Ada

One of the tallest of our guests on any of our holidays was Ada.  She could not have suffered a more disabling accident than a fractured femur which had left her almost completely immobile and  very difficult to help, since none but the tallest helpers could lift her and steady her until she got her balance.  Furthermore, the damaged leg had stiffened while recovery had progressed and the leg now stuck out straight in front of her wherever she was pushed.

 

In her wheelchair Ada reminded one of a Viking ship with her stiff leg like a long thin prow carving its way through the sea of guests making their way to the dining-room.  All that was necessary to complete the illusion were two curly horns above her ears and one could imagine the triumphant vessel sailing confidently to her place in the big dining-room.

 

Furthermore, Ada was demanding.  At home she was the responsibility of a doting husband who waited on her all day and half the night, until, at eighty-two, he was near to collapse.  His worried daughter had booked her mother to accompany us to give the poor old boy just a few days’ respite.

 

We were determined to accomplish as much rehabilitation for Ada as could be managed in one short week but it was an exhausting struggle to get Ada to try and walk.  She had been kept in bed following the accident which had led to her disablement and because of the pain and discomfort which movement caused her, she had been allowed to stay there.  So, for most of the time Ada was trundled about in her chair with her stiff leg propped onto a board slipped under the cushion on her seat.  For regular short periods each day, Ada was lifted from her sitting position and balanced on her long legs, give her crutches and urged to walk.  The wheelchair would be wheeled six or seven yards in front of her and slowly and painfully, Ada would start on the trek to reach it.  Every day the distance would be lengthened a few yards and the protesting Ada would be coaxed, stimulated and bullied to take a few more steps to reach her goal and then would be lowered gently into her seat and her leg rest pushed under the long horizontal leg stretched out in front of her.

 

The whole process was exacting for everyone.  Ada was nervous; her bad leg ached; the ground was seventy-four inches away if she fell; the path was hard and long, and ‘Dad’ would have let her have her breakfast in bed.  Altogether it was a most unsatisfactory holiday for her and she would have preferred to stay at home, where life was softer and kinder.

 

Because of her outstretched leg, Ada was pushed into the dining-room in advance of the general stampede of diners.  Dorothy, her pusher, would settle her comfortably into the corner up against the wall with her leg tucked out of the way, where it could not be knocked or could constitute a barrier to people finding their seats along the corridors between the tables.  Thus it was that Ada invariably had her meals served to her more quickly than anyone else in the big hall.  While Dorothy was arriving with her second wheelchair passenger, Ada had demolished her cornflakes and was half-way through her bacon and fried bread and had poured herself a second cup of tea.  The staff pushed in the last of the non-walking guests and seated themselves at their own table while Ada was just finishing her piece of toast and marmalade and washing it down with her second cup of tea.

 

Dorothy had seated herself and was pouring milk onto her plate of porridge when a hissing noise attracted her attention.  She glanced up and saw Ada, an expectant gleam in her eye and an imperious finger curled in command, Dorothy sighed, but rose dutifully and made her way around the backs of the chairs and over to the demanding Ada.  Some discussion ensued and Dorothy was attempting to escape back to her cooling porridge, but was being subjected to some urgent and insisted request.  Finally Dorothy, with apologies to the rest of her companions, pulled Ada and her long leg backwards into the aisle and started on her way to the door.

 

“Where are you going?”  “What does she want?”  The rest of the staff were concerned and sympathetic.  With all the patience she could muster, with a longing glance at her congealing porridge, Dorothy explained.  Ada wanted to be taken urgently to the toilet.  “I’ll put her on the one out in the foyer”, said Dorothy, “and she can stay there until we have finished breakfast”.  So much for sensible intentions.  Ada would have none of that.  She worked herself into a tantrum.  She finished with an attack of hysteria, and Dorothy, admitting defeat, wheeled the chair back to the chalet to her own loo.  As Ada pointed out quite logically, she could not be left in a loo by the dining-room since it would not be possible to shut the door with her leg in the way and she would be sitting there in full view of passers-by.

 

Dorothy returned after fifteen minutes.  The porridge had been removed and replaced with bacon, egg and fried bread.  In vain had her companions tried to keep the food palatable.  By the time Dorothy returned, exasperated and frustrated, the bacon was curled into a greasy fragment, the egg had shrunk, and presented a wrinkled yolk with a touch skin over it and the bread slunk miserably into the white dripping surrounding it.

 

We should have been forewarned.  We assumed that the change of environment, the change of diet and alteration of routine had caused an unexpected stimulation to Ada’s alimentary system and her inside  would give no further trouble.  We were mistaken.  Exactly the same performance was enacted the following morning.  Three minutes after we had seated ourselves, the demanding hiss, the beckoning gesture, another two minute argument and the triumphant Ada was being pushed out of the dining-room while a neglected breakfast solidified in front of Dorothy’s empty chair.

 

We called a discussion session.  It was decided that one member of staff each day would get to breakfast early and have their meal finished at about the same time as Ada.  The waitress on the table was interviewed and the problem explained.  Her sympathy was aroused, and an early breakfast was promised each day.  The rota for the emergency duty was compiled and Maggie was due the next morning.  By judicious arrangement, Dorothy was placed with her back to Ada’s direction.  Maggie took the seat previously occupied by Dorothy.

 

Came the next morning.  Everyone was alert and interested but Ada noticed nothing different until she had consumed every crumb and drained her cup to the bottom.  She glanced over to the staff table, her hand raised ready to curl in the demanding gesture.  She hesitated and hissed to gain attention.  Dorothy’s back remained inattentive but the rest of the heads at the staff table looked over.  Ada’s forefinger jabbed the air vigorously in the direction of Dorothy’s back.  Maggie, her plate empty, rose, pushed back her chair and walked towards the astonished Ada.  The insistent forefinger jabbed the air more urgently towards Dorothy’s apathetic form.  Maggie reached the table and commenced to pull the wheelchair from under the table.  Ada began to protest.  “I want Dorothy to take me”.  Maggie continued to manoeuvre the chair between the tables.  “Dorothy is eating her breakfast”.  “Ask her to take me.  She knows how we do it”.  “I can Learn”.  Maggie was adamant.  The protests became more urgent and noisy, but the wheelchair with its reluctant passenger reached the doorway and, amid wails of woe and accompanied by interested gazes of two or three spectators, disappeared.

 

All the way down the path to the chalets the dispute continued.  “She doesn’t mind taking me”, assured the disturbed passenger.  “It only takes a little while.  They can always keep her breakfast hot for her if you can ask them”.  “Dad always used to see to me directly after I had finished breakfast at home”.

 

There was no response from the back of the wheelchair but the journey continued relentlessly.

 

At the chalet door the wheelchair stopped and Maggie, walking a round to the front of her passenger, took the crutches from beside the doorpost and help them out to her still seething passenger.  Ada was not going to give in that easily.  “You’ll have to push me up to the toilet door”, she instructed her tormenter.  Obediently, the chair was tipped over the shallow step and up to the door of the bathroom.  Again the crutches were offered and again Ada rejected them.  “You’ll have to come round the front of me and help me up”, she instructed.  Without any demur, Maggie did as she was instructed.  The chair was placed exactly as Dorothy always placed it with Ada’s long extended leg just inside the door and the wheels wedged between the door jambs.  “Now help me up”, said Ada.  Maggie took her hands and started to lever up the long lanky form and the chair moved, ever so slightly, backwards.

 

Ada gave a little screech and Maggie released her hands.  “You’ll have to put on the brakes”, said Ada.  Maggie leaned over the side of the chair and attempted to pull the brake lever but her hands were a fraction too far away.  She leaned over the other side but again her reach was insufficient.  “You’ll have to put them on”, she told Ada.  Ada reached down with her long arms and pulled both knobs backwards.  They started again.  This time Maggie exerted all her strength and pulled Ada up onto her one foot and was attempting to get the stiff leg under her charge when the extended foot caught the side of the bath and would not move.  Ada shouted, “Let me down”.  Maggie gently lowered her but the chair had slowly rolled back and Ada, her long leg firmly jammed against the bath, sank lower and lower until with barely a bump, she was sitting on the floor.  She began to cry, then to shout and Maggie, apparently quite unperturbed, stepped over the reclining form, took the captured leg and pushed it away from the bathroom door.  She turned her round so that she had the wall as a backrest.  She took two pillows from the bed and shoved them down behind Ada’s shoulders, while Ada, too astonished to do more than moan, waited to see what further disaster could befall her.

 

Having made her charge as comfortable as possible in the circumstances, Maggie calmly walked out of the chalet door.  Ada, alarmed, shouted after her, “You can’t leave me here like this; where are you going?”  Maggie turned.  “I’m going to get some help, of course”, she retorted.

 

It was about ten minutes later that Maggie, with Tony and Clive in tow, returned.  Ada was sitting, miserable and cross, where she had been left.  It took lest than half-a-minute, with lefty lads heaving on both sides, that Ada was standing erect.  Her elbow crutches were put under each arm and she was escorted to the lavatory door.

 

“I can manage now”, said Ada, perturbed that two lads should witness any more of her humiliation.  The two boys retreated, sat themselves side by side on the bed to wait patiently until their help might be required again.

 

Maggie helped Ada to turn, pulled down her pants for her and, with one hand steadying to long leg, lowered Ada onto the seat.  She pushed an upturned bucket under the extended leg and left the bathroom, pulling the door closed behind her.  She joined her companions on the bed and recounted the story of the incident.  “She couldn’t have pulled the brakes on properly, she chortled happily.  It took a whole morning to convince Ada that nothing had been damaged except her dignity.  But for the rest of the week, although the anticipatory gleam in Ada’s eye served as a tiny prick of conscience to one or two of the helpers, Ada did not interrupt another meal with a hiss or a command.  She decided that help from Dorothy was much to be preferred to that of the inadequate Maggie.