Have the Men Had Enough?

by Margaret Forster

  When we get home, I say to Mum straight away that Grandma must have new shoes, that her shoes are in a terrible state, that it’s no wonder her walking is deteriorating. I put Grandma’s slippers on her feet and then I flourish the offending shoes under Mum’s nose. Mum says I’m not telling her anything she doesn’t know. She has taken Grandma to a shoe shop and there is no such thing as a shoe which will fit her appallingly misshapen feet. But she will mention it to Bridget and see if she has any ideas. Adrian chips in. He says how about men’s trainers? I scoff but Mum nods. Adrian brings his new trainers and tries them on Grandma. They appear to go on quite easily. She looks so funny, sitting on the sofa with Adrian’s white trainers plonked on the end of her lisle-stockinged legs. We’re still laughing when Bridget arrives. Grandma is laughing too, she knows she’s a good turn. She has taken the tea cosy off the tea pot – the tea cosy she crocheted herself years ago and loves to see on the tea pot, so Mum tries to remember to put it on – and she has put it on her head because she says she can feel a bloomin’ draught. She has one ear poking out of the hole for the spout and the other out of the hole for the handle. The vivid reds, blues, greens and yellows of the tea cosy stripes straddle her large head. Adrian is crying with laughing and I am almost as bad. Then Bridget arrives. She snatches the tea cosy off Grandma’s head. Grandma yelps and tells her to get lost. Bridget’s face is red and angry. She hates Grandma to be a laughing stock even though Grandma loves to be the cause of mirth. Bridget says, ‘Mother!’ furiously and also yanks off Adrian’s trainers. Now Grandma starts moaning her feet and head are both cold. Bridget grabs the tartan shawl from a chair and ties it round Grandma’s head. She looks around and finds Grandma’s shoes and forces them on. Mum looks annoyed. She says to Bridget it was only a joke. Bridget says some jokes go too far. Mum makes an exclamation of irritation and goes into the kitchen. I start to speak but Mum motions that I should say nothing. Really, Bridget is very odd.

  For some reason Mum appears nervous. She tells Bridget she will notice that Grandma isn’t wearing her own knickers. She had a slight mishap at the Day Centre and they provided a spare pair and Mum has just left them on for the rest of the day and anyway there wasn’t time to change them between collecting her early from the Day Centre and our taking her to the chiropodist. Bridget says she knew it, she was always against that place, it just upsets Grandma, but still Mum rambles on. She tells Bridget that she has discovered the Day Centre has its own chiropodist so Grandma could get done there and they also have a hairdresser and they could wash her hair and save us the trouble. It’s a mistake to say this. Bridget repeats ‘trouble’ several times as though she does not understand the word. She says it’s news to her that any of these simple tasks constitute trouble. Mum says she, Bridget, knows what she means perfectly well. Grandma asks if anyone is going to make a cup of tea, she is parched, she has had none all day. Mum says she’s had four cups since she came home. Grandma says she has not and Bridget says, ‘Come on Mother, we’ll go on home and you can have as much tea as you like.’

  *

  Everything has suddenly gone wrong. When I say this aloud Mum says it’s not sudden. It’s been coming for a long time and it was inevitable. Mrs O’Malley has gone back to Ireland. That’s the first disaster. The tale is that her brother’s wife has died and she has gone to look after the children. There was no notice given but then, if it was a genuine drama, there wouldn’t be. The second catastrophe is that, just as Mum has got Grandma used to the Day Centre, they have said they are very sorry but they can no longer take her. They cannot cope either with the incontinent or the seriously confused and they are classifying Grandma as both. Mum is more humiliated than anything else. She feels the Day Centre may think she was trying to pull a fast one, trying to get them to take Grandma on false pretences when truly the incontinence and the level of confusion are new. Adrian laughed when he heard and teased Grandma about getting expelled from school. Grandma said she loves school and she has certainly not been expelled and she is the star pupil and she never stays off and once her mother had to strap her to the bed when she had the flu because she was determined to go to school and she loves school etc. etc.

  But far worse is that Bridget is ill. She rang Mum this morning and said she couldn’t get out of bed. Mum flew along, all memory of being annoyed by Bridget a few days before (and the atmosphere had lingered) forgotten. Grandma was in bed, Bridget was in bed, the same bed. Grandma had got up three times in the night and Bridget had slept with her to settle her. Mum said Grandma was loving it, all cuddled up to Bridget, but Bridget was white as a sheet and in agony. Bridget has awful rheumatism. Since she’s a nurse, Mum says this diagnosis cannot be queried but that the fact is Bridget has never seen a doctor about it, or not for years. This rheumatism swells the joints of her legs and does something or other to her back and the result is that she finds all movement almost impossible. But it has never been so bad. Bridget has always managed to limp on. Now, she can’t manage to do that and she definitely can’t manage to look after Grandma. Mum more or less forced her to go through the hell of moving into her own bed in her own flat though Bridget swore she could not move and did not wish to. Mum said she would have Bridget carted off to hospital otherwise. So Bridget limped into her own bed with Mum’s help and Mum packed her round with hot water bottles and, to Bridget’s fury, rang the doctor. The doctor came. He said, yes, Bridget had severe rheumatoid arthritis and must stay in bed until the tablets he gave her began to ease it.

  So that’s it, chaos. It only needs Susan to pack it in and we’re sunk. And there are two people to look after now, two dependants. Strangely, Mum is quite calm and very efficient. She says her hand is forced and in a way this is a relief. She says Karl would love the chance to look after Bridget but that she dare not ring him, even if she knew his number, because Bridget would never forgive her. Karl? Karl? I can’t believe it. Mum realises she’s said something she shouldn’t. She tells me to forget it. How can I forget it. I’m riveted. I demand to have this explained. I beg to be told who on earth this Karl is. Mum says he’s Bridget’s boyfriend. Good God. I ask why she keeps him secret, what’s wrong with him? Mum says nothing, he is charming, though as she has only met him once or twice for a few minutes, she can’t really judge. She reminds me that Bridget doesn’t like people to know her business. I riposte that I, her ever-loving niece, am hardly ‘people’ and a boyfriend is hardly ‘business’. There’s no denying it, I’m hurt. I thought I was Bridget’s friend. Why should she exclude me from this friendship of hers?

  Mum says, at supper, that we must plan. Dad says we must ring some sort of agency, this is London, there are scores of them, he’s always reading about them. Mum asks who for, Bridget or his mother, and to do what? Dad says whatever needs doing, he doesn’t know. Mum says that’s what she wants to discuss. First, what about this very night? Susan has been prevailed on to come back in the evening, she’s there with Grandma now, but she leaves in half an hour. Who will spend the night with Grandma? There is silence. I say I will. Mum says I will be up and down all night and won’t be fit for school. Dad says he will, then. Mum says he’ll be up and down all night and not fit for work. She says it’s obvious, she must do it but that she’s not prepared to do it every night. Dad says no one wants her to, that we must get someone else at once and did Mum keep the addresses? Mum asks what addresses? Dad says the addresses of those other women who were interviewed when we took Mrs O’Malley on. Mum says no. Dad says how careless and they argue. Then Dad says, never mind, he’s sick to death of these kind of precarious arrangements and either we have to get someone to live in, full-time, a proper housekeeper and companion, or Grandma will have to go into a Home and that is that. Mum says that’s a very fine speech and means nothing, that Dad knows housekeepers and companions are almost impossible to get, though he’s bloody well welcome to try and, as for Homes, haven’t they looked at Homes, haven’t they, haven’t they?

  Have they? I didn’t know. Adri
an looks pained and says he didn’t know and that, frankly, it doesn’t seem right to him to put dear old Grandma – he gets no further. Mum screams I am sick of people telling me what is right when there is no right. We are all shocked. Dad says Mum is getting overwrought, and she says certainly she is. All she’s heard so far are criticisms and half-baked suggestions. Nobody is facing the facts. Dad says right, we will face them. He personally will spend tomorrow on the telephone and find a temporary, full-time carer for Grandma. He agrees he hasn’t the slightest idea how he will do so but he vows he will. And as for Bridget, that’s easy, he will ring Paula. Paula is at home all day, she does nothing, she can do anything Bridget wants. Mum says Bridget won’t like that and Dad says Bridget is in no position to be choosy. Paula is family and calls on us when she needs to, so she must expect to be called on too. Adrian says he can drive over and pick Paula up before he goes to school, since she can’t drive and Stuart may not be able to bring her if he is busy. Dad’s pleased. He says that’s a constructive suggestion. I say that since tomorrow is Friday and I have no school on Saturday I can sleep at Grandma’s tomorrow if Dad fails to find anyone. Mum says, under her breath, that he will fail all right and Dad says that’s a generous offer. Mum goes off to Grandma’s at nine o’clock and Dad goes with her to run Susan home because Susan has said she can only come in the evening if she’s collected and delivered.

  In about half an hour I ring Mum just to ask how things are. She says fine. Bridget is comfortably tucked up for the night and requires nothing. Grandma is ready for bed and is reciting ‘The Lass o’ Ecclefechan’. She wants more tea but Mum is not going to give her any, no matter how much she sulks, because she’s convinced controlling fluid intake will cure Grandma’s disturbed nights. Mrs O’Malley, and before her Mildred, gave Grandma tea to please her, to keep her quiet. Mum says she’d rather give her whisky. I ask why don’t you, it might knock her out. Mum says, as a matter of fact, Grandma doesn’t like whisky. She enrages people who offer it to her by saying she’ll drink it, though it’s horrible, and then spitting it out – that drives Stuart crazy. Grandma only likes egg-nog. In the background, as Mum talks about alcohol of one sort or another, I can hear Grandma saying that strong drink is raging, wine is mockery and he who is deceived thereby is not wise.

  Dad means to do his bit. He has already rung Paula who says, yes, both boys are at school in the morning and, of course, she would come to look after Bridget but unfortunately she cannot because she has no transport because Stuart’s car is giving trouble and is in the garage and the cross-country journey by bus and tube would take her so long she – Dad cuts in and says Adrian will pick her up and take her home. Paula is obliged to say in that case it will be fine. Now Dad is making lists. He’s going through the local paper and the Yellow Pages and he’s copying out numbers of people to ring. He also gets me to make a notice for our newsagent’s board saying ‘Emergency: Companion wanted for old lady for minimum of one month, live in, £250 per week.’ Such money! Dad says, before he takes it round to put through our newsagent’s door so it can go on the board first thing, that it would be cheap at the price. But he agrees, Grandma would faint if she knew. The way to look at it, he says, before I go to bed, is that we’re lucky to have the money to solve our problem.

  It doesn’t. It doesn’t seem to solve anything much, the money. When Susan arrives, Mum comes in from Grandma’s, looking awful. Grandma woke her at one in the morning in a great state of excitement to tell her she had heard there were lovely cauliflowers in the market and, quick, let’s go and get one. She woke her again at half past three to say someone had thrown a bucket of water over her, damned cheek, and Mum had to change the sheets and Grandma. At half past five, when Mum was in the deepest of sleeps, Grandma literally shook her awake saying she would be late for work. So Mum had stayed up. She sits now, with her hands fast round a cup of coffee I have made her, slumped in misery and asking what is the point. I go to school. When I come back, Dad is on the telephone, hoarse with all the calls he has made, a nursing agency will send someone but they will charge £10 an hour, extra at the weekend, and they can’t guarantee the same person each night. If the nurse has to make any meals, it’s extra again and they aren’t obliged to do so. It will come to £100 a night, Dad thinks. He has stopped talking about money solving problems. Now he’s ringing a Home he’s been given the name of, St Alma’s. They say they have no vacancies but Grandma can go on the waiting list if they think she’s suitable. Dad must bring her for an assessment. He says he’s fed up, he’s had enough.

  What’s so awful is the way they act as though it’s Grandma’s fault. How can she help it? You would think someone was waging a personal vendetta against them. I can’t help wondering whether they love Grandma at all. If they do, they have a funny way of showing it. I’m quite glad, at eight o’clock, to get my things together and go. The mournful atmosphere is depressing. Dad walks along with me. He’s giving Susan a lift home. We don’t talk. It doesn’t suit Dad to have to think deeply. He’s a man of quick decisions, not given to pondering. It frustrates him not to be able to do a spot of quick thinking, snap his fingers and solve things. I can’t see anything of Grandma in him except for his sense of humour – they laugh at exactly the same things – and this hatred of emotional difficulties. That’s what Grandma is at the moment, an emotional difficulty. Dad wants to be like Stuart. He wants to say that since Grandma hardly knows who she is these days, putting her in a Home is only sensible, but Dad knows that’s dodging the issue. He knows Bridget is right, that Grandma deserves better. And he hates knowing it.

  Susan has her hat and coat on and looks a little agitated. Mum has already said she has a horrible suspicion that quite a few ‘nephews’ have been left on their own so that Susan can oblige and make a great deal of extra money. Susan’s sitting with her hand over Grandma’s, patting it. She says Grandma has been looking for her mammy, poor old lady. Grandma says who’s the poor old lady, she hopes nobody is referring to her, she’s got plenty of money etc. etc. Susan sighs lugubriously and stands up. Grandma says good riddance and makes a silly face behind Susan’s back. Dad hurries Susan out, saying over his shoulder that I’m to ring if I need him and maybe I could just look in on Bridget for ten minutes.

  Have the men gone?

  They have, Grandma, all one of them.

  Thank goodness, bloomin’ nuisances.

  Why?

  Why what?

  Why are men nuisances?

  Oh, for heaven’s sake.

  No, really, Grandma why are men nuisances?

  Always wanting their teas.

  Is that all?

  All what?

  Is that the only reason men are nuisances?

  Who says so?

  Says what?

  Men are nuisances.

  You do.

  I like men, always did.

  Then why are they nuisances?

  Who?

  Men.

  Have the men gone?

  I make some tea, only a small amount as instructed by Mum. There’s to be no more.

  Not many people tonight.

  Where?

  Here.

  Why would there be?

  It often gets crowded.

  Who with?

  Them.

  Who are they?

  Are you daft or something?

  This is your kitchen, why would it be crowded?

  It isn’t crowded.

  I know, that’s what I said.

  Not many people tonight.

  I put the radio on, some vaguely classical music. Grandma is so bored. She asks if we’ll away to our bed. I say why not. She finishes the tea and asks if I’ve put the cat out, she hasn’t seen it for a while. She asks if I’ve bolted the doors, there are funny men about. As I take her through to the bedroom, and start undressing her, I wonder if anything has ever happened to Grandma to do with ‘funny’ men. Nobody would ever be told if it had. Grandma would keep whatever it was a secret. She
says talking about nasty things only makes them nastier. All of twentieth-century psychology rejected in one sentence. Mum says Grandma’s life is full of great black holes, bottomless pits of silence. That’s the sort of fancy description Grandma laughs at most. But it’s true.

  I don’t often dress or undress Grandma. I follow Mum’s instructions. The secret is to sit her on the edge of the bed and keep talking, keep her attention away from what she’s doing. So, as I start unbuttoning the first of her two cardigans, the lurid violet one which she knitted herself with the knobbly buttons, I tell her how tired I am of the way the boys in the sixth form treat us girls. I elaborate on their grossness, how brutal they all are, how they throw their weight about and have no sensitivity or delicacy, and the cardigans, even the brown courtelle one underneath which has hellish, small, tight buttons, the cardigans are off in a trice. The jumper under that has to come over Grandma’s rather big head. I take care to be relating a particularly diverting anecdote about a boy called Alan, who pushed into the dinner queue in front of me, as I pull the wretched jumper over her head. Her ‘Did you let him?’ is muffled but the jumper is off. Now we’re down to the vest. I pause at the vest. Grandma has night vests and day vests. I really don’t think I want to remove Grandma’s vest. Who will know? She is looking at me adoringly, her almost lashless eyes blinking as though the light was bright. I realise she wants to know whether Alan succeeded. I tell her I bashed him and she laughs so hard she nearly falls off the bed. I leave the vest on. I slip Grandma’s blue flannel nightdress over her head and then slide her skirt down to her huge hips. She’s such an extraordinary shape down there. She puts her own hands on her stomach as I persuade her to stand up and says feel my belly, I hope I haven’t a growth. The skirt is off but not the knickers. Well, I can’t leave those on. I fumble under her nightdress and find the elastic and yank. Grandma says leave off. The old suspender belt she is devoted to since Bridget burned her corsets is almost embedded in her flesh. I have the greatest difficulty releasing it. What stupid, stupid clothes. What Grandma needs is a track suit. I’m going to tell Bridget that.