She Who Cares – Part Three

Welcome to the third installment of my story, She Who Cares. This part was difficult for me because it’s not like the first two and it’s introducing a new character. I didn’t know if I should tie this with the next part, but I am deciding to do it like this so get over it.

You can find part one and two in the links!

She Who Cares

Part Three

I have lived in solitude for a long time. After my mother died, my father died too in his own way. He stopped participating in life; rarely leaving the house or seeing a soul. It is all I have known, so I don’t often think too much about it. I myself only leave the house to go to work, and only see clients who inevitably die and leave me. I often feel like I walk the line between alive and dead. I participate in life, but only passively.  

            When Coronavirus hit in 2020 and the world shut down my life remained almost entirely unchanged which was good of course, but it made me fully realise how isolated I am outside of my job. There was no one waiting to talk to me through a closed window and I received no letters or zoom-party invites. I didn’t miss anyone, and neither was I missed in return.  

            My line is work doesn’t stop for sunny weather nor bank holidays, not even a worldwide pandemic. While office workers and the likes stayed at home making banana bread, as a carer I simply wore a mask, plastic apron and gloves for visit and carried my daily work load as normal. With a lifetime of bad health that is still ongoing, I was acutely aware that each shift could have cost me my life. Sure, no one put a gun to my head and told me to go to work, but I cared too much about my clients to leave them alone without any help. I know what that feels like.

            It was during the initial lockdown, being a keyworker was like a currency, which is ironic because the pay is famously terrible. Other people were on house arrest, but I could walk the streets if I wore my work lanyard. All of the people who are usually invisible but actually keep the country running were given this extraordinary privilege. I would take the long way home just because I could, slowly as you like, breathing in the relatively untouched air. Bliss.

            The masses stood on their doorsteps every Thursday at 8pm and clapped into the wind as some kind of token gesture as if it made the blindest bit of difference. Then they would pat themselves on the back for a job well done and go back inside their safe houses. The whole thing made feel physically sick and I wanted to go door to door strangling every single idiot. Once lockdown ended, people immediately went back to not caring about essential workers like carers.

            When I have to tell anyone that I am a care worker, they tend to tilt their head to one side and utter some bullshit pitying platitude like “aw, how lovely” or “what an important job”. It isn’t said about other jobs. No one would spit this condescending shit to a plumber or a bus driver. Yet they think nothing of the fact that carers are on minimum wage, many have zero-hour contracts meaning they don’t qualify for annual leave or sick pay. We sell our bodies more than any sex worker. There’s no other incentive to work this job unless you truly do care. I don’t need anyone’s pity. In fact, I don’t need anything from anyone.

            It’s a perfectly mundane day when I first lay my eyes on Ella waiting at the main entrance of Corvid House. I assume she is a visitor for someone else and almost walk right past her until she steps in my path blinding me with her dazzling smile and it’s only then I spot her uniform, the logo half-hidden under a long blonde braid which rests over her shoulder.

            “Hi, I’m Ella!” She says this like she can’t contain the information any longer, like a puppy barking at a postman’s anticipated arrival. I resist the urge to kick her and stop her insipid yapping. “I’m here to shadow you.”

            It was the first I had heard about such an arrangement. But then again, I avoided the office as much as possible and routinely left emails unread. One perk of this job is solitude. Coworkers are usually passing ships in the night, and I only really know them by handwriting in the log book.

            “Okay,” I sigh. “Well, follow me, I guess.”

            I continue on my way, not looking back, but hear her shiny black brogues clip-clopping on the tiled lobby floor as she obligingly and blindly follows me into Cathy’s apartment, formerly home of Ivy and Margaret before her. I type the code into the key safe, not divulging this information to Ella, and let myself in. She slips through the door before it closes. I swear I hear her actually squeak but I ignore it. There is no time for dawdling in this job and there’s no better time for her to learn it than right now.

            “Good morning, Cathy. Already up, I see.”

            I find Cathy sitting in an arm chair by the window reading a book in a flowing night gown. She looks ethereal in the pale morning light that streams in through the window like gentle caressing fingers. Tiny but mighty, 78-year-old Cathy is reluctant to give up her independence and if she can do tasks herself then she will, which makes her a poor example for the purpose of teaching Ella how to typically care for someone.

            She looks up from her book with a smile, “Good morning, dear. Oh, who have you brought to see me?”

            “This is Ella. She’s a new start.”

            Cathy offers a warm smile, like a sunbeam herself. “Hello, dear. Lovely to see you.”

            I lead Ella to the kitchen where it’s cramped so we stand shoulder to shoulder and I can smell her perfume, sickly sweet and cloying. I swallow and it’s audible and makes me feel awkward and then annoyed. This isn’t how my morning was supposed to go.

            “You should ask Cathy what she would like for breakfast. Sometimes clients don’t have the capacity to make that choice and so we make them what is written down in their file. Eventually you will just know without having to look it up.”

            Ella pauses and I can see she is processing this information, “So, should I go ask Cathy?”

            “Yes, that would be wise, wouldn’t it? And quickly, time is running out.”

            As predicted, Cathy would like a bowl of porridge with a drizzle of honey. Ella prepares the breakfast, unsure of her surroundings and unfamiliar with how everything goes. It is to be expected but frustrating for me. I didn’t ask for this.

            With Cathy fed, we help her to wash and dress which doesn’t require two people and between us there are six arms all reaching for things in a chaotic cohesion. I hate speaking about Cathy like she isn’t there as I instruct Ella on how to do everything. By the time Cathy is back settled in her chair, I feel frazzled. Sweat drips in a perfect line down my spine. Ella looks fine, with not one long blonde hair out of place or any sign of perspiration on her pretty little face. Without prompt, she helps Cathy put her feet up on a stool and makes her laugh with a good-natured joke. I find myself smiling, too.

            After an eternity but actually only ten minutes, I guide Ella to the bedroom and shut the door behind us.  

            “Cathy might do some of these things herself, but just make sure her bedroom curtains are open and her bed is made, and her commode is emptied – which it isn’t.”

            Ella carefully lifts the commode and slowly walks with it to the bathroom at arms-length as if it were a live bomb. It’s not pleasant, but it’s simply part of the job. She’s so pretty and delicate, I doubt she will stay long once she realises that this is hard work; proper blood, sweat and tears stuff. Blood, sweat, tears, shit, piss. That’s the hard truth and many aren’t up to it. As I watch her leave the room, I imagine her pulling a face of disgust on the other side of her head, holding her nose, and breathing through gritted teeth. Princess and the pee.

            I have met many newcomers in this job, and they rarely stand the test of time. There are always people hopping off this hellish merry-go-round, unable to stick out and running for the hills to get a McDonalds application. There are plenty who do stay, but they become embittered over time at the hard physical and emotional labour of the job combined with the lack of financial reward. Some take it out on clients, stopping short of abuse; passive aggressive comments and a lack of compassion and rushing duties and cutting corners. I prefer the ones who leave.

            I hear the unmistakable sound of the commode being poured into the toilet bowl but also something else. Ella is humming a happy but unfamiliar little tune, like a nursery rhyme, all sweetness and light.

            “Well goodbye, Cathy. Thank you so much for being patient with me.”

            “We all deserve a chance, love. Take care.”

            Ella opens the door for us and leads me back to the entrance where we met only fifteen minutes ago and yet it feels infinitely longer somehow.

            “Well,” Ella looks at me, smiling with every inch of her face. “I thought that went pretty good, don’t you?”

            “You did fine.”

            “Just fine? You can do better than that.”

            I smile, despite myself “You did good, happy?”

            She laughs softly. “Always.”

            I believe her.     

            “Same time tomorrow?”

            “I suppose so.”

            Ella fumbles with her bag. “You go ahead, I have to make a phone call.”

            She hums that tune again absentmindledly and I hear it fade out as I make my way down the path alone. Long after its replaced by silence, Ella remains curiously in my thoughts all the way home.

END