Taking Care 4 (iii) - Day Centre

      Thandie's group had sheets of paper with the letters of the alphabet printed on them.  One or two people could read the letters, repeating after Thandie - though they weren't all able to name the letter when she pointed at it again.  One lad was colouring each letter in with different coloured pencils.  Ian was with this group, but wasn't doing anything except rocking and gurgling to himself.  I gave him a pencil and drew a letter for him to copy, but he just drew lines across the page until the pencil snapped.  He seemed happy enough, though.  Shirley was at another table, reading from a children's book - slowly, but thoughtfully, vocalising each word to herself.  Jamie and Jake were with Maggie's 'chat' group, discussing stories from a newspaper she'd bought in.  She mentioned a piece about the Queen, so they talked about her and where she lived in London.  Ganesh was in this group, too.  He beckoned me to go and sit beside him.

       "Going ho-holiday soon." he said.

       "Where are you going?"

       "Farta... Farta..."

       Maggie boomed in.  "You're going to Fuertaventura, Ganesh, and we're not talking about holidays yet, are we.  We're talking about the Queen and London, so pay attention."

       He looked at her as she spoke, but then turned back to me with that mischievous grin again.

       "Farta... tura," he said.

       "Nice," I said.

       "Drink BEER!" he blurted out then, laughing and rocking hard as he did so.

       Maggie boomed in louder. "Ganesh!  Stop talking about your holidays and pay attention.  And stop rocking in that chair, because you'll break it.  I won't tell you again."

       I caught Laura's eye again.  She came over to Ganesh.

       "Your mum and dad live in London, don't they Ganesh.  Whereabouts in London are they?"

       "Ha... smith."

       "I know Hammersmith," I said.  "There's a nice bridge there."

       He brightened again.  "Bidge.  Big bidge."

       I drew a rough picture of the bridge as I remembered it and then put the name underneath, saying each letter out loud as I wrote it, getting him to copy me.  It seemed to work and take the heat off, because Maggie then ignored him.  When I'd finished I gave the picture to him and he held it up, triumphantly.

       "Maggie, look.  Ha-smith Bidge!"

       "Yes, very nice," she said, sternly.

       He put the picture down again, then shook my hand enthusiastically.

       "Picture," he said.  "Put on wall."

       I asked Laura and she said it would be fine, so Ganesh came with me to choose a spot.  When it was up, he shook my hand again, then pointed at himself.

       "My picture.  Me did."

       I wrote his name in pencil on the bottom corner of it.  He was overjoyed.

       "Yes!  Ganesh picture."

       He shook my hand once more.

       Once again, it was a great feeling.  I was really enjoying this.

       After that, I went over to Greg to see how he was doing.  He noticed that I was getting close and suddenly stopped laying the cards down, put his chin on his chest, and shook his head.

       "It's alright, Greg.  I just wanted to watch.  Carry on."

       I backed off a little bit, behind him, and he was alright again.  It was fascinating to watch him.  I tried to figure out whether he was placing the cards down in a particular order - numbers, or colours, or suits - but there didn't seem to be any method.  Except that he would start in the top left each time, lay a row of eight, then carry on like that until he'd laid six rows of eight and a row of four.  The only variation was that sometimes he would start a row on the right and go left, or sometimes he would start a row in the middle and work outwards both ways.  As soon as he'd laid the last card, though, he'd push them all together and start again, over and over.  It completely absorbed him.

       Laura came over to me at one point.

       "That was great with Ganesh.  Well done.  He likes a bit of attention like that and gets bored very easily.  He does tend to get it in the neck a lot, though."

       "I noticed," I said.

       She rolled her eyes.

       "You get used to it after a while," she said.

       People might not have been generally good with letters and numbers, but they knew what the time was.  The moment the clock hit 10:45, there were a few restless stirrings.  One of Maggie's people - a smartly-dressed chap in his thirties with grey hair - leaned across the table towards her.

       "Coffee time, Maggie.  Can I have my cigarette, please?"

       He got the predictable response.

       "I'm perfectly aware of what the time is, Gary, thank you very much.  We'll have coffee in a minute, and you'll have your cigarette when I say you have it."

       But just the word 'coffee' said twice was enough, and people were already getting up and queuing at the kitchen door.  Laura had gone out there and I could hear her getting the mugs ready.  Thandie got up and came over to me.

       "We'll have a drink at golf.  We need to get the folks together that we're taking."

       Jake and Greg wanted to go from our group.  We had a couple from Maggie's group - Ganesh and a young woman called Danielle - and a couple from Laura's: a tall, quietly-spoken chap called Terry and the young man, Matthew - the one who was good at word games.  I'd noticed he seemed generally bright - he'd been sitting quietly with a crossword book - but was very nervous and shy.  He had an almost robotic way of walking, would never look anyone in the eye, and visibly flinched a couple of times when Maggie had raised her voice.  I felt an affinity with him for just those reasons.

       They got their coats on and Thandie took some petty cash from a tin in the kitchen cupboard.  There was a golf caddy-bag just inside the door with an assortment of different clubs in it.

       "If you can grab that please, Will, we're set."

(continued)  https://www.abctales.com/story/harryc/taking-care-4-iv-day-centre