Athletic Geriatric

‘What the hell’s this?’ Grandad throws it – BANG - against the wall, like a punch in the gut.

‘Bloody NHS walking-stick,’ he hisses, spewing saliva and spitting sweary curse-words.

‘Grandad!’ Hayley exclaims.

‘Get that hike-stick out the cupboard.’ Grandad’s reminded of ages past, when he was the school and county javelin champion. He’d christened his throwing stick, “Jav-Spear”. The term, “Hike-Stick” only came into being at the outset of these post-athletic, limp-lustre days.

Javelin-throwing medals galore. Almost made it to the Olympics. Almost, dammit. Bloody groin injury. Hadn’t been for that I would’ve won Gold. Olympics. World Championships, I was King. The Best.

Hayley heads toward the cupboard under the stairs, past Grandad’s overstuffed, hairy wool armchair, the one that made Hayley scratch herself raw, if she dared to sit in it.

‘Get outta that chair,’ he’d yell in his deep, growly voice; the voice that had made everyone in the family cower. ‘It’s mine. Even Grandma knows it’s mine.’

Hayley smiles a secret smirk at the thought of Grandma removing herself from said chair, in slow, slow motion, her tongue sticking out and two fingers pointing in the direction of “the silly bugger”, her husband, of “too many years to count”.

Recently, a left-sided stroke had left Grandad suffering the indignity of hospital admission. Hated it.

Damned nurses, physicians, physiotherapists. I was a mouse in that hospital, not a man. Certainly not Famous Athletic Man ever again. Bye-bye independence, Bye-bye machismo. Bye-bye fame and fortune. Bye-bye to everything that I used to be.

Grandad would often go into some sort of spoken reverie about his schooldays – the onset of his ‘javelin glory days’ – and university days - talking endlessly about how fit and muscular he once was; how ‘the ladies’ adored him. That personal rendition of his prowess would send Grandma into peals of laughter and she’d tell him, in no uncertain terms:

‘Those days are over, Alan. Nobody cares about yon“Athletic Geriatric” and the “Superman” you thought you were.’

That word “yon” came from Grandma’s “born-and-bred” days of growing up a proud Lancashire Lass. Grandad, however, is “Geordie through-and-through” – and equally proud of his North-east heritage. Though it has to be said, he’s prouder of his athletic achievements and the accolades it brought him all those decades ago.

Photographers chasing me around the grassy training pitch. Interviews on the telly. Signing autographs for supporters. People shouting my name. Fan mail through the letterbox.

Hayley always loved her grandparents to bits. Was always in their thrall. And when Grandma died, she was inconsolable. Grandad was, too, although he maintained he ‘had to get on with it’, showing a “Stiff Upper Lip”. He does soldier on – but he’s much more of a grump than ever before.

Hayley doesn’t mind. Calls him Mr Grump’ behind his back. She’s as happy as a waggy dog with the appearances, in their droves, of framed “Grandma Photos’ on top of the hearth: a mantelpiece covered with “Grandma over the Years” mounted pictures. It’s a shrine, like Grandma had sported a golden halo on her silver curls.

‘You know, kiddo, you look a lot like your grandma when she was your age,’ Grandad says. Hayley likes the “kiddo” nickname – but she’s not impressed by the idea that she’s a look-a-like version of Grandma at eighteen - a post-natal, over-tired, flustered, sleep-deprived, mother of two.

‘Yeah, right, Grandad. Don’t reckon I put anybody in mind of a late-teens, poverty-stricken bag of bones, with kids round my ankles. Mind, I wish I was half as pretty as she was.’

‘Aye, well, I s’pose yer right. She was a looker, yer grandma. Though she never complained about the big bellies and the babbies.’ Grandad laughs and winks, showing off more than a hundred crows’ feet. ‘Those were the days,’ he sighs.

***

‘Found it, Grandad. There you go. One hiking stick, for the use of.’

Hayley tosses the stick. Grandad catches it with ease in the up-ended palm of his right hand.

Lowering the spike-ended stick with a grin, a low bow, a cough and a ‘Ta-Dah’, he slips on his favourite tweed overcoat and flat cap – his “whippet-fancier look”.

Arm-in-arm, Hayley holding tight onto Grandad’s semi-paralysed left elbow, they set off for the park and woodland over the road.

On the grassy common, the damp, post-rain greenery squelches. Grandad attempts a gentlemanly cap-doffing at a jogging teenager. The hike-stick swings upward, accidently prodding the girl’s shoulder.

‘Watch it, old man.’

‘Oops, sorry. Couldn’t help it bonny lass. Left side’s banjaxed.’

Hayley laughs. ‘C’mon Grandad. You’ll get yourself into trouble.’

Grandad limps-strides-limps-strides. Hayley strolls-stops-strolls. Through fragrant spring flowers, the hike-stick stabs and bashes into a mucky mire of mud-track.

‘Let’s go along the gravel path into the woods,’ says Grandad. Hayley takes his shoulder as though he’s a blind man. She fears he might trip, fall and graze his knees.

‘Nowt wrong wi’ mi eyes, kiddo. Leave off the protection racket.’

‘Ha ha, Grandad. Very funny,’ answers Hayley. ‘But you can’t be too careful at your age.’

‘Yeah, you can. I’m not a bloody invalid.’

Acting the dutiful granddaughter, she lets go quickly. Grandad smacks into a tree at the edge of a grove. There’s a c-r-a-c-k like a cricket ball connecting with splintering glass. Blood runs down from his temple, in sync with a squirrel scampering down from the branches.

‘Ooh, Grandad, you’re getting all squirrelly.’ Hayley giggles, trying to distract away from the blood and Grandad’s red, sticky half-bald pate.

‘Not funny. It bloody-well hurts.’

The squirrel makes a soft, purring sound and bites into a hazelnut. ‘See, even the squirrel’s having a laugh, Grandad.’

‘They call it “bruxing”.’

‘Who calls it a … what?’

‘Never mind, deaf lugs.’ Grandad hefts his stick at Hayley’s elbow and smiles a wicked grin. ‘We can’t all be brain-boxes like me. Bruxing’s what happy squirrels do. Live ‘n’ learn.’

‘Got a hankie for the head-wound drips?’ Hayley says with a salute and a hug around his neck.‘

Yes, dear Granddaughter.’ He passes a grimy piece of tissue to Haley for the mop-up.

‘Ee-uw.’

‘Hear that, kiddo?’

‘Woosh of the breeze, I think.’

‘Nah. Something else. Somethin’ runnin’ through the thicket, mebbee.’

Hayley listens. Hears nothing but the birds singing in the treetops further into the deepening forest.

‘Could be a fox, Grandad. There’s plenty of them hanging around here.’

‘Nope. Somethin’ else. Ears like an elephant, me.’

‘Maybe blackbirds … singing. The females can squawk fit to scare the pants off ya.’

‘Not that, either.’ A sudden, shrill scream radiates from way down near the pond.

‘Seems to be coming from yonder bushes.’ Hayley screws her eyes up, better to concentrate.

‘Him! Look! That lad, scooting away! Just caught sight of him shoving that little jogger-lass. I’m neither blind nor deaf, kiddo. Saw it with me own eyes. Heard it with me own ears.’

Jogger-girl sprints for her life, flailing her arms, tears streaming down her cheeks.

A hoody-topped lad dives between two tall, swaying willows overhanging the pond.

Ducks quack loud, hustling, bustling, feathers rustling in the ponds’ weeds and reeds.

Grandad shouts ‘Ready. Steady. GO.’

Hayley stares at Grandad, perplexed, as he goes on to murmur under his breath. But she can’t tell what he’s saying. It’s more like a chant.

Heft the stick perpendicular to the right shoulder, spike forward and horizontal. (Oh, bloody hell, can I do this with a knackered left side? And a bleedin’ head?)

All of a sudden, Hayley understands what her Grandad is doing. He’s memorised the details of a javelin-throw. ‘Go for it, Grandad. Muscle memory. Let it kick in.’

Clutch the stick’s underside, stretch the right arm back, elbow up, run-limp-run, aim for the target, straighten the arm. NOW - throw.

DOY-OY-OING! The perp is impaled by his jacket hoodie to a gnarled, old tree-trunk.

Gotcha!

The jogger cries out, short of breath. ‘He tried to …’

‘Aye, I knaa,’ says Grandad, staring down at the girl’s tattered running top and torn jogging bottoms. ‘And he damned nearly got you.’

‘He would’ve if it hadn’t been for you, mister.’ The jogger is crimson-cheeked, face wet with tears and snot.

‘Aye, well. Dial 999, Hayley, wiv yer mobile phone. And hurry up about it. The girl is all shook up. Can’t yer see?’ Grandad holds his arms out toward the jogger as she falls into his chest, sobbing.

‘Yes, Grandad. I see that. All shook up. Ahaha.’ She’s trying to make light of the situation, doing an “Elvis”. It doesn’t work, so she sets about removing her trusty phone from a pocket in her Cargoes.

Hayley’s now dialling, quick as a flash. Her head is full of expletives and exclamations of wonder at what she’s just seen Grandad do. It beggars belief!

Who d’you think you are, Grandad? Zorro without a mask? Antonio Banderas ain’t got nothin’ on you! Grand old feller you are.’

The police show up in a modern-day version of the Jam Sandwich, ten minutes or so later.

‘Hello, hello, what’s goin’ on here, then?’ It’s like a parody of Dixon of Dock Green.

Hayley repeats what she’d reported during her 999 phone-call.

‘Hmmm,’ says the policeman. ‘Assault. Let’s get you down to the hospital, luv.’ He puts a protective hand on the jogger’s upper arm. ‘Get you checked over.’

‘And you,’ he says to the perpetrator, ‘will be taken down to the station and charged. Soon as the paramedics get that stick out of your arm.’

‘Isn’t in me arm. Just stuck through me hoodie an’ the tree. Sod the old bugger.’ The lad looks as though he’d rather have gallstones removed from his bile ducts than suffer this indignity.

The policeman looks at the slogan on the perp’s black-and-white hoodie top. ‘NUFC. Winners of the Carabao Cup? You’ve no chance of winning anything today, bonny lad, except a prison sentence.’

‘And you, young-feller-me-lad,’ he turns toward Grandad. ‘Nice shot. But how the hell did you do it? You’re no spring chicken, that’s for sure.’

Grandad looks proud as punch. ‘Par for the course, officer, for a champion athlete still in his hey-day.’ He points with his right index finger to his fast-beating heart. ‘It’s all down to technique.’ And he wanders away with barely a limp, muttering to himself,

‘Young-feller-me-lad? How about that? Never been called that since I wuz a young, handsome, athletic lad. Wonders will never cease.’

~