Twenty-nine Chrysanthemum – Truth
Twenty-nine
Chrysanthemum – Truth
I’m back in the Range Rover again, heading out of St Felix for the first time in ages.
I drive along the narrow twisty roads, thinking all the time about Stan, Will, and what I’m going to do today.
When I arrive in Bude, the satnav helpfully directs me through the busy streets teeming with holidaymakers, until on the other side of the town we drive down a quiet residential road, and I’m instructed I’ve ‘reached my destination’.
Camberley House is a large modern bungalow situated on an extensive plot amongst immaculately mown lawns and perfect flower beds. I park my car on the gravel drive and climb out. As I do an elderly man smiles at me as he hobbles past with the assistance of a wooden stick.
‘Reception is that way,’ he calls, pointing in the direction of the front door with his stick. ‘You look a bit lost, dearie.’
‘Ah, thank you,’ I say, looking towards a frosted glass door. ‘Yes, it’s my first time here.’
‘Well, I’m sure whoever you’ve come to visit will be glad to see you,’ he says, nodding. ‘We usually are.’
He gives me a quick salute and hobbles on his way, so I head towards reception.
Just inside the door I find a cosy hallway with a polished wooden table acting as a reception desk.
‘Good afternoon,’ says a smartly dressed lady sitting behind the table. ‘Welcome to Camberley House. How can I help you?’
‘I’d like to see Stan, please, if I may?’
‘Stan?’ she questions. ‘Do you have a surname?’
‘Er…’ I hadn’t thought about this. I only knew him as Mad Stan the Pasty Man. ‘I don’t actually know his surname.’
‘Hmm…’ The woman looks quizzically at me. ‘We can’t let just anyone in here, you know, there are rules, and our residents’ care and safety is foremost here at Camberley.’
‘Oh yes, I completely understand. It’s just I used to know Stan a long time ago, when he lived down in St Felix. Do you know Trecarlan Castle at all?’ I ask hopefully.
The woman looks blankly at me.
‘A woman called Lou comes to visit him quite a lot?’
She carries on looking stonily back at me from her desk.
‘Do you have a Stan here that likes to eat pasties?’ I try as a last resort.
The woman’s face lights up. ‘Oh, you mean Stanley,’ she says, smiling now. ‘Of course, Stanley can never get enough pasties, even though his teeth don’t really like them these days. Who should I say is calling for him?’
‘Poppy,’ I tell her quickly before she changes her mind. ‘But he might not remember me. Like I said, I haven’t seen him since I was fifteen.’
She rings a bell, and another, younger woman, this time in a green uniform, appears.
‘Melanie, can you please tell Stanley that Poppy is here to see him.’
Melanie nods. ‘Certainly.’ And she disappears back where she came from.
‘She won’t be a moment, please take a seat.’ The receptionist gestures to a brocade chaise longue behind me.
I sit down awkwardly on the seat, and look around while the receptionist returns to her computer screen.
This is all very efficient, and not at all what I was expecting. After what Babs had told me about Stan losing all his money, I’d wondered if I might find him living in some ramshackle old folks’ home, with paint peeling off the walls and incompetent staff.
Camberley House, from what I’ve seen so far, seems very well run, although I knew from reading and hearing stories about residential homes that what you saw on the surface wasn’t always the real story.
‘Stanley will see you,’ Melanie says, reappearing. ‘Please come this way.’
I follow Melanie through a long corridor full of closed doors, and I can’t help wondering what’s behind them.
‘Just offices,’ she says, guessing what I’m thinking. ‘Nothing sinister, I can assure you.’
‘Sorry,’ I apologise. ‘You hear so many awful stories about places like this.’
‘Yes, I know. It’s despicable what goes on in some care homes. The trouble is, we all get tarred with the same brush when those stories come out, when the truth is there are so many homes out there giving wonderful care to the elderly and infirm. You just don’t hear about the good ones.’ She pauses at a glass door and pushes it open. ‘Here we are: our day room.’
I follow Melanie into the room, and instead of a room full of elderly folk sitting around in high-backed chairs with blankets over their legs, I am surprised to find a hub of activity.
There are a number of white- and grey-haired octogenarians playing pool and table tennis, a group of residents playing Scrabble, and a couple of folk on computers at the side of the room surfing the Internet.
‘Now,’ she says looking around, ‘where’s Stanley got to? He was by the pool table a few minutes ago. Ah, I spy him, he’s over by the window, waiting for you.’
We walk through the sea of movement to two armchairs by a window, and then I see him.
‘Poppy, my girl!’ Stan struggles to stand up from the chair, so Melanie helps him. ‘I can’t believe it’s you after all this time.’ He hugs me and I feel the fragility of his body against mine.
‘Stan, it’s good to see you,’ I say as I stand back to get a better look at him.
The Stan I remember was tall and broad with a loud voice and bellowing laugh. This Stan seems to have shrunk in stature; I’m taller than he is, and his voice these days is croaky and weak.
‘I’ll leave you two to it,’ Melanie says. ‘Just call me when you’ve had enough of this one’s tall tales.’
‘Melly, my girl,’ Stan says, easing himself down into the chair, ‘you know every word that leaves my lips is the truth.’
‘Aye, and I’m Kate Middleton,’ she says, smiling. ‘I’ll just go and polish my crown.’
Stan smiles after her as she weaves her way back through the room, speaking to the residents as she goes. ‘She’s a good lass is that one. Sit down, child, and let’s catch up.’
Stan tells me all about his life at the home. All the activities they get up to, outings they have, and friends he has made over his years at Camberley. He has to pause to remember sometimes, his mind not recalling as fast as he’d like it to. But I listen patiently, giving him time to reminisce.
‘So now I’ve told you all about me, what about you?’ Stan asks. ‘What have you been doing all this time – and more importantly, how are you getting on in that flower shop? I half thought you might bring me a posy, like the old days.’
‘No, no flowers, but I did bring you this,’ I say, reaching down into my handbag. I produce a paper bag and pass it to Stan.
‘Ah, this is just like the old days,’ he says, sniffing inside the bag. ‘Fresh this morning?’
I nod. ‘From the Blue Canary bakery.’
Stan looks puzzled.
‘Oh, it used to be Mr Bumbles, but it has new owners now. They’re very good though,’ I assure him.
‘I’ll save it for my tea then.’ He smiles, putting the bag down on the table next to him. ‘The pasties they give you here aren’t much cop – supermarket rubbish. That will go down a treat, thank you. So tell me all about Daisy Chain. Lou said you were back in St Felix. Such a shame about your grandmother though – fine, fine woman she was.’
‘Yes, she was,’ I agree, thinking about her.
‘But now the shop has fresh blood – a new chance to shine, and it will shine brightly with you at the helm, I’m sure.’
I shrug. ‘Perhaps. We’re doing all right.’
‘Only all right? Are you using the books ?’
‘You know about those?’
‘Of course I do. That shop has been special since the original Daisy took it on in Victorian times. She used the Victorian language of flowers to produce her own form of the magic, but the whole shop is charmed. Shall I tell you a story?’ he asks, his eyes lighting up.
‘Sure,’ I say, remembering how Stan used to love telling us tales as children. Much as I want to get on to how he ended up moving away from Trecarlan, I guess it can wait for a few minutes.
‘Well, the old story goes that the ground the shop was built on was once blessed by the Cornish sorceress, Zethar. Zethar was being tried for witchcraft, but she escaped her persecutors, fled, and found herself in St Felix. The townsfolk took pity on her plight, and hid and looked after her until her persecutors had ridden through the town. In return for their kindness, Zethar cast a spell over the building she had been hidden in and the ground beneath it, saying that whoever inhabited any building built on the land in the future would be protected from harm. Then she cast a final spell over the whole town, saying that anyone who came here would always be safe, and find happiness and contentment within its boundaries whatever their plight might be, and that’s how St Felix got its name. Because Felix means —’
‘Happy!’ I finish for him. ‘Yes, I’d forgotten, but I did know that. But really, Stan,’ I say gently, ‘I’m not eight years old now. Do you expect me to believe that fairy tale you just told me?’
‘Whether you choose to believe it is up to you, but it’s the truth,’ Stan says, leaning back in his chair.
I know I should leave it. Stan is an elderly man, what harm would it do for him to believe his stories were true? But I just can’t, fairy tales, myths and legends didn’t sit any easier with me than Amber’s holistic and spiritual ways, or the notion that certain types of flowers could heal people – even though I’d heard first-hand accounts of it happening.
‘How do you know it’s the truth?’ I ask. ‘That story is centuries old; someone could have made it up when they were a bit bored one day.’
Stan regards me through a pair of sharp sea-green eyes. ‘You don’t change,’ he says eventually. ‘Even as a young girl you were always questioning my tales.’
‘Was I?’
Stan nods. ‘Your brother would just sit and listen politely, but you,’ he smiles, ‘you would always want proof, and the reasons why.’
I open my mouth to reply, but Stan continues:
‘And that’s good, Poppy. You should question things; you should want to know why. Why is a very difficult thing to answer sometimes, though…’ He watches me for a few seconds. ‘Is the magic working?’ he asks. ‘In the shop, first of all?’
‘Well…’ I choose my words carefully, ‘Amber’s special bouquets are proving very popular.’
‘Does she tie them with a white ribbon?’
‘Yes.’
Stan smiles approvingly. ‘And secondly, is the magic of St Felix working for you?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Are you feeling better since you returned? After what happened, it was understandable that you’d stay away. But I didn’t think it would be for so long. I don’t think any of us did.’
‘Yes… well…’ I mumble, ‘it was difficult to come back… after Will.’
‘Fine young man, he was. Honourable, trustworthy, fine-looking fella, too. The good always die young.’
I swallow hard.
‘I heard about Bertie,’ I say, deliberately changing the subject. ‘Such a shame. But Babs is doing well. I saw her the other day.’
Stan’s cheery demeanour immediately changes and his face fills with sorrow as he remembers. ‘They were good helpers to me. I never meant for them to lose their jobs when I left the estate. The woman she said she’d keep them on. She gave me her word.’
I knew Stan wouldn’t have left Babs and Bertie in the lurch.
‘Which woman, Stan?’ I ask. ‘Who said she’d keep Babs and Bertie on?’
Stan furrows his brow. ‘I’m trying to recall her name. Bossy woman, loud voice – shrill, you know?’
Oh, I knew all right.
‘Was her name Caroline, by any chance, Stan? Caroline Harrington-Smythe?’
‘Yes, that’s her. She said she’d guarantee them their jobs if I left the Parish Council in charge of Trecarlan.’
Caroline strikes again.
‘But why did you leave the castle, Stan?’ I hesitate before continuing: ‘Did you lose all your money in a card game?’
Stan’s head drops, and he looks down into his lap.
‘The truth please, Stan,’ I ask him gently. ‘I need to know.’
‘The truth is I was broke, Poppy,’ Stan says, lifting his head, sadness etched all over his face. ‘I no longer had the funds to run Trecarlan. It costs a lot of money to run an estate like that.’
‘I’m not surprised you were broke if you were gambling all your money away. Babs told me about your parties.’
‘Ah, dear old Babs, she always did like to gossip. Yes there were parties, parties that I hosted at Trecarlan. There was a lot of money won and lost in that house during that time. But I wasn’t the one gambling, I was merely allowing others to do so on my premises. It wasn’t legal, I know, but it was lucrative for me and for Trecarlan. It allowed me to keep hold of my beloved home for a while longer.’
Stan looks wistful as he thinks about his former home.
‘The castle was badly in need of repair; there were cracks in places there shouldn’t be. Big cracks that, left untreated, were making the whole building unstable. I had two choices: sit by and watch the place fall down around me, or take a chance on something illegal and allow those parties to go ahead.’
‘So what happened?’ I prompt, feeling sorry for him but at the same time wanting to know the truth.
‘There was a police raid one night – tip-off, apparently. Luckily I got off with a fine; the judge was lenient with me because of my age and my reputation as… how can I put it? A tad mad!’ he winks. ‘But the fine was bad enough. It meant I had no money left for the estate, no way of making any more money, so I had no choice but to leave and come here to Camberley to live. Luckily, I had a few things from the castle I could sell to fund my fees for a few years, but it won’t last for ever.’
Stan looks at me with a mixture of fear and dread in his eyes. ‘When that money runs out, Poppy, I’ll have to leave my friends here, and…’ Stan swallows hard. ‘To tell you the truth, I’m not sure what will become of me,’ he says, his voice trailing away. He pats his weak legs. ‘These things don’t work properly any more. I’m hardly in a position to look after myself.’
‘Oh, Stan,’ I say, leaning forward to take his hand. ‘It won’t come to that. I won’t let it.’
Stan grips my hand. ‘Poppy, it’s lovely to see you again. Really, I can’t tell you what it means to me. But I’m not your concern. You have a life of your own. Responsibilities.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong, Stan,’ I tell him, looking straight into his kind old eyes. ‘You looked after Will and me when we were young, and it’s time for me to return the favour. You, Stan, are now my responsibility, and I won’t hear otherwise!’