A row of early-Victorian terraced houses
over-looking the park, each house sweetly maintained with paths of black and
white mosaic tiles, lines of clipped box and laurel hedges, multi-coloured
fan-lights on lead-glassed front doors. A smart location, the kind of move high-achievers
make two properties in on their Game of
Life. Expensive houses, just a turn of the four by four from the commuter station,
the Pilates studio, the good school, and that bijou row of shops on the top
road selling handmade chocolates, shabby chic furniture, and more expensive properties,
further out of town, with land.
Rae’s been here before, but even so we’d
hardly struggle to find it. Mr Dyer’s house stands out like a rotten tooth in
the middle of a smile. The garden is dark and wild. There are discoloured and
sagging curtains in his window. Ragged curls of paint lift from the sashes.
The front door stands open.
Just inside the hallway is the neighbour
who called us, a smart, peach-lipped, black-bobbed woman in fake fur and ankle boots.
‘He’s really not coping,’ she says, leaning
in. ‘Especially now his sister’s gone. It can’t go on. We’re at our wits’ end.
He’s got no relatives, at least none that we’ve seen. He keeps sacking his
carers for one reason or another, but he definitely needs something because he’s
got all these problems and he’s just – well – old.’
‘So what’s happened this morning?’
‘I came round to see how he was and I found
him half-collapsed at the sink. I helped him back into his chair and then
called you.’
‘Okay.’
‘I can lock up when you’ve gone.’
‘Thanks.’
She opens the door wider, and stands aside.
Mr Dyer is sprawled on his kitchen chair, his
long legs splayed right and left, the bandages on each foot seeping and
discoloured. There’s a single barred electric wall-heater just above his head,
broiling his scalp. He is wearing a huge pair of glasses so thumb-printed and
dirty he may as well have cataracts. He squints as we go up to him.
‘It’s my groin,’ he says, plucking at his corduroys.
‘I’d rather you just cut if off. It’s not like I have any use for it these days
– except for going to the you-know-what. I wouldn’t mind betting they could
fashion some other arrangement. It sounds drastic but it’s how I feel. It
itches so terribly it’s almost what I’d call pain, and all the creams the doctors gave me are useless. I may as
well smear myself in margarine. And then there’s my hip. I get such pain from
it, I just don’t know what to do...’
As he talks I take in the details of his
kitchen – the wallpaper peeling down from the ceiling, the spotted photographs
on the shelf, the meagre display of tinned salmon, packets of biscuits and
mouldy fruit in the cabinet. A packet of sugar, a saucer of old tea bags.
‘Mr Dyer? Mr Dyer? Tell me what’s happened today? Your neighbour says you were
collapsed by the sink? Had you fallen over and hurt yourself?’
‘I’m always falling over but I rarely hurt
myself. I have this hip, you see. It gives me such a lot of bother. Normally I
can get along by myself but today it was all getting a little too much. I used
to have carers, of course, but I only have one a week now and she’s no earthly
good. I let all the others go. I mean, they don’t do anything, certainly not
anything I can see. And it’s not as if I need that much help. I struggle to get
about, it’s true. I suffer with my hip and it’s as much as I can do not to cry
out when I move, but that aside I think I’m doing pretty well. It takes me a
while to get from one place to another, and although I don’t have the agility I
once had, I get by, do you know? Of course, the one thing I do regret is losing
my sister. She had a stroke and she’s in hospital at the moment. I don’t know
if she’ll be coming out. No-one’s said anything. We used to manage pretty well
together, but then again we were younger. We had a bit more vim...’
I decide to take him in, partly for the
groin issue, partly for the hip, but mainly because his mobility does seem
reduced and he’s not safe to leave at home.
‘Will you phone my sister? I don’t want to
worry her but I suppose she should be kept informed.’
We pass a picture of her up on the wall.
The two of them together, side by side, middle-aged, looking out of the frame with
the same, gloomy expression.
We get Mr Dyer into our carry chair and manoeuvre
him out of the house. The contrast between the dull interior and the blue of
the sky outside is overwhelming. There are families taking advantage of the brighter
weather , strolling through the park, children shouting, playing on bikes,
running around. Immediately opposite Mr Dyer’s house is a big old pine.
‘What a lovely tree,’ I say to him.
‘It’s not a tree, it’s a hedge.’
‘No, not that. Across the road, in the
park. Is that a Scot’s pine?’
‘It’s always been there,’ he sniffs.
I try to imagine Mr Dyer as a child, eighty
years ago, running around the park with his sister under the boughs of the old
pine, but it’s too much of a stretch. He was always this old.
As I wheel him backwards onto the ambulance
ramp, a little girl stops to watch. She waves, and then bites her mitten as she’s
done something incredibly naughty – but then her mother catches up, grabs her by
the arm and urges her on. ‘Don’t be so nosy,’ she says. The little girl glances
behind at us, waves one last time – and then disappears round the corner.
5 comments:
The pictures you paint of some of our inevitable futures brings me to my knees; I'm not sure if I should thank you or just be stunned at your accuracy, Spence.
Hip pain,not nice.An area of expertise for me.I had Perthes' Disease as a boy Spence (you generally get it at between 2 and 5,I was 9.)There is nothing you can do when it aches.Cold and wet weather is the worst time.So I've plenty of sympathy for Mr Dyer.
Hi Lynda
I think the blog gives a skewed view of old age. I think I've got a tendency to write about the tougher side of it, the poverty and deprivation and isolation. That's probably because it's so appalling to witness - and frustrating, because really there's lots that could be done to make it easier. In Mr Dyer's case, though, he had been offered care at home, but just hadn't been able to accept it. At least the neighbours were still popping round, so that's one good thing.
I'm counting on science to improve things when I'm elderly. Transferring my brain into a robot, so I can fly & chop wood & go on missions etc. (Science Fiction, I should say).
Hi Jack
I had to google Perthes Disease. Sounds grim. Will that make you more prone to a hip replacement later on? I suppose being on your feet all day in the shop can't help. Have I just depressed you? Tell me to shut up. Okay, I'll shut up. ;)
I am more likely to suffer with arthritis and rheumatism when I'm older.I have a mushroom shaped ball joint,so there is a fair chance it will grind itself down to eventually needing replacing.Still,I can always hop round the chair Spence.
...or maybe rig up some wires so you can be suspended from the ceiling a la Mission Impossible. Haircut Impossible. Just a thought. I'd certainly go to a place like that. So long as it didn't look too busy...
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