Greens and Greys

Greens and Greys

Rosalie Sugrue

Copyright © 2015 Rosalie Sugure

All rights reserved.

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This story is a work of fiction that loosely follows the ‘general pattern’ of the author’s life. All characters are literary creations.

This story is dedicated to Grandchildren

ePub edition

ISBN 978-1-927260-44-9

Philip Garside Publishing Ltd

PO Box 17160

Wellington 6147

New Zealand

books@pgpl.co.nz

www.pgpl.co.nz

Front cover:

Steam excursion on Midland Line

between Christchurch and Greymouth, 2014.

Table of Contents

Title and Copyright

21st Century, Decade 2

December 1959

Golden Rule Days

Danny Boy

Behind Locked Doors

Safe on Canaan’s Side

Salad Days

Things that Go Bump in the Night

Religion and Myth

Bible Stories

A Shocking Story

Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair

Dark Encounters

Life After Deac

Over the Hill

The Shamrock

Yield Not to Temptation

Up From Down Under

On the line

Stock Taking

Riding down from Bangor

Hitchhiking – Wales

When Irish Eyes are Smiling

Hitchhiking – Ireland

I’ve Been Everywhere Man

Hitchhiking – Scotland

Hitchhiking – England

A Bonking Binge

Barefoot and Pregnant

Funiculì, Funiculà

Blood Sweat and Tears

There’s No Place like Home

Positively Married

Plain Living

Hokitika — place of return

Dunedin

Wellington

About this book and the Author

About the Author

Book Description

Praise for Greens and Greys

Also by Rosalie Sugrue from Philip Garside Publishing Ltd

Also by Rosalie Sugrue from Steele Roberts

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21st Century, Decade 2

It is mindboggling to have reached the second decade of the 21st century. When I was young this time zone was a setting for science fiction. And here we are doing all these cool sci-fi things. In our global village linked by satellites we have immediate access to any information we want; can speak to almost anyone anywhere at any time and even see them as we converse.

When I was nearing 50 the world-wide-web was unknown to me and my peers. The inevitable deterioration of vision, hearing and mobility was a bleak contemplation. At the time I feared I was on the top of the roller-coaster to Old Age: ‘Loss of ability, loss of facility, lack of mobility, a sense of futility and soon senility,’ to quote Tom Lehrer, a favourite entertainer of my youth.

20 years on I don’t feel like that at all. The past two decades have been vigorous fun. Now a Septuagenarian, the pace is slackening, but only slightly. Life for senior citizens is far cruiser than it was for former generations. Everything we want is waiting at the tips of our fingers, from enlarging print, getting spoken directions, ordering goods, hearing music of our choice or viewing images of our grandkids. Most senior Kiwis can live comfortably and select pleasures from a smorgasbord of apps and opportunities. Recording memories has become a top passion for senior citizens these days.

The aged like to think they are doing it for their young, even though their cherished children’s children show little interest. Grandparents get the wordless ‘boring, boring, boring’ message, and we understand. And, we keep hoping that eventually our offspring’s offspring will be interested, and discover as did their forebears before them, that despite the vast lifestyle differences that exist between generations, young people themselves are not very different at all.

Every generation has issues to face, mistakes to make, and problems to solve. Even the issues, when you peel back the scant layers of modern clothing, are not very different – finding out who you are; sorting out values; relationships; sex; what you want in life; are universal themes. Everyone has a story of worth.

Moving from school into the adult world is life changing whatever the era.

December 1959

December 1959 marked the end of a personal era. Never again would I press the shiny box-pleats of a gym frock. Life beckoned full of promise. I was the very first of my entire clan to have tertiary education within reach. I had been accepted for Christchurch Teacher’s Training College. Next year this West Coaster would be living in the City. In the interim I’d exchanged school serge for hospital starch, black stockings for white.

The prospect of a pay packet was unbelievably adult. Over the past year I’d done voluntary work in this same old people’s home. Wearing Girl Guide blue, I’d arranged flowers, read to the patients, and boldly encouraged some to do a little drawing. The entrepreneurial art earned bonus Brownie points.

The staff at Eventide Home and Hospital avoided the Guides if they possibly could, so when Matron, a bird like woman who bobbed round the home in a state of perpetual motion, paused to inspect the patients’ efforts, and my art-folder, I was surprised. What followed was amazing – she offered me a paid job, officially as a temporary nurse-aide but in reality a window dresser.

• • •

I can’t believe my good fortune. I’m no Frances Hodgkins but I like mucking around with paint and stuff. And earning is great! Money unleashes thoughts of previously unimagined possibilities – matching hat, purse and shoes, a new suitcase? Or, maybe, a down-payment on a sewing machine? Silly, how could I possibly pay it off!

I’m issued with five crisp white uniforms – a heady abundance for a child who has never owned a second gym frock. Aides wear green belts, explains the woman in charge of supplies. The trained staff wear white. You may have to shift the button, she adds, as I experiment with a loose hoop of starched fabric. We see to laundering but you are responsible for the care of these garments. She hands me a form, headed EVENTIDE HOME AND HOSPITAL, Sign here and print your full name at the top of the page. I sign in copybook Palmer script and carefully print, Mary Rose Sinclair.

Windows, windows make an impression! Windows are what is seen first, chirps Matron when I report for work with green belt firmly buttoned. Christmas windows, girl, that’s what I want! She opens a cupboard and from its tidy interior plucks six shiny jars of poster-paint. After the windows, streamers; your job is to create an air of festivity. With a flourish she indicates another shelf. All you need is here – brushes, scissors, string, drawing-pins and crepe-paper. The residents can help with the streamers. We need lots of streamers, and do something with that tree! She nodded to a fir drooping in a corner. Your art group can make streamers while you paint, she flings over her shoulder as she flits off leaving me to my own devices.

Her directions feel inadequate but further instructions are not forthcoming. Burdened with trepidation I chop up the crepe-paper, rally my art class and give a lesson on concertina-folded streamers. Then, armed with old Christmas cards, my mother’s inspiration, I tackle the dining-room windows and bless my mother.

The able-fingered ladies mass-produced streamers with considerable enthusiasm. Elderly men, past experience has confirmed, prefer dozing to doing. By the end of four days streaky robins, holly, angels, shepherds, candles and stars adorned every accessible window and bi-coloured, snakes looped across all public ceilings.

I don’t share the paper-folding patients’ unbridled delight. Some snakes are fatter than others and some colour combinations questionable. What if matron doesn’t like my work! Wearing white makes me no more visible to staff than when I was wearing blue. A Guide smiles and sings under difficulties. I do my thing by myself and warm to the patients. Smiles are our currency. The fir, now merry with bows and paper chains, tilts in a decorated bucket. The tipsy effect persists despite re-wedgings with a variety of large stones. My daily top-up jug of water is keeping it green but Matron’s lack of comment has me jittery. An air of festivity does not flow easily through the dark rooms.

Good, good, quite satisfactory, she concedes when I report the supplies used.

Thank you Matron. I murmur and repress an impulse to curtsey.

These will add the finishing touch, she says, delving into a drawer in her desk. With magician-like pride she extracts three bags of balloons. I puff and cluster the finishing balloons with regret.

But further luck is lurking. One of the regular aides resigns in a huff and Molly the helper is transformed to Nurse Sinclair, bed-maker, dresser, tea-server and cleaner. Staff attitudes begin to thaw and I begin to feel like a real worker. I learn that being an old people’s home with ‘hospital’ status is cause for institutional pride and high standards. The occupants are referred to as ‘residents’ this being more dignified than ‘patients.’

• • •

Domestic and nursing chores are under one white cap. Mornings begin with beds and descend to floors via the ablution block. Junior nurses dose toilets with Harpic, basins with Whitelily, and concrete floors with Jeyes Fluid before moving to the main rooms. All floors are treated with broom and polisher, and one wing given its weekly waxing – dollops of wax spooned onto blanket-squares and smeared wall to wall with a deck-scrubber. There isn’t a skerrick of carpet in the entire building. Cleanliness tops comfort by miles.

Contact with residents is now confined to serving physical needs; real nurses aren’t paid to fraternise with residents. Roles are clearly defined. The distant superiority of senior staff is an unchallenged given. The role of junior staff is to be busy at all times preferably out of sight of the residents. The role of residents is to sit in the lounge and look tidy for visitors.

We Nurse-aides fill afternoons polishing furniture, turning brass door-handles into mini-mirrors, and performing balancing feats, in tasks called ‘high dusting’ and ‘fanlight cleaning.’ When the seniors slip into the office for a smoke we juniors take refuge in the walk-in linen cupboard, exchanging life plans and hot gossip over laundry bags, mounting linen in perfect piles on labelled shelves, folded edges to the front.

Matron is retiring the week before Christmas, Jan divulges as we idle amid the linen. I reckon that’s why she got you to decorate the place. We only had a few balloons up last year.

All employees past, present and ancillary are cordially invited to mark Matron’s retirement. Normally I bike to work but as this is a late do I took the bus into town. Mr Blackmore, the gardener, has kindly offered me a ride home.

• • •

The lounge feels quite perky filled with staff in civvies, and not a nodding resident in sight. My decorations do look festive, I appraise with relief.

Cook is fussing around her specialities, sausage-rolls and cream-horns. Before my hesitant smile can evolve into a suitable congratulatory remark, a glass of sherry is pushed into my hand by a blustering jovial man. He’s the Chairman of the Board, whispered Jan, as the juniors group watching the sherry dispensing ritual.

On cue, a curt managerial nod, Cook nips into the kitchen and reappears with her pièce de résistance – a large cake with Thank You Matron picked out in silver balls, and 20 Years created in pink rosebuds. The Chairman of the Board taps a sugar bowl with a teaspoon and the crowd hushes. He clears his throat in a manner befitting his station and launches into Unaccustomed as I am…

Matron, diminished by lack of starched white, perches on a prominent chair, vulnerable in green silk and pearls. She accepts the small package with a few gracious words, then pink and flustered, splinters the icing with a breadknife as the celebrants sing For she’s a jolly good fellow… After three hearty cheers the assembled staff and friends are instructed to raise our glasses.

The glass in my hand is an embarrassment. Never has the demon drink passed my lips. However, I’ve worked out a solution! But as I edge towards my tipsy tree the gardener moves between me and the decorated bucket. It is drink or appear rude.

I haven’t actually promised not to drink. Promises are taken seriously in our household. My parents signed The Pledge at an early age, but the only formal pledges I have made relate to Girl Guides, beginning with the Brownie Promise: ‘To do my best, to do my duty to God and the King and to help other people every day.’ Even the Guide Law, with its ten clauses, doesn’t mention alcohol… A Guide is loyal. A Guide obeys orders. A Guide is courteous…

I’m not trapped with a tankard of booze. The glass is doll-size, just slightly bigger than a communion glass, which in my experience holds raspberry cordial. I take a determined gulp. Half a glass of biting sickly liquid hits the back of my palate. Jumping Jehoshaphat! How can a mouthful of liquid be so vile! No wonder my family are strictly teetotal. I choke as silently as possible but bump into the solid rump of Mr Blackmore, so embarrassing!

Formal proceedings over, the official party disperse. The others settle to serious boozing. A guide’s duty is to be useful and help others. I hand round plates, wash dishes, and watch the gardener, wondering when he will tire of drinking. It is well past 11pm when the last of the staff clamber into cars shouting cheerful, West Coast Hoo-roos.

Mr Blackmore is given more to looking than speaking. Apparently beer oils his reluctant social graces. He twitches his greying moustache into smile and makes a pleasant remark about my dress.

I’d made it myself and got a Homecraft A for it. Happy to find him in sociable mood I chatter on as we cross the Grey Bridge. The night is cool. I am pleased not to be battling the Barber, named for its cutting edge. Mr Blackmore isn’t overly impressed that our river has its own wind that is actually visible on cold mornings. He can’t name any other local winds, visible or invisible. I mention one I’ve heard of in Europe that I think is called the Minstrel. It sounds like a happy wind, whistles like the Pied Piper, perhaps? He has nothing to say to this and we lapse into silence.

Instead of turning into my street Mr Blackmore follows the river to the Beach Road. I wonder if he is unsure where I live but he remarks it is a good night to see the moon reflecting on the water. Fancy Mr Blackmore taking time to admire mirrored moonlight! It’s only a short detour to my house. Our sitting-room light, left on for me, beams beacon-like on the hill. High above the Southern Cross flutters like a distant Australian flag.

Mr Blackmore swings the car onto the beach and switches off the engine. Claimed stacks of driftwood stand as tepees silhouetted against the foaming sea. At loss to understand this turn of events I express delight in the curve of the crescent moon, its golden path, and the phosphorescent glow of the waves.

He lunges, hot and heavy, heaving and groping, pinning me to the seat. I gag on beery breath and struggle against bulk and bristles. Come on you little cock-tease. Hands like spades dig at breasts and skirts. My right hand is wedged against the hand-brake. I grope, grab, and the lever responds, The car’s moving, I gasp.

It’s rolling forwards towards soft sand. He curses and releases his hold. Out and off, I scramble over the shingle and run, along road, around corner and up the hill. The revving engine and spinning wheels echo in my head, disrupting the rhythmic roar of ocean and the silence of the sleeping street.

I make the obligatory stop at my parents’ bedroom door. Have a nice time, dear?

Mr Blackmore tried to…kiss me.

They laugh. They’d known him for years. He lives up the end of Beach Road with a large wife and five children.

Yes dear. The sitting-room clock whirrs into chiming. Goodness gracious it’s midnight! Now off to bed. It’s lucky you’re on the afternoon shift tomorrow.

• • •

It wasn’t lucky. The main shift has a staff of four or five the late shift only two. The trained nurse rang in sick at the last moment, and what with the holidays and Matron leaving, a replacement hasn’t been found. I have to do the 4:30 to 10:30 pm shift alone. I’m OK with this, it’s just supervising tea and dishes, assisting with some undressing and toileting and giving out the pills. Apart from the pills I’m used to doing it most of it unaided. The senior nurse usually had things to do in the office.

The most difficult resident is Ivy, diabetic of scrawny build and bad complexion. She’s younger than the other residents and notorious for her moods. I recall the words of an experienced aide, When she goes off, she really goes off! I’ve seen that Ivy high as a kite, took two of us to hold her down for her jab.

I’ve never given an injection but I’ve watched a few and once practised on an orange. What if I got the dose wrong! Too much and she might drift into an insulin coma. Too little and she could go into a diabetic coma through lack of insulin. How would I know one from the other? The treatment for one could kill if disorientation was caused by the other.

I have another worry in the silent form of Mr Hanson, stroke victim. The white-haired gent is confined to bed by a broken arm. It isn’t worth the effort getting him up and dressed what with one arm permanently crippled and the other in a sling. He has to be panned – well, bottled, being a man. ‘Bottle’ is a strange name for these implements. They aren’t made of glass. Like bedpans these ‘bottles’ are made of stainless steel. They are smaller than the bedpans and have a handle and a spout. Why not ‘teapot’ or even ‘pee-pot’ I had silently giggled when their function was explained.

Mr Hanson was not to know that his was the first adult penis I had ever seen. I’d watched furtively as staff nurse nonchalantly picked it up and planted it in the bottle. It didn’t end in a cute knob like my little brother’s. His thing went on and on like a great white slug. Alone, I’d managed to flip it in with the spout – like digging weeds with a trowel.

• • •

It’s that time again, I say attempting cheerful nonchalance as I pull back the blankets. It’s a nice evening. With stainless steel receptacle suitably poised I lift the striped pyjama top (bottoms being a nicety denied the bedridden for reasons of convenience). I look but can’t see it. The floppy male appendage has disappeared. Mr Hanson seldom shows emotion but his pallor pinks as I hesitate. So does mine.

Further investigation reveals it hasn’t fallen off; it is tucked in his groin. I have to touch it, unstick it from its lodgings amidst coarse hair and other unmentionables and plop it in the wretched container. I psych up and grasp. Pop!

I pause mid-action. Pop! Pop! Unclenching fingers but not teeth, I spin out of the room. Ivy, open safety-pin in hand is dancing down the corridor to a tune of her own. Christmas, bloody Christmas! Bloody Christ! Why pick on me? Everyone gets to eat cake and lollies but not Ivy. You can all go to blazes. I’m just a bloody pincushion, so take that and that and that. Dangling bunches of rubber rags blaze her trail.

What on earth can I do to stop her? I’d learnt from baby-sitting that diversion works with small children. What can diabetics eat for a treat? Cheese maybe? I’ll make you a special cheese-biscuit supper, I gulp. Please stop. Surprisingly she surrenders her balloon-buster and follows me into the treatment room.

Six cracker-biscuits and thick cheese slices, by eight o’clock, she orders.

I nod, hoping there are crackers in the locked pantry, I know there is cheese in the fridge. With heart thudding I usher her into the treatment room and fit a fresh sterile needle.

She bares a skinny arm. Peace on earth, eh? Pieces more likely. That’s all I am. Holy, huh, holey you mean. Go on, make another hole in me. Swab and stab, holey, holey, holey.

I swab her left biceps with meths, squirt a dribble of insulin into the air and rehearse the orange lesson instructions. Don’t be nervous. Throw like a dart. I throw. Her skin is like leather. The needle bounces. I try a stab. Ivy moves with snake speed, twisting and grabbing. Brandishing the syringe she darts around the room shrieking obscenities. Really off? High as a kite? There are no balloons to burst in the treatment room. I back against the bench. How long will it last? It doesn’t. She goes quiet, crafty quiet. What now? Her eyes engage with mine. Slowly Ivy raises her weapon with point aimed at me. Cornered physically and psychologically all I can do is yelp. Another twist and the needle pierces her own forearm. She laughs, drops the syringe into the kidney dish, flings me a look of scorn, and strides out the door.

Her look is deserved. I am an incompetent ninny. Pull yourself together, I tell myself sternly, and catching sight of the distant sea recall Nan’s dismissive admonition to the small catastrophes of childhood, worse things happen at sea.

But my hands are shaking as I deposited Ivy’s syringe and Mr Hanson’s bottle in their respective sterilisers. For goodness sake get a hold of yourself. You’re all of a dither girl, all at sea. Nan’s words continue, calm down, breathe God’s good air.

I seek steadiness in the garden, away from the ever-present smell of the elderly, urine and disinfectant. My Nan is lots older than Ivy, older than Mr Hanson even, but quite fit, despite seven children and early widowhood. Strange that she uses the expression worse things happen at sea – the beach is one of her favourite places. What would she make of last night? Married at 18, she’d never done paid employment. This was beyond her ken.

Sometimes passers-by stray over the footpath boundary between the eventide garden and the public park. Someone is looking at our flowers. Relieved by the prospect of a diversion I call out, Lovely evening, isn’t it?

The broad back straightens. Mr Blackmore is holding a rose-spray. Too late I remember he is on contract and chooses his own hours. Is it? he snarls.

After moments of blank panic I discover I’ve locked myself inside the office and am petrifying to the centre of the floor. The wall-clock coughs a solitary dong. Half past seven, time to distribute the night medication.

The wooden pill tray waits on the bench. 32 labelled hollows display a lethal array of tablets and capsules, counted out by staff nurse. Do I know all the residents’ names? Some aren’t addressed by surname. The new fear rekindles the former fear. I check the window. The lawn view is empty, apart from a phallic candle painted by myself along with the words, Goodwill towards Men.

Golden Rule Days

To understand any story it helps to know the beginning.

I was a winter baby pushed into a cold, wet world while West Coast lambs and calves were still snug in their mothers’ wombs. I’m told I wore a worried expression for the first few weeks but once I got the hang of smiling I smiled beautifully at anyone who engaged my attention. I like to think I project a sunny nature. ‘Count your blessings’ has served me well – faith seasoned with humour is my way of