Looking for Andrew (Journal 2)

It's my lunch break and I am sitting in the doctor's waiting room with Andrew.  I had expected it to be difficult to register him and so had armed myself with some information, in case argument was necessary. The NHS leaflet I found online says that there is no legal obligation for a patient to have a fixed abode or any means of identification. So why do medical centres say that there is one?

The first GP surgery I rang refused to take him, but the second couldn’t be more helpful. They get round the lack of an address by registering him at the clinic's address and don’t ask for ID.  

As we wait, I discover that Andrew likes babies. He beams at the little ones who arrive for their injections.  When Andrew has to fill out the registration form, I also discover that he can’t read or write very well, only enough to get by he says. I can only imagine what a nightmare the bureaucratic, written question-oriented processes of the Housing department must be for him. 

I also discover that Andrew is very impatient. "How long's it going to be?"  he keep asking me and I tell him he needs to relax and give in to the situation.  I'm the one who should be restless - I had to be back at work ten minutes ago.

The nurse who has just cleaned and dressed Andrew’s ulcer comes to ask him some questions about his Diabetes.  His blood sugars are very high she tells him and he replies that they always are. 

"Sorry about the wait," she says to me.  "I need to speak to the doctor about his readings."

“How long is it going to be?” he asks for about the twentieth time that minute.

You’re keeping him from his important social engagements, I say to Nurse Tara.

The Doctor is on a conference call to the agencies who deal with housing. They say that temporary housing is the only option, but how are they to contact him, if he doesn’t have a phone? The GP says that Andrew needs to get a shower and good night’s sleep. He needs to keep his feet clean. His lifestyle is chaotic and she’s afraid he’ll die too young otherwise. Andrew is the same age as her children.

One week later and Andrew looks much more healthy since I found him a doctor; his colour is better and he has slightly more energy, although he is still walking with great difficultly.  He is painfully thin and his blue eyes seem enormous in his hollowed out face. He has cheekbones to die for. 

“How are you today?” asks Andrew. He always asks me how I am. How was work? How has your day been?

I’m not sure whether he listens to the answers. He is constantly scanning the street from his blood encrusted duvet cover. He is always half-looking, half-listening, especially when he’s begging. You won’t listen to me here, I say. How’s about we go for a picnic?​ I just mean that we should take our sandwiches and chunks of watermelon and sit in the nearest park on our carrier bags.

Andrew’s arm hurts. “It’s broken,” he reckons. “I went over the handlebars on a push bike.”

Push bike? He’s morphed into a vintage street urchin.

I look sceptical. 

“Well, fractured,” he says. As though this is something less serious than “broken”.

I pick up Andrew’s litter from the floor outside the charity shop and he starts to copy me.  He’s been sitting on a pile of free Metro newspapers from the railway station.  I put them in the nearest bin, along with two empty Costa coffee cups.  He picks up the sugar wrappers and places them in my outstretched hand.​

People often give Andrew food and drinks instead of money.  They don’t know he’s Diabetic, so they give him pastries, fizzy pop and orange juice.  Once, Andrew showed me a mini bottle of Chardonnay that a passer-by had given him.  “I’m saving this for later,”  he told me. He was delighted with it.​

He’s delighted with everything he’s given.  He shows me his collection of cheese twists and other carb loaded delicacies.  He knows he needs proper cooked food though and that his diet is killing him.  When he tells me that what he really wants is lasagne and chips, I can’t help but feel that he’s hinting.  I’ve never cooked a lasagne in my life, I almost tell him, but instead roll my eyeballs.  

What Andrew really misses is his Dad’s home-cooked Sunday dinners, but he can’t make them any more because he died of cancer.  I wonder if this is the trigger for his homeless but I don't ask him.  I like to let things come out naturally.  Sometimes we chat and sometimes he tells me things he's in need of.

Things that Andrew wants (not in order of preference):​

• A mobility Scooter or a 50cc motorbike
• A home​
• His own fish and chip shop​
• Some new socks and boxer shorts​
• Some black Converse All Stars (he has his eye on my yellow ones, but fortunately my feet are much smaller than his)​
• Some clothes​
• A sleeping bag​
• A “touch screen” mobile phone​

All Andrew seems to have is the clothes he stands up in.  That is, apart from the bottle of shampoo, suitcase and pack of playing cards I’ve given him.​ “Learn patience, Andrew.” I wrote on the packet.  He’s never mentioned them, so I’m not sure if he got my intended double meaning.​