Chapter twenty-two #2
Instead I gently removed myself from beneath Tomsk, and started to type up some of the stories for Gayle, but the notes at the top of my pile were about Hugh and Kay; they’d been telling Ellie about how they’d met (in the lift, at an awards ceremony at the Dorchester), and I couldn’t bear to think about that, knowing that Hugh would be in hospital by now, and poor Kay would be sick with worry.
I spun on my office chair and looked at the kitchen.
My brain was telling me to make a mug cake to cheer myself up, but I didn’t feel like eating.
Instead, I spun back and picked up my phone. Before I could think too hard, I called the number I had for Rosemount.
It rang a few times, and then I heard Pam’s recorded message
‘Hello!’ It was her telephone voice, more self-conscious than her normal one.
‘You’ve reached Rosemount Court residential care home.
Our office hours are nine a.m. to six p.m. If you’d like to speak to Lewis Levison, please press one.
If you’d like to speak to Pamela Woodward, Housekeeper, press two. ’
I pressed two, and the line reconnected and rang out again, different ring tone.
I waited for Pam to pick up, and thought about Hugh and Linda.
I wondered, with a pang, how poor Bill would manage without Linda’s comforting chatter. Would the nurses be able to interpret his silences the way Linda did? Would it help if I offered to take Tomsk in to see him? My heart hurt for how little anything would probably help.
‘Lewis Levison?’
I spun all the way round in my chair at the sound of his voice in my ear. ‘Lewis? Sorry, I was expecting Pam.’
‘Did you call Rosemount? I diverted all the numbers to mine, just in case there were any more press calls.’
‘Press calls?’
‘I don’t know why but apparently it’s been on some neighbourhood website that there’s been nothing short of a massacre up at Rosemount this afternoon.
Old people collapsing like skittles, it said.
Air ambulance in attendance, multiple ambulances.
’ He sounded despairing. ‘Where do people get these stories from? And why do people want them to be true?’
‘Why would anyone want to make up something like that?’
‘Who knows? But they are. Carrie Clark called me for a quote. I mean,’ he added, ‘she knows the place isn’t a death trap, she was only here a few weeks ago!’
This probably wasn’t the moment to mention Pam’s concern about the call bells.
‘How are Hugh and Linda?’ I asked. ‘Any news?’
‘Linda’s stable. She’s going into surgery first thing in the morning, but Hugh’s still in intensive care. I’m waiting for an update from the ward sister any moment now.’
‘You’re still at the hospital?’
‘Yes. It took a while to get them checked in.’
I looked at the clock on the wall. It was nearly ten o’clock.
‘Have you eaten?’
‘Um, no. I’m reluctant to start wandering around the hospital in search of food in case I miss the update.’
‘Do you want me to bring you something?’ Longhampton Hospital was only five minutes in the car, and it wasn’t as if I was doing anything. ‘You need to eat.’
I was already opening the cupboards, getting out the cocoa, the sugar, the eggs. The special big mug.
‘Well, that would be incredibly kind.’
Was that a catch in Lewis’s voice? I’d never heard him sound so deflated.
‘I’ll be there before you know it,’ I said, and started whisking.
Lewis was sitting outside the Intensive Care Unit, one long leg crossed over the other to form a makeshift desk for his notebook, while he attended to his emails on his phone. He was frowning, worrying, obviously trying to keep the plates spinning at Rosemount even in the middle of this disaster.
He was back in his suit, for appearance’s sake, but the red Lycra of his cycling top peeked out from underneath his shirt, and the flash of his white sports sock, just visible under his trouser leg, was a sudden reminder of being behind him on the tandem, close enough to hear his quick, athletic breaths, so different from the controlled professional man who ran Rosemount like a well-oiled machine.
I stopped to study him for a second, before he saw me. Who was Lewis, when he wasn’t at work? Who looked after him, the way he looked after everyone else?
But the corridor was too quiet for the sound of my footsteps to go unnoticed. I’d only paused for a second before he looked up, quickly, and when he saw it was me, he smiled. Not the usual Lewis smile, much lower wattage and more careworn, but still a smile.
‘I can’t believe you’ve come in,’ he said. ‘This is so kind of you.’
‘What? No, I’m just round the corner, it’s no bother.’
He shifted some papers off the chair next to him. ‘Sorry, I’m snowed under with paperwork. I have to file an incident report, and senior management are already requesting quite a lot of additional feedback for legal reasons . . .’ He stopped, as if he’d said too much.
‘I admire a man who keeps on top of his admin.’ I started to unpack my cool bag, putting the flask and two cups down on the chair between us. ‘I’ve brought you some coffee. And some fruit. And this.’ I opened the Tupperware box and offered him the contents.
Lewis peered inside, then looked up with a grin. ‘A mug cake!’
‘It’s still a bit hot, be careful.’ I passed him the little pot of cream to pour on top. Somewhat belatedly, I wondered if this was a weird thing to do. Too late now. ‘I find them comforting in stressful situations.’
He sniffed it appreciatively, like someone savouring a fine wine. ‘Is it the warmth, do you think? The chocolate?’
‘Yes, but . . .’ I hesitated, then decided Lewis deserved more detail.
The extra cream. ‘My mum used to make them for me when I was upset about something. She’d get out the ingredients and line them up, pretending we were on a cooking programme.
We’d make it together. The silliness of it used to take my mind off whatever was upsetting me.
’ I didn’t add, ‘Which was usually Dad,’ although it was.
‘Sift this, whisk in that . . .’ I mimed the mixing.
‘She never used to measure anything, she just had that knack of knowing when it was right.’
‘And she’s never given you the recipe? She made you work it out for yourself?’
‘Mum died when I was twenty-two,’ I said. ‘And she probably wouldn’t have known herself even if I’d asked.’
‘Oh.’ Lewis looked mortified. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.’
I handed him a teaspoon. My best teaspoon, a silver spoon I’d found in a charity shop. ‘It was complicated. She wasn’t well.’
‘Didn’t you make one for yourself?’
I reached into the bag and took out a teacup. I hadn’t felt like eating when I made it – I just did it to be companionable – but now I dug in with my other good spoon, and we sat in companionable silence, eating hot mocha pudding together.
The antiseptic smell of the corridor, and the night ward sounds brought back some sharp memories: of Mum, and the last night in the ICU, when she’d looked at me and begged me to tell the nurses she’d had enough, my heart physically cracking inside me.
I hadn’t felt old enough for us to swap places like that, me being briefed by doctors, her lying there with her head turned towards the corner, blank eyes, lank hair.
Dad hadn’t returned my call until the next day. When I’d decided I didn’t need his help anyway, and never would again.
I stared into my half-empty cup, and wished I’d heard the real story of Mum’s life.
Even though now I was old enough to understand there wasn’t one definitive story that told the whole truth.
Just our stories, collected together, to make a rough approximation.
The best I could do now was keep our own stories alive, in myself.
I dug my spoon into the cup and scooped out the molten heart of the cake, the best bit.
‘This has really hit the spot,’ said Lewis. ‘You’re a life-saver.’
That was exactly what I was not. ‘So tell me about Linda and Hugh.’
‘Linda’s broken her hip, but she’s still managing to tell the nurses what to do. That might be the painkillers, though. Hugh . . .’ Lewis pressed his lips together. ‘Hugh’s not so good. His son’s on the way from London. Jonathan.’
‘Oh.’
‘Pam brought Kay in to see Hugh earlier, but took her home. There’s no point Kay sitting here all night, especially when she’s not—’ He stopped himself.
‘Not what?’
Lewis debated with himself, then decided he might as well just tell me. ‘Kay is, between you and me, living with a cancer diagnosis. It’s not confidential but she’s a very private person. Please forget I told you that.’
‘Of course.’ I wouldn’t have guessed, I thought. But then who knew what people were living with, medical or otherwise.
‘I said I’d stay until Jonathan arrives, just in case Hugh comes round. I’ll pop down to see Linda, of course, but I suspect she’s having a nap.’
‘She and Bill don’t have children, do they? They told me that,’ I added, ‘I’m not snooping.’
Linda (and Bill, I suppose, in his own way) had been very open about their disappointment at not having a family, but ‘it was what it was’, and ‘it gave us more freedom to travel’. ‘And we’ve got each other,’ Linda had added, ‘which is more of a blessing than most.’
‘That’s why I don’t mind doing my paperwork here tonight,’ said Lewis. ‘I don’t want Linda to feel we’ve left her on her own.’
I watched him scraping out the last of his mug cake with the tip of his spoon, meticulously enjoying every last trace, then his email alert pinged again, and he put down the mug, knitted his brows in thought, then rattled off a swift reply.
Then he went back to his mug. There was an old-fashioned capability about Lewis that you’d normally associate with pre-war matrons, or benevolent gods.
Velvet-covered steel, or steel-encased velvet, I wasn’t sure which.
‘Lewis, can I ask you something?’ I said. ‘How did you end up running residential homes?’
‘I’m a huge fan of bingo.’
‘No, really,’ I said. ‘I’m interested.’
He shrugged. ‘Are you sure? It’s a long story.’
I glanced at the clock. ‘I don’t see us going anywhere in a hurry.’
‘I was brought up by my grandparents.’ He ran a hand through his hair.
‘My mum died when I was seven, and my dad was in the RAF and couldn’t cope with me on his own, so he sent me to his old boarding school.
We’d already moved around a lot on postings; he thought it would be best for me to have some stability.
I used to spend my holidays between Dad’s parents, who lived in Edinburgh, and Mum’s family, who had a smallholding in Herefordshire. Not too far from here, actually.’
He stared down the corridor towards the swing doors that led to Hugh and the ICU, but I didn’t think that’s what he was seeing.
‘All four of them were such interesting human beings. Grandpa Levison took me fishing, Grandad Pugh let me drive a tractor. Grandma Levison was a secret shopper, and Grandma Pugh had been a typist at GCHQ and she taught me shorthand so we could write each other letters in code from school. They did everything they could to salvage some happiness for me, to give me a childhood, and I loved them exactly as much as I missed my mum.’
‘A lot, I’m guessing. In both directions.’
He nodded. ‘They were a bit older than my friends’ grandparents, and they used to tease me about spending the holidays with ‘old people’ – but I never thought of them as being old.
They were people. Young people like me who’d just been around longer.
And as I got older myself, I tried to look after them the way they’d looked after me. ’
I thought of the courteous way Lewis treated every resident, anticipating their requirements, making sure they were comfortable, respecting their dignity.
‘I bet you did.’
His face clouded. ‘Not as well as I wanted to, unfortunately. I wasn’t there often enough.
I started my career in a different field, property, in London.
I missed some important moments. And then I .
. . Then I decided to move into the care sector, and made a promise to myself that no one in any home I ran would ever have to be on their own at the end, or feel scared, or be afraid to ask for decent treatment, no matter how many hours that took. ’
At what cost to himself, I wondered. He was sitting in a hospital corridor with his paperwork, no supper, no one waiting for him at home.
‘And you’ve done that,’ I reminded him. ‘You’ve transformed Rosemount.’
Lewis shook his head. ‘Two residents in hospital and everyone talking about us on social media again? That’s my fault. No one else’s.’
‘It’s not. It’s not your fault, Lewis.’ Without thinking, I reached out and took his hand, squeezing it.
His hand was warm, but he carried on staring at the double doors without squeezing back, and to my surprise I felt a hollowness in my chest. The absence of a response made me realise I’d expected one, and that I’d really wanted one.
Disappointment bloomed inside me like a rock dropping into water.
I’d barely begun to process that thought when the double doors swung open, and a doctor appeared, followed by a nurse.
‘Mr Levison?’ Her sombre expression was enough to know that the update from Hugh’s bedside wasn’t going to be good.
Lewis gave my hand a brief squeeze back, a friendly squeeze of thanks, then he stood up, adjusted his cuffs, and said, ‘What news, doctor?’ The little boy had gone, and Rosemount’s manager, capable of dealing with anything, was back.