New to Tidelands? Start at the Beginning
My tour guide was Jason – “But friends all call me Jazz, little fella” – a good-natured, dishevelled man who had taken a wrong turn in his twenties sometime during the Sixties, and was now somewhat surprised to find himself in his forties. I’d never met an orderly before, and had little idea what one was, but quickly formed the opinion that Jazz was the least orderly orderly I was ever likely to meet.
“So, right … the tour, the tour…” He inhaled, held his breath a few moments with puffed-out cheeks, and then blew out slowly and noisily as he stared off into some dim inner distance, rubbing his stubbled chin with his hand. “Okay! The tour!” – brightening abruptly – “This way, little fella!”
We set off down the corridor away from Torsion’s office.
“You don’t mind ‘little fella’, little fella? I mean, there’s a monicker you prefer, just let me know.”
“Who’s Monica?”
“Not Monica, you baboon! Monicker!” He laughed. “Sobriquet? Handle? Nom de guerre?” I must still have looked bewildered. “Your name!”
“Oh, it’s Freddy.”
“Ah, a Freddy. Duke Frederick! The Fredster! His Fredship!”
“Just Freddy.”
“Of course, of course.” He gave a little bow. “Enchanté, little fe—I mean, Freddy.” He winked and made that little double-clucking noise that sounded like someone was cocking a gun. “Known a few Freddies, in my time. Between you and me, they’ve all been cunts.” He giggled, eyes going wide with alarm, clapped a hand over his mouth and held the other up in apology. “Beg your pardon, Your Fredship. Please excuse the Anglo-Saxon. The old filter’s not what it once was. But I’m sure you’ll be the exception that, er, whatsits the thingy. Rule! Proves it. You’ll be a good ’un, I’m sure. Right! The tour!”
Seaview Meadows operated according to zones, he explained, discrete areas where certain functions (“And only those functions, mind you!”) were performed – eating, sleeping, entertainment, socialising, toileting and bathing – and it was Jazz’s main job (and soon to be mine) to ferry the residents from one functional space to another, ensuring the correct things happened in the correct spaces. “No Scrabble in the bath, no shitting in the TV room – that sort of thing.”
We turned a corner and peeped through a doorway into a large room with an assortment of tatty padded furniture hailing from various historical periods dotting its periphery, and at the far end of which was a single, modestly sized TV.
“So, here we have the Entertainment Suite, or as I like to call it …” – pause for effect – “… the Pleasure Zone!” There were only two occupants at that moment, stationed either side of the room, neither of whom seemed to be enjoying themselves greatly: an exceptionally old man, his white head slumped onto his chest, snoring softly; and a not-much-younger woman, who sat masticating robotically as she stared blankly in the general direction of a repeat episode of The Price Is Right. “Admittedly,” with a tilt of the head, “you’re not seeing it at its most vibrant, just now.” Jazz leaned into the room, a tone of sudden anxiety in his voice. “Angie!” A stage whisper. “Angie, my love!” No response. “Beelzebub on a bicycle, Angie, there’s no … you know you can’t eat in the …” But if she was eating, I saw no sign of what that was, for her hands were empty, and she continued to ignore him, chewing contentedly as she stared straight ahead. Eventually Jazz gave up, sighed heavily, and turned back to me.
“Right! Onward!”
The next stop was the “Café de Mange Tout” (dining hall). “With some of the older older folks, it’s easier that they eat in their rooms, you know? But we do try to encourage a bit of the old socialising.” It was another large space looking out onto the back garden, furnished with assorted tables and chairs, but which, mid afternoon, was inhabited only by wafting culinary smells and the clattering and scraping emerging from the neighbouring kitchen, signalling the beginnings of teatime.
“And here we have the Ludorium!” This too was sparsely populated, its windows affording another view of the gardens, with more well-worn eclectic furniture arranged around low tables hosting books and magazines, board games, playing cards and other traditional diversions. A woman, sat knitting, looked up as we stood at the threshold, continuing to stare blankly back at us as her nimble fingers blindly click-clacked away. At the far end, his eyes gazing off thoughtfully through the windows, sat the only other figure, a solemn though dapper gentleman sporting a musketeer moustache and goatee, his swollen hands folded over a silver-topped cane that he tapped on the floor to a largo tempo.
“Our resident wizard.” Jazz nodded to the distant figure – a proper whisper this time. “Try to stay on his good side, ’s my advice.”
And though it was hard to tell, as it always would be with Jazz, I got the feeling he was completely serious.
Kitchens, bathrooms, laundry, all followed – “Coming through! New recruit! Coming through!” – the pharmacy (“the Good Stuff!”) and on into the properly residential part of the home, or what Jazz called “The Cells”.
“And I mean that in the most life-affirming sense,” he added, in a way I still don’t understand. “Now, some will never leave their rooms. I mean, Mr Constable here…” We had stopped in front of a shut door with “3A” marked on it in bronzed lettering, and which Jazz opened without knocking. It was a small, dark room, the curtains closed, the only light that from a dim bedside lamp. The old man within was laid out in bed, fully clothed, a tartan blanket tucked up to his chest and under his arms. Radio 1 played at a low volume – I recognised the DJ’s voice talking over the music we should be hearing. I thought at first he was asleep, but then noticed his eyelids move up and down in a slow reverse blink. “One of our AWFs, as I like to call them.” I frowned. “Away With the Faerie, Mr Fredster, sir. And not scheduled to return any time soon.” Jazz smiled sadly. “Not even for a holiday.”
The tour finished, Jazz dropped me back at Torsion’s office with a wink and another double-cluck.
“À bientôt, Fredinho, mein lieber Herr!”
I was about to knock, when the door opened, and there she stood, ready to gesture me inside with a brusque little wave of the hand.
“So that’s Seaview. You’ll shadow Jason for the first week, and then take on light duties commensurate with your age and experience. We’ll need you Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday – which is our busiest day, when most relatives come to visit. When school term restarts, you’ll just do the weekend shifts.”
My God, did she think I wanted a career in residential care? She must have read these thoughts on my face.
“Work is work, Frederick. The skills you learn here will be transferable. There is nothing a prospective employer or admissions tutor hates more than a gap in a CV that casual employment could have filled. I’m certain Sir Clive would concur.”
So that was that, then.
“So we’ll see you on Monday at 8.”
In the morning?
Jazz, the disorderly orderly, sprang from a mixture of influences. He seems to be a slightly camp homage to The Dude from The Big Lebowski, mixed with various chemical refugees I’ve known over the years (real and fictional). Wherever he’s come from, he’s a delight to write.
Seaview itself is probably drawn from all of my visits to elderly relatives in various care homes over the years, which have varied greatly in quality, but also share many features (such as communal TV rooms – which is probably my own idea of hell).
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