by David Lodge
I’ve been to see two more residential care homes for the elderly in our part of the city. The cost is finely calibrated to the degree of comfort offered, like air fares. At the lowest end of the scale you get a stale smell of cooking in the dining room, and of pungent air-freshener in the lounge, fumed oak furniture and faded floral wallpaper in the bedrooms; at the top end air-conditioning and sleek modular furniture and tasteful decor. But there is the same rather melancholy atmosphere in all of them, of lonely old people waiting stoically for death, deepened rather than relieved by the tinselly Christmas decorations in the common rooms. One can imagine them all carefully chewing their Christmas dinners in a couple of weeks’ time, wearing paper hats on their grey or bald heads, and pulling crackers if they have the strength. Well, at least Dad will be able to join us for Christmas dinner if he can be persuaded to move into such a place.The most promising is the one whose brochure I showed him last time I was in London, Blydale House it’s called, a purpose-built place, so the ambience is light and modern and comfortable. It’s a couple of miles from us, but on a bus route that passes the end of Rectory Road. Expensive, but not impossibly so. I have made an appointment to take him there on the day after Boxing Day.
14th December. The last lip-reading class of the year today. We had more exercises and talks to do with Christmas. Ordering Christmas dinner at a restaurant. The origin of Father Christmas. The history of mistletoe. The biggest Christmas cracker in the world. At the end of the class they all went off to have their turkey and trimmings at a local restaurant. I had not signed up for the lunch on the pretext of another engagement, but felt a little guilty about this fib as we split up, wishing each other a Happy Christmas. Beth announced the dates of the next term in the New Year, and a guest speaker. It seems that there really is a deafies’ equivalent to guide dogs for the blind. Not specially trained parrots; they’re called hearing dogs, and we are to have a talk about them in January.
Beth brings to the class magazines published by the RNID and similar organisations and leaves them on the table for people to borrow or read in the coffee break. An article called ‘Researching a cure for deafness’, about the experimental use of stem cells to regrow hair cells, caught my eye. Sadly the programme won’t produce any results for ten years and then will need another five years of clinical trials, so is unlikely to be of much use to me. But it was an interesting article, which began by stating that there are nine million people who are deaf or hard of hearing in this country. I had not thought deaf had undone so many. And the writer used a chilling phrase to describe traumatic hair-cell loss: ‘exposure to damaging drugs or noises causes these hair cells to die with a kind of suicide program. They basically commit suicide in your ear.’ Is it possible, after all, that that rock band at Fillmore West provoked mass suicide in my inner ears? If I could remember the group’s name I might sue them, but no doubt the statute of limitations would apply. They’re probably all deaf themselves by now, anyway. I hope so. The good news is that the anti-oxidants in red wine may help prevent hair-cell loss.
15th December. Fred came home yesterday evening and reported that Alex had been in the shop and ordered some curtains. ‘I gave her a discount - I thought it was only fair since we’ll have a sale in January - not that we’ll be putting that particular fabric in the sale. She has excellent taste. Her comments on the art we’ve got in the shop at the moment were all spot on.’ Fred was obviously taken with this new acquaintance. ‘I think I’ll invite her to our Boxing Day party,’ she said, to my dismay. ‘Is that a good idea?’ I said. ‘Why not, darling?’ I couldn’t think of a reason that I could give to Fred. ‘The poor girl will be lonely, all alone at Christmas, thousands of miles from home,’ she went on. ‘I’ll send her an invitation. I’ve got her address on the order form for the curtains. She has a flat in one of those new canalside developments.’ ‘Does she?’ I said, in a tone as uninterested as I could make it. The thought of Alex gaining entrance to this house, mingling with the guests at our party, ingratiating herself with members of the family, meeting Dad, who would be impressed by her blonde good looks and no doubt regale her with his wartime reminiscences of playing at dances on American airbases, is deeply unsettling.
18 th December. I woke up this morning with a tickle in the back of my throat which presaged the onset of a sore-throat cold. Sure enough, by lunchtime it hurt to swallow: all I need in the run-up to Christmas. And there was a letter for Fred in this morning’s post with Alex’s name and address on the back of the envelope, which I didn’t doubt was an acceptance of the invitation. I put it on top of a small pile of other mail for her on the hall table, and glanced at it apprehensively every time I went up and down the stairs.When Fred came in she brought her letters into the kitchen, as she usually does, to open them at the table over a cup of tea or a drink, according to the hour or her inclination, and I was there, waiting for her. ‘Tea or drink?’ She asked for a glass of white wine, being in good humour because the faulty Italian fabric which had caused a minor crisis some weeks ago had been replaced in time to make up the client’s curtains for Christmas and Ron was going to fit them tomorrow. I turned my back on her to get a bottle of Aligote out of the fridge, and she said something I didn’t catch. When I turned round she had a letter-card in her hand.
‘What?’ I said.
‘Alex Loom is going back to the States.’
‘For good?’ I said. A vain hope had leaped from my brain to my lips - in an instant I anticipated the bliss of Alex being suddenly, miraculously removed from my life.
‘No, of course not, darling,’ said Fred. ‘Just for Christmas. Why would she order curtains if she was going home for good?’
‘Oh, I’d forgotten that,’ I said lamely.
‘Anyway, she hasn’t finished her PhD, has she?’
‘No. I thought perhaps she had decided to pack it in. She’s not very satisfied with the supervision she’s getting from Butterworth.’
‘Well then, you must give her what help you can, darling,’ Fred said. ‘You have plenty of spare time.’
‘Oh, thanks very much,’ I said. There was more irony in my remark than Fred was aware of. Now I have her permission to meet Alex as often as I like - when it’s the last thing I want.
‘She says she’s very sorry to miss the party,’ Fred continued, scanning the letter-card, ‘but her father sent her the money for a flight home for Christmas, so of course she has to go.’
‘Well, God knows there are enough people coming to this party already,’ I said, disguising my emotions behind a familiar grouchy mask. If it is not the miraculous reprieve I dreamed of for an instant, it is at least a relief to know that Alex will not be around to contribute to the stresses of Christmas.
13
22nd December. I have spent the last two days in bed, trying to get over my cold before I have to make the journey to London to pick up Dad - the bed in the guest room, to avoid infecting Fred or disturbing her at night with my coughing and spitting. It was also a way of going to ground, avoiding contact with Alex or anybody else. I hunkered down under the duvet with Radio Four on earphones for company and a Trollope novel for comfort reading.
Today I felt better and ready to resume normal life. I had a look at my email this morning, expecting to find a lot of messages from Alex, but there was just one, saying she was sorry to miss the party and looked forward to seeing me again in the New Year. There were a lot of seasonal ads for Viagra - ‘Give her a present she’ll really appreciate! ’ ‘Get a power charge for the Christmas break!’ I wonder what they will come up with for the next big holiday - ‘Rise Again this Easter’? And there was a computer-generated message from the University library recalling Liverwright’s book on document analysis. I wondered idly if Alex was going to borrow it again and try to remove the turquoise marks with some chemical solution.
23rd December.The epic journey is over. Operation Fetch Dad is accomplished - not without difficulty. Many times today I wondered if it would have been more se
nsible to do it by train, but whenever I have considered this option in recent years it seems to entail so many possibilities of things going wrong that I decide against it. The trains just before Christmas are crowded, so I would have to reserve seats, and book a minicab from Brickley at a time which, allowing for possible traffic jams in central London, would get us to King’s Cross in good time to catch the appointed train, but not so early that we would be hanging about in the station for ages waiting to board it. Then even if this leg of the journey worked to perfection there was always the possibility that the train would not be ready for boarding when we got to King’s Cross because it had been late in arriving, or had been cancelled, in which case our seat reservations would be invalid, and we would have to join a Gadarene rush for unreserved seats on the next train. All in all, it seemed preferable to take my chances on the road. I knew it would be slow, I knew there would be traffic jams, but once I had got Dad in the car and his luggage in the boot I wouldn’t have to worry about getting anywhere at any particular time, and I could be confident that sooner or later we would get to Rectory Road.
I left home in the winter dark at 6.30 a.m., with only a cup of tea inside me, whizzed through the nearly empty city centre and was soon cruising down the M1 in light traffic, with Radio Four turned up to a volume which nobody with normal hearing could have borne. The road bulletins were making worrying remarks about fog in the south, delays at airports, etc., but I made good progress as far as a service station near Leicester, where I stopped for breakfast. After that the traffic and the atmosphere gradually thickened and I didn’t get to the end of the M1 until just before ten. From there it was a slow drive across a misty London, its streets congested with Christmas shoppers frantically stocking up with food and drink as if for an expected siege, and I didn’t reach Lime Avenue until gone eleven. Dad was waiting for me in the darkened house, the curtains drawn in every room, wearing his overcoat and cap, with his bags packed and his walking stick in his hand. He looked as if he had been ready for hours. We shouted at each other for a few minutes. ‘Where have you been?’ he demanded. ‘I told you I’d get here at about half-ten,’ I said. ‘I thought you said half-past nine,’ he said. ‘How could I get here by half-past nine without getting up in the middle of the night?’ I said irritably. ‘It’s a long way.’ ‘Too bloody long, if you ask me,’ he said. ‘What did you have to go and move up north for?’ ‘The job was there, Dad,’ I said, as I have said many times.
I go through a check list with him:‘Have you cancelled the milk?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Have you cancelled the newspapers?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Have you left the central heating on?’ A sullen ‘Yes’. He has in fact turned most of the radiators off, but I calculate that the hot water circulating through the system will serve. ‘Have you told the Barkers?’ ‘What?’ he says. ‘Have you told the Barkers, next door,’ I repeat, thinking he hasn’t heard me. ‘Told them what?’ he says. ‘Told them you’re going away.’ ‘Why should I, none of their business,’ he says. ‘Don’t you give them a set of keys when you go away?’ I ask. I know he doesn’t, I’m just pretending I don’t to relieve my irritation. ‘’Course not!’ he says indignantly.‘I don’t want them coming into my house nosing around while I’m away.’ ‘I should think they’d have better things to do at Christmas,’ I sneer. We are getting off to a bad start.
Before we leave I knock on the front door of the adjoining semi. The Barkers are not the most charismatic couple in the world but I rely on their goodwill to keep an eye on Dad and to phone me if they have any cause for concern. Mrs Barker opens the door. ‘Oh hallo!’ she says in a high-pitched whine, and giggles. It is a nervous giggle which punctuates all her speech.‘How’s your Dad?’The bulky shape of Mr Barker looms in the hall behind her, in shirtsleeves and braces, a cordless power drill held like a weapon in his hand. I tell them that I’m taking Dad to spend Christmas with us (‘Oh, that’ll be nice for him, won’t it?’ - giggle), and that I’d be grateful if they would keep an eye on the house. ‘There’s a leaking gutter on the side of the roof that needs attention,’ says Mr Barker.‘Is there? Thanks for telling me,’ I say. ‘I’ll get it seen to after he comes back.’ The Barkers’ house is in immaculate condition, its upkeep being Mr Barker’s chief occupation in retirement, and I know that the relatively scruffy appearance of Dad’s is a sore point. ‘Well, we’d better get going,’ I say. ‘Have a nice Christmas.’ ‘Yes, same to you!’ Mrs Barker giggles. Her spouse returns to whatever DIY operation I interrupted, but so barren of incident is Mrs Barker’s life that she stands at the door hugging herself against the cold, and watches as I escort Dad out of the house and settle him in the front seat of the car. She simpers and waves to us as we drive away.
The traffic in central London was even worse on the way back, and we had to stop at the first service station on the M1 for a late lunch, with the larger part of the journey still before us. The fog slowed the traffic, there were frequent hold-ups on the motorway, and I began to see that we wouldn’t reach home until well into the evening. Dad was garrulous at first, advising me on the route across London (‘Don’t go through Camberwell and Victoria whatever you do, it’s the land of a thousand traffic lights’), criticising other motorists’ driving (‘Did you see that idiot? Not even a signal! Diabolical!’), asking me to convert the price of petrol by the litre displayed at the garages we pass into gallons (‘What, four quid a gallon? You must be joking!’), recalling epic car journeys to play at hunt balls in remote rural venues: ‘Hills? You’ve never seen hills like they have in Wales. The whole country is hills. There was the time Archie Silver - he was a bass player - dead now - he had five of us in his old Wolseley - all the instruments in a trailer - going down this hill like the side of a mountain and the brakes failed . . .’ Surprisingly, he didn’t seem worried by the fog. I think he attributed it to the cataract in his left eye. After lunch he fell asleep and I drove on in blessed silence. But when he woke up he wanted to pee. I had just passed a service station, and the next one was at least thirty minutes away. ‘Did you put that bottle in the car?’ he said, groping under his seat. ‘What bottle?’ I said, with a sinking feeling. I had forgotten all about my suggestion weeks ago that he should have a bottle with him for such an emergency. ‘The milk bottle, in a brown paper bag, in the hall by the front door. I told you to put it under my seat, when you took out my things.’ ‘I didn’t hear you, Dad,’ I said. I had driven to London without wearing my hearing aid and didn’t insert it until several minutes after my arrival, during which time he must have mentioned the bottle. Or possibly he mentioned the bottle later, when I was wearing my hearing aid, but in a low voice because he was embarrassed, or when I had my back turned to him, or when my mind was on something else and I wasn’t paying attention to him.‘Oh, well done, son,’ he said bitterly. I felt bad.
‘I could stop on the hard shoulder,’ I said. ‘You’re not supposed to, but if it’s an emergency . . .’ ‘Where would I go, then?’ he demanded.‘Climb over a barbed-wire fence into a field, in the dark?’ ‘No, of course not.You could pee up against the back wheel of the car, like a cab-driver - they’re allowed to by law, you know.’ He ignored this attempt to lighten the tone of the conversation. ‘What, with all these cars picking me out in their headlights? No thanks.’ In fact, I was glad he didn’t want to stop because it would have been dangerous: it was getting dark and visibility was poor. ‘What will you do, then?’ ‘I’ll hang on till the next place,’ he said grimly.
He really did very well. It was only as we were crossing the car park to get to the brightly lit complex of shops and cafés that he couldn’t control his bladder any longer. ‘Oh Jesus Christ!’ he said, doubling up and clutching his groin. ‘I’m sopping wet.’ ‘All right, Dad. Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry!’ he exclaimed. ‘What am I going to do? Sit in the car in a pair of stinking wet trousers for the rest of the journey?’ I quickly conceived a plan. ‘We’ll go to the Gents. You go in a cubicle and take your trousers off, give them to me under
the door and stay there while I go back to the car and get another pair of trousers from your case - you did bring another pair, didn’t you? Good. Then I’ll push them under the door, and you can change into them. All right?’
So that’s what we did. It worked well enough, except that I forgot to bring a pair of dry underpants as well as trousers from the car. I asked him if he wanted me to go back and fetch a pair. ‘Well, you don’t expect me to sit in that car for Gawd knows how long in trousers without pants, do you?’ he demanded through the cubicle door. ‘They’re pure wool you know, these trousers. They’ll chafe if I don’t have pants.’ This conversation, which had to be conducted at high volume and with much repetition through the door of the WC, gave considerable entertainment to other patrons of the Gents. So back I went to the car to rummage in his case for a pair of his droopy trunk-style underpants, and returned to the Gents with them. While he was changing I rinsed out the wet pants in a handbasin and dried them under a hot-air hand dryer. I received some curious looks as I performed this task, but I was beyond shame or embarrassment by this time, or perhaps it would be truer to say that I accepted it as a just punishment for being remiss over the bottle.
