For the Love of Pete

Haven Hill was a private road that coiled a brutal, shadowy path from the security station at its base to the modern, purpose built retirement home, of the same name, at the summit. Lined with pine and spruce, its punishing two miles of tight, twisting, perfectly laid tarmac, scarred its ornate way through the beautifully manicured gardens until its abrupt arrival at a small car park.                              Under the auspices of environmental enhancement, the use of all motor vehicles was banned from the grounds of the care centre. A steady decline of visitors was inevitable; the small car park rapidly evolved into a wooden municipality of sheds and storage units acquired by an army of landscape gardeners.                                        Gaining entrance to the carefully managed facility was tiresome and convoluted. Anyone attempting to enter endured a process of form filling, bag searches and airport style body-scans before being admitted to a holding room; where they would wait until a member of the welcoming committee decided to go and collect them. Wearing chauffeur’s garb, a committee member would escort highly irritated visitors to the shuttle; a battery powered golf buggy that pulled three carriages, and transfer them to the head of reception.                                                  The ascent was slow and laborious; the shuttle had little to offer in way of protection from the elements, so, visitors routinely arrived very cold and often very wet. Departure was no less time-consuming; enforced bureaucracy added a miserable three hours to any visit. Exasperated by gratuitous red-tape, the few residents maintaining full command of their faculties understood the hidden agenda; pre-meditated machinations of exclusion from a narcissistic utopia.                                        Peter was not so easily intimidated; security at the entrance gate could attest to that. It may have been the innocence of youth that portrayed him as arrogant, but more likely, it was genetic. His attitude always mirrored the behaviour of the officer’s and he drew great pleasure from their discomfort. For now, a mutual condescending smile was all that was required for him to be swiftly ushered towards the holding room; as always, Peter passed straight through, negating its existence and the regime that controlled it. Renouncing the manipulative appeal of the shuttle, he would pit his will and endurance against the hill.                                                  Although extremely athletic, Peter knew he would have to concede to the gruelling incline and push his bicycle up the hill. Even on foot the gradient was torturous; like a constrictor with prey it attacked at his ribcage restricting the flow of oxygen, leaving his lungs frothing and his teenage thighs burning. Yet, Peter marched on, forcing his legs to flatten the hill. Sucking hard on the atmosphere to fill his lungs he could taste the floral fragrance of lavender and lily in the air. The oily aroma of Creosote soon swelled in Peter’s nostrils alerting him to the ligneous precinct ahead and the end of his climb.                                                                      Oxygen crept back into Peter’s legs ending the lactic assault on his muscles. Raising his head and stretching his back he heaved himself into an upright position. As he cocked his shoulder to wipe sweat from his cheeks, he noticed Jack, the head gardener, leaning against the first tool shed. Peter looked at his watch and walked towards him.                                                                                ‘At least fifteen minutes quicker than the shuttle,’ he said, with a smile on his face.                                                  ‘Aye,’ said Jack, pointing with his lips towards the tool shed. ‘Wheel her in.’                                                            Peter pushed the bike inside and secured it to a leg of the lathe. Jack pulled a tattered old leather tobacco pouch from his jacket pocket and began to roll a cigarette.          ‘Your bloody lungs must look like that by now,’ said Peter.                                                                                ‘Aye,’ said Jack putting the cigarette in his mouth.                    Peter weaved through the maze of sheds until he reached the footbridge that gently arched the river. Barely wide enough to accommodate a wheelchair; the intricately carved slab of old oak was the sole passage to prompts from the past.                                                                      A stagnant smell of cold piss and bleach greeted Peter like an old friend. He reached into his pocket for a menthol rub and smeared his upper-lip before entering the communal lounge. Bert would be found in his usual place, swaying to and fro in a wicker rocking-chair, staring at the panorama through the vast double-glazed sliding doors.                                                                      ‘Hello granddad,’ said Peter, kissing the old man on the forehead.                                                                      ‘Great-granddad! Or Bert!’ He replied. ‘Always call a man by his proper title or his proper name!’                              ‘Sorry! Bert,’ said Peter giving him a hug.                              ‘Great to see you, Pete. Highlight of my week.’                    Bert grabbed Peter’s shoulders and ruffled his hair, but, Peter pulled back with a solemn look.                              ‘I’ve seen that face before,’ said Bert. ‘Something bothering you, son?’                                                            ‘Yeah…no…I don’t know,’ Peter paused. ‘It’s mum! She’s been trying to stop me from seeing you.’                              ‘Oh!’ Said Bert. ‘It’s like that is it?’                              ‘Why does she hate you so much?’                                        ‘She don’t hate me Peter. She’s angry. She blames me for her dad dying. She forgets I grieve too, he was my son,’ Bert paused. ‘And she’s scared.’                              ‘Scared of what?’                                                            ‘She’s scared that you’re like him. The same as me. You know what I mean, don’t you?’                              ‘Yeah! Those stories all true then, granddad? About the war I mean.’ Bert did not correct the term of address.                    ‘Yes,’ he sighed nodding his head. ‘People like us are few and far between. We get the job done, whatever the cost! Whatever the sacrifice!’                                                  ‘It don’t just apply to wartime does it, granddad?’                    ‘Oh no! It’s in our blood, son! And that’s what you’re mother’s afraid of. If you going to do something you’ve got to do it properly, one hundred and ten per cent or don’t bother at all! My son died giving his all. You and me, we have the same stubborn, adventurous drive!’                    ‘Did you achieve everything, granddad?’                    ‘Everything I attempted, yes!’                                        ‘Did you attempt everything you wanted to do?’                    ‘Almost! There is one more thing. But who’s to say I won’t do it thing before I die?’                                                  ‘You’re bloody eighty-nine years old you silly sod! You wake up for a piss every half hour! What could you possibly do now?’ Peter laughed out loud. ‘One hundred and ten per cent?’                                                                      Bert gave Peter’s left ear a solid slap.                                        ‘Never say never, Pete! I’ve still got a right hook, you know!’ Bert fell into his chair laughing. ‘Anyway, I’m not eighty-nine ‘til next week.’                                        Peter went to fetch one of the small, uncomfortable, plastic chairs reserved for visitors, but came back with two cups of tea and a plate of biscuits. Bert chuckled to himself.                                                                      ‘You see Pete; it’s in your blood. We’re not due tea ‘til six o’clock.’                                                                      Peter winked and went back for the chair.                              ‘Take a look around you Pete. It’s no fun in here! This is death’s waiting room, that’s what this is! We got treated better in Colditz and I escaped from there. Why?’          Peter shrugged his shoulders.                                                  ‘Because I’ll choose where I die not Mr. Reaper. Besides, the Gestapo had a no sense of humour.’                    The conversation was interrupted by the shrieking head chef, who exploded into the room complaining that someone had stolen ten gallons of goose fat. Matron immediately called for a lock-down and suggested that Peter leave before the ensuing chaos prevented him from doing so. Peter placed a farewell kiss on Bert’s forehead and left.                                                                      ‘See you next Friday, Granddad,’ he called back.                    ‘Great-gran…,’ but Peter was gone.                                        It had been the first time Peter had heard Bert mention death and it bothered him. The following week dragged painfully by and Peter found it increasingly difficult to concentrate. Anguish, he decided, was legitimate motivation for truancy. He went to school as usual on Friday morning, chained his bicycle in the bike shed, hung his blazer on his peg and went to registration; but, at first break, he scaled the back wall and escaped.                    It was lunchtime when Peter finally arrived at Haven Hill. Smearing his upper-lip with menthol rub he hurried into the communal lounge, but came to an abrupt stop when he saw Bert’s chair was empty.                                        ‘Anyone seen Bert?’ he called, then louder. ‘Has anyone seen Bert?’                                                                      The matron who had organised the tea and biscuits for Peter and had warned him to leave approached with an air of pastoral calmness.                                                  ‘I haven’t seen him all day,’ she said. ‘Why don’t we check his room?’                                                                      Peter felt the walls begin to close in on him as he followed her along the corridor. The pair neared Bert’s room and saw the untouched breakfast tray on the floor by his door. Fraught with panic, the matron first fumbled for her keys, then fumbled for the lock before eventually forcing the door open. She gasped in shock; Peter threw her to one side and hurried into the room. There was no sign of Bert. His bed was perfectly made and the room was immaculately tidy.                                                            A commotion from the communal lounge sent Peter running. He arrived to find the entire residency crowded in the middle of the room. Fearing the worst, he forced his way through the crowd, but was astonished to find them crowded around a small television, staring at the news. Overcome by confusion and desperation he turned to find the matron; when the voice of the newsreader caught his ear.                                                                                ‘At nine-thirty this morning, a British pensioner was discovered covered in goose fat, walking out of the English Channel near the ferry port of Calais in France. He refused to give his name, but, claimed today was his eighty-ninth birthday. He told a local fisherman “tell Pete, never say never and tell Mr Reaper I chose where and I chose when.”                                                  Paramedics helped the pensioner into an ambulance, but he was proclaimed dead-on-arrival at the local hospital.’