Modern manners

Jeremy Clarke finds his entrance hall thronged with undertakers
November 20, 1997

Things came to a sudden and unexpected head in our residential home for the elderly last month. In just over four dramatic weeks, three of our ladies died and one went mad and had to go to an "assessment unit." In a large nursing home, a trio of deaths occurring close so together might not be unusual; but ours is small, only eight ladies when full, most of whom have been with us for so long they feel like part of the family. For a while our entrance hall, with its stuffed birds, its portrait of Napoleon and the tapestry depicting an angel appearing to John Bunyan, seemed permanently thronged with undertakers, doctors, and relatives carrying away furniture.

First to go was Mrs Lock. She was 100 years old and had been with us for six years. Mrs Lock had a very short-term memory. This meant that everything was always new and exciting to her. When I took up her breakfast in bed-which our ladies have every morning of the year-the conversation would always go as follows:

"Good morning, Mrs Lock" (this shouted, as she couldn't hear a thing without her hearing aid).

"Oo! Breakfast in bed? Lovely."

After she had sat up and I had pushed the bed-table across her lap, she would look at me a little shyly and ask, "What am I doing here?"

"You live here, Mrs Lock," I would say. "You have been living here for six years."

She would recoil in disbelief at this incredible information, and gasp: "Have I really!" Then, after a brief review of some of the implications of this new and surprising situation, she would ask: "Any duties?"

Like several of our other ladies, Mrs Lock was prone to auditory hallucinations. Fortunately, for such a devout and lifelong Christian, hers consisted chiefly of pealing church bells and heavenly choirs. We knew this because, although normally a silent lady, she would sometimes comment on how lovely the choir was sounding today, or enquire why the church bells were being continually rung.

Her quiet self-containment was often lit by a conspiratorial smile, as if she did not quite know what the joke was, but was sure she would find it amusing if somebody would care to share it with her. And if anyone's false teeth went missing, Mrs Lock's mouth was always a good place to start looking, for she was always picking up the wrong ones and shoving them in. Although she had little idea about where she was, or who everybody else was, one got the impression that the magnificent view from the conservatory-which she encountered afresh every day-went some way towards compensating for these disconcerting gaps in her understanding. She declined and died very peacefully over a fortnight.

The death of Mrs Lock was followed by that of Betty Potter, who lived in the room below. Betty suffered from Parkinson's disease and had been deteriorating steadily since her arrival five years ago. Although she was bent virtually double, and had lost control of her salivary glands, her sphincter muscle and her arms and legs, her wit and her intelligence remained intact. Her sudden death was totally unexpected and a great shock.

I went to Betty's funeral at the parish church. After the service, since there were no relatives gathered around the grave, the head undertaker invited me to throw a handful of pink shale onto her coffin. Afterwards, as we filed out of the gate, he grasped my arm and said with surprising passion: "There's nothing I like more than a good, old-fashioned country funeral." He pronounced funeral "foonral," showing he was indeed a countryman.

On top of all this dying, Mrs Edwards went mad. Slightly eccentric but sociable, Mrs Edwards had lived alone in the next village for many years. Then her children decided it was time to shove the old girl in a home and flog the house. She had not been with us for long, but as soon as the terrible finality of the move had sunk in, she went to pieces. During the day she hid under her bed, and at night she roamed the house mumbling and moaning to herself. Often she terrified the surviving ladies by entering their rooms in the early hours to stand silent and motionless in a corner.

And then a malignant growth appeared on the inside of Miss Doris Johnson's throat. It rapidly grew large enough to prevent her eating or drinking, and she starved to death in a fortnight. Because she was 97 the prevailing opinion had been that if the long journey to hospital to have the tumour removed did not kill her, the operation probably would.

Dear Doris was a small, uncomplicated, corset-wearing Yorkshirewoman who had worked hard all her life and did not want to be any "trooble" to anyone. When it became difficult for her to swallow fluids, she was still apologising to everybody for being a "damn nuisance."

Two days before Doris died, I went up to her room to see her. Weighing in at just over four stone by then, she could hardly hold up her head, and had been slipping in and out of consciousness.

"How are you Doris?" I shouted as I entered her room. She lifted her lolling head to peer myopically in my direction, and as brightly as she possibly could said: "I'm very well thank you love. How are you?"