Crappily Ever After (6 page)

‘I have spent two years training in childcare, but a lifetime of assisting with my Grandparents,’ I reply. ‘They have relied on my help over the years and I feel that I have contributed to the best of my ability, in relation to their needs. 

They don’t
need
care, of course. Gran has a slight paralysis from a stroke and therefore isn’t quite as good a shot as she used to be when chucking ornaments at Granddad’s head. Be it whether he’s had too many down the Crown or when he’s spent the housekeeping at the bookies and bingo. Due to my Granddad’s failing eyesight, my ‘assisting’ involves catching said ornaments mid-air. Bet they’re sorry now they never let me on the netball team (instead of the embarrassing position of reserve for the B team). I seem to have painted a picture to Mr. Roberts that my grandparents are somewhat frail and in need of a lot of support. He nods approvingly at me.

‘What kind of role do you see yourself taking in our centre?’

‘Purely an
ad-hoc
need basis,’ I reply. ‘Someone who will respect the independence of the clients and promote their individual rights and abilities.’

Think covering for Granddad down the pub. No, he told me he’s going to the allotment for the potatoes for tea, Gran. Honest! 

‘Also, I am someone who will respect the fact that these people can still be very active in mind and body, and maintain the right to express so.’

Think telling Gran that, no, I don’t think she’s stupid and that is where Granddad said he was going. Hoping that this doesn’t lead to any cranial blows of the bone china kind. 

‘I will happily contribute to the daily activities, taking into account the interests of the service user but also encourage new skills and interests on a continual basis,’ I finish, with a hopeful smile.  

Think telling both Gran and Granddad: ‘Why don’t you go to the bingo/tea dance/bowling, and forget what he/she has done?’  

I am offered the job on the spot.                       

If I ever make it to a ripe old age, I am very much looking forward to being as cantankerous as possible. Blue-rinsed and shouting randomly at inanimate objects, terrorising shopkeepers and bursting the ball of any small child that bounces into my garden. I’ll have 20 cats and the children will chant: ‘Witch! Witch!’ when they see me. Old age may inhibit the body, but it liberates the mind. You no longer give a toss about what anyone thinks of you. You don’t need to worry about your weight, being skinny will just make you look more wrinkled. You don’t bother making new friends – at your age they’ll only go and die on you anyway. The ante is upped on the mortal lottery. You don’t have to worry about finding a new man, what for? Will you really want sex in your eighties? I doubt it very much. A nice cup of tea, a packet of chocolate digestives and
Countdown
– that’s what you’ll want.               

Actually, I’m already into my Granddad’s old habit of playing dirty word
Countdown
, though nowhere near in his league. He used to chortle over his afternoon tea while Gran looked on with distaste.

‘F, great. Can do a lot with an F. C, smashing. T, tricky one, keep ‘em comin’ Carol. Keep ‘em comin’ girl. K, excellent.’ He’d sit up in his chair with renewed enthusiasm. P, edge of his seat now. ‘Right, enough of your bloody consonants.’ A – a tut of displeasure, ‘Vowel, yes, vowel,’ followed by a delighted cheer and triumphant air punch at the arrival of U. 

‘Fuck!’ he shouted with glee, followed by mutterings of how nobody ever announces these words on the show. The highlight of his life was not the birth of any of his children, his marriage or even the end of the war. It was the day of 10
^th
November 1985 when the letters he had been waiting for – for years – eventually arrived. He joyously phoned around the family. We were convinced he’d won the lottery. That the unlikely scenario of choosing numbers one to six (they have as much chance as any) had come good. In fact, he had finally been able to make ‘bastard’. He died a week later; perhaps it was the shock? Bless him, he died a happy man. Finally at peace. Naturally, we were all devastated, but so happy for him that his much-awaited letters had come up before he went. Even Gran had to agree with that. I caught her several months later muttering swear words under her breath as she watched
Countdown
from Granddad’s old chair, complete with his bum-print, over her afternoon cup of tea and half a packet of Hobnobs. Yes, she missed him but, never one to be outdone, she had to find a similarly long rude word. She never did. The Master could never be beaten.                

The time comes around for me to begin my new job. Day one and I’m placed in my wing. The Home is devised to make the clients feel that they are in a Five Star hotel. I spent all last week on training courses and am now qualified in many wonderful things, such as changing colostomy bags, giving medication and realising the difference between the onset of dementia and a urinary tract infection. They are strangely and intricately linked it would appear. My first job is to help a stroke victim with his breakfast. His name is Harry, and he is Eighty-seven years young. His speech is slightly slurred, but I can understand the majority of what he says.

‘Not a bad arse,’ I hear, as I bend to pick up his washing from the floor.

‘Excuse me?’ I laugh.

‘Am I getting my breakfast or not? I probably won’t be alive by the time those clothes come back from the laundry anyway, but I am hungry.’

‘Now don’t you be saying things like that,’ I scold. ‘You better keep in with me if you want a wee dram of a winter’s night. I know where the keys to the booze cabinet are.’ With that, we are firm friends. Harry looks for me each day that I am working, and sulks if I’m on a day off.

‘Those weekend staff don’t know if they need a shite or a haircut,’ he complains.

Two weeks into my job and I’m allocated Harry as my key client. It hasn’t gone unnoticed that we get on so well and, where possible, the seniors try to match up the clients and key workers if they see a rapport. I read up on Harry’s fascinating history. He had been in the Royal Navy and had fought in World War II. He’d never married nor had children. It seemed such a waste. He cared for his elderly parents and inherited their house when they died, which he had now sold to pay for his care.

‘Bloody ridiculous state of affairs,’ he had said when I had discussed this part of his care plan with him. ‘You spend your life working your arse off, paying your taxes and serving your country. Then how do they repay you? I’ll tell you how. They say: “I’m very sorry Mr. Mackay but you’re no longer any use to us. Tell you what, you sell your house and give us back every penny that you and your family have ever earned.” That’s what!’ I nod in agreement. It is ridiculous. Considering some of the other residents had never owned their own homes and yet still receive the same care as Harry, but for free. Not their fault either. Life can deal you some crap, but still it seems unfair that your achievements can be snatched away so cruelly, just because you need help to support yourself. I ask Harry discreetly if he had ever been close to marriage.

He laughs. ‘Do you think I have never been with a woman?’

Mortified, I splutter: ‘No! That wasn’t what I meant at all. I just wondered why someone as handsome as you never got married?’

I glanced over at a faded black and white picture of Harry and his brother in their Navy uniforms, their goofy pose captured in time. Jimmy had never come back from the War.  Just weeks after the picture was taken, they had been sent off to different vessels and Jimmy had died in a torpedo attack on his ship; Harry had been on the aircraft carrier flagship and he had seen the flames and explosions from a distance.

‘The one and only time I prayed,’ he solemnly informed me. ‘I prayed that he was alive and that if he wasn’t, that it was quick.’ I looked at Harry in silence, not knowing how to reply to that. His alarm clocked ticked away to fill the void. Harry glanced at a bird pecking at some stale bread thrown out the window of the kitchens and then, in an attempt to lighten the mood, said:

‘Besides, being the hunk that I was, I never got around to choosing just one woman. There was just too much damn choice.’ His eyes sparkled at the memory. ‘And another thing; don’t think all the girls were virtuous in those days. So long as you didn’t get in the club you were fine.’ I stifle a shocked laugh at the biggest player of his day.

Despite Harry’s chattiness to me, he never repeated his intriguing tales in our regular reminiscence groups.

‘Can’t get a word in for all those bloody wimmin,’ was his excuse.

It was around this time that I met Paul. He had come to give us a talk on Dementia. He was around for three days, to make sure he covered those on days off and all the senior staff. Paul wandered around the centre, whistling tunelessly. Everywhere he went I witnessed the old dears taking out their hearing aids, shaking and fiddling with them in a confused manner. Paul was very shy with me, despite being able to stand up and talk to a room full of people, and blushed even if I asked him if he fancied a cup of tea. Every time he popped into the day room, Maisie, an eighty six-year-old ‘Dementia sufferer’ would nudge me knowingly.

‘Don’t be daft,’ I’d say. ‘He doesn’t fancy me!’

‘You’re lucky I have no memory, hen,’ Maisie stated. ‘Otherwise, I’d be most offended that you called me daft.’ It was our little joke.

‘Well, I guess I am lucky, Maisie’.

‘Lucky in what way, dear?’ Maisie would reply. We would both laugh.

 It was her little play on “forgetfulness.” If the Social Work department knew she had more marbles than she cared to admit, she would be out on her ear from the place she loved and into sheltered housing.

One afternoon Paul came in with his empty cup.

‘Erm, so… What you up to tonight then, er, Lucy?’

Fifteen wrinkled and expectant faces look our way.

‘I’m on early tomorrow,’ I say apologetically. ‘Planning a bath and an early night,’ I lie.

 ‘No! She’s on the back shift,’ informs Bessie. ‘Don’t you play hard to get, Missy.’

‘Carry on, son,’ encouraged Sadie.

Paul looked at his feet and shuffled uncomfortably, giving me the perfect opportunity to shoot a warning look at Bessie. She smirked and winked in return.

‘Well, if you like, there’s a new restaurant opened on Rose Street. I thought, maybe …’ he trailed off.

‘She’d love to,’ shouted Maisie from the kitchen. OK, I think we can rule out deafness along with marble loss.

‘Well, yeah, all right,’ I agreed reluctantly, feeling under duress and knowing full well I‘d never hear the end of it otherwise. I can’t be bothered with a boyfriend at the moment. I like my life the way it is. But, at that moment, I had no say in the matter – and we left the room to a lavender-scented round of applause.

Our evening out goes really well. The restaurant was the perfect setting for a first date and I do manage to actually eat instead of awkwardly pushing food around my plate. Paul pays for everything. We head on to a few pubs along Rose Street, laughing and joking and feeling very comfortable in each other’s company. Paul confesses that he doesn’t have a huge amount of luck in his relationships and tends to get too involved too quickly, which seems to scare off potential girlfriends. OK, so he’s not the best looking guy I’ve dated, but he seems a true gent, attentive too. At the end of the evening Paul walks me home, coyly taking my hand and smiling. At my door he quickly leans over and gives me a peck on the cheek. How sweet. He promises to call again soon to arrange another date – if I’d like to, he anxiously adds. Of course I would, I tell him, putting my key in the lock. Perfect. He didn’t even try it on.

I arrive at work on Monday morning and immediately the ladies in the day room give me the third degree. Having to start again several times as new clients join us, on top of repeating everything twice for Meg, who has lost her hearing aid yet again and is leaning forward, attempting to listen intently from the corner chair. I wander down the hallway and rap my knuckles on Harry’s door.

‘Come in,’ is the grumpy reply, quickly followed by a wide smile when he sees it’s me. I give him a hug and after a quick chat, I open his medication cabinet, unscrewing bottles and tipping pills as if by second nature into the little pill cup as we talk. He’s not too interested in my date. Harry is strangely hesitant about Paul.

‘Here we go, Harry.’ I hand him the med cup and go to pour him a glass of water from a jug on the side table, with the very un-Harry crocheted doily on it, a gift from one of the well-meaning lady residents. An attempt to bring a woman’s touch to Harry’s barren room, which is sparsely furnished with a three quarter-sized bed, side table, an old tea trolley, with a black and white portable TV on it, and two armchairs. One for Harry and, sadly, a barely used guest one.