Chapter 11
Christina
The retirement home smells like furniture polish and overcooked vegetables.
Not unpleasant. Just specific. Familiar now in a way it hadn’t been when I first started bringing the weekly arrangements.
The same woman sits in the armchair near the window, knitting something that never seems to grow.
The same radio plays somewhere down the corridor, permanently tuned to a station that exists slightly outside of time.
I balance the box of flowers against my hip and sign my name in the visitors’ book.
“Morning, Liam.”
He looks up, smiling.
“Christina. You’ve brought colour with you.”
I glance at the plastic arrangement on the side table.
“I’m trying to undo some crimes against nature.”
He laughs.
“They’ll appreciate it.”
I carry the box through the corridor, past open doors and familiar faces. Someone waves. Someone else calls my name and asks if the yellow ones are real. I stop, answer, promise to come back next week.
The conservatory doors stand open at the end of the hall.
I step inside.
Arthur sits in his wheelchair near the window, his blanket folded neatly over his knees like he’s agreed to it rather than needed it.
He looks up.
His face brightens.
“Well,” he says. “If it isn’t my favourite visitor.”
“Charmer,” I reply, setting the box down beside him. “You say that to all the women.”
“Only the ones who bring pretty stuff.”
I start unwrapping the stems, trimming them before placing them into the vase on the small table beside him.
Arthur watches me for a moment.
Then his mouth twitches.
“Well,” he says casually, “what do I hear about you?”
I glance up.
“That depends,” I say. “How reliable is your source?”
“Oh, extremely unreliable,” he replies. “Hopeless with people. Avoids eye contact. Mumbles.”
I laugh.
“That narrows it down.”
He studies me openly now, eyes bright with mischief.
“My grandson,” he says. “Finally gathered the courage to tell me he’s seeing someone.”
Warmth spreads through my chest before I can stop it.
“Oh?”
Arthur nods gravely.
“He said her name was Christina.”
I try to keep my expression neutral.
“Did he?”
“He also said,” Arthur continues, lowering his voice conspiratorially, “that she brings flowers here every week and is entirely out of his league.”
I laugh properly at that.
“He didn’t say that.”
Arthur lifts one shoulder.
“I may have said the last bit.”
I finish adjusting the stems, suddenly aware of my hands again.
“He’s been insufferable,” Arthur adds. “Keeps smiling to himself like an idiot.”
“That sounds more believable.”
Arthur leans back, studying me.
“You’ve stolen Bambi’s heart,” he says simply.
Have I? When we are alone I think so, when we are out and about, I’m not so sure.
“He’s a good boy,” he says simply.
“Yes,” I say quietly. “He is.”
Arthur watches me for another moment.
His expression shifts slightly.
Not suspicious.
Not intrusive.
Just attentive.
“You don’t look like someone who’s just made him this happy,” he says gently.
I force a smile.
“I’m fine.”
He says nothing.
Which makes it harder to pretend.
I look down at the flowers.
At the careful way the stems lean toward each other, balanced without effort. At the certainty of their direction.
Phil had told him.
He hadn’t hidden me.
That should be enough.
It should settle the small, restless thing that’s been following me for days now, quiet but persistent.
Maybe I’ve imagined it.
Maybe I’m looking for fractures where none exist.
I sit down beside Arthur before I can change my mind.
The bench is cool beneath me. Solid.
Safe.
“Can I ask you something?” I say.
Arthur doesn’t hesitate.
“You can ask me anything.”
I nod, but the words don’t come immediately.
I trace my finger along a crack in the paint on the table, following it to nowhere.
“He’s not…” I stop. Reset. “He’s not unkind.”
Arthur’s voice is steady.
“No. He isn’t.”
“And when we’re alone,” I continue, choosing each word carefully, “he’s very sure.”
Arthur waits.
“But when other people are around…” I hesitate again.
This is where it becomes real.
“He changes,” I say quietly.
Arthur doesn’t interrupt.
“He gets careful,” I add. “Like he’s suddenly aware of everything.”
I let out a breath.
“I thought it was just him,” I say. “Just how he is.”
Arthur nods slightly.
“But sometimes,” I continue, my voice thinner now, “it feels like he doesn’t want people to know.”
The words sit between us.
Too heavy to ignore.
I shake my head quickly.
“That’s stupid,” I add. “He told you about me. I know that.”
Arthur says nothing.
Which makes it worse.
I force myself to look at him.
“Do you think…” The question catches halfway out. I almost stop it. Almost let it die where it belongs.
“Do you think he could be embarrassed?” I ask quietly. “To be seen with me.”
The moment the words exist, I regret them.
“I don’t mean—” I shake my head. “He’s never said anything. He’s never done anything wrong. I just—”
I stop.
Arthur frowns.
“Embarrassed?” he repeats. “Christina, what on earth would he have to be embarrassed about?”
The question is gentle. Genuine.
Which somehow makes it harder.
I look down at my hands.
“My mum’s family is from Jamaica,” I say quietly. “My dad’s English. I grew up in London. It was never…” I hesitate, searching for the right word. “It was never unusual there.”
Arthur listens without interrupting.
“Here,” I continue, “people have been kind. Truly kind. I don’t feel unwelcome.”
That part is true.
“But I know I’m different,” I add. “I know I’m more visible here. There aren’t many people who look like me.”
Arthur’s jaw tightens.
“And sometimes,” I say, my voice thinner now, “it feels like he remembers that when other people are around.”
I force myself to keep going.
“When we’re alone, he doesn’t hesitate. He touches me without thinking. He looks at me like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be.”
I swallow.
“But in public…” I shake my head slightly. “He creates space. Not in a way anyone else would notice. Just enough that I do.”
The words feel disloyal.
“I don’t know if I’m imagining it,” I add quickly. “I probably am.”
“Bloody hell.” His jaw tightens.
“Christina,” he says, leaning forward, “if I ever thought Phil was ashamed of you because of your heritage, I’d kick his arse myself.”
Despite everything, I let out a startled laugh.
“You would not.”
“I bloody would,” Arthur says. “Don’t care how old he is.”
“He’s bigger than you.”
Arthur snorts.
“Not the point.”
The image of it breaks through the tightness in my chest, and I laugh again, the sound thinner now.
He watches me for a moment longer, the humour in his expression softening into something steadier.
“I’m not na?ve,” he says. “I know there are plenty of twats in this world who’d think like that. Racists who care more about the colour of someone’s skin than the kind of person they are.”
He pauses.
“But Phil isn’t one of them.”
The certainty in his voice makes it hard to argue, even with the doubt still sitting quietly inside me.
“I made sure of that,” he continues. “Him and Jane. Raised them properly. Taught them to look at people, not categories.”
His mouth twitches.
“Even if their mother sometimes forgets herself and starts acting like she’s got shares in the aristocracy.”
I huff out a small laugh.
“I can’t imagine where she gets that from.”
Arthur rolls his eyes.
“Not from her family, that’s for damn sure. They were miner folk through and through.”
He shifts slightly in his chair, turning toward me more fully.
“You should tell him.”
The words land gently, but firmly.
I hesitate.
“I don’t want to accuse him of something he hasn’t done.”
“You wouldn’t be accusing him,” Arthur says. “You’d be giving him the chance to understand.”
I stare at the flowers.
“He’s a man,” Arthur adds dryly. “There’s every chance he doesn’t even realise he’s doing it.”
That… feels uncomfortably plausible.
“We can be a bit thick when it comes to our own behaviour,” he continues. “Especially when we care. We get inside our own heads and forget the rest of the world can’t see the map we’re using.”
I glance at him.
“And if you’re wrong?”
Arthur’s expression hardens slightly.
“If I’m wrong,” he says, “then you come straight back here and tell me.”
I blink.
“And then what?”
Arthur’s mouth curves slowly into a smile.
“Then I’ll rally the grey parade.”
I laugh despite myself.
“The grey parade?”
He nods toward the other end of the conservatory behind us, where three women sit clustered around a small table, their heads bent together in conspiratorial conversation.
“My harem,” he says matter-of-factly. “Sharpest minds in Fellside. Terrifying, the lot of them.”
One of the women looks up at that exact moment and waves at him.
He waves back solemnly.
“They’d sort him out in five minutes flat,” he says. “He wouldn’t stand a chance.”
The absurdity of it loosens something in my chest I hadn’t realised was clenched.
“You’re very confident in their abilities.”
“I’ve seen them dismantle a vicar over bingo rules,” Arthur says. “Bambi wouldn't stand a chance.”
I laugh again, properly this time.
Arthur reaches over and squeezes my hand, his grip warm and steady.
“He’s not ashamed of you,” he says quietly. “But if he’s being an idiot, he deserves the opportunity to stop.”
I nod.
The doubt doesn’t vanish.
But it no longer feels like something I have to carry alone.