Chapter 17
17
‘Look, Robyn, I don’t know what to suggest,’ Jess said in some exasperation the following morning when, after walking Lola down to the village school, she was back in her kitchen, emptying the dishwasher and tidying up before setting off for yet another session at Hudson House, the care home she’d worked in for years. I’d left Sorrel asleep in bed and gone round wanting advice and company. If I was expecting sympathy, Jess was obviously not about to give it. ‘If you now say you’re not prepared to take up this teaching job, then you’ll have to go and sign on or something. Sickness benefits? Unemployment benefits? Universal Credit? I don’t know, I’ve always worked.’
‘As have I,’ I retorted, stung at her sharp words. ‘There’s never been a time when I’ve not earned a living.’
‘Well, if you’re really not prepared to take up Mason’s offer – although, you know, you did agree you would, and now you appear to be going back on your word – there’s always work on offer at Hudson House. No one ever wants to be a carer.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ I said. ‘I can’t think of anything worse.’
‘Not even teaching?’ she shot back. ‘You want jam on it, Robyn. I suggest you come with me and see if you’d prefer wiping old ladies’ bottoms and holding their hands when they’re frightened, and upset that none of their family is visiting them…’
‘OK.’
‘OK what?’
‘I’ll come with you now.’
‘You just want to be out of the way when Sorrel surfaces,’ Jess said, pulling a face of exasperation. ‘I thought the idea of your being next door was to keep an eye on her.’
‘I can’t be her minder. She’s nearly sixteen.’
‘Oh, I think you can.’ Jess wasn’t letting it go. ‘Mum and I have been trying to do just that while you were in London.’
Ignoring this, I offered, ‘No, really, I’ll come with you. Is there a vacancy?’
‘There are always vacancies in every care home.’ Jess rinsed and wrung out the yellow dishcloth she’d used to wipe down the kitchen worktops before hanging it on the taps. ‘Come on, then; I’ll show you what hard work is. You’ll soon be running scared and begging Mason for that teaching job.’
‘Can I have a word, love?’
‘Of course.’ Jess put down the loaded tray she was carrying and moved to talk to the woman who I guessed to be in her late sixties, and who was now standing nervously in the reception hall of Hudson House. ‘It’s Mavis’s daughter, isn’t it?’ Jess asked, smiling. ‘Mrs Hattersley? How are you? I did go along to Mavis’s funeral, sat at the back in the church, but didn’t manage to catch you afterwards. I’m sorry – I had to get back here to help with the lunches. Come on in and sit down. Oh, this is my sister Robyn.’ Jess indicated with a wave of her hand as I followed in her wake, limping behind her like some unwanted shadow. ‘She’s making up her mind whether she’s going to come and work with us or not.’
‘Rather you than me, love.’ The woman raised an eyebrow in my direction. ‘Absolute saints, these carers; I don’t know how they do it. Jess and the others here are marvellous – absolute saints,’ she said again.
Three hours into my sister’s shift, and amazed at just how much Jess was fitting in, I was beginning to see what Mrs Hattersley meant.
‘I won’t keep you, love.’ Mrs Hattersley addressed Jess once more. ‘I just wanted to ask you a favour.’ The woman, now running a nervous hand through her short greying hair, had obviously rehearsed her opening gambit.
‘Well, I will, if I can.’ Jess smiled encouragingly.
‘So, my dad died.’
‘Oh?’ Jess stared at the woman, apparently in some surprise, and I moved forward to listen. ‘I always thought your mum was a widow,’ Jess said. ‘And had been for many years. I’m really sorry,’ she went on, patting the woman’s arm in sympathy. ‘You’ve lost your dad so soon after losing your mum? I didn’t realise.’ Jess frowned. ‘I don’t recall your dad ever coming here to visit. So, he died recently, did he?’
‘Forty-one years ago, love. I was only in my late twenties when he went. Heart, it was.’
‘Forty-one years ago?’ Jess turned in my direction, pulling a scary face, and I wanted to laugh.
‘And my mum had kept him in her wardrobe ever since. When she came here last year, when she was unable to care for herself any longer, I took him back home with me.’
‘For forty-one years?’ Jess stared and that was when I did start a nervous titter. ‘Mavis had kept his ashes in her wardrobe for forty-one years?’
Mrs Hattersley nodded. ‘Apart from the last twelve months or so – I’ve had him with me since we packed up Mum’s things and brought her here.’ I didn’t like to ask if we could bring Dad with her and, to be honest, by that time she’d forgotten his name, never mind she’d been married to him for umpteen years.’ She gave a little laugh herself. ‘You might well stare, Jess. I’d had words with her ever since, but she’d promised him, in the hospital, she’d always keep him nearby. I reckon it was so’s he could keep an eye on her , rather than t’other way round. If you get my meaning. Anyway, it obviously worked because she never looked at another man. And she were a right good-looking woman was my mum.’
‘She was,’ Jess agreed, nodding her head in my direction. ‘She really was, Robyn. Always insisted on having her hair done and her lipstick on.’
‘Liked a port and lemon – or two – on a night down at The Green Dragon. And bingo. She loved her bingo.’ Mrs Hattersley wiped a tear. ‘Anyhow, as you know, when Mum died, we had a service up at St Luke’s church. They all seem to go through St Luke’s when they leave the care homes round here,’ she went on, almost accusingly, lowering her voice. ‘Rick, that’s my husband, reckons these homes must have got some sort of deal with St Luke’s: you know, two for the price of one or something? I only say that because the parson up there isn’t very accommodating , like. All a bit rushed, we thought. She’d have been so pleased that you managed to get to the service – even if it was a bit shorter than we’d anticipated. She thought a lot of you, Jess. We knew she was in good hands with you around.’
‘Well, thank you, that’s very kind…’
‘So, I’m here to ask you a favour.’
‘Oh? What can I do for you?’ I saw Jess cock her head to one side in what I guessed she hoped was a gesture of empathy.
‘My mum kept my dad for so long because she’d promised him they’d be scattered together.’
‘Right, that’s nice.’ Jess patted the woman’s arm once more.
‘The thing is, I think Mum would have gone happy if she’d known someone from here at Hudson House – well, you really, Jess: you were always her favourite – could be there at the… at the… you know… the scattering.’
We plough the fields and scatter the good seed on the land came immediately to mind and I had to suppress, not only a bubbling-up giggle, but also the impulse to sing the words out loud.
‘That really isn’t a problem, if I can get the time off.’ Jess, knowing I was on the verge of laughing, tittered slightly herself and Mrs Hattersley looked at her somewhat askance. ‘So, what were your mum’s wishes, Kath?’ she finally managed to ask, rearranging her features in her best ‘care home assistant’ face. ‘Where would she like to end up? Do you know?’
‘Yes, I know exactly.’
‘Oh?’
‘The Cow and Calf.’
‘Right. I don’t think I know that one.’ Jess frowned, turning to me where, my knee having started to give me some jip, I’d gone to sit next to one of the residents. ‘Do you know it, Robyn? Is that the pub over the other side of Beddingfield?’
‘A pub ?’ Kath looked slightly put out. ‘I know I said she was partial to a port and lemon, but I don’t want you getting any ideas she was a drinker.’
‘Of course not.’ Jess rearranged her features. ‘So, the Cow and Calf?’
‘And you a Yorkshire lass?’ Kath Hattersley looked even more put out. ‘Ilkley Moor, love. You know, baht ’at ? The Cow and Calf are big stones on the moor that are supposed to look like a… well, like a cow and a calf.’
‘Right. Quite a way out, then? Ilkley Moor? All the way past Bradford and through Ilkley itself. Must be a good hour from Beddingfield, Jess,’ I estimated, while Jess herself appeared to be juggling all her commitments in her mental diary.
‘I was conceived up there,’ Kath said proudly. ‘Mum never told me that until just before she died. My dad had asked her to marry him up there, they got a bit carried away, as it were, and next thing they knew the wedding was being brought forward.’ Kath smiled. ‘I promised her I’d leave her and my dad up there.’
‘Romantic, isn’t it?’ I said, enjoying the story. ‘A bit like Cathy and Heathcliff up on Wuthering Heights?’
Kath shook her head. ‘Sorry, love, don’t know them. Were they in here at Hudson House as well?’ She broke into a smile. ‘So, that’s good: you’ve done this sort of thing before, then, Jess? With this Cathy Heathcliff? Part of the job spec, I suppose?’