by kendra Smith
Her shoulders slumped as she remembered her school nickname. Was she still Mediocre Maddie? The mockery of it, the girls jibing at her.
She’d been having the dream more and more lately, ever since she’d been to Exeter and seen Greg again and ever since the doctors had hinted about Olive’s deterioration. In the dream, she ran away; she had been told that she was losing her memory, and photographs had started to fall from her brain – colour photos, black and white ones – and every time she tried to catch them she couldn’t reach. If they fell to the floor then she lost them forever. She woke up sweating and shouting about photos. It always took her ages to get back to sleep after that dream.
Is it that wretched photo dream again? Tim had absent-mindedly punched his pillow, muttering in his sleep and turning over. Well, yes it was. And it was bothering her a lot. She leant in towards Carole and nudged her in the ribs on the way to placing a dollop of mashed potato on a kid’s plate. He beamed at her and sniffed. Yellow snot glistened under his nose.
Maddie yanked her apron down. These stupid white aprons were the bane of her life. Wait a minute, had she just thought that? Had she just thought her apron was the bane of her life?
She stretched over the counter and swiped a piece of kitchen roll and handed it to him. ‘Here, wipe your nose, sweetheart.’
As the boy blew his nose noisily, she noticed the gravy on his plate start to slide to the left, to circle around his mash. Little tributaries of brown liquid then trickled across to the peas to form a gravy-pea-soup. He looked up and grinned at her, a few teeth missing. He reminded her of Ed at that age. It was almost like a physical ache, thinking about him. He hadn’t texted in a while. She must remember to look at his Facebook page later to see if there were any ‘updates’ from him. And she must stop worrying.
A gap year. She remembered when he’d told her he was taking one. The thud of her heart. She had promised him it was what she wanted too – fingers crossed behind her back.
A soggy tissue was being waved at her. She gingerly took in a pincer-like grip, then threw it quickly in the bin. As she watched the white snot-filled paper towel descend onto a mass of congealed baked beans, a memory from her dream swirled around her head.
What if she could get away? Away from soggy mashed potato and snotty kids, from tidying up after Tim and the dog with halitosis. From the smell of cabbage and bleached floors… But what about Olive? No, stop dreaming, Maddie, her inner voice berated her.
‘Oi, miss.’
She looked up to see Snot Boy.
‘Can I have more peas, miss?’
*
The bus was stuffy. Maddie put her shopping bags between her feet as she knew how bumpy this section of the road was on the way back to her house. She didn’t want her Tesco beans to go flying across the floor. A man sat down beside her. She shifted in her seat and loosened her scarf around her neck – the one with the hummingbirds on it, the chiffon one that he had given her all those years ago, at the graduation party… She shuddered. Had he seen her friend request? She almost felt foolish now.
Her mind drifted off as she looked out the window at the trees lining the road, green leaves fluttering in the breeze. She felt the sweat build up between her shoulder blades in the airless bus and wished she’d checked the weather forecast today. It was humid: late July, sticky and hot. It was as if Mother Nature was having a real go at summer.
All the kids had been tearing around with their shirts off by the end of day, a tradition on the last day of term, waving their signed shirts in the playground, sweat glistening on their foreheads – new schools, new friends to make next term. New beginnings. And where would she be?
And next term, in they’d come with their new school jumpers with the jazzy redesigned logo – sweating their way through the first week of school, the tiny ones who had bright new uniforms, jumpers that hadn’t been washed a thousand times to get the marker pen and Weetabix off. Bright and shiny. It wasn’t how she felt right now.
She’d read about ‘empty nest syndrome’ in a woman’s magazine recently. But it was more than that. Feelings had been awakened – and they were wriggling about and demanding attention.
She yanked her silk hummingbird scarf further down as her mind wandered. She thought about Ed. How long was it since she’d walked hand-in-hand with him and counted ‘all the red cars’ on the way home from school? The thought made her feel old.
You don’t see it coming, the end of a particular road. You don’t notice how it all is until it’s gone. Silence. Still bedrooms. No dishes on the draining board to mutter about, no odd socks flung across a messy bedroom. No one to kiss goodnight. To hook an elbow around your neck when they are taller than a giraffe. Your man-boy.
Then there was that growing nagging doubt in her mind about…
Suddenly the bus stopped. Maddie gathered her plastic bags and got off the bus as a welcome breeze lifted up the corners of her scarf in the hot wind. Maybank View was only a few minutes’ walk from the bus stop.
She caught a glimpse of herself in the reflection of the bus shelter: brown hair with hints of auburn, a kind face, a lived-in face some would say. Motherly clothes, sensible footwear – no FM shoes in her wardrobe anymore – and shopping bags cutting into her hand. She looked every inch the wife. The sort of person the Salvation Army would expect to donate as the choir sung, wasn’t she? Bugger that, said this new little voice in her head, which was growing louder by the day.
5
Maddie pressed the button in the lift for the third floor with her left hand; in her right she clutched a small posy of dahlias she’d bought at the flower shop – bright yellow, cerise, and red. She knew they’d cheer Olive up. She studied the posters in the lift. ‘Crafternoon sessions’, ‘Giant word search’ or ‘Namaste for beginners – finding your inner religion’. Imagine living here where your world has closed in. Imagine how that must be. What must Olive feel? A woman who had been vibrant, lived on her own terms, in that blissful cottage by the sea. She’d known how to enjoy herself. Had Olive ever worn FM shoes? Maddie stifled a giggle.
She remembered Olive at Ed’s christening. Bright mandarin-orange two-piece suit, chunky beads, dark-rimmed glasses and a pout of pink lipstick. In a certain light she’d reminded Maddie of Dame Edna, had she not been so petite with it. Olive had arranged the whole christening including the reception at the Rose Hotel, a Victorian hotel in Brightwater Bay, a village on the Isle of Wight where she lived, overlooking a spectacular crescent of sand with shimmering seas. Olive had sort of taken over as the matriarch in her world.
Maddie had insisted that Olive go to Maybank View, knowing it was a caring place from her dad’s experience there. I want her near us, Tim. In the end, her father hadn’t known if Maddie was his daughter or a nurse. His dementia had come on quickly. The thought of Olive suffering the same fate terrified her.
And now this for fun-loving Olive. Your social life mapped out for you in the confines of a lift – press three for a bit of peace, four for a quiz and five if you want to go up to the roof and jump off. Maddie shook her head and looked at the woman staring back at her in the smoky lift mirrors, inhaling that ever-present aroma of boiled cabbage. It seemed to follow Maddie wherever she went, at the dinner hall at school, in Olive’s nursing home. Bleuch.
Oh, but they didn’t call it a ‘nursing home’, did they? No, this was Maybank View House, a tranquil-sounding place, as if it was in the middle of the Yorkshire bloody Dales. Actually, it was in the middle of a busy high street and the only view was of the small garden to one side with begonias that really needed to come in for the winter, or, if you craned your neck, of the local fish and chip shop. Maddie sighed, and wondered if these mood swings of hers were due to hormones, empty nest syndrome, age – or all three?
The lift bell pinged, then the doors opened onto the third floor. The carpet in the hall was tartan here, burgundy and green stripes over a blue background. It was threadbare in parts. The whole place was infused with the ma
rkings of an institution. Not like Olive’s cosy cottage by the sea. The memories came flooding back: carefree summer days and nights with Ed staying up too late to look at the stars, ferries, fish and chips and the smell of vinegar on her fingertips.
Olive had lived on the Isle of Wight for most of her life. Stan’s sister, Emily, Tim’s mother, had died young, and his father went through a series of new wives. Tim had been brought up by one stepmother after another. Olive didn’t have much in common with Tim’s father once Emily had died, so they’d drifted apart, but she’d kept in touch with Tim, feeling sorry for the little boy with all those different women in his life. She would invite Tim to Maris Cottage, but Tim’s dad would always find it too much bother to take him.
Olive loved her cottage. She still thought she was going back there. It was a little bungalow with two bedrooms at the back, whitewashed walls outside, and a red-tiled roof. It had a sunny garden at the back where Olive used to put up a paddling pool for Ed and he’d happily play in that garden for hours, whilst Maddie and Olive had cups of tea, watched the blue tits feed on the bird feeder and marvelled at how hot the summer was, moving on to rose wine, woolly blankets and stories from Olive’s past when the air grew chillier.
Maddie pressed the buzzer on the door and waited. She knew it might take a while. Olive kept the TV on very loud, and ever since her condition had been diagnosed, she was very touchy if you mentioned the TV volume.
The door opened slowly and Olive stood there, holding on to the door handle. Maddie caught sight of her holding on to the railing by the door with her other hand, something she had never done before. She was in a straight red skirt, which was slightly baggy on her, and a black jumper. She wore a loop of silver beads round her neck, glinting in the artificial light. Her black-rimmed reading glasses were on top her head.
‘Hello, dear, have you come to visit?’
‘No, Olive, I’m here to read the gas meter!’ She leant in and gave Olive a gentle hug and held out the flowers.
‘Maddie Brown, very funny.’ Olive let out a laugh and hugged her close. Maddie was immediately taken back to the Isle of Wight, to Olive’s ‘front room’, to the huge window that overlooked Brightwater Bay. She breathed in the sweet smell of powder and lavender mixed together – the smell of Olive. Maddie let go of her; she felt even frailer than usual.
‘These are lovely, darling.’ Olive touched the dahlia petals with her bony finger and smiled.
Maddie walked past her and cast her eyes around the small yellow-painted room. Maybank View House liked its residents not to feel they were in an institution; they each had a doorbell (although all the staff had master keys) and there were personal touches about the room, as well as furniture from home and a small ‘kitchen’. But the place reeked of institution, from the faded carpets to the big medical notices in the toilets about removal of sharps and disposal of waste products. It was a far cry from ‘homely’ – but at least it was near and Maddie trusted them. She’ll be near us, Maddie; we can visit.
We. When was the last time Tim had visited?
‘Shall I put the kettle on?’ Maddie glanced at Olive who was standing near her chair. ‘And I’ve brought us some of these!’ She held up a paper bag. Inside were two eclairs, Olive’s favourites. She’d told Maddie that she liked the food at the nursing home, but that she missed her eclairs from the Shore Café at Brightwater, her village on the Isle of Wight.
‘Oh, super, young lady. And I hope they have fresh cream in them, not that synthetic nonsense. I’ll just have a little sit-down. There’s Earl Grey in the tin. Pop these in water for me, there’s a dear. There’s a pan in the kitchen.’
A pan? Maddie took the flowers from Olive and smiled, then filled up the kettle and watched as Olive slowly lowered herself onto her favourite chair. There was an embroidered cream antimacassar on the back of the chair, one of the few things Olive had kept from her old house. Maddie had made a point of buying some new cushions and a blanket for her chair when she’d moved in. To make you feel at home. ‘I won’t ever feel at home in this place, Maddie, not without Stan.’ Stan had died five years before Olive had moved. In fact, if you’d asked Maddie, the day after he died was when Olive started to decline, just a little every day.
‘So what’s everyone up to, dear?’ Olive accepted the (half-full) cup from Maddie who had learnt not to fill it too high in case Olive spilt any. Maddie pushed the little coffee table nearer to Olive and then sat down on the navy-blue bucket chair opposite with her cup of tea.
Maddie placed the two eclairs on a plate each, one for her and one for Olive, and popped them on the table with two thin white paper napkins.
‘Well, Ed’s still away in Bali. He’s working at a surf school there, working in the shop, but when he can he’s in the water learning to surf himself. Says it’s great fun.’
‘Bet it is,’ Olive replied with a mouthful of eclair. ‘And how’s Tim?’
‘Tim’s fine – um, he’s away again. He’s sorry he can’t visit—’ Maddie licked some cream from her fingers.
‘Maddie, don’t apologise for him. He can do that himself, if he ever bothers to visit me.’ She wiped her hands on a napkin. ‘He’s always away, Maddie, don’t know how you put up with it.’
‘Well, yes, the wine business takes up a lot of his time.’
She glanced over at Olive. She wasn’t a hundred per cent sure if Olive was smiling beneath those grey eyes, but she thought perhaps she was. Olive looked different today. Maddie couldn’t quite place it – maybe it was her hair colour? Slightly blue?
‘Your hair looks nice.’
‘Oh, does it, dear?’ asked Olive, touching it at the side. ‘That lovely chap, the cheeky one with a nice bum, Julian, he did it for me.’
Maddie giggled. ‘Well it does, but it looks slightly different.’ Maddie took a sip of her tea.
‘That’s a dip dye. I told him to shove some on today – A Touch of the Sea was the name on the packet!’ Then she put her plate down and turned to Maddie. ‘Imagine, a hair colour about the sea, Maddie. Oh, I miss Maris Cottage,’ she sighed, clutching her necklace. ‘I really do.’ She gazed at Maddie intently then suddenly sat up. ‘Don’t get too lonely Maddie, what with Tim and Ed away, will you, promise me?’
Lonely. Yes, she was lonely, more than she realised.
Maddie had an idea. She whipped out her iPhone and showed Olive a few pictures Ed had posted on Facebook, and found herself getting quite animated explaining what Ed had been up to.
‘There’s a twinkle when you talk about him, Maddie, about what he’s doing.’ Maddie stared at Olive’s papery skin.
‘He’s really living his life, isn’t he?’ Olive sighed, leaning back in her chair.
Maddie stood up to look out the window. How could Olive stand it in here, she wondered, these yellow walls closing in on her. They made Maddie feel smaller every time she visited. And yet Olive had to be safe. Maddie stared out to the beech trees in the garden below. A woman was being wheeled across the lawn in a wheelchair. The garden was in full summer bloom: bright orange begonias, ruby-red fuchsias, patches of burnt-orange nasturtiums billowing in the border, the branches of the trees etching long green fingers into the milky blue sky.
The heat reminded Maddie of the endless summer when she’d first met Greg. Down at Tregardock beach – a little bay tucked away from the tourists on the north coast. You had to take a small rocky track down the hill from the farm. Sometimes they’d been the only ones there. The waves at that bay used to be enormous, foamy. She’d been dumped a fair few times on that beach, but more times than not, she’d ride the waves, feeling like the bravest girl on earth. And the luckiest girl, as she’d sit wrapped in scratchy blue-and-red stripy beach towels, wetsuit down to her waist, with Greg after their surf. Pressed together on a blanket, sand in her hair and between her breasts in her skimpy bikini, not a care in the world. When had she last even been in the sea? They’d been magical memories. Freezing cold water and the hot chocolates at the c
afé afterwards, salt on their skin, to be licked off afterwards. Licked off everywhere…
‘You know, I’ve just been thinking, Maddie.’
Maddie turned around to face Olive. She was sitting bolt upright in her chair. Quite often, Olive’s thinking was taking more and more detours, but it was bound to, at eighty-seven. Yet Maddie had noticed little things, like forgetting the word for ‘buttons’ (the round things, Maddie, on my jumper) to bigger ones like not knowing her room number. Maddie was worried that one day she’d get a call from Clare (or Kind Clare as Olive called her) telling her that Olive had left the kettle on.
Maddie looked around the room. There was a framed black and white photo on the small side table – a smiling, gutsy-looking woman with her head thrown back in laughter in a fifties floral dress, pinched in at the waist – clutching the handles of a bicycle with a basket. It had been taken on the Isle of Wight. Olive had told her it was when she was ‘courting’ her husband, Stan. Where was that woman now, that life? Maddie scanned the room. She was here, her world reduced to a few photos and memories within four touch-of-lemon walls in matte.
‘Yes, Olive?’ Maddie sat back in the chair and crossed her legs.
‘Ed’s living his life and I think you need to too. You don’t want to have any regrets, do you? Especially not any big ones.’ She narrowed her eyes at Maddie.
Somehow this eighty-seven-year-old could see right through her, and what Maddie wanted to know was: how did she know?
6
She walked home with a new sense of purpose. No more regrets. She was going to mend her ways with Tim and she was going to take charge of her life.
She knew Tim would be tired tonight. It was either sales conferences or visiting bespoke wine outlets across the UK on Tuesdays. Her shoes sunk into the chippy stones on their front path, crunching the gravel beneath. He worked very hard. And she was extremely grateful. Wasn’t she?
