In the hall we pass Aniela and she is, I’m delighted to see, very smiley and friendly. Maybe she and Adrian have made up. She tells us he hadn’t eaten much for lunch but had taken his antibiotics. I hope Adrian has been nice to her. It would be worth his while to at least try – you get more out of people when you try – but then I think of his situation and how frustrating it must be to ask for a pillow and be brought a pill. I guess he has to take this frustration out on somebody. Before we go into Adrian’s bedroom I tell Carol about the aromatherapy oils and other kit I’ve left in his room, secretly hoping she may offer to use them on him.
‘Is it okay to kiss him?’ she asks.
‘No. Probably not,’ I advise her. ‘Probably best not to take any risks.’
*
We enter the bedroom. Inside Adrian is propped up on a mountain of pillows watching the horse racing. I give him his folder and the lounging pj. pants, for which he seems very grateful. I ask him what Bryony was wearing and although he’s vague about this, I think the person we saw was her. He’s sure she was upset, though. I leave Carol, saying I might look for Bryony and pick her up as I have to go in the direction of the bus stop anyway.
But this isn’t true. As I approach the junction I realise my normal route home is to the left, the opposite way from the bus stop. I make a snap decision. I don’t know Bryony very well but if I was her I’d probably want to be alone with my thoughts. And she clearly wants to walk. Adrian said one of the nurses had offered her a lift. So I turn to the left, wondering whether I’d have been a better person if I’d tried to catch up with her and help her.
But I’ve coped on my own – time after time. I’ve driven away from St Vincent’s choked with tears. I’ve driven and cried at the same time. I wouldn’t have wanted anyone trying to help me then.
By the time I reach the roundabout on the outskirts of Frome, I’m already thinking about other things. The laptop. I must collect Adrian’s laptop.
In Frome I go for some retail therapy in Coco’s and Spirit, the two most expensive dress shops in town. In Spirit I buy a sundress in their sale.
‘Why did you buy that?’ Peter asks when I get home.
‘I don’t know,’ I reply. But I do know I’ll be glad of it if we eventually get away on holiday.
Sunday 12th August 2007
I settle in the garden with the Sunday papers which greet me with the headlines that a cure has been found for cancer. The article explains how all cancer sufferers will be cured within a few days, no matter how far the disease has progressed and whichever organs are affected. A new special kind of ‘zapper’ has been developed to destroy all tumours. After this simple, painless treatment, the victims will then eat until they put on all the weight they’ve lost, returning to the way they used to be. This amazing breakthrough means hope for everyone. A cure for heart problems and alcoholism has been found too.
The paper is full of columns devoted to the financial and other implications of these breakthroughs. The number of pensioners will go through the roof. Undertakers will go out of business. Solicitors will be bankrupt with no wills to sort out. The world will be in chaos…
…But my brother will live. No need to listen to Dark Side of The Moon and cry. No Minnie Riperton. No Bobby Darin. We’ll party instead – with him there.
Oh…and Madeleine McCann’s still not found either.
Monday 13th August 2007
My mission today is to change Adrian’s will. While I’m in town I call into my solicitor’s office. Quite understandably her secretary says they could only change the will in the presence of my brother. They could do a domiciliary visit (cost, over two hundred pounds – isn’t everything, involving a brief?) but in view of the C.diff they aren’t keen. In fact the more I explain the situation, the more it seems they wouldn’t touch the job with the proverbial bargepole. I can see their point of view. The will can’t be changed unless Adrian is present. He can’t get to them, and they won’t go to him.
‘If your brother came in here with your will and asked us to change it then I’m sure you wouldn’t want us to alter anything without your permission,’ the receptionist explains. I understand what she’s saying. All I’m trying to do is find a way to change the will for him. In the end she suggests I get in touch with the people who drew up the original will. Now why didn’t I think of that?
*
I drive over to see Adrian and meet Matron in the hallway. I immediately ask about my refund. She babbles on about Wandsworth and some problem with the finance officer at St Vincent’s.
‘It should be with you tomorrow,’ she affirms. Does St Vincent’s have a cash flow problem? I’ve noticed the owner of the home has been there a few times recently, her top of the range BMW eclipsing the rest of the cars in the car park. Has she come to look into the finances? She certainly seems to be doing alright for herself.
‘How is he?’ I ask before taking my leave of Matron. After all, Adrian’s wellbeing is what this is all about.
‘He looks very weak today, but I wasn’t here over the weekend and I haven�
��t caught up with everything yet.’
As I approach the room I feel a sense of doom and gloom. It’s a dull, cloudy day, which normally means Adrian’s spirits will be dull and cloudy too. He’s sitting upright in bed, corpse like, watching TV. I’ve brought him a black towelling dressing gown from Marks and Spencer which is exactly what he’d asked for. He doesn’t seem to register what it is but I hang it on the door anyway.
I notice someone has unpacked the aromatherapy kit I got from Center Parcs and laid it out on the mantelpiece and radiator. I ask him if anyone has used them on him.
‘No,’ he says.
‘Would you like me to give you a massage with the oils?’ I ask him.
‘Yes,’ he says without hesitation.
I take away the pillows stacked up behind him and help him lie down flat. I rub the oils into my rubber-gloved hand and begin. For years my children have been giving me vouchers for Elaine’s beauty shop in Frome every birthday, Christmas and Mother’s Day. I try to repeat the technique of Sally, my favourite masseuse, starting with his back, rubbing deep into his skin. His skin is loose and pliable and moves with my fingers. Like someone who has dieted too much, there now seems more skin than body. Then I use the brush on his arms and legs. I can tell he’s really enjoying this. I am too. I’d been afraid I might feel awkward but I’m finding the experience relaxing. I remember the bits I really like myself – the hands, feet and head. I feel odd massaging his chest with its curly, wiry stitching – a straight scar down from his heart. The instructions in the aromatherapy booklet said you should ‘massage towards the heart’. I keep this in mind, focusing all the time on his heart, moving towards its centre. Although surely this is for men. Women don’t get massaged on the chest.
When I rub the skin on his head it turns pink.