Chapter Thirty-Eight
‘Hello. I’m here to see the manager. It’s Ruan Mitchell. I have an appointment.’
On Monday, once he was back in Cornwall, Ruan asked the solicitors where his uncle had spent his final years and decided to take the morning off to go and talk to the manager and staff of the Logan Rock Care Home to see if they could provide any insight into his uncle’s state of mind towards the end of his life.
‘OK, Mr Mitchell. I’ll let her know you’re here. Please take a seat. There’s tea and coffee in the machine if you’d like one. Do help yourself.’
The receptionist spoke softly and cheerfully at the same time, as if she was prepared for all eventualities – which she probably was, considering the vast majority of the residents seemed to be north of ninety from what he’d seen in the gardens on his way in.
Some of the residents had been sitting on benches in the grounds, or by the duck pond in wheelchairs. Others were chatting to each other and a small group seemed to be helping a gardener cut some roses, triggering Ruan’s vaguest memories of helping his mother – though not of meeting Walter himself.
The home itself was a large Victorian manor, similar in size to Tremain House, albeit a hundred years newer. The grounds were beautifully tended with stands of oak and beech, and formal flower beds filled with agapanthus and roses.
Had Walter been fit enough to help tend the roses? Or had he stayed in his room, as reclusive as he always had been once he’d bought out the Pendowers and forced them to move to Porthmellow?
Ruan quashed all fanciful thoughts that Walter had suddenly discovered a passion for gardening, remembering he’d let his own property go to rack and ruin.
Although it was unlikely he’d been well enough to manage the place, physically or mentally.
He never would have agreed to live in residential care otherwise.
‘Hello, Mr Mitchell.’ A tall woman with a blond crop and broad smile held out her hand. ‘I’m Helen, the manager.’
‘Hello. And please, call me Ruan,’ he said, rising from the armchair to shake her hand.
‘Would you like to come into the office? I understand you want to know more about your Great-uncle Walter?’
‘I do,’ Ruan said, feeling slightly like a fraud when he hadn’t known the man at all. Helen must surely wonder why Ruan had never visited while Walter was alive. ‘He was here until he passed away, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes, he was. He was eighty-eight when he died, suffering from Alzheimer’s.’
‘Was he on his own?’ Ruan asked.
‘If you mean did any relatives or friends visit him, then no, but his care team were there, including Kyra, who knew him well. He passed away peacefully in his bed here.’
Ruan paused, feeling desperately sad that, even though the man was thoroughly unpleasant, he’d died without anyone close to him because he’d driven them all away. He was grateful to the care home staff for being there.
‘He had an advanced care plan when he arrived and he was able to sign it then, saying he wished to stay in the home, not go to hospital. Someone is always with a resident at the end of their lives,’ Helen went on.
‘I’m glad he didn’t die alone in his house,’ Ruan said, feeling a sense of loss for a man he’d never known.
‘Our residents, including Walter, are like family to the care staff. After the death, all the staff usually go into the room to say goodbye and the window is opened to let their soul fly free.’
Ruan found himself very touched by the staff’s kindness towards such a man as his uncle.
‘Thank you for telling me that. That’s the reason I’m here really, to try to find out a little more about his last years.
I wasn’t close to my great-uncle. Unfortunately, from what I hear from my family, he could be a very difficult, cold and reclusive man. ’
‘I must admit we’d worked out that his conscience was troubling him,’ Helen said. ‘From the time he joined us, he would often get agitated and upset about the past. He’d often tell us he’d “wronged people” and sometimes start crying about it.’
‘That’s awful,’ Ruan said. ‘I mean that he could have had a more fulfilling life and chose not to. I only ever met him once when he visited my parents. I was probably only around six or seven. After that, I never heard from him again until the executors told me he’d left me the house.’
‘Sounds as if he acted on his regrets,’ Helen said. ‘I’m afraid we hear a lot of very poignant stories like that.’
‘I feel guilty that I never spoke to him about his decision or thanked him for his change of heart.’
‘You couldn’t have possibly known he was ill. Maybe he left it to you to make amends.’
‘If only he’d reached out before he was so ill and told us his intentions. I would have come to see him – and my parents too – and tried to understand him better and ease his mind.’
Helen patted Ruan’s arm. ‘Accept your good fortune and that it came from a good place in the end.’
‘Yes … Can I ask if he mentioned anyone specifically by name that he’d wronged?’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that. You could talk to Kyra. She’s around somewhere.’
‘Would she mind?’
‘I shouldn’t think so. I’ll ask her.’
Helen came back with a slender young woman in a tabard. She was only in her early twenties and seemed a little in awe of Ruan when Helen left them to talk in the office. She was probably desperate to get back to her work.
‘Helen says you wanted to talk to me about Walter?’ she said in a warm northern accent.
‘Yes, if you don’t mind. I’m a distant relative and I was trying to find out a bit more about his final days. If he mentioned any of the family – or his friends.’
‘Hmm. Yes, lots of names, but he wasn’t lucid very often.
He talked about lots of people. He could get very agitated and upset and we had to try and soothe him.
I asked him who these people were a few times to try and encourage him to talk more, but he found it hard to explain.
’ She shrugged wearily. ‘It was very difficult for him to communicate. All he did was stare out of the window at the garden. We had to move his chair and then his bed so he could see the flowers. That was the only thing that soothed him.’
‘That’s such a shame,’ Ruan said, thinking of the tangled mass of blooms and thorns that he’d been about to clear.
‘Was there anyone in particular he mentioned?’ Ruan tried again. ‘Fiona and Robert Mitchell, my father and mother?’
She frowned. ‘Sorry. They don’t ring a bell.’
‘What about Neil?’ he asked. ‘Neil Pendower.’
Her eyes lit with recognition. ‘Oh yes, he mentioned a Neil and that surname. I’m from Hull and I always thought it was such a funny name – not down here of course – very Cornish. Hmm, I remember that. Pendower. He used to get very upset when he mentioned Neil. Poor old Walter.’
‘Yes. It’s all so sad. Did he ever mention a Tammy? Or Tamara?’
She frowned. ‘I don’t think so. Only Neil from what I recall. He mentioned his own parents a couple of times. Mother and Father, he called them, all very formal. I don’t think his childhood was happy because he’d become distressed, angry – sometimes he’d cry. It was upsetting to see.’
Kyra’s phone buzzed in the pocket of her tabard. Instinctively, her hand went to her pocket and she mouthed ‘Sorry’, glanced at the screen, but ended the call anyway.
Ruan felt deeply grateful to her. ‘I won’t keep you any longer. Thanks so much for helping me.’
Her eyebrows shot up. ‘Have I?’
‘Oh yes, you and Helen. And please pass on my thanks to all the staff for taking care of Great-uncle Walter.’
‘You’re very welcome,’ Kyra said, almost bubbly now that she could answer her phone and get on with her job.
She showed Ruan out of the office to reception where Helen was saying goodbye to some relatives.
‘Was Kyra able to help?’ Helen asked when Kyra and the visitors had left.
‘Definitely.’
‘Good. Is there anything else we can do for you?’
Conscious that he’d taken up too much of their day already, Ruan reluctantly said, ‘No thanks, but thank you for your time, and to your whole team for everything.’
He walked back across the forecourt towards the car park, catching the scent of the roses in the air and wondering if Walter had noticed it, even at the end. Did they leave his window open or wheel him out here so he could enjoy the flowers? He should have asked while he had a chance.
‘Mr Mitchell!’ Helen was carrying a cardboard box and Ruan met her halfway across the car park.
‘I’m sorry but I’d forgotten about this.
Kyra reminded me. Your uncle didn’t have many personal possessions, but we decided to keep and store these for a while after he died, just in case any of his relatives did get in touch.
I don’t know if any of them will be of any help to you, but you never know. ’
‘They might be,’ Ruan said, taking the box. ‘Thank you again.’
‘I hope they help.’
He opened the box and saw it contained some cards, letters and photos. His fingers itched to open them and read everything inside.
Back at the caravan, even before he opened the box, Ruan went online and ordered a gift hamper to the care home staff.
Not only did he want to draw breath and think about all he’d heard, he also wanted to make a tiny gesture of thanks to the strangers who’d cared for and comforted his uncle.
He couldn’t do their job, he realised, and thank God they were there for all the people whose relatives weren’t able to care for them at home and for people like Walter, who had no one.
Walter. Dying in his room, with a few kind but unrelated professionals holding his hand.
What a waste of a life. Ruan had never wanted his own to end like that, even though, from his own job, he was aware it was an all-too-common scenario.
He wanted a family and friends, not to care for him in his old age, but to care about him, to remember him – and, if he had children, to hold that memory and carry on any legacy he hoped to create.