Chapter eight #2
‘Tremendous! Will you ladies excuse me?’ He gestured at his watch. ‘Our guest speaker will be arriving in a moment and I want to make sure she has everything she needs. Ah! More volunteers! Excellent!’
And Lewis hurried away, holding the door open first for the volunteers, also older ladies in smart jackets, who came in and took the seats at the other end of the horseshoe.
‘So, I did apologise to Mrs Henderson,’ began Sheila, with a deep sigh, and I was stuck, nodding, in a long explanation of how hard it was to organise a minibus route to visit all the various residential homes in the Longhampton catchment area when half the passengers couldn’t be relied upon to give an up-to-date address to the driver.
By the time Sheila had finished – and I’d heard some hair-raising stories about worse places Martine could have been abandoned, corroborated by Janice – the other seats had filled up with a mix of volunteers and staff in lilac overalls.
And then the doors were flung open again, and Lewis returned with a small lady in a long chiffon cardigan the colour of flames, with close-cropped white hair and silver Doc Marten boots.
Immediately, everyone’s attention swung in her direction like iron filings to a magnet.
Gayle Burton floated across the room, trailing a strong but gorgeous perfume, and a sense of something about to happen.
When the excited whispering died down, Lewis spread his hands wide, encompassing the whole room as if addressing the Royal Albert Hall.
‘Hello, everyone, and welcome to Rosemount Court. Thank you so much for giving up your time this morning. We are very lucky to have Gayle Burton here to lead our Story of My Life project, and to explain the basics of what we’ll be doing to help our residents tell their story, in their own words.
And I won’t say any more, other than I know you’re going to find this hugely rewarding – over to you, Gayle! ’
Lewis turned to go back to his chair, on the end nearest the door, but a nurse had snuck in while he was speaking and taken it. Without missing a beat, he walked over to the chairs stacked up by the window, lifted one from the top and set it down next to mine.
I tried not to show it, but I felt awkward.
I’d chosen to be on the end so I could cross my legs without impinging on anyone’s space.
Lewis was quite close, so I had no choice but to give him a quick, tight smile which I hope conveyed annoyance but also resignation, and in return he beamed his disconcerting bright smile at me, then turned his attention back to Gayle.
I focused on Gayle too, adopting an expression of intense concentration, but in truth, I was hyper-aware of the button on my shirt, the one that was straining over the widest part of my bust. I hunched my shoulders further in.
‘What happens when we share our stories with other people?’ Gayle held up one finger; she had enviable glossy nails.
‘We offer context to our lives – not just about who we are now, but who we have been, who we want to be.’ She held up another finger.
‘We form a bond with the person listening to us, we build trust and we feel heard.’ She held up another finger.
‘We learn things about ourselves, by looking back and selecting the moments that feel most significant. Maybe we see events differently, through the lens of experience. We can recognise the value in ourselves by seeing our lives through another’s eyes. ’
Next to me, Lewis nodded sagely.
So far, so Live, Laugh, Love, I thought. Ash and I had read a lot of self-help books in the Heartbreak Wilderness Years.
‘But most of all,’ Gayle went on, ‘when we tell stories, we create conversations. And isn’t that the most important thing, when you live and work in a community? Proper conversations?’
There were murmurs of agreement.
Gayle explained how the project worked: over the course of eight weeks, we would sit with residents for an hour – ‘not too long, it can be overwhelming’ – and ask them guided questions about their lives that triggered memories, which we would compile into notes to be written up into books by the writing team, with photographs and other media included, if they wanted.
The end result would be something residents could keep updating, perhaps with family members, as a future heirloom.
‘It’s helpful to have something to refer to, as memories blur, or for guests who find it hard to make small talk.
It’s easy to open the book and prompt more stories. ’
From Rosemount’s perspective, she said, it helped the care co-ordinators to dive more deeply into likes, dislikes, fears and beliefs, information that could be incorporated into individual plans, ‘so we’re confident that we’re interacting with them not just as the older, more vulnerable person they are now, but as the person they’ve been throughout their lives. ’
Gayle talked us through the pages of the hand-out which outlined how to approach the interview sessions.
‘It doesn’t have to be linear,’ she cautioned us.
‘And it doesn’t have to be complete. Or strictly accurate.
The benefit is in the remembering, not necessarily the documentary accuracy.
There may be aspects of someone’s life that they don’t care to remember. That’s fine.’
Around me people were starting to murmur to each other; Gayle’s enthusiasm had set a few volunteers off down Memory Lane, even before they’d got to the residents.
‘I know it can be awkward asking complete strangers to tell you personal details like this,’ she said, raising her voice slightly to be heard over the sound of people whispering ‘. . . Juke Box Jury . . . decimalisation . . .’ ‘Which is why we’re going to practise here first. I’m going to put you into pairs and you’re going to get the answers to three of the questions on the worksheet. All right?’
Without warning, she started going round the horseshoe matching people up, until she got to the end, and reached me, the odd one out.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I don’t mind not—’
‘Not at all!’ Gayle smiled and for a moment I hoped she’d say I could interview her. ‘Lewis, you’ll be Beth’s partner, won’t you? Just for this exercise?’
Lewis had been scribbling in a ridiculously tiny notebook, like something you might find in a Christmas cracker, but now snapped to attention. ‘Of course! I can’t wait to get started on this project.’
‘Are you going to have time to do it yourself?’ Gayle looked doubtful. ‘Pam said you were absolutely snowed under.’
‘I never ask volunteers to do anything I’m not doing myself.
Besides, I can’t wait to get to know the residents better.
’ Lewis swivelled his chair round, straddled it, and faced me with disarming keenness.
He had the eager brightness of a Labrador.
With a moustache. ‘Beth, would you like to go first? Or shall I?’
Gayle raised her eyebrows at me over Lewis’s head, and glided off to oversee another couple.
‘I’ll go first,’ I said. Might as well get it out of the way. I glanced down at the worksheet, scanning the questions for something suitable for a total stranger under the age of forty.
A good question: how old was Lewis?
I glanced up again, trying not to make it obvious that I was scrutinising him.
The moustache made it tricky, but he was probably about my age; his skin, now I looked closely, was smooth and faintly freckled, and there were no silver threads in his thick brown hair.
But he was wearing a tie for work, and his socks had tiny owls on them.
He couldn’t be more than thirty-five, I decided.
He was staring at me, smiling dopily, so I blurted out the first question my eye fell on, ‘Um . . . what makes you happy?’
‘Cycling,’ he said at once. ‘Never happier than when I’m out on my bike, flying down a hill. Any weather, any season, never fails to make me feel alive.’
‘Have you ever fallen off?’
‘Once or twice.’ He beamed. ‘But no broken bones. Touch wood! Are you a cyclist?’
‘Me?’ I almost laughed at the idea. ‘God, no.’
‘Why not? It’s the best feeling.’
‘I’ll have to take your word for that.’ I didn’t want to picture myself perched on a bike, thanks. ‘Um, tell me about a moment that changed your life?’
‘A moment that changed my life . . . Wow.’ Lewis seemed thrown for a second. He glanced down to his left for a second, then looked back at me. ‘Passing my Cycling Proficiency Test!’
‘Really?’ I said, in disbelief. Surely not even Mark Cavendish would choose ‘passing my Cycling Proficiency Test’ as a life-changing moment. ‘Not meeting your first girlfriend? Or . . .’
My mind went blank. I couldn’t say ‘getting married’ or ‘having a child’ because I’d hate him to ask me those things; there were so many milestones I was nowhere near achieving. Or ever would, at this rate.
Lewis seemed to sense my discomfort. ‘Do you want to swap over? Where were you born?’
‘Abergavenny,’ I said.
Immediately, a photo album opened in my mind: my parents’ first pub, the Shepherd’s Crook, them standing outside it, me on Mum’s hip.
We’d lived there until I was seven. Then we’d moved to Bristol, ostensibly because of a better opportunity for Dad in a better location, but actually, as I found out from Mum later, because Dad had fallen out with the brewery over money.
And also, as I found out from Dad, because Mum had had an affair with a barman.
‘Wales, lovely!’ said Lewis. ‘Or should I say, da iawn? I do like to try to pronounce the names on the signs if I’m ever over the border, but I’m sure I’m doing it wrong. Do you speak Welsh?’
‘No.’ The barman Mum had an affair with had been Welsh. He was called Dewi. He taught me some swearwords. Dewi. I hadn’t thought about him in years. He had a tattoo, before everyone did. And a sort of knowing smirk – which of course he would, wouldn’t he?
Lewis was waiting for me to say something, that look of expectation on his face.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I grew up in Bristol.’
The Sailor’s Arms, Dad’s pub in Bristol, hadn’t been much better, but at least Mum and Dad had only stayed together until I was thirteen.
Dad spent half his time yelling at Mum, and half his time yelling at me.
On my thirteenth birthday, he moved to London with the policewoman he’d been seeing on the side, while Mum and I stayed in Bristol and I did my best to stop her drinking herself into oblivion every weekend.
‘What was your favourite childhood memory? Can be anything from a television programme to a favourite toy!’
Lewis waited for me to elaborate but an old tension had gripped my heart, squeezing it tight.
As soon as my mind slid back to Bristol, I could smell that stale beer pub smell again.
That looming fear of saying the wrong thing, of Dad’s silent glare across the table, never having friends back, long nights falling asleep with my iPod, earbuds hurting my ears so I couldn’t hear Mum crying.
‘Nothing interesting,’ I said, as casually as I could. ‘Just the usual boring memories – Toy Story, Harry Potter, My Little Pony, you know. Can we . . . ?’
‘Fair enough! Let’s fast-forward.’ Lewis consulted the handout. ‘What’s your greatest achievement?’
My mind went blank.
Why had I agreed to do this? It wasn’t meant to be about me.
Yes, my childhood had had its share of sad moments but I spent as little time as possible thinking about it; I found it didn’t help.
My life had started at university, and then really started when I met Fraser.
That’s when I found the life I was supposed to be living, hanging out with interesting people, being taken seriously, going to Latitude and the Hay Festival and . . .
Lewis was looking at me with that ‘and?’ prompt.
What was my greatest achievement? There wasn’t really anything. No marriage, no awards, no children, no house, no quirky hobby. What could I tell Lewis that was true and at the same time hid the complete lack of achievement in my adult life?
I heard myself say, ‘I’ve perfected a recipe for making the perfect one-person chocolate cake in a mug.’
‘Really?’ said Lewis, as if I’d revealed I was the genius who’d invented email. ‘How?’
‘Three tablespoons flour, three sugar, two cocoa, an egg . . .’ I rattled off the ingredients and method. ‘Oh, half a teaspoon of espresso, that’s the secret ingredient. It brings out the chocolate flavour.’
‘How did you discover that?’
‘I didn’t,’ I said. ‘My mum did. She was a chef. Sort of.’
Dad liked to think that he could have been Gordon Ramsay, had he only been allowed more time to perfect his cooking instead of running a pub, but it was Mum who had the knack of making something out of nothing.
‘You can add a splash of brandy,’ I said, thinking of her. ‘Just not too much.’
Lewis was scribbling away.
‘Are you writing this down?’ I asked.
‘I want to try it later.’
‘Really? You don’t . . .’
‘How are you getting on?’ I felt Gayle’s hand touch my shoulder. She smelled lovely, of ripe figs.
‘We’ve got it cracked,’ Lewis announced. ‘Beth is a creative domestic goddess who was born in Wales, but grew up in Bristol.’
‘And Lewis?’
‘Lewis likes cycling. And, um . . .’ I’d failed to find out anything else about Lewis.
I saw his face fall.
I glanced at his owl socks and quickly added, ‘Lewis loves nature, enjoys travelling around Britain and history.’
‘Yes!’ said Lewis, apparently astonished.
Gayle looked between the two of us and nodded. ‘Good start.’
‘Shall I ask Pam to bring in the refreshments now?’ asked Lewis. ‘I think we’re ready for a break.’
Gayle made a brief flicking gesture and I glanced down: the button on my shirt had popped open, revealing a flash of blue bra. Mortified, I clasped the material shut over my chest, and half-turned, nearly bumping into Sheila and Janice in my haste to find somewhere to adjust my clothing.
It turned out to be a lovely oak-panelled cloakroom that would have been a perfect setting for one of Seraphina and Arthur’s trysts, had I been in the right frame of mind to take notes, but I wasn’t.
The memories, the contact with strangers, the chat .
. . suddenly I felt overwhelmed. And so I made my excuses to a passing volunteer, and went home.