The Man Who Didn't Go to Newcastle

by Alison Clink

  ‘Sorry about this, Ali,’ he says as I help him to the bathroom where he nearly passes out with cold as I wash his body…

  We have reached an all-time low. The smell is foul. The situation is so humiliating for him and repulsive for me, which is why we need the help of an outsider. Everyone I’ve spoken to in the caring agencies has told me I’ll need all the practical help I can get, thus ensuring my relationship with my brother is not jeopardised. I now see what they mean. We have crossed a new boundary.

  Once he’s cleaned up I settle Adrian into his bed. I tell him again to ring me on my mobile if he needs me in the night. I keep my phone switched on next to my bed every night now.

  Wednesday 29th August 2007

  The first thing I do is check my phone. Adrian hasn’t rung me during the night, which is encouraging – I hope. But what I don’t realise is that this is going to be another one of those really horrible, rock bottom days.

  In this morning’s post is a letter from a literary agent rejecting an excerpt from my novel which I submitted in January. Why did he have to pick today to send it back?

  Then I receive a phone call from Bristol University telling me I’m not accepted onto a course called The Writers’ Room which I’d been looking forward to as a lifeline back to civilization in October.

  Thirdly, the weather has changed again. It’s no longer hot enough to lie or even sit out in the garden.

  And number four. Adrian looks like a dying man.

  He says he feels awful. I can hear him talking to his friends on his mobile. He’s putting Phil G off from visiting and yet he does manage to write a letter to Welsh Phil with a list of things he wants him to bring when he comes to visit.

  Apart from taking Billy out for an hour, I wait in all day for the delivery from Medequip who are meant to be bringing some extra bits and pieces to make life easier for Adrian. Eventually they arrive – horrendous looking implements: a raised toilet seat to fix on our downstairs loo, a wheelchair (Adrian doesn’t even flinch when this is brought into the house) and an electric reclining chair with a safety cut-out mechanism in case a small child should get trapped underneath. I can see its potential danger when I try it out. A dog could also be squashed if it was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Especially a little white fluffy dog by the name of Billy.

  However, the ramp we requested which would enable Adrian to get back into the house unaided, if we were out for example, is not there. And we still have the Any Old Iron bed.

  *

  Later, as I struggle through the Disabled Living Allowance form – yes, I still haven’t managed to fill this in – the fiction editor from a woman’s magazine phones. Hurray – she wants to buy my latest short story, Daphne Higgenbottom’s Holiday. This piece of good news cancels out the two earlier rejections and makes me feel my writing career is back on track. The magazine have asked for a few words to be changed in the last paragraph so I read the ending to Adrian and we set to work to come up with a better last line. However, I don’t think he understands how this works. He asks if I now have to write the story.

  ‘No, I wrote it months ago,’ I explain. ‘Then I sent it to the editor, and now she wants to buy it.’

  Adrian did once edit one of my stories – a comedy about a woman whose husband was addicted to gambling on the horses. He added some good authentic horse racing details.

  While I’m trying to get the ending of the Daphne Higgenbottom story right Adrian keeps asking me for things like an envelope and stamp for his letter to Welsh Phil. But I’m busy. Can’t he see I’ve got a life too? It must be very frustrating for him not being able to get little things like this for himself, but I’m so elated to have sold a story I just want to get on with the alterations. Eventually he offers a few suggestions for the ending, which I use.

  Later in the evening, the poo smell pervades the cooking again. Chilli con carne doesn’t lend itself to the concurrent smell of diarrhoea but, although we have been allocated extra cleaning help, no one will come until tomorrow. I’m getting used to the pong, but even tough little Lizzie said the smell made her feel sick.

  The whole family gathers for dinner. Jack and Ed are at home and the girls are also in. It could be like a big happy dinner party. But it’s not. Adrian doesn’t eat anything and goes straight back into the study to lie down. I try to persuade him to have a pro-biotic drink since an article in today’s paper suggests they’re good for people suffering with C.diff. He says he doesn’t like them but tries to force it down.

  Half an hour later he comes out of the study from his bed and sits in the adjustable chair which I’ve positioned in front of the kitchen television at his request. He says he’ll have it moved into the living room later. I look at him in the chair. He’s like a ninety-year-old, a bag of bones. He hasn’t shaved. He watches a bit of the football. John Commerford rings me on the house phone to say he’s worried because he’s not getting any answers from Adrian to his text messages. John wants to visit this weekend. He sounds so bright and cheerful. Such a contrast to the mood here. He says he’s watching the cricket in floodlight at his ex-wife’s house. Actually, he always seems to be at his ex-wife’s house. He then becomes solemn. I’ve noticed he does this sometimes and this reminds me he’s now a grown man and not the teenage John I knew years ago in West Wickham.

  ‘I do think you’re being awfully kind taking Adrian in,’ he says. I feel a bit emotional when he says this, but yet again I think, anyone else would surely do exactly what I am doing under the circumstances. And John has a twin sister. I’m convinced he’d do the same for her.

  *

  Every time someone tells me how great I’m being, I find it hard to accept the compliment. When Mum was ill, I didn’t take her in, though she’d have loved to live here. Dementia presents a different set of emotions and problems, and when it came to the crunch, I let her down. The old Mum I would have taken in at the drop of a hat and thoroughly enjoyed her company. But not the Mum at the end of her life who wandered outside on her own looking for her passport in the bushes, or thought we were on a ship sailing to India in the 1930s. I found the change in her difficult to cope with. I could have emptied the study out for my mum and got her a bed, but I didn’t – and I clearly remember thinking at the time that if I did bring her home then I’d probably end up being the one losing the plot.

  The choice was either her or me, and in the end I chose me.

  Thursday 30th August 2007

  Busy Lizzie arrives, does her job and leaves before I even wake. When I come downstairs Adrian is in bed looking, and clearly feeling, dreadful. I just don’t know what to do to help him, so I empty the commode, which I am getting used to, even though the smell is like nothing I’ve ever smelled before. A mixture somewhere between sweet and foul. I spray the air, the furniture and any surfaces I can find with my new disinfectant, at the same time pottering around wiping door handles and tables. But all the time I’m worried about Adrian. Eventually I call the doctor again. As Adrian’s a ‘gold star’ patient I don’t have to give a reason for requesting a home visit.

  I wait and wait. The GP, Dr Hill, arrives in the afternoon, a bespectacled youngish, curly-haired giant with a gentle bedside manner. He looks at Adrian and orders a blood test from the District Nurses – which makes me think – where the hell are the District Nurses anyway?

  As we walk from the study through the kitchen and into the living room the doctor asks me who owns this house. ‘I do,’ I say wondering why he wants to know.

  ‘So where does your brother live?’

  ‘In London. But he’s staying with us.’

  ‘So you’re looking after him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re very kind.’

  ‘Not really…’

  ‘Well, I don’t think either of my sisters would take me in and look after me!’ The doctor laughs and I seriously doubt his sisters would turn their backs on this man in a million years. Then he crouches at the coffee table in the living room
to write something out and I ask him for information on C.diff. How dangerous is it really for us living here with someone who has the infection?

  ‘I’ve seen a lot of it,’ he says. He’s reassuringly confident and down to earth. For the first time all day, or in fact for days, I feel protected from everything going on around me. I’m heartily relieved the diminutive locum with the Mary Poppins accessories wasn’t on duty today. Dr Hill asks who else is living here.

  ‘Apart from myself and my husband, there’s my oldest son, Jack and his girlfriend, Willow. Then there’s my other son, Ed and my twin daughters. So all in all seven people when everyone’s at home.’

  ‘You’ve got quite a house full.’

  ‘Yes. I suppose it is. And eight now Adrian is here.’

  ‘Goodness. You have got your hands full. But no – in answer to your question, none of you are in any danger of contracting C.diff. So long as you are all healthy, you’re not at risk. It’s the elderly and the very young or those already ill who are at risk of catching it.’

  So we could have had him here weeks ago. Damn.

  ‘But I’ve heard it’s fatal – or can be. In what way can it be fatal?’ I ask.

  ‘Dehydration is always a danger when a patient has persistent diarrhoea,’ he says. ‘And there’s also a likelihood he could have renal failure.’

  Up until the 1960s when they discovered the simple cure of drinking salt water, diarrhoea was a killer. Which is why Adrian is prescribed sachets of Dioralyte.

  After the doctor has gone I whizz off to Sainsbury’s again, this time for creams and extra soft pillows, drinking straws, a lottery ticket and other things for Adrian. Yes, he still wants a lottery ticket for Saturday night. That’s my boy.

  *

  In the early evening when I get back from Sainsbury’s I’m relieved to see Adrian has perked up. Phil G phones him on his mobile but he doesn’t want to take the call and doesn’t pick up. Afterwards Phil rings me on the house phone and I tell him I think Adrian will be better tomorrow night and perhaps he should ring then. Phil says he’ll come down. He’s prepared to come any time. Now. Whenever. When we’ve finished talking I realise, possibly for the first time, what a huge loss this will be for Phil G too if Adrian dies. His friend, buddy, business partner, he’s losing so much. As much, if not more, than I am. They see each other, or at least communicate, on a daily basis. They share a love of horse racing, crosswords, pub quizzes, boozy trips on river boats. They’ve created a business together. I sit in the study with Adrian after talking to Phil and we chat about things. He asks me about the Ian McEwan book, Saturday, which is in bookcase. It’s about a brain surgeon.

  This reminds Adrian of a man he used to see in The Gardener’s who was also a surgeon, somewhat of a loner, who Adrian noticed was shaking a great deal as if he had something seriously wrong with him.

  ‘Then, years later when I was at some business course in a pub in Parsons Green, I started thinking about this man for no reason at all. He just popped into my head out of the blue. Later when I left the pub and walked round the corner I came face to face with him. I couldn’t believe it. He wasn’t shaking any more. I mean, before he looked like he had Parkinson’s or something. Very strange.’

  This story on reflection raises several questions. One, what had Adrian been drinking in the pub at Parsons Green? Two, why would a business course be held in a pub? Three, could he perhaps have seen the man without realising it beforehand and this was what made him come subconsciously into Adrian’s mind? And four, if he wasn’t displaying the same excessive shaking then maybe this wasn’t the same man.

  However. Whatever. We talk on about this kind of supernatural intuition and in fact I think I believe in it more than he does. I then tell Adrian about the morning when Mum died. She was in hospital at the time, and I woke at five-thirty, which I later discovered was the time she passed away.

  ‘My whole body was in pain, everything, even my gums were throbbing,’ I recall. Adrian’s response is to say he too has had problems with his gums… So I guess he’s not really on the same wavelength. I’ve always believed in this kind of transference of feeling, though. I saw a TV programme once about mothers whose children had been in serious accidents. All of them experienced physical and mental sensations at the time their children were injured, even though they’d been nowhere near them and had no idea what was happening to them. I don’t believe in ghosts, but I do believe in a kind of transference of pain or strong emotion between people who are very close.

  During the night when I’m in bed I hear Adrian mumbling again. I consider going downstairs to see if he’s alright but I’m so sleepy and I don’t want to wake Peter and everyone else in the house. Exhaustion takes over and I drift off, recalling his mumbling the first night he was here – when I did go down to see if he was alright. On that occasion he seemed to be just talking to himself. But he had been drinking then, and is not drinking now. Anyway I have my phone switched on in case he needs me…

  Friday 31st August 2007

  I wake at eight-fifty to the sound of drilling. Darren, the shy electrician, is working on the new bathroom lights. When I go downstairs I realise Lizzie is here too, because I can hear her voice in the study.

  I open the study doors. Adrian is sitting on the floor with Lizzie crouched beside him. He’s slumped against my desk, dressed only in underpants. Being only small, and with the radiator turned up high, the room is swelteringly hot.

  ‘What’s happened?’ I ask as a string of thoughts speed through my mind.

  ‘It’s alright,’ Lizzie says. ‘I’ve already rung for help.’

  ‘Oh, my God, what happened? How long have you been there, Adrian?’ I recall the mumbling noises I heard in the night.

  ‘I fell over while I was trying to reach the commode and then I couldn’t get up. I couldn’t reach my phone. That was about four hours ago.’

  ‘Oh no.’ I bite my thumbnail. ‘Oh, no.’ I feel absolutely terrible. Totally responsible. I didn’t come down when I heard him mumbling in the night, and obviously Peter and Ed didn’t look in on him before they went to work, either. They must have been in a hurry and left without having breakfast. And Jack is staying over at Willow’s. But has he really only been there for four hours? Surely it was more than four hours ago when I heard him talking. I can’t work this out. I doubt he can help me. However long it’s been I can’t bear to think of him stranded on the floor like this. There isn’t even any carpet – the floor is oak and the rug is in the wash.

  But life goes on. Whoever Lizzie called hasn’t arrived so I enlist Darren’s help to lift Adrian back into the bed. Poor Darren. He can’t be more than nineteen. His face reddens. He looks shocked. Shell shocked – but he helps quietly and so obligingly, bringing his own gentle presence into this strange scenario. How bizarre this must seem to him, coming as he has from the outside, normal world into our somewhat abnormal one. Adrian groans with relief as he is reunited with his bed.

  *

  Mid-morning a District Nurse, Judith, arrives. I haven’t met her before. She’s suntanned and more glamorous than the one who came a week ago. Judith tells us she’s just back from Greece, but has returned to chaos. I tell her that none of the District Nurses have turned up to help us. Even though the GP ordered a blood test yesterday nothing has been done. Judith seems unimpressed by the way things in her department haven’t been happening in her absence.

  One of the first things she asks me is whether I’ve been giving Adrian Imodium Plus, the over-the-counter bog standard cure for holiday diarrhoea. My answer is ‘no’ and yet a full packet of Imodium Plus resides in my medicine cabinet and has done all summer.

  I feel like kicking myself. I could scream. I could have been giving him Imodium. And to make matters worse, I had thought of trying it, but decided it was too ordinary to deal with this seemingly extraordinary illness.

  *

  Judith rings Dorothy House to arrange an overnight sitter. She seems angry at the lac
k of support we’ve had. Eventually Judith and Lizzie leave and Adrian and I are alone. He is now out of bed and sitting, or rather lolling, in the adjustable chair.

  I’d promised myself a visit to Body Basics this morning for a workout, but have to accept I won’t make it. I have to help him onto the commode again before he’s even had a chance to get himself comfortable in the chair. He is in pain, agony. Desperate.

  ‘I just can’t be bothered any more,’ he says as I lower him onto the commode.

  I try to chivvy him along, the way Lizzie does. Try to imitate the kind of upbeat chattiness she’s so good at.

  But I’m not Lizzie.

  ‘I’m going to die,’ he says.

  ‘No, you’re not,’ I reply.

  He sits on the commode for a few minutes after which I help him back to the adjustable chair and mix up a sachet of Imodium Plus.

  ‘I must have been a very, very bad person,’ Adrian says.

  I can’t think of a fitting answer to this. Of course you haven’t. Don’t be so silly. Every reply sounds trite. He must know he hasn’t. He’s a good man. A lovely man.

  ‘Shall I put the television on?’ is all I can think of as an answer.

  ‘Yes,’ he says and I switch the kitchen television on. Fuck. Why does today have to be the tenth anniversary of the death of Princess Diana? All the channels seem to be showing live broadcasts of her memorial service. The kitchen television doesn’t have a digi box or any other channels than the main four. On BBC One the commentary is following A-list royals as they climb the steps to the chapel where the service is taking place. I’m half watching. Wills and Harry are there. Some women. Possibly Beatrice and Eugenie looking awkward in peculiar hats shaped like flying saucers which have accidentally landed on and become affixed to their foreheads. In fact, not dissimilar to the hat worn by Picasso’s Femme au Chapeau.