Love on the NHS (14 page)

"Aw, thank you lad. My name's Jimmy. Nice to meet you."

Though five minutes late for his class Luke was fine. As fine as he could be. His heart pumped wildly and his eyes were on the verge of tears. He anticipated the horrors that might await him with dread. He knocked on the door of a room already occupied and emerged into a circle of chairs. The chairs faced each other and some people already were sat. The tutor asked if he was Luke. Yes, said and he was ushered to sit down. Scanning the faces uneasily, he opted for a seat next to the least confident looking person. So began his first lesson in counselling.

Though it was nerve-racking and involved revealing more of himself than he wanted to, he managed to complete it. Afterwards when he talked with his mum about it, he then told her about the ombudsman calling.

"At last!" cried his mum.

"I know," smiled Luke.

"Did you tell them about what they said to you when you called up?"

"Yeah, I mentioned all that. The nasty things they said when I was suicidal."

"And did you tell them about not getting a proper benefits check? And being discharged from the team without a risk assessment being carried out?"

"Oh no! I forgot. It's all too much for me! I can't cope. How am I supposed to deal with all this? I shouldn't have to do this. It's me who's been let down. What about really severely Autistic people who can not even speak for themselves? Someone should be helping me!"

"Don't panic, Luke. It's okay. Why don't you try ringing them back again?"

"I don't think they'll want me to but okay."

And so although he rarely called people back due to shyness, he did.

"Hello? Jolly May, Health Service Ombudsman speaking."

"Hi, it's me, Luke."

"Hello Mr Jefferson. Is everything alright?"

"Actually I forgot to tell you some things. Is it too late now?"  

"No, that's fine. I'll get the notes. Right, just tell me anything you need to."

"I was supposed to be able to claim Income Support and Winter Fuel Allowance but my social worker never let me know. I didn't put my heating on hardly at all one winter and got really ill. I had hardly any money at all, I thought I was finished. Don't you think someone should have helped me?"

"They probably should have, yeah."

"They were very unfair to me and didn't listen. If they treat me like that, someone who is quite intelligent, then you really need to worry about how they treat other people. They might be really letting down people with more problems or severely disabled people."

"I'll write that down too. Thanks for updating me, Mr Jefferson. If you have any more questions, please don't hesitate to call back. Have a good day now."

"Thanks. Bye."

"Bye."

XXIV

It does not take a degree in Feng Shui to know that interior design is important. For a few years Luke's home had greeted him each morning like an undercooked breakfast: the worst possible start to his day. He was lucky, then, to have his father. Bruno made a few weekend visits to sleep over and decorate. He painted all the rooms, then the windowsills and the treads between different floors. He varnished the wood doors, replaced the cheap handles with brass ones and even installed a shower in the bathroom. A vanity cabinet was drilled into the wall above the bathroom sink and Luke's mum meanwhile bought him thick red curtains that kept draughts out. They were very good parents when it came to providing help.

When they would stay, his parents' favourite habit was to eat at the Toby Carvery where they would have a great big meal of potatoes, vegetables, Yorkshire puddings, gravy and meats. When Luke's mum would come, she took Luke out for the day to faraway towns. They had been to Kendal in the Lake District, Werry, Leeds, Buxton, Southport and Blackpool. It would not take long for Luke and his parents to start grating on each other. That was why he had moved out. Luke's father was obsessive about cleanliness. He wiped surfaces within an inch of their life. It made Bruno feel ill to know a pot or plate was left sitting unwashed. When Luke had lived with him, he had felt his father too controlling in the kitchen. Luke was discouraged from cooking when his dad would get into angry or sad moods at cleaning up. If Luke cleaned after himself it was never up to his dad's standard, especially not the scrubbing of the oven.

Luke also found it very hard sharing a bathroom. He disliked the notion of stepping on water someone else had touched - or perhaps something more disgusting. The likelihood may have been small but he had inherited a genetic preference for cleanliness and there was no reasoning with it. Luke questioned whether the design of most homes was sensible. Surely the bathroom would be better if it was more isolated from the other rooms? It would be best to have a long hall approaching it so that sounds from there did not get heard from other people as much. Sounds too were very bothersome to Luke. His own were fine; other people's were another matter.

Luke had gained much of his appreciation for quality from his father. Bruno had always made sure everything in the homes they lived in was up to scratch. In whichever house their family had been in, worldly books had always lined the many bookshelves and anything broke was fixed. He bought beautiful landscape and portrait paintings that were put on the walls and planted flowers and kept the grass trim in the garden. But although Luke appreciated his parents, loved them very much, and was thankful for their help, when they stayed it could open up old wounds. Bruno and Samantha constantly argued.

"She keeps buying more stuff. It won't fit in the house," Bruno would complain. "And plants. More plants all the time. The neighbour, Clive, says, 'You won't manage to fit all those in your garden.'"

And so Luke would side with his father a lot of the time. Bruno was pushed to decorate home after home by Samantha, who wanted them to get quick sales and to add a bit more vale. The problem was Bruno was well over seventy - and although he had a propensity to be moan, he was genuinely struggling. If Samantha did not get her way she could shout or cry to wear Bruno down.

If those were the only points of dispute Luke could have simply told his mother she was wrong; but it was actually a lot more complicated. Luke remembered well how controlling Bruno was when he lived with them. He could have very fixed ideas about how things should be; if he did not get his own way he could became very angry and intimidating. There was never physical abuse, it only verbal. It was, however, enough at times to make Luke leave for a walk, he felt so disturbed. Whether Bruno noticed or not how he was, Luke could not decide. He knew that in his childhood, Bruno had had no father (he had died) and his older brothers had shouted a lot. As such, a bad example had been set.

Luke understood his dad's frustration with having to do so many decorating and renovating jobs but he could also cut off discussions with his wife. If she tried to talk about a potential change to the house, Bruno might start shouting, even reduce her to tears. People have a right to their opinion and Luke felt his father was infringing his mother's right when he did that. So Luke could sympathise with today's feminists very strongly on one issue: domestic violence. He understood well that even when there was not physical violence women could be damaged a lot within a relationship. He would not define what his own father did as domestic violence; but in any case he could easily see how in many people's homes it could go beyond what he knew from his own experience. His father had the fortune of having been raised by a very moral mother and despite his flaws always remained within a respectable boundary. The funny thing was Bruno had often told Luke he believed the police did not do enough to tackle domestic violence and that it was very serious issue. So many of us can see the faults in others while not spotting the same in ourselves.

When he drank to make it through a day, Luke would prefer a high quality organic wine. This was mainly because the sulphites in most wines made him feel nauseous. They gave him pins and needles and limping legs too. Not to mention the dull aches. The problem was organic wines were not easy to find but eventually he came upon one in a little supermarket at the train station. He read somewhere that on a Greek island the locals had one of the longest life expectancies in the world. Many there attributed it to the local wine they drank, which grew organically free from pesticides and genetic modification.

Luke tried telling people about the benefits but as ever folk only hear what they want to. If a person thinks wine is a posh drink - and they are determined not to be posh due to their inverse snobbery, then they won't touch it. Ironically, many snobs who do not wish to be associated with the poor will also not drink organic wines. For them it is too bohemian: "Oh, I wouldn't want to be like one of those lower middle-class hippies." The most popular taunt people employ towards those who enjoy good food or drink, especially if the butt of the joke is a liberal or fair-minded person, is to call them a champagne socialist. The logic of that insult is lacking as, surely, a person does not have to sacrifice a good thing just because not everyone can afford it. The world can afford to provide everyone some decent foodstuffs and beverages. It can not, on the other hand, afford to give everyone a big house and car, or as many holidays as people want - and there is where people's ire should really be directed.

But then, people do love an easy target. Of course, the very people who call others champagne socialists are likely to drink their fair share of beer themselves; or lagers, cocktails or perhaps even wine. Reverse snobby was a pet hate of Luke's, as much as the garden variety of snobbery was. It was cruel and absurd for people who were poor to hate others just because they had different tastes. If people never aspire to anything better, how can they improve? Luke's own parents had started life in poverty in social housing but had made chosen to have aspirations. Even if they had never made much money, they would not have begrudged people having good taste. Just because someone has a better education than you should not disqualify their opinion. So too  a person's opinion should not be dismissed only because they are of a more practical bent with their finger on the common man's pulse.

If Jack Dawson had been a reverse snob he never would have loved Rose. That would have done him no good at all, Luke thought. She was the making of him! A great love could not thrive with hatred and prejudice. They experienced true love because Jack saw past the sheltered, spoiled rich girl and got through to who Rose really was. And Rose saw past the bluntness and peculiarity of Jack's street smarts to see that he was genuinely a gentleman, possessed of a sense of humour and who really cared about her.

Though Luke wanted to live to the full he was not always good at it. His frequent inability to actualize his desires led him to fantasy. Some days he would buy a bottle of wine from the local Costcutter and drink it in his lounge, watching DVDs. As he got drunk, he watched Harry and Lloyd - in Dumb & Dumber - ineptly and heroically chase after the rich lady who had lost her briefcase. It was either that or the dramatizations of star-cross'd lovers in Titanic, Groundhog Day, St Elmo's Fire or Romeo & Juliet. He watched these favourite films on a loop and after he had finished one he would be inspired. An empty bottle of wine on the carpet and a head full of ideas, he could set off for Woecaster with a purpose. Such starry-eyed films could make him believe he was being carried, as on the crest of a wave for an adventure. There would be chivalry, charming people he would meet and a poetic justice that would tie everything together. Somewhere, someday he would live and not just exist.

Luke had not long ago read a biography of Percy Bysshe Shelley, the romantic English poet. He had made his mark many years ago when he had rescued various women from the clutches of overprotective men and lived with an honest, rebellious, noble passion. Shelley had died young - yet he had lived fully. That was what Luke wanted. A life of principles uncompromised. Like most people, Luke did not have as much money as Shelley had had; it certainly had helped Shelley fund some of his wild ways. Indeed Luke would have preferred to have been of a higher class. To him that was sensible. Why anyone would aspire to not live as fully as possible, he did not know. Like it or not, money opened many doors.

XXV

Halfway through his course, Luke opened his heart. Students learned by example, by real counselling. So Luke spoke of being rejected and was counselled. He got along best with Karina. She asked him to accompany her home after lessons. Karina lived in an apartment near the centre. She was the closest Luke had to a confidant. Family were his usual ears. Counseling courses had a habit of making people more emotionally open. Empathy was encouraged, feelings discussed. Karina talked freely. She was essentially unemotional; she had cared for her disabled mother for years. She had a boyfriend. Money was fine. What was there to say?

It was therefore with some surprise this Tuesday evening that she listened to Luke talk about his solitary sojourns to Boston and Canada. "I think about moving there sometimes," Luke said wistfully. "Nothing ever seems to work for me here. I just don't fit in."

"That's a really good idea!" she had squealed. "I've got friends who've been to Boston. It's such a cool city. I really think you could be happy there." She grinned at him with an undiluted and purely optimistic confidence.

Luke feared it was not so simple. America did not have free healthcare, especially for immigrants. There was a lot of red tape in moving there and finding a job would be far from easy with his current qualifications. If he did persevere though college and university here for years, would he be able to afford it? Fees were extortionate for universities in England now and besides he did not know with all his anxiety around people he could even finish a two or three year course.

Well, that could be put on the back burner for now. He had a more pressing issue to deal with. He needed to add more details to his complaint. A stomach on the verge of hurling would not dissuade him. It had to be done. He dialled Jolly's number with a shaky hand and awaited a response.