by Alison Clink
‘Your skin’s going pink!’
‘Oh, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter,’ he says as if he doesn’t want anything to cause me to stop.
Afterwards I ask if he wants the pillows plumped up again.
‘No. I just want to lie here in a warm glow.’
Just then Scary Red Nurse from last week’s meeting arrives to check on Adrian.
‘You’re looking better,’ she says. She and I have a little chat about massages and she’s nice (of course). Adrian lies there relaxing in his warm glow. This feels like the most important and useful thing I have done so far.
When Scary Red has gone I get out the laptop and manage to get an internet connection for an instant – only to lose it again.
*
Back home, when I tell the rest of the family over dinner (ready-made lasagne with oven chips and frozen peas) about Adrian’s massage, I sense they all think it’s a bit weird – me massaging my brother. But who else would do it? With the bug back there’s no way I could pay someone to go in there. I couldn’t ask anyone else to do something so intimate when he has a contagious illness. And when I tell them all about the laptop I realise (courtesy of Ed) that I have to keep the battery charged in order for it to work. There’s no point in even pretending I knew that. Duh, duh and double duh.
At night I can’t sleep and so I get up and iron at least fifty T-shirts from my ever growing ironing pile.
Tuesday 14th August 2007
Ed rings me from work.
‘Mum, I don’t feel well. I think I’ve caught the bug thing from Adrian.’
Lots of horrible thoughts crowd my mind. I was aware Jack and Willow were cross Adrian didn’t tell them the C.diff was back until after they’d eaten his leftover burger and touched his mobile. Willow is a nanny and is currently in charge of a new born baby, so this is especially relevant to her.
‘No, Ed. I’m sure you’re okay,’ I say, but I ring the doctor’s surgery. A nurse tells me they will leave a sample pot for me at the reception. Before I go to St Vincent’s I make a diversion to the Health Centre to collect the pot. The rain is back and although it’s the middle of August, it feels more like October. At St Vincent’s I run into Matron in the hall and she gives me the cheque for the refund of Adrian’s fees.
‘How is he today?’ I ask, slipping the cheque into my handbag.
‘I’ve got a huge report to complete because the inspectors are coming,’ she replies, indicating a big wad of papers and folders under her arm.
What sort of answer is that? Like I’m interested in her fucking report. Is she looking for sympathy or just covering up her lack of interest in her patients’ welfare? She obviously hasn’t got a clue how Adrian is.
I carry on to his room and find him propped up on pillows again, watching Sky News as usual. His Panama hat hangs on the back of the door, a reminder of the few days of summer and his last tantalising days of freedom – now gone.
I try unsuccessfully to connect the laptop before getting the oils ready for the massage. Aniela comes in with a pill.
‘You going to give massage?’ she asks me and then taps me on the shoulder as she leaves. ‘I would like one too! Back sore,’ she adds, rubbing her side.
This time Adrian turns the sound off on the TV. After the massage I leave, like a doctor who has done their job – administered their therapy. I’m becoming less and less emotional. I suppose practical help is a good substitute for sentiment. And Adrian’s stopped talking about money or his affairs. He just asks about the family and occasionally comments on the news.
‘There’s going to be trouble in Pakistan.’ And ‘this government’s education policy is a mess.’ He even asks me what I’ve been doing today and I have to think. Oh yes, I’ve written a critique that’s been waiting on my desk for weeks. Art Lovers of Harlech. A funny story that was entered in the short story competition about a Welsh public school boy.
Wednesday 15th August 2007
It’s raining all morning. Even the dog doesn’t want to go out. My day for teaching at Center Parcs again and one of the punters, a lady from Byfleet, asks me for my autograph. It would seem churlish to refuse but I feel ridiculous giving it to her. Every time I sit in Luciano’s Restaurant with a group of holidaymakers who’ve signed up to my creative writing class, I think back to a young Irish man who came along in May. He had the bluest eyes and the blackest hair, real Irish good looks. He was on holiday with his wife and two little boys, both under five. During the chat we always have before beginning the class, he talked about his wife who was dying of cancer and would be dead by October.
I remember how shocked I was when he said this. My heart went out to this young man and his family. I remember thinking on the hop and changing the exercise I’d planned. The exercise was to begin with students writing a list of things that make them cry, followed by a list of things that make them laugh. This was based on my most recently published story, Things That Make Me Cry, which was about the song “Stand By Me” by Ben E. King (which does always make me cry) and a shopping trip to Trowbridge with Emily (which was funny).
How different I am today from the person who was shocked by the Irish man’s revelation. Now a similar nightmare is part of my everyday life.
*
After Center Parcs I head westwards to visit Adrian. He’s propped up, cadaver-like, in the bed again and sounds unusually groggy.
‘Sorry, Ali, I’ve just woken up. Sorry if I’m a bit sleepy.’
I wonder what drugs he’s on but I don’t think he knows so I don’t bother asking. Is this the effect of the morphine?
‘I think I’m going mad,’ he says. ‘I’ve been a bad boy.’ He has adopted these funny little phrases I wouldn’t have associated with him before. Like ‘tootsies’ for feet and ‘bye-byes’ for sleep. It’s quite sweet. But the going mad is worrying.
‘I don’t think I’ll ever get out of here,’ he says.
‘Of course you will!’ I say, inwardly cringing at my own hollow sounding words. ‘Of course you will – you said the same about St George’s and you got out of there!’
We sit quietly for a moment or two. ‘Does it help when people visit?’ I ask.
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Peter popped in earlier.’
Maybe I should increase my visits. A day is a long time in a place like this. Perhaps I should come in the evenings as well. But giving up my evenings – and for how long? The more strain on me, the more I’m going to be wishing for this all to be over…and the only way for this all to be over is…
I massage him, but have to leave by four-thirty. This is the third massage I’ve done. He moans with pleasure and I give him an extra five minutes on his feet. Fran did mine last night and I made a mental note to spend longer on Adrian’s feet as it’s so delicious. In a way the rubber gloves help, as I’m not sure how I’d be about massaging feet without them.
As I massage we talk. I tell him about today’s Center Parcs group. One of them, a man from the Isle of Wight, said he knew Maurice Dix who was at university with me in the seventies. The same man also revealed in one of the writing exercises that he was once stuck for over four hours in a packed tube train just after the Paddington bombings, strap-hanging in a big overcoat. I tell Adrian all this, although normally I don’t think he’s interested in small talk. The massaging situation seems to open up the door for chit-chat.
He says something about India and Pakistan but I haven’t seen the news. He’s convinced they’re about to blow each other up.
Adrian thanks me, asks me to buy him some chocolate rolls and I leave.
*
At home Peter tells me about his visit to St Vincent’s this afternoon.
‘I sat with him for about three hours.’
But Adrian had made this sound like a short visit. Peter popped in. Is he aware of what’s going on? Before leaving Peter says he went to look for a nurse – and found Scary Red Nurse.
‘I asked her how long it will be before the C.diff clears up. She said it co
uld take six months but they haven’t told Adrian this because it’s too depressing. I’d like to take Adrian to the Beerfest in Buckland Dinham this weekend. But if it takes six months to get the all clear then that’s not likely to happen.’
Great. I wish he hadn’t told me either. Now I know why I don’t cross examine the staff about medical things.
‘What did you talk about for all those hours?’
‘We talk and then have silences. I fell asleep a few times. His room’s so hot.’
‘It’s good you can sit together and not have to talk all the time,’ I say remembering something my mother said about Adrian and Bryony when they were a couple. They were good together because they weren’t uncomfortable with silences. I think she was right. A good relationship does mean you don’t have to talk all the time.
‘This C.diff thing is such a bloody nuisance, though. If it wasn’t for this illness Adrian could spend his last days or weeks or months or whatever doing things like going to the races – or the Buckland Dinham Beerfest. He would’ve enjoyed going to the Beerfest.’
‘Yes,’ I agree. ‘And of course you would only be going to the Beerfest to support him…’
‘Of course.’
‘He says he thinks he’s going mad incarcerated in that room.’
‘I’m not surprised.’
*
I’m tortured by the decisions I made which have led to my brother’s current situation. That afternoon when we collected him from Putney and brought him here. The random choice of nursing home. Not listening to the woman we met in the local pub who was so insistent St Vincent’s wasn’t right for him. On that first evening we should have collected his things and brought him home with us. And yet he’d refused my offers to come home so many times. Although I’d never even heard of C.diff then I don’t know how I’d have coped with cleaning up diarrhoea at three in the morning.
The pub we visited on that first night is now closed down. My God. Did we play any part in its demise? It had probably been there for centuries. Did they hear about the man suffering from a hospital superbug who’d been drinking there? Or maybe it was closed down by the Department of Health just for being dirty.
After dinner Welsh Phil phones. ‘I’ve been trying to talk to Adrian but he sounds groggy and it’s really hard to hear what he’s saying. I suppose he might answer a text message but I don’t do texting. I’ve never done texting and I’d like to know how he is because Carol and I are hoping to visit him at the weekend, see?’
‘You could both stay here if you want,’ I suggest as I know the local B&Bs can be expensive.
‘Oh, I don’t know about that. I mean, I don’t want to create more work for you.’
Having guests for the weekend uses up a different kind of energy. ‘No, you’re more than welcome to stay here…’
‘Oh well, I’m not sure – I’ll have to check with Carol…’
‘There is another problem,’ I tell Phil as a different thought comes to mind, ‘I really don’t like to think of this from Adrian’s point of view. Us all together having a good time while he’s stuck in there.’
‘Oh. Quite so. Yes. I do understand. Oh no. No, it would be a bit unfortunate. Yes I can see what you mean…’
I think about Welsh Phil and now understand why he’s one of the beneficiaries in Adrian’s will. He is a totally genuine and thoroughly nice, unpretentious man who is going out of his way to help his old drinking buddy. He’s probably missing Adrian a lot.
I remember one Saturday night at the beginning of the year when I was visiting Adrian in London. We were walking down the road towards East Putney station on our way to meet Kyria for a drink when Phil phoned him on his mobile to make arrangements for their regular Saturday night drink. I remember feeling touched when I heard Adrian say ‘no I can’t make it tonight, my sister’s here and I’m going out with her.’
But why did Adrian let Welsh Phil down so glibly and at such short notice when they always drank together on a Saturday night? Maybe theirs was a flexible arrangement, but even so I think of him on that particular Saturday night in January, alone. Hey, he could have come along with us. I think Adrian likes to compartmentalise friends, which is probably why he’s not a party-thrower.
*
Ten pm. I get a text from Adrian.
‘Pls get Cad Swiss rolls. Think I’m going mad. A.’
What more can I do to help him? Apart from stocking up on chocolate cakes. If I visited more what would we do? Could we play games together, after all? Could we peel away the past forty-five years and sit together playing Old Maid, Oh Hell, Snap, Chase the Ace, Happy Families?
The pack of cards I bought him is still on top of the radiator, unopened.
Thursday 16th August 2007
Don’t you get tired of going to see Adrian all the time?’ Emily asks. We’re in the study where I’m doing some writing.
‘Yes and no,’ I say, wondering whether in fact it is she who’s tired of me going to see Adrian all the time.
‘It’s something different, and in a way it’s nice because I haven’t really seen him on a regular basis for years.’ And, yes, in a way it is nice. Although nice seems the wrong word, in view of the circumstances. But recently I have been enjoying the practicalities of trying to help him. Although of course I know Adrian is having the shittiest of times.
*
Fran is desperate to have her belly pierced, and, as an early birthday present, I have agreed. Or rather, I apparently said ‘yes’ at some point when I was distracted by something else. After lunch we drive to Trowbridge to find a shop Fran has found online. It’s in a back street, a small, garishly painted emporium with two fat, greasy men, who look more suited to carving slices off a doner kebab, standing by the door. They remind me of pimps outside a Soho peep show.
No way will I allow my baby into the clutches of these two. I say as much to Fran, so emphatically she doesn’t protest. We go back to the car and change direction for St Vincent’s.
*
Adrian is sitting in the same position I left him in last night. But he’s feeling better and is now focusing on moving. Olivia from Dorothy House has been to see him and this has cheered him up immensely.
‘She’s a really nice lady. We had a long talk. She asked me how I was feeling. And when I asked if I was in quarantine she said “no.” She doesn’t even bother with the gloves and apron.’
This is interesting. Olivia seems to carry a lot of clout and Adrian is saying she’s not worried about the contagious nature of the C.diff. Or at least she’s not worried for her own safety, although I do recall she wouldn’t take him to Dorothy House to meet with the other cancer patients. Her laid-back attitude makes me feel hysterically lightweight with my fanatical adherence to hygiene regulations.
Apparently Olivia is coming again for a meeting with a doctor (and social worker?) next Wednesday and Adrian wants the focus of this meeting to be getting him out of St Vincent’s. He’s still convinced the staff want to keep him there and I think this may be true. When Peter was here yesterday a nurse told him they have three empty beds out of twenty-eight. Each empty bed presumably represents a loss of three grand per month.
St Vincent’s definitely has financial issues. This morning Adrian said he asked Scary Red Nurse if he could wash his hair in the shower and she said ‘no’. This bugs me. Firstly, because he felt the need to ask permission to do something as basic as washing his hair; secondly, she’s treating him like a ninety-year-old; and thirdly, it could mean the shower is broken, which at the rates we’re paying is preposterous. Adrian is still talking about moving into his own bed-sit or flat. But I know in my heart this is impossible. Apart from anything else, from the point of view of a prospective landlord, who would let a place to him if they met him? Unless they were very compassionate, they’d see him as a dying man who’d only stay for a short term tenancy. Anyway, he could fall over / wouldn’t eat / take medication etc. It would be a disaster in the making.
Yet
again I suggest he comes to live with us. ‘We’d like you to. I’ve checked with everyone and they’re all in total agreement.’ These words trip off my tongue so lightly, as they have on so many other occasions. I don’t even register that they aren’t true. In fact I haven’t mentioned it to the others for months.
For the first time since I initially suggested this in June, he says ‘Yes’.
I do a double take. Yes. He’s said yes to moving in with us. I can hardly believe what I’ve just heard.
I’m shocked, pleased but more than a little apprehensive.
‘Yes? Oh, okay! That’s brilliant news.’
This has got to be a positive step forward. By moving Adrian in with us we don’t have to worry about what we can and cannot do in relation to the C.diff. Olivia’s attitude to infection has made me less worried about my family catching it. And I won’t have so much driving each day. All the same, I have to stop to get everything straight in my head before we finally put this plan into action.
‘Okay,’ I repeat slowly. ‘So, what about the diarrhoea?’ I recall Matron’s stories of seas of the stuff in the middle of the night.
‘I’ve got control over it now. This last course of antibiotics have kicked in,’ he says dismissively. Nevertheless there is a bucket of water in the middle of the room, which makes me wonder.
‘So,’ I carry on, ‘what exactly are they doing for you here?’ There’s surely nothing they’re providing that I can’t provide at home.
‘Dishing out pills and serving up inedible food,’ he says.
Ah. I can do both of those things.
‘Why don’t you check with Olivia whether it’s safe for the family to be in contact with the C.diff bug, and then I’ll get the study ready for you.’
‘Okay, Ali. Thanks…’
*
Gift arrives with a salts drink to counteract the effects of the diarrhoea and help build Adrian up. She’s being very stern with him but he tells her to leave the drink on the table. After she’s gone he says he needs to eat.