And he listened to her too. He asked her things and seemed genuinely interested in the answers. For the first time in years Mrs Caldicot felt important as a person rather than a cook, a laundress and a housekeeper. Slowly she realised what she had missed in her loveless and friendless marriage; she had shared her life with a man, but the sharing had been shallow and superficial. It hadn't been the way it could have been, should have been. She had, she realised, missed having someone to share things with; missed having someone to whom she could say, `Hey, you'll never guess what happened to me today!'; missed having someone she could laugh with; missed having someone she could wait for to tell about a funny story she'd seen in the paper or heard about on the radio; missed having someone with whom she could share the good, the bad and the trivial in her life. She realised that if she had shared her life with someone like Jenkins she would have doubled the amount of joy she felt and halved the amount of despair she had had to endure.
Jenkins drove her back to her hotel in the dusk and when they said goodbye he reached out and held her hand for a brief moment. He moved forwards and for an instant she thought he was going to kiss her cheek but he didn't. `Goodnight,' he said softly. `It hasn't been too bad a day, after all, has it?'
`No,' she said, smiling. `It hasn't been too bad at all.'
And as she watched him drive away she realised that she wouldn't have minded if he had kissed her goodnight.
Miss Nightingale and Mrs Peterborough were waiting for her in the reception area.
`We had a wonderful time!' said Miss Nightingale, her eyes full of excitement.
`We had a wonderful time!' agreed Mrs Peterborough.
`It was a pity you couldn't stay here,' said Miss Nightingale, speaking as rapidly as she could. `We all had a massage and we spent four hours in the jacuzzi! I was all wrinkly when I got out.'
`I was all wrinkly when I got out!' said Mrs Peterborough.
`It was so sad that you had to go out!' said Miss Nightingale.
`It was so sad that you had to go out!' said Mrs Peterborough.
`I know,' said Mrs Caldicot. `It was a shame, wasn't it?'
But that was a lie.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Mrs Caldicot's room at the Mettleham Grand Hotel seemed quite large when there was only her in it but with all the refugees from The Twilight Years Rest Home crowded in with her the room was as crammed as an excursion train on a bank holiday.
`We can't stay here much longer,' said Mrs Caldicot when she finally managed to get them to stop talking.
There was a communal, almost orchestrated sigh of sadness.
`It's very expensive,' said Mrs Caldicot. `The TV company paid for our first night but since then the bills have been mounting. And the money I got from the Sunday Journal won't last forever.' She paused. `We've got to find somewhere else,' she concluded.
`We don't expect you to pay our bills!' said Mr Livingstone. `Certainly not!' protested Mr Hewitt, and although you could not describe him as indignant there was certainly a touch of hurt in his voice.
`Certainly not!' agreed Mrs Peterborough.
`We can all pay our own bills,' said Mr Livingstone.
`We've done our sums,' said Mr Hewitt. `And there's no problem. It cost us more to stay at The Twilight Years Rest Home than it costs us to stay here.'
`We're just going to arrange for our banks to pay the hotel instead of Mr Fuller-Hawksmoor,' said Mr Livingstone.
`Oh!' said Mrs Caldicot, quite taken aback. She hadn't expected any of this. She had never really thought about the fact that the other residents of The Twilight Years Rest Home had been paying fairly hefty amounts of money to stay there. She found herself wondering why they had all allowed themselves to be pushed around and bullied by Mr Fuller-Hawksmoor when they had been paying the bills and had a right to expect good service. She wondered how many thousands of old people up and down the country were similarly ill treated.
`But we'll move if you want us to,' said Mrs Torridge agreeably. Mrs Torridge was, at 63 years of age, probably one of the youngest of the group. She had been put into the Twilight Years Rest Home by her daughter and son-in-law who had immediately sold her home, pocketed the money and run off to New Zealand. Unbeknown to them, however, she had anticipated this example of filial disloyalty and stashed a more than adequate sum in gilt edged bonds. Mrs Torridge was joyfully overweight and indomitably cheerful. She paused. `As long as there's a jacuzzi!' she laughed. Mrs Caldicot could see the fluorescent orange of Mrs Torridge's new bathing suit spilling out from the canvas holdall beside her chair. There was, thought Mrs Caldicot, probably enough material in the bathing costume to make a tent for the average family of four. Mrs Caldicot had never seen anything quite as remarkable as the sight of Mrs Torridge in a bathing suit; it was a larger than life vision which was at once both intimidating and cheering.
`I had wondered about looking for somewhere for us to rent,' said Mrs Caldicot, pushing the vision of Mrs Torridge to one side. `A large house maybe?' She paused and looked around. Everyone was trying to look interested but they could not hide their disappointment.
`We don't have to move,' she added. `Especially if there isn't a problem over the money.' She looked around and waited for someone else to say something. `But if we found somewhere of our own we could look after Miss Kershaw, Mr Oppenshaw, Mrs Entwhistle and the others.' These were the patients who had been too ill to move when Mrs Caldicot and the others had walked out of The Twilight Years Rest Home. `And don't forget,' she warned, `if any of us gets ill the Mettleham Grand Hotel will probably tell us to leave. If we had our own place we wouldn't have to worry about anything like that.'
There was a long silence.
`I think Mrs Caldicot is right,' said Mr Hewitt.
`She's right,' agreed Mr Livingstone.
`She's right!' said Mrs Peterborough.
`Could we find somewhere with a jacuzzi, do you think?' asked Mrs Torridge, speaking in a tiny little girl voice.
`Could we find somewhere with a jacuzzi?' asked Mrs Peterborough.
`I'm sure we could have one installed,' said Mrs Caldicot. `Even if we can't find a place that has got one already.' She paused. `And we could maybe find somewhere with a garden so that Mr Hewitt could show us how to grow our own vegetables!'
`That would be wonderful!' said Mr Hewitt, who had spent months unsuccessfully trying to persuade Mr Fuller-Hawksmoor to allow him to dig up a small area of lawn for the growing of decent vegetables.
Mrs Caldicot turned towards Mr Livingstone. `And if we had our own place you would be able to entertain us with musical evenings!'
Mr Livingstone beamed.
`I think we should leave it all up to Mrs Caldicot,' said Mrs Torridge. `I'm happy to go where she goes.'
`I agree!' said Mr Hewitt.
`I agree!' cried Mrs Peterborough, excitedly and noisily.
This sealed it. There were enthusiastic mumblings of affirmation from the others and it was agreed that while Mrs Caldicot planned their future the rest of them would go down to the Sports and Leisure Complex and enjoy themselves.
***
The moment they had gone Mrs Caldicot picked up the telephone and dialled Derek's number.
Derek was out and the receptionist put Mrs Caldicot through to a girl called Ingrid.
`I'm looking for a house,' Mrs Caldicot explained to Ingrid. `It must be quite large. An old hotel would be perfect.' She explained that she wanted somewhere with a large number of bedrooms, a little land of its own and several large reception rooms.
`Do you want to buy or rent, madam?' asked Ingrid.
`I had thought of renting,' said Mrs Caldicot. `But I suppose we could buy somewhere if the right place came up.' There was a pause while Ingrid wrote this down. Mrs Caldicot thought that Ingrid was probably the sort of person who would lick her pencil tip and then stick her tongue out of the corner of her mouth while she wrote.
`Do you have anywhere to sell, madam?' asked Ingrid eventually.
`No,' said Mrs Caldicot. `We're living in a hotel at the moment.'
`What's the name, madam?' asked Ingrid.
`My name?'
`Yes, please, madam.'
Mrs Caldicot told her.
`Would you spell that please, madam?' asked Ingrid.
Mrs Caldicot spelt her name.
`Thank you,' said Ingrid. `I'll pass the information on to Mr Caldicot when he returns from his meeting.'
`How do you spell that?' asked Mrs Caldicot, mischievously.
Ingrid spelt out Mr Caldicot's name without comprehension, irony or curiosity.
`Thank you,' said Mrs Caldicot.
`I'm sure he'll be in touch with you quite quickly,' said Ingrid, her voice laden with artificial sincerity and warmth.
`Thank you,' said Mrs Caldicot. She felt quite certain that Ingrid was a very attractive young woman.
***
Mrs Caldicot put her swimming costume and dressing gown on, picked up a towel and went downstairs to the Sports and Leisure Complex.
Miss Nightingale and Mrs Peterborough were sitting on the two exercise bicycles, ringing brand new shiny bells and happily waving to everyone who passed by. Mrs Torridge was taking up half the jacuzzi and Mr Hewitt and Mr Livingstone were splashing about in the swimming pool. Mrs Caldicot wandered over to the exercise bicycles.
`Where did you get those from?' she asked Miss Nightingale, nodding towards the bells.
`They were here when we arrived,' replied Miss Nightingale happily.
`Hello, Mrs Cardew!' smiled the manageress, her capped and polished teeth sparkling in the powerful artificial light of the pool area. `The bells were a gift from The Sunday Journal, she explained. She took a small gift card out of her white nylon overall and handed it to Mrs Caldicot. `From the Sunday Journal', it read. `With best wishes'.
Mrs Caldicot smiled at her and handed the card back. She turned as someone tapped her on the shoulder.
`You're on the television!' said a portly, middle aged woman in a mauve dressing gown. Her hair was wet and she was carrying a rolled up copy of Vogue magazine under her arm. It was an accusation rather than a statement and it certainly wasn't a question. A weedy, timid looking man stood behind her. He had no hair of any significance and carried a folded newspaper and a paperback book in his right hand.
Mrs Caldicot admitted, with some reluctance, that she had, indeed, been on the television.
`You're Jessica Richardson, aren't you!' said the woman, decisively.
`No,' said Mrs Caldicot. `I'm afraid I'm not.' She vaguely recognised the name and rather thought that it belonged to an actress who appeared in a soap opera.
`Oh yes you are!' insisted the woman with a conspiratorial wink. She turned round and spoke to her husband. `It's her!' she whispered.
`It's not,' said Mrs Caldicot. But this denial was simply ignored.
`Tell me,' said the woman leaning closer. She smelt strongly of talcum powder. `Tell me, what's Albert Peters really like?'
`I'm afraid I don't know,' said Mrs Caldicot.
`Oh go on with you!' said the woman with another wink. `I know who you are. I've seen you on the television.' She wasn't very good at winking and when she did it both her eyes closed. `He's lovely, isn't he? Do you get on, you know, in real life?'
`Yes,' said Mrs Caldicot, rather wearily, answering the sequence of questions with a single word.
`Can I have your autograph?' asked the woman. She took the magazine from under her arm and thrust it towards Mrs Caldicot.
`I'm afraid I haven't got a pen.'
`Norman. A pen.' said the woman. Her voice changed dramatically when she spoke to her husband. She talked to him as a child would speak to a naughty doll. The weedy looking man produced a ball point pen from his dressing gown pocket, stepped forward and offered it to the woman. The woman took it and handed the pen and the magazine to Mrs Caldicot.
`What would you like me to put?' asked Mrs Caldicot.
`From Jessica Richardson to Emily Turner,' said the woman. `You can add `with lots of love' if you like.'
Mrs Caldicot wrote the prescribed phrase and added the love. Then she handed the pen and the magazine back to the woman.
The woman looked at the inscription carefully and nodded knowingly. `There you are,' she said to Mrs Caldicot. `I told you that you were Jessica Richardson.' She held the pen out and her husband took it from her.
`You did,' agreed Mrs Caldicot.
The woman disappeared, her husband trailing along behind her like an obedient puppy. Mrs Caldicot slipped out of her dressing gown and lowered herself into the jacuzzi. Every time Miss Nightingale and Mrs Peterborough rang the bells on their exercise bicycles it reminded her of Jenkins. The bubbles tickled and refreshed her skin and she lay back, closed her eyes and thought with fondness of their walk together along the river bank.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
`What on earth is going on, mother?' asked Derek Caldicot. He sounded weary.
`I want to rent or buy somewhere big enough for us all to live in,' replied Mrs Caldicot, sitting on her bed. She had been about to get changed when the telephone had rung. She was going out to dinner with Jenkins. `I thought you'd be offended if I went to another estate agent.'
Derek let out air as though he was deflating.
`I'll go to another estate agent if you prefer,' offered Mrs Caldicot, brightly. She kicked off her shoes and examined a ladder in her tights.
Derek sighed. `Why can't you be like everyone else's mother?' he asked her.
`I never said that to you,' said Mrs Caldicot, offended.
`What? What are you on about now?'
`When you were little,' explained Mrs Caldicot. `I never said `why aren't you like the other children' to you.'
`I don't remember,' said Derek. He thought about this for a moment. `Anyway, I was never unlike the other children,' he said, rather defensively.
`Oh yes you were,' said Mrs Caldicot. `You were so worried about being different that you weren't like anyone else I ever knew.' She smiled to herself at the memory of Derek in short grey trousers bursting into tears because he couldn't decide whether he wanted to wear short or long grey socks. In the end, in a spirit of compromise that she had to admire, he had settled for long grey socks which he had pushed down around his ankles.
`We're not talking about me,' said Derek, defensively. `It isn't me who wants to buy a house big enough to share with a hundred incontinent old people.'
`Don't exaggerate,' said Mrs Caldicot, sharply. `There aren't any more than twenty or so altogether and none of them is incontinent.' She paused. `Well, very few of them anyway and those who are incontinent are only a little bit incontinent.'
`If you don't want to live in a rest home then what's wrong with a nice granny flat?' asked Derek.
`It's too late for that now,' said Mrs Caldicot. `I've got responsibilities.' She also realised that she found her responsibilities exciting and rewarding. And the risks which she knew were associated with the responsibilities didn't worry her anywhere near as much as they would have done a month or two earlier. She realised that excitement and risk go together like rain and rivers, and that you can't have one without the other.
`There's a wonderful new development on the Portland Road,' said Derek. `I can get you a one bedroom flatlet at a very competitive price. Kitchenette with refrigerator, microwave oven and the very latest type of waste disposal unit. You can put tin cans down it and they'll come out shredded. Small bathroom. Telephone point in the living room and the bedroom. Wonderful views.'
`I don't want a one bedroom flatlet,' said Mrs Caldicot, bluntly.
`You can see the municipal park from one of the living room windows,' said Derek. `You can see the ornamental flower clock in the summer. Well, the top left hand bit of it anyway.'
`I don't want a one bedroom flatlet,' repeated Mrs Caldicot. `Not even one which has a view of the municipal park.'
`How can anyone be only a little bit incontinent?' asked Derek sudden
ly. `They're either incontinent or they aren't incontinent.'
`People can be a bit drunk, can't they? Or a bit forgetful?'
`You don't seem to understand,' said Derek. `If you rent or buy somewhere large you'll be taking on all sorts of responsibilities.'
`I don't mind,' said Mrs Caldicot, who really didn't mind. `I can't let the others down now.'
`But you hardly know them, mother!' cried Derek. `You've only just met these people.'
`I like them,' she replied. `And they trust me.' No one had ever really trusted her before. People had relied on her to do things but they had never trusted her. Mr Caldicot had relied on her to provide him with clean shirts and hot meals but he had never trusted her to make any decisions. And life with him had been so boring. He always wore plain white shirts and his meals had to rotate according to a strict and pre-arranged pattern. One Christmas she bought him a shirt with a thin blue stripe in it. He never wore it.
`That's all very well but where are you going to find the money from?' demanded Derek.
`We're all going to pay our share,' replied Mrs Caldicot. `Money isn't going to be a problem.'
`It's bound to be risky. If you sign anything you'll be taking a chance.'
`What's the point of life if you don't take chances?' asked Mrs Caldicot.
`What on earth do you mean by that?' asked Derek. `Why do you want to take chances at your age?'
`Perhaps because I haven't taken enough chances at any other age,' said Mrs Caldicot. `Perhaps because at my age it doesn't really matter what chances I take. What have I got to lose?'
Derek sighed in defeat. `I'll ask our commercial department to see what they can find. A man called Gerald will phone you.' There was a pause. `I wash my hands of this, mother,' he said and put the phone down. Mrs Caldicot knew he was upset because he didn't even say `goodbye'.
***
That evening Jenkins took Mrs Caldicot to the ballet to watch a performance of Swan Lake. Afterwards he took her to an Indian restaurant. She had never been to a ballet before nor had she ever eaten in an Indian restaurant.
Mrs Caldicot's Cabbage War Page 14