all ironed out, it slides away from me and I have to start from the beginning again.
‘Do try to focus, Florence,’ Elsie always says. ‘Concentrate on one word at a time.’
But Elsie isn’t here to help me, and so I’ll have to search through the words all by myself, because buried amongst them, I need to find a place for the silence. Everyone’s life has a secret, something they never talk about. Everyone has words they keep to themselves. It’s what you do with your secret that really matters. Do you drag it behind you forever, like a difficult suitcase, or do you find someone to tell? I said to myself I would never tell anyone. It would be a secret I’d keep forever. Except now that I’m lying here, waiting to be found, I can’t help worrying that this is my lot. Perhaps the closing words of my chapter will be spoken in a room filled with beige and forgetfulness, and no one was ever meant to hear them. You never really know it’s the final page, do you, until you get there?
I wonder if I’ve already reached the end of the story.
I wonder if my forever is now.
It was a month ago when it all started. A Friday morning. I was glancing around the room, wondering what I’d done with my television magazine, when I noticed.
It was facing the wrong way. The elephant on the mantelpiece. It always points towards the window, because I read somewhere it brings you luck. Of course, I know it doesn’t. It’s like putting new shoes on a table, though, or crossing on the stairs. There’s a corner of your head that feels uncomfortable if you don’t follow the rules. Normally, I would have blamed one of the uniforms, but I always go over everything with a duster after they’ve gone. There’s usually a need for it and it helps to pass the time. So I would have spotted it straight away. I notice everything.
‘Do you notice anything?’
Miss Ambrose had arrived for our weekly chat. Fidgety. Smells of hairspray. A cousin in Truro. I decided to test her. She scanned the room, but any fool could tell she wasn’t concentrating.
‘Look properly,’ I said. ‘Give it your full attention.’
She unwound her scarf. ‘I am,’ she said. ‘I am.’
I waited.
‘The elephant. The elephant on the mantelpiece.’ I prodded my finger. ‘It’s facing towards the television. It always faces towards the window. It’s moved.’
She said, did I fancy a change? A change! I prodded my finger again and said, ‘I didn’t do it.’
She didn’t take me seriously. She never does. ‘It must have been one of the cleaners,’ she said.
‘It wasn’t the cleaners. When I went to bed last night, it was facing the right way. When I got up this morning, it was back to front.’
‘You haven’t been dusting again, have you, Florence? Dusting is our department.’
I wouldn’t let her find my eyes. I chose to look at the radiator instead. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ I said.
She sat on the armchair next to the fireplace and let out a little sigh. ‘Perhaps it fell?’
‘And climbed back up all by itself?’
‘We don’t always remember, do we? Some things we do automatically, without thinking. You must have put it back the wrong way round.’
I went over to the mantelpiece and turned the elephant to face the window again. I stared at her the whole time I was doing it.
‘It’s only an ornament, Florence. No harm done. Shall I put the kettle on?’
I watched the elephant while she rummaged around in the kitchen, trying to locate a ginger nut.
‘They’re in the pantry on the top shelf,’ I shouted. ‘You can’t miss them.’
Miss Ambrose reappeared with a tray. ‘They were on the first shelf, actually. We don’t always know what we’re doing, do we?’
I studied her jumper. It had little pom-poms all around the bottom, in every colour you could possibly wish for. ‘No,’ I said. ‘We probably don’t.’
Miss Ambrose sat on the very edge of the armchair. She always wore cheerful clothes, it was just a shame her face never went along with it. Elsie and I once had a discussion about how old Miss Ambrose might be. Elsie plumped for late thirties, but I think that particular ship sailed a long time ago. She always looked like someone who hadn’t had quite enough sleep, but had put on another coat of lipstick and enthusiasm, in an effort to make sure the rest of the world didn’t ever find her out. I watched the radiator again, because Miss Ambrose had a habit of finding things in your eyes you didn’t think anyone else would ever notice.
‘So, how have you been, Florence?’
There are twenty-five grooves on that radiator.
‘I’m fine, thank you.’
‘What did you get up to this week?’
They’re quite difficult to count, because if you stare at them for any length of time, your eyes start to play tricks on you.
‘I’ve been quite busy.’
‘We’ve not seen you in the day room very much. There are lots of activities going on – did you not fancy card-making yesterday?’
I’ve got a drawer full of those cards. I could congratulate half a dozen people on the birth of their beautiful daughter with one pull of a handle.
‘Perhaps next week,’ I said.
I heard Miss Ambrose take a deep breath. I knew this meant trouble, because she only ever does it when she needs the extra oxygen for a debate about something.
‘Florence,’ she said.
I didn’t answer.
‘Florence. I just want to be sure that you’re happy at Cherry Tree?’
Miss Ambrose was one of those people whose sentences always went up at the end. As though the world appeared so uncertain to her that it needed constant interrogation. I glanced out of the window. Everything was brick and concrete, straight lines and sharp corners, and tiny windows into small lives. There was no horizon. I never thought I would lose the horizon along with everything else, but it’s only when you get old that you realise whichever direction you choose to face, you find yourself confronted with a landscape filled up with loss.
‘Perhaps we should have a little rethink about whether Cherry Tree is still the right place for you?’ she said. ‘Perhaps there’s somewhere else you’d enjoy more?’
I turned to her. ‘You’re not sending me to Greenbank.’
‘Greenbank has a far higher staff-to-resident ratio.’ Miss Ambrose tilted her head. I could see all the little lines in her neck helping
