Three Things About Elsie Page 6

  She stood in the middle of my sitting room, although it’s too small to really warrant having a middle.

  ‘Perhaps next week,’ I said.

  Miss Ambrose took a deep breath. ‘Just five minutes, Florence. We’ll walk over together.’

  ‘It won’t be worth taking my coat off.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ she said. ‘However you want to do it.’

  ‘His eyes are very close together.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Justin’s,’ I said. ‘It’s an indication of criminal tendencies. You can tell a lot by how far apart people’s eyes are. I read about it. In a magazine.’

  I stared into her face.

  ‘Florence, I’m quite certain that Justin—’

  ‘And he doesn’t get any thinner, does he?’

  ‘Florence!’

  Whilst she wound all her layers back on, my gaze travelled the room. The dining chairs were pushed tight against the table, and the newspaper was read and folded in the corner. The vase was in the middle of the sideboard. Perhaps slightly off-centre, looking at it. Perhaps just an inch to the left. The newspaper was in the right-hand corner. The vase was an inch to the left. Or was it the other way around?

  ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ I said. ‘I’m staying here. I’m busy.’

  ‘Florence. I thought we agreed?’

  ‘You did all the agreeing,’ I said. ‘I didn’t do any of it.’

  ‘Socialising is just as important as eating and drinking properly. You need to mix with people. If you don’t …’ Her sentence couldn’t find its ending.

  ‘If I don’t, what?’ I said.

  She smiled a frown. ‘If you don’t, perhaps Greenbank really is the right decision for you.’

  I closed my mouth as tightly as I could, because I was worried about what might fall out of it.

  ‘Ready?’ Miss Ambrose tucked her scarf inside her jacket.

  I nodded.

  The last thing I thought of, as she pulled the door to, was the elephant. Staring at the window. Waiting for me to get back.

  I looked for him as soon as I walked in the room.

  I went through all the faces. I did it more than once, because people kept moving around, and I was worried I’d miss somebody out. I even had a walk up and down. Once or twice, someone tried to speak to me, but I refused to involve myself, because if you’re not careful, you find yourself caught and you have to spend the next two hours sitting with someone and inventing things to say. In the end, I found a chair at the back on my own. I was given a cup of tea, that must have been Miss Ambrose, and I balanced the saucer on my knee.

  The room started to fill with residents, with walking sticks and overcoats, and after a few minutes, there was a wall of conversation around me. I couldn’t tell what anyone was talking about, because they were all standing up and their voices wandered away, but every so often, a word would escape and find me. Gardening, I think. And the television. Perhaps the weather. I had used up my conversation on all these subjects a long time ago, and so I stayed in my seat and lived in the middle distance.

  I’d been there a few minutes before I realised Elsie had sat next to me.

  ‘You came, then?’ she said. ‘After all?’

  I held on to the saucer. ‘I didn’t have much choice. Miss Ambrose was in one of her moods. The kind where she doesn’t hear the word no.’

  ‘You’ll enjoy it, Florence. He’s very good, is Justin. He gets everyone singing. Even Mrs Honeyman.’

  ‘He won’t get me,’ I said. ‘He isn’t here yet, I’ve had a look.’

  Elsie glanced across the room. ‘He’s over there, by the weeping fig. He’s just getting his accordion out.’

  ‘Not Justin.’ I looked around before I whispered, ‘Ronnie.’

  Elsie shook her head. ‘I thought we had an agreement that there was no point in worrying until we could be certain.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I didn’t agree with any of that. You made that agreement with yourself. How can you say we shouldn’t worry, when you saw him with your own set of eyes?’

  ‘Even if it is Ronnie, and it may very well just be someone who looks like him—’

  ‘Exactly like him,’ I said.

  ‘—then perhaps we just need to sit tight and batten down the hatches. He may not want anything at all. It might just be a coincidence.’

  ‘He’s been inside my flat.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because he’s moved things around. I’ve a good mind to go over there right now and catch him at it.’

  A pool of quiet spread around us, and a few people looked across.

  ‘Florence, stop shouting. If Miss Ambrose notices—’

  ‘I’m not shouting. I’m making a point,’ I said. ‘I’m not letting him get away with it.’

  Elsie shook her head again. ‘You made a mistake. Forgot where you put something.’

  ‘I didn’t forget. It was the elephant.’

  ‘But it can’t have been the elephant, because elephants never forget.’

  General Jack. Ex-military. Stumbles over his words. Forever wears the same tired grey raincoat. When I looked up, he was leaning on his walking stick and smiling, although his smile always shook a little at the edges. If he hadn’t got a conversation of his own, he had a habit of inviting himself into the middle of other people’s. I always thought of him as general Jack, with a small g, but he said he didn’t even mind that so much, because general Jack made him sound as if he was still a little bit useful.

  ‘It’s not often we see you over here, Florence. I was beginning to forget what you look like.’

  ‘You saw me on Tuesday. I was at Healthy Hearts.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I kept an eye out for you, but you stayed in your flat.’

  Elsie sighed. ‘You told Miss Ambrose to stuff it.’

  ‘Did I? I don’t remember that.’ I looked around the room. ‘Perhaps I should apologise.’

  ‘I’m certain she’s heard worse,’ said Elsie.

  I was still searching for Miss Ambrose when I spotted him. Ronnie. He was at the edge of the room, leaning into the wallpaper, learning about other people’s lives. His arms were folded across his chest and he had the same expression he wore in the yard at the factory all those years ago. He’d always stand alone to eat. When he’d finished, he’d pull a match from his shoe and light up a cigarette. Even then he had the kind of expression that cut a conversation before it had even begun, one that made people look for another face to speak to.

  ‘He’s over there.’ I thought I’d whispered, but people turned again and Elsie closed her eyes and shook her head.

  Jack looked over his shoulder. ‘The new chap?’

  ‘He’s not that new,’ I said.

  ‘Florence.’ Elsie took my arm. ‘I thought we decided to keep things to ourselves for a while. Haven’t we learned from experience that blurting things out isn’t always the best way forward?’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Jack leaned in a little more.

  ‘I know him,’ I said. ‘I know him from years ago.’

  ‘Then let’s invite him over.’ Jack started waving his stick around, but I managed to reach out and put a stop to it.

  Jack sat on the chair opposite, and he searched my face for an answer. I don’t know what made me tell him. It might have been the concern waiting in his eyes, looking for a home. It might have been because Elsie let go of everything so easily, and I needed someone to hold my worrying for me. Or it might have been that he reminded me of my father, with a reassurance that waited for me on old shoulders. Whichever it was, it made me explain about the elephant, and the scar in the corner of Ronnie’s mouth. Although I didn’t tell him everything. There are some things that sit in your mind for so many years, gathering weight, there is no longer an explanation left to fit them.

  He looked at me.

  ‘Well?’ I said.

  ‘I hate to see you distressed like this, Florence.’

  ‘That�
�s not an opinion,’ I said.

  One of the uniforms appeared with a tray. It wasn’t the German girl, it was the one with a thick plait that runs the whole length of her back. Red face. A watch too big for her wrist. I wasn’t in a mind for eating, but I didn’t want to offend her, so I put some sandwiches in a serviette and slipped them inside my handbag.

  ‘Well?’ I said again, after she’d left.

  ‘I think …’ The words took a while to find their way out. ‘I think, if you’re concerned, then we should all be concerned as well.’

  I let out a lot of air and folded my arms. ‘See,’ I said to Elsie. ‘Jack doesn’t think I’m being stupid.’

  ‘No one has even remotely suggested you’re being stupid,’ she said.

  ‘We should tell someone.’ I folded my arms a little more tightly. ‘Miss Bissell. The police. The government.’

  ‘You’re on a trial period,’ Elsie said. ‘What on earth will it look like if we go running to Miss Bissell?’

  ‘I’m on probation,’ I said to Jack. ‘I’ve only got a month to prove to Miss Ambrose that I’m not losing my mind.’

  Jack looked at us both and reached out his hand. ‘I tell you what, Florence. Why don’t we try the thing my doctor always tells me to do?’

  I wouldn’t unfold my arms. ‘What’s that?’ I said.

  He patted my knee. ‘Why don’t we watch, and wait?’

  I did another circuit. Whilst they were all singing about drunken sailors, I could hear Jack and Elsie, even though I was right at the far end of the room. The end where Ronnie was standing. Or where he had been standing, because he wasn’t there any more. I could see the trolley and the noticeboard, and Mrs Honeyman cushioned in an armchair, but the space where Ronnie Butler had been standing was empty.

  ‘Where did he go?’ I whispered.

  No one answered.

  I went into the corridor. The only person I saw was the German girl, who disappeared into one of the rooms. ‘Are you looking for me?’ I shouted, but the double doors swung their goodbye long after she’d vanished. Even reception was empty. Just a telephone that rang to itself, until it was answered by Miss Bissell’s voice, although Miss Bissell was nowhere to be seen.

  Thank you for calling Cherry Tree Accommodation for the Elderly. All calls are recorded for training and monitoring purposes.

  I walked back down the corridor. I followed the singing, until I found Jack and Elsie’s voices again, and as I walked, I looked through the little windows in each of the doors. It wasn’t until I got to the kitchens that I found him. He was standing by one of the trays of sandwiches, taking something out of his pocket.

  ‘He’s trying to poison us.’

  Jack walked us back to my flat. I told him it wasn’t necessary. I was so sure it wasn’t necessary, I told him before he’d even offered, but he would insist.

  ‘Why on earth would he do that?’ Elsie took off her coat and commandeered her usual seat by the fireplace. ‘What possible reason would Ronnie have to poison anybody? You’re going off on one of your tangents again.’

  ‘What was he doing in there, then, tampering with the food?’ I went straight to the window and pulled the curtains to. ‘Why was he in the kitchens?’

  ‘He was probably helping himself to another sandwich,’ she said. ‘Or looking for extra milk. They never give you enough, do they? They skimp on everything.’

  ‘We’re not allowed in the kitchens.’ I sat in the other armchair and glanced back at the curtains. There was a slice of daylight pushing through a gap in the material. ‘It says so on the door. It says staff only. Everything is recorded for training and monitoring purposes. Perhaps they recorded him in the kitchens. They might have monitored him. Perhaps we should ask.’

  Elsie pinched the little space between her eyes and I glanced at the window again.

  Jack reached across and pulled the curtains tighter. ‘Is that better?’ he said, and I nodded. ‘Now, let’s take a step back and think about the best thing to do.’

  ‘A light might be an idea,’ said Elsie. ‘I can’t see a thing in here now.’

  I only realised when I switched the lamp on, when the glow from the bulb stretched into the corners of the room. I’d been too busy worrying about the sandwiches to notice.

  ‘The elephant,’ I said.

  We all looked at the mantelpiece.

  The elephant had disappeared.

  HANDY SIMON

  ‘Ninety-seven?’ Handy Simon looked for a chair to lower himself into, but there wasn’t one available. ‘Ninety-seven?’ he said again.

  ‘Ninety-seven.’ Miss Ambrose stabbed at the manila folder with her index finger. ‘He doesn’t look ninety-seven. Can you believe it?’

  Simon screwed his face up into thinking. He thought about his grandfather, who had been in the St John’s Ambulance until well into his eighties, and the woman from the corner shop who fought off a gang of hooligans with just a walking stick and a phrase she’d heard on the television.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he said.

  Miss Ambrose repeated, ‘Can you believe it?’ and Simon realised it was the sort of question people ask when they’re not actually looking for a well-reasoned answer, but they just want someone else in the room to agree with them.

  ‘No,’ he said, and unscrewed his face again. ‘No, I can’t.’

  Simon looked out into the day room. Miss Ambrose’s office had glass partitions, but they were the kind with a grid all the way across, and it always felt as though you were viewing life through a chessboard. After Justin had packed away his accordion, most of the residents had drifted into the television room, and Gabriel Price sat with his back to them, on one of the hard chairs usually reserved for the staff. He was facing the screen, but from the angle of his head, it was obvious he was looking somewhere else.

  ‘There’s something fishy going on,’ Miss Ambrose was saying. ‘Something I can’t quite put my finger on.’

  Miss Ambrose and her finger weren’t particularly reliable, it had to be said. Miss Bissell, on the other hand, could put her finger on anything, day or night, with the most breathtaking accuracy.

  ‘Perhaps we should ask Miss Bissell.’

  As soon as Simon heard the words, he realised they were the wrong ones. It sometimes felt as though there was a giant hole between his brain and his mouth, and there was nothing in place to stop all his thoughts falling through it.

  ‘We don’t need to bother Miss Bissell with everything, do we, Simon?’

  Simon thought about answering, but decided it was safer to opt for shaking his head instead.

  ‘Keep an eye on him.’ She nodded through the chessboard. ‘And while you’re at it, keep an eye on everyone else as well. Florence Claybourne has been acting most peculiarly in recent days. Perhaps it’s about time we had her assessed for Greenbank.’

  And so Handy Simon became a Mata Hari. Which filled him with both self-importance and self-loathing, all in the same moment.

  Simon had never been a big fan of responsibility. He had spent most of his life ducking around corners to get out of its way, even though there had been times over the years when it had chased him across the horizon for all he was worth.

  He walked across the courtyard towards the car park, and his trainers pushed a path through the gravel. The engine started just as the clock clicked to half past, and a weather forecast sprang from the radio and tumbled around the car. Grey. Overcast. Becoming colder. When he drove out of the main gates, he knew the woman with the Patterdale terrier would be watching the traffic on the pedestrian crossing, and the man in the four-by-four would be lighting his cigarette as he waited. At the bottom of the road, the butcher would be pulling trays from a window, and the woman from the fruit and veg shop would be carrying an A-board before she disappeared it through a doorway. If the first set of lights was green, it meant Simon would only be able to glance at the windows of the car showroom and not stare for a full three minutes. But if he managed to get into second ge
ar by the time he reached the florist, he would get through the second set of lights without them changing back to red. He would remember to swerve to avoid the pothole just after the park gates, and if he was lucky, he would pull into a space right outside the takeaway. The man behind the counter would say, ‘Good evening, Mr Simon,’ and hand him a white plastic bag, and neither of them would say another word to each other until the following week. Simon would eat his food on the settee that evening. His mother was no longer there to stop him, and although the novelty had long since worn away, he still remembered her each time he did it. Afterwards, he would put the white plastic bag and the empty cartons in the pedal bin, and switch out the lights in the kitchen. For a moment, he would stare at the clock on the microwave, and listen to the fridge humming to itself in a linoleum quietness. It never took Simon very long to get to sleep, but that night he would lie in bed and think about the theatre of strangers who made up his days, and he would wonder, perhaps, if they sometimes thought about him too. Because it somehow feels as though everyone is connected to everyone else, even though they perhaps don’t realise it, and he finds the idea strangely reassuring, but Simon would be asleep before he could really work out why.

  FLORENCE

  I saw Elsie look at Jack. There was less doubt in her eyes now. There was no apology, and I didn’t ask for one, because I’d rather it appeared in its own good time.

  ‘I told you he’d been in here. Didn’t I tell you?’ I said.

  Jack walked over to the mantelpiece. ‘I wonder why he chose the elephant.’

  ‘Because elephants never forget,’ I said. ‘He’s making a point. He’s telling us he’s got a long memory.’

  Elsie shot me a look from the corner.

  ‘I’m only telling the truth,’ I shouted.

  ‘I just wish you’d tell it a little more quietly,’ she said. ‘We need to stay calm, Florence. We need to think.’

  ‘I’m making it clear,’ I shouted. ‘I’m not allowed to do many things any more, but I’m still allowed to make things clear.’

  ‘If he really didn’t drown, and it really is Ronnie,’ she said, ‘why do you think he’s doing this now? After all these years?’