Getting The Picture (8 page)

Do let me know what you decide to do for your talk. We are always invigorated by the chance to partake in the outside world.

Yours sincerely,

Brenda Lewis

53.
email from nell baker to angie griffiths

Of course, I didn't mean to blame you for Mum's death. It's just that it's fine and dandy to talk about doing what's right for you, but not everyone can do that.

I'm not trying to keep us all glued together, and I can't see how you can say I'm smothering you. I never forced you to tell me why you left, or why you suddenly made contact again just after Robyn was born. I asked Mum and she said to leave it because it was up to you, so I did. We were all grown-ups, after all, but you can't blame me for wondering sometimes. And you are still Dad's daughter as much as I am, which is why I'm asking for help with him.

Let's change the subject. You know this talk I'm going to do at Pilgrim House, well, I'm determined to prove Brenda wrong about what the oldies are interested in. OK, I have an ulterior motive in that I'd really like Dad to understand what I do. I thought one way might be to talk about all the food Mum used to cook for us, and then compare it with what families might eat in the future. Maybe it is ambitious, but even so. When I'm that age, I want to be aiming a little higher than being applauded for putting decorations on cakes.

Anyway, I've been trying to remember some of Mum's old recipes. What was that secret ingredient she used to be so proud of in her flapjacks? And don't laugh, but do you know how to make shepherd's pie? I don't expect you're doing anything so mundane anymore, but you were always in the kitchen with her so you must have picked up something. Trouble is I don't seem to have a recipe book. James took all of ours with him when he left, and I seem to have missed out on the domestic gene. Any idea when you're coming yet? Brenda sent a bit of a threatening letter about Dad needing a new place to stay so I guess I'll have to do some peacekeeping there. She's been hinting that I should encourage Dad to make friends with the other residents. Dad! You have to laugh sometimes.

54.
letter from martin morris to mo griffiths

Dear Mo,

Remember I told you about the twins next door? They were out again this afternoon. I was taking a walk around our garden when I heard scuffling on the other side of the wall. I stopped, and the noise stopped. Took a few more steps, and it started again. Stopped, and there was a giggle and then silence. So I coughed.
Herhum, herhum,
came back from their side.

I'd have loved to have hoisted myself up the wall and surprised them, but I didn't want to do myself an injury so I said loudly, ‘I do wish there were some small boys around who might answer me a few questions in reply for a shilling or two.' I had two faces looking down at me straightaway.

‘You don't get shillings anymore,' said one of them.

‘We did them in history,' said the other.

‘And farthings.'

‘Stupid, they were bicycles. Not money.'

And with that, the one who had mentioned farthings pushed the other off the wall.

‘Can you remember life without electricity?' the remaining one said to me. ‘We have to do a project on it for school. Borrring.'

I was still trying not to laugh when the second one popped up again. ‘You can't ask him,' he said. ‘It has to be all our own work.'

‘He could be an Original Source,' the first one said. ‘Mr Winston said we could ask grandparents.'

They both looked at me a bit doubtfully.

‘We've got no grandparents,' the first boy said. ‘They were all killed by a bomb. All four of them. It was most unfortunate.'

‘Liar. You know what Mum said about your lying.' And both boys disappeared then. I could hear them fighting in the flower bed, and then a cry of ‘Bayzz, bayzz!' from the house.

‘Shit, it's Marta,' the first boy popped back up to tell me.

‘We've got to go now otherwise she will beat us. She always does. But nice talking to you. Think about the electricity thing, won't you?'

‘And our money,' the second boy said.

‘What money?' I could hear the first one asking as they went back inside.

‘He promised us some for talking to him.'

I was left shaking my head. I wished I could have spent longer with them. I would have said how we would walk around with our eyes shut to get used to the darkness without electric lights. I thought they might copy that in the garden and I could have some fun watching them.

Just then, a foreign voice came from the other side of the wall. ‘I am sorry if you were disturbed,' it said. ‘They have been told to leave you alone.'

‘No, no,' I said. It was strange talking to bricks. ‘They are fine boys.'

‘In my country, they would be taught manners,' the voice said. ‘But Mummy and Daddy here say no tellings-off, so they are growing like wild men.'

I wanted to see what she looked like. I told her again it was all right, and then I went back up to my room. I pulled up a chair and watched for what seemed like hours. At first it was just the boys, playing at what looked like robots. And then, finally, she came out. Tiny, her blond hair scraped back under a baseball cap, and a tight, beaky face. ‘Get her,' the first boy shouted, and the second rushed at her. She ran back inside the house screaming.

‘Marta beats us,' I remembered, and I laughed all over again. She must have been about twenty, but she was almost smaller than them. I have been trying to work out which bedroom might be hers. If I stand at the very back of the garden, I can get a good view of their house. There are two small windows at the top, at the same level as mine. I think one of them might be hers. It's comforting to think of her lying there on the other side of the wall to me. Two lost souls together,

M

55.
letter from florence oliver to lizzie corn

Dear Lizzie,

I forgive you for not having me to stay now because you are a genius. Of course, men can never resist giving advice. Now why didn't I think of that myself? And I have just the thing. George is always going on about his accountancy background so I will ask him about investments. I can ask him what to do with the money Graham left me. He doesn't have to know that it is all secure. But how worrying for you that Troy has moved in full-time. And although I did laugh when I read about him wearing a sarong at the breakfast table and I won't ask how you can be so sure he didn't have anything on underneath, I can see you are anxious with Amy being so young and curious. I have heard them say such things before about Scotsmen, but Troy's from Birmingham, isn't he?

It's all go here. We had someone come in to talk to us from the gas board about getting old yesterday. Brenda got her tentacles into him when he came to read the meter, and you can imagine how it's impossible to say no to her. He sweated a lot so we all felt sorry for him. Anyway, he didn't say anything, just kept taking things out of this box he'd brought with him and putting them on. First he had some big rubber gloves that he half filled with water and then slipped on his hands. Trouble was they were so tight they made this loud farting noise that we tried not to notice. He glared at us then and rammed two garden sticks down the armholes of his coat so the ends stuck out and when he turned around, he poked Annabel in the chest. After she'd calmed down, he smeared these plastic spectacles with cream and put them on and then he just stood there, staring at us. It was a bit frightening so we all looked back until eventually he said this is how the gas company taught their staff what it felt like to be us. Apparently he'd been sent on a weekend course on dealing with old people.

‘Very nice,' said Brenda. ‘I think we find it immensely reassuring to know how our needs are being listened to.' No one knew what to say until Annabel Armstrong chipped in to ask if he was going to tell us some jokes. ‘He's a funny man,' she kept saying. ‘Hit him hard so he rolls over.' She must have thought he was a clown. Brenda started clapping then, although Keith said afterward that we should have all said we couldn't clap because our hands were too full of water. If I were Keith and could get out, I don't think I'd stay for our social talks but he does like to stay close to Beth.

Next month, we are getting a talk from George's daughter. Not the one in Paris, that would be a treat, but the one who comes in here all the time. The tired one. Brenda says she is going to talk to us about trend forecasting. Even George isn't exactly sure what that is although he said it was like a glorified secretary, but after he'd gone Helen said it was obviously to do with fortune-telling. I hope not. Remember we went to that one in a Gypsy caravan in Brighton who said Graham was looking out for me from the other side. It gave me the shivers for weeks, thinking of him watching me. But then I got to rather like it, leaving out the dishes, eating chocolate for breakfast, and even turning up my skirts at the waistband like a schoolgirl so you could see my knees. All the things I knew Graham would hate. You can't get me now, I thought, but it was still a bit worrying. Just in case. And now you must excuse me. I have some homework to do if I am going to find the right questions for George.

Yours aye,

Flo

56.
letter from george griffiths to brenda lewis

Dear Mrs. Lewis,

As I was waiting in the reception this morning, I couldn't help but notice that the pile of envelopes waiting to be taken to the mailbox had first-class stamps on them. Given that we are all being asked to tighten our belts and we are living in a charitable institution, I wondered whether it might be a useful exercise to consider whether some letters were not so urgent and could therefore travel by second class. We seem to have got into a situation where rush-rush is the order of the day, and although it may seem like a trivial saving, as an ex-accountant, I know only too well the truth of the adage, ‘take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves.'

I hope you do not mind me bringing this to your attention. My offer to assist you in the office, or at least to undertake an audit of the administration of Pilgrim House, remains open anytime you would wish to take me up on this.

Yours sincerely,

George Griffiths

57.
letter from martin morris to mo griffiths

Dear Mo,

Well, I finally got around to reading the second draft of the poem Robyn wrote. It made even me blush. No wonder she was nervous. I did tell her that if she wanted to be a proper writer then she had to take risks, but maybe
Lady Chatterley's Lover
wasn't the best book to recommend to her for ideas. Or maybe it was. She's seventeen, after all. For all her piercings and bravado, she has been babied by her mother.

I told her that maybe she wouldn't want Nell to find the poem so I'd keep it safe for her. ‘Did you really like it,' she asked.

‘I thought it wonderfully written,' I lied. ‘You should go through the other residents and imagine lives for them like that.'

‘But is that OK? It feels a bit as if I'm taking something from them.' There are times when she's so puppylike you long to kick her. Anyway, I told her it was all about creating a persona.

‘It's how all artists create,' I told her. ‘We do the same in photography. You start with the basics, but it's the artist who makes it interesting.' And then of course she wanted to see some of my photographs.

‘Another time,' I said. ‘I'm tired now.' But she asked who she should write about next. I said Catherine Francis might be good and when she looked doubtful, I told her how Catherine's great sadness was how she had always loved women but had to keep it a secret until now.

I had a moment of wondering whether I had gone too far when young Robyn put her hand over her mouth, but in these situations all you can do is to make the story bigger. ‘That's why we're all so pleased she has become so friendly with Helen Elliott,' I continued. I could see which way Robyn's mind was working.

‘Mum says Granddad's not pleased,' she said, clutching tighter at her mouth.

‘Exactly,' I said. ‘He's always had a soft spot for Catherine, hasn't he?'

‘Granddad has?'

I looked at Robyn closer. Trouble with all that makeup is that you can't always see whether she is worried or about to burst out laughing. ‘You have to explore the whole world if you want to be a writer,' I said. ‘And that means being interested in everything to do with people, not just what you want to see. No use hiding in nature.'

And she left. She darts in and out of here as if she's scared she's going to be spotted. Worried about her grandfather, I should imagine, because I told her that he'd hinted she upset him.

She looked crestfallen, so I'd said that sometimes when you get old, you don't see things properly and the kindest thing was to let people be. I told her I'd put in a good word for her and her granddaddy.

‘I don't understand it myself,' I said. ‘But perhaps we should just leave him alone for the minute.'

Or perhaps she was anxious about coming across Catherine and Helen in a clinch.

I put her poem in one of the new folders I'd borrowed from George's room. But not before I looked at it again. I couldn't meet Annabel Armstrong's eyes at supper, I can tell you. Mrs. Oliver had to nudge me to pass the salt, and George gave me one of his looks. Luckily Steve had joined us, so he kept us all amused talking about something called ‘Ebay'. It seems he is buying pots, cleaning them, and selling them for double in the antiques shops around town.

‘But is that morally sound?' George asked.

‘Who cares?' Steve said, although it was only afterward when George had gone that he told us that all the money he makes goes towards a youth club he runs. You should have seen Florence's face. It was pure love. I filed it away too, that look.