Lonergan is superb at combining the mundane and the profound, and indeed knowing they’re often the same. If his gigs are as entertaining and thought-provoking as this book, I’d like to go to one. ‘If there’s an audience member who’s particularly stubborn and resistant, I turn them into my “dad” and spend the rest of the set trying to make them proud of me.’ It’s no surprise, given stories like this, that Lonergan combined his care work with a career as a stand-up comedian. “I reckon that should be fine,” I said, rapping the top of the doghouse with my knuckles before nonchalantly walking out.’ Mark Mason says that tragedy of this book is that the people who really need to read it probably wouldn’t understand it But the manager entered with two colleagues and started discussing budgets. He once hid inside a doghouse in his manager’s office, planning to scare him when he reappeared. Lonergan’s first job after leaving school was in a pet supply store. You’re on a different wavelength to everyone there, wondering “Why is no one else panicking?” ’ People you don’t properly recognise, talking at you, while the rest of the bodies in the room seem unreasonably tranquil and refuse to acknowledge you if you speak. ‘I remember thinking, “This must be what dementia feels like”. He feels that his binges with other addicts gave him an insight into what it’s like to lose your mental faculties. One of the reasons he refused to apply for promotion is that it would have given him access to the safe containing the residents’ drugs (oxycodone, morphine sulfate - ‘the good stuff’). That bit of advice was useful to Lonergan as he fought (successfully) to beat his five-year addiction to opiates, which came about partly as a way of coping with his job. Navy admiral William H.McRaven advised: ‘If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.’ The French philosopher Simone Weil, for instance, thought that ‘attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer’. Lonergan also throws in some quotes from his clearly extensive reading. One male resident has ‘faded tattoos like ink bleeding through toilet paper’, while the unresponsive audience at one entertainment session have faces ‘like wet laundry draped over a radiator’. Trying to keep an eye on all the residents simultaneously is ‘a constant game of Whac-A-Mole’.
The older man’s anger subsides, and he says: ‘It’s probably best if we bin ’em.’ Instead of simply removing Barry’s soiled pants so he can throw them away, Lonergan asks him what he thinks they should do.
‘So now, when he needs assisting, I make it seem as if he’s guiding the situation. Including how Simon wouldn't sleep in pyjamasīarry, who is strong and well-built (or rather was in his younger days), gets angry that he’s in care. UK-based writer details anecdotes of his time as a carer in his new book. He takes pride in treating each resident on their own terms, which can't be easy near the end of a 14-hour minimum-wage shift. Lonergan sounds like the very best sort of carer. During a rendition of “LOVE” by Frank Sinatra, he spelt out the word “LOAF” accidentally.’ Or stand upright for longer than 15 minutes at a time. And Charlie Big Trousers, one of the entertainers, is so bad he’s good: ‘He can’t sing. Tracy once searched frantically for Arthur’s socks - Arthur has no legs. The staff are far from perfect themselves. You could disrupt it by slotting a piece of paper between them.’ Meanwhile, a reminder on the staff noticeboard reads: ‘Dorothy tried to bite a light bulb. ‘It can be funny, but tragic,’ writes Lonergan, ‘when two male residents try to “wrestle”. He also pours miniatures of whisky onto his cornflakes. Ninety-eight-year-old Simon never sleeps in pyjamas because as an ex-Navy man he knows that if the ship sinks they’ll weigh you down.
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