Photo courtesy of David White / www.nospin.co.uk

2000, Indiana

By Jane White

The Jolly Baker’s Nursing Home is situated in a leafy city suburb. When we arrive in Marvin’s battered blue Dodge van, nothing is stirring. For the residents, it’s that slow time between lunch and the next cup of tea. Not much to do but watch the dust motes floating around the TV.

Marvin is 82, rheumatic and bent. He is a man of few words but there is a determination in his walk and attitude that tells me how important this work is to him. He has been doing this for the last 10 years of his life. He claims to have sat on 30,000 beds in 600 nursing homes in that time, and I don’t doubt it.

Marvin wheezes slowly round to the back doors of his van. He is already cooing as Hush thrusts his nose out, tasting the air, sliding his tongue nervously over his twitching nostrils. “Come on baby,” says Marvin, encouragingly, but Hush isn’t sure.

Marvin grabs his leash and Hush digs in, front feet firmly planted on the floor. I get the feeling this is an oft-repeated scene and I’m not sure who I’d put my money on at this point. Those feet start to slide, and one meter of spotted African serval eventually pours itself, hissing, from the van.

I’m feeling slightly nervous. I have no idea if it is normal in the U.S. for septugenarians with servals to pay impromptu visits to nursing homes, but I can assure you this kind of thing is frowned upon in the UK. Hush is delicately picking his long limbed way across the car park to the lobby. Picture a miniature cheetah on a lead and you’re some of the way there.

As we enter the lobby, I turn back to the parking lot and see a woman, open-mouthed, keys in mid-air, standing by her car. She is staring at Hush with a mix of consternation and terror. She sees me and gasps, “Is that … is that … what is that, a leopard?”

I’m just about to answer when I realise that I’ve lost Marvin and Hush. I shake my head at the woman and run down the nearest corridor, which is disconcertingly empty. The over polished floor squeaks under my sandals, as I stop, out of breath.

Before me is a baffling honeycomb of doors and passageways. No one is around to ask for help. I’ve just decided to wait out by the van when I hear Marvin’s throaty, tobacco-thick rumble from behind the door nearest me. I push the door open in time to hear Marvin explain to three slightly surprised elderly ladies, “He’s a lover, not a tiger.”

One of them, slumped in a wheelchair, nods, as if it all makes sense to her now. Hush is dozing on her bed, oblivious.

After a couple minutes Marvin is ready to move on. The lady in the wheelchair waves her embroidered hankie at us and asks us to “bring the lion again soon.” As we make our way down the corridor, a nurse in a white plastic apron emerges just in front of us from a sluice room. She is holding a stainless steel dish full of false teeth in pairs and as she turns and sees us I’m afraid she’ll drop it and jumble them up. She stares, then looks back down the corridor as if hoping for back up.

Hush sniffs the edge of her apron with disdain as he slinks past and then slowly pads through the nearest open door. Marvin follows, ignoring the nurse. I follow Marvin. The nurse follows me. She tries to say something, but the words don’t connect. I desperately hope Marvin will explain himself but he is encouraging Hush to leap onto yet another bed.

The nurse shakes her head in disbelief or horror, and backs out of the room with speed. Reinforcements will be arriving at any moment.

“Marvin,” I say, nervously, “maybe we should go and see the manager.” He looks at me impassively, a face almost consumed by beard. “I’ve been doing this for 10 years and never had no problem. Once they see Hush, they’ll understand.”

In a large wing back chair, the tiniest woman imaginable is perched. Her chin is nestling on the lapels of her blouse, her eyes are listless and blank; she is the picture of misery. She hasn’t even the curiosity left to lift her head and find out who we are.

Hush heaves himself onto her bed with a malicious sideways glance at Marvin and a low hiss. The tiny lady looks at her slippers, ignoring the creaking bed springs. Hush, faced with this supreme indifference to his presence, climbs straight onto her pocket book sized lap, swamping her entirely and spilling over the arms of the chair.

However miserable you are, it’s hard to ignore 18 kg of spotted African wild cat when it parks itself on top of you. Alice, as we later found out she was called, reacts by flapping her stick thin arms feebly in the air. As if she is trying to take off. Then her eyes focus for the first time on what is in front of her. She smiles a little. Her
tiny hands sink themselves into Hush’s pelt and she lays her cheek against one of his ears.

“You’re a beauty,” she murmurs. She completely ignores us and the three nurses who have, in a comically choreographed movement, appeared, heads only, around the door.

Alice’s face is alight. The nurses are not making any moves to evict us, in fact they are smiling, feeding on Alice’s delight. Slowly they edge into the room. One of them asks me what the heck Hush is.

I want to know if it’s OK for us to be here. The nurse looks torn for a few seconds. “Well, strictly speaking it’s not usual, you know, to have wild animals visiting the residents. I’ve never heard of it before…” her voice tails off as Alice throws her head back in laughter. Her glasses are slipping down her nose and still she only has eyes for Hush. He, meanwhile has rested his chin on her arm and gone to sleep.

“Alice has been in a deep depression for the last two weeks, since her friend died,” the nurse explains, “She won’t eat, she won’t talk to anyone, she won’t leave her room. She’s been unreachable. This … this is just incredible. You must stay.”

We do stay another 20 minutes, an unusually lengthy visit for Marvin. Each time he gets to his feet and says, “Come on now, we got to be moving boy,” both Hush and Alice glare at him balefully. Almost without thinking, Alice accepts tea and cake from one of the nurses.

We eventually leave, Marvin promising to drop by again in a few days.

“That was amazing,” I say as we head back to the van, “That reaction from Alice.” Marvin is unmoved. “I see it all the time,” he says nonchalantly. “Hush always finds the people who need him the most and gives them enough of his loving to see them through.”

He lifts the now tired Hush back into the Dodge, hands me the keys, and tells me I’ll have to drive us back to his home, 60 km away. Marvin is tired, too. Man and serval sleep peacefully. I wonder what Alice will dream of tonight.

Jane White is a contributing editor for Marie Claire magazine in the UK and have been working as a features writer for them and other UK magazines for the past 7 years.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Friday, December 8th, 2006 | Email This Post

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