The Not So Perfect Plan to Save Friendship House: An uplifting romantic comedy

by Lilly Bartlett

  Chapter 2

  By the time I got back with all Mum’s shopping, Dad was there, sopping wet from the squall that had whipped up outside. His dress shirt was stuck to his chest and little rivulets dripped down the sides of his face from his flattened hair. His whole head had gone grey early, but at least he’s still got it, and despite the stress of being an entrepreneur, he doesn’t look his age (fifty-eight). He does look like a builder, which he is, even though he spends more time on email now than on building sites.

  ‘You really didn’t park in the garage?’ I asked him.

  ‘You really did?’ he shot back. ‘I told you it was a waste of money.’

  That’s pretty much what passes for a friendly greeting in our family.

  Dad wasn’t offended because he’s cheap. We’re talking about the man who drives a £60k car. He and Mum went on exotic holidays. He’s not afraid to spend his cash. He just hates feeling ripped off. That’s why he buys own-brand baked beans if the good ones aren’t on sale. Tesco won’t ever put one over on him.

  Not Mum, though, aka Spendy McSquillions. She’d never met a purse she couldn’t empty. It was a good thing their business had done well.

  ‘I’m only supposed to have one visitor at a time,’ Mum said when I gave her the carrier bags from downstairs.

  ‘I’m sure it’s fine, Bev,’ Dad said. ‘Phoebe’s driven all the way here.’

  ‘I know, thank you,’ she said to me. ‘But really, you don’t have to stay, now that Dad’s come. I’m fine, don’t worry about me.’

  I could tell that she was fine by the way she was just as critical as usual.

  ‘Mum’s right,’ Dad added, glancing at his phone. ‘You’ve got to get out of that garage,’ he said, like the parking attendant there was holding my car hostage.

  ‘I don’t care about the money, Dad.’

  But I let them convince me to go back to their house. He’d only keep going on about the expense anyway, and clearly Mum wasn’t in any danger.

  I couldn’t say I was completely at home at my parents’, but it felt comfortable enough. Like I said, it wasn’t where I grew up. They sold that when they decided to make their fortune a hundred miles south. Still, I flattered myself that the guest bedroom where I always stayed was ‘my room’, and that I’d at least get first dibs over any Tom, Dick or Harry who came to visit.

  Dad didn’t stay at the hospital very long after me, but he went back to work and then out for some dinner meeting that couldn’t be moved just because his wife and business partner was dining in Critical Care.

  When I got to Mum’s room the next morning, all I saw was a lump in her bed with a sheet pulled over it. Exactly like they did in films when the paramedics had done all they could to save the patient.

  She was dead! ‘Mum!’

  ‘What!’ snapped the voice under the bedding.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Mum appeared with an angry yank of the sheet. She had her phone to her ear.

  ‘You’re not supposed to use that in here!’

  ‘No kidding, Phoebe, so stop shouting about it or the nurse will hear. Shush.’ She waved me away as she continued to talk and scribble in the notebook I’d picked up for her in the shop.

  ‘That could interfere with the machines, you know,’ I said when she’d hung up.

  ‘Don’t be such a worrier,’ she grumbled. ‘It’s my machine, so it’s my risk.’

  ‘There are other patients with machines on the ward, you know. Do you really want to kill one of them with a phone call?’

  Mum rolled her eyes. She was a famous eye-roller. ‘Don’t believe everything you read, Miss Health and Safety. If it was such a problem, then they’d block mobiles.’

  ‘If it’s such a problem, then they’d put up signs.’ I pointed to the warning posted by the door. ‘Oh, look, they have.’

  Then, right on cue she said, ‘Are those the same clothes from yesterday?’

  ‘I was at work when Dad rang,’ I reminded her. ‘I can pick up some things later if it’s so important to you that I dress for the hospital.’ I knew I should have at least borrowed one of Dad’s shirts. Though the checked trousers were still a problem.

  I didn’t usually take Mum’s image critiques to heart. I’d never leave my flat if I did that. Instead, I tried not to give her too much to work with. It was easier emptying the gun than trying to keep the bullets from hitting their mark when she spotted an easy target.

  ‘Standards,’ Mum said. ‘Anyway, did you have a nice breakfast with Dad?’ We’d gone out to the builder’s caff before he left for the office. ‘The food here is vile. They couldn’t make a decent fry-up with guns to their heads. You could teach them something. Maybe you should work for the NHS. I bet it pays better than what you’re getting now.’

  Not wanting our possibly last conversation to be an argument, I ignored her career advice. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t be eating fry-ups, Mum,’ I said instead. Although she was generally one of those women who kept fit and ate well-ish. If she started filling out a bit, she just cut back, as she loved to say. Simple as that. The implication was that anyone could do it. But I’m no supermodel and there’s no ‘just’ cutting back. I’m rounded, like any good chef worth her salted butter should be.

  ‘At least put on some decent clothes if you’re going to stay,’ she said. ‘I don’t want people thinking my cook is visiting me in hospital.’

  ‘Sorry I didn’t think to pack a ball gown for your heart attack,’ I said. I’d gone from worried about my mother to rowing with her in less than twenty-four hours. In other words, totally normal.

  She glanced at her phone. ‘The shops are open now.’

  ‘I’ll stop back after lunch, then,’ I told her.

  My mobile rang a few hours later. ‘I’m sorry I snapped at you,’ she said, and she meant it. She usually apologised for her outbursts. Not for thinking what she thought, but at least for saying it out loud. ‘You don’t have to bother with new clothes. I’ll be out of here soon anyway, as soon as the doctors tick all their silly little boxes. They’re only covering themselves. I’ve been through most of the tests now, and they’re saying it probably wasn’t even a heart attack. I don’t want you to worry, okay? Honestly, Phoebe, you don’t have to stay. There’s nothing wrong with me. Ask your dad if you don’t believe me.’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure.’ I didn’t need too much convincing, because everyone knew that my mum was invincible. She’d probably be back at the office bossing everyone around before I got to work on Monday.

  My jaw started to unclench as soon as I got onto the motorway toward home. Please don’t get me wrong. I love my parents. It’s just sometimes hard being their daughter. Maybe all driven people are like that, setting the same high bar for everyone else that they do for themselves.

  I didn’t strictly have to go past work on my way home, but I drove that way anyway. The care home is a grand old building and would practically be stately if there was anything aristocratic about the residents. It used to be the owner’s family home – also not aristocrats – and there’s a portrait in the entrance of the card-happy ancestor who won it gambling. He lost everything else the same way, though, so it’s never really been looked after beyond the minimum of upkeep.

  The house is set back from the road with wide, sloping lawns running on either side. Our boss, Max Greene, had the drive widened a few years ago, but other than that it hasn’t changed since his mother owned it. That’s both a blessing and a curse.

  June’s car was parked out front. She wasn’t supposed to be working on a Saturday. We’re the weekday staff. We’ve got night and weekend cover and she promised me no more overtime. She had the nerve to get snappish just because I pressed her on it.

  I pulled into the drive behind her car.

  ‘You didn’t answer your phone,’ my best friend called down the corridor as soon as she saw me come through the side door where the office is. ‘How’s your mum?’

  So she wasn’t goi
ng to make it easy for me to bollock her about the overtime.

  ‘As frightful as usual,’ I said, throwing myself down on the extra chair in front of her desk. June’s mind might be ultra-organised, but her office isn’t. There are binders stuffed full of receipts and records teetering all over the top of the cabinets, and her desk looks like she’s been shredding evidence. ‘I was driving when you rang,’ I said. ‘And you were working while I was driving.’

  But June didn’t rise to the top of senior management (also the only management) at the Jane Austen Home for Ladies by caving in at the first sniff of trouble. She ignored me. ‘Frightful is good,’ she said. ‘That means Bev’s back to normal. She’s out of hospital now?’ She stretched her arms above her head and leaned back in her office chair, like she hadn’t a care in the world. The hem of her top rode up to flash a few inches of tummy, but she didn’t notice.

  ‘No, but she’ll be home soon. It doesn’t sound like anything too serious.’ Of course, June knew this already. I rang her from the hospital just after I first saw Mum. Was that only yesterday? ‘She sent me home.’

  June nodded. I didn’t have to explain. We’d spent our entire childhood at each other’s houses. She knew all about my parents first-hand.

  ‘Nick’s gone home,’ she said with a smirk. ‘He only came in to do an hour with Laney.’

  ‘Hmm? That’s not why I’m here.’

  It was exactly why I was there. Even though my dreams about Nick were quite hopeless by then, I couldn’t stop wishing. It’s not easy getting over someone when you’re around him every day at work.

  ‘I only came in to get you out of the office,’ I lied. ‘You’re not supposed to be working on your day off.’

  ‘And you’re not supposed to be stalking on your day off.’

  Touché. We should both have been away from work doing better things.

  She closed her laptop. ‘Do you want to do something? I told Callum I might meet him later, but it’s not set in stone. We can get a drink if you like.’

  ‘June, you cannot keep blowing Callum off,’ I said. ‘He’ll get sick of it eventually, and then he’ll dump you.’

  But she shook her head. ‘The less I see of him, the more he likes me.’

  ‘By your logic, he’ll be in love with you if you never see him again. Doesn’t it seem a little bit, I don’t know, unhelpful to your sex life never to see your boyfriend?’

  I could never do that. When I’m mad for someone I can’t keep away from him. Well, obviously, because there I was at work on a Saturday, on the off-chance that I might see Nick.

  And June was mad for Callum. Mad like I’d never seen her before. It was easy to see why. He was gorgeous and fit and loads of fun, and they were really going for it, hot-and-heavy-wise, when they first got together. But then he made one little joke about her trying to handcuff him when she suggested a weekend break, and she started playing so hard to get that he had more chance of winning the lottery than seeing her.

  He was still keen, so far, but for how long?

  ‘Come on, I’ll walk out with you,’ she said.

  I might not have seen Nick, but at least I got her away from work. ‘Go see Callum,’ I urged her when we got to our cars.

  ‘Maybe.’

  Dad rang me around midnight. ‘Phoebe, this is your father.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  But I knew, even as I asked the question. Mum wasn’t invincible after all.

  The doctors were baffled. None of the tests had shown that cardiac arrest was imminent. But then, Mum always did love to surprise people.

  She left behind pages and pages of notes in her sprawling handwriting. Like she couldn’t get the words on the page fast enough. That’s what she’d been doing on her mobile all the time. Planning her last hurrah, just in case. She’d probably spent her final hours on earth trying to figure out which canapes would most impress their neighbours.

  At twenty-eight, I was half orphaned. I was also stuck with such a confusing mishmash of feelings about Mum that I didn’t have the faintest idea what to do with them. All I could do after the funeral was to throw myself back into my life and hope for the best.

  Chapter 3

  Three months later…

  We’ve lost Laney at work. That’s no euphemism, though I can see why you might think so, what with me recently ‘losing’ my mother, plus us being in a care home and all. I’m sorry, madam, we did everything we could, but we’ve lost Laney.

  We actually can’t find her.

  It’s not the first time, but it is the longest that she’s been missing. Even June is starting to get nervous. Not that anyone but me would be able to tell. She’s the most famously unflappable person here. The worse things are, the calmer she gets. That’s how I know she’s worried, when she starts speaking like she’s convincing someone to put down the knife. But I would never let on. Everyone’s got their coping mechanisms.

  Laney was last seen at breakfast, sitting with her usual friends at their usual table. Not the one directly next to the big sash windows in the dining room, because Laney doesn’t like to squint when it’s sunny, and besides, Sophie thinks the light fades her hair colour. Which is already the colour of wholemeal bread, so I don’t know why she’s so worried. Sophie says she and Laney were going to do Zumba together, but Laney didn’t turn up for it.

  That wouldn’t normally raise any alarm bells, since Laney isn’t much of an exerciser. She is a joiner-inner, though, who doesn’t like to disappoint people. Plus, she doesn’t usually go off on her own, so we’re getting worried.

  ‘I didn’t think much of it,’ Sophie continues, pulling her navy-blue legwarmers back up over her sturdy calves. ‘It’s not the first time she’s stood me up. She will skimp on her exercise.’ Her deep brown eyes are huge behind her thick glasses. I can never look at her without thinking of a barn owl. Now I’m tempted to say ‘She whoo?’ It’s as much because she’s owl-shaped and has a beakish nose as because she powders her round flat face with a shade that’s so light that we could use her as a road-marker post at night.

  Sophie has been a Jane Fonda workout devotee since 1982, as she reminds us every chance she gets. Hence the legwarmers. She also makes everyone feel guilty for eating donuts, so she’s that kind of person and we do try to overlook her faults.

  If we weren’t so chronically understaffed and overworked, we might not have lost Laney. It’s a wonder we don’t lose more residents. Max will be furious. He’s edgy about his business as it is.

  Nobody would call him a good boss, except in the sense that he’s not generally around to bother us. When he does visit, he always rings first as a warning. That’s because he knows he’s not popular.

  Not like his mother, the founder and previous owner of the Jane Austen Home for Ladies. That’s its official name now, though everyone in the village calls it Friendship House, because of the plaque beside the front door, from when people named their houses instead of numbering them. That must have been a nightmare for the postie.

  We all call it the Happy Home for Ladies though. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? It was Max who made his mother drop the Happy, in case anyone ever sued us for false or misleading advertising. It’s not, though, because the residents are happy. Plus, they’re women. Max was just being his usual miserable self.

  ‘He’s here,’ June calls out, speaking of the devil as she glances out the window. ‘Everyone, act normal. It’s not like he’s about to do a headcount.’

  But this is the biggest kerfuffle the residents have seen since Dot fell out her bedroom window. They’re all gathered in the dining room making plans for Laney’s rescue, wherever she may be. Fat chance of acting normal.

  ‘Has anyone checked the greenhouse?’ Nick wonders. ‘I could go look.’

  Nick is the only one who ever goes in there, and then only to get out the lawnmower. I can’t see Laney suddenly wanting to become a garden expert, but you never know with her. Any throwaway comment can send her mind skittering of
f on some obscure trail. Then, down the rabbit hole she goes.

  ‘Let me go with you,’ I tell Nick. ‘I mean, if she’s there, she could be hurt. There should be two of us.’

  That sends the residents into another flap. I should know better than to mention getting hurt to residents in a care home. Now I feel bad for upsetting them for my own selfish ends.

  And they are totally selfish. I’ll latch onto any excuse to be with Nick, even if it’s only in a draughty old greenhouse that stinks of fertiliser.

  I’m sure my feelings would be easier to ignore if we didn’t have so much fun together. If only he’d get grumpy once in a while, or develop an annoying habit or at least a bad case of halitosis. But he remains stubbornly fanciable. There isn’t even any hint now of the awful weirdness that almost ruined our friendship. Those were terrible weeks, but at least if they’d gone on then I wouldn’t still be pining for him. Maybe I’d be satisfied with never sharing anything more than a friendly laugh in the shed together.

  When Sophie puts her arm around Dot’s bony shoulders, I say, ‘I’m sorry, Dot, I’m sure she’s not hurt!’

  If Sophie is a sturdy barn owl then Dot is a sparrow, reed-thin and restless. She doesn’t seem like the type who’d say boo to a goose.

  She waves away my protest, sending her bracelets tinkling merrily. ‘It’s all right. There’s no need to fuss over me.’

  How thoughtless can I be, when Dot’s only been off crutches for a few weeks?

  We thought we’d lost her a few months ago. And I do mean that in the scary sense of the phrase.

  Thank goodness for the rhododendrons that cushioned Dot’s landing when she tumbled from her window. Otherwise she might have broken a lot more than her leg and her arm.

  I still don’t know what made her think she should try washing her own windows. Granted, we’ve had storms lately and they’re not as crystal clear as they might be. But she could have asked for someone to give them a wipe. Nick would have been the first one up that ladder.