I Built No Schools in Kenya

by Kirsten Drysdale

  I imagine us all marching through the marshlands of North Yorkshire, grouse beaters up ahead, roused springer spaniels at our feet, gun smoke hanging in the air.

  ‘Oh, ho-ho, you always were an excellent shot, weren’t you?’ Walt says, twirling a flirtatious finger in Ruby’s direction.

  ‘Thank you for noticing,’ she replies.

  ‘And did you dress the bird yourself?’ he challenges.

  ‘Of course she did, Walt!’ Annette exclaims, feigning indignation on Ruby’s behalf.

  ‘You know I like to see things through,’ Ruby adds.

  ‘I don’t believe it! You women don’t like to get your hands dirty …’ Walt says, a mischievous expression flickering over his face, a smile tickling his cheeks.

  ‘She did, Walt!’ I step in to defend Ruby. ‘And she caught a fair few more birds than you today, so I’d be careful how cheeky you get, mzee!’

  Walt roars with laughter at that. He laughs throughout most of dinner, as we take turns recounting the highlights from our day in the dales, teasing each other over who had the poorest aim, who slipped most in the mud. By the time we’ve finished dessert – an apple and cinnamon tart with custard – we’ve tallied four partridges, two pheasants and a duck.

  ‘Well, that was a splendid meal, thank you all.’ Walt leans back in his chair and slaps his palms down on the armrests. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I must go and clean my guns.’

  Guns. Ruh-roh. I shoot Ruby and Annette a panicked look.

  ‘Oh, no need to worry about that, Walt – we cleaned them earlier, remember?’ Ruby offers.

  ‘How about we finish off this wine?’ I suggest, pouring the dregs of the re-bottled Ribena into his glass.

  It’s not going to work. Walt is fixated. And we are all trapped with him, in a hallucination of our own creation.

  He gets sterner. ‘No, I don’t believe I have cleaned my guns yet. I must clean them before tomorrow. I just can’t think where I’ve put them …’ He stands up from the table, starting to look around the room as he tries to figure out which door to go through.

  Ruby tries to distract Walt by dancing. Annette feigns a coughing fit. I can’t think of anything better to do than to guilt him over bad manners. I sneak another slice of apple tart into my bowl. ‘Walt, please. It’s terribly rude to leave when the ladies are still eating, isn’t it?’

  He sits reluctantly, grinding his teeth.

  Then I make the mistake of pouring him some more custard.

  ‘I don’t want any bloody custard! I want you to tell me, right now,’ he pounds the table and sends the spoon flying, warm yellow globs flung everywhere, ‘right this instant, where my guns are!’

  There’s nothing for it but to come clean – only we can’t. He won’t believe us. He can’t accept that our day of hunting has been a fantasy, or that we’re on another continent decades in the future. If only that lion was still on the wall.

  It’s clear to him what’s happened: his guns have been stolen, and we’re all in on the cover-up. Not even bringing Esther and Khamisi in from the kitchen, or calling Frank over to tap on the window with his guard torch, or turning on the radio for the BBC Africa news updates brings Walt back to reality.

  In the end, we have to barricade ourselves in Ruby’s bedroom and leave Walt to stalk around the house opening and closing cupboards until midnight, when his rage finally drops to a simmer. He puts himself to bed cursing his dastardly foes, swearing to ‘sort the swines out’ in the morning.

  I make a note in the carers’ ‘Bible’ to avoid conversations about hunting.

  Talk of guns = MAJOR trigger! Perhaps stick with fishing trips.

  When Fiona calls the next day to check in, I fill her in on the hunting incident.

  Although I fear it’s a sign that Walt’s dementia is progressing, in a way I think it’s a good thing that it happened when it did – Fiona can’t try to pin any of the blame on something Marguerite ‘triggered’, when Marguerite wasn’t even there. Though Fiona does try to suggest we could have done more to control it. ‘You should have called the staff in – he’d recognise them and realise he was in Kenya.’

  ‘We did. That didn’t work.’

  ‘What about Chiku? You could have used her as a distraction.’

  ‘We considered that, but thought it might make things worse given he was already convinced that any dogs around the place were his hunting dogs.’

  ‘Okay, well, I think we’re just going to have to become more creative about how we deal with Dad when he gets difficult.’

  Easy for you to say from a distance, I think.

  ‘And I think we need to have a back-up carer on each shift. To be on hand to help if Dad gets difficult, and to cover for whoever is on duty when they need to go to the toilet. He shouldn’t be left alone for even the briefest of moments. There should always, always, be someone in the room with him – no more than three metres away,’ she says. ‘He’s starting to lose strength. We can’t have him standing up and losing his balance with no one around to catch him.’

  And so, to his obvious annoyance, we become Walt’s shadows. Although he doesn’t fully grasp it, he seems aware of the fact that he’s never truly given a moment alone. He becomes more fidgety – wanting to get up and walk around the house or the garden, trying to lose whoever is tailing him that day. By the time Marguerite gets back from England, we are feeling trapped all over again.

  A few days later, Fiona calls back with the results of her latest research. Ruby and I sit on Skype in the living room while Annette takes Walt for a walk around the garden.

  ‘I don’t think it’s any old dementia,’ Fiona tells us.

  I tend to agree. His isn’t the sort of sweetly screwy senility that saw my grandmother stuff her handbag full of leftover lamb chops wrapped in serviettes. His is more paranoid, more intense. More of a torment than a simple loss of memory.

  Fiona thinks he’s got what’s known as ‘Lewy body dementia’ or ‘LBD’. The only way to confirm a diagnosis is a post-mortem autopsy, where through a microscope the brain will reveal itself to be riddled with sticky balls of protein: the ‘Lewy bodies’ of the disease’s name, which appear inside nerve cells as small, spherical masses. Eventually these balls colonise the grey matter, leaving no room for the biological processes that facilitate regular thought. Perhaps most tragically they are thought to cause the loss of dopamine neurons – the cells that help us experience life’s pleasures.

  For now we can only speculate, look at Walt from the outside and try to pinpoint his pathology, but his daughter says the doctors agree that LBD is the most likely explanation for his behaviour. And he fits the pattern of decline: unlike Alzheimer’s disease, which tends to be slow and steady, LBD advances in a ‘step-like’ progression. After a time of seeming stability, a sufferer will just wake up one day unable to walk properly or to remember people’s names.

  Fiona rattles through a list of symptoms she found online.

  All of this, Ruby and I agree, is Walt to a T.

  Years later, I’ll read a heartbreaking essay by Robin Williams’ widow, Susan Schneider Williams, published in the journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Titled ‘The Terrorist Inside My Husband’s Brain’, it vividly describes the everyday effects of Lewy body dementia as her husband suffered it before taking his own life. I’m struck by how closely her story details the type of trauma Walt was experiencing.

  Susan writes of how Robin’s illness – a mystery at the time; he’d only been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease – started with seemingly unrelated symptoms: ‘Constipation, urinary difficulty, heartburn, sleeplessness and insomnia … a poor sense of smell – and lots of stress.’ She tells of how his fear and anxiety ‘skyrocketed to a point that was alarming’ – something she later learned was an early indication of LBD – and that his condition soon progressed to ‘problems with paranoia, delusions and looping, insomnia, memory, and high cortisol levels’.

  Everything Susan writes about her
husband’s experience mirrors Walt’s. Especially her observation of the unpredictability of it all, the way the ‘plethora of LBD symptoms appear and disappear at random times – even throughout the course of a day’. It was only once Robin had died that doctors were able to confirm that his mind had, as they’d suspected, been invaded by Lewy bodies. Experts declared his ‘one of the worst LBD pathologies they had seen’ and told Susan there was nothing else anyone could have done. Robin, it seemed, knew he was losing his mind, and found that agony too much to bear.

  The moments that Walt knows his own grasp on reality has slipped are by far his worst, too. I understand that. A few times, he’s sat me on the edge of his bed, looked me in the eye and said he’s had enough. To have to witness yourself unravelling, watch your wit coming undone like old rope, knowing that very soon you’ll be floating out at sea in the nothingness, adrift and alone in the dark. The thought of it is undoubtedly terrifying. Surely that’s the cruel-lest way of all to turn the lights out on someone?

  But a key difference between Robin Williams’ story and Walt’s is the environment they each found themselves in when the disease struck. Robin was on a movie set. Walt is in the middle of a dangerous city in Africa. His fight-or-flight instinct sees him reach for confiscated guns, or wanting to drive away into Nairobi traffic. The terrorists in his brain are real: memories of Mau Mau fighters breaking into his house, of people trying to rob him, trying to kill him.

  In Walt’s case, it’s hard for anyone to draw the line between paranoid delusion and traumatic flashback – and it’s almost as frightening for us as it is for him. We have to ensure his wellbeing, but our own physical safety also becomes a very real concern. Over the next week he grabs me a couple of times, trying to prise car keys out of my grip, and I’m stunned by his strength. Anger seems to nullify his physical frailty – I know he could really hurt us if he wanted to.

  One morning, I’m kneeling on the ground in Walt’s bedroom, trying to fit the little piece of pink bubblegum between his toes. Another corn is forming – we’ll need to take him to the podiatrist if it gets any worse.

  He keeps kicking the gum away just as I’m about to put his socks on. ‘What’s that horrid lump of muck?’ he says. He’s grumbly today because it’s grey outside. Or maybe he’s just grumbly because he’s grumbly.

  ‘Please, Walt!’ I beg, when he kicks the toe separator for the third time. ‘I’m trying to help you. This will make your foot feel better.’

  Annette overhears us as she’s walking past. She’s off duty, but she pops in to help anyway. ‘Hello there, handsome man!’ she says, distracting him while I fiddle with the bubblegum again. ‘Well, you would be a very handsome man if you had a tie on, wouldn’t you?’ She takes a tie from the dresser and sits beside him to put it on.

  Walt relishes the flirtatious attention. Annette natters away at him, doing his tie up and straightening his hair just long enough for me to finish with his shoes and socks.

  ‘Thanks so much,’ I say when it’s finally done. Her time with us is nearly up; it’ll be a huge loss when she’s gone. She’s been very good with Walt, but has found the tension between Fiona and Marguerite hard to cope with.

  Ruby’s mum knows a lady who knows a girl in Gladstone who might be a good replacement. As I take Walt through to sit by the fire in the living room, I hear Ruby and her mum talking on Skype in the study.

  ‘She’s only nineteen,’ Ruby’s mum is saying, ‘but she’s actually been working in an old folks’ home. She wants to take a gap year and do some travel – it’s perfect!’

  ‘Mum, are you sure she’d be up for it? We really need to make sure we’ve got the right kind of person. It’s not as simple as it sounds.’

  ‘Yeah, course! She’d be great, Ruby!’

  ‘Have you explained the situation to her? Like, in full? All the crazy family drama and everything? What Walt’s like?’ Ruby really does want to make sure this girl has the full story before she comes.

  ‘Pffft, Ruby, she says she’s seen plenty of that in the nursing home. People squabbling over inheritance and that sort of thing. She knows what she’s in for.’

  But Jade does not know what she is in for.

  Two weeks later, those iron gates are swinging open again for Carer Number Nine. I have never seen culture shock writ so large across a person’s face as the moment Jade pulls up in the driveway only to be berated by Walt for stealing his car and by Marguerite for having smudged eyeliner.

  ‘I say, did somebody punch you on the plane? You’ve got a horrid big bruise on your face.’

  ‘Ummm, hi,’ Jade says awkwardly, trying to wipe her eyes clean. God, she’s just a kid! I realise. Then she screams, ‘Argh! What’s that?!’ as Chiku races past, chasing a monkey that’s been stealing scraps from the rubbish pit at the back of the staff quarters.

  It turns out that until now, nineteen-year-old Jade from Gladstone has never been out of Queensland. She’d been dreaming of going to Melbourne for a weekend – that was going to be her big adventure. Now she’s in a Nairobi nuthouse, a return flight booked for three months’ time. And despite Ruby’s and my best efforts to put her at ease that night of her arrival, her second day on the job dashes any hopes she might have had for a soft landing.

  It starts off simply enough. I’m on duty so I talk her through the bed alarm, getting Walt dressed and the morning routine of breakfast and pills and papers on the patio.

  But then Walt goes to the loo and doesn’t come back.

  And when we check the baby monitor, he’s not there.

  And then Esther comes out to the patio looking alarmed. ‘Kirsten, please, come quickly. The bwana is very cross.’

  We follow her through to the garage, where Walt’s found himself a garden hoe. ‘These bloody people!’ he roars when he sees us. He rattles the bonnet, trying to pop it open.

  ‘Hi, Walt, what’s going on?’ I ask tentatively, keeping Jade behind me.

  ‘I’m disconnecting the batteries to all of these vehicles. Sick to bloody death of people driving them around without my permission! I can see how many miles you’ve clocked up. You’ve got a bloody cheek.’ He rattles the bonnet harder. ‘But I’ve got no fucking keys to get into them.’ He looks at me, puts his hand out. ‘Give me the keys.’

  ‘Walt, I don’t have the keys.’

  ‘You bloody well give them to me now, you bitch!’

  ‘Go inside,’ I tell Jade. She’s not equipped to deal with this level of Walt-fuckery just yet. ‘Okay, Walt, I’ll give you the keys but I have to find them first.’

  He comes closer and swats at the sides of my shorts to check I’m not stashing them in my pockets. I hold an arm out defensively, then pull my pockets inside out to prove I don’t have them on me as I backtrack into the driveway. ‘Esther, get James, please, and Ruby – and see if you can find the keys.’

  By the time they all come tearing out of the house, Walt is holding the garden hoe over his head and chasing me in circles around the driveway. Chiku thinks it’s a game and is running between us barking, nipping our heels. A crowd has gathered: James, Esther, Khamisi, David, Peter, Patrick, Jade and Ruby are all now standing around on the gravel, helpless in the morning sun.

  Peter’s got the keys to the Peugeot. He jangles them before tossing them carefully on the ground at Walt’s feet. Walt snatches them up, walks over to the Mazda, finds they don’t fit.

  ‘Bwana! Bwana, that is the wrong car. Please – try this one,’ James says, trying to lure him over to the garage.

  But the bwana is now incandescent. He comes at me again.

  He’s about to strike, when Ruby saves the day. She runs between us, then stages a ‘fall’: lies groaning on the gravel, clutching a knee to her chest, screaming for help. The staff all run over, not realising it’s a ruse until they get close enough to see her giving the thumbs up and they twig to play along.

  ‘Oh madam, madam,’ Patrick cries, hands over his head in pantomime despair, ‘are you alright?’
/>
  Walt stops in his tracks, torn between his chivalrous and murderous instincts.

  ‘I will get you a bandage,’ Esther says, racing inside, trying to stifle her giggles.

  ‘Quickly,’ James tells the others, ‘send for help!’

  I crouch beside Ruby to play the damsel in distress. ‘Oh no, Walt, can you help us? Please! She’s hurt herself badly.’

  It works.

  Walt drops the hoe and walks over to where Ruby lies crumpled on the ground. ‘You took a terrible tumble, there, young lady,’ he says, looking down at her tenderly. ‘Now, where does it hurt?’

  Ruby even manages to squeeze some tears out. ‘My leg – I think I’ve broken it!’

  Walt takes charge, starts clicking his fingers, issuing orders. ‘Okay, let’s get you inside. Kuja hapa, James – call for a doctor. You two,’ he points at Patrick and Peter, ‘help carry this young lass inside.’

  ‘Yes, bwana,’ they say, taking an arm each, Khamisi rushing in to help me support her legs. By the time we get her inside and laid out on the couch, we’re all of us nearly in stitches.

  But Ruby has fully committed to her role. She lays a hand across her head, rolls her eyes back. ‘Oh dear, I think I might faint!’

  Esther arrives with a wet washer and a glass of water, while Walt sits holding Ruby’s hand. ‘Where’s that bloody doctor?’ he asks.

  ‘I think they’ve just arrived, Walt,’ I say. ‘I’ll go bring her in.’

  I find Jade in the dining room, biting her nails. ‘Hey, mate – we need you to pretend to be a doctor for a bit.’

  ‘Huh?’ she says.

  ‘Just – come through to the living room and pretend to take Ruby’s pulse and stuff. I dunno, act professional.’ I spy my gym bag on the end of my bed through the open sunroom door; I duck in to grab it, then pick up my headphones on the way back. ‘Here, use these, pretend they’re a stethoscope. And maybe tell Ruby to take one of these.’ I hand Jade the tub of Marguerite’s multivitamins from the sideboard and put the gym bag into her hands to be carried like a doctor’s satchel.