Never Too Old for Love

by Rosie Harris

  Delia shook her head. ‘No, I don’t think so. Another month at least, and then only part time. A full day of teaching would be very stressful and might do some harm,’ she warned. When Richard started to argue, she said, ‘You have an appointment to see Mr Dancer again in a week’s time. Why don’t you wait until he has assessed you and find out what he says about it?’

  ‘I’m going back to school next week,’ George, who had been listening to their exchange, told her proudly.

  ‘Are you! Will you be going into a higher class?’

  George nodded. In an excited yet serious voice, he told her all about the new class he would be in and the new teacher he would be getting and Richard’s problems were temporarily pushed to one side. George going back to school posed fresh problems for them all. Although Richard maintained that he would be quite all right left on his own while Lucia walked George to school, Mary wouldn’t agree.

  ‘No, you’re not being left in the house on your own,’ she said firmly. ‘Supposing you had a fall? If there was no one here to help you then you wouldn’t be able to get up.’

  ‘I could simply stay where I was on the floor until Lucia came home. It wouldn’t be for very long,’ Richard pointed out.

  ‘No!’ Mary was adamant.

  ‘So, are you expecting George to go to school on his own?’ Richard asked.

  ‘Of course not! I will come round and take him and collect him again in the afternoon when school ends,’ Mary said. ‘Bill will help. We’ll take it in turns. Now don’t worry, everything will be organised.’

  ‘I think you are making work for yourself,’ Richard argued but Mary refused to listen.

  George enjoyed having different people come to meet him each day. His grandmother usually brought a biscuit or some sweets in her handbag, and Bill would tell him stories on the way home. Best of all, though, he liked it when Lucia came, because that meant that Sister Cook was at their house taking care of his Daddy while Lucia came out. Sister Cook always stayed for tea and sometimes she stayed with him and Daddy all evening, while Lucia went out on her own. They would have a wonderful time because Delia Cook would play board games. She had bought him several new ones and showed him how to play them, so that he could play with them when she wasn’t there. Most of the time his daddy said he was too tired to play, but Bill always played when he came to collect him from school.

  George didn’t understand why his daddy was always too tired when they were there together, but not when Sister Cook was there as well. He wondered if they went on playing after he was sent up to bed at seven o’clock. Somehow he didn’t think they did, because once he had crept down the stairs to find out and saw they were sitting on the settee holding hands and just talking. He’d been disappointed and scuttled backup to bed before they found him.

  Richard continued to make good progress, although he tired very easily. He was still using his crutches whenever he went out of the house, but managed to get around indoors with a stick.

  His hopes of going back to work after the half term break were dashed by Mr Dancer who said it would be detrimental for him to do so. Richard was very disappointed, but Delia explained the complications that could arise if he did too much too soon. Although he was still frustrated, her quiet reasoning made him accept the situation. Delia had now become a firm family friend. Bill thought she spoke a lot of sound sense, Mary liked her calm, firm approach when dealing with George and the way she persuaded Richard to be reasonable, when either of them became argumentative or stubborn.

  She knew she could never have dealt with them like that. Richard’s accident and the extra work it had entailed had made her feel her years. There was another problem that worried her. She was quite sure that Bill had not been attending the eye clinic as often as he should have done and she felt quite guilty about it. She knew she had been devoting more time to Richard and his needs, and overlooked Bill’s AMD and had stopped checking with him whether or not he had received an appointment.

  She knew he hated having to go there and suspected that he had ignored any letters from the hospital. She wasn’t at all sure that he would confess to having missed appointments and she wondered what was the best way of dealing with the matter.

  THIRTY-THREE

  It was Bonfire Night and they were all gathered in Richard’s garden. Over the past week, with Bill and George doing most of the work, they had built an enormous bonfire. There was a guy perched on the very top, dressed in an assortment of Bill’s old clothes. Mary had spent the day baking and she had brought along sausage rolls, rock cakes, bread pudding and gingerbread for them all.

  Before she came out into the garden, Lucia laid up a tray of mugs ready to make coffee as soon as it was needed. There was also beer for the two men and lemonade for George. George was dancing around excitedly. Sister Cook was there as well and George knew she had a brought a box of fireworks, because he’d met her at the gate and she’d let him carry them for her. Richard was playing safe and using his crutches, because he felt more confident on them in the dark than merely using a stick.

  The air was thick with smoke from neighbouring bonfires and George let out a whoop of delight when Richard put a light to theirs. After a couple of minutes, the flames were leaping up into the sky, licking around the bottom of the guy. Richard and Bill were in charge of the fireworks. George had a sparkler which he was holding in his gloved hand and waving around enthusiastically. They had just let off the last firework; a rocket that went high into the air and exploded with a great bang, sending a thousand coloured stars showering into the air, when they heard the phone ringing.

  ‘Surely no one is ringing to complain,’ Richard frowned. ‘Everybody else is letting fireworks off.’

  Lucia went to answer it and when she came back she was shaking so much that Mary couldn’t understand what she was saying.

  ‘Calm down, Lucia,’ Delia said and placed an arm around the trembling figure. ‘Who was it on the phone?’

  Lucia shook her head from side to side. ‘My mother, she has had a heart attack,’ she gulped back her tears, ‘they say I must go to her fast because she is in hospital, desperately ill.’

  ‘Oh Lucia! I’m so sorry,’ Delia said, holding her closer, in an effort to calm her. ‘Of course you must go, we understand. I’ll call the airport and see if we can get you a flight.’

  Lucia shook her head. ‘I don’t know what to do. I can’t leave here, Mr Richard is still not well enough to look after himself and George.’

  ‘We’re here and can take care of him, Lucia,’ Mary said, ‘so of course you must go to your mother right away.’

  Lucia shook her head. ‘You are very kind but it will be too much for you to do,’ she protested.

  ‘I’m here as well,’ Delia said. ‘I have just started a fortnight’s holiday and I have no plans to go away, so I can stay here and look after Richard and George.’

  Lucia was speechless. She hugged Delia and then went over and hugged Mary.

  ‘Come on indoors, Mary said. ‘I’ll help you pack a bag while Delia phones for a taxi. Richard, you check the time of the next flight and see if you can book a ticket on it for Lucia. Bill, will you and George start tidying up out here and make sure George doesn’t get too near the fire?’

  For the next hour they were all busy carrying out Mary’s orders. When the taxi arrived, Delia said she would go to the airport with Lucia to make sure she boarded the plane safely, because she was in such a state that she didn’t think she would be able to cope.

  ‘I hope she will have calmed down and can manage at the other end,’ Richard said. ‘She seems almost as worried about her sister as she is about her mother.’

  ‘That’s because her sister is not able to look after herself, she is retarded,’ Mary explained.

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ Richard said in surprise.

  ‘Apparently, she has been since birth. Lucia sends part of her wages home each month to help her mother to manage.’

  ‘Whew!’ Rich
ard gave a low whistle. ‘What will happen to the sister if their mother dies then?’

  ‘I have no idea, Mary told him. ‘I suppose they have care homes over there, but I’m not sure if Lucia would be able to afford to put her in one of those.’

  Richard shook his head but said no more.

  ‘Shall I make us all another hot drink?’ Bill suggested.

  ‘That might be a good idea,’ Mary agreed. ‘We’ll come inside and have it. I think we can finish clearing up out here tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ll come round in the morning and deal with the ashes from the bonfire,’ Bill said.

  ‘I think it is time George was tucked up in bed,’ Mary said. ‘As soon you’ve had a hot drink,’ she added as she saw he was about to protest.

  ‘Can I have some bread pudding as well?’ George asked.

  ‘Not at this time of night, you wouldn’t be able to sleep afterwards. You can have a small piece cake or a biscuit,’ Richard told him. George knew from the sound of his father’s voice that if he didn’t accept that he might be sent to bed with nothing, so reluctantly he agreed.

  ‘Will you save me some for tomorrow?’ he asked, looking pleadingly at his grandmother. ‘You make the best bread pudding in the world.’

  George was safely in bed and already fast asleep before Delia came back from the airport. She reported that Lucia had caught her plane and she seemed confident that Lucia would be able to cope after landing. She had euros for the taxi at the other end and would be able to get one right outside the airport. She had promised to phone the next day after she had seen her mother and let them know how things were.

  ‘This is going to cause problems,’ Mary said shaking her head.

  ‘Not at the moment,’ Delia told her. ‘I really am starting my holidays and I can move in and take care of Richard and George, until we know what the situation is.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ Mary said gracefully ‘but surely you had plans? When you are working as hard as you do you must look forward to your holiday more than most people.’

  Delia smiled and her brown eyes softened as she looked at Richard. ‘No, only to visit Richard and George, so it will be easier for me if I move in,’ she murmured.

  The next day, Mary was glad that she had agreed to Delia’s suggestion. Lucia phoned as she had promised to do, but the news was not good. Her mother was unlikely to recover from her heart attack and for the moment Lucia felt she had to stay with her sister. Three days later, Lucia phoned again to say that her mother had died.

  For the moment, it looked as though Delia would be spending her entire holiday looking after Richard and George, which was a relief for Mary. She was concerned, however, about what was going to happen when Delia’s holiday was over, because normally she lived in the nurses’ quarters at the hospital. Delia solved the problem by saying that she was moving in permanently to take care of Richard and George. She would be keeping her job at the hospital, of course, but Richard was now so much more mobile that, between them, they would be able to manage as long as either Bill or Mary took George to school and collected him in the afternoon.

  The new routine worked well, until Delia went on night duty. Mary worried because Richard was alone with George all night.

  ‘Delia’s home before we get up in the morning,’ Richard laughed. ‘She gets our breakfast and helps me have George ready for when you collect him for school.’

  ‘What happens if George wakes up in the night?’ Mary asked.

  ‘He either takes himself to the toilet or comes in to me,’ Richard told her. ‘He’s six now, he’s not a baby.’

  ‘I know that but children sometimes have bad dreams,’ Mary murmured.

  ‘He rarely has one but if he does then he comes in to me,’ Richard repeated. ‘Stop fussing, Mother, I am practically better and I will be going back to school in the new year.’

  Things didn’t go quite so smoothly for Delia. Living out, away from the hospital, meant she wasn’t available if there was an emergency.

  ‘I can leave you a telephone number to contact me and I can be here in twenty minutes,’ Delia told Matron when she took her to task about living out.

  ‘Twenty minutes!’ Matron said in a frosty voice. ‘The emergency will be over by then, Sister Cook.’ It became a bone of contention between them and, although no one ever phoned Delia and asked her to come in for an emergency, her availability was always being brought up at staff meetings. Usually, Delia stayed quiet, although she knew quite well who the sister was, who had absented herself whenever Matron brought the matter up. Finally, however, she cracked and when Matron made her allusions to “staff who were out of reach” Delia said, ‘Why don’t you say my name, Matron, so that everyone knows who you are talking about?’

  Matron stiffened and her eyes narrowed. ‘You must be feeling guilty, Sister Cook,’ she snapped.

  ‘No, I don’t feel guilty,’ Delia responded. I have left a telephone number with you, but you have never contacted me, so I don’t know that there has been an emergency until I come in the next day and hear people talking about it.’

  ‘Precisely! You don’t even know about it! Sister Cook, your first duty is to your patients and not to your relatives. I think it is time you reconsidered your living arrangements.’

  Delia was incensed. In the heat of the moment she retorted, ‘Very well, and I’ll reconsider my working arrangements as well.’

  Matron seized the opportunity. ‘I accept your resignation, Sister Cook.’

  Before Delia could say that she hadn’t meant that, Matron had swept her out of the room and Delia was left feeling flustered and disconsolate. She knew everyone else in the room was looking at her and one or two were exchanging whispered comments. Head held high and without a word to anyone, she stormed out. She wished she did still have a room she could go to, but there was nowhere to go except the cloakroom. Holding back her tears she went straight there, collected her coat and an umbrella she had left several days before, and walked out of the hospital heading for Richard’s home.

  He was still trying to tidy up and he was very surprised to see her in the middle of the morning.

  ‘On holiday again?’ he quipped when she walked in the door. Then he saw the look on her face and realised that something traumatic had happened.

  With her head on his shoulder, he smoothed her thick dark hair and tried to calm her as she gave way to her pent-up feelings. When she told him what had happened he felt stunned.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ he asked, when she had calmed down and was sitting with the cup of strong coffee he’d made for her.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Will Matron forgive and forget and take you back?’ Richard asked.

  ‘I shouldn’t think so. Too many people witnessed our spat.’

  ‘What about if you apologise?’

  ‘Apologise! I wouldn’t dream of doing that. That would put me in her power even more. No, I have left and that’s that. I can get work as an agency nurse.’

  ‘Agency nurse!’ Richard raised his eyebrows. ‘You are a fully qualified Sister.’

  ‘I think nurse is the most I can hope for, if I am working for an agency,’ Delia told him dryly. ‘The only way to retain my Sister status would be to go to another hospital, and I’m pretty sure if they asked Matron for a reference, she would make sure they wouldn’t take me.’

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Mary was very worried about Bill. No matter when she asked him if he’d had an appointment from the hospital about further treatment for his eyes, he always denied it. He wasn’t very convincing though and she suspected that he was ignoring the letters and not keeping the appointments.

  There were so many signs that Bill’s eyes were getting worse. He constantly bumped into things; he often missed the curb or the bottom step and he had started knocking things over, like cups and glasses. Mary didn’t know whether it was because he didn’t see them or because he misjudged where they were. She wasn’t at all sure wheth
er it was safe for him to be taking George to school, because she didn’t think he could see cars were approaching and she was afraid the pair of them might get knocked down crossing the road.

  She kept going over things in her mind, wondering how she could find out, because she was sure he wasn’t telling her the truth. Finally, she hit on a plan; she phoned the appointments office at the hospital and asked when Mr Thompson’s next appointment was.

  ‘Next appointment? Well, we haven’t made one because he hasn’t attended the last three,’ the woman on the other end said in an annoyed voice.

  ‘I’m sorry about that but I’ll make sure he comes to the next one,’ Mary promised.

  ‘Well he’s at the very bottom of the waiting list now, of course, so it may be months before we can see him.’

  ‘Oh dear, I hope not,’ Mary said sweetly. ‘He really is having trouble. Haven’t you any cancellations?’

  There was a long silence then the woman said, ‘Tomorrow morning at ten o’clock.’

  ‘Fine, he’ll be there,’ Mary promised.

  When she told Bill he looked very taken aback. ‘How did you know I hadn’t been keeping them?’ he asked in surprise.

  ‘I know the routine. Sam had AMD remember, so I know that the longest you wait between appointments is a month or six weeks.’

  Bill looked glum. ‘It’s pointless going,’ he muttered.

  ‘No it’s not and I’m coming with you. Come straight to my place after you’ve taken George to school and we’ll have a cup of tea while we wait for the taxi.’

  The eye department at the hospital was very busy and they had to wait for almost half an hour before Bill’s name was called. Mary waited while they put drops in to enlarge the pupils, to check how far down the chart he could read and test the pressure in his eyes. As she expected, when he came out of that surgery they had to move to a different waiting room. That waiting room was also very full, but they managed to find adjacent chairs and sat waiting for Bill’s name to be called. This time he had to go into a small office, and sit in front of a machine while the operator took pictures of the back of each of his eyes.