In a World Gone Mad: 1 May 2020 ...1

Friday: 1 May 2020

21:00 We give Arthur his night medication, make him a cup of tea that he will spill all over the new carpet in his room that has been down two weeks, and persuade him that it’s time for bed. Max and I need some time to just be.

00:30 Arthur has been to the bathroom eight times. He goes, forgets he’s been and goes again. Because of the stairs, every time he leaves his room, one of us jumps up to guide him back. Max does it when he’s awake and when he takes a nightshift, but mostly it’s me because Max sleeps through it. He tends to do until about three in the morning—his normal time for turning the light off—and then, it’s me until Max gets up at lunchtime. Every time we take him back to his room, it’s the same conversation.

“Where am I meant to be going?”

“In your room, Dad”

“Where’s that, then? Am I staying here tonight?”

“Yes, dad, you live here with us now?”

Sometimes he accepts that and is pacified, sometimes it causes him to kick off. At half midnight he sleeps for the first time.

01:30 we hear him banging about in his room. Max gets up to see what’s going on and can’t get in.  Arthur has pushed his armchair up against the door to barricade himself in and max has to forcibly push it open enough to squeeze in. Arthur looks ill, his confusion is dialled to the max and he’s taken his pyjamas off and is sitting naked in his coat and cap on the edge of the bed.

“Are you okay, Dad?”

“No, I’m not, Boy.”

“Why? What’s the matter?”

“Well I’ve had a big argument with that young man down there.”

“Do you mean, Andy—my Andy?”

“Well, Yeah if that’s what he’s called.”

“There was no argument dad, there’d have been shouting if there was. Andy just showed you back to your toom about half an hour ago.”

“He wants to fight me.”

“No, he doesn’t. What’s all this about with your chair up against the door?”

“Well, it’s the war isn’t it. Not this war that we’re in now—the old one.”

“What about it, dad?”

“Well I’ve tried to keep the war from you all, but you all seem to know about it.”

“Of course, we know about the war, Dad. We learned about it in history.”

“I had a terrible time, I did. When I was in the war in Germany, I got my eye shot out.”

“Okay, Dad, come on, stop thinking about that now, and get some sleep.”

“But we need to get in the shelter the bombs are coming.”

He’s got himself worked up again and is yelling the house down.

This is a new one, we’ve never had war terrors before.

Arthur was born in 1933, he was a child in wartime and speaks about it in the happiest terms. He never fought in the war and lost his eye forty years ago in a workshop accident with an unguarded lathe.

During the blitz, he spent most of the war at home. His family shared an air raid shelter with Mr Berry, the local shop owner. I’m sick of hearing about Mr Berry. We hear about him ten times a day. His street was bombed and the next block down from him was obliterated. Their house was unharmed. The local lads played in the bombsite. They used the scaffolding as monkey bars and he always speaks of his war time experiences with fondness. For the last nine months he was evacuated to a farm in Wales and he loved every second of it.

After the conversation last night, and disregarding the part where he’s re-written history, Max is convinced that he suffered some terrible trauma during the war that is coming to the fore in his confusion. That was it for the night, Max was upset and wide awake, nobody got any sleep again and we had another night of tension.  We’re all so tired.

I don’t think Max is right.  Arthur always talks about the war as one of his happiest times. He was young enough to be sheltered from the horror of it and he was a kid out with his mates having a great big adventure.  Most things go into his brain and exit within seconds through the holes. We’ve bought him a newspaper every day and it’s cover to cover about Covid 19.  Because he’s been reading about it every day— he reads the same paper over because he’s forgotten that he’s already read it I think something has stuck in his brain. He only needs the one because it’s a new paper every time he picks it up—but Max insists on buying him one every day because that’s what he’s always known.  I think with weeks of saturation something has stuck that the world isn’t normal.  The usual conversation goes like this –and at least twenty times a day.

“Are we Going out tonight?”

“No Arthur, we’re not allowed to go out.”

“Why not?”

“Because we’re all on lockdown. Remember the virus, you’ve had it? We can’t leave the house.”

“Nobody tells me I can’t leave my own house. I want to go to the pub.”

“There are no pubs, Arthur. They’re all shut because of the virus.”

“The pubs are all shut?”

“Yep, there’s no pubs, bars, restaurants, shops, swimming pools, gymnasiums, all the parks are shut, the cemeteries shut, and people aren’t even allowed to get married.”

Andy laughs at me because I have this sentence on a loop and can spout it now without thinking about it.

“But I want to go to the gym, I need to get on the parallel bars.”

“Arthur, when was the last time you went to the gym?”

“Well, I don’t know, within the last week or so.”

“Sweetheart you haven’t been to a gym since you did your National Service sixty years ago.”

“Exactly, so I want to go swimming. No, I know, I’ll get my bike out and go for a ride.”

“You’re not allow…oh, go on then, but have some lunch first.”

30 seconds later.

“Are we going out, tonight?”

“Yes, if you like.”

“Oh good, I’ll go and find my cap.”

“You do that, love.”

Television is an issue, he goes ballistic if there’s any swearing, nudity or sexual behaviour. God help us all when he sees a gay scene. We have sat through just about every Disney movie going. A few weeks ago, I put Jurassic Park on for him.  He came running down the hall –because he can.

“Young lady, young lady, come and look out of the window.”

“Why, what’s happening, Arthur?”

“It’s about the disease thing. They’re coming down the street.”

“Who are?”

“The animals—wild animals”