Authors: Nicola Slade
He worked in a warehouse for a small promotions company, packing items like airline toilet bags, tucking in sample sized bottles of cologne, tiny soaps, mini toothbrushes and toothpaste, and so forth, into the First Class bags. The Grannies, as the women packers were affectionately known, all enjoyed having him there to mother, his slowness and gentle nature reminding them of their own sons as little boys, but with the tarnish of adulthood left off. There was nothing wrong, it was only that he was just a few steps behind everyone else.
Today he was happy. Ryan had let him have a ride on his motorbike last night and it was dead good. I want a motorbike too, he thought, then pouted. Mum won’t ever let me. His thoughts flickered towards Gemma and he perked up. Tonight Ryan was going to sneak into the garden of Firstone Grange and try to get Gemma to come out. Ryan didn’t know it but Kieran was going to follow him and try to watch him with the girl. Maybe they’d, you know, kiss and stuff and he might get to watch. That’d be dead good.
Kieran sang loudly, his split melon grin and carroty curls a delight to the Grannies.
‘Bless him,’ they crooned.
‘I’m free,’ Alice whispered then, with a tremor of excitement: ‘I’m
free
,’ she shouted aloud. Alone for the first time in years she
made herself a cup of tea and a ham sandwich for lunch. This afternoon she would go in to the office as usual but she would be a different person. ‘I’m free,’ she said it again, quietly but firmly.
Without thinking at all, her mind a complete blank, she drank her tea and ate her sandwich, then she went into what had originally been the morning room when the house was new. Formerly her father’s surgery, for the last few years it had been her mother’s bedroom. She stripped the bed and put the sheets into the washing machine.
The room smelled of her mother, a compound of French perfume and a warm, musty smell, the smell of old woman. Alice stared at the bed, her thought processes kicking back into operation. I simply will
not
think about her, she decided and, with a determined slam, she shut the door behind her and went upstairs to get changed for work.
The thought of the office sent a shaft of sunshine through the gloom. Neil! She recalled his kindness when she stumbled over the words as she tried to explain her reaction to his offer of promotion.
‘I’m not taking that as final,’ he told her. ‘I know what it’s like, living with an invalid,’ he had explained and told her a little about his own mother.
Alice’s mouth twisted into a bitter smile. Neil’s mother and Christiane Marchant sounded as much alike as Maria von Trapp and Lucrezia Borgia but plainly Neil meant her to take the job, come hell or high water. ‘These invalids can be tyrants,’ he had observed as he drove her back to Chambers Forge that day. ‘But you mustn’t let her get you down. You have to try and keep a life of your own.’
Neil had given a wry smile then himself, she recalled now, then he had laughed abruptly, shaking his head. ‘Just listen to me,’ he conceded. ‘It’s easier said than done; I know that only too well.’
Today Neil was expected in the office to discuss the final details of the handover with Barry Williams and to go over some of the files with Alice. Instead of wearing her usual depressed navy, Alice found herself putting on her best jumper, the daffodil yellow one and the good wool and cashmere cocoa brown skirt that she had found last week in a charity shop in Winchester.
Alice adored clothes, good clothes, and she loved charity shops, thrilling to the excitement of the treasure hunter stalking a designer label. Hitherto, though, she had gone for
hard-wearing
quality rather than colour and beauty.
Idiot, she chided herself, looking at her reflection with dissatisfied eyes, then she squared her shoulders. Why not? What was wrong with trying to look half-way decent? Better, surely, than sinking into a depressed, premature middle-age and withering away.
Pauline Winslow was an evangelical in her chosen field of geriatric nursing and the unexpected but entirely deserved legacy from a grateful patient, of the large Edwardian house, Firstone Grange, had enabled her to set up her dream enterprise. She had inherited a modest amount of cash along with the house but her financial prayers had been answered when she discovered with delight that an old nursing colleague was already in charge of the existing residential home next door.
‘As you know,’ her friend had explained. ‘Hiltingbury House caters exclusively for nursing cases at present which, of course, is why we were happy to make no trouble over your planning permission. After all, Firstone Grange is in a quite different category, comfortable short-stay visits, so there’s no clash of interest. However, we would like to upgrade and move into permanent residential facilities for the less infirm; you know
the kind of thing, reasonably able-bodied people but too frail to want to go on living alone. Sheltered flats with all the benefits of a community and care at hand but a degree of privacy and independence as well.’
Pauline Winslow had been interested, wondering where this was leading.
‘We have plenty of land at the back of the house,’ explained her friend. ‘But we could do with more. Our most pressing need is for a decent driveway from the proposed new building out to the main road. We don’t want to use the existing entrance. Now do you see what we’re after?’
The money from the sale of land at the side and rear of Firstone Grange was a godsend and Pauline Winslow was happy to give all the credit where it was due. ‘Thank you, Lord,’ she acknowledged on the morning of Christiane Marchant’s first day. ‘Thank you for giving me this chance, and please, dear Lord, please look after poor Mr Buchan and don’t let him have been too upset.’
She frowned and prayed aloud with renewed fervour. ‘And please, Lord, forgive me for not taking to him; help me to find something likeable about him. And the new guest, Mrs Marchant,’ she added as an afterthought. ‘Please let things continue to go well, it’s all so lovely, so perfect. I’ll die if anything goes wrong.’ The frown deepened. ‘I think I’d
kill
anyone who spoilt it.’
There was no official rest period after lunch at Firstone Grange. ‘They’re not toddlers,’ Pauline Winslow had been quite fierce when someone suggested it to her. Some of the guests disappeared to their rooms for an hour or so but others preferred to sit in the drawing-room, either reading or nodding over the paper until the two-thirtyish time suggested by Matron to potential visitors.
Today Doreen and Vic Buchan arrived promptly on the dot of half-past two and sat down beside Vic’s father in the bay window. Stifling an exclamation of dismay Harriet Quigley shrank back in her corner chair, lest Doreen Buchan spot her, hoping the shadows would conceal her. If her cousin Sam found out where she was holed up he’d be ringing the door bell in record time, along with friends from Locksley village, and Harriet was uncomfortably aware of her straggling hair and roots showing grey. Time to fish out the semi-permanent
wash-in
colour that was tucked into her sponge bag. It should be possible, she thought, to do that in the hour or so between tea and dinner. In the meantime she twitched the heavy cream brocade curtain and leaned back out of sight behind its loosely hanging folds.
Doreen Buchan gave Fred a cool peck on the cheek and sat down with her back to Harriet, who relaxed into her corner and reached for her book. Vic tried to engage his father in conversation, with little success, so he indulged himself by slipping into his favourite topic, talking about the business.
Doreen sat back and tried to look happy about her surroundings. I hate these places, she shuddered, they’re all the same. Oh, I know I’ve been telling everyone how nice it is here, and I suppose it is, it ought to be, costs enough, but it’s still a Home, still an Institution. In the end it all boils down to the same thing, just dressed up pretty.
Prettily,
she caught herself up, it’s a place to put people who aren’t safe outside, because they’re ill, or old, or … not right. Her thoughts panicked around inside her head. Don’t think about Mum, she urged, don’t let yourself remember; it’s all over, all gone and nobody knows. Especially Vic, he’ll never know, he mustn’t know. Ever.
‘Hullo? I know you, don’t I? From a long time ago?’
The voice was in her head and her head was going to split open at the shock, coming so pat on her tangled thoughts. It
was
in her head, wasn’t it? Doreen gasped and looked round, straight into the shrewd, glittering black eyes of an old woman in a wheelchair. A woman whose face had an eager, almost lustful look, curious and waiting for her answer.
‘No, no, I don’t think so,’ she stammered, pleating the fine blue wool of her Country Casuals skirt with troubled fingers.
‘Oh, I think I do, dear,’ the woman went on, her voice warm, interested, curious. ‘Didn’t you live in Surrey Road when you were little, dear? In Bournemouth? With your auntie?’
The shock knifed into Doreen, icy fingers twisting her stomach, her heart juddering as she stared, anguish glazing her eyes, at the older woman. Did she know? What did she know? How could she, how could
any
one here possibly know? Her aunt had kept herself to herself, never gossiping. Besides, the name had been different, but secrets had a way of seeping out through the cracks. Doreen said nothing, was hardly capable of speech anyway, and slumped in her chair in a frozen terror.
‘Not feeling well, dear?’ The concern sounded false to her tormented listener. ‘I say, excuse me, but I think your wife’s feeling poorly.’
Vic turned round. ‘You all right, Dor? You’re looking a bit green.’
Wetting her lips, but not capable of attempting speech, Doreen flapped a hand and shook her head.
‘Thanks, love,’ Vic nodded to Christiane Marchant. ‘I’ll keep an eye on her. Time of life, you know,’ he added, not noticing his wife’s cringing at the booming explanation. ‘We won’t be long anyway, got to go for a test drive. We’re looking at a new Mercedes.’ Swelling with pride he bent towards his father and raised his voice. ‘You hear that, Dad? We’re off to look at a new Merc in a minute, top of the range. What d’you say to that then?’
Fred Buchan raised his eyes from silent contemplation of the bare-stemmed silver birch outside the window, graceful and
starkly silhouetted against the pewter sky. He looked out at Vic from heavy, hooded lids, pale-blue eyes faded and chill. ‘Good, my son, very good.’ He went back to staring at the tree and Vic shrugged. The day Dad took an interest in anything beside himself would be the day Vic put up the flags. Mum had been the one to talk to, to praise, to admire. Never Dad. Vic sighed, raising his eyes to the ceiling; thank God for Doreen, at least she took an interest. She was a good wife, Dor, a real good sort, never any secrets with Doreen, just straight up front.
Ryan was still in bed. No point getting up, nothing to do, not the day for signing on. If Gemma hadn’t been working he could have got her to come round; his mum was down the road till three-thirty, had been since breakfast, working in the kitchen in the Blue Boar. Even Kieran, the faithful dog, was working. Stupid dickhead, always going on about that shit job of his. Who in their right mind would want a job? Still, that said it all, didn’t it? Kieran wasn’t in his right mind really, the great soft pudding. But useful.
Gemma was another great soft pudding, soft in the head, and soft in other parts too. He lay back, arms folded behind his head, watching the porno DVD he’d liberated from a market stall in Eastleigh, and he thought about Gemma and her soft, yielding body. His eyes glistened in anticipation, he was going round there tonight, to that fancy great old folks’ home, and she was to get out and meet him. All that fuss about getting rid of the baby, not ‘feeling’ like it, not going with him, and her bitch of a mother sticking her oar in. Well, it was too long, tonight he was going to get lucky – or else.
Still in hiding behind her curtain, Harriet Quigley watched with interest as Vic and Doreen Buchan gathered up their coats and took their farewells of Fred. Vic clapped him heartily on the
shoulder, mumbling empty nothings, clearly anxious to get away and Doreen repeated her earlier performance, a chilly peck on the cheek, given and received with not the slightest evidence of pleasure on either part.
As the couple walked out to the drive Harriet looked out of the window and was intrigued by the sight of Doreen’s pale, ravaged face looking back towards the house. Her shoulders sagged as Christiane Marchant, now being wheeled on the terrace by Gemma, waved gaily at her.
Now, what does all that mean, I wonder, Harriet mused. That woman has only been here a few hours and already she’s upset Tim, got Ellen Ransom sneaking around like a whipped dog, caught Matron on the raw, as well as Fred Buchan, and now here’s Doreen Buchan looking as though she’s been given the Black Spot. What does it all mean? Why do I have a feeling that Christiane Marchant is trouble?
Alice was cheerfully singing Christmassy songs, slipping from ‘Jingle Bells’ to ‘White Christmas’, when she broke off abruptly as she realized that, give or take an adjective, it was true. She really
was
dreaming, looking forward to the day, though the chances of snow falling then in this part of southern England seemed highly unlikely. Not impossible though; look at today with its bright, glittering morning, branches rimed with silver, berries bellying red on the holly, a stout robin yelling his head off on the washing line.
It had been different when Daddy was alive; she looked wistfully down the long avenue of the years. After all the childless years of his first marriage, Daddy had been over the moon at the advent of his little princess, his little miracle, but how had his sophisticated little Breton bride felt about her surprise pregnancy when she was already past forty? Had Christiane ever really wanted a child, Alice wondered? There had been murmurs and whispers sometimes in her childhood, sidelong glances that spoke of dark secrets and terrible things, but timid, frail, asthmatic Alice had never dared provoke the temper so carefully concealed from Daddy.
No, temper tantrums had certainly never featured in Christiane’s dealings with her doting husband. Alice could remember countless occasions when her father had been overcome with remorse at the way his ‘harsh and unkind’
words and actions would set Christiane off on one of her martyred moments. Far from just ‘moments’ either; Alice sighed as she recalled weeks on end when her father had endured sighs and tears when some ill-advised comment had given Christiane an excuse. She had favoured two particular methods of punishment for both daughter and husband. Alice, while her father was still alive, tended to be on the receiving end of gusty sighs and repeated, chilly comments on the lines of:
If you don’t know how much you’ve hurt me, I’m certainly not going to spell it out for you
. That had been in Daddy’s hearing; in private, Alice was never in any doubt about what she had done to offend.
Her mother had used a different ploy with her husband. This had followed an invariable pattern which involved an initial gasp, a frail hand clutched defensively to her heaving breast, then a torrent of tears, broken only by references to her ‘terrible ordeal’. What that ordeal was, Alice was never permitted to know, but all reference to it had worked like a charm on her father who never failed to be contrite and to bring his injured wife round with offerings of jewellery and chocolate.
The week since Christiane had moved into Firstone Grange had flown by. Alice had paid a duty visit each evening after her blissfully solitary supper and found that absence, while not having any effect on her fondness for her mother, certainly did make it easier to tolerate her in short doses.
Work had become increasingly interesting. Neil, still shuttling between his four branches, had taken to dropping in to the Chambers Forge office every afternoon for a cup of tea and to check out some point with her, to pick her brains on the district, to toss a suggestion or idea into her lap, seeking her opinion. He treats me like a human being; she gave a slight smile as she dead-headed a very late, frost-bitten rose on her way back to the house. And not just a human being, he treats
me like an adult woman with a mind of her own and with opinions to be valued and respected.
He thinks I’m
real.
Daddy’s precious jewel, arriving just in time for her father’s retirement at sixty, had led a sheltered, enchanted life, too poorly to attend school regularly and, secure in her father’s companionship and love, never feeling the lack of friends her own age. Whisked into hospital with
appendicitis
, shortly after his death, Alice had come home to find herself allocated a new role, that of lady-in-waiting and slave to her mother.
A neighbour had greeted her as she tottered from the Patient Transport ambulance and led her indoors to where tea had been laid and Christiane sat, weak and saintly, in a wheelchair.
‘Her poor heart,’ whispered the neighbour, who had thoroughly enjoyed playing Florence Nightingale. ‘She’s so brave, so afraid she’ll be a nuisance to you, dear.’
Alice was never very sure what, if anything, was wrong with Christiane’s heart. Nor was her doctor. ‘I’ve no idea,’ he finally admitted. ‘The tests all indicate there’s nothing wrong with her heart, or anything else. It could be some kind of hysterical paralysis,’ he suggested, registering with patent concern Alice’s pale, drawn face. ‘There seems to be no structural damage to the legs, spine, or muscles either, that I or anyone else can detect, but the fact remains, Miss Marchant, that your mother seems unable to walk.’
Yes, it was a convenient organ, Christiane Marchant’s heart, her daughter sighed. It allowed plenty of eating and drinking and other pleasurable activities but prohibited anything strenuous or inconvenient, so Daddy’s Princess was now body slave to Daddy’s Queen. With her stern upbringing in the tradition of filial duty and her singular lack of self-assertiveness Alice did what she had to do. But now, with Christiane at a
remove and with her talents at work being valued, Alice Marchant was changing, growing, feeling her way.
Yesterday, for instance, she had gone with Neil to check out some commercial premises in the old docks area of Southampton. As they walked back to the car Alice had sniffed the salty breeze coming in off the sea and savoured the watery gleam of sunshine over the marina. She turned as Neil spoke.
‘Canute Road?’ he queried. ‘Why him? Isn’t he the king who tried to stop the tide coming in? He wasn’t local, was he?’
‘For goodness sake, Neil,’ she was impatient. ‘You should know your local history. Yes, it’s King Canute and no, that’s not what he did. Everyone always gets it wrong.’
‘You mean he’s had a bad press all these years?’
She failed to spot the amusement in his voice and tried to explain. ‘What he was trying to do was demonstrate how hopeless it was to try and stem the tide of invaders, Danes or Normans, I can’t remember which. What he did, just here – see that plaque, that was the water line then – was to point out that it was equally impossible to make the tide stay out.’
He raised an eyebrow at her vehemence then leant on a rail to admire the yachts in the marina. ‘I like it down here,’ he commented. ‘It doesn’t take much imagination to picture it in the hey-day of the great liners, does it? The boat train coming in laden with wealthy passengers, not to mention the people in steerage.’ He waved a hand at the blocks of flats, the cinemas and the boats. ‘It’s good that it’s still in use.’
As they drove away Alice peered into the deepening gloom.
‘Looking for something?’ he asked.
‘I’m trying to see if you can see the French church from here. There, did you see? Just round the corner from God’s House Tower, where the museum is.’
‘What? You’ve lost me, Alice. What French church?’
‘Didn’t you know? I suppose not that many people realize it’s
there,’ she smiled at him. ‘It’s the old pilgrim’s church, St Julien’s; Mother and I used to go to a service there every year, a pastor came over from Le Havre to conduct the service in French. He might still come, for all I know, but we haven’t gone for years.’
‘Really?’ He was intrigued. ‘I suppose you speak fluent French?’
‘Reasonably fluent,’ she nodded. ‘I suppose I ought to have used it and looked for a proper job but, well, you’ve seen my typing, it never seemed worth the bother.’
‘Don’t be so negative,’ he scolded gently, negotiating more traffic lights before heading homeward. ‘Tell me instead why on earth there should be a French church in Southampton?’
She shook her head slightly at the first part of his remarks, then, ‘There’s always been a lot of trade between Southampton and France, of course, even before the Conquest; well, even before the Romans too. After that the Normans settled in the west of the town and the English stayed in the east and when the Huguenots fled here in Tudor times they took over the church.’ Her dark eyes sparkled as she looked at him. ‘Of course, the Huguenots were protestant and Mother is nominally a catholic but she’s not fussy. She liked to go to the annual service, it made her feel special.’ She blinked, darting a sidelong glance at him. ‘It made me feel special too,’ she said in a startled voice. ‘I’ve never realized that. I’ve obviously more in common with Mother than I thought.’
Back at home and warmed by the memory of that outing with Neil, Alice pirouetted round the room then looked at the dingy kitchen more closely. I wonder how much this place is worth? Maybe we could get rid of this mausoleum and there’d be enough to keep Mother at Firstone Grange and buy something for me, even if it was only a studio flat. I could ask Neil to value it, she thought; then, with startled realization: I could value it myself!
It was a
eureka
moment. She grabbed a pad of paper and went all over the house making notes, gasping at the figure she reached. I’ll have to get Neil to check that, she thought. The furniture too, that might be worth money; some of it was enormous Victorian mahogany but quite a lot dated from earlier times, pride and joy of Daddy’s great-grandparents. Would that be worth money too? An appointment for the local auctioneer to take a look was made before reaction set in and she had to sit down and confront the undercurrent of terror that was threatening to submerge her sudden burst of – what? Courage? Lunacy? What would happen when Christiane found out?
Matron Winslow stood on a high pine stool fixing garlands of tinsel and greenery to the staircase’s ornate spindles. The entrance hall was now beginning to resemble her dream of a picture-book yuletide and the pitch-pine panelling offered an ideal background for her decorations. Oak logs lay ready in the fire basket; copper pans gleamed along the mantelpiece, highlighting her best arrangement of carnations and Christmas greenery.
Miss Winslow was delighted with her efforts. The house was looking wonderful, a piney-spicy-plumminess in the air and a sense of anticipation almost palpable about the residents, even the stolid suet puddings among them. Luckily, she thought, the suet puddings were in the minority, her gamble – to have a short-stay clientele – had proved, by and large, a great success.
Two of the first guests had now signed up to move in to the nursing home next door and one or two had enquired about the proposed sheltered flats; all in all it was very gratifying. She was a happy woman, so why, Matron puzzled now, why did she have this feeling of unease? A shiver ran through her and she almost crossed her fingers, though not generally a superstitious woman. Instead she decided that she would make
time to walk up to the village church and lay her problem before the proper authority. God will provide, she thought with relief.
Pauline Winslow would have been even more uneasy had she known that another woman at Firstone Grange shared her misgivings. Getting on for forty years of ruling over classrooms meant Harriet was attuned to nuances of emotion: little frissons of guilt, private anxieties an open book to the accomplished reader of humankind. There is something going on here, she thought, and debated with herself as to the cause and what, if anything, she could or should do about it.
There was no doubt, she decided, that the heart of the trouble was Christiane Marchant. The woman sat in her wheelchair oozing sweetness and light but gradually it seemed that everyone had come to loathe her, even those who had initially responded to her undoubted charm. Harriet, observing her closely where others simply turned away in distaste, felt there was something repellent about the way the woman savoured the little nuggets of information she extracted so artfully from her victims; her victims who, too late, cursed themselves for giving away so much more of themselves than they had intended or indeed realized.
Little snippets, quite innocuous gleanings, such as the titbit of gossip about a resident recently departed to spend Christmas in the South of France. That guest would have been mortified to know that instead of the grand upbringing she claimed, everyone now knew that her
alma mater
had been not Roedean, but a run-down school in a city slum.
That guest was safely out of the way but Ellen Ransom was far from all right. Harriet pursed her lips. I almost wish I had Sam here, to bounce ideas off him, she sighed, at least I could tell him that the Marchant woman seems to delight in sneaking
her well-oiled wheelchair up behind Mrs Ransom and talking at her. It
sounds
perfectly innocuous, what she says, Harriet recalled, but Ellen is looking grey and pinched and she looks worse after every conversation with Mrs Marchant. And now I think the woman has got something on young Gemma; Harriet frowned, the girl was so happy when I first arrived but now she’s creeping round like a little mouse.
Harriet wasn’t the only person who was worried about Gemma. The girl had worried herself sick as she scuttled around the house trying to forget what had happened, trying to enjoy the excitement and anticipation that had the residents stirring. It had seemed innocent enough, to start with.
‘Go on,’ Ryan had coaxed. ‘I want to see you, Gem, and it’s too cold to meet down the Rec. I’ll bring Kieran. We can say he’s your cousin come to see how you are, if anybody wants to know. People always like him.’
When he wheedled in that special, sexy voice she knew, as he did, that there was no way she could resist but still she felt anxious. Mrs Turner wouldn’t like it, she knew, but the housekeeper was out for the evening and Matron was safely out of the way, entertaining members of the trust who ran the nursing home next door. All Gemma had to do was serve supper-time drinks, and then her time was her own.
She slid back the bolt on the back door, peering out to see two indistinct shapes in the blackness.
‘Quick, come in before somebody sees you,’ she implored, pulling at Ryan’s sleeve and prodding Kieran’s slow bulk to get him indoors.
‘All right, all right,’ Ryan was in a good mood, boisterous and laughing as he drew her roughly towards him. ‘OK, Gem, come here.’ He kissed her fiercely, hurting her, but she was his, in his power, he could do anything to her and it wouldn’t
matter. She scarcely noticed that he was propelling her towards the old, disused wash-house, muttering a word to Kieran.