Chapter Ten
Monday 12th November, 3pm
The Glyn Care Home is the most boring building in the world. A white two-storey oblong like two cartons of cigarettes stacked on top of each other. In the middle of green hills and woods, it screams cheap hotel.
A woman in a nurse’s uniform opens the door and welcomes me with a smile. When I ask for Mr William Jones – yes, my grandfather has the same name as his son – she leads me towards the heart of the building. On the way we pass a wide lounge. There are twenty men and women watching television. Or at least they sit in front of the TV which is running an old episode of Colombo . Some of them are just dozing in their chairs and who can blame them? The room is too warm and carpeted to within an inch of its life, so everything feels muffled and stuffy. I look around trying to see where my grandfather might be, but the nurse shakes her head.
“Bill doesn’t like to sit here. We’ll find him in the games lounge.”
Just then, I see him. Not my grandfather but Welsh Hagrid. Long hair, bushy beard, denim overalls and a wax jacket. He’s talking to a woman in a red suit and patent leather heels.
No, not talking. Arguing. At least she is. The woman, clearly a manager, is reprimanding him. “How many times have I told you to lock the terrace doors?”
The nurse with me has to stop because they’re in our way. She looks around awkwardly, probably doesn’t want me to witness this argument.
“Go and lock it, right now,” the manager demands in a strident voice. “We don’t want the residents wandering outside.”
His own answer is unruffled. “Some people like stepping outside for fresh air after lunch.”
“It’s not about what you think they like. They’re frail elderly people with dementia.”
“But the terrace is safe—”
“No, it isn’t,” she interrupts.
Through the window I can just see the terrace. It’s a plain space surrounded by railings except where the steps lead down to a garden.
“They could trip on the stairs,” the manager says.
“They’re only two steps and pretty safe.”
“And if they go wandering into the grounds and get lost.”
“It’s just the garden. The rest of the grounds are separated by the new fence.”
Beside me, the nurse is fidgeting with embarrassment. Her movement must attract his attention because he glances up and sees me.
“Don’t argue with me. They could trip and fall, land into wet flowerbeds and catch cold. It’s a health and safety disaster waiting to happen. Keep the doors locked,” she snaps before swivelling on her heals and marching away.
If he’s offended at the way she spoke to him, he doesn’t show it. He just turns towards the offending glass double doors, opens them and walks out, locking them behind him.
Through the glass, I can see a wide green lawn with seats and benches. Now the rain has stopped and the sun’s come out it’s a bright and fresh autumn day. Just then, Hagrid looks back and meets my eyes for an instant. There’s a touch of surprise then recognition.
“Shall we?” the nurse urges me along.
“Aren’t your residents allowed to go outside? It’s a bit stuffy in here.” I observe catching up with her.
“Of course they’re allowed outside,” she answers quickly, but her frown deepens. “Elderly people feel the cold more than we do, and management have to be careful.”
“That man, does he work here? What’s his name?”
“Let’s find Bill. He normally likes to do his jigsaw puzzles in the afternoon.” She walks more quickly, forcing me to hurry along.
We come to another lounge, again with the same high armchairs. But the few people here are more alert. Two are playing cards, someone is tapping on an iPad. And at the far end, by the window, a man with a shock of snow-white hair sits at a table spread with jigsaw pieces.
“Bill,” the nurse calls as we walk towards him. “You’ve got a visitor
He looks up, surprised, then his eyes search around behind me as if expecting someone else.
The nurse, having brought me here, can’t wait to leave. “Ring the bell if you need anything.” And before I can respond, she almost runs out of the room.
I turn back to the old man. He’s dressed in a three-piece suit, hounds-tooth wool in shades of grey. With the beige shirt buttoned up to his neck and a scarf knotted around his throat, he looks very much like an old man from a 1970’s sitcom.
“You’re my visitor?” he asks uncertainly.
His voice is very similar to the professor, smooth and melodious.
“Hello. Are you William Jones?” I ask just to break the ice.
He nods. “And you are?”
“My name is Leonie Henderson.” I reach for a chair nearby. “Do you mind if I sit?”
Now that I’m here, I find it very difficult to explain my presence.
He frowns, white eyebrows scrunch together over blue eyes like his son’s. Except that while the professor’s eyes were polite and uninvolved, his father regards me with suspicion. “What are you selling? I don’t have money so you’re wasting your time.” He turns back to his jigsaw.
What little optimism I had trickles away. Suddenly, I long for the warm welcome of Kendric House even though I’ve only been there a couple of days.
But, as Haneen said, I’ve come this far, it would be stupid to walk away before ticking the last box. So, I get my acting skills out and put on a confident expression, pull a chair over and sit.
“The professor told me I could find you here.”
At this, his eyes sharpen. “Who?”
“Professor William Jones.”
His frown deepens. “You mean my son?” His eyes search my face, then the rest of me. The white jumper, the narrow skirt and knee-high boots. “Aren’t you a little too young for him?”
Eek! The accusation shocks me so much I blurt out, “No! I’m his daughter.”
“His dau…” His voice fades, so his lips shape the rest of the word silently.
I wait to let him digest the news. At last his eyes clear and he says slowly, “So you’re the one.” He continues to look me up and down, left and right, hungry for every detail. “You must be…what?” He comes back to my face. “Twenty-nine? Or thirty?”
“You know about me?”
“I didn’t know your name. He never said.”
It might be my imagination but his voice softens. “When did he find you?”
“He didn’t. I found him.”
“I see.” He must hear something in my words because his eyes slide away from me to the brown and orange carpet. He could be trying to memorise the pattern of squares and circles as his tartan slippers scuff at a corner. Then he looks up. “Will you tell me your story?”
So, for the third time in two days, I talk about how I grew up. Dad’s death, the argument with Horrible Howard and my drive across the country on Saturday. With every telling, the story grows a bit. Now it includes how the professor reacted and my doubts about the welcome I might get from a stranger in a care home.
Bill digs in his pocket for a folded handkerchief and blows his nose. “Oh, thank God. Thank God,” he says as if from the bottom of his heart. “Thank God.” Then he meets my eyes. “You see I thought he, he… He promised that he took responsibility. I knew he would, but I was so afraid because he wouldn’t tell me anything.”
“How much did you know?” I can’t help asking.
He sighs. “Only that you existed.” He sighs long as if emptying his chest of all the air. Then he starts to talk.
“Will was studying in London, we didn’t see much of each other. I was up in Humberside, working on the wind turbines. After my wife passed…” His eyes shrink as if closing on an old sorrow just for an instant. “She left him her money so he could go to a good university. I hoped he’d go to Hull or Lincoln, a university near me but he had his heart set on London and…” He twists his lips as if in apology. “I didn’t want to stand in his way. Maybe it was a mistake, but he’d set his heart on Kings College. It was his dream.”
He must find telling me this harder than expected because he takes a moment to organise the jigsaw pieces into groups. The picture on the box shows an ocean and sky, lots of blue. Bill must be very good; then it occurs to me he must get lots of practice stuck here in this boring overheated room.
“I took my son down to London,” he continues eventually. “Helped him get settled in. He was not yet eighteen, too young to live alone, but very excited to start his new life. And I was busy, long shifts out at sea. It put distance between us in more ways than just miles. I told myself it would help him rely on himself, become a man. Until two years later. Very late one night, I’m asleep when they come to wake me. ‘Phone call for you, sounds urgent.’ So, I climb up to the head engineer’s office still in my pyjamas, to take the call. It’s my boy. Crying. ‘Dad, I’ve made a terrible mistake,’ he hiccups. ‘I got a girl pregnant.’ It’s half-past two, and I’m standing there on a rig in the middle of the North Sea. My poor boy alone in the big city.”
This picture of a crying boy calling his dad in the middle of the night, the son who had his heart set on a particular college, the son so beloved by his parents…It doesn’t fit with the self-possessed cool professor.
“What did you do?”
Bill shoves the jigsaw pieces to the end of the table and spreads his hands on the Formica surface. “What could I to do? I had to see the shift through to its end. We worked in two-week cycles. So, I tell him to calm down and that I’ll be there as soon as I can. Wait for me, I told him. We’ll talk to the girl’s family, and we’ll do the right thing. You see,” – he meets my eyes – “I thought it was a student and was praying to God she wasn’t underage. I was terrified of Will having to go to prison. Anyway. By the time they put us back on dry land, I jumped on the first train down to London. But it was all too late. He’d sorted everything out. He told me she’d gone back to her husband. That was a shock, I can tell you. A married girl? He refused to say any more about it. I kept asking questions, but he never answered. What was I thinking? That my boy had cuckolded the husband, lied? I thought your father…er…I mean…”
“Dad,” I say. “Stephen Henderson.”
“Yes. I thought they’d lied to him, slipped him someone else’s child. It gnawed at me. Every year I’d ask Will to find you. ‘Don’t rock the boat, Dad. It’s better for everyone especially the child.’ I was ashamed of him. But you say your dad knew and accepted you. And that my son was paying towards your upbringing?”
“Yes, and ten years ago, he sent us the money for my college.”
“My dear girl. My dear, dear girl. And were you happy? You were educated? Where? Tell me about your life.”
The professor never asked me a single question. His own biological daughter. He didn’t even want to know what his money had paid for. But this old man is desperate for news. No sooner do I answer one question than he’s ready with another.
At some point during the conversation, he reaches for my hand and clasps it between both of his.
“Who’s the young lady, Bill?” a man calls from the card table. “All this touching and smiling can’t be good for you at your age.” He gets up and comes over. “You old fox?”
There’s a soft electric hum behind me. It’s the man in the electric wheelchair coming over too. “Aren’t you going to introduce us?”
“Deniro, Gethin, this is Leonie, my granddaughter,” he says that like it’s a Christmas gift. No one has introduced me with such pride, not since Dad passed away.
“You never said you had a granddaughter,” says Gethin, the man in the wheelchair.
“I don’t tell you hardly anything, you’re a gossip.”
“Gossip? I never.” He might be joking but his eyes travel over me.
“Yes, you are.” Deniro starts to drag a chair over. “You might as well be a woman with knitting in your hands while your tongue wags.”
The chair is heavy and he struggles as the legs scrape on the carpeted floor until I get up to help him.
“Thank you.” He seems surprised.
“She’s a sweetheart, like that Rachel from Friends . Isn’t she lads?” Gethin asks around.
“She’s an actress.” Bill beams at his friends. “She’ll be in a play next month.” He makes it sound like Romeo and Juliet at the Royal Shakespeare Company.
“It’s only panto,” I say trying to play it down.
A lady comes over to join us. She smiles at me. “Hello, I’m Vanessa.” She’s in a twinset and pearls; her almost white hair neatly swept up in a glossy bun.
“Nice to meet you.” I get up to find her another chair. By the time I’ve brought the chair, another lady has also drifted closer. This one is the opposite. She has badly dyed red hair as if she’s done it herself and missed bits at the back.
“Who said you could all muscle in on my visit?” Bill demands in mock affront. “She’s my granddaughter. This is private, family time.”
A clatter behind us makes me turn. It’s a woman pushing a tea trolly. Everyone in the room stops what they’re doing and waits to be served.
The trolley lady wears a dull blue uniform, a dull blue apron, and a bored expression. She fills plastic cups from a large metal teapot the size of a bucket. The tea comes out the spout already milky. She hands everyone a cup, a napkin and three chocolate biscuits which she selects with metal tongues from a large plastic container. It’s all served so mechanically, no words, not even a smile. When she reaches our table, she gives me the same as everyone else.
Waiting for her to leave, I take a quick sip of the tea. And almost spit it out at once.
In my early acting days, travelling on some dismal tour of school halls, I’ve had some terrible meals. But never, ever, have I been served tea like this. It tastes of nothing, unless it’s metal pot, plastic cup and bored expression. Bored tea.
No one else seems to mind. They drink, they dunk their biscuits and eat. All except my grandfather. He just drinks his tea in one long gulp.
“Don’t you want your biscuits, Bill?” Gethin asks.
Bill shoves them towards Gethin. “I hate chocolate bourbons. And it’s been chocolate bourbons every day for a month now.”
“Job lot.” The red-haired woman snatches one of the biscuits almost from right under Gethin’s fingers.
I offer them mine and the three biscuits disappear instantly. My grandfather has finished his tea and is looking at my teacup.
I pass it to him. “Would you like more?” I ask. “Should I ask the tea lady.”
They all laugh at this.
“Let her try,” Gethin says. “You never know. Maybe her pretty face can work miracles.”
I’m already up, so I hurry out after the tea lady. “Excuse me. Can I please have another cup of tea for Mr Jones?”
She turns to glare at me as if I were Oliver Twist asking for more gruel. Considering the quality of tea on her trolly, she has no right to look disgusted by anything.
“They’ve had their tea.”
“I know, I think he’d like seconds.”
She starts shaking her head, but just then, the manager I saw before comes out of a room. “Hello. You must Bill’s visitor.” She offers me a bright, charming smile. “Welcome to The Glyn.”
“She wants more tea,” Trolly Lady complains.
“Mrs Jenkins,” the manager says with an odd expression, as if she’s trying to impress each word with extra meaning. “Can you make a fresh pot of tea and go to the Games Lounge and offer everyone as much tea as they’d like?”
Mrs Jenkins starts to push her trolley, but the manager stops her.
“Leave the trolley here. Just make a fresh pot. Quickly.” Then she turns to me. “I’m Cynthia. I manage The Glyn for our residents. Bill is your…?”
“My grandfather.”
The words are new; I’ve never said them before today. I’ve never had grandparents.
“How wonderful. We’ve not seen you here before.”
Over her shoulder, I can see through the entrance to the main lounge. The glass doors to the terrace are open. Not only unlocked but actually open. Welsh Hagrid is out there standing by the railings, looking over the garden.
“Is this your first visit?” Cynthia asks.
I turn back to her unsure if she’s aware her instructions have been flouted. “I normally live in London.”
My answer makes her smile even more. “How lovely to meet you. Please let me know if there is anything your grandfather needs. My door is always open.”
Just like the terrace door, apparently.
She makes me come into her office where she offers me a business card and more assurance of her help.
When I get back in the games lounge, trolley lady is on her way there too. And if the smell from the teapot is any clue, this is real PG Tips.
When she pours more cups, this time it’s not already milky. She offers us a milk jug and more of the chocolate biscuits.
“We got the good brew,” Deniro says excited. “And extra biscuits? How did you manage that?”
“Your granddaughter is a miracle worker.” This from Vanessa, her voice is mellow and rich. If I’m not mistaken, it’s a trained voice. If you know what to look for you can always tell when someone has a professional voice. Could she have been a singer or an actor in her youth?
“I hope you’re coming tomorrow,” she says with a smile.
Everyone looks at me with hopeful eyes. Especially my grandfather. His eyes almost beg me.