How Do You Feel About Someone Wiping Your Backside?
And then you head to the abyss
Caring is shit
says Alan Bennett’s character in his film The Lady in the Van.
He meant it literally.
Only once have I wiped an adult’s backside.
My grandmother was old, infirm. My aunt, who took care of my grandmother, left me in charge for an hour.
I guided my grandmother to the toilet. Swiftly exited once she was seated.
When she finished, I grabbed some toilet paper and reached down, down, down into the toilet bowl. I did not look; I did not breathe. I calculated the parting of her cheeks, pushed the paper firmly into the chasm and pulled upward.
The top of the chasm where the cheeks parted was dark and rounded. Not sleek, not a mere line as on a baby’s bottom. I did not look at the toilet paper and hurriedly flushed the toilet.
‘Did I do much?’ said my grandmother.
Of all the things I dread in life, this is the most dreaded: someone having to wipe my backside.
This fear is the justification that gets me to run three times a week, lift weights three times a week, eat lashings of vegetables, eschew junk food.
