A Person-Shaped thing is a Person

I pull up outside the working men’s club as I usually do on a Wednesday. You see, Wednesdays is all about draughts, me and the fellas sit around and get 2 hours of quality time over ales and boards.

I walk into the room and get a shout from our normal table. Benny, Cliff, and Trevor were already there waiting for me.

“Typical Noidy, late as usual.” Trevor says over the din.

“Fuck off Trevor, some of us still have to work for a living.” I say back.

Benny gets the beers in and we sit down for a good old natter.

Benny pairs with Cliff and I pair up with Trevor.

Trevor is an old timer, fought in the second war, refuses to uses taxis ‘because they cost too much’, has a second house on Costa Del Sol that he goes to every year with his wife to avoid the English winters.

The board was already setup, I am reds, he is blacks.

“So, Noidy, how’s things?” He asks.

“Can’t complain.” I shrug. “How’s things?”

“It’s me fucking kids.” He grumbles. “I call them up, and they says ‘Dad, when’re you going to let us take care of you?’

“Like I can’t take care of meself.”

This has been going on for a few years now. His two sons keep trying to take over his accounts, settle his bills and take control. Trevor gets angry every time because he can look after himself and doesn’t want to be treated like a child.

“Fuck ’em, Trev.” I laugh. “You’re your own man.”

“I know, I know.” He half scowls. “But Noidy, what’re you supposed to do? They mean well.”

“Yeah, I suppose.” I smile. “How‘s the missus?”

Now, I’ve never met her, but when we first started drinking together Trevor talked about her a lot, what they did, where they went, but things’d changed as of recent and he talked about her less.

“Hmm.” He grunts then he looks at me. “She’s okay. Had a problem with her arthritis. She’s getting awful pains in her knees and ankles. Complains about them all the time.”

“You should probably stop making her give you blowjobs.” I say.

We both laugh.

“Noidy, you need to stop with the blue stuff.” He looked over his glasses. “You’re a funny man, don’t get me wrong, you are a funny fella but always so blue.”

“You fucking laughed.”

We play a few more rounds and then swap and I get Benny.

Benny’s hilarious. He works as a forklift driver, used to drive trucks in Europe but his wife got lonely so now he forklifts.

Benny talks about his life like it is a sitcom, like an episode of ‘Fawlty Towers’. They should make a show about him, honest.

“So, she says to me ‘what are you laughing about?’, so I replies ‘you know what that smells like?’”

“Was it the old ‘Beef curtains’?” I ask, a smile spreading even before I hear the answer.

“Nothing but the beef.” He chortles. Like I said, funny guy.

Trevor calls it a night at around 8PM and heads off to get his bus back to his house. Like clockwork, he is, every week you see him getting a bit testy and then checking his watch and then he’ll finish up his pint of bitter, nod and put his flat cap and walk off. Just like he does now. He’s old but there is still a spring in his step. He used to be a boxer in the army (or the Navy, I forget, maybe it was the RAF) and you can still see that light footedness in his stride.

I have a couple more beers with the lads and we get to talking.

“Trev was off his game today.” Benny says. “I beat him 6 out 7.”

“Yeah, I did notice.” I say. To be honest, I hadn’t because he nailed me to the fucking wall in all of our games.

“I think it’s because of ‘is wife.” Cliff says.

“Oh yeah?” Benny enquires.

Cliff spins his index finger next to his head and imitates a cuckoo noise. “She’s getting old, dementia.”

“How do you know that?” Benny asks.

“I took ‘im up the footie once and met ‘im at ‘is ‘ouse. Met ‘er too. She asked me if I wanted tea three times without rememberin’ she ‘ad already asked.” Cliff says.

We don’t say anything for that, but I reckon we are all thinking it. Trevor is about 20 years older than all of us, going loopy is something we have waiting for all of us.

“Shame, terrible shame.” Benny mutters.

“Yeah.” I say.

I take sip of beer and ponder my lot.

“Did you see Spurs play last night?” Benny pipes up.

“Oh, don’t get me started, they were off their game. Midfielders were a mess.” I reply.

“What’s the manager thinkin’?” Cliff asks. “’Is starting eleven is a fookin’ shambles.”

We finish up our drinks and I have some fizzy pop to sober up before the drive.

I get home and Angela is already in bed so I get undressed and just climb into bed ‘it is not even 10PM’, I think. She wakes a little and grumbles at me:

“Brush your teeth before you come to bed.”

I shift out of bed and mobile starts rumbling on our counter. I look at the number and it is Trevor.

“Hello Trev, how can I help you?”

“Noidy, hey.” I am immediately put out of joint because I can tell that something is wrong by the tone of his voice. “Don’t suppose you could do me a favour.”

“Sure thing matey.” I try to sound upbeat and positive.

“I tried calling Cliff but he wasn’t picking up. I don’t know what to do.” In the years I’d known him this was the first time he had ever sounded panicked.

“No worries Trev, what can I do for you?” I ask.

“It’s my wife, Noidy, I honestly don’t know what to do.” As he says that, I hear a woman shouting in the background, can’t tell what it is she is saying though. Then Trevor talks again. “Could you come over?”

I take his address and get dressed and back in my car and head over.

Trevor lives in this sleepy little cul-de-sac with about 6 buildings, with proper front gardens with a lawn, and everything. The building itself was probably thrown together at the end of the second war but to his credit Trevor had kept it in good nick.

I park my car in the driveway, go up to the front door, and knock instead of ring the doorbell, as requested.

In less than a minute, Trevor answers the door and ushers me in. I say hello and look at him under the light in the hall, I don’t want to say anything but he looks pale.

“Want a cuppa?” He asks at a whisper.

I nod and follow him into his kitchen.

He puts the kettle on and I can see that his hands are shaking as he reaches up into one of the cupboards to get the cups.

“So, what’s up?” I ask.

“To be perfectly honest with you, Noidy, I don’t know what to do.” He says without turning around. “It’s my wife, she’s not well.”

“Does she need to go to the hospital?”

“No, no, no, it is not that.” The kettle boils and he pours us out a brew each. “It is just that in all my life I’ve never seen her like this. And quite frankly, I’m scared to go back up there.”

“Oh.”

“It wasn’t always like this but more and more now I see her looking at me, and well…” Now that Trevor is looking at me, I see that it is almost like the words hurt him. “I am not sure whether she evens sees me as a person sometimes.”

“How do you mean?”

“We’ve been married all these years, and sometimes, she just looks at me and I am just nothing more than a, blob.” He says, shaking his head as he does. “So, I come back from tonight-

He stops talking when there is this sound of shuffling from upstairs, old floor boards creaking on the landing. Trevor puts his cup down and pads back towards the main door and the stairs.

The sounds come down the steps slowly.

I hear Trevor whisper something but I can’t make it out.

“No, you’ve been out all night, don’t try and weasel your way out of it. Dear, dear, dear, never been so embarrassed in all my life.” A voice says loudly, fucking loud enough I almost spill my drink.

“Trish, I never was. I told you-

“LIAR.” She cuts him off.

I put my cup down and walk over to see what is going on.

I get to the foot of the stairs where Trevor was standing in the dark, staring at this small woman in a nightie. She looks at me, and snaps:

“Who‘s’ this?”

“This is my friend Trish.” Trevor says. “This is Arnold.”

“Hello.” I say as polite as I can.

“What’s he doing here?” She says. “Is this who you’ve been swanning around with?”

“Trish, it isn’t that late.” Trevor says, pleading. He looks at me and I shrug and go back to the kitchen. What could I say? I genuinely felt powerless.

The two of them carry on talking for a bit. Trevor keeps trying to calm down his wife and she keeps snapping him down. Eventually, she shuffles back upstairs and Trevor comes back. He looks worse than when I first saw him.

“You alright?” I try.

“Honestly Noidy, I don’t even know.” He says. “We’ve been married for 50 years and this is the first time she ever kicked me out of bed. You know I always leave on time, but she lost track of time. She thinks it’s past midnight.”

“And you can’t convince her?” I ask.

“The other day, we go shopping. And when we come out of the shop she‘s wearing this scarf. I go ‘where did you get that scarf?’, and she goes ‘I’ve always had it’.” He’s not listening to me and just talks. “I says ‘No Trish, that isn’t yours’. I mean, it still has a price tag on it, but we didn’t buy it. So we have to go in the shop. Mortified I was.”

I nod and let him keep talking.

“I just don’t know what to do Noidy. I feel lost.” He walks over to the Kettle and turns it back on. “I feel like I am going crazy. I would do anything for her, anything, but this is something else.”

“Huh.”

“Each day, there is less of her here.” He says. “She keeps going on about her dad, stories from the fifties. She doesn’t want to talk to anyone ‘cept me.”

He sighs.

“Have you spoken to a doctor?” I ask.

He looks at me like I just tried to feed him a shit sandwich.

“No, no.” I look him the eyes as he starts this. It is there that I can see something different. “I don’t want to be a bother Noidy.”

“I mean, maybe they can help-

He waves my comment away with a shake of his head and hand.

“Nah, nah, nah.” He looks at me again with that funny look I can’t figure out.

We sort of stand there, not saying anything and I finish my tea.

“Do you want any help?” I ask. “Like setting up a bed?”

He shakes his head again.

At a loss I just stand there and wait for him to say something.

“I’m going to go use the guest room.” He says.

He lets me out and I get in back in my car confounded.

I try and fathom what is going on his head, and it gets me about halfway home. The man is scared and proud. I could see it in his strange look he gave me, he was afraid at the idea of having to address what his wife is going through and too proud to admit it.

I think about my own relationship, how many times had I been too proud? I care about my wife, but do I say that enough? Or, am I going to lose all my memories of her, or is she going to lose her mind before I realise what I have? I don’t want to become unrecognisable, less than a person, nor her turn into a cardboard cut-out I don’t know.

These thoughts bother me as I get in the house and take off my coat.

I get undressed and climb into bed. I am tired but that thought of losing my wife gets me to lean over her as she is sleeping and kiss her on the cheek. She moves a bit, so I say:

“I love you.”

She stirs, frowns and then:

“Arnold, for heaven’s sake, brush your teeth.”