EDWYN’S HOSPITAL SOJOURN was stretching ahead of us in an endless succession of days. Some good days, some bad days. A pattern, of sorts, began to emerge.
I would wake after a fitful night, usually with the light still on because of my bad habit of reading myself to sleep, and wake Will up for school. Big teenager though he was, I regressed to babying him a bit at this time. He would transfer from the bath to the couch in the living room, where I would serve him his breakfast on a tray. I’d lay out his school gear and then we’d watch TV, usually an American sitcom called Everybody Loves Raymond, which started at eight o’clock. Will used to say the grandparents in it were totally his Granny and Grandad. This was a nice bit of the day. Then I’d drive him to school. This wasn’t always such a nice bit of the day. Getting out of the house in the morning, usually running late, is a flashpoint that many will recognise. On one of my ranting and raving mornings, I wailed at him, ‘How many more of these car fights do you think I can take?’
‘Oh yeah? Try being me, stuck with Shouty McShoutington of Shoutytown every fucking morning!’
You’ve got to give it to him.
Unless he came to visit his dad in hospital, which he did on average twice a week, because he absolutely hated it – not Dad, but hospital – this would be the last I would see of Will until about nine or ten o’clock at night. At first I would try to get him to come more often, but Edwyn was on Will’s side, entirely understanding, so I stopped the nagging.
I would return from school to tackle the minutiae of daily life which stubbornly persists, heedless of surrounding drama. Put a wash load on, tidy up, make phone calls, send emails, pay bills. Then assemble my kit bag for the day and set off for the hospital, usually arriving around eleven.
Running the gauntlet past the bedraggled band of smokers who congregated at the hospital entrance, freezing in their hospital gowns and pyjamas, a few of them amputees, all of them with hacking coughs (‘Morning, everyone …’ – we were all familiar faces to each other), sometimes handing over a couple of quid to the regular panhandlers who, very astutely, have worked out that around a hospital there will be lots of people who would not dare tempt Fate by refusing a request for dosh. I certainly wouldn’t. Down the corridors of the ground floor reception area, experiencing as I went the daily delight that was the Royal Free art exhibition. So much bad art in such a small space. The longer I looked at it the more extraordinarily bad it seemed. The packed-like-sardines lifts, where everybody ignores each other, in spite of, or perhaps because of, our close proximity. And then through the doors of the ward, breathing through my mouth in advance to avoid the horrible smell of Jeyes fluid which hits you as you push through the swing doors. I always felt an uneasy mixture of anxiety and guilt as I drew near to Edwyn. After all, I’d escaped from the place overnight, for hours. He was stuck fast in bed, powerless to direct his own existence. He would always be so relieved to see me, which would swell the guilty feeling.
I’d begin my routine, tidying and setting up everything we needed for our day: clean clothes in, dirty ones out. Give him a shave if he needed it. Maybe a manicure or pedicure. By the time I arrived in the morning the nurses on the stroke ward would have bedbathed him. Try to tidy his hair, about which he used to be so obsessive.
When we first lived together, Edwyn’s hair was a major bone of contention. He had a high-maintenance quiff, which took a very long time to assemble. How I grew to loathe it, this symbol of vanity. Often, it would go wrong, and he would start again from scratch. The main component of the operation was Extra Hard Hold Elnett hairspray. Choking clouds of the stuff. We were late for everything because of the quiff. I would be showered, dressed and made up in twenty minutes. I would stomp around the flat, screaming my frustration. But no, if the quiff wasn’t up to scratch, we were going nowhere. Looking at pictures of him recently, I was reflecting on his handsomeness and wondering why I didn’t appreciate it more at the time. Edwyn was looking at them too. ‘Ah, I miss my quiff.’
Of course, that was it. The enemy. I had almost forgotten.
‘I bloody don’t…’
I was almost rid of the thing once, around 1988. Edwyn was sitting on the kitchen floor, by the big full-length mirror, his hairdressing station, doing the quiff in readiness for a show at the National Ballroom in London that evening. Steve Skinner, guitar player and, luckily for Edwyn, possessor of a strong sense of smell, leapt up suddenly, shouting: ‘What’s that smell?’
He bounded towards Edwyn, grabbed the can of mousse from his hands and yelled: ‘It’s fooking hair remover, you nutter!’ (He’s from Bridlington.) Mine, of course. Edwyn had mistaken it for a hair product.
Panic stations. We got him into the bathroom and under the shower head in the nick of time. This stuff works fast – he was minutes from instant baldness. He has never looked so terrified. I have seldom laughed so much.
Towards the end of the 90s, in his late thirties, a female TV interviewer was lamenting the quiff’s disappearance.
‘Well, unfortunately, I’m beginning to get a bit thin on top and the quiff was starting to resemble the conductor on On The Buses. So it was time for it to go.’
Right now, post-operatively, Edwyn’s hair looked mad. One side completely shaved off, the other far too long, like Bobby Charlton in a stiff breeze. I almost asked a visiting hairdresser to have a go, but was stopped by Greg, one of the charge nurses. I used to refer to this young man as Greg, the New Wave Nurse, because he looked like a trendy indie music fan, a bit like Jarvis Cocker. It turned out he did know loads about music, including Edwyn, and didn’t reckon Edwyn would approve of the job this woman would make. Truthfully, the state it was in, anything would have been an improvement. Still, Greg’s aim was true. He knew what men like himself and Edwyn felt about their hair. Super fusspots.
•
I HAD A selection of flasks for hot and cold things, one with ice with which to chill Edwyn’s water or for ice therapy, the highly technical term for icing a spoon to help stimulate sensation on the right-hand side of his face and inside of his mouth, to encourage tidy feeding.
I would bring a selection of books for us to look at. An unexpected bonus was finding William’s birth certificate in the back of one of them: a beautiful handwritten form in fountain pen from the Glasgow registry office, near where he was born. I had been missing it for ages and was hopping up and down with glee in the ward when it turned up inexplicably in the back of Collins Book of British Birds. I had brought in the book to try his memory of one his life-long passions: birds, especially British ones, on which subject he was an expert.
I would read the newspaper to Edwyn, trying him on the headlines. Pope John Paul II was very ill at this time, on the way out, in fact, and I’d keep Edwyn abreast of his progress: ‘Guess what, the Pope has had a trachy op like you. I don’t see him getting off it anytime soon. Unlike you.’
Then there were flash cards of animals and objects to stimulate his verbal memory. Writing and drawing materials. I found Will’s fifteenth birthday cards the other day and we looked in amazement at Edwyn’s impossible attempt at a signature, the ‘Dad’ a completely illegible scribble.
So the day would slip by. Strangely enough, time seemed to pass quite quickly for me. Edwyn’s care was a constant thing. And I would talk to him lots and lots. I think he didn’t mind; I hope so. We have always been pretty good gossips and I can yack for Scotland. So I would reminisce, fill him in on the latest about family, friends, Will’s exploits. I would revisit past experience, recount old favourite stories, test his memory.
•
I WAS VERY excited to get a snatch of a chorus of a song from him one day. I was reminding Edwyn of when Alan, who ran Postcard Records, had his own band in the late 70s. They were called Oscar Wild. Without the ‘e’. All the members had a punk name. Alan was Alan Wild. The guitar player was Brian Superstar. And the bass player was a girl called Janice Fuck. At the only gig they ever did, at Troon Burgh Hall, Alan was resplendent in a Tom Jones-style, electric-blue frilly shirt. Janice had had some classical training in opera singing and Edwyn used to do an impression of their version of The Troggs song, ‘I Can’t Control Myself’. Alan would start, in his camp, lispy voice: ‘I can’t stand still cause you got me going …’
And then, apparently, according to the Edwyn story, Janice Fuck would echo in full soprano: ‘Bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah!’
You have to hear him do it for the full effect.
As I was delighting Edwyn with my own rendition of Oscar Wild in all their glory, he suddenly piped up, ‘Whoa whoa whoa whoa, dustbin …’
Alan always claimed that this song was pure invention on Edwyn’s part, that they never did any such thing. A typical Edwyn absurdist flight of fancy.
Apocryphal or not, I squealed in delight that he could remember something as daft as this. The important stuff was still intact.
•
WHEN EDWYN SLEPT, which he did often, I would slip out and buy his dinner, run errands, make calls. I became a regular, once a day, for a large glass of red wine in the Garden Gate, the pub down the road from the hospital. I loved that pub.
Sometimes Edwyn would have visitors. This was a slow trickle, as people were never sure when it would be appropriate to come and see him. Obviously this had not been possible for quite a few weeks; a long time for the fear of the unknown to take shape. Seb came first, and seeing him gave me a chance to reflect on how devastating the news of Edwyn’s illness had been on those who were close to him, especially those who worked with him. And how scary it must have been to come and see him for the first time, with no real idea of what to expect.
Paul Cook, who as well as being a legendary Sex Pistol and fellow muso of Edwyn’s, who had drummed with him on records and on tour since 1993, came to see him for the first time early on. A strong man, a proper grown up, he held it all together that day, which was a chaotic one. As he left us, Edwyn was lying in a corridor waiting to have a scan done. Something about Paul’s retreating back as he walked away told me how hard it was for him to see his old friend in these circumstances.
•
AND SO ANOTHER day would draw to a close. I would help Edwyn to brush his teeth, have a bit of a wash, make sure his arm was in a comfortable position with a pillow underneath (with the haemaplegia, the arm was limp and heavy and a degree of subluxation – dislocation – had set in. Simply described, this means the arm, heavy with paralysis, falls out of the socket at the shoulder. If it’s not supported in the correct position, it can become excruciatingly painful), see he had plenty of tissues and the nurse call button in a prominent place (even though I knew he couldn’t use it), gather up all my stuff, kiss him goodnight and walk away, looking back at his abandoned form until I turned the corner.
Sometimes I’d take the train, but often, after I’d sussed out the local parking, I’d drive, mainly because I couldn’t face the utter desolation of sitting in a deserted Hampstead rail station late at night. I preferred to give vent to the feelings that overwhelmed me at the end of the day in the privacy of the car, with Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson for company.
Arriving home and catching up a little with Will was always a relief, although extracting conversation from him was like drawing teeth. Best not to torture him. I would always get a hug, whether he liked it or not, before he went to bed. A teenage boy’s thoughts can be off limits at the best of times and these times were certainly not that. I was wary of pushing too hard. We were just doing what we could to get through this thing. I’d look at my messages, do a bit of research, sink a glass of wine and head for bed and another night with my thoughts.
•
I HAD BUNKED off hospital early one night in late March to see Will’s youth theatre workshop performance, Totally Over You. By this time the workshop leaders had heard from a couple of his mates what had happened to Will’s dad and told me how amazed they had been at the unruffled front he had maintained. They dedicated the show to Edwyn, which I found terribly affecting. The play was so great, genuinely funny and full of attitude. Very funny theme song too, which they had properly recorded. I managed to work out the video camera (formerly Edwyn’s department) sufficiently to get about ten minutes’ worth to show Edwyn. I didn’t quite master the battery charger (I know, it’s tragic), so that was the lot.
But Will was definitely neglected for the duration of the hospital stay, with some pretty rotten consequences. It has just occurred to me that I have virtually no idea what he ate for most of these months. I would leave things in the fridge but he almost never had them. Hazel would try to get him to come to Islington for tea but he rarely did. Sometimes my mum would be there for a week or two to see what was going on, but the rest of the time he was pretty much left to his own devices, with an empty house to come home to. As the weather got better he would hang in the street a bit which led, perhaps unsurprisingly, to trouble.
On his own one evening, he got beaten up by several kids, one of whom he had known for a while, a kid called Sam. I knew him too, in fact he’d been in our house often when he was living nearby. He’d moved away but came back to hang out with some local bad boys and I think doing Will over was partly to ingratiate himself with this lot. They’d tried to get Will to let them into the house which, of course, he wouldn’t do. Coming home to discover what had happened, I made enquiries around the neighbourhood, but my efforts to find any of the boys were fruitless. A night or two later, however, when I had just got back from hospital, my doorbell rang. On the doorstep were several of Will’s friends with Sam in tow. They had spotted him on Kilburn High Road and it seemed they’d kicked him all the way to my door, to force him to confront and apologise to Will. He was terrified. Rough justice. While appreciating that they were defending their friend in his hour of need, I had to nip the whole thing in the bud, before it got out of hand. I sent Sam on his way, advised him to lie low for a while and told Will’s mates in the firmest terms that, whilst I loved them for their loyalty, this was where it ended.
By this time my mum had arrived for a visit and I was happy to think that William’s outdoor wings would be clipped for a while.
To my horror, at the hospital next day I got a call from her. Sam had turned up at my door again, this time with his mother and a very aggressive older sister, who had shoved my mum aside in order to get at Will and wallop him. Somehow, at four foot eleven and aged seventy, my mum had managed to get this mentalist back over the doorstep and the door shut on them. The mother was screaming various threats through the door, so Mum suggested the police were called to deal with the matter, whereupon they scarpered. At home that night, we’re trying to think about the best way to deal with all this nonsense, when the door bell goes again. This time it’s Sam’s dad, who is separated from the mum, but with whom Sam actually lives, all the way from south London, with his son beside him. He is at least calmer, and when I speak to him, he immediately looks at his boy to confirm that what I have said is the truth. One look tells him that it is. He begins to regale me with his family difficulties. While sympathetic, the world is starting to take on that familiar surrealist tinge again and I have to emphasise that I cannot tolerate any more teenage rubbish as I have my own troubles. Off they go.
Meanwhile the effect upon my mum, the pensioner with attitude, appears to be that she’s shed about forty years. I’m instantly transported back to a time when she could scare the knickers off all of us. You definitely do not want to mess with Sadie Keenan in a state of righteous indignation.
End of the story? Oh dear no. This crazy boy and his nasty mates come back a few weeks later and do Will all over again, right outside the front door. A local couple come to his rescue before too much physical damage is done, but he’s frightened and furious. He looks like he’s falling apart. This time we go straight to the police and file a report. Then the dad is back at the door when I’m not there. He leaves his number. I call him and he tells me Sam has been threatened again by Will’s mates, around the corner from my house. I tell him about the latest attack and the police report and point out how easy it is for Sam and his family to find us when I have no idea where he lives, miles away, and that when his psycho son has a go at my boy I’m left helpless with impotent fury. He tells me his son should be entitled to walk wherever he likes and I agree. I invite him to come past my house the next day so that I can call the cops, tell them I’ve located the offender and leave the whole sorry mess to them. Will and I need this kid and his entire dysfunctional family right out of our lives for good, or so help me, I tell him. It finally ends.