Chapter Eighteen
9am, Kitchen
At nine in the morning, Alex pops his head round the kitchen door. “I was thinking about your table settings,” he says looking around the chaos.
“I know it all looks very hectic, now,” I apologise. “But I’ll have it all nice and set up for the afternoon. Wyn and Ricky will get chairs and tables ready.” I indicate the centre of the kitchen
“I have another idea,” Alex says. “Why don’t you serve the tea in the ballroom?”
“Ballroom? Aren’t you working there?”
“Nothing urgent and it’s a nicer space, straight in from the front door.”
“What about all the ladders and stuff?”
“Wyn and Ricky will give me a hand. We can have it all cleared up.”
Wyn is reliable. Ricky is new, but he seems energetic.
“We’ll have the ballroom looking nice, I promise.” Alex insists.
And do they have it looking nice? When I go to have a look at 2pm., it’s as if I’ve walked into a film set.
Last year I played Tatiana in War and Peace , one scene only in which I had to waltz around in an impossibly huge skirt. At the start of the scene, I also had to walk down a curving staircase with ornate banisters. A grand scene, I still have a picture saved on my phone.
This is the same. Obviously without the period clothes and a hundred actors and cameras. The Kendric House ballroom might be smaller than a Russian palace, but the stairs are magnificent. I never noticed the beautiful jade-green and gold mosaic border before; it runs at the base of the walls of the octagonal room. What a vast difference from the grim, over stuffy and smelly care home. I walk around looking at what Alex must have been restoring; I’ve really underestimated him. Each wall has an alcove and Alex has placed a small lamp in each alcove to shine on the colourful murals painted there.
Both Ricky and Wyn have been running back and forth excitedly looking for tablecloths, cutlery and glasses. Every time I asked them, they replied, “Wait and see.” Now I see they’ve arranged the trestle tables in a horseshoe in the centre of the ballroom under the crystal chandeliers. It sparkles, making the cheap white tablecloths and ordinary china seem elegant and expensive.
The biggest surprise, however, is the professor.
He turns up five minutes later with flowers. Lots of them, all wrapped in cellophane.
“Can you find vases for these?” He waves to one of the teenagers.
“We don’t have vases,” Ricky says, looking around.
Meredith comes in with a stack of paper napkins which she ‘borrowed’ from Haneen’s takeaway shop. “As if vases might be hiding on the bare walls.” She scoffs at him. “We can use big glass jar.”. And off she takes him leaving me alone with the professor.
At last, he looks up and meets my eyes. “Alex suggested flowers to make good any deficiencies in the refurbishments.” He doesn’t quite smile. He does but it’s impersonal. The kind of smile a cashier at McDonalds gives you with your food.
“Thank you,” I say.
“The least we can do.” Alex arrives for once dressed in other than his builder’s clothes. “You’ve been working like a demon. And the best news, Llewellyn has rigged up his conferencing gizmo so we can have music, just like tea at the Ritz.”
I turn to Llewellyn. “Thank you.”
He waves my words away. “We all need a posh do to cheer us up. Besides, this is important, isn’t it?” he asks me. “You want it to be a success.”
So, they’ve all noticed. They knew how much this matters to me. And they’ve all come in to help one way or another. I don’t know if I want to hug them or cry.
The least I can do is feed them well. There’s still jam and cream to spoon into small bowls and more sandwiches to cut. The mini van from The Glyn will be here soon, so there’s no time to get emotional.