Dating : The Death of an Icon

“I don’t know man,” I say, “I am really done with it this time.” “That’s what you said last time,” she says. My workmate sits back puffing some smoke in the air. She has just finished her first rounds. It’s 1 am, and I finished work at 11 pm. I can’t sleep, and she is not allowed too until the next morning.

Insomnia cigarettes with my colleagues at 1 am. It is one of the perks of living in a care home. Because that is where I live now, in a care home. I work there too.

The last five years of my life, I lived and worked in London. When my relationship wasn’t going anywhere, and the Tories started faffing around with this Brexit idea, I decided to buy a boat and take my nursing skills back home to the Netherlands where I knew they would be appreciated. I lived on the boat for three months as I started working with my old employer again. I worked the summer away, still thinking I would go back to England, still thinking my relationship might work out after all and people would come to their senses about Brexit.

Then winter came, and the boat went. No one came to their senses in the meantime. I lived with my sister for three months until she expected a baby, and there was no space for me anymore.

The care home I work at was built in the seventies. I started working there when I was seventeen. It was my first real weekend job. I grew up in the kitchen of that care home while I studied art. That kitchen was home to me for almost ten years until they shut it down.

They knocked the kitchen down first.

The building no longer serves modern care needs. They’re going to replace it soon. The kitchen had to make way for the first wave of the build. We watch the men work their way up to the sky brick by brick. The second floor will be built when their holidays’ end and summer is over.

Much of the current building is empty. A part of the first floor east wing was unoccupied by the time I came back to work here again. We saw some opportunities. My workmate pulled some strings and got me a little apartment there. The home’s manager lets me stay until it gets knocked down. I have been living here since January, and it has been quite the experience.

I am there for everything. The gossip, the groceries, the sharpening of eye pencils. The deaths. The good. The bad. The ugly. Everything.

I look at my workmate as she hands me another smoke. She is one of the good ones, you know, the ones that do it as a calling. I know that sounds lame, but you can always tell when someone is in it with the heart.

We smoke the second cigarette and discuss the lady that passed away this week. “It’s strange not to be able to argue with her anymore. I know she was a crazy old broad, but I think I miss her.” It had been my first shift after she had passed and when my workmate and I went into her room to check the equipment that needed to be returned, it was strange to see her little crock shoes standing where she had left them, her hearing aid still on the nightstand and the annoying plastic little bra straps right next to it. Her smell was still there.

“They bury her on Thursday,” I say. “I can’t go, I have a morning shift,” my workmate replies.

She was a difficult lady. She had her moods, her quirks. She was also quite a big lady and doctors had given up treatment when her heart started caving in. It couldn’t keep up with the body anymore. Our backs carried quite a heavy burden when she came back from the hospital with an oxygen tank and zero mobility. They had drained ten litres of fluid. “Half your face is gone,” I joked when I saw her again. “The bit I lost, you gained,” she had replied.

“You took care of her a lot,” my workmate says. I shrug. “I guess I did.” I am the regular evening shift. It is better for everyone that I stay away from morning care. I get homicidal when my alarm tells me I have to do something. So I work evenings. This way, I can chill in bed with a cup of tea until the sleep dust leaves my eyes naturally. This meant I put our lady to bed almost every night.

“I have to say it is quite strange not seeing her door open when I pass her apartment,” I say. She always had the damn door open. I sometimes took the long way round to make sure she didn’t hear me. Because when she did, she would call out and made you do stupid stuff she could have easily done for herself. Or she would scold you for equally stupid stuff, like: ‘you turned the cap of my bottle too tight’ or ‘you left my shoes ten centimetres too much to the left.’

“I saw her sister in law today. She was wearing a mourning ribbon. It was black as the night and hanging around her shoulders.” Our lady had two sisters-in-law living in the care home. They were utterly opposite creatures. I only see the other two when I help out in a different team. Today I helped to wheel people to the restaurant. I told her I was sorry for her loss. She answered me in the typical accent from our area. Girl, she talked about you. I don’t know if you realise it but the chips you bought her a couple of weeks back really made her happy. I was glad to hear it. I was happy to hear that despite the arguments we had, she thought positively of me. I was happy I got her the goddamned chips.

My workmate’s beeper goes. She kills her cigarette. “It’s room 26.” “Alright,” I say. “See you again tomorrow?” my workmate asks. “Same time, same place,” I reply and kill my cigarette. “Have a good one.” “Sleep well, and don’t worry about it. There are more men than lampposts.” I watch her disappear through the sliding doors. It is quiet again outside. The moon is out, missing a bit, but shining brightly. A stray cat makes its way home.