Chapter ten
Lewis’s to-do list was a constantly evolving document which he revised every night before he went to bed, but one name remained at the top of it: Eunice Stafford.
Eunice, Lewis had decided, was his key to success at Rosemount Court.
Eunice’s eagle eye for problems would help him target every minor flaw in the operation the second it happened, and, if his suspicions were correct – that someone was behind a dirty tricks campaign – might help lead him to whoever was responsible.
Lewis had seen similar tactics before; Rosemount was a well-equipped home in a prime location, and after a report as bad as the one Rosemount had just had, other care home groups would be circling like sharks, ready to snap it up at a knockdown price if Eric Alexander decided to cut his losses.
Besides, in a more general sense, if his planned improvements could crack a smile from Eunice, then the rest of the residents would presumably be in a state of delirious rapture.
‘Let me make you a deal,’ he’d said to her son Michael, once Michael had finally stopped listing his grievances.
‘I will personally oversee Eunice’s care plan and if she’s not happy in one month’s time, and she still wants to find different accommodation, I will not only help you find somewhere that better suits her needs, but we’ll refund her fees for that month. ’
There’d been a somewhat undermining intake of breath from Pam Woodward as he’d spoken, but Lewis had kept his reassuring smile fixed on Michael. He was confident that it wouldn’t come to that, and in his experience you had to raise the stakes to get results, starting with yourself.
Michael had glanced across at his wife – not at Eunice, Lewis noted – and grudgingly said, ‘Fine. But I’ll be checking in with Mum. She deserves the very best.’
‘Of course,’ Lewis had reassured him. ‘That’s what I want for her too.’
Obviously he’d had to record his offer in the weekly management report, and expected some pushback from the senior team, but Lewis wasn’t worried.
One of his strongest skills was finding the silver lining (a phrase he had earmarked for his future management training manual/autobiography), and Eunice’s detailed list of complaints had provided Lewis with a strong set of easily achievable wins, as well as several harder wins that he wasn’t sure he could deal with immediately (poor weather, the distance of Rosemount from the hospital, etc.).
Given the energy Eunice seemed to derive from complaining, Lewis thought the Story of My Life project was something she’d actively enjoy, if only for the chance to exercise her grumble range across multiple decades.
In addition to that, she’d be sharing valuable insight into her life experiences, which in turn might offer a clue as to how Lewis could make her happy.
Lewis was of the belief that everyone could be made happy somehow. Even Eunice Stafford.
Rosemount’s enrichment officer was Pam Woodward, who’d been landed with the job in addition to acting manager and housekeeper, after Jodie Ryelands, the previous incumbent, was sacked by David Rigg for fixing the Easter raffle.
(Or not fixing it, depending on who you talked to.) Pam didn’t like the title, she explained to Lewis, partly because it sounded agricultural and partly because it made her feel responsible for something she couldn’t control – other people’s enjoyment of life.
‘You can take a horse to bingo, but you can’t make it enjoy it,’ she’d explained, when he’d queried the limited amount of ‘enrichment’ on offer.
‘But, Pam, residents do expect a decent quality of entertainment these days.’
‘We have movie nights,’ she protested.
‘We need to offer much, much more than movie nights,’ Lewis reminded her. ‘Living here should be like living on a grounded cruise ship. But with gardens. And hospital access. And no seagulls.’
Pam had given him the uncertain smile that Lewis already knew indicated that she wasn’t sure if he was joking or not.
She extracted a piece of paper from the file that was permanently tucked under her arm, and passed it across the desk.
‘So, anyway, here’s the volunteer rota I’ve made for the Story of My Life sessions. ’
Lewis read it and frowned. ‘Wait. You’ve missed someone off!’
Her face froze. ‘Who?’
‘Me!’ Lewis pointed to himself for emphasis. ‘You’ve missed me off!’
‘What? I didn’t think . . . You’re too busy for this.’
‘First thing you need to know about me, Pam, is that I’ll never ask anyone on our team to do anything I’m not prepared to do myself.’
Pam looked shifty. ‘Before you say anything, I’m not on that list because I was keeping myself as a reserve when people drop out. People always drop out.’
‘Good planning,’ agreed Lewis. ‘But in any case, it’s more important for me to do this. It’s a chance for me to get to know people. You know everyone already.’
Of course it also opened the opportunity for him to bump into Beth Cherry again, but that wasn’t his main reason for wanting to lead the charge. That was merely a bonus, he told himself.
‘So put me down for any three residents,’ he went on, ‘one of whom should be Eunice Stafford.’
‘Eunice? Are you sure? She’s very . . . negative.’
‘That’s precisely why I want to get to know her,’ said Lewis. ‘I want to find out why that is.’
‘On your head be it,’ said Pam darkly, and Lewis respected her for not muttering it under her breath.
Eunice was available for her first session the following day; Lewis fitted her in between meetings with the catering supplier and the owner of a replacement cleaning agency, which could not, in Lewis’s opinion, be any worse than the outfit David Rigg had hired.
There had been another outbreak of mouse droppings in the kitchen, despite the visit from pest control the previous week.
As soon as Lewis crossed one problem off his list, a fresh one seemed to appear.
He made another note, on his secret list, to put some security cameras in the area to see where the mice were coming from.
‘You might not need a whole hour with Eunice,’ Pam warned him. ‘I’ve seen her own children leave within five minutes.’
‘I’m sure she’ll have plenty to tell me,’ said Lewis, setting off with his notebook and Gayle’s question prompts, which he’d laminated.
Eunice’s apartment was on the first floor, at the back of the building, overlooking what had once been a kitchen vegetable garden and was now just a mess.
Like most of the residents, she’d condensed a family home into two rooms and the effect was a huge amount of teak in a small space, giving Lewis the overwhelming sensation of being inside a coffin.
‘Now then, Eunice,’ he said, moving three scatter cushions to sit down on the chair opposite hers. ‘I’ve come to talk to you about your life.’
‘Hnngh.’ Eunice’s sniffs went from unimpressed through to judgemental. ‘Hnngh’ didn’t sound completely dismissive, though.
‘You’ve heard about our new project? Have your friends mentioned it?’
‘There’s been talk at lunch. I hear the Horrobins have been interviewed already – how did they get to the top of the list?’
‘You’re top of my list, Eunice – my very first interviewee! I’ve been looking forward to hearing more about what you did before you joined us here.’
She rolled her eyes but Lewis was sure he could see a flicker of interest.
He got out his notebook and clicked his pen, placing the prompt sheet on the coffee table in front of him.
‘Now then. It says here to start at the very beginning – it’s a very good place to start, ha-ha! – so where would that be for you? Are you a native Longhamptonian?’
Eunice sighed and crossed her feet at the ankles. She wore soft leather shoes with Velcro straps but they were red. Lewis thought they looked like a medieval child’s.
‘Why are we doing this again?’ she asked. ‘Is this a marketing scam? Pretending to be interested so you can sell me funeral cover?’
‘What? Why? Why would we do that?’ Lewis was bemused.
‘No. The better we know who you are, the better we can look after you.’ He gestured towards the tray on the table between them.
‘Like with your tea. You told Michael your tea was never strong enough, so we made a note for the kitchen to put an extra bag in your pot. And Marek came to ask you if there was a particular brand of tea you’d like, didn’t he? And now?’
‘It’s not as bad as it was,’ Eunice acknowledged.
‘Tremendous! So that’s what this is about – learning more about each other. Your family’s had nearly eighty years to get to know you, whereas we’ve got a bit of catching up to do.’
‘Hmmph.’
Eunice had the sort of pale-blue eyes normally found in portraits of closely related aristocrats, the type that looked right through you, and judged hard, toying with the possibility of execution.
There were one or two examples of those still hanging around the house, too big to be removed during the house’s various incarnations from home to school to hotel to home again.
Lewis was no stranger to awkward stares but there was something about Eunice that was particularly challenging.
Still, he liked a challenge.
‘Have you always taken your tea strong, Eunice?’
She seemed to be weighing up an answer.
Normally Lewis would have deployed his Pause of Power, but he heard himself say, ‘Did you have tea bags growing up? When were they invented, tea bags? Did you have tea leaves? Did you know someone down your street who could tell fortunes with tea leaves?’
‘Are you calling me a witch?’
‘Not at all!’
‘Who’s doing this interview, you or me?’
‘It’s a team effort!’
‘Nggh.’ Eunice’s lip curled.
Lewis sat back, momentarily winded.
She weighed him up for a long moment. ‘I’ll tell you why I like strong tea, Mr Levison. My stepdad was a mean bugger, always made us reuse tea leaves. Soon as I could afford my own, I put an extra bag in the pot and damn the expense.’
‘There you go,’ said Lewis, making a note. ‘And we’re off.’