The man in the passenger seat was Frank’s Dorian Gray portrait. He was young – around the same age as Kelly, perhaps a bit older – he had a short, tidy haircut, like an Army officer or a policeman’s, his even layer of stubble looked airbrushed on, probably by fairies.
‘Oh sorry,’ Kelly said. ‘This is Sean.’ and then to Sean, ‘This is Mr Derrick.’
‘Frank,’ Frank said. ‘Mr Derek was Basil Brush’s straight man.’ Neither Kelly nor Sean knew what Frank was talking about. His speech was strange too. He hadn’t had time to put his teeth in. Kelly’s training would be telling her that he might have had a stroke. She’d be checking his face and body for other signs. ‘Basil Brush,’ Frank said. ‘He always had a human sidekick. Mr Roy, Mr Rodney and Mr Derek. Mine is a different spelling. Like the oil rig.’
‘Shall we go inside and talk about it?’ Kelly said to Frank. She spoke calmly, talking a suicidal man off a window ledge. Frank wondered who was included when she said ‘we go inside’.
She turned to Sean and they talked. Frank tried to read their lips. And then he couldn’t see their lips at all while Kelly leaned across and kissed Sean. She opened the door and climbed out of the car.
‘Sean is going to drive back to work,’ she said to Frank as she was halfway out of the car. ‘I’ll take the bus there later and pick the car up.’
Sean climbed over onto the driver’s seat.
‘Nice to meet you, Mr Derrick,’ he said, and to Kelly, ‘See you later.’ She pushed the car door shut. Sean did a reverse U-turn and drove off.
When he was gone Kelly turned to Frank. ‘Have you got moles?’
‘What?’
‘Let’s go inside.’ They walked back towards Frank’s flat. ‘Somebody’s been digging up your garden,’ Kelly said. ‘Seeing that and then not being able to open the door, I was a bit worried. I didn’t want to call the police or the Fire Brigade, just in case you were only asleep or in the bathroom. I’d just dropped Sean off close by for a job he’s on, so I went back to get him to unscrew the chain. I knew he had his tools with him. It probably wasn’t my brightest idea. I don’t think dismantling front doors is in the Lemons guidebook.’
‘I overslept,’ Frank said again.
They walked through the gate into the garden. Frank hadn’t realised quite how many holes he’d dug. He didn’t know how best to describe to Kelly what had happened. The truth wasn’t good enough. Moles did seem like a suitable patsy but instead he said that he’d been gardening and it wasn’t something he was very good at. He showed Kelly his fingers.
‘Definitely not green,’ he said. They walked to the front door. ‘I forgot my keys.’
Kelly took the keys out of the safe and opened the door. Frank went in. He picked up the newspaper and the post. Kelly followed him upstairs. He thought about the mess on the living-room floor – the stolen charity bags and the shopping basket – he thought of how he was going to explain it. He couldn’t blame the moles. Could he blame the moles?
At the top of the stairs he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and wondered when he’d put up that portrait of an old tramp.
It was all supposed to be so different.
He’d planned on getting up early this morning. Or not going to bed at all, to leave him sufficient time to make himself look pretty for Kelly’s last visit. He was going to run a deep bath and fill it with bubbles while singing the song from the advert. He was going to shave with his many-bladed razor and splash his face with aftershave until it stung.
He was going to put on his loudest shirt, pluck his ears, nose and eyebrows until he sneezed and head-butted the mirror. When his makeover was over he’d have a bowl of the cereal he’d bought because it reminded him of the TV jingle. He’d sing it to himself between mouthfuls. Then he’d read the newspaper and watch some breakfast television while he tidied the living room before taking his position at the window. He’d turn around, ruffle his hair and pretend he was Jimmy Stewart until she arrived.
But he’d slept through all of that.
When he looked in the mirror at the top of the stairs he almost didn’t recognise the children’s doodle looking back at him. His face was a dirty stain on the glass. ‘What does your boyfriend do?’ he said to Kelly.
‘He’s a roofer.’
Of course he was.
Kelly asked about the mess in the living room and Frank said he’d been having a clear-out and was going to give everything to charity. He’d had to run after the man delivering the plastic bags to ask for more bags to put it all in. When Kelly asked about the missing ornaments from the mantelpiece Frank told her he’d put them away in the spare room. It was the first time he’d referred to Beth’s room as the spare room.
Kelly started tidying, putting the stolen goods back into charity bags. She was now an accessory.
She picked up a handbag.
‘I think this was once an alligator,’ she said. She screwed her nose up because the bag smelled and held it at arm’s length between her fingertips before dropping it in a plastic charity bag. ‘Oh Frank. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. Was it Sheila’s?’
‘Yes,’ Frank said. And added, ‘I think it’s actually crocodile.’ Just in case saying yes wasn’t a big enough lie.
When three charity bags were full Kelly picked them up, two in one hand and one in the other, just like the milkman who’d run Frank over and brought her here in the first place.
‘I’ll put these outside now,’ she said.
‘I can do it later.’
But Kelly was already out in the hall and carrying the bags downstairs. Getting stuff done. That was Kelly. He was going to miss her. He went over to the window and watched her put the bags on the verge outside the gate. While she was there she straightened the dustbins. She picked up a bit of paper blown in from the road and put it into one of the bins.
If she had looked in the recycling bin she would have seen it was almost full. Frank kept forgetting or not bothering to put the bin out on the verge on the right day for the bin men. Not getting stuff done. That was Frank. He forgot to empty his bins, he didn’t pay his bills, the grass needed cutting, the garden was a mess, and the cinema wasn’t built.
All those roofers who came to his door. They were right. There were loose tiles on his roof. They did need fixing. The debt management cold-callers hadn’t dialled the wrong number. His debt did need managing. If Frank ever bought batteries for the tape machine to play his Spanish language cassette on he wouldn’t get much further than ‘Hola, mi nombre es Frank Derrick’. The drum set would never have been played.
If the milkman hadn’t run Frank over, the food in his fridge would have continued to pass further past its sell-by date and the upended bollard would have stayed unpainted and on its side until the grass grew over it. Frank would have sat watching television, wearing his clothes over his pyjamas, filling his house with DVDs and worthless charity shop bric-a-brac, left on the shelf and gathering dust. That was Frank. On the shelf and gathering dust. Not getting stuff done.
He watched Kelly put the charity bags out and straighten the bins. She pulled the ends off a few overgrowing plants and put them in the dustbin. And then she was talking to somebody. Albert Flowers. He said something to her and she turned and looked at the garden and then turned back. He was obviously asking about the holes in the lawn. Frank watched them talking. He tried to read their lips. Kelly appeared to say either moles or perhaps holes. Frank hoped Kelly wouldn’t end up kissing Albert Flowers like she’d done with Sean. She nodded and looked up at the flat. Frank pulled quickly away from the window. When he looked back they were gone.
‘Frank!’ Kelly called out from halfway up the stairs. ‘Albert is here to see you.’
Frank heard more than just Kelly’s footsteps on the stairs.
Kelly had invited him in.
Like a vampire.
He looked around the room for two things he could hold together to form the shape of a cross. If only he hadn’t sold those
spoons. There may have been just enough silver in them to stab Albert Flowers through the heart and kill him.
Kelly and Albert Flowers came into the living room. Frank knew Flowers was immediately unimpressed by everything about the room. The rusty tartan shopping basket and the empty charity bags on the floor. The DVDs scattered about the carpet and the near-empty mantelpiece. Flowers made a mental note of the flashing numbers on the DVD player, thinking what a silly old idiot Frank must be if he was unable to program a simple digital display clock. Frank imagined Flowers lecturing him on the upcoming Living Rooms in Bloom competition.
Behind Flowers’ thinly veiled disgust there was joy. Joy at getting to see inside somebody else’s home and then discovering that it was nowhere near as good as his own. He looked at the most recent bunch of flowers Kelly had brought Frank. They were drooping over the edge of the vase of stinky water. Dead flowers. Frank wished they weren’t the only dead flowers in the room.
‘I’ll leave you both to it, then,’ Kelly said.
She went off to do the washing-up and tidy the flat while Albert Flowers banged on about the holes in the garden and the foam stuffing on the lawn. He asked again about the colour of the bollards and the grass growing underneath and over them. He said he would be happy to organise for his gardener to cut the grass on the verge and also repaint the bollards.
‘He is very reasonable.’
‘I’m fine, thank you.’
‘Hmmm,’ Flowers said. ‘Can I suggest, merely as a temporary solution, that it would be enormously helpful if you could at least keep the gate closed. Just until after the competition, of course.’
Kelly was in the bathroom folding towels and changing the water in Frank’s dentures glass. She went into the toilet and changed the toilet roll, folding the end over into a point like a chambermaid in a posh hotel. She was singing to herself. Frank wanted to tell Albert Flowers to shut up so that he could hear her sing.
‘If perhaps there was something that we could put up temporarily in front of the gate. Just to block the view,’ Flowers said.
‘What? Yes. Right,’ Frank said. He looked at the clock. Kelly would have to go soon. This wasn’t working out right at all. First oversleeping, then Sean, and now this idiot. This wasn’t how he’d imagined Kelly’s final visit to be. This wasn’t in the script.
Kelly walked past the doorway and into the kitchen, still singing.
‘So I’ll speak to my gardener about the verge? And the bollards?’ Flowers said.
‘The verge?’ Frank said.
‘And the bollards.’
‘Right. Yes.’ Frank had never been more distracted.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ Kelly called out from the kitchen. She didn’t address him by name but she was clearly talking to Albert Flowers.
Flowers looked at his watch. It was an expensive-looking watch. The kind of watch the woman in CASH 4 STUFF would have put straight onto the yes pile. Frank wanted to hack it off his wrist, taking his hand and his wedding ring with it. He’d probably make enough money from their sale for another twelve months with Kelly.
‘I do have some time to kill,’ Flowers said. Kill, Frank thought. And then Flowers called out to Kelly, ‘Thank you. A cup of tea would be lovely.’ He smiled at Frank and Frank wanted to punch his teeth out of his mouth, sell the gold fillings and turn the rest into new dentures for himself. He wanted to hang, draw and quarter Albert Flowers on the living-room carpet. Bury him under the Sunflower-yellow bollards.
Kelly made tea and the three of them sat in the living room. She small-talked with Albert Flowers all the way to the end of her visiting time. Frank hardly said a thing. He didn’t want to extend the length of the conversation by contributing to it. Why was she talking to Flowers? Beth had paid a lot of money for her time. And she could hardly afford it. Jimmy’s contract had fallen through. Beth wouldn’t want to see Jimmy’s hard-earned money squandered on small-talk with Albert Flowers. He owned a florist. He had an expensive jacket and shoes. And a fancy watch. He could afford his own home visits. Why didn’t he just go away? Go away, Albert Flowers, go away.
It was twenty minutes before he finally did leave. He held his hand out for Frank to shake. Frank took his hand. He wanted to squeeze. When Beth was young, Frank would go and wake her in the morning. He’d say to her, ‘Make a fist.’ And Beth would lie in bed and try to make a fist but she wouldn’t be awake enough yet to make a proper fist. That was the power of Frank’s fist now, at all times of the day. He had the strength of a just-woken-up tiny female child. If he squeezed Albert Flowers’ hand with all his might, it probably wouldn’t be hard enough for Flowers to even notice somebody was holding it.
Frank walked with Flowers out into the hall.
‘Say thank you to your nurse,’ Flowers said. He looked up the hall. ‘This is a nice flat. Stairs in Fullwind. Whatever next.’ Frank wanted to push him down those stairs. ‘We will need to move the charity bags too,’ Flowers said.
‘Somebody is collecting them,’ Frank said.
‘Yes, of course. You do know some of these charities are not charities at all?’ He lowered his voice to show his racism wasn’t entirely casual, ‘Eastern Europeans. Right. Goodbye.’ And at last, he finally left.
Frank went into the living room. Kelly was putting her anorak on and closing her bag.
‘You’re free,’ she said. She unfolded a wad of paper. ‘I just need to sign you off.’ She handed the sheets of paper to Frank and gave him a pen. Frank looked at the pen. It was the same blue as Kelly’s car. It had the same Lemons Care logo along its side. The tip of the pen had been chewed slightly.
‘I don’t want you to go,’ Frank said. He felt a lump in his throat.
‘What?’
‘Don’t go. I don’t want you to go.’
Kelly looked at her watch.
‘But—’ she said.
‘I’m not well enough.’
‘You’re fine, Frank. You’re in better shape than most men half your age.’
‘Not yet. I’m not well enough. Not yet.’
A moment passed. Frank felt the tears he couldn’t manage to cry on the beach, coming in like the tide.
‘You said you cared about me,’ he said.
‘I do. Of course I do.’ Kelly repacked her bag to reaffirm she was leaving.
‘Don’t you care about me?’
‘Frank. I’m a carer. That’s my job. I care. For you, yes. And for all my other gentlemen . . .’
‘I don’t want to know about them.’
‘Oh Frank.’
And even at this awful time, when he was in the middle of some sort of huge breakdown, Frank found himself wanting to turn his back, ruffle his hair, put a beret on, wiggle his shoulders and say, ‘Mmmm Betty.’
‘I have to go,’ Kelly said.
‘Why?’
Kelly looked at her watch.
‘I’m late.’
‘What am I going to do?’ Frank said.
‘Frank. You’re being silly.’
‘What am I going to do?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Without you?’
‘Without me?’
‘Yes.’
Kelly sighed. ‘What did you do before?’
‘Before?’ Frank shook his head. ‘Nothing.’
‘Oh, that’s not true. What about your films? You love your films.’
Frank looked over at his depleted DVD collection. He tried to remember which films he’d given to CASH 4 STUFF. He thought of his beloved collection of 16mm films, all gone, probably on their way to a collector in Japan who’d paid thousands of pounds for them.
As though Kelly was reading his mind she said, ‘Your cinema. What about your cinema?’
‘It’s a shed,’ he said. ‘A shed full of rubbish.’
Kelly sat down. She sat on the arm of the sofa, to show that although she wasn’t going quite yet, she wasn’t staying either. She didn’t speak, leaving space for Frank to say what was on his m
ind. Letting him be the one in control of the situation. Kelly the pensioner whisperer.
‘I’d just planned for today to be different,’ he said. ‘With fewer people involved. And now –’ he looked at his bare wrist as though he was hoping to check the time. He sighed. ‘I imagine I won’t ever see you again.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t bet on it,’ Kelly said. ‘It’s a small world. And an even smaller village. Now, you’re going to be all right, aren’t you, Frank?’ It was another one of her rhetorical questions. An instruction. ‘And I don’t want you to sit in here all day,’ she said. ‘Okay?’
Frank nodded.
‘There’s a great big world out there.’
‘You just said it was small,’ Frank said.
‘I did, didn’t I. Hmm. Well, big or small, the world is your oyster, Mr Derrick, remember?’
Frank managed half a smile.
‘Like the ice cream,’ he said.
‘And there’s something I would never have learned if I hadn’t met you,’ Kelly said. ‘I’ll never eat an ice cream the same way again.’
They didn’t speak for what seemed like a long time and then Kelly gestured towards the DVD player. ‘Did you like it? I forgot to ask,’ she said.
Frank looked at the Dirty Dancing DVD case lying open and empty next to the DVD player. He found that he couldn’t remember a single frame of it.
‘It was good,’ he said.
‘Now, I really should be going,’ Kelly said. She stood up. ‘Don’t worry about this.’ She put the wad of unsigned forms and time sheets in her bag, ‘I’ll deal with them. You can keep the pen. Don’t say I never give you anything. Now, I really have to go. I need to pick up the car. Sean will wonder where I am.’
Frank went over to the DVDs.
‘You can borrow this,’ he said. He held a DVD of Top Hat out to Kelly. ‘It’s Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.’
The Extra Ordinary Life of Frank Derrick, Age 81 Page 20