Estuary Page 8

  “The catheter’s working fine” she says carefully, “I don’t think it’s the catheter.”

  “What is it then?”

  The nurse says nothing for a moment or two, then bows her head.

  “It’s him, really” she says, “He can be very difficult, very unpredictable.”

  Yesterday, it seems, he was especially upset. OK to begin with then deeply disturbed. He kept asking questions. He wanted to know how, why, what next, where next. The nurses are there to help, of course they are, but my father’s poor shot-away brain has lost the capacity to keep anything specific in focus. If it was a glass of water he was after, or a new station on the radio, then they’d have been delighted to oblige, but my father’s real needs are much more profound.

  I nod. I understand her only too well. The question my father is trying to voice, in essence, is simple. He wants to know why me? To that, there can be no answer. The nurses know it, and I do too, and so - I suspect - does my dad. Life’s a lucky-dip. He’s someone ended up with the shortest of straws and the results, just now, are grotesque.

  “So what can you do?”

  In five short minutes, this nurse has become an ally. When it comes to madness, we’re all on the same side.

  “The consultant’s due tomorrow” she says ominously, “We’ve made a few notes.”

  I head back towards the patio. Looking out through the safety-wired glass doors, I can see my father and mother sitting side by side in the sunshine. My father’s head is back, and his eyes are closed, and he might as well be dead. Minutes later, I wheel him back to the day room. By the table, he catches sight of one of the care attendants.

  “Hey ho” he calls cheerfully, “How are you?”

  Nineteen

  That evening, the beach at Hayling Island is nearly deserted. I wrestle my board down across the shingle, rig it, and wriggle into my wet suit. The wind is much stiffer than I’d thought and there’s a fair swell running in from the south-east. My windsurfing skills are still in their infancy and I spend the first half hour or so trying to uphaul the rig.

  Finally, I get going. I’ve brought the wrong footwear - an ancient pair of treadless runners - and my feet keep slipping on the wet board but I hang on regardless, bumping across the waves, angrier than I can remember. Half a mile out, at the point when I’m beginning to enjoy myself, the mast unseats itself and parts company from the board. Seconds later, I’m back in the water. Potentially, this isn’t looking too clever. The tide is ebbing fast and I’m far too close to the mouth of Langstone Harbour. Unless I sort myself out, I could end up on the Isle of Wight.

  I have two options. Either I can collapse the rig onto the board and paddle back or I can try and reseat the mast-foot in the little hole forward of the dagger-board. Attempting the latter, with a board as big as mine, is a fearsome proposition. It means holding the board side-on with one hand while trying to drive the mast-foot home with the other. I’ve often through this manoeuvre through in my head but I’ve never had to do it.

  Now though I have no choice. Me and the board are drifting slowly out to sea and the camper van - with my mum in the passenger seat - is a green speck in the distance. For minutes on end, I fight the board and the rig. Each time I wait for a lull between the waves to try and mate the one with the other and each time I get it wrong. On the point of giving up, I finally make it. All that remains is to get back on the board, haul the rig to the vertical, and try and make it back to the beach.

  This isn’t as easy as it sounds. I’m exhausted by now and I have a horrible feeling that the mast foot may come out again. In the event, it doesn’t. I heave on the blue uphaul, sieze the boom, and catch the face of the next wave. The sail fills with wind and tries to dump me but I’m determined to hang on. Seconds later, I’m creaming home. For reasons I can only guess at, the confidence I’d won from last season’s efforts suddenly returns and the next five minutes or so are the purest magic. By the time I hit the beach, every nerve end in my body is tingling. I’ve made it. I’ve cheated disaster. For a precious few moments in time, I’ve forgotten all about Cedar Ward, and the slow descent into witlessness that has taken my father away from us.

  My mother looks up from her book when I stagger back to the van.

  “Why are you so wet?” she asks me,

  Twenty

  The following evening, we return to the hospital. On the way past the nurses’ station, I’m intercepted by the Clinical Manager, Anne-Marie. She, her staff, and the consultant have had a bit of a chat. The consensus is that my father has not responded well to their ministrations. In fact, to put it bluntly, he’s untreatable. They’ve done all they can. Now the time has come to find him a nursing home.

  This is the news I’ve been dreading since that first stroke but when it finally comes there’s a curious sense of release. There’s a logic here, a remorseless progress into a narrow little cul-de-sac that most of us would never mistake for a future. Three years ago, even the mention of a nursing home would have been repugnant. Now, it makes absolute sense.

  I wander into the day room. My father, after last night’s episode, is as good as gold. I tell him about the Saudi/England international for the umpteenth time and the news that our lads could only manage a nil-nil draw - at Wembley - brings yet another smile to his face. He loves bad news, especially other people’s. It’s one of the things that’s kept him going all these years. Towards the end of the hour, he even manages a volt or two of affection for my mother, who looks astonished. It’s at this moment that I’m tempted to tell him about the nursing home but I decide against it. First I have to break the news to mum.

  I broach the subject on the way back to Southsea. I explain that the time has come to bring dad much closer to home. We’ll find a nice place for him within walking distance. She’ll be able to visit every day, whenever she likes, for as long as she likes. It’ll be a bit like hospital, but smaller.

  She looks across at me.

  “You mean a nursing home?”

  I swallow hard.

  “Yes.”

  “Have you found one yet?”

  “Well, no I haven’t.” I pause, “You don’t mind?”

  “Of course not” she shakes her head, “I knew he’d never be able to come home.”

  The search for a suitable place proves infinitely easier than I’d expected. Southsea is awash with nursing homes but the key in our case is proximity. Whichever one we chose has to be nearby. My mother must be able to totter round there everyday and with the state of her hip, that draws a radius of about a quarter of a mile.

  We compile a list of homes. In the end, the choice boils down to just two of them. One of our neighbours has a high-powered job with the NHS with access to inspection reports. Both nursing homes have the right ticks in the right boxes and in the end we settle for Granville House, a nice-looking Victorian conversion in the adjoining street. My father will be sharing a room on the ground floor. This will make him easier to nurse and means that we can wheel him out for local excursions. His room-mate, Len, is talkative, friendly, and eager for company. The food looks extremely good and the care - according to another neighbour whose father has recently been a resident - is first-class. Looking round the big room at the front that will be my dad’s new home, I wonder exactly what he’ll make of all this. Over the past few days, I’ve realised that he doesn’t remember anything at all about Southsea. Three years of his life have simply vanished.

  Two nights later, back in the Petersfield hospital, I settle down beside his wheelchair. The day room, for once, is empty. My mother has already forgotten about the nursing home and after I’ve broken the news to dad she looks more surprised than he does. When I ask him how he feels about a move back to Southsea he says he doesn’t know. At this point, it dawns on me that he hasn’t understood a word, so I go through it all again. His time at the hospital is nearly over. There’s light at the end of the tunnel. We’ve found another place for him, a smaller place, much closer to home.


  He looks at me for a long moment, trying to distil some sense from this latest puzzle.

  “Where?”

  “Southsea.”

  “And what......?” He shakes his head, unable to grasp where it is he might be going. I finish the sentence for him.

  “It’s another hospital, really. But much smaller than this one. The food’s brilliant. And we can watch the World Cup together.”

  “The what?”

  I chatter on about the football. How England are playing Tunisia, Romania and Colombia in the first round. How Gazza’s got himself sent home. How this nice new place we’ve found won’t mind if he has the odd beer with me.

  My father frowns. Lately he’s taken to using the first person plural.

  “When are we going?” he asks again.

  “Next Wednesday. That night it’s Scotland versus Brazil. The first game of the tournament.”

  “And what is it?”

  “A sort of little hospital.”

  “I see” He’s looking at the nearby kitchenette where visitors can brew themselves a pot of tea. “So will we pull the plugs out before we go?”

  Twenty One

  A couple of days before my father leaves the hospital, Lin helps my mum pack a suitcase for the nursing home. Over the last couple of weeks, dad has been kitted out in an assortment of other people’s shirts, cardigans, and trousers. Each time we visit, it’s been like meeting a stranger.

  Lin starts in the bedroom, sorting through the clothes in the chest of drawers. Over the last few years, my mother has taken a definite fancy to Lin. She loves her patience, and her kindness, and the way that nothing seems to get to her. Mum knows she must be recounting the same stories time and time again - her childhood trips to see her father’s relatives in West Wales, her wartime days in the Censorship Department - but Lin is happy to preserve the fiction that these reminiscences are newly-minted, and for that my mother is more than grateful. I don’t think she’s had very much love in her life and the presence of a listening ear is deeply comforting.

  The pile of clothes on the bedspread grows and grows. Five pairs of Jonelle XL pants. Vests. Two pairs of trousers plus four shirts, recovered from the depths of the wardrobe, mercifully free of gravy stains. In a corner of the bottom drawer, Lin has come across a beautiful wooden box. The interior is lined in blue felt and contains a selection of medals. She puts the box to one side, repacks the medals, and then returns the box to the drawer. My mother, watching, sighs. My father’s war has disappeared once again amongst the hankies and the carefully-folded cravats.

  “Will he ever be back here?”

  Lin shakes her head.

  “No” she says as gently as she can, “He won’t.”

  My father, meanwhile, sits in the day room along from Cedar Ward, staring at the cricket. England are playing South Africa in the first test at Edgbaston. Graham Thorpe and Mike Atherton are a couple of runs away from their half-century partnership but my father can’t make any sense of it. What’s an “over”? Who’s winning? When will play stop so the players can have a “sweet pea”. This is my father’s private code for a visit to the lavatory and as Thorpe and Atherton power past their fifty, he becomes more and more troubled by the state of their bladders.

  After a while, I realise that it isn’t the England team that he’s worrying about, but himself. He badly needs to take a leak. Quite why this should happen when he’s still wearing a catheter is beyond me but I wander the corridor in search of a nurse to take him to the loo. No one seems to be around. Finally, I spot Anne-Marie emerging from a single-bedded room at the end of the women’s wing. I explain about my dad but she’s looking a little preoccupied. Through the open door behind her I can see three other nurses bent over a figure in the bed.

  “Is everything OK?” I ask.

  Anne-Marie gives me a strange look.

  “Not really” she says, “The lady in there just died.”

  On the way home, I’m thinking again about the cricket. Here was a man who fenced off every summer weekend to turn out for Clacton’s first eleven. In those early post-war years, his passion for cricket was all-consuming. Now, the sight of men in white darting to and fro between the stumps bewilders him. Once, he put the game before his marriage. Now, the women in the day room probably understand it better than he does.

  Next day, I take the train to London for a 10.00am meeting. At eight’o’clock, we’re easing into Petersfield station. The hospital is just visible from the railway line and glimpsing it through the curtains of falling rain, I realise just how finally I’ve lost touch with the rhythms of my father’s day. For three years, I was across the road most mornings to sort out the shopping, or plan a visit to the hairdressers, or field the post. While my mother busied in the kitchen, I’d stick my head around the bedroom door and say good morning. My father, most days, would be sitting up in bed, drinking tea. He’d stare out at me, pale-faced and gloomy, but it wasn’t hard to coax a smile. Who does all that now? What’s happening in the corner of that four-bedded ward? Do they serve him a cooked breakfast? Does he eat it? Does he even care about food any more?

  That same evening, Lin and I walk my mother around to the nursing home. My father’s due for transfer the following day and Lin has brought the suitcase full of clothes. The nursing home is two hundred and sixty seven metres from my mother’s flat - we’ve paced it out - and this is mum’s first visit. One of the home’s two owners meets her at the door. Her name is Fran Foster. She has a warm smile and a strong north country accent. She’s direct and friendly and there’s a sturdiness about her which is immediately reassuring. This is the woman who will sort dad out. My mother likes her on sight.

  Fran shows her the room where my father will probably spend the rest of his days. She meets Len, my father’s room-mate-to-be, and she listens while Fran lists the many ways the home will coax my dad into the family circle. They play scrabble. They do crosswords. They watch television. And most of all, they talk. Quite how my father will cope with this sudden return to the human race remains to be seen but my mother thinks it’s all extremely promising.

  Ten minutes later, we’re all walking slowly home. Lin has explained the route countless times but with three left-or-right decisions to make, my mother has already got two of them wrong. On the corner of the street where we all live, she tugs Lin’s arm. She’s suddenly remembered Fran again.

  “What a nice lady” she says, “What a lovely woman.”

  Twenty Two

  The following morning, my father rides down from Petersfield in the back of an ambulance. That evening, newly returned from London, I call round to see him. At first I’m convinced he doesn’t recognise me but then he stirs in the bed and waves an arm in the direction of Len.

  “Graham” he announces, “My son.”

  I stay for perhaps an hour. After the barely-peopled spaces of the day room up in Petersfield, this little room feels intimate and cosy. We talk about the opening game of the ‘98 World Cup, a clash between Brazil and Scotland. The game has just been on TV and despite losing Scotland have acquitted themselves well, but an hour after the final whistle my father’s memory has already fogged. One of the scenes I’m dreading is the moment when he realises that he once lived here. The flat is only round the corner. What on earth do I say if he wants to come home?

  I needn’t have worried. While Len and I are still discussing John Collins’ mid-field talents, my father announces that he’ll be needing some stationary.

  “Pukkah stuff” he insists, “With the address on the top and everything.”

  I tell him I’ll organise it. Then I ask why. He looks taken aback for a moment, as if the answer’s too obvious to bother with, then his fingers crab across the sheet towards me.

  “And £50” he says, “I need £50”

  “Why?” I repeat.

  He shakes his head. He doesn’t know. I go back to the headed stationary. Who’s the lucky correspondant?

  “Correspondant?”
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  “Who do you want to write to?”

  “I can’t” He shakes his head firmly. “I can’t write any more.”

  “Then why do you need the notepaper?”

  “To tell everyone of course” he gestures towards the window, “All these houses. People are looking in, you know. We’ve got to be careful.”

  Len has gone very quiet. I know from one of the nurses that he’s dying of cancer. He takes twenty tablets daily for the pain but he seems to be coping incredibly well. With luck, a little of his stoicism and good humour might rub off on dad.

  I’ve brought a couple of tins of Ruddle’s County to christen my father’s new perch. My dad hasn’t has a drink for nearly two months but after a protest or two he submits to a mouthful. The glass nestles against his lower lip. He sucks at it, like a baby.

  “Hmmm...” he mutters, “Nice.”

  He swallows some more. I wipe his chin, aware of his arm lifting towards the window again.

  “They’re still out there” he says with a chuckle. “And they’re all queuing.”

  “What for?”

  “This” he nods at the Ruddles.

  A little later, the can empty, he asks me to get him ready for bed. This is a sudden gust of deja vu, the old routine we practised for month after month. I tell him he’s already in bed.

  He frowns.

  “What about my shoes and my socks?”

  “They’re here”

  I reach for his slippers, tucked under the bed, and try and show him but he’s not interested. Instead, he gazes up at me. Hospital has taken pounds off him. His face is shrinking around the expression I’ve got to know so well. Blind apprehension, a gulp or two away from tears.