The Way Back

By Bill Whiting

After losing his home and savings to his lying son, widower Robin Bentley has a breakdown and is consigned to a care home for the elderly. He’s deeply depressed and has lost himself. As his health improves, he feels imprisoned and decides he must escape. 
While sneaking away, his path is blocked by a scary, battle-worn bull terrier, which is being hunted by the police. Very frightened, Robin distracts its attention with food from his rucksack, and then hurriedly makes the long walk to his planned hideaway at a seaside caravan park. But the fearsome beast follows him relentlessly...
He curses his luck, but in time, realises the dog is a fellow fugitive and takes pity on it. At great sacrifice, he takes care of it and grows to love his ugly companion.
An elderly Chinese widow, living with her cat in an adjacent caravan, is very alarmed by the arrival of her scary-looking new neighbours. Many trials and misfortunes follow, and the dark side of life battles with love and companionship, to shape their future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Sep 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9781789012484

Bill Whiting

Bill Whiting retired thirteen years ago from his position as CEO of a major UK retailer, where he spent four years developing overseas businesses in Eastern Europe and Asia. This is Bill’s second book, following Rosie (Matador, 2018). He lives in Hampshire.

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Copyright © 2018 Bill Whiting

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

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ISBN 9781789012484

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To Helen and Will

Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Epilogue

One

I lay awake in bed at four in the morning filled with apprehension. The big day had arrived at last, but another nerve-wracking, heart-thumping two hours had to pass before I could make my move.

I had spent countless hours planning and preparing for what was to come – and for many months, I had saved every penny I could to help me get through the time that now lay ahead. I was sure the future would be difficult, uncertain and even potentially disastrous.

But whatever the risks, I would give myself at least a chance of something better.

In what had promised to be an endless tunnel of darkness, I had found a tiny glimmer of light to head towards. I was going to escape.

My demise had all begun two years earlier when, at the age of seventy-one, I had pledged my home as collateral to secure a business loan for my son.

I was rather depressed at the time and had been living alone for more than four years, after losing my wife. She had fallen and fractured her skull in a simple, everyday, accidental trip.

It was hard to lose her – and even harder to do so in such a casual and arbitrary way.

I had always been close to my son, Peter, but we had grown apart, after he’d met and married his Australian wife. She was, to my eye, insincere, selfish, devious and manipulative. But none of this was evident to my son. Love can indeed be blind.

But being in poor spirits at the time and not inclined to think things through properly – or resist a constant onslaught of tedious nagging – I had relented and put my home and savings at risk.

Well, the business failed and I lost everything. What’s more, it was evident that I had been told a lot of lies. I had been cheated by my own son.

A nervous breakdown followed and I soon found myself deposited in a care home – just before my son and his wife left for a new start in Sydney.

The following many months were lost in a fog of anxiety – and bouts of rocketing blood pressure, dizziness, trembling, shaking, sweating, insomnia and depression. I caged myself in my care home bedroom. I was alone in a building filled with people.

I was living in my own head – imprisoned in my own mind. I had nightmares – even though I couldn’t sleep properly. I wasn’t dreaming – I was having hallucinations. I saw and heard things that were not there – and people who did not exist. And sometimes I felt I was floating out of my body and that my mind didn’t belong to it. My body was on fire, and I was glad to be out of it.

I didn’t want to talk, eat or drink – or, come to that, breathe.

My wife had gone, my son had gone, and my home and savings had gone. And now my sanity had gone too. I was caught in a whirlwind of confusion – with a jumbled brain constantly roaming down blind alleys and into cul-de-sacs.

And even though, in time, my physical and mental symptoms finally improved, my depression grew deeper. I felt it was time for me to leave this world. I wanted to give up the ghost – and every one of the ghosts that were haunting me.

I remember deciding that jumping from a high building or a cliff was the best way to end it all. To my tiny credit, I had thought that standing in front of a fast train would only solve my problem at the expense of traumatising an innocent train driver. I felt worthless; but doing that would make me even worse than worthless.

But slowly, as the days and months passed, I began to find myself again. Or, at least I thought I had.

No doubt the medication was a major factor. But another was a defiant streak, which had always lurked somewhere deep inside me. This had seen me through hard times many years before – and began to do so again.

Nonetheless, I did know that, whatever happened, at my ripe age, I wouldn’t be in this world for very long. But jumping off a roof was a loser’s way out. I wanted to leave, albeit in a small way, as a winner. I didn’t want to go out with a whimper, but with a bang – or, to be more realistic, at least a little rattle.

As my mental marbles gradually began to line up again, I quickly found the care home to be far from the kind of place where I wanted to be.

Of course, it wasn’t a prison – but I felt like a prisoner.

I was being continuously minded and monitored, watched and supervised. The staff were almost all good, decent and hard-working people and were no doubt doing a good and proper job. But regardless, I felt increasingly like a task to be tended to and an object to be mended, rather than a person who could give as well as receive. I felt like a needy child.

I wasn’t helped either by that rather stilted, raised and overly-deliberate tone some of the staff were now using when speaking to me. It was that voice we all tend to use while talking to young children – employing simple words for simple minds.

I avoided all the various highlights of the weekly activities in the care home. Things like singing, board games, quizzes, making cards, baking and blind tasting were not activities that could remotely satisfy my increasingly restless and independent mind. ‘Who can pick the biggest bogie?’ would have been far more interesting. Or, ‘Which man can piss highest up the toilet wall?’

I blame no one for this. In fact, I plead guilty to being a self-centred, inconsiderate, grumpy old bugger; an inmate who simply made things more difficult or more unpleasant for others. I didn’t care about anyone else – and I was doing neither myself, nor anyone else, any favours by being in the home.

So, somehow, I had to escape from this temple of doom.

But I figured that leaving the home in an acceptable and compliant manner would be extremely difficult under my circumstances – with little money, no home to go to and no relatives to watch over me. And even if I did get out, I would remain under that stifling shroud of being heavily managed, constantly supervised and ever dependent upon the authorities.

How long would it be before someone checked if I was wiping my bum properly?

Of course, many would rightly welcome and properly applaud the supervision and support I was deriding. I was being offered the benefits of an excellent welfare state. But it wasn’t for me. I found it emotionally asphyxiating and preferred the prospect of freedom, however brief and risky that liberty might prove to be.

Yes, my mind was made up. I would escape.

I had prepared carefully and secretively over some months – saving every penny; acquiring extra clothing and a rucksack; and walking extensively around the home grounds to get fit.

My plan was to leave the home at 6am in the morning. I’d escape via a window, and not the main door, as the reception was manned. I would also have to exit the grounds via the gardens and not the main drive, as this was monitored by a camera.

My plan was meticulous but, two days before leaving, I found myself scouting my route through the gardens at a very unlucky and inopportune moment.

I had straggled through bushes to find that the perimeter had a spiked iron fence about six feet high. I thought I could scale it, though at some risk to the integrity of my testicles. Well, I figured, they had not been of much use to me for a long time!

But en route back, I suddenly came across two policemen carrying heavy sticks and ropes. My heart jumped. Perhaps this was, after all, the Stalag Luft III of care homes – complete with armed guards.

What are you doing? one of them yelled.

Er… just looking around, I said, stammering. I thought I saw a yellowhammer fly in here, I added, rather unconvincingly. I’m a bird watcher.

Well, go back, he ordered. There’s a dog on the loose somewhere in the area. It’s bitten a dustman and needs to be caught. Go back now.

Phew, I whispered to myself, as I walked back. Panic over – I was not the hunted one. The Great Escape was still on schedule.

And so it was, at 6am on the big day, having crept out of my room and down the stairs, I clambered through a window in the hall at the side of the building. Exhilarated, I made good progress and had almost reached the fence when, suddenly, I was stopped in my tracks and froze in terror.

A very ugly, white, Bull terrier dog was standing in front of me, and snarling angrily. It looked as if it was about to strike – and certainly would if I moved.

After a few terrifying seconds, I gathered my wits a little, and then fumbled to take a sandwich from my rucksack. I tossed it to the side of the dog, and the beast leapt upon it.

Taking my chance, I made it to the fence quickly and climbed it successfully – about twice as fast as I had thought possible – and with no regard, whatsoever, for the welfare of my dangly parts.

Freedom! I said out loud – and I punched the air with my fist, as I walked away briskly.

It was a bright summer morning and I felt both excited and anxious. I had left a deceitful note in my room, saying that I had a place to go to and a friend to meet, and that I was leaving in good order and well prepared. But, regardless, I suspected my absence would soon be reported and, inevitably, I would be hunted.

On the other hand, maybe they would be delighted to be rid of ‘old misery guts’ at long last?

I stepped away enthusiastically, but then paused and looked back. Should I return? Was I being stupid? I had been safe there, but had no idea what perils might now lie ahead.

But no. The paralysing moment of doubt passed quickly. I was leaving.

I would be ‘me’ again – and not the ‘it’ that I had felt I had been for far too long. Taking my chances was better than the alternative – the certainty of being drowned in protection and smothered in control.

But no sooner had my spirits and resolve soared, the scary, growling dog appeared in front of me once again.

I stepped warily to one side, but it moved quickly to stay in my path.

Then I tossed it another sandwich and scurried away as it pounced on the food. I cursed the monster under my breath. All those months of saving and planning could have been for nothing if I could not shake off this awful creature. Or worse – I may have gone through all this, only to end up seriously injured.

After a minute or so, I looked back nervously, and my heart skipped a beat as I saw the dog following me again. I crossed the road twice and then turned a sharp corner, but still, it was on my tail.

I had no more food to offer and, eventually, I plucked up the courage to stop and turn.

Go, I said. Clear off. Shoo! Shoo!

It stopped and stared at me, no doubt waiting for more to eat. I guessed that giving it food in the first place may have been a big mistake. I’d given it a very good reason to follow and haunt me.

I decided to move on. I had to walk five miles, along country lanes, to the coast – where I had booked a week’s