Groen Hendrik - The secret diary of Hendrik Groen, 83 1/4 years old

Hendrik Groen

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THE SECRET DIARY OF HENDRIK GROEN, 83 YEARS OLD

Translated by Hester Velmans

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Michael Joseph is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

First published in the Netherlands as Attempts to Make Something of Life.
The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83 Years Old by Meulenhoff 2014
First published in Great Britain by Michael Joseph 2016

Translation copyright Hester Velmans, 2016

Cover illustration by Victor Meijer

The moral right of the author has been asserted

ISBN: 978-1-405-92401-6

Another year, and I still dont like old people. Their Zimmer frame shuffle, their unreasonable impatience, their endless complaints, their tea and biscuits, their bellyaching.

Me? I am eighty-three years old.

Great clouds of icing sugar were spilled a moment ago. Mrs Smit had put the plate of apple tartlets on a chair because she wanted to wipe down the table with a cloth.

Along comes Mrs Voorthuizen, who inadvertently parks her enormous bottom right on top of the pastries.

It wasnt until Mrs Smit began looking for the dish, to put it back, that someone came up with the idea of checking underneath Mrs Voorthuizen. When she stood up she had three tartlets stuck to her flowery behind.

The apples match the pattern on your frock perfectly, Evert remarked. I almost choked to death laughing.

This brilliant start to the new year should have given rise to all-round hilarity, but instead led to forty-five minutes of carping about whose fault it was. I was glared at darkly from all sides, on account of having found it funny, apparently. And what did I do? I mumbled I was sorry.

Instead of laughing even harder, I found myself grovelling for forgiveness.

For I, Hendrikus Gerardus Groen, am ever the civil, ingratiating, courteous, polite and helpful bloke. Not because I really am all those things, but because I dont have the balls to act differently. I rarely say what I want to say. I tend to choose the path of least confrontation. My speciality: wanting to please everybody. My parents showed foresight in naming me Hendrik: you cant get any blander than that.

I shall wind up spiralling into depression, I thought. Thats when I made the decision to give the world a little taste of the real Hendrik Groen. I hereby declare that in this diary I am going to give the world an uncensored expos: a year in the life of the inmates of a care home in North Amsterdam.

I may die before the years out, true; thats beyond my control. In the event I will ask my friend Evert Duiker to read a few pages from this diary at my funeral. Ill be laid out, neatly laundered and pressed, in the small chapel of the Horizon Crematorium, waiting for Everts croaky voice to break the uncomfortable silence and read some choice passages to the bewildered mourners.

I do worry about one thing: what if Evert should die before me?

It wouldnt be fair, considering that I have even more infirmities and funny lumps and bumps than he does. You ought to be able to count on your best friend. I shall have to have a word with him about it.

Evert was keen but wouldnt guarantee hed live longer than me. He also had a few reservations. The first was that after reading publicly from my diary hed probably have to look for another place to live. The second consideration was the state of his dentures, caused by a careless jab of the billiards cue by Vermeteren. Since he has a cataract in his right eye, Vermeteren needs some assistance with his aim. Evert, ever prepared to help, was standing behind him giving directions, his nose lined up with the cue. A tad to the left and a bit deeper and before he could finish Vermeteren had rammed the back of his cue right through Everts snappers. Score!

Now Evert looks like a little kid waiting for a visit from the tooth fairy. People have a hard time understanding him because of the lisp. Hell have to have those teeth fixed before reading at my funeral. But thats not bloody going to happen any time soon; the denture repairman, it seems, is out of action. Two hundred thousand per annum, an assistant whos a real looker, three trips to Hawaii every year and still his nerves are shot; how is it possible? Maybe years of having to deal with ancient dentures so food-encrusted that theyre crawling with maggots have sent him over the edge. So to speak.

The New Years doughnuts theyre serving in the Conversation Lounge downstairs can only have come from the charity shop. Yesterday morning I took one to be polite, and spent a good twenty minutes trying to get it down; as a final resort I had to pretend my shoelace had come undone so that I could duck under the table and stuff the last piece down my sock.

No wonder they had hardly been touched. Normally anything thats free round here is gone in the blink of an eye.

In the Conversation Lounge, coffee is usually served at 10:30. If the coffee hasnt arrived by 10:32, the first residents start glancing pointedly at their watches. As if theyve got something better to do. The same goes for tea, which is supposed to be brought in at 15:15.

One of the most exciting moments of the day: what kind of biscuits will we have with our tea and coffee today? Both yesterday and the day before it was the elderly doughnuts. Because of course we wouldnt dream of throwing food away. Wed rather choke to death on it.

Yesterday I took a walk to the florists to buy some potted bulbs. So that I can tell myself a week from now, when the hyacinths start to bloom, that Ive made it to another spring.

Most of the rooms in this retirement home keep their Christmas decorations on display until April. Next to an ancient sanseveria and a primula whose days are numbered. Be a shame to chuck it.

If Natures role is to bring cheer to a persons life, it certainly doesnt do the job in the room of a Dutch old-age pensioner. There the condition of the houseplant is usually an accurate reflection of the state of mind of the human entrusted with its care: both just waiting for the sad end. Since they have nothing else to do, or are a bit forgetful, the old biddies water their plants at least three times a day. In the long run not even a sanseveria can survive that.