end of a particular road. You don’t notice how it all is until it’s gone. Silence. Still bedrooms. No dishes on the draining board to mutter about, no odd socks flung across a messy bedroom. No one to kiss goodnight. To hook an elbow around your neck when they are taller than a giraffe. Your man-boy.
Then there was that growing nagging doubt in her mind about…
Suddenly the bus stopped. Maddie gathered her plastic bags and got off the bus as a welcome breeze lifted up the corners of her scarf in the hot wind. Maybank View was only a few minutes’ walk from the bus stop.
She caught a glimpse of herself in the reflection of the bus shelter: brown hair with hints of auburn, a kind face, a lived-in face some would say. Motherly clothes, sensible footwear – no FM shoes in her wardrobe anymore – and shopping bags cutting into her hand. She looked every inch the wife. The sort of person the Salvation Army would expect to donate as the choir sung, wasn’t she? Bugger that, said this new little voice in her head, which was growing louder by the day.
5
Maddie pressed the button in the lift for the third floor with her left hand; in her right she clutched a small posy of dahlias she’d bought at the flower shop – bright yellow, cerise, and red. She knew they’d cheer Olive up. She studied the posters in the lift. ‘Crafternoon sessions’, ‘Giant word search’ or ‘Namaste for beginners – finding your inner religion’. Imagine living here where your world has closed in. Imagine how that must be. What must Olive feel? A woman who had been vibrant, lived on her own terms, in that blissful cottage by the sea. She’d known how to enjoy herself. Had Olive ever worn FM shoes? Maddie stifled a giggle.
She remembered Olive at Ed’s christening. Bright mandarin-orange two-piece suit, chunky beads, dark-rimmed glasses and a pout of pink lipstick. In a certain light she’d reminded Maddie of Dame Edna, had she not been so petite with it. Olive had arranged the whole christening including the reception at the Rose Hotel, a Victorian hotel in Brightwater Bay, a village on the Isle of Wight where she lived, overlooking a spectacular crescent of sand with shimmering seas. Olive had sort of taken over as the matriarch in her world.
Maddie had insisted that Olive go to Maybank View, knowing it was a caring place from her dad’s experience there. I want her near us, Tim. In the end, her father hadn’t known if Maddie was his daughter or a nurse. His dementia had come on quickly. The thought of Olive suffering the same fate terrified her.
And now this for fun-loving Olive. Your social life mapped out for you in the confines of a lift – press three for a bit of peace, four for a quiz and five if you want to go up to the roof and jump off. Maddie shook her head and looked at the woman staring back at her in the smoky lift mirrors, inhaling that ever-present aroma of boiled cabbage. It seemed to follow Maddie wherever she went, at the dinner hall at school, in Olive’s nursing home. Bleuch.
Oh, but they didn’t call it a ‘nursing home’, did they? No, this was Maybank View House, a tranquil-sounding place, as if it was in the middle of the Yorkshire bloody Dales. Actually, it was in the middle of a busy high street and the only view was of the small garden to one side with begonias that really needed to come in for the winter, or, if you craned your neck, of the local fish and chip shop. Maddie sighed, and wondered if these mood swings of hers were due to hormones, empty nest syndrome, age – or all three?
The lift bell pinged, then the doors opened onto the third floor. The carpet in the hall was tartan here, burgundy and green stripes over a blue background. It was threadbare in parts. The whole place was infused with the markings of an institution. Not like Olive’s cosy cottage by the sea. The memories came flooding back: carefree summer days and nights with Ed staying up too late to look at the stars, ferries, fish and chips and the smell of vinegar on her fingertips.
Olive had lived on the Isle of Wight for most of her life. Stan’s sister, Emily, Tim’s mother, had died young, and his father went through a series