Give me a home with cocktails

Some time ago my mum and I went to visit a family friend, who was recuperating at an old age home until he was able to live alone again. We sat at a table in a large lounge. Around the sides of the room folk in various states of decrepitude bided their time on brown easy chairs, clutching their sticks, staring at dust motes: God’s waiting-room.

However, there was one old chap who kept looking at my mother, his frown growing deeper each time. Finally, at about quarter to four, he tottered over.

“Excuse me,” he said, “but you’re in my seat.”

She leapt up, mortified, though he insisted she was fine for a few more minutes, but at four o’clock it was time for bread and jam, you see ...

We saw. We moved. At 4pm, the trolley arrived with bread and jam.

It took me right back to an almost-forgotten teenage day spent helping out in the same old age home, filling in for nurses who couldn’t come in due to a bus strike.

Oh, it was horrid, pushing pills into reluctant, toothless mouths, holding their lips together and entreating them to swallow because these pills were keeping them alive, while tears popped from the corners of their faded eyes.

I couldn’t get out of there fast enough, not because of the old people, but because of the infantilisation, the lack of autonomy.

So now my children have very strict instructions about what to do with me when I’m that far gone.

In a nutshell? Prop me beside the drinks cabinet.

Put me in an old age home, sure, but please make sure there are big windows, a view, music, lazy dogs, and cake on demand.

But mostly, a cocktail hour. I want little drinkies at 4pm, and perhaps a spot – a lot! – of sherry on cold winter nights.

And let there be wine, even if dinner is slop eaten off a spoon. Let there be wine, even if I’m being fed intravenously.

If the highlight of my day ever becomes white bread and tinned jam, if I am to be denied a gin and tonic in my dotage, then I demand at least the dignity given a horse: just shoot me.

As for “our” old man, I think what he really needed was a nice brandy.

Hadn’t he spent a lifetime earning it?