lately and they’re not as crystal clear as they might be. But she could have asked for someone to give them a wipe. Nick would have been the first one up that ladder.
Dot’s independent streak is a mile wide, though. Plus, she’s super polite and hates to put anybody out. Which was why she climbed out her window with a roll of kitchen towel and a squirty bottle of Windolene.
‘I didn’t think anything of it,’ she’d said, once the plaster casts had set and she was safely back from A&E, resting at ground level in one of the wing-backed chairs in the lounge. ‘I’ve always washed my own windows. Though I did live in a bungalow then.’
She bought that bungalow herself by saving every bit possible from her teacher’s salary – whatever was left over after paying the rent and the bills and single-handedly raising her two sons.
This place is full of very capable women like Dot, there’s no doubt about that. But some aren’t as agile as they once were. If Dot – who’s got all her marbles and then some – thinks nothing of freestyle window cleaning, then I’m afraid to think where Laney might be right now.
‘I’m sure Laney’s not hurt!’ I tell everyone again.
‘We’ll just check the greenhouse,’ Nick adds, flashing me a smile that sends my downstairs aflutter. ‘Meanwhile, maybe someone could check out front? Look at that sun. She might have put her bikini on to work on her tan.’
This launches the women into hysterics, but Nick manages to keep a straight face. That’s more than I can say for myself. I’m such an easy audience.
‘That’ll keep them occupied for a few minutes,’ he says as the entire room clears. He holds open one of the French doors leading off the lounge. ‘After you,’ he says as I step onto the wide patio that runs along the entire back of the house.
It’s a big house, with nearly thirty bedrooms. Proper Downton Abbey proportions. It rambles off on both sides from a three-storey central building where the grand entrance, dining room and lounges are. There’s even room in the middle of the entrance hall for a pedestal table with a giant urn of lilies or sunflowers or that curly bamboo. A wide oak staircase winds up one side of the hall to the bedrooms upstairs and further on into the eaves, where the staff would have lived in olden times. More bedrooms pack the wing on one side, with my kitchen on the ground floor of the other and bedrooms above.
Max, our boss, didn’t grow up with a silver spoon in his mouth, despite living in this place. His father, Terrible Terence, worked in accounting and his mum, Mrs Greene, was the town’s librarian. It was her family who passed down the house from days of yore, but she moved herself, Max and Terence out to the cottage at the back – which is still the size of a normal house – when she opened the care home.
That was nearly two decades ago. June says that applications have been pretty sporadic these past few years, and that’s got Max worried. He has tried advertising outside the area but, unless their parents are like Terence, most people want to keep their family nearby.
I glance over at Terence’s cottage as Nick and I walk towards the greenhouse. There’s no sign of him. Good. The residents are worried enough without him stirring the pot.
Nick is walking slightly ahead of me. Not because he’s rude. He’s just worried about Laney being out here, though I doubt she is. Laney might be daft most of the time, but she knows what she likes, and she likes her creature comforts. She wouldn’t sit in a draughty greenhouse full of spiders. She’s in the house. Somewhere.
Nick’s keenness gives me the chance to watch him as he strides across the lawn. I haven’t passed up that chance once since he started work here six months ago. You’d think I’d have him memorised by now.
Who am I kidding? I do.
I’m still amazed that Nick is working here. June would normally handle all our hiring, but Max was the one who found Nick for us. Our old occupational therapist left when her husband got sent to Germany for work. Unsurprisingly, June didn’t get a huge queue of candidates looking to work for a care home in a little market town in Suffolk.
That’s where we are, in Framlingham. We’re not that far from Norwich or Ipswich, but it feels a million miles away. It’s pretty and it’s home, but it doesn’t exactly scream ‘career opportunity’ to many people.
Also, because Max never passes up the chance to stretch his staff’s duties where he can, the job wasn’t strictly related to occupational therapy. You should have seen the brief June had to work with. The job description read like a holiday camp brochure. Our boss reasoned that OT wasn’t miles different from physical therapy (it is), and physical therapy includes exercising and stretching – which may as well be aerobics and yoga – as well as brain-sharpening activities. Scrabble uses the brain, so he wanted his new hire to run games nights too.
June didn’t waste any time ringing Nick for an interview when Max gave her his CV.
‘Wow, he’s fit,’ I’d whispered when he turned up. I was glad June was doing the interview. I wouldn’t have been able to concentrate. My unprofessionalism was boundless from day one.
‘Plus, he’s got a first,’ she answered. ‘Plus, the perfect qualifications.’
Plus, look at him, I’d thought.
You know those adverts where the tanned, shirtless guy tantalisingly licks the yogurt pot lid and makes you want to eat Bifidus activertium, or whatever it’s called, every day? That. Only he didn’t need any props to lick.
He’d strode right up to us. Blimey, what confidence he seemed to have. It was a bluff. Best foot forward for an interview and all that. He’s no peacock, but a shy bird like me. ‘I’m Nick Parsons. I have an eleven o’clock interview?’ He glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘Sorry, I’m early. That’s annoying, isn’t it. I did wait outside for a bit, but it started raining.’
When he smiled apologetically, I wanted to hug him.
‘How long have you been out there?’ June asked. Nick’s hair was soaked. Even so, it was a thick wavy mop.
‘About an hour. Hour and a half, tops.’ Then he laughed at himself. ‘I nearly camped overnight in your garden. My own sad little Glastonbury, without the music.’
‘And not even Portaloos,’ I said. ‘I’m glad it didn’t come to that.’
‘I wanted to make sure I wasn’t late. I’m… keen for this job.’
June hired him in the interview. She got her perfect employee, and I got a blinding crush that I still haven’t recovered from.
Within about a week it seemed like Nick had always been here. He’s so easy-going that he’s doing everything in Max’s unreasonable job description, and then some. Aside from being the occupational therapist, Scrabble organiser, exercise and yoga instructor, he’s also the part-time gardener, driver and handyman. No matter what Max asks him to do, Nick throws himself into it without a grumble.
This is great for me, since we haven’t got a dedicated games table, therapy room or exercise studio. There are TVs in each of the two lounges, and woe betide anyone who disrupts the viewing schedules, so Nick uses the large dining room that’s just off my kitchen. Which means we spend most of our days together. Or at least separated by only a wall.
To say we don’t
