reading

1. Linco Beer Shampoo

May 1977

The job at Paradise Lodge was Miranda Longlady’s idea. I happened to bump into her outside Pop-in stores one day and she pointed out a card on the noticeboard.

Paradise Lodge – nursing home for the elderly.

Non-unionized auxiliary nurses sought for part-time duties – 35p per hour.

Ideal part-time position for outgoing, compassionate females of any age.

Miranda wanted to apply and was hoping to talk her sister, Melody, into going with her. But when Melody came out of the shop with a loaf of Take ’n’ Bake and read the notice she said it wasn’t for her. She’d gone into a punk phase around then and had pierced her upper ear with a needle and an ice cube and had intellectual obscenities felt-penned on to her T-shirt.

‘Go on,’ Miranda whined, ‘I don’t want to go on my own.’

While they bickered, I read the card again closely and realized that I wanted the job. I was fifteen and I loved the idea of being professionally compassionate. I was longing for something that might blossom into a new phase that didn’t involve horses, or school or becoming a punk like Melody, or having a full-time boyfriend – all of which seemed too exhausting to commit to – plus 35p per hour would work out at almost £3 a day – a huge amount then. You could practically live on it. Plus it was a walkable distance and I was a hater of bus travel.

‘I’ll go with you,’ I said, and Miranda spun round and looked at me gone out. We’d never been particularly friendly. Actually, I hated her and ditto she me, but for the reasons above, I ended up walking with her to the next village to ‘apply in person forthwith’ as per the card.

The walk to Paradise Lodge was fascinating. Miranda opened up to me about her reason for needing the job and it was so compelling and romantic and unlike the Miranda of old, I changed my mind about her. I still didn’t like her, as such, but she seemed interesting, which was more than could be said for most people.

Miranda and her mother were at loggerheads regarding her boyfriend, Mike Yu. Miranda had gone on the pill to be poised to have intercourse with him – when the time came – and Mrs Longlady had twigged it because of Miranda suddenly going up two bra sizes in spite of a recent switch from real bread to low-calorie Slimcea. Mrs Longlady had stopped Miranda’s pocket money and was now refusing to give her a penny until she stopped seeing Mike Yu.

The real problem was that Mrs Longlady preferred Miranda’s ex. A boy from Market Harborough called ‘Big Smig’ who was posh but tried to play it down by swearing and whose dad worked for British Leyland on the admin side and whose mum did charity work for Princess Anne with a horsey connection and was single-handedly arranging five interconnecting street parties for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee.

Miranda’s mother was offensive about Mike Yu, calling him ‘Buttercup’ and saying he was Japanese. This infuriated Miranda because Mike wasn’t, he was from Hong Kong and the people from there are British or Chinese – unless they’re another nationality. But they weren’t usually Japanese for some reason. Miranda had researched the whole thing thoroughly with an encyclopaedia and had even asked Mike Yu about it, even though that had been awkward and intrusive.

Miranda had recently had a bad dream in which her mother made a voodoo doll of Mike and stuck a pin in it. While poor Mike writhed in agony (in the dream) Miranda had shouted at her mother, ‘Stop doing voodoo on Mike, I love him.’ And it was via the dream that Miranda was first aware that she’d actually fallen in love with Mike.

Since then, Miranda’s relationship with Mike Yu had become so serious she’d been to dinner twice with the whole Yu family (Mike, his parents and an old granddad). On the first occasion they’d had food sent up to their flat from the Good Luck House takeaway, which they owned and was downstairs – and it had been very nice.

The second time, though, it was disgusting. Mike Yu’s mother had attempted to cook in the English style, in her honour, and though it was a kind gesture Miranda had very nearly been sick at the table. Mike Yu’s mother had served great big onions as if they were a vegetable, just cooked whole and plonked at the side of the plate – next to a slab of pork. Miranda had struggled with the pork (chewy/salty) and the onion (slimy/sweet) and had literally gagged and only just managed to cover it up with a pretend coughing fit. Plus it hadn’t helped that Mike Yu’s old granddad had sat there with his plastic face and glued-up eyes, eating hard-boiled eggs with his fingers.

In spite of all this horror, Miranda was so keen on Mike she’d tried to learn Chinese so they could chat in his language. It had come to nothing, though. Just learning Tuesday (tinsywaah) had taken her a week and then no sooner had she learned Wednesday (tinseeteer) than she forgot Tuesday. Miranda had expected it to be a doddle, her mother having become semi-bilingual (English/Spanish) within a matter of weeks when attending a night class.

Miranda had thrown in the towel and just spoken in English and signs. She did learn Mike Yu’s mother’s name (Yu Anching), which meant ‘Quiet’, and his father’s (Yu Huiqing), which meant ‘Good Luck’, but hadn’t bothered with the old granddad because she didn’t want to have to look at him.

She thanked God for Mike having an English name, otherwise she might not have been able to go out with him.

‘But he must have a Chinese name,’ I said.

‘No,’ Miranda assured me, ‘Mike’s Mike in Chinese.’

Anyway, Miranda needed the job for money to buy clothes and cosmetics to look trendy and attractive for Mike Yu, especially as she had outgrown all her clothes with her new bigger bust. She had given away her Dorothy Perkins bras to her sister, Melody, who wasn’t on the pill and needed the padding and had gone a bit manly in puberty.

My reasons for wanting a job didn’t seem anywhere near as exciting or romantic as Miranda’s, nor as straightforward – which was just as well, since there was no time. Her story had lasted the entire forty-minute walk.

‘There,’ said Miranda, pointing, ‘Paradise Lodge.’

I flicked my fag into the drain and we tiptoed over the cattle grid.

Miranda – being in high shoes – was cautious and had to watch her footing. Looking down, I saw a walking stick lying in the oily water in the pit underneath.

‘Jesus,’ said Miranda, wobbling a bit, ‘there’s no way the old cunts are escaping from here.’

We knocked and while we waited I gazed around and saw a lady at the window above the door. She wasn’t looking out but had both hands and her cheek on the glass – a thing my brother Jack used to do when he wanted our mother to come home. He’d have to keep rubbing his breath off the glass. Eventually, the front door was opened by an old nurse who took us through to a large, steamy kitchen.

A woman in an apron introduced herself as the cook and announced it was almost teatime. She gestured us to sit and she began ladling hot stringy fruit from a great copper pan into bottles lined up at the other end of the scrubbed table. By the look of it I guessed it was stewed rhubarb.

We were joined then by a woman of around forty called Ingrid who was very tall and obviously the boss. ‘Shall we have some tea?’ she said, looking at the cook, and the cook smiled and said, ‘Yes, let’s. And a scone, perhaps?’

We were interviewed there, together, at the table. Trays of tea foods were lined up along a dresser and a little gaggle of nurses appeared and took the trays, and the cook filled two catering teapots with boiling water and it was like the nicest tea you’ve ever seen from days gone by or a royal palace. The whole thing was delightful, except I noticed Ingrid had very red eyes and had either been crying for ages or had something wrong with her. If I’d been her, I’d have said, ‘Sorry about my red eyes, I’ve got a bit of hay fever,’ whether I had or not. But she didn’t say anything about it.

It’s strange now, calling her Ingrid, because after that first meeting she was only ever known as the Owner’s Wife, and though this seems wrong now, that’s how it was. Also, I’m not 100 per cent sure now her name was Ingrid, it might have been Inga, or Irena. I only know it began with a vowel and meant ‘Divine Strength’ in Old Norse. You can look it up.

The interview was brief. She told us the golden rules for working with the elderly and asked if we’d had any experience with an Aga, which she said was the heart of the house. Miranda hadn’t but I had and was able to speak intelligently about riddling and raking. The cook, particularly, looked pleased to hear it.

The Owner’s Wife then asked us why we wanted the job. I answered first, explaining that my family couldn’t afford two types of shampoo or two types of coffee so I was stuck with Vosene and Woolco’s econo-coffee (which was half coffee, half chicory extract). And since my sister had begun bringing home all sorts from a part-time job at Woolworth’s, it had become my ambition to progress on to Linco Beer shampoo in its little barrel and Maxwell House coffee with its fresh-aroma promise.

The Owner’s Wife was intrigued. ‘It sounds as if you’ve been seduced by the advertisements on the television,’ she said.

‘I’ve tried the products and they are actually nicer than the cheap brands,’ I assured her.

Miranda butted in to explain her reasons for wanting the job. She was eager to work in a caring setting because she was a compassionate person who had experienced illness but was now in full good health. It sounded very impressive and I felt slightly outdone.

The Owner’s Wife smiled and nodded at Miranda and turned back to me. ‘Linco Beer shampoo?’ she said.

‘Yes,’ I said, and I described how Linco Beer shampoo made your hair feel. ‘It contains real beer and makes it all bouncy, thick and healthy-feeling.’

‘Well, I shall remember that, Lizzie,’ she said, ‘it sounds marvellous.’

And that was pretty much it. I forgot to mention my outgoing, compassionate nature but it must’ve come across because we both got the job and were to report for our induction the following Saturday at 8 a.m., in sensible footwear.

After the interview Miranda and I walked home. I felt quite comradely towards her now we were workmates and thought it right to share my reasons for wanting the job, since I’d heard hers in such detail and because the things I’d said in the interview will have seemed shallow and childish. I was keen to present myself in a more philosophical light.

‘It’s not just the money,’ I said, ‘I want my independence.’

It was true. I didn’t want another year of trying to cheat the vending machine, relying on handouts and lifts and third-hand information, medicated shampoo, sugar sandwiches and scrounging cigarettes, babysitting for neighbours just to steal a pot of jam or some good quality tea bags from their cupboard, another year of being in the way of other people, trying to make ends meet. I felt like a great big, grown-up nuisance.

I started on this, but Miranda wasn’t the least bit interested so I changed back to the subject of her and Mike Yu, which was lovely to hear about anyway.

Miranda immediately confided in me that Mike was so good at kissing, it made her pelvis twang. He had three different types of kiss. The first type was barely a kiss at all, just his mouth hovering close to hers, almost touching but not, and blowing hot air from his nostrils on to her upper lip. ‘Like a friendly dragon?’ I suggested but Miranda ignored me.

The second type was to cover her entire face and head with hundreds of tiny kisses while she just sat there – eyelids, earlobes, the lot, and one time he removed her birthstone earring (sapphire) with his teeth and spat it gently into her hand as a surprise finale.

And the third type of kiss was to poke all round the inside of her mouth with his tongue, including where she’d had a molar removed and the gum was shrunken and half numb, half sensitive.

The kissing was all they were doing for now, apart from erotic hand-holding. Mike Yu didn’t want to go all the way because he felt it wrong and undisciplined and said that there was so much more and that having intercourse was like galloping through the forest on the Emperor’s best horse – which was a tremendous thing but shouldn’t be experienced until you’ve walked slowly through on foot a hundred times and noticed the drops of dew on the leaves, the moss in the bark and all the shafts of light coming through the trees etc. Which was annoying, seeing as Miranda had gone on the pill specially and was gaining weight by the day.

At the edge of the village Miranda went into a phone box and told me to come in too. She rang Mike and told him that she’d got the job, she described the interview and added a few details that I’d missed, like the Owner’s Wife telling Miranda she was exactly the kind of candidate she was looking for. For some reason she told him I was in the phone box with her and put me on to say hello. Then the pips went and Miranda grabbed the receiver back and shouted, ‘I love Mike Yu!’

Walking home, Miranda continued on the theme of Mike. He was a size seven in shoes, she told me, which was smaller than average but meant she could borrow his slippers when she was with him at the flat. This really appealed to me. I told Miranda I’d love to wear a man’s coat or shoes, just to show I could, and she said that was one of the tragedies of coming from a broken home, I’d forever be wanting to wear men’s clothing. She herself could take it or leave it, having had a full-time father in residence since birth.

Mike never ate puddings, except for tinned lychees and the occasional plum. He wrote poems – including one, dedicated to her, called ‘The Snow-Fairy and the Sun’ which was hopeful but realistic, and one which was quite porno called ‘Chick Penis’ about a half-man, half-woman, half-hen and was really about identity and mercy, but had a sad ending.

As we reached the edge of the Sycamore Estate Mike Yu pulled up in his Datsun Cherry.

‘Look, it’s Mike,’ said Miranda and ran across the road.

I recognized him but he looked completely different, now I knew so much about him.

Miranda jumped into the passenger seat and kissed Mike’s cheek. They spoke briefly, then Mike shouted, ‘Hey, Lizzie!’

I went over.

‘Can I give you a lift?’ he said.

Miranda answered, ‘No, she only lives on the Sycamore Estate.’

‘Thanks, though,’ I said.

‘I thought you lived the other side of the village,’ said Mike.

‘She used to,’ said Miranda, ‘but her family went bankrupt.’

Mike looked alarmed. ‘God, so sorry,’ he said.

‘It was ages ago,’ I said.

‘Bad luck,’ said Mike.

2. The Comfort Round

I was shown the ropes at Paradise Lodge on day one by Ingrid, the Owner’s Wife, the authoritative, red-eyed woman who’d interviewed us a few days previously. I could tell straight away that she was the linchpin of the place. She noticed everything, from a tiny stray thread on the day-room carpet to a patient lying flat out on the floor after tripping on a loose tile. She was eagle-eyed and always on the alert.

I noticed that day, the patients liked her a lot – because of the above, I expect – and they followed her around the room with their eyes to see what sensible or wonderful act she might perform next – say, putting a jug of sprigs on the mantel, or scooping up a spider and freeing it out of the window into the pretty shrubs which flanked the patio. I’d actually go as far as to say they loved her.

The staff were just the same. It wasn’t just her tallness, it was her niceness – or probably the two things together. The staff went out of their way to share her opinions and nodded in agreement when she said a thing. One minute a nurse would be saying how rotten some old man was and what a fucking old bossyboots and a typical German and how she’d like to shove the broom handle up his backside, and the Owner’s Wife would gently mention that that old man had renounced Hitler, had a high IQ and had been runner-up for the Max Planck Medal, and the nurse would say she supposed so and what a clever old thing he was.

It was Miranda’s first day too and she was shown the ropes by a peculiar old woman wearing Foster Grant’s called Matron, who was supposedly a senior nurse but could easily have been an overindulged patient with delusions and a nurse’s outfit. Matron was the opposite of the Owner’s Wife. She was short and squat, the patients ignored her and the staff liked to contradict her.

At morning coffee break that first day, for instance, when everyone else was playing with Nurse Hilary’s brand-new Crazy Baby curling tongs and setting Farrah Fawcett flicks into their fringes, Matron suddenly announced she’d seen Gordon Banks washing his Ford Granada wearing Marigolds and she had lost all respect for him because of it.

The staff rounded on her.

‘Why shouldn’t he wear Marigolds?’ they asked.

Even Miranda, whose first day it was, chipped in saying it was impressive of Gordon Banks to wash his own car and not get his wife to do it for him. I was surprised at Miranda ganging up on her day-old mentor like that. And though I didn’t care a jot about the Marigolds it put pressure on me to contribute, so I said, ‘True,’ in a mature way, which is always a safe bet, yet non-committal.

Matron said we spoke as if he was the real Gordon Banks.

‘He is,’ said one nurse.

‘No, he’s not,’ said Matron.

‘Yes, he is,’ said another nurse.

‘Is he?’ asked Matron.

And the tableful of nurses laughed.

The staff all had their quirks – I can’t list them all here (the staff or their quirks), it’d be a whole chapter – but I was struck that day by Nurse Hilary, who drank her coffee through a straw, and Nurse Sally-Anne, who was assertively shy and communicated via little grunts that the others seemed to understand. I found out later that Hilary had unusually pitted teeth that stained easily and, even worse, that Sally-Anne had just had twins who she’d named after the showjumping Schockemöhle brothers and who’d been adopted by a couple in Scotland. I wished I’d known that then and I might have been nicer to her. Also, there was Nurse Gwen, who had a diploma in advanced geriatric nursing and worked to the principle of keeping the patients comfortable and happy but not necessarily alive. Nurse Gwen spoke almost exclusively in swear words and I realized for the first time how aggressive swearing could sound.

There was Nurse Eileen who was very pretty and had graceful movements. She cocked her head to the side when she lit up and made a hell of a lot of smoke with endless small puffs and hardly inhaling. Also, she hated feathers.

Finally, there was Nurse Dee-Anna, who seemed completely normal in every way. She had a nice voice and honey-coloured hair and sang ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ while she went about her business. Her name was Diana but she pronounced it Dee-Anna. If I write it Diana, you’ll not say it right in your mind. It being Dee-Anna is important. Somehow. She was so normal I suspected she was hiding something like a crime in her past, or a love affair with someone in the room.

As time went by I met assorted other staff, but for the first day it was just the above.

After coffee break Matron, Miranda and I followed the Owner’s Wife and went off for a tour of the house. I’d already heard from Miranda that it had been quite grand until the owner’s family had been forced to turn it into a business due to complicated money difficulties. The owner had hoped to start up a boarding kennels for dogs but his wife had insisted on a nursing home for elderly gentlefolk. According to Matron, they’d arm-wrestled for it in the Piglet Inn and she’d won 2–1 in a best-of-three contest and thought up the name ‘Paradise Lodge’ on the spot – being a huge fan of the poet John Milton – and they raised their glasses, ‘To Paradise Lodge!’ and laughed like posh people do in times of great uncertainty, and the landlord had rubbed his palms together at the thought of all the future nurses coming in for vodka and orange and KP nuts. Which they did.

None of this was mentioned on our tour of the house but the Owner’s Wife did tell us that Paradise Lodge had previously been called The Old Grey Hall and they’d had to apply to change it to something more upbeat to attract old people. They soon found out that changing a house name is quite a complicated business but they changed it anyway, having had all the advertising and headed paper done.

True to its ex-name, Paradise Lodge was a big, old, L-shaped, grey, stuccoed house. The front door was at the side and you could tell it always had been because a thick old wall ran right across the front, with no gap for a gate, and all sorts of ancient trees and climbing vines. The rooftop was the most attractive feature – dramatic, big and steep, and a mass of little windows in the gables where the nurses’ quarters were.

The house was grand, but not beautiful. You wouldn’t walk past and say to yourself, ‘Ooh, I’d like to live in that house,’ like you would about the tall red farmhouse opposite, or the modern box with slitty windows the other side where the German film director lived with his mother (and whose father was a patient). But once you were inside, Paradise Lodge was lovely and in some ways beguiling. There were backstairs and front stairs and secret stairs and doors hidden in the panelling that the owner had had put in so that he could go about his business without ever having to bump into a sick old person who might need help. There were outhouses, including a stables and a summer house. Next to the brand-new laundry was the tack room which was supposed to become the salon for hair and chiropody but never had, and beside that was the boot room which was now the morgue and had a bench, a candle, a cross and a Bible and, for some reason, a little brass bell. I imagined ringing it like mad if ever I was in there and a dead body came back to life. Next to that was the larder.

The Owner’s Wife pointed things out along the way and always Matron would chip in, trying to be helpful but sounding like an idiot. The Owner’s Wife showed us the main bathroom. I commented on the pretty Victorian bath with little dog’s feet.

‘Yes, it’s very pretty,’ said the Owner’s Wife, ‘but not ideal for bathing the infirm.’

I watched Matron and Miranda dawdle ahead and noted they made a ridiculous pair: Matron as previously described, and Miranda teetering on a pair of high wedges and constantly picking her pants out of her bottom. After a short but serious talk about the laundry, particularly the importance of adding a lidful of Dettol to the wash and even more so the adding of soda crystals to help combat the effects of hard water on the element, we went away in pairs.

The Owner’s Wife led me out into the hall and we stood for a while and she ran through the daily routine.

‘So, the day begins at about six thirty when the night nurse takes the breakfasts round …’ she began.

I had to gaze about to avoid looking at her (me still not comfortable with one-to-one chats). It would have seemed rude in any ordinary hall but luckily this one was genuinely fascinating with ornate cornicing and decorative dados and two different colours on the walls. There was a curving banister rail in gleaming mahogany and, on the floor, patterned tiles in approx ten different colours. And the furniture – delicate matching consoles with inlaid wood and shapely legs – was topped with all sorts of urns and bowls and antique china dogs etc.

‘… and that’s the day-to-day routine,’ the Owner’s Wife was saying, ‘now, let us go and meet the patients.’

I’d been dreading this bit. I had imagined them all bedridden in dimly lit wards with the Vicar sitting, reading from the Bible, and a nurse feeding them drips of watered-down honey – like you do with baby birds that you know aren’t going to make it. But as we approached the day room I could see they were mostly sitting bolt upright in chairs. Before we entered, the Owner’s Wife gave me a few pointers re meeting them. One was on the subject of communication – tone of voice and vocabulary.

‘Not that I’m suggesting you should come over as condescending,’ she said, ‘just don’t speak too quickly, try to be clear and try to avoid slang words.’

‘I understand,’ I said. And I did. She was really talking about Miranda, who used endless slang, such as ‘right on’ and ‘nope’ and ‘bog’ and other words that the elderly wouldn’t be at home with. God knew how they coped with that sweary nurse with the diploma, though.

The day room was really two large, adjoining reception rooms with the big divider doors pushed as open as they could go. We went to the smaller room and the Owner’s Wife introduced me to the male patients, one by one. There were five of them. One of them, Mr Greenberg, said, ‘Well, bless my soul! A new chap.’ And then muttered something about cheese upsetting his stomach.

They were extremely old – around a hundred years, I guessed – and it was like being at the aquarium and thinking the amphibians looked like old men (only the other way round). But they were very alive, one of them was reading the Daily Mail and another was fiddling with a transistor radio.

The Owner’s Wife flung an arm towards the adjoining room. ‘And all our lovely ladies tend to sit in there,’ she said.

The ladies – about thirty of them – sat in assorted chairs in a ring around the edge of the room. A few looked unbelievably old and frail, but somehow healthy. Some were just oldish but quavery. Others were extremely sprightly indeed. One wore bright red lipstick, a couple had blue-rinsed hair, and one was wearing a silky turban. Overall they looked more human than the men.

‘Ladies, we have two new carers starting today,’ the Owner’s Wife called out, ‘this is Lizzie, you’ll meet Miranda in due course.’

A few of them smiled or nodded. One old lady close to us repeated, ‘In due course,’ and then another said, ‘What did she say, dear?’

And I said, ‘In due course.’

It was like the beginning of a horror film.

‘Should I go and introduce myself?’ I asked.

‘No need, you’ll meet them by and by,’ said the Owner’s Wife, ‘when we do the comfort round.’

We strolled back out to the hall.

‘I thought they’d all be in bed,’ I said.

‘We do have two bedridden ladies,’ said the Owner’s Wife brightly, as if not wanting to disappoint me. And she took me into a long room containing eight beds. Two, side by side, were occupied, a skull-like head on the pillow and a basic human shape draped in softly pleated white linen. It reminded me strongly of the stone tomb effigy of T. E. Lawrence in a Dorset church. His head, in Arabian headdress, resting on the saddle of his favourite camel – which, our mother told us, was called Faisal. I’ve always remembered it. The smooth coldness of the stone, and the idea of the camel and everything.

Strange, unsettling noises filled the ward – loud snoring and some awful gurgling, as well as a gentle motorized hum which, I found out later, came from the electric ripple mattresses used to prevent bedsores.

Back in the hall, the Owner’s Wife stood for a moment to let an old man pass. He was tall and a bit wobbly and because his sandal buckles were undone he jangled slightly as he walked.

‘Morning!’ he said as he drew close and he stood, looking at the Owner’s Wife, and she did a small cough and said, ‘This is my husband,’ and then, gesturing to me, ‘Lizzie is one of the new auxiliary nurses, Thor, I’m showing her the ropes.’

‘Oh, jolly good,’ said the owner (I realized he was the owner). ‘How are you getting along?’

I said I was getting along fine and commented on the hallway. ‘It’s like a stately home,’ I said, thinking it a complimentary thing to say.

‘Yes, yes,’ he said, ‘the floor tiles are knockout, aren’t they? You won’t see better in the Alhambra – Euclidean geometry and whatnot.’

I said, ‘Brillo pads!’ which was a normal thing to say in those days, meaning ‘brilliant’ (I’d picked it up from Miranda), but the owner misunderstood and became anxious. Some of the tiles were loose, he explained, because previous staff had used Flash, which had eroded the grouting (he tapped at the floor with his sandal to demonstrate).

The Owner’s Wife groaned. ‘Off you go now, darling,’ she said, and he shuffled off, but called back, ‘Take her up to meet Lady B.’

‘Yes, yes, all in good time,’ said the Owner’s Wife.

I felt sorry for the Owner’s Wife. It was always embarrassing seeing people’s husbands; especially the idiotic sort, and you seldom saw any other. Also, I was at that age where you can’t stop yourself imagining the couple having sexual intercourse. And it was really awful.

‘The tiles are lovely,’ I said to the Owner’s Wife after he’d gone, to make her feel a bit better about him.

If it had been up to her, she said, they’d have been covered with a practical, non-slip linoleum years ago, and she went on to list the many ways the building was unsuitable for its elderly residents. The flooring in particular, which she said was unstable, and the driveway and paths, which were ever changing, like a dry riverbed. And there was no passenger lift, even though there was nothing to prevent the installation of a small one – only the owner’s unwillingness to compromise his living quarters. Talking about it seemed to upset her but she pulled herself together and gave me a recap on the golden rules of working with the elderly, which we’d been through at the interview.

The most important thing seemed to be (a) that I appreciate the huge privilege of being among them and remember they had a lot to teach a young woman like me. And (b) that I must take them to the toilet frequently and regularly, but do my utmost to avoid calling it ‘the toilet’, suggesting ‘comfort area’ and ‘spend a penny’ if I absolutely had to say anything.

The comfort round had to be done after breakfast, coffee, lunch and tea, and carers had to be ready to help at all times in that respect above all others.

It was a bit like looking after a toddler, I said, and started to talk about my tiny brother, Danny, who’d just gone into pants, but that was obviously a very wrong thing to say and the Owner’s Wife told me never, ever to say it again.

We were silent for a moment and I was about to apologize and explain when a car clanked over the cattle grid and sounded its horn. The Owner’s Wife rushed away to investigate and reappeared a moment later in a controlled fluster.

‘A convalescent patient has arrived, we weren’t expecting him until tomorrow, we’re not quite ready,’ she said, ‘you’ll have to do the comfort round.’

So, I was thrown in at the deep end – as it were – and though I hadn’t had the proper training (only the theory), when it came to it, the comfort round was only a matter of escorting or wheeling the patients to the sluice across the hall, waiting outside and helping with corset hooks and stockings and trying to avoid saying the word ‘toilet’ or ‘wee’. I noticed the shy nurse plucking her eyebrows in the mirror above the vast butler’s sink while she waited for her gentleman and even when he called out, she carried on.

It was nice to get to know the ladies without the Owner’s Wife watching my every move and word, especially since running into her husband in the hall had put her in a ‘blue funk’ (her words). And though it was a simple endeavour, it still took me over an hour to get the thirty-five-odd patients all to the conveniences and back into their chairs. Some of them said they didn’t want to go and had to be forced, literally, to get up and walk across the hall. Sometimes my euphemisms must have been too vague so I was resorting to nods, hand gestures (raindrops) and pointing. Some walked incredibly slowly and others had walking frames which, in my opinion, slowed them down. Some took ages in the cubicles (one fell asleep) and others insisted on washing their hands afterwards. Some had to go twice, one did it on the way and I had to drag a cloth round with my foot and hope to God the Owner’s Wife didn’t appear and notice the area of brightened tiles.

After I’d finished the comfort round I joined the Owner’s Wife and the patient who’d arrived unexpectedly. He was called Mr Simmons and lived locally. He had reddish, greyish hair and not a single eyelash. The Owner’s Wife was asking him very specific questions about his health and his breakfast preferences but kept interrupting herself to say how delightful it was that he’d been discharged early from hospital, and she wasn’t being sarcastic – even though anyone could see the chaos it had caused. Mr Simmons was in good health except for a gammy foot and whatever operation he’d just had, which wasn’t discussed – presumably it was made clear on his medical notes or was too personal for an auxiliary to know about.

He had been scheduled to have something done to his gammy foot but the surgeons had found this other more pressing (undisclosed) thing and had switched to that instead. The Owner’s Wife said that was a common occurrence and probably quite right under the circumstances. But it was obvious Mr Simmons was fed up – so fed up he made a little fist of crossness. That was the thing with private hospitals, I supposed (privately), it being in their interests to find extra things to do. Ditto vets, hairdressers and car mechanics.

Apart from guessing what his breakfast preference was going to be – porridge with cream (I’d guessed Grape-Nuts) – I could hardly stop myself from groaning out loud with boredom.

Mr Simmons waited in the Owner’s Wife’s office while she and I prepared his room. Room 8 was a bright, sunny room with its own little bathroom and, instead of parquet and rugs, had a bristly carpet on the floor. The fireplace with overmantel gave it a comfy, sitting-room feel and from the leatherette Morris recliner you could see the reservoir and, in theory, you’d be able to chuck a sugared almond at Prince Charles as he trotted past to tackle Mr Oliphant’s cross-country course (which he was rumoured to do occasionally).

Signs of the previous incumbent were still very much in evidence (that’s what the Owner’s Wife was so flapped about) – a square, silver-backed hairbrush and a tortoiseshell comb sat on a shelf in the bathroom and a pair of grey trousers was still sandwiched in the press. These had all belonged to Mr Cresswell who’d passed away the Thursday before, the Owner’s Wife explained. I gazed at the talcy outline of two enormous feet on the cork bathmat and felt a wave of anxiety.

‘Now, Lizzie, Mr Simmons’ stepdaughter is a tricky one,’ said the Owner’s Wife, ‘tread carefully if you have dealings with her.’

‘In what way?’ I asked.

‘She’d rather Mr Simmons wasn’t here – she thinks it unnecessary,’ said the Owner’s Wife.

‘And is it unnecessary?’ I asked.

‘Well, we don’t think so, but I suppose it’s her inheritance being spent.’

The Owner’s Wife gave the room a final blast of Haze and sent me downstairs for a tray of coffee and biscuits while she went to fetch Mr Simmons and his tricky stepdaughter, who had just arrived.

At the bottom of the stairs we separated and I went to the kitchen for the refreshments. I almost caught up with them, a few minutes later, approaching Room 8. Mr Simmons shuffled along slowly and the Owner’s Wife walked behind with his relative. I followed behind at a distance and, as she turned to take the bend on the stairs, I saw to my dismay that Mr Simmons’ relative was a teacher from my school. Not any old teacher but Miss Pitt – the Deputy Head.

I turned on my heel and strode – tray and all – back to the kitchen. It was troubling in the extreme to see Miss Pitt in this context. I hadn’t been doing anything wrong, I wasn’t smoking or skiving, but having been respected all day I really didn’t want to be humiliated in front of my new mentor/boss and a convalescent patient.

Miranda and the old Matron were now in the kitchen with Nurse Sally-Anne. Matron was wiping the edge of a tiny china cup with a piece of kitchen paper.

‘You’re to take this to Room 8,’ I said to Sally-Anne, thrusting the tray at her.

‘Why can’t you?’ she mumbled.

‘She wants someone more senior,’ I said.

Sally-Anne took the tray.

Miranda and I groaned at the thought of Miss Pitt and I told Matron what a tyrant she was and gave her lots of examples, like the time she’d given me a detention for saying ‘For coughs and colds take Veno’s’ and her absolute horror of anyone having the odd day off school for their real life, even in an emergency or for a funeral.

At the end of the day, the Owner’s Wife gave us little brown wage packets, thanked us and said we might as well go and get changed out of our uniforms. Then, just before I’d left the kitchen, the cook asked me if I’d mind taking Mr Simmons his teatime sandwiches, cake and pills which had been forgotten due to him being a day early and not getting on to the lists. I had no choice, so I took the tray and prepared myself mentally for an encounter with the Deputy Head. When I got to Room 8 I was relieved to find Mr Simmons was alone. He’d fallen asleep in his chair, bent over like a hoop, with his head almost in his lap. I placed the tray on the little table beside him and he sat up, startled and disorientated.

‘Where am I?’ he asked.

‘Room 8,’ I said, and again it was like the start of a Hammer Horror.

It was my first proper encounter with a patient – not just a natter on the way to the toilet – and I could tell Mr Simmons was in some discomfort. I pointed to the little cup of pills on the tray and he gulped them down.

‘Shall I put the telly on?’ I asked, thinking he might not have noticed the portable set on the chest opposite. ‘It might be The Two Ronnies or Des O’Connor.’

‘No thank you. I’m a bit tired for television this evening,’ he said, then quickly added, ‘but do put it on, if you’d like it.’

It struck me that Mr Simmons seemed very young to be here and not at all like the other patients. And as I was thinking that about him he was thinking the same about me.

‘You seem rather young to be working here,’ he said, ‘if you don’t mind my saying.’

‘I’m still at school. Actually, I’m a pupil at Devlin’s School – where your relative works,’ I said.

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘bad luck.’ And we both laughed.

‘You seem much younger than the other patients,’ I said.

‘Yes, well, I’m not all that much younger, but I suppose the others here are mostly Victorian, whereas I’m from the modern age – that’s the difference.’

‘Oh,’ I said.

‘I’m aware of Elvis, for instance,’ he said, ‘Elvis Presley.’

And we chatted more about the modern age.

By the time I got back down to the kitchen the day was over. The Owner’s Wife was warming milk on the Aga for the bedtime drinks, I’d missed my lift home with Miranda in Mike Yu’s car, and the day nurses were getting ready to go to the pub. It was like watching a Play for Today where the actors are that good you can’t see the acting and though nothing’s actually happening, story-wise, you want to watch.

The Crazy Baby tongs were passed from one to the other and newly formed curls sprayed with Harmony hairspray. Tubes of mascara bobbed in a Pyrex jug of boiling water, cigarettes were lit from other cigarettes and the room filled with smoke, eau de cologne and the sound of chatter, laughter and scraping chairs.

The Owner’s Wife spoke to me while she arranged teacups on to trays. She told me that the nurses’ dresses in small sizes were like gold dust. ‘I should hang on to that one, if it fits well, and put your name in it.’

‘I’ll keep it on and surprise my mum with it,’ I said.

‘Good idea,’ she said, ‘and I’m definitely going to give your shampoo a try.’

‘Linco Beer shampoo,’ I said, just to make sure she’d got the name straight in her head.

‘Thank you, Lizzie, I know you’re going to be a real asset,’ she said, ‘I’m just so glad you’re here.’

And, not knowing quite how to respond, I said, ‘And I’m so glad you’re here.’

I wished I hadn’t said that because it seemed to choke her and later I couldn’t think why I’d said it at all.

On the way out, through the corridor at the back, I took another peek into the morgue. This time there was something on the bench. I peered in and gasped as I realized it was a body covered with a sheet. A bluish foot poked out. The paper luggage tag hanging from the big toe read: Cresswell.

Nina Stibbe

PARADISE LODGE

A Novel

Contents

THE BEGINNING

Part One

PARADISE LODGE

1. Linco Beer Shampoo

May 1977

2. The Comfort Round