THE ECSTASY OF TESCO

On Christmas, an enemy, and a trip to the big Tesco.

Dear Readers,

The Kureishi Chronicles will be a year old next month. Time certainly hasn’t flown, but this blog has kept me alive. Thank you for your loyalty and continued support.

I ask that if you enjoy The Kureishi Chronicles, believe in paying for good writing, and want to help with my recovery, consider becoming a paid subscriber.

It is nearly Christmas and 6am in the morning when the strangers start to file into my house. I am lying on my front and taking a shit. A Brazilian woman, a Spanish woman, two Africans and an Italian have all come to either witness or help with what is kindly known as my care. Apart from Isabella, the Italian, these are the people the local council has sent to get me out of bed in the morning, attend to my bowels, get me dressed and into my wheelchair. As they stare at my arse, I feel no embarrassment, but only a faint annoyance; this has become my fate and my life. Without all these people I couldn’t function. Soon after, some of them leave and others remain to discuss my upkeep and the equipment I will need to get me out of bed and into the world each day.

I left the hospital a few days ago, and now I am living in west London, in my front room and kitchen. It is a small area compared to the hospital, where I could zip about the corridors, the day room, the garden, and the various pods. In my house I am more restricted. At least, as people say, I am home. The weather is grim; it is cold and rains off and on most of the day. But friends and my three boys visit often. I am glad to be back in my neighbourhood after a year’s absence. But I am embarrassed if not a little humiliated when I see people I vaguely recognise and notice how they take me in, with sympathy, if not a little a pity. I wonder what is going through their mind.

Every afternoon, for lack of other diversions, Isabella and I go to Tesco. It is something I look forward to, but the journey in a wheelchair is painful; the street is bumpy and uneven, each small impact hurts your arse. Sometimes on the pavement, there are obstructions where people have dumped mattresses or furniture and is it impossible to pass. Not far from the entrance to Tesco, I notice a long-bearded enemy of mine from the seventies, someone who always provoked me and whom I looked down on. I see him standing by the side of the road watching me as I go past. I try to ignore him, but he comes out and stands in front me, saying, “hello, hello, hello” so that I have to acknowledge him. This annoys me, since I have never wanted to look weak in front of this man.

At Tesco,  I enjoy whizzing about the aisles, and I am having to get used to what I call this “dog’s eye view of the world” where I am at a lower level than everyone else. I find it odd that many people do not get out of the way when they see me coming at them in a wheelchair; in fact they expect you to drive around them, as if you are the inconvenience. We buy Linda McCartney vegetarian sausages and what Isabella refers to as “bak-ed beans” so that I may have my favourite meal. Isabella likes to rhyme “bak-ed” with naked. That would make more sense, she argues plausibly.  

Christmas had been a worry for a while, since Isabella and I wanted to go to Tracey’s to spend it with her and the family. The issue was whether I would be able to get into her house, since there are two entrances, one into the basement and one above the front steps. We decided in the end that I would be taken in a manual wheelchair to the bottom of the stairs, and Sachin and Carlo would carry me up and into the house. It worked well. Once in, they moved me into an armchair, which was the first time I have sat in anything but a wheelchair or hospital bed for some time. Throughout the day, as the festivities continued, I was aware that it was more or less exactly a year since my accident and, as anyone would, I relived the last moments of my ordinary life; traveling to Rome, having dinner with Isabella’s family, working at her table together, and the next day going for a walk in the Villa Borghese  before my blood pressure dropped, I fell on my head and was altered forever.

Back at the house, there are new difficulties. Compared to the hospital, there is far less help. I have a fulltime carer who is now living with us, administers my meds, flushes my catheter and washes me. There is also a carer sent by the council, usually a young Indian man, who arrives twice a day to assist my principle carer. I am lifted out of bed and returned to bed according to the bureaucratic protocols of the NHS.  I cannot choose when to rise or when to lie down. For the rest of the time, I am in my wheelchair, which becomes increasingly uncomfortable on my arse and back as they day progresses.  

I watch and agitatedly move around a little while Isabella prepares food, cooks, washes up, and empties the bins. She has to do most of the housework while I can only look on or encourage her. The workload is uneven, and I am devastated by the level of responsibility she now has. My contribution is zilch. But I do not want to feel that I am a burden to her. Unfortunately, at the moment, there is no way around this. She cannot find time to do her job; she is a publicist for books and festivals in Italy and works mostly remotely. No one here would say that I am a liability, but certainly I feel that I am at least an impediment. Kier, my youngest son, claims I never did so much around the house anyway, but I always did my best to help keep the place tidy and clean. Isabella and I discuss this issue and she always maintains her temper but I know is it draining for her to be kept from her work by my needs.

I am reminded of my situation as a child when both my parents were either depressed or in despair, and I went from each of them tempting to find conversations which would cheer them up, certain triggers that would do the trick. I did this particularly with my father who would be interested in either writing or sports and I would sit with him in his room looking for the subject that would enliven him. To a certain extent I have been doing this ever since, but now more than ever, since I have to keep those around me on my side; I cannot alienate them because I need them too much.

I will get to work early next year fashioning these blogs into a book with my son Carlo, who is writing this now. It will give me at least the sense that I am working and contributing to what goes on here.

Hanif