Three Things About Elsie(52)

‘What did he look like?’

‘Average height. Average build.’ Jack kicked at the gravel with his stick. ‘I think he might have been wearing overalls of some kind.’

‘So he probably was a gardener, wasn’t he?’

Jack kicked the gravel a little more. ‘Probably,’ he said.

It was tempting to imagine Jack had arrived on this earth fully fashioned, grey-haired and stooped, and wearing a flat cap; to imagine all of the residents had jumped from birth to senility in one fatal leap. But just occasionally, very occasionally, she would notice a hint of who they used to be. A look, a laugh, a whisper of mischief, trying to escape from the pages of time, like a prisoner making a bid for freedom.

Miss Ambrose narrowed her eyes. ‘There’s something fishy going on, Jack.’

‘There is?’ He wouldn’t meet her gaze.

‘There is. It involves you and Florence Claybourne amongst others, and mark my words, sooner or later, I’ll work out what it is.’

‘You will?’

‘I will.’

Jack looked down at the stones under the bridge. ‘There are no fish here for you to smell, Miss Ambrose, I can assure you of that.’

And he smiled.

Miss Ambrose wandered back across the car park to her office. Justin was unloading the accordion from the back of a camper van, and Jack’s son sat in a Volvo eating what appeared to be a roasted-vegetable panini. He saluted her with a sliced courgette as she walked past the window.

She eyed her office with deep suspicion, but found it was just as she’d left it. Perhaps she was being overly dramatic. Perhaps she should allow the elderly their small eccentricities. She’d done it. On a course.

Increasingly peculiar behaviour, the course brochure had said.

Miss Ambrose continued to count the cards on the wall.

Can become fixated and paranoid.

Somewhere in the distance, a door closed, and she turned so quickly, the whole of the room tilted to one side. It was all well and good, but if anyone upset her azaleas, she wouldn’t be responsible for her actions. Just the thought of it made her dizzy, and she reached into the box for the last Vanilla Flourish.

But it had disappeared.





FLORENCE


A copy of the key sat on an armchair, and we all made a fuss of it, Jack, Elsie and me, as though it was a very important house guest.

‘Did your Chris not ask any questions?’ I said.

‘I bribed him with a panini.’

‘A what?’

‘It’s what they call a sandwich when they want to charge you twice as much for it.’ Jack picked up the key and held it to the light. ‘You did very well to steal the original.’

‘I’ve never stolen anything in my life,’ I said. ‘We just borrowed it.’

It had gone well. Everyone in the day room was far too busy involving themselves with Alan Titchmarsh to worry what we were up to. The only fly in the ointment was when I decided to help myself to a Terry’s All Gold. Elsie was quite adamant I should put it back, but unfortunately, it turned out to be a soft centre. Hopefully, no one was any the wiser.

‘Now all we have to do,’ said Jack, ‘is choose our time to strike.’

‘I’ve no idea if Ronnie ever goes out.’ I looked out of the window. ‘I don’t even know what he gets up to, when he’s not prowling around my flat.’

‘Every Tuesday. British Legion. Eleven until three,’ said Jack.

‘Really?’ Elsie said. ‘How did you find that out?’

Jack tapped the side of his nose. ‘Know thine enemy,’ he said, and he smiled.

I tapped the side of my nose and smiled back.

‘It’s a bit bare, isn’t it?’ I said.

We wandered around Ronnie’s flat, whispering. I don’t know why we found it such a novelty, because all our rooms are the same. Just like a hotel, really, except we live there. He hadn’t made any effort to cheer the place up. Not so much as an ornament.

I picked up a cushion. They were the same colour in every flat. Bissell Beige, Elsie called it. I re-covered mine with some leftover material I’d found at the back of a wardrobe, but Ronnie’s just stayed as it was. It didn’t even look as though anyone had ever leaned on it.

‘Perhaps it’s the best way. Less clutter,’ said Jack, who lived in the most cluttered flat I’d ever set eyes on. His dead wife’s clothes still hung in the wardrobe, like a row of silent people, waiting for instructions. Even her hairbrush rested on a shelf in the bathroom, and her coat hung on a peg next to the front door, in case she should ever come back and find she had a use for it.

‘There’s no harm in an ornament,’ I said. ‘He hasn’t even got a clock on the mantelpiece.’

Jack looked behind the settee and shook his head. ‘Perhaps Ronnie Butler travels light,’ he said.

I took the sheet music out of my bag. ‘Or Gabriel Price,’ I said.

Jack was in the middle of inspecting a cupboard, but he stopped, and his head reappeared from behind the door. ‘Whatever did you bring that for?’

‘I’m going to leave it here. I want to rattle him,’ I said. ‘I want to rattle him as much as he’s rattled me.’

‘Florence, I really wouldn’t.’ Elsie sank into an armchair. ‘He’s dangerous. We don’t know what he might do next.’