by Anna Wharton
The two women step out onto the landing and Maureen closes the door behind them. As Chloe follows her down the stairs she looks back at the room next to the one they’re renting out. Maureen hadn’t opened that one and it’s locked with a shiny padlock, identical to the one she saw on the door inside the room. She resists the urge to ask Maureen what’s in there, but curiosity rattles inside.
Back in the hallway, sun streams through the glass panel at the top of the front door, lighting up the parquet flooring.
‘The clouds must have cleared,’ Maureen says. ‘There might even be a rainbow.’
Chloe glances out the glass. Yes, Maureen might well be right.
On the way back to the kitchen, Maureen stops to show Chloe into the living room at the back of the house. Patrick is sitting on a squashy grey leather recliner that looks out of patio doors, watching the horse racing on the TV. They have a big teak sideboard, not too dissimilar to Nan’s, and settled within it – the reason Chloe is here – that framed photograph of Angie. She fails to suppress a gasp, but luckily Maureen doesn’t hear her above the sound of the TV. She’s busy pointing out something in the garden to Patrick, a bird she’s seen, perhaps. She tells him to turn the TV down. Chloe can’t take her eyes off the photograph, or maybe it’s the other way round – as if Angie is the one watching her.
Chloe shuffles uncomfortably under her gaze. Not that Maureen notices. She carries on talking, oblivious. When she glances back Chloe makes sure she nods and smiles, her eyes constantly flickering back to Angie up there on the sideboard in her navy pinafore and her bunches. Would it be too much of a giveaway to ask about her? Will she get another chance to be this close to the Kyles again?
‘She’s pretty,’ Chloe says. Unable to resist.
Maureen smiles up at the picture, her voices softens. ‘Yes, our Angie.’
Chloe waits for something more, not daring to ask. But that’s it. Nothing more. The words hang there in the air between them. She decides not to press it. Instead she scans the rest of the room: a crossword book on the pouffe, a gold carriage clock on the sideboard, a plate painted with a wintery scene on the wall. Maureen and Patrick must only be in their fifties, yet this room, this house, feels so old-fashioned. It’s like they’re stuck in a time warp. As if not having a child grow up in their home has aged them prematurely.
‘Chloe likes the room, Pat,’ Maureen says. ‘But she’s got a few other places to see.’
‘Right,’ he says, not looking up from the telly.
Maureen turns to Chloe.
‘Don’t mind him, he’s not used to a lot of change.’
The two women go back into the kitchen. The garden is bathed with sunlight now. Maureen looks at her washing and tuts. ‘S’pose I could chance putting it out again.’
‘Would you like a hand?’ Chloe says. ‘I really wouldn’t mind.’
Maureen stares at her a moment. Was that too much?
‘Thanks, Chloe, but you must have so much you’ve got to get on with.’
‘Honestly,’ she says, ‘it’s no bother. In fact, I’d like to.’
Chloe climbs into bed around ten. The journey back from Low Drove was quicker than she had anticipated. It’s always the same on the way back from somewhere – the city seemed to arrive too quickly. She missed the openness of the countryside then, the stillness of the landscape, the big sky. Perhaps that’s what had attracted the Kyles to the Fens. What had felt isolated and exposing when she’d arrived now seemed in hindsight the ideal place for a new start.
She’d called the care home to check on Nan when she got home. When they told her she was sleeping, she felt relieved. She’d made herself a salad with pilchards for dinner. Nan used to eat them on toast for breakfast; she couldn’t stomach the smell in the morning, but you get used to the different habits of people when you live with them. She wondered what irritating habits Maureen and Patrick might have? She hadn’t noticed anything while she was there, in their home.
She pushes herself deeper down under her duvet, turning this way and that, the mattress feeling too soft now compared to the one she’d briefly sat on at Elm House. She screws her face up, turns over on her pillow, again, and again, imagining how much more comfortable she’d be in the Kyles’ spare room.
She closes her eyes and tries to picture herself there, and she can, she can see herself sleeping in that room, eating breakfast with the Kyles each morning round that small pine table, calling goodnight to them as she got ready for bed. She opens her eyes, reminding herself it’s nothing more than a silly fantasy. Isn’t it?
She can’t sleep, though. Not with all this going through her mind. Instead she sits up and turns on the light. She takes her pale blue notebook and finds a pen beside her bed, and sits there, deep into the night, writing down everything she can remember from Elm House – even down to the little wooden hope sign in the kitchen window.
TWENTY-ONE
‘Packing to go where?’
Chloe cradles the phone in the crook of her neck, trying to zip up an overstuffed weekend bag with one hand, then two. The phone slips. She scoops it up from the peach eiderdown.
‘Hollie? You still there?’ she says, slumping down on the bed.
‘Yes, I was just asking you where you’re going? I mean, what you’re packing for.’
‘Well, I didn’t mean packing . . . more just having a sort-out . . . I was thinking of going away for a few days, well, weeks . . . well, I haven’t really decided. I . . .’
She scratches the back of her neck, cursing the unzipped bag, the clothes spilling out of it, wondering why she’d even mentioned it to Hollie. If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t be having to answer any of these questions. The bag stares at her from the end of the bed.
‘Really?’ Silence. ‘Go away where?’
‘I don’t know . . . maybe the coast, just . . . I don’t know . . . a change of scenery.’
She shakes her head to the air. It’s the best she can come up with.
There’s a pause on the other end of the line.
‘You don’t have to keep doing this, Chloe. You could come and stay with me and Phil . . .’
Chloe rolls her eyes.
‘Chloe? Are you still there?’
‘Yes, I’m still here.’
‘I mean, well, if you’re feeling a bit lonely. I’ve told you before, we’ve got our box room and—’
‘I’m fine,’ she says, perhaps too cheerily. She curses her own mistake. She tries again. ‘I’m fine.’
‘We’ve just done up the box room, I got this lovely duvet cover and matching lampshade from . . .’
Chloe thinks then of the blue and green duvet in the Kyles’ spare room. She can imagine Maureen picking it out, making the bed, ironing out the creases with her hand and standing back to admire her work.
‘. . . and you don’t want that happening again, do you?’ Hollie is still talking.
‘Sorry, what?’ Chloe says.
‘I was just saying, about the last time and all that trouble wi—’
‘Hollie, I’ve just got another call waiting, can I call you back?’
‘Yes, yes, of course, I’ll sp—’
Chloe hangs up and flops back on the bed. Her phone slips out of her hand onto the floor. She started packing this morning as an experiment – just playing with the idea of moving to Low Drove. She wasn’t really going to go, of course she wasn’t. She just wanted to see what it felt like, being Maureen and Patrick’s lodger. The whole thing is ridiculous. She stands up and starts taking the clothes out the bag, just like she has done several times that morning. She can’t move to Low Drove. She pauses. Can she? Chloe returns the clothes to the bag. But moving there, that’s not the same as simply investigating. No, it’s much more intrusive, deceitful even. She takes the clothes out again. But how can it be? It’s not like she’s there to do harm to the Kyles. Quite the opposite. She wants to help them.
Anyway, however hard she tries she can’t escape how it felt to be there, in
the Kyles’ home, how natural it had seemed. By the second cup of tea she had with Maureen, after they’d put all the washing out on the line, she’d felt so at home. Even Patrick didn’t appear to notice her there, as he walked in and out of the kitchen between races. And the thing is, she could actually see herself there, living with them, waking up in that bedroom every morning, sitting on those little white wooden chairs each night for dinner. It felt right. And suddenly this room – with its giant built-in white wardrobes – feels small somehow, like she’s outgrown it, like it’s time to move on. She thinks of the calls from Claire Sanders, the threat of selling Nan’s house to pay for her care. Perhaps this has all happened for a reason? Perhaps it is time to move on?
A dull buzzing comes from the carpet. Her phone. She leans over the side of the bed, sighing. She expects to see Hollie’s name, but instead it’s Park House. She grabs the phone.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi, Chloe, it’s Miriam Cropper here from Park House.’
‘Hi, Miriam, is everything OK?’ she stands up from the bed.
‘Well, I’m afraid your grandmother had a bit of a fall this morning.’
‘Oh my God.’ Chloe starts pacing the room.
‘She’s OK – nothing broken – but it’s given her a bit of a shock, as you’d imagine. We thought we’d better let you know.’
‘Yes, of course. I’ll come straight away.’
Chloe puts the phone down. In an instant all thoughts of Maureen and Patrick and the house at Low Drove evaporate. Even the bag on the bed looks ridiculous. How could she have thought about leaving Nan? It had taken one phone call to remind her just how vulnerable she is, just how much Chloe is needed here. She abandons her packing and leaves for Park House.
Nan is in bed when she gets there. She has an angry purple bruise that extends the length of her right forearm, a tiny cut on her cheekbone and various scratches on the backs of her hands.
‘Nan?’
She opens her eyes slowly and looks up at Chloe. But even that is an effort and she closes them again and sighs. She looks tiny, tucked up in pale green sheets. As fragile as a little bird. Chloe moves silently across the room, pulling the leather chair closer to her. She’s never anticipated a time when Nan would seem so frail. She knows in that moment she’s exactly where she should be. Nan lifts her hand to her and Chloe takes it, giving it a gentle squeeze, carefully avoiding the fine cuts.
‘Is that you, Chloe, dear?’
‘Yes, it’s me, Nan, I’m here with you.’
‘Oh good.’
They sit in silence for a while. Chloe watches the gentle rise and fall of her chest, her bones suddenly so thin, so delicate, reminding her of how easily a fall could break one. As a child, wouldn’t Nan have been the one to pick her up after a fall? She’s reminded in an instant how quickly roles are reversed.
Someone has put a few white flowers from the garden in a short blue vase beside her bed.
‘These are pretty,’ she says.
Nan turns her head slowly. ‘Yes, snowdrops, my favourite.’
They sit there, the two of them, holding hands. Nan closes her eyes, but she’s not sleeping. After a while, she opens them again.
‘What time is it?’ she whispers.
‘Just after four.’
‘In the morning?’
‘No, Nan. Afternoon.’
‘You didn’t have to leave work to come here, did you?’
‘Nan, it’s OK. Don’t go worrying about something like that. My boss wanted me to make sure you’re OK.’
‘Did he? That’s nice. It’s all my fault, I shouldn’t have gone down to the garden, but it was raining and I thought I’d left my washing out and—’
‘Shh, Nan,’ she whispers. ‘Just rest, it doesn’t matter.’
‘But I’ve made ever such a lot of trouble for everyone.’
‘Don’t be silly, you haven’t made any trouble at all. We just want you to get better.’ Chloe gives her hand a tiny squeeze. The bones inside feel as if they might break within her grasp. The bruise up close is a rainbow of colours. How could something like this have happened here? Didn’t they tell Chloe that she would be safe? They’d promised her Park House would take better care of her than she had. But there hadn’t been any broken bones – no falls – on her watch. She curses Claire Sanders, she curses the nurses here. She feels bad now – sitting here, holding Nan’s hand – when she thinks of standing in Maureen and Patrick’s house. She feels deceitful, wrong. As if she’s betrayed Nan. She doesn’t deserve this. Nan needs her here, that much is obvious.
‘I’m here, Nan,’ Chloe whispers. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
Nan turns her head the other way and dozes on her pillow. Chloe creeps out when she knows Nan is finally asleep, closing the door behind her. Outside in the corridor, she heads towards the matron’s office. She’s in there sorting through paperwork. Chloe makes an attempt to knock on the door.
‘Do you have a minute, Miriam?’
The woman behind the desk looks up, her face instantly set with a professional expression.
‘Of course, Chloe, come in.’
She gestures for her to take a seat.
‘How’s your grandmother doing this afternoon? I haven’t had chance to catch up with Marina yet.’
She wonders how other relatives would deal with this, if they were making a complaint. How would they handle it? She wishes she had a script to follow. People in films make things look easy but they have someone directing them, Chloe just has to make things up as she goes along.
‘She’s very weak,’ Chloe says. ‘She’s mostly sleeping. Whatever happened? She seems confused, she’s saying something about going out into the garden?’
Miriam sighs. ‘Well, like many of our residents here, Grace likes to wander . . .’ She pauses before she continues, her eyes flickering over Chloe in a way that makes her feel she should be the one feeling uncomfortable. ‘There’s an area at the back of the garden, mostly hidden by shrubbery and, for whatever reason, she was down there and she somehow found a hole in the fence leading onto the building site.’ She pauses, linking her fingers. ‘We don’t believe in keeping our residents prisoners.’
‘But she’s meant to be safe here. She’s meant to be well cared for. This never happened when I—’
Miriam puts her hands up. ‘Chloe, I know this has been a shock for you too, but I can assure you that your grandmother is well cared for here. If there’s one thing thirty-two years in this job has taught me, it’s that you might think some of our residents come in here with these brain diseases, but they very much still have a mind of their own.’
‘I know,’ Chloe says.
‘If your grandmother wants to go for a wander down the garden, there’s not much we can do to stop her.’
Miriam laughs a little, and Chloe joins her because it feels right, letting the air back into the office, reminding themselves that Nan is a person before a patient. Chloe is back then inside Maureen and Patrick’s house; that light, excited feeling she’d felt when she was there returns to her.
‘I know, it’s just . . .’
Miriam looks across the desk at her.
‘Well, it’s just I have this opportunity – with work. It might take me away for a while and, I won’t be able to relax if—’
‘Chloe, this was a one-off, it won’t happen again. I can assure you of that. Of course you must take this opportunity, and you’re only on the end of the phone, aren’t you?’
‘I guess,’ she says, letting Miriam convince her.
The matron leans across the desk.
‘You must take this opportunity, you can’t put your life on hold. We’ll take care of your grandmother. That’s our job.’
Chloe nods, torn between the image of Nan in her bed and the house in Low Drove.
‘I’d better get back to her,’ she says.
Miriam nods. ‘Of course.’
But something has changed when she gets up and leaves her offic
e. Despite the shock of Nan’s fall, it feels like something invisible has shifted. As if there was a reason this all happened – to grant her permission to go to Low Drove.
When Chloe gets back to Nan’s room she’s still sleeping. Chloe settles down in the chair beside her, sipping her tea as she watches her. She enjoys listening to the steady whistle of her breathing. She thinks of the evenings they’d sat in her living room, watching Corrie together, when it always felt enough just to be beside her. It’s difficult to pinpoint now when she had begun to need something more. It always is.
Nan sleeps on and off for a couple of hours. When she sighs or her eyes flicker open for a second, Chloe reaches for her hand and she goes back to sleep. By six o’clock the scent of dinner creeps under the door. There’s a knock and a care assistant – Sam – appears, offering them both a plate of mince and potato with some watery cabbage. Chloe takes two plates and puts them on the side. Nan stirs and Chloe helps her sit up so she can eat. She straightens her nightie, tying the ribbons across her bony collarbones so she doesn’t feel a draught.
‘Here you are, Nan,’ she says, offering her a small forkful of mince and mash.
She takes tiny mouthfuls.
‘Good, well done.’
Nan smiles every now and then, each portion Chloe persuades her to eat adding more colour to her cheeks.
‘I remember you doing this for me,’ Chloe says.
‘Do you?’ Nan takes another mouthful, swallows it. ‘When was that then?’
‘When I was a little girl.’
Nan watches Chloe over the next fork she puts into her mouth. She eats silently for a few moments.
‘Did you know Stella?’ she says, her blue eyes watery.
Chloe lifts another fork to Nan’s mouth, but she takes her time to swallow, as if the memory of Stella sticks in her throat.
‘Yes,’ Chloe says finally, ‘I knew Stella.’
Nan’s eyes sparkle, but no longer with tears. She’s away somewhere else then, taking forkfuls of mashed potato, but not here, not in this room.
‘Here, try a little cabbage,’ Chloe says.
Nan eats it, smiling to herself.