by Rosie Harris
The receptionist frowned, then rather reluctantly she made a couple of phone calls and was able to tell him that Mrs Wilson had not regained consciousness. They had her under constant observation but could tell him nothing more at the moment.
‘She doesn’t appear to have any broken bones but the man with her has a broken arm and dislocated shoulder.’
Tim wasn’t satisfied but thanked the receptionist for all her help.
She smiled kindly. ‘Ring later tonight, about eight o’clock. You might get more information then.’
Sally was very concerned when Tim reported the information to her.
‘I’ll take you home and then try and find out more this evening. I’ll phone you and let you know how my mother is as soon as I find out,’ he told her as he drove her home.
‘You promise you will let me know,’ Sally begged as he stopped at her front door. ‘Don’t worry about what time it is. I won’t be able to sleep until I know that she is all right.’
It was late afternoon the following day before Tim came to tell Sally that his mother was fully conscious, but completely unaware of where she was or what had happened.
Peter was also fully conscious. They had set his shoulder and he had his right arm in a plaster cast.
‘Can I visit them?’ Sally asked.
‘Not today. I suppose they might let you see Peter, but when I left, Peter was heavily sedated and they wouldn’t let me stay for more than five minutes with my mother as they insist she must have quiet. Try tomorrow.’
Twenty
Betty made a surprisingly good recovery. Apart from some scratches and bruises she was physically unhurt. Peter had taken the brunt of their impact.
The first time Sally visited them in hospital she was amazed at how well Betty looked and how bright she was in herself and how incredibly upbeat she appeared to be.
After saying how sorry she was that Peter had been so badly hurt, she startled Sally by saying what a lark it had been riding down the steep hill on her old bike; that was until her skirt became entangled with the back wheel and the brakes seemed to fail.
She wanted to be at home, and kept repeating a list of all the jobs that needed to be done there.
‘You make the most of it while they keep you in here,’ Sally told her. ‘You are well cared for, have regular meals and no worries.’
‘Oh, but I have,’ Betty insisted and again repeated all the things she wanted to get back home to do.
‘They won’t keep you here any longer than they think necessary because they’ll need your bed,’ Sally told her.
When Sally went to see Peter, it was quite a different story. He was pale and seemed to be exhausted. He complained about the pain in his shoulder and the discomfort in his plastered arm and he never once mentioned going home.
A week later a smartly dressed woman wearing an identity tag around her neck, who told Betty that she was a health visitor, came and asked for her house keys so that she could inspect her home.
‘Inspect my house!’ Betty exclaimed in an incredulous voice. ‘I’m not having you or anyone else poking around in my home while I’m not there!’
‘We have to ensure that it is safe for you to go back there; if not, we need to see if there’s anything we can install to help you,’ the health visitor told her.
Betty remained adamant, but in the end agreed that the woman could visit if she was accompanied by Sally.
Three days later Betty was told that a package had been arranged for them.
‘What sort of a package?’ Betty frowned.
‘A carer who will come in each morning, to help you shower and dress, and one will come in at midday to prepare your meal, and another each evening to help you undress and get to bed.’
‘I don’t need anyone to do those things,’ Betty told her indignantly.
‘You may think that you can manage, but you will find when you get home that you tire very easily and will be glad of the help. Mr Brown will certainly need help with dressing both night and morning,’ she added as she saw that Betty was about to start protesting again.
Betty’s lips tightened and her jaw set aggressively, but she said nothing. She didn’t want strangers fussing round in their home but if it was necessary because of Peter’s injuries then she’d try and put up with it, she resolved.
The first few days that they were back at home was tortuous to Betty. Three different people came each day and, although she tried hard, she couldn’t accept their interference. They didn’t do anything the way she liked it done. What was more, they put all the things they used back in the wrong places which irritated her greatly.
For Peter’s sake she stuck it out, but when she discovered that he felt the same way as she did about the carers, and that he hated having them there, she decided to take a stand.
‘You do realize that it will take me much longer than them to do things for you,’ she warned Peter.
‘That’s all right. I’m not in any hurry,’ he told her. ‘You’ll be gentler than them and not constantly rushing me because you have to get off to the next job.’
‘Well, I’ll do my best,’ Betty agreed, ‘but I’m not used to dressing anyone and getting your bad arm and shoulder into your clothes I might hurt you.’
‘If you do then I’ll stay in my dressing gown all day,’ he said complacently. ‘What about the shopping though?’ he asked after contemplating what life would be like without carers.
‘I’ll ask Sally if she can do it for us. If not then Tim’s wife, Brenda, or my Mary will have to help for a couple of weeks until we are both strong enough to do it for ourselves.’
‘They won’t like that,’ Peter warned.
‘If they don’t want to do it then we’ll get one of them to order our groceries online and have them delivered to the door,’ Betty said firmly. ‘Probably that is the best thing to do anyway.’
On their own at last, Betty and Peter developed a routine that was more to their liking. They overcame the problem of shopping by getting it ordered for them online and if they had forgotten anything then Sally would always pick it up for them the next time she went to the shops, which she did most days.
Sally found them a cleaner who came in twice a week to wash the floors in the kitchen and bathroom and vacuum the rest of the rooms. This suited Betty fine. She quite enjoyed dusting and automatically plumped up the cushions and straightened the curtains each morning. Peter barely moved out of his chair so he didn’t make any mess or cause any untidiness. They adjusted their diet; buying more ready meals. They were utterly content.
Betty seemed to have regained much of her old sprightliness, both physically and mentally. It was almost as if her accident had brought her a new lease of life.
It had the opposite effect on Peter. A month later his shoulder was still so painful that he could barely lift a teacup and his broken arm either had shooting pains or ached.
‘I think we need to go back to the hospital, like the surgeon told you to do if you were at all worried, and get you checked out,’ Betty told him.
‘How are we going to get there?’ he asked. ‘I can’t drive and its too far to walk. Do you think your Tim will take us?’
‘I’m not even going to ask him to do so, we’ll get a taxi,’ Betty said firmly.
Next morning, she phoned the hospital and explained the situation. She was given an appointment but it wasn’t for another week.
When the day came, Peter was very shaky walking from their front door down the garden path to the taxi. He sat in the front next to the driver, because it was easier than climbing into the back of the cab.
When they reached the hospital, Betty asked the cabby to wait while she asked a porter to help them get Peter inside. The porter brought a wheelchair and Peter stiffened when he saw it.
‘I’m not going to get in one of those,’ he protested.
‘Oh yes you are,’ Betty told him. ‘I can’t help you and you certainly can’t walk all the way to the clinic.’
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Scowling, Peter let them transfer him from the taxi to the wheelchair, his face twisted with pain as they did so. Betty went for a coffee while Peter was being examined, X-rayed, and treated. When he was finally ready for home they were told that he needed physiotherapy and would have to attend a clinic twice a week for at least a month.
It was a blow for both of them but Betty tried to make light of the situation as best she could.
‘Well, it will be an outing for us each week,’ she commented brightly.
‘I’d sooner have my outing going out into the garden and digging over the borders and pruning the bushes,’ Peter grumbled.
‘Well, at the moment you can’t do any gardening at all but after you’ve had a session or two of them manipulating that shoulder of yours then you might well be able to do so,’ Betty told him cheerfully.
Peter sighed but said nothing as he looked out of the window shaking his head dolefully at the amount of work that needed doing out there.
Betty mentioned the fact to Tim when he called and he promised to find someone to come in for a few hours each week and sort the garden out.
‘I’ll come round and take you to the hospital for Peter’s treatment, too,’ he told them.
‘That’s good of you, Tim, but there’s no need. Once we get there there’s always a porter with a wheelchair to help Peter.’
‘No, I’ll take you,’ Tim insisted. ‘I won’t wait, when he’s had his treatment, phone me on your mobile and then I’ll come and pick you up.’
‘What about if you are with a client?’ Betty asked.
‘If I am then I’ll send one of my staff,’ he said firmly.
It was the ideal solution and Betty was more than thankful that Tim had offered. Peter didn’t mind Tim helping him into the wheelchair whereas, for some reason, he had resented the taxi driver having to do it.
The treatment was very effective. At the end of the month most of the stiffness in Peter’s shoulder had gone and even his arm was no longer hurting, as long as he was careful.
‘That means no gardening or lifting anything heavy,’ Tim warned.
‘I know, I know,’ Peter said impatiently.
‘Your garden is looking fine, all neat and tidy so sit back, relax and take things easy.’
‘It looks OK,’ Peter said grudgingly, ‘but nobody does things the way you do them yourself.’
‘Perhaps they do them better,’ Tim said.
‘Humph!’ Peter muttered, but he didn’t pursue the matter. He guessed that Tim was joking but he couldn’t bring himself to rise to the occasion and retaliate. It was all right for Tim, he was young, he could still drive his car and do his garden if he wanted to do so. Tim wasn’t old and decrepit like he was.
He wandered down the garden to his shed and looked with distaste at the state it was in. The man who came in might keep the garden in order but he certainly didn’t bother to do the same with the tools. Spades, fork, hoes and even the shears were all jumbled up in a heap, not hanging on their respective pegs.
Exasperated, Peter began to sort them out. A stab of pain is his shoulder brought him up sharp, and the physiotherapist’s warnings about what he could and could not do came rushing back. He flung down the shears in disgust and walked out of the shed, slamming the door so hard that it bounded back open and he had to shut it properly.
That was the last straw, he thought rebelliously. He couldn’t even tidy his shed. He walked down to his garage and stared in at his car. It had been sitting there for months now and looked so dejected that he felt sorry for it.
Hearing Betty’s voice calling his name, he came out of the garage closing the door quietly behind him. He hoped that she hadn’t seen where he was. If he said that the car looked abandoned she might take it into her head to go for a drive in it and he remembered what had happened the last time she’d done that.
Betty could see that, although he accepted the situation, Peter was not happy about someone else doing the jobs outside that he preferred to do himself.
She tried to console him by saying that it would only be a short time now before he could potter out there, but she knew he didn’t believe her.
She didn’t believe what she was saying either and decided that she would have a talk with Tim, if she could manage to get him on his own and take him into her confidence. She would tell him that the house was becoming a burden to both of them and see what he thought was the right thing for them to do in the future.
Twenty-One
Peter became more and more fractious as time passed and, although his arm and shoulder had both healed, they continued to cause him considerable discomfort.
He couldn’t bear to wear a formal jacket and instead opted for cardigans that were light and loose, yet warm for the greatest comfort. Whenever he tried to do anything manually, like lifting, digging, pruning and even mowing the lawn, they were out of the question. The gardener that Tim had found for them was a steady worker but the hours he was doing each week were nowhere near enough to keep everything in order now that spring had arrived.
Although Betty sympathized with Peter whenever he made this point, she always reminded him they really couldn’t afford to pay out more for the care of the garden. She always added that if they could afford to spend more on help then she would like to have the cleaner come in more often. Although the house looked to be in order, Betty knew that the beds were never moved out from the wall, or the corners behind the furniture in the sitting room ever cleaned.
Often Betty found that she had to clean the windows herself and use a brush and dustpan to clean the carpet on the stairs. She’d tried to use the vacuum cleaner on the stairs but it was an old cumbersome model, and it was far too heavy for her to manage.
More and more Betty knew that sooner or later they would have to move away from the cottage and street they both loved to a place that was more manageable. She had been aware of this ever since she had discovered that Peter often went up the stairs on all fours because he hadn’t the strength in his right arm to use the banister rail to pull himself up. Coming down was equally perilous for him and he was scared of slipping or falling and damaging his shoulder again.
Moving into a bungalow seemed to be the obvious solution but when she spoke to Tim about it he had looked doubtful. ‘There’s not all that many on the market but I’ll check through our lists and let you know,’ he promised.
He brought her a folder of leaflets containing details of all the bungalows on his books. She picked out two that she thought might be suitable but when she showed them to Peter he wasn’t interested.
‘I don’t like bungalows and I wouldn’t want to live in any of those,’ he told her.
‘Then what about turning the dining room here into a bedroom for you to save you struggling to get up and down the stairs?’ Betty suggested.
‘What, and take our meals upstairs to eat?’ he said sarcastically.
‘No, of course not.’ Betty said crossly. ‘We’d eat in the kitchen; there’s certainly plenty of room and we already have a table in there.’
‘Sit at the kitchen table on a couple of hard wooden chairs, where’s the comfort in that?’ he asked in a withering tone of voice. ‘What happens if someone comes to dinner,’ he added when Betty said nothing.
‘We don’t have folks to dinner any more. I’m not up to doing the cooking. Anyway, who would we ask? If it was Sally then she’d be happy enough to join us in the kitchen.’
‘What about if it was your Tim or Mary, or one of their lot,’ Peter argued petulantly. ‘Or even if they dropped in one day while we were eating our meal.’
‘They’d have to take us as they find us. They’re family. They’d understand.’
‘Perhaps they would but I wouldn’t like it,’ he muttered.
Betty said nothing, but she carefully gathered up the details and pictures of the bungalows that Tim said were on the market at the moment and put them away. I’ll leave it for a few days and then try again, she told hers
elf. He may come round when he’s had time to think about it.
Although they both avoided the topic, Betty noticed that Peter seemed to be studying what space there was available in the kitchen. Several times too, when she was busy doing something else in the house, he would be checking out the dining room as if contemplating using it as a bedroom.
A couple of nights later, just after she’d undressed, got into bed and turned the light out, she heard him moving about downstairs. She listened, wondering what he was doing.
Smiling to herself, she pushed back the bedclothes, wondering whether to go down and join him. It might be an ideal time to talk over the idea of them moving. She moved quietly because she didn’t want him to hear. She didn’t switch on a light, but pulled back her bedroom curtains so there was enough moonlight coming in through the window for her to see what she was doing.
She reached for her dressing gown and went out on to the landing.
To her surprise, there was no light coming from anywhere downstairs. She waited a few moments, then decided she’d been mistaken and that she might as well go back to bed. She had her hand on the door handle and was about to open it when she heard Peter coming up the stairs.
She hesitated. Was it too late now? Had she missed her chance, she wondered. Would it be better to do it in the morning over breakfast?
She decided to leave it for the morning and went back to her room. As she began to take off her dressing gown, Betty saw her bedroom door was very cautiously being opened. She smiled to herself. So he did want to talk about it and he was looking to see if she was still awake. She switched on the bedside light as she didn’t want him stumbling over anything and falling.
As she started to speak her words ended in a shrill cry. It wasn’t Peter standing there; it was a man in black jeans, black T-shirt and a black balaclava hood hiding his face.
Betty took a deep breath and let out another scream.
‘Shut up, you silly bitch,’ he snarled in a rasping voice. ‘Where do you keep your money and your jewellery. Give us them. Hurry!’