by Rosie Harris
He went to touch it again but she pulled away. ‘Don’t. It hurts.’
Going down on his knees he gently examined it, letting out a low whistle when he saw how swollen it was.
‘You need to get this X-rayed,’ he said in a worried voice.
‘I was about to ring for an ambulance,’ Betty told him.
‘I’ll do it.’
She heard the concern in his voice as he spoke to someone on the phone and heard him say, ‘She’s almost eighty, can you hurry?’
It was almost an hour before the ambulance arrived. Peter made a cup of tea and suggested she should take a painkiller.
‘I don’t think I had better do that, if I am going to hospital,’ she told him.
‘You’re in pain,’ he pointed out.
‘I’ll grin and bear it. It’s not so bad if no one touches it.’
The X-ray revealed that nothing was broken but it was very badly strained. Betty was warned she must keep her foot elevated and walk on it as little as possible for the next week or more, until the swelling was gone down, then they would check again to see if she needed any physiotherapy treatment.
‘It will probably be weak for quite some time so you may find you need the support of a walking stick for a few months,’ she was told.
She wasn’t admitted, so Peter wondered how they were going to get home. He couldn’t decide whether it was best to ring for a taxi or phone Tim and ask him to come and collect them.
‘I think it is probably best to ring Tim because you will need someone, as well as me, to help you from the car to the flat at the other end,’ he said at last.
He made the call on his mobile. ‘He’ll be here in about twenty minutes,’ he told Betty. ‘Let’s go and have a cup of tea in the restaurant. I’ve told him that’s where we will be.’
‘I’m not sure that I can walk that far,’ Betty said hesitantly.
‘Wait here then. I’ll get a wheelchair and take you there in that, and we can use it to take you out to Tim’s car when he arrives.’
Twenty-Eight
It was the quietest Christmas that Betty had ever known. She had made no special preparations whatsoever. She hadn’t bought any presents, she hadn’t put up any decorations.
It didn’t matter because, as far as she knew, there would be no visitors. Tim and Brenda were going to Paris for the holiday, Mary was going to stay with friends and Sally and Hilda would both be with their own families.
She had sent Christmas cards to the family, to Sally and to Hilda but they were not of her choosing; they were a packet that Peter had bought at the supermarket.
Shirley had sent a message to say she would be sending Graham round on Christmas morning with their Christmas dinner. She had invited Betty and Peter to come to them for the day but Betty had declined because she felt she was so clumsy and she didn’t want to be in the way.
The only other bright spot on Christmas Day was that Betty was able to give Peter the bottle of whisky she had bought for him.
He looked at it with a smile in his face. ‘This is very special,’ he told her. ‘I shall never forget the story behind it.’
‘Neither will I,’ Betty said wryly. ‘By the look of things, I will still be hobbling about next Christmas.’
‘No, you won’t,’ he told her. ‘Another couple of weeks and you’ll find that ankle is as good as new.’
‘I certainly hope so,’ she said fervently. ‘I hate seeing you do all the shopping and cleaning.’
‘Well, I won’t be doing any cooking today, that’s for sure.’ he said with a broad smile when Graham arrived with plates of turkey, roast potatoes, sprouts and all the trimmings that made a social repast. To follow, there was a serving of Christmas pudding for each of them, together with a carton of double cream and mince pies to follow that, or for them to have later on in the day.
‘I will probably sleep all afternoon,’ Peter said as he regarded the piled-up plates. ‘It looks good and smells great,’ he added, sniffing appreciatively.
‘I hope you enjoy it. I can’t stop, Shirley wants to dish up ours,’ Graham said as he made a hasty exit.
They enjoyed their meal and then, as he had warned, Peter fell asleep. Shortly afterwards Betty did the same.
When they woke up it was four o’clock so Peter made a pot of tea and they ate the mince pies that Shirley had sent over for them.
‘I don’t think we will need anything else to eat today,’ Betty murmured as she brushed some crumbs from the front of her dress.
Early in January they had more snow, so they took a taxi to go to the hospital for Betty’s check-up.
‘It’s coming along nicely, all the swelling and inflammation has gone, so I think you can start putting some weight on it. I am giving you some crutches. Take your time, practise using them at home before you go out, and don’t rush things. You still need to keep the foot elevated when you are sitting down.’
Once they were home Betty wanted to try out the crutches but Peter persuaded her that she’d been on her foot enough for one day.
‘You can’t go outside on them until the snow has cleared so there is no hurry,’ he told her.
Three days later Betty tried them out. She didn’t go far, just a short distance up the road and back again, with Peter at her side, fearful that she might fall because she was so wobbly.
At first, she used them alternatively, as though they were a pair of sticks, but after a little practice and under Peter’s guidance she could use the two together to take her weight and move her forward.
‘Only put the tip of your toe down on the ground to help you keep your balance,’ Peter warned. ‘The crutches are intended to help you take the weight off your ankle.’
It was almost two months before Betty felt confident. Winter was almost over and weak spring sunshine was brightening their days. As Peter watched her hobbling down the road he was afraid she might do more damage than good to her ankle, which still ached when she walked too far. In the end he suggested that she might like to try using a Rollator.
‘A Rollator? What’s that?’
‘A three-wheeled trolley, some people call them a walker,’ he told her.
‘Oh, I’ve seen people using those and I always feel sorry for them. They look as though they’ve got a small pushchair and forgotten to put the baby in it. How long do you think I’d have to use it if we do get one?’
‘Until your ankle feels stronger. You will know when the time is right and then you can go back to using your stick,’ he told her. ‘It might be worth giving it a try,’ he suggested. ‘We could hire one, then, if you didn’t like it, we could take it back. It would have a shopping bag on it,’ he pointed out. ‘So it would be very useful when we went to collect groceries,’ he persisted when he saw she was reluctant to do as he suggested.
Finally, Betty agreed to try one out and, to her surprise, she found it was much easier to use than the crutches but it gave her as much, if not more, support. The fact that she was evenly balanced with a hand on both handles was a great asset.
Peter encouraged her and, as her confidence grew, decided they ought to buy one for her.
Whey looked at the price Betty shook her head. ‘It’s not worth paying that much when in a couple of months’ time I will be able to walk with no help at all or perhaps just a walking stick,’ she stated.
‘Nevertheless, it would be useful for you to use when the weather is bad and the roads are a bit slippery, or when we wanted to go shopping to save me having to carry heavy bags.’
They were still arguing about whether or not to buy or hire when Peter saw one outside a charity shop. The price was only a quarter of what they would have to pay for a new one and worked out far better than if they hired one.
He took Betty along to see it and they studied the trolley very carefully. It looked to be in reasonably good order so they decided to buy it. When they got home, Peter adjusted the height to make it more comfortable for Betty and the next time they went out she use
d it and declared she was quite satisfied with it.
It gave them both a new lease of life; Betty had found walking to the park was too arduous on her crutches but pushing the walker she found it was a pleasant stroll. Once more it was a pleasure for both of them to go out and enjoy their favourite walks. The only drawback was that, even though she seemed to have no problem walking, Betty was rather slow and Peter found that restricting himself to her pace made his back ache.
He tried to ignore the discomfort but it didn’t take Betty long to spot that something was wrong.
‘Are your shoes hurting you, or have you sprained your ankle now?’ she asked when several times he put a hand on the handlebar of the walker as if to give himself some support.
For a while he managed to make excuses but finally, when he was finding that he could no longer stand the back ache, so much so that he didn’t want to walk with her, he confessed as to what was wrong.
‘Why ever didn’t you say so before,’ she muttered.
‘I like going out with you to the park and so on,’ he told her.
‘Well, I can’t walk any faster than I do but we can still have our outings. You walk at your own pace and I’ll catch you up.’
Peter looked dubious but, in the end, he agreed and for while it seemed to be the perfect solution.
The first mishap came when Betty made a short cut when she was meeting Peter by the pond in the park. The route she took ended in a steep little path down to the edge of the pond. As she started to go down it Betty applied the brakes of the walker and then found that nothing was happening. No matter how hard she tried she couldn’t make the brakes work. In the end, she let go of the walker and let it make its way straight into the pond while she remained stranded halfway down the path.
Peter was sitting on one of the park benches by the pond and was alarmed when he saw the walker rush past him followed by the splash as it ended up in the pond.
For one heart-stopping moment, as he saw a blue cardigan on the surface of the water, he thought Betty was in there with it.
His relief when he heard her voice calling out to him to come and help her down the hill was so great that, for a moment, he couldn’t move. He found it was difficult to breath because his heart was thudding like a sledge hammer.
He looked at the walker, which was slowly sinking and then at Betty stranded on the hill and, not for the first time, realized that she was the most important thing in his life.
Once he had helped her down the hill and settled her on the park bench he went over to the pond to see if there was any chance of recovering the walker.
By the time he reached the edge, a youngish man had already fished it out. It looked intact but the contends of the shopping bag on the front of it was soaked and sodden.
The man who had rescued the walker was studying it with a frown on his face.
‘Those brakes need attention, mate,’ he said as he handed the walker over to Peter. ‘They’re perished. Get them done before your missus has another accident or next time she might be the one who’s perished!’
Peter nodded. He felt too shaken to discuss the state of the walker but he knew what the man was saying.
‘We’ll get rid of that thing, it’s a death trap,’ he stated when they reached home.
‘Oh no we won’t. It’s a great help to me,’ Betty told him
‘We’re getting rid of it before you have another accident. You could have ended up in the pond, don’t you realize that?’
‘Only if I’d tried to keep up with it,’ she laughed. ‘The moment I knew it was running away with me and the brakes weren’t working I let go of it.’
‘Thank heavens you did. Even so, it’s going. That’s the second near accident you’ve had with the damn thing.’
‘Second?’ Betty frowned and looked puzzled.
‘What about the day it folded up on you and if I hadn’t been walking at your side and managed to grab your arm you would have ended up on the ground and probably smashed your face in.’
‘That was partly my own carelessness,’ she said, her colour rising in embarrassment. ‘I forgot to make sure it was locked after I’d folded it so that I could get past a car that was parked on the pavement.’
‘Yes, and that could happen again at any time, there’s always obstructions on the pavement with all the advertising placards the shops stick outside as well as parked cars.’
‘Then why don’t you start a campaign to make them stop doing that,’ she said spiritedly. ‘It would be a much better idea than depriving me of my walker and plenty of other people would benefit as well as me.’
Twenty-Nine
Peter couldn’t sleep. Over and over again, the thought of what could have happened to Betty that day went through his mind. He was determined to get rid of the walker, but how was he to do that without depriving her of the means of getting around.
He went over in his mind what might be possible. He didn’t think a walking stick was enough support. She didn’t need to use crutches, and anyway he was sure she wouldn’t go back to using them, so what was the answer?
He woke up the next morning with the perfect solution: an electric scooter.
He said nothing to Betty, but the first thing he did after breakfast was to search the web to find out what was available. There were many types, but they were all expensive. Perhaps hiring one would be the best, at least until he knew she was going to be happy about using it. She had driven a car, he told himself, so it should be second nature. Then he remembered her car accidents and he wasn’t quite so confident.
Still, he told himself, this was quite different and if he bought her a scooter then he would make sure that it was one that she could only use on the pavement, so that it wouldn’t be powerful enough for her to do any damage.
Perhaps he ought to have a word with Tim first of all, or with young Graham. They might have more knowledge about how safe such vehicles were. There was such a variety he was bewildered. He didn’t think a two-wheeler was the answer, because she would need to balance one of those, but whether a four-wheeler was safer than a three-wheeler, well, he wasn’t sure.
The three-wheeler looked more manoeuvrable and that was important because of the size of their flat and because she would need to get it in and out of the lift every time they went out. He was wishing now that they had taken a flat that had a garage space, then there would be no problem about storing it when they were at home. The only place he could think of where they could keep it was on the balcony.
There seemed to be an awful lot of problems to overcome but he was sure it would be worth it once they found the right vehicle for her.
Tim seemed to be very knowledgeable when he mentioned it to him. ‘Make sure it is a Class 2, that is one that can only be driven on the pavement and has a maximum speed of four miles an hour. We don’t want to risk her taking it on the road. You won’t have to register it but be very careful about buying a second-hand one. If you do, then do make sure it has been well maintained and that the brakes are in good working order before you let Mum use it.’
‘I wondered about hiring one first to make sure she wants to use one,’ Peter told him.
Tim frowned. ‘Why don’t you take her along to one of the big garden centres or one of the supermarkets where they have mobility scooters for customers to use, then you can see how she copes with one of those?’
Peter nodded his thanks. ‘Good idea.’
When he put this suggestion to Betty she was quite scornful. ‘I don’t need to try out one of those. I drove a car most of my life, I know how to steer and control a vehicle.’
‘Right, then in that case we’ll go ahead and buy one.’
‘Do I really need one? I’m sure I can manage with my walker.’
‘It’s for my benefit as much as yours,’ he told her. ‘You know that walking at your pace gives me backache. Well, if you had an electric scooter that will do up to four miles an hour, then I could walk along with you.’
‘Can you walk that fast these days?’ she asked with a teasing smile.
‘Well, we’ll soon find out and if I can’t then you can be the one going slower, but at least it won’t give you backache.’
Once the idea had taken hold, Betty couldn’t wait for the vehicle to arrive.
Peter was afraid it mightn’t live up to expectations, but when the three-wheeler was finally delivered, and he saw the pleasure on Betty’s face, he felt it was worth every penny of what it had cost.
Betty wanted to go out on it right away but Peter was more cautious. ‘Let’s leave it until the morning and wait until the children have all gone to school and the pavements will be quieter.’
‘You have to go to the doctors first thing tomorrow morning,’ she reminded him.
‘Yes, but it’s only for a blood test so that won’t take long and we can go for a run on it the minute I get back.’
Betty nodded but she was already scheming in her head. She’d go down to the surgery on it in time to meet him coming out and that would prove to him that she was quite capable of handling it.
It was a lovely sunny morning and the minute Peter had left the house Betty manoeuvred the scooter out from the balcony, through the living room to the front door, then along the corridor to the lift. The scooter had been on charge all night, so there was no worry about how far she could go, so she decided to go into the high street first and then onto the doctors.
At first, she found it a bit scary at how light a touch she needed to make in order to accelerate but the brakes were good and after a slightly erratic stop-start she was on her way. The steering was a little stiffer to manoeuvre than she had expected but it was manageable. At least it was until she reached the newsagents. She thought she had swerved far enough away from the paper stand that was outside the door to avoid it but one of her back wheels caught in one of the legs of the stand. Suddenly there was an ominous crash as the stand came down and newspapers scattered everywhere.
For a moment, she wanted to accelerate away but she was too late. The newsagent was outside his shop, waving his arms in despair as he saw the newspapers scattered in all directions on the road.