by Rosie Harris
Instinctively, Betty grabbed up the polished wooden jewellery box that had pride of place on her dressing table and clutched it to her. Jeff had made it for her when they had become engaged.
‘No, you’re not getting them,’ she yelled at the intruder.
He grabbed at the box but she clung to it, refusing to let him have it. He was so much stronger than her that he grabbed even more aggressively. Betty heard Peter come into the room and shouted at him to stay away. ‘You’ll get hurt otherwise,’ she warned.
‘I’ll phone for the police,’ he said shakily.
The man let go of the box and grabbed Peter by the scruff of his neck and pushed him hard against the wall.
‘You damn well won’t,’ he snarled and banged Peter’s head against the wall again so hard that Peter groaned and dropped to the floor.
The burglar turned back to Betty, who was desperately trying to hide the precious box.
‘Oh no you don’t,’ he spat and tugged at it harder and harder.
The box was at least fifty years old and, although well-constructed, the wooden hinges were fragile from constant use and came away, scattering the contents of the box in a heap onto the floor.
The burglar made a random grab at the rings and necklaces that lay in a pile at their feet, but Betty was having none of it. She grabbed what she could, stuffing them back inside the box. Once again, he grabbed at the box but, even when he twisted her wrist until she screamed out with pain, she refused to relinquish her hold on her precious keepsakes.
She looked round for Peter, but he had managed to crawl away and she heard the ping of the receiver as he replaced the phone in the hall.
The burglar heard it too and the next minute he had abandoned everything and was making for the Betty’s window to escape. Betty struggled to stop him, grabbing at his ankles, but he managed to kick himself free and was off before the police arrived.
When Betty tried to straighten her dressing gown and take the curlers from her hair before facing the police, she found she was unable to do so because of the pain in her wrist. It was now very red and had swollen to double its normal size.
When Peter came into the room and said the police wanted to speak to her, she was horrified to see that he had a gash down the side of his face and that his shirt and cardigan were soaked in blood.
‘What happened?’ she gasped, touching his face very gently with the fingers on her sound hand.
‘It was when he hit me,’ Peter told her. ‘He had a ring or something his hand and it scraped down my face.’
The policeman who was taking down the statement from them took a closer look at Peter’s face, then spoke into his mobile.
‘I’ve sent for the paramedics to take a look at that,’ he told them.
‘You’d better ask them to have a look at Betty’s wrist at the same time. She says it’s just been twisted by that brute, but I think there might be a broken bone in there,’ Peter observed.
The paramedics agreed that Peter might be right and that Betty did have a bone broken in her wrist.
‘We’re taking both of you in to hospital,’ one of them said. ‘That wrist needs an X-ray and that wound needs proper attention. They’ll probably send you both straight back home,’ he added cheerfully.
‘We can’t be too careful at your age,’ the other paramedic told them when Betty protested that she was sure it wasn’t necessary.
‘I’ll have to phone and tell my son,’ she stated as they said they were ready to leave and told her to put on the warmest coat she had, although they would wrap them both in blankets once they were in the ambulance.
‘Why don’t you leave it until after you’ve been examined rather than disturb him at this time of night,’ the paramedic suggested.
‘It’s three o’clock in the morning, he’ll be fast asleep and there is nothing he can do so why not wait until you can give him a full update.’
‘Sounds a good idea,’ Peter agreed.
‘What are you going to do about the burglar?’ Betty asked.
‘Well, he’ll be long gone, but we will have our men looking for him.’
He walked over to the window, slammed it shut and secured it. ‘He won’t come back here again, so you can rest your mind about that. Where are you going to put that box?’ he asked nodding towards the jewellery box that Betty was still clutching. ‘Don’t forget to go through it again in case there is something missing that you haven’t reported.’
‘Yes, I’ll do that,’ Betty promised. ‘While I’m out now at the hospital I’ll put the box in my bed. An intruder would never think of looking there.’
‘Good thinking,’ the paramedic said with a smile. ‘Come on then, let’s get moving. Are you both able to walk to the ambulance or shall I get a chair?’
‘We can walk,’ Peter assured him. ‘You might have to help me down the stairs though.’
‘Perhaps you should get them to take a look at that shoulder of yours while you are in A & E,’ the man advised when Peter winced with pain as he took his arm to help him walk down the path to the ambulance.
Twenty-Two
The long wait before they were seen by a doctor seemed endless to Peter and Betty after the paramedics had left them in the A & E department of the hospital.
Finally, a doctor came and he attended to Betty first because she was in considerable pain with her wrist, which was now so swollen that they had to cut open the wrist of her nightdress in order to examine it.
While she was having her wrist X-rayed, another doctor attended to Peter’s shoulder. He manipulated it, making Peter cry out with pain and finally decided that he, too, ought to be X-rayed.
By the time Tim came to the hospital that afternoon, they had both been told that they were being admitted overnight. Tim was told that a decision about when they would be discharged would have to wait until the next morning.
When Tim talked to his mother and Peter they were both adamant that they did not want carers back helping them once again.
‘So how are you going to manage?’ Tim asked. ‘You won’t be able to use your hand, Mother, for several weeks and Peter won’t be able to look after you until his shoulder improves. You’re becoming regulars here at the hospital, something has got to be done!’
After a great deal of argument, when Tim found that they refused to reconsider their decision, he suggested that in that case they had better go into respite for two or three weeks.
‘What’s that?’ Betty asked with a frown.
‘A nursing home. You’ll be waited on, no cooking or cleaning to do and I’ll know you are safe and well looked after.’
Although neither of them wanted to do this, they admitted that it probably was the best solution, at least for a couple of weeks.
It was a new experience for both of them. They had anticipated that they would be going to the same nursing home and would be able to see each other from time to time, but discovered that this was not possible. Not only were they in separate homes, but they were too far apart to be able to visit each other.
‘Never mind, think of it as a holiday on your own and you’ll be able to compare notes when you meet up again. Give you something to talk about,’ Mary told her mother when she came to visit her.
‘Peter will feel isolated, he’ll have no one he knows to talk to until then,’ Betty said worriedly.
‘He’s bound to find someone else in there to talk to,’ Mary assured her. ‘You’ve found people here to chat to, haven’t you?’
‘Mm! But I would much rather talk to Peter,’ Betty told her.
Betty made the same comment to Tim when he came in to see her, and Tim promised to drop in and see that Peter was settled and to let him know that she was all right.
Although Betty found it was preferable to being at home with carers, she didn’t really like being in the nursing home. Their routine was quite strict, they expected everyone to be in the dining room on time for meals and also ready to go to bed at nine o’clock at night,
which she found ridiculously early.
A further irritation was that at least once during the night someone came in to see she was alright. Because she was a light sleeper she found that not only did this disturb her, but she couldn’t get back to sleep afterwards.
‘Stop doing it,’ she ordered crossly. ‘If I die in the night I’ll still be here in the morning.’
‘Supposing you don’t feel well, wouldn’t you like to tell someone about it and perhaps have them bring you a warm drink or something?’ the night sister pointed out.
‘I have a bell, if I want you during the night I can ring for you,’ Betty argued.
The daytime was busy; there seemed to be something happening all the time and although she had her own en-suite room, there always seemed to be someone coming in to check on what she was doing or to make her bed, change her towels, collect her laundry, or open or close the windows.
She ate her breakfast in her own room but she went to the communal dining room for her lunch and evening meal. She had looked forward to this, hoping it would give her an opportunity to meet other residents. There were about twenty people gathered there each day but most of them were very frail or disinclined to talk, and after the first few days she no longer looked forward to meal times, even though the food was excellent.
As she waited between courses, she wondered how Peter was doing in his nursing home and whether, like her, he was at this moment sitting there waiting for the next course to be served and eager to get back to the sanctuary of his own room.
Betty had never expected to miss Peter as much as she did. He wasn’t a great conversationalist but he was always there and ready to listen to anything she had to say. It was more than that, she reasoned. There was a happy atmosphere between them, she never felt lonely. He didn’t interfere with anything she did in the house; he even left her to choose the meals she prepared and always expressed a favourable comment about them afterwards.
Here in the nursing home, although there was plenty going on around her, life seemed to be empty without him. She couldn’t wait for her respite to end and to go home again to Peter’s house in Clover Crescent.
On their first evening back at home they talked about their separation and Betty was both surprised and pleased to learn that Peter had missed her as much as she had missed him.
‘We won’t do that again in a hurry,’ he agreed.
‘No, and let’s hope we never have another burglary,’ she said. She was sitting in her armchair with the jewellery box on her lap, checking through the items to make sure that none of them were missing.
‘You were right, of course,’ Peter admitted, ‘we can’t go on living here. We need a lot more help, far more than we can afford.’
‘So what is the answer?’ Betty asked, putting her trinket box to one side and looking at him questioningly.
‘I don’t really know,’ he admitted. ‘I certainly don’t like the idea of a bungalow.’
‘Nor do I, not after what happened,’ Betty said quickly. She suppressed a shudder, ‘So what do we do?’
Peter shook his head from side to side and Betty was aware of how much older he looked. His hair was thinner and almost completely grey, and there were wrinkles in his clean-shaven cheeks that she had never seen before. The incident with the burglar, and the time they’d spent apart, had certainly taken it out of him, she thought reflectively.
‘I’ll have a word with Tim,’ she promised. ‘He’s sure to have some ideas.’
‘Yes, you do that, but remember I don’t want a bungalow.’
‘Don’t worry, we’re both agreed on that point,’ Betty said with a wry smile.
Tim looked thoughtful when Betty broached the subject.
‘I’ve been giving it a good deal of thought too,’ he told her, ‘and I think the answer is sheltered housing.’
‘You mean some sort of old people’s home?’
‘No, not exactly. You buy your own flat but it is in a specially built complex. You have your own front door but in order to get to it the caller has to ring your door number from a panel in the entrance and say who they are. That means you don’t get unwanted callers because you know who it is before you even let them inside the building, and if you don’t want to see them you simply tell them to go away.
‘When you admit them to the reception area they either wait there for you to come out and meet them, or you direct them to your flat and then, and only then, do you answer the door to them. In fact, not even then if you are not expecting them. You can check through a peephole in the door who is actually there.’
‘Well that sounds secure enough,’ Peter said with a nod of satisfaction.
‘If anyone else comes to your door unannounced, for example someone living in another flat in the complex, you could still check if you know them or not by looking through the peephole,’ Betty murmured.
‘Quite so,’ Tim agreed. ‘The flat is one hundred per cent safe.’
‘A burglar could still come in through the window,’ Betty pointed out.
‘Highly unlikely because there are outside alarms fitted to the building and connected to your flat and the place is well lighted, inside and out all night.’ Tim assured her.
‘So where do we find a place like that?’ Peter asked.
‘There are several nearby and there is one that is adjacent to the high street within a short distance from the shop in the village.’
‘It gets better and better,’ he agreed. ‘Is there a long wait?’
‘No,’ Tim said slowly, ‘they are always coming available. They are for the over-fifty-fives and there’s a steady turnover; people die, go into nursing homes and so on. There are both one-bedroom and two-bedroom versions. They are very modern inside and the reception areas and passages and stairs, the windows, including the exterior of the windows to all the flats are regularly cleaned.’
‘What about a garden?’
‘Ah!’ Tim hesitated. ‘There is a very nice courtyard garden to all of them but you are not allowed to do anything to it.’
‘There is an annual service charge to cover the cost of a professional gardener who comes in regularly to mow the lawn and trim the bushes and trees.’
‘You mean you can’t even have your own corner?’
‘That’s right. No pot plants of your own out there,’ Tim said firmly. ‘No pets either,’ he added knowing they didn’t have a cat or a dog, and hoping this might soften the blow for them.
‘Have to give that some thought,’ Peter said. ‘Leave it with us for a couple of days to mull over. It sounds a solution though, I must admit.’
For the following week Betty and Peter talked of nothing else. Tim had left them useful details about the size of the rooms and, most important of all, what the flats cost.
‘The two-bedroom flats are quite a bit more expensive than the one-bed flats,’ Betty pointed out.
‘Well, they would be now wouldn’t they,’ Peter reasoned. ‘Probably cost more to heat and light and so on as well.’
‘That’s true,’ Betty agreed. ‘One thing we save on is that we don’t need car parking, neither of us is fit to drive now.’
Peter looked gloomy when she said this but, as she went on to point out, they could do most of their shopping in the village and if they went by bus to one of the nearby towns a couple of times a month they could pick up all the extras they needed and come home by taxi.
‘It will be an outing to look forward to,’ she stated.
‘Mmm. The taxi fares will eat up whatever else we can economize on. Of course, it would make things much cheaper if we had a one-bedroom flat.’
There was a silence. Peter quickly filled it by saying, ‘We could get one those bed settees and we could use it as a settee during the day and I could sleep on it at night.’
Betty looked aghast. ‘Oh no you couldn’t; that would be dreadful. It might be all right for the occasional night if we had a visitor, but to do it all the time would be like camping out and living out of
a suitcase.’
‘So what do you want me to do; sleep in the bath?’ he joked.
‘We could share the bedroom, I suppose,’ Betty murmured. ‘Twin beds …’ Her voice trailed off.
‘I’m quite happy to do that,’ Peter told her. ‘I don’t think you would like it though!’
‘It does go against my principles,’ Betty told him mockingly.
‘In that case then, shall we get married?’ Peter said thoughtfully.
He waited for Betty’s adamant refusal and was amazed when, instead of turning the idea down like she usually did, she said, ‘Yes, we could do that.’
‘Get married?’ his mouth gaped in surprise.
The next minute, he was out of his chair and was at her side, taking her hand and asking her formally if she would marry him. ‘I can’t go down on one knee these days because I might never get up again!’
Betty looked into his eyes; saw the love and eagerness in them as she assented.
His arms went round her, his lips on hers and he was hugging her ecstatically.
‘So that means we will be taking a single-bedroom flat, does it?’ he said as he released her.
She smiled happily. ‘Shall we tell Tim our piece of personal good news first, or tell him we’ll take a one-bedroom flat and see the expression on his face when he realizes what we’ve said?’
‘We’ll have to think about that,’ Peter said with mock severity. ‘I don’t think we should risk him having a heart attack.’
Twenty-Three
It was almost two weeks before they told Tim that they had decided to go for a one-bedroom flat in one of the complexes that he had told them about.
‘A one-bedroom flat?’ He looked at them questioningly with raised eyebrows.
‘Yes that’s right,’ Betty told him, the colour flooding her cheeks.
‘We’re getting married,’ Peter added quickly.
Tim started at them in disbelief. ‘Well, congratulations. I’m very pleased to hear that,’ he said with a smile. ‘When’s the big day, or have you already sneaked off quietly and done the deed without telling any of us?’