I walked along the paths that linked the various houses that comprised the Old People's Home. Maybe I was far too early and I would be told to go away in no uncertain terms. Privatisation can do that. The National Health Service had given up and let private firms contract for their one-time patients. Now anything could happen.
The Manager had been reasonable when I had enquired if Beryl could be allowed visitors. I was simply told to find the house called Mitre and enquire there.
"Expensive here now," I said, part of me enraged by all the stories that I had heard. "God knows how any of them manage."
"Yes, it is expensive," the manager replied sadly. "Five hundred pounds a week to stay here. Some of them have to sell their houses and when that money is exhausted the government pays."
"I expect that all the shareholders are very happy," I said as sharply as a Russian General addressing an ill turned out soldier.
"We used to have shareholders," the manager said carefully. "But then that was changed when we got charitable status.... Anyway, the government is going to put a stop to people having to sell their houses. - When is anybody's guess!"
I shook my head sadly, bid the manager good day and walked on. After a while I stopped to ask a gardener where Mitre House could be found.
" You are right on top of it," she replied.
"I might be far too early to see my friend's wife. She has had a stroke and has come in to give him a break. Respite care they call it. You look as if you could do with some of that yourself with a garden this size."
"Chance would be a fine thing," the woman gardener said. " I wish I was back with the Town Council! Contract work has put a lot of us out of work now and the Council pay was much better"
"What a world we live in now," I said as I smiled at the way that rage had made the slight fifty-year old beautiful.
I waved my goodbye, noting that a wisp of faded blonde hair had seen fit to frame her now pretty face as I opened the main door to Mitre House.
Instantly a woman with the attitude of one of Hitler's Gestapo guards demanded that I sign in and state my business. I was then marched to a large table where Beryl sat in her wheelchair.
Beryl was having her breakfast. I was given a chair and told to sit down beside her. Opposite sat a youngish woman who slept fitfully in her chair, somehow without falling. Next to her sat a bright-eyed lady, possibly in her late seventies. She had a pad beside her and wrote on it sporadically.
"Hello Beryl," I said, my voice sounding very loud in the awful silence.
It was plain that Beryl was pleased to see me. We talked of this and that in whispers - just the usual platitudes that come unbidden at such times. Then Beryl indicated the rest of the patients and told me of each one's troubles. Multiple sclerosis, strokes and the like, it was a long litany of misery.
"Oh," Beryl said suddenly and indicating the bright-eyed lady opposite. "Sylvia is trying to say some thing. She can't talk and has to write things down on her pad.
Soon I was in a surreal conversation with Sylvia. By pen, we again spoke the usual platitudes that sit and stare beside the beds of the afflicted. Then I broke with tradition and told Sylvia that I was a writer.
Sylvia bent to write on her pad while a nurse came and set white pots of pills beside every patient. The youngish woman woke for a moment and allowed her pills to be popped in her mouth. Soon sleep overcame her and she slipped into its deep darkness without a sound.
Sylvia handed me her pad. On it was written, half legibly, that she was a poet. I was delighted. I was partly pleased that I had deciphered her writing without any embarrassment and I was filled with the delight that comes when one finds a flower in a desolate winter landscape. This must have shown on my face.
Sylvia searched for a paper among those by her pad. She wrote on it carefully and handed it to me. It was a poem of hers that someone had typed up on a computer. She had written "Love Sylvie" on the bottom with her pen.
I thanked her and read her poem but the dreadful silence in the room had anaesthetised me from all feeling.
I read Sylvia's poem again in my car before I drove away. It was then that I felt my heart break.
Sylvia's poem.
Sunday.
The Lord has brought us safely through the night,
And wakened us with brilliant light,
It is sunny and may church bells ring,
To celebrate our Lord the King.
May we glorious hymns raise,
To sing aloud his praise,
May the brilliance of his love,
Shine on us from heaven above.
May God's goodwill,
Our hearts with pleasure fill,
The Lord is our light and treasure store,
And may we praise him evermore.
Sylvia Robinson
Richard Walker
All Rights Reserved
Copying, reprinting, or distribution of this story and/or poem, in whole or in part, is prohibited without written permission from the author.
Hard Bargain: A Cat Marsala Mystery by Barbara D'Amato
Hardcover Book
Responding to a domestic violence call, Chicago cop Shelley Daniello finds a man attacking his wife with a knife, forcing Shelley to shoot to kill. The dead man is a fellow police officer and his wife is Officer Daniello's sister. Chief of Detectives Harold McCoo comes under attack for his actions following the shooting, and his old friend Cat Marsala wants to help him out. But, just as the puzzle starts to take shape, McCoo is pulled off the case. (1997).
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