could take Gracie by herself, which she’d preferred to do anyway. But she’d had a sinking feeling when she’d left Gracie whimpering at the school gates, her hand in that of a kindly teacher who’d said, ‘Please don’t worry, Mrs Sykes. She’ll be safe and cared for here.’
Oh, Marjorie had known full well that Gracie would be much better off at school than in the awful atmosphere at home. But her worry, back then, had not only been due to the fact that she couldn’t bear to be parted from her beloved only child all day and every day. More worrying to Marjorie had been the knowledge that because she didn’t work and Oliver was at home all day long with back problems, she’d have to contend with his exacting rages whenever he felt like it!
‘Hello, ladies, gents! Welcome to Borough Community Centre!’ the young receptionist said cheerily and then proceeded to chat about the lovely weather they were having, as she guided the cautious groups of people down the corridor towards the main hall.
Perhaps they don’t get out much either, thought Marjorie, walking alongside them. She spotted Mrs Lambert from the ground-floor flat, in the block where she lived with Gracie. She’d never considered that so many other elderly people would feel as lonely as her. She imagined old folk with grandchildren to be amongst the luckiest people in the world. Mrs Lambert had grandchildren. Yet here she was at an afternoon tea party for the lonely; the fed-up; the neglected. At least, that’s what Marjorie read into the leaflet that had flopped through the letterbox and was snatched up by Gracie.
A gleam had come into her daughter’s eye.
‘Talking of getting you out and about more, Mum …’ she’d begun in a tone she usually reserved for meaningful chats with the schoolchildren she taught. ‘Here! Look at this!’
So Marjorie followed the receptionist, alongside a swarm of mainly bowed grey heads in drab or worn jackets or rain macs, even though it was a clammily hot day. Their questions subsided as they seemed to accept their forced afternoon out. Marjorie passed a young woman with a black and white cat brooch on her rather oversized bright yellow cardigan, with matching Alice band. She looked familiar but Marjorie couldn’t think from where. Another lady was still wearing her sun hat, as they all shuffled into the hall towards a couple of nodding women, welcoming them with beaming smiles and wide-open arms. One of these women looked to be solidly middle-aged, wearing a pale blue cotton summer dress with capped sleeves and a badge in the middle of her chest that read: Eileen. The younger woman’s badge said, Taynor.
‘Ladies and, oh hello, gentlemen! Welcome! Welcome! Please come in and help yourselves to refreshments. Yes, come on in. Yes, just help yourselves. Then just take a seat at the tables, anywhere you fancy. Oh no, you don’t have to worry about all that, it’s totally free. No, you won’t need your purses; you don’t have to pay a penny! You’re just here to enjoy yourselves!’
A long table down one side of the hall was covered with white cups upside down on saucers, dishes of sugar lumps, small porcelain jugs of cold milk, huge plates of Crawford’s Rover biscuits and homemade Victoria sponge cakes with fondant icing. Three middle-aged women stood behind the table, wearing white aprons, asking the guests whether they wanted tea or coffee and encouraging them to help themselves to whichever biscuits or cake they wished. Marjorie couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen anyone wearing an apron. Or was it on one of those cooking programmes?
Marjorie noticed how the sight of cakes and biscuits soon perked everyone up, including herself. They all chuckled and marvelled at the sight of so much free food! And this small indulgence then gave them reason enough to happily gabble to each other about what was on offer at the community centre today and how nice the weather was and, ‘Oh, I do like that necklace of yours!’ or ‘Well, isn’t this lovely!’ even though they didn’t know each other.
Looking around her and wondering where to sit, Marjorie saw oblong tables set out for eight occupants. The chairs looked comfortable enough but the disposable paper tablecloths creased and moved as she tried to position herself at the table without spilling her tea or dropping her cake. A little lacking, Marjorie thought dimly.
Pleasant, soothing background music was filtering into the hall from somewhere, which created a lovely restful ambience. Yet as the guests were finishing off their refreshments, the commotion of chatter having died down, Marjorie could see they weren’t entirely comfortable with their surroundings, even though it was a rather nice place. Marjorie hadn’t made up her mind about this new environment yet. But to avoid confrontation with her daughter, earlier, she’d relented about coming along to sample the afternoon tea outing at Gracie’s insistence. She’d do it the once, just to say she’d tried it. Plus, if it didn’t work out, that would be the benchmark by which all other suggestions her daughter made would be met with understandable resistance. Marjorie wondered if the other old dears had arrived today under the same circumstances: unhappy with their lot but equally unhappy to have to make any positive changes for themselves, unless somebody else initiated that change for them.
As Marjorie sipped her second cup of hot tea, she could see that most of the women looked quite thin or perhaps they didn’t eat well enough. It was easy to think you didn’t need to eat so much when you were elderly and sitting around most of the day. Or perhaps they couldn’t afford to eat well. A few had walking frames or walking sticks and one younger lady was in a wheelchair. Apart from the youngish girl in the yellow cardigan and the cat brooch, who Marjorie couldn’t place but who sat at her table, Marjorie felt sorry for these other women. ‘Everyone has their crosses to bear,’ her best friend, Lou, always said.
The servers were still coming around the tables, asking if anyone would like refills or more cake, when the two ladies who Marjorie believed to be the organisers stood at the front of the ensemble and coughed to clear their throats.
‘Well, we must say we’re absolutely delighted to see that so many of you have made the effort to come along to our afternoon tea party today. And we hope you’re enjoying your refreshments. Mrs Spence, in charge of the servers at the back, there, made the cakes, which I’m sure you’ll all agree are rather yummy!’
A few people looked up, realising someone was speaking.
‘Eh? What did she say?’ said someone.
‘Shh! They’re saying something!’ hissed someone else.
‘Right so, just to let you know, my name is Eileen and I work for a division of our local healthcare services. And the lady next to me, Taynor, is my amazing assistant. It was at my mother’s suggestion that we organised this event because she told me she is always loneliest in the afternoons when, she said, it can be soul-destroying with nothing useful or meaningful to do. Does anyone else, here, ever feel like this sometimes?’ Eileen asked, pausing to glance around at her audience.
Some of the people in the room were fidgeting now or still chatting; some were burrowing around in their bags, some were half listening but more anxious to finish their cake. It seemed to dawn on them – rather slowly – that something was being asked of them. Eileen waited patiently. A few people murmured inaudible responses.
‘Well, folks,’ Eileen tried again. ‘I’m just telling you about my situation at home with my mother. I must say, I never suspected that my mother was bored, or fed up and felt that she wasn’t needed any more. But she said everyone feels like this from time to time. So it’s been a bit of a revelation to me that people who are retired or elderly or people otherwise in a position where they are at home all day long, like carers, often feel like this. I think my mother initially held back from admitting this to me because she thought I’d be upset to realise that the rest of my family and I were partly to blame for her discomfort. I have to admit, I was gutted. And very apologetic too, I might add! My family and I actually live with my mum in her house and yet
