Chapter 7
The next morning, Lily was up before Violet.
Mr Mistoffelees was outside exploring the small garden, and as Violet came carefully downstairs, Lily met her at the bottom of the stairs with her walker.
The curtains were opened and Lily had straightened up the little living space, turned on the heater, and had opened a window to let a little fresh air in.
As Lily pushed the walker towards her, the light hit the hard set of her grandmother’s jaw as it poured through the window.
Violet huffed, her chin up fiercely, saying, ‘I don’t need that contraption.’
‘That’s not what the physiotherapist says in the report that Dad left from the hospital,’ she said firmly tapping the papers on the kitchen table.
‘I have managed perfectly well for ninety-seven years without it,’ Violet said, ‘I have my stick.’
‘You used the frame yesterday,’ Lily said.
‘Yesterday I was being nice; today I’m not feeling so nice.’ Violet pushed past Lily, using her stick as a baton.
‘Gran, please,’ Lily said, trying to control the frustration in her voice. Gran could be the most frustrating woman in the world at times.
‘Oh, pish posh. It isn’t anything I need.’ Violet waved a hand contemptuously, then winced as the movement obviously hurt her. ‘Those doctors don’t know anything.’
Biting her lip, caught between annoyance and sympathy, Lily leaned over and whispered in Violet’s ear, ‘They know enough to keep you alive and kicking for nearly a century.’
Violet narrowed her old eyes at Lily.
‘Make yourself useful and get a brew on,’ Violet said, but the fondness for Lily came through in her tone and Lily gave a little smile at her feistiness.
‘Already done,’ said Lily, gesturing to the little table where Gran liked to take breakfast. She had made them both tea and there was toast in the toaster.
They ate their breakfast with gentle conversation, Lily aware she didn’t want to upset Gran any more.
She seemed frailer this morning. Perhaps the excitement of coming home from the hospital and then Lily coming had given her a little buck-up, but the sore bones and bruises this morning would be a reminder that all wasn’t as it used to be.
Lily was about to clean up when there was a knock at the door.
‘That’ll be the nurse,’ she said as she stood up. ‘Tell her to be off and see someone who needs help, I don’t need anything now I have you.’
Lily walked to the door. ‘I can help you, Gran, but I can’t assess your injuries so you need to do this. Just pop your big-girl knickers on and get it over with.’
‘You keep my knickers out of it,’ said Gran with a little laugh.
Lily opened the door and there stood a man, who was tall, with blue eyes and tousled blonde hair, dressed in blue pants and white shirt with a logo from the hospital on the pocket, and a name tag that said his name was Nick Stafford, Registered Nurse .
Holy bells, Gran’s nurse was a dead ringer for a young Brad Pitt.
‘Hello, I’m Nick Stafford,’ he said. His voice had a lovely tone to it. ‘I’m here to see Violet Baxter. It says she’s ninety-seven but you look far too young to be her, unless you have an excellent skincare regime.’
Lily’s breath caught in her throat. Good Lord, she thought, Gran’s nurse looks like he’s just stepped off the cover of a romance novel, and she blinked several times, realising she’d been staring.
‘Hi, yes, um, I’m Lily, Lily Baxter. I’m um, Violet’s granddaughter,’ she managed, inwardly cringing at her stammering. Get a grip, Lily, she told herself. He’s just a nurse, not actually Brad Pitt.
But as Nick stepped into the cottage, Lily couldn’t help but notice how he filled the small space with his presence.
He smelled faintly of soap and something woodsy, like pine needles after rain.
It was oddly comforting and also disconcerting.
No nurse should be that good-looking, she thought, or smell that good.
‘I wasn’t expecting you,’ Lily said, suddenly aware of her ratty old jumper and leggings and her feet covered in odd socks. Of course the one day she looked like a complete mess, Nurse McDreamy shows up.
Nick smiled, and Lily felt her heart do a little flip. Oh no, she thought. That smile should come with a warning label like they have on medicine bottles. Do not operate heavy machinery after being smiled at by Nurse Stafford.
‘They didn’t tell you a nurse was coming?’ he asked, his eyebrow quirking up in a way that was far too charming for Lily’s peace of mind.
‘No, they did,’ Lily backpedalled, feeling heat rise to her cheeks. ‘I just… I wasn’t expecting…’ You, she finished silently. I wasn’t expecting you to look like the perfect fantasy of a male nurse and to be so stupidly handsome.
She turned to see Gran standing up by her chair, leaning on her frame, a knowing glint in her eye. ‘Hello Nurse, how lovely to see you,’ Gran said, sweet as pie. ‘But there’s no need for you to come. Everything is fine; Lily is here to look after me.’
Nick looked at Lily who raised her eyebrows and then gave a small eye-roll.
As Nick moved towards Gran, Lily found her eyes following him. The way he moved was graceful, confident but not cocky.
Lily shook her head slightly. She felt as though she was in some sort of weird fantasy dream.
This was ridiculous. She was here to look after Gran, not ogle the nurse.
But as Nick turned to ask her a question about Gran’s medication, his eyes meeting hers, Lily felt a little jolt of… something. Interest? Attraction?
Oh damn, she thought. This could complicate things.
Taking her lead, he walked towards Gran, carrying a medical bag with him over his shoulder.
‘Isn’t this a lovely cottage,’ he said. ‘Such a cosy home – it’s perfect.’
He put his bag on the ground near Violet’s chair, with her reading glasses and newspaper on the little table next to it.
‘It is a lovely home and would be better if you weren’t inside it,’ she said with a sly smile.
‘Gran!’ Lily was shocked at Gran’s words. She was blunt but this was rude.
‘I simply meant he can go and see other more needy patients than me,’ she said and shuffled backwards and then sat down in her chair.
‘Unfortunately I can’t leave without seeing you, Mrs Baxter. Those are the rules and you wouldn’t like me to break the rules and then get into trouble, would you?’ Violet turned her nose up at him and Lily had to admire his approach. Gran wouldn’t want anyone to get into trouble because of her.
‘I don’t mind breaking the odd rule, but I don’t want you to be in any strife.’
‘Can I get you a cup of tea?’ Lily asked Nick, who was opening the medical kit bag. ‘I was about to make a new pot.’
‘That would be lovely, thanks,’ he said as he put some ointments and medical supplies on the little table next to her.
‘You’re not staying that long are you?’ It was Violet’s turn to roll her eyes.
Lily gave her grandmother a warning look. ‘Gran, let him do his job. As I said, I was making another pot anyway.’
Lily went into the kitchen as she heard Nick buttering up Violet, chatting about nothing and everything as he took her blood pressure.
She put the kettle on and then looked outside and saw some of Gran’s washing on the little clothes line by the potting shed. They looked to have been out there for a few days, and probably needed to be rewashed since it had rained when Gran had been in hospital.
‘Just grabbing the washing,’ she said to them but they didn’t seem to notice her as she stepped outside and looked around the back garden.
There was a wall surrounding the space, with a small potting shed, some overgrown garden beds, long abandoned and abundant with weeds.
She could do a tidy-up here while she was at the cottage.
She went to the line and unpegged the clothes.
She held a wooden peg in her hand, the spring rusting, and she pegged it back on the line.
Gran was so old-fashioned, which was why she loved being at the cottage.
The simple rituals that had marked her time at the cottage were her favourite memories as a child.
The toast in the toast rack. The brown teapot and a drawer filled with tea cosies that Lily would always choose a new one from every day. All of them knitted or sewn by Gran.
The walks they used to take along the stream, picking up tiny wild violets that Lily would put in a little glass bottle by her bed, lulled to sleep with their scent.
Violet had told her the mythology of violets that came from Zeus, who was married to Hera.
He turned his mistress into a heifer to hide her from Hera, and when the mistress-heifer complained she was hungry, he made a field of violets for her to eat and sent a bunch to Hera as an apology.
Supposedly the flowers soothed the jealous Hera and so the Greeks began using them to calm anger and induce sleep.
Lily had always liked that story, and would lie in bed as a child and imagine being turned into a cow. Maybe if she was a cow now, she could moo her way into employment, she thought as she held the washing in her arms. She tried to sing and nothing came out again.
Lily came inside and put the washing back in the small machine under the kitchen bench and then filled the pot. Gran was having the dressing on her nose changed by Nick, who was wearing gloves and being very gentle it seemed.
She watched him work, mesmerised by the care he was talking. She watched as he gently persuaded Gran to let him do his job, his manner both professional and kind.