David Paul Nixon: The Website

Day Two

I wasn’t looking forward to seeing my father.

I went to his house for the first time in months yesterday and he’d forgotten I was coming to visit. His eyes were wide open and vacant. He wasn’t in the mood for talking. He was confused but also ill-tempered and unhappy. I had seen him in similar moods before: when, in troubling times, he would sit silently in despair and speak with no one.

I arrive again at twelve and coincidentally the same song is playing on my i-pod. It’s a song called Speedway, and it’s by Morrissey. It’s not one of his witty retorts or one of his self-pitying cries for help; it’s a driven, thundering, passionate cry of anguish and regret; with pounding drums that make your heart beat faster.

I knock on the door just as the final drum-roll fades away. I have to knock hard. Eventually he appears, half-dressed in the bedroom window. He stares at me, then walks away. It’s several minutes before he makes it to the door and unlocks the bolt. He mumbles a hello.

“Did I wake you up?”

“No… I was just thinking about getting up.”

I follow him upstairs. He’s vacant-looking like yesterday. But worse. He’s walking at half speed, like an old man with arthritis, taking each step carefully. And he’s lost weight, a lot of weight. He goes into the bathroom. I log onto his computer – he’s got a virus and I did say I’d try to get rid of it.

After half an hour spent with his anti-virus software, he is still sat on the toilet.

He’s had a tough few months. He has been diagnosed with high blood pressure and hasn’t been able to work. I knew being at home each day had been getting him down, but now it’s as if he’s shut down completely, both mentally and physically.

I worry about what to do.

He has so few friends, my mum has left him, my brother and I have both moved away and now there’s the possibility of him being forced into early retirement.

A frightening question crosses my mind. Has he just given up?

I want to yell at him, demand he get up off the toilet and pull himself together. But it’s not in my character; I don’t know how to talk like that to my father. I’m not sure what to do.

I tell him I need the loo. He shuffles around and then after a few minutes he goes back into the bedroom. I use the toilet anyway, when I get out he is on the phone – I eavesdrop.

He sounds almost normal. I sit just out of view. He speaks of a fall - no two falls; once down the stairs - yesterday.

He finishes the conversation. He’s been speaking to my brother, also currently housebound but with a broken foot.

“What happened?”

“I just sort of gave up,” he smiles, as if this were nothing serious. He sits on the bed and then tries to pull his trousers on - no wonder he’s struggling.

“I can see you watching me.”

“I think you should see a doctor.”

“I’m not seeing a doctor.” His resolve is strong on this point.

I phone my brother back. He isn’t surprised. When he last saw him he wasn’t at his best; but this is the first he’s heard about any fall.

We agree he must see a doctor, both knowing he won’t give in without a fight. I know his doctor’s name but I’m not to call him.

“ I’ll be fine,” Dad says, but even speaking seems to be such a struggle.

So I issue a challenge:

“ Go downstairs then, and make yourself a cup of coffee.”

He accepts, and ten minutes later he struggles down to the kitchen. I fret about trying to heat up the house; it’s cold and filthy, not even fit for students.

He’s taking forever to make the coffee.

A friend picks the worst possible time to call. I answer, out of Dad’s earshot. He confirms what I know I must do, call a doctor. I’ve been putting it off, distracting myself with heaters and computer viruses, I don’t want to do it and he doesn’t want me to do it. But I have to stand up to him.

Pull yourself together; who do I call? His health centre - the one in Barlaston,

Not in a sure or assertive voice I tell him I’m phoning his doctor. I reach for the Yellow Pages.

“ You can phone them if you can find the number.” That’s his smart-alec way of telling me that the number is hard to find. It’s not in the Yellow Pages; it must technically be in another area.

At least I have help, even if there’s no one here with me. The phone rings, it’s my brother and fortunately he has the number. I write it down and go into a different room to make the call.

“Don’t do it,” he tells me as I go past. I ignore him.

“Hello, Barlaston Health Centre.”

“Hi, I need to speak to someone about my father.”

“What’s his name please?”

I tell her.

“And what’s the problem with him.”

“He’s not himself, he’s confused, he’s not talking much, he has trouble walking, he fell down the stairs at some point, I don’t know when.”

“Can he make it down to the health-centre?”

“No, I don’t drive and he certainly can’t drive himself.”

“OK, my love, can you give me your telephone number?”

I tell it to her slowly.
“ OK, my love, I'm going to speak to the on-duty doctor and get him to call you back, probably sometime in the next hour.”

“Thank you.”

“Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, thanks.”

I take the phone back into the dining room where Dad is sat staring vacantly at the floor. His hand taps quickly on the top of the table, almost as if it's beyond his control.

I tell him what’s going on and then scarper back to the computer room to recommence work. Anything not to have to sit their with him, look into those weary, blank eyes, that head tilted downward, and do it all in silence barely a word passing between us. I’ve been at the house for almost four hours now, at least three just procrastinating about what to do. Now I have to wait.

The phone is still on the hook, I check it twice, and then get frustrated with the computer software that can identify a virus but cannot remove it.

Finally, after over forty minutes, the phone rings just once before I have it in my hand and say 'hello'. It’s my friend, asking how things are going.

Politely, but hastily, I get him off the phone and wait another ten minutes before the doctor calls.

“I hear that your father isn’t well.”

“No, he’s not himself.”

“What appears to be the problem?”

“He’s slow, he’s staring blankly into space, he’s not talking, he’s having trouble walking, apparently he’s fallen down the stairs, I’m not sure what’s wrong.”

“Has he seen a doctor?”

“No he doesn’t like doctors, when he saw a doctor with his blood pressure last month it must’ve been the first time in at least thirty years.”

The phone goes silent for just a moment.

“If your father refuses treatment, I’m afraid there’s not much I can do. I need his consent before I can come to see him.”

“But he’s not well. He’s just being stubborn, he’s not himself, he needs to see someone.”

“He has to want to accept treatment. Unless he is not of sound-mind and is unfit to make the decision himself. In your opinion is your father of sound mind?”

What a question to answer. I can’t say no. He just isn’t that far gone. He doesn’t say much but he’s still there.

“Yes, I think so.”

“Then it’s his decision I’m afraid.”

“Would you like to at least speak to him?”

“I think it would be a good idea.”

I take the phone downstairs. He can speak to him; but he’s not his doctor, how will he know what he’s normally like?

“I’ve got someone here to speak to you.”

He takes the phone.

“Hello…Yes, I’m fine. How are you?…Yes, I had a fall.”

Suddenly he comes alive. The most talkative I’ve yet seen him.

“I’m taking it slow…I’ve got a bit of a headache…Yes, I know he’s concerned.”

He looks over and smiles at me, it’s not a sentiment I return. I don’t intend to be patronised.

“I’m a bit bruised down my left side…Yes I’ve taken some Paracetemol…I’ll be taking it steady…I will, if I feel worse…Goodbye.”

“ Can I…” I go to him intending to talk the Doctor, to find out what he thinks but Dad quickly turns off the phone and puts it down on the table.

“What did he say?”

“Not much.”

And that’s it.

A bravura performance. There’s nothing I can do. I’m helpless.

He drops his head back down, taps on the table, he doesn’t look triumphant or proud of what he’s done.

His stubbornness and pig-headedness have won.

In truth we’ve both lost.

“ I’m just bad… because of the fall. I’ll be okay in a couple of days.”

I try to believe him; believe that he will get better; it’s easier than thinking the worst. I make him some tea, prepare him some sandwiches, but as he walks around the kitchen he does not yell impatiently at me, like he would normally when I am in his way, he just stands there like a walking corpse until I move out of his path.

I want to get him back upstairs, help him up, but he decides he wants to stay sat for a while longer.

“I’ll be back tomorrow to see how you’re getting on, don’t bolt the door so I can get in.”

“When will you be coming?”

“In the afternoon, I have to go to the bank.”

“Then I can lock it overnight and open it in the morning.” He’s always been paranoid about security, but I can’t tell him what I really think. That he might not be able to get downstairs tomorrow. Or worse, that he might die during the night.

He’d just think I was being stupid.

I say goodbye. He struggles with a response.

I close the battered old door and struggle to lock it. It’s cold. I button up my coat and take out my i-pod again. Speedway is still on screen, I click it back to its beginning.

It’s a quiet road, with hardly any street lighting. I let the music fill up my mind and cloud out my thoughts; I don’t want to hear anything else.

The drum beat thunders on.

It comes again to its climax. Morrissey passionately cries out to his lost loved one, he says something like: ‘You know I’ve always been true to you’ and I burst into tears.

The events that the song describes have no relation to my own, but the intensity catches me off guard and I can offer no defence, no procrastination. Decisively and honestly my feelings uncontrollably come out and I stop still and cry.

On Day Three the doctor came to see him.

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