Precious Lives Read online

  Finding adequate saucepans in which to boil the carrots and cabbage and Brussels sprouts – for the meal would not be complete without these – was another difficulty. I tried to search for pans as quietly as possible, but my father heard me and came through once more to stare at me on my knees scrabbling around in the cupboard under the sink. He shook his head, exasperated. The pans he used were in the pantry. I’d seen these but there were only two; both were very small and neither had lids. ‘Lids?’ he echoed. ‘What’s wrong with a plate?’ I thought there might be quite a few things wrong with using a plate as a lid on top of boiling water, but I didn’t suggest any of them. In the end, I found three very old larger aluminium pans, two with proper lids. I scrubbed them out well and soon had the vegetables boiling merrily. That only left the gravy. Oh God, the gravy. Gravy had to be made my mother’s way, as I’d tried to make it for his ninetieth birthday, but that involved the use of gravy browning. A spoonful of this was essential to mix with flour and then the residue of the meat juices. I had to ask him if he had a packet of the stuff. Triumphantly, he produced an opened half-finished packet from the back of the pantry. I looked at it. I felt the packet. It was rock hard. ‘Dad, this is solid.’ ‘Nothing wrong with it. You can manage.’

  When we eventually sat down to our sumptuous dinner, the perspiration was pouring off me. We sat at a carefully laid table – tablecloth, place mats (views of hunting scenes), cork stand and woollen cosy for the teapot, china plates. The joint rested on the right kind of serving dish, which I’d found wrapped in newspaper dated 1972 on the top shelf of a cupboard. The vegetables were in a tureen, found in the same place. ‘Grand,’ my father said; ‘everything right’. I carved the meat, inviting comparisons with my brother’s carving abilities to my disadvantage, and doled out the rest of the food. My father tucked in, and I tried to, but only picked. ‘Lost your appetite?’ he said, his own cheeks bulging. I said I had, a little. ‘All that foreign rubbish, likely,’ he said. I agreed this might be so. He relished every mouthful of his dinner, especially the meat, chewed vigorously and the fatty bits sucked noisily, as usual. When he’d had seconds and finished he said, ‘I won’t have another roast meat dinner like that for a long time, any road. Once you’ve gone, I’ll be back to normal. No roast joints then.’

  Making that meal brought to an end the only meaningful, useful thing I could do for him. It had taken all morning and given me a reason to lurk in the kitchen and not to have to sit with him. I took a long time scrupulously washing and rinsing and drying and putting away all the dishes and pans. It was amazing, in fact, how very long I managed to make this job take. Then there was no escape from joining him in the hot living-room. It should have felt companionable, but it didn’t. It never had done, either for me or, I was sure, for him. It felt awkward, the silence heavy. I’d exhausted accounts of my holiday and he’d exhausted descriptions of the infirmary meals. ‘Put the TV on,’ he ordered. I said there wasn’t much on in the afternoon today, no sport, no nature programmes, but he said beggars couldn’t be choosers and to put it on without the sound. Once it was on, once an old black-and-white film was flickering away, he seemed to relax. He fell asleep, slumped in his chair, almost immediately. I picked up a book. If I kept very still and turned the pages very quietly, he might sleep all afternoon. But he didn’t. He slept for ten minutes at a time, waking repeatedly with a start, looking about him, looking at me with astonishment, sighing, looking at the television and then drifting off again.

  At four o’clock, he woke up to tell me to close the curtains. It was still light, just. I said so, and he said, as he always had done (this was an old battle of ours), that he’d decide whether it was time to close the curtains or not. So I closed them. I made his tea, not because he actually wanted it but because he wanted the routine of it. Amazingly, he ate a sandwich and a piece of Madeira cake and was cross I would neither eat nor drink. Then the serious business of watching television began in earnest. Hours of quiz shows followed and if I failed to answer every question correctly, which I did, he professed surprise – ‘Thought you went to Oxford.’ Sneaking off into the freezing back bedroom to crouch in my bed, fully clothed and with a big scarf round my head, offended him greatly. I felt ashamed and guilty. I was rejecting him and his ways too pointedly and I shouldn’t. So I came back into the living-room and counted the minutes till bedtime.

  The following morning, I didn’t just go out to shop. I went to do something I’d been putting off for a long time. I went to look at a nearby nursing-home, as a kind of insurance against my father’s ever needing to live in such a place. I’d no intention of allowing him to go into any sort of institution but, absurdly, I felt if I went and inspected the most likely home the necessity of putting him into it would never arise. In fact, I’d more or less promised him it never would. To Mrs Nixon he had once confessed that ‘they’ would put him into a home if he couldn’t manage. She told me this, as I’m sure she was intended to, and when I tackled him about it and told him he need never worry, that this would not happen, he seemed reassured. What I should have said was that I would try my best to see that it would not happen, but if I’d said that, if I’d qualified the reassurance, it would have amounted to no reassurance at all. I’d said it, and I’d hoped to mean it.

  I still thought I meant it, but all the same I went to look at a home Pauline had discovered. I could hardly bear to make the visit. My father was a loner, a proud and independent man, who would loathe living among others. I knew that in these homes women heavily outnumbered men and so he would be not only appalled at the loss of his own house but at having to mix with women. They would embarrass him, make him feel permanently ill at ease. Death would surely be preferable to such a fate. I think I groaned aloud as I walked towards the place I was going to vet, which was on the far side of the council estate where we used to live. Our old house, once with its paintwork and windows gleaming under my father’s care, once with the garden brimming over with roses and lupins, was now derelict. The windows were boarded up, the paintwork was peeling and the garden had been concreted over. It was the same depressing sight all the way through the estate until I reached the church, which was newly whitewashed, its grounds unexpectedly neat and well cared for.

  The nursing-home was only a little further on, round the corner, but part of another estate, new and private, where there were attractive and expensive houses for sale. The home was at the top, but built in a dip. I stood hesitating, looking at it. It was a one-storey building, brick, with flower-beds already well established in front. It looked more like a small, modern hotel than any kind of institution, which was somehow hopeful. Appearances had always mattered to my father.

  I went inside. The entrance hall was wide and light, with fresh flowers (at the end of January) on a table in the middle. The walls were freshly emulsioned, the floors squeaky clean. There were pictures and photographs everywhere and displays of mementos from earlier times – old lamps, railway memorabilia, boxes and posters. All the doors appeared to be open and there was an atmosphere of bustle, which seemed strange. There was no smell, except for a faint lemony scent in the air which might have been soap or something similar. I stood in the doorway of what looked like an office, and immediately the young woman sitting at a computer smiled and got up and asked could she help me – such a simple, obvious reaction but so cheering. I began to feel optimistic, as I was shown round, until we got to the main sitting-room. It was a pleasant room, large and airy, with french windows opening onto a small garden, but nothing could camouflage the depressing sight of eight very old, very ill people sitting there, three of them in wheelchairs. They all looked utterly pathetic and half dead. My father would go mad. He hated wheelchairs – ‘damned things’ – and was prone to saying outrageous things whenever he had to pass one in any kind of confined space – ‘Shouldn’t be allowed, cluttering the place up.’ Asked how the poor occupants of the wheelchairs would then be able to get out and about, he would say, ‘They should stop in
bed in their condition, best place for them.’

  I was taken next to see the individual rooms. They were small but not much smaller than my father’s own living-room, and they each had a bathroom. He could bring his own furniture, or at least a couple of small items, and his own photographs and pictures of course. The home provided the bed (excellent mattress, much better than his own) and an armchair. The curtains and carpets were all fresh and pretty, the windows wide and with a broad view – but ah, the views. I realised at once that not a single window in this establishment had what could be called a view. There was nothing for old people, confined to their chairs and peering out of their windows most of the day, to look at. Built round a large area of grass, where nothing else grew (and there were as yet no urns of flowers), each room on two sides of the home had this emptiness for its view. One of the other two sides faced the front door, and the flowers, at the front, where at least there were some comings and goings to watch; and the other looked onto the gardens of neighbouring houses, but this view was interrupted by a big wooden fence. My father, if he was admitted – and I realised I was already thinking like this – would in any case have no choice of room. He would have to take whichever came up at the time. He would miss the view from his own living-room window horribly. There had not, to a less discerning eye than his own, been much to look at from it, but he had always seen a great deal during the hours he’d kept watch. Unlike the front windows of other houses and bungalows in his street, the window of his living-room was not shrouded in net or concealed by Venetian blinds. Nothing except glass came between him and his view. This was of his own front garden, where every blade of grass, never mind every plant and shrub, came under hourly inspection, and beyond that, across the road, a huge playing field between the backs of two rows of houses. This provided him with endless entertainment, watching children play there, and in November there was the bonfire to which he would drag over his own contributions.

  But he saw more than the garden and the field. He saw such life as his street presented. Every inhabitant’s routine was known to him and if it deviated from the norm this provided him with enjoyable speculation as to the reasons. No stranger could pass his window without arousing instant suspicion – he was a one-man Neighbourhood Watch. He knew every car, too, and if a car he could not account for appeared he took its number. One never knew. So this seemingly dull prospect from his window was, as far as he was concerned, crowded with action. To him, it was like watching a very quiet play without much plot and with no striking characters but a set full of subtle nuances which never failed to absorb him. The loss of this entertainment would be a blow made even harder to bear if it was to be replaced by virtual blankness. If only the place had not been built in a dip it would have had views on one side of hills and on another of a primary-school playground.

  I didn’t mention where I had been when I returned with some shopping. My father was content to hear where I’d bought the fish and what the weather was like. The meal that day was simpler to prepare. I didn’t have to tackle the oven, though I annoyed him by lighting the gas rings again with matches, because I couldn’t get his so-called ‘magic’ wand to work. So it went on, for another day. By the time I did leave him, I’d had plenty of time to observe how unsteady he now was on his feet. Every movement was made by clinging on to the backs of chairs and then lunging for the next anchor. His bungalow was small and, of course, there were no stairs, but there were traps everywhere threatening his safe progress. We had quarrelled over the thick rug in front of the gas fire. Every time he went to put the fire on, or to regulate it, he stumbled over the edge of this rug. It simply had to be discarded, but he resisted any interference with it and it was so cruel to point out that if it stayed there he would surely fall again. He hated to think he would ever fall again. And it was more than that – this old, ordinary rug was part of his life, part of the comfort that his possessions gave him. Remove it and another little bit of himself, which he could ill spare, was taken away.

  There were other traps but they were easier to deal with. Pauline had already coped with some of them. The telephone, for example. He’d always got up from his favourite armchair to answer it but she’d bought a small table to put beside his chair and altered the position of the telephone. It was now right next to him. She had failed, though, to persuade him to use his stick indoors as well as out. So did I. The stick was for outside and that was that. Well, he would surely trip without it and the only protection against the consequences of a resulting fall was the alarm system I’d set up some time ago. He wore the alarm button round his neck (or was supposed to) and if he fell someone monitoring the alarm would respond instantly and could speak to him while help was on the way.

  It had already been tested before ever he went into hospital. He’d fallen in his living-room and while he was lying on the floor, struggling to get up, a voice had said, ‘I’m here, Arthur, don’t you worry.’ My father had been amazed, even though the system, and its workings, had been explained many times to him. ‘No you aren’t,’ he’d replied, looking round the room, ‘or I’m a Dutchman.’ He was annoyed, not relieved or pleased, when someone duly arrived to help him up. ‘Who gave you my key, eh?’ he’d said. He hated strangers having his key. It was an infringement of his independence which he deeply resented.

  But it made me feel a little better about leaving him. So long as he wore the alarm (doubtful), at least I didn’t have to envisage him lying for hours with a broken leg. Otherwise, there was not much else I could do to protect him. His pantry was now well stocked (he absolutely would not have Meals on Wheels). His clothes and bedding and towels all clean, enough to see him through till Pauline came again. The Nixons would pop in, Johnny and Jeff would call, the daily telephone calls would go on. But as I set off to walk to the railway station and he stood at his window and waved, nothing had ever seemed more wicked than to leave him to fend for himself, even though that was what he wanted.

  My father’s life might not seem precious to me but his welfare was, so long as it continued. I wanted him to be as content and comfortable as it was possible for him to be. But if so, why was I not taking him to live with me? I never contemplated it. I didn’t think up convincing excuses either, of the he-wouldn’t-be-happy-away-from-Carlisle, or my-house-isn’t-suitable variety. No; no excuses. I didn’t want him, it was as brutal as that. I would do anything to avoid it. Only evidence of his ill-treatment would have forced me to such a step – then, I would have had to rescue him. But all my thinking was directed towards another solution, if he proved unable to manage any longer. I could try to set up a support system within his own home. His bungalow had two bedrooms. One of them could possibly go to some kind of companion. But would he tolerate this? And would anyone be able to tolerate him? We’d operated such a system in London for my mother-in-law, but it had only worked, when it did, fitfully, because we lived in the same street and could supervise, and Marion had actually lived in the same house, in another flat, as her mother.

  It was what I should have done, but I hadn’t. I left him, knowing my frail father would be lucky to go on managing until we arrived in May when I would be near enough to look after him if he collapsed again.

  How long was this going to continue?

  When I returned from visiting my father, Marion was making wonderful progress. It was thrilling to see how well she had recovered from the radiotherapy, how completely she seemed restored to life. But eating went on being something that had to be done with determination, with soft foods still her staple diet, and she could taste very little. It became a challenge cooking for her. Could any taste get through to her? Coriander did. Soup so heavily laced with the strong herb that nobody else could bear to eat it delighted her – more than anything, she wanted to be able to enjoy food again.

  I don’t know why it surprised me so much to realise how important food was to her. Hadn’t she always been the most enthusiastic eater of anything I’d cooked for her? And whenever she’d returned fr
om holidays abroad it wasn’t the scenery or the weather she’d described first, it was the food, especially if she’d been to Greece. She loved Greek food and would rave about an especially rich moussaka or particularly tasty stuffed vine leaves. But in spite of this I hadn’t appreciated that food, and shopping for food, constituted one of her chief pleasures after smoking. Now when the thought struck her that she might never be able to enjoy roast potatoes again, she could become upset – with so few of her saliva glands working, the consistency of potatoes was hard for her to masticate and her taste buds didn’t react to them. I couldn’t credit that out of all her misfortunes the inability to relish roast potatoes counted as a tragedy – it just seemed ludicrous and I could hardly take this lament seriously. But it wasn’t ludicrous. Food mattered. Of the lesser pleasures in life, in a list of all the things that made it worth fighting for, food was very important. She could do without reading, without walking, without driving, without travelling, if she had to, but she dreaded having to do without the pleasure of food and wine.

  But, eating apart, everything was going well. None of us held our breath in quite the same way and we dared to speculate that Marion after all had a long life yet in front of her.

  IV

  THE DAY AFTER I returned to London my father fell yet again. That was it. Pauline went up immediately, but this awful version of leapfrog couldn’t go on, we’d agreed. My father had tried so valiantly to go back to living on his own after being in hospital, and he had failed. But would he acknowledge that he had? Pauline had the dreadful task of trying to find out. As gently as possible she talked to him, and to everything she said he replied as he had done before, but this time with more emphasis, ‘Put me on a cliff and push me over.’ Meanwhile, before any decision was made, he had to go back into hospital, where they were going to investigate to see if he had coeliac disease which would explain his diarrhoea and the weakness which had led to the latest fall.