The O’Hara Affair (42 page)

‘I’m here to see the matron,’ Dervla told the security guard behind the desk.

‘Dervla Vaughan?’ he asked, consulting a desk diary.

‘Yes.’

‘Through there, first on the left.’ The security guard picked up the phone and said, ‘Ms Vaughan is here to see you, Pauline.’

Dervla crossed the foyer to a pair of double doors, which opened automatically as she approached. Beyond the double doors was a second set of automatic doors, and beyond them stretched a long corridor that led down to what Dervla took to be a nurses’ station. The colour scheme was soft apricot and dove grey.

So far, so good, she thought, breathing in a sigh of relief. Oh. So far, so good – apart from the smell. The smell was: top note, antiseptic; middle note, ‘Neutradol’; base note, nappies. Dervla knew the base note was nappies because it was a smell she had become increasingly familiar with over the past week.

She knocked on the door marked ‘Matron’.

‘Come in,’ a voice called, and Dervla entered to find a pretty woman in her thirties sitting behind a desk. She rose as Dervla came through, and extended a hand.

‘Nice to meet you, Matron,’ said Dervla.

‘Please call me Pauline,’ said the woman with a warm smile. ‘And take a seat. Now. What can I do for you?’

It all came flooding out, as it had that time with Dr Doorley, and as Dervla spoke, Pauline nodded reassuringly.

‘Well,’ she said, when Dervla had finished her tale of woe, ‘we shall have to pay a home visit to make an assessment, of course.’

Oh, God. Maybe Dervla shouldn’t have been so honest. Maybe she should have played down her mother-in-law’s dementia; maybe this place didn’t accept cases as advanced as Daphne’s.

‘Does your mother-in-law wander?’ asked Pauline.

‘No,’ lied Dervla.

‘In that case, she could probably be accommodated in the ground-floor wing. Upstairs is the secure ward, for the more at-risk dementia and Alzheimer’s patients.’ Pauline got to her feet. ‘Let me show you the accommodation.’

She went out into the corridor, and Dervla followed her along the spotless dove-grey linoleum. Here and there, doors were open, and Dervla couldn’t stop herself from looking. Televisions were on in most of the rooms, and in many of them the occupants were lying on their beds, eyes closed, mouths open, oblivious to the sound coming from their plasma screens.

Pauline stopped in front of a door, and peered through a glass panel. ‘This one’s empty,’ she said. ‘Mrs Ellis must be in the day room. Come in and have a look around.’

Holding the door open, she allowed Dervla to precede her. The room was scrupulously clean. There was a high bed backed up against one wall; floor-to-ceiling windows occupied another. A maple-veneered unit housed wardrobe, dressing table and bookshelves, upon which a variety of ornaments, books, DVDs, postcards and framed photographs
was displayed. One of the postcards bore the legend: ‘God couldn’t be everywhere, so He made grandmas.’ A plant protruded from a decorative pot, a Lalique vase was host to a bouquet of artificial flowers.

But on closer inspection, the room was not as pristine as Dervla had first thought. The silk flowers were dusty, the plant was parched for want of watering, and the upholstery on an old-fashioned fireside chair was stained with mysterious fluids. The lotions and potions on the bathroom shelves were not high-end: no anti-ageing or expensive night creams necessary. At least Mrs Ellis had been liberated from the diktats of the beauty industry.

‘Mrs Ellis will be celebrating her hundred and first birthday soon!’ announced Pauline.

‘Hundred and first?’ echoed Dervla. ‘Goodness! What’s the average age of the inmates here?’

‘We don’t like to call them inmates,’ said Pauline. ‘It sounds a little institutional. We prefer to call them residents. Most of them are in their eighties and nineties. Would you like to see the day room?’

‘Yes, please.’

Along the corridor again they went, past the nurses’ station, where two pretty Filipino girls were poring over a chart, and into a room where sun streamed in through the windows, and ambient music poured out through wall-mounted speakers. All four sides of the room were lined with mobile armchairs, in which sat old ladies. Except, Dervla thought, they didn’t sit. They lolled, heads on their chests like drooping flowers. Some of them looked awkward, twisted, their elbows bent at odd angles. Each of them was strapped into their chair, and in front of each of them was a wheely table upon which small stuffed toys were ranged alongside feeding cups of orange squash.

‘We’re just about to serve lunch,’ said Pauline. ‘That’s why
we’re wearing bibs. Good day, Mrs Lennon! How are we today?’ Mrs Lennon looked blankly at Pauline and muttered something.

On the other side of the room, another lady was becoming agitated. She was gazing around with big bewildered eyes as words cascaded out of her mouth, and it seemed to Dervla that she was talking a strange language. But no – here and there came a phrase that was distinctly English. She was talking gibberish – not unlike that uttered by Daphne the previous night. None of the other residents took any notice: they were all sunk inside themselves, unseeing, existing isolated from the real world.

‘Excuse me,’ said Pauline, as her phone sounded. ‘I would have turned this off, but it’s a call I’ve been waiting for.’ She moved back out into the corridor to take her call, and left Dervla standing in the middle of the day room surrounded by the moribund. She remained frozen to the spot, keeping her eyes fixed unseeingly on the wall-mounted clock that ticked away the livelong seconds that these poor creatures had yet to endure. How many minutes, hours, days, months were left to them? How many birthdays had they yet to ‘celebrate’? How many New Years to ring in? The hands of the clock met with a judder at twelve midday.

And then a beautiful young black man came into the room, pushing a trolley piled with dishes. He was joined by the Filipino girls, who began to distribute lunch, setting plates before each of the inmates – no! the
residents
– then hunkering down beside this individual or that, persuading them to eat, holding forkfuls of food to their mouths, and gently inserting a tidbit or wiping a chin, all the while crooning and smiling encouragement.

Dervla couldn’t bear it: she felt as if she’d stumbled upon some arcane ritual – one that she should not be privy to.
She backed out of the day room and fled down the corridor and through a side door into the garden, blinded with tears and gasping for air.

That’s where Pauline found her.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

‘Yes. I – it’s just that I’ve never seen so many old people together. I never thought that old age could be so incapacitating.’ What was it Fleur had said recently?
Old age ain’t no place for sissies…
Except now the word ‘old’ had become as politically incorrect as the word ‘fat’. You couldn’t say things any more like, ‘pity that fat old loony’. You’d have to say ‘show consideration for that obese, elderly, mentally challenged person’ instead. Oh! What was the world coming to? Why were these people who had once run and danced and sung and argued and wept and felt the wind in their hair and the rain on their faces – why were they cocooned in chairs, strapped in and bibbed like babies, spoon-fed and nappyclad? Where was their dignity? Was life so sanctified that it had become a grotesque parody of itself? Dervla realized that she was shaking.

‘I can understand you’re upset,’ said Pauline, laying a hand on her arm. ‘It can be disturbing to see the inside of a care home for the first time.’

‘They were all – they were all
women
,’ said Dervla.

‘That’s only to be expected. Women have a longer life expectancy than men. We do have a few men – there’s Mr Slater, for example. He’s still going strong at ninety-two.’

Dervla looked over at one of the paths that crisscrossed the garden geometrically. A man was moving slowly between the flowerbeds, assisted by a zimmer frame. He was accompanied by a uniformed nurse; yet another Filipino.

‘Your staff seems to be mostly foreign,’ remarked Dervla.

Pauline smiled. ‘That’s because they still have reverence for the elderly in their cultures,’ she said. ‘They consider grey hair to be a crown of glory – a sign of wisdom. Young people in this country are reluctant to train as geriatric carers because it’s perceived as being unglamorous – which, of course, it is.’

Dervla looked at Mr Slater hunched over his zimmer frame, and thought, He’s one of the lucky ones.

‘How mobile is your mother-in-law?’ Pauline asked.

‘Well, she doesn’t need a zimmer frame. Yet.’

‘So she’s lively enough. She’ll benefit from our animators.’

‘Animators?’

‘We get entertainers in from time to time – musicians, magicians, that kind of thing. There’s a wonderful young man with a guitar who plays folk songs.’

Dervla had a sudden mental image of Daphne being serenaded by an earnest young folk singer, and telling him to fuck off and stop his bloody racket.

‘We play games like bowls,’ continued Pauline. ‘And we have singsongs and art classes.’

‘Oh – Daphne might like art classes. She’s a very cultured person.’ Dervla felt awfully confused, suddenly. She couldn’t picture Daphne playing bowls or singing along with a room full of strangers. ‘Look, Pauline, I’ll have to speak with my husband about this. We may not need to avail ourselves of residential care right now—’

‘Oh – I’m afraid there’d be no question of that. We have a two-year waiting list.’

‘Two
years
?’

‘Yes. A place might become available sooner, but there’s no guarantee. It depends on how many of our residents pass away, and the mortality rate is low, thank God. As I’m sure you know, we’re all living longer.’ Mr Slater was inching his
way along the path towards them. ‘Hello, Mr Slater!’ shouted Pauline. ‘Isn’t it a beautiful day?’

There was no response from Mr Slater, but the Filipino youth accompanying him beamed at Pauline and Dervla and said, ‘It surely is a beautiful day to be alive.’

Dervla resisted the impulse to add, ‘For some of us.’ She was feeling more and more desperate to get out of there. She looked at her watch and said: ‘Oh, I’d better go. I have an appointment.’

‘Are you looking at another care home?’

‘Yes. Green Meadows. Do you know it?

Pauline looked inscrutable. ‘I do. I think you’ll find it’s not as high spec as this facility. It’s…a little on the old-fashioned side. Come past my office on the way out, and I’ll give you a brochure.’

The brochure was glossily presented in hues of apricot and dove grey, to reflect the La Paloma decor. It featured photographs of white-haired people looking up at the sky laughing, or smiling into the eyes of a Filipino carer, or sitting at an easel with a paintbrush. In the section on rates, Dervla read that ‘fees reflect the cost of providing suitable accommodation and care for residents’.

‘How much, approximately, are the fees likely to be?’ she asked Pauline.

‘Well, we can’t give you an accurate quote until we’ve assessed Mrs Vaughan, but they usually even out at just over five thousand a month.’

Dervla tried not to suck in her breath. Five thousand a month! Five thousand a
month
! She felt sweat break out under her arms.

‘Thank you so much for your help, Pauline,’ she said. ‘I’ll have a chat with my husband and I’ll get back in touch. Goodbye.’

‘Goodbye, Dervla. A pleasure to meet you.’

‘Likewise.’

Dervla passed through the two sets of automatic doors and back across the foyer, where the man who had been reading the paper was now fast asleep in his chair. Outside, she felt the warmth of the sun on her face, felt a breeze snatch her hair. Above her a seagull wheeled through a bright blue sky; on the topmost branch of a mimosa tree, a robin was singing. There was a scent of wild garlic in the air. What privileges had she taken for granted! Privileges that were denied now, to the ‘privileged’ five thousand euro per month incumbents of La Paloma.

In the privacy of her car, Dervla laid her forehead against the steering wheel. Of course it would cost in the region of five grand a month for that level of care. There were so many factors to be taken into consideration: nursing, insurance, utilities, nutrition, medication, laundry, housekeeping, entertainment…What had Pauline called the entertainers? Animators. It was unlikely that Jim Carrey himself could breathe life into the old people she’d seen in that day room earlier. Dervla couldn’t begin to imagine what things might be like in the dementia ward on the first floor – what Pauline had called the ‘secure’ ward. But what still appalled her most was the fact that the vast majority of the residents were women.

She couldn’t – she just couldn’t subject Daphne to that kind of care. Her mother-in-law might be a belligerent old bat, but at least she had life in her still. Maybe Green Meadows would be more suitable. It might not – as Pauline had told her – be quite so high spec as La Paloma, but maybe there would be something more homely about it.

It was homely all right, in that it had once been the home of a wealthy Victorian engineer, but as soon as Dervla stepped
across the threshold, she knew that she could not commit Daphne to this place. In the foyer, an old lady was sitting very erect upon a moulded plastic chair, clutching her handbag. She wore an anxious look, and she rose to her feet as Dervla approached.

‘Have you come to take me home, miss?’ she asked.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Dervla. ‘I haven’t.’

The old lady started to cry. ‘They promised me I could go home,’ she said. ‘But nobody’s come. I shouldn’t be here, you know. This place is full of mad people. And they’re not looking after me properly. This isn’t even my own cardigan I’m wearing.’ She reached out a bony hand and clutched Dervla’s sleeve. ‘Please find my son and tell him to come for me. Please.’

‘I’ll try,’ said Dervla, taking her hand.

‘Do you promise?’

‘Yes.’

‘Thank you. I’ll just sit and wait here then, shall I, until he comes.’

The old lady sat down again upon her chair, and recommenced her vigil.