by Jane Gilley
With Lou by her side, Marjorie had stood up, when everyone had eaten their fill and asked Eileen and Taynor if she could speak before they got down to the business of reading out what excursions had been suggested for the new community project. The young girl she’d spoken sharply to wasn’t there but Marjorie was hoping that, by apologising to everyone, it would put her firmly on the road to behaving like a well-adjusted member of the community, at least. It was a start, for her, at any rate.
Both the organisers had looked surprised when Marjorie came forward and stood next to them and then turned to the audience.
‘Um, sorry, folks. Can I just have a minute? Um, I’d just like to say that I’m very sorry for my outburst last week. I know it upset some of you. But I’ve, er, I’ve been having some difficulties in my life. Things I’d, um, rather not discuss here. But I just want to apologise and let you know it won’t happen again. That’s all really. I’ve … I’ve come here to make friends. Not to alienate anyone. So that’s all. Thank you.’
There was a surprised silence at first. Then people started to react.
‘Apology accepted!’ shouted someone who started clapping.
Eileen smiled at her and said in a low voice, ‘We all make mistakes and we’re sorry you have troubles in your life, Marjorie.’
‘It was nice of you to apologise, Marjorie. Thanks for putting things right,’ said Taynor, as Marjorie returned to her seat.
‘Takes guts to apologise,’ said someone else, also clapping.
Marjorie suddenly felt better about things as she approached her table and sat down, amid the whole room clapping her.
‘’Ere? What was all that about then, Marj?’ said Lou, in wonder.
But Marjorie just smiled and tapped the side of her nose. ‘Oh, don’t worry about all that. Question is, are you enjoying yourself?’
Lou nodded vigorously. ‘It’s been wonderful, thanks. I don’t get out much any more, you know. And they all seem like really nice people ’ere.’
‘Yes they are, Lou. So you’ll have to come again!’
And then Marjorie even forced herself to smile at the woman with the brightly coloured wonky lips.
***
‘Right! So to finish up, now,’ Eileen said, shuffling the sheets of paper in front of her. ‘The activity suggestions are as follows. That’s most of you wanting regular afternoon tea but not always in the community centre. Well, like we said before, it won’t always be here. It depends what other events they’ve got on here. Sometimes you’d like to go out on a country drive, finishing up somewhere pretty for afternoon tea. Most of you also want an afternoon where you go to learn something new. So the top three topics suggested are, learning how to use a computer and the internet; painting and drawing; and an occasional day trip out to the seaside. You’d also like us to arrange a mini trip away somewhere for three days or less, once a year, and you say you’re happy to pay for it, as long as it’s not too expensive or problematic. Okay. The two top spots for that outing are overnight in London to see a show and probably Bournemouth – to frolic in the sea, as Raymond puts it, which did make us laugh. So would you say that is a fair representation of what you’d all like? Would anyone prefer anything different, apart from Margo at the front, here, who would also like swimming lessons? There’s a pool nearby, so that can be easily arranged.’
‘I never learned to swim, you see,’ Margo said to the woman next to her. ‘And my family said I’m too old to go learning about that now. They say I should be at home resting and just watching telly. But I’m bored with all that.’
‘Okay, good people,’ said Taynor. ‘Now Eileen and I will type up our findings and get you to all sign a sheet that we’ll eventually submit to our bosses. Please bring anyone along with you, next time, who might also like to sign our sheets. And, of course, they can have afternoon tea, as well. Obviously the more people who wish to make this happen, the more weight this will have when we finally have our meeting in two weeks’ time. At that meeting we will try to firm up all other possible trips or courses we’d like to secure on your behalf. And if this means that a small charge is levied for, say, the services of a coach driver, would you be happy to pay for this? Unfortunately, at this stage, we don’t know how much will be allocated for these community activities.’
Murmurs went around the hall. People were fidgeting from sitting in one place for too long. A couple of people moved off to use the toilet. Some people said they needed their families to take them shopping before the shops closed. Marjorie was watching the proceedings with interest. They seemed to be balking at the mention of charges being necessary. Yet did councils store excess funds for the elderly or homebound, to have a lovely time out once or twice a month? Probably not!
‘Actually, let me clarify a thing or two, first.’ Taynor began to explain, ‘You see, whatever else we can agree with our bosses regarding ongoing activities for the community, Eileen and I have been told we can get funding to at least be able to offer you afternoon tea on a monthly or possibly twice monthly basis, somewhere else, once we find a suitable full-time venue. So that’s a given. However, what Eileen and I want for you are more engaging activities as well. Yet this is an unknown. We don’t know what else they’ll agree to, over and above your afternoon tea. Do you understand?’
Everyone stopped fidgeting. Marjorie saw Raymond on the other side of the hall put his hand up.
‘Well, as long as it’s not too expensive, love. We’re pensioners, most of us. Every penny is accounted for. That’s the trouble. But I think I could spare six or seven pounds a month for an occasional trip out somewhere. You’d have to let us know how much you’re thinking about.’
‘Yes that’s a fair comment, Raymond,’ Eileen said. ‘Right, well, I can see you all need to be going home or elsewhere, so we’ll leave that thought with you and see what our bosses come up with. Just on another note, though, I would like to call our regular get-togethers the Afternoon Tea Club just so when you mention it to your friends they have a sense of what we’re all about. Does anybody think that’s a good idea?’
Everybody cheered and clapped at that. Well, yes! It sounded as if they really belonged to something now. Plus it would be something positive and enjoyable for them to look forward to every month. Hopefully, though, the council would advocate other activities when they saw how popular the Afternoon Tea Club was.
‘That’s a good idea!’ said Lou.
‘Yep, I like it, too,’ said someone else.
‘Feels like we’re part of something with that name. Yeah, it’s good!’ said another.
‘Right, well, have a good couple of weeks and we’ll see you all, the week after next, if any of you can make it. That’s the week after next because I’m on holiday next week. Yes, love, here again in two weeks, same time. Okay, well cheerio then for now folks. Cheerio,’ said Eileen.
Marjorie found herself thinking that she’d definitely come back. She felt she’d overcome something today and they weren’t such a bad lot here after all.
Chapter 9
Stacy had decided against afternoon tea this week.
She’d had too much going on at home with her cats – three of which had been fighting – and then there was the inevitable trip to the vet with the three of them; putting them in their carriers and carting them down the two flights of stairs because she didn’t like using lifts. The lift that serviced the flats she lived in was rarely working anyway. But with the three of them it was heavy going, leaving one at the top of the stairs, taking the other two down and then going back and getting the one at the top. And then she’d had to lie to work by saying she was off with food poisoning. Yet again. Caring for her cats sapped all her energy whether she was taking them to the vets or just looking after them in general. Oh, she knew that trying to maintain eight cats was far too much work for her, even though she loved them all dearly.
‘Can’t go on. Cannot go on!’ she was muttering on the way home from the vets in a taxi. All her earnings seemed
to evaporate buying food and tending to her cats or paying for their vet fees. She knew she should’ve got a pet plan sorted out for her bills but had simply never got around to it and because there were so many cats her vet bills were getting out of hand. Granted, she did have a little more money at her disposal than the little old lady she kept seeing in the corner shop – Mrs Michaels – who had tried to give Stacy her smoked salmon and sardines back. Stacy’s overly feigned refusal that those items were simply not hers did not sway the old lady from trying to return them, each time they saw one another.
But there was certainly nothing left over for things like holidays or nice clothes. Plus, how could she even think about having a holiday with the worry of what to do with her cats while she was away?
Stacy felt stressed and anxious about the fact that she did not seem to be coping with anything in life at that moment, never mind the spiralling situation with her cats.
‘What to do? What to do?’ she muttered.
The taxi driver glanced at her periodically and she wondered what he saw. She was young with dark rather bushy long hair, no make-up. She wore a long featureless pale green dress with capped sleeves, ankle socks and pumps. Probably a bit old-fashioned in his opinion.
Stacy was out of breath by the time she hauled the last of her cats in their carriers up the second flight of stairs to her flat. It was too hot for all that. It would’ve been so much easier to just stick them in the lift. But she’d got stuck in one once. The call button was broken and no one had heard her cries for hours. Never again!
Coming back through her door to the regular cacophony of meowing and the awful stench, Stacy placed the three cats in their carriers outside the door in the corridor, whilst she sorted herself out. It was much cooler, out there, for them anyway. She’d decided she wasn’t going to work the next day either. She was going to start to get some real sorting out done in her flat. She just couldn’t stand it any more. She no longer wanted to endure the stench of faeces and the chaos of unhappy, noisy cats clamouring for attention, every day of her life. All she wanted to do was put her feet up, have a cup of tea and watch some daytime television. Things ordinary people did. She paid for the TV licence every year but never got the time to watch anything properly or in peace.
She sighed despondently; her life had become unbearable.
For the umpteenth time she considered ringing her mother. She hadn’t spoken to either of her parents in years because she knew they’d be full of ‘I told you so’s’. They hadn’t wanted her to leave home but their rules and antiquated ideas were so suffocating. No friends had ever been allowed over for tea, no pets, no boyfriends, bed at 7.30 p.m. prompt, no this, no that and so many rules, rules, rules that she’d left pretty soon after turning eighteen and went to live with the boyfriend her parents didn’t know existed. Unfortunately it hadn’t worked out with him. But luckily she’d just started an apprenticeship with the library – where she still worked – and one of the girls there said she could share with her, splitting the bills, until she found her own place. So it had all turned out okay for her until she started getting the cats.
‘It all went wrong then, didn’t it, my lovelies?’ she said out loud, into the chorus of cats vying for her attention.
She’d also not rung or Skyped Elsa in months – maybe longer. She’d often wondered if their conversations ever got back to her mum and dad, being as they all lived in the same village. Her father would explode if he found out she had lots of cats; she was sure of that. Anyway, they’d had plenty of time to ring her in the past, if they’d chosen. She’d rung and given them her telephone number and address years ago. Her father was always a stickler for all sorts of odd rules and regulations so he probably wouldn’t have rung. But she was surprised she hadn’t heard from her mother, apart from cards on her birthdays: ‘Happy Birthday love from Mum and Dad xx’. No letter included. No gifts or a tenner shoved in the card. Yet her mother could’ve easily opted to ring or leave a message for her. Or perhaps she had tried to ring and not got through for some reason?
Ah, but you still haven’t sorted the answer phone out have you? she reproached herself.
She sighed, wondering what to do next. Cup of tea first, she thought as she moved towards the kitchen to put the kettle on, stepping over cats trying to curl around her feet and dodging faeces and tins, empty of cat food, along the hall. It was then she heard a strange noise – partly a meow and partly a muffling, scratching noise – coming from the kitchen.
‘Oh no,’ she wailed as she kicked off her pumps to climb up on the worktop. She knew that noise! One of her cats was either on top of the kitchen wall units, stuck behind the heavy pans or had slid down behind the back again. She’d asked the carpenter to make sure there were no more gaps on top of the units, when he put them back the last time a cat got stuck. But she had no idea if he’d done that.
Ah, she could see a black tail. Was it Pooch? Well, at least he hadn’t slipped behind the units then. But was he otherwise trapped? She reached up to carefully start pulling the pans aside, one by one, when suddenly Pooch’s black and white paw shot out and viciously scratched her hand. Stacy snatched her hand back in shock.
‘Ow!’
Why was Pooch becoming more and more unpredictable these days?
‘Naughty puss. Bad puss!’
She knew the scratch had drawn blood but she still had to either free him or get him down. She was nervous about moving the pans now. She cautiously shifted another pan when suddenly his mouth clamped down like a vice around her fingers!
The pain was like tiny searing hot blades stabbing into her hand, all at the same time. She cried out, trying to yank her hand away but overbalanced and slipped in her socks on the shiny work surface, pulling Pooch down with her as she fell in a heap, clipping her head on the sharp corner of the work surface.
She remembered thinking, Why do my cats hate me so much? I give them everything, before she blacked out.
***
So peaceful …
And white. White? Yes, peacefully white. And nice dreams of pink candy ice creams tasting divine. I want to be a ballerina but Mummy won’t let me. They want me to be another boy, so I can help with the farm. But not even Peter wants to do that.
Who are those people with big faces, like out-of-focus gargoyles? Ugh! And the bloke? A bit rough-looking. Familiar. All around me. Staring. No, frowning. An angel in the background. The angel is going away now. No, don’t go! Stay and protect me from all these ugly creatures.
‘She’s coming round, now Jerry!’
A familiar voice. Can’t place it, though. And a grunt.
‘About time! Wasting public resources because of her silliness—’
‘That’s enough, Jerry. She’s our daughter and she’s in trouble.’
Another grunt.
Oh no! Stacy’s eyelids flickered open but she wanted to shut them, immediately, after she spied her mother and father peering over her. But where was she? She wasn’t at their place. The farm was a cold, dark, repressive place to bring up children. There was no love to speak of there. Just rules and practicality at every turn. Stacy snuggled into the bed she was lying in. Her scratched and bitten hand ached but it was bandaged professionally.
‘Come on, Stacy love. Wake up, now. We’re here for you,’ pleaded her mother’s voice.
Stacy opened an eye and looked into her mother’s tired, lined face. Her once light auburn hair was greying and she looked downbeat. Farming was heavy going. It was a daily chore; a calling. It had taken its toll on her mother. And Stacy knew she would never want that for herself. Her father sat back on a chair at the end of the bed. His face was dry, leathery and wrinkled from years in the sun working the fields. He was frowning at her – a look she remembered from way back. She had never seen her father smile.
‘This man, here, found you. He’s your neighbour, John. Nice of him to call us,’ began her mother.
‘Though how he found our number in amongst that pigsty you call hom
e I’ll never know!’ barked her father before her mother could stop him.
‘Now that’s enough, Jerry!’ her mother hissed. ‘I told you she needs our help and we’re going to give it to her, whatever you might think. So hold your tongue! I’m not putting up with your nonsense any more. It’s sent our children away from us, never to return. That farm is my father’s, don’t forget! And we’re going to be doing things my way for once. I want my children back around me at my time of life. And that’s my final word on the subject.’
Stacy gasped at her mother’s uncharacteristic tirade. Wow, she’d actually stuck up for her for once. And, double wow, the farm didn’t even belong to them! It belonged to their only remaining grandparent, who lived in a care home. Her mother’s family had been reasonably wealthy through farming, she realised.
Stacy slowly sat up in bed, leaning on her good hand, noting the hospital monitoring equipment, flowers on her bedside table, a pale green gown on the back of the door.
Her next-door neighbour John was standing nervously beside the bed, looking as though he no longer wanted to be there. But why was he here? Ah, didn’t somebody say he’d rescued her?
He bent down so suddenly Stacy thought he was going to kiss her. Then he whispered, ‘No wonder you’re the way you are with this lot looking out for you. Anyway, I’ve got to go. Bye.’
