It was raining again. Of course it was. I looked up at the sky, wondering whether to risk it or go back inside and find my waterproofs. A distant rumble of thunder made my decision for me, so I darted back up the stairs at the side of my tiny flat and hurried inside. I took off the battered leather jacket that had once belonged to my brother, and instead pulled on my bright yellow cagoule and managed to cover my rucksack in a plastic carrier bag so everything inside wouldn’t get soaked. Then I dashed back outside again.
My flat – if you could call it that, which you couldn’t really – was above the detached double garage set slightly to the side of the big house where my dad’s friend Bernie lived with his wife and teenage kids. Bernie owed my dad a favour, which was why he let me live in the flat that had once been used by a succession of au pairs. I hadn’t asked what the favour was, but it must have been a big one because Bernie let me stay there for a tiny amount of rent – which I still struggled to pay.
I clattered down the metal staircase and opened the garage door to get my bike out, keeping my gaze away from the corner where all my canvases were stacked against the wall, and my art equipment was gathering dust in the bags for life I’d stashed it in.
After adjusting the straps of my rucksack, I wheeled my bike outside and came face to face with Micah, Bernie’s teenage son.
‘No,’ I said, wheeling past him.
‘Oh come on, please.’
‘No. Go to school.’
I was not Micah’s au pair but he seemed to think I was. Or at least he thought he could use my flat whenever he wanted, to hide out when he should be at school. But when Micah bunked off, it was me who got the blame. I had a suspicion that Bernie’s wife, Jan – nice as she was – had been forced into welcoming me into their annexe. She’d had plans to convert the garage into a gym before I landed on their doorstep, so I didn’t want to give her any excuse to get rid of me. I couldn’t risk losing this flat, even though it was tiny and cramped.
Micah scowled at me and I scowled back, but good-naturedly because he was a nice lad really and I saw something in him that reminded me of myself. A fluttery anxiousness that made me want to look after him.
‘The thought of going to school is worse than it’ll actually be when you get there,’ I told him, as I got on my bike. ‘It’s never as bad as you think.’
‘Is that how you feel about work?’
‘Totally,’ I lied, because while I didn’t dislike work it was always a bit of an effort. ‘I’m working with Tara later. If you come by after school, I’ll give you the key and you can hang out at mine all evening.’
Micah gave me a dazzling smile. ‘Thanks, Steve,’ he said.
‘It’s Stevie,’ I said with an overexaggerated sigh. Micah had been thrilled when he discovered my friends and family all shortened Stephanie to Stevie, and he delighted in giving me his own version of my nickname.
‘Okay then, Steve.’
‘It’s Stevie,’ I called over my shoulder as I rode off down the drive and out of the automatic gates. ‘Stevie!’
*
Tall Trees residential home was surrounded by a low hedge, a red-brick wall, and absolutely no trees, tall or otherwise. It was a large building shaped like an L with the long bit of the L parallel to the road and the gravelled car park, which I’d long ago learned not to cycle across, at the front. I locked my dripping bike up in the empty rack, and took my helmet and my shopping-bag-covered rucksack into the staffroom.
‘You’re late,’ said my boss, Blessing, hurrying past the door to the room with a pile of clean towels as I peeled off my wet outer layer. Then she stopped, and grinned at me. ‘Here.’
She threw me a towel and gratefully I caught it and wiped my face.
‘It’s still raining then?’
‘Actually it’s stopped.’ I squeezed my damp ponytail with the towel then hung it over the door of my locker while I got out my clean uniform tunic.
‘But …’
‘Bus,’ I said wryly. ‘And puddle.’
Blessing raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re on the bottom corridor today. They’ve all had tea, but they’ll need you to help get them up for breakfast. Then when you’re ready and if the rain’s holding off, can you take Mr Yin out into the garden? He wants to see if the peonies have flowered yet.’
‘Will do.’
I finished buttoning up my tunic, tidied my hair, shut my locker, and hurried off to the bottom corridor.
‘Morning, Val,’ I sang as I went into the first room. ‘How are you today?’
‘I wish I was dead,’ said Val who was ninety-five, and who spoke her mind without hesitation. ‘Can’t even get a proper cup of tea in this rotten place. Is it too much to ask for an Earl Grey of a morning?’
I grinned at her. ‘Ready to get up?’
‘What’s the point?’
With a flourish, I pulled two little Twinings sachets – like the ones you got at a hotel breakfast buffet – from my tunic pocket and waved them at her. ‘Would you get up if I promised to make you a cup of Earl Grey?’
Val smiled at me suddenly and uncharacteristically. ‘You know what you are?’ she said. ‘One of the good ones.’
I busied myself filling her little kettle so she didn’t see the tears that had sprung into my eyes at her kind words. Just about anything made me well up these days. Tears were never far away now.
‘Right then, shall we get you out of that bed?’ I said, falsely jolly. ‘What would you like to wear today?’
*
Once all five of the residents on my corridor were up and dressed and in the dining room for breakfast, I went to find Mr Yin. He was sitting in the lounge, drinking coffee and looking out of the window. ‘This building was once a hospital,’ he said.
I nodded. ‘It spooks me a bit if I think about that when I’m on a night shift,’ I admitted. ‘When it’s quiet and dark, the corridors give me the willies.’
‘The willies?’ Mr Yin raised an eyebrow. He was a clever, distinguished man who had spent his younger days jetting between the UK and Hong Kong, but sometimes my South London idioms made him scratch his head.
‘Shivers,’ I said. ‘Give me the shivers.’
Mr Yin nodded and I knew he was storing away the knowledge for another day.
‘How are your legs today? Do you want me to get a chair?’
With a sigh, Mr Yin nodded. ‘I think that would be easier.’
Some of our residents were in wheelchairs all the time, but others – like Mr Yin – only used them when they had to, so we had a line of them by the reception desk.
‘Two mins,’ I said to Mr Yin, heading out of the lounge to grab a chair. A man – my age or perhaps a bit older – was signing in at the front desk. I’d never seen him before and I wondered which resident he’d come to see. He looked a bit like Louis Theroux. All tousled hair and thick-rimmed glasses.
‘Morning,’ I said, and he looked up at me and smiled.
‘Morning.’
I got the chair, and helped Mr Yin into it, and we went out the front door and round to the side of the home. The gable end of the home was painted white – a dirty, peeling white, but plain enough to be a tempting canvas for any passing graffiti artist.
As I pushed Mr Yin round to the garden, I noticed that today some scumbag had scrawled “f*ck the govermant” in red spray paint, right across the gable end. I couldn’t say I entirely disagreed with the sentiment, but the spelling made me wince.
Some of the other residents were on the terrace.
‘Want to join your mates?’ I asked Mr Yin. ‘You can see the peonies from there and keep dry if the rain starts again.’
‘Thank you, Stephanie,’ he said.
I pushed him over and got him settled and then, just as I was about to sit down myself and have a chat with them all, Blessing leaned out of the window.
‘Stephanie, you can go and see your nan now, if you like.’
I shook my head. ‘I’m just with Mr Yin at the mo.’
‘I’m fine,’ said Mr Yin, giving me a puzzled look. ‘Unless you don’t want to go?’ He studied me with his sharp eyes and I made a face.
‘I know I should, but it’s so hard. She doesn’t always remember me.’
‘My wife’s mother was the same. It’s very cruel.’
I looked away from him and blinked to stop the tears coming again. ‘She’s not going to be here forever,’ I said. ‘She’s really gone downhill recently. I should go.’
‘I agree.’ Mr Yin nodded. ‘You’ll regret it if you don’t.’
‘Are you sure it’s okay?’ I called to Blessing.
‘Go on,’ said Blessing. ‘I’ll send someone else out to stay with the residents.’
With a stifled sigh, I nodded. ‘Right then.’
The dementia unit of Tall Trees was at the far end of the building, behind locked double doors to stop anyone wandering off. I walked slowly towards the entrance, because much as I loved my grandmother, and lucky as I was to be on-hand and get to visit her all the time, it was hard seeing her there.
‘You look like you’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulders,’ said the home’s handyman, Cyril, as I walked past where he was mending a fence. ‘When you should have the world at your feet.’
‘Going to see my nan,’ I told him, and he made a face.
‘Worse is she?’
‘Good days and bad days,’ I said. It was that I found difficult really. I didn’t like not knowing how she would be when I got to her room. ‘Have you seen the graffiti round the side?’
Cyril rolled his eyes. ‘No. What is it this time?’
‘Very badly spelled. Fairly offensive.’
He shrugged. ‘Well it’ll have to wait. This fence needs mending, then I’ve got to do the leaky shower on the top corridor, and that new lady down the end’s got a window in her room that won’t open, and another one that won’t shut.’
‘Can’t you just paint over it? It won’t take long.’
‘You’re supposed to be the artist,’ said Cyril. ‘You do it. There’s paint in the shed.’
‘Maybe I will,’ I said, ignoring his comment about me being an artist. ‘I’ll see you later.’
‘Not if I see you first,’ said Cyril, like he always did, and I carried on to the dementia unit.
I found my grandmother in their lounge – much smaller than the one at our end of the building because other than the occasional choir, they didn’t have much entertainment – looking out of the window. I wondered what she was seeing, because she didn’t seem to be focusing on the cloudy sky or the plants outside.
‘Hello, Nan,’ I said. I sat down next to her and took her hand. Someone had painted her fingernails and that touch of kindness made my eyes fill with tears again. She’d always been really smartly turned out, my nan. I’d written that on her “all about me” form that was kept next to her bed for her carers to look at.
‘You look nice,’ I told her. She turned to look at me, with her sharp eyes searching my face.
‘Stephanie,’ she said.
My heart leapt. ‘That’s me, Nan. How are you?’
‘I’ve been dancing.’
‘Have you?’ They often played music for the residents in this part of Tall Trees. ‘Who did you dance with?’
She leaned towards me. ‘Just myself,’ she said. She patted my knee with her manicured hand. ‘Never rely on a man,’ she said. ‘Independence. That’s what a girl needs.’
‘You’re right, Nan.’
‘I’ve got a granddaughter,’ she said. She sat up a bit straighter, looking proud. ‘Stephanie, her name is. She’s independent.’
I nodded. ‘That’s me, Nan. I’m Stephanie.’
She blinked at me. ‘Well I never.’
I looped my arm through hers, giving her a squeeze. ‘It’s good to see you.’
‘They’re twins, you know? Stephanie and Max. A pair. A right pair of Charlies, I always call them.’ She chuckled and I breathed in sharply.
‘I know, Nan.’
‘Stephanie?’ Nan said. ‘Where’s Max? When is he coming to see me?’
I’d known it was coming but it never got any easier. One of the nurses in the unit had told me to go along with Nan’s forgetfulness, telling me it was distressing for her to be corrected all the time. It was certainly distressing for me to have to tell her the same awful thing over and over. And so I tried to smile, even though my mouth didn’t want to move in that way.
‘Max is …’ I breathed in deeply, trying to think of the right words. ‘Busy,’ I lied. ‘He’s busy.’
Nan looked at me fondly. ‘He’s such a good boy,’ she said. ‘Is he on holiday?’
I rolled my eyes. It wasn’t exactly a holiday and Max wasn’t exactly what you’d call a good boy. ‘He is away, yes.’
‘He’ll come and see me tomorrow.’
I pinched my lips together, feeling anxiety pulse in my chest as my forehead grew clammy with sweat. It was getting harder and harder to lie to her, but I thought her knowing the truth would be even worse. ‘I’m not sure, Nan,’ I said quietly trying to catch my breath.
‘Maybe he’ll come tomorrow,’ Nan repeated. ‘My grandson, Max.’
I swallowed. ‘Maybe.’
With a nod of satisfaction, Nan turned her attention back to the window and for the hundredth time I cursed my stupid, selfish brother who’d managed to get himself sent to prison and left me to pick up the pieces.