than everyone else … she figured that Bernie must be one of those ‘busy’ people.
‘I’m busy too,’ Grace uttered, but wasn’t heard as the line went dead. Seems Bernie had gone back to being too busy to be bothered by troublesome phone calls from their bedbound mother.
Grace turned and left Mrs Donato’s glorious unit 28 behind for another day. Monday to be exact, seeing as today was Friday! The disappointment of having to wait three days to go through the contents was crushing, but at least she had something nice to look forward to now … or maybe I could come into work tomorrow? Just to take a peek inside one of those suitcases? Or I could take the one on the top of the pile home to make a start? But Grace knew this could never happen as there was no way Larry would allow her to remove one of Mrs Donato’s suitcases from the storage company’s premises – he was very fastidious about things like that and rightly took pride in looking after his customer’s belongings as if they were his own. Plus Grace knew that her mother would never agree to her leaving her home alone over the weekend. And Bernie was right … she couldn’t leave Cora lying in a wet bed, so there was nothing for it, Grace would have to go home now. And strip and then remake her mother’s bed, for a second time today.
So after closing the door behind her and securing the padlock back in place, Grace put the clipboard on to the trolley and braced herself to face Larry and Betty to explain that, not only had she turned up late this morning … but that she was now going to have to let them down again and go home early.
‘Babe, why do you even bother working at that storage place?’ Phil moaned, pushing his bushy beard towards Grace’s left cheek. They were sitting side by side on the Dralon sofa in the lounge below Cora’s bedroom having a film night. Breakfast At Tiffany’s. Grace had seen it a million times before but when Phil had said it was her turn to choose, she hadn’t hesitated, keen to rekindle some of the glamorous Hollywood magic she had felt on entering unit 28 on Friday.
It was Sunday evening and she had thought about Mrs Constance di Donato and her beautiful vintage belongings all weekend. Even her name sounded sophisticated and glamorous, and Grace couldn’t wait to get to work tomorrow to find out more about the woman she imagined lived the kind of life that she had only seen in films and read about in those lifestyle magazines. It was exciting and intriguing.
Grace had even decided to put Cora’s breakfast of toast, cereal, a little jug of milk and some fresh-fruit salad with a flask of hot tea on a tray like they did in hotels. If she left it all ready on the table by her bed, then Cora could have it whenever she liked after her morning routine of bed bath and selecting her TV programmes for the day. This way, Grace could get off to work on time for a change, instead of having to wait around while her mother ate … usually very, very, very slowly as she complained through every mouthful! A genius plan, and Grace didn’t know why she had never thought to do this before now. In fact, she had done a lot of thinking over the weekend, and talking too – she had called Bernie to ‘let her know’ how their mother was … as per the instruction in the telephone conversation on Friday afternoon, and to moot the idea of them setting up a care rota for Cora.
Bernie had actually gasped out loud on realising that Grace was implying the rota would be shared between the four of them! And then said she might be able to manage a contribution to pay for a professional carer to ‘give you a break, Grace, if that’s what you really need.’ Grace had then tried her other sister, Sinead, who – to be fair – had acknowledged that Grace ‘pulled the short straw when it comes to looking after Mum, and I wish there was more I could do but it’s so difficult with me being so far away these days.’ Grace had pointed out that Chelmsford in Essex wasn’t really that far away. A weekend, or even just a Saturday here and there was manageable, surely? And it really would make a great deal of difference to Grace to have a few hours to herself. She was in desperate need of a haircut and some new clothes, or even just the chance to visit the library or browse the chunky yarn section of the craft shop a few streets away. Plus she fancied trying a salted caramel smoothie in the pop-up bar that had opened up. It had been months since her counsellor had set these activities for her to accomplish on her own, and she hadn’t made any progress whatsoever on them yet.
But the call with Sinead had somehow moved on to her offering to chip in for a private carer too, or ‘better still, get on to the council, Grace, and see if they can send someone round for free. My neighbour has a woman who comes in three times a day to help out. And it’s all paid for by us taxpayers. Just make the call!’
Grace had tried to point out that it wasn’t as simple as all that – there were forms to fill in and assessments to be carried out and Cora would never allow a stranger inside the house for all that in any case. There had been no end of recriminations from Cora for that one time Grace had managed to get the care assistant from social services to come and show her how to lift her mother and see to her basic needs. As soon as she had left, Cora had gone on strike and refused to even hold the handle on the hoist for days after that. But Sinead had breezily suggested if Grace found someone Mum liked then it would be ‘absolutely fine’, before ending the call because her Waitrose delivery driver was lugging her shopping through to the utility room and it would be rude not to give him a hand.
Lastly, Grace had spoken to her brother, Mikey, the hedge-fund manager, who in his usual fashion had got straight to the point: ‘Stick her in a home and be done with it, Grace! I can’t be hearing all this crap about her not wanting strangers in the house – did she ever give a toss about what we wanted when we were kids?’ Silence. ‘No, we did as we were bloody well told or a whack around the head and no dinner was the punishment. That woman is a bully, and believe me I know what I’m talking about: I deal with them all day, every day, and the sooner you wake up and realise that, Grace, the better. Now, if you call my PA, Annabel, on Monday, I’m sure she’ll sort you out with a list of half-decent places you can visit. Just pick one. A cheap one. And make them come and collect her if you have to. I’ll pay for it all and recoup my losses when we flog her house. Annabel will probably go with you if you’re still getting in a state about going out on your own. Or if you just want a second opinion! You know, to make sure the staff aren’t slapping the old dears around like you see on those undercover documentary programmes on the telly. Mind you, what goes around comes around, so it would serve Cora right to get a taste of her own medicine!’
Grace had hung up at that point. Frustrated and weary. She could just imagine the look on her mother’s face if she selected a care home for her, a cheap one at that. Then bundled her off there without so much as a conversation about it, let alone without seeking her consent, which she knew would never be given. Deep down Grace also knew that she was scared of her mother. Scared of her rages and scared of what she would do or say to hurt her if she ever turned on her … and that is exactly how Cora would see it if Grace did what Mikey suggested. A betrayal.
But Grace was decided on one thing … if her siblings weren’t going to help out, then she was going to help herself and implement a few more changes to make her own life a little bit easier … like encouraging Cora to manage her bed bath, for starters. Grace knew that her mother was perfectly able to sit up in bed by herself, and she could rub the edge of a coin over a scratchcard too, so surely she could utilise that hand action and replace the coin with a flannel and move it over her own body? This would give Grace a precious extra ten minutes or so to go towards doing all the other things that had to be sorted before she was able to leave for work each morning. It was only a small change, but it was a start at least. A small step towards taking back the life that she used to have and that had got lost along the way. Along with her dancing career … her dreams and aspirations of being blissfully happily married to Matthew, with perhaps
