Chapter 26 Stephanie
Stephanie
Present day
‘It’s honestly the sweetest thing,’ I said to the eager faces gathered round me in the Tall Trees lounge. ‘My friend Tara says it’s like a romcom. Even my teenage neighbour is gripped by it and he says he’s not interested in romance.’
‘So these people wrote each other letters in the pages of the book?’ Val said. ‘But they didn’t know who they were?’
‘Like internet dating, when people aren’t who they say they are,’ said Kenny with a throaty chuckle. ‘Catfishing they call it.’
Not wanting to think about how Kenny knew so much about catfishing, I spoke up. ‘At the beginning, he knows Elsie, but she doesn’t know who he is, so not surprisingly she is really wary.’
‘Clever woman,’ Val said approvingly. ‘Can’t be too careful.’
‘She asks him lots of questions, about conversations they’ve had, so she’s obviously sort of piecing it together.’
I looked down at the pages on my lap, where I’d typed out all the tiny, densely packed writing.
It had taken me ages to get through it but I’d got there eventually and it was so wonderful that I couldn’t stop telling people about it.
I’d started off telling Val as I made her tea that morning, and somehow I’d ended up in the middle of a group of chairs with residents clustered round wanting to hear the story.
‘Look, he says they can get to know each other through the pages, because he’s a patient and she’s a nurse and it’s not appropriate for them to spend time together. But before she agrees, she asks for clues about who he is and whether they’ve talked.’
‘And he says yes,’ Val put in, because she had already heard this bit. ‘So she says, tell me what we talked about.’
‘Don’t rush, Val,’ Kenny said crossly.
I laughed. ‘He tells her they talked about his uncle the first time they met, and that’s obviously enough for Elsie, because she immediately starts opening up.’
‘She knows who he is,’ Joyce said. She moved her chair a little bit closer to mine. ‘Who is he?’
‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘I only know it’s Elsie because I recognised her writing from little notes she’s made under some of the entries. None of these letters are signed and the writing is terribly small.’
‘It might not be Elsie at all,’ a voice said from the other side of the room. I glanced over to see Helen sitting alone by the television. It was muted but she was staring at the screen anyway, though I had the impression she was listening carefully to our conversation.
‘Sorry, Helen? I didn’t quite hear what you said.’
‘I said, the notes might not have been left by Elsie at all.’
I was a bit put out by that suggestion. ‘Well, I’ve got no proof, but like I say I recognised the writing.’
‘You said the writing was very small.’
‘It is.’
‘So you might be mistaken.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Oh give over, Helen,’ said Joyce. ‘It doesn’t matter really, does it? What matters is the story.’ She turned to me. ‘So what happens once she knows who he is?’
‘This is the cute bit,’ I told her. ‘They start sharing stories about each other.’
‘Like what?’ Kenny moved his chair this time. Honestly, they’d all be sitting on my lap soon.
‘Mostly about the war actually. Elsie …’ I emphasised the name deliberately to annoy Helen who was still pretending to be engrossed in A Place in the Sun even though she couldn’t hear it.
‘Elsie talks about losing her brother. She’s still being cautious, and I can see she doesn’t want to get into trouble so she doesn’t name him in the letters, but we know that Elsie did have a brother who died. ’
Joyce gave Helen a little triumphant look over her shoulder.
‘What else?’
‘Shall I read something?’ I asked. ‘It’s my favourite bit.’
‘Yes please.’ Val looked pleased and I was glad that hearing these stories from long ago was perking her up a bit.
‘It’s the chap writing here. He says he knew he couldn’t join the Army because of what happened with the seagull. He writes that it was the seagull that made him realise he didn’t want to kill anyone directly.’
I knew I was milking it, but I paused for dramatic effect and out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Helen stiffen. She was definitely listening.
‘What happened with the seagull?’ asked Mr Yin slightly breathlessly.
I cleared my throat and began to read. ‘I grew up in Lytham St Anne’s …’
‘That’s a seaside resort in the north-west,’ Joyce told Mr Yin. ‘We used to go there on our holidays. My brothers would play football in the sand dunes for hours.’
I glared at her and she stopped talking. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered.
‘We lived in a big house right opposite the beach. It was a bit run-down and bits were always falling off it, because of the winds that came racing across the sea and battered the front of the house.’
‘He’s quite poetic, isn’t he?’ Kenny commented. ‘Nice turn of phrase.’
Wondering if I’d ever get to the end, I carried on: ‘One day I came home from school to find my mother in a state. She said there was a seagull in the back garden that had a broken wing and that it was hopping about and squawking. She asked me to go out with a spade and finish it off.’
Helen was sitting bolt upright in her chair, no longer pretending to watch telly.
I had no idea why she was being like this, but there was nothing I could do about it.
‘I went out into the garden,’ I said, reading carefully.
‘But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bash that seagull over the head and kill it. ’
‘It would have been kinder to put it out of its misery,’ Kenny said, folding his arms. ‘Leaving it injured would just mean it would get taken by a cat or a fox.’
‘Ah but he didn’t.’ I grinned at the expectant faces around me, and carried on reading: ‘I picked it up and took it into the house. We had a little spare room that overlooked the flat roof of our kitchen. So I put the seagull in there with some bird seed, and left the window open. I thought it would recover and fly off.’
‘Did it?’ asked Joyce.
I chuckled. ‘No,’ I said. ‘He says it stayed in the spare room for three years. Three years! Its wing didn’t heal so it couldn’t fly but our mystery man cared for it, and let it hop about on the roof every day, until it died peacefully.’
At the other side of the room, I thought I saw Helen wipe her eyes. But she had turned away from me so I couldn’t be sure. Strange woman, I thought.
‘He sounds like a real sweetheart,’ Val said fondly. ‘What a lovely chap.’
‘Did Elsie reply to the story?’ Kenny asked.
‘Yes, she did.’ I looked down at my notes. ‘She replied, saying he should be a vet.’
‘I wonder if he ever was.’ Val looked sad. ‘We don’t even know if he made it through the war.’
‘That’s why I feel this is so important,’ I said.
‘Elsie was doing a lovely thing for her patients – recording their thoughts and memories and emotions. And that’s why I want to do the same for you.
Why I thought we’d do our own Tall Trees book.
And I’m planning to incorporate some of the words from Elsie’s book into my mural. ’
‘It’s such a good idea. I’ve already thought about what I’m going to write. I’m going to start with a message to my son and daughter …’
There was a screeching sound as an alarm in one of the rooms went off. One of the residents must have had a fall or got themselves in trouble. I jumped to my feet and put my notes and the book itself, which I’d had on my lap, on to the chair where I’d been sitting.
‘I’ll be back shortly,’ I said.
*
But I wasn’t back shortly. It was a couple of hours before I managed to get back to the lounge because one of our sweetest residents – a lady called Jill – had slipped getting out of bed and broken her hip and – we thought – one of her arms. She was very elderly and frail, and she was scared, and Blessing and I were terribly worried about her.
So we phoned for an ambulance and stayed with her until the paramedics arrived, which took a while.
It was a nice day but it was chilly in her room, so we managed to put a pillow under her head, and covered her in a blanket to keep her warm and I sat on the floor next to her, to chat.
To distract her, because she was in awful pain and we couldn’t give her anything to take the edge off until the professionals arrived, I told her about Elsie and her mystery sweetheart and held her hand, and then I went and fetched some paper and she very sweetly dictated some messages to her family for me to pass on.
The messages made us both emotional but I felt Jill was almost enjoying it.
Or rather, she was appreciating the opportunity. The thought made me feel warm inside.
When the ambulance came, the paramedics took over and I stood up, stretching out my limbs.
I felt a bit tearful because I thought Jill probably wouldn’t come back from hospital.
She was so frail now, like a baby bird, with a froth of fine white hair on her head.
I couldn’t see her recovering from this fall.
I hoped she’d said everything she needed to say.
‘Come and have a cup of tea in my office,’ Blessing said. ‘It’s always tough, but she’ll remember how kind you were.’
‘Thank you.’ That did make me feel a little better. I sat down in the chair opposite Blessing’s desk and she smiled.
‘Jill had a big family. Her daughter was here yesterday, you know? She’s almost eighty herself.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. Jill had her when she was just eighteen. She has grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and her great-great-grandson was born in lockdown.’
‘She told me about that,’ I said, thinking back. ‘She said she was pleased she’d got to meet him. She had me write some messages for her family. Can you pass them on?’
I handed over the pieces of paper and Blessing nodded, looking satisfied.
‘Of course. What a nice thing to do.’