The Woman Who Kept Everything. Jane Gilley
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better for her. All her woes dealt with and she’s properly cared for.’
Gloria didn’t really know what the woman was talking about. She wasn’t interested to know something about someone she didn’t know and would never know and, anyway, her hand ached. She grimaced as she tried to reposition it.
‘Oh my, that hand looks sore, love. Should’ve wrapped it in cling film or something clean if you had it. But, anyway, don’t you worry about all that, now. We’ve got to get you away from here and do some sorting out,’ Diane informed her, with a bright smile.
Gloria shook her head solemnly. ‘Don’t want to go anywhere else. Been here so many years, ducks, and I certainly don’t want to go anywhere now.’
‘I know that, Gloria! But we’ve, um, we’ve got to sift through all this – er – this stuff to try and find where the electrics blew. Your house’s become a bit of a fire hazard now, so we’re taking you somewhere safe while we sort things out. And that hand of yours needs looking at.’
Clegg appeared at that precise moment, his large frame filling the already clogged front doorway. He was sweating and also trying not to gag. He squeezed past them to try and look at the kitchen, pushing boxes and piles of magazines aside in his attempt to get through, but then he stopped, deciding against it.
‘Oh stuff this! Right, Mum. Bleeerr. God! What a stench! And what on earth is all that crap and rubbish doing over there by the kitchen sink? Wasn’t there last time I came. Good grief, there’s bits of food in it as well, Mother! What on earth’ve you been doing?’
‘I think some hooligans nicked me wheelie-bin, Cleggy. So I leave me household rubbish near the back door. Can’t put it outside. Foxes might get it!’
Clegg gagged and put his hand over his mouth, shaking his head.
‘Un-fucking-believable! Right, well, I got rid of that bloody scoundrel, Tilsbury. Seems to me he’s using your ruddy good nature to wheedle his way into favour, rent-free, and how’s that helpin’ matters? It ain’t, Mother. So you’re coming with me. And I don’t want any more ruddy arguments. Plus it’s not safe for you in here with all this crap everywhere and dodgy electrics.’
He turned his back on his mother and nodded to Diane.
‘Just get rid of the bloody LOT! Don’t care how you do it but just DO it. Give me any paperwork you find in drawers and the like but otherwise there’s nowt of any value. I’ll pay for what needs payin’ for but just get rid of it. And, er, thanks for getting her a place at Green’s Nursin’ Home for a couple of weeks. They’ll clean her up and sort her out a treat, I’m told,’ he said through clenched teeth.
‘They certainly will, Mr Frensham. They’re one of the best homes in the district. And you say you’re happy to take her afterwards? Is that for full-time care or will you need some additional help?’ mumbled Diane, behind her handkerchief.
Clegg shook his head vehemently. ‘No. We’ll be okay with that, thanks. My Val’s sorting all that side out. She’s a nurse as you know. We’ve got a small en suite extension for my mother. So we’ll all be fine at home together. God! That smell is unbearable! Dunno how she’s put up with it all these years. Nowt so queer as folk, as they say.’
From the moment Gloria stepped foot inside Green’s Nursing Home she decided she didn’t like it.
Well, it wasn’t 75 Briar Way, for one thing! And where were her belongings? Where was her winceyette nightie? Where was her splayed blue toothbrush for cleaning her dentures with? And where was her little alarm clock with no battery that Arthur bought her, back in the day, which she kept under her pillow when she slept? She liked those things around her. They brought her comfort.
Clegg had driven her to the nursing home. His wife Val was not with him and nor were the children. Gloria felt as though she was being shuttled away somewhere, out of everyone’s hair.
‘Right, Mother. I’ve got to go. Already had more time off work than is good for me. You go in through those doors, there, to reception and ask for Mrs Lal. She’ll be looking after you,’ he’d said, revving his engine. Once Gloria had clambered out, he’d driven off without so much as a wave. Gloria shook her head. Clegg’s behaviour was not what it used to be.
The lady who’d met Gloria in reception, Mrs Lal, was the chief carer. She’d asked if Gloria would like a brief tour first but all Gloria wanted to do was squirrel herself away and have a jolly good think about things. Plus she wasn’t good at speaking to new people because she hadn’t had to do that for a long time.
So Mrs Lal had taken Gloria upstairs via a lift and showed her into a very small room with a single bed, one chair and a wardrobe and nothing else at all. No ‘things’ or ‘stuff’. The décor was insipid. Pale peach walls, pale peach bedspread. Pale this, pale that. Not the mish-mash of colours, textures and chaos she was used to. Gloria felt downhearted. Clegg had told her she’d be here for two weeks while he sorted things out with the house. So she knew she had no choice but to stay and accept this place and the people she found within its walls.
Clothes, not new ones, had been left on the bed for her to change into. They weren’t her own. Mrs Lal had shown her where the shower and toilet were and asked her to have a good shower and hair wash with the gels provided.
‘You okay with that, Mrs Frensham, or do you need someone to help you get cleaned up?’ Mrs Lal had said with a kindly smile.
The very thought had appalled Gloria, that someone might have to clean her one day. It would not be today, however. She had shaken her head so hard that she thought it might fall off.
‘No, ducks. I don’t want touchin’ by no one, ta very much.’
Mrs Lal had said she understood and then told Gloria she was to come downstairs after her shower and she’d be shown where she would have dinner and eat all her meals.
Gloria was a little damp when she finally found her way back to the reception area. In fact, she’d been in the shower so long, just enjoying the sensation of hot water cascading over her, for the first time in twenty years, that dinner had finished and the only food the cook could prepare was a cold chicken salad with two slices of white buttered bread.
But Gloria tucked in hungrily, thinking it was probably the best meal she’d ever tasted. It certainly beat potato soup! And then, feeling completely shattered, she asked if she could go to bed.
Mrs Lal took her back upstairs to her room afterwards and Gloria lay on top of the soft bed, fully clothed, staring at the ceiling. There was a light switch by the bed so she could switch the light off whenever she wanted. But Gloria spent a good couple of hours just staring at the Artexed ceiling, wondering where they were going to put all her things whilst they searched for the electricity fault. And how would they know where to put her things back afterwards? And would the house she’d lived in for thirty-some-odd years ever be the same again, when everyone had finished poking around in it? She felt a tear prickling the corner of her eye and wiped it away. Clegg would sort it all out for her, she was sure. But his behaviour, she’d noted of late, was becoming alarmingly discourteous.
The next day Mrs Lal came to fetch her and took her to breakfast. She was put on a table with two other white-haired ladies: Yvonne and Annie. They didn’t say much. In fact, Gloria wondered if there was something wrong with them. They just seemed to stare ahead without any knowledge of what was going on around them. A carer had to place toast in front of them and encourage them to eat. One man on another table suddenly shrieked, which made Gloria jump.
Gloria got up and went to find Mrs Lal and told her what had been going on.
‘Summat’s not right with Dotty and Lotty, love. And there’s a poor man in anguish over t’other side. Think summat needs to be done about them.’
Gloria