He calls her every day. They speak and I interject while preparing supper. I like it. On a Sunday he gets her to read out the home’s entertainment itineray. She rattles the paper to give the appropriate sound effect and begins. Her voice has weakened with age, though it was never booming. She reads slowly and quietly. There is the ubiquitious Bingo, a quiz, massage and pampering, though this week there is also something called fruit platter making. Or should that be preparing. There is never any detail. We ask her what that is, she doesn’t know. She never does because she never does. She did, however, go to the axe-throwing. What? we ask. It’s happening again today. It’s quite good, she said. The axes are plastic and you hurl them at something resembling a dart board, apparently. They stick for a while, she says, then they fall off. I suppose it is a form of exercise, those it’s name is rather at odds with the genteel nature the home attempts to portray. Perhaps the residents get things of their chests with such hurling. Who knows?
