you look at that view,’ Tess marvelled to Em as they stood at the top of the driveway looking out over the downy clifftop and straight out to sea.
‘Can I help you? Visiting isn't for another ten minutes.’
‘Oh – I – we.’
The woman was in the same uniform that Laura had worn. Hers, it appeared, came without the smile. ‘That'll be quiet, will it? Some of them in there can get a little – excitable – if there's noise. Not that they're a quiet bunch themselves at the best of times.’
Tess looked at the woman and wondered where Laura was. She didn't like her daughter referred to as ‘that’ or ‘it’. Nor did she like the woman's implied exasperation when referring to the residents.
‘That is Emmeline,’ Tess said, ‘and Mrs Saunders is our friend.’
The woman folded her arms. ‘You're welcome to wait. But visiting's not for another ten minutes.’
‘Seven,’ Tess said as she pushed the buggy away.
The view was so lovely, the weather was good – but why were the benches in the garden empty? Why were the residents cooped up inside on a day like today? Was it staffing issues or strict scheduling? Then she asked herself what she was doing here anyway, taking it upon herself to visit this secret mother of Joe's. But she answered that it was a nice thing to do – for everyone concerned. And what else was she going to do with her day? She was tired of the scrubbing and the spiders and the hoicking; her body was stiff from stretching and ached from bending. And this was a change from walking to the pier, having only the fishermen and their empty nets to exchange nods with and sometimes a smile or a wave with Seb.
Returning to the front door a defiant seven minutes later, Tess was greeted by Laura.
‘I thought it sounded like you,’ she welcomed her warmly. ‘Don't mind Di – she's a crabby old slink. But she does have a heart. Somewhere.’
‘How's Mary?’
‘In one place today,’ Laura said, helping Tess up the steps with the buggy. ‘A little quiet, I'd say. How's this little 'un?’
Tess liked the way Laura squatted down regardless of the way it made her uniform stretch and strain.
‘How are you, Em?’
Em brandished her beaker in reply.
The place didn't smell of wee. It smelt more like a library, less like a hospital though it shared the linoleum floors and particular signage of the latter, and really only the hushed ambience of the former.
‘She's in the day room,’ Laura said over her shoulder as she led the way. She stopped at a door and peered through the safety glass. ‘As I said, you might find her a bit, well, distracted. Well, she was this morning.’ Laura looked at Tess. ‘But you can never tell, really, how long it's going to last. It goes as quickly as it comes – one minute they're away with the fairies, the next they're back in the land of the living. Sad when you think they'd rather not be.’
Tess looked into the room through the glass in the door and felt suddenly a little apprehensive. Was all this fair on Em? Or Mary? And even Joe too?
Laura sensed her reticence. ‘Come on, love, she'll be delighted with the company – whether or not she knows you from Adam today.’
The door opened into a world Tess knew existed but had never been party to. Her grandmother had died in hospital a day after being admitted from her own home. Here, though, were the infirm elderly en masse; all of them displaced because, for whatever reason, home was no longer an option. Yet there was a sense of calm about the place, perhaps because of the lack of movement: everyone was simply sitting, sitting as if waiting. Waiting for what? Three o'clock? But it was now five past. Visitors? There seemed to be only Tess and one other. The next meal? That wouldn't be for a while. Some looked as though they were barely breathing, jaws slack, eyes glassy and unfocused. As if they were simply waiting to – Tess didn't want to finish the thought so she smiled at everyone hoping to mask her pervasive feelings of sadness and, she had to admit, discomfort.
The light from the sun, from the expanse of North Sea and the huge sky, flooded the room spinning silver into grey hair and an opalescence to otherwise thin old skin. Even the minute lady whose wig had slipped had an air of composure about her – sitting serene, the light playing off the folds and creases of her baggy stockings like a Da Vinci drawing. Sitting beside her, a resident whose sandals revealed toes so overlapped Tess thought it made her look as if she'd been telling lies all her life. The lips of the lady with a startling blue rinse moved constantly, though whether she was talking to herself or just had an involuntary twitch Tess couldn't tell. But her eyes were fixed very darkly on the clock and Tess hoped it was for someone only five minutes late. Em toddled right ahead, looking intently at everyone as she went. Pair after pair of eyes that had been gazing listlessly at nothing in particular now had a welcome focus. One or two of the residents made a noise similar to beckoning a cat. A couple said a cheery hello. One gentleman, with no teeth, still broke into an expansive smile.
Someone said, little Daphne?
Mary, sitting in the corner, looking out to sea, said, Emmeline!
Em went to her outstretched hands. Tess following, nodding and saying hullo to all whom she passed. Mary was delighted, the crows’ feet around her eyes were like rays of sunshine suddenly radiating out from the interminable cloud of old age.
‘Little Emmeline! Where's Wolf?’
The child barked, to a round of applause. She and Mary knitted fingers for a while and communicated with nods and coos. As Tess sat beside them, it slowly dawned on her that she hadn't been noticed by Mary. And then it took for her to say, hullo, Mary! – Mary? Mrs Saunders? – to realize that actually Mary didn't recognize her at all. So Tess became a silent observer, proud to witness the pleasure Em was bringing to the room. Wherever Em went and whatever she picked up (and Tess noticed many similarities between an old-age-friendly room and a baby-friendly one) she received a chorus of approval. This community spoke in a language Em readily understood. They said, ‘apple’ when she picked one up. And when she pointed, they confirmed ‘book’ and ‘shoe’ and ‘blanky’ and ‘tick-tock’. And they nodded knowingly when she talked in gurgles and they clapped when she showed them something or pointed something out. But Mary just gave Tess a distracted, yes, dear when she tried to talk to her.
‘I could bring Wolf one day?’ she suggested to Laura. ‘I've heard of people doing that – taking dogs to care homes, hospices, prisons even. Petting lowers the blood pressure, it's been proven.’
‘It'll raise the blood pressure of Health and Safety,’ Laura declared. ‘A nice idea, love. Just you come back with Em. She's a little actress that one, isn't she. They've liked it – more successful than the flaming bingo I tried to organize last week.’
Tess looked at the lady with the blue rinse, with the ever-moving lips and the eyes fixed on the clock. She was the only resident on whom Em had had little impact. ‘That lady,’ she whispered to Laura. And then she didn't know what it was she wanted to know, it was none of her business after all.
‘Can't stop her doing it and believe me I've tried,’ Laura said anyway. ‘Whatever room she's in, if there's a clock, that's her – gone.’
‘Is she waiting for a visitor?’
‘Possibly,’
