‘I’ve got hundreds more photos on my laptop,’ I explain simply.
Ha. That told her.
Flicking open my computer, I click on the little icon for my photo library and wait for the application to open. I’ve got so many photos on here it takes a while to load … though not usually this long … Suddenly the little rainbow wheel pops up and starts turning. Oh no, it’s the Wheel of Doom. I hate it when that happens; still, it should be OK in a minute …
I watch it for a few seconds, turning around, then all at once there’s a funny high-pitched whining noise and abruptly the screen goes blank.
I feel a twinge of alarm.
‘Oh no, what’s happening?’ I start jabbing at the keyboard in the vain hope that it might spring back to life, but nothing. The black screen stares back at me. ‘I know, it must be the battery!’ Triumphantly I rush back into my bedroom to grab my charger. Of course, that’s what it is. Durr, I’m such a dummy. Dashing back into the kitchen, I plug it in and turn it back on.
Nothing. No lights come on. No familiar blue screen. No Johnny Depp screensaver.
My heart plummets. ‘Oh god,’ I groan, staring at the lifeless laptop with a feeling of dread. Desperately I click the on/off button a few more times, but it’s no good. ‘My laptop’s crashed!’
The whole time Fiona has been watching me wordlessly.
‘No photos then?’ she says at last.
‘No, they were all on my computer …’ I trail off.
She pauses, a worried expression on her face, then leans over and squeezes my arm. ‘Oh well, never mind, that’s the end of that then, isn’t it?’ she says brightly, but in a way that’s more a statement not to be argued with than a question. ‘Now why don’t you sit down and I’ll make us both a nice cup of tea’ and, passing me her beloved copy of Grazia, she hits a button on her BlackBerry and goes to fill the kettle. ‘Pippa sweetie,’ I hear her hiss, ‘what the fuck was in that fruit punch … ?’
OK, now let’s not panic. Like it says on my mug: Keep Calm and Carry On. You’ve just got a hangover, that’s all. A really bad hangover. The kind of hangover that makes your flatmate seem to lose all memory of your ex-boyfriend.
Or something like that anyway.
After a cup of tea and several pages of Peter Andre, I leave Fiona on the phone and go back into my bedroom. I need to lie down. My head is pounding and I can’t think straight. Being blanked by Seb was bad enough, but Fiona acting all weird has freaked me out even more. And now, on top of all that, my laptop has gone and died on me. Can today get any worse?
Maybe I need to just rest for a little while, try to get some sleep even? I’m actually pretty tired. Kicking off my trainers I climb back under the duvet. It’s still warm in the middle where Flea has been sleeping. I sink into the pillow and close my eyes. Gosh, this is nice. I feel better already. In fact I’m sure when I wake up, things will be all back to normal …
I don’t move again. Cocooned within my soft feather walls, I spend the rest of the weekend sleeping off my hangover by watching old black-and-white movies, cuddling Flea, and sleeping some more. Occasionally I venture out to make tea and toast, which I bring back to bed so I don’t have to break the cycle. At some point I hear Fiona yell ‘bye’ and the door slamming, but it barely registers. Lost in time and duvet, I snuggle further into the depths as It’s a Wonderful Life washes over me, lulling me back to sleep again.
By the time Monday morning rolls around, I feel so much better. It’s a Bank Holiday, so I don’t have to go to work, plus my hangover’s gone, there are no strangers in tighty-whities lurking in the bathroom, and when I pad into the kitchen I’m not greeted by a Stepford Wife. Everything’s back to normal. In fact, the weekend seems like such a distant, blurry memory, it’s almost as if it never happened, I think with relief, banging on Fiona’s door to see if she wants a cup of coffee.
Getting no answer, I pop my head inside and discover she’s still fast asleep. She never gets up early. In fact, the only time she’s ever been sighted before noon was when she was flying to Spain on a family holiday last summer. ‘Being freelance means never having to set an alarm,’ is one of her favourite sayings.
Unfortunately for Fiona, it isn’t one of easyJet’s. When she turned up late at Gatwick, they refused to let her on her flight, and she was forced to kill three hours in Accessorize waiting for the next one. Apparently, to this day, she’s never been able to look at another pair of glittery flip-flops again.
She’s still not awake when I’m ready to leave the flat, which also means I don’t get a chance to speak to her again about Seb. Not that I need to, I tell myself firmly, running to catch the bus which is indicating to pull out from the stop. Like I said, I’m sure it was all a misunderstanding.
Touching in with my Oyster card, I jump on board and make my way to a free seat at the back. Relishing the stuffy warmth after the bitterness outside, I rest my head against the glass and gaze out of the window. After all, what else could it be?
After twenty minutes the bus reaches a leafy suburb and I get off outside Hemmingway House, a shiny redbrick building that looks as though it’s been made out of Lego and plonked in the middle of a car park. According to its colourful brochure, filled with cartoon drawings of Doris and Bert with their curly grey hair and denture smiles, it describes itself as a ‘retirement community that offers assisted living for those who need it’.
‘Assisted living, my arse, it’s like bloody Big Brother’, is how my granddad chooses to describe it. But then Granddad Connelly never did like anyone telling him what to do. Not even my nan when she was alive. Once, when she told him not to smoke his pipe inside, he rigged up the portable TV in his garden shed, moved in his armchair and refused to come out for weeks. Nan said he would probably have stayed in there forever, if hadn’t been for the great British winter which drove him back indoors to the warmth. ‘Stubborn he might be, stupid he’s not,’ she used to laugh.
Pushing open the double doors, I walk into the reception filled with houseplants and the type of cane furniture you find in conservatories. On the walls are hung framed photographs of jolly old-aged pensioners doing activities. I have a sneaking suspicion they are pictures ‘posed by models’ and not actual residents of Hemmingway House, as I’ve never seen any evidence of anyone sharing a bottle of rosé on a sun-drenched patio. Usually it’s more a case of Scrabble in the stuffy games room.
‘Hi Tess.’ Walking towards the main desk, I bump into Melanie, one of the younger members of the nursing staff. Mel’s got bright pink dreadlocks and a nose-stud and is a hit with all the residents as she treats them like friends instead of nuisances to be bossed around. Arm in arm with one of them, she flashes me a huge grin. ‘Looking for your grandpa?’
‘Hi Mel,’ I smile, pulling off my gloves and scarf. Gosh, they always have it so hot in here. No wonder all the residents are always nodding off in their armchairs: this heat makes you want to lie down and take a siesta. ‘How is he?’
‘Busy leading others astray,’ answers the sour-faced staff manager, Miss Temple, from behind the front desk. Glancing up from her paperwork, she removes her reading glasses and gives me a hard stare.
Uh-oh. I feel a beat of trepidation. What’s he done this time?
‘Really?’ I reply innocently, as if I have no idea what she’s talking about. But I’m not fooling anyone, least of all Miss Temple. Since my parents flew to Australia and left me responsible for Granddad, she’s called me three times to complain about his bad behaviour.
The first time was because he was playing his jazz records too loudly and refusing to turn down the volume; the second time was for breaking into the kitchen in the middle of the night and making pancakes; and the third time was for smoking his pipe inside. ‘Hemmingway House is a non-smoking establishment, Miss Connelly,’ she’d intoned down the phone, ‘and your grandfather is deliberately breaking the rules.’
‘He’s in his room,’ interrupts Melanie, and as I glance across at her sh
e gives me a little wink. ‘Last time I checked he was playing poker.’
‘Right, thanks,’ I smile and, avoiding Miss Temple’s steely gaze, I quickly scoot off down the corridor.
‘And will you kindly remind your grandfather that gambling is strictly not allowed,’ Miss Temple calls after me, but thankfully I’m already through the fire doors and I can pretend not to hear.
Chapter 7
I discover Granddad’s door firmly closed. Locked actually, I realise, trying the handle. I give a little knock.
‘Go away,’ bawls a voice from inside. ‘I’m busy.’
Granddad, it seems, isn’t that eager to adopt the ‘Open Door’ community spirit talked about so much in the Hemmingway House brochure.
I knock again gently. ‘It’s Tess,’ I hiss.
There’s a pause, I can hear rustling inside, then the door is flung open to reveal a man with snow-white hair and crinkly blue eyes. Dressed impeccably in a grey pinstriped suit, complete with silk handkerchief in his top pocket, gold watch hanging on a chain from his neatly buttoned waistcoat, and highly polished brogues, he cuts an immaculate figure. Not surprisingly. This is Sidney Archibald Connelly, who for nearly fifty years was renowned as one of Savile Row’s finest tailors.
But to me he’s just Gramps.
‘Hello beautiful.’ His whole face lights up. ‘What a lovely surprise.’
‘Happy New Year,’ I grin, breathing in his familiar scent of pipe smoke and cologne as I go to hug him. He ushers me inside. He’s alone, but there’s evidence of a recent poker game: playing cards stacked neatly on the table, four empty tumblers, a half-empty bottle of Blackstock & White whisky.
‘Apparently I’ve to tell you that gambling isn’t allowed,’ I begin, but he snorts derisively.
‘Pah, says who?’ he demands, leaning heavily on his cane as he makes his way across to the Chesterfield sofa that’s shoehorned into the corner. It’s far too big for the room, but he insisted on bringing it from his shop. Along with a tailor’s dummy, a framed picture of the Queen at her Silver Jubilee in 1977, and his beloved sewing machine, which has pride of place on the wooden sideboard.
Easing himself down into the well-worn cushions which, according to Granddad, have seen many a famous man’s bottom – ‘I’ve had all the Bonds: Sean Connery, Roger Moore, even that Craig fellow’ – he pats the cushion next to him for me to join him. ‘Life itself is a gamble,’ he says, clicking his tongue.
‘I know, but if you keep getting into trouble—’
‘What’re they going to do? Kick me out?’ He looks delighted at the very thought. Granddad has made no secret of the fact that he resents being in a care home, and the fiercely independent streak that runs right through him, like the letters in a stick of Blackpool rock, rebels against everything it stands for.
But after Nan died he just couldn’t cope on his own. With two hip replacements and a habit of leaving the gas hob on (‘But I could have sworn I turned it off!’), he was becoming a danger to himself, and his neighbours, and last year he moved grudgingly to Hemmingway House.
‘I can just imagine that Temple woman’s face now,’ he chuckles, reaching for a bag of Jelly Babies and rattling them at me. ‘She always looks to me like she’s sucking a lemon. Either that or she’s sat on something sharp—’
‘Gramps, can I ask you a favour?’ Quickly changing the subject away from Miss Temple’s derriere, I sit down beside him and dig my hand in the bag.
‘Go on then, how much?’ he grumbles affectionately, putting down the Jelly Babies and pulling out his wallet.
‘Oh, no, I don’t need any money,’ I protest quickly. ‘I got a Christmas bonus.’
Granddad raises his eyebrows approvingly. ‘Well, aren’t you a clever girl?’
I feel my cheeks colour slightly. Clever hasn’t got anything to do with it. It’s more a case of having a kind boss who took pity on me and turned a blind eye all year to my appalling PA skills.
‘No, the thing is, I wanted to ask if I could borrow your sewing machine? You see, I found this …’ Digging into my ancient rucksack that has seen better days, I pull out a length of patterned material, all folded up, that I recently discovered in a charity shop. I can never resist popping into charity shops: you can find all kinds of weird and wonderful things. ‘I thought I might make a bag out of it, as this one of mine is ready for the dustbin and bags are so expensive these days …’
Reaching for his half-moon spectacles, Granddad props them on the end of his nose and unfolds the material. ‘Hmmm—’ he nods, turning it over in his hands, examining it – ‘well, it’s possible, but this fabric is a very thick cotton, almost like a loomed hemp, and it appears to be some kind of sack . . .’ Frowning, he looks up. ‘I have made thousands of bespoke suits in my time, my dear, but they were made from the finest fabrics, not sacks,’ he says, a little sniffily. ‘Now, if you were talking a nice silk or Italian cashmere—’
‘I want to use this,’ I say stubbornly. ‘And yes, OK, you’re right, it is an old sack. The woman in the charity shop said an old lady brought it in with some clothes inside. Apparently it’s from the 1950s and they used it to store flour when she lived on a farm in France—’
‘And you want to make a bag out of it?’ He looks bewildered.
‘Absolutely,’ I smile. ‘I just loved the design on it and I thought if I lined it with some pretty fabric and then I sew these ribbons along the edges—’ I pull out a piece of ribbon I saved from a Christmas present – ‘so that it gathers up like this …’
I’m always going round to Granddad’s so that he can help me with some new project or other. I’m forever making things, partly because I don’t earn much money, but mostly because I get such a buzz from thinking up ideas and recycling someone’s charity cast-offs into something new and interesting.
Bending both of our heads together, we pore over it for a few moments. ‘So, what do you think?’ I ask, turning sideways to glance at him.
Pushing up his glasses onto the bridge of his nose, Granddad peers at me intently, as if deep in thought. ‘You’ve got the gift,’ he says quietly after a moment, a smile playing on his lips.
‘The gift?’ I frown.
‘I’ve never told you this before, but I always knew it,’ he nods, looking very pleased with himself. ‘I used to say to your mother: Tess will be the one to take after me …’
‘Oh Gramps,’ I laugh, ‘you were one of the finest tailors on Savile Row. I wouldn’t have a clue how to make a suit!’
‘That bit’s easy: anyone can learn how to measure an inside leg,’ he pooh-poohs. ‘What you can’t learn is the vision.’
‘Well, I don’t know about that …’ I smile, a bit embarrassed by his compliment. I’m not used to compliments, except of course from Gramps. For some reason, he thinks I’m the best at everything. ‘I just like making things, that’s all,’ I shrug.
‘You don’t just make things, Tess, you create things,’ he corrects, looking every inch the proud grandparent.
I blush, memories flashing back of Gramps coming to see me in the Nativity play at school. I played the donkey and had no lines, and he spent the whole time loudly applauding me whenever I came on stage, much to the annoyance of the other bemused relatives in the audience. To this day he still insists the donkey stole the show.
‘So, you think it can work?’ I ask, looking across at him.
‘Well now, let’s see …’ Opening a drawer, he pulls out his fabric tape measure and, easing himself up from the sofa, moves over to his sewing machine. ‘If we cut along this edge and do a double seam here …’ As he begins explaining, I scoot across and pull up a little footstool next to him, watching as his pale, papery fingers come to life and begin expertly turning dials and levers on his sewing machine.
‘Cooeee …’
We’re interrupted by the high-pitched sound of a woman’s voice and a lavender-permed head pops itself around the door.
‘I saw the door was ajar and heard voi
ces …’
‘Oh hi Phyllis,’ I smile.
Considering I made sure to close the door firmly behind me, and Phyllis is hard of hearing, I’m not that sure I believe her, but it doesn’t matter. I love Phyllis. A widow in her eighties, her room’s down the corridor and she’s always popping in to see Granddad with her Scrabble set and gifts of shortbread. ‘Do you know your Grandpa is a natural? I’ve never seen so many seven-letter words!’
Personally I have a sneaking suspicion she has a crush on Gramps, but when I mentioned it to him he told me to stop being so ridiculous. ‘At our age we don’t have crushes, we have angina,’ he said firmly.
‘Happy New Year, how are you?’ I ask, giving her tiny frame a hug.
‘Still alive,’ she chuckles. ‘How are you? Courting yet?’
I can’t help but smile at her use of the word ‘courting’. It’s so wonderfully old-fashioned and conjures up all these lovely images of tea dances and walks along the promenade. So much better than our modern-day ‘dating’, I reflect, thinking about Fiona hunched over her computer, going through profiles on KindredSpiritsRUs.com, looking at a thousand photos of men snowboarding, scuba-diving, bungee-jumping. It would seem that every single man in London is an extreme sports fanatic.
‘I was … but we broke up a few months ago,’ I say, trying to make light of it and shrug it off.
She clucks sympathetically. ‘Well, don’t worry, at your age there’re plenty more fish in the sea. Now, when you get to my age, the sea’s pretty much empty; all that’s left are a few old barnacles …’ She grins a pink denture smile and gestures towards my granddad.
‘Who you calling a barnacle?’ he grumbles, before turning to me and demanding, ‘What’s all this about a chap?’ like he’s some kind of scary Sicilian godfather protecting the family honour, and not my eighty-seven-year-old granddad.
Phyllis tuts loudly. ‘She doesn’t need your permission, you know.’
‘I know that,’ he retorts hotly, digging out his pipe from his pocket and vigorously knocking the ash from the bowl. ‘I just didn’t know anything about a chap.’
Don't You Forget About Me Page 6