Louise Bradford stepped off the bus and made her way slowly along the main road, largely abandoned at this time of night apart from a man, hood up against the rain, smoking by the pub door and a straggle of teenagers outside the fried-chicken shop. She was wearing a cheap, beige mackintosh which strained across her broad shoulders, and her swollen legs were crammed into flat, brown boots.
It was a dark night, and the street lights illuminated the damp, litter-strewn pavements. Louise frowned as a gust of wind blew an empty polystyrene burger box across the road. People had no respect.
As she turned left into a side road, a white van drove past, throwing up a spray which spattered over her mac, leaving dirty drip marks. She took a deep breath in. Counted to five. And then let it out, again for a count of five.
Coleridge Court was in the middle of a cul-de-sac two roads down to the right, a drab, grey building with rows of small, mean windows and a sign outside that was partly broken so it read ‘IDGE COURT: RESIDENTIAL CARE HOME FOR THE ELDERLY’.
Louise made her way around the side of the building, entering a code into the keypad by the back door and letting herself in.
She advanced along the corridor to the staffroom. ‘All right?’ said Joy, the night manager of whom Louise often thought no one could less live up to their name. Joy was slumped on the boxy, brown two-seater sofa watching a reality-TV show on her laptop.
Louise opened her locker and folded up her mac and put it inside. Then she took a nylon pinafore from a hook and fastened it over her shapeless brown dress. The buttons strained across her chest.
‘Diet not going too well then?’ remarked Joy.
‘Not really. No willpower,’ said Louise.
‘You don’t want to put on any more. That’s the largest size we can get.’
There was a note of disapproval in the night manager’s voice, as if she regarded Louise’s expanding girth as a mark of character weakness.
There was a small round mirror attached to the inside of the locker door and Louise caught a glimpse of herself in it, though normally she avoided her own reflection whenever possible. The soft, floury folds of cheek and chin seemed to belong to someone else, just like the badly permed hair. It had been a wrench letting the mousy brown grow back after all those years dyeing it lustrous black.
‘You’ll do the dining room first, yeah?’ said Joy, eyes once more fixed on her computer screen. It wasn’t really a question. ‘And then the activities room. Mr Turner had an accident in there, just as the day shift was knocking off. They did what they could, but the carpet will need a thorough going-over.’
Louise went into the back hallway and opened up a full-length cupboard, extracting the vacuum cleaner and the trolley of cleaning products. She was already wheezing. She wasn’t used to carrying around so much weight. She made her way first to the dining room, as instructed. It was a cheerless room, painted a drab institutional beige and lit by a sickly, greenish light. The only things on the wall were a laminated copy of the fire regulations and the stunted remains of a home-made paper chain left over from last Christmas and fixed to the wall with yellowing tape.
After she’d finished, Louise wheeled the trolley to the activities room, instantly spotting the site of Mr Turner’s accident, a large, dark brown stain on the grey carpet. She sighed. But instead of getting to work, she went back to the doorway and looked up and down the corridor, even though she was sure she was safe. Joy never came out of the staffroom if she could help it. And the night carers weren’t due to show up for another hour. It probably wasn’t legal for only one permanent member of staff to be on the premises, but the care home’s owners were cutting corners wherever they could. Slashing employee hours, turning a blind eye to cleaning staff who didn’t exactly meet the requirements for the DBS check but were prepared to accept below minimum wage, cash in hand.
Sickening how little priority was given to the elderly.
Making her way along the corridor, Louise avoided the cramped lift, where she knew there was a CCTV camera trained on the doors, and slipped up the back stairs to the second floor.
There was a low groaning noise from behind the first door she passed, and she made a mental note to look in on her way back. Mrs Goldstein was in constant discomfort now. It was nearly time.
Like all the rooms, the third door on the left had a laminated notice on it with the resident’s name printed in heavy black type. Mrs Barbara Whittaker. In an instant, Louise had turned the handle silently and slid inside, quietly closing the door behind her.
‘Hello, Mum,’ she whispered to the twisted shape under the sheets.
‘Did you think I wasn’t coming?’
She lowered herself heavily into the armchair next to the bed and reached across to take hold of one of the tiny, clawed hands.
‘You know I’ll never leave you, don’t you, Mum?’
Through the semi-darkness came a low moan, like an animal in distress.
‘Don’t be upset. There are a few little things I need to sort out, a few wrongs to be righted, but we’ll be together soon and, wherever they move you, I’ll find you.
‘We’ll always have each other. Aren’t we blessed?’