‘Send her victorious
Happy and glorious
Long to reign over us
God save the Queen.’
‘Don’t you worry about a thing,’ I say, pointing my thumb to my chest. ‘I’ve got this.’
Alanna smiles. Looks happy.
After everyone has eaten, I go into the kitchen to prepare a small warm salad for myself. In a large bowl, I add one layer of spinach. I wilt it in the microwave for ten seconds. I take it out and add a few drops of vinegar, then another layer of spinach.
I can hear the Lolitas bickering in the Bowl.
‘My place,’ one Lolita says, ‘has a living room. And yours doesn’t. It’s idiot-proof. We should do it at mine. We need a living room because we need space.’
‘Hellooo?’ I have noticed that the Lolitas often call out to one another in this way. ‘We’re getting ready to party, not play Twister! Everybody knows when you’re getting ready it’s bathroom space you need.’
‘Hellooo? You wanna fit everyone in the bathroom? Where’re you gonna put them? In the literal bath?’
I must say I’m impressed by the level of commitment they’ve invested in this project. I add one more layer of spinach to the bowl and put it in the microwave for ten seconds. They’ve been discussing the hen-do with the same dedication as little girls describing their imaginary ponies. I repeat the motions. A few drops of vinegar, one more layer, ten more seconds.
‘Mine’s pink.’
‘Mine’s pink with purple wings.’
‘Mine’s pink with purple wings and a silver horn.’
‘Mine’s pink with purple wings and a silver horn and gold glitter hooves.’
When I reach ten layers and the bowl is half full, I pour a few drops of vinegar on top and add five salted peanuts. I sit down to eat, listening to them, until it is time to go back to work.
If it’s sunny and dry enough – which is rare, as spring isn’t quite here yet – the inpatients receive their visits on the wooden decking at the back of the care home. A little fresh air is good for them. Mona and I wrap them tightly in coats and scarves and duvets, before moving them outside. We park their wheelchairs in discrete clusters around the garden heaters, and scatter stools between them for the relatives, a little coffee table for each cluster. Though our patients are rarely allowed to drink coffee. It isn’t good for their old, weak hearts. It gives them trouble sleeping.
Still, the pretence holds and the elderly are in good spirits as the relatives start to arrive. Miss Hancock is a no-show, which is a relief, because it means her father isn’t there to spoil a good day. This is a beautiful place, it must be said, with its Victorian glass-and-steel canopy and scenic steps descending into the back garden like a verdant, natural theatre. We’ve strung a necklace of fairy lights in the tree above the stone fountain at the back. In the evening we turn them on and, when there is a breeze, they flicker light into the bedrooms of the first-floor guests. The old people love it. The piano bar, Miss Phyllis calls it. ‘Are we going down to the piano bar today?’
Nobody really comes to visit Miss Phyllis, but we take her out anyway, because she loves the open air. If there’s time, I sit with her for a while, to keep her company. She tells me stories. Miss Phyllis once had her heart broken by a man. It was the only time she allowed that to happen to her. He was a police constable during the war, and she only ever refers to him as Constable, as if it were his given name, or as if remembering his real name might prove too much. Since then, she’s ‘saved herself’, she says, thus preserving her capacity for romance. She is ninety, but it spills out of her, a transparent emotion. And while it may not seem obvious, a care home is a good place for romance. So much time to be spent daydreaming.
Miss Phyllis lifts her lashless eyes to the sun and says, ‘A singer’s heart is like the bluebird; it wants to fly.’
For the first year we are together, I am never beyond his reach. ‘My angel girl,’ he tells me. He’s always touching me, following the edges of my body, with his fingers spread out across my collarbone or a thumb tracing the slope of a hip. ‘Look at you.’ His gestures when we are together are always a little larger than they ought to be, to accommodate me. He keeps me safe. In the pub, he draws me into him. He pulls out the chair at the restaurant. The crook of his arm designs a space for me on a packed train, on the sofa, in the bed next to him. ‘Little bird,’ he says, ‘one day you’ll learn to fly, but for now you’re all mine.’ I am happy when he says that. I give him my whole heart.
⋆
Policy dictates that we must lock our people in like children at 8 p.m., so the guests say their goodbyes early. There’s a recent trend, I’ve noticed, in popular culture, concerning the hilarious adventures of senior citizens who’ve managed to escape the long arm of eldercare. Let me tell you: the outcome tends to be less entertaining than those airport paperbacks will have you believe. We prepare the patients for the night. Miss Phyllis looks dejected as I take her back to her room. Before the war, she was a cabaret singer. And during it they toured hospitals, keeping up the soldiers’ morale. I know she longs to be out on the piano bar at night, in a sparkly gown, sitting on the wooden steps, holding a Martini, spearing a single olive on a toothpick. I pour her a mug of sweet tea instead and hold it out so she can rattle a teaspoon inside. Though her hands shake, she has a definitive air about her: she is quick and efficient in stirring the sugar. I put the mug down next to the press shot in which she is the second chorus girl from the left. She lifts a hand, points at the picture.
‘That, my dear Ruth, was a wonderful party,’ she says before closing her eyes.
Home: I open a new bottle, pour a glass of white wine, add three ice cubes: ice-cooler. The cubes clink against one another, making me self-conscious. My stomach rumbles. I open a can of pimento olives and I sit on the floor in front of the sofa. I skewer an olive; its red insides spill out. A wonderful party. I don’t know where to start. I chew on the olive, the kick of the chilli making my gums itch. After two glasses, I feel quite drunk.
Sleep still doesn’t come to me easily. Sometimes in the evening I lie on my back on the floor for so long that the nubs down my spine start to hurt. I watch the red chromosomes on the clock display of the DVD player, as they change into the night. I think about things that make me upset.
He and I are taking a trip to the countryside to check out some cliffs. It’s a weekend trip; his outdoor phase. We take trips every weekend that month. When we reach the site we walk halfway to the edge, then he drops to the ground, and I kneel next to him to ask what he is doing. Come here with me, he says, feel the ground with your underside, like this, like a lizard, and I do it as he does it next to me. On the top, we hold hands and look down and we do not fall.
I sit up, and reach for my phone. I tap on the Facebook app and search for Alanna’s profile. I expand her timeline. The blue page unfolds into micro events: her whole life, all public, time sprawled out like a ribbon messily uncurled. I scroll all the way down. I realize I have missed out on most of it. Her little sister’s birthday, the monstrous pink flowers from Paul on Valentine’s Day, being upgraded to first class on the plane to New York for her twenty-fifth birthday. Some people I recognize from school, but I can’t remember their names. This is unsurprising because I have spent the last ten years trying to forget the ten years before that. The Lolitas are a prominent presence, mainly because they chronicle Alanna’s life themselves. There are several three-way selfies taken in the care home. None of me. Only one picture features us both: a festive shot from last year’s party with Santa hats superimposed on to our heads. It makes me sad, like a pin has been dropped in time, at an arbitrary point, marking the fact that I have always been there, existing on the periphery of Alanna’s life, but my presence was not worth documenting. Yet there I am, standing to the left of the group, with my specifically ugly body, bird legs, the tired slope of my shoulders. I am there.
I pick myself up and walk to the bedroom still holding my phone
. I scroll further down: her graduation, her grandmother’s ninetieth birthday, then she’s nineteen, on holiday with her best friend. I make eye contact with ‘Tracy Dunn’. Tracy stands in her bikini, one arm around Alanna’s waist on a Marbella beach, and returns the stare. Familiar face. The original photo is old, a picture of a picture uploaded. In the right-hand corner Alanna’s freckly thumb is visible, holding it. I scroll all the way down to the bottom, but her feed trickles out quickly, with fewer and fewer pictures, and sparse status updates in which she talks about herself in third person. ‘Alanna Hallett is very happy today thanks to a very special person.’ Alanna smiling in a picture in which she looks extremely young. I remember her looking like that. Her chipmunk grin as a girl. I’m still here – I have been here for her. She picked me. My body feels heavier, the phone is warm in my hand. My thumb slips, zooming into her picture, one blue eye blown out of proportion.
I fall asleep.
I have a strange dream. Alanna and I are performing giants with a joint act on the uneven bars. It is an important competition, perhaps the Olympic Games. It is obvious we both know the routine to a tee, to the point that we are both collaborating and competing, and this is what makes us such a strong team. We are spinning in opposite directions and I can only see flashes of her: her white thighs speeding past me as our outstretched bodies cross at the apex of the exercise, her fists white with talcum powder and the effort of holding the bar, white hairband, a halo of wet baby hair. When her baby-blue eyes fly open like a spring doll’s, my hand misses the bar.
MOBILE TOP-UP
Nearly Ten Years Earlier
FROM: +44 797 2397555
01/07/06 — 10:34
hi handsome, so lovely
to meet u yesterday
this is my nr
catch ya on the flipside.
miss candy kane xoxo
TO: +44 797 2397555
01/07/06 — 16:41
who is this? is this ruth
beadle? if so, very lovely
to meet you, too! Sorry for the
late reply – was walking
the Germans, you know what
it’s like. well no maybe you don’t.
never mind, nice to hear from you
anyway, hi! X
FROM: +44 797 2397555
01/07/06 — 16:42
sorry who is this?
TO: +44 797 2397555
01/07/06 — 16:43
sorry my name is neil pratchett,
got a message from this
number? must’ve got the wrong
number, sorry
FROM: +44 797 2397555
01/07/06 — 16:45
wait, is this neil from
the hotel? how did u
get my number?
TO: +44 797 2397555
01/07/06 — 16:45
is this ruth beadle? i didn’t
get your number you
just sent me a message!
FROM: RUTH BEADLE???
01/07/06 — 16:46
this is ruth beadle, yes but
i didn’t send you a message.
TO: RUTH BEADLE
01/07/06 — 16:50
‘hi handsome, so lovely
to meet u yesterday
this is my nr
catch ya on the flipside.
miss candy kane xoxo’
FROM: RUTH BEADLE
01/07/06 — 16:52
u got that from my number
????? when?????
TO: RUTH BEADLE
01/07/06 — 16:55
i don’t know, this morning?
i was working. not on
phone x
FROM: RUTH BEADLE
01/07/06 — 16:57
o i’m sorry
that would’ve been
alanna. my friend?
TO: RUTH BEADLE
01/07/06 — 16:59
your friend alanna? texting
from your phone? x
FROM: RUTH BEADLE
01/07/06 — 17:02
we were in airport
must’ve taken my
phone while I was
in the bathroom.
TO: RUTH BEADLE
01/07/06 — 17:05
why would she send me
a text from your phone?
TO: ALANNA ROME
01/07/06 — 17:06
hey did you text me
this morning? xx
FROM: ALANNA ROME
01/07/06 — 17:12
ding dong!
whos there?
a text
message from
the love of your life
dickhead
FROM: RUTH BEADLE
01/07/06 — 17:12
i don’t have a clue,
why would she?
TO: ALANNA ROME
01/07/06 — 17:12
i don’t know what you’re
talking about? did you guys
get home safe?
TO: RUTH BEADLE
01/07/06 — 17:14
why would she?
TO: RUTH BEADLE
01/07/06 — 17:16
why would she?
FROM: RUTH BEADLE
01/07/06 — 17:17
come on,
i know the story.
any girl would be
pissed off
TO: RUTH BEADLE
01/07/06 — 17:17
pissed off about what?
FROM: ALANNA ROME
01/07/06 — 17:21
got home all right
idk about safe
til I get tested tbh
yr a cunt u kno that
TO: ALANNA ROME
01/07/06 — 17:22
wow, what the fuck
is wrong with you?
we used a condom fyi
you were the one
who didn’t want to
FROM: RUTH BEADLE
01/07/06 — 17:26
look, i’m staying out of this.
just saying what u did the
other day was not cool
u know
TO: RUTH BEADLE
01/07/06 — 17:28
what because i
gave you my number?
you can’t kill
a man for that.
FROM: ALANNA ROME
01/07/06 — 17:29
just lemme ask u
one thing were u guys
fucking all along? that
the reason y I spent the
last 2 wks
alone like a dog?
TO: ALANNA ROME
01/07/06 — 17:30
i have no clue what you are
talking about
FROM: ALANNA ROME
01/07/06 — 17:31
i know you gave
her your number
twat
FROM: RUTH BEADLE
01/07/06 — 17:31
she saw the
sugar sachet
with your number
on it
TO: RUTH BEADLE
01/07/06 — 17:32
well if this is how
TO: RUTH BEADLE
01/07/06 — 17:32
sorry that was meant for
someone else. so she knows
i gave you my number
so what? i’m not
like married to her
FROM: RUTH BEADLE
01/07/06 — 17:33
so she was upset. I know
she was with u
that day she wasn’t
in our room.
TO: ALANNA ROME
01/07/06 — 17:33
well if this is how we’re
doing this I owe you
nothing you know?
TO: ALANNA ROME
01/07/06 — 17:33
what a little bitch
TO: RUTH BEADLE
01/07/06 — 17:35
sorry to repeat myself
that’s hard
ly me
proposing to her
FROM: ALANNA ROME
01/07/06 — 17:35
get fucked
little shit
u and ur boring
little bitch
FROM: RUTH BEADLE
01/07/06 — 17:40
i don’t mess with
my friends’ dates
TO: RUTH BEADLE
01/07/06 — 17:41
hey we didn’t date!
look that was just …
a fun thing between
consenting adults. a
holiday thing
FROM: RUTH BEADLE
01/07/06 — 17:44
well technically
u were in work
u were responsible
i think
FROM: RUTH BEADLE
01/07/06 — 17:45
she’s my friend
I wouldn’t
have got in touch
TO: RUTH BEADLE
01/07/06 — 17:46
well you’re talking to me now
aren’t you ;)
TO: RUTH BEADLE
01/07/06 — 18:05
ruth, are you still there?
TO: RUTH BEADLE
01/07/06 — 21:11
hi …
look, I’m really sorry.
i didn’t mean to put you
in a weird spot i
was just being silly 1/3
what happened with
alanna was a so-called
holiday romance
she knows this but i
really want to get to 2/3
know you. for real.
i understand
if you don’t want anything
to do with me at this point 3/3
TO: RUTH BEADLE
01/07/06 — 21:13
but if you change your
mind i’m here if only
Shelf Life Page 12