Her Young Fancy-Man by Andy Drummond
“This is the end,” surmised my mother.
It was not difficult to fathom what she meant by this on that late August morning. Despite all remonstrations, she turned out to be correct.
By the time the doctor had been and gone and had failed to diagnose anything serious; and then the nurse had been and gone and had diagnosed a stroke; and then the ambulance had been and gone and taken her away: a day and a night and a morning had been and gone. By which time, she had been reduced to a tottering ruin, with all the features of old age showing clearly in her face, and her control over her bodily functions shattered, much to her own shame. But the ambulance crew paid no heed to her shame, and moved her efficiently to her first station along the road of her own Golgotha.
“Now, Jeannie, I’m just going to ask you some questions. Is that all right?” asked the young woman doctor, as we gathered around my mother’s hospital bed, screened from the public gaze, but only just.
Miraculously, my mother’s hearing had been restored to its former glory. If it was the end of everything else, it was the beginning of a new lease of life for her ears, which had been the cause of many fruitful arguments with the put-upon supplier of her hearing-aid. She said, clearly, “Yes, that’s all right. But it’s not Jeannie, it’s Jeanne.”
“Oh, sorry. Do you have any pains in your head, Jeanne?” asked the young doctor.
“No, none at all,” she replied.
“Good. And what about your chest - any pains there?’”
“No ‘no pain” At that moment, it became evident that there was a second interviewee, for a shrill and cracked voice from beyond the encircling curtain replied:
“Nae, nae pains in ma chest, doctor!” Ignoring this, the doctor ploughed on.
“And what about your stomach, anything sore down there?”
“No,” stated my mother decidedly.
“Ah’ve a wee pain sometimes in the morning, doctor, is that what ye mean? But it goes awa’,” advised the voice from outside.
“Now, what about your hands and arms? Anything sore there?”
“No.’ ‘Ma erms are jist fine, doctor. But ah’ve got these pains in ma fingers, ye ken, specially when it’s cauld. Maybe ye could hae a look at them?” The curtain was poked at hand-height as fingers were thrust forward for examination.
The young doctor studiously ignored the intrusion.
“Now, Jeannie, I’m just going to feel your stomach, to see if there’s anything that helps us. You won’t mind?” My mother was resigned to anything, and shook her head. I held her hand.
”You just go ahead, doctor,” came the voice from outside, as a torso was pressed up against the curtain.
The doctor suppressed a giggle, and I snorted out loud. My mother looked suspiciously at us.
“And I want you just to wiggle your toes for us, Jeannie: first the left foot.” My mother obliged. A lump in the curtain at shin-level showed us that the doppelganger was collaborating, ‘‘and now the right foot.”
Both patients obliged.
“Very good, Jeannie.” The doctor said, patted my mother’s hand. “Now there’s one last thing I need to do. I’m going to tickle the soles of your feet and you’ll tell me if you can feel anything. Is that all right?” My mother nodded obediently. She was as docile as I had seen her in all my forty-eight years.
After a few seconds of puzzled silence, there was a wail from beyond the curtain: “But, doctor, ah’d need tae tak ma sokes aff! Och, wait a minute noo, ah canna tak ma sokes aff masel. Nurse! nurse!” And with that, there was a shuffling of feet and the other old lady moved away. “Nurse, Doctor wants me tae tak aff ma sokes! Nurse!”
It was ironic that the bolt of lightning which really destroyed my mother came on the second night in the hospital, a second and massive stroke which deprived her of speech and of the use of her legs and most of her mind, and left her a different person from the one of only three days previously. A reverse metamorphosis - not shedding one personality, so much as enveloping the old one in an entirely new cocoon.
Perversely, it was in the next two weeks that I felt a deeper love for my mother than I had felt in at least forty years. She was not argumentative, she was weak and vulnerable, she was outcast from her home, she was innocently grateful to have me come and sit with her and read to her the get-well cards. No, maybe ‘love’ is not the right word - because it was mostly pity, and a burning desire to really, truly help her, as one might wish to help a small and harmless creature struggling against an insurmountable obstacle.
This phase did not last long, for then the darkness set in, and my mother described to me the burglars and the men of violence who had beset her home and were intent on breaking it and smashing up every single object she held dear. “They broke all my windows!” she shrieked, “And they’re going to burn the house down when they come back! Tell them not to come back!”
Then she told me that she had left the hospital for a walk the previous night, and caught a bus to the station from where she jumped on the cross-Channel train. And having reached the other side, she commenced to speak in German. For a whole day and two nights, she conversed in German with myself, the nurses and the doctors, to their great puzzlement. And then, just as suddenly, ceased to speak in any language at all.
The other five old ladies in the Ward were relieved, and did not hesitate to complain about how noisy she had been. Black looks were cast at her. When I bent down to kiss her goodnight, two of them sat in the corner and called her a dirty bitch, to be kissing her young fancy-man like that, in full view of everyone.
The ‘young’, I liked.
