Prunes

Although it was a lovely June day, there was no-one sitting in the garden. There was a lovely old beech tree for shade, a seat around the trunk, a sunny stretch of lawn, a patio and veranda in front of the large Edwardian house. But no-one was out there enjoying it. Odd, I thought – old people in homes often like to get outside for a while, in the sun.

I parked on the shingled drive and knocked on the door. I was there to carry out a survey with a view to putting a large extension on the back, for more bedrooms. The house itself was an old rectory, and had already been extended piecemeal with rather ugly flat roofed boxes, which were in poor repair and difficult to heat. The idea was to demolish all these and build anew.

The hall was painted in lurid pink, very badly done, over wood chip paper designed to hide the poor plaster underneath. The hall carpet was violently patterned in red and gold, and there were little tables with rubbishy trinkets on everywhere. The whole effect was tatty, tacky and made me want to put on my sunglasses. I was simultaneously hit by the smell. When you think of how much people pay to be looked after in these places, you would think the least that would happen is that they would be kept clean. Oh, no – that seemed far too much to ask. The fusty, mouldy, dead smell of unwashed flesh and incontinence enveloped me, accentuated by the high temperature from central heating backed up with an electric fan heater. Notes of burning dust and an underlying smell of dry rot and boiled cabbage completed the aroma.

I started in the bedrooms, most of which were empty as the residents were downstairs. One woman had refused to leave, and was being persuaded by the carer – ‘Come downstairs! Come downstairs!’ The old woman’s eyes were cloudy, she was nearly blind and obviously very deaf. On her bedside table was a framed photo of what must have been herself and her husband, taken fifty years or even longer ago – two proud, smart and smiling people in spotless military uniform.

The rooms were odd shapes, made from partitioning off larger rooms, in what must once have been a very grand house. The partitions were rickety and it was possible to hear what was going on several rooms away. The furnishings were old and tatty and the paintwork dreadful – all violent purples and violets and screaming greens. The en suites were horrible little hovels of broken tiles, dirty, spider-lurking corners and stained avocado sanitary ware. Above all, that pervading smell.

The ‘living’ room was as usual in these places; many upright chairs with tiny little women in them, crumpled under blankets, bundled up in many cardigans and with the ‘cotton wool’ hair style which seems to be the only thing hairdressers are capable of when doing ‘seniors’. There was only one man I could see, his gaunt face and light blue eyes brightened into a smile when he saw me. He spoke, but it was incomprehensible. I think he was from Newcastle.

The dining area had no windows, and the glaring colours were made worse by the ghastly fluorescent lighting. I was offered tea, and a plate of broken biscuits accompanied it. I was just about to pick one, when a flabby man with a sink plunger in his hand grabbed some and rushed off, saying ‘This job makes you hungry!’ I picked an undisturbed biscuit from the very edge of the plate. My caution was well advised – I found out he had been unblocking the loo with that sink plunger only moments before.

A nurse hurried up to me. She had on pancake make up. She asked if I was going into all the rooms? When I said I was, she pursed her lips and said ‘Well, Mr George is in his room with his cat and may not want to be disturbed – I’ll have to accompany you anyway’. Although I had already told them it was fine, and I expected to be escorted for security reasons (in case one of the residents accused me of taking their handbag) she seemed doubtful. Eventually, she gave in, I had the feeling she just couldn't be bothered, in the same way that no-one could be bothered to help the residents outside to enjoy the sunshine.

Mr George’s room had once been the sun room. It had glass on three sides, and was the kind of room suitable for occasional sitting or eating on a warm day, whilst admiring the garden. Unfortunately for the residents, the tight fisted, parsimonious and uncaring owners had decided it was yet another room from which they could squeeze silly money every week. The windows were running with water from condensation and it was cold. There was black mould in the corners of the ceiling and a big stain from the leaking flat roof. Mr George struggled towards me on two sticks, shouting ‘Hello there!’ and smiling, all gums. His tatty clothes bulged over rolls of fat. In the corner there was a litter tray, full of cat droppings. It had not been emptied for several days and the smell added another dimension to the general overall pong. On the narrow bed a cat crouched, his paws tucked underneath and his plume of a tail wrapped against his flank, all neat like cats are. He was all bright ginger and white; a huge set of white whiskers set forwards at this stranger in his room and his huge yellow eyes were wide. ‘He’s my friend!’ shouted Mr George.

In this dreadful place, the bright, healthy and beautiful creature shone like the sun.

*Part of the 'Five a Day' series inspired by Which End Bites