by Rosie Harris
‘Don’t worry, I do,’ she said calmly.
She saw Bill scowl but dialled the number anyway and, when the girl answered, asked to be put through to the eye appointments office.
‘I’m checking the date for Bill Thompson’s next appointment,’ she told the receptionist in the appointments office.
‘Can you give me his hospital number, please?’
‘So sorry, I am afraid I haven’t got it handy but I can give you his date of birth.’
‘That will do,’ the girl said, and within a couple of minutes she came back on the line to say that it should have been on 10th January but he hadn’t turned up.
‘No, sorry about that but he wasn’t well,’ Mary said quietly.
‘Then he should have let us know and we could have offered the appointment to someone else,’ the girl said reprovingly.
‘Yes, very sorry about that. When can you fit him in?’
‘Well, he should have let us know,’ the girl repeated.
‘I know, and he’s very sorry about that. He’s here, would you like to speak to him?’
‘No, it doesn’t matter,’ the girl said curtly.
‘So when can you see him,’ Mary persisted.
‘There’s been a cancellation so I can give you an appointment on 24th February,’ the girl said hesitantly.
‘Oh dear, not until then! What time?’
‘It’s at 9.30 a.m.’
‘Right. He’ll be there and thank you for being so helpful,’ Mary said sweetly.
‘You heard all that?’ she asked Bill as she replaced the receiver. ‘I’ll order a taxi so be ready.’
‘You’re not thinking of coming with me, are you?’ Bill said in an astonished voice.
‘I most certainly am. I can’t trust you to keep it otherwise, now can I?’
‘Sorry about missing the other one,’ he said rather shamefaced. ‘I didn’t forget; I couldn’t face it.’
‘I understand,’ Mary said quietly.
She cast her mind back to the days when Sam had to attend the eye hospital for AMD and how reluctant he had always been, even when he knew that it was only for a check-up.
‘I don’t think you should come with me, Mary,’ he said, his brow furrowing.
‘Of course I’m coming with you!’
‘You are in no fit state to do that. It will upset Richard if he finds out.’
‘Then we’d better make sure he doesn’t,’ Mary said. ‘No arguing, I’m coming with you.’
‘You are still on crutches,’ he protested.
‘I know that, but I have a hospital appointment in the middle of February, before your appointment, so with any luck they will say I can use a walking stick and not have to use the crutches any longer. My leg is so much better and I’m able to put my weight on it now.’
Bill shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t count on it. These things take time.’
‘Then I’ll simply have to use my crutches,’ Mary snapped. ‘Let’s forget the whole thing. My tea is almost cold,’ she said changing the subject. ‘What about making a fresh pot?’
Bill was right, of course, Mary knew. She still wasn’t walking well enough to give up the crutches. When they had agreed to see her again in February she had hoped that it was because they thought that, by then, she could discard the crutches in favour of a stick and she was determined this would happen, because she disliked the crutches so much.
Now there was an added incentive.
She was very disappointed when she kept her appointment and, after her leg had been X-rayed, was told that – although it was healing well – she still needed the support of crutches.
‘Your age has a lot to do with the healing process, Mrs Wilson, and we don’t want to take any risks now, do we?’ the surgeon told her when she protested.
Bill’s visit to the eye clinic was equally disappointing. The trauma of getting there and back was something that imprinted it on Mary’s memory. The taxi arrived promptly and fortunately the driver had been the one who had taken them to the hospital before. He gave a low whistle when he saw Mary was on crutches.
‘What you been up to? Been skiing?’
‘No, nothing so exotic,’ Mary told him. ‘I slipped on some ice when I was out shopping and broke my leg.’
‘Sorry to hear that!’ He opened the front passenger door. ‘Climb in here, you’ll find it easier than getting in the back.’ He waited patiently as she manoeuvred into the seat, then he took her crutches and stowed them in the back of the car. ‘Same routine?’ He asked as he fastened her seat belt for her. ‘Pick up your friend and then the eye hospital in Windsor?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
Bill was surprised to see she was sitting in the front passenger seat but nodded understandingly when she told him why she was doing so. Mary left Bill to sign in at the reception desk. Walking down the long corridor from the entrance had made her very nervous and she wanted to sit down. The initial procedures for Bill’s eyes seemed to take longer than usual but the outcome was devastating for both of them.
The AMD was now in both eyes.
The doctors had decided he must have an injection in the newly affected eye right away. There was a fairly long wait but, as Mary pointed out to him, the fact that they were doing something immediately increased the chances of lessening the damage it might do.
‘At least you know the procedure,’ she said consolingly.
‘That’s the problem,’ Bill said. ‘I know the procedure and I don’t like it.’
‘Never mind, it will all be over soon and we’ll go and have a cup of tea or coffee before we go home.’ She looked at her watch. ‘In fact, we could have lunch here. They do an excellent jacket potato.’
Bill didn’t answer. At the moment food was far from his mind. All he wanted was to have the injection and get it over with. He was also secretly wondering if, by missing his last appointment, he had made matters worse. If he had come back then, a month ago, would he be here today with these results? It was almost midday before Bill was called in for his injection. Half an hour later, he came out of the surgery smiling with relief that it was all over.
‘Sit quietly for ten minutes and if you feel all right then you can go,’ the nurse told him.
‘Shall we have lunch here?’ Mary reiterated ten minutes later, when Bill said he was ready to leave. She picked up her crutches and started walking in the direction of the restaurant. She knew that at the moment, coupled with his sensation of relief that it was over with, he would not be feeling any discomfort. In another hour or so, when the anaesthetic had worn off, then his eye would feel painful as if it was full of gravel and most uncomfortable.
The moment they had finished their meal and drunk their coffee, Mary phoned for the taxi. She wished she had asked the driver who brought them here his name, so that she could ask for him, but the chances were that he would be out on another job anyway.
The driver who arrived was a complete stranger and he raised his eyebrows in surprise when she said she wanted to ride in the front passenger seat. Bill held the door for her and then took her crutches into the back of the car. She gave Bill’s address and when they arrived in Coburn Road, she could tell from the look on his face that his eye was beginning to become uncomfortable.
‘Bed as soon as you get in,’ she said. ‘I’ll phone you sometime this evening to see how you are.’
He nodded but said nothing.
She then gave the driver her address in Silver Street. When he stopped on the opposite side of the road she looked slightly dismayed but said nothing. It wasn’t a busy road so she shouldn’t have any trouble getting across. She paid him before she got out of the car and was slightly annoyed when he made no attempt to help her retrieve her crutches from the back of the car.
As she stood holding onto the door and struggling to balance she asked, ‘Could you pass over my crutches, please?’
He didn’t seem to understand what she was saying but, when she waved a hand towards the
back of the car, he looked over his shoulder into the rear and then leaned back and pressed down the door handle. However, he made no attempt to get out of his seat or to reach them out for her. Balancing awkwardly she moved her hold from the passenger door to the rear door of the car and painfully hobbled round, so that she could bend down and extricate the crutches.
It took her another minute or so to move her hold from the door to the crutches, and she was very aware that the driver merely sat there watching her struggle and made no attempt to help her. Angrily, she hobbled away, leaving the car door open and hoping he’d have as much difficulty in closing that as she’d had in getting out of his car.
SEVENTEEN
Mary was very surprised when the following week Megan came to see her. It was so unusual that, for one brief moment when she opened the door, she thought there must be something wrong with either Richard of George. Then she realised that Megan was looking extremely elegant in a very smart suit with a crisp white blouse underneath it. She certainly wasn’t looking like a harassed wife or concerned mother.
‘You’re still hobbling around on those things then,’ Megan commented as Mary awkwardly backed away from the door so that Megan could enter.
‘Yes and I will be for another few weeks I’m afraid,’ Mary said with a small sigh.
‘I thought you were going back to the hospital about a week ago for a check-up,’ Megan frowned.
‘I did and the surgeon advised using the crutches for a little bit longer,’ Mary told her.
Megan raised her carefully pencilled eyebrows but said nothing.
‘Can I make you a cup of tea?’ Mary asked in an attempt to overcome the chilly atmosphere that seemed to have arisen between them.
Megan hesitated for a moment and then nodded. ‘Very well, it might be easier to say what I have to say if we have some tea.’
‘So what is it you have to say?’ Mary asked as she switched on the kettle and popped some teabags into the teapot.
Megan didn’t answer for a moment, then she said, ‘There’s no hurry; we’ll wait until we are sitting down.’
She stood in the kitchen watching Mary take two blue and white cups down from the cupboard over the worktop. Mary put these together with a jug of milk and biscuits onto a tray. As soon as the kettle boiled, she filled the teapot and put that also on the tray.
‘Right, it’s all ready but I’m afraid you will have to carry the tray,’ Mary said with a smile.
‘I can see that,’ Megan said. ‘Why did you put everything on the tray when you knew you wouldn’t be able to carry it?’
‘I thought you could do it,’ Mary said briefly. ‘So, what do you normally do when you make a cup of tea, stand here in the kitchen and drink it?’
‘No, I can manage to carry one cup, if I’m careful. Anything more than that and I have a trolley on wheels that I put everything on, and then use one crutch and with my other hand push the trolley to where I want it,’ Mary told her.
‘I imagine there is every chance doing that that you will fall over and break your other leg,’ Megan said critically.
‘Well I haven’t done so yet,’ Mary contended. ‘Anyway come on and sit down and I’ll pour the tea before it gets cold and you can tell me what it is you have come to tell me.’ When they were in the sitting room Mary sat in her armchair and Megan sat on the adjacent settee. ‘I know you take milk but do you take sugar?’ Mary questioned as she began to pour milk into the cups.
‘I don’t take sugar,’ Megan told her. ‘Stop a moment and take a closer look at those cups,’ Megan said, her voice laced with disapproval.
‘Why? What’s wrong with them?’
‘Can’t you see that they are not clean!’
‘Clean, of course they’re clean. They were washed up this morning after breakfast.’
‘Really!’
‘Bill Thompson comes in every morning and clears away my breakfast dishes. We have a cup of coffee and then he washes the whole lot up.’
‘Well he doesn’t do a very good job. I would have thought you could see that for yourself,’ Megan said sharply. ‘They’re dirty! There’s stains inside them.’
Mary picked up one of the cups and peered closely. It was quite true there was a slight brown mark inside but it was so small that only someone with eagle-sharp eyes would have noticed it.
‘I’ll fetch another cup, a clean one this time,’ Mary said.
She struggled to her feet and hobbled away on her crutches. She went to the cupboard and took out a cup that she knew had not been used for weeks and, dangling it from one finger, hobbled her way back into the sitting room
‘This one is perfectly clean because it hasn’t been used since I’ve been laid up,’ she said holding it out so that Megan could inspect the interior.
‘Thank you that does look better,’ Megan said.
They sat for a few minutes in silence after Mary poured the tea and waited for it to cool down enough to drink. The tension in the room was palpable. Megan sat looking around critically and Mary felt so uncomfortable that she wished Megan would speak out or leave.
‘So what is it you have to say to me?’ Mary asked bluntly, unable to tolerate the silence any longer.
Megan put her cup and saucer back on the tray.
‘I would have thought it was obvious you are not looking after yourself as you should be.’ She held up a hand as Mary went to speak. ‘Those cups for example; they’re not clean and I wonder how many other things there are in this house that are not clean.’
Mary felt the colour rising in her cheeks, but she was so incensed that she couldn’t find the right words to refute Megan’s accusation.
‘Looking round this room I can see dust on most of the surfaces. I was shocked when I heard that you had refused to have a carer come in to help you.’
‘I don’t need a carer,’ Mary said. ‘I manage quite well on my own and, as I’ve told you, Bill does my shopping and he clears away my breakfast things, and if there’s anything else I need doing I have only to ask him.’
‘Yes, ask and look at the way it’s done! The next thing you will have wrong with you is food poisoning.’
‘What, from the stain on a cup?’ said Mary derisively.
Megan shook her head. ‘It won’t do; you know it won’t do. You should either go into a nursing home until you are fully mobile or else have some help around the house. Since you refused to have the help that was offered to you by the hospital, then you will have to pay for someone to come in and clean and make sure your place is hygienic.’
‘Fiddlesticks!’ Mary said dismissively.
Her temper was mounting and it was taking her all her strength not to retaliate in full voice. She didn’t want to fall out with Megan but neither was she going to sit there and let Megan tell her how she was to run her life.
Sensing the atmosphere had become hostile Megan stood up. ‘Well that is all I have to say. I have to go, I have an appointment.’
‘You usually have,’ Mary muttered.
‘Yes, I’m a busy working woman and I am not too proud to have help in the home. For Richard, it is very good as there are lots of things he doesn’t do and which I wouldn’t expect him to do. By the way, have you got a dishwasher apart from Bill? He’s obviously useless. If he has AMD then he probably can’t see what he’s doing.’
Mary didn’t trust herself to answer. Nevertheless, Megan’s criticism upset her and she brooded over it for the rest of the day. In her dreams she found herself tackling an enormous sinful pile of dirty dishes, while Megan stood there watching her. She woke up so angry that she didn’t enjoy her breakfast and found herself looking at every cup and dish she used with critical eyes.
The next day she was not at all surprised to see Richard. Nor was she surprised when she found him prowling round the sitting room, picking up ornaments and inspecting the surface underneath them. She came in from the kitchen to tell him that she’d made the coffee and ask if he would bring it in for her.
> ‘Well, come on, have your say,’ she invited. ‘I suppose Megan has told you that I live in squalor. Perhaps I should have let you check your cup before I made the coffee so that you could see it was clean.’
‘Mum, don’t take it so much to heart. Megan meant it for the best.’
‘Did she? It sounded more like a way of putting me down.’
‘Look, we both know you have had a hard time of it recently and we are also aware that we haven’t been very helpful.’
‘Yes, that’s true,’ Mary agreed stiffly.
‘Well,’ Richard went on, ‘Megan says that you haven’t got a dishwasher so we thought we would get you one as a late Christmas present.’
‘That’s very kind of you but I don’t want one.’
‘Why not?’
‘A dishwasher for one person, who only cooks about once a week,’ she said scathingly. ‘It would take me a week to fill it.’
‘Would that matter?’
‘Having dirty dishes around for all that time? No thank you. I prefer to wash up as I go, clear up after each meal in the proper way.’
‘At the moment you would find it a real boon,’ Richard persisted.
‘Another couple of weeks and I’ll be able to do away with these crutches. Once I’m using a stick then it will be no trouble at all to resume my normal routine,’ Mary told him.
‘In the meantime you are prepared to put up with Bill doing the washing up; even if he doesn’t get things clean?’
‘On the whole he does,’ Mary defended. ‘A tea stain on the inside of a cup isn’t the end of the world.’
‘Quite so, but if he leaves scraps of stale food on your dinner plate or dish, then that is another matter. You could end up with food poisoning,’ Richard pointed out.
‘You’ve been listening to Megan,’ Mary said quietly. ‘Forget about it, Richard. Thank you for your kind thought but I am too old to take on new-fangled appliances. I’ll stick to the old-fashioned way of washing up in a bowl with hot water and detergent, if you don’t mind.’
Richard shrugged. ‘As you please, if you change your mind let me know.’ He drained his cup and stood up.
‘Are you going already?’ Mary asked. ‘I was hoping to hear all about this holiday that you and Megan had at Christmas. She never said a word about it. Did you enjoy yourselves?’
