He exclaimed angrily and went into the passage, summoning me to follow. ‘Tell her,’ he said.
‘I think she should be in hospital,’ I said, ‘but why should she be in a Home?’
He was quite at the end of his tether with exasperation and – I could see – tiredness. ‘Look at it all,’ he said. ‘Look at it. Well, I’ll ring up the Services.’ And off he went.
When I got back, she said, ‘I suppose you’ve been arranging with him.’
I told her exactly what I said, and while I was speaking she was coughing, mouth closed, chest heaving, eyes watering, and was thumping her chest with the heel of her fist. I could see that she didn’t want to listen to what I said.
Thursday.
Went in on my way to work. She was up, dressed, in front of the fire, face glittering with fever. Her cat was yowling, unfed.
I took out her commode, full of strong stinking urine, and emptied it. I gave the cat food on a clean dish. I made her tea and some toast. She sat with her face averted from me, ashamed and sick.
‘You should have a telephone,’ I said. ‘It’s ridiculous, having no telephone. I could ring you from the office.’
She did not answer.
I went off to work. There was no social thing I had to do today, no luncheon, etc., and the photographers’ session was cancelled – the trains are on strike. I said to Joyce I’d work at home, and she said she’d stay in the office, it was all right. She let me understand home is difficult for her at the moment: her husband wants a divorce, she does not know what to do, she is seeing lawyers. But she is pleased to be in the office, though in better times she does a lot of work at home too.
I went in to Maudie on my way home, and found there Hermione Whitfield, from what she refers to as ‘Geriatrics’.
We understood each other at first glance: being alike, same style, same clothes, same image. She was sitting in the chair opposite Maudie, who was bundled up in all her black. She was leaning forward, smiling, charming, humorous.
‘But, Mrs Fowler, there are so many things we could do for you, and you won’t co- …’ But she dropped ‘co-operate’ in favour of ‘ … let us.’
‘And who are you?’ she asked me, in the same charming, almost playful style, but heard it herself, and said, in the chummy democratic mode of our kind (but I had not thought at all about these distinctions till today), ‘Are you a Good Neighbour? No one told me anything about that.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘I am not a Good Neighbour, I am Mrs Fowler’s friend.’
This was quite outrageous, from about ten different viewpoints, but most of all because I was not saying it in inverted commas, and it was only then that I thought how one did not have friends with the working classes. I could be many things to Mrs Fowler, including a Good Neighbour, but not a friend.
She sat there, blinking up at me, the firelight on her hair. Masses of soft golden hair, all waves and little ringlets. I know what all that careful disorder costs. Her soft pink face, with wide blue eyes, done up with grey and blue paints and powders. Her white fluffy sweater, her grey suede trousers, her dark blue suede boots, her … I was thinking, either ‘the welfare’ get paid more than I had believed or she has a private income. It occurred to me, standing there, in that long moment of pure discordance, for what I had said did not fit, could not be taken easily, that I was examining her like a fashion editress, and for all I knew she might be quite different from her ‘image’.
Meanwhile, she had been thinking. ‘Mrs Fowler,’ said she, getting up, smiling prettily, radiating helpfulness and light, ‘very well, you won’t go into hospital. I don’t like hospital myself. But I can get a nurse in to you every morning, and I can send in a Home Help and …’
‘I don’t want any of those,’ said Maudie, her face averted, poking savagely at the flames.
‘Well, remember what there is available for you,’ she said, and gave me a look which meant I should follow her.
I was then in a position where I had to talk about Maudie behind her back, or say to Hermione, ‘No, we will talk here.’ I was weak, and followed Hermione.
‘My name is …’ etc., and so forth, giving me all her credentials, and she waited for mine.
‘My name is Janna Somers,’ I said.
‘You are perhaps a neighbour?’ she said, annoyed.
‘I have become fond of Mrs Fowler,’ I said; and at last this was right, it enabled her to let out an involuntary sigh of relief, because the categories were back in place.
‘Oh yes,’ she cried, ‘I do so agree, some of these old things, they are so lovable, so …’ But her face was saying that Maudie is far from lovable, rather a cantankerous old nuisance.
We were standing in that awful passage, with its greasy yellow walls where coal dust lay in films, the smell of cat from the coal cellar, the cracked and shaky door to the outer world. She already had her hand on the doorknob.
‘I drop in sometimes to Mrs Fowler,’ I said, ‘and I do what I can.’ I said it like this so she would understand I would not be relied upon to do her work for her.
She sighed again. ‘Well, luckily, she has to be rehoused soon.’
‘What! She doesn’t know that!’ I recognized my voice had the panic in it Maudie would feel, if she had heard.
‘Of course she knows. This place has been scheduled for years.’
‘But it belongs to some Greek or other.’
‘Oh no, it can’t do!’ she began decisively, and then I saw her rethink. Under her arm she had a file stuffed full. She hung her handbag on the doorknob, pulled out the file, opened it. A list of houses for demolition or reconstruction.
I already knew that she had made a mistake, and I wondered if she was going to admit it, or cover up. If she admitted it, I would give her full marks – for this was a contest between two professionals. We were in competition, not for Mrs Fowler – poor Maudie – but for who had authority. Although I had specifically repudiated authority.
A biro between her pretty lips, she frowned over the papers spread on her lifted knee while she stood on one leg.
‘Well, I’ll have to look into it,’ she said. And I knew that it would all be allowed to slide away. Oh, how well I know that look of hers, when someone has inwardly decided not to do anything while presenting an appearance of confident competence!
She was about to go out.
I said, ‘If I could persuade her, what Services is she entitled to?’
‘Home Help, of course. But we tried that before, and it didn’t work. A Good Neighbour, but she didn’t want one …’ She gave me a quick doubtful look, and went on. ‘She’s not entitled to Meals on Wheels, because she can manage and we are so pressed …’
‘She’s over ninety,’ I said.
‘So are many others!’
‘But you’ll arrange for the nurse to come in?’
‘But she says she doesn’t want one. We can’t force ourselves on them. They have to co-operate!’ This triumphantly, she had scored a point.
She bounded up the steps and into a red Escort, and waved to me as she went off. Pleased to be rid of me. A bright smile, and her body was saying, These amateurs, what a nuisance!
I went remorsefully back to Maudie, because she had been discussed behind her back. She sat with her face averted and was silent.
At last: ‘What have you decided, then?’