He calls her every day. They mostly talk what he calls “bollocks” about what she’s watching on TV, or reading, or whether she’s had a walk (up and down the Home’s corridors in this weather) or been ‘squedging’ (their words for a kind of buttock squeezing to strengthen her muscles) and doing ‘chair ballet’ – or as they call it ‘pointy toes’, to which he always adds “with no farting, I hope”. I’m usually making supper when he calls her and I generally listen or add a comment which he passes on, particularly when I can hear that he is struggling to think of things to say. It is difficult for her. She is a private person, self-contained and elegant. The effusive friendliness of such places is not her thing. But what choice does she have but to acquiesce. She keeps it at bay as much as she can. ‘They’ve put a plastic wreath on my door,’ she told us on Christmas Eve. And yesterday she talked about being “dragooned into going to meet Santa.” Poor love. What did you get? he asked. A box of crayons, she replied. And some time later she told him that she’d also been given a pair of trainers. Perhaps from the Home management? They’d clearly noticed her efforts to remain active and thought it would be an appropriate gift. She hates them. They’re Nike, she said, and black and pink. No, I can’t see her in trainers. Poor love. Anyway, we’ve agreed on our next visit to take them, and the crayons, away with us under cover of darkness. It is good to hear her laugh.
