Three Things About Elsie

by Joanna Cannon

  We stood together in the silence, and all I could hear was my breathing. It seemed an age. A lifetime. An eternity before we began to walk back, hand in hand. Our hands were older now. The skin was livered and loosened, and the bones pressed into our flesh, but her hand still fitted into mine, just like it always did. I could feel its strength, and I squeezed, to make sure that she could feel it too.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ Elsie said. ‘You’ll be just fine.’

  HANDY SIMON

  Handy Simon looked up at the glitter ball. It was quite hypnotic once you started staring at it. Soothing, almost. As if looking at the world through all its little mirrors made everything seem small and less important.

  ‘Are you going to watch that all evening?’

  Miss Ambrose had returned from her nap and was marching between the kitchens and the buffet table with a wide selection of finger food. She had marks on her cheek where the pillow had pressed itself into her thoughts.

  ‘And if you wouldn’t mind troubling yourself, there’s a Black Forest thawing out on the side.’

  Simon went through to the kitchen. Gail with an i was standing by a stainless-steel surface with a face like thunder.

  ‘I’m not used to all this to-ing and fro-ing,’ she said. ‘I hope your hands are clean – we don’t want environmental health back again.’

  ‘Again?’ said Simon.

  ‘We’re all trying to move on,’ said Gail. ‘And watch what you’re doing with that cake slice.’

  Simon wiped his hands on the front of his trousers. When he got back to the ballroom, the entertainment had arrived. His name was Lionel, and his shirt had its own set of ruffles, which ran from the knot in his velvet bow tie all the way down in parallel lines, until they disappeared themselves into his cummerbund.

  ‘Welcome, welcome,’ said Lionel.

  Simon balanced the gateau on a trestle table. ‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘I’m only staff.’

  ‘No one is “only” anything, young man.’ Lionel’s eyes opened very wide. ‘Do you not dance?’

  ‘No. I don’t think so. I don’t know.’ Simon looked up at the tiny mirrors in the glitter ball.

  ‘Everyone can dance. Everyone. You just need to find the right song.’ Lionel waved a little baton through the air in a figure of eight.

  Simon watched the baton. ‘Is there an orchestra?’

  ‘Cassettes, young man, cassettes.’ Lionel made the word sound interesting and Italian.

  ‘Tapes,’ said Miss Ambrose, as she walked past.

  ‘But even cassettes need a leader.’ Lionel did another flourish. ‘And dancers need to know when to whisk and when to chassé.’

  ‘To what?’ said Simon.

  ‘Watch me.’ Lionel pointed at his shoes, which shone with such enthusiasm, the entire world appeared to be reflected back in them. He did a little manoeuvre across the floor and then pointed at Simon. ‘Now you try it,’ he said.

  Simon did. It was surprisingly easy.

  ‘Now this one,’ said Lionel. ‘Now, put them both together.’

  It was odd, but Simon felt as though his feet knew exactly what they should be doing. Usually, his limbs waited for instructions from his brain, and his brain could very rarely make up its mind about things, but for some reason, a whisk and a chassé made complete sense to him.

  ‘See,’ said Lionel, clapping his hands. ‘You’re a natural.’

  Simon grinned at him, and realised he was still holding the cake slice.

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ said Miss Ambrose, taking it from his hand, ‘there are some Ritz crackers over there just shouting out for a tube of Primula.’

  FLORENCE

  We got back to the hotel, and after the central heating had warmed up our faces, Elsie and I got ready for the dance just like we used to. We held clothes up to choose, and lent each other jewellery, and did everything we could to make a space between ourselves and the conversation on the beach. When we closed the bedroom door, Jack was waiting for us on the landing.

  ‘I thought we’d go down together,’ he said, and offered his arm. ‘Ladies should never enter a ballroom unaccompanied.’

  I put my arm through his, and the three of us slipped into the room with the music and a glitter ball, back into a world so far in the past, we had almost forgotten it existed.

  There is a certain magic about a dance floor, even if no one is dancing. Perhaps it’s the smell of polished wood, or the beat of an orchestra, or perhaps it’s the remembrance of dances past. The memory of circling a room in shoes that pinched our toes but made us happy. Listening to music that wrapped itself around buried thoughts and made us feel less alone.

  ‘There’s a food table,’ said Elsie. ‘And free drinks. We never had that at the town hall.’

  I looked over to where Miss Ambrose was supervising a tray of egg sandwiches. They were crustless, because sometimes in life, it’s better to anticipate problems and address them head-on, rather than wait for them to appear. Next to the sandwiches and Miss Ambrose, and shrouded in the darkness of a corner, Ronnie Butler stood with his hands behind his back, watching the rest of the room walk past.

  ‘Why now?’ Jack said, his words under cover of the music. ‘Why risk a lifetime of hiding to come back now?’

  I stood beneath a spotlight. I was certain Ronnie could see me, but I’d reached a point where it didn’t seem to matter any more. I lost him occasionally, as the room began to fill with people and couples made their way to the dance floor, but he was always there, behind the crowd. Staring across the years.

  ‘It must have been that young man saving him from being mugged. He hid away for all those years, and then out of the blue, he was on the front page of all the newspapers,’ I said. ‘He must have been afraid someone would recognise him for who he really was, and the past would catch up with him. So he thought he’d catch up with us first.’

  ‘I think that’s what you call a grave mistake,’ said Jack.

  We found a seat at the other side of the room and watched with plates of sandwiches on our knees as the world circled by in tangos and waltzes.

  ‘I remember all the steps,’ said Elsie. ‘Do you remember them, Florence?’

  I did. It was strange how some things are never forgotten. Even though my feet had walked tens of thousands of miles, pulling me through the last eighty-odd years of my life. Even though they had become slower and more measured, and they faltered as time passed by, my feet hadn’t ever forgotten who I used to be. Even if my mind sometimes did.

  There were people I didn’t recognise on the dance floor, strangers from other hotels who had jumped ship for an evening, locals who came just for the dancing, and mixed amongst them were all the residents of Cherry Tree, waltzing their way back to a life once lived. Handy Simon was in the thick of it, promenading and side-by-siding like a natural. Men were in short supply as it was, let alone young men, and no sooner had he finished one dance than he was being whisked away by someone else for the next.

  ‘Are you not dancing, Florence?’ Miss Ambrose crouched beside us. She always believed getting on the same level as other people was important, although in reality, it just gave everyone else a panoramic view of her cleavage.

  ‘I’d take you round the dance floor, but I’m afraid those days are long gone.’ Jack tapped his stick very gently on the floor.

  ‘I could always recruit Billy bloody Elliott over there.’ Miss Ambrose nodded at Handy Simon. ‘It looks as though he’s finally found something he enjoys doing.’

  ‘I’m fine as I am, thank you.’ I held on to the plate of egg sandwiches. ‘It’s important in life to know when to sit a dance out.’

  Elsie was looking at me. I could tell by the angle of her head, although I refused to turn round. When Miss Ambrose had disappeared to crouch in front of someone else, and Jack had gone to refill his plate, she whispered in my ear.

  ‘Will you dance with me, Florence? For old times’ sake? For all we know, this may be our very last chance.’r />
  As she spoke, the little man on the stage waved his baton at the cassette player, and the first few bars of a song drifted into the room.

  ‘See!’ said Elsie. ‘It’s Al Bowlly. It’s fate. Just one more dance, Florence. One more foxtrot.’

  We hadn’t danced together since Beryl died. We lost each other somehow after that, and things were never the same. I danced with other people, of course, but it wasn’t like dancing with Elsie. Now we were together again, it felt as though the orchestra had only paused for a moment before starting the next song. As though the whole of the rest of our lives had been spirited away.

  Her shoulders felt more frail. I could feel the bones of her, pressing into flesh, and she was lighter, less sturdy. The slightest breeze could have stolen her away. But as we danced, these things seemed to become less important. She was familiar. Constant. She was Elsie. The person she had always been.

  We shuffled around the floor, rather than danced. I’m not sure if it was Elsie or if it was me, but perhaps neither of us moved with the same amount of certainty. Elsie sang as she danced, and I sang, too.

  I’ll be remembering you, whatever else I do,

  Midnight, with the stars and you.

  Because sometimes, you need to sing and dance. Even if you are eighty-four. Even if your bones push into your flesh, and the slightest breeze could steal you away.

  The other dancers seemed to move back, and when Al Bowlly’s voice finally drifted into the distance, Elsie and I were standing alone in the middle of the floor. I could see Miss Bissell and Miss Ambrose staring at us; Handy Simon, too. And Jack, who had risen from his seat and was looking right into my eyes. I didn’t care. I didn’t care how strange it might look that two women were dancing together, and I didn’t care that we sang as we danced. I was about to tell everyone who was passing judgement on us how very much I didn’t care, when the double doors opened at the bottom of the room, and a woman stood in front of us looking confused and dishevelled, and ever so slightly bewildered.

  It was Mrs Honeyman.

  HANDY SIMON

  ‘She hasn’t said a word.’ Miss Ambrose had a telephone in one hand and the side of her head in the other. ‘Not a word. The police think she’s in shock.’

  Handy Simon peeped through the gap in the door. Mrs Honeyman was sitting on a giant armchair in the staff room. Or perhaps the armchair wasn’t giant at all, but Mrs Honeyman had shrunk at some point during the last twenty-four hours.

  ‘Where has she been?’ Simon peeped a little more. ‘What’s she been doing?’

  ‘No one knows, Simon.’ Miss Ambrose gave him the kind of look usually conjured up by Miss Bissell. ‘That’s the whole point. Each time we ask her, she just stares at us in silence.’

  ‘Should we ring for a doctor?’

  Miss Ambrose pointed at the telephone and blew out her cheeks.

  To avoid any further eyebrow-lifting and cheek-blowing, Simon wandered towards the noticeboard and read about checking-out times and spare pillows. He was never very good in a crisis. Perhaps because his father was usually there, and he appeared to have a natural affinity for it. Simon usually hung around at the edges, swinging his arms slightly and occasionally bending his knees, to distinguish himself from the furniture.

  Despite being told to remain in the ballroom, a small group of Cherry Tree escapees appeared in reception, led (of course) by Florence Claybourne, and they gathered around Miss Ambrose in a pool of curiosity.

  ‘I don’t know any more than you do,’ he could hear Miss Ambrose shout over their heads. ‘She is, but she isn’t saying anything.’ And ‘No, you can’t go in there.’

  ‘But she must have given you some clue?’ Florence’s voice rose above the rest, as they followed Miss Ambrose and her telephone around the hall. ‘She must have said something?’

  ‘Nothing. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m just trying to get hold of a – yes, hello!’

  Miss Ambrose faced into the flocked wallpaper, and the group turned their attentions to Simon, like cheetahs on the Serengeti.

  ‘Don’t look at me,’ he said. ‘I probably know even less than you do.’

  When the doctor arrived he was ushered into the room with the giant armchair. Simon tried to walk in behind him, but Miss Bissell shut the door with such a thud, it sent Simon three steps backwards and straight into Miss Ambrose, who appeared to be attempting the same tactic.

  ‘It’s just a precaution,’ said Miss Ambrose, after she’d restored her balance. ‘She looks absolutely fine to me.’

  ‘Absolutely fine,’ repeated Simon, although according to his father, his mother had also looked absolutely fine until just before her heart attack. She’d even made her selection from the drinks trolley and inflated a neck cushion.

  ‘We’ll wait here. Best not to overwhelm her.’ Miss Ambrose took over looking at the spare-pillows notice, and Simon had to find something else to occupy his eyes. In the end, he settled on the kitchen door. Panelled. Scuffed around the edges. Looked through every few minutes by the woman who owned the hotel.

  ‘Will your party be requiring anything else?’ Gail said. ‘Light refreshments? The rest of the Yorkshire Constabul-ary? Armed bodyguards, perhaps?’

  Miss Ambrose shook her head and Simon stared at the floor. There was a constant parade of Cherry Tree residents up and down the stairs, on the pretext of picking up a leaflet from the reception desk, or making sure they knew how to order spare pillows. Miss Claybourne had been down at least four times and from where he sat, Simon could see Jack waiting for her on the landing. After what seemed like a lifetime, the doctor finally left, and Miss Ambrose stood in reception with her hands on her hips. They were taking Mrs Honeyman to the cottage hospital for a few days. Just as a precaution. Although she still hadn’t told anyone where she’d been. Miss Bissell declared herself officially at the end of her tether and went off in search of a lie-down and a small bottle of brandy.

  ‘Perhaps we should all try and get some rest,’ said Miss Ambrose. ‘We’re back to Cherry Tree tomorrow evening, and it won’t be an easy journey.’

  Simon agreed by standing up. He tried to find some words, but so many had been thrown around during the course of the evening, he didn’t seem to have any left. Perhaps it wasn’t only Mrs Honeyman who had been shocked into silence. As he started to climb the stairs, Simon looked up at the landing. He couldn’t be certain, but he was fairly sure he spotted Miss Claybourne’s lace-ups and the edge of a walking stick just disappearing out of view.

  FLORENCE

  ‘Where’s the cottage hospital?’

  We sat opposite Jack and two scrambled eggs. He’d been pushing them around his plate for the last half an hour.

  ‘Near the library,’ said Jack. ‘I spotted it yesterday when we were getting in the taxi.’

  ‘Do you think they’ll let us in?’ I said. ‘Perhaps she’ll have a policeman sitting outside her room.’

  ‘She’s not a criminal,’ said Elsie. ‘Or a pop star.’

  ‘If she wants to see us,’ said Jack. He gave up on the eggs and edged the plate away.

  I looked over to where Ronnie sat in the corner of the dining room. He wasn’t eating breakfast, either. Instead, he watched us all over a pot of coffee. There was a smile hidden in his eyes, a flicker of victory. I was in a mind for going over there, but Elsie made me sit down again.

  ‘Don’t aggravate things, Florence.’ Elsie pulled at my arm. ‘Just ignore him.’

  ‘I want to give him a piece of my mind.’ I was in the middle of pouring more tea, and I realised my hand was shaking. ‘Tell him how much misery he’s caused everyone.’

  I didn’t mean to shout. I only realised I was doing it when people turned around and Miss Ambrose peered at us from the other side of the room. ‘Try to use your indoor voice,’ my mother used to say. Only there were certain times in life when your indoor voice just wasn’t quite adequate.

  ‘Let’s just stay calm and see what Mrs Honeyman has to say.’ Jack sto
od up.

  ‘If Mrs Honeyman has anything to say at all,’ said Elsie, and we followed him out into the sunshine, amongst the holiday clatter and the ribbons of cars, and the scream of the seagulls, all the way along the West Cliff, until the town swallowed us up into the rush of a Sunday morning.

  Depressing places, hospitals. I’ve never enjoyed visiting them, because each time I have, the experience has been knitted with misery. My mother. My father. Various friends over the years whose lives have stumbled and faltered long before mine.

  ‘I detest hospitals,’ said Elsie, as if she could read my mind.

  We walked along a main corridor, behind a belted blue uniform who had deliberated for a good fifteen minutes before she decided to allow us inside. Even Jack and his charm struggled to win her over.

  ‘It’s most unusual,’ she said. ‘Visiting at this hour on a Sunday.’

  We were eventually allowed ten minutes, and after we left the corridor, we arrived at a side room, which was washed in early-morning sunlight and smelled vaguely of soap. Mrs Honeyman lay in a bed, with the same expression she’d been wearing the previous evening, only perhaps looking slightly less tired.

  ‘She’s fine, physically,’ said the nurse. ‘But her mind might not have fared so well. The only problem is, we don’t know her baseline.’

  ‘Baseline?’ said Jack.

  ‘What she’s like normally?’ It was presented as a question, and I realised for the first time that I hadn’t had a conversation with Mrs Honeyman for the entire time I’d been at Cherry Tree.

  ‘She’s usually very quiet,’ I said.

  ‘But presumably not as quiet as this?’ The nurse smoothed down a sheet and pulled the curtain back a little more.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘not as quiet as this.’

  ‘She sleeps a lot,’ said Jack.