Ashes From Ashes

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  “After goodness knows how long in the mud and rain?”

  Ruby sighed. “Alright. I’m going out. I’m bored. I’ll go and buy some cakes at Kate’s place. Coming?”

  An apology seemed the proper response. “I suppose I’m not such a good friend now I’m married,” Sylvia said. “Sorry, beautiful Bluebell. I know I’m boring. But I don’t want a cake, I’m sure she’ll have shut the shop in this vile weather anyway, and I’m waiting for Harry.”

  “To come back from the pub? Honestly, Sylvikins, that’s pathetic.” Ruby pulled a face.

  Sylvia laughed. “He doesn’t come home drunk or anything,” she said. “He went to ask questions about Rohypnol, and that’s a lot easier without me looking for anyone who knows too much.”

  “If the cakeshop’s shut.” Ruby said, sweeping back her hair in faint defiance, “I shall go to the Micro. I can sit at the bar with a cocktail and watch the idiots pulling at those horrid one armed things Rod used to like in Monte Carlo.

  Sylvia was feeling guilty again. “So it’s you who wants to get drunk, my dear?”

  “Come and guard me then.”

  She relented. Ruby had little else to relieve the lonely boredom of getting old. Sylvia said, “Beautiful Bluebell, I shall hold your hand forever on into the horizon and beyond. Let us eat cake.”

  It was Arthur who was clearing the ice crystals from the front doorstep, who looked at both women huddled in their woolly hats, coats, scarves and gloves over thick stockings and boots, who stared a moment, almost as if he didn’t recognise them beneath all the mismatched wool, and finally said, “You going out, ladies? Not the best weather fer jogging, I reckon. Where’s you going?”

  “The cake shop in the village,” said Ruby through her scarf.

  “And then the Micro Casino in Cheltenham,” Sylvia admitted. “For afternoon cocktails.”

  Arthur gave an incredulous frown. “You’s gonna walk to town in this? I hope you knows it’s gonna rain like the blitz.”

  Ruby nodded. “It’ll keep us fit.”

  “It’ll keep yer in hospital,” said Arthur. “Wait a mo, ladies, and I shall give yer a lift.”

  But the shop, however, was shut as Sylvia had guessed. The lights were off, the blinds were down and a large “CLOSED” hung on the locked door.

  The Pitville Casino was around the corner from the park and was known as the Micro by those who would have liked something much larger. Two large circles of clanking fruit machines flashed and glittered with coloured lights and promises of extraordinary riches. The Black Jack and smaller gaming tables seemed unoccupied. In the centre stood the table with its roulette wheel whirling, chips jingling, and the croupier, utterly expressionless, sweeping everyone’s chips back into the banker’s pile. Not many were playing. Three well dressed young men were concentrated on the play. A woman in too much bling for the time of day was sunk at one end while the elderly man with her was looking only at the wheel. More people wandered the fruit machines, some avid, others bored. One elderly woman in pink sat with her nose almost touching the machine and its spinning pictures of fruit, numbers and high pitched exuberance. The woman was neither exuberant nor avid, yet seemed glued to the clanking metal and glass.

  Ruby led Sylvia to the bar, its base raised and ordered two Bloody Mary's. Sylvia would have preferred a cup of tea but didn’t complain. They sat at a small table overlooking the shuffle and grumble of the casino activity.

  “My Beloved Bluebell,” Sylvia said, sipping slowly, “I’ve never known you so bored. Take up golf. Bowls. Reading.”

  Ruby stuck her tongue out. “Bowls would break my back with all that bending. I hate golf. And I do read. Sometimes. And stop thinking I’m some poor dithering old lump who needs help.”

  “That’s exactly what we all are,” Sylvia said, looking over the tomato smears on her glass. “We all need help. I can’t see a thing without my lenses, and I can’t even get out of bed without a kick from Harry.”

  But she was no longer looking at Ruby. She was watching the small and faded woman in pink who had finally moved away from her concentration on one machine, its repetitive dingle suddenly silent. The woman stared around, her glazed stare seemingly blind.

  “What now?” Ruby demanded, attempting to catch Sylvia’s attention.

  “Umm?” Sylvia shook her head. “Nothing. Nice drink. Relaxing. But some people just seem lost, wandering around waiting for money to hurtle into their hands. Like that funny little woman in grubby pink. I don’t suppose you know her?”

  “You think I live half my life in a dump like this?” Ruby glared, and Sylvia laughed. Ruby relaxed and smiled back. “I don’t come here very often,” she said. “I never gamble. Actually, I’d feel silly, and I don’t really know where to put the money. Daft, isn’t it. But I like this little bar, and I like the cheap cocktails, I like being in a crowd. So yes, I’ve seen that woman before. I think she comes here a lot, but I’ve never spoken to her.”

  “She looks”, Sylvia thought a moment, then said, “tragic. Alone. Miserable. Penniless.”

  “Penniless I expect because all her pension goes in the fruit machines.”

  The woman kept walking, very slowly, watching for a machine that attracted her. What her criteria was, Sylvia could not tell nor wanted to. But it was certainly not aimless. After a generalised patter around the room, the woman made her choice, sat in front of a large shining splash of colour and patterns, she pulled her hand from her coat pocket, peered down to count the remaining opportunities, and pushed the first one into the machine’s slot. She pressed the button. Clang. The colours whirled with intense noise. The woman pushed in another disc. Whir, clank, buzz, stop. The woman inhaled deeply but didn’t pause. She slotted in her next coin.

  Sylvia related an old story to Ruby, laughing over both their first husbands and trivialising the horrible details. “He brought a huge sack of potatoes. How would we ever get through that many? That sack would keep a fish and chip shop going for a month. And the silly man didn’t even like mash. But I was so overwhelmed that he’d actually done what I asked, and walked into a greengrocer’s, well, I just thanked him and told him he was a saint. Actually, he was a pig, but I found that out later.”

  “My Rod was a saint,” Ruby sighed.

  “Oh hell.” Sylvia shook her head. “You know he wasn’t. And you hardly ever even saw the man. And you admitted ages ago that he had no end of affairs. He wasn’t ever faithful and jumped into bed with any girl who smiled.”

  “Well, I wasn’t there watching.”

  “Just as well. But I bet you saw it all published in the Mirror.” Ruby looked away. Sylvia returned to watching the pink woman. She had stopped playing the fruit machines entirely, and now looked so lost that Sylvia turned to Ruby again. “I think that woman’s chucked her last penny down the drain. But she hasn’t even walked out. Time she went home, but she hasn’t.”

  “Probably forgotten where her home is.” Ruby wasn’t really interested. “Or now she’s broke and doesn’t dare face her husband.”

  With a sudden scrape of chair legs over the floorboards, Sylvia stood and wandered down the three steps to the dismal floor of chance. The pink coated woman still trotting from one corner to another, her hands clasped before her, the handle of her small handbag clutched between her fingers. Sylvia walked over, stood at her side, and bent down to the small woman’s worried little face. “I don’t want to interrupt whatever you’re doing,” she said softly, “but I’m here with my friend, just having a drink. Would you care to join us?”

  A puzzled fear overtook the small woman’s face. Sylvia waited. Eventually and with a quiver in her voice, the woman whispered, “I’m sorry. I can’t.”

  “I’d love to buy you a drink, or a snack,” Sylvia persisted. “Would you allow that? We’re of about the same age, as I’m sure you can see. It would be lovely just to chat to a new friend.”

  A slow smile oozed into the woman’s eyes. “Really? I should be – so very – ha
ppy. Yes. Yes please.”

  With a gentle hand, Sylvia led her to the table where Ruby looked positively shocked and was muttering under her breath. “This is my lovely friend Ruby,” Sylvia said. “And I’m Sylvia. Can we know your name?”

  Sitting, smiling wider and wider as though transfixed by joy and compliments, the woman said, “I’m Iris. Iris Little. Hello Sylvia and hello Ruby. How absolutely lovely to meet you. I don’t meet people very often, so I’m not very good at chatting, I’m afraid.”

  Having now come closer, Sylvia could see that the pale pink coat was thin nylon, stained in several places, and both the hem and the lining were fraying and slightly torn. Although having come from a bitter winter’s sleet outside, the woman wore neither hat nor gloves, although she had a thin knitted scarf wrapped several times around her neck. A few less visible matters became immediately obvious. “It’s the perfect time for a snack, I think, and a good hot drink. I’m horribly hungry. I’ll call for the menu.”

  Ruby gave a suspicious frown. “Menu? Food? Here?”

  “Well, we could go somewhere else. There’s a small restaurant down the road. But it’s still raining so we’d have to hurry. Please come, Iris. It’s such a pleasure to make new friends.”

  “Freezing and soaking, and far too early for dinner, far too late for lunch, and surely Harry will be looking for you?”

  “We’ll get a taxi home from the café,” Sylvia agreed, and turned again to Iris. “Where do you live, my dear Iris? Will your husband be waiting?”

  The woman seemed unable to answer, not yet having made up her mind regarding disclosure. Eventually she stared down at the table. “I don’t have a husband. He left me.” Pausing, then embarrassed by the short silence, Iris twisted her fingers together. Finally she admitted, “And I don’t have a house. The landlord took it away. It was my fault. I stopped paying the rent. I mean, it was all my fault. I accept that.”

  “Where do you sleep?” Even Ruby was shocked.

  “In the station,” Iris said, half whisper. “It’s covered and sheltered. I wait until all the trains have stopped.” Her voice sank lower. “I wait in the toilets until they lock up. Then I come into the waiting room. I sleep on the chairs.”

  “Well, that makes it easy,” said Sylvia. “Forget that. Please come home with us and have dinner. There’s one empty room upstairs, and I’ll talk to Lavender about it. I’m sure we can arrange something. In the meantime, dinner is always excellent. Wine. Coffee. Central heating in some parts, and a roaring fire in others. How does that sound?”

  She stuttered. “I don’t want to be –”

  “You’re not a nuisance,” Sylvia insisted. “It was me who approached you. You didn’t ask for a thing. But I live in a very nice place, and there’s room for more.”

  Ruby clicked her tongue. “Lavender won’t like it.”

  “Lavender,” said Sylvia, “can lump it.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “I pretend I have an address,” Iris said, huddled gratefully by the fire, a cup of coffee like a hot water bottle between her small wrinkled hands. “That makes me eligible, so I have a pension book. Every fortnight I get a little money. I can pay my rent.”

  “They don’t charge rent here,” said Stella. “It’s a long story, but no need to explain. But with the pension, couldn’t you have rented something already?”

  Iris had a small bundle of soft grey hair which appeared to sit as it wished, and ignore combs and hair brushes. She stared through whitening wisps. “I spend it all – in the machines.”

  “Those disgusting fruit machines?” That was Ruby,

  Iris nodded, blushing. “I’m so ashamed. But I can’t help it. I just have to try. One day I know I’ll win something big enough for a house and meals on wheels, and then a decent funeral. I don’t know anyone anymore so no one will come, but I won’t care. I shall sleep peacefully in my coffin.”

  “Oh bloody hell,” said Ruby.

  Harry had joined them an hour previously as dinner was served. “I’ve arranged everything with Lavender,” he said. “There’s a bedroom with ensuite, used to be where our maid Pam slept. Comfortable, I think, and only one flight of stairs. And breakfast gets served down here tomorrow morning around eight, the smell of fried bacon wakes us all. Breakfast and a good hot cup of tea, and that’s the best start to any day.”

  Iris coloured. “My pension comes on every second Thursday, but that’s nearly a fortnight away. If I could just – ”

  “I’ll show you up there,” said Stella, leaning over the back of the large flowered couch. “I know the room well. I was a friend of Pam’s.”

  “She left?”

  “Yes, in a way.” No one was willing to explain. Iris was too frail and vulnerable to talk of wanton murder. She trotted off behind Stella.

  Ruby shook her head. “She’s addicted to gambling, that silly old thing. I bet she was thrown out of her home because she gambled her money away instead of paying rent. Yet now homeless, we met her back in the casino. And at that age too. I’ve no time for people like that.”

  “I knew someone else with a gambling addiction a long time ago,” Sylvia said. “Though that was betting on the horses. It’s not as easy to break that habit as you might suppose. But it doesn't matter, my dear Bluebell. Bluebells and Irises have never mixed.”

  It was later and in bed that Harry snuggled up, slipped both warm arms around Sylvia’s waist, and murmured into her ear, “Lavender was easier than I expected. But this woman can’t just stay here free forever without doing anything in return. And she’s surely too old to work. And every pension day she’ll disappear back to the casino.”

  “We all need help sometimes,” Sylvia sniffed. “But I suppose we’ll have to cart her off for therapy or something else equally useless.”

  “How cynical of you, my love.”

  “But someone that age can’t sleep on the street.”

  “Lavender said she can stay a week,” Harry added. “So we can think about it in the morning.”

  The bakery and cake shop opened bright and early on a dull and overcast Monday. The winds had swept down from the hills, carrying ice in their hearts. With a huge navy cashmere scarf up to her nose, and the little navy cap drawn down, the only part of Sylvia visible was a pair of brightly attentive eyes.

  The shop was well heated, and Sylvia relaxed. “I thought I’d buy some lovely fresh bread,” she said, “and a multitude of small cakes. Harry and I will have one each, and Ruby will probably eat three. Then there’s Stella and Arnold, and perhaps Percival and Amy, and we have a new guest who needs feeding up. So three for Iris. Perhaps David. Maybe Arthur. Oh, others will crowd around so I might as well buy everything.”

  Kate laughed. “Two hundred?”

  “Fifty. And we can fight over them.” She fished for money, gloved fingers fumbling. “And how’s Maurice? And what about your brother-in-law? Has he gone back to Dubai yet?”

  Kate seemed to consider as if deciding how much to divulge. “No, he’s still here,” she said finally. “But he might not like people knowing that. Likes to keep his business to himself. “

  She wondered why Kate had bothered to tell her. “You must all come to dinner, and bring Mia. And whatshisname, if he’ll come.”

  Wrapping several large blue boxes of mixed cakes, Kate smiled. “Mark wouldn’t ever come. But you’d know him if you saw him. He’s coming to visit Maurice on Wednesday. Fishing perhaps. They both like the cold weather. I suppose living in Dubai really puts you off the heat forever.”

  “I expect everything’s air-conditioned.” Sylvia accepted the boxes piled into two large carrier bags. “But I wouldn’t mind a week in Dubai. Frankly, I’m sick of freezing.”

  “I think it’s going to snow,” Kate decided

  The snow floated in delicate white petals, never reaching the ground but dissolving into the wind before discovering the ice below. It was a short walk back to Rochester Manor, but Sylvia was already crested in soft white crystal
s, and a wet silver sheen coated the tip of her nose.

  Having bustled indoors, she handed the boxes of cakes to Lavender and asked how Iris Little was doing.” Make sure she gets at least one of these cakes, Lavender dear. And do help yourself too. So where is she? Keeping warm, I hope.”

  “Oh, well,” Lavender scrummaged in the large dresser for a platter huge enough for spreading fifty cakes. “Actually, Mrs Joyce, I’m afraid she’s left. She walked out an hour past.”

  Since Lavender only called the residents by their surnames and titles when she knew they were about to complain, Sylvia guessed what would be said next. “She left an explanation of where she’s going? And why did she leave so abruptly, anyway? She should at least have stayed to thank me and say goodbye.”

  “She said goodbye to Mr Joyce, and asked him to thank you on her behalf.” Lavender nodded vigorously, trying to look innocent.

  “Did you throw her out? It was sweet of you to take her for one free night,” Sylvia said, “but I thought you said she could stay a week. But it’s up to you, my dear. Unless someone puts the old dear up in their own rooms, the decision is yours.”

  She sat down. “The cakes look wonderful.”

  “What an avoidance,” Sylvia sighed. “What did she do? Did you catch her stealing or something?”

  Staring at Sylvia, Lavender eventually said, “She wet the bed.”

  Sylvia smiled. “Don’t old people do that occasionally? She’d had a glass of wine and three cups of tea. Don’t we all pee ourselves when we cough?”

  Looking a little ashamed of herself, Lavender said, “I knocked on her door, taking her a morning coffee, to tell her breakfast was available downstairs. She didn’t answer, so I was worried and opened the door. She was wearing that horrid old coat as a dressing gown, but she was naked underneath. Gosh, that was a dreadful sight. The wet sheet was in a pile on the floor, and the mattress smelled vile. I couldn’t help it, I just put the coffee on the table and said she should leave within the hour. She was gone in ten minutes.”