The Montgomery Nursing Home, like so many homes for the elderly, had originally been a country house. Next it had been a hotel, then a mental home, before finally, ten years ago, acquiring its present character. The matron then was the matron still, Alice Macrae (known to her staff as “the moth”, on account of her way of appearing, soundlessly and immediately, at any crisis). She took in a maximum of thirty patients, charged a hundred and ten pounds a week, and as well as insisting that the elderly be continent and ambulant if they were to be admitted, she let it be known (“we don’t have an intensive care unit here, you know”) that she wouldn’t put up with them indefinitely if they ceased to be so. (This may have been why, once a week, a keep-fit class of sorts took place in the home. Mournful occasions. Limbs without memory of suppleness or vigour. Wretched grins.) At the time William came to be employed there, there were twenty-five women and five men – about the average ratio. Married couples were sometimes admitted, but it wasn’t something matron was keen on, believing as she did that the married thought they had more rights than the unmarried.
The full-time staff usually chose to stay in the Montgomery, for it was thirty miles at least from the nearest town. Their quarters – matron had a cottage in the grounds – were in the west wing. There were three assistants, called nurses by the old folk but actually untrained, a cook, an odd-jobs man, and some occasional helpers. That was all. The local minister, a close friend of matron’s, was a regular visitor, handling the Montgomery’s accounts, but at pains to point out that his province was really elsewhere. Each afternoon and suppertime, however, he and matron could be seen walking in the grounds – under a golf umbrella if the weather was bad. (Mealtimes matron left to her assistants: they weren’t exposed to complaints about the food, or, if they were, they didn’t think that anything was to be gained by passing them on.) Sometimes he held a service. And sometimes he stayed the night.
It was by matron and the minister that William was interviewed. A bright autumn evening, the minister’s light blue pipe smoke drifting in the rays of the setting sun, matron sitting forwards at her desk in her uniform, hands clasped. Their questions were casual, their tone condescending, but their need for a replacement for the last odd-jobs man – he had left one Saturday night and never returned – was clear. William had been well briefed by Sheila: he said he could drive, cook, garden, light fires, do carpentry, mend fuses. About his past she had advised him to be vague. Would anyone who simply wanted an odd-jobs man be particularly interested in his past anyway? He doubted it. Even on good days it came to him obscurely. It was as if, so long a source of shame to him, it had taken to presenting itself in riddles. (Not even dreams of it could have been stranger.) Incidents came to him either stripped of their contexts; or with contexts which rendered them peculiar; or in sequences which made little sense. And his mistakes, his failures: they too had lost their individuality, appearing to be manifestations now of the one essential failure, whose character, he sometimes feared, would always elude him.
The Reverend Walsh, however, was an inquisitive man, red-faced and overweight, his breathing, the rise and fall of his chest, like the rhythm of curiosity itself (his nose for weaknesses, indeed, might have been the main reason he was present). His pipe, as though an aid to enquiry, he held while speaking just to the right of his mouth, and his voice was deep, an actor’s or an orator’s voice. It had the effect, after some moments, of making William feel that here was a man practised at appearing taxed by ultimate questions, taken over by them, made sleepless by them. Before speaking, and often mid-speech too, he rolled his eyes a little, which made his words (a mixture of the colloquial and the high-flown) seem more carefully chosen and ambiguous than they were. William, unused to company, was watchful, fearing interrogation. Might they (these strangers with leisure) hunt him after all where he was least able to bear it – in his past? Oblige him to scour it, be precise? (The Weirs, gracious and forbearing, had spoiled him.) He bowed his head, waiting for the minister to finish.
“So if I may say so, Mr Templeton, you seem to be a man of some culture. I know these are times of bad unemployment, but how do you come to be applying for a job like this?”
“I had a job on a farm, as a caretaker. The possibilities seemed limited, particularly with the winter coming on.”
“Sure, sure. But how did you come to be doing that job? It was presumably not a lifelong ambition, not a …”
“No,” William said, remembering his line with Captain Jenkins and Lieutenant Jackson. “I had reached a stage in my life where I wanted to do some writing. It seemed to me that such a job was ideal for that.”
“That job, yes,” the minister said, “but this one? What makes you think you’ll have much time to write here? You’ll be kept at it, let me assure you. You may even have to do a little nursing.”
“One shouldn’t be too isolated,” William responded, roused by the minister’s pugnacity. “I had no community. All I had were the fields and … tracks, traces … Also, I’ve always been affected by the elderly. Or, to be more honest, by the fact that I know less about them than I should.”
“What if you find that you don’t like them?” matron asked, smiling. “It wouldn’t be unknown.”
“I don’t think I’ll find that,” William said. “I’d regard it as a failure, as …”
“…unchristian?” the minister asked, taking up matron’s smile.
“We will grow old ourselves,” William said. “What then?”
“Are your parents still alive?” matron asked.
“No. Both dead.”
“Could I ask you,” the minister pressed, “if you had to nurse them at the end? Had you to show yourself patient and faithful before their varying and difficult demands? Before God also, of course?”
Matron looked at him as if she feared that she was about to lose his drift. (Even she, his intimate.) She had curly silver hair which now and then – a gesture of excitement – she would fastidiously ruffle. She did it now, and it might almost have been the minister’s words or voice – though in no obvious way – that had excited her.
“No, I didn’t nurse either of them. My father died in hospital, and my mother came to an unfortunate end.”
“For some, of course, death is an unfortunate end however it occurs,” the minister said. “Was your mother’s end …”
“She was murdered,” William said.
“Oh, I’m sorry. How hard are some of our trials. How hard.”
“Yes,” William said, looking at him closely, wondering if his lack of surprise was genuine or affected, “you could say so.”
“As far as I know, the murderer hasn’t been found,” he continued. Would he here, before strangers, in this home for the elderly, be overcome? He would stick to the bare facts: the bare facts consoled. “And probably never will be. Apparently there were no motives. Case just about closed, I’d imagine.”
“I am sad to hear it,” matron said. “Such a violent world. Was she old?”
“I never thought of her as old. Late sixties.”
“She’d have been a youngster here,” matron said, brightening. “Most of our patients are over eighty. What would you say the average was, Alan?”
“Eighty-two,” the minister replied, as if it was just one of many figures he had at his fingertips.
“How is the old lady who walked over to the farm?”
William asked. “She seemed a vigorous eighty.”
“She was. But she died shortly after that. It’s often the way, isn’t it, Alan?”
“Yes, you often find it, Mr Templeton,” the minister said. “There’s an extreme gesture of some kind – a bid for freedom, an outburst, an assault even. Then death. Death. Funny.”
“An assault?” William asked.
“Yes. Assault and die seems to be the impulse.”
There was a silence. William had the impression that the minister and matron wanted to look at each other, but were refraining, out of politeness. He could tell nothing from their manner. Had he acquitted himself well or badly? Struck them as erratic or trustworthy? Were they prepared to set aside any such misgivings because of their need for an odd-jobs man? An odd-jobs man. To pass the time while they deliberated – silently, looking in opposite directions, as if they were summing up a house they’d just been shown round – he played about with his title. Odd. Jobs. An odd man. Jobs for the odd. Jobs. Odd. Time gathered about the words and was treasured. The silence deepened.
At last matron looked up.
“We’re pleased to offer you the post, Mr Templeton,” she said, ruffling her hair. “Start whenever you want. There’s a room for you in the west wing. Don’t worry: you’ll slowly pick up what’s required.”
She stood up and shook his hand. Suddenly jovial, the minister did so too, pressing his left hand on top of their two clasped right ones, a gesture which, neither caution nor benediction, struck William as almost meaningless. Ecclesiastical good form, he supposed, nothing more. His smile wary, he struggled to say something appropriate.
“A sherry, Alice?” the minister suggested.
“Will you join us, Mr Templeton?” matron asked.
“If you don’t mind, I’d rather not. I don’t drink. But don’t let me …”
“Quite right,” the minister said, first leaning with his left hand on matron’s desk, then, with his right, opening a drawer halfway down the side of the desk and taking out a bottle of sherry. “Sure I can’t tempt you?”
“Sure.”
“We’ll show you round,” matron said, sipping her sherry. “Let you see for yourself.”
Supper had been over for half an hour, but still the impression given was that the elderly were journeying, slowly journeying, from half-finished puddings to their appointed lounges and favourite chairs. From a point which no longer existed (the puddings would already have been thrown out, or given to the dogs, or recovered for the next day) to one which some of them may have feared they had forfeited by their absence, however brief, they fanned out, as best they could. A quitting which seemed to be getting slower by the minute, too, more enfeebled. Most were too absorbed in the act of moving – many with the help of sticks or zimmers – to be in a position to attempt anything else. Who was next to whom, therefore, was determined not by affection but by mobility. Arch-enemies, for all William knew, went side by side because they hadn’t the strength to be anywhere else. Such conversations as there were were more apparent than real – unsteady monologues happening to dovetail for a moment. “They give me ice-cream an awful lot.” “I don’t like jelly.” Matron, approaching from behind, addressed them all by name; but as though afraid that they would fall if they tried to address her in return, she didn’t linger, and didn’t appear to want the minister or William to linger either. And indeed there were few acknowledgements of her passage – fewer than there were farts and groans and belches. (To fart, William noticed, the elderly stopped altogether, leaning on their sticks or zimmers and looking straight ahead.)
Walking almost normally, though stopping now and then, was a Miss Anderson. William was introduced to her. “Our new helper,” matron said, as if William had been chosen from hundreds. There was a cluster of black hairs on Miss Anderson’s chin, her cheeks were a high colour, and her eyes, as from a lifetime of scheming and frustration, were angry and scornful. She told William that she hadn’t enjoyed supper at all and that she hoped he would get to work on the cook. Then, cupping her left hand where her left breast would have been, she stood back and admired William. Boldly admired him. She was still admiring him, still holding the memory of a breast in her quivering cupped left hand, when he said goodbye, following matron and the minister down some stairs. He walked without effort these days, head and eyes steady, hands steady too. And today he felt youthful as well. He supposed it was a common experience for newcomers: a sense of increased vigour brought on by so much evidence of decline. He noticed the firmness with which matron descended the stairs, using the bannister for effect rather than from necessity, once looking back at him, quickly smiling, tossing her head.
“There are some characters here,” she called to him. “Will we be as interesting at their age, Alan?”
“Of course, Alice,” the minister replied, so that William, following, had the impression that it was an exchange which had occurred before. “Some aren’t dimmed by age at all. Look at Miss Baxter: at crosswords she leaves me standing.”
They passed an old lady in an overcoat lying slumped in an armchair, one arm trailing from her zimmer like a rope from a rowing boat, her stockings round her ankles. She was snoring loudly, her lips curled back over ill-fitting false teeth as though not even in sleep would the habit of contempt leave her. Would it leave her in death? William wondered. Would it leave her then? And had she missed her supper?
By the time they had completed their tour William had identified the smell of the place. Fish and urine. It was everywhere, though stronger in some parts than others. Not even the disinfectants and air-purifiers and vases of flowers which stood on table after table could banish it.
“Now let me show you your room,” matron said.
The west wing was cool by comparison with the rest of the house, and it didn’t smell. Efforts had clearly been made to establish it as the staff quarters. The doors, for example, were locked (otherwise the elderly would stray in there, matron said, and wet themselves), the furniture was bright and modern, and there were posters on the walls. Even the light – lucid and even – struck William as different.
“Even I find this a haven,” the minister said, “and I …”
“…don’t even work here!” matron laughed. “Yes, it’s a pleasant complex, with pleasant rooms. This is yours, Mr Templeton introduce yourself to it and then – visiting hour is upon us, I’m afraid – just let yourself out. We’ll be pleased to see you whenever you choose to start. When might that be?”
“I’ll start the day after tomorrow, I think,” William said. “All right?”
“Excellent,” matron nodded.
“So long, Mr Templeton,” the minister said.
Alone in his room – matron was quite right, it was a very pleasant room, a room in which you could sit or read, write long letters to distant friends, sleep well for the first time in years – William walked to the window. The sun was shining, the colours were autumnal, and between the oaks and beeches there were broad paths, secret and silent. Round a bend in one of the paths then, came, very slowly, an old man and a nurse. Mainly the old man’s look was of extreme delight, but every ten yards or so – as though the very extremity of his delight unbalanced him – his left foot got stuck and he became distressed, giving himself up to the nurse. Dextrous for both of them, the nurse nudged the old man’s calf with her instep until his leg moved again. William watched closely, drawn by the nurse’s patience. Exemplary gentleness. Young and dark, she might have been thought naively forbearing but for her determined air. They combined oddly, in fact, the forbearance and the determination. (Too much one way and she would have had no presence, too much the other and she would have been overbearing.) William was made particularly aware of it because at one point – as though taking a moment off from her ministrations to remind herself that in spite of all it was a comparatively young world through which she and the old man were moving – she looked up and saw him. She didn’t smile, but her look wasn’t unfriendly, either, “Who are you?” it seemed to say. Simply that. It may not have been a question William could have answered, but nor was it one which at that moment – standing back slightly from the window – dismayed him. It was not with shame that it pierced him.
July 22nd, 1980
I am to meet mother at the hospital at two o’clock. Father has had a serious heart attack. After three weeks complaining about the heat he keeled over this morning after breakfast, grabbing at the tablecloth as he fell, pulling cups, plates, the teapot down on top of him. Mother is very distressed, naturally, I rather less so, I’m afraid. And not really surprised. A lifetime of tension and grumbling was bound to lead to something like this. It is fitting, really. I ask myself am I heartless as I walk to the hospital through bright July. Father and I have never got on. Never. I sometimes have a dream in which as a baby – but a baby with a sophisticated consciousness – I am lying behind a mosquito net or something of the kind. It has apparently been put there by mother to protect me from father. He glares in nonetheless, whenever he can. His famous gaze: a flat white face, terribly flat, straight hair brushed severely forwards, eyes which – as though limbering up for a shouting match, a coup – seem to be doing exercises. He looks in and is gone. Looks in and is gone. And I, helpless on an arrangement of scented pillows, look left and right for mother. But mother is not there, or is there but silenced, dying perhaps.
Mother has been at the hospital for three or four hours. I meet her in the large cool entrance hall and she tells me that father is very bad. I touch her on the arm and she looks at me with one of her quick smiles. Even in grief she does me the honour of recognising that I have reason not to feel as she does. (Her journeys into the lives and personalities of her son and daughter have been remarkable, I realise.) She says that father is in the intensive care unit and that, though conscious, he is exhausted and behind an oxygen mask. The visit will be brief, conversation neither possible nor desirable. As we go up in the lift, I try to imagine what father will think of our appearance, healthy birds in his chamber of death. I cannot do so. He will hope that Marion, alerted in New England in the middle of the night, will make it in time. Or does he see himself recovering, walking perhaps with a stick, leisured at last, enjoying gardens? No. I think he has vexed himself to the grave.
He manages to raise his right hand a little above the sheet. For once I am sure that he is as weak as he appears. Too weak for show. On an impulse I go round and touch his hand. It strikes me as alien, not a part of him, not a part of him at all, and this frightens me. What do I mean? It is his hand. Have I not touched it before? Emotional in the death chamber, I am aware of mother behind me, smiling, unsurprised by my state, ahead of me as usual in these desperate matters. She motions me to sit beside her and we agree that father looks rested. Is it tears behind his oxygen mask or perspiration? Perspiration. Mother rises to wipe it away, leaning gracefully over the bed, smiling. (Will I ever know what enables her to smile when I – such are the shadows – can hardly breathe? When what I hear is a kind of grinding?) She has managed, I notice, to dress both for the day and the occasion: a summer frock, but with the quietest of colours. The quietest.
A nurse comes in, checks whatever it is they check at such times, smiles quietly, and goes out. Again father’s hand lifts a little, drops. This time it doesn’t have the air of a terribly reduced greeting, but of something involuntary. Maybe it was involuntary the first time and my feeling that it wasn’t really his hand had some truth. Is he gone already beyond the bounds of his body? Is that what mother’s smile means?
After twenty minutes mother whispers to me that we should go. Father is sweating badly. I touch his hand again. It is clammy. There is no response. I should be used to this, but I am not. Mother wipes his forehead. Then kisses it.
I tell mother she can’t wait around all day. She says nothing. She is going to a friend’s, ten minutes from the hospital, because the friend hasn’t heard the news. I accompany her, her walk no less vigorous than mine, if mine can be described as vigorous anymore. The pavements are baked, the parks and gardens parched. I think we both have a sense that what is going on outside the hospital has nothing to do with father. It is both a comfort and a comment. Although he has lived in the country, I wouldn’t say that he has been a lover of nature. I wouldn’t say that he has been a lover. These trees would not have been noticed by him.
Mother asks me to come in with her to her friend’s, but I decline, pleading work, saying I’ll be back at the hospital later. I have no desire to work, however, I will take the afternoon off. If I hadn’t done my work so well over the years I’d still be striving, maybe. But, as it is, it has little left to offer. I have mastered it, maintained my mastery more or less, become a kind of hub in the educational publishing world. A reputation of sorts. But now? Now? One can’t stay in the same place forever. It would be boring to try. The path downwards, to foothills in some other range, is more appealing than the same summit, month after month, year after year. How many people can summit hold anyway? There are younger men coming up.
I drive to a pub in the country which I discovered in the days when I went birdwatching. Now I hardly even notice birds, I’m afraid, far less watch them. Can I understand why I had the passion? Never mind. The courtyard of the pub is quiet and white – bright July indeed – and I drink beer. I hear behind me somewhere a circular saw and now and then smell pine sap. It must be a thick trunk – a thick trunk or weak men – for the saw labours and there are pauses. Sometimes there are shouts: perhaps they aren’t sure after all where the tree will fall. I imagine it coming down across the courtyard, crushing me. Father and son departed together. Poor mother. Poor Marion. Would mother go and live in New England then? A visit, maybe, but not to stay. Away from her country she would wither, her eyes alone telling those with eyes to see that she had once been otherwise. But why am I thinking about mother when it is father who is dying?
I get the impression that the tree is about to fall, for the saw is going fiercely and behind it I can hear shouts. When it comes, though, the fall is less impressive than the preparations. It is as if it is occurring in slow motion: light sounds, feathery sounds, a kind of whispering, at last a clump. Then, in the following silence, twigs snap, snap as in afterthought, casually. And go on snapping. I imagine dust and flies above the torn earth.
Slightly drunk, I approach the fallen tree, and notice that not only has it been cut down but, as though diseased, uprooted. I am greatly impressed by its roots, too healthy to be out of the earth. It is an offence. Where are those responsible? I cannot see them. They have gone. More time must have passed than I thought. I am – I was about to say “we” – for the fallen tree seems to be a presence – on the edge of a forest. It is entirely silent now. I lean on the tree for support, and notice, coming from the earth that clings to its roots, ants and slaters and earwigs, hundreds of them.