When Crealy reached the room he shared with Garfield, Mortenson and Popanovich he was ready for a little action. Jenny Pen time. Jenny Pen was a hand puppet that Garfield’s granddaughter had made at intermediate school. Although christened Jenny Pencarrow, it looked more like Punch, or the witch from Snow White, for its papier mâché nose and chin strove to complete a circle. Jenny Pen had a skirt of red velvet, and balanced all day on the left-hand knob of Garfield’s bed. At night, ah torment, she became the fasces of Nero’s power, the cloven hoof, the dark knight snouted emblem, the sign of Modu and Mahu, the dancing partner of a trivial Lucifer, a tender facsimile of things gone wrong.
Crealy lifted Jenny Pen from the bed end, and thrust his hand beneath the velvet skirt. He held her aloft, and turned her painted head until all the room had been held in her regard. Garfield began to cry, Mortenson turned the better side of his face aside, and wished his stroke had been more complete. Popanovich was just a shoulder beneath his blankets. Crealy walked Jenny Pen on her hands up Garfield’s chest, and she seemed of her own volition to rap Garfield’s face. ‘Who rules?’ said Crealy.
‘Jenny Pen,’ said Garfield. Garfield had played seventeen games for Wellington as fullback, and later been general manager for Hentlings. It was all too far away to offer any protection.
‘Lick her arse then,’ said Crealy hoarsely, and Garfield did, and felt Crealy’s hand on his tongue. ‘You’re on Jenny Pen’s side, aren’t you?’ said Crealy.
‘Yes.’ Garfield’s voice barely quivered, although the tears ran down his cheeks. He could scarcely conceive the life he was forced to lead. His soul peeped out from a body which had betrayed him in the end.
Crealy’s eyes glittered, and he looked about to share his triumph with others. ‘What about you, Judge? Want to do a little kissing?’ Mortenson gave his half-smile.
‘It’s difficult for me,’ he said slowly.
‘Bloody difficult with only half of everything working.’ Crealy walked over to the last bed, and shook Popanovich’s shoulder. There was no reaction. ‘What sort of a name is that for a New Zealander,’ he said. ‘Bloody Popanovich!’ He banged his knee into Popanovich’s back, but there was no defence of the name. It put Crealy in an ill humour again, and he went back to Garfield with Jenny Pen. He began to go through Garfield’s locker. ‘It’s share and share alike here, Garbunkle.’
‘Communism has the greatest attraction to those with the least,’ said Mortenson in his slurred voice, knowing Crealy was not bright enough to follow.
‘Shut up,’ said Crealy. He placed a bag of barley sugars and a box of shortbread biscuits on the top of Garfield’s locker. ‘Is that all, you useless bugger,’ he said. He looked at Garfield for a time, letting Jenny Pen rest on the covers, almost basking in the knowledge shared between them of Garfield’s weakness and his strength. And even more, the mutual knowledge of Garfield’s former strength and superiority, Garfield’s achievements and complacency, now worthless currency before Crealy, who had achieved nothing except the accidental husbandry of physical strength into old age.
‘What else have you got hidden after all them visitors?’ Crealy slid his free hand slowly under Garfield’s pillow, and withdrew it empty. ‘Come on now, you bugger,’ he said.
‘Just leave me alone.’
‘Make Jenny Pen sing a song,’ said Mortenson. Sometimes Crealy would have Jenny Pen sing ‘Knick Knack Paddy Whack Give a Dog a Bone’, or ‘Knees Up, Mother Brown’. It was an awful sound, but better than the beatings.
Crealy listened a while, to make sure that no one was coming who could take Garfield’s part, then he pulled the near side of the mattress up and found a packet of figs. ‘That’s more like it,’ he said. He sat on the bed as if he were a friend of Garfield. ‘You selfish old bugger,’ he said mildly. ‘How many figs do you reckon there are here?’
Garfield didn’t answer, and Crealy took hold of his near ear and shook his head by means of it until Garfield cried out. ‘Don’t you start calling out, or you’ll get more,’ said Crealy. He opened the packet and began to eat. ‘For every one you’re going to get a hurry up,’ he said, and gave Garfield one right away.
So it began. Popanovich remained in hibernation beneath his blankets, Mortenson watched, but tried to keep the true side of his face as expressionless as the other, even though his good leg was rigid. Garfield covered his ears, and Crealy ate the figs, hitting Garfield’s face with each new mouthful. ‘Figs make you shit, Garfield, old son,’ he said, ‘but I’ll make you shit without them. That’s rich, isn’t it. I said that’s rich, isn’t it, Judge?’
‘Exactly,’ said Mortenson carefully. What time was it? He tried to remember some of the letters of Cicero he had been reading.
The one light from Garfield’s locker cast a swooping shadow each time Crealy leant forward solicitously to hit Garfield, and when Crealy held Jenny Pen up in triumph she was manifest as a monstrous Viking prow upon the wall. Mortenson had to accept the realisation that there were underworlds that he had been able until recently to ignore. Now he was part of one, suffering and observing, powerless through reduced capacity and fear.
When he saw a little shining blood beneath Garfield’s nose, he could contain his opposition no longer. Yet stress undid his recent progress and Stefan Albee Mortenson, barrister, solicitor, notary public, could produce before the court of Jenny Pen only, ‘Creal, youb narlous nan stapp awus nee.’
‘Careful, Judge. I don’t need your squawk. I might come across and give you more than just this feathering Garfield’s enjoying. I’ll do the side of you not already dead, you pinstripe squirt.’
Mortenson had nothing more to say, and Garfield sat with his chin on his chest as if in a trance. ‘Had enough?’ Crealy asked him. ‘You’re gutless, the lot of you.’ Crealy was bored with his immediate subjects and, with Jenny Pen still on his hand as his familiar, he went to wander the night corridors of the home. No conversation began in the room he left. Popanovich feigned the sleep of death, Garfield remained slumped in his bed and Mortenson had no way of travelling the distance between them to offer comfort.
Mrs Munro knew nothing of Totara’s netherworld. She had her own room in the separate block before the cottages, and the sun was laid on the polish of several pieces of her own furniture which had accompanied her. Mrs Munro could never understand those who complained of time dragging. She herself delighted in time to spare for all those indulgences a busy life had denied her, all those intellectual and emotional considerations that the slog of a seven-day dairy had prevented her from enjoying. She wore the tracksuit which she had insisted on for a Christmas present. She liked the comfort, the lack of constriction, the zippers at ankle and chest which made it easy to get off. She liked the two bright blue stripes and the motif of crossed racquets, even though she had never played sport.
Despite something of a problem with head nodding, and a hip operation on the way, Mrs Munro was quietly proud that, although she was an old woman, she was not a fat, old woman. She didn’t complain about the food, and she drew more large-print library books in a week than anyone else in the home. She rejoiced in an hour to while away over a cup of tea, or in writing to Bessie Inder, or in putting drops in her ear, or measuring her room with the tape from the sewing basket. Miss Hails from the main block did visit too often, it was true, and her repetitions tended to start Mrs Munro’s head nodding, but there was always the bedding storeroom as a sanctuary, and Mrs Munro had built a little dug-out in the blanket piles where she could rest in her tracksuit after lunch until Miss Hails had given up looking for her, and gone visiting elsewhere.
For the present, though, she counted the spots of a ladybird on her window sill, and watched sour old Crealy smoking on a bench by the secure recreation area. Crealy was not compulsive viewing, and when Mrs Munro finished her computations concerning the ladybird, she decided she would begin her next romance of the British Raj.
Crealy’s cigarette was the last in the packet he had stolen from Popanovi
ch, who was sleeping again. For Crealy, the days were not as enjoyable as the nights, because he was too much under the eye of authority, and the spirit of his fellows was not as easily daunted when the sun shone. He wondered if Mrs Halliday was by the goldfish pond, but couldn’t see her, and so he went back indoors to check Mortenson’s locker before lunch. In the main corridor he came across Mrs Joyce, who had her blood changed quite regularly at the clinic. Her forearms and elbows seemed forever to have the yellows, purples and blues of ageing bruises. Mrs Joyce had made binoculars of her hands and stood with them pressed to the glass doors, staring out. ‘What’s out there?’ she asked Crealy.
‘Herbs and spices, sycamores and young people. And bloody work.’
‘I can’t see it,’ said Mrs Joyce.
‘You’ve gone daft in there.’ Crealy rapped on her head with his knuckles, but she kept peering out into the sunshine through the tunnels of her fingers.
‘Let me join Jesus,’ she said. Crealy looked down at her pink scalp beneath the white hair. Because there was no resistance whatsoever that she could make, because she was not even aware of his malice, Crealy couldn’t be bothered hurting her.
‘Dozy old tart.’
‘Let me come to thee, sweet Jesus,’ said Mrs Joyce. Crealy had a chuckle at that, and at how Mrs Joyce was peering through her hands and the glass, although everything outside was perfectly clear to him.
Matron Frew heard the chuckle from the office, and it reminded her that she wanted words with Crealy. She first of all took Mrs Joyce’s arm in hers and walked with her down to the dayroom. She was back before Crealy could quite disappear from sight down the corridor, however, and she told him, with some bluntness, of the indirect complaints she’d been receiving, particularly from staff who had noticed Crealy pestering Mrs Halliday and Mr Garfield.
‘Mark my words,’ said Matron Frew. ‘I will be watching, and also I’m making mention of things in my report to the board this month. You show an unwillingness at times to be a reasonable member of our community.’
As she spoke Crealy hung his head, but not from meekness or contrition. He was counting the number of usable butts in the sandbox by the office door, and when he had done that he imagined himself in the mild, summer night standing over Matron’s herb garden, and pissing on the chives, parsley, mint, fennel and thyme. A lifetime in the indifferent, hostile or contemptuous regard of others had rendered Crealy immune to all three. He recognised no value or interest other than his own.
On Wednesday evenings Matron Frew turned off the television in the east wing lounge and organised communal singing. It was not compulsory as such, but absence meant no chocolate biscuits at the supper which followed. As a professionally trained person, Matron knew that a variety of stimulus was important for the elderly.
The committed, the egotistical and the hard of hearing stood close around the piano, the infirm or less enthusiastic were rims at a great distance. Golden oldies they sang, to Matron’s accompaniment. ‘The Kerry Pipers’, ‘Auld Lang Syne’, ‘The Biggest Aspidistra in the World’, ‘On Top of Old Smokey’.
Matron had begun her career as a physiotherapist and it showed in her playing, the keys kneaded like a string of vertebrae, each tune well gone over and the kinks removed. ‘Waltzing Matilda’, ‘Home on the Range’, ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’, ‘Some Enchanted Evening’, ‘Polly Wolly Doodle’. Matron Frew allowed her charges to respond in their own way and order, but she always had Nurse Glenn or Nurse McMillan guide Mr Oliphant to the uncarpeted area by the door, because the pathos of any Irish tune made him incontinent.
A refrain, particularly with high notes, would sometimes trigger Miss Hails’ weakness and she would begin the incessant repetition of a word. It happened, sure enough, during ‘Riding Down From Bangor’, and for several minutes Miss Hail sang only ‘May’. Crealy was present not just for the chocolate biscuits, but because it gave him perverse satisfaction, after the Matron’s rebuke, to exercise intimidation almost under her gaze.
He stood on Mrs Dellow’s toe during ‘Annie Laurie’, and stared into her face, daring her to respond. Her thin voice assumed even greater vibrato and her eyes misted. Crealy then leant in comradeship over blind Mr Lewin and sprayed saliva into his face as ‘Christopher Robin Went Down With Alice’.
When the chocolate biscuits came at last, Crealy kept himself between them and George Oliphant until they were all gone, then he said, ‘Now isn’t that a bugger, George, they seem all gone.’
‘Silver Threads Among the Gold’, they sang, and ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’. ‘Home, home, home, home, home, home,’ Miss Hails continued, until Matron Frew told her to suck her thumb until the cycle was broken. ‘Knees Up, Mother Brown’ Crealy liked but, because it was his favourite, the others found no pleasure in joining in.
Mortenson enjoyed the association the songs bore, even if not the singing itself. He preferred to be at some remove from the piano and his fellows, for then he could imagine other company and past days. His mouth would twitch and his good hand move to the melodies. ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ — he would sing it with Deborah as they drove back from skiing, ready for court work during the week. He hadn’t realised then, that all roads led to this. ‘Roo, roo, roo, roo, roo,’ began Miss Hails.
Before midnight, aware of an odd, sighing wind around the home, Crealy made a patrol of his domain. Only his harsh breathing and shuffle gave him away. In his own room everything was as it should be — Garfield was weeping, Popanovich sleeping, and Mortenson in his snores fell every few minutes into a choking death rattle which woke him briefly, then he slept and it all began again.
Further down the corridor Mrs Doone was talking to herself as she strung up nonexistent Christmas decorations. Every night was Christmas Eve for Mrs Doone, and the wonder and frisson of it were freshly felt night after night. ‘Compliments of the season, Mr Ah — ah,’ she said as Crealy slippered by. Around the corner, Crealy paused outside the room Mrs Oliffe and Miss Hails shared. Miss Hails was doing her thing, of course. For almost an hour she had been repeating the sound tee, while Mrs Oliffe was trying to find nineteen across, which was Breton Gaelic for divine harbinger.
‘Oh, stop going tee, tee, tee, tee,’ Mrs Oliffe said, but the simple satisfaction of it set her off also, and she joined in. Outside, Crealy could hear them in unison — tee, tee, tee. He found his own head nodding, and his mouth formed the sound. One night it might spread through all of Totara, and capture them in a transport of repetitious senility.
Crealy put his hand to his face to stop himself. He looked carefully down the corridor. ‘Mad old tarts,’ he said. He considered opening their door and frightening them into silence, but the chances of being caught up in their chant and left nodding with them indefinitely was too great. He went on, still with one hand to his face. Tee, tee, tee, tee faded behind him.
Outside the Matron’s office were chairs for visitors, and a varnished box with a sandtray in it for smokers among the visitors. Crealy was able to find several butts worth using again, before he noticed Mrs Joyce standing by the main doors once more. ‘Jesus loves me this I know,’ she said. She had two overcoats on, and stood with her hand on the catch of the locked door. ‘I’m going home,’ she said. ‘I’ve been here nearly a fortnight and they’re expecting me back now.’
‘You’ve been here for years,’ said Crealy.
‘Oh no, just a fortnight, and I need to be at home for every special occasion. We’ve always been a very close family, you see.’ Crealy went through her double set of pockets as she talked, but all he could find was a small book of stamps. ‘They may well send a car for me,’ she said. They both looked through the glass doors for a moment, but there was only empty wind and moonlight: no car was parked on the linen of the drive.
‘You can go home this way,’ said Crealy, taking Mrs Joyce by the lapel and leading her towards the kitchens.
‘Has the car come then?’ she said, and ‘God will provide, you know. Even Solomon in all his glory
.’ Crealy led her through the dining room laid for breakfast, and the kitchens, where worn, steel surfaces glinted like new bone. He unbolted the service door and set Mrs Joyce in the gap. ‘There you are, then,’ he said. ‘The main drive’s just around the corner.’
‘It’s a clear path to home, thank Jesus.’ The blue second coat would barely fit over the first, and pulled her arms back like the flippers of a penguin. Rather like a penguin she began walking, struck her head on a pruned plum branch, and reeled past the herb garden.
‘What’s your name again?’ said Crealy, but Mrs Joyce didn’t answer and, still unsteady from the blow, made the best pace she could around the side path. She had the scent of freedom; she had a promise of home.
Crealy waited until Mrs Joyce was well gone, and there was no sound of pursuit, or return, then he went out himself and stood in the summer night, sniffing the aromatic air of Matron Frew’s herb garden. He hung out his cock, and waited patiently for his prostate to relax its grip so that he could enjoy the physical relief and pleasurable malice of watering the herbs. He had both in good time, then he stood under the sycamore by the old garages and had one of the visitors’ cigarette ends, after nipping off the filter.
The sycamore creaked and murmured in the night breeze that blew out from the land to the sea. Despite the ache in his joints, Crealy enjoyed being by himself there beneath the branches, and the summer sky, for he knew that he had always been unloved. Even though old age at Totara had given him a mirror image power and significance, while always before he had been subjugated, he liked still to be alone, to have no sources of action or response other than himself. So he stood beneath the sycamore, and enjoyed his cigarette ends guardedly, shading the glow with a palm, and looking out to the better lit parts of the grounds. ‘No bastard can see me,’ he said. ‘No bastard knows I’m here.’
Even a summer’s night grows cold for old bones, and Crealy came in and bolted the door behind him. ‘Had enough?’ he had asked the mint and parsley as he went by them. He inspected Mrs Joyce’s stamps in the dim light. He wanted to search her room, but had forgotten her name.
Owen Marshall Selected Stories Page 25
