Apart from Derek (dressed in a black morning suit and his Estate Agents Association tie), Veronica (dressed in a black chiffon dress and still carrying a black parasol hooked over her arm) and Jason (wearing an ill-fitting electric blue suit, the inescapable headphones and two tubes of acne cream and sitting hunched over an electronic pocket chess set) there were just five other mourners; Mr and Mrs Leatherhead; two men from the Sewage Works who Mrs Caldicot vaguely recognised (she would have known where they were from even if she had not recognised them for they both brought with them the curiously sweet smell that her late husband had brought home with him every evening for thirty years) and a man whose name she had forgotten but who had introduced himself as representing the Chrysanthemum Society and who had brought with him a sturdy looking wreath made entirely out of chrysanthemums.
However many times you added them up it could not, she thought, be described as a `good turnout'. She had worried for several minutes over the fact that Derek was wearing a morning suit and had eventually come to the conclusion that he had hired it in error, assuming that the ensemble was a `mourning suit'. It was an error that delighted her in some strange way, though the delight was constrained by the fact that she did not feel able to share this discovery with any of the other guests.
Now that the funeral itself was over she felt glad that she hadn't put on her new pink dress but had instead chosen to wear a dark grey tweed suit that she had bought and worn for her own mother's funeral some years earlier. Not even Mr Caldicot, deprived of a proper mourning, deserved that much humiliation.
Mrs Caldicot, suddenly aware that someone standing beside her had spoken to her, turned and found Veronica hovering by her elbow. `I beg your pardon?'
`I said would you like another sausage roll?'
Veronica, who had now added a quilted oven glove in blue and green to her funereal ensemble, was holding a glass plate upon which half a dozen sausage rolls were reclining on a white paper napkin. The paper napkin had small green holly leaves and tiny red berries printed in a neat pattern around its edge. `Be careful!' she warned. `They're hot!' She had lipstick on her teeth and flakes of pastry at the corner of her mouth showed that she had at least had the guts to eat her own produce.
`Thank you, no,' said Mrs Caldicot, `I've had one already.' She smiled and held up a hand like a policeman on traffic duty. `I'd like to live long enough to enjoy some of the money I've been left,' she thought. Veronica was not a woman to whom cooking came easily, and Mrs Caldicot knew from past experience that if there was a word which most accurately summed up the consequences of Veronica's culinary skills it was probably `indigestion'. Most of the remaining sausage rolls were so black that Mrs Caldicot couldn't help thinking that they were exceptionally suitable for a post-crematorium feast.
Mrs Caldicot hadn't wanted a reception after the cremation but Derek had insisted that you couldn't expect people to turn out to a funeral unless you gave them something to eat and drink afterwards. Mrs Caldicot wondered if Derek might not have been the first person to coin the concept that there is no such thing as a free mourner.
`I think you're being very brave,' said Veronica, resting her free hand on Mrs Caldicot's forearm. `Very brave, indeed.'
`Thank you,' said Mrs Caldicot gracefully.
`Derek and I have found a lovely home for you,' smiled Veronica. `You'll be very happy there.'
Mrs Caldicot was rather taken aback at this. She had not expected her son to have moved quite so speedily. She winced as the pains in her intestine suddenly grew stronger.
`We'll take you there when everyone's gone,' promised Veronica. `Just to have a look around.' She patted Mrs Caldicot on the arm. `They've got fitted carpets, colour television and running water in all the rooms,' she whispered, just before she drifted away to offer her incinerated sausage rolls to the two sewage workers.
Mrs Caldicot felt very glum. She didn't feel old enough to be put into a home, even if the floors were carpeted. The death of her husband had left her aware that she had wasted most of her life on doing the laundry for a man whose main ambition had been to make sure that he got an annual parking space at the Mettleham Cricket Ground. `I wouldn't have minded being behind a man who stood for something,' she thought. Years of frustration had bubbled to the surface and, released at last by Mr Caldicot's unexpected demise, were now threatening to soar out of control. She sat gloomily in a corner contemplating a future spent in a carpeted ante-room to death, waiting for her allotted place on the conveyor belt in the crematorium.
`They're all going now, mother,' murmured Derek a little while later.
Mrs Caldicot looked up and realised how much she hated being called `mother' and wondered why a few brief moments of clumsy and unsatisfying coupling, followed nine months later by several hours of painful and unrewarding parturition had been allowed to dominate her life ever afterwards. Mr and Mrs Leatherhead, the man from the Chrysanthemum Society and the two sewage engineers were all crowding into the doorway on the other side of the room and waving diffident goodbyes. The two sewage engineers, she noticed, both carried something wrapped in white paper napkins. Mrs Caldicot raised a hand and waved to them as they filed out of the living room and headed back towards reality.
`What were the two sewage engineers carrying?' she asked Veronica when they had all gone.
`I gave them a couple of spare sausage rolls each,' explained Veronica with a proud look on her face. `They liked them so much.'
`Come on now, mother,' said Derek, `shall we take you round to see your new home?'
***
According to the brochure which Veronica gave Mrs Caldicot to read in the car `The Twilight Years Rest Home stood in three-quarters of an acre of gently rolling parkland' and provided `a combination of the traditional and the modern'. An artist's colourful impression of one of the bedrooms showed magnificent antique furniture and a discreetly positioned electrocardiogram monitor.
What the brochure didn't explain, and what no one had troubled to tell the artist, was that the word `traditional' referred to the medical equipment and the word `modern' referred to the furniture. The proprietors of The Twilight Years Rest Home had also overlooked the fact that when you tarmacadam a large area for a car park there isn't much left out of three-quarters of an acre of rolling parkland.
The proprietor, Mr Fuller-Hawksmoor, was busy serving lunch when Derek, Veronica, Jason and Mrs Caldicot trooped up to the front door to inspect the home, and this meant that the normally pungent olfactory consequence of incontinence had been temporarily overwhelmed by the slightly less offensive smell of cooked cabbage.
`Yes?' snapped a dapper, little fellow wearing a light brown toupee, responding to Derek's fourth and most prolonged use of the doorbell. `It's lunchtime. We don't allow visitors at lunchtime.'
`The name's Caldicot,' explained Derek quickly but diffidently. `I've brought my mother to have a look around...'
`What a nice smell of cooking!' said Veronica. `It's cabbage isn't it?'
`Fuller-Hawksmoor,' said the small man, introducing himself, replacing his scowl with a smile and opening the front door wide so that Derek, Veronica, Jason and Mrs Caldicot could enter. He nodded to each Caldicot as they passed over the threshold, and only Mrs Caldicot noticed him check his toupee in the gilt-framed mirror on the other side of the halfway. He wore a dark suit with a grey cardigan underneath it and had, thought Mrs Caldicot, an unpleasant, rather arrogant air about him. She instinctively disliked him.
`Do you like cabbage?' he asked Veronica as she passed him.
`Oh, it's my absolute favourite!' she enthused. `It's such a nutritious vegetable.'
`Especially when it's over cooked,' thought Mrs Caldicot.
`I'm afraid we're serving luncheon at the moment,' apologised Mr Fuller-Hawksmoor quite unnecessarily. He turned to Mrs Caldicot. `We pride ourselves on our high culinary standards,' he told her confidentially. `Today our residents are being served with Argentinean beef substitute croquettes, pommes frites and par
snips with a choice of sea salt or black pepper topping and the green vegetable of the day, of course.'
`That's the cabbage,' suggested Mrs Caldicot.
`Absolutely!' agreed Mr Fuller-Hawksmoor. `We like to give our residents plenty of cabbage. It's so rich in iron and other essential minerals.'
`Not when your cook has finished with it,' thought Mrs Caldicot. `How nice,' she said, wondering why her son hated her so much that he wanted to dump her with Mr Fuller-Hawksmoor.
`Would you like to see one of the bedrooms?' Mr Fuller-Hawksmoor asked.
`That would be nice, wouldn't it, mother?' said Derek.
`Lovely,' said Mrs Caldicot.
She moved a few inches closer to her son. `Is this a hospital?' she asked him.
`Of course it isn't!' he whispered back. `It's a rest home. More of a hotel really.'
Mr Fuller-Hawksmoor led the way upstairs and as she followed behind him and the rest of her family, Mrs Caldicot caught a glimpse, through a half open doorway, of the dining room. A dozen or more residents were sitting on green, wipe clean plastic chairs which were arranged around a few matching green formica-topped, metal-legged tables. There were no tablecloths, and the subdued sounds of knives and forks on plates suggested that the cutlery was made of plastic. On the other side of the hallway Mrs Caldicot had a glimpse of a sitting room. Once again the chairs were covered in plastic, but this time the plastic was red rather than green.
`We have a wonderful atmosphere here,' called Mr Fuller-Hawksmoor over his shoulder. `Every Christmas we have a party for all the residents. Last year we had a magician and the year before we had a real clown who used to be in the circus.'
`I'm glad the clown was real,' thought Mrs Caldicot facetiously. `I hate fake clowns.'
`How many bedrooms do you have?' asked Derek.
`Seven,' answered Mr Fuller-Hawksmoor. `Four trebles and three doubles.'
`You don't have any singles?' asked Derek.
`We like to encourage our residents to think of this as their home,' said Mr Fuller-Hawksmoor. `Sharing a room with another resident helps to cement that feeling.' He stopped outside a white painted door upon which there was a small plastic plaque describing the area on the other side of the door as The Windsor Suite.
`We have a vacancy in here,' said Mr Fuller-Hawksmoor, standing aside to let the Caldicot inspection party through. There were three single divan beds in the room, which also contained a small television set on a metal trolley, two wardrobes and a sink. The floor was covered with material which an imaginative and forceful carpet salesman would have probably described as `serviceable'. One of the beds was occupied by an elderly, grey-haired, grey-faced woman who seemed to be in some distress. When she saw Mr Fuller-Hawksmoor she wearily raised a hand from the bed. `Have you brought my bedpan?' she asked timidly.
`In a moment, Miss Nightingale,' said Mr Fuller-Hawksmoor, rather crossly. `Nurse Peters will bring you a bedpan the moment she has finished serving the luncheons.' He turned to Derek with an ingratiating smile on his face. `Some of the older residents do become a little self-centred from time to time,' he said apologetically. `We find we have to be firm to be kind.'
`How many nurses do you have?' asked Veronica.
`Five,' said Mr Fuller-Hawksmoor. `All part time, but fully trained auxiliaries, of course. Two of them have certificates in first aid and Miss Pilton has just completed a local technical college course in Hairdressing and Practical Beauty with distinction.'
`That's very impressive!' said Veronica. Mrs Caldicot stared at her in disbelief.
`We pride ourselves on running a home that has all the advantages of a hotel and a fully equipped hospital,' said Mr Fuller-Hawksmoor. `Employing fully trained staff is a vital way of implementing that policy.'
Jason switched on the television set and an assortment of diagonal black and white lines flickered up and down the screen.
`Jason!' hissed Veronica. `Switch it off!'
Jason obediently switched the television set off.
`I believe the set in this suite does have some minor fault at the moment,' explained Mr Fuller-Hawksmoor, apologetically, `but there is, of course, a fully operational set of audiovisual equipment in the Duke of Devonshire Leisure and Recreational Area.'
`Do you have a video recorder?' asked Derek.
`Indeed, we do!' said Mr Fuller-Hawksmoor with pride. `I can't show it to you at the moment as it is currently receiving servicing attention, but our engineers assure us that it will back in the Recreational Area in a very short space of time.'
`Splendid,' said Derek. `There you are, mother!' he said. `You'll be able to rent video films and show them to your friends.'
``The Texas Chain Saw Massacre' might be a good starting point,' thought Mrs Caldicot, who had never rented a video film in her life. `What a lovely thought,' she said.
Mr Fuller-Hawksmoor led the way back downstairs.
`Do you have any other questions?' he asked them.
`No, I don't think so, thank you!' said Derek. `We've been very impressed, haven't we?' He looked around him as he spoke.
`Very impressed,' agreed Veronica.
`I'll give you a telephone call within the next 24 hours to let you know when my mother will be ready to move in,' said Derek.
`Wonderful!' said Mr Fuller-Hawksmoor, stopping himself from rubbing his hands together just in time. He looked at Mrs Caldicot and smiled. `We look forward to welcoming you as one of the family.'
`If your family is anything like mine that will be a real joy,' thought Mrs Caldicot. `I don't want to hold you up,' she said. `I'm sure you'll want to rush off and arrange for that poor lady upstairs to get her bed pan.'
`Exactly!' said Mr Fuller-Hawksmoor. `You're very kind.' He leant towards Derek. `It's always a privilege to have a member of such a significant local family in our establishment,' he murmured.
And with that the Caldicots trooped out through the hall, down the long stone staircase at the front of the house and back out into the real world.
`I just know you're going to be so happy there,' said Derek, puffed up with Mr Fuller-Hawksmoor's flattery, as they drove out through the grandiose iron gates which marked the entrance to the rest home and headed back to the house that Mrs Caldicot had called home for most of her life. `I don't mind admitting that I think we got rather special treatment there.' He took a hand off the steering wheel and patted his hair. `I rather suspect that he knows who I am,' he murmured.
Mrs Caldicot, enveloped in what she feared might be the beginnings of a deep depression, did not reply.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Mrs Caldicot sat staring glumly out of the living room window. Outside in the garden Derek was struggling to collect together the short canes which had previously supported the now very dead chrysanthemums. `These are very expensive to buy,' he'd told Mrs Caldicot. `I'll bundle them up and put them in the potting shed.' It had been overcast and cloudy when Derek had started. Now it was raining heavily and Derek had wrapped an old coat around his shoulders. Mrs Caldicot assumed that he had found the old coat in the potting shed for she did not recognise it. Each cane was tied in two places to the flower it had supported and Derek, who didn't realise that the short pieces of orange plastic baler twine which Mr Caldicot had used to tie up his plants were designed to be untied and used again, was struggling to cut through the ties with his tiny pocket knife. Dead flowers littered the garden where, bereft of their supporting stakes, they had fallen to the ground. On the sofa opposite Mrs Caldicot her grandson Jason, absent from school for some unexplained reason, was listening to his usual tinny noise and studying a book about nuclear physics which he seemed to be enjoying. In the hallway Veronica, who had gone to answer the door, was talking to someone whose voice Mrs Caldicot did not immediately recognise.
`Look who's come to see you!' cried Veronica, feigning surprise without real effort or conviction. `It's the doctor!' she announced, as though a travelling physician had for some reason arrived entirely unexpectedly and wi
thout invitation. Veronica had dressed for this occasion in a maroon skirt and yellow jumper, bravely ignoring the fact that neither of these colours sat comfortably with her hair which seemed a slightly lighter shade of blonde than usual. She wore her best imitation pearls, had complicated looking marcasite earrings dangling from her earlobes and tottered on shoes which had slightly higher heels than were comfortable.
The doctor, apparently unembarrassed by the mild deceit of Veronica's introduction, strode into the room with his shiny, black leather bag in one hand and a prescription pad at the ready in the other. `Good morning!' he cried with false bonhomie. `I was passing and so I thought I'd pop in and see how we were doing!' The lie slipped from lips with such self-assurance and practised ease that Mrs Caldicot wondered if he even knew that it was a lie. She found herself wondering if doctors were taught how to lie at medical school, or if medical schools deliberately selected students who were good at telling fibs. He put his bag down on the floor and stared down at her.
`You seem to be doing all right,' thought Mrs Caldicot in response to the doctor's introductory comment. `Nice suit. Expensive tie. And those shoes weren't cheap.' She stared at the doctor. Although she felt sure that she didn't really know him she nevertheless thought that she vaguely recognised him, and she tried hard to remember when and where she had seen him last.
`Your daughter-in-law tells me that you've been a bit down in the dumps since your husband passed away,' said the doctor, abandoning without embarrassment the fiction of his accidental arrival. `Not surprising, of course,' he added, exhibiting a previously unexposed strain of understanding.
Mrs Caldicot wondered why even doctors couldn't bring themselves to talk directly about death, and then she suddenly remembered where she had seen him before. He had been on the local television station taking part in a discussion programme about the psychological problems created by bereavement and the failure of modern society to take these problems seriously.
Mrs Caldicot's Cabbage War Page 5