Chapter 3
3
LISA
Thank goodness for Matt Spencer. Dr Matt Spencer. Of course, it was de rigueur to call consultants Mr , but Lisa had never understood the logic behind this little anomaly. Why go through all that medical training to gain the coveted title, only to discard it once the professional ladder had been climbed? And Matt, at only thirty-five, must be one of the youngest neurological consultants specialising in rare conditions like her own. But again, Lisa thought as she locked her cottage door and headed down the garden path to her car, thank goodness for the man. He’d arrived on the Green Lea wing of the town’s hospital just before she’d been rushed in with the worst attack yet of the horrible condition she’d been burdened with, and which had ruined her life.
Or was it Jayden who’d done that? Had Jayden Allen – Jess, Robyn and Sorrel’s father – done more to keep her in the situation in which she’d found herself after running away from home as soon as she could, than the porphyria? She’d willingly slipped away with Jayden (indeed, she’d instigated the flight) leaving her parents in that stultifying house in Sheffield, never to return. But no, she couldn’t blame Jayden entirely for keeping her here in Beddingfield for the past thirty years or so. With two toddlers and then, when the older girls had been in their early teens, a third pregnancy, she’d just got on with being a single mum, bringing them up the best she could. Because, with no family to fall back on, no siblings, aunts or uncles around, nor any professional career training, there was little else she could do.
And at least Jayden, constantly touring the UK, Europe and then the world, had never kept her short of money. There’d always been cash in her current account, the mortgage and bills paid on time. Jayden might, more often than not, have been physically absent from the beautiful Yorkshire village of Beddingfield, much more into his music – and presumably his other women – than the daily responsibility of his growing family, but she’d never had to worry about money. She’d been a kept woman , or, she argued silently, eschewing the unpleasant phrase with all the connotations that went with it, rather a full-time stay-at-home mum.
She’d always been there for her girls on their return from school and during school holidays. Except when the symptoms had manifested themselves. When the appalling, panic-inducing seizures had taken hold of her body and she’d had to ring neighbours for help. And when, on a couple of occasions – and here, Lisa closed her eyes, remembering her precious girls screaming in the hands of social services – they had been temporarily taken into care when she was hospitalised and Jayden couldn’t be contacted.
Much easier now to keep in touch of course, but there’d been many occasions when trying to keep her little ship with its precious cargo afloat and sailing in the right direction had threatened to overwhelm her. Then Matt, like a knight on a white charger – OK, a consultant in a white coat – had managed her condition in a way no other medical expert had before. New ideas, new drugs, new thinking about how to deal with what was an extremely rare condition.
Her biggest worry these days was no longer for herself but for her girls. She’d finally got Matt to admit that yes, porphyria could be inherited, one or both parents passing along a genetic mutation to their child, but, as Matt had also told her, although porphyria couldn’t be cured, medicines and certain lifestyle changes would certainly help to manage it.
And so far, neither Robyn, nor Jess, nor Sorrel had shown any disposition to the condition, which usually manifested itself in a first attack between the ages of fifteen and forty-five. Did one ever stop worrying about one’s children, even when they were into their thirties? There was Jess, in a relationship with the wonderful Matt who clearly adored her, and yet Lisa knew her eldest daughter was wavering about her husband and, let’s face it, Dean Butterworth was as much a waste of space as Jayden Allen.
Lisa was spreading her wings. She felt physically and mentally better than she had for years. There was life out there and she was going for it in a way she hadn’t since running away from home a few weeks after her eighteenth birthday. With A levels finished, she’d packed a bag and left, not thinking of the consequences, desperate just to be with Jayden and away from Adrian and Karen Foley, the headteacher and his wife who’d adopted her when she was just a few weeks old. She’d followed Jayden wherever he went. She was his woman, sometimes staying at the odorous flat in Harehills in Leeds, but usually accompanying him and his band around the country and Europe. She’d adored those days and nights on the road, leaving behind the horrible years spent first in Surrey, before moving with the Foleys up to South Yorkshire. Adrian Foley had taken on the headship of the most prestigious public school in Sheffield where she, from the age of nine, was also enrolled. And look where that had led Adrian Foley. Was it any wonder she’d left when she could, without a backwards glance at Father ? Or, come to that, Mother .
Visiting at Hudson House was just the first step in her determination to change her life. Lisa stared at her reflection in the rear-view mirror, rather startled to see, now that she’d experimented with a new blusher and lipstick, the attractive olive-skinned and chiselled face of her younger days. The face presumably inherited from her Indian-born birth mother and English father. Or was it the other way round? She’d never been able to find out, the Foleys refusing to tell her the truth about her actual heritage. Maybe they hadn’t known themselves? Maybe she was a total foundling, and no one had any idea at all where she’d come from? Abandoned on the doorstep of a church? Or a mosque? What was her heritage? Certainly, the Foleys had never answered her questions truthfully, changing their story – her story – at whim. She’d never forgive them for the way they’d brought her up, refusing to tell her who she was. Where she’d come from.
Lisa shook her head slightly to dispel the thoughts and images of her childhood with the Foleys and smiled, thankful that Robyn had finally got round to buying herself the little runaround she needed to get her and Sorrel to school in Little Micklethwaite, as well as up to Harrogate to see this new man of hers.
This had left Lisa free to take her car back and do what she wanted. She’d enjoyed being with these old folks so much yesterday up at Hudson House, she was on her way back up there again now. Jess had laughed at her enthusiasm, said she’d soon be put off if she had to wipe a few bottoms and brush food-impacted dentures, but Lisa was more than willing to give it a go. Who knew? She might even end up with a job up there. Jess was constantly complaining of being short-staffed.
Lisa turned the radio back to Radio 4 from where Sorrel had been listening to Radio 1, put the car into gear and set off.
* * *
‘Mum? Oh, I didn’t think you were serious when you said you were coming back. We didn’t put you off, then?’ Jess, in the middle of trying to persuade Joe that going out into the garden in just his underpants and one slipper was not a good idea, was hovering at the heavy oak front door when Lisa arrived. ‘I don’t want you overdoing things, Mum.’ Jess frowned. ‘Don’t forget how poorly you were just four months ago.’
‘Matt says it’s good for me to get out and about. And I feel absolutely fine.’
‘She’s looking more than fine.’ Joe leered in her direction and Lisa laughed. ‘She’s a grand girl, this friend of yours, Jess.’
‘I’m Lisa, Joe. Hello, how are you? We met yesterday. Do you remember?’
‘Remember, love? I’ve had an ’ard-on ever since you left.’ Joe fumbled suggestively at his boxers and Jess tutted.
‘Don’t go encouraging him, Mum.’
‘She’s a grand-looking woman is this one,’ Joe repeated. ‘D’you know her, Jess, love? Have you met her before? Shall I introduce you to her?’
‘Lisa’s my mum, Joe,’ Jess repeated and smiled, patting the old man’s arm while attempting to steer him back to his room for the rest of his clothes. ‘I told you that yesterday.’
‘Oh, no, I don’t think that’s right.’ Joe frowned, rubbing his hand across his grizzled grey chin. ‘Think you’ve got that wrong. I think she’s your sister.’
Lisa laughed again and Jess, catching sight of one of the male care assistants, beckoned him over. ‘Would you take Joe up to his room, Azir? Help him shower, shave and dress. I just want a word with my mother here.’
Lisa followed Jess down the red-carpeted corridor where fragrant bowls of early-blooming hyacinth were in competition with the scent of beeswax drifting off the highly polished sideboard.
‘Right, Mum,’ Jess said once she’d closed the door on her office. ‘What’s happening with Sorrel?’
‘What do you mean what’s happening with her?’ Lisa felt a tremor of anxiety. Guilt even. Was there something going on with her youngest daughter again? Something she didn’t know about, but should? Lisa closed her eyes slightly, remembering the recalcitrant and mutinous Sorrel of six months ago when she’d been constantly called into Beddingfield High to be bombarded with more of Sorrel’s misdemeanours and her eventual expulsion.
Lisa turned to Jess, who appeared accusatory. Sometimes – in fact quite a lot of the time – Lisa wondered just who was the actual mother and who the daughter. Jess had always appeared older than her years, looking out for Robyn and then Sorrel when Lisa had had to take to her bed once again, and for that she was sorry. Had Lisa’s condition robbed Jess of her youth? Kept her from university? Had it been Lisa’s fault that her eldest daughter had remained in the village with that waste of space Dean Butterworth when she should have been off, spreading her wings? She’d been such a clever girl at school, studying for A levels in maths and sciences just as Lisa herself had done in sixth form at St Mark’s in Sheffield. And yet Jess hadn’t taken up the offered place at Newcastle University and then, pregnant at just nineteen or so with Lola, she and Dean had bought the Hollises’ cottage next door when it came up for sale. Now Jess had spent the last few years trying to make ends meet by working at this care home instead of doing what she really dreamed of doing – running her own catering business. Having said that, Jess was now in charge here at Hudson House, Lisa thought proudly. She’d seen the way the younger care assistants deferred to her. Knew that Jess ran a tight ship for the owners, who left more and more of the day-to-day running of the place to her, not putting in much of an appearance at all these days.
‘Mum, when Robyn arrived home from school yesterday, Sorrel wasn’t in.’
‘Sorrel is sixteen next month. I know she should be getting in some early nights if she’s going to do her best at this audition in London, but she’s been a different girl lately. She’s really buckled down to her schoolwork. You know that. Look how she’s doing in maths with you and Matt.’ Lisa snorted somewhat disparagingly. ‘Dean would never have had the brainpower to help Sorrel with quadratic equations.’
Ignoring Lisa’s dig at her absent husband while attempting to big up Matt, Jess tutted. ‘You do know Joel was set on the night before last?’
‘Yes, of course I do. It was the main story on Focus North last night. And it was all Robyn could talk about once she was back from St Mede’s yesterday afternoon. But you know, while I’ve said all along that the Sinclairs are a bad lot, Robyn appears to really like Joel. When I raised doubts about him, she said to give him a chance; not tar him with the same brush as his notorious family. Sorrel tells me they’re just mates. Nothing more.’
‘She does always say that, yes, I know.’ Jess folded her arms. ‘But, Mum, either way, the last thing she should be doing is always hanging around with him.’
‘They said exactly the same thing about me and your father.’ Lisa found herself suddenly changing her tune with regards her youngest daughter’s friendship with Joel Sinclair. You shouldn’t judge a sixteen-year-old by his family. Look at how judgmental the Foleys had been the one time they’d met Jayden. And it was only the once: she’d been warned never to bring that ‘scruffy, druggy half-caste into our family home ever again’. So, instead, she’d left the family home. Gladly, willingly. Never to return.
Goodness, how times had changed in the thirty years since. No one, but especially educated and professional people like Adrian and Karen Foley, would ever dare speak of someone in such degrading and racist language.
‘Yes, and we still do,’ Jess was saying, bringing Lisa back to the present.
‘Still do what?’
‘Say exactly the same about you and Jayden. Robyn and I’ve been telling you for years to get Jayden out of your life.’
‘Jess, I may have spent too many years waiting for your dad to come back to us, but at the end of the day he’s provided for us when I’ve been unable to work. I’ve not had to chase him through the Child Support Agency for money. Right, enough of me and your father. What can I do to help here today?’
Jess smiled. ‘I never for one minute thought you’d be back again, Mum. Thought one day here would be enough to put you off for life.’ She paused, thinking. ‘So, you could shadow Bex if you want. She’s just finishing off breakfasts at the moment. Don’t forget, you will need to check with the residents before you go into their rooms…’
‘Of course.’ Jess did have a tendency to treat her as some sort of bumbling halfwit.
‘Their dignity and safety are the first things you should be considering. Oh, hang on, Denise looks like she needs something. Denise is Mason’s granny, Mum.’
‘Ah, I was hoping to meet her yesterday. You know how much I like Mason.’
‘He’s back with his wife, Mum. Don’t get your hopes up.’
‘One should always have hope.’ Lisa grinned, heading for the breakfast room. ‘Look at Pandora.’
‘Would you mind helping to serve hot drinks, Lisa?’ Bex, Lisa could see, was torn between wanting to show this ‘helper’ that she, herself, was in control of breakfasts, while being seen to defer to her boss’s mum. ‘We’re very late this morning. It’s already after ten and we’re still at the toast and marmalade stage.’
‘Of course.’ Lisa smiled. ‘Just show me the best way to go about it, would you, Bex?’
Lisa spent the next fifteen minutes pouring tea and coffee at the ten tables of four occupants, passing over jugs of cold milk and bowls of sugar while making small talk and steadying cups in shaking hands back onto saucers.
‘Ah.’ A beautifully turned-out woman pointed a red-varnished talon in Lisa’s direction. ‘Someone new. Lovely! Someone to have a decent conversation with round here instead of being thrust in front of the box to watch Homes Under the Hammer .’ She sniffed disdainfully at the elderly man next to her who was dribbling tea down his front. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake…’
‘What do you want to chat about, Christine?’ Lisa asked cheerfully.
‘Oh, the state of the economy, Brexit, you know…’
‘No one here to do that with you?’
‘All gone to the fecking turf club,’ Christine said crossly. She manoeuvred her wheelchair at speed away from the table, winked at Lisa and, Telegraph to hand, made her way from the breakfast room.
‘We seem to have lost one,’ Bex was saying, frowning.
‘Out the front door again?’ Lisa asked. ‘Shall I go and look?’
‘Possibly. It’s Eloise up on Daffodil level.’
‘Sorry, I don’t think I know who you mean. Did I meet her yesterday, I wonder?’
‘Possibly not,’ Bex said. ‘She’s only been with us since just before Christmas and has been getting very distressed when we’ve tried to persuade her out of her room to join the others at mealtimes or for activity sessions.’
‘What does she look like?’
‘She’s only in her early seventies, blonde hair, tall. She looks a bit like Grace Kelly, apparently.’
‘I’m surprised you know who Grace Kelly is, at your age.’ Lisa grinned.
‘I don’t really. It was Glenys, sitting over there—’ Bex indicated with an egg-smeared fork one of the residents on the far table who was laughing at something her neighbour was saying ‘—who said it. I haven’t a clue who this Grace Kelly is.’
‘Was.’ Lisa smiled. ‘She’s dead now. And does she? Look like Grace Kelly, I mean? Goodness. What on earth is she doing here if she looks like Grace Kelly and is only in her early seventies?’
‘Dementia, I’m afraid. Which can strike at any age.’
‘Can it?’ Lisa recalled how she’d popped up to her bedroom only that morning but, when she got there, couldn’t for the life of her remember what she’d gone there for. That was a bit worrying. Don’t say she was a contender for early onset dementia when she was feeling so well after years of dreading an episode of the porphyria.
‘She’s still being assessed as to which wing she should really be on,’ Bex was saying. ‘Her husband wants her on the dementia wing for specialist care. If you can’t find her, Lisa, you’ll need to tell Jess.’
‘OK, no problem, I’ll pop upstairs first and see if she’s up there.’ Lisa patted the arm of Lilian, the silver-haired ninety-five-year-old who’d clutched at her sleeve all the while she’d been at her table, and moved away towards the entrance. Then she took the flight of swirly-patterned-carpeted stairs to the second floor, which had been divided into en suite bedrooms. This had been a magnificent house at one time. Built, Jess had told her, as so many of these northern mansions were, for the entitled owners of the industrial woollen mills for which West Yorkshire had become so renowned. Lisa walked quickly, stopping at each bedroom door to read the names of the residents until she finally saw the one labelled Eloise. She hesitated, not wanting to intrude on someone’s personal space, especially if they hadn’t felt like joining the others for breakfast, but eventually tapped lightly on the cream-painted door.
‘Eloise?’ she called softly, pushing open the door.
The room was empty, the bed neatly made.