In a World Gone Mad: 1 May 2020 ...2

06:33 this morning after a bad night.

“Helloooo. Helloooo. Is there anybody there?” It’s like being at a flipping séance.

The three of us converge from different directions like The Walking Dead. Andy comes from his room, Max from the bedroom and me from the Living room.

“It’s okay, I’ve got this, you two go back to bed? Arthur, come downstairs love and I’ll get you a cup of tea.”

“Oh lovely, is there a biscuit with that?”

And so, it begins, different day, same shit.

I shouted at him this morning for the first time. I often speak to him with a lack of patience these days, but today is the first time I’ve yelled at him—but in my defence it was from outside and he is deaf. I felt awful telling Max that I’d shouted at his dad.

I want to make a distinction.  There are two Arthur’s. One is Arthur riddled with dementia and the other is the pig-headed arsehole who is sly and cunning and knows exactly what he’s doing.

My biggest problem with him and one that I will never stop pulling him up on and one that I can’t and won’t tolerate in my house—is him spitting phlegm into all of my mugs and glasses and in my kitchen sink.

I am vomit and phlegm phobic. It’s a high phobia and Arthur has been doing it since I’ve met him, and we’ve had many a do over it.  He broke the dishwasher the other week and it took over a week for a new one to be delivered, I was almost apoplectic. I’ve never seen the point of a dishwasher and it’s always been Max’s thing. Why go to the trouble of washing the pots just to put them in a dishwasher and wash them again? Since Arthur moved in, my home feels contaminated.  I can’t be without it.  I have my own cup and glass. It’s a pain because as soon as they are empty I have to wash them immediately and put them on the top of a cupboard that Arthur can’t reach. Four times now I’ve caught him with either my cup or glass and I’ve had to buy new ones before I could have another drink. In the old flat, it used to annoy Max, he said I was being pathetic and to get over it—now he gets it.  When you find one of your mugs half full of phlegm, or you go the kitchen sink and there is mucus dripping from your upturned washing up bowl it’s just horrible. I need better words and could, but my eyes have just filled with water and I’m gagging again writing about it. Horrible will have to do.

What changed and why I shouted at him, is because I found something out this week. When he first moved in, my only release was an hour taking the dog for her run. We don’t even get that very often now because he has to come with us, or he throws a paddy and that sets him off for the rest of the night. Sometimes I put my foot down and insist that we have that one hour on our own, but then I don’t enjoy it because we feel guilty about not taking him— he loves being out and can walk miles—and we worry about what he’s doing at home.

Andy is supposed to look after him but, being a teenager, often he doesn’t. He thinks opening his bedroom door and going back to sleep is enough.  The other week, we came home to find a cyclist in our front garden. He had his phone out and was on hold waiting for a connection to the police.

Arthur had banged on the window to get his attention and told him that some strangers had kidnapped him and locked him in this house. He said he didn’t know where he was and that he’d been taken and bundled into a car. He told the man that his wife was waiting for him at home and would be worried. They’ve been divorced for nearly fifty years, but in his mind she’s still his wife and he won’t accept that she’s re-married.

Getting back to the spitting this morning. The other day was a bad one and I insisted that we went out alone. Andy told me that the second I left the house; Arthur made a point of coughing up his chest and spitting it in the sink. Andy asked him what he was doing, and he said that he had to do it when, ‘The cleaning woman’s not here,’ because she won’t let him spit in his own sink when she visits.  

I thought the spitting situation was getting better, but the sly old man waits for me to be out of sight to do it.

This morning, I made him his breakfast and left him at the kitchen table to eat it while I went outside to sit with my plants. I saw him come to the sink and he started hawking in his throat.

I hammered on the window and yelled at him.

“Arthur,”

He looked up, with a mouthful of stuff, as though he’d been shot.”

“What?”

“No, you do not spit in my sink. Bathroom. Now.”

He had his mouth half open.

“But it’s all in my Maawff”

“I don’t care, get up to that bathroom.”

I didn’t see him again for half an hour.

Sometimes it’s hard to know where dementia Arthur stops, and arsehole Arthur begins. I have endless patience with dementia Arthur and take my frustration out on Max. I smile sweetly at Arthur then go and give Max both barrels. However bloody-minded Arthur who knows damned well that it upsets me and is chancing his arm is a filthy, disgusting old man.

Max is tired and raw after last night. Arthur was on his fifth cup of tea and Max was making his sixth. He has to have a cup of tea in his hands at all times—he’s on Decaf teabags.

“What can I do, boy?”

“There’s nothing to do, dad. We’re all in the same boat, you can sweep the garden if you like.”

“I’ve already done that.” He hadn’t but it’s not worth arguing with him.  We try to keep things real and make him use his brain. We challenge him when he dials up the crazy and try to focus his mind—but sometimes it’s easier to agree.

“Oh, well in that case, there’s nothing to do.”

“I’ve worked every day of my life. Why aren’t we out at work, Boy. Don’t you have a job?”

“Yes, dad, I have a job, but we’re on lockdown remember?”

“Well I think you’re just lazy. You should be out at work supporting your family so that you can get your own house and don’t have to live in mine. What kind of man lets somebody else feed his family?”

I shot Max the look—too late.

“Dad this is our house, mine and Sarah’s and you live here with us.  You don’t pay for anything –we pay for it all out of our bloody wages that we’ve worked hard for.”

“Well, I start work every morning at six o’clock.”

“Dad, when did you retire?”

“I’m not retired yet. I’ve got years in me.”

“Dad, the last time you did a day’s work was over forty years ago. You retired at forty-five and left your family to go around the bloody world. And to hell with us.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve had a good life I’ve been very lucky. I’ve done more than you ever will, boy.”

Max talks to him in a very soft voice. As long as he’s had sleep, he has more patience than me because he loves his dad and has the emotional bond that I don’t have, but on occasions one of us as to bring the other one down.  

I took him into the garden.

“I was a hair’s breath from packing him in the car and taking him back to his own bloody house and letting him rot there. He’d be dead in a week. He’s done more than me? Yeah, he abandoned his family and put them on the street so that he could go around the world.  I’ve never shirked my parental responsibilities.”

11:00 – it’s been a tough morning