Chapter 7: Covid 19

1. Foresight Maybe Vain

By the closing months of 2019, everything was running smoothly in the six nursing homes. We had no fixed management structure, jobs being assigned as seemed appropriate at the time. Karen was a nurse and Henry’s special carer; the idea of a single primary carer was adopted across the board. She had always been an organiser and a good listener, so she accepted the mantle of manager of human resources.

Following Henry’s death, Karen took over the day-to-day administration, scheduling work and assigning carers, whether permanent or temporary. I rarely became involved in these details. We are a living organisation, however, and, like tectonic plates, we move constantly. Every so often, the tenson builds and we need a little earthquake to relieve the stress.

One of these situations arose near the end of November. It began with Aunt Harriet whose health had visibly deteriorated in the past few weeks. Her primary carer, Dani, was struggling to cope. She was not a nurse, so she found it hard to know how to handle the old lady’s worsening physical health. Karen came to talk to me about the problem.

We quickly decided that the ideal solution would be to have Karen herself care for Harriet. That immediately began a cascade of consequences. Dani deserved support rather than simply replacing her, but we could not afford two carers even for the part-owner. We had to find another post for Dani that would recognise her worth.

The other problem was to cover all the other duties Karen performed. There, at least, we had a promising solution. Pat had been playing Karen’s role in the charabanc. When they were on tour, she arranged the care schedules and acted the mother hen. Between trips, she had been helping Karen, learning the trade and taking some of the load The luxury coach was now being refitted with the improvements arising from a summer of driving our guests around Scotland.

Until the new holiday season, Pat would take Karen’s place as office manager. That looked like kicking the ball down the road, but it suited my long-term plans. Tomas and Pat were a valuable partnership, too valuable indeed to be wasted looking after holidaymakers. My plan was to recruit an ambulance crew to drive the charabanc.

Such a team would have experience both of driving with due regard for old people’s sensitivities, and their well-being. Tomas and Pat would still pioneer new routes but would spend most of their time on administrative duties, Pat in human resources and Tomas as our newly- licenced pharmacist.

That just left Dani. She had no close family outside the Glasgow home, so it would have been possible to transfer her to one of our other sites. Kirsty put her foot down: Dani would interpret such a move as an exile resulting from something she had done or failed to do. She was a sort of mascot, our youngest carer, loved by everyone. It would damage morale if our staff thought we had dumped the kid.

The solution wheeled himself through my door while Karen and I were still puzzling over the problem. Stephen Green is one of our longest residents and he has been cared for by Agnes since before I arrived on the scene. They had a rather odd relationship, based on greater familiarity than was proper or wise. When she stood near his chair, he put his hand under her skirt. The first time I met him, the pair of them played a prank on me. He showed me a pair of knickers, claiming that he had removed them from Agnes while they were talking to me.

Recently, Agnes had fallen in love with our chef, Pierre, and is now living with him in one of the mews cottages. Stephen has a guest room nearby and she is still his primary carer.

“It’s not the same anymore, Kenneth,” he whined to me. “We always knew that what I did was just a bit of fun with neither lust nor malice on either side. Now that she’s fallen for Pierre, it somehow seems dirty. I suppose that’s how the rest of you have seen us all along. I think it would be best if I had another carer.”

One needy guest plus one idle carer equals the right answer. Well, not really. Dani is a normal young woman, I’m sure, not unfamiliar with the lusts of men. She is not, however, a former prostitute like Agnes and so many other of our nurses. Karen was totally opposed at first, although I felt that Stephen would behave now he realised how his behaviour looked to outsiders.

It was my wife who prompted me to act: “For heaven’s sake! She’s a grown woman, only a couple of years younger than you and we are in the twenty-first century. Talk to the girl.” So, I did. Dani laughed at my concerns. “Agnes and him have talked about it. She says he wouldn’t dream of touching me. He never thought of what he did to Agnes as molesting – he was appalled at the very idea. Don’t you worry about me, Kenneth, its not the first time I’ve dealt with an unwanted hand on my special bits.”

We made the change in the week before Christmas. It was a roaring success right from the start. Aunt Harriet was delighted to have her old friend caring for her; Karen enjoyed devoting herself to nursing, and looked much more relaxed now her administrative role was reduced; Pat was more than ready for the challenge; and Agnes was free to devote her energies to the promotion of our restaurant. Pierre was delighted – he had hidden his jealousy of the relationship between Stephen and his partner. Only Tomas was unsettled by all that had happened.

In Scotland, the beginning of January is a time for reflection, when resolutions are made to improve ourselves. In January 2020, we had a hundred and eight guests, a hundred and four paying. Aunt Harriet and three of our doctors had free accommodation and care. We had two hundred and twelve staff including a qualified doctor in each of our six homes. Staff turnover was low and all of it was caused by external factors like the family moving home. Morale was high.

We were showing a healthy profit and the future looked quite exceptionally bright. It was my job to keep improving the business. After a shaky start, my authority had come to be accepted – I am the boss. It was not surprising that my position was questioned. I succeeded the founder of the nursing homes. One day, the boss was an experienced 91-year -old, the next a 19-year-old student. Henry recognised that I shared something of his character, but a subtle shift of emphasis condemned me.

Great Uncle Henry listened to the opinions of staff and guests, for which he was respected as a caring and understanding leader. When I listened, I was showing my weakness of command which meant that I was seen as a vacillating leader. Once Henry had finished talking, he made a clear decision, which won him admiration for being firm and determined. When I made a decision, I was condemned as arrogant and, probably, ignorant.

Of course, I did make bad decisions, as Henry had done before me. I soon realised, however, that it is more important to be decisive than correct. Some of my ideas were more successful than even I dared to dream, but time, like the tide, washes all the sandcastles away, good or bad. A decision, good or bad, is out-of-date before it is implemented. A bad decision is no more than a hiccup if momentum is maintained. A business is like a gyroscope – it is stable if you keep it turning fast enough.

I learned two lessons. The job of the boss is to prevent the business gyro from slowing down. If we are losing momentum because we have no one to clean the bedpans, then that becomes my job. Planning is essential but essentially useless since the unexpected always happens. A Chinese philosopher said that a strategy does not survive the first contact with the enemy. I have plans for all contingencies that I can imagine but I am ready to adapt at a moment’s notice.

To my surprise, much of what I learned in business applies equally to my private life. Kirsty and I recognised each other as future mates when we were both children. When Henry nudged us together it was easy to decide to marry. Then I became immersed in running the retirement homes while my new wife was sweating on the thesis for her doctorate. She began to wonder if I had only married her to secure my place as head of the lucrative business. Meanwhile, I wondered if her brutal rejection of my first proposal of marriage at age thirteen showed her true feelings.

A make-or-break visit to York brought sanity and a new sense of purpose. We later discovered that it also led to Kristy’s pregnancy which further secured our relationship. I wear the boss’s hat, but it is my wife who is the power behind the throne. She is one pace away from the action which gives her greater perspective. If I can’t convince Kirsty, I drop the idea. Mostly, we begin a dialogue that ends in a much-improved proposal.

So, on the first day of January 2020, I was ready for anything. I had my plans in place and alternatives waiting in the wings in case external or internal events demanded a change. I wasn’t exactly fat and happy, but I was somewhat complacent.

Then Covid 19 descended ‘Like a wolf on the fold’ as the old poem says.

2. Grief and Pain

Covid washed over us like a tsunami. One minute it was a line far out at sea, barely discernible; next moment it was a tower of water hanging over us, threatening destruction. I cannot now remember when I first heard of the new virus, but until the end of January I considered it someone else’s problem. There was a lingering belief well into February that you would probably be all right if you did not mix with people who had been overseas.

By the end of February, we were wary but going about our lives as normal. In the nursing homes, we considered ourselves safe. We knew that our guests were in the vulnerable category, but we had a mostly closed system. We had our own doctors and nursing staff, and our few visitors were regulars. When Stehen Green caught a cold early in March the possibility of him having Covid didn’t cross our minds. He had an annoying cough, but it cleared up after a few days.

Dani had moved a camp bed into his room while he was at his worst, so when she caught the same cold on the twelfth of March no one was surprised. She had gone back to her own room which she shared with another carer who was on night duty that week. On the morning of the thirteenth, Dani was having difficulty breathing so an ambulance was called to take her to hospital.

Karen and Agnes went to visit her that afternoon only to be refused admission to the ward. They were tested for Covid symptoms and advised to have everyone who had been close to Dani in the past four or five days tested. Before they reached my office to tell me that Dani was confirmed as a Covid victim, the word had gone around, and panic was beginning to spread through the home.

It is difficult to explain the shock and disbelief we felt at the news. A foreign disease that we had not heard of had got behind our defences and claimed one of our own. There were a few of the guests in particular who convinced themselves that the hospital had overreacted and made a mistake. More of us were praying that Dani would recover as quickly and completely as Stephen had.

There was never any question that he was the source of her infection, especially after we learned that he and Dani had lunch at the end of February with a man who had recently arrived from Hong Kong. Any doubt about the diagnosis was dispelled the next day when we learned that Dani had died. Twenty-one years old at the beginning of life, she had been snuffed out, like a candle in the wind, as the song says.

The shock would have been huge if she had worked in an office, but in a home for elderly people it was devastating. Nor was it news that could be hidden from the other five homes in the group. Our doctors did a tremendous job. Working in concert to reassure and to test the smallest sniffle or frog in the throat. Karen and I worked frantically to isolate the homes from the outside world.

The shock of Dani’s death worked in our favour: we introduced draconian measures with hardly a whimper. We would have had much more dissent if we had proposed changing the curtains. We moved swiftly and decisively, remaining ten to twenty days ahead of the government. We all listened carefully to medical and scientific experts, brought to us by the government through our television screens. We introduced what came to be called bubbles at once. Each of our homes was isolated from the community less than a week after Dani died.

The heart of the operation was the staff and guests. Ninety-eight of our two hundred and twelve staff agreed to isolate themselves from family and friends for as long as was needed. The guests readily agreed to forego visitors. Of course, that simple statement hides a plethora of consequences. We had to find almost a hundred beds and prepare rooms to hold them. Tomas undertook to find the beds, phoning every furniture outlet from manufacturer to retailer.

Dick McTurk was finishing the Inverness home, so he loaded his best six men into the charabanc and drove them round our six properties converting attic and basement spaces into dormitories. Henri, our chef, redundant because we had closed his restaurant to the public, was married to Abdul, his sous-chef, an interior designer. That pair joined the charabanc and converted dormitories into gracious living.

Now that Covid has been contained, the pair of them have gone into business as Black Sheep Designs. Many of their better ideas are now available to our guests. “If your only view is a back street,” Abdul pontificated, “You’ll be better off with a picture of the world.” It’s surprisingly uplifting to open your curtains in the morning with a view of the pyramids – even if it is a television picture and not the real thing. The picture was linked to the heating and lighting controls – the pyramid view came with hotter temperatures and brighter lights, while an Antarctic scene would have chilling temperatures.

Our lead time over the government was important. We ordered personal protection equipment early, getting a nice discount on list prices and speedy delivery from stock. A couple of weeks later, hospitals were having to make up protective gear from plastic bags. After lockdown was imposed, we rented a couple of refrigerated trucks to act as auxiliary larders for two of our homes that had limited space. With restricted movement on the roads, the truck owners offered us generous rates.

Important as these changes were, it was the response of our staff and guests that made our adaption to Covid work so well. Within the homes we had no further cases of the disease. It was a humbling experience for me. I had prided myself on knowing my people and caring for them. Isolation and our response to it revealed just how superficial I had been. Our guests could give up visitors without undue hardship because they didn’t get many in the first place, and most of those who did visit were lawyers and accountants rather than family and friends. Henry was only sought out by his family when they wanted money, until he opened the door to Kirsty and me.

I had read the records of all our guests, missing the fact that, like my Great Uncle, they were estranged from blood relatives. A lifetime devoted to making money had left most of them with many business acquaintances but few friends. Our staff and their fellow guests formed their social circle. Abdul brought them the world through their television sets – we found them visiting the dormitories to watch the world go by until we provided the same service in their own rooms.

The staff profiles were all available to me, but I had only paid attention to the mountain peaks. I knew if they were married, divorced, or widowed but I neither knew nor cared about the subtleties. Like the guests, many of the staff had little contact outside the home. There were girls still living with their families but having nothing in common with them; they had a night out with the people they worked with in the homes. Forty-two of the volunteers lived in bedsits, alone or with roommates. Only two expressed regrets at leaving their friends. (Both had nursing qualifications and accepted jobs in our homes.)

Once the immediate panic was over, Karen and I began planning permanent accommodation for staff who centered their lives on their work. Many of the cases were sad. Forty women were prepared to leave their partner to devote themselves to caring for our guests, with varying degrees of reluctance. “He’ll not notice I’ve gone until the end of the football season,” was said more than once. At the outset we had no idea how long our isolation might last. At the end of April only four of our volunteers left us because they were missing and were missed by their husbands.

I felt that the saddest cases were the ten widows and divorcees who had, on paper, the easiest lives. They all owned or rented substantial properties where they lived with sons or daughters. The reality was that mum was exploited by the child or his or her partner. One woman paid council tax, utilities, and a gardener while her son-in-law sat drinking beer and watching horse racing on television. He subscribed to the satellite channel and argued that he was making a proper contribution.

Once we had sorted out the carers, we turned our attention to administration. For the first time, we made an effort to separate care and management. We were able to have people working at home, which meant that a further ten of our staff continued to be employed. Sadly, almost a hundred had to be placed on furlough.

I spent the period of isolation with my family in Balfron, keeping in touch by telephone conferencing. When he had finished building dormitories, Dick McTurk took the coach to Billy’s barn, living there with Billy and Faith. Charley had been visiting us with Jack and Jim when we opted for isolation, so they stayed in our spare room for the duration. Charley was studying at home and the boys practically lived in Cate’s treehouse. Babs went her own way, listening to Hope who was a closet conspiracy theorist. The problem was that Babs had been at school with Scotland’s First Minister. “She was a horrible little girl, and I don’t suppose she’s any better now,” was her opinion and she wasn’t to be swayed.

Their disdain for my over-caution turned sour when Hope brought Covid into the home, infecting both Babs and Lachlan. He died and Hope was left with long covid from which she is still recovering. In the homes, we had deaths but all from natural causes – all our patients are old, after all. Aunt Harriet was one of our losses, slipping quietly away surrounded by more love than she had known for most of her life. She left everything in a trust for Cate, who will be a very rich young lady when she reaches twenty-five.

Covid cost us some money but left us in a better financial position. A year after Dani died, we had twelve more guests in the original six homes for an increase of two staff. We also opened another home near Inverness which is already at capacity. Our public dining rooms and social clubs are starting to contribute to our profits. I am still planning and still expecting my plans to go wrong.

There was a sting in the tail of Covid. The death certificate spoke of congestive heart failure, but everyone who knew the story was aware that Stephen Green died of the effects of Covid.

When Dani became his carer, we were all concerned about his behaviour. He had treated Agnes badly, even if she accepted his misbahaviour willingly. I don’t think even she realised how badly he behaved until she left him. He clearly understood the situation and solemnly promised to treat Dani with respect. We waited and watched.

What none of us anticipated was that the relationship between them was settled on their first meeting. He treated her like a granddaughter and, despite being well aware of his reputation, she responded in kind. Stephen had been a playboy, never settling long enough to marry. He preferred the company of prostitutes since it was clear to both parties that the transaction held no possibility of advancement. He took great care to avoid emotional entanglements.

It was only when he watched Agnes with Pierre that his view changed. He had judged Agnes to be as unemotional, as detached, as he was. To see her blossom as love for our chef developed made Stephen realise just how much he had missed. While Henry was alive, he had the consolation of a comrade who had essentially made the same choice. Kirsty and I surprised him by our emotional response to Henry’s death. Stephen, taking stock, found that there was no one who would mourn his death in that way.

He was ready to adopt a family when Dani became his new carer, and she was ready to respond to the opening of his heart. She had been raised alone by her mum after her dad left to be with his secretary. Mum worked hard to provide the essentials of life but her ability to love had been compromised by her experience. Dani was well fed and adequately clothed, but she never felt loved. Her life got worse when, at puberty, she was completely sidelined by the advent of Phil, her mother’s new boyfriend.