Free Beer Tomorrow - DAVID JACKSON

We thought maybe you'd think we were just going to fill this blog with stories we'd sent off without success - we probably are!!! But a longer version of this one won a competition in "Scribble" back in 2013 - hope you like it

FREE BEER TOMORROW

Today should be my writing day.
That’s unusual because today’s Monday and I don’t usually write on Mondays.
On Mondays we take Ray to his IT class at the Sensory Centre. Ray’s my wife’s younger brother, he’s got mobility problems and he’s visually impaired. He also suffers from depression. We go round every Monday morning, help him get ready and then load him and his wheelchair into our car and take him down to the Centre. His class lasts two and a half hours. Then we pick him up and take him home, just in time for his ‘Meals on Wheels’ delivery. Last week there was an Arts Class in the afternoon and we were going to take him back to that but he felt too tired.

And it’s not just Ray. Margi’s mother needs an ever increasing amount of support, especially since she got out of hospital after her fall a few weeks back.
But the Sensory Centre’s closed today for redecorating, so we have a free day, and if no new crisis arises, I’ll be able to get down to writing.

Wednesday's my usual writing day, but I didn’t write at all last Wednesday. Ray had a clinic appointment. Usually Margi takes him, but she was working. He has about three appointments a month as different consultants try to address their individual part of the complex web of symptoms that make up his problems. The only thing no-one talks about is his depression. Maybe, they hope if they can sort the physical things, the depression will go away.

Ray’s appointment was 11.00 a.m. so I should have had him home for 12.30 p.m. leaving me the afternoon free to work on another competition entry.

I got to his flat about 10.00. He wasn’t ready, then he insisted on having a shave and changing his trousers before he’d consider going to the clinic. I got worried he wouldn’t be ready by the time the taxi came, but we just made it.

You can’t park near the clinic so we always hire a specially adapted taxi to take him in his wheelchair. The taxi firm know us well and they’re very kind to Ray and very reliable, so the travel was no problem.

As always Ray needed to use the toilet as soon as we got there. Accessing the disabled toilet (there’s only one) at the clinic means queuing up at the reception desk and getting the key.  Even with this complication, we were in the waiting area in good time.

And there we sat. 11.00 o’clock came and went. By 11.15 Ray needed another toilet trip. I asked the young nurse on the desk when Ray might expect to see the doctor. She said they were running forty minutes late, so I told her I was taking him to the toilet. Off we went to get the key.

We returned to the waiting area. There were some magazines lying on a table. I picked up an old issue of a camping and caravanning magazine. Ray talked about a camping trip his parents had taken the family on many years before. I’d heard the story from Margi a couple of times, but from her, very different, viewpoint. I wondered whether there was a piece of writing in it, but maybe Emma Kennedy’s cornered the market on teenage girls’ camping horror stories. I recounted a time in Sweden when the campsite flooded and we found our pitch was a pond, complete with two ducks swimming on it. Then for some reason a reporter from Irish Radio turned up and wanted to do an interview for a holiday programme. Now that might make a story, I made a note in my notebook.

Time dragged on, by 12.30 we’d made two more toilet trips and still no sign of getting seen. Ray began to feel hungry. I wheeled him over to the snacks machine and he chose a Mars bar.

                ‘90p,’ he grumbled, ‘you can get four for £1 at Morrisons.’

Then an older nurse appeared and said ‘Raymond’s next, not long now.’

Ten minutes later, the Mars bar had an unwanted effect. Ray was desperate for yet another trip to the toilet. I told the nurse I had to take him, and we set off again. From my vantage point outside the toilet I watched as the older nurse came out, looked around and then called another wheelchair bound patient into the doctor’s room. We’d missed our turn. When I got back the younger nurse told me that Ray would now have to go to back of the list. They were worried. They’d got another clinic starting at another location at 2.00. Ray began to mutter to himself and clench his fists, the signs weren’t good.

Eventually, at just past 1.00 p.m. we got to see the doctor. The doctor looked tired, and he hadn’t any time for niceties.

‘How often has he been to the toilet? – Four, five times – too often, the patches aren’t working - we need another treatment – Botox injection in his bladder. But he’ll have to learn to self-catheterise first, the nurses can assess if he can do that, we’ll arrange a test.’

Ray began to shake and started to cry and rant.

‘It’s been a bad time in the family, my dad’s died and my mum’s in hospital.’

             I told him, ‘Your Dad died a year ago and your Mum’s out of hospital now, calm down.’

             ‘She had a stroke.’

             ‘No she didn’t, she just fell over a paving stone.’

              Ray continued, ‘Why have I had to wait so long?’

It didn’t help. The doctor told us we’d have to go to another clinic and they’d be in contact. The whole consultation took just five minutes.

In the taxi Ray kept muttering and sobbing. In his flat he alternated between ranting and threatening to chin the doctor and crying and saying his life wasn’t worth living.

To cap it all, we’d missed the Meals on Wheels delivery. Once I’d calmed Ray down, I rang Margi and asked her to come and talk to him, to calm him down while I went off to the nearest takeaway to get him some lunch.

By the time we got home (about 3.00) we were exhausted, no writing that day.

On Friday morning we got a call to say Ray had lost his cash card. He’d no money to pay for his shopping (his care workers do his shopping for him on Fridays). We couldn’t find the card.  We searched the flat with no success. So we had to ring his bank and cancel it. It’ll take two weeks to get him a new one, so we had to lend him the money for his shopping. He called us this morning, he’d found his card. He’d had it in his tracksuit top all the time. He thought this was hilarious.

The phone downstairs is ringing. It’s Margi’s mother. Ray’s rung her. He got a letter on Saturday from the DWP, containing some questionnaire about his ability to work, he can’t read it, he’s panicking, he’s afraid he’ll lose his benefits. She says we must go round immediately. Margi tries to reason with her but to no avail. In the end Margi agrees that we’ll go round and sort Ray out.

‘You’ll have time to write tomorrow,’ she reassures me.

There’s a pub near one of the markets I work on at weekends.  Carved into the stone lintel over the front door is an inscription that says ‘FREE BEER TOMORROW.’ It’s always free beer tomorrow, never today.

I’m going to put a notice on the wall above my laptop. It will say ‘MY WRITING DAY IS TOMORROW’; somehow I think that’s how it always will be.

ALL THAT WAS NEARLY THREE YEARS AGO NOW - MARGI'S MOTHER SADLY PASSED AWAY LAST YEAR. RAY GOT A PLACE IN A DISABLED PERSONS UNIT A FEW MILES AWAY. HE GETS THE 24/7 SUPPORT HE NEEDS. HE'S MUCH HAPPIER, HE HAS A LOT MORE COMPANY, A MORE VARIED SET OF ACTIVITIES AND A MUCH BETTER QUALITY OF LIFE AND LOOKS A HUNDRED TIMES BETTER.