The Promise

by Michelle Vernal

  For sleeplessness:

  Harvest fresh hops bulbs and wash in a plastic colander. As a method of drying out the hops placing them in a microwave helps retain the essential oils and aroma. Set to 50 percent power and check bulbs every three seconds to ensure even drying. After three minutes bulbs should be dry. Allow to cool and collect hops for preparation in a pillow. Dried lavender and chamomile can also be added for a stronger aroma. Place the mixture into a small canvas pocket or bag and tie or sew the end to seal shut. Place the bag under your pillow to aid sleep, or soothe an earache or toothache.

  Constance

  Chapter 10

  Constance eased her stockinged feet into the shoes waiting on the floor beside her bed. Jill always placed them there for her each evening, lined up and ready for the morning. Such were the extra touches one received at Sea Vistas Residential Care Home. So far as rest homes on Wight went, this one Constance knew was the crème de la crème. Jill knew her charge didn’t feel dressed unless she had her shoes on. Constance drew the line at becoming one of the slipper shuffler residents. That was how she viewed any persons lurking about in the shadows of the care home, still, in their dressing gowns and slippers, past 10 a.m.

  The shoes cost a bomb. Jill had organized their online purchase for her; her clothes too were bought online by Jill these days. She’d known Jill since she was a little girl who would enter her shop on a dare from her friends. That was how she still saw her when she looked at her, a little girl, freckles across her nose and two plaits framing her face as she looked around Constance’s shop. Her eyes would be wide with wonder as they scanned the various potion laden shelves, trying to memorize their names to relay them back to her giggling friends outside—thus reinforcing their certainty that Constance was a real-live witch.

  It was somewhat surreal, Constance thought that she’d lived long enough for that little girl now to be a woman in the latter stages of middle–age, and her nurse no less. It was strange too, to find herself on the outside looking in on a world she’d never have imagined. A world where one could purchase things from a computer! As for these ruddy shoes, though, they still pinched despite their weighty price tag, and when had her ankles gotten so fat and puffy? She gazed at the flesh that seemed to spill over either side of the shoes. She’d always prided herself on her slim ankles. They’d been the only reliably slender part of her body, given her sweet tooth, for the best part of her adult life and now look at them, like pork sausages squeezed inside a sinuous skin.

  That was another thing she could add to her list of annoying things about reaching the grand age of eighty-nine, the cost of her shoes had gone through the roof to accommodate her traitorous ankles. And they were boring. Boring, boring, boring! So too were her cardigan, skirt and blouse ensemble. It was the price you paid for so-called comfort, and an orthopedic sole, she thought, her eyes grazing over her outfit and her soft black leather Mary Janes with distaste. She’d been a peacock in her day but now was reduced to being a plain old pea hen.

  Constance had once owned the most fabulous pair of pink satin shoes, bought by her parents for a special birthday. She’d looked at those shoes her mother had picked out for her and felt she was finally closing the door on the past. It wasn’t just that the war was over, it was that she’d felt as if she were a butterfly unfurling its crumpled wings wearing those shoes. She’d felt trapped, entombed in a chrysalis of sadness after all that had transpired for so long and as she slipped her foot inside that pretty pink satin, she’d caught glimpses of a brighter future.

  Constance learned as the years trundled by, though, that one never really escaped the past not even when dancing in pink satin shoes. It could be swept into the background with a swish of vibrant fabrics, but it was still there nipping at one’s heels, be they clad in leather, satin, pigskin or suede.

  While others might lose themselves in the abuse of substances to escape their unhappiness for Constance, her vice had been shoes, and she’d used the rich colours of her wardrobe as her coat of armour. Those satin party shoes of her eighteenth birthday had triggered a love affair. Stiletto, kitten, wedge, flat so long as they were bright and beautiful, she had to have them. The Islanders had referred to her fondly in later years as the Imelda Marcos of Wight, and then there was Lizzy Harris who worked in the tearooms on Union Street. She used to pop her head into Constance’s emporium of curealls each morning on her way to work. Her sole purpose for doing so to see which shoes she’d chosen to wear that day, and to admire the brightness of her outfit after so many years shrouded in the sepia tones of war.

  The pink of those satin shoes was the same shade as the petals of the roses dotted across the eiderdown draped over the bed she was perched upon now. It was in the stripes of the custom–made curtains that framed the large Georgian window too, and it had been picked out in the plumped cushion resting on the back of the armchair where she sat most days to admire the view. If she had to live anywhere other than Pier View House, then there’d been no choice but here. Sea Vistas echoed with ties to her past. Her room was pretty and plush, and it was that shade of pink that had drawn her to it, that and the view out to the sea, of course. She couldn’t imagine not being able to see the sea each day. It would be akin to a farmer upping sticks from acreage to an urban outlook of chimney pots.

  Sea Vistas Health Care sat at the furthermost end of the Esplanade, past the working buildings of the Pier, standing sentry as it had for as long as Constance could remember, on a lonely patch of the greenbelt. It had lived many different lives since its story began with Sir Albert Whitely building a magnificent baroque-style house known as Whitely Manor. That had been back in the late 1800s. Constance knew this because she’d looked up the house’s story at the Museum of Island History in Newport once.

  It had stayed in the Whitely Family until the 1920s when it was sold on to pay their debts. Then it became a holiday home for a wealthy lot from Bournemouth, and the name was changed to Darlinghurst House. The new owners would descend during the summer months, hangers-on in tow with shouts of, ‘I say is it Pimms o’clock old girl and anyone for tennis?’ Or at least that’s what Constance fancied them as having said when she’d seen pictures of the bright young things gathered on the manor house’s lawn in the museum’s archives.

  Troops were billeted to Darlinghurst during the First World War, and in the second it had served as a convalescence home for soldiers once they were deemed well enough to leave the Royal Isle of Wight County Hospital. Constance herself was a child when the Second World War began, but as it dragged on and on, she’d grown into a young woman. She’d been eager to volunteer along with her friend Norma to darn the poor wounded soldiers housed at Darlinghurst’s socks. She and Norma had pinched their cheeks and applied Vaseline to their lips, desperately wishing they looked like Rita Hayworth, before setting off to the big house as they sometimes referred to Darlinghurst, to collect the baskets full of holey socks that had been put aside for them.

  If she hadn’t of trooped up that garden path badly in need of weeding, things might have panned out so very differently but such was life. She did venture up the path with the formidably impressive stone masonry looming in front of her, and it did open up an avenue for a conversation with a young man that might not otherwise have come about. Cest la vie.

  The house was abandoned after the war, the gaping hole in the roof left as was and the interiors removed and sold off. It had seemed symbolic to Constance. Wight was notorious for its ghosts, and Darlinghurst’s halls echoed with them, ghosts she was glad to embrace now, but ghosts that for so long had haunted her with her regrets.

  The house was in far too prime a spot to just be allowed to crumble, and the corporate owners of Sea Vistas had seen a business opportunity. They’d poured a small fortune into doing the old girl up, and had relaunched her in her current guise as an upmarket care home.

  Constance’s experience of care homes was non-existent but Sea Vistas she imagined, given its hefty price tag, was as good as t
hey got. She’d never had any intention of moving from Pier View House, but age had seen fit to make it impossible for her to stay. So here she was with her own what did they call her? Key worker that was it. Jill, whose background was nursing in the public system, but who’d confided the money and hours were much better at Sea Vistas.

  Constance’s hand drifted over to the bag of Maltesers she always had on hand, her only vice these days, and she popped a chocolate ball in her mouth. As she sucked on the sweet chocolate, she raised her gaze to look out the window. The expanse of foam-tipped waves betrayed the direction of the wind. When the window was open she could smell the salty coastline, and liked to think she could hear the drift of happy seaside chatter; they were the scent and sounds of her life.

  She startled at the knock at the door behind her. It was the second knock of the day, the first coming at 7 a.m. when Jill popped in to help her dress before carrying on with her rounds. The second knock signified that it was 8.30 already.

  ‘Miss Downer, it's Jill again. Can I come in?’ her familiar cheery voice called.

  Constance frowned. For goodness sake, she couldn’t understand why Jill felt the need to announce herself. She was a superb timekeeper, who else would it be knocking at her door this time of the morning?

  The whole damned business of being old was exhausting and left her frustrated beyond belief. Still, at least Jill talked to her like she was an adult. Not like Monday’s visitor, Adele Stanton.

  Constance’s foot had quavered inside her black slip-on shoe with the urge to boot Adele. She might have been thirty years younger than Constance, but her manner was that of a bossy mother hen as she filled her in with all the latest goings on in Fishbourne. Adele had sold the florist business she owned two doors down from Pier View House when her husband passed away a few years ago, and she’d retired to the small nearby village which, if Adele were to believed was a Sodom and Gomorrah hotbed of activity.

  Constance had sat trapped in her armchair while she prattled on. It would seem Adele kept an ear to the ground in Fishbourne just as she’d done in Ryde. The woman was a gossip of the highest order, but she had remembered that Constance’s favourite flower was the early purple orchid, bringing her a cutting. Jill had searched out a vase for it, and the orchid was a splash of fragrant colour on her bedside table. For Constance, the purple bloom signified spring beginning to flower as it did on the island each April. This year, however, it was unseasonably early, given it was only halfway through March. Perhaps they were in for a long, hot summer.

  Usually, the sight of the purple bloom cheered her, but this year her mind kept slipping back reliving her younger days. That was another thing about one’s golden years, you couldn’t remember what you ate for lunch that day, but you could remember clear as a bell the events of over seventy years ago. It was a peculiar thing. As though to re-confirm this train of thought, Constance put the lid back on the box she’d been leafing through earlier.

  It was a blue cardboard box, slightly faded by age with a yellow stripe around the lid, and it had once contained amongst other things, those precious shoes of hers. Now, it was filled with a collection of memories, a lifetime’s worth.

  She registered another knock; it was a bit louder this time. She’d almost forgotten Jill was waiting to come in. She put the box back in the drawer where she kept it before opening her mouth to call out that yes, she could come in.

  ‘Are you ready for me to take you down to breakfast then Miss D?’ Jill asked upon opening the door.

  Constance felt like screaming. Did Jill think she was starring in her very own American sitcom? Caring for Miss D or perhaps Me ‘n’ Miss D. All of this she kept to herself, however, as she nodded. She eased herself upright and allowed Jill to take her elbow to help her the short distance down the corridor to the lift although she was capable of walking the short distance on her own.

  Her usual table beside the bay window looking out to sea would be set, the tea brewing in the pot for one. Her poached egg, done the way she liked it—dippy in the middle with toast soldiers to the side—would arrive with a flourish and sprig of parsley as soon as she was seated. She would be sure to position herself in her seat just so to ensure nobody asked to join her. She couldn’t be doing with idle chit-chat and especially not when she wanted to concentrate on the simple pleasure of dipping her toast into her egg. For the most part, she was left alone.

  These days, she looked forward to her meals. They structured her day for one thing and for another, she was no longer in charge of their actual preparation—cooking had never been her forte. She handpicked her week’s choice of breakfast—that never differed from the poached egg, lunch, and dinner from the menu provided on a Sunday morning. She could have wine with her evening meal if she wanted too. No cause for complaint on the dining front.

  Mind you, she thought, nodding at Iris Marshall who was also waiting for the lift, some of them seemed to think being old gave them a license to complain. Iris being a prime example. Only last night, Constance had heard her trilling in a voice designed to carry through to the kitchen to her crony, Jean that she reckoned it was cask wine, not bottle being served with dinner. And that for the money they forked out to stay at Sea Vistas they shouldn’t be fobbed off with cheap plonk! Didn’t it all taste the same after the first glass? Constance had thought waving her glass for a refill and knowing that as she sipped its contents, she’d stop hearing the chatter combined with the chink of the residents’ knives and forks. She’d gaze out the window seeing a different story in a different time unfolding.

  The dining room was cast in the rosy glow of morning, and the unmistakable smell of bacon mingling with toast wafted forth as Jill, her arm linked firmly through Constance’s, steered them toward her table. Constance nodded good morning at several of the diners before Jill saw her to her seat. The nurse glanced up at the time and announced she was due to see one of her ladies. Constance muttered her thanks and watched her sprightly form stride from the dining room before unfolding her napkin. She smoothed it on her lap and sat waiting for her day to unfold just as it had yesterday, and the day before that and well, every day since she’d moved to Sea Vistas.

  Chapter 11

  It was on Tuesday morning that everything changed. Constance had woken early. Far too early. She pulled herself up to a sitting position, her huffing sigh of exertion sounding loud in the space around her. Jill had plumped the pillows for her the way she liked them before she’d turned in the night before, but now they were squished at awkward angles beneath her back. It would require too much effort to rearrange them, she decided straining to hear the familiar routines of Sea Vistas outside her door.

  It was silent in the hall, no rattle of trolleys signifying that morning was here. Her eyes felt gravelly, and the feeling reminded her of when she was a girl playing on the beach. The wind would whip up the sand near the Solent’s edge, and she’d blink against the sudden deluge of gritty, fine particles. Now, she squeezed her eyes shut once more. She’d passed a restless night, sleeping soundly for a few hours and then waking for no reason other than things were playing on her mind. It seemed that the past was always there these days lurking in the wings of her subconscious waiting for her to drift off to accost her.

  Constance let out another huff and plucked at the covers; it had always frustrated her so when she couldn’t sleep. In bygone years it had been because there was so much living she wanted to cram into each day and energy was needed for that. It had been an obligation of sorts to those whose lives had been cut short or never even had the chance to begin. The war had done that. Now there wasn’t much with which she was desperate to fill her day, but not sleeping still frustrated her simply because it added unnecessary length to those long daylight hours of sameness looming ahead.

  ‘Oh stop it, Constance Downer, you old misery guts,’ she murmured unsure as to whether or not the words had been breathed aloud. It wasn’t like her to be maudlin, her inherent nature was sunny, but this mood had settled
on her while she tossed and turned through the long night. It would not be banished lightly she knew, recalling how the memories had come in thick, fast drifts like snow.

  Constance opened her eyes and turned her gaze toward the window. The only clue as to the advent of the morning was slanting in through the window, snaking in around the edges of the drapes. No dust motes were dancing in the shards of light as they’d done in the bedroom of her youth, though. You’d think not too, she thought, what with the exorbitant fees she paid for the privilege of being housed at Sea Vistas. She missed watching the dust motes, though convinced as she’d once been that they were the tiniest of fairies dancing just for her in the light. She sighed. Life had been simple back then when she’d believed in fairies and before the war crashed into their lives.

  Constance took a little sip of water from the glass on her bedside table. Those despised black shoes she saw were on the floor beside the bed, and it made her think of when she was young. As a girl, she’d sneak a look at dad’s feet in those sturdy polished black leather shoes of his sometimes. She’d wonder why it was his flat feet hadn’t saved him from having to serve that first time around. She’d never asked, and so she’d never known, but she knew instinctively raising the subject would be rocking the boat and she’d never been one for that. Well, leastways not until she grew older because Constance knew her advancing age had brought an uncaring nonchalance for what others thought when it came to most things.

  It was during those latter war years that she’d come to understand why their father had chosen never to speak of what he went through on those muddy, blood-soaked fields far from home during the Great War. He wasn’t alone in this. She’d understood when the war that took Ted and so many others finally ended, why his lips had stayed sealed. Nobody wanted to speak of it not the soldiers, not the widows, not the mothers, no one. They were grateful for long-imagined peacetime and too frightened that talking about their experiences might somehow breathe life back into them once more. Awaken the nightmare once more.