{"id":2450,"date":"2025-07-23T13:44:50","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T13:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2450"},"modified":"2025-07-23T13:44:54","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T13:44:54","slug":"staves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/staves\/2450\/","title":{"rendered":"Staves"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A 92-year-old woman in Maespoeth has been found dead. Police have arrested a man, 64. They said the woman and man were known to each other and have described it as a \u2018very sad case\u2019. Valleys Radio news website.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perkins looks at himself in the dresser mirror. The lines on his forehead remind him of the staves on a sheet of music. He\u2019s a semi-professional bass player, makes a bit of living from it. Those days are over now. He pulls out his mobile and taps 999.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Latterly it\u2019s been tough. The privatised caring company, profit before people, make their first visit at eleven in the morning. No good at all that. So he\u2019s been getting her up, showering her, changing her himself. He sort of switches off when he does it, same as when you accompany an uninspiring melody. He just makes out he is himself a paid carer, dealing with somebody else\u2019s mother, not thinking it odd that he\u2019s washing the naked, broken body of an elderly female. Switched off yet kind, that\u2019s the way he does it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Which service?\u2019 the voice on his phone says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Are you going to introduce me?\u2019 his mam says, so he does. \u2018Nice girl,\u2019 Mam tells him after she\u2019s gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018But not as nice as you, Mam.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On and off with Si\u00e2n it is for a few years, like a band that rocks but doesn\u2019t roll. In the end she\u2019d gets tired of it. \u2018You won\u2019t commit, Ian. Or you can\u2019t?\u2019 Then she makes some comment about his mother refusing to let go of him. \u2018Still suckling you, she is.\u2019 He deletes the tape of those words from his brain: more or less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018I\u2019m getting old. Will you look out for me?\u2019 He nods. \u2018My memory isn\u2019t good any more. Will I one day forget who I am?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018I\u2019m here for you Mam.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Oh you are kind.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            He looks in her wardrobe. A row of crimplene slacks, another row of tops that look like wool but are polyester. A gaggle of worn shoes, crumpled odd socks. None of them will ever be worn again. She\u2019s in bed day and night now, sleeps most hours. He\u2019s supporting her fulltime, touching her cold hand while she sleeps, a fluttering sound from her trembling lips sometimes. She wakes and says, \u2018I want to go back to Merthyr\u2019. Her happy childhood days are all she can remember and now he is no longer Ian, he is her father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018She kept saying Merthyr,\u2019 he told the cops when they came.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Mercy?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018Merthyr. Heaven it was<\/em>. She told me that once.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018I see.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018She wanted to get back to heaven, can\u2019t you\u2026? She was telling me she\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            One of the cops said: \u2018We\u2019ll have to take you in.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2018She wanted to die! She was asking me to\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            He looked at his mother, blank as a stave awaiting music. He could write a song for her now, he really could.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            A cop took his arm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A 92-year-old woman in Maespoeth has been found dead. Police have arrested a man, 64. They said the woman and man were known to each other and have described it as a \u2018very sad case\u2019. Valleys Radio news website. \/ Perkins looks at himself in the dresser mirror. The lines on his forehead remind him […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"no","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[{"account":"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211","service":"facebook","timestamp":1753278292,"status":"queued"},{"account":"twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305","service":"twitter","timestamp":1753278292,"status":"queued"}],"rop_publish_now_status":"queued","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1490,1646],"tags":[643,1315,8,7,122,1417,20,59,1659,1350,902,128,14,1660,139],"class_list":["post-2450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1490","category-the-mirror","tag-been","tag-does","tag-he","tag-her","tag-him","tag-himself","tag-his","tag-makes","tag-mam","tag-off","tag-old","tag-out","tag-she","tag-staves","tag-woman"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/sbrNJE-staves","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2450"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2451,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2450\/revisions\/2451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}