‘A light might be an idea,’ said Elsie. ‘I can’t see a thing in here now.’
I only realised when I switched the lamp on, when the glow from the bulb stretched into the corners of the room. I’d been too busy worrying about the sandwiches to notice.
‘The elephant,’ I said.
We all looked at the mantelpiece.
The elephant had disappeared.
‘Ninety-seven?’ Handy Simon looked for a chair to lower himself into, but there wasn’t one available. ‘Ninety-seven?’ he said again.
‘Ninety-seven.’ Miss Ambrose stabbed at the manila folder with her index finger. ‘He doesn’t look ninety-seven. Can you believe it?’
Simon screwed his face up into thinking. He thought about his grandfather, who had been in the St John’s Ambulance until well into his eighties, and the woman from the corner shop who fought off a gang of hooligans with just a walking stick and a phrase she’d heard on the television.
‘I’m not sure,’ he said.
Miss Ambrose repeated, ‘Can you believe it?’ and Simon realised it was the sort of question people ask when they’re not actually looking for a well-reasoned answer, but they just want someone else in the room to agree with them.
‘No,’ he said, and unscrewed his face again. ‘No, I can’t.’
Simon looked out into the day room. Miss Ambrose’s office had glass partitions, but they were the kind with a grid all the way across, and it always felt as though you were viewing life through a chessboard. After Justin had packed away his accordion, most of the residents had drifted into the television room, and Gabriel Price sat with his back to them, on one of the hard chairs usually reserved for the staff. He was facing the screen, but from the angle of his head, it was obvious he was looking somewhere else.
‘There’s something fishy going on,’ Miss Ambrose was saying. ‘Something I can’t quite put my finger on.’
Miss Ambrose and her finger weren’t particularly reliable, it had to be said. Miss Bissell, on the other hand, could put her finger on anything, day or night, with the most breathtaking accuracy.
‘Perhaps we should ask Miss Bissell.’
As soon as Simon heard the words, he realised they were the wrong ones. It sometimes felt as though there was a giant hole between his brain and his mouth, and there was nothing in place to stop all his thoughts falling through it.
‘We don’t need to bother Miss Bissell with everything, do we, Simon?’
Simon thought about answering, but decided it was safer to opt for shaking his head instead.
‘Keep an eye on him.’ She nodded through the chessboard. ‘And while you’re at it, keep an eye on everyone else as well. Florence Claybourne has been acting most peculiarly in recent days. Perhaps it’s about time we had her assessed for Greenbank.’
And so Handy Simon became a Mata Hari. Which filled him with both self-importance and self-loathing, all in the same moment.
Simon had never been a big fan of responsibility. He had spent most of his life ducking around corners to get out of its way, even though there had been times over the years when it had chased him across the horizon for all he was worth.
He walked across the courtyard towards the car park, and his trainers pushed a path through the gravel. The engine started just as the clock clicked to half past, and a weather forecast sprang from the radio and tumbled around the car. Grey. Overcast. Becoming colder. When he drove out of the main gates, he knew the woman with the Patterdale terrier would be watching the traffic on the pedestrian crossing, and the man in the four-by-four would be lighting his cigarette as he waited. At the bottom of the road, the butcher would be pulling trays from a window, and the woman from the fruit and veg shop would be carrying an A-board before she disappeared it through a doorway. If the first set of lights was green, it meant Simon would only be able to glance at the windows of the car showroom and not stare for a full three minutes. But if he managed to get into second gear by the time he reached the florist, he would get through the second set of lights without them changing back to red. He would remember to swerve to avoid the pothole just after the park gates, and if he was lucky, he would pull into a space right outside the takeaway. The man behind the counter would say, ‘Good evening, Mr Simon,’ and hand him a white plastic bag, and neither of them would say another word to each other until the following week. Simon would eat his food on the settee that evening. His mother was no longer there to stop him, and although the novelty had long since worn away, he still remembered her each time he did it. Afterwards, he would put the white plastic bag and the empty cartons in the pedal bin, and switch out the lights in the kitchen. For a moment, he would stare at the clock on the microwave, and listen to the fridge humming to itself in a linoleum quietness. It never took Simon very long to get to sleep, but that night he would lie in bed and think about the theatre of strangers who made up his days, and he would wonder, perhaps, if they sometimes thought about him too. Because it somehow feels as though everyone is connected to everyone else, even though they perhaps don’t realise it, and he finds the idea strangely reassuring, but Simon would be asleep before he could really work out why.
I saw Elsie look at Jack. There was less doubt in her eyes now. There was no apology, and I didn’t ask for one, because I’d rather it appeared in its own good time.
‘I told you he’d been in here. Didn’t I tell you?’ I said.
Jack walked over to the mantelpiece. ‘I wonder why he chose the elephant.’
‘Because elephants never forget,’ I said. ‘He’s making a point. He’s telling us he’s got a long memory.’
Elsie shot me a look from the corner.
‘I’m only telling the truth,’ I shouted.
‘I just wish you’d tell it a little more quietly,’ she said. ‘We need to stay calm, Florence. We need to think.’
‘I’m making it clear,’ I shouted. ‘I’m not allowed to do many things any more, but I’m still allowed to make things clear.’
‘If he really didn’t drown, and it really is Ronnie,’ she said, ‘why do you think he’s doing this now? After all these years?’
‘I don’t know.’ The words left my mouth too quickly and she frowned at me.
Jack was still studying the mantelpiece. ‘It’s breaking and entering, although there’s no sign of him doing either.’
‘That might be because he’s still in here.’ I stood, but my legs felt as though they hadn’t agreed to go along with it, and so I lowered myself back again. ‘Perhaps he hasn’t left yet. Check the other rooms. Make sure.’
I could hear Jack walking around the flat and opening doors.
Elsie was watching me. I tried to find something in her eyes, something my fear could lean on. The second thing about Elsie is that she always knows the right thing to say, and I waited for her to say it. ‘Everything’s going to be fine, Florence,’ she said. ‘If it is him, then at least he’s made his first move. We’ve been through worse, haven’t we?’
I nodded. We had. Much, much worse.
‘But if it is him,’ I said, ‘there’s one thing that really bothers me.’