‘But the plan would’ve worked, it was foolproof.’ Milo felt his voice coming out higher and higher like a squeaky violin.
‘The old people get scared more than you or me, Milo. They worry that they won’t have anywhere to go.’
‘What about the evidence? Didn’t you show them that?’
Tripi shook his head. ‘I am sorry, Milo, but I have to keep my job. When all the old people decided that they were going to say nice things about Nurse Thornhill and Forget Me Not and when Heidi told the inspectors that Nurse Thornhill was the best person she had ever worked with and when all those nurses turned up from the other Forget Me Not homes to make the place look beautiful and acted like they were here all the time to look after the old people, I got worried. If it is only you saying something against all the other people, you get in trouble. That is what I learnt from Syria.’
Milo watched Tripi’s face come in and out of focus until he was just a blur. Milo rubbed his eyes. What was he saying? That the inspectors didn’t suspect a thing?
‘What about Mrs Moseley?’
Milo had gone through the story with her over and over: all the things he’d seen that day when he walked past her room, and the other things he hadn’t seen that happened in the bathroom. Everything apart from the naked bit, which he thought would make Mrs Moseley feel embarrassed.
‘Nurse Thornhill locked her in.’
‘Where?’
‘In her room. She told the inspectors that Mrs Moseley was sleeping because she needed her rest.’
Milo turned round and walked to the swing doors.
‘Milo…’ Tripi called after him.
‘I thought I could trust you,’ said Milo. ‘I thought you’d understand.’
45
TRIPI
‘Milo! Your bag!’ Tripi pushed through the swing doors, holding Milo’s school bag, but Milo had already disappeared.
‘Ah, Tahir.’ Nurse Thornhill walked towards him from the other end of the corridor. ‘Just the person.’
Petros walked a few steps behind her holding a video camera.
‘Our chef has worked in some of the world’s best hotels.’ Nurse Thornhill turned and showed her stretched smile to the camera. ‘Tahir is part of the Forget Me Not family.’
Her voice sounded like one of the political broadcasts in Syria. Both sides did the same: called the people of Syria brothers and sisters, told them that they were part of the Syrian family. As long as they obeyed, of course.
‘Here we are, the kitchen. Food is so important to our clients.’ She pushed past Tripi.
Petros followed.
‘Hygienic. Purpose built. As you can see, we’ve had a feast today.’ Nurse Thornhill swept her arm across the work counters, which were littered with the leftovers of cakes and canapés. First thing this morning she had made Tripi go and collect them from The Cup Half Full on the high street.
‘Tahir, why don’t you tell us about your speciality? What you love cooking most.’
Tripi stood in front of the camera, blinking. Potatoes. That’s all he could think of: pale, sweaty potatoes.
‘Tahir?’ Nurse Thornhill said through her clenched smile. ‘The camera’s waiting.’ Then she turned to Petros. ‘You said we could edit, didn’t you?’
Petros nodded.
‘So Tahir, tell us about your favourite dish.’
‘Mezze.’
‘No, no. Petros, turn it off. Tahir, we need you to say English things. Victoria sponge cake, shepherd’s pie, lemon meringue.’ She waved her hand at the camera. ‘It’s for the awards ceremony.’ She sighed and turned to Petros. ‘I’ll leave you to it, Mr Spiteri, I’ve got work to do. Make sure you show me the video when you’re done.’
Petros nodded and Nurse Thornhill swept out of the kitchen, just as she had swept in that morning just before the inspectors arrived.
We’d hate them to find out about your little immigration problem, wouldn’t we, Tahir? She had smiled while she said it, her teeth glowing under the kitchen strip lights. To lose your job after only a couple of weeks? To be sent home with all those bombs going off?
On Monday, when she came back from London with red eyes looking pale and tired as though she had been to a funeral, Tripi had felt sorry for her. But it was like she put that person away along with the black coat and the black gloves.
He should have been courageous. Taken the bull by the horns and spoken to those inspectors, regardless of Nurse Thornhill’s threats. Milo was right, he had let him down, he had let everyone down. Ayishah would be ashamed of him.
‘Isn’t that Milo’s bag?’ asked Petros, looking at Tripi’s hands.
Tripi went back to the sink to finish his washing up. He did not want to talk to Petros. Not telling the inspectors the truth was one thing, but making a propaganda film for Nurse Thornhill?
‘Tripi? Don’t you want to talk to the camera?’
Tripi plunged his hands into the hot water and shook his head. He scrubbed at a pan.
‘I thought we were friends, Tripi? Both foreigners cast away on this strange island.’
Tripi turned round, his face red from scrubbing.
‘You don’t see the truth of what is happening?’ asked Tripi. ‘You want to help Nurse Thornhill?’
Petros took his hands off the camera and let it dangle against his chest. ‘It is not so simple.’
In Tripi’s experience, when people said that, it usually meant that things were very simple – only that they didn’t like the simplicity. Like when Tripi begged the soldiers from the Free Syrian Army to help him find Ayishah, showing them the photograph. Like when he’d gone to the government and told them over and over that Ayishah was too young to be walking around on her own, that she’d be scared with all those bombs going off and that they had to help him find her.
But the soldiers had not bothered to look at the photo and the government officials had thrown Tripi out of the building.
Both sides had said the same thing: they had more important things to worry about, they did not have time to search for a little girl.
‘Even Milo sees it, Petros.’
‘Milo is upset that Louisa is not at home and that she and I are friends.’
Tripi looked for a sign from the old man: did he not understand that there was more at stake than a little boy wanting his gran?
‘You are not brave, Petros.’
Petros took off his yellow cap and rubbed his bald patch. ‘Maybe I am not brave. Or maybe I do not have a choice.’ He twisted his cap between his hands.
No wonder it was so frayed, thought Tripi, all that twisting. It is what people did when they were scared, like when Ayishah poked her thumbs through the cotton sleeves of her school jumper when there were gunshots in the streets of Damascus or when Milo pulled at the straps on his school bag as he talked about Old Mrs Moon or when Lovely Sandy twisted the hem on the waterproof he had lent her when she was not sure whether to come into the house.
‘Petros, are you afraid?’
Petros pulled his shoulders back and puffed out his chest. ‘Afraid? Why would a Greek man be afraid?’ And then he slumped his shoulders. ‘It is like I said, Tripi, I do not have a choice.’
‘There is always a choice, Petros. Always.’
‘It is easy for you to say, my friend – you are young, you do not depend on anyone. But one day you will know how this feels.’
Tripi thought that he would like to be old enough to feel what Petros felt. Many of the people from his homeland would never reach his age. Some children would never finish school.
Looking past Petros’s blank face, Tripi noticed a label on Milo’s bag. His name: Milo Moon, and his address: 7 Crescent Way.
‘I’ve got to go,’ he said, wiping his hands on a dishcloth.
On his way out of Forget Me Not, Tripi saw Nurse Thornhill talking to Nurse Heidi and hid behind the corner to watch and listen.
‘I warned you.’ Nurse Thornhill stood over Heidi, her hands on her hips.
&n
bsp; Heidi sniffed, her eyes red and swollen. ‘I’m sorry.’
Had he found out that Nurse Heidi had been involved in their discussions on Monday?
‘You let me down today,’ said Nurse Thornhill.
‘I didn’t mean to.’ Tears dropped out of her eyes and onto her cheeks like her eyes were raining.
‘If you’ve cost me the award…’ Nurse Thornhill sucked in her breath.
‘I’ll explain to the inspectors that it was my fault.’ Nurse Heidi wiped her nose on her sleeve.
‘Forgetting to wash your hands after you’ve handled a client – such a basic, basic thing, Heidi. Did you see how they made a note of it?’
‘Maybe if you tell them that I’m a trainee, that I’m meant to get things wrong.’
‘You’re my trainee,’ Nurse Thornhill said, her voice loud now. ‘And that means you don’t get anything wrong.’
Tripi changed direction and headed for the back door.
‘Tahir?’ Nurse Thornhill’s voice. ‘Tahir? Where are you going?’
But Tripi didn’t turn back.
46
MILO
‘You’ve got to think bigger, Milo.’ Clouds turned down the news and sat on his bed. He had his naked women pictures all lined up on the carpet with post-its stuck over their nipples and fuzzy pubic bits.
‘How can I think bigger? It’s all ruined now. She’s going to win the prize and everyone will think she’s wonderful and that Forget Me Not is this amazing place and Gran will have to stay there for ever. Not that she wants to come home, so I don’t know why I’m even bothering.’
‘Gran likes to make up her own mind about things, I’m sure you know that already, Milo.’
Milo looked up at Clouds. ‘But she belongs here.’
Clouds held Milo’s gaze for a moment. ‘You’re not only doing this for your gran though, are you, Milo? You’re doing it because there’s a story that needs to be told.’
Milo shrugged. ‘But no one’s going to listen.’
‘Not if you give up they’re not.’
Milo lowered his head.
‘You still want to be an undercover reporter, right? Someone who shows the world the truth?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Then you have to persevere. Especially when the best opportunity for getting your story out has just been dropped into your lap.’
Milo looked up again. ‘What do you mean?’
Clouds nudged his head at the television.
A presenter stood in front of a map of Syria. He pointed to a line of dots that started in Damascus, Tripi’s home, and snaked across to a town on the Syrian border and then across the border to Turkey. A film started playing of children ducking under the barbed fence separating the two countries. Milo shifted his head in time with the newsfeed along the bottom of the screen: thousands of refugees have fled along this route.
He wondered whether Ayishah was there and then he felt bad for having shouted at Tripi.
‘You mentioned that Nurse Thornhill was going to make a film of the home, for when she collects her prize?’
Milo nodded. On his way out of Forget Me Not, he’d seen Petros walking behind Nurse Thornhill, carrying a camera. He’d made Milo think of a little sausage dog, wagging his tail. If only Gran could see what an idiot he was.
‘And you’ve got some evidence, from that friend of yours, Tripi? Things he’s recorded on your phone?’
Milo nodded.
‘Well, there you go. You’ve got your way in.’
‘What way in?’
‘You swap the films.’
47
SANDY
A thump on the door. Sandy tried to block it out; if she didn’t answer, maybe they’d go away and leave her alone.
She looked at the television, a couple kissing by Niagara Falls. The most romantic destination on earth, said the presenter.
Another thump.
The kitchen walls shook; brittle bones, like an old person. Perhaps one of these days, when a Boeing 747 rumbled overhead, the house would crack and fall down with her inside it. She pictured it lying like a flat pack in the middle of Crescent Way. A gap in the road like a missing tooth.
They couldn’t expect you to pay a mortgage on a collapsed house, could they? And anyway, no one would find her under all that rubble.
Sandy pressed mute on the TV and walked to the door.
‘Who is it?’
‘It’s me.’
She knew the voice. And then, as she looked through the peephole she recognised the dark hair, the brown eyes, the thick eyelashes.
How had he found out where she lived?
‘You shouldn’t be here,’ she called through the door. ‘I’ll call the police.’
She heard him shuffle closer.
‘I am sorry to disturb you, Young Mrs Moon, but I need to talk to you about Old Mrs Moon.’
Young? At twenty-seven, Sandy felt ancient. She opened the door.
Tripi came in and handed Sandy Milo’s schoolbag. He pointed to the address label. ‘I am not, what do you call it here? A stalker.’
The way he smiled, like he was holding out a gift, made Sandy smile back despite herself.
‘I work in the kitchen,’ he said. ‘At Forget Me Not, that is how Milo and I met.’
Sandy looked at his chef’s whites. Clean. Ironed. Spotless. Nicer than her green polyester fleece and the nylon skirt that dug into her waist. She’d gone and done it. Signed up for a job at the Co-op. They were so desperate for staff that they’d made her fill in a form right then and there, sent her to the Ladies to put on her new uniform and put her straight onto the tills.
‘Milo came to see me and he forgot his bag.’
Half an hour ago, Milo had trudged upstairs, not saying a word. After this morning, she thought they’d turned a corner, but it looked like she’d done something wrong again. For a nine-year-old he sure was behaving like a teenager.
Tripi glanced round the kitchen. ‘You have a nice house.’
Sandy looked at the black stains on the linoleum, melted curtains, the dark smears against the fridge – and couldn’t help but laugh. ‘It used to be.’
‘Milo told me about the fire. He said Old Mrs Moon had a moment of forgetting.’
‘The insurance company doesn’t quite see it that way. Looks like we’re going to be stuck with a burnt kitchen.’
‘Oh.’ Tripi furrowed his brow. Then the television screen caught his attention. ‘You like holidays?’
Sandy looked at the presenter standing in her skimpy bikini on a long, white beach. Honeymoon Hideaways. That was the name of the programme.
‘Yes. I like holidays,’ she said.
Tripi brushed his palm over one of the stools at the counter and sat down. ‘What are these?’ He picked up a tub of pills. ‘Vitamins?’ He read the label out: ‘“Burn Fat Fast”.’
Sandy took the tub out of his hands and shoved it in the cutlery drawer.
‘You want to burn fat?’
‘Doesn’t every woman?’
Tripi shook his head. ‘In Syria, if a person is thin, she is considered either poor or sick.’ He looked directly at her. ‘You are just right.’ He drew a curvy figure in the air with his hands and then blushed. ‘Food is there to make you happy. One day, I will make you a banquet.’
Sandy felt dizzy. She hadn’t eaten anything since the SlimFast shake this morning and her toner belt pinched at the folds of her stomach.
‘Thank you for the bag, I’ll make sure it gets back to Milo.’ She moved towards the kitchen door. ‘I’m afraid I have rather a lot of work to do.’
A soak in the bath, that’s what she needed. Eight hours at the till next to the chill cabinets; she still couldn’t feel her fingers.
‘Milo is not happy,’ said Tripi.
Sandy’s dropped her shoulders. ‘No.’
‘I let him down.’
Sandy smiled. ‘Well, that makes two of us.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Everything. Everything that a mum can possibly do wrong, I did it.’
‘I do not believe that.’
‘Oh, you should. Just ask him.’
‘I was meant to help Milo catch Nurse Thornhill.’
What Milo Saw Page 20