Casting Off

by P. I. Paris

  They sat in silence for almost ten minutes before the story began.

  ‘I came from what everyone would consider to be a good family. My parents were very strict, but they loved me and we were comfortably off, so I didn’t have much to complain about. Not really. I was just so lonely. At least it felt like that. The truth was I didn’t have any idea what loneliness meant.

  ‘I was an only child and it wasn’t easy to bring friends home, not that I had many. Anyway, by the time I was fifteen they were all involved with boyfriends and I felt rather dumped. Then I met someone on the Internet. My parents didn’t understand anything about computers and always thought I was doing homework.

  ‘Daniel was gorgeous. It wasn’t long before we were writing and texting each other constantly. I was madly in love with him. Everything was so exciting . . . so romantic. Of course, when he finally asked to meet I agreed instantly.’

  ‘And were the photographs he sent really of him?’ asked Joyce.

  ‘Yes, but taken about fifteen years earlier. However, by that stage it didn’t seem to matter.’

  ‘You were hooked.’

  ‘Totally. We started meeting in secret whenever possible. On my sixteenth birthday, we made love. My parents thought I was celebrating with friends. I was a virgin. He was so kind and tender, very experienced, and I thought myself to be so lucky.’

  ‘How long did it take before he wanted you to sleep with other men?’ asked Joyce. Julie looked surprised. ‘Do you think grooming is a recent thing? It might have a new name and get lots of publicity these days, but it’s been going on for a very long time. I saw a great deal of human nature when I was in the business, and a lot of it wasn’t pleasant.’

  Julie let out a long sigh, her shoulders sagging even further.

  ‘Six months. He was so clever about it. We went back to his place one day and he plied me with more drink than usual. Then one of his friends happened to drop by. He was good-looking and could only have been in his early twenties. Daniel kept on about how marvellous it would be if he could watch while . . .’

  ‘I know love,’ said Joyce, reaching over and taking hold of one of Julie’s hands. ‘He had you well and truly controlled.’

  ‘Eventually I gave in and had sex with this stranger. I was really upset afterwards but Daniel kept saying how pleased and proud he was of me and that all grown-ups did this sort of thing. It was normal, only I was still too young to understand. Then . . .’

  ‘Then there was often a friend popping in while you happened to be there and they gradually became older and less attractive, until you reached the stage when there would always be more than one friend calling.’

  Julie nodded her head and started to cry.

  ‘One day, when I was seventeen, I read an article about grooming and suddenly realised this was what had happened to me. I confronted Daniel. He was livid and threatened to expose me to my parents. I had lied to them so much and become so deceitful that we had drifted apart, but they were still all I had. I begged him not to, but at the same time remained adamant that I wasn’t doing it any more.’

  ‘And he carried out his threat?’

  ‘I came back from school one day to find my father waiting in the hallway, standing next to a couple of suitcases. There was such a coldness about him it frightened me. My mother was nowhere to be seen. He grabbed my arm and marched me into the sitting room, where he pushed me onto the settee and said that we were going to watch something together . . .’

  She couldn’t continue. Joyce heaved herself out of the chair, stood in front of Julie and hugged her so tightly that the younger woman seemed to disappear into folds of flesh.

  ‘You don’t have to go on. I understand it well enough. Hush now, you’ll make yourself ill.’

  It took a long time for the heartbreaking sobbing to stop and for the tiny frame to cease trembling. Julie looked up, her pretty face a mask of blotches, tears and despair. Joyce wished that she could have had five minutes in a room alone with the man behind this. She might be getting on, but by God she would have made him regret what he had done.

  ‘When I was a child, I used to cuddle up to my father on the settee and we’d watch children’s programmes on that old television. Only this time I was on the screen . . . naked . . . doing such terrible things with these disgusting old men. And all the while my father sat there, screaming at me to open my eyes when I couldn’t bear to see any more. I wanted to be cuddled by him so much.

  ‘When it was over, he dragged me to the front door. I begged him to let me stay. In the end I was hanging on to his legs, but he pushed me into the drive and threw the cases out before closing the door.’

  ‘And you never saw them again?’

  Julie shook her head in reply.

  ‘How long ago was that?’

  ‘Four years,’ she said, before burying herself back into the folds of Joyce’s body, as if the warm flesh of the older woman offered a chance of hiding from the pain and desperation, of hiding from everything and everyone.

  Twenty Nine

  The pub was almost empty and it was easy to find a quiet spot. Walter looked like a condemned man, head bowed, staring unseeing at his hands spread out on the table. Angus returned with two half pints of beer. He sat opposite, pushed one across, then remained silent, taking small sips and waiting for the other man to speak.

  ‘When my Moira died, there was no warning at all. She only went out to buy something for dinner. I said I’d have the coffee ready at eleven and she better not be late or I would have it without her. It was a bit of a joke we had. She smiled and left. That was the last time I saw her alive. The doctor called it an aneurysm of the brain. He said she wouldn’t have known anything about it.’

  Walter stopped and Angus felt he should say something. After all, the four of them had all been close friends when they were young – in another life.

  ‘I’ve never been able to decide whether it’s kinder that way, or whether it’s better to have a chance to say your goodbyes, settle everything up.’

  ‘My grief turned into a depression that overwhelmed me. I fell to pieces.’

  ‘That’s how you ended up at We Care For You?’ asked Angus.

  ‘You know, I’ve always been a practical bloke, but I couldn’t even boil an egg. I would put one in the pan and simply watch the water steam away until there was nothing left.’

  ‘Everyone always used to comment how you and Moira were like two halves of the same person.’

  ‘I can’t remember exactly how it all happened. Becky meant well, but without me having much say in anything the house I had shared with Moira for so many years was sold and I was stuck in the home. It was like waking up from a nightmare only to find it was real. Don’t get me wrong, the staff are fantastic and I’m very grateful for their kindness during those early months, but I had lost everything.’

  Walter finally picked up his glass. Angus watched a family getting up from a table across the room. They all looked so happy.

  ‘The thing is, Moira and I were still both very active and had a regular sex life. When I first arrived, it was the last thing on my mind. After a while I simply assumed that side of my life was over.’

  ‘But the urges came back, only now you were surrounded by a bunch of elderly people you barely knew,’ said Angus.

  They both stopped speaking when a barman came near to their table to take away some glasses.

  ‘I tried to ignore the feelings, but it got to the point where I started thinking, well, it’s my money and my body and if I paid a professional then no one would be hurt. It would just be a business arrangement until I didn’t feel the need any more.’

  ‘Then you found Julie, or rather the taxi driver did?’

  ‘That first time . . . I don’t know how to describe it, Angus. It was extraordinary, tender, passionate, believe it or not. Anything any normal man could possibly wish for.’

  ‘She’s an extremely attractive woman.’

  Walter became withdrawn,
as if deciding whether to go on, or rather knowing that he had to but was reluctant.

  ‘Yes, but it was also grotesque . . . obscene. There was a part of me that was revolted. The shame was so great that I couldn’t sleep at night and in the end I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror when I shaved.’ He put down his glass and wiped his eyes.

  ‘All right,’ said Angus. ‘Don’t upset yourself.’

  ‘I realised that I wanted peace of mind more than sex. When Julie visited that second Thursday, I told her we couldn’t continue.’

  ‘But she’s been visiting for months.’

  ‘I was taken aback at how upset she was. I made a pot of tea and sat her down. We spoke for hours – about how she came to end up doing what she did, about my Moira. I said that if she wanted to return the following week we could talk again.’

  ‘And that’s how it’s gone on ever since?’

  Walter nodded. Angus took a long drink of his beer, studying the other man over the top of his glass. However, everything he said appeared to be genuine.

  ‘Despite her age, Julie understands more about the despair I sank into after the death of Moira than anyone else and speaking to her every week became the most important thing in my life. After a month, we came to an agreement. I would pay her enough so that she didn’t have to work at all on a Thursday. She would visit me for a few hours and do what she wanted for the rest of the day.’

  ‘But not work.’

  ‘No, that had to be her side of the bargain.’

  Angus put his glass down with a bang.

  ‘Hang on a minute. What about the noises from your bedroom, bloody moans and cries of “Oh, Mr McKenzie! Julie, my queen!” Explain all that!’

  ‘It was just a game.’

  ‘Is that what you call it?’

  ‘I guessed that certain residents would start listening at the door.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I always have a chessboard laid out in my bedroom. That’s what we were doing.’

  ‘You’ve lost me.’

  ‘One day Julie challenged me to a game.’

  ‘Of chess? You don’t imagine . . .’

  ‘Don’t imagine that someone who sells their body could sit down and enjoy such an intellectual hobby?’ said Walter, finishing the other man’s sentence. ‘She slaughtered me that first time.’

  ‘Crikey, she must be good.’

  ‘People always assume things of others, don’t they? Anyway, it ended up that we would always play when she visited. We decided to have some fun when we suspected that the home’s moral judge was listening at the door, but to make it more difficult everything we cried out had to relate to the game we were playing.’

  ‘You devious devil! They were all chess moves!’

  ‘The thought of Deirdre almost fainting because I was about to castle . . . well, it made us laugh. Only . . .’ Walter put down his glass and began to cry. ‘Now it’s gone horribly wrong and I don’t know what’s going to happen – to any of us.’

  Thirty

  Friday, 20th May

  Dorothy doesn’t complain, but I know the extra costs are eating into her savings and that time is against us. I have to do something to enable her to stay. Do we both move to a cheaper home? My heart tells me we must stay together, but my head tells me that leaving is not the solution.

  Thirty One

  ‘Speak to a granny today,’ said Dorothy.

  She was in her room with Joan and Miss Ross, the latter sitting with a pen and paper. Following their decision to set up a sex line, they were trying to think of appropriate wording for the advert. Tiddles had emerged from hiding and was sitting in his favourite lap.

  ‘I can’t see that causing a stampede of mackintosh-wearing men rushing to their mobiles,’ said Miss Ross.

  ‘Mature women for sale?’ suggested Joan.

  ‘I am certainly not for sale! It sounds like an advert for a second-hand car: one careful owner, some bodywork required!’

  ‘Big end may need looking at!’ said Joan.

  ‘You can leave my big end out of this,’ replied Miss Ross.

  ‘The big end . . .’ said Dorothy in such a way that the others immediately knew she was about to start reminiscing. ‘It reminds me of when Willie and I had to think of a name for the little converted church we were living in. The building was right at the end of a lane and it had a bell, so we called it—’

  ‘Please tell me you didn’t!’ interrupted Joan.

  ‘Well, what’s wrong with The Bell End?’

  Joan put a hand to her mouth, but the laughter escaped anyway. Miss Ross tapped the notepad with her pen. They weren’t getting anywhere and recounting tales wasn’t going to help.

  ‘Can we please get back to the matter in hand?’

  As though they were pupils in her class who had been caught doing something wrong, the two women replied together, ‘Sorry, Miss Ross.’ They fell silent again, thinking about the wording.

  ‘How about,’ said Joan after a while, ‘dirty talking?’

  The three of them looked at each other and the phrase was written down.

  ‘I think we have to be more specific,’ said Miss Ross.

  ‘Ring an elderly woman for a dirty talk,’ suggested Joan, who was increasingly getting into the spirit of the occasion.

  ‘I suppose that’s more informative, but it’s not exactly catchy.’

  ‘Dial Dorothy for a dirty ditty.’

  ‘Oh! I’m not keen to have my name mentioned.’

  ‘Dial to hear a dirty ditty about a ti—’

  ‘We’re not trying to write a limerick,’ said Miss Ross, holding up a hand. She didn’t really have to hear it all to know what was being suggested. ‘And that doesn’t give anything about age. I don’t think we’re on the right lines.’

  ‘We have to get men on the telephone somehow.’

  ‘But we mustn’t mislead people,’ said Dorothy. ‘Our old minister, the Reverend McBain, was forever saying we should treat each other fairly because everything was seen by the Lord and we would have to answer for our actions on the day of judgement. He was a very religious man.’

  ‘That’s generally a good sign in a minister,’ said Joan.

  ‘When I was a girl . . .’

  Miss Ross moaned silently, put down her pen and leant back in her seat. There was no stopping Dorothy when she got going. One simply had to let her tell whatever story she had dug up from the past.

  ‘ . . . my friends and I would sneak to the manse on a Saturday evening to watch him try to catch the cockerel.’

  ‘Why did he do that?’ asked Joan.

  ‘The Reverend McBain didn’t believe in . . . physical contact . . . on the Lord’s day, so it was always locked up on a Saturday night. Seeing the minister scrabbling around the yard was a sight to behold, his black coat billowing as though he was a huge bat, the bird screeching, feathers flying in every direction.’

  ‘I wish I had seen that,’ said Joan laughing.

  ‘That bird really didn’t want to be caught.’

  ‘The minister’s cockerel isn’t going to help us get the right wording for the advert! Joan, what did the advertisements say in the men’s magazines that you read?’

  ‘It was ever so long ago, I can’t remember. Did you never look at the ones you confiscated?’

  ‘Certainly not! Whenever I came across such an offending item I would instruct Mr Jackson, the janitor, to burn it in the school boiler-house. When he retired, we found them all stacked in his locker – the leaning tower of pornography.’

  ‘We need to look at one to get some idea of the proper wording,’ said Joan.

  ‘Buy a magazine!’

  ‘You said we had to do things properly.’

  ‘And who’s going to walk into a newsagent’s and make such a disgusting purchase?’ said Miss Ross, as if the proposed deed was one of the worst things a person could possibly do.

  Joan stayed quiet, meeting the gaze of the ex-headmistress, who turned to
Dorothy hoping for support, but she was also looking at her. Heavens, even the cat was watching her.

  ‘Oh no. Not me. Never!’

  Thirty Two

  After the morning handover from the night staff, Matron went to her office. It looked like being a normal day, that is to say it was going to be frantic, with a score of minor emergencies and probably a few major ones, at least one substance running out (riots were only just avoided the previous week when there was no marmalade for breakfast), people complaining and residents having fallouts.

  The person taking over Mrs Campbell’s room was due to arrive during the morning and settling in new people generally took a lot of extra effort. Albert’s dementia appeared to have taken a turn for the worse and it was impossible to tell if this was due to feelings of bereavement, the fact that his wife wasn’t constantly around talking to him and providing stimulation, or whether the cause was a purely physical one.

  Mrs O’Reilly had become poorly during the night and the local surgery had already been contacted and asked to send a GP as soon as convenient. Matron would wait to hear what the doctor had to say before deciding if the priest should be sent for.

  On top of this, she had agreed that if it was a nice day anyone wanting to go to the beach would be taken for a treat. This would stretch the carers, who were already working shorthanded and looking tired. Finding good staff was a constant headache and the home had been running under capacity for the last two months.

  The list of other items to sort out seemed endless and included a hoist that had broken down the day before. This had left Mr Adams, having just been lifted out of the bath, dangling naked several feet off the floor. He had considered the situation very amusing, largely due to the fact that his son had left him another half bottle of whisky during an earlier visit and the old man had consumed much of it.

  Trying to convince some families that sneaking alcohol and cigarettes to residents wasn’t always in their best interest was an ongoing issue. The son had been almost abusive in his insistence that it was his father’s right to drink and puff away if he wanted to. She had tried to explain that other people had the right not to have to breathe in the smoke, but the man had an extreme case of selective hearing. It was not an uncommon problem.