Shadows of the Workhouse

don’t know how it was I didn’t have an accident as I cycled back to Nonnatus House. I was filled with sorrow.
    After supper, I spoke to Sister Julienne. She listened in silence to what I had to say, and didn’t speak for a long time. Thinking she hadn’t taken it in, I said. “You do understand what I’m saying, don’t you? It is simply dreadful. He shouldn’t be there.”
    “Oh yes, my dear, I understand all right. I was thinking of Our Lord’s words to Peter, as recorded in St John’s Gospel: ‘When you are young, you go where you wish, but when you are old, others will take you where you do not wish to go.’ This was taken to indicate the manner in which St Peter would die, but I have always thought that it is a general reflection about us all. For we all grow old, and very few of us retain our health and strength to the last. Most of us become helpless and completely dependent on others, whether we like it or not. Old age is a time when we learn the virtue of humility.”
    I didn’t know what to say. I had often found myself in a similar position with Sister Julienne. She had a purity of thought and a simplicity of expression that were quite unanswerable.
    She continued: “Mr Collett’s tragedy is that all his family were killed in the wars. The tragedy is loneliness, not the surroundings, which I doubt he notices. What you see as intolerable living conditions may be all par for the course to him. If he were living in luxury in a palace, he would be just as lonely. You are his only friend, Jenny, and he loves you. You must stay with him.”
    I said that I had pledged myself to do that, and then I started to rail against the folly and inhumanity of turning him out of the flat where he had been comfortable and independent.
    She stopped me in mid-sentence. “Yes, I know all that. But you must understand that the Canada Buildings have long been due for demolition. People are not going to put up with a bug-infested environment and insanitary conditions today. The Buildings must go, so the people must go. I am well aware of the fact that most of the old people who are being moved will not be able to adjust to new surroundings, and that many of them will die as a consequence. Which brings me back to the words of Jesus: ‘When you are old, men will take you where you do not want to go.’”
    She smiled at me, because I must have looked so sad, and said: “Now I must go and take Compline. Why not join us this evening?”
    The beauty and timelessness of the monastic office of Compline eased my troubled soul.
    “The Lord grant us a quiet night and a perfect end.”
    I thought of Mr Collett and all the other old men, isolated – even from each other – by loneliness.
    “In thee, O Lord, have I put my trust. Let me never be put to confusion.”
    The candles lighting the altar were reflected on the windows, shutting the dark without, and enclosing the nuns within.
    “Be thou my strong rock and house of defence.”
    Jews and Christians have drawn strength and wisdom from these psalms for two to three thousand years.
    “Thou shalt not be afraid of any terror by night.”
    All those sad old men – were they afraid? Afraid of living, yet more afraid of dying?
    “For He shall give his angels charge over thee.”
    Did they know any joy, in their joyless surroundings?
    “Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord.”
    Just hold them in your prayers, as Sister Julienne will in hers.
    “Protect us through the silent hours of the night, so that we who are wearied by the changes and chances of this fleeting world may repose upon Thy eternal changelessness.”
    The Sisters left the chapel quietly. The Greater Silence had begun.

    I saw Mr Collett as much as I could after that. I never stayed very long – half an hour perhaps, not more, and this was mainly because we both found it difficult to know what to say. The circumstances were just not right for cosy chats, and we were no good at small talk. Also the inertia, I think, was dulling the mind that had once been so alert. Knowing how much he used to enjoy radio documentary programmes and plays, I asked him if he listened to his wireless. He looked at me blankly, so I repeated the question.
    “No, I haven’t got my wireless. I don’t know what they did with it. I don’t think I could have it here, anyway, so it doesn’t matter.”
    I asked what had happened to his things.
    “I don’t know. The lady social worker said she would look after all