The Light of Amsterdam (6 page)

After she had changed into her green uniform she brushed her hair at the same mirror at which Shannon had stood. She could never see any of her daughter's face in her own although sometimes people said they looked alike, nor she told herself was she frightened about being forty. But putting down the brush she pressed her fingers to her cheekbones and stretched the skin, then raised her chin with the tips of her finger, offering her face to the mirror for its inspection. She assured herself she still looked young, that when she went to Amsterdam it wouldn't be obvious to strangers that she was Shannon's mother. There were faint circles under her eyes that were only noticeable under harsh light and a slight crackling of fine lines at their corners but the mirror wasn't unkind to her. Using her fingers she pecked at her hair, lifting strands and letting them fall. Her roots were beginning to show again and a couple of hairs were hinting at grey but she would get it done before the wedding.

When she arrived at The Rowans care home a florist's van was parking and a delivery man was getting out carrying a bunch of flowers that partially covered his face. ‘In here, love?' he asked, momentarily confused about where the entrance was.

‘Are they for me?' she asked.

‘Sorry, sweetheart,' then as an afterthought, ‘if they were for you they'd have to be roses.'

She rewarded him with a smile and then held the door open. Someone's birthday. Easier to send flowers than turn up in person. A reminder to reward their deep love with a lion's share when it was time to divide the spoils. Was it her imagination or did these old folk have birthdays more often than other people? Perhaps they were right that time flies, that when the clock was winding down the quicker it sped to its conclusion. When she entered the reception area she knew right away that breakfast was just ending. From the dining room came the clatter of cutlery and plates and the communal rasp of conversation straining and pushing at the edges until it eddied out in thin streams of disconnected sound like a radio station not properly tuned in. She wondered how old people could be so noisy. Was it the relief of being granted another day? It could hardly be an excited uncertainty about what it might hold because the smooth management of The Rowans necessitated that everything ran according to a preordained schedule. As she watched the flowers being handed over to Muriel on reception she glanced at the day's programme and saw that the afternoon had an art class timetabled. She wondered if they needed a life model and smiled at the pleasure the home's couple of men would derive from that experience. She knew already from the occasional comment or look that their blood still flowed. Flowed in the brain at least.

‘Morning, Karen,' Muriel said, watching her sign in. ‘Aren't these beautiful?'

‘Who are they for?'

‘Mrs Cunningham. Birthday. I hope we have a vase big enough.' She turned the bouquet slowly round and lowered her face into the cellophane-wrapped bouquet as if going to bathe it in the blossom. ‘Beautiful smell, too.'

‘Do you want me to take them up to her room?'

‘No, it's all right, I'll take them into her in the day room. She'll enjoy them even better if everyone sees her getting them. You know what they're like.'

‘She'll not like it if someone asks what age she is.'

‘She's still letting on she's five years younger than she really is.'

‘Maybe we'll all do that when the time comes,' she said as she turned to go to the store and pick up her cleaning trolley.

‘Karen,' Muriel called after her and her voice lowered into something pretending to be a confidential whisper, ‘Mrs Weldon would like to see you before you start work. In her office.' And she pointed down the corridor as if she didn't know already where the office was.

‘What about?'

But Muriel only looked down at her desk and shook her head from side to side.

Her first thought as she walked slowly towards the office was that she was going to get her notice at the very time when she needed the money most but as she considered it she couldn't think why this would happen. The home was completely full so it was always a question of waiting for someone's estate to be eaten up by the cost of their residence or for a death to give admittance. She'd never had any complaints about her work. And then she thought that it was possible the cleaning had been farmed out to some new private company who would bring in their Polish and Lithuanian workers to do the job for half the money and be grateful for the work. She paused at the door and tried to stem her nervousness. Her eyes focused on a framed print on the wall, a picture of a thatched Irish cottage with purple mountains behind it sweeping to a sky where the clouds swirled and streamed. She knocked on the door and waited until she heard a voice telling her to come in.

Mrs Weldon sat behind her desk and beside her was a man she'd seen before but didn't know. He had a notebook and a pen.

‘Come in, Karen, and have a seat,' she said, pointing to where she wanted her to sit. As she did so the phone rang but after answering it she asked for all calls to be held. ‘This is Mr Jennings who's sitting in with us.' He smiled and raised his pen very slightly but didn't speak. There was a slight whorled sheen on one of the lapels of his dark suit as if someone had pressed a wet thumbprint into it. She felt increasingly nervous and, when asked how she was, mumbled ‘
OK
' and tried not to show how anxious she was to discover why she had been summoned to an office that she'd only been in once in ten years when she had to ask for time off so that she could look after Shannon when she broke her arm in a playground accident.

‘There's nothing to be worried about, Karen,' Mrs Weldon said, putting on her glasses as if she needed to be able to see her more clearly. She heard the words but knew they weren't true. It felt for a second as if she was in a police station and about to be interviewed about a murder. Her imagination printed out lurid newspaper headlines where she was accused of giving overdoses or smothering elderly patients who wanted her to help them die. She fiddled with her name tag as if to say that this was who she was and there must be some mistake.

‘You've been here a long time, Karen, haven't you?' Mrs Weldon asked.

‘Ten years.'

‘That's right,' Mrs Weldon said, ‘I've looked it up. Started just before me.'

She watched Jennings write in his notebook. There was a smear on one of the lenses of his rimless glasses that made her want to reach across the desk and polish it. After he'd finished writing he snuffled his slipped glasses back into place by crinkling his face. When he did this his eyes closed for a fraction of a second.

‘You've always been a good worker and I don't want you to think that anyone is accusing you of anything. That's very important. No one is accusing you of anything but sometimes things happen and we are obliged to follow certain procedures. And I don't want you to think that you have been singled out because we'll be speaking to a range of staff in just the same way that we're speaking to you. Do you understand?'

Despite nodding she understood nothing and the longer she didn't understand why she was there the more frightened she felt. Mrs Weldon held a pencil at both ends parallel to her chest. She was overweight and as she leaned forward her dress strained a little across her heavy bust and under her arms, the material creasing like a series of cracks in plaster. She felt a growing sense of the unpredictability and danger that hovered over the room and which tempted her to confess to whatever was to be her crime so she could bring the experience to an end.

‘Things happen in homes from time to time – it's inevitable, I suppose. But it's important that residents and their families have total confidence in us because that's essential to the success of what we do. You understand, Karen?' She nodded again then stared at his pen poised above the notepad seemingly impatient to write. ‘So when something happens it's important we're seen to respond right away, sort things out.' She noticed the two framed photographs on the desk and wondered whose job it was to clean this room and what world the photos spoke of beyond the business of running the home. There was a pause and Mrs Weldon set the pencil precisely on the desk.

‘Something's gone missing. A piece of jewellery. Quite a valuable item apparently. Have you heard anyone talking about this?'

‘No.'

‘It's a gold bracelet belonging to Mrs Hemmings. A present from her late husband. So obviously it's of sentimental as well as financial value. And we'd naturally be keen to find it.'

‘And you think I took it?'

‘No, Karen, that's not what I'm saying or even suggesting. I don't know what happened to it but I do have a responsibility to make enquiries and ascertain its whereabouts. But I'm not accusing you of anything and it's important you understand that.'

‘It feels like it,' she said. ‘And are you sure it's missing? You know how often old people claim to have lost something and then it turns up – you know that happens all the time. And sometimes they say they've lost things they never had in the first place.' She looked at them both, appealing to their sense of fair play, but their faces were closed, impassive, their eyes withholding either belief or suspicion.

‘That's true and it does happen. Except, when Mrs Hemmings arrived here last year we itemised her valuables, even took photographs, and I've personally helped her look and can't find it.' She pushed a photograph across the desk. ‘That's it. Have you seen it before?'

She held the photograph in both her hands and nodded. It was a plaited gold bracelet with blue stones at intervals.

‘When did you see it last, Karen?'

‘I can't remember, she wears it from time to time. She's shown me it. I know she likes it.'

‘And when you clean Mrs Hemmings' room have you ever come across it?'

She watched the pen move across the page and saw the way he dotted his i's as if he was pressing home the confirmation of her guilt.

‘I don't know exactly where she keeps it, perhaps in the drawers of her dresser. Does Mrs Hemmings say I took it?'

‘No she doesn't. And no one's saying you took it. We both know that Mrs Hemmings is – how shall we say it? – a demanding lady. But she's fond of you and you probably get on better with her than anyone else on the staff. However, she does want her bracelet back and she's also the type who will make a very loud fuss if she doesn't get it. So is there anything you can tell us that might help us locate it?'

‘I don't know anything about it. I haven't seen it and I don't know anything about it,' she said and looked at Mrs Weldon directly.

‘So you're sure that there's nothing you can tell us that might help?' It was Jennings speaking for the first time. His voice was low-pitched and slow and in her ears sounded like an adult asking a question of a child but she wasn't a child and after the questions petered into silence she decided that she'd had enough so she stood up and told them that she was sorry but she couldn't help them. She took a step towards the door then turned to face them again.

‘Do you want me to work today or not?' she asked.

‘We want you to work as normal,' Mrs Weldon said. ‘Just carry out your schedule and I would be grateful if you wouldn't talk about this to anyone else. Better just to keep everything that's been said private. Just between us, for the present at least.'

She closed the door behind her and for the second time that day shivered a little as she stepped into the corridor. She felt cold again and for a moment she thought of handing in her name badge at the desk, going home and climbing back into bed. Only the thought of Shannon's wedding and its spiralling cost prevented her. Loading her trolley with fresh towels and bed linen she wheeled it to the lift, irritated as always by the squeaking wheel which was bent a little and prevented it running smoothly so she had to steer it forcefully to stop it veering to the left. Clive the caretaker/handyman had promised to take a look at it for her but never seemed to get round to it. She experienced a growing sense of anger that he could make her a promise but not keep it. As she wheeled it past reception Muriel was pretending to be busy with paperwork.

So she had stolen a bracelet. Everyone probably knew and thought so by now. Nothing happened in the home big or small that it didn't course through the communal circuits like electricity and, in a place that consisted mostly of a dull waiting, nothing gave more pleasure than a sudden surge of shocking gossip. She imagined the residents in the day room, where they were now confined for the next hour while their rooms were done, passing the story from mouth to mouth, their grey-haired heads leaning in conspiratorially to each other, liver-spotted hands held flutteringly like fans across their mouths. Like Chinese whispers, who could guess the elaborate embellishments that would be added as flawed hearing and malice warped the words into some new shape? She hated them all a little as the squeak of the wheel beat in time with the pulse of her rising anger.

When she came she had thought this would be a good place to work, full of kindly old souls who would be grateful for the comfort and service their money had finally brought them. But while it didn't cater for those with dementia or serious illness and was clearly at the top of the price range and supposedly offering some independence of living, now she thought of it as the home of the bitter, the unhappy and often the deserted. Nothing ever satisfied, nothing ever fully lived up to the expectation they had of what their money entitled them to. So it was as if they were on a cruise ship and some aspect of their accommodation or entertainment schedule had fallen short of what the brochure promised. Individual and collective complaining – there wasn't a week went by without someone organising a gripe about something – was also their way of asserting their dignity, their self-image of being strong people who couldn't be put upon. Each and every one of them thought of the staff as working personally for them. And that was to say nothing of the rivalries amongst the women, the constant struggle, in a world where everything was designed to give equal treatment, to hold on to notions of superiority and class. To be better than someone else. To have more money. To be more independent. To be more loved by their relatives.