Three Things About Elsie: A Richard and Judy Book Club Pick 2018

‘Right you are.’

He was just about to close the door when she shouted him back.

‘Simon, what exactly was Mr Price doing with you this afternoon?’

‘Moving a ladder, Miss Ambrose.’ He saw the surprise in her eyebrows. ‘He’s very capable for his age.’

‘And what age would that be?’ she said.

‘I’m not exactly sure, Miss Ambrose.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Neither am I.’

As he closed the door, he noticed she had put the calculator down again, and was staring very hard at the line of filing cabinets on the far wall.

Simon turned his collar and punched his fists deep into his pockets. Sometimes, Cherry Tree had that effect. It made him want to push himself into his clothes and disappear. When he was little, he’d wanted to be a fireman, like his dad, but by the time he reached his teens, he realised he wasn’t brave enough. His father had saved almost a whole family once, before Simon was even born. Pulled them out of a burning building one by one, like teeth. He was eighteen and a local hero. Strangers shook his hand and bought him drinks, and made a big fuss of him wherever he went. Even, years later, it was a conversation that was lifted out of a drawer every now and then, and passed around so they could all admire it. His father always left the room when that happened. He said it reminded him of the one he missed, the one who wasn’t saved. Even so, it became the whole of who his father was. Everything else he had done, or would ever do, disappeared in the moment he decided to run towards the flames. As though he shook the rest of himself away, like a second skin. Everyone expected Simon to follow in his father’s footsteps, to travel some strange, imaginary line drawn by genetics, but he couldn’t do it. He knew he was someone who would run away from a disaster, rather than towards it, and the only person he’d ever think about saving was himself.

‘Not everyone can be brave. No one thinks any less of you,’ his mother had said.

She told all her friends it was because of his asthma.

‘I don’t even have asthma.’

‘Best if we just keep that to ourselves,’ she said.

Simon glanced at the day room as he walked past, his hands still pocketed away. There was a scattering of residents in there already, planted in their armchairs, waiting for the evening shift. A television shouted out gardening advice, and a tape of subtitles ran across the bottom of the screen, because there was more than a handful of residents for whom the shouting would never be loud enough. Everything at Cherry Tree was set at a high volume. The radios, the televisions, even the people. Shouting became acceptable, almost expected. The staff even shouted when there were no residents about, as though everyone who worked there had been recalibrated. It was only in the muteness of his flat, where he wallpapered his evenings with tea and silence, and where the only song was the hum of a refrigerator, that Simon discovered just how loud the rest of the world could be.

5.49 p.m. (#ulink_c97b67b4-0e15-5744-9b6b-628527d8f4ef)

I have never done anything remarkable. I’ve never climbed a mountain or won a medal. I’ve never stood on a stage and been listened to, or crossed a finishing line before anyone else. When I look back, I have led quite an ordinary life. I sometimes wonder what the point of me was. ‘Does God have a plan, and where does he see me fitting into it?’ I asked the vicar once. He came to Cherry Tree with his leaflets, handing them around and trying to persuade us all into being religious.

‘We each have a role to play, Miss Claybourne,’ he said. ‘Jesus loves everyone.’

‘I’m sure he does,’ I said. ‘But love isn’t enough, is it? You need to have some kind of purpose. I was wondering what mine might have been?’

I looked at him. I thought he might give me an interesting answer. Something comfortable and reassuring. But he just checked his watch and started talking to Mrs Honeyman about harvest festivals.

So even the vicar doesn’t know why I’m here.

Elsie says I shouldn’t dwell on things so much, but when you get to this age, it passes the time.

‘There has to be a reason, though, doesn’t there?’ I said to her once. ‘Or have I spent the last eighty-four years just sitting in the audience?’

‘Of course you haven’t been sitting in the audience. No one sits in the audience. Even the seats in a theatre are still a stage.’

I’ve no idea what she meant. Times like that I just nod, because it’s less time-consuming and it makes life easier for both of us. She just comes out with these things. Like the girl with the twisted ankle. I’m sure she makes half of it up. It makes you wonder, though. It makes you wonder if you did have a purpose, but it floated past you one day, and you just didn’t think to flag it down.

Lying here, there’s not really very much else to do except wonder. Of course, I’ve wondered about Ronnie more than anyone. He was right under Elsie’s nose in that potting shed, but she wasn’t having any of it. She was exactly the same, even when we were at school. She’d tell me to stop worrying, before I’d even given her all my evidence. Before she’d heard the full story. The only difference is, no one will ever hear the full story this time. I never thought it would come to this. You always think a secret will only be a secret for so long, that one day you will turn to someone else and say, ‘I’ve never told anyone this …’ and the secret will vanish and become something else. It’s only when you get to the end of your life, when you’re lying on a wipe-clean carpet with only yourself for company, you realise that you never did manage to find the right someone to tell.

FLORENCE (#ulink_b7148a77-8147-558a-9143-43c8159b250f)

‘Justin’s bringing his accordion this afternoon.’

She stood in the middle of my sitting room, although it’s too small to really warrant having a middle.

‘Perhaps next week,’ I said.

Miss Ambrose took a deep breath. ‘Just five minutes, Florence. We’ll walk over together.’

‘It won’t be worth taking my coat off.’

‘That’s fine,’ she said. ‘However you want to do it.’

‘His eyes are very close together.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Justin’s,’ I said. ‘It’s an indication of criminal tendencies. You can tell a lot by how far apart people’s eyes are. I read about it. In a magazine.’

I stared into her face.

‘Florence, I’m quite certain that Justin—’

‘And he doesn’t get any thinner, does he?’

‘Florence!’

Whilst she wound all her layers back on, my gaze travelled the room. The dining chairs were pushed tight against the table, and the newspaper was read and folded in the corner. The vase was in the middle of the sideboard. Perhaps slightly off-centre, looking at it. Perhaps just an inch to the left. The newspaper was in the right-hand corner. The vase was an inch to the left. Or was it the other way around?

‘I’ve changed my mind,’ I said. ‘I’m staying here. I’m busy.’

‘Florence. I thought we agreed?’

‘You did all the agreeing,’ I said. ‘I didn’t do any of it.’

‘Socialising is just as important as eating and drinking properly. You need to mix with people. If you don’t …’ Her sentence couldn’t find its ending.

‘If I don’t, what?’ I said.

She smiled a frown. ‘If you don’t, perhaps Greenbank really is the right decision for you.’

I closed my mouth as tightly as I could, because I was worried about what might fall out of it.

‘Ready?’ Miss Ambrose tucked her scarf inside her jacket.

I nodded.

The last thing I thought of, as she pulled the door to, was the elephant. Staring at the window. Waiting for me to get back.