The Man Who Didn't Go to Newcastle

by Alison Clink

  ‘I looked in the mirror today. I think I look really gaunt.’

  Has he only just noticed? He’s skeletal. His eyes are tiny and dull, his teeth, brown tombstones. His nose a fleshless bone.

  ‘And I’m getting lazy. I’ll get up tomorrow.’

  ‘When I come over next I’ll get one of the wheelchairs and take you out into the grounds if you like.’

  ‘Yes, that would be good.’

  ‘Would you like me to give you a massage today?’

  ‘Yes!’

  I give him a long massage. Adrian asks lots of questions about the girls, Ed, Jack, Peter. What they are all doing, what I’ve been doing. Is this so I’ll forget the time and keep the massage going longer? We chat about him coming to live with us, the nutty neighbours, his friends…

  I’m scared at the prospect of taking on full care of my brother, but it seems the right thing to do. The only thing to do. After all, if he was my husband or child I’d have had him home immediately, no matter what was wrong with him. I can’t bear to think of him ending his days in a place he hates.

  On my way home, as I drive along the dual carriageway, rain lashes down. I can hardly see, but then as I come out of Frome and round the hill bend, the sky stretches out before me with a panorama of white peaked meringue clouds.

  *

  Over dinner I bring up the subject of Adrian moving in.

  ‘I’ve asked Adrian again about coming to live with us and he’s actually said yes! I told him everyone has said it’s okay, and although I know you are all okay with him coming, I just wanted to run it past everyone – just to be sure no one has any objections…’

  ‘No, it’s alright with me,’ Ed says as he squirts a small lake of tomato sauce onto his chips. ‘As long as he doesn’t eat all the sauce.’

  ‘Of course it’s fine,’ Peter says. ‘The sooner he’s out of St Vincent’s the better.’

  Jack and the girls mumble agreement. So the decision is final.

  *

  At night I have a dream. Adrian’s lying on his bed in St Vincent’s and he’s dead.

  I have to get him out of that place and home with us before it’s too late. I just have to.

  HOME

  Friday 17th August 2007

  ‘I think you’re being incredibly generous, letting your brother move in with you,’ Crysse says.

  ‘I feel a bit scared but I wouldn’t say I was being generous. Anyone else would do the same in the circumstances.’

  ‘That’s exactly what all generous people would say.’ Crysse and I are eating soup in Nano’s Wine Bar after our Friday morning Body Basics workout. Crysse always sees good in other people.

  After lunch I trudge up the hill to the computing shop where I bought Adrian’s laptop. I’ve been back there so often I’m beginning to feel embarrassed just opening the door. I walk in, intent on cancelling the contract with Vodafone but Jeff, who owns the shop, insists he knows someone who’s using this ‘up and down the country’ and managing to get online without any problem.

  I hand him the laptop and he proceeds to sign onto the internet straight away.

  ‘It looks as if you’ve done a few things you shouldn’t have,’ he says examining the screen. I shrug, once more feeling technologically inept. Jeff tunes into Five Live, the station Adrian so desperately wants to listen to.

  I’m distracted by another customer. He’s one of the McGann brothers. I’ve noticed him in Frome before – brother of the more famous actors, Paul and Joe. So, I’m in a computer shop and I’m excited by the fact I’m with someone who is the brother of two people who are reasonably famous. Yikes. I’m turning into my mother.

  *

  Whenever we went up to London for the day Mum would spend half her time staring into taxis. She assumed only famous people took taxis so it was worth her while having a good squint inside the windows of the many black cabs cruising around.

  I have a photograph of myself and my mum on one of these trips, standing in Trafalgar Square. I am ten and have a pigeon on my head. It’s school holidays – Easter probably, going by our raincoats. Mum used to put one day aside from her regime of washing, hanging laundry out to dry, ironing, and trudging four miles to the nearest shops with her shopping trolley, to spend with us. For one day of the school holidays we were reluctantly persuaded to swap our bikes, friends and secret dens for the sooty smell and prickly seats of the second class carriage on the Charing Cross line. A day up in London.

  From Hayes, the train would rattle its way through increasingly less suburban stations as we approached the city. We’d hurtle past back gardens with lines full of washing billowing in the wind, deserted stations and then great concrete chimneys belching smoke, with big hoardings bearing familiar brand names like Jacob’s Cream Crackers, or Brooke Bond Tea. Just remembering these trips I begin to feel warm and cosy. Sitting next to the window, I’d let my bare legs swing, catching the flow of hot air from beneath the seat, my brown school lace-ups dangling above the cigarette-butt strewn floor.

  The first thing Mum did as soon as we were settled in our seats was to take a nail file from her handbag and file her nails into points. This nail-filing was an integral part of our London trips. Not only was it a statement about Mum’s lack of time to look after herself properly, but also an affirmation that each clanking rail on the track we passed over, each station we whizzed through, and each house that flashed by, was bringing her closer to her past. Closer to the beautiful young woman I never knew who worked in a big factory that made soup. A young woman who wore nylons with seams at the back, and the wobbly high heels I used for dressing up.

  Just before London Bridge Mum would point out, with her newly shaped nails, the Heinz factory where she worked as a secretary before she got married. I pretended not to be impressed whilst Adrian hung out of the window to get a better view. On the pavement outside Charing Cross we passed rows of empty taxis as we made our way towards Lyons Corner House, where we lunched on Welsh rarebit or congealed beans on toast which we chose from brightly lit hot plates covered by plastic windows. Mum’s tray was crowded with plates, cups of tea and pieces of cutlery that slid about as we searched for somewhere to sit. Then the three of us would huddle together at a Formica table surrounded by the delicious Lyons Corner House atmosphere that was a mixture of heat, condensation, steamy food smells from the kitchen and cigarette smoke. The food tasted wonderful, especially after my regular diet of school dinners and Mum’s boiled fish.

  After lunch we’d make our way on foot to our destination, sometimes the National Gallery, maybe The Mall, Piccadilly Circus or Trafalgar Square (home of the photogenic pigeons). This was the part of the day where Mum really came into her own. As a child my worst nightmare was to stand out in a crowd or attract attention to myself in any way whatsoever, which is why I cringed every time Mum peered into the window of each passing taxi, lacking only the assistance of a telescope or a pair of opera glasses in her quest for the sight of a ‘famous person’.

  ‘That looks like that fellow David Whitfield in the back of that taxi!’ She’d point at the shadow of an unidentifiable figure squashed in the back seat of a cab, his face hidden by a trilby. I looked down at my feet, praying all passers-by would think I was alone, and nothing to do with this deluded woman. If the Queen, Prince Philip and the entire cast of the Billy Cotton Band Show had waved and called me from the top of a number eleven bus I would have continued my in-depth study of my school brogues.

  ‘Isn’t that Arthur Askey on the other side of the road? Look, Ali! No, over there, quick, you’re going to miss him. Too late – he’s gone into Lilywhites.’ For Arthur Askey insert Charlie Drake, David Nixon, David Jacobs, Diana Dors or whoever…

  Adrian joined in with her enthusiasm and even I couldn’t resist a peek from the corner of my eye. I did once catch sight of a short man with glasses disappearing through a shop door. But to Mum, every short man with glasses was Arthur Askey, just as every fat man with a handlebar moustache was Jimmy Edw
ards, every other married couple was Pearl Carr and Teddy Johnson and every tall dark-haired man, Cary Grant. ‘Cary Grant was born in England, you know. He could be back visiting a sick relative or something.’

  At home Mum kept a signed photograph of a matinée idol called Robert Taylor in her side of the wardrobe behind a pair of silver evening slippers that I’d never seen her wear. In deference to my father’s rather jealous nature the photo remained hidden. But I’d seen it – and read the inscription To Betty with love.

  Despite my disdain for Mum’s celeb spotting, as the years passed I realised with a mild amount of horror that I’d inherited the star-spotting gene. By the time I was sixteen I’d make the same dusty train journey up to London, by then with a giggly school friend in tow. We’d visit the same Lyons Corner House, which had miraculously transformed into a bright, airy restaurant where customers perched on tall bar stools around high circular tables decorated with yellow plastic tulips. (Although still serving the same congealed beans on toast and over-cooked Welsh rarebit.)

  One summer, around the time of the film of The Railway Children, the actress Jenny Agutter was sitting at the table next to mine.

  ‘She’s tiny!’ I reported back to Mum as soon as I got home.

  ‘I do wish I’d been with you.’ And wish was all she could do since my trips on the Charing Cross line were by then essentially an opportunity to smoke as many Embassy Blues as possible in forty minutes, and to lure any dishy boys into our compartment with our pink lipstick and hipster mini-skirts. The last thing I needed was my mother cramping my style.

  But once a star-spotter, always a star-spotter, and as the years rolled by I continued to enthral Mum with the odd, but genuine, sighting. As I passed through my twenties, thirties and beyond, there was Bill Wyman from the Rolling Stones outside his flat, and I had his autograph to prove it; Nerys Hughes, from The Liver Birds who I met in the communal changing rooms at Miss Selfridge and who told me how lucky I was to be so thin, whilst all I could think of was how lucky she was to be so famous; Nurse Gladys Emmanuel from Open All Hours who I met in a queue for the loo at a charity ball; and one of the policemen from The Bill who lived in a flat over the road from me. Mum loved all the anecdotes. ‘You have such an exciting life!’ she’d say. She was older too, of course. The Arthur Askeys and Jimmy Edwards of this world were by that time no doubt starring on that great stage in the sky. And Mum didn’t get out much any more.

  But like most children I didn’t tell her everything. I thought better of recounting the time I met the American rock group Canned Heat at a concert when they were waiting to go on stage, or how their roadie tried to persuade me to go away with him and join the tour. Although I did mention to her a few years later that I’d had a face-to-face encounter with Van Morrison in Bath.

  ‘Van who?’ she asked, her rheumy eyes looking into the distance. ‘Do I know him? Your father used to have a Morris van. I don’t suppose you remember. You were only little.’

  Mum kept her signed photograph of Robert Taylor in her wardrobe right up until the end, although she no longer needed to hide it after Dad died. And she still kept her eyes peeled for stars when she went anywhere on holiday – even though it took her a while to recall their names. After a cruise she went on with Adrian, she returned tanned, a bit shaky, but full of her old excitement.

  ‘Do you know, there was a fellow on that cruise and I’m sure he was that actor in Emmerdale…you know the one. Except in real life he looks completely different…’

  I resisted the temptation to point out that if he didn’t look like the actor in Emmerdale then he probably wasn’t. But then who was I to argue?

  ‘You got his autograph, though?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh yes, Ali, of course.’

  ‘Then I expect it was him.’

  ‘Oh yes, it was definitely him. He does look a lot different on TV though…’

  So my mother had come home with the autograph of a random holidaymaker.

  *

  The McGann man is quite short which makes me wonder if his brothers, who look big on screen, are below normal height too. Seeing him also reminds me of the little girl still missing. Madeleine McCann. Her parents are on the front page of today’s Daily Express with the headline ‘Only minutes away from finding Madeleine’. Will they find her, though? Her parents’ lives must be torture. According to the papers both Madeleine and her twin siblings were conceived by IVF. Are they now implying the McCanns weren’t meant to have children? Why can’t the press leave them alone?

  *

  I arrive at St Vincent’s and eat my lunch in the car, feeling the need for a bit of space before I go in.

  In the room, what’s left of my dear brother lies propped up in bed watching an old sitcom starring Rodney from Only Fools with the sound switched off. As I walk in he says, ‘I feel crap. I woke up full of the joys of spring. But then started to feel crap. I think what you said was right. You know, when you said the way I feel depends on the weather.’

  It’s another rainy day.

  A plate of tasteless-looking fish (of the packet variety) with a smattering of unappetising chips and peas is abandoned on his bedside table. He’s obviously taken a few mouthfuls then given up. Next to the dinner plate is a bowl of congealed spotted dick and custard. This also looks as if he may have taken a couple of mouthfuls, but is the kind of pudding even I as a fan of school-type dinners would have left on the plate and tried to cover up with my spoon.

  Adrian is quieter of late. He’s started to talk more in a whisper, only occasionally allowing his voice to go really high and louder when he’s pleased about something. I sit down and together we work out the date he’d have to leave here in order to save Wandsworth Borough Council paying the next set of (non-refundable) fees to St Vincent’s. He must be out by the twenty-third.

  ‘So, you’ve got to be out by next Thursday.’

  ‘But the doctor isn’t coming till Wednesday,’ he says, procrastinating. Before he became ill, Adrian had been planning for the past ten years to move to Salisbury. Procrastination is his middle name. Actually, it’s Nigel.

  ‘That’s okay. You could still leave by Thursday.’

  ‘But it could take me a couple of days to pack up.’

  ‘What? You’re kidding. I could get you out of here in one hour.’ Lock, stock and four crates of wine. ‘I took the laptop in again, and the guy in the shop managed to get online.’

  I get it out and do get online, but then I can’t get onto the Five Live website or hear it. The connection fails. I press lots of buttons and swivel various bits of wire. Nothing.

  *

  After I’ve finished murdering the laptop I ask if he’d like to go out in the wheelchair as planned, hoping he’ll say ‘no’ as I’m feeling knackered. But he says ‘yes’. I’m in awe of his strength to carry on.

  In the hallway outside Adrian’s room I come face to face with Matron. Who better to ask for a wheelchair?

  ‘I was wondering if it would be okay to take Adrian into the garden in a wheelchair.’

  Matron looks uncertain. ‘Well, we don’t actually have any wheelchairs.’

  My face must show what I’m thinking. That there are at least fifteen identical fucking wheelchairs parked in a row by the back door. Adrian’s been using the cushions from them as padding against the hard wooden benches for weeks.

  She continues. ‘The ones we do have, which you might have noticed by the back door, all belong to individual residents.’

  Ah, yes, of course. All those hundreds of individual residents milling about all over the place…why didn’t I think of them?

  ‘I suppose you could use one if you disinfect the seat thoroughly afterwards,’ she concedes.

  Sure thing. Just pass me the Dettol.

  *

  I help Adrian with the now painful process of getting dressed and lift him into the wheelchair. He’s still heavy, despite his lack of flesh. I push him round the garden and we stop and I sit on one of the benches
outside his bedroom. He has his legs crossed, so he doesn’t look like a real wheelchair user. We talk about Carol and Welsh Phil coming tomorrow. I’ve suggested they book into The George Hotel in Frome.

  ‘Carol says The George doesn’t have any vacancies this weekend,’ he says.

  I’m tempted to take over these arrangements but I’m sure the three of them can organise this without me. Except I know the area better and so it’s much easier for me. I decide to leave it to them though, unless they ask for help.

  It’s cold in the garden (mid-August still seems more like October) and Adrian has a pain in his back. I suggest another massage and his voice goes up an octave in the way it does when he’s pleased.

  *

  While I’m massaging his back he asks me about Body Basics (which is where I’ve been this morning for a workout) and what everyone in the family is doing. It’s nice to feel he’s interested in my life. For so many years when my children were small he’d seemed indifferent. On another wavelength. But did I ever try to engage with his career, his travels? He’s never asked much about my writing, although I’ve always had a secret fantasy I’d find a stash of women’s magazines containing stories I’d written hidden away in a drawer in his flat.

  As I move onto his arms, wrists and fingers a new nurse comes in. She’s middle-aged with chestnut brown hair and bright pink lipstick. Her name tag identifies her as Angie. I haven’t met her before and wonder what she thinks seeing us together. A brother and sister in such an intimate situation could seem strange. But then I dismiss this thought. Who cares what she thinks? If she’s chosen this job then she should understand about caring for others.

  Angie potters about the room and tells me she lives in Frome. She also tells me Adrian’s shower isn’t working and she’ll report this. No wonder Scary Red Nurse said he couldn’t wash his hair in the shower.