Читать книгу The Last Day of January - Greer Decker - Страница 10

7

Saturday was the visit to The Maples care home. As we got ourselves ready, I felt disappointed that I hadn’t spoken to James all week. I’d been secretly hoping we could have met up at the weekend. Mum was not in a brilliant mood either. She kept saying she’d had lots of salesmen at the door and telephone calls all week. That sounded odd to me. When I asked for details, she couldn’t remember.

‘Oh, just salesmen. You know, the usual, windows, carpets, insurance. I told them to bugger off.’

I couldn’t quite imagine mum telling anyone to bugger off, and suspected it had only been one caller at the most.

‘That’s annoying.’

‘That phone’s a bloody pain. I think I’ll get rid of it.’

‘But what about Rachel, Mum? She rings at least once a week and we need a phone for all sorts of things, the doctor’s for example, and Alison.’

‘Well I don’t need it. Who’s Alison?’

‘The hairdresser!’

Mum said nothing. She just looked at me. That was worse.

I went up into my room. When I returned ten minutes later, mum was standing by the telephone. I put my arms around her from behind. She didn’t pull away like she used to.

‘Alright, Mum?’

‘Yes,’ she said calmly.

‘Don’t answer the phone if you don’t want to.’

‘No, I won’t.’

I managed to get mum out quickly on Saturday morning. Although it had suddenly turned cold – we were well into October now - she fancied a ride out and I told her I’d rung a nice care home and asked if we could pick up a brochure. Mum loved brochures. When we arrived at The Maples, mum commented on the lovely flowerpots. I persuaded her to get out of the car and come and see if we could find anyone to speak to. Sometimes she could be shy but not today. She was feeling chatty.

A lady greeted us at the reception and called another member of staff for our tour. The young girl was even friendlier than the lady at the reception and mum kept saying how lovely everything was. I wouldn’t have gone quite that far, but the furnishings were cheerful.

Several of the residents looked up as we passed and said hello or smiled. One was tapping away at a laptop. Three others were playing cards in a big lounge, another was asleep in a chair in the corner. The room we saw had light furniture and pretty curtains. I noticed plenty of activities on the whiteboard, ranging from quizzes and scrabble to gardening and fitness to film evenings.

A group of residents were standing in the garden. Mum started chatting to a lady who crossed her path.

Mary had invited us for tea on the way back. Mum surprisingly didn’t protest but started fiddling with her hair. I assured her it looked very smart. I told Mum that Mary was a colleague of mine. She gave a frown of incomprehension, but that disappeared instantly as I helped her out of the car and Mary came out to greet us.

Mary led us inside and through into the lounge, where a lady was standing. Her elegant appearance in a stylish knitted dress and printed scarf made me think that Mary had an actress friend staying with her. She was tall and had a pale complexion and shoulder-length wavy hair, dyed blond. She quickly put her book aside and held out her hand with a large confident smile. She had perfect teeth.

‘Delighted to meet you. I’m Liz.’

‘Lovely to meet you, Liz. I’m Sarah.’

We sat down at the table and Mary steered the conversation at first, before Liz and I branched off on something and Mary continued chatting to mum. Liz was a sociology lecturer at the University of East Anglia. I detected an Australian accent.

Mary went to fetch the tea and as I watched her go, I caught a glance of a photo of Mary and Liz on the sideboard. It looked like a wedding photo by the way they were dressed and embracing and others were in the background and it appeared to have been taken quite recently. I asked Liz about her research work. She was currently writing a paper on corporate social responsibility.

Mary came in with the tea and a beautiful Victoria sponge cake, with lashings of cream bulging out at the sides. Liz got the cake slice and cake forks from the sideboard. While cutting the cake, which was quite a task in itself because of all the cream, Mary asked mum if she had a garden. We tucked into the cake and once the preferred height of hedges had been clarified, Liz asked mum how long she had lived in this area and where she came from originally. I then took the opportunity to ask Liz where she came from and it was Australia.

‘So do you live here too?’ mum suddenly asked Liz.

‘Yes, I do. Mary and I are life partners.’

‘Oh.’ Mum raised her eyebrows. ‘Well, that sounds like a good idea actually. It’s better than being lonely. My Auntie Flo moved in with her friend Edith.’

We all laughed, mum too, probably chuffed to have amused us. Mary began to say how Liz was the better cook and better gardener and better everything in fact. Liz looked embarrassed. Mum started telling Mary and Liz about dad’s cooking habits, particularly his fry-ups at an unearthly hour. Liz said she would have loved that - she was an early riser and loved a full English breakfast.

I helped Mary carry the cups and plates into the kitchen and it seemed a good moment to ask her how well she knew James. He’d seemed a little troubled lately. She stopped for a moment.

‘I know him a little. He’s had a difficult year, with his mother, who died this June.’

Mary paused and looked at me. ‘Then there was a spot of trouble with a pupil in his class and I think that affected him more than he’d admit. It’s best you ask him yourself. Then he turned down the deputy head position, which was a shame. He’d have been really good.’

We returned to Liz and mum who were talking about box trees. Neither seemed in a hurry to end the conversation. When they’d finished, I suggested it was time to head back. Mum thanked them for the lovely afternoon.

After tea in the evening, I asked mum again what she thought of the home.

‘What home?’

‘The Maples, the place we went this afternoon, you know, that nice house and the ladies we talked to.’

Mum was thinking.

‘Oh yes, I thought they were all very friendly.’

When Rachel rang, I passed her to mum fairly quickly and they chatted for half an hour or so. I finished my marking. Mum was cheered by her chat with Rachel. I wondered how much of the family news she’d retained.

‘Rachel said Anna is now vegan. I didn’t know you could change your birth sign. Rachel is enjoying her course at university and Peter’s hurt his back, sweeping leaves at the tennis club. Why on earth was he sweeping leaves at a tennis club? I thought you were there to play tennis.’

‘He’s in a tennis club and everyone has to help get the club ready for the winter. There’s so many trees in Berlin that sweeping leaves is a big part of that.’

‘Oh, I see. I used to do all sorts of jobs for the school clubs that you were in when you were young. I was always busy. You shouldn’t have done the washing up, I could have done that. When are you going back to London?’

‘Not for a while, Mum, I have a job at a school here now.’

‘Oh. I thought you were just down for the weekend. Anna is enjoying her course anyway. At school or university or wherever she is. And Peter’s bike was stolen.’

‘You mean Tim’s?’

‘Yes. That’s what I said. Can you remember that time Tim pushed Anna off her bike one day in front of the house when they were very little, and she fell onto the street and nearly got crushed by a passing car?’

I was shocked.

‘No mum. That’s not right. You must be confusing that with something else. Perhaps when you were little.’

‘We didn’t have bikes.’

I let it go, but to think that mum had that wrong version of events in her mind made me sad.

After breakfast on Sunday, I couldn’t persuade mum to go out for a drive. Then again, I didn’t try particularly hard. I fancied some time to myself without conversation. She said she would tidy the sideboard drawers and go through her cards and I said I had to collect a few things in the car and would be back in two hours max.

Once on the road, I had a sudden urge to go and see if Izabela was at Hearty’s. I wondered what it was like for Polish people to adjust to life in Suffolk. It would surely be easier in London where so many fellow Poles had settled. On the other hand, I could imagine life in rural East Anglia not being so dissimilar to places in rural Poland. I’d seen pictures of a few houses there, of friends of Rachel and Peter and of a Polish lad, Marek, who’d been in my class in London. He’d proudly shown us his family’s large house and wonderful garden full of apple trees and vegetable patches one day when we were talking about plans for the summer holidays.

I entered the shop and headed straight for the café. The smell of the Sunday roast entered my nose. I ordered a tea and sat down. No sign of Izabela.

I felt hungry. I would buy some food on my way out, something I could cook for mum and me later that afternoon. A young girl served sandwiches to the table next to mine. I caught her eye.

‘Excuse me, is Izabela working today?’

‘Sorry, I only started yesterday. I don’t know anyone apart from Amanda, the boss. I can ask her if you like?’

‘Would you? That’s very kind.’

Barely a minute passed and she was back.

‘My boss says Izabela’s left. She doesn’t know where to or anything.’

‘Oh. I see. Well, thanks for asking.’

I took my bag and coat and walked out, wondering what could have happened. She’d probably found another job. She wouldn’t have had a long term of notice at Hearty’s. That was probably the most likely scenario. Or she’d started college. I’d ask Zofia casually on Tuesday. In fact, I didn’t know why I hadn’t done that in the first place and saved myself the bother of driving around on a Sunday instead of spending time with mum. Then again, I probably did know. I’d wanted some time out. I bought some lamb chops, a few vegetables and some cheese from the shop.

On arriving back, I found mum in a sorry state on the bench in the garden. She’d tripped over a small bowl on the patio that she’d put there for the hedgehog and had stumbled. Her knee was grazed and bleeding. It had only just happened. I fetched a big plaster and something to clean the wound. She was quite shaken. And she had a bone to pick with me.

‘The bloody backdoor was sticking. The mat was stuck in the door. You must have left it like that.’

She seemed fine. I had to give it to her, she was tough. The cut on her knee was quite deep although she kept saying it was only a graze. I helped her into the kitchen. With a tea and a biscuit, she sat and watched as I cooked the lamb and the vegetables.

Before long she started off again on her favourite subjects, tales of her childhood, people in her early years and exciting or traumatic experiences in her youth. She told me again of the time her gas mask had got stuck in the level crossing gates on the way home from school just as a train was coming. Then of the time she had been cast into the Irish sea by two boys on a school outing before she could swim. Whether those episodes triggered her life-long anxiety I don’t know.

After lunch she had a nap on the sofa and I prepared a little test for my Year 7. I felt I was getting better at listening patiently. I’d certainly needed to.

When she woke up a little later, the first thing she said was, ‘When do you have to leave for London?’

‘Not at all, Mum. I’m working here now.’

‘That’s good. Did Rachel ring today?’

‘No. We spoke yesterday.’

‘Oh yes. My knee’s very sore. I don’t know what I’ve done to it.’