The Caretaker ( VILLAGE TALES EP. 43 )

A local becomes concerned over what he has, and what he’ll leave behind. Things can come to dominate our lives and there’s a concern that we spend all our later years just looking after everything we’ve got. Harold Pointer doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life just being a ‘caretaker’.

Constance, my gardening next door neighbour, called in one morning asking for some advice. You may remember she and Bernard Jeffries became close friends after he failed to win the longest carrot prize in our annual produce show. They are both very keen gardeners and I presumed what she had in a cardboard box was something to do with that but it turned out to be an old black Bakelite telephone, a coiled flex attaching the body of the phone to the handset, or what used to be called the ‘receiver’, resting on a cradle. Constance wanted to know if it was valuable as she and Bernard had joined the modern age and had bought mobile phones. She had kept the phone in the loft ever since it was replaced by a ‘Trim’ phone, just in case that phone ceased to work. She wondered if the trim phone was worth keeping in case the mobiles stopped working. I suggested maybe she should hang on to the old black phone in case of an emergency, the trim phone didn’t work, and finally, maybe a couple of pigeons. She saw my point and sold all her’s and Bernard’s old phones. If they were going to move in together they would have to unload themselves of far more if there was ever going to be room for two; maybe why they hadn’t. Stuff, as well as the owners of it, will all have to be ‘re-located’ eventually, one way or another.

As a dealer in mainly antiques, house clearance wasn’t something I enjoyed. Remember the clearance I did for ‘Forder the Hoarder’ and the valentines cards? That’s what used to depress me, the personal effects, the photographs, the letters. It seemed disrespectful to deal in what was someone’s private possessions, even though by then it was just stuff. A clearance would usually be at the behest of a trustee, or a family member. TV dramas focus on the family disputes over what was left to whom, but I never saw any of that, only sadness. To some the idea of having to sort out a loved one’s possessions not so long after they had departed, could be unbearable and better left to someone else. Forder’s clearance was one that wasn’t due to a bereavement, another was when I met Harold Pointer.

Harold Pointer had previously had a reputation for being verbose and people would complain they couldn’t get a word in edgeways. It’s not uncommon for those living on their own, firstly to talk to themselves when alone, and secondly not to stop talking when amongst friends. After a long day with hardly a customer in my shop I too could be desperate for conversation. I remember two, there’s always a pair, of Jehovah’s Witnesses came into my shop on a particularly boring day and I engaged them in conversation for over an hour and a half having to stand between them and the door to prevent them leaving. They, nor any of their accomplices, ever returned. 

The pub rumour was that it was after Harold had attended a funeral that his verbosity showed signs of decline. At the time comments were abundant about how long he could remain silent during the service. One wag thought that if he was doing the eulogy they wouldn’t be out of the church for a day or two. The first that locals noticed that something had occurred was a few weeks after his return when pauses started to creep into Harold’s conversation, and he began to take on a more thoughtful demeanour. Rather than a torrent of conversational mediocrity, Harold eventually moved to longer pauses and to being someone who, when at last he spoke, people were keen to hear. 

‘Less is definitely more,’ was what one of the regulars was heard to say.

What wasn’t known was that Harold’s ‘downsizing’ was not restricted to his conversation. No sooner had I arrived, freshly retired from the antiques trade, if ever anyone does, that it was Harold Pointer, that called upon me asking for some advice. By that time his conversation was at its mid point and therefore to me, perfectly normal. Only when thoughtful did longish pauses occur, something that would increase as the weeks passed by. 

Having heard of my dubious past Harold thought I might be of help regarding the disposal of the things he had collected, or merely acquired, mostly since his wife had died some twenty or more years before. It started as a general sort out, what some now refer to as a ‘life-laundry’. In the same way that some artists burn all their past work, it can be ‘freeing’ from the physical and emotional baggage of the past. I assisted Harold to decide what should be retained, dumped, sold, or given to charity. I know too well there are far more reasons for keeping something than getting rid of it, so a dispassionate supervisor is essential. Things worth little can be the most difficult to let go as they often have a sentimental value. That understood, if there was a market for something, money was sometimes an incentive to move it on. Items were allocated ways of getting the best price, but ultimately the bottom line was a carboot sale on the outskirts of Shaftesbury, but I warned Harold he was likely to return with more than he had left with.

During the course of this ‘downsizing’ I learnt that Harold had four children, two married, one divorced, and one with a long time partner. Typically they were spread around the country, with one couple living in Canada. His children’s visits were infrequent and occurred most often around Christmas, or when a new arrival was to be celebrated. If they all got together it was a rarity. It is to be expected that whilst children are often in parent’s minds, that’s part of their job description, parents aren’t so often in their children’s minds, and that’s part of theirs.

I noticed during the time I was helping with Harold’s mission, as space began to appear in his home, so too the pace of his conversation slowed. Space was appearing in both. As a comparative newcomer, I began to wonder if it was due to an illness gradually taking hold and slowing things down. I had a relative who displayed similar symptoms resulting eventually in, well, not a good outcome. I began to observe his handwriting, balance, and speech, but all seemed normal. He was angered once when a vase was broken by an auction house, and there was nothing wrong with either his diction, or the amount of accompanying expletives. And then nothing wrong when we went for a drink to celebrate the more than generous compensation he had received.

It was while we were drinking that I asked him why he had chosen then to dispose of stuff, and added that I would understand if he felt he couldn’t tell me. I thought it might be because he needed the money and I still wondered if there were health issues and maybe a move to somewhere warmer had been advised. Who knows why someone suddenly wants to unload themselves of stuff. As a dealer it was never questioned, you were just grateful that they did and they’d chosen to you to ’help’.

‘I don’t want to be the caretaker,’ was his answer after a long pause.

I asked him to explain and had to wait while he looked into his pint, in the same way a clairvoyant looks into a crystal ball. 

Harold explained that it was during the funeral of a close friend that he began to examine the priorities in his own life. Then afterwards at the wake speaking with the children, all adults like his own, how he could feel the weight of what lay ahead and how none of them wanted to face the onerous task their father had left them.

‘There comes a point,’ he told me, ‘when looking after the house and everything in it, mowing the lawn, and painting the window frames, is no substitute for a few hours spent with the children. We put down so many roots we can’t move and then expect the young’uns to visit us, when it’s us that has the time to visit them. 

‘Besides, I don’t want to leave to those I leave behind to do, what I couldn’t be bothered to get round to doing myself?’

Harold sold his cottage to Desmond Peacock and bought a small retirement flat in Shaftesbury. What he’d kept was enough to furnish the place but he’s seldom there. After six months in Canada he spends most of his time with his other children, and grandchildren. He joined several clubs and took up painting for which he has a real talent. While he was away he sent me a postcard, all it said was,

‘Harold Pointer is no longer The Caretaker.’

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Written and read by Barkley Johnson.