The Extraordinary Hope of Dawn Brightside

by Jessica Ryn

  ‘Are you still confused?’ he asks in a low voice.

  ‘Hell, no,’ Grace mumbles.

  Chapter 36

  Dawn

  ROOM NUMBER SIX AT St Jude’s has become the place to be for friendship, hugs and advice. Dawn doubts it’s always good advice that falls from her lips and into the ears of her fellow residents, but they often seem to believe it is and that’s what matters. That, and the fact that she usually has a handy stash of Wagon Wheels stuffed under her mattress.

  Dawn has spent the last few days after the sleepout, trying to keep everyone’s spirits up. This afternoon, though, it’s just Dawn and Cara perched on the bed, although Dawn swears to herself that she can still see Shaun’s arse print on the far corner of the duvet cover, even if the pills have taken the rest of him away.

  Cara’s face is shining with the light of a hundred bulbs. She’s just got back from spending the day on the beach with her boys. Grace had gone along with her for moral support and Dawn has never seen Cara look so happy or alive. ‘You should have seen us,’ she says. ‘Running about on the beach like a proper family. Curtis even drew me a picture in the café. It’s me and him. Look,’ she says, pulling out a piece of A4 from her pocket with a few vague squiggles from a felt tip pen that had almost run dry.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ says Dawn.

  ‘I suppose I just wanted to say… well, thanks and stuff.’ Cara stares down at the paper she’s folding into neat squares. ‘If you hadn’t got on my case and hung around, I don’t know where I’d be now, but it wouldn’t be with my boys. Grace has been great too. I was so nervous about today; afraid I was going to screw it up. But she made me realise I could do it – be their mum.’

  ‘Thank God for Grace, eh?’ Dawn means it. She thanks him for Grace every morning. For all of them, actually. Grace has promised to put Dawn in touch with someone who could give her advice about looking for Rosie. It would be scary, and she’d been warned that it might be a long road but reconnecting with her dad had lent her a glimpse of what the future could look like with family in it.

  ‘I need to pop to the office myself later. Got this in the post.’ Dawn reaches over and picks up a brown envelope from the top of her chest of drawers. ‘It’s the answer to my benefit assessment. Apparently, the computer said ‘’piss off”.’

  ‘What? Shit.’ Cara pulls out her pouch of tobacco and starts to roll a fag. ‘What you meant to do now?’

  ‘It says I can appeal. The staff here said they’d help with it if that’s what we need to do. What the hell do people do if they don’t have people like that to help? People who get how this stuff works.’ Dawn pictures the thousands of people out there who are completely alone.

  ‘Thank God for St Jude’s, eh?’

  ‘Yeah. Thank God.’

  They both fall quiet whilst Dawn stuffs her letter back into its envelope.

  ‘You heard they’ve called a house meeting?’ says Cara. ‘I reckon they’re going to tell us how much money we raised.’

  ‘Yup,’ agrees Dawn. ‘I got everyone Chocolate Hobnobs to celebrate.’

  The residents’ lounge is crammed full and Dawn is draped across a torn beanbag in the corner. Grace is sitting on an upright chair in front of the TV with Peter next to her. She has her laptop balanced on her knees and although she throws a smile to each person as they enter the room, her eyes keep falling back to the screen and they get wider each time.

  ‘We have news,’ she says after a few seconds of dry coughing.

  The room sits up a little straighter.

  ‘You all did so well last week,’ Grace says, wiping under her eye with the back of her pinkie finger. ‘I don’t know if you’ve heard this or not yet, but between the bake sale and the sleepout, we’ve raised well over a thousand pounds.’

  A couple of people clap. Dawn stays silent and watches Grace. She’s waiting for more. The main dish.

  ‘We’ve had a call this afternoon from head office.’ Grace bum-fidgets in her seat. ‘We’ve still raised only a fraction of the money we need to cover the shortfall in funding. Unfortunately, despite asking for an extension, that still means that we only have a week to raise the other five thousand pounds, and if not, we’ll sadly be closing our doors for good.’

  Dawn looks at the plateful of chocolate Hobnobs, untouched in the middle of the coffee table next to the Frustration board.

  ‘We’re screwed,’ Terry pipes up.

  Seagulls screech from outside and a gust of wind carries an empty can of Red Bull across the concrete. Someone should have put it in the recycling bin. Now nobody would, there’d be no point. It will be left there to clatter-clatter, bashing into the plant pots and the garden wall. Trapped. Cold. Freezing during the winter months.

  The collective mutters begin from every corner of the room and get louder and louder. Grace sits quietly and Peter attempts to catch the questions from the front and juggle them between his hands before handing them back, regretfully unanswered.

  Outside, the dustbin lids rattle in the wind and the waves crash against the chalky cliffs, rattling with the shingle they pull back from the shore.

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ says Dawn.

  One hour and forty-five minutes later, the room is buzzing with words and twitching biros as plans are made and scribbled down. Hazel has arrived as Terry had got his phone out of his pocket to call her as soon as Dawn’s great idea had left her lips. Well, as long as they didn’t take over the whole thing. This one is Dawn’s baby. No. Her project. That’s better.

  ‘I must say, it’s definitely going to be something different. Will I be allowed to wear my thermals?’ laughs Hazel.

  ‘I know it seems a little extreme,’ says Grace. ‘I was sceptical when Dawn first suggested it, but we have so little time it needs to be something dramatic enough to get people to sit up and take notice. Something that can be shared and spread around quickly on social media.’

  ‘Plus, we don’t need to arrange much or collect too many props,’ says Peter. ‘We just need towels. Well, and swimming costumes, obviously.’

  Cara is already tap-tapping away on the communal computer and Dawn takes her eyes away from the screen as soon as she catches a glimpse of the F for Facebook icon. No time to mope; they have work to do.

  ‘I’ve added the sponsored swim to our JustGiving page,’ Cara says. ‘Now people can sponsor us or ask people to sponsor them to join in too.’

  Dawn slips away from the meeting before anybody else does. She lets herself out of the hostel and makes her way to the bus stop. It’s past visiting hours at Oaklands, so she crosses her fingers that Nurse Carter is on shift. As she gets off the bus and climbs the hill, her soul feels heavy with the weight of the unknown. They have to make the swimathon work. But what if it doesn’t?

  ‘I’m here to see Mr Brightside,’ Dawn says to the man on the reception desk. She hasn’t seen him there before. He glances at the clock on the wall behind him and looks pained.

  ‘It’s okay, it’s his daughter.’ Nurse Carter appears behind the Perspex. ‘She can come up with me, I was just on my way to his room with his meds.’

  He’s sitting in his chair, staring ahead. A crossword puzzle book rests in his hands. It’s upside down.

  ‘Dawn’s here to see you,’ the nurse says in a normal voice.

  Dawn’s pleased. She can’t stand it when people shout slowly at older or confused people as if it might make things clearer. It never does.

  ‘Thank goodness,’ he says as Dawn kisses his head. ‘I’ve been waiting all week for you lot to come out and look at that boiler. Had to put two extra blankets on my baby’s bed last night. Freezing, she was. Freezing.’ He shivers and rubs his hands together. ‘Do you need any help with your tools? In your van, are they?’

  Dawn pulls the spare chair close to him and sits on it. Lucid or not, she needs her dad. ‘No thanks, I’ll manage fine with the tools. A cup of coffee would be great though.’

  The room feels thick with silence when
Nurse Carter leaves to get the drinks. Dawn’s dad is watching a picture on the wall. A dog with a little girl in a bonnet.

  ‘It’s been a rubbish day,’ Dawn blurts out. ‘Why is it that you can try and try and still things just don’t work out how you want them to?’

  Silence.

  ‘We worked so hard last week to try and raise some money. It just wasn’t enough. We have one more thing to try, but if that doesn’t work, we’re all going to lose our rooms. The staff will be out of a job.’

  Dawn’s dad looks away from the picture and back at Dawn. He frowns and opens his mouth as if he wants to say something, but then closes it again.

  ‘That’s terrible.’ Nurse Carter comes clattering in with a tray of coffees. She puts one in front of Dawn and one in front of her dad. ‘Mind if I drink mine in here too? Where is it you’re staying?’

  Dawn tells her about St Jude’s. About the staff and her friends and the help they have given her. She talks about the activities they put on for the community and how she’d taught Bill how to read. She talks and she talks and then she realises the clock has moved a whole hour.

  ‘Don’t be daft.’ The nurse puts her hands up in front of her when Dawn apologises for still being there. ‘What was the thing?’

  ‘Thing?’

  ‘The last thing you want to try to do to raise money.’

  ‘It’s a sponsored swim in the sea. Bit silly, probably. It is England after all. It will probably rain and who wants to swim in that? It’ll be freezing.’

  A smile crosses the nurse’s face. ‘Your timing is incredible. Last week I took three of our residents for a swim on Deal beach. I’ve just read about this research piece, you see, in the Nursing Times. About cold water and how a quick dip into it is good for our mental health. I’ll show you the article on your way out.’

  ‘That will be great, thank you.’ Dawn gives the nurse a hug. ‘And thank you for listening to me witter on about St Jude’s.’

  ‘Pleasure. It sounds like a really special place.’

  Dawn’s dad looks up. ‘So, have you fixed that boiler? Those pipes still don’t sound quite right to me.’

  Chapter 37

  Grace

  GRACE PULLS OPEN THE curtains of the staff flat and inspects the morning sky with a degree of unease. Grey clouds cluster together, joining forces to keep the sun away from Dover town.

  Butterflies shift inside Grace’s tummy as she thinks about the day ahead. It’s the day of the sponsored swim and yesterday the forecast had promised sunshine. Will people still come if the weather is bad?

  Peter insists on taking the minibus for the momentous occasion, even though the walk from the car park is almost equidistant from St Jude’s itself. By seven-thirty, all of the residents have climbed aboard, sleepy-eyed and grumbling about the weather.

  An hour later, they are all clustered together in clumps across the shingle near the water’s edge. Grace watches the scene below from the promenade for a few minutes. Peter has laid out brightly coloured towels in rows across the shingle and is helping Jack to erect the huge St Jude’s banner, a result of last Saturday’s collective artwork.

  Cara stands at the water’s edge, pulling a towel around herself and shifting from one foot to the other as the cool morning air blows off the sea and pulls the goosebumps from her arms.

  Teardrop Terry picks her up and pretends to throw her into the water.

  ‘I bet I last longer in there than any of you lot.’ Cara’s howl of laughter mingles with the protests of Dawn and Terry and carries right across to Grace’s ears.

  They all look so happy, so optimistic that they can make a difference today.

  ‘Grace? Uh-oh.’ Peter whistles under his breath once she reaches his side. ‘That’s not a good face.’

  Grace takes a step backwards, wincing as a tiny sharp pebble that had found its way inside her sandal digs into her heel. A seagull squawks, angrily cutting through the sounds of merriment.

  ‘I’m just looking at that sky,’ she says. ‘And the forecast now for this morning is not good. I just don’t want a repeat of the sleepout.’

  ‘People will come,’ Peter says. But his eyes are on the choppy grey waves.

  ‘I started looking at jobs yesterday. You know, just in case.’

  ‘Oh, Grace.’

  ‘There wasn’t much. A few care home positions. You should probably keep an eye out too, although I bloody hope it doesn’t come to that.’

  ‘You are not going anywhere, young lady. We need you.’

  ‘For as long as St Jude’s is open. I’ll stay till the end. Whatever happens.’ Grace plasters a smile on her face and jogs towards the residents. ‘Right, you lot – time to warm up,’ she yells above the wind. She gets them to stand in a circle facing each other before putting them through a regime of jumping jacks and running on the spot. ‘If our muscles are warm and loose before we go in, we’ll be able to swim for longer and will be less likely to get cramps,’ she says, ignoring the eyerolls from Cara. ‘We have ten minutes until we’re due to start. Let’s use them wisely.’

  A man is walking towards them along the promenade. Thank goodness. People are coming. The man whistles and a Golden Retriever appears behind him. Man and dog keep walking until they’ve passed by altogether. No one else is on the beach and there are no onlookers from the promenade.

  Five minutes to go.

  Grace closes her eyes. Her mind fills with rows of sodden sleeping bags lined up in the doorways of Dover town centre. She pictures people picking up discarded leaflets with St Jude’s phone number on and getting the disconnected dial tone when they call.

  ‘They’re not coming are they.’ Cara appears beside her.

  Two minutes to go.

  ‘I think I know why.’ Jack is holding up his phone. ‘We’re relying mostly on our Facebook page to get the word out. But look – the post about today has been deleted. People probably think we’ve cancelled because of the weather.’

  Right on cue, a drop of rain plops onto Grace’s forearm, closely followed by another. ‘Shit.’ Grace sinks to her knees on the stones, the sting from the pebbles lending a welcome distraction from her racing mind. ‘It’s my fault,’ she whispers when Jack plonks himself beside her. ‘I edited the post last night. I realised that “swimathon” had been spelled wrong. I must have removed the whole thing by mistake.’ She buries her head in her hands. They feel cold against her hot forehead. Nausea hits and she gulps in some air before swallowing it down. ‘They deserve better.’ She nods towards the residents at the edge of the water. ‘You all do.’

  Jack places his arm around her shoulder and removes it immediately when Peter turns around and starts walking towards them.

  ‘How do you think we should play this?’ Peter asks, his face scrunched up with obvious disappointment.

  ‘They’ve all got their costumes on,’ Grace says. ‘And most of them have got sponsors already. We may not be able to make very much, but we owe it to them to go ahead with it.’ A tear escapes down her cheek and she wipes it away with her sleeve. ‘Where’s Dawn disappeared to?’ Dawn is running up the promenade and away from them, phone to ear and moving faster than Grace had ever seen her move.

  ‘She said something about meeting someone. She made us promise not to start without her.’ Peter chuckles briefly before the lines on his forehead bunch back up again.

  The rain continues to fall. The seagulls keep cawing. A group of shivering people in swimming costumes sit down on the pebbles and wait.

  Chapter 38

  Dawn

  DAWN LISTENS TO THE ringing tone at the other end of her mobile phone as she walks away from the swimathon and the beach and towards the subway that connects the town to the beachfront. She’d wanted to tell Grace not to worry, that she still has a trick up her George at Asda sleeve, but she hadn’t wanted to get her hopes up in case it doesn’t work out.

  Nurse Carter had promised Dawn that she would bring a few of the staff to join in with the sw
imming and boost the numbers. Which is great, except that Dawn thought they would be here by now, and Nurse Carter isn’t answering her phone.

  She stops when she reaches the edge of the subway. She can hear the echoes of many voices and one of them definitely belongs to her favourite nurse. A stampede of footsteps gets closer and closer to the end of the tunnel.

  They’re on their way.

  ‘Dawn!’ Nurse Carter flings her arms around her as soon as she emerges into the light. She smells of Anais Anais and her thick hair almost chokes Dawn as her face is pulled into it.

  ‘I’m so relieved you’re all here,’ Dawn says when she’s finally released. ‘And Dad – you made it!’

  ‘Hello, young lady.’ He holds a hand out towards Dawn for a polite handshake. He clearly has no clue who Dawn is right now. She swallows the disappointment. At least he called her young. Behind Nurse Carter and her dad are a gaggle of nursing staff from his home and several of their residents.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind; we brought a few other people along with us,’ Nurse Carter says.

  ‘We’ve all got our bathers on underneath,’ an old lady says in Dawn’s ear. ‘And we’ve got lots of sponsors. Our kids, grandkids. Even great grandkids; some of us.’

  Dawn feels something lift inside and her face breaks into a grin. Nurse Carter’s brought double the amount of people that are already on the beach. Perhaps this could actually work.

  ‘Of course I don’t mind! It’s just as well you did, there’s not quite as many people down there as we’d hoped,’ Dawn says.

  Nurse Carter fishes her phone out of her tunic pocket. ‘It’s not quite time yet though – I’m sure in half hour or so loads of people will turn up.’

  ‘But we’re already running late.’ Dawn dances around, trying to encourage a bit of urgency. She probably shouldn’t rush them too much, most of them are at least ninety.