As I pushed through the glass doors and stepped inside what felt more like a giant furnace than a café, despite the open terrace doors, it seemed as though every one of the one hundred Outlaws on the books had turned up to meet the new activities coordinator. My eyes roamed the throng in vain, hoping a spare chair might appear. Every table was surrounded by people chattering, filling up water glasses, getting up to wave at each other and from what I could see as I stood there trying to gather my bearings, having a whale of a time.
‘Well look who it is!’ a voice boomed from the table nearest the door. ‘Little Jessica Brown!’
I turned to see a tall, broad woman stand up as she waggled her meaty finger in my direction, just in case anyone had failed to notice the new girl hovering in the doorway. Her shaggy bowl-cut was now white, and there was a stoop to her shoulders that hadn’t been there ten years ago, but there was no mistaking my primary school headteacher.
I tried not to be too disconcerted that she recognised me. This was an unavoidable fact of village life. Everyone knew everyone, no matter if the last time you’d met you’d been three feet tall. There was nothing you could do about it. Apart from, as in my case up until now, moving away.
‘Mrs Goose.’ I smiled and nodded hello. She’d been a fabulous teacher, even if she had scared the life out of me. ‘How great to see you.’
‘Extremely great, I should think,’ she boomed, before narrowing her beady eyes. ‘Class prefect. Netball team captain. Silver in the school quiz.’
‘It was bronze in the quiz, but apart from that, spot on. Clearly retirement has done nothing to dim your memory.’
‘If only I could remember what I ate for breakfast and am meant to be doing this afternoon!’ She laughed. ‘And seeing as I’m retired, please call me Arabella.’
‘Jessie!’ Dad called, beckoning me to a seat by the terrace. Breathing a sigh of relief, I squeezed through the tables, smiling hello at a few familiar faces, until I saw one that made me stop dead in the middle of the room.
‘Madeline.’ I could barely speak due to the lump of tenderness welling in my throat. Instead, I ignored the policy about not touching guests without obtaining permission and bent down to enfold her in a hug.
Madeline’s frail, skinny arms reached up and patted my shoulders. She probably weighed less than my work bag, but as always there was a strength and a safety inside her embrace that filled my eyes with tears, even as my heart seemed to settle inside my chest.
‘How are you, my dear?’ she whispered into my ear.
‘All the better for seeing you,’ I half-laughed, half-sobbed as I gently pulled back to look at her, clasping both hands in mine. Madeline had been someone I’d provided home care to in that dreadful summer after the prom, following complicated surgery. The truth was, the care she showed me for two hours every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday had got me through it.
The official care plan had included cooking her dinner and household tasks such as changing her bed or emptying the bin. On a good day we managed an unsteady shuffle to the bench at the end of her lane, so she could watch the horses. Other days we played cards, or looked through her photo albums. I never told Madeline that every day felt like stumbling through thick, black fog. That I had no idea how to live with myself any more. She never asked why sometimes I bent double with the force of my sobs as I mopped her floors or sat beside her watching television. Not because she didn’t care, but because she saw that what I needed most was a place to take off the suffocating mask of acting as if I was fine and let the tears fall without having to explain.
Instead of questions, she offered me a knobbly hand to hold. A handkerchief embroidered with her late husband’s initials. She would tell me stories about her younger life. A father who beat her, and a mother who numbed the pain with whisky. A brother who lied about his age to join up as soon as the war started, his escape route from the hell of home, who then died upon the battlefield.
The soldier who stole her heart at sixteen. The exhilarating elopement followed by the devastation of the baby she lost. Her husband’s return, a shell of the man who’d left only a year earlier. The years she spent loving him back to life. Learning to find joy in a marriage so different from the one they’d dreamed of.
I listened to these stories, of love and loss, and learning to love again, and somewhere deep inside I started to wonder if maybe, one day, I could forgive myself. All too often I would go home and hear Isaac’s update on how his best friend was still in a coma, or his kidneys had begun to fail, or he’d shown a glimmer of improvement, and I would go to bed, close my eyes and pray that someone would love Elliot back to life again, like Madeline had done for her husband.
Madeline had been a tiny, hunched-up sparrow with a wispy cloud of hair even then. I couldn’t believe she was still here, still smiling with those deep, dark eyes that with one look knew exactly what I needed.
‘You must be almost ninety by now!’ I shook my head in wonder.
‘Ninety-three!’ She gave my hands a gentle squeeze. ‘I don’t feel a day over ninety-two. Will you have time to sit with me later? There’s a bench in the garden that catches the sun beautifully in the afternoon, although I need a little help getting down the ramp.’
‘I will always have time to sit with you, Madeline. You were my lifeline that summer.’
She offered me the softest of smiles. ‘And you mine, dear heart. I could burst, seeing your lovely face again. You must eat though; your family are waiting. Come and find me when you can.’
I shouldn’t have been surprised that lunch was about as removed from the day centre stereotype as Italian pasta is from tinned spaghetti. Wendy, the head chef, had been hired for her skills in catering high-quality wedding reception dinners. As we sipped mugs of lentil and home-grown vegetable soup served alongside soft rolls and goat’s cheese garnished with fresh basil, Mum explained how Wendy loved the challenge of providing nutritious meals that even those with loose teeth and shaky hands couldn’t resist.
‘She’s a genius!’ Dad interjected. ‘Makes everything from scratch, and the food barely costs us a penny.’
I might have to ask Wendy for some tips on how to cook a meal for a few pennies. I couldn’t remember the last time I tried to cook anything from scratch, although I knew it would have been grim.
I was introduced to the other people on our table. One of them turned out to be my old Brown Owl at the Houghton Brownie Pack, so of course she remembered everything about me, including the time I set my hair on fire at Guide camp. Mum and Dad then filled me in on who else I might know, which included a few neighbours, friend’s grandparents, two more teachers and our old dentist. It was then time to introduce me to everybody.
Dad stood up, alternating chinking a spoon against his glass with gesturing at the other staff members to please get control of their tables, and eventually the room fell quiet enough to hear him speak.
‘Hello, Outlaws!’ he bellowed, prompting a cacophony of cheers, whistles and banging of cutlery on the tables.
‘I would like to introduce you all to a very special person,’ he continued, tugging me up as the whoops died down, and those who’d been a little overenthusiastic stopped coughing. ‘Special to me, because she’s my daughter, and wonderful in every way.’
I kept my eyes on the wooden tabletop, trying not to think of all the ways I was not at all wonderful.
