A Mind of her Own

by Rosie Harris

Betty’s lips tightened but she said nothing. She could see it was useless to do so, and that whatever she said she would lose the argument. To her great relief, after helping the chauffeur to bring in all the presents from the car, Tim and Brenda said they were going.

  ‘Are you sure you are going to be all right on your own?’ Tim asked. ‘Would you like to come and stay with us for a while?’

  ‘No, I’ll be fine,’ Betty assured him. ‘I might go in to see Peter later.’

  ‘They won’t let you see him today, not while he is still unconscious. His progress is being monitored and Clare has promised to let us know the moment there is any development.’

  ‘I still might go and see him, even if I can only sit by the bed,’ Betty repeated, her jaw set stubbornly.

  ‘They won’t let you see him, Mother,’ Tim said firmly. ‘Anyway, how would you get there?’

  ‘By taxi, of course,’ Betty told him sharply.

  ‘Please don’t do that,’ Tim pleaded. ‘You’ll be turned away and that will distress you even more.’

  ‘I will phone Clare the moment we get home and check what has happened so far and phone you and let you know,’ he told her. ‘I promise, the moment you can go to see him then I’ll take you.’

  ‘Yes, all right,’ Betty murmured resignedly.

  The flat seemed empty without Peter. Betty unwrapped her presents again, arranged the flowers in water, and put the other items and birthday cards somewhere safe so that she could look at them all again when she knew that Peter was going to be all right.

  The rest of the day passed in a dream. Tim phoned twice to say that Peter was still in a deep sleep and so there was nothing really to report.

  Late in the evening Mary phoned to see if she was all right on her own or if she would like her to come and stay with her overnight.

  ‘No,’ Betty said quite sharply. ‘I’m relying on you and Clare to let me know when Peter wakens, and how can you do that if you are here with me.’

  ‘We’re not at the hospital, Mother. As I’m sure Tim has told you; they won’t allow any of us to be there.’

  ‘How about that Rossiter chap?’ Betty asked.

  ‘Rossiter Evans is a specialist and Peter’s condition is being carefully monitored and reported to him. He will let me know as soon as there are any changes.’

  ‘I see.’ Betty’s tone was cold and clipped.

  ‘Look, Mother, why don’t you take a sleeping pill and get a good night’s rest? You’ll feel all the better for it in the morning and I’ll phone you early and tell you what the latest news is.’

  Betty didn’t take a sleeping pill. She avoided pills whenever possible and she didn’t think that one of those was what she needed. What she did want was good news about Peter. She wanted to hear that he was awake, and none the worse for what had happened. She wanted to hear that he was perfectly well; the episode wiped from his mind and that he was waiting to come home.

  It was three days before Peter was discharged. Tim brought him home from the hospital and Betty was shocked when she saw him. Peter looked so old and frail, and his balance was very bad. He moved round the flat clutching at doors, furniture and anything else within arm’s reach, as waves of giddiness swept over him.

  ‘For heaven’s sake sit down and have a cup of tea,’ Betty said.

  He nodded and sank into his armchair with a heavy sigh. ‘Keeping me in bed for so long has put years on me,’ he grumbled. ‘I’m shaking like a leaf and I feel as if I am going to fall over at any minute.’

  Betty patted his arm consolingly. ‘Don’t worry about it. By tomorrow, after a good night’s sleep, you’ll be back to normal,’ she told him.

  He clutched at her hand and kissed it. ‘I don’t know what I would do without you,’ he said. ‘The best day of my life was when we got married. Sorry to be so much trouble.’

  ‘You’re no trouble,’ she told him, kissing the top of his head.

  ‘I ruined your special birthday party,’ he said ruefully.

  ‘Not to worry, we can always have another party. As long as you are all right, that is all that matters.’

  They spent the next few days very quietly. Betty fed him all his favourite dishes but his appetite was poor and she began to despair that he was never going to be fit enough to walk as far as the park with his walker ever again.

  It took half the morning to help him to get out of bed, showered and dressed. She was so afraid that he would turn giddy while under the shower and have a fall.

  When she mentioned this to Tim he frowned and look worried. ‘I’ll give Clare a ring and see what that friend of hers thinks. You haven’t phoned her about it?’

  Betty shook her head. ‘No, I don’t think it’s a good idea or he’ll have him back in hospital under observation again.’

  ‘No, no, don’t worry about that. Hospital beds aren’t that easily available. I’ll just mention it to Clare and see what she says. I’ll tell her to phone you so that you will know if she can advise you on what to do.’

  Neither Clare nor Mary telephoned Betty, but a few days later they had a visit from someone from the hospital, who told her that they were sending along a carer each morning to help Peter to dress and shower.

  Betty wanted to refuse their help because she knew that Peter would resent it, but she also knew that if Peter did slip or fall in the shower then she would feel responsible. She didn’t think she would be strong enough to help him or get him up, so it seemed to be common sense to accept their help.

  Peter didn’t seem at all pleased by the idea. He accepted the carer’s administrations for a week and then he rebelled.

  ‘I can’t stand this,’ he told Betty. ‘I’d sooner stay dirty than have strangers mauling me about.’

  ‘You had strangers helping you when you were in hospital,’ she pointed out.

  ‘I had no option when I was in there, but now I’m in my own home and I’m not standing for it.’

  ‘What happens if you have a giddy turn when you are under the shower?’ Betty asked.

  ‘I never have had one, now have I,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Well, you do seem very unsteady on your feet. You seem to need to hold on to the furniture when you’re moving round the room.’

  ‘That’s different,’ he told her. ‘I’m crossing a wide area then. When I’m in the shower there’s walls on three sides that I can lean on if I need to do so.’

  They discussed it for several days without making any headway or decision. Then, one morning, Peter refused to get out of bed when the carer arrived.

  ‘I’ll get up and shower when I’m ready to do so,’ he told her.

  She tried all sorts of persuasion but Peter refused to give in. The carer shrugged and looked apologetically at Betty. ‘I’m sorry, there is nothing else I can do. We are not allowed to use physical force. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.’

  The carer came twice more, then said that the situation was impossible and that she would be notifying her superior of the position.

  Betty said that she understood and thanked her for her help.

  Peter breathed a sigh of relief when Betty told him the outcome of his stubbornness.

  Tim grimaced when she told him and that was the end of the matter. Slowly, Peter seemed to regain his energy. As if to ward off the attention of carers, he forced himself to get up in the morning and to shower and shave before he had his breakfast.

  Once or twice, he made the suggestion that he was going to grow a beard. Betty put a stop to that idea immediately.

  ‘If you find shaving is too much for you then I’d better arrange for the carers to come back in each morning,’ she told him thoughtfully.

  There was no more talk of growing a beard.

  Their life was far quieter, Peter seemed to tire easily. Betty did most of the shopping, leaving him watching the television while she went across to the shops nearby.

  Sometimes she used the scooter, at other times she took the walker because she found it easier to
manoeuvre.

  Tim tried to persuade them to place a regular food order and have it delivered, but Betty insisted that she liked to see what she was buying.

  ‘You could still buy the milk, bread, vegetables and fruit but have all the other things delivered,’ he told her. ‘After all, one tin of beans is very like the next and you can’t see inside the can anyway.’

  As the weather became colder and the days shorter, she agreed to give it a try. Tim set up the necessary arrangements and all she had to do was open the front door when the delivery man arrived.

  Once she had agreed that this was a very satisfactory arrangement he suggested that they should have ready meals delivered in the same way.

  ‘One delivery a month and they all go in your freezer and they’re there when you want them,’ he informed her.

  He left her with an illustrated leaflet that showed main meals and puddings and she agreed to give it a try.

  Once again, she found it was labour saving and she also decided that it didn’t upset her anywhere near as much when Peter left half of his dinner on his plate, as it did when she had cooked the meal herself.

  When Christmas came, Betty refused all invitations because she was sure it would be too much for Peter and she didn’t want a repeat of what had happened at her birthday.

  Instead, there was a repeat of the previous year and Shirley sent Graham round on Christmas morning with a home-cooked Christmas dinner, complete with Christmas pudding, a cake and mince pies.

  Remembering Rossiter’s warning about drink, they abstained over Christmas, but they did indulge in one drink a week later to welcome in the new year.

  Thirty-Five

  Betty was delighted to find that with the return of the better weather Peter improved daily. He wanted to be up and active as soon as it was light. His appetite improved and he began to look his old self.

  Some days he seemed to have more energy that she had, Betty reflected.

  She was still cautious about letting him do too much and encouraged him to have a sleep after he’d had his midday meal. This became an established pattern and she usually made use of the time he was asleep to go across to the shops for daily necessities like milk and bread or anything else they might need. When she arrived back she would make a cup of tea to greet him when he woke.

  As spring approached she was beginning to once again really enjoy their flat. Opening wide the balcony doors, even if it was only for an hour on sunny days, seemed to bring the flat alive. She enjoyed looking down on the garden. It was waking up after the bleakness of winter; first the snowdrops, then the daffodils waved in the breeze, and then the crocuses began pushing up through the dark earth to shine like coloured stars.

  As the days became warmer she found that Peter was already awake and had made her a cup of tea by the time she returned from shopping.

  She was rather worried by this because some days he seemed to be a little shaky or unsteady on his feet and Betty was afraid he might have an accident with the kettle; missing the teapot and pouring the boiling water over his hand.

  She had only mentioned it once because he had been so annoyed with her. ‘Do you think I’m a fool or something,’ he said angrily. ‘Why should I do something as silly as that? You never pour the water over yourself even though you fill up the kettle so full that it’s almost too heavy for you to lift.’

  After that they seemed to be watching each other but neither voiced aloud their anxiety.

  Betty knew he was right about filling the kettle too full and tried to remember to only half fill it. Peter was quite right, she didn’t have the same strength in her wrists and hands as she once had. She often found that using the vacuum cleaner made her wrists ache afterwards. Now that Peter was so much better she encouraged him to do it.

  While he had been ill she had even been tempted to employ a cleaner, but it seemed a waste of money when they lived in such a small space.

  She cleaned the kitchen and bathroom every day, and in between made sure everything was clean and tidied away each time she used them.

  After all, there were only the two of them and as Peter spent most of his day sitting in his armchair, a weekly vacuuming both for the living room and bedroom were adequate and she could easily manage that without help, she told herself. They had established a routine that was satisfactory so perhaps it was best to leave it like that.

  As the days became longer she wondered when Peter would feel confident enough to restart their walks. At the moment she was the one using the walker, but she had a sudden urge to use the scooter instead. She tried it out once or twice telling herself that if she didn’t start using it again she would forget how to drive it.

  That was nonsense, of course. Nothing could be easier.

  The next time she went out on it she decided that before she went into the supermarket she’d go for a little trip. Peter was asleep, so why not, she told herself as she set off on a journey around the block.

  She felt exhilarated as she saw the gardens with their flourishing borders, and noted the green foliage appearing on bushes and hedges, and even some of the trees seemed to be about to burst into leaf.

  She could have gone for miles, but her conscience told her she ought to get back to the supermarket, do the shopping, and go home. Peter would have the tea made and be wondering what was keeping her.

  As she pushed the scooter down the corridor and into their flat she called out to alert him that she was home, knowing that he would be waiting to make the tea. By the time she’d unpacked the shopping and put it away the tea would be ready to drink.

  To her surprise, Peter wasn’t in the living room or the kitchen. In case he was in the bathroom she called out his name to let him know she was home and then went to make the tea herself.

  The kettle was cold; Peter hadn’t even laid out the cups ready.

  Mystified, she tried to think where he could be. She checked the bedroom and the bathroom, but he wasn’t in either.

  As she went back into the living room she stopped to look out at the garden, wondering if he was feeling so much better that he had gone to sit down there for a few minutes and forgotten the time.

  Peter was in the garden. Betty watched in horror as she saw he was messing around in the flower border. She couldn’t exactly see what he was doing but whatever it was she knew he shouldn’t be touching them. One of the rules they had been given when they bought the flat was that a professional gardener was employed and that under no circumstances must the residents interfere. They must not pick any of the flowers or put plants in, they mustn’t even tell the gardener what they thought ought to be done.

  Tim had laughed and pointed out that all their worries were over when it came to maintaining the garden.

  ‘A perfect garden and you don’t have to lift a finger,’ he told them. ‘You don’t even have to water it in summer, it’s all done for you. They’ve installed an efficient sprinkler system that keeps everything as it should be.’

  Peter had eventually come around to that idea. He said he’d done enough gardening to last him a lifetime and disposed of all his tools. Betty had approved as well. She’d found the garden at Clover Crescent far more than she could manage, even with the help of a gardener to cut the lawn, bushes and trees. She had found that even the flower borders called for more work that she felt capable of doing.

  So, what was Peter doing out messing around in the flowers borders, Betty asked herself.

  She thought it might be best if she went down and reasoned with him, rather than call to him from the balcony. The fewer people who were aware that he was contravening the rules the better.

  Peter refused to listen to her warning. ‘Rubbish! I can’t leave it in this state,’ he told her.

  She looked at the pile of plants by his feet that he had uprooted and she felt concerned. What would people say? What would the gardener say? It didn’t bear thinking about.

  As quietly as possible, she reminded him of the agreement they had made when t
hey moved in but he merely shrugged. ‘That was a long time ago, rules change,’ he said.

  ‘This one doesn’t,’ she told him.

  ‘So, what are they going to do about it, turn us out of the flat,’ he jibed.

  ‘I don’t know what they’ll do but obviously we will have to recompense them for the damage you have done.’

  Peter turned on her angrily. ‘Damage, I haven’t done any damage. I’ve simply tidied it up.’

  ‘You have pulled up plants that are just starting to flower,’ Betty told him, pointing to the handful of daffodils that were just coming into bud and that he was holding in his hand.

  ‘Flowers! These are weeds. These borders are overrun with weeds.’

  ‘Come on indoors and we’ll talk about it,’ she said gently. ‘I’ve just made a pot of tea so we can talk it over while we have some.’

  ‘I don’t want to come indoors, I’ve just started on this job and want to get it finished before dark.’

  ‘After you’ve had a cup of tea,’ Betty insisted. ‘You can bring it out here then and I’ll finish mine while I work.’

  Batty had never seen him so argumentative. It seemed that there was no way she could reason with him. She knew he was destroying the flower bed, but how was she to stop him?

  ‘I don’t think I can carry your cup of tea down here without spilling it,’ she told him.

  ‘Put it in a mug then,’ he told her. ‘Make sure you put two spoonfuls of sugar in it and stir it properly.’

  ‘I think you’d better come up and do it yourself and make sure it has the right amount of milk,’ she told him sarcastically.

  ‘Yes, I probably had better do that,’ he agreed. He dropped the plants he was clutching, brushed the soil from his trousers and walked off ahead of her.

  Relieved that he had given up what he’d been doing, she followed him. Once in the flat she turned the lock and removed the key so that there was no way he could get out again.

  He poured his tea and a cup for her, took his into the living room, settled in his armchair and said no more.

  Betty took her own tea in there as well. She waited for him to say something about the garden but he appeared to have forgotten all about it. He sat drinking his tea, staring into space and then finally nodded off to sleep.