This was the first time I had properly understood that day staff and night staff are different. They’re as different as night and day. Day staff have too much to do, night staff have too little. Day staff want compliance, but night staff enjoy stimulation. Eileen wanted to know which pub I’d been to, who my friends were, my history and plans (precious few). She didn’t pry. She just wanted to know everything.
Astringent, anti-tussive and vulnerary
During my time in the Cheshire Home the nights gave back what the days took away, what with the Black Lion and the warmth of Eileen’s welcome. She taught me to play backgammon, and also to keep a keen eye on the pieces in case they moved of their own accord, which sometimes happened. We didn’t play for money but for sweets, Maltesers at first and then Smarties for preference since they were less given to rolling.
Eileen couldn’t digest milk properly, or so she said, and would make up mugs of something called Slippery Elm Food. This was a powder which she added to a pan of milk to thicken it, making it porridgy and easier to absorb. It was like glue, in fact — it even said ‘mucilage’ on the packet. She told me she got it from Boots the Chemist. That too became part of our ritual, the sharing of Slippery Elm Food, that potable glue. We bonded.
In our late-night sessions Eileen passed on the lessons which life had taught her. Her habit on holiday, in Ireland and elsewhere, was to look at the local paper and find out the times and places of funerals. She’d made many good friends that way over the years, going to the funerals of strangers, starting off with ‘I’m sorry for your loss’, playing it by ear after that. It sounds rather a splendid exercise, a sort of spiritual party game. Gatecrash the funerals of strangers, and end up recruiting them for your own. Not many funerals are standing-room-only, after all.
She said I should try it myself, though I think she underestimated my personal distinctiveness, my sore-thumb tendency. That was the great thing about Eileen. She would come and help me out of the Mini and into the Home, but nurse-Eileen and chatterbox-Eileen seemed to be separate agents, and she would talk to me about anything. I told her that the only stranger’s funeral I had attended was in India, the pyre on Arunachala. I told her about the necessary piercing of the skull and the rearing-up of the body once combustion was established.
Eileen took in the grisly details without dismay. From the look of her face it was unlikely that she was contemplating the end of human existence. She was probably wondering whether I’d complain if she started frying some rashers. Irish people never seem to say bacon. It’s always rashers.
That first night I didn’t go to bed until well after two, and bedtime could be even later than that on the nights which followed. Then in the morning I’d give breakfast a miss, and not roll out of bed properly until ten or even eleven. This was more than respite, it was close to paradise.
I would probably have met a certain amount of resistance during the day, but luckily Martha Green, who was in charge of the office, turned out to have a soft spot for me. She always wore gypsy scarves, advertising the free spirit within the administrator, and she knew how to keep everyone sweet. I’d call her a breath of fresh air except for her chain-smoking. Her cigarette consumption was conspicuous even at a time when smoking was seen as a human right, and faculty libraries at Cambridge still had designated tables for smokers.
Martha wouldn’t be able to defend me in frontal conflicts with our dear Director, but she could certainly block any complaints that came from Molly. Quite often there’s someone tucked away in the middle of an organisation who quite likes troublemakers, as long as the conflict is amusing and can be contained.
Meanwhile I benefited from what the establishment offered without needing to feel either respect or gratitude. I had a friend at night and a nice balance of forces during the day: an ally in the office and an enemy cleaning the floors.
Molly hadn’t retaliated in any real way for her humiliation at my hands, or so I thought. Just the once she hissed, ‘You think you can live by your own rules, don’t you? You’ll find out soon enough.’ It seemed logical that she would keep her counsel about the incident with the stick and not make waves. There were only two witnesses, Louise and me. It made sense that Molly would keep quiet.
I’m glad I didn’t know that she was phoning Mum up and telling her that I was upsetting everybody in the Home. That I was evil. She must have broken quite a few of the rules of the establishment to get hold of the number. The Director’s office certainly had a lock, as I had pointed out in our interview, but perhaps it wasn’t used very often. Or she had got hold of a copy somehow.
If Dad had happened to pick up the phone, he might have enjoyed the conversation in his own perverse way. I can imagine him hearing this stranger’s voice describe his son as evil, and coming back with something quite unexpected, along the lines of:
‘You don’t have to tell me! I’ve had years of it. What with one thing or another you’d think John would have learned to fit in by now, but that’s not the way he does things. Gets it from his grandmother, I dare say. Count yourself lucky she’s not in residence where you are! Thank you for bringing me up to date about his activities, my dear. I might have guessed he’d not lose his gift for rubbing people up the wrong way. What did you say your name was?’
But no — she had to get through to Mum. That was bad luck. It could never be that way with Mum, the taking things lightly, making a joke of it. She didn’t have any equivalent of Dad’s oddly slippery character armour. I wonder if Molly called in the evening, when I was actually in the pub down the road from Trees, when Mum might be able to hear me laugh, or the drone of my pontificating on the breeze. Molly had only made the call in the hope of making mischief — she wasn’t to know that the mischief had already been done. You might say it had been done before I made Mum’s acquaintance.
These were not good times for her. Sooner or later it was inevitable that word of my banishment or apostasy would reach the sewing circle, and then the joy must have gone out of Mum’s needlework.
It’s not something I particularly want to think about. I was lucky in the Washbournes, luckier yet in Eileen. The conspiratorial late-night atmosphere of our chats seemed to put Slippery Elm in the category of bootleg liquor, moonshine whisky, though it tasted much like oatmeal.
Some people like to sniff glue, apparently. I’d rather drink it. Ten grains of the powdered bark will make a thick potion with an ounce of water. Ulmus fulva, as I didn’t then know to call it, of the family Ulmaceæ. Also known as the Red Elm, the Moose Elm, the Indian Elm, its virtues well known to the American aborigines, who used it as the basis of a healing salve. Demulcent, emollient, expectorant, diuretic, nutritive, astringent, anti-tussive and vulnerary, it is altogether a boon to the herbalist or freelance practitioner, not to mention the tireless self-medicator and respite-home rebel, returning back to base half-cut. It is tolerated by the stomach when all other foods fail, provides unfailing respite for a digestion in disarray.
The knife of advertising
After my stay in the Cheshire Home I didn’t write an article for the News of the World. Instead I wrote to the magazine of the parent organisation, delightfully called the Cheshire Smile. Perhaps my letter was too literary, too steeped in the imagery of the Alice books. I told them that while I was staying in the Home I felt I’d fallen down the rabbit-hole and ended up in a topsy-turvy world where only the Director’s door had a lock and everyone was told what was best for them, by people who had no idea. Perhaps I came across as one of life’s belittlers, someone whose only contribution is negative, but writing sunny letters of complaint isn’t the easiest trick to bring off. They didn’t print my letter, and I only got a standard acknowledgement, so from that point of view it was the Busy Bee News from hospital days all over again. I should really have kept on at them. Persistence pays off in these things. Rejection doesn’t stand a chance in the long run.