Turning round to pick up my case, I thought at first that someone had moved it out of the way for safety. Then, with a sickening swell of panic, I realised that I had fallen for the oldest scam in the world.
The case was gone.
I swore loudly. What an idiot I’d been.
I scanned the crowds for a few frantic seconds, then rushed up to a busker and bellowed over his painfully amplified backing track, ‘Have you seen anyone with a black wheelie bag?’ What a stupid question – there were dozens of people trailing by with their suitcases. He shook his head without missing a beat, as the uncaring crowds pushed past.
Cursing myself, I pushed through the crowds onto the nearest platform, desperately hoping to catch a glimpse of my case. A train thundered in, brakes screeching noisily to a halt, a mass of people climbed off and hundreds more climbed on. The platform cleared, and I rushed to the other platform and watched the same process for the train running in the opposite direction. As the platform emptied again, the panic gave way to tears. My search was hopeless. The case, and Granny’s heirloom, my precious royal quilt, had disappeared.
The transport police, once I managed to locate them, invited me into the relative peace of their control room. Feeling dizzy and faint with the shock of it all, I sat down onto a chair and gratefully sipped the glass of water they offered.
‘What would you estimate as the value of the lost item, Madam?’
‘Sentimental only, I’m afraid.’
They took a full statement and assured me they would review the CCTV footage and pursue any leads. They would also alert their colleagues in the Met, but warned that my chances of ever seeing the quilt again were slim. Once the thieves discovered that there was nothing of value, they said, they would probably just discard the suitcase and its contents. Short of hunting through every skip or waste bin for miles around, there was little they could do.
Even in a few short days I had grown used to the random colours and higgledy-piggledy patterns of the quilt slung on the back of the sofa, creating a bright focus in the cool cream living room. Without it, the flat looked empty, and the Scandinavian minimalism I’d once loved now felt bleak and soulless. I dug out a large tub of ice-cream, the kind with bits of unbaked biscuit dough in it, and ate the lot in front of a reality TV show, feeling very sorry for myself. No Russell, no job, no quilt, nothing. My earlier excitement about starting my own business suddenly felt too exhausting to contemplate.
I woke the following day feeling sick and shivery, as if I was coming down with flu. But I’d promised to visit Mum again to sort out the boxes now that Cosy Homes had completed their work, so I swallowed several paracetamol and set off.
When I arrived at the cottage it was already mid-morning, but the front door was locked and the curtains still drawn. I rang the bell and hammered the knocker; there were noises inside, but it seemed to take an age for her to appear. Eventually the latches were drawn and, when the door finally opened, it revealed a woman so changed in just a few days that I barely recognised her. She seemed even more shrunken, her face pale and cheeks hollow, grey hair hanging in un-brushed clumps. Her flimsy nightgown was covered in black smudges, and her bare feet were blue with cold.
‘Hello, dear,’ she said, as if nothing was wrong. ‘You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.’
There was a strong smell of burning from the direction of the kitchen and through the living room door I could see a steady dribble of water pouring from the central light fitting. A sizeable puddle had already formed on the carpet. The kitchen was full of acrid smoke and a pan still smouldered on the hob under a tea towel which had obviously been used to smother the flames. A couple of other charred towels lay on the floor and there were black cinders all over the worktop and sink.
‘I was making porridge,’ Mum whispered from the doorway. ‘I’m afraid the saucepan might be a bit tricky to clean. But not to worry, there are plenty of others I can use.’
‘I’m more worried about
you
than the bloody saucepan,’ I barked, a wave of irrational anger sweeping over me. ‘You could have set the whole house on fire.’ I switched the cooker off at the mains and opened the back door to let out the smoke.
Then I remembered the dripping ceiling and ran upstairs. Just as I’d feared, the bath was overflowing, taps still running. I turned them off, plunged my arm into the scalding water to pull out the plug and threw towels onto the floor to soak up the worst of the water. Finally, I grabbed Mum’s dressing gown and slippers and a blanket from her bedroom and ran downstairs again, swaddled her up like a baby, turned on the electric fire in the dining room and sat her down in front of it.
‘Sorry for shouting at you, Mum. Stay there while I make you a cup of tea and something to eat. We’ll soon sort you out.’
‘Thank you, dear.’ Her face lit up with a childlike smile. ‘I’ve got myself into a bit of pickle, haven’t I?’
Much later, after more clearing up, conversations with the neighbours and the daily help, I bundled Mum and a small suitcase of her personal things into the car and set off back to London. She wasn’t safe to be left alone overnight, certainly not in that damp, smoky house, so the best thing was to get her home, feed her up and allow her to recover from what had been a terrible shock for both of us. Then we would worry about what to do next. All thoughts of the quilt were pushed far to the back of my mind.
Next day I woke to find her bumbling about the flat in the dark, muttering to herself.
‘Mum? It’s not morning yet,’ I said, switching on the light. ‘What are you doing?’
‘My watch says it’s six o’clock, time to get up.’ She peered around, puzzled. ‘It’s very odd. This hotel doesn’t seem to have a bathroom.’
‘It’s my flat, not a hotel,’ I said, ‘let me show you.’
A few minutes later she was padding around the living room. ‘Shall we order tea, dear?’ It was no use sending her back to bed; the day had started. She stopped by the window; her eye caught something in the street below. ‘Why are we staying in this hotel, dear?’
‘It’s not a hotel, Mum. It’s my flat,’ I repeated, as gently as possible.
She paused in her pacing. ‘Your flat? Then where’s Russell?’
‘It’s a long story. He doesn’t live here any more,’ I said, praying she wouldn’t ask any more questions.
‘I like Russell. Better than that other scruffy lot you used to hang around with.’ Mum sat down. ‘Now, what were we talking about?’
‘Can you remember what happened yesterday?’ I started, carefully. ‘You were cooking porridge and the saucepan burned?’
She looked at me, blankly. ‘I burned the porridge?’
‘That’s right, at the cottage. And it set off a bit of a fire in the kitchen.’
‘If you say so, dear.’
‘The thing is, Mum, it’ll take a while to fix after the fire, so we need to think about where you’d like to live.’
‘Can’t I stay here for a few days?’ she pleaded, in her childlike way. ‘Please? I like this hotel.’
‘Of course you can. But perhaps in the longer term we might need to find you somewhere they can look after you properly, where they can cook your meals and do your cleaning for you?’ I said, holding my breath as she grappled with the concept.
‘No, I don’t think so, dear, do you?’ she replied at last. ‘Not my sort of thing. I like my own company.’
Winning her round was going to be a long haul. ‘But you will consider it, Mum, won’t you?’
‘Of course I will, dear,’ she said. ‘Now, what’s for breakfast?’
Later that morning, when she was resting, I found a cleaning company to sort out the cottage. It had to be fixed, even if Mum never went back to live there. Although I hated the very thought, I knew that we would have to sell it before long.
Next day, after breakfast, Mum said, ‘I’ve been thinking. You know those places people go to live in? That we were talking about before?’
‘Residential homes?’
‘Yes, those. It’s lovely staying with you, dear, but there’s nothing for me to do here. And the house is such a worry these days. Do you think they might have somewhere close to Eastchester so that my friends can come and visit me?’
‘That’s a really good idea. Shall we look at some on the internet?’
Over the following couple of days we visited two homes, both within a half-hour drive of Rowan Cottage. The first one was grim from the outside, smelled of stale food inside and the staff seemed harassed. The next, a place called Holmfield, was far more welcoming. The matron was kind to Mum, the rooms were light and airy and, best of all, had an immediate vacancy. The room – on the ground floor with French windows onto its own self-contained patio – was available almost immediately.
‘What do you think? Would you like to come and live here?’
‘Very nice, dear, very nice.’ Mum had been quiet most of the afternoon, meekly following me around as I talked to staff, surveyed bedrooms, dining rooms and sitting areas.
She was exhausted, and probably had no real idea what a significant decision we were about to make.
‘You could always come here for a trial period, Mrs Meadows,’ the matron said. ‘A couple of weeks, perhaps? Look at it as a kind of holiday and see whether you like it.’ I almost kissed her.
‘A holiday, that sounds like a nice idea,’ Mum said, on the way home. ‘That was a very pleasant hotel, wasn’t it?’
‘It’s not a hotel, Mum, it’s a residential home. Yes, it is very nice.’
‘Can we afford it, dear?’
‘No problem,’ I said, trying to reassure myself as much as Mum. The weekly fees were terrifying and it was clear that her pension would never cover it, but we could worry about that later. ‘You deserve a little holiday.’
‘I’ll give it a try then, shall I?’
For the first time in days, I felt the weight of responsibility beginning to lift from my shoulders. Perhaps things would work out fine, after all.
Returning to the cottage next day to collect Mum’s belongings was a gloomy affair. The cleaners had not been in yet, and our once warm, lively family home felt dismal and abandoned. Almost as soon as we were inside, she began to weep.
‘I want to come home,’ she whimpered. Then she stood at the bottom of the stairs, chilling my heart as she called out, ‘Richard? Where are you, Richard?’ Then she turned to me with a pitiful face, her eyes brimming. ‘Why isn’t he here? Where’s he gone?’
‘Dad died years ago, Mum,’ I said, blinking back my own tears. ‘You’re going to see those lovely people at Holmfield for a couple of weeks, remember? They’ll keep you company.’
Back at the residential home everything seemed to run smoothly until the time came for me to leave. As we settled Mum into her new room, I tried to point out all its benefits: the private patio with the bird table, the wide windows which would bring morning sunshine, the pretty curtains and bedspread. I avoided mentioning the stains on the carpet and the inescapable fact that just beyond the patio was a car park.
She appeared to be content, or at least uncomplaining, as we unpacked her clothes, displayed her photographs and ornaments on the dressing table and windowsill and then went to the conservatory for coffee. The place was busy with visiting families talking too loudly to their elderly, and obviously very deaf, relatives. We drank over-stewed coffee and I chatted with brittle cheerfulness as we moved towards the dreaded moment when I would have to leave.
‘Would you like to go back to your room for a little rest?’ I asked.
She gave me that vague, puzzled look which had become so familiar. ‘Yes, dear. This has been lovely, but it is probably time we went home now.’
‘This is your home now, Mum,’ I said, more brightly than I felt, ‘and the wonderful thing is that you’ve got your own room just down the corridor.’
‘But I want to go back to the cottage,’ she said, firmly, ‘for Richard.’
I took a deep breath. ‘Dad’s not there now, Mum, he died years ago. You need to live somewhere else so that other people can look after you, remember?’ It was all wrong, the sing-song voice I found myself using, like talking to a child. I hated myself for it.
‘I’ve changed my mind,’ she said, her face resolute. ‘I would like you to take me home now, please.’
I can’t do this on my own, I thought, it’s just too painful for both of us. In her office, the matron was on the telephone but motioned to me to sit down. When she finished her phone call and asked how she could help, I started to sob, and by the time I’d explained what was happening and we got back to the conservatory, Mum had disappeared. She wasn’t in her room either. The matron muttered into her pager and panic rose in my throat as we searched the long corridors, knocking on doors and entering rooms. Then, as we went outside to check the garden I caught sight, through a ground floor window, of Mum chattering away to an old man in his bed.
As we entered the room she smiled cheerfully. ‘Poor old thing, he’s not feeling too good, he says. We were having a lovely conversation.’
‘I’ll call someone to look after Eric, Mrs Meadows,’ matron said, taking her arm with practised calm. ‘You can see him later, but it’s probably time to get ready for supper, now. Come with me and your daughter and let’s see if we can find your own room, shall we?’
She whispered into my ear, ‘Probably best to give your mother a kiss and head off now. Don’t you worry, I’ll take over from here. She will be fine.’
By the time I got outside into the car park, the tears were streaming again and the sense of guilt was like a rock in my gut. What right did I have to take away my mother’s freedom? She had given so much to me. Surely I should be prepared to look after her, now that she needed me?
But living together at the flat would be difficult, if not impossible, and the only other choice would be for me to live at Rowan Cottage. I’d go mad buried in the countryside without any friends, or a job … well, I had no job keeping me in London any more, of course, but all my contacts were there for the new interior design business I hoped to build. Moving out to the countryside would never work. And besides, much as I loved my mother, I simply could not imagine becoming her full-time carer.