{"id":10763,"date":"2019-09-10T10:16:59","date_gmt":"2019-09-10T09:16:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=10763"},"modified":"2019-09-26T11:29:54","modified_gmt":"2019-09-26T10:29:54","slug":"the-art-of-the-body-an-extract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=10763","title":{"rendered":"The Art of the Body: An Extract"},"content":{"rendered":"
Chapter 1: An Extract from The Art of the Body<\/em><\/h5>\n

by Alex Allison<\/p>\n

Maintaining one person\u2019s dignity comes nearly always at the expense of someone else\u2019s. I have learned this for you.
\n    My morning ritual begins in the bathroom. At the sink, I wet my hands and lather, dancing my fingers through their trained routine: tips to palm, knuckles to palm, lock, lace, relace, clasp, pray, covet, beg and rinse. I fill a plastic tray with warm water and shower gel, testing the heat against the inside of my wrist. From a white cardboard box, I peel out two purple gloves and work the plastic down over my hands. Latex pinches between my fingers, tight against my slightly damp skin. I look medical; feel medical. I flex my fingers and take a deep, steadying breath.
\n    Sean\u2019s flat is heavy with the polite, chemical smell of air freshener. Every surface and fixture is perfect white \u2013 all human materials, polished to a sheen that\u2019s almost wet.
\n    I set down the tray of water on his bedside table and ease open the blinds.
\n    Sean is awake, but yet to respond to my presence. He is in bed, just as I left him, laid foetal and still, rolled into the wall, his arms over the covers and T-Rexed into his chest. It is the posture of poverty. His breaths are shallow, testing only the tops of his lungs.
\n    You wouldn\u2019t guess that I am two years older than him.
\nSean is twenty-two, but there\u2019s a greyness to his skin.
\n    Now comes the long groan, the sneer, and an awkward attempt to shield his eyes.
\n    \u2018Good morning, Sean.\u2019
\n    \u2018Uhhhgh. Morning,\u2019 he says.
\n    \u2018Radio?\u2019
\n    \u2018Yes, please.\u2019
\n    For our first few months together, we talked through this routine. I\u2019d warn Sean what was coming, where my hands would hold him next. Now, the radio spares us the pleasant- ries that accompany the maintenance of a person. After eight months with his body, I\u2019m lucky to get a \u2018lower\u2019, a \u2018softer\u2019, a \u2018finished\u2019. I still always get a \u2018thank you\u2019.
\n    \u2018Did you sleep well?\u2019
\n    \u2018I always sleep well. I sleep well until you come in and ruin it.\u2019
\n    \u2018It is nice out.\u2019
\n    \u2018Do not tell me that, please. I want to listen to the weather report.\u2019
\n    Sean\u2019s top has ridden up his back during the night \u2013 the material evidence of a struggle. I ease the rest over his head and examine the rawness.
\n    \u2018Does that hurt at all?\u2019 I say, pressing.     \u2018No.\u2019
\n    \u2018And here?\u2019
\n    \u2018A little.\u2019
\n    Sean is Irish, raised in Yorkshire, but cerebral palsy has its own accent. Sean\u2019s voice belongs more to his limbs than his mind. It comes from a curled, chafed place. But I\u2019m fluent in Sean. I know his pain from his relief, his \u2018biscuits\u2019 from his \u2018business\u2019.
\n    I move to the end of Sean\u2019s bed to double-check that the wheels are clamped before we begin. Down here, more evi- dence of a struggle \u2013 his feet protrude from the bottom of the covers. Some of his toes are crossed, as though for luck or lying. The soles of Sean\u2019s feet are smooth \u2013 untested by the weight and pressure of a working body. His knees point at a forty-five-degree angle through the sheets, into the wall. Sean would be tall if he could stand.
\n    \u2018Aren\u2019t your feet cold?\u2019 I ask. \u2018No.\u2019
\n    \u2018I wish you\u2019d wear socks.\u2019
\n    \u2018You know that I hate socks.\u2019
\n    \u2018Are we ready to start?\u2019
\n    \u2018Ten more minutes.\u2019
\n    \u2018I asked if we were ready to start.\u2019
\n    Sean grunts and jerks his head in his own approxima- tion of a nod.
\n    \u2018Give me your hand and we\u2019ll sit you up, then,\u2019 I say.
\n    Sean offers me his arm and I pull him to an awkward seated position. He lolls heavily into the wall and, after a moment, seems to slip back to sleep. He begins to mock-snore.
\n    \u2018Please, Sean. Not this morning.\u2019
\n    He opens his eyes and throws me a toothy, gurning grin. There\u2019s a long, thin scratch down the middle of Sean\u2019s nose. His face is permanently marked by a series of scratches \u2013 each of my attempts to trim his nails is met with vicious protest. Nails allow Sean an added degree of purchase. He can\u2019t afford to sacrifice them.
\n    Scratches, rawness. I have to be conscious of it all. I am responsible for fashioning a socially acceptable version of Sean. A version of Sean that raises the fewest questions. The version which attracts fewest lingering stares.
\n    Sean sleeps with his left forearm in a beige cast that sculpts his hand into the shape of a swan\u2019s neck. The barbed sound of ripping the cast\u2019s Velcro makes my teeth tickle. Without the cast, Sean\u2019s hand curls into a shape more like an inele- gant question mark, turning his every gesture into something critical and cutting.
\n    \u2018May I have some water, please? Before I lie back down.\u2019 I\u2019m ready with the straw and bottle before he\u2019s finished speaking, but Sean finishes his sentence anyway. He speaks one word at a time, completing each with a flourish. Comprehension is a form of achievement.
\n    \u2018Thank you,\u2019 he says once satisfied.
\n    I set out a green continence sheet to protect the bedding, lie Sean back down, shuffle off his pyjama bottoms and undo his pad. Sean has no front to lie on. He favours sleeping on his left side, so that\u2019s the way we work, both of us faced into the same wall. I turn off my mind, and clean him with the luke- warm water and some baby wipes, disposing of the quarried shit into an airtight medical waste bin that lives disturbingly close to the bed. Cleaning in the morning is much easier than at night, when Sean\u2019s waste is caked into his crack and hair \u2013 a natural result of sitting down all day.
\n    \u2018Does that feel okay for now?\u2019
\n    \u2018Yeah,\u2019 he says, now focused on the radio.
\n    Sean momentarily lifts himself into his own version of the crab, allowing me to remove the soiled continence sheet and slip his blue polyester sling into position. Motorised chairs, hoists and a little cooperation have made it possible for anyone to do this job. I could be anyone.
\n    I pull the sheets up over Sean\u2019s exposed body to keep him warm as I change gloves and fetch the hoist. Once in the hoist, Sean closes his eyes, and dangles with the absolute vulnerability of an infant. I wheel him across to the bathroom and set him down onto the plastic shower seat. I work from top to bottom, lathering his sharp black hair, over his chest and back, and down to all the useless bits that cause him such pain. Patches of hair clot under the circular motions of my scrubbing. I allow Sean to clean his own crotch, which he does with a curled stabbing motion that I can\u2019t watch. Leaving the shower room, I almost slip. A laugh moves through Sean like a contraction.
\n    \u2018You won\u2019t be laughing when I leave you there.\u2019
\n    \u2018You would not do that to me, Janet.\u2019
\n    Once Sean is dry and back in bed, I oil up my naked hands, and we begin our first massage of the day. My fingers track the pain under his skin, the knots and nodes splayed away from any symmetry. He makes a show of not reacting. I remind myself to be gentle.
\n    I think of each massage as a process of feeling through Sean\u2019s secrets. These are the only secrets that he can have. Everything else is known, filed in medical records and news articles. Google Sean\u2019s name and you\u2019ll find 326,000 results, innumerable accounts of his court case and the \u00a3800,000 NHS settlement. The articles will tell you just what I was told upon meeting him. They\u2019ll tell you he was the first of two premature twins, both assessed as stillborn. They\u2019ll tell you he was left aside while the nurses excavated the corpse of his brother. They\u2019ll tell you that over three minutes passed before anyone noticed that Sean was breathing. They\u2019ll tell you that by then, it was a matter of damage control. They\u2019ll even try to tell you that Sean is lucky, lucky to have a mind at all.
\n    I lead his legs through a series of exercises and extensions that wouldn\u2019t seem out of place on a football pitch, deep into injury time: left knee to chest, left knee to nose, crab for ten. Right knee to chest, right knee to nose, crab for twenty. Left foot roll, right foot roll. Piraformis stretch, ninety-degree hamstring stretch. Left foot to bum, right foot to bum. Repeat three times.
\n    \u2018I am sweaty again.\u2019
\n    \u2018No you\u2019re not. Look, you\u2019re fine.\u2019
\n    \u2018I feel like I am hot.\u2019
\n    \u2018You\u2019ll be fine once you\u2019re in the chair.\u2019
\n    \u2018Okay. If you say so, Janet.\u2019
\n    \u2018You picked out something to wear yet?\u2019
\n    \u2018It sounds like I will need something warm. Jeans and a jumper.\u2019
\n    \u2018Fancy.\u2019
\n    Sean\u2019s room is decorated with his favourite art \u2013 mostly abstract and Christian, though never a combination of both. There\u2019s a plain crucifix high above his bed. I think his mother put it there when he moved in.
\n    When we\u2019re set to spend a day in the studio, Sean wears an extra absorbent pad instead of a catheter bag. Sean\u2019s preferred brand of pads are devoid of the branding associated with infant equivalent products. They attach with blue adhesive tags bearing a small corporate logo.
\n    On these days, I will only offer Sean a drink when he expressly asks for one. It is significantly more inconvenient to change a pad than to empty a catheter bag.
\n    As I hook a functionless belt through Sean\u2019s jeans, I am entirely thoughtless. My mind is empty \u2013 empty, but very present, present in the moment. My mind is empty, but there\u2019s no coldness between us \u2013 there is only trust. I am fully committed to this routine. There is a part of me that enjoys the seemingly endless burdens imposed by disability, because ultimately, they are all eminently solvable problems. Every burden can be lifted through my labour. There is a zen-like peace to this, to applying brute force and persistence to each issue. There is very little intricate logic to maintaining a body. It is said that the great geniuses worked menial jobs.
\nWork that allowed their minds to breathe. Patent attor- ney. Librarian. I no longer suspect that I am among the great geniuses.
\n    Once Sean is dressed, I step back and admire my work, catching my breath. We share a smile.
\n    \u2018What?\u2019 Sean asks.
\n    \u2018Nothing \u2013 you look good. Big day ahead.\u2019
\n    I hoist Sean into his chair and set about strapping him in. His feet sit heavily on the footplates, toes pointed inward like innocence. I am on my knees, applying his shoes \u2013 now finding some purchase, I sheath the plimsoll around Sean\u2019s heel, and it becomes a foot like any other.
\n    \u2018Do you want a shave today?\u2019
\n    \u2018What do you think?\u2019
\n    \u2018You know I hate shaving you.\u2019
\n    \u2018Then I want a shave,\u2019 he says, smiling. \u2018Please.\u2019
\n    \u2018Of course,\u2019 I say. \u2018Of course.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter 1: An Extract from The Art of the Body by Alex Allison Maintaining one person\u2019s dignity comes nearly always at the expense of someone else\u2019s. I have learned this for you.     My morning ritual begins in the bathroom. At the sink, I wet my hands and lather, dancing my fingers through their trained routine: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[381,379],"tags":[388],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Art of the Body: An Extract - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=10763\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Art of the Body: An Extract - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Chapter 1: An Extract from The Art of the Body by Alex Allison Maintaining one person\u2019s dignity comes nearly always at the expense of someone else\u2019s. 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