Three Things About Elsie Read online

  ‘Don’t people usually lie the other way?’ I said.

  Elsie opened the file, and a newspaper clipping tumbled to the floor.

  ‘I knew I’d heard the name,’ I said. ‘I told you, didn’t I?’

  Have-A-Go Hero Rescues Mugging Victim (97)

  Dan Carter (18) became a hero yesterday as he caught an attacker who mugged pensioner Gabriel Price (97) in broad daylight (both pictured below).

  Mr Price had just collected his pension when he was pushed to the pavement. His cries alerted Mr Carter, who raced to his aid, and managed to restrain the attacker until police arrived. The story has appeared in the national press, and Mr Carter has even been interviewed by the BBC. ‘I just did what anyone would have done,’ he said.

  Mr Price was unavailable for comment.

  ‘Anyone wouldn’t though, would they?’ I said. ‘It was a headline in one of my old newspapers, and it was on the radio. They had a whole programme on acts of kindness.’

  There was very little else. A doctor’s letter about cholesterol. A dentist’s letter about having false teeth fitted. A brief note from social services. Inability to cope. Difficulties with activities of daily living. Poor self-care.

  ‘He looks like he can cope to me,’ I said.

  We looked down the page.

  ‘Ronnie Butler wasn’t born in Whitby,’ Elsie said.

  ‘No, but perhaps Gabriel Price was. If Gabriel Price even exists.’

  We looked again at the photograph in the clipping. It had been taken a few weeks earlier, but despite the grainy ink of the newspaper, there was no question that it was Ronnie who stared back at us from the page.

  ‘It’s a wonder no one spotted him,’ Elsie said. ‘Being in all the newspapers.’

  I stared at the photograph. ‘Perhaps they did,’ I said.

  7.10 p.m.

  Funny things, photographs. They trap you in a moment forever, and you can never leave. There’s one on that little table in the corner. I don’t have many photographs, because no one ever bothered taking them of me, but this is from school. All of us in a row, staring down a camera lens into the future. There’s me on one end and Elsie on the other. Whenever I see an old photograph, I always look for myself.

  ‘There I am,’ I say. ‘I’m there, look!’ as though I’ve bumped into an old friend.

  We’re all in our uniforms, and everyone is saying cheese. Everyone except little Eileen Everest. It was as though she knew she wouldn’t have a future to look into. Run over by a tram on Llandudno seafront when she was seven. I often look at Eileen, imprisoned behind wood and glass, watching us all grow old without her. She never really belonged, even in that photograph. There’s always one child in a class. One who doesn’t fit in. A little soul at the edge of the playground, not knowing where they should stand. You can spot them a mile off. That was Eileen Everest. She was sickly, too. Bad chest. That’s why she went to Llandudno in the first place. We were standing on the town-hall steps, hiding behind our mothers’ coats whilst they had a conversation about how they were planning to go. I was going to tell her all about Whitby and say, ‘Why don’t you visit there instead?’ but I didn’t. Because no one ever spoke to Eileen Everest. It was just something we didn’t do.

  It was the last I ever saw of her.

  Next to the photograph, there’s a telephone, although it never gets used from one week to the next. If I ever need to give my number to someone, I have to look it up on a piece of paper.

  ‘All our residents have access to a telephone.’ I hear Miss Bissell say this sometimes, when she’s giving one of her guided tours. I don’t have access now, not from where I’m lying. I never used it even when I did. I don’t care what they all thought.

  ‘If you continue to misuse the telephone, Florence,’ said Miss Ambrose, ‘we’re going to have to take it away.’

  I didn’t misuse anything. I didn’t ring for any taxis. What would I need with half a dozen taxis, all going to different places? She paid for the pizzas as well, out of the petty cash. She had to, because the man in the red apron wouldn’t leave. I knew it was Ronnie. Ringing up in that soft, whispery voice of his. Pretending to be anyone he wanted to.

  ‘Don’t look at me,’ I said, but she did anyway. She never took her eyes off me when she was handing them round. ‘There’s no point in anything going to waste,’ she said.

  I didn’t have any. I’ve never eaten pizza in my life, I said, and I’m not going to start now. She didn’t even answer me. That’s the problem with Cherry Tree. People sometimes forget that you’re waiting for a reply.

  Another problem with Cherry Tree is there are no cherry trees. I’ve had this out with Miss Bissell on more than one occasion, but she won’t be told. ‘One of them must be,’ is all she can come up with, but none of them is. It’s the kind of name you give to these places, though. Woodlands, Oak Court, Pine Lodge. They’re often named after trees, for some reason. It’s the same with mental health units. Forests full of forgotten people, waiting to be found again. The last time I spoke to Miss Bissell about it, she said we could grow a cherry tree and have a planting ceremony. Invite a celebrity to come and hold the spade, that type of nonsense. Nothing will come of it, of course. It feels like you can call a thing whatever you want to, in an attempt to turn it into something else. Everyone knows it doesn’t change what it is, but it alters people’s view of it, which is perhaps the only thing that really matters. You can’t trust anything to be what it calls itself any more.

  It’s like the day room. It isn’t a day room, it’s an All The Bloody Time Room. Everybody will be in there now and it isn’t daytime. They’ll all be sitting on Dralon settees, living a soap-opera life through a television screen. Someone will lose the remote control in a jumble of cushions, and Miss Ambrose will have to appear from behind her glass and dig down the side of chairs until it’s found. People will doze off and wander off, and have muddled-up arguments about imaginary things, and no one will notice I’m not there. Because I am never there.

  Elsie was forever telling me to join in. She always said, ‘You might enjoy it, if you try.’

  Elsie found it easy, talking to people. If anyone new started at work, she was drawn across that factory floor like an iron filing. I couldn’t do it. You can’t just slip on a different coat and become someone else. So I would leave it to her, and spend my time listening to the leftovers of other people’s conversations. The only problem is, I’ve spent so long standing at the edge that when I finally turn away, I doubt there is anyone in this world who will even notice.

  I do wish that gas fire was on.

  FLORENCE

  It was Tuesday. Tuesday was Healthy Hearts. Fitness Pete had a T-shirt with ‘Just Do It’ on the front, and a talent for making an hour pass very slowly, and so I walked back to the flat before anyone realised I wasn’t there. Thinking filled up my ears, and I almost didn’t hear Miss Ambrose calling my name.

  ‘Florence?’

  And doing a strange little trot on the path behind me.

  ‘I’m giving it a miss,’ I shouted back. ‘I’m not allowed to do many things any more, but I’m still allowed to give things a miss.’

  ‘Florence, I wondered if I might have a little word?’

  I rearranged my face before I turned.

  The trot eventually brought her level. ‘Shall we go to your flat?’ She nodded across the courtyard. ‘To have our little chat?’

  ‘Let’s start now,’ I said. ‘If it’s that little, we might even finish it before we get there.’

  ‘The thing is …’ Her voice slowed along with her pace. ‘I’ve had a complaint.’

  I looked up at the rooftops. A bird sat on the guttering of the day room, and followed us with marbled eyes. It was black, but it wasn’t a blackbird.

  ‘Well, not a complaint as such. More of an observation.’

  It was much bigger. Bigger than a pigeon.

  The bird sidestepped, shifting its weight and listening to us, and hammering out it
s curiosity on the plastic. What do we call you? Bigger Than A Pigeon.

  ‘I suppose observation isn’t really accurate either. Perhaps concern. Yes, that’s it. Someone has expressed concern.’ Miss Ambrose nodded at her final choice.

  I frowned at the bird. ‘Which someone?’ I said.

  Miss Ambrose cleared her throat. ‘Well, it’s Mr Price, to be honest.’

  ‘Mr Price?’ The bird fired itself into the sky, and I could hear its laughter scatter across the courtyard. ‘What has Mr Price got to be concerned about?’

  I held the key to the front door and hoped she wouldn’t notice the tremor at its tip.

  ‘Well, it’s you, actually,’ she said.

  ‘Me?’ I tried to remember what my normal face looked like. ‘Why is he concerned about me?’

  Miss Ambrose winced, as though she’d pulled a hamstring. ‘He says you’ve been watching him, Florence.’

  ‘I watch a lot of things.’ The key stayed in mid-air. ‘The news, the weather forecast, the world pass by.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure.’ Miss Ambrose paused, her eye on the key. ‘But none of them with binoculars.’

  The key fell to the floor. ‘Binoculars? He says I’ve been watching him with binoculars? I don’t even own a pair of binoculars. I wouldn’t know where to start with a pair of binoculars.’

  Miss Ambrose gave me the kind of smile you give to a dog who can’t quite manage to catch its ball. ‘Shall we?’ she said, and nodded at the front door.

  ‘I’ve never heard such nonsense in my life.’ I pulled at my raincoat. I couldn’t find a way out of it.

  Miss Ambrose wandered ahead into the sitting room.

  ‘It’s slander.’ I finally escaped from the coat. ‘I want to speak to Miss Bissell. Get her on the telephone.’

  When I walked into the sitting room, Miss Ambrose was poised by the door, with her mouth ever so slightly open. Her fingers still rested on the handle.

  I followed her gaze.

  They were on the windowsill, their strap hanging against the radiator. Next to them was a brown leather case. Hand-stitched by the look of it. There was a small cloth, too. For cleaning the lenses, I would think.

  Miss Ambrose spoke, but her gaze remained fixed. ‘Shall we put the kettle on?’ she said.

  ‘No one is sending anyone to Greenbank,’ said Jack.

  We sat on one of the benches, the three of us, in a row of thinking. As we watched, leaves broke free from tired branches, and an autumn cemetery lay at our feet. Even the bench felt graveyard cold. An early frost had crept into the wood, and it had left its hiding place and found its way into my bones.

  ‘They’re probably coming for me right now,’ I said. ‘They’re probably on their way.’ Panic abandoned my stomach and climbed towards my throat.

  Elsie said, ‘You’re not doing yourself any favours, Florence, getting in a state. You’re on probation, remember?’

  ‘I didn’t do anything wrong,’ I said.

  She sighed. ‘It’s a figure of speech, that’s all.’

  ‘A crow!’ I shouted. I knew I’d shouted, but sometimes it happens before I can put a stop to it. ‘It was a crow. They can’t send me to Greenbank, because I’ve remembered it was a crow.’

  Jack looked up. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I couldn’t remember what that bird was called. Now I remember. It’s a crow. There’s another one there, look.’

  ‘Does it matter what it’s called? What would you like to call it?’ he said.

  I stared at the crow. ‘Black, Not A Pigeon,’ I said.

  Elsie raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Does it look any different, now you’ve given it a name?’ said Jack.

  I shook my head at Black, Not A Pigeon.

  ‘You’re still here to see it and listen to it, and watch it fly. So does it really matter if you can’t remember what it’s called?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t suppose it does,’ I said.

  ‘So why don’t you sit down, and we’ll try to work out this problem.’

  I didn’t realise I had stood.

  Jack sighed. The breath left his body, and clouds of white thinking drifted across the courtyard. ‘I think you need to tell me about Beryl,’ he said.

  They met at the dance, Beryl and Ronnie.

  I never know where to begin, so I began with that. I told Jack about how, whichever band was playing that week, they would conjure up Al Bowlly and send him spinning across the room. About how we all travelled across a Saturday-night dance floor without a backward glance, before old age arrived and kept us in our seats.

  ‘Elsie and I always danced together,’ I said, ‘before she met her Albert.’

  ‘Who’s Alb—’ said Jack.

  ‘The love of my life,’ Elsie answered before he’d even finished the question.

  ‘She had her head turned by a young man,’ I said. ‘Most of them did.’

  ‘But not you, Florence?’ Jack leaned a little further forward in his seat.

  ‘No. Not me.’ Before I explained, I looked at Elsie for reassurance, for confirmation that my mind hadn’t embroidered on to the memories, because I knew she hadn’t forgotten any of it. ‘Beryl did, though,’ I said.

  Whenever you dance, you see a showreel spin of people as you move around the floor. The stop-start of conversation. Glances across the room. That night, I remember Beryl standing in the far corner, trying her utmost to have nothing to do with us. There were machinists from the factory as well, elbowing attention away from each other by the door, and for all his dislike of conversation, Ronnie Butler was leaning against the stage. Feeding his eyes. Each time Elsie and I turned, the room had moved. People shifted, drinks changed hands, but Ronnie never altered. Some people are watchers. Observers. They stand just a fraction further away from everyone else, but those inches separate them from the rest of the world like an ocean.

  We sat the next dance out. I could see Beryl across the crowd, snatches of her between the dancers. I saw Ronnie walk towards her. She looked up at him, and played with the necklace around her throat, moving the beads between her fingers. The floor turned and I lost them. Even when I lifted myself up and tried to see over the top of people, they had both disappeared. I didn’t realise, until she spoke, that Elsie had been watching them too.

  ‘I know we work with him, but I’ve never liked Ronnie Butler,’ she said. ‘Do you think Beryl will be all right?’

  We both leaned against the wall, finding our breath.

  ‘She’s a grown woman. Of course she’ll be all right.’

  I don’t think it was what I said that made her worry. I think it was the beat of silence before I answered.

  ‘And was she all right?’ said Jack.

  ‘At first,’ I told him. ‘But isn’t everybody?’

  I looked for the next piece of the story, but I couldn’t find it.

  Elsie tapped my arm. ‘You always stayed over at our house on a Saturday night, Florence. You can remember. If you’re going to tell it, at least tell it properly.’

  On the Sunday, Beryl was late to breakfast. When she did get there, she snapped her way through it, fighting with the porridge bowl and the teapot, and anything else that came within an inch of her.

  ‘What’s got your goat?’ Gwen poked at the fire and it replied with thick clouds of smoke.

  Beryl waved her hands around. ‘Can’t you do that when the back door’s open?’

  ‘It needs mending. There’ll be such a song and dance if the fire’s out.’

  ‘Is she awake yet?’ Beryl stopped waving and looked up at the ceiling. We all did.

  ‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘Did you enjoy yourself last night?’

  I hid the question in another sentence.

  ‘What’s it to you?’

  But she found it.

  ‘We saw you talking to Ronnie Butler,’ Elsie said.

  Gwen stopped poking the fire and looked at us both.

  ‘I can talk to who I want,’ Beryl spoke t
o the whole room.

  ‘Florence says he’s a bad sort.’ Elsie looked over at where I sat at the other end of the table. ‘She doesn’t like him.’

  Beryl forced porridge into her throat and stared across at me. ‘Florence doesn’t like anyone. I don’t think Florence even likes herself most of the time.’

  The following week, Beryl brought Ronnie round to meet everyone. He was presented as an achievement. For an achievement, he didn’t speak much. In fact, he got through an entire pot of tea without saying a single word. Beryl did all the talking for him. She asked him a question and answered it herself within a few seconds to save him the trouble, and when she looked across, he only nodded back.

  Even their mother tried to get a conversation out of him.

  ‘Do you know my Charlie?’ she said.

  Ronnie leaned back and shook his head.

  ‘He’ll be as pleased as punch when he finds out our Beryl’s got herself a young man.’

  Ronnie looked over at the mantelpiece.

  Their mother reached for the teapot. ‘He’s away at the moment. Government business.’ She stood and blocked Ronnie’s view of the telegram. ‘He’ll be back. Any day now.’

  We all watched her disappear into the kitchen, and Ronnie leaned further back in his chair. ‘She’s soft in the head, isn’t she?’ he said. ‘Your mam.’

  ‘He’s just shy,’ Beryl said afterwards as she cleared the table. ‘You’ll like him when you get to know him.’

  Neither Elsie nor I had any intention whatsoever of getting to know him, but as it happened, he didn’t give us the chance. Whenever he paid a visit, he moved wordlessly around the house. He watched everyone over the tops of newspapers and fattened himself in silence with someone else’s food. We once caught him in the kitchen, with his feet on the table, shoes pressing into a linen cloth. Before Elsie had a chance to say anything, he removed them. Slowly. Silently. Kicked his boots across the floor.

  ‘Can’t have your father coming back and seeing another man’s feet on his table, can we?’ and he tapped the side of his head and laughed.