realised that gardening is a real art.
While Mrs B browses the newspapers I make her favourite dinner: cod with mashed potatoes (she prefers her food to have no colour at all, maybe that’s what was wrong with the soup) and carry it out to her on a tray. She is happy to sit out until the evening starts to chill, and I persuade her to come back indoors. As I rattle through my evening tasks – a bit of light housework, helping Mrs B into her seated shower and shampooing her hair – a single thought keeps darting through my brain. I’ve won £5000!
‘Make sure you wash out all the shampoo,’ she remarks, folding her skinny arms over her naked body as I rinse her with the shower attachment.
‘Yes, Mrs B.’ Apart from a Noddy eggcup in a colouring in competition, it’s the first thing I’ve ever won!
‘And the conditioner.’
‘I will, Mrs B. I do always rinse you very thoroughly, you know.’
Can’t wait to tell Morgan! How shall we celebrate? The offy’ll be closed by the time I’m finished here …
‘Well, my head was itchy the other night. I couldn’t sleep because of it. Clawed myself half to death …’
‘Maybe your scalp’s a bit flaky?’ I suggest.
‘In all of my 84 years I’ve never had a flaky scalp!’ she barks, as if I’d mooted the possibility of syphilis. God, she is especially crotchety today. I could murder a drink. Surely there’s something at home, a bottle of Jacob’s Creek lurking in the cupboard or maybe some brandy left over from the Christmas cake …
Having dried off Mrs B, I help her into her peach cotton nightie and sheepskin slippers and lead her slowly from the downstairs shower room to her bedroom on the ground floor. It used to be a dining room; these days, Victoria, her carers and the occasional tradesman are the only people who ever venture upstairs.
Once she’s tucked up in bed, I bring her a cup of strong tea and two chocolate digestives, plus her toothbrush and a small bowl of water, for post-biscuit cleansing. I once suggested she snacked a little earlier so her teeth could be attended to in the bathroom, rather than in bed. You’d think I’d suggested she scrub them with the loo brush. ‘This is how I like to do it,’ she retorted. So I wait patiently as she waggles her toothbrush in the water and try not to reel backwards as she spits violently into the porcelain bowl.
I hand Mrs B a flannel so she can dab at her pursed mouth, then tuck in her sheet and satin-edged blankets – she regards duvets as ‘a silly modern invention’ – and click off her main bedroom light, leaving just the orangey glow of her bedside lamp. This room smells rather stale, despite my obsession with airing it as often as possible. The bowl of pot pourri sitting on the glass-topped dressing table probably stopped emitting scent in about 1972. Yet when I’ve suggested replacing it she has scowled and said, ‘It’s fine as it is.’ I pause and glance back at her. She seems even tinier now, like a Victorian doll – the ones that look fragile and a little a bit scary – in her queen-sized bed. Her face is pale, almost translucent, her hair a puffy white cloud on the hand-embroidered pillowcase. As I see her so often, perhaps I don’t notice all the changes in her. However, it has struck me recently that she is becoming more frail, and that the arm to steady her in the garden is no longer just a precaution, but entirely necessary. ‘Anything else you need before I go?’ I ask.
‘No, thank you.’ She fixes her gaze on me, as if there is something, but she’s thought better of asking for it.
‘Are you sure? It’s no trouble …’
‘I’m fine,’ she says brusquely.
Well, that’s me told … ‘Goodnight then, Mrs B.’ I turn and make my way out of her room and across the gloomy hallway towards the front door, where I take my jacket from the hook and pull it on.
As I pick up my bouquet, her voice rings shrilly from her room. ‘Could you come back here a minute?’
Christ, don’t say she’s fallen out of bed. No thud, though: she probably just needs the loo. Still clutching my flowers I stride back to her room and find her sitting bolt upright, eyes wide. ‘Are you okay? Has something happened?’
She gasps, then her face breaks into a smile, a genuine smile: a rare sighting indeed. Her eyes sparkle with delight. ‘Oh, flowers! What a kind girl you are …’
‘Oh, erm …’ My heart sinks as I glance down at the blooms.
‘They’re beautiful,’ she adds. ‘A little brash maybe, but I like that – can’t be doing with mimsy little posies. Could you fetch a vase?’
‘Yes, of course,’ I say, scuttling to the chilly kitchen and filling a hefty crystal vase with water, in which I arrange the flowers – my flowers! – before returning them to Mrs B.
‘Put them beside my bed,’ she commands, ‘so I can smell them as I’m going to sleep.’
‘Yes, of course …’ I catch their sweet perfume as I place the vase on her bedside table.
She fixes me with a stare. ‘I can’t remember the last time anyone bought me flowers …’
‘Victoria did,’ I remind her, ‘last time she visited.’
‘Probably out of guilt,’ she murmurs.
‘I’m sure it wasn’t like that.’ Guilt about what? I want to ask. About not coming here more often? Yes, as her only child – and with no family of her own – Victoria could certainly be more attentive. But then, Mrs B and her daughter have never given me the impression of being especially close.
I pause in the doorway. Tonight, I’m sensing a twinge of guilt of my own – at leaving her alone – even though she is always perfectly fine alone overnight, and Julie will be here first thing tomorrow. She glances at the flowers and inhales dreamily. ‘You called me,’ I add, ‘as I was leaving?’
‘Did I?’ Her gaze remains fixed on the bouquet.
‘Yes, was there something?’
‘Oh,’ she says, turning towards me, ‘I meant to say, next time you’re shopping, could you not buy plain chocolate digestives?’
‘Of course, Mrs B.’ I jam my back teeth together.
‘You know I only like milk,’ she adds.
‘I do remember that now.’ Mustering a stoical smile I turn to leave, reminding myself that this is my job – a job I need very much – and if it involves having my soup and grocery choices criticised, then I guess it’s all part of the service. I’m pretty sure she enjoys our cryptic crossword routine and changing her mind about biscuits. But I can’t bring myself to feel annoyed. Maybe when I’m 84, with Morgan still lying there scratching his bottom and leaving stinky tuna cans strewn about, I’ll be getting my kicks from spitting in a little bowl. Maybe I should save my prize money for my geriatric care?
Stepping outside, I spot a small cardboard box of broccoli, tomatoes and carrots left beside the stone doorstep. Ah, another gift from Paul. Well, they’re more useful than flowers. There’s something else, too: a bunch of cornflowers and – I think – freesias, tucked in amongst the veg. A brown
