were unsteady with cups and saucers.
And now Evelyn hears the rattle of the morning trolley, bearing coffee, biscuits and the post. The Forest Lawns Care Home is very predictable and every hour of the day has a function. Wednesday morning it was chapel and every Thursday afternoon a young physiotherapist in Lycra leggings appears in the drawing room and encourages everyone to try some simple armchair exercises. ‘Stretch out, stretch up and flex those toes,’ she repeats, as they follow her instructions with trembling limbs. For those residents whose memories are unreliable, routine is comforting, reassuring. It helps them to feel safe in an increasingly uncertain world, which shrinks day by day until only the familiar surrounds them.
Evelyn’s neighbour, Phyllis, is awake in her armchair and is turning the pages of Good Housekeeping, the October edition, full of recipes for puddings and preserves made with autumn fruits. Phyllis is humming ‘We’ll Meet Again’ as she flicks over the pages with a dampened forefinger. She is quite happy, although Evelyn is tiring of that much-repeated tune and wishes she would hum something else or stop humming altogether. It might stop if she snatched the magazine away. Phyllis has been pawing that issue for two weeks now and can’t possibly remember reading any of the articles. As she says herself, quite cheerfully, ‘I can start reading it and forget what it’s all about by the time I get to the bottom of the page.’
But Evelyn doesn’t take the magazine away, much as she would like to. Instead, she observes Phyllis, just as she observes other residents whose minds are not as sharp as they once were. They come and go, these neighbours; some disappear in the night when an ambulance calls, never to return. But however short their period of residence at the home, she can remember all their names, though she doubts any of them could recall hers. Over there, across the room is Maureen Philips, a round rosy apple of a woman, who has an appetite for sweet things. She will immediately eat any treats brought by visitors, complaining that she hasn’t had anything to eat at all that day, and is always determined to win the chocolate bar prize in musical bingo. Near the fireplace sits Horace Wilson, in his dark blue blazer and flannels, telling anyone who will listen that he is going home in the morning; and Wilf Stevens dozes, then often looks up from his knees and asks if anyone has taken Molly out for her morning walk yet.
Evelyn watches them all, storing the signs of vagueness, their slack confusion, for future use. Take note, Evelyn, take note, she tells herself. See how Maureen pauses before she answers questions, look how Wilf is proudly showing his pocket watch to the nurse again, telling her it was awarded to him for a lifetime of service. Horace can’t choose what he will have for lunch and asks again and again if he had breakfast today. Repetition and indecision are your defence, Evelyn. But she thinks she won’t let herself decline completely. She will still have her hair set when the hairdresser calls round once a week, she will dress with care, as far as she is able, but maybe she will let a button or two miss their buttonholes, sometimes wear odd shoes or even misapply her lipstick. No, that would be going too far – as long as she is able, she will colour her lips and her Cupid’s bow, less defined than it once was when it was described as the ‘kiss of an angel’. No, lipstick will be the last thing to go.
2
14 October 1939
My dearest darling Hugh,
Mama has written to me again, asking me to give up my job here and go home. She is worried about the raids, I know, but I worry I will die of boredom while you are away being heroic if I have to abandon my at least gossip-filled office life and my evenings with the girls for the tediously safe hills of Surrey. I adore being back at Kingsley, you know I do, but I don’t know how Mama thinks I would fill my days when she and Mrs Glazier are totally in charge of providing for the household and probably the entire village too, knowing them.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I am not going to be one to sit around knitting socks (though I’d knit pair after pair of dreary khaki socks for