by Maeve Binchy
He would tell her straight out and then phone Chris. And this time no need to go up to the bedroom, saying he needed to go to the little boys’ room, to make the call. No need to go down the road to the phone box on the corner. He would be honest.
Noel could hardly wait to know what Chris would say. Perhaps she would leave home immediately and drive back to her flat in the city. What would there be for her to stay at home for. He would drive around to see her, take a bottle of tonic possibly and a lemon, she’d have gin, it would be silly to duplicate but he did know how she loved a gin and tonic with its ice and slice.
He wished he could see her now. But later, afterwards, he would ask her what it had been like in the hours before he had rung to tell her that he was free.
Chris sat and played a game of electronic ice-hockey with the friend of the family, her father’s partner, who happened to be single, and who also happened to be very nice.
They were the only ones who heard the telephone ring, and he agreed with her that there was no point in answering it. Only very irritating people rang on Christmas Day.
How About You?
MAINLY ELLIE LIKED THEM. THE OLD PEOPLE WHO HAD COME TO live and often to die in Woodlawns, the hotel for retired folk. There were gardens to walk in, a riverbank to explore and a few nice old trees. Not exactly a wood, but still it was as good a name as any other and better than some. The place down the road was called Rest Haven and the one further on was Santa Rosa della Marina. Woodlawns had a little more dignity somehow.
Ellie was popular with the guests. She didn’t call them dear or dearie like some of the carers did. She didn’t speak to them as if they were deaf or mad. She never asked how are we feeling today. She didn’t lower her voice in respect of their old age and imminent death. Ellie would admit to them when she had a hangover or tell them tales about her difficult boyfriend. Eager, untidy and loud, she brought life and energy into their bedrooms with their early morning tea, and into the Day Room with their mid-morning coffee. Her hair was all over the place, because she was always running to be somewhere that she was needed. She spent little time in the staffroom preening herself at a mirror. Ellie prattled on to the guests, asking about their families, she had a natural kindness that more than made up for a sloppy, careless and over-familiar style of going on. She remembered the names of the visitors, too, which was a bonus, and she had a tendency to flirt with some of the sons or grandsons who came to visit the elderly.
Ellie had only been working at Woodlawns for a short while. She was between jobs and her love life was not working out at all as well as it should have been. Yet again there were problems with Dan. He had definitely promised that they would be together for a Christmas holiday and now he was saying it had only been a vague arrangement.
Ellie had spent all her money on clothes for the trip. Now she was flat broke. She had hoped that Dan would ask her to move in with him, but he hadn’t, so she also needed somewhere to stay. She would be as good as gold, she had promised. Kate could rely on her.
Kate very much doubted it. She looked at her younger sister, Ellie. Eager and lively, yes. Trusting and enthusiastic, yes. But reliable? No.
And she had no sense about men. This latest one, Dan, had been no great addition to the scene. Several times he had driven in late at night, hooting his horn just when the residents were going to sleep. Ellie was selling herself short by staying with him. That wasn’t the way to treat men. Ellie was a good-looking woman, she didn’t have to beg like this.
But then Kate was no real example of how a woman should treat a man.
Her own husband had disappeared with a woman much younger than Kate, and somehow without leaving her half of their property. It had not been properly sorted out and never would be. There were still huge debts hanging over Woodlawns. They would need at least five more residents if the place was going to pay for itself.
But of course Donald, Georgia, Hazel and Heather—the very unpleasant hard core of Woodlawns—weren’t making things any easier for anyone. They made life a misery for everyone who came into the place, and staff had left because of them. They alienated newcomers with their complaints about Woodlawns. She would love to have said goodbye to them all, but she couldn’t.
They literally had no place else to go, no family, no friends and no other horizons. They would stay for Christmas when all the others went out. They were particularly trying at Christmas.
Donald would talk about the crime statistics and how different things had been when he was a judge. Georgia would say that no one had any class or style these days unlike in her youth when she was a successful actress, when people really knew how to live.
Hazel and Heather would bicker about the old days when Mummy and Daddy were alive and there were proper standards. It was so sad, when you came to think of it. Four people who could have got something out of life but were prepared to give nothing in return. They would stay in Woodlawns, complaining and resentful while the twenty other inhabitants would go to relatives and friends. Twenty normal people, who had friends or some kind of family ready to receive them. People who would ask Kate to help them order wine or chocolates to take with them as a gift. People who would return with photographs of jolly Christmas Day lunches where the guests wore paper hats.
But not the hard core.
These four would sit, backs rigid with disapproval, waiting for food to be served, food which would be much criticised.
Donald and Georgia would sit at their individual tables. The sisters, Heather and Hazel, would sit together whispering and commenting. It was not the ideal Christmas, Kate sighed to herself. But at least this year she would probably have Ellie to help her. And when the four had retired for the night, maybe they could have a drink together. Normally she managed it all on her own, not daring to ask any of her staff to share the horrors of the monstrous Georgia, Donald, Heather and Hazel at their very worst. But then Kate knew that Ellie might well disappear if the lout Dan crooked his little finger.
She reminded herself that she was only Ellie’s big sister not her mother. Their mother had given up on both of them. She lived on the other side of the country, tut-tutting whenever either of her daughters was mentioned. So Kate was totally unprepared for the phone call that brought the news of her mother’s stroke. It came a few days before Christmas, as the guests and staff were beginning the long, slow business of winding down operations. The stroke was not considered life threatening but one of them should be there. It had better be Kate—Mother and Ellie were more volatile together. So this meant she would have to close Woodlawns.
Kate sighed a heavy sigh. At least it put the shock and flood of racing emotions about her mother onto one side. What would she do with them all? She might get Donald into Rest Haven. She might. But then he was so choleric and bad-tempered and he waved his stick so imperiously . . . Yet Rest Haven had pretensions to snobbery and class. Donald was the most top-drawer of the hard core. She wondered which was going to be harder, persuading Rest Haven or persuading Donald.
And then Georgia? She had been banned from Rest Haven over some drinking incident, and from Santa Rosa della Marina because she said that Spanish and Italians made excellent maids but one shouldn’t have to talk to them socially.
Hazel and Heather might be easier. They weren’t actually old, they were just dysfunctional. If she could slide them in before Rest Haven or Santa Rosa actually realised how filled with hate they were . . . ?
She sat for a while with her head in her hands.
Ellie came in. ‘Hangover?’ she asked sympathetically.
‘Sit down, Ellie.’ Kate told her sister the facts briskly and unsentimentally. No, Mother wasn’t going to die but she would be limited in what she could do. Kate must leave today.
‘I just have to get them settled somewhere before I go.’ She nodded her head towards the dining room.
‘You shouldn’t have to think of all that at a time like this,’ Ellie said. Her face was kind and soft.
Wha
t a pity she wasn’t more reliable, Kate thought. ‘I have to, Ellie, these are the burdens of being a tycoon and running a goldmine like this.’ Kate’s voice was bitter. Everyone knew that it only broke even because she worked such long hours in the place.
‘But couldn’t somebody . . . ?’
‘There is nobody. No money could pay anyone for looking after that lot.’ Kate reached for the phone.
Ellie put out her hand to stop her.
‘I’ll do it,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘It’s only a week, Kate, you go to Mother.’
‘You can’t do it. They’re a nightmare.’
‘Don’t I know it? But I’ll do it for five times my normal wage. Go on, Kate, you can’t get a better deal than that.’ Ellie was eager.
‘What do you need all that money for?’ Kate asked weakly.
‘I thought I’d go to a spa for a makeover. Apparently Dan likes smaller, thinner, younger-looking girls, it turns out.’
‘They all like smaller, thinner, younger girls, that’s the system.’ Kate’s voice was clipped.
‘Right, so it’s all arranged, you go see Mother, leave everything here to me.’
‘I can’t, Ellie.’
‘Think of being on your knees to Rest Haven and Santa Rosa’s and just go!’ Ellie begged.
And Kate began to pack her case.
They were not at all pleased when they heard that Ellie was in charge.
‘A slattern is what we would have called her in my time,’ Donald sniffed.
‘Not even a nurse, just a carer, a servant-class person,’ said Georgia.
‘I suppose she had a row with her boyfriend,’ Heather said.
‘At least she had a boyfriend, which is more than you ever had,’ Hazel snorted.
Kate rang from the airport. ‘I must have been mad,’ she began. ‘My mind is unhinged, otherwise I wouldn’t have left them to you.’
‘Thanks for the vote of confidence, Kate.’
‘Don’t alienate them. Please, Ellie. Woodlawns is all I’ve got. If they leave, we all go under . . .’
‘Safe journey.’ Ellie hung up.
Ellie squared her shoulders and went in to face the inevitable grumblings. It was going to be hard enough to tolerate them over Christmas without the knowledge that the place was in a worse financial condition than she had suspected.
‘I suppose you think that you’re going to skimp on the food and pocket the profit for yourself,’ Donald said, his face purple already at the very thought of it.
‘If she ate less, she wouldn’t have lost her boyfriend,’ Heather said.
‘Tell us how you would know what a boyfriend might like,’ Hazel snapped.
‘This is the last Christmas I spend here,’ said Georgia. ‘Really, Kate Harris has gone too far, letting the staff go off and putting a carer in charge . . .’
‘At least they have a cook in Santa Rosa,’ Heather said.
‘And they have people of one’s own kind in Rest Haven, they don’t let dross in,’ Donald said in a very definite allusion to the fact that Georgia was barred from there.
Ellie suggested that they might all like to eat at one table in the dining room, since there were only four of them. They looked at her glacially and said they were fine as they were. So she carried each individual dish to the different tables, thinking all the time about the wonderful, expensive spa treatment she would have.
She was only twenty-seven—not seriously old, but she would look twenty when all this seaweed and pummelling was over. Dan would wonder why he had ever been slow to commit to her.
Dan.
Would she and Dan ever grow old and difficult like these four sad crabbed people here?
Of course not.
Once they had this early hiccup sorted out, they would grow old together, full of hope and adventure and satisfaction—wouldn’t they? But maybe all these people sitting in the dining room of Woodlawns had thought that once. She watched them sniping at each other, sneering and criticising and laughing little hollow empty laughs of victory over nothing.
All around them the world was gearing up for Christmas. What a waste. What a despairing and pointless waste. She kept her views to herself every time Kate rang.
‘They’re all just fine,’ she lied. ‘How is Mother?’
‘She’s doing very well,’ Kate would lie to her. ‘No, not very much movement or speech yet, but she’s coming along well . . .’ And they would both end the conversations a little consoled.
At least Mother wasn’t actually dying.
At least Woodlawns hadn’t yet burned to the ground.
But it was getting increasingly hard for Ellie to keep her temper. She went into the morning room late one evening because she heard someone playing the piano. There was Donald lost in a world of his own music, eyes closed. She watched him astounded, but he sensed her presence and threw a hard-edged book at her, shouting that she shouldn’t creep up on people.
Georgia went out in the snow without a coat and fell on her face. Ellie had to get her back to her room, remove the turban she always wore and get her into a hot bath. Georgia ordered Bombay Sapphire Martinis all the time and complained at the lack of olives.
Heather told Ellie that no post or mail was to be delivered to Hazel, everything had to come to her.
‘But if it’s addressed to Hazel . . . ?’ Ellie began.
‘You give it to me!’ Heather had said, her eyes so narrow they were almost slits.
And then at dinner Donald started to flick the peas off his knife so that they landed on Georgia’s table. And Georgia retaliated by throwing an entire plate of food back at Donald. Hazel and Heather gathered up their food and retreated to the corner of the dining room twittering in a panic.
Ellie’s heart felt heavy. She had in her hands the future of four people, one eighth of Kate’s clientele. They would all leave. Possibly during Christmas, with maximum publicity involving television coverage. Ellie could see Donald giving interviews and waving his stick as he crossed the road to Rest Haven. She could literally see the interview as if it had already happened, and she could see Kate’s face, too, when she found out what had happened.
And at that moment, after several days of heroic self-restraint, Ellie lost it.
She put down the apple tart and ice-cream on the sideboard and stood hands on hips looking at them all.
‘I want you to know that I have had enough,’ she began.
‘You have had enough? What possible interest is that to us?’ Donald asked.
‘Excuse me, you are a paid person, paid to look after us,’ Georgia explained.
‘I wish the real Miss Harris was back,’ Hazel began.
‘Miss Kate Harris wouldn’t make these entirely unsuitable scenes,’ Heather nodded, agreeing with her sister for once.
‘You call this a scene?’ Ellie said, eyes blazing. ‘Believe me, you haven’t seen anything yet.’
They looked at her surprised. This wasn’t her usual style.
‘You are the most horrible people I have ever met in my whole life,’ she said. ‘There isn’t an ounce of niceness in this room, but do I care? No I do not care. You could have fine lives, you could have friends, you could have family. You all have nice furniture in your rooms, you have people here to look after you all the time, you never say please or thank you. You are so horrible that people have left Woodlawns because of you. You come and sit in the hall complaining about the place whenever poor Kate is trying to show new arrivals around. You wake me at six in the morning asking for lightly boiled egg and toast soldiers, you disturb me when I am getting the dinner by asking for an extra dry vodka martini, you lay down the law about who is to get mail and who isn’t.
‘You have me dragging around from one table to another in a big dining room. You won’t let me put up decorations for Christmas like half the world because it’s vulgar or common or something. You have never once asked how our mother is. Not once.
‘This place wil
l close, you know, obviously it will have to. And you are the cause of it, yes, you four did it together. Well done.
‘But it’s a bit of an own goal isn’t it? It’s your home that you are destroying. Where will you go when this place is sold? Half of you are barred from Rest Haven and Santa Rosa and when the word gets out—as it will—you’ll all be barred.
‘You will end up in some institution, some place smelling of piddle.
‘And it’s your own bloody fault.
‘I’d love to know where you are going to go, yes, I really would. But in the end I suppose I’ll forget you, all of you, and how you wrecked this Christmas for me and for Kate and for yourselves.
‘Now I am going to take this apple tart out to the kitchen and eat it there and to hell with the lot of you.’ And she banged the door with a mighty crash as she left the room.
They stared at each other, stunned. For once none of them could think of anything to say.
In the kitchen Ellie had a large helping of apple tart and ice-cream.
The telephone rang: it was Kate. She sounded tired, but Mother was definitely recovering, all the feeling had returned to her right side.
‘Dare I ask how they all are in Woodlawns?’ Kate’s voice was not strong. Ellie decided to let her have a night’s sleep.
‘Oh, you know, the usual,’ she said.
‘You are marvellous, Ellie, you are a saint. That’s the only word for you.’
Ellie knew there would eventually be other words. But not tonight. She had a large brandy in her coffee. And then an even larger one without her coffee; and then, without going back into the dining room to clear up, she went upstairs to bed.
She woke when the light came in her window. God what time was it?
It was way after nine. Normally she served their breakfasts at 8 a.m.
Ellie brushed her teeth and rinsed with a mouthwash in case she still smelled of brandy, then she scrabbled into her clothes.
