There had always been the occasional squabble between residents over who should have charge of the remote control, but these were rare and always surmountable. More annoying and time consuming for the staff were the occasions when the controls went missing, whether simply misplaced or taken back to a room by one of the residents. But again, such difficulties were rare and surmountable. What hadn’t been foreseen was that the remote control could be used as a weapon. Made from metal and ten inches in length, the control weighed approximately ten ounces and in the wrong hands made for an effective baton. This discovery was made by a newly-arrived resident who then hit an eighty-two-year-old woman over the head with it. ‘Teach you!’ he’d said to her.
Just what he’d been intending to teach the old lady wasn’t clear – or ever understood for that matter. Mrs Beauchamp had never before met the man and had been sitting nowhere near the television at the time of the assault. Although the incident had been brought up at the weekly manager’s meeting, apart from monitoring the possession of the remote control more closely, it was decided not to take any immediate action. But then death visited the community and stole the life of Mrs Lorna Green from under their very noses.
Mrs Green had been one of the community’s more glamorous and popular guests, and it had been fully expected that she would live for at least another ten years. It was therefore a surprise when she keeled over dead in the lounge one evening. It unfolded that Lorna had suffered a heart attack after heroically battling with the ever-lengthening television listings for two hours, and the rights – but mainly the wrongs – of choice again elbowed their way to the fore and this time the owners of the care home became involved. Unnecessary death, they argued, could never be construed as a positive advertisement for a care home.
Laura pondered the problem, wrestled with her conscience, chewed the ballpoint pen some more and stared into space. She missed her appointment with Larry, and Moses’ toenails continued to grow. She stared into space again and then stopped. She took the pen from her mouth, tore a sheet of paper from a memo pad and started to write. The good times were about to end.
True to her word, Laura arrived at Larry’s house on the Friday evening. She declined his offer of a glass of iced tea and without delay handed him a pair of nail clippers. ‘Okay, Larry, let’s get started. It’s Friday night and I have plans.’
Under her tutelage Larry turned the dog on its back, straddled him and then, holding a paw in one hand, used the guillotine clipper with the other. Moses didn’t like his feet being touched and made this clear. ‘Be firm with him, Larry – and mind the quick!’ Laura said.
‘I’m being as fast as I can, Laura. I don’t think I can go any faster.’
Laura sighed. ‘I’m not asking you to be quick, Larry, I’m telling you to mind the quick – the live bit that runs down the centre of the nail, remember? You have to leave at least two millimetres between its end and the end of the nail. That’s it… Careful now… You’ve got it… Okay then, try again.’
It took Larry an hour to complete the task, and once he’d finished Laura told him to make a fuss of Moses. ‘Reward him with a treat, Larry. Once he gets used to you handling his feet it will get easier.’
Noticing the large beads of sweat on Larry’s brow, Laura figured that he too was probably in need of a treat, and on the spur of the moment invited him to join her and Alice for a bite to eat. Larry had been happy to accept. He couldn’t, in fact, remember the last time he’d been invited out to dinner. ‘You’re sure Alice won’t mind?’
‘I’m sure she won’t. But remember what I said about conversation. Don’t just talk about things that interest you. Ask Alice about herself.’
By the time they arrived at the restaurant Alice was already sitting at an outside table, flicking through the screen of her smartphone and occasionally smiling. She was younger than Laura by about ten years and dressed in an expensive business suit. Laura introduced them, and a surprised Alice told Larry she was pleased to meet him. Larry said that he too was pleased to meet her and promptly asked how tall she was.
‘Five feet five,’ she replied, looking at Laura quizzically.
‘Larry’s trying out as a conversationalist,’ Laura explained. ‘You’re his audition.’
Taking Laura’s comment as a sign of encouragement, Larry proceeded to share his own stature (six feet one inch) with Alice, pointing out that both of them, for the United States, were of above average height, her by a half inch and him by three.
‘Hah! I always told you I was above average, Laura, and now Larry’s confirmed it!’
‘I’ve never once doubted that you were, darling. Now where’s the waiter? I need a drink!’
‘So do I,’ Larry said. ‘A long stiff one, too! Trimming Moses’ nails has completely drained me.’
The waiter arrived and Larry ordered a large strawberry milkshake, settling for a diet coke after Laura informed him that the restaurant was for grown-ups. She then ordered a carafe of house red for her and Alice to share.
‘Cheers!’ Laura said, after the glasses were poured. ‘Cheers!’ Alice and Larry replied in unison. Again remembering Laura’s advice, Larry then asked Alice what she’d had for breakfast that morning.
Once the food was on the table Laura started to talk about the crisis at the nursing home. ‘I was trying to give the residents a semblance of their old lives back,’ she said, ‘allow them a say in matters that affect them. Control of the television was all they had left and now they don’t even have that. The owners won’t allow it. They say it’s too dangerous and they use Mrs Green’s death to prove their point. I was in the middle of telling them that Lorna’s death was an aberration when Mrs Beauchamp wandered into the office with the stitches fresh in her forehead and told them a strange man had tried to kill her with the remote control. Any chance I had of changing their minds went up in a puff of smoke after that. Talk about bad timing!’
Laura waved to one of the waiters and gestured for another carafe of wine.
‘So what’s happening now? Aren’t they allowed to watch television?’ Alice asked.
‘Not in any real sense. The television listings and remote control have been removed from the lounge and the set’s been programmed to receive Christian channels only, so it’s Jesus or nothing these days. I just hope to God they don’t start sending money to those charlatans. I’m seriously tempted to put a brick through the screen and be done with it!’
‘Maybe you’ve been trying to give them something they don’t want,’ Alice said. ‘Did any of the residents actually suggest any changes they’d like to see in the home?’
Laura thought for a moment. ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘Two old-timers once came to my office and asked if they could watch pornography, but I had to say no. I didn’t think it was appropriate. You always have to think of the majority.’
‘Is it all right if I say something?’ Larry asked.
‘Of course it is, but bear in mind we only have an hour of daylight left.’
‘Why don’t you play them DVDs of television shows they grew up with, programmes from their younger years they can identify with? You could even operate the DVD player from your office, and if you play consecutive episodes you’d only have to change the disc every few hours. I’ve got box sets of quite a few of them and I’d be happy to lend them to you.’
Laura put down her glass and considered Larry’s suggestion. ‘You know, Larry,’ she said, ‘I think you might have hit upon something there.’
She took a pen and small notebook from her handbag and opened the pad at a fresh page. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Let’s give this some thought. As a rule of thumb I’d say the residents were most active in the decades of the fifties through the eighties, so let’s start by choosing one programme from each of those four decades.’
‘Well, let me know when you get to the eighties, because I wasn’t even born until then,’ Al
ice said.
As Laura herself hadn’t been born until 1970 it was left to Larry to decide the first two programmes. From the fifties he chose I Love Lucy and from the sixties The Dick Van Dyke Show. ‘Those should cheer them up,’ he said.
Both had been comedies and Laura suggested they choose a family drama from the seventies. Having grown up on a farm she’d always had a fondness for Little House on the Prairie and Larry had no objections to this. ‘One of Helen’s favourites,’ he’d commented.
With Alice now participating the three of them spent more time discussing which programme from the eighties they should choose, a decade they could all remember with greater clarity than the preceding three and consequently a decade that presented them with a wider range of choice. After much debate, some of it heated, Laura decided to go with Larry’s choice of Murder She Wrote rather than Hill Street Blues, which had been Alice’s. Larry, after all, was nearer in age to the demographic they were trying to cater for and so his views counted for more.
Murder She Wrote revolved around a character called Jessica Fletcher, a widow who wore sensible shoes and had hair that didn’t move. She wrote mystery books under the name of JB Fletcher and in her spare time solved murders, which seemingly happened every time she stepped out of her front door. She had friends – whose hair also didn’t move – coming out of her ears and made new ones every episode. She didn’t drive a car but always travelled first class and stayed in the best hotels. Everyone she met was an admirer of her work, claiming to have read all her books and be her biggest fan. She didn’t let all this praise go to her head though, and kept her feet firmly on the ground. And as Larry pointed out, the actress playing the role of Jessica Fletcher, although slightly bug-eyed, had the most winning of smiles and was the epitome of decency and optimism.
‘I want it on record that this isn’t my choice!’ Alice said. ‘There are too many people wearing wigs in that show, and the central character’s more like a warm-up act for the Second Coming than she is a real person. But if you two think that the residents will be happy to watch an affirmative action programme for washed-up actors then go ahead and suit yourselves. I still think you’d be better off choosing Hill Street Blues.’
‘If I was choosing something for my own viewing then I’d agree with you. But I’m not. This isn’t what we’re doing, Alice. The residents would find Hill Street Blues too gritty and violent, and not at all life-affirming.’
‘For God’s sake, Laura, there’s an act of murder in every episode of Murder She Wrote! How can you suppose that this programme’s life-affirming and Hill Street Blues isn’t?’
Larry quickly pointed out that the murders in Murder She Wrote were always bloodless and tastefully executed, and more than compensated for by the cheerful theme music. He also thought that the show’s distinctly middle class ambience would lift the spirits of any resident who might have been adversely affected by watching a poor family eke out a living in rural Minnesota for 211 consecutive episodes. ‘My late wife used to love the show,’ he added.
It was difficult for Alice to argue with the views of a dead woman so she gave up trying. She thought, however, that she too would prefer to be dead than have to watch Murder She Wrote for the rest of her life.
At that moment her phone rang. She looked at the screen and excused herself from the table. ‘I’m sorry, this is a call I have to take,’ she said.
Alice had been distracted by her phone all evening, constantly checking it for messages and postings, and occasionally sending texts. ‘That damned phone!’ Laura muttered. ‘I love the girl to bits but that phone of hers drives me crazy. It’s the one thing we fall out over. I keep telling her it’s rude to leave your phone on when you’re talking to someone, but does she listen? I despair of technology, Larry, I really do. In my experience it fragments society rather than holding it together.’
‘A bit like central heating, really,’ Larry mused.
Having no idea what Larry meant by that statement, but for once interested in something he might have to say on a subject, Laura asked him to explain.
‘Well, in times before central heating there was only one warm room in a house and that was where the family used to congregate; they’d sit around an open fire talking to each other or playing games, parents and children together. Central heating changed all that because the system warmed all the rooms in a house. Most people don’t realise this, but it was the Romans who pioneered central heating. They built…’
‘Larry!’ Laura said. ‘I don’t want a history lesson. Stick to the point! Which is what?’
‘That once people installed central heating systems in their homes there wasn’t any practical need for the family to stay together in the same room any more. Sons and daughters started to spend more time in their own rooms and away from their parents. Of course, you could argue the same thing about television.’
Laura gave him a warning glance.
‘No, this is relevant, Laura, because for a time televisions were the equivalent of open fires – another reason for the whole family to gather in the same room. Once televisions became cheap, though, and people more affluent, children were given televisions for their own rooms. I wish now that we’d never given Rutherford and Grover their own sets because once we did, the only times we saw them were at mealtimes or on their way to the bathroom. I think that’s when we started to drift apart, and I’m sure it was the same for other families. And when families drift apart, so too does society. It goes back to what you were saying about technology, Laura, how it fragments rather than holds it together.’
Laura nodded and quietly murmured her agreement.
‘And what with the number of television channels there are today and those gadgets that allow people to watch what they want when they want, it’s not surprising there’s little common experience left. I remember the days when people at the university used to gather around the water cooler and discuss what they’d seen on television the previous night, but that doesn’t happen much anymore. And as most people carry a bottle of water with them today I suppose it’s only a matter of time before even the water cooler becomes obsolete. Did you know that they sold bottled water in Boston as early as 1767?’
‘No, I didn’t, but the rest of what you say interests me. I grew up with central heating and a television in my room so I’ve always taken those things for granted. But you’re right: they have impacted society – and in much the same way as the digital revolution’s affecting people today. I’m no Luddite, Larry – and I’d be the last person to give up my computer and mobile phone – but it does concern me how today’s technology has taken over the lives of so many people. Rather than them controlling technology, it’s the technology that controls them. It really depresses me when I see young people walking with their heads down, reading screens and oblivious to their surroundings – the people they pass and the beauty of the buildings and monuments. They may as well be living in a windowless cubicle.’
Larry nodded in agreement. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me in years to come if the residents in your home don’t arrive with tablets and smartphones. They’ll probably stop talking to each other and just sit around checking their pages on Facebook or reading tweets. What a sad old world that would be.’
‘I doubt very much if they’d still have the know-how, but if they did then you’re right: it would be a sad old world. A sad old world for sad old people. Do you have a Facebook account?’
‘I did once, but I could never get anyone to befriend me. After a whole year I still had only one friend and that was Helen. There seemed little point in having an account when I could talk to Helen at home.’
‘Alice has 430 friends,’ Laura said. ‘Can you believe that?’
‘Boy! She must be popular. What does she do for a living?’
‘Maybe that’s a question you could ask her when she gets back to the table. You already know how tall she is and what
she had for breakfast this morning, so this might well be your next best query.’
While Laura and Larry worried about the fragmentation of society at large, Alice agonised on the phone over fragmentation of a more personal nature: Repo’s brain.
Alice and Laura had been together for four years. They met after Laura contacted a local recruitment agency specialising in healthcare, and it was Alice who’d supplied the nursing home with many of its new appointments. Their professional relationship became casual, and within a year they were living together in civil partnership with a nine-year-old Golden Retriever called Repo. The dog was Laura’s, but became an integral part of Alice’s life, too. They doted on Repo, revolved their lives around him; took him to the best vet and spent a small fortune on premium dog foods. The care and love they lavished on Repo secured his physical advance into old age, but did little to affect the physiological changes taking place in his brain.
At first, Repo’s increasingly long daytime sleeps were seen by Alice and Laura as no more than a symptom of age: the dog was old, the dog was slowing down. Similarly, they interpreted his decreased activity as a sign of advancing arthritis rather than anything more complicated, and his lack of response to the calling of his name simply an indication of hearing loss. The possibility that something more sinister might be at play only struck Alice after she found Repo wandering aimlessly around the lounge in the early hours of one morning, strangely always taking the same route. She mentioned this to Laura, but Laura was unconcerned. ‘He’s always been crazy,’ she’d laughed.
Larry & the Dog People Page 5
