SCOTLAND ZEN and the art of SOCIAL WORK Page 4
The funeral finishes and it’s still early. Mickey has his car so he drops me off at my mate Betty’s house, one street away from mine, for coffee and a gossip. I may as well take advantage of Charlie’s good nature, if I stay away long enough he‘ll collect John from school give the kids their tea, a nice wee break for me.
Betty has a pleasantly chaotic household. She has two wee boys, two dogs and an evil cat, and more often than not a social worker sitting on the couch with a face like a smacked arse.
Today the boys are playing in the back garden. They are both pre-schoolers. Andrew, who is five, starts school in September and Jamie, four, goes to playschool three day a week. No John-Paul or Francis-Xavier for her boys, she is one of the few non-Catholics in the street, and in the village. She loves to have a laugh at the Catholic doctrines, like the virgin birth, she feels only a man could have thought that one up, and Limbo, definitely a sadist came up with that idea. She vows her boys will never have to be indoctrinated with any of that crap, she loves them too much.
I love little boys. I love their legs especially, their perfectly shaped, delicate wee ankle bones. The inevitable stepladder of technicoloured bruises on their shins from their bike pedals, with half healed scabs and new pink skin showing through on their knees.
I love the arrogant stance of my son John, shoulders back and hands deep in trouser pockets, learning swear words from the big boys and practising when he thinks nobody’s listening. Like most Carfin boys he has encyclopaedic knowledge of the season’s football fixtures and has a wealth of football language which is a mystery to most girls. There is an enormous gender divide at the age of seven.
There is a saying in Carfin that by the age of five a boy should be able to swear, count money, and run from the police. Not something I would advocate, of course, but I like the sound of it.
‘My God you look smart,’ says Betty, ‘Have you been to a funeral?
We both giggle because of course she knows where I’ve been. I feel very smart in Kate’s chocolate coloured trouser suit with a cream polo neck jumper. Thank goodness I lost all the weight after having the kids and can still fit into Kate’s clothes. Betty organises a cup of coffee and I say hello to the man sitting on the couch. He’s a bit of all right, in a social worker kind of way, not a slapped arse at all. He is also a bit familiar to me but I can’t think from where or when.
Why they all wear corduroy jeans, I don’t really know. Maybe it is the new smart casual look, they must be trained not to dress too much classier than their clients, not to undermine the old self-esteem, but obviously not to overdo it, and end up looking like vagrants. He says his name is Tommy, no last name offered, a bit like Alcoholics Anonymous, or Elvis.
He’s certainly doesn’t have a vagrant look. He has black hair, very short, showing a bit of scalp, and brown eyes like velvet buttons.
‘Don’t you remember me Mags?’ I look at him a bit blank. ‘I advised on the set- up of your playgroup here in Carfin when your John was two or three years old.’
‘Of course, I remember now, but you look very different,’ I say, thinking he looks ten times better actually.
‘Well, I was five years younger, I had a beard and my hair in a pony tail, but you look just the same, not a day older.’ he says with a smile, a very nice smile.
‘I am older unfortunately, two more kids older, and one divorce older.’
He shakes his head as if in disbelief.
Betty stands at the back window of the living room, watching her boys playing. It seems to be a complicated ‘big game’ hunt with the cat and two dogs being shot with wooden rifles in the jungle at the bottom of the garden. Betty is always vigilant and patient with her boys, a great mother, but a crap housekeeper and a hopeless accountant. The reason she instigates visits from the social workers is because she feels she has a number of mental health issues which she reckons should allow her more social security money. She has, according to her own diagnostic skills, phychotramic fatigue, a mild bipolar condition, and agoraphobia. Basically, this means she is tired most of the time, moody and can’t be bothered to go shopping, as she never has enough money to get what she and the kids really want like ice cream and mars bars.
Tommy says, with a wicked grin, that her manifestation of mental illnesses could be resultant of some deeper hurt that she’s having problems expressing. He sounds like a Social Work theory book.
We have a bit of a laugh, playing up to him and making up childhood traumas for him to analyse. He at least he has a sense of humour and seems to enjoy joking along for a while.
It must be a slow week in child protection. Just wait for the summer holidays when parents have the pleasure and responsibility of their children all day long, and see the statistics go haywire. Hospital emergency rooms deal with hundreds of child injuries, accidental or otherwise, during the first week in July, which just happens to be the first week of the Scottish school summer holidays.
After a second cup of coffee, and having analysed all Betty’s childhood humiliations at the hands of an imaginary big brother, Tommy gives in and says he will try to get her some money for a treat for her and the boys. As he is leaving I ask,
‘Do you work up at the mental hospital any time?’
‘Yes I have a few clients there at the moment, but we call it the Psychiatric Hospital now,’ he replies.
‘The funeral I was just at was my Uncle John’s, he was in there for a long time, but I don’t really know what was wrong with him. Could you find out?’ I ask.
Tommy fiddles with the zipper on his jacket and looks out of the window for a moment.
‘It’s all very confidential up there in Hartwood,’ he says, ‘and, you’re not on my case list, Mags, but if you call me at the office tomorrow morning, maybe we can have a chat.’
With that he handed me a card with his phone number on it and left. What was that about? He sounded a wee bit evasive, does he know something about Uncle John? No, I’m just being stupid, that would be too much of a coincidence. That Priest has got me going loopy and I didn’t even get to interrogate him.
‘He really fancies you, you know,’ says Betty, as soon as he is out the door, ‘He’s never stayed this long before, or been in such a good mood.’
‘Don’t be daft Betty, or I really will think that you’re mental, I’m off home, back to reality.’
Chapter 4
Still Thursday 8th May
Huntington's disease usually develops between the ages of 30
and 50, but it can start at any age. Symptoms, which differ from person to person, get gradually worse, sometimes over a period of up to 20 years