To Be Continued

by James Robertson

  ‘Aye, she says so.’

  I do not so much actually, voluntarily say this as hear myself say it, and I am horrified. It must be the whisky speaking because such behaviour is totally out of character. As already noted, my head and the lower sections of parapets have an excellent relationship. Yet I have just given this bulldozer his own words back to him in a decidedly cheeky, not to say challenging, manner. In addition to hearing my own utterance I see a vision of a gravestone in a corner of that springy-turfed churchyard in Morningside, a stone that bears the following legend:

  DOUGLAS FINDHORN ELDER

  1964–2014

  ‘AYE, SHE SAID SO.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  I backtrack fast. ‘I agreed with her. There’s no problem. Honest.’

  ‘Oh, you agreed wi her, did ye?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘And there’s no problem?’

  ‘None at all.’

  ‘Honest?’

  ‘Honest.’

  ‘And, eh, who asked for your fucking opinion?’

  ‘It’s all right, Barry,’ Paula says, and she shifts her position very subtly, blocking Barry from coming round the bar, which he is on the point of doing. Barry stares at her the way a wolf might stare at another wolf that has just confessed a preference for berries over raw meat.

  ‘Do you ken this fuck?’

  This is a novelty. I have never knowingly been referred to as a fuck before. And on my fiftieth birthday, too!

  ‘Aye. He’s a friend of the family.’ (I could take issue with her imprecise labelling but the moment passes.) ‘He was just going down the street and he saw me.’

  Barry bulges everywhere as he takes this in. I’ve never seen a pressure cooker explode, but I imagine that the second before the lid flies off it might bear a close resemblance to the way Barry looks at this moment.

  Then Paula touches him lightly on the sleeve and he goes back to his previous shape, just like Mr G. This only reinforces my suspicion that Paula and Barry are an Item.

  ‘Listen, Gramps,’ he says (it’s the first time I’ve been called Gramps, too), ‘I don’t like people who bother my staff. Especially her. All right?’

  Another cue for my exit. All I have to say is, ‘Of course, Barry,’ compliment him on his caring management skills, and depart. But suddenly the Glen Gloming pipes up again: ‘What do you mean, “Especially her”? What’s Paula to you?’

  I can’t believe it! I’ve just been granted a further stay of execution by bulldozer, and the whisky has put me right back in front of the thing. This time Paula leaps out from behind the bar, exhibiting a nimbleness of foot which I did not know she had.

  ‘Look, he’s a friend of my mum’s, Barry, that’s all. He’s a bit of a tube and he’s upset cos he’s been at a funeral.’

  ‘A funeral?’ Barry roars. ‘A funeral? I’ll gie him a fucking funeral!’

  A man who appreciates irony, then. As I think this, I also get an inkling that the Glen Gloming wants to defend me against Paula’s slighting reference to my tubularness, so for a brief moment there is a fight within me between a sense of hilarity and a sense of outrage. Then Paula says, ‘Just bugger off, Douglas. Now!’ and common sense gets the better of the other two.

  ‘Cheerio, then,’ I say, and I flee from the Lounger out onto Lothian Road. Once in the open, I pick up speed, skipping food spillages as if they’re jumps at Musselburgh Racecourse. Whether Barry pursues me or not, I have no idea, but I don’t care. I am oddly exhilarated as I canter down to the junction with Princes Street, where I join with a throng crossing the road and feel that it is now safe to slow down and catch my breath. This exhilaration is either the thrill of having lived dangerously and survived, or the last of the lunacy unleashed in me by five Glen Glomings. I suspect the latter, and make a mental note that should I ever come across the brand again, I will not breenge in but, as they say, ca’ canny.

  EVERYBODY HAS CAKE

  I arrive at the Home at about 4.30 p.m. Before entering the premises I spruce myself up a bit, straightening and tightening the tie, tucking in the shirt, smoothing the hair and generally making myself look less like a drunk man who has just narrowly escaped being crushed to pulp by a wrecking machine. Actually I feel completely sober: the run followed by the long walk has had a beneficial effect.

  Two members of staff are finishing doing the rounds with a tea trolley. I give my name and explain that I have come to see my father, Tom Elder. One of them says, ‘He’s in his room. I’ll take you down.’ Her name, according to the badge on her uniform, is Muriel. I’ve not met her before.

  ‘Please don’t bother. I know the way.’

  ‘It’s no bother. He’s not long gone there. He’s had enough of the day room for today.’

  Or the day room has had enough of him. ‘Was he being difficult?’

  ‘A wee bit loud, that’s all. A bit agitated. It’s not that he’s difficult. He’s himself.’

  ‘He just wants some peace, I expect.’

  ‘Well, you do, don’t you? And there’s not a lot of it about.’

  We are passing the open doors of residents’ rooms. Some are empty, some contain residents: a woman in a bed with its safety rails up, a little old child; a man in a chair looking through his window; another watching television. Somewhere nearby another television is on very loud, but this one has the sound muted: peace. The man watching the screen glances in our direction. Recognising his snow-white hair, I pause and call his name.

  ‘Jimmy! Hello, Jimmy!’ Then, remembering that he is stone deaf, I wave at him. When Dad first arrived, Jimmy took a shine to him: another man, physically in reasonable shape, among the Home’s mainly female population. They sat together at mealtimes, and Jimmy tried, without much success, to get Dad to play card games. They didn’t converse much because of Jimmy’s deafness, but there was something between them, a silent camaraderie. More recently, that has gone.

  Jimmy looks over but doesn’t wave back. His gaze returns to the screen. I catch up with Muriel, who has reached Dad’s room.

  ‘Here we are. Do you want a tea or a coffee? Tom, there’s someone to see you. It’s your son, David.’

  I correct her. ‘Douglas, Muriel.’

  She looks at me oddly. ‘Douglas Muriel?’

  ‘No, just Douglas. You’re Muriel.’

  She laughs. ‘Oh, so I am. Honestly, my brain’s mince. It’s supposed to be my day off, you see, but I swapped shifts because it’s my niece’s wedding on Saturday. Sorry. Tom, your son, Douglas, is here to see you. Did you say you wanted something?’

  ‘No, but yes, a coffee would be great, thanks. Milk, no sugar.’ I am still trying to work out why swapping her shift would make her forget her own name.

  ‘Coming up. Make yourself at home.’

  ‘Thanks.’ She heads back towards the trolley. I go over to Dad’s armchair and give his cheek a kiss.

  ‘Hello, Dad. How are you doing today?’

  He stares at me from his armchair, then with his fingertips touches the spot where the kiss landed. In spite or because of Muriel’s introduction he could be trying to work out who I am, or he could know that but be wondering where I’ve been all this time, or he could be trying to remember the son David he doesn’t have, or he could be genuinely probing for a genuine answer to my question. How is he doing today? Is this what is responsible for the furrowing of his brow? I sit down on the second chair in the room, one of those flexi-backed plastic jobs, and wait.

  ‘What day is it?’

  There is a table next to his chair, with a mug of coffee and a plate with two biscuits on it, a plain one and a chocolate one. That will be the ration. The room is not big, in fact it is pretty cramped, but there is a window looking out onto the garden and at least it is his own space, with photographs of him, Mum and me on the wall, and a few other familiar objects dotted about. The idea is to make the Home feel more like home. He doesn’t seem to notice, or to care much.

  The Don’t Care Mu
ch Home.

  ‘Tuesday, Dad. It’s Tuesday.’

  ‘Aye, but what day is it? Isn’t it a day?’

  ‘What date, do you mean?’

  ‘No, not that. What the hell do I need that for? What bloody use is that? What day is it? Is it a day? Is it a day?’

  He never used to use swear words, not even mild ones. He prided himself on not swearing. This wasn’t because swearing offended him, he once told me, his boy, but because it represented a loss of control. It was counterproductive, if what you wanted to do was get your message across. And what else was language for, if not that? Swearing distracted your listener from the information you were imparting. I was thirteen at the time. I accepted his argument until one particular day when we were together in the shed, building a bird-table. Dad sawed a bit of wood in the wrong place, making it too short for its purpose, and just as he realised what he’d done the saw jumped and took a bite out of his left hand. And all he said, through clamped teeth, was ‘Drat!’ Drat? For a few seconds, I remember, I mused on the etymology of that word (I looked it up in the dictionary afterwards – that was the kind of boy I was; and I have made a mental note just now to look it up again, to remind myself – that’s the kind of man I am) and then I saw that Dad had turned pale and was trembling, and that blood was gushing from his hand. He wrapped his handkerchief round his hand to staunch the flow, and went off to fix the wound. ‘Don’t touch anything,’ he said as he was leaving. And I was disappointed: his self-restraint wasn’t admirable. It was, in the circumstances, quite unreasonable. A full deployment of the foulest possible language would, in my adolescent opinion, have got the message across much more effectively.

  Latterly, however, Dad has been sprinkling some of his voiced thoughts with expletives. When he gets ‘agitated’ they come in increasing strength and number. And other aspects of his nature, unanchored, have risen to the surface of his new life: forceful observations his sense of decorum would once have firmly suppressed. Some of the other residents of the Home find all this difficult. So Tom Elder goes to his room. He volunteers or is persuaded to go. This is better for everybody. But he can’t be left alone for long, unless he falls asleep. Awake, without someone to watch over him, he is a restless searcher for undiscoverable things. He focuses on what he cannot see and, usually, he then trips and falls.

  Muriel knocks and comes in with my coffee and two plain biscuits. That will be the non-resident’s ration.

  Dad eyes her as if he has never seen her before in his life. I sense that he has an urge to interrogate her about her intrusion, but he holds it back while she asks if he is okay and if we need anything else. When she has gone he transfers his gaze to me, then deliberately looks again to the door.

  ‘She wants watching, that one.’

  ‘Muriel? What’s she done?’

  ‘Nothing. That’s the point.’

  ‘What’s the point?’

  ‘Biding her fucking time, isn’t she?’

  ‘For what, Dad?’

  He doesn’t answer this. Whether he can’t or chooses not to I am not able to determine. Then he repeats his earlier question. ‘Is it a day?’

  ‘I’m not with you.’

  ‘Aye you are.’

  ‘I mean, I don’t understand what you’re getting at. Yes, it’s a day.’

  ‘It’s something else. Not day. Is it a –’ His fingers grab at the air, trying to pull the word free. ‘Is it a – a show? You’re all got up for something. The suit and …’ He makes a rapid, repeated clutching motion at his throat with thumb and forefinger.

  ‘Tie?’ Such a small word, easily misplaced. I hate ties.

  ‘Aye. Tie, fucking tie. What for?’

  ‘I’ve been at a funeral. Fellow from the Spear. Not a close colleague, but I thought I’d better put in an appearance.’

  ‘Spear?’

  ‘The paper, Dad. Where I worked.’

  ‘Is this you going to work then? In the suit and – tie? At the – paper!’ He shouts the word in his triumph and I hate to disabuse him.

  ‘No, I don’t work there any more. Remember? I left. I finished.’

  He’s not satisfied. ‘What’s the other bastard thing? Not a show. Party. Party?’

  ‘Funeral. I’ve been at a funeral.’

  ‘There’s another thing. Weddings, funerals, weddings, funerals …’

  ‘Christenings?’

  He jabs a finger at that. ‘Close!’

  ‘Birthdays?’

  ‘Aye, aye, that’s it.’

  ‘Are you remembering that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That it’s my birthday?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Today. Today’s my birthday.’

  ‘Today? Ah.’ All the muscles in his face slacken. ‘Knew there was something.’

  ‘Actually, there’s nothing.’

  ‘What?’

  I am doing it all wrong, of course. It doesn’t make it easier, me speaking in riddles, which is how it must seem to him. I’m not speaking in riddles, I’m just speaking, but the way I frame things is not helpful. Various leaflets, medical professionals and websites agree on this: I should be cueing him up, making simple statements or asking simple questions that prompt simple yes or no answers. If only life were like that.

  I really don’t want to patronise my old dad.

  ‘Nothing’s happening about my birthday. I’m not celebrating it. No party, no presents, no nothing.’

  ‘Och, that’s a shame.’

  ‘I don’t want anything. I don’t need a thing.’

  ‘No …? No …?’ The grappling starts again. He can’t get whatever it is. Then he sees the plate, pokes one of the biscuits. ‘Like that.’

  ‘Food? No cake, you mean?’

  ‘Aye, cake!’ And this time we are both triumphant because between us we’ve hooked and ringed the word, and thereby the concept.

  The concept of cake.

  ‘No cake. No candles. But I had a pie earlier, in the pub.’

  ‘That’s fucking terrible.’

  ‘You’re right. It was.’

  ‘Everybody has cake.’ He stops, perhaps to consider the truth of this statement. Then: ‘Cold, isn’t it?’

  ‘It was sunny earlier. It’s gone off a bit now. It’s not cold though.’

  ‘Aye it is. Winter’s coming. Make sure you wrap up.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘I’m fifty.’ We are in sync. For some brief spell – and it will be brief – our words and thoughts touch when they meet, kiss rather than collide.

  ‘Fifty?’ Utter disbelief is in the frown and downturned mouth. ‘That’s old.’

  ‘It’s not as old as you.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘It’s just a number, Dad. I’m not bothered by it.’ How effortless it is to lie to my own father.

  ‘Good.’ After a few seconds: ‘Where do you stay now? Do you stay here?’

  ‘No, I’m at home. In our old house. Your house.’

  ‘And what’s your mother saying about it?’

  ‘About me being there? Not much. She’s fine about it.’ I decide to try a kind of joke. ‘And Sonya is too, I think. Glad to see the back of me.’

  ‘Good. Me too. When’s she coming in?’

  ‘Sonya?’

  ‘Your mother. Who the fuck’s Sonya?’

  ‘Sonya’s my friend. My girlfriend, remember? I moved out and lived with her for a while, but then I came home again, to give you a hand when you started forgetting things. Remember?’

  He adopts a narrow-eyed look of cunning. ‘Aye.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Can you remember Sonya’s children’s names? You’ve met them a few times.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Sonya’s children. Do you remember their names?’

  The sly look intensifies.

  ‘It’s not a trick question. I’m just interested to see if you can remember.’


  His lips tighten. He puts a finger to them, stares at the ceiling then back at me. He has no idea who I mean. Defeat fills his eyes. He shakes his head.

  ‘Magnus is her son, Paula’s her daughter. I just saw Paula, up the town. Bonnie lass. Remember?’

  Why do I keep saying that? Remember, remember. As if I’m deliberately rubbing in to his wounded mind the fact that he can’t.

  And, on the subject of rubbing, why go on about Paula? It was to Paula, in the presence of her mother, that Dad made one of those forceful observations which were once so out of character, namely that he would like to rub his face all over her breasts. Unforgivable, really, however much he couldn’t stop himself. Paula and Sonya haven’t seen him since.

  ‘Paula.’ He sounds the name but it doesn’t give him anything. Probably just as well. ‘Do they stay in our house?’

  ‘No. Just me. I moved back. It was difficult. And then you moved here. It was better for everybody.’

  ‘Better for you, aye.’ Sometimes he seems to see everything totally in focus. ‘Not so good for me.’

  ‘It’s nice here.’

  ‘It’s a shitehole.’

  ‘No, Dad, that’s not true.’

  ‘Fucking is. When’s your mother coming in?’

  ‘She’s not coming. She’s not here any more.’

  ‘Well, where is she? What’s the time? She should be coming. Where is she?’

  ‘Dad.’ I pause, to make sure he is paying attention. ‘She’s dead. She died two years ago.’

  It is a terrible thing, to have to keep breaking this news to him. It is terrible that he has to keep receiving it.

  ‘Dead? But you said …’

  ‘I know. I said she was fine about me being back home. I’m sorry. Misuse of tense. I thought it was easier. I was wrong. Drink your coffee.’

  Dad looks at the mug as if it has only just materialised. He picks it up, spills a little coffee, slurps some. I lean forward to wipe his chin with a paper napkin, ready for further action if required. Sometimes when he learns that Mum is dead he starts to cry. This time he is annoyed with her.