No Rest For Gilly

No Rest For Gilly by Keith Trezise

(This story is based on 'A Near Perfect Ending' one of several one-act
plays written by Keith Trezise. Visit his website for more
details)

Gilly was asleep in the chair and looked at peace with the world. A
world which knew peace thanks to the heroic deeds of Gilly and others
of his generation who had seen action in the fields of France. The
tranquillity that surrounded him in this state of unconsciousness was
but a brief respite. The waking hours were leaden with the pain and
anguish that had accompanied him into old age. At least in that
twilight world of sleep the crushing pain was for an instant forgotten.
Whatever dreams managed to pervade his thoughts in that limbo land of
random imaginings brought welcome solace to the excruciations he bore
whilst wide awake. But then, when was the last time he was fully
wide-awake? His senses were dulled by the pharmaceutical fancies of his
doctor, prescribed in an effort to afford him some quality of
life.

The argument started. A quiet exchange of thoughts between Wendy and
Peter building to a crescendo of hissed-through-the-teeth shouts,
muffled so that Gilly would not awaken.

"You're going to have to tell him, Peter," insisted Wendy.

"And how am I going to do that love? How the hell am I going to tell
him that?"

"It's the only way," she said, "Can't you see that? Gilly has got to go
into a nursing home and receive the proper care."

"Proper care? Do you think that Gilly is going to get special
treatment? Those places are factory units - people processing plants
designed to put off the inevitable and to line people's pockets."

"How can you say that? They genuinely care for their patients. We can't
do any more for him Peter. We have to let him go at some point. Nursing
homes know how to deal with people like him."

"'People like him?' 'People like him?' What the hell do you mean by
that? Who exactly are 'people like him'? Peter was furious.

"Stop getting so agitated." Said Wendy. Gilly stirred in the chair and
they both lowered the tone of their voices once more. "Look Peter. If
your father goes into a nursing home he will have a better quality of
life. Don't you want that for him?"

"I don't measure quality of life by how many different types of drug
the medical profession can push into a man's body to try and lessen his
pain. Quality of life has something to do with getting up in the
morning and being able to look forward to the day ahead. Quality of
life has something to do with making plans for the future. Being able
to walk down the street whenever you want, without the aid of sticks
and being wracked with pain each time you take one step forward."

"Peter!" said Wendy with a sigh that echoed through the room like a
forgotten prayer, "Your dad is eighty-two. He can't expect that sort of
quality of life."

"Why the hell not?" Peter called out a little louder than he intended.
Gilly moved again in the chair and silent words tumbled out of his
mouth and fell to the floor in a pool of dream-induced rhetoric.

Wendy again tried to reason with Peter. "People grow old. Their bodies
wear out. We can't fight time and at least a nursing home will see that
Gilly receives the proper care."

"No Wendy." Said Peter resolutely, "I've made up my mind. Dad is not
going to spend the end in some institute. Where's the dignity in
that?"

"To Hell with dignity! How are you going to live with yourself? How the
hell can you expect me to live with you either? Your idea is completely
insane."

"It wasn't just my idea. Gilly had a lot of input too. He told me that
he never wanted to go into an institute. He begged me not to send him
to an institute. And my father is not one to beg easily."

Gilly finally yielded up the sedateness of the peaceful blackness to
face the aching red of reality and uttered a groan that echoed the
return of agonizing consciousness. "Keep your voices down," he said,
"There's an old man here trying to sleep."

"How are you dad?" asked Wendy. The twisted grimace on the old man's
face more than answered for him.

"I'll go and get you a couple of your pain killers dad," said
Peter.

Peter went off in search of the painkillers whilst Wendy attended to
Gilly in an attempt to make him more comfortable.

"Is that any easier dad?" she asked.

"The pain is constant love. I'll bear it&;#8230; I always do."

"I don't envy you that pain," said Wendy, her worried, sparkling eyes
reflecting the depth of her concern.

"If it was just physical pain it wouldn't be so bad," said Gilly
breathing uneasily, "And it hurts me to see the pain I'm causing the
people around me."

"What do you mean?"

"It hurts you. It hurts Pete. It hurts my lovely grandkids."
"How can it possibly hurt us?"

"It makes me bad-tempered. I get crabby with the kids."

"But they adore you dad. For Goodness sake! Even I get crabby with the
kids. Grown-ups are supposed to get crabby with the kids. And how do
you think you hurt Peter and I?"

Gilly momentarily paused to catch his breath. He found conversation
difficult because his lungs had to work so much harder when he talked,
"I wasn't asleep just now Wendy. I heard what you were saying. I heard
how my pain was responsible for your argument."

Wendy stooped down beside his chair and took his hand in hers. She
looked into Gilly's sad watery eyes and said, "Then make Peter realise
you need to go into a nursing home and be looked after properly."

"No," was Gilly's response and his resolve was epitomised in that one
simple word.

Peter returned with a glass of water and the tablets that held promise
of partial relief for Gilly. They could never fully eradicate the awful
hurting that constantly washed over him.

"Dad!" said Wendy, frustration revealing itself in her voice like a
reluctant debutante, "It will be the best thing for you."

Gilly sipped on the glass of water in an effort to aid the passage of
the capsules of respite that were struggling in his throat," I've seen
too many of my friends go into those places. They end up
unrecognisable. Shadows of what they were. Don't let the bright lights
and sterile d?cor fool you. Those places are always dark and miserable.
Dark and totally miserable."

"You make them sound like Victorian workhouses." Wendy couldn't
understand why Gilly wouldn't listen to reason.

"I make them sound like what they are." Gilly said with the kind of
tone in his voice that suggested he knew only too well what he was
talking about, "They destroy the soul of a man. They provide him with a
lingering death, the kind you wouldn't wish on the lowliest domestic
pet. Is that the kind of life you have mapped out for me?"

"I'm only thinking of you dad!" Wendy was near to tears as she said
this.

"Have you been listening to Gilly at all?" Peter asked Wendy.

"Of course I've been listening to Gilly! I've heard what Gilly has had
to say on the subject. But at the end of the day we have got to act in
his best interests." Wendy banged her fist against the wall in an
effort to release the stress inside her.
"Then cut out all this rubbish about putting him in a nursing home
then." Peter's anger was beginning to show. He knew he could never put
his father into a nursing home against his wishes.

"God! It's like banging your head up against a brick wall. You two are
crazy." Wendy crossed the room and flung herself into her chair.

Gilly drew in a deep breath that sounded as though it was the four
winds quarrelling and said, "Calm down you two. You're not going to
solve anything by going at each other's throats."

"And why are you being so bloody calm about this Gilly? It's not bloody
natural. Aren't you interested in your life?" Wendy decided that as
pleading with Gilly hadn't worked she would try being angry with
him.

"I was interested for the first seventy-five years." Gilly informed
her, "Before I got really ill. Before my body started getting torn
apart by pains that you can't even imagine."

Wendy sprang to her feet and crossed the room to Gilly's chair and
looked the old man in the eyes once more. "That's what we have doctors
for dad," she said, "That's what nursing homes are here for. People
like you that need proper, professional care and attention."

Peter sprang to Gilly's defence. "To do what Wendy? Pump him so full of
drugs that he just sits in a chair by the window, looking out at a
world that passes him by whilst he sits there and quietly vegetates? Is
that what you want for dad? Is that what you'll want for me when I get
like Gilly here? Every day the same. Being cared for. Looked after by
people doing things for you that you used to be able to do yourself.
Knowing that your life has gone even though you are still alive. If you
can call that sort of existence being alive. Well I tell you here and
now. I don't want that kind of existence. And neither does
Gilly."

"Well I'm not backing down on this one," Wendy said, "Gilly is going to
be cared for. I'll get a court order if I need to, but Gilly is going
to be cared for.

Gilly moved in the chair. He was so agitated with Wendy that the
increased pain didn't matter. "Are my wishes so unimportant to you?" he
demanded, "Don't you care about what I want? Surely to God I ought to
have a say in my own future. Isn't that supposed to be the way of
things?

Wendy tried to appeal to Gilly's common sense and said, "But you're not
thinking straight. Either of you. I do care about you Gilly. For
Goodness sake - This whole argument is taking place because I care for
you. You've been my father too for the past twenty-three years. I love
you Gilly. You know I do. That's why you have to give up this idea of
yours and go into the home. If only for my sake."

The pain in Gilly's body spread its tentacles through his anger and
drew him back into its unbearable clutches. Gilly succumbed with a
whimpering cough that served to punish him for the audacity of ignoring
the agony for a brief moment.

"Do you want some more water dad?" asked Peter; concerned about the
effect the argument was having on his father.

"I'd rather have a coffee," replied Gilly who somehow managed to
punctuate that statement with a boyish smile aimed at his
daughter-in-law Wendy. The smile had the desired effect when Wendy
offered to make coffee for him and left the room. As soon as they were
alone Gilly turned to Peter and said, "You're not going to give into
her are you son?"

"Of course not dad. We agreed it would never come to that."

"No matter what?" There was a seriousness in Gilly's voice that
slightly unnerved Peter.

"No matter what, dad."

"So," Gilly said, "Are you ready?"
Peter was caught off guard. "Ready?" he asked, not really sure whether
Gilly meant what he thought he had meant.

"Yes, son. Now is as good a time as any."

"But it's so soon. Have you thought it out enough?"

"I think the past five years has been plenty time enough for thinking
it out, don't you?"

"Well, yes. But it seems so sudden, that's all." Peter was feeling
dazed because things he'd been putting off for so long were now moving
at a very fast pace.

"You know what to do?" Gilly's question broke through the glass wall of
Peter's inner guilt, jerking his confused mind back into full
consciousness.

"Yes dad. Where is it?" asked Peter nervously.

Gilly's nerve was seemingly made of steel. He pointed his finger at the
sideboard and said, "Top drawer. Quickly. Before Wendy gets
back."

Peter walked slowly over to the sideboard and opened the top drawer. He
started moving papers, spilling them onto the floor; watching them
cascade to the floor in a macabre slow motion ballet. He quickly found
the packet containing the hypodermic needle and he took it out of the
drawer and held it up in front of him. Studying the instrument of his
father's impending death with awe. This combination of plastic and
surgical steel was the deliverance from perpetual pain for his father
and the whisperer of perpetual torment to his own soul.

"Quickly, Peter," said Gilly, "Wendy will be back soon."

"I'm scared, dad," confessed Peter as he crossed the room to
Gilly.

"Make sure you hit the vein. Inject that air bubble into the vein. It's
the veins that carry the blood to your heart you know." Gilly
said.

"Is it dad?" asked Peter, not really focussed enough to comprehend any
reply his father might offer.

"I haven't got a bloody clue son," said Gilly with a trace of a smile
on his lips, "But I know that when you've done it I won't have long
left to suffer this unbearable pain."

Peter carefully unbuttoned the sleeve of Gilly's shirt and slowly
rolled it up ready to administer the injection. "Shouldn't I wipe your
arm with antiseptic before I inject you dad?"

Gilly laughed and said, "What the bloody hell for? Frightened I'll get
an infection or something?"

Peter succumbed to laughter that was brought on by nerves rather than
the humour of the situation.

"Do it now, son. It's time," said Gilly who was no longer
laughing.

Peter looked into his father's eyes and said simply, "I love
you."

Gilly regarded his son for a moment and said, "I love you too son.
Remember that what you are doing is an act of pure love. There is no
recrimination for love." The two men embraced and unashamedly allowed
their love for one another leak from their eyes.

Peter drew back the plunger of the hypodermic needle and was about to
discharge Gilly of the burden of suffering when Wendy walked into the
room carrying Gilly's coffee.

"No!" she cried and coffee mingled with air as the cup was dropped from
her hand as she ran towards the two men in an effort to prevent the
murder.

Shocked, Peter dropped the needle into his father's lap and Gilly, for
his part, started to experience a new pain. A crushing pain in his
chest that made him believe his body was about to explode. The old man
raised himself from his chair and clutched at his chest before falling
to his knees and collapsing to the floor like a felled tree.

"What did you do to him?" screamed Wendy, not feeling the pain where
the scalding coffee had touched her legs.

Peter knelt beside his father and said, "I was going to inject an air
bubble into him, but I didn't get a chance. You came in before I could
stick the needle in him."

"Does that mean he's all right?" Wendy asked.

Peter did what he could to find a pulse. "I think he's dead. There's no
pulse. Phone for an ambulance."

Wendy ran into the hall and dialled the emergency services. Peter
cradled his father's head in his lap. He stroked his hair and said,
"You got your way dad. No nursing home for you. No rest for Gilly." He
bent down and kissed his father's cheek, "The funny thing you know is
that Wendy did it. She killed you by trying to stop me doing it. I bet
you loved that dad. I bet you loved that."

Peter embraced his father and laughed gently at what had happened. Then
his shoulders shook uncontrollably with the bitter-sweet marriage of
humour and tragedy as he alternately laughed and cried at the departure
of the most important man in his life.