A Rather Remarkable Homecoming

by C. A. Belmond

  I kept peering at the numbers on the doorways until I finally reached Simon’s room, which was actually a ward, filled with about a dozen metal beds. Each had a simple foldable chair for visitors nearby, and a small metal table with the kind of cheap lamp that has a bendable neck.

  I did not recognize any of the sad grey faces that looked back at me with limited interest. A few occupants lay on their sides, resolutely asleep. As I passed the beds, I saw that several tables bore plastic cups with plastic sippy-straws, and the occasional tiny vase with wilting visitors’ flowers, and some half-eaten trays of a lunch that most of us wouldn’t feed a dog.

  And then I spotted a figure at the far end, in a bed tucked into a corner. He had dozed while reading, so a book lay across his stomach. His reading light was still on, and there were two other books on his table, which lent him a dignified air, as if he had somehow, against all odds, carved out a little quiet world for himself. As I drew nearer, I saw a small paper cup of pills that had been left there, untaken. Hesitantly, I peered closer at his face, just as he stirred.

  “Simon?” I whispered hopefully.

  The eyes fluttered open sleepily, then widened in surprise, although he did not move a muscle when he whispered tentatively, “Penny Nichols? Can it be you?”

  Then a tired smile spread across his wan little face. He had always been a thin, wiry man of medium height; but lying here in bed he seemed more shriveled, as if he weighed nearly nothing at all. Still, those hazel eyes were alert with intelligence, and his long narrow nose, high forehead and neat, balding head made his face seem extraordinarily long and soberly thoughtful.

  “Little Penny Nichols!” he sighed, turning as I came closer and took the visitor’s chair beside him. “I haven’t seen you since your wedding, right, darling? How do you like being a married lady? Is Jeremy treating you well, I hope?”

  He was teasing me as always, which I found reassuring. He clearly had all his marbles in place and had not been drugged into an alternative personality. But his voice was weak, a little tremulous, and I didn’t like the pallor of his skin. He’d always looked healthy and suntanned from his brisk walks around London; he was the kind of elderly gentleman who prided himself on being vigorous and self-sufficient. The mere fact that he’d gotten on a train to France last year to attend my wedding had won him the admiration of many; so I surmised that whatever happened to him had weakened him in a rather short period of time. He was, after all, in his mid-nineties, and perhaps he’d been more delicate than any of us knew, for he was the kind of man who carefully hid his ailments from his friends instead of complaining about them.

  “Jeremy’s great, and I’m happy,” I reported, then asked tentatively, “and how are you, Simon?”

  “I’d like to sit up,” he said instead of answering. “Can you get the pillow up against the headboard for me?”

  I reached out behind him and arranged the pillow, managing to discreetly help him raise himself up without offending him by an offer of more assistance. He saw me glance at the cup of pills and he said wryly, “The new nurse is a bit dim. She’s supposed to wake me when it’s time to take those. Darling, do you think you could get me some water?”

  I took my own unopened water bottle from my handbag, and poured some water into his cup. He quickly swallowed his pills.

  “Good water,” he said when he was done. “You can’t imagine what the tap tastes like here.”

  “Yes I can,” I found myself saying, and he glanced up at me with a more sharp-eyed smile of complicity. Simon is one of the few people I know who prefers the truth to a lie, despite his life’s long work in the artificial atmosphere of the theatre. “What happened?” I persisted.

  “The old ticker, of course,” he replied, lying back on his pillow and coughing a bit, as if the mere thought exhausted him. “And naturally all those cigarettes from my smoky past didn’t help.”

  He paused, then said thoughtfully, “I always thought they’d find me dead in my own parlor, in that nice chair by the fireplace. But no, they picked me up off the sidewalk like yesterday’s trash.”

  “I ran into your neighbor from across the street,” I said forthrightly.

  He rolled his eyes. “That poor creature has never had a single original thought of her own,” he sighed. “She and her wretched daughter. Mercifully the pair of them were not at home when I hit the deck. I at least deprived them of the pleasure of that spectacle. They had to get it all second-hand.”

  While he was attempting to entertain me, I was covertly sizing up his situation. Despite his cheerful attitude, I sensed that he was depressed and a bit nervous, which was unusual for him. He’d always been full of high voltage in the way that actors often are—in fact, he was the kind of man who put energy into a room, not the type who drained it out.

  But now he himself seemed drained in the way that a flower or an animal is when they haven’t had any nourishment or sunlight. I knew that Simon’s former tenants, who were mostly acting students, were what really kept him going; he’d often told me he leased rooms on a month-by-month basis just in order to see the new talent come and go, and to hear the theatre gossip. Stuck in this nursing home, I saw that he’d been deprived of the very things that, for him, made life worth living. And I wondered who could have thought that this was a good idea.

  “Simon, are you very ill?” I asked, wanting to give the nephew the benefit of the doubt in case Simon was worse off than he appeared and required vigilant care; although, judging by the cup of pills that had been dumped here, I didn’t see that he was getting much useful supervision.

  “I’m stuck here because I can’t walk,” Simon answered. “The minute you are unable to shower on your own, you’re done for. Make sure you and Jeremy go to the gym every week, darling. You want to stay ambulatory as long as possible.”

  At this moment, a nurse entered the room. She had what I can only describe as dark-grey skin and a dour mouth that did not once attempt a smile, even when Simon introduced me to her as “the great-niece of my old dancing partner”.

  Very perfunctorily, she took his blood pressure and his pulse, listened to his breathing and heart with a stethoscope, and noted a few things on his chart.

  “When has he last seen the doctor?” I asked quietly. She didn’t answer right away and at first I thought she hadn’t heard me. “Nurse?” I said, rolling my eyes at Simon when she didn’t even look up.

  It was the first time that Simon didn’t look amused; instead, he looked frightened, and even shrank back against his pillow when the nurse finally fixed him with a beady stare.

  “Doctor will be in tomorrow morning,” she said shortly, and went on her way to her other luckless charges in the ward, most of whom appeared drugged into a stupor.

  “She’s new. She won’t win any personality contests,” Simon whispered to me when she was out of earshot, “but at least she doesn’t give you the wrong pills or the wrong shot. You should see what the previous nurse did to the fellow who had that bed across the way last week.”

  “Simon, what about your nephew?” I asked.

  “What about him?” Simon said grimly. “The boy lives in Canada. He showed up when he thought I was at death’s door and on the verge of leaving him something. He talked me into selling my house because it would be too expensive for me to get home care. Said this is the best I could afford. That way, I still have a little bit of money left from the sale of the house. I call it my mad money. I’m sure my beastly nephew is hoping I’ll kick off before I find anything to spend it on. The boy won’t be back here until it’s time to bury me.”

  His voice trailed off. “What brought you here, Penny darling?” he asked finally. When I told him about Trevor Branwhistle’s theory, Simon perked up for the first time today. He had met Trevor when he performed with Aunt Pen in Port St. Francis that one time in the 1970s, and Simon had enjoyed listening to Trevor’s radio shows on the BBC ever since.

  “Shakespeare a lodger at Beryl’s house!” Simon breathed
in awe. “Could it really be true?”

  “I’m trying to find out,” I replied, just as the nurse returned.

  “Simon Thorne?” she said, as if we all hadn’t even spoken before. She was checking a sheaf of printed-out computer pages and, without even looking up, said, “They’re moving you to the first floor tomorrow. Do you have any things you want sent down there?”

  “No!” Simon cried in distress. “This is a nice bed. I get good light from the window. Why should I want to move? The first floor is all dark.”

  “Orders,” said the nurse.

  “But why?” Simon quavered. “I’m all right. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “They need to put someone else here,” was all she would say. I saw that Simon had begun to visibly tremble now. The nurse did not appear to notice.

  “Why can’t you put your new arrival in the bed downstairs?” I asked bluntly. I didn’t want to get Simon in trouble with the people he must live with on a daily basis, but this was just too much.

  “Because the new patient needs more supervision than he can get on one,” the nurse said incredulously, looking at me as if she were about to finish that sentence by saying, “stupid!”

  Then she went off, her rubber-soled shoes squeaking on the dirty linoleum. Something else in motion on the floor caught my eye—it was a silverfish slithering across the linoleum until it disappeared into a crack in the wall. Simon hadn’t noticed.

  “They have bedbugs on the first floor,” he said fearfully.

  “Right. That’s it,” I said decisively. “Simon. That mad money. Are you mad enough yet?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Okay, look. When I started that day, I had absolutely no inkling that I was going to spend the latter part of the afternoon busting an old friend out of a nursing home. It’s not the kind of thing you plan. It’s the kind of thing you do just as I did . . . in a sudden burst of outrage.

  So, first I told Simon about Trevor Branwhistle’s home for retired thespians.

  “It’s a nice old Priory with a lovely garden, and they’ve got young student nurses from the nearby hospital,” I told him. “The actors there seem to be doing very well, and some of them are even able to perform this summer. But it’s way out in Cornwall. Would you want to leave London?” I asked, knowing how much the city’s venerable theatres meant to him.

  Simon pondered this very carefully. Then he looked up at me so trustfully that I nearly wept. “Do you think it’s a good place for me, Penny dear?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “It’s got fresh air and better food and nicer people. I don’t even know if I can get you in, but I’ll try if you’d like me to.”

  Simon took a deep breath. “Yes,” he said decisively.

  “Should I speak to your doctor first, to see if you’re up to such a trip?” I asked.

  “My regular doctor died a year ago. That’s how I ended up with this crowd,” Simon said. “I don’t like the doctor who replaced him.”

  “Want me to call mine?” I asked. Simon nodded, looking suddenly too scared to speak.

  “Will they let you?” he whispered. “They don’t like inconveniences here.”

  “Too bad,” I said, hitting my speed dial.

  I have learned that there are times like these when the inheritance I got from Great-Aunt Penelope comes in handy, and part of it is being able to get a doctor to show up when you want him, instead of when it’s convenient for him. I am not ashamed to say I used all the influence I possibly could that day. I didn’t even have to actually remind my doctor of the contribution Jeremy and I had made to his new wing at the hospital in Belgravia. He just heard it in my tone when I said, “This is critical,” and he answered briskly, “I’m on my way.”

  While I was waiting for him to come, I called up Trevor and told him that my good friend Simon Thorne had fallen ill. Could he find a bed for him? When he heard the name, Trevor quickly consulted with his staff.

  “If he doesn’t mind sharing a room, it will be all right,” Trevor said. “Bring him as soon as he’s ready.”

  My doctor arrived quietly, as if he were an ordinary visitor. After he examined Simon and consulted the charts, he stepped aside and told me in a low murmur that although Simon was quite seriously ill, he could certainly make the trip to Cornwall, if he wanted to. When I mentioned the name of Branwhistle’s Actors’ Home and the hospital in Port St. Francis, my doctor looked them up on his computer and said that they had excellent facilities for Simon.

  “May I make a suggestion, off the record?” the doctor said to me quietly. “This place he’s in now has a reputation for not being very agreeable at discharge. They use protocol to try to keep their occupancy level high so they can continue to qualify for funding. I am willing to sign any medical and legal papers necessary, but I suggest you get the patient all dressed and ready to go the moment I give you the word. Have a car ready, too. Don’t depend on this place to help you or make it easy to get out.”

  That was all I needed to hear. I trotted right back to Simon’s bed, where he sat looking like an alert little bird in a nest. “Okay, Simon,” I said. “You got the green light. The doctor’s gonna file some papers for you, which you’ll need to sign, and the minute he does we’re out of here. Are you up for a caper?”

  Simon’s eyes were bright with excitement. “Certainly,” he whispered with that trustful look.

  “Where are your clothes?” I asked. He nodded toward a scuffed set of old lockers at the far end of the corridor. They were all half-size, and couldn’t store much. He handed me a key. I opened the lock and pulled out his pitifully small bundle of personal items, including clothes and a pair of shoes.

  “Simon, where are all your other possessions from home?” I asked.

  “My nephew sold most of them. The rest is in storage,” he said.

  “We’ll get it later, okay?” I said.

  “Okay,” he whispered.

  “Want me to help you dress now?” I asked.

  “There’s a nice aide—that fellow over there,” Simon said. “His name is Omar. He’ll help me.”

  I found the young Pakistani man assisting a patient who was trying to make his way back to bed with a walker. Once Omar heard that Simon needed help, he asked no questions and hurried over to him. I stepped out into the corridor to arrange for a car.

  Because Jeremy had warned me that he was going to be in a meeting with a judge, where all mobile phones had to be off, I could only keep checking to see if he had e-mailed me back yet. But there was no news from Jeremy.

  The one new message I had was from Rollo. It said: Hello, Pen. Agent Rollo here. How goes it in Cornwall? Always loved that house. Got any new and dangerous assignments for me?

  I hesitated, then phoned him. “Hey, Rollo?” I said. “I’m in London. A friend of mine here needs a ride. Remember Simon Thorne, the song-and-dance man at my wedding? Right, Aunt Pen’s pal. Well, I’m busting him out of a nursing home today. Can you pick us up and drive us to my town house?”

  Now, the advantage of having an eccentric cousin (who’s more the age of an uncle) and who has lived a rather roguish existence all his life (in which he owes you, and your husband, a favor or two), is that he can be counted upon to do a strange deed with little or no questions asked. It is one of the things I like best about Rollo. There was only a brief pause and then he said easily, “Right. Will it be as dangerous and profitable as the last escapades?”

  “No, not nearly,” I said.

  “Hmm. Does Jeremy know about this?”

  “Nope.”

  “Delightful. What’s the address?” Rollo asked. When I told him, he said, “Ah. I’m actually not far from you at all. Be there in minutes.”

  “Thanks.” I rang off, and while I stood there in an alcove of the corridor answering other e-mails, the doctor returned, saying the papers had been properly filed, and he’d given Simon some copies. So now Simon could go.

  I thanked the doctor and he said briskly, “Not at
all.” Then his beeper sounded, and he rushed off.

  Moments later, two nurses went by without noticing me, just as one was saying, “There’s a strange woman around who’s trying to take a patient out. See if you can head her off while we assess the situation,” she added meaningfully.

  Hastily I got off the phone and rushed to Simon’s side. He was sitting in his guest chair, fully dressed in the one suit of clothes that his nephew had left there for him. It looked incongruously formal to me. Simon allowed himself a faint smile.

  “I think my nephew imagined I’d be leaving here with an undertaker, instead of a friend,” he explained.

  “Well, screw him,” I found myself saying, surprising even me. Simon only chuckled.

  “Did they bring the wheelchair, like Omar asked?” I said, looking around.

  “Of course not, darling,” Simon said. “His supervisor went off in a lather about it.”

  I glanced across the room, where an elderly gentleman was being wheeled back to his bed by a young female aide. I barely waited until the patient was in bed. Then I swooped down on the aide.

  “Thanks, we’ve been waiting hours for that,” I said, taking the wheelchair so forcefully from her that she only stepped back and then said in bewilderment, “You’re welcome.” Apparently she wasn’t in the loop . . . yet.

  “Come on, Simon, your chariot awaits. Get in,” I said, offering him my arm and helping him.

  “They made me take a sedative,” he confided in me. “So if I doze off, don’t be alarmed. Just keep pedalling.”

  I wheeled him down the hallway so fast that I didn’t even stop when the elevator door opened. A laundress was arriving with fresh towels as I barrelled toward her. Upon seeing me, she hastily pulled her cart out of the elevator. Which proves that there is some value in having a lunatic look in your eye. People do tend to clear the way for you.