‘If you loved me, you wouldn’t leave me here.’
‘That’s not fair.’
‘It’s true though.’
Eve closed her eyes and took a deep breath. ‘You know I love you,’ she said. ‘But we can’t carry on like this, Mum. It’s not safe for you to be in the flat anymore.’
Someone pushed a trolley past the open door, china plates rattling against each other on metal shelves.
‘But it’s my home,’ said Flora. She looked up at Eve, her eyes brimming. ‘Don’t make me stay here, I’d rather kill myself.’
‘Mum!’ Eve couldn’t keep the shock out of her voice. She glared at her mother, who glared back, sticking out her chin and folding her arms.
‘I mean it.’ Flora was shaking her head now. ‘If you make me stay in this bloody awful place, I don’t know what I’ll do. There will be no point in me carrying on, and it will be all your fault.’
Eve stood up so suddenly that the chair tipped backwards and her coat slid off, landing in a heap on the carpet. She really didn’t need this; her head was thumping and she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. It had been one of those days when she’d been planning to achieve so much, but from the moment she woke up, she’d known some of it wouldn’t get done.
It was also a day when she needed to be at her most calm: ‘Be kind, Eve,’ she’d told her reflection in the bathroom mirror, earlier this morning. ‘Be patient and understanding. Don’t lose your rag.’ Several hours ago, that had seemed achievable. Now, not so much.
‘Stop talking like this,’ she snapped. ‘It’s ridiculous.’
Her mother was still glaring at her. Bending down, Eve picked up her coat and took her time shaking out the sleeves, before draping it over the arm of the chair. She breathed in deeply and made a conscious effort to drop her shoulders. ‘Isn’t this a lovely room they’ve given you, overlooking the garden? Such big windows as well! Those trees outside are beautiful – are they apple? Hard to tell with no leaves on the branches. I bet you’ll get the sun first thing in the morning, on this side of the building…’
She was gabbling. She had no idea which side they were on: they’d followed the young girl down several corridors, through fire doors that slammed behind them as Eve struggled with Flora’s old leather suitcase. This room was no better or worse than any of the others she’d glanced into on their way past. Some had been empty: beds neatly made, a handful of personal possessions on bookcases and chests of drawers. In others, she had caught glimpses of elderly people folded into armchairs, the volume turned up overly loud on televisions, cups of tea going cold on bedside tables. One woman had been standing in the middle of her room, swaying gently in time to music no one else could hear.
Further along the corridor Eve had glanced through a door on the left and seen a man propped up in bed: his mouth and eyes were open, and his cheeks so pallid and hollow, he’d clearly taken his last breath.
‘Shit!’ she’d whispered, stopping in her tracks. Had any of the staff realised? She ought to tell someone. ‘Excuse me!’ she’d called out to the girl who was leading them down the corridor. ‘I think this gentleman–’
At that moment, the man had given out such a thunderous fart that his legs jerked under the bed covers. He’d then opened his eyes and smiled cheerfully at Eve.
Flora had now stopped glaring and slumped back into her chair, her chin resting on her chest. ‘I hate this room,’ she muttered.
‘This is just for now,’ said Eve. ‘When one of the rooms upstairs becomes free, you can have one of those. Apparently, they’re bigger, with better views.’
Flora began to sob, her shoulders shaking, her fingers clawed over the ends of the wooden arms of the chair. ‘Please,’ she whispered. ‘I’d rather die.’
Tears were prickling at the edges of Eve’s eyes too, a lump in her throat making it hard to swallow. She was used to her mother’s mood swings, the way she oscillated between angry defiance and terrified vulnerability. But she’d never come out with anything like this before. ‘Mum, I promise you it’s going to be fine,’ she said, her voice catching. ‘It’s one of the nicest homes in the area – you know that, we read all the reports. Do you remember? We were lucky they had a room available…’
There was a knock, and Eve turned to see a man in the doorway. He had a name badge pinned to his red polo shirt, but through the tears everything was blurry and she couldn’t make out what it said.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Sorry to disturb you. I just wondered if you needed some help with anything. Unpacking? Putting your clothes away?’
Eve dashed the tips of her fingers underneath her eyes, forcing a smile. ‘No, we’re fine. Thank you. I’ve put my mother’s things into the drawers.’
‘Well, just call if you do. I’m Nathan, I work on this floor with Helen, who you saw earlier. It’s lovely to have you here, Mrs Glover. I’m sure you’ll get to know us all very quickly.’
He was young, possibly just out of his teens. There was a smattering of acne across his forehead and his chest didn’t quite fill the shirt, which had the care home’s insignia embroidered on one side. He shifted from one foot to the other, not meeting Eve’s eye, staring at a point slightly to the right of her head.
Flora looked up at him, sniffing. ‘You’re a good boy,’ she said. ‘But I won’t be here long, so there’s no point in all this unpacking. I’ll be going home soon.’
He smiled, but was already on his way out of the door, his feet shuffling backwards. Before Flora finished speaking, he had disappeared down the corridor.
Eve knelt beside the armchair, putting one hand onto her mother’s forearm, the papery skin crinkling beneath her fingers. ‘Let’s give it a go, shall we, Mum?’ she said, reaching out her other hand and gently pushing a strand of white hair away from Flora’s face. ‘I know it’s different to your flat, not as homely…’
‘Tiny,’ said Flora.
‘Yes, this room is smaller than your bedroom. But there was that communal room we saw when we came in, the one with a television and…’
‘It stank.’
‘No, it didn’t! There was the library as well, remember? It looked like they had the most amazing collection of books…’
‘Books are boring,’ muttered Flora.
‘You love books! Anyway, the girl said they have talks there in the evening?’
‘I won’t be going to any of those stupid things. Bloody, bloody stupid.’
‘Mum, there’s no need to swear.’ Eve sat back on her heels, glad the young lad had left the room. ‘Anyway, you may find you’re interested.’
‘I don’t want to carry on living if it means being here…’
‘Listen…’
‘This isn’t where I’m meant to be. What about my flat? I want to go back there now. You have no right to keep me here.’
Eve sighed: she was dog tired. She’d been hoping to get Flora settled in quickly, so she’d have time to pop to Tesco on the way home. There was no bread at home and she was pretty sure they were running out of loo roll as well – and teabags; oh yes, and washing-up liquid. She was invariably running out of quite a lot of things, including stuff you couldn’t grab off the shelves in Tesco, like patience, energy and resilience.
She pushed herself up from the floor and walked across to the bed, fastening the buckles on the empty suitcase that was lying on it. Her mother had owned this old case for as long as she could remember; it had gone with them on summer holidays to Cornwall, when Eve was growing up. They had hauled it on and off trains, dragged it down steep streets and up narrow staircases in B&Bs. At the end of each holiday, they’d filled it with sand-encrusted swimming costumes and towels, Eve shovelling handfuls of shells into the zip pockets, thinking her mother wouldn’t notice. Flora had always refused to replace this old case, even when Eve recently offered to buy her a new hardshell one with wheels.
‘Nothing wrong with it,’ she’d insisted. ‘They don’t make them like this anymore.’
Now, they had used this battered old case to bring some of her mother’s most treasured possessions to this soulless, depressing room, where Flora was likely to end her days. The guilt weighed almost as heavily on Eve’s shoulders as the case, as she heaved it up on top of the cupboard in the corner.
‘I want to go back to my flat!’ Flora was muttering. ‘It’s mine. I want to be there. I hate it here.’
‘We can’t go back to the flat because it’s not safe,’ Eve said. She heard the irritation in her voice, and forced herself to smile again as she turned and sat down on the bed. ‘You know what happened – you know why we’ve had to make this decision. This is your home now, and we’re both going to have to get used to it.’
Flora’s brow was knitted angrily, but there was confusion there too. Eve’s chest felt tight, and she ran her fingers through her own hair, pushing it away from her face. Be kind, she told herself, yet again. Be patient; think of the big glass of wine you can have when you get home tonight. But bloody hell, being kind and patient was sometimes so hard. Right now, Flora looked lost: more like a child than a seventy-seven-year-old woman. It was heart-breaking and Eve was crushed by the responsibility of having single-handedly made the decision to bring her here. There were many wonderful things about being an only child, but having to be a parent to your elderly mother, without help or support from anyone else, wasn’t one of them.
‘Let’s go to the lounge and get a cup of tea.’ Eve hoped she sounded more positive than she felt. ‘Maybe we can meet some of the other residents. Ask them about the afternoon activities?’
‘They’re sad old bastards who just sit in chairs all day,’ said Flora.
Eve had to stifle a laugh; Flora had a point. ‘Mum, behave!’ she said.
As she helped Flora up from the chair, she ran through the things they’d put into the suitcase earlier. Had there been some paracetamol in the washbag? Any scissors? What about her mother’s sharp metal nail file that used to sit on the bedside table in the flat; had she thrown that into the case, at the last minute?
But she was worrying unnecessarily: of course Flora wouldn’t really try to kill herself. She wouldn’t know where to start. Just recently her memory had been getting so bad, she’d had to ask Eve how to do everything from using the washing machine, to changing the TV channel: when Eve told her about iPlayer – and explained she could rewatch dozens of old episodes of Antiques Roadshow – her mother had been appalled. ‘But I can’t do that unless it’s a Sunday!’ she’d gasped. ‘Antiques Roadshow is only ever on Sunday night!’
Eve put her arm through Flora’s and guided her out into the corridor. It was all fine: in an hour’s time, it was unlikely Flora would even remember she’d been threatening to kill herself, let alone be able to work out a way of doing it.
A wailing noise started suddenly from the room next door, building up to a keening monotone that sounded like an animal in pain; impossible to tell if it belonged to a man or a woman. As they went past the open door, Eve couldn’t help looking in, the cries drawing her eyes like a magnet. The old man who’d taken such delight in his monumental fart earlier, was now curled into a foetal position, his head cradled in his arms.
Eve wanted to walk more quickly, to get away from the sound that followed them down the corridor and reached right to the back of her skull. But she had to slow her steps to match those of her mother, who was putting her hand on the wall to help her balance. Flora didn’t seem to notice the noise. She was concentrating on not tripping over. ‘Slippers indoors,’ she mumbled to herself.
‘I wonder what you’ll have for tea tonight?’ said Eve. ‘Whatever it is, it smells nice.’ It didn’t. The air in the corridor was thick and stuffy: the stench of burnt meat mixing with the sulphurous cloy of overcooked vegetables.
They pushed through the last of the fire doors and turned into a large room filled with sofas and mismatched armchairs. Some people were reading newspapers and a couple of elderly ladies were watching a wildlife programme on the television, both of them having separate one-sided conversations with the presenter. ‘You’re quite wrong,’ one was saying to the screen. ‘Cheetahs are much faster.’
Eve found Flora a chair.
‘How about a cuppa?’ called another care assistant, her chest mountainous beneath the red polo shirt. She was pushing a tea trolley towards them. ‘We’ve got some chocolate digestives.’ She grinned at them, silver fillings glinting somewhere in the back of her mouth.
They sat in silence and watched the woman clatter cups onto saucers and lift an outsized metal teapot. The liquid she poured from it was stewed to the colour of treacle. There was a strange hollowness in Eve’s chest; she wanted to grab her bag and race for the door. At least she had that option; her mother was stuck here.
‘I’ll be in to see you as often as I can.’ She reached across and took Flora’s hand. ‘Maybe not every day; it depends how busy I am at work, and on what Daniel’s doing, of course. But I’ll be here regularly, I promise. And you’ll start to feel at home in no time.’ She was aware she was trying to reassure herself, as much as her mother.
Flora had started crying again. ‘I won’t,’ she whispered, so softly that Eve had to put her head right next to hers to hear what she was saying. ‘I will never feel at home in this place.’
Eve sighed and twined her fingers through Flora’s, noticing as she did that the varnish had smudged along the tip of her own thumbnail. She wasn’t surprised: she’d painted her nails in a rush yesterday afternoon, balancing the bottle on the dashboard of the car when she found she had three minutes to spare before an appointment. She’d got out of the car, blowing frantically on the still-wet varnish, but thinking she’d got away with it. Clearly not. She must touch it up before she went back into work tomorrow.
The care assistant brought across two cups, together with a plate of biscuits. ‘Enjoy!’ she said.
Flora turned to Eve, her blue eyes steely. ‘If your father was here, he wouldn’t have let you get away with this.’
‘Mum, stop it, you’re being ridiculous!’
‘He would have done something about it. He wouldn’t have allowed you to put me into such a horrible place.’
Eve took a deep breath; she mustn’t rise to this. Flora didn’t mean it; she wasn’t herself. It had been a difficult few days, and she was probably in shock; she’d not had much warning that they were going to pack up her entire life and come here. With hindsight, the speed of this move might have been a mistake.
She glanced surreptitiously at her watch: she really did need to get to Tesco. There wouldn’t be time to cook, she’d have to pick up some ready meals as well.
‘Your father would have looked after me in my own home,’ Flora was saying, her voice brittle. ‘He would never have allowed you to bring me somewhere like this.’
Eve shook her head and swallowed; her mouth dry. ‘That’s not fair, Mum.’
‘It’s true though.’