Tough Times

Man, but this life is hard! You know how much trouble and pain I’ve had ever since I was a kid? A father who beat us until he cleared off to the US, never to be heard of again, and a mother who drank herself to death. Then my first marriage. What a disaster that was! Two kids and nine years later she divorced me, and I can’t say I blame her. First I lost all of her savings and the money her father left her. That was when my business went under and the creditors grabbed everything we had. And when she caught me messing around for a second time it was the final straw.

It was good that my present wife had a hysterectomy before we met. At least we don’t have children to bring up. Things were kind of alright for a while. We both had quite decent jobs, she at the guest lodge and me on the whale boat. Then along came Covid and tourism collapsed. We drew unemployment benefits for as long as we could. She was lucky to get a job at the supermarket in Gansbaai but the hours were long and the pay half what she used to get. As for me, I eventually gave up wasting time and money hunting for non-existent work and became a house husband.

I had to do all the cooking, cleaning and washing, and I was garden boy as well. It was not too bad at first, there being just the two of us, but then disaster struck. Her mother arrived on the scene. She had been living alone in her house in Cape Town. It was an old place but, because it was in the City Bowl, was worth close on five million. After her husband died she became depressed and began to show signs of dementia. When it became clear she could no longer live alone, the house was put on the market. The old boy had stipulated in his will that should the property be sold the proceeds were to be held in trust and only the interest could be used to take care of his widow. He probably knew that my wife and her brother would have tried to get their hands on the money and there would not be enough to see her to her grave.

She could have gone to an old age home where she would have been looked after in style, but my scheming brother-in-law, who had also hit hard times, came up with a different plan. For one third of the monthly interest money, he would handle the sale of the house and contents, and attend to all the admin, while my wife would get two thirds for taking in her mother and looking after her.

There was not much choice. We were two months behind with the rent, the price of petrol meant getting to work took nearly half her salary, and by the 15^th we were eating pap and gravy just like the folks in the townships. The extra money has certainly made a big difference, but it now means that I not only have to do the housework and the garden, but also take care of a senile old lady.

Because of her depression, for which she takes a load of useless medication, she is reluctant to get up in the morning. After the wife has gone to work I tidy up and do the dishes. Then, at eight o’clock I take her coffee. I knock on her door and as I open it, I call out, “Mom, are you awake?” Of course, she is not awake. I put down the coffee and open the curtains. “Are you awake, Mom?” She mumbles and stirs. “Time to get up, Mom. It’s after eight on a lovely Thursday morning.” I tell her what day it is in the hope that she will remember and not keep asking me every five minutes. “Don’t go back to sleep, Mom. Drink your coffee.” Only when she sits up and reaches for the mug can I leave her.

I eventually persuade her to get out of bed and come to the kitchen, where I give her breakfast and make sure she takes her meds correctly. Around nine she goes to the bathroom. She cannot handle the shower on her own so I run her a bath. She finally emerges after splashing a lot of water on the floor for me to dry up. It is close on eleven when she comes out of her room to sit and have tea in the lounge or on the stoep, depending on the weather. She used to love novels, I am told, and now likes to sit with an open book in her lap. I think it is just a pretence, though, because she is evasive when I ask her what the story is about. I make lunch for one o’clock and we eat it together, mostly in silence. Sometimes I will turn the radio on and listen to the news and make comments but she hasn’t a clue about what is going on. “Man, but these ANC monkeys can’t stop stealing!” I say, and she looks at the window, a little alarmed. “Are there monkeys outside?” “No, don’t worry, Mom. The monkeys are all in Parliament.”

My wife insists I take her mother for a walk every day if it is not raining or blowing a gale. She says it will help to keep her mobile and it is also good for her mental health. And what about my mental health? It is no use complaining, because I know what she will say. If I don’t want to cooperate, then I can forget about sex. Not that every two weeks is much of a sex life. And the last time, can you believe it, she actually fell asleep while I was still doing my thing!

Inside the house she uses a stick, and she has a three-wheeler for outdoors. When I get her out at 3pm I find it easier and safer just to take her arm. We need nearly half an hour to shuffle round the block. I once said to her that if we go any slower a tortoise will overtake us, but she ignored me. Sometimes I try to encourage her with motivational rubbish about what a beautiful day it is, and how spectacular the flowers have been, but normally she just grunts. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I urged her to cheer up and enjoy being out in the fresh air while she was still able to. She came to a halt, looked into the distance, and sang in her hoarse, old woman’s voice the refrain from an almost forgotten song.

Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think
Enjoy yourself, while you're in the pink
The years go by, as quickly as a wink
Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think

She turned to me and actually gave a triumphant smile. I nearly fell on my back. So, there was still a faint spark left in her, I thought, but it soon went out and she lapsed into gloomy silence once more.

When we get home, she collapses onto her bed and stays there until the worker returns. During the evening meal my wife tries to engage in conversation with her mother but it is so one-sided and unrewarding she soon gives up. After supper the old girl stares at the TV for an hour and then goes to bed. And that is the routine, seven days a week, week in and week out.

No wonder I feel trapped. No wonder I have become increasingly desperate in my search for an escape from this purgatory. I suppose it was inevitable that my thoughts would turn to euthanasia.

Our situation deteriorated. With constant load-shedding and the ever-rising price of petrol and food the supermarket was losing money. My wife came home in a state and announced that she would have to take a pay cut or lose her job. And the car was starting to use oil.

It was after she got stuck in the bath that I began to work on a plan of action. I heard her shouting my name and when I called through the door and asked if she was alright, she said she needed help to get out. Instead of kneeling, as she had been told to do, she was sitting in the bath. Of course she could not hoist herself up. Over the years she has been putting on weight until now she is built like a hippo. I had to take off my shoes and socks and stand in the bath behind her and grab her under her arms in a kind of bear hug and heave her up enough for her to get onto her knees. I helped her to stand and climb out of the bath before leaving her to dry off and finish her ablutions.

Well, after having manhandled the naked old woman, I tried to analyse my feelings. Apart from acute embarrassment, I was filled with a strange mixture of pity, anger and self-loathing. Was looking after this miserable old vegetable all that was left in my life? What kind of excuse for a man had I become?

I now began to see her in a different light. When I studied her features all I saw was unhappiness. The deep lines around her down-turned mouth make her look bitter and resentful, and her eyes are dull and unfocussed, giving the impression of sadness and disappointment. There is no joy in her life, and no hope. She merely exists. More than that, it is a futile existence that benefits no one, including her. We would all be better off if she were dead.

This is how I began to think. If she died my wife would inherit her two and a half million and we would be free to start living again. But if the old woman is not taken out by a heart attack or stroke, her Medical Aid could keep her going for years to come. Maybe the time had arrived to not only help her out of the bath, but to help her out of this world and into the next.

I began to daydream about a modus operandi. I ruled out staging a suicide, and shied away from poison. Then I remembered a scene from some years back. I had trapped a rat in a cardboard box, and to kill it I dropped it into a bucket of water and held it under with a pair of braai tongs. It struggled violently for about a minute and then went limp. I was about to let it go when there was a final flurry. The drowning process had taken no longer than three minutes.

Of course, I wasn’t going to attack the old woman while she was in the bath. But what about smothering her in her sleep? I could creep into her room during her afternoon nap and use a cushion to suffocate her. She would struggle like the rat did, no doubt, but not for long. The horrible process would take no more than five minutes at the outside.

I told myself that it would be an act of kindness. She would be released from the hopeless misery of this pointless routine she was forced to follow. By keeping her going we weren’t doing her a favour, and at the same time we were ruining our own lives.

It was ten days ago that I finally made a move. In a state of extreme agitation, my hands shaking, I quietly opened her door. The curtains were closed against the afternoon light and all was quiet. I stealthily approached her bedside, holding the cushion before me.

“Yes? What do you want?”

I tell you, I nearly jumped out of my skin. In the gloom her eyes were wide open and she was looking at me.

“Oh, I just wondered if you would like some tea?”

“Tea? Not now. I’m trying to rest.”

I suppose I should have followed through anyway, but my courage deserted me. I would have to psych up again, and next time only make the attempt if I could hear her snoring.

A week went by before I was in the right state of mind to act. Then, on the morning I resolved to do it, to calm my nerves and keep busy, I went out on the pavement and started to trim the hedge. I had not been at it for long when the old man from up the road came by with his dog. We exchanged greetings and he stopped to talk.

He said he had been meaning to speak to me for some time now. He just wanted to say how much he admired me for the way I was looking after the old lady. Was she my mother? I put him right and he went on to claim that there weren’t many young men today who would sacrifice their time to improve the quality of life of a decrepit old relative. I didn’t say that 46 was hardly young, and he continued to heap praise on me. My behaviour showed that I was a compassionate human being with strong moral fibre. In his book that was what constituted a real man.

He went on his way and I returned to the house. In the bedroom I closed the door and lay down on the bed. After a while I began to cry like … like a man. My cheeks were wet. Then I heard her calling. She was shouting my name the way she did when she got stuck in the bath. Now what?

Yes, when I say life is hard, I know what I am talking about.

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