Paradise Lodge

by Nina Stibbe

  On the Friday of that week, my mother decided she couldn’t cope with being back at work after all and walked in the front door swinging the tot-box and saying she’d had it with the Snowdrop Laundry—they showed no support for working mothers—and she was going to start a pine-stripping business. I helped her drag a painted blanket box and a small varnished desk in from the back of the van and, after Danny had had a bottle and nodded off, she applied a thick layer of Nitromors to the blanket box and asked why I wasn’t at school. I’d had plenty of time to think up an excuse but decided to tell her the truth.

  ‘I couldn’t face it,’ I said.

  She got us both a cup of econo-coffee and, while the Nitromors went to work dissolving the layers of gloss paint and filling the house with strong fumes, we discussed the world: people, life, babies, dogs and school.

  ‘Don’t screw up, Lizzie,’ she said that day, ‘please don’t screw up.’

  ‘No, I won’t,’ I said.

  ‘Promise me I can trust you to have a great life.’

  ‘I promise,’ I said.

  And, at the time, I’d meant it. But then only a short while after that I’d bumped into Miranda Longlady and we’d walked up to Paradise Lodge together and got the job.

  My mother dropped me at work in time for me to start the second part of my split shift. I should have been doing double biology. Later she read me a short story she’d written entitled ‘The Modern Alternative’ about a girl on her way back in time to Ancient Greece, with only a Peter and Jane for guidance.

  9. The Baby Belling

  Mr Simmons was suddenly taken away. He wasn’t fully officially convalesced (paperwork-wise) but the horrible Miss Pitt came and took him anyway. He hadn’t wanted to go and there was quite some struggling and shouting and, if you believe Matron (and you couldn’t always, as you know), Pitt darted him, and she and her pal, the family doctor, took him off. I watched as they helped Mr Simmons over the rickety tiles and down the steps, partially dragging him. She and I locked eyes and although it wasn’t school time, and I was doing nothing wrong, I knew she had it in for me. I shrank away out of habit, and then—realizing that it was her doing something despicable, not me—I stood up straight and watched with my hands on my hips as she protected Mr Simmons’ head before pushing him into the passenger seat of the doctor’s car.

  ‘Drive on, Roger,’ she called. Then she got into Mr Simmons’ Rover and drove away herself.

  Matron was quite heroic and stood in front of the cattle grid with her arms out like Gordon Banks in his heyday. And only jumped out of the way at the last minute.

  Later I was ordered to Room 8 to collect up all Mr Simmons’ bits and bobs. As I folded that day’s paper I was relieved that it wasn’t me who had to break the dreadful news to the owner.

  As well as being sad and disturbing, Mr Simmons’ departure was part of a negative trend—to use the business parlance—because he was by no means the only patient to go. Three others also left around that time. All had gone to Newfields, and the gloomy talk the owner had delivered from the chaise longue began to seem less ridiculous.

  This made the staff furious with the Owner’s Wife. ‘She’s stealing our patients,’ they said. And in a way, it was true. The patients’ relatives would have seen the home’s glossy leaflet and read about all the nice features that I’ve already mentioned (such as the close proximity of Bejam and the giant Co-op) and the less advertisable benefits (such as being permitted to leave your car in the car park free of charge for up to three hours). Previously, patients leaving Paradise Lodge (alive) had been unheard of, so this negative trend was extremely worrying. Especially as no new patients seemed to be forthcoming.

  The departure of Mr Simmons had an immediate impact on everyone. He wasn’t there to keep an eye on the Aga, check we had sufficient tins of grapefruit segments in the larder (and if not, drive down to Flatstone in his car to get some) and keep the kettle hot for tea and coffee at all times of the day.

  Nurse Gwen gave the owner some home truths. ‘The place is going to wrack and ruin,’ she said, or something of the sort. ‘Either you promote me to run the place properly or I have to leave, I can’t work in this chaos.’

  The owner called Gwen’s bluff. He didn’t think she’d really go and he wanted Matron in charge because her relaxed style suited him. So Gwen resigned and then left straight away without working her notice.

  There had been over fifty patients in the home’s glory days, apparently, when almost every day one of the local GPs might refer a male convalescent patient for a six-week post-operative stay and, nine times out of ten, the patient might stay a bit longer—or even forever—because they hadn’t quite bounced back to their former state. Or, in some cases, because they liked the view of the reservoir, the idea of the view and all the goings-on and the scones and the pub and the nurses and The Val Doonican Show.

  Plus, there was a seemingly endless supply of isolated elderly spinsters who hadn’t married. Who, consequently, had no devoted daughter or son willing to help them remain in their own home or to take them in. So, lonely and vulnerable, they came for the views and the setting and the grandness of the old house with its creeper and its chestnut trees and the history and the tiles in the hall and the swirling banister posts and the smell of Pledge in the air. And all the promises of sketching and dominoes and bingo and fresh fruit daily.

  And, as patients aged and died away, they were replenished with new Misses and short-term Misters—until now, until they started to go to Newfields.

  And then, to make matters worse, Miss Boyd suddenly got ill and looked as if she’d need lots of nursing care and maybe the bed with a ripple mattress—which the owner had just sold and would now have to hire back, at great cost, from the cottage hospital. And Nurse Gwen, who had always nursed the very ill patients through their last days and hours, was gone.

  And, as if the house knew something was wrong, the Aga went out and the fuel man wouldn’t give us any coal until we paid the bill and Mr Simmons wasn’t there to speak to him in his BBC voice, which was much prized for its unusual vocal creak and worked well for persuasion and broadcasting sad news.

  The kitchen was cold and we had to cook on a Baby Belling.

  10. The Pound Note

  No one liked Matron very much; I think I’ve made that clear by now. No one saw the sad old woman that I saw. The main problem being that she was an ugly, fat, spiteful bitch and wore a girdle that felt like armour. Also, she was a snob—this was obvious and unhidden. She couldn’t bring herself to use the communal coffee mugs and couldn’t even bring herself to wash her own china teacups with the communal washing-up brush or dry them with the tea towel. She wiped them after use with a piece of kitchen paper and put them in a special corner of the mug cupboard.

  She looked odd, and what a person looks like is the first thing you have to go on. She wore sunglasses inside and said strange, troubling things.

  Her lying was the main problem, though. She thought no one could see her if she covered her eyes, and that made her think it was all right to lie and lie and lie. To be absolutely fair, telling lies in those days was more common. People lied more than they do today. I lied. People were deceitful, like my mother deliberately getting herself pregnant against the ‘no more children’ agreement with Mr Holt and thinking nothing of it and expecting him to think nothing of it. It was before people really believed that honesty was a good thing in a relationship. No one said to a newly-wed woman, ‘Tell him you don’t like the necklace, be honest, tell him you’d like to change it for something else.’ And, ‘Build the relationship on a solid foundation of trust and truth.’ No one said that. It was thought better to smooth things over with a layer of fibs and just wear a necklace you hated.

  Back then, people who didn’t lie were known for it and seemed oddly honest and eccentric, or aggressive.

  Matron’s lying took the biscuit, though. Her lies were like the lies of a child—pointless and self-aggrandizing and without any sig
n of shame and never showing any planning or forethought.

  But for all Matron’s dishonesty, untrustworthiness and snobbishness and nastiness, I believed a few little snippets of what she told me and I couldn’t help liking some bits of her flawed nature, and I liked that she liked me.

  When Miss Pitt had me chucked out of the school netball squad for poor attendance, Matron offered to telephone Miss Barnes, the PE teacher, on my behalf—to say what a great player I was, which I was. And before that—when Miranda and I had played an important match against Longston School—Matron had turned up in her navy Matron’s dress and all the accessories and cheered and cheered, whistled like a man, with her fingers, and called the opposition idiots and cheats. And though her being there spurred us on to win, it was never spoken of afterwards.

  I liked that she always wore the Matron’s dress and never anything else, because why would she when it really suited her? The navy blue and the white piping went well with her Irish eyes and no other colour was so flattering and no other style so easy to wear. And the pockets so handy for cigarettes and lighter and, of course, it took away the uncertainty of what to wear every day.

  ‘Vicars wear their dresses every day and at the shops,’ she’d said, ‘so why shouldn’t I?’

  When Matron had told me on the drive that Mr Greenberg had invited her to become his live-in companion, I’d been pleased for her but felt it likely she was lying. It seemed implausible that this dear old man with his watery eyes, papery hands and his slightly shaky Times newspaper would want anything to do with Matron and her cussing and fag breath and hoop earrings. But something rang true and I hoped it was, because it would be the answer to Matron’s prayers (literally—I’d heard her) and would mean once and for all that she could stop worrying about ending up in St Mungo’s like her strange poor friend—who she never stopped referencing—who’d owned nothing but her name but whose name she could never remember.

  Plus it would get her out of our hair. Also, it was well into the summer holidays by then and Matron’s absence would guarantee more work for me—and Nurse Eileen would surely be promoted to Queen Bee.

  I brought it up with Mr Greenberg on bath day—the subject of his imminent departure. To my surprise, he corroborated Matron’s story fully. He said he was leaving on Friday-week and, yes, a nurse was going with him but he was confused about any more details. Nurse Hilary arrived with a jar of emollient after-bath cream and we heaved Mr Greenberg into the bath. Hilary hung around, which was awful because she told Mr Greenberg to wash his ‘soldier’. And Mr Greenberg didn’t realize she meant his thing.

  ‘Make sure you wash your soldier, Mr Greenberg,’ she chuckled, ‘he’s not going to wash himself.’

  Afterwards Hilary commented on Mr Greenberg’s seeming unreadiness to go home. ‘How’s he going to cope, on his own?’ she asked. ‘He’s never going to be ready in less than a fortnight’s time.’

  ‘Oh, but Matron’s going with him,’ I blurted out, ‘she’s going to become his live-in companion.’

  Nurse Hilary had been busily picking the hairs and flecks out of the Imperial Leather as we chatted but, hearing what I’d said, she froze—except for her eyes, which slowly rolled up and locked on to mine.

  ‘How lovely. I am pleased about that,’ she said, smiling broadly, ‘but, Lizzie, I think we should keep this to ourselves, OK? I don’t think Matron would want this broadcasting just yet.’

  I agreed with Hilary. I mean, as soon as I’d blurted it, I had a feeling I shouldn’t have and was mightily relieved by Hilary’s sensitive response.

  ‘Yeah, you’re right,’ I said, ‘better not say anything yet.’

  ‘No, we wouldn’t want to jeopardize it,’ she said, ‘with things the way they are, financially.’

  Which was exactly right. And though I’d always had a lack of respect for Hilary, I felt a nice bond between us and imagined us becoming friends, chatting, listening to her Jasper Carrott LP, flicking ash into her Betty Boop ashtray-on-a-stand. Which she’d found at the indoor market and had to bring back on the Midland Red and the driver had made her pay a full fare for it—it being so tall and lifelike and needing a seat of its own.

  One day we’d run out of coffee, butter and Tio Pepe. The owner was drinking up the dregs from every bottle in the cabinet and had finished the gin and only had a half-bottle of crème de menthe left to go. It shouldn’t have mattered because the catering grocer was due to call. He had been expected in the morning but arrived late—just after lunch—and then, he parked in the drive and didn’t bring our order to the back corridor as he usually did. He tooted and looked at a clipboard and tooted again.

  The cook went out and came back saying unless the bill was settled right then and there, in cash, he wouldn’t let us have our order.

  Matron stormed out and spoke to him through the driver’s side window. ‘We have upwards of fifty folks here, are you telling me we can’t have our order?’ she bellowed.

  The catering grocer said that was exactly what he was telling her.

  Matron went to the back of the van, opened the doors and heaved herself up. It took him a moment to realize she was in there and then the catering grocer jumped out of the driver’s seat and up into the back. After a lot of shouting, the owner appeared—ashen faced, with his transistor radio to his ear. He went to the back of the van and spoke to the pair inside. The catering grocer jumped out and gently helped Matron down and the three of them leant into the radio and looked as if the world had ended.

  Elvis was dead. That’s what it was. They came into the kitchen and one of them told the cook and she made a jug of coffee with tears dripping into it. Elvis had died and though the owner preferred Wagner and Schubert, music-wise, he said he wasn’t sure he’d be able to survive in a world without Elvis and launched into a sort of Elvis lecture which included the revelation that he and his wife had bought a bunch of Elvis LPs for romantic purposes—her being a bit put off by German operatic song—and although the owner wasn’t a fan of popular music (at all, and didn’t even like David Bowie or the Beatles), Elvis had been the soundtrack to his love-making for twenty years and after his wife had left, and taken the LPs, he’d gone to the Esso garage and bought two Elvis cassettes, Fun in Acapulco and Elvis for Everyone!

  The catering grocer sat at the kitchen table, leaning on his elbows, hands covering his face. I thought he might be trying not to laugh—imagining the owner and his wife having intercourse to Elvis (like I was)—but he was actually moved to tears.

  The owner paused to sip his drink but it was empty and he called out, ‘O happy dagger! This is thy sheath; there rust, and let me die.’ Which is the bit in Romeo and Juliet where Juliet kills herself. I couldn’t quite see how it was relevant—being au fait with the play—but I didn’t say anything and soon the catering grocer broke the silence by half singing, half speaking ‘Love Me Tender’ in a Brummie accent (which was highly relevant). The cook, Nurse Hilary and the owner joined in with the ‘song’ and were all choked up. It was honestly one of the worst moments of my life, worse even than my uncle’s wedding where a woman sang an Italian solo to the bridal couple in front of the congregation. This was much worse because I was being paid to be there and is the closest I’ve come to prostitution. It wasn’t that I doubted the sincerity of their grief, or mocked it. Far from it; it was precisely because I believed it. I quietly and respectfully did the washing-up from lunch so I could turn away and try to block it all out. I gazed out of the window and saw Matron by the grocer’s van having a moment of private sadness and helping herself to groceries at the same time. All day people wandered in to talk about Elvis. Villagers went into the lanes in the hope of meeting someone and to be able to say they couldn’t believe it. ‘Only forty-two,’ they’d say, and, ‘The “King” is dead.’ And so forth.

  The following day, I was dawdling through the village, early for once, and pondering on the days of the week. I’d come to terms with Elvis quite quickly, not being a fan. I noted that Wedn
esdays had always been my favourite day of the week. Partly the name and partly afternoon games and partly because of something to do with Winnie-the-Pooh that I can’t remember now. Anyway, it was a Wednesday and I was just arriving at Paradise Lodge to start my shift and, walking into the courtyard, I saw a troubling sight.

  Mr Greenberg’s Austin didn’t have its car jacket on. And had a whole load of stuff crammed into the back. That wasn’t troubling in itself. It simply meant that today was going to be the big move day for Matron and Mr Greenberg. What worried me was that the stuff in the car included Nurse Hilary’s Betty Boop ashtray-on-a-stand and a crate of Tio Pepe. It wasn’t even that Matron had stolen Betty Boop—I could see why one would, it being an iconic, once-in-a-lifetime possession—but she hadn’t even bothered hiding it with a stolen towel or a counterpane. It was blatant.

  There was a strange atmosphere and then, at coffee break, you could tell Nurse Hilary was on edge. She kept twizzling her bangle. She made sure we were all together around the kitchen table before she blurted out her shocking news. I thought she was going to say, ‘Someone has stolen my Betty Boop ashtray-on-a-stand.’ But she didn’t.

  ‘I have given the owner notice of my resignation,’ she said.

  There was a gasp.

  ‘I’m leaving Paradise tomorrow, to become a live-in companion to one of our gentlemen.’

  Matron, who had been wiping her teacup with a piece of kitchen paper, looked up. ‘Please God, not Mr Greenberg—proprietor of Greenberg’s Bespoke Tailors?’ she said.

  ‘What other gentleman could it be?’ said Nurse Eileen.

  No one was that surprised—well, no one except Matron and me.

  ‘But Mr Greenberg isn’t fit for discharge until Friday,’ said Matron, clutching at straws.