Three Things About Elsie Read online

  THREE THINGS ABOUT ELSIE

  Joanna Cannon

  Copyright

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  The Borough Press

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018

  Joanna Cannon asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018

  Copyright © Joanna Cannon 2018

  Cover design by Holly Macdonald © HarperCollinsPublishers 2018

  Cover photograph © Shutterstock.com

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books

  Source ISBN: 9780008196912

  Ebook Edition © October 2017 ISBN: 9780008196936

  Version: 2017-10-26

  Dedication

  To George and Florrie

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  4.48 p.m.

  Florence

  5.06 p.m.

  Florence

  Miss Ambrose

  Florence

  Handy Simon

  Florence

  Handy Simon

  5.49 p.m.

  Florence

  Handy Simon

  Florence

  6.39 p.m.

  Florence

  Miss Ambrose

  Florence

  7.10 p.m.

  Florence

  Handy Simon

  Florence

  Handy Simon

  Florence

  Miss Ambrose

  8.15 p.m.

  Florence

  Miss Ambrose

  Florence

  8.41 p.m.

  Florence

  9.02 p.m.

  Florence

  Handy Simon

  Florence

  Handy Simon

  Florence

  Handy Simon

  Florence

  9.46 p.m.

  Florence

  Handy Simon

  Florence

  10.01 p.m.

  Florence

  Handy Simon

  Florence

  Handy Simon

  Miss Ambrose

  Florence

  Miss Ambrose

  Florence

  Handy Simon

  Florence

  Handy Simon

  Florence

  Handy Simon

  Florence

  10.13 p.m.

  Florence

  Miss Ambrose

  Florence

  Handy Simon

  10.54 p.m.

  Handy Simon

  11.12 p.m.

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Joanna Cannon

  About the Publisher

  4.48 p.m.

  ‘How did you fall, Flo?’ they’ll ask when they find me. ‘Did you feel dizzy? Were you wearing your glasses? Did you trip?’

  They’ll work as they talk. Putting a cuff around my arm and fastening a plastic clip on my finger, and unwrapping all the leads from one of their machines. Someone will shine a light in my eyes, and someone else will rummage through all my tablets and put them in one of their carrier bags.

  ‘Did you feel faint? Can you smile for me? Can you squeeze my hand?’

  They’ll carry me out of my front room, and they will struggle, because it’s barely big enough for me, let alone these two men and their uniforms. They will put me in the back of their ambulance, in the bright-white, blanketed world they inhabit, and I will blink and crease my eyes and try to make sense of their faces.

  ‘It’s all right, Flo,’ they will say. ‘Everything is going to be fine, Flo.’

  Even though they don’t know me. Even though I have never said they can call me Flo. Even though the only person who has ever called me that is Elsie.

  One of them will sit with me, as we move along the streets, under the spin of a blue light. The light will turn across his face as we travel, and he will smile at me from time to time, and his hand will somehow find mine in the darkness.

  When we get to the hospital, I will be rattled across A&E and taken through red double doors, to people with the same questions and the same bright lights, and they will wheel me down blank corridors and put me through their machinery. A girl at a desk will look up as I pass by, and then she will turn away, because I am just another old person on a trolley, wrapped up in blankets and trying to hold on to the world.

  They will find me a ward, and a nurse with quiet hands. She will move very slowly, but everything will be done in a moment, and the nurse with quiet hands will be the first person to listen with her eyes. The bed will be warm and smooth, and I won’t worry even when the lights are switched off.

  Everything I’ve just told you is yet to happen. None of it is real. Because right at this very moment, I’m lying on the sitting-room floor, waiting to be found. Waiting for someone to notice I’m not here any more.

  I have all this time before they arrive, to work out what I’m going to say. All this time to remember everything that happened, right from the beginning, and turn it into something they’ll understand. Something they’ll accept. You’d think the silence would help, but it doesn’t. The only thing I can hear is my own breath, arguing its way backwards and forwards, and just when I’m sure I have an idea all ironed out, it slides away from me and I have to start from the beginning again.

  ‘Do try to focus, Florence,’ Elsie always says. ‘Concentrate on one word at a time.’

  But Elsie isn’t here to help me, and so I’ll have to search through the words all by myself, because buried amongst them, I need to find a place for the silence. Everyone’s life has a secret, something they never talk about. Everyone has words they keep to themselves. It’s what you do with your secret that really matters. Do you drag it behind you forever, like a difficult suitcase, or do you find someone to tell? I said to myself I would never tell anyone. It would be a secret I’d keep forever. Except now that I’m lying here, waiting to be found, I can’t help worrying that this is my lot. Perhaps the closing words of my chapter will be spoken in a room filled with beige and forgetfulness, and no one was ever meant to hear them. You never really know it’s the final page, do you, until you get there?

  I wonder if I’ve already reached the end of the story.

  I wonder if my forever is now.

  FLORENCE

  It was a month ago when it all started. A Friday morning. I was glancing around the room, wondering what I’d done with my television magazine, when I noticed.

  It was facing the wrong way. The elephant on the mantelpiece. It always points towards the window, because I read somewhere it brings you luck. Of course, I know it doesn’t. It’s like putting new shoes on a table, though, or crossing on the stairs. There’s a corner of your head that feels uncomfor
table if you don’t follow the rules. Normally, I would have blamed one of the uniforms, but I always go over everything with a duster after they’ve gone. There’s usually a need for it and it helps to pass the time. So I would have spotted it straight away. I notice everything.

  ‘Do you notice anything?’

  Miss Ambrose had arrived for our weekly chat. Fidgety. Smells of hairspray. A cousin in Truro. I decided to test her. She scanned the room, but any fool could tell she wasn’t concentrating.

  ‘Look properly,’ I said. ‘Give it your full attention.’

  She unwound her scarf. ‘I am,’ she said. ‘I am.’

  I waited.

  ‘The elephant. The elephant on the mantelpiece.’ I prodded my finger. ‘It’s facing towards the television. It always faces towards the window. It’s moved.’

  She said, did I fancy a change? A change! I prodded my finger again and said, ‘I didn’t do it.’

  She didn’t take me seriously. She never does. ‘It must have been one of the cleaners,’ she said.

  ‘It wasn’t the cleaners. When I went to bed last night, it was facing the right way. When I got up this morning, it was back to front.’

  ‘You haven’t been dusting again, have you, Florence? Dusting is our department.’

  I wouldn’t let her find my eyes. I chose to look at the radiator instead. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ I said.

  She sat on the armchair next to the fireplace and let out a little sigh. ‘Perhaps it fell?’

  ‘And climbed back up all by itself?’

  ‘We don’t always remember, do we? Some things we do automatically, without thinking. You must have put it back the wrong way round.’

  I went over to the mantelpiece and turned the elephant to face the window again. I stared at her the whole time I was doing it.

  ‘It’s only an ornament, Florence. No harm done. Shall I put the kettle on?’

  I watched the elephant while she rummaged around in the kitchen, trying to locate a ginger nut.

  ‘They’re in the pantry on the top shelf,’ I shouted. ‘You can’t miss them.’

  Miss Ambrose reappeared with a tray. ‘They were on the first shelf, actually. We don’t always know what we’re doing, do we?’

  I studied her jumper. It had little pom-poms all around the bottom, in every colour you could possibly wish for. ‘No,’ I said. ‘We probably don’t.’

  Miss Ambrose sat on the very edge of the armchair. She always wore cheerful clothes, it was just a shame her face never went along with it. Elsie and I once had a discussion about how old Miss Ambrose might be. Elsie plumped for late thirties, but I think that particular ship sailed a long time ago. She always looked like someone who hadn’t had quite enough sleep, but had put on another coat of lipstick and enthusiasm, in an effort to make sure the rest of the world didn’t ever find her out. I watched the radiator again, because Miss Ambrose had a habit of finding things in your eyes you didn’t think anyone else would ever notice.

  ‘So, how have you been, Florence?’

  There are twenty-five grooves on that radiator.

  ‘I’m fine, thank you.’

  ‘What did you get up to this week?’

  They’re quite difficult to count, because if you stare at them for any length of time, your eyes start to play tricks on you.

  ‘I’ve been quite busy.’

  ‘We’ve not seen you in the day room very much. There are lots of activities going on – did you not fancy card-making yesterday?’

  I’ve got a drawer full of those cards. I could congratulate half a dozen people on the birth of their beautiful daughter with one pull of a handle.

  ‘Perhaps next week,’ I said.

  I heard Miss Ambrose take a deep breath. I knew this meant trouble, because she only ever does it when she needs the extra oxygen for a debate about something.

  ‘Florence,’ she said.

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘Florence. I just want to be sure that you’re happy at Cherry Tree?’

  Miss Ambrose was one of those people whose sentences always went up at the end. As though the world appeared so uncertain to her that it needed constant interrogation. I glanced out of the window. Everything was brick and concrete, straight lines and sharp corners, and tiny windows into small lives. There was no horizon. I never thought I would lose the horizon along with everything else, but it’s only when you get old that you realise whichever direction you choose to face, you find yourself confronted with a landscape filled up with loss.

  ‘Perhaps we should have a little rethink about whether Cherry Tree is still the right place for you?’ she said. ‘Perhaps there’s somewhere else you’d enjoy more?’

  I turned to her. ‘You’re not sending me to Greenbank.’

  ‘Greenbank has a far higher staff-to-resident ratio.’ Miss Ambrose tilted her head. I could see all the little lines in her neck helping it along. ‘You’d have much more one-to-one attention.’

  ‘I don’t want one-to-one attention. I don’t want any attention. I just want to be left in peace.’

  ‘Florence, as we get older, we lose the ability to judge what’s best for us. It happens to everyone. You might enjoy Greenbank. It might be fun.’

  ‘It’s not much fun when no one listens to what you say,’ I spoke to the radiator.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘I’m not going. You can’t make me.’

  Miss Ambrose started to say something, but she swallowed it back instead. ‘Why don’t we try for a compromise? Shall we see how things go over the next … month, say? Then we can reassess.’

  ‘A month?’

  ‘A re-evaluation. For all of us. A probationary period.’

  ‘Probation? What crime did I commit?’

  ‘It’s a figure of speech, Florence. That’s all.’ Miss Ambrose’s shoes tapped out a little beige tune on the carpet. She pulled out a silence, like they always do, hoping you’ll fill it up with something they can get their teeth into, but I was wise to it now.

  ‘It’s Gone with the Wind tomorrow afternoon,’ she said eventually, when the silence didn’t work out for her.

  ‘I’ve seen it,’ I said.

  ‘The whole world’s seen it. That’s not the point.’

  ‘I was never very big on Clark Gable.’

  I was still looking at the radiator, but I could hear Miss Ambrose lean forward. ‘You can’t just bury yourself in here, Florence. A month’s probation, remember? You’ve got to meet me halfway.’

  I wanted to say, ‘Why have I got to meet anybody halfway to anywhere?’ but I didn’t. I concentrated on the radiator instead, and I didn’t stop concentrating on it until I heard the front door shut to.

  ‘He had bad breath, you know, Clark Gable,’ I shouted. ‘I read about it. In a magazine.’

  There are three things you should know about Elsie, and the first thing is that she’s my best friend.

  People chop and change best friends, first one and then another depending what kind of mood they happen to find themselves in and who they’re talking to, but mine has always been Elsie and it always will be. That’s what a best friend is all about, isn’t it? Someone who stands by you, no matter what. I can’t say we haven’t had our arguments over the years, but that’s because we’re so opposite. We even look opposite. Elsie’s short and I’m tall. Elsie’s tiny and I have big feet. Size eight. I tell everybody. Because Elsie says there comes a point when feet are so large, the only thing really left to do is to boast about them.

  We spend most of our time with each other, me and Elsie. We even opted to eat our meals together, because it makes it easier for the uniforms. It’s nice to have a bit of company, because nothing in this world sounds more lonely than one knife and fork rattling on a dinner plate.

  It was later that day, the day Miss Ambrose gave me my ultimatum, and Elsie and I were sitting by the window in my flat, having our lunch.

  ‘They’ve still not shown their face,’ I said.

  I k
new she’d heard me, the woman in the pink uniform. She was dishing up my meal on a wheel three feet away, and I’m a clear speaker, even at the worst of times. Elsie says I shout, but I don’t shout. I just like to make sure people have understood. I even tapped on the glass to be certain.

  ‘Number twelve.’ I tapped. ‘I said they’ve still not shown their face. They’ve been in there a few days now, because I’ve seen lights go on and off.’

  The woman in the pink uniform spooned out a puddle of baked beans. She didn’t even flinch.

  Elsie looked up.

  ‘Don’t shout, Flo,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not shouting,’ I said. ‘I’m making a point. I’m not allowed to do very much any more, but I’m still allowed to make a point. And that skip hasn’t been collected yet. They need a letter.’

  ‘So why don’t you write one?’ said Elsie.

  I looked at her and looked away again. ‘I can’t write a letter, because I’ve been given an ultimatum.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Miss Ambrose has put me on probation.’ I spoke into the glass.

  ‘What crime did you commit?’

  ‘It’s a figure of speech,’ I said. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘They’ll clear the skip away soon, Miss Claybourne,’ said the woman.