Still You

by Claire Allan

  “Are you here on your own?” I asked when I had eaten my way through two cucumber sandwiches and some shortbread.

  Miss Quigley nodded, stirring an extra sugar into her second cup of tea. “Everyone else is out. Thinking about it, they have been away a while. Maybe they should be back now? There was someone here earlier. She made the sandwiches and told me I wasn’t to eat them till later – not even if I wanted to. She was silly. I didn’t like her.” She winked and laughed, bringing me into her confidence but it struck me that I could be anyone.

  Anyone could have knocked at the door of this grand house in Temple Muse, filled as it was with trinkets and a doddery old woman, and they might well have been mistaken for Charlotte and invited in for tea as well. I shuddered at the thought. Miss Quigley clearly didn’t have the wherewithal to ask for ID or check who was calling at her door. I resolved to get away when I could – just for a minute – to call in to the office and let them know she was more unsettled than we’d expected. Maybe I would contact the famous Mr Hegarty if need be. I couldn’t let this go on much longer.

  “Can I help you at all?” I asked again. “Surely you need a little help? Can I wash up or help you get your night things together? Maybe make you something warm to eat for later?”

  “No, no, you are on your holidays!” she said, clapping her hands together. “Oh, I have missed you so much! Just you sit and drink your tea, my darling Charlotte, and tell me about your adventures.”

  I swallowed hard. I couldn’t exactly make up adventures. “How about you tell me about your day?” I said.

  Áine put a half-eaten sandwich back on her plate, stood up and walked to the sink where I noticed her start to twist the cardigan again with her wiry fingers as she stared out the window to the garden. She didn’t turn back towards me when she replied. “Nothing. There was nothing. I don’t remember … you know … same old …”

  I tried to plaster a smile on my face, to try and force a sense of calmness. She turned to look at me again, and her happy demeanour was gone. She looked scared. Like she had suddenly realised that something wasn’t ticking over the way it should be.

  She looked at me quizzically, as if my face was coming into focus for the first time and it didn’t make sense any more. She started to shake, her face coloured.

  “I … I’m. Where’s Charlotte? What did you do with Charlotte?” Her voice was quiet – but her fear was palpable.

  “Miss Quigley, I’m Georgina. I’m here to help you. Jonathan sent me.”

  “No,” she said.

  “I can show you some ID,” I offered but I wasn’t sure she was lucid enough to take in what I was saying. Still, I didn’t know what to do or how to handle this, so I stood up and reached for my ID and showed it to her anyway, but by now she was backing off from me, frightened, and I felt wretched. I also swore that if I got out of this without some form of post-traumatic stress for either me or Miss Quigley I would tell Cecilia Brightly that I didn’t care about her staffing issues and she simply had to get someone else to take over.

  She made a pitiful sight in front of me – almost cowering, as if nothing made sense and I was the big, bad bogeyman. Baby-sitting, my foot!

  I was never as glad in my life as I was at that moment when I heard the turn of a key in a door and the sound of footsteps on the parquet floor coming towards the kitchen.

  The man – a tall, tanned man in his fifties – was dressed in what was clearly an expensive suit in a charcoal grey which highlighted his salt-and-pepper hair perfectly. Initially I pegged him as handsome.

  His face creased with genuine concern for the woman cowering away from me.

  “Áine,” he said and she looked at him.

  It was the strangest thing – seeing her expression change. It was as if her world, as it was, had come slowly back into focus. Her demeanour changed and, while she was still upset, she reached towards him and pulled him into a hug.

  “Jonathan!” she said. “I didn’t know if you were coming. I was scared.”

  But any notion I had of his handsomeness quickly passed when he scowled at me – very clearly unhappy that his aunt had been so distressed. I felt rotten, really rotten because I knew I had let her down – or Brightly Care had. She should not have been so distressed. Or if she had become distressed I should have had the skills to deal with it. I had flapped around eating sodding cucumber sandwiches and, as it now seemed, making the situation much worse.

  I felt the sandwiches turn a little in my stomach as I reached my hand out towards Mr Hegarty, to introduce myself and try and salvage what I could of the situation. It would be bad news for both Brightly Care and me, if I blew this gig.

  He ignored my outstretched hand though – and barely allowed me the chance to let the words start to form before he turned again to his aunt and pulled her close.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m really sorry.”

  “This woman said she was Charlotte, but she’s not Charlotte, is she? I don’t like her,” Miss Quigley said, and I felt whatever shred of hope I had that this situation could be saved extinguish.

  “I’m Georgina, from Brightly Care,” I said with much more confidence than I felt. “Your aunt invited me in. She called me Charlotte . . . I didn’t know what to do . . .”

  “Do they not train you people any more?” Mr Hegarty’s voice was calm and measured but the intention of his words was unmistakeable. He was angry and it was only a matter of time before his anger was communicated down the phone to my boss. And people like him – in designer suits with their sharp haircuts and menacing voices, who lived in big houses – tended to have the power to get people fired.

  “I’m sorry,” I replied weakly – not sure if it was the right or wrong thing for me to do. Something inside screamed that you should never apologise. Apologising was an admission of culpability – a highway to a P45 and an appointment at the local dole office. The last thing I needed, with Matthew gone and seemingly moving on with his life, was to find myself out of work. I felt like crying myself, making Miss Quigley and her muddled ways look positively calm and collected in comparison.

  “I was told that your aunt was very much lucid. I’m sorry I was a little blindsided. I didn’t expect her to be so confused and I didn’t want to confuse her further. I was just trying to calm her down enough to be able to talk some more. She seemed so together. She had sandwiches, and made tea … but then she became more confused …”

  Jonathan glared at me again before turning back to Áine and continuing with his attempts to soothe her. She seemed to respond to his touch and his soft tones.

  “It’s okay, Auntie Áine, I’m here. And this lady was just being friendly. She was friendly, wasn’t she?”

  Áine nodded, blinking back tears. “But I . . .” she started but trailed off, the conversation losing its way somewhere in her mind. “I want my tea,” she said. “Will I make a fresh pot?”

  “That would be lovely,” he said softly and I watched as she repeated her routine of earlier – shaking the kettle and filling it with fresh water before setting it on the range and setting out cups, saucers and side plates.

  Still Jonathan didn’t speak to me – he didn’t acknowledge me at all. Instead he lifted my file – the pathetically thin file in which I didn’t have a chance to fill in any observations or records – and opened it.

  “What’s this?” he asked – finally speaking to me.

  “This is the information we hold on your aunt.”

  “But I gave more information than this! What does it amount to? A paragraph? ‘Minimal care needed’? Do you think I would pay out the money you lot charge for ‘minimal care’? Do you think I would only want ‘minimal care’ for this woman – who raised me almost as her own?”

  I felt what little remained of my resolve crumple and I forced myself to take a deep breath, determined I would not be reduced to tears even if, in glorious hindsight, I should have pushed for more information. I had known the file was flimsy in comparison
to our usual information.

  I watched as he threw the file on the table, turned on his designer heel and stormed from the room and, perhaps because I was clearly developing masochistic tendencies, I felt compelled by some strange force to follow him. If I’m honest I no longer wanted to be in the same room with Miss Quigley, who was happily making tea and whistling to herself, lest any of my actions be misinterpreted further.

  In the hall I watched Jonathan take his iPhone from his pocket and punch in a number as if the device in his hands needed more than just the gentlest of touches to access its database of contacts.

  He lifted the phone to his ear and turned to glare at me again, which rocketed my body directly into fight or flight mode – very much veering towards the flight side of things.

  “Cecelia Brightly,” he started, “Jonathan Hegarty. I’ve just called in to visit my aunt, who is in an extremely distressed state. One of your so-called care workers is here – and seems to have no clue of what she is doing – not a notion of how to calm her down. I had done everything to make her first day as easy as possible. I made sure she didn’t even have too much to do – had our cleaner prepare some sandwiches and shortbread for a light tea. All so she could take today to get to know my aunt as well as possible but, instead, she has upset my aunt and shown me a half-baked effort at a care file she was supplied with and I have to say to you that I’m less than happy. And, when I say less than happy, you can take that as a massive understatement.”

  I felt a little part of me wither and die right there and then. It shrivelled up as I heard Cecilia try and make what excuses she could. Occasionally Jonathan glanced at me, his glare making me feel increasingly uncomfortable. In fact, as the conversation between the two people who held my employment future in their hands continued, I decided it was time to call it quits and beat as hasty a retreat as possible. If I could just retrieve my files from the kitchen and my fleece which had been hung over the back of a chair, I could be out of there in a matter of seconds. I would just have to go in, in as swooping a movement as possible, and get the hell out.

  Miss Quigley looked at me as I walked in, her face composed in a smile as, sitting at the table, she poured tea. “Are you the girl Jonathan has asked to come and sit with me?” she asked. “I’m Áine. You must call me Áine. What’s your name?”

  I was shocked by how she had calmed down so quickly. How things suddenly seemed so normal at this big kitchen table.

  “I’m Georgina,” I offered.

  “Well, Georgina, you may as well sit down and have a cup of tea and you can tell me all about yourself. Is Jonathan here? I’m sure I heard his voice.”

  “He’s just in the hall. He’s making a phone call.” I sat down opposite her.

  “He’s always busy – that one. Always on the phone.” She laughed, all traces of the scared woman she had been earlier gone. She was back to being the happy woman she had been when she’d answered the door to me. “I like you.” She reached across the table and took my hands in hers. “Maybe you could talk to him about working a little less? Do you know something? You remind me of my sister Charlotte. Isn’t that the strangest thing?”

  I bit back a semi-hysterical laugh and nodded.

  “Have we met before?” she asked, her hands moving to the corner of her cardigan again.

  “No, Áine, I am sure we haven’t,” I replied softly. It wasn’t her fault that things had gone so terribly wrong, so terribly quickly.

  “Well, I am very happy to meet you,” she said. “I don’t get a lot of company these days. I’ve not been well. Jonathan, he comes to visit me. He’s a good boy. Comes most days when he can – but he’s very busy. Did I say that? Always on his phone.”

  She poured milk into the three cups before standing up and reaching into her kitchen cupboard. She poured some biscuits onto a plate and brought it back to the table. “I’m sure he won’t be long – and we can talk about what we will get up to, now that you’re going to be my new companion.” She sat down and pushed the plate of biscuits towards me. “He had our cleaner Maria make those sandwiches there earlier – wouldn’t fill a gap in your back tooth!” She laughed. “He tries. Bless him. Maybe when he’s gone, I’ll put a wee pot of potatoes on – you could help me. He gets nervous about my cooking – just because I left a pot on once. Set the alarms off. There was such a commotion – such a fuss. I was fine.”

  She smiled as she took a sip of tea – and I got a glimpse of the woman she used to be. Young and beautiful – she had definitely been beautiful, I could see that much. I felt sad for the woman she used to be and I felt my heart sink yet again. I wished I wasn’t so soft-hearted – but I knew that I would have to face whatever Jonathan threw at me if I was to keep this scared old woman happy for just that little bit longer.

  Chapter 3

  I pushed open the front door to the smell of lasagne wafting from the kitchen. Eve called to me that she was just making a salad and that dinner would be ready whenever I was, if I wanted to jump in the shower first.

  I offered a silent prayer of thanks to whatever deity was up there who had granted me a teenage daughter in Eve who was not grumpy and who did not appear to hate the very sight of her mother. In fact, since her father had left, Eve had come into her own as my own personal cheerleader and, despite the fact she was in her GCSE year at school and weighed down with homework, she frequently made the dinner for us. Which was a good thing – as my cooking skills left a lot to be desired. Eve, however, was passionate about all things culinary and was never afraid to try something new. Perhaps I was taking advantage of her enthusiasm for cooking by allowing her such free rein in the kitchen – but it saved on awkward silences followed by the pitiful sound of my uneaten efforts being scraped into the bin before the girls made toast “for supper”.

  “You are a saint,” I called to her, as I started to climb the stairs and dream of the shower I was about to take. A little voice deep inside wondered would it be going too far to ask her to pour me a large glass of wine and bring it up to the bedroom. But, as I stripped off and glanced at my tired face in the mirror (another wrinkle, I was sure, and an extra grey hair which I would very firmly blame on Jonathan Hegarty), I decided that self-medicating with alcohol was not the answer. So I self-medicated with Flying Fox shower gel from Lush, which promised to ward off PMS and stress and make me feel sensual and relaxed. Sensual? I almost laughed.

  I was wrapping my hair in a towel and slathering on some moisturiser when my phone rang and I saw that Sinéad, obviously keen on a report on my new client, was calling.

  “Well?” she said as I answered.

  “Well,” I replied, “remember that time when we were at school – and we had to take those enrichment classes with the boys from St Columb’s College. And I walked into the room with my skirt tucked into my knickers and they all laughed and I was so mortified I started to cry which made me even more mortified so that I had to leave the room in case I threw up with the shame of it all?”

  “I promise you I will never, ever forget that day,” Sinéad said, “but I’m worried about where this is going …”

  “Well, if I had a choice between reliving that day again, on a bigger scale – say on national TV – or reliving the last two hours of my life, I would be tucking that skirt as far into my knickers as I possibly could right now.”

  “Oh dear,” Sinéad said, her voice grave.

  “Indeed,” I replied and launched into my tale of woe, which in the retelling perhaps sounded even worse. There I was, essentially pretending to be the sister of this poor woman who hadn’t a notion what was going on and then, to top it all off, the most influential businessman in town walked in and made me feel like a complete moron. Although by the time I reached the point where I told her of his facial expression as he walked back into the room and saw me taking tea with his aunt – who by now was happy as Larry and delighted to have a new friend to talk to – I found I was smiling. A bit. Not much, to be fair, but a bit.

 
; “What did he do?” Sinéad asked.

  “He looked at me strangely – which seems to be his standard look – and then he sat down and drank his tea and had a very pleasant conversation with his aunt about the changing of the season. She told him it was great to see a stretch in the evenings – he agreed. Then she thanked him for getting her a visitor to come in each day – and asked him did he not think I looked like his mother?”

  “And his response?”

  I could tell Sinéad was enrapt. I could visualise her, sitting on her cream sofa in her stylish living room sipping a glass of wine from one of her fancy glasses, taking in my every word. At least I could tell a story.

  “I didn’t quite have to perform the Heimlich Manoeuvre on him but he did choke a bit all the same. Anyway, the upshot is that he told his aunt he wasn’t sure I’d be back because I was very busy and she told him that was a huge shame – because she liked me. I left soon after – and had a text from Cecilia asking me to call into her office first thing tomorrow. Something tells me she doesn’t want to present me with an employee of the month award.”

  “Oh, George,” Sinéad said, using my pet name, one only she and Matthew ever used, “I’m sure it won’t be that bad.”

  “Oh, it probably will – he was really angry, you know. But sure I’ve become quite adept at rolling with the punches these days. I will just have to deal with it. Listen, pet, Eve has dinner ready for me and as I’ve only had a few rotten cucumber sandwiches today I’m starving.”

  “Can you send me a doggy bag down? Or better still clone that girl and send her down?”