Faith and Hope Get Even

By Joanne Harris

The elderly are easily bullied, often neglected, sometimes by those very professionals who claim to be in charge of their welfare. We see it all too often in hospitals and care homes – old people being patronized, forgotten, denied basic care, sometimes even abused. Our society has a habit of turning away from such unpalatable realities. In this story, Faith and Hope manage to get some of their own back. If it inspires anyone else to fight back too, then all the better.

HOW KIND OF you to come and see us again. We don’t get many visitors, you know – except my son, Tom, who makes regular duty calls, but never really has anything to say. You can’t talk to him; all you can do is listen and nod in the right places. His job; his boss; house prices. And the weather, don’t forget; in Tom’s world, all old people ever want to do is talk about the weather.

I know, however, that there are things from which I ought to shelter him. The Meadowbank Retirement Home is a stage on which tragedy and farce pursue each other with Chaucerian vigour, and it takes a good sense of humour (and a strong stomach) to get by. My son, much as I love him, has neither; and so I stick to the weather. Fortunately for my sanity, I still have Hope.

Hope is my dearest friend. She was a professor of English Literature in her youth, and she still has that Cambridge manner, a certain crispness, an almost military tilt of the head, even though she has been blind for fifteen years and hasn’t had a visit since the day she came in. But she does have all her marbles – more marbles, in fact, than most people were born with – and she manages, with a little help from me in my wheelchair, to maintain the dignity and humour essential for survival in a place like this.

We used to be trusties. Not so now: since last year’s escapade to London the management has kept us under a supervision of near-Gestapo closeness. A receptionist guards the exit; another mans the desk in anticipation of trouble, or in case either of us attempts to exceed our five-minute weekly phone allowance.

Kelly, the blonde with the low IQ, has long since been replaced. In her place the governors have appointed a general manager to oversee the running of things: a large, capable woman called Maureen, who speaks to us with a relentless, Wagnerian jollity that fails to hide the metallic glint in her small, blue-shadowed eye.

The others defer to Maureen. There’s thick Claire; chatty Denise; Sad Harry, who never smiles; trainee Helen, cheery Chris (our special friend) and the new girl, Lorraine, who smokes in the staff lounge and uses Hope’s Chanel perfume when Hope is out of the room. Chris – he’s the only one who really talks to us – says the change of management shouldn’t affect us in any way. But he looks preoccupied; he isn’t as cheery as he once was, doesn’t sing to us as often as he did, and I noticed the other day that he’d even taken the gold ring out of his ear.

‘Maureen didn’t like it, ’ he said when I asked him. ‘I’m already on a warning, and I really need this job. ’

Well, we know that. You see, Chris was in trouble once, with the law, and now he has to be especially careful. Oh, nothing serious – just bad company and worse luck. A nine-month sentence for breaking and entering; then community service and a clean slate. But clean slate or not, these things have a habit of following you around. Even now, years later, he still can’t get a credit card, or a loan, or even open a bank account. It’s all there in his file; and people like Maureen tend to read files when they ought to be reading people.

It was Mother’s Day last month. Hope always feels a bit down on Mother’s Day, though she never shows it; it’s just that I’ve known her for such a long time that I notice these things. Her daughter Priscilla lives in California, and never writes, though we do get a postcard from time to time – cheap things, badly printed, which I read to her aloud, with a little poetic licence where necessary.

I have to be careful; Hope always knows when I go too far. All the same, she has kept them all – in a shoe-box in her wardrobe – and if only Priscilla knew how much they meant to her, she might put more thought into what she writes.

Tom came, of course. His wife never does; nor do the children. I have to say I don’t blame them; why should anyone want to sit in here on a lovely spring day, when they could be out and about with their families? He wanted to take me for a drive; but I didn’t want to leave Hope, and I knew Maureen wouldn’t allow Tom to take both of us out together. So we stayed in and ate the chocolates Tom had brought, and enjoyed the flowers – not his usual, I’m glad to say, but a very sweet-scented bunch of lily-of-the-valley, which Hope could enjoy as much as I did.

Festival days are always a bit of a chore, here at the Meadowbank Home. Too many comings and goings; too much excitement; too many thwarted hopes. The nurses are irritable, the kitchen staff edgy and overworked, trying to provide ‘celebration’ food on an impossible budget. Jealousies and tempers run high among the residents.

Mrs Swathen had a visit. Her family are regular visitors, and Mrs Swathen likes to preen, drawing attention to herself and announcing in a loud voice that very soon her daughter will be here to see her, with her husband, who works in accounting, and their two delightful children, Laurie and Jim. Furthermore, she adds, they will take her in their Volvo car to the garden centre, where she will have tea and scones and look at the spring plants.

She says this in the gloating voice of one who has only been a resident at the home for twelve months, and who believes that this special attention on the part of her loved ones will continue for ever. The rest of us know better; but that didn’t stop us from gazing hungrily after her as she left, or feeling a stab of envy at the sight of the two rosy-faced children at the back window of the car.

Of course after that, Mrs McAllister put on her coat, scarf and gloves, picked up her handbag and went to the lobby to wait. We’re not supposed to hang around the lobby without good reason, but Mrs McAllister does this every time anyone else has a visit, insisting that her son, Peter, will soon be here to take her home.

We hear a lot about Peter McAllister, not all of it entirely reliable. Already since I’ve been here, Peter has been a banker, a research chemist, a policeman, a fashion designer, a Navy commander and a teacher of Latin and Greek at St Oswald’s Grammar School, although none of us, not even the oldest residents, recall ever having seen him.

The nurses have long since given up explaining to Mrs McAllister that her son died of prostate cancer seven years ago, and nowadays they allow her to sit by the door for as long as she likes, provided she doesn’t get in the way.

This time, however, things were different. If someone else had been at the desk – Chris, for instance, or Helen – they would have let it go, but it was the new girl, Lorraine. Maureen chose her; and even though she hadn’t been with us for very long, it was clear that she was firmly on the side of the management. A surly piece – except with Maureen herself, whose arrival invariably triggered a personality change and a burst of efficiency that was as surprising as it was short-lived. When Maureen wasn’t there, Lorraine did as little as possible, took a break every ten minutes and spoke to us – when she spoke to us at all – with a sharpness verging on contempt.

Now to be fair, we have all, at some time or other, found Mrs McAllister annoying. She can’t help it, poor old thing; at ninety-two, she’s the oldest person here, and though she’s more able-bodied than either Hope or myself, she’s terribly confused. Things tend to vanish around her: chocolates; eyeglasses; clothing; teeth. Chris once told me that he found fourteen pairs of false teeth hidden under her mattress, plus two squashed doughnuts, a bag of Yorkshire Mixture, half a packet of chocolate digestives, a stuffed panda, some war medals belonging to Mr Braun, the German resident, and a green rubber ball belonging to the common-room dog.

Of course, Chris didn’t say anything about it to the management. Instead, he just quietly restored the items to their original owners and made a note to check the mattress again from time to time. Lorraine, I sensed, would not have let it go. Nor did she in the case of Mrs McAllister’s unsanctioned presence in the lobby.

‘Now, dearie, you go back to your room, ’ she said. Her sharp voice penetrated even to the morning room where Hope and I were sitting, I in my wheelchair and Hope in one of the home’s Shackleton high-seaters, eating Tom’s chocolates and enjoying the sunshine. Chris was wiping the windows near by, whistling softly to himself.

‘Go back right now, ’ we heard from the lobby. ‘No one’s coming to fetch you, and I can’t have you sitting here all day. ’

The reply was faint though audible. ‘But Peter always comes on a Thursday’ – it was a Sunday. ‘He comes all the way from London. He’s an account executive, you know. And today he’s going to take me home. ’

Lorraine’s voice went up slightly in volume, as if she were talking to a deaf person. ‘Now listen to me—’ she began. ‘We’ll not have any more of this nonsense. Your son isn’t coming to fetch you, no one’s coming to fetch you, and if you don’t go back to your room right now I’m going to have to take you there myself. ’

‘But I promised Peter—’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake! ’ There came the sound of Lorraine’s hand slapping down on the desktop. ‘Your son’s dead, don’t you remember? He’s been dead for years. How can he be coming to fetch you? ’

In the morning room, Hope took a sharp breath. Chris stopped wiping the window and looked at me, his mouth turned down in an unhappy grimace.

There came, from the lobby, a silence worse than any sound.

Oh, Mrs McAllister can be annoying. She’s the one who took my favourite scarf, the silk one with the yellow edging, and a whole box of pink-iced biscuits that Tom gave me for Christmas. I got the scarf back – eventually, and with a greasy stain on it that never came off – but I had to leave her the biscuits, because by then she was sure they had come from Peter, and I couldn’t face having to explain everything to her all over again.

‘He’s such a good boy, ’ she kept repeating, looking fondly at my Christmas biscuits. ‘He makes such wonderful cakes for that big restaurant of his. And do you know, he comes all the way from London? ’

And so I left them. Tom’s always giving me biscuits, anyway – he thinks that’s all old ladies ever eat – and I knew he’d buy me another box sooner or later. It’s hardly a great price to pay, is it, and at least it kept her happy.

But now she came into the morning room and her face was grey and somehow caved-in-looking, like a very old apple that has started to rot. ‘She says Peter’s dead, ’ she quavered. ‘My son’s dead, and no one even told me. ’

Hope’s better at this kind of thing than I am. Maybe it’s her Cambridge experience; maybe just her personality. In any case, she put her arms around Mrs McAllister and let her cry it out against her shoulder, from time to time patting her poor old humped back and saying, ‘There, there, lovey, it’ll be all right. ’

‘Oh Maud, ’ said Mrs McAllister. ‘I’m so glad you’re here. When can we go home? ’

‘Not just yet, ’ said Hope, gently. ‘Come on now, sweetheart. Faith and I will get you a cup of tea. ’

They say you never feel unfairness as strongly as when you’re a child. Certainly, childhood episodes – with all their accompanying emotions – tend to remain in the memory for much longer than recent events. I still remember, when I was seven years old, how a girl from my school – her name was Jacqueline Bond – would lie in wait for me as I came home for lunch and punch me repeatedly between the shoulderblades, for no reason that I could discern, as her younger sister, Caroline, watched and laughed. I still remember how it felt: my helplessness and my rage. I had no words for my hatred of them. There was certainly nothing childish about it. Even now, seventy years later, I remember those girls, their mouse-brown hair and bony, inbred faces, and I hate them still, though they must be old now – that is, if they are still alive. I hope they are not. That’s what unfairness does to you; and although the business is long done, the voice of the seven-year-old is still as strong as ever in my memory, protesting, ‘Not fair! Not fair! ’ long after births, deaths, marriage and other disappointments have receded and been forgotten.

My anger at Lorraine’s casual cruelty to poor, confused Mrs McAllister was not quite of that magnitude. But for a while it came uncomfortably close. It was the unfairnessmore than anything else; the fact that Lorraine or any other member of the Meadowbank staff could believe they had the right to bully us without fear of complaint.

We tried, though – that very night, when Maureen came on duty – but by then Mrs McAllister was asleep, exhausted, in her room; Lorraine was on her best behaviour and Chris, who had stayed past the end of his shift to confirm our story, was looking decidedly uncomfortable.

In the staff kitchen, Lorraine was drinking coffee and pretending not to know what was going on. There was a smile on her pencilled lips, and maroon lip-marks all around the rim of her coffee cup. From the lobby desk, Maureen glanced at Lorraine, then looked back at Hope and me. She did not look at Chris, or comment on his presence.

Hope and I finished our account. Hope kept to the facts in her best cool-and-businesslike Cambridge manner, but I could not help but voice my indignation. ‘It was downright mean, ’I said, still watching Lorraine through the kitchen door. ‘Mean and unnecessary. What does it matter to Lorraine if Mrs McAllister sits by the door? What harm does it do to indulge her a little? ’

‘I don’t think you appreciate all the work Lorraine has to do, ’ said Maureen.

‘Work? ’ I said. ‘The only work she does is when you’re around to watch her. The rest of the time she just sits in the staff lounge, smoking and watching TV. ’

But this was territory into which Maureen refused to go. ‘Now, girls, ’ she said with horrible archness, ‘I hope you’re not telling tales. Because, you know, if you can’t say anything nice, then it’s better not—’

‘We’re not at kindergarten, ’ said Hope. ‘And this isn’t just tittle-tattle. It’s a complaint, which, if you prefer, we can put in writing. ’

‘I see. ’ Maureen’s expression told me everything I needed to know about the complaints system, and the likelihood of any letter of ours ever reaching the Meadowbank governors. ‘And what does Mr Er’ – she fixed her eyes on Chris – ‘what does he have to contribute to this? ’

Chris explained that he too had overheard the conversation, and that he felt that Lorraine’s behaviour had been insensitive.

Maureen peered at him in blue-shadowed silence. Then, at last, she nodded. ‘All right. Leave it to me, ’ she said. ‘I don’t think you’ll be having any more trouble. ’

Of course, she was wrong. Lorraine continued unchastened – rather worse, in fact, than before. It took us some time to understand the extent of her spitefulness: by then she had contrived to ingratiate herself with the management in a number of small, significant ways, as well as cleverly undermining the very people who might have alerted Maureen to her activities.

Things disappeared. Little things at first; my own teacup, the one with the pink flowers around the rim. My new stockings. A little box of Turkish Delight that Tom had given me, and that I was saving for a special occasion.

This may not seem very important to you, but we’re hardly allowed any possessions, here at the Meadowbank Home. Anything we bring is limited to what will fit in a small wardrobe and a three-drawer cabinet. I know they’re only things; but in this place, where anything not stamped with the Meadowbank logo is rare, things are all we have to remind ourselves of who we are.

I still miss my own possessions. I know I couldn’t have brought the piano, or my glass-fronted dresser with my mother’s china in it. But some things, surely, could have been allowed? My little green-and-brown rug, perhaps; my rocking chair; my own bed. Maybe a painting or two to replace those cheap flower prints they seem so fond of. But rules are rules, they tell me. What they don’t tell me is why.

Still, I manage. When small things are all you have, then small things become important, and it was astonishing how much I’d enjoyed my tea when I could drink it from my very own cup. Now I had to use a Meadowbank cup, and it tasted different; institutional, somehow, like the tea we’d had to make do with during the War, half sawdust and half dandelion.

Hope lost things too. When you have as few possessions as Hope does, that hurts; but it was the day she went to her cupboard and found that the shoe-box, with the little bundle of Priscilla’s postcards, was gone, that we realized that this was not normal Meadowbank pilfering. It was personal.

Of course the first thing we did was to check on Mrs McAllister. But since learning once more of Peter’s death she had been listless and unwell, staying in her room and hardly speaking to anyone. Hope and I had expected her to forget, as she usually did, but this time, perversely, the memory held. Little else did – meals, toilet stops, the few television shows around which she built her life. It was as if this one truth – her son’s death, fresh in grief as in memory – had grown so large in her mind as to eclipse everything else.

‘A mother should never outlive her son, ’ she repeated, when Hope wheeled me in to see her. ‘Do you know they weren’t even going to let me go to the funeral? They’re like that in the army, you know, when someone goes missing in action. Thank God you’re here, Maud. ’ (This was to Hope. ) ‘Now they’ll haveto let me go, now you’re here to take me home. ’

To which Hope always said, ‘Not just yet, sweetie, ’ and wheeled me out again.

Compared with Mrs McAllister’s loss, the loss of our few bits and pieces seemed trivial, and so we let it go for a while, especially as by then we were almost certain that Mrs McAllister had nothing to do with their disappearance.

It was nothing concrete, you understand. Just a look in Lorraine’s eye when she went about her duties; the way she spoke to us, calling us dearie in that hard, contemptuous voice. It was the way her fingers dug into my shoulder and the small of my back as she lifted me from my chair on to the toilet. I’d try and keep it in if it was Lorraine’s shift; wait until someone else came on duty, but sometimes it was inevitable, and at those times her fingers knew exactly where to go, searching and probing for the nerve spots like a prospector digging for gold. From time to time I’d give a yell, and she’d apologize, but I could tell she was grinning inside.

Once more, we tried to complain. Chris came with us again, but said nothing; and Maureen listened to us with an ersatz smile, and hinted that we might possibly be growing just a teeny-tiny bit forgetful. Our evidence – my flowered teacup, found broken in the kitchen waste bin – was disregarded. I might have dropped it there myself, said Maureen, and forgotten all about it. Anyhow, why would Lorraine do such a thing? And what would a girl like Lorraine want with Hope’s old letters?

Of course, we couldn’t tell her. But other things had disappeared too, insisted Hope.

‘Valuables? ’ Maureen’s eyes lit.

‘Not exactly. ’ We’re not allowed valuables at the home, though I have a little jewellery – my pearls, a brooch, a couple of rings and a bracelet – concealed in the seat of my wheelchair.

‘Oh. ’ She seemed disappointed. ‘Because if any money disappeared—’

‘No, ’ said Hope firmly. ‘I must have made a mistake. ’

And at that she turned me round and began to wheel me briskly away. There was a time when I might have questioned that; but Hope sees more than I do, in spite of her blindness, and I knew that she had recognized something then in Maureen’s voice that had alerted her to danger.

Of course I had noticed Maureen watching Chris. I knew she disliked him, too; but until then it had never occurred to me that she might suspect him of those thefts. He knew, though; that’s why he was so quiet, and that’s why he kept his distance afterwards, as if he sensed we might bring him – and that silly old criminal record – back under scrutiny. Lorraine knew it too; and by the second week she had become increasingly cocky. Hope’s perfume disappeared; so did the World’s Best Grandma pillow on my bed. She knew we wouldn’t complain; if we did, we would simply bring more trouble on to our friend.

During the next few days, we noticed that Maureen was there less and less. She had taken over the administrative side of things, or so Lorraine told us, which meant that she was often away, leaving Lorraine to oversee the other carers. With terrifying speed, the Meadowbank way became Lorraine’s way.

Our privileges, we found, were suddenly curtailed. Residents who toed the line were favoured; others were targeted for special attention. Thus it was that the flowers Tombrought me were removed from my room ‘for hygiene purposes’; that Hope’s cassette player was confiscated as ‘an electrocution hazard’ and that Chris was demoted from his largely unofficial post of staff carer to window-washer and handyman, with strict orders not to gossip with the residents.

Soon after that, Mrs McAllister’s cache under the mattress was discovered. There was nothing in it of value – biscuits, soap, toys, stockings and Mrs McAllister’s perennial favourite, teeth – but Lorraine made a terrible fuss. As a result Mrs McAllister was to be shut up in her room for most of the day, with instructions to the staff to confiscate her dentures except at mealtimes. She made it sound perfectly sensible; obviously, Mrs McAllister couldn’t be trusted with her own dentures, and Lorraine didn’t see why Meadowbank staff should spend hours every mealtime looking for residents’ teeth. It was ridiculous; they were busy; and anyway, it wasn’t as if the old dear needed them for anything.

Sensible or not, it was a contemptible piece of bullying. Hope and I knew it; but by then we had learnt caution. Lorraine was out to get us, and we knew that the slightest bit of provocation might bring down her anger upon us. And so we endured; stoically at first, then with deepening misery.

Without Hope, I think I might have given up. But there’s steel in Hope, under those Cambridge manners. We’d go to her room in the evenings (it was furthest from the lobby, and Lorraine), drink tea in the Meadowbank cups and talk. Sometimes I read aloud – Hope likes her books, and without the cassette player she was once more reliant on my reading – and sometimes we went through holiday brochures, which I would describe to her in loving detail, and imagined the journeys we would make if we were free. Most of all, though, we talked about Lorraine.

‘The worst part of it is the helplessness, ’ said Hope one night. ‘I mean, children are helpless, aren’t they, but at least they have something better to look forward to. Old people don’t. They’re not going to grow big and strong and face up to their bullies. Bully an old person, and they’re yours for life. ’

It was a depressing thought. Once more I remembered Jacqueline Bond.

‘What happened to her? ’ asked Hope, and I realized she was thinking along the same lines. That happens, you know; like an old married couple, we read each other’s thoughts.

‘She left, ’ I said. ‘One day she just wasn’t there any more. ’

‘Sounds good to me, ’ said Hope. ‘Was she expelled? ’

‘I don’t remember. ’

Hope thought about this for a time. ‘It’s a pity, ’ she said, ‘that you never stood up to her. It would have been cathartic, and would have done you good. Still—’ She gave one of her rare, sweet smiles. ‘It’s never too late for a bit of catharsis. Don’t you agree? ’

I did; but I didn’t see what we could do about it. There was no point in complaining to Maureen; clearly something more drastic was required. But what could we do?

Over several days, we considered the possibilities. If Chris had been around, he would have noticed at once. Hey, Butch! he would have said. Planning a jailbreak? But Chris was looking uneasy from his place at the outer edge of things; Chris knew that a single step in the wrong direction might send him flying off. I could see it in his eyes as he brought Lorraine her tea in the morning; in his new, careful walk as he came and went.

But we were planning. We’d read once, in an old newspaper, the story of the pensioner who had held up a number of post offices unchallenged and at gunpoint, not even bothering to cover his face. To most people, one old man in a flat cap and muffler looks much like another, after all, and who would think to suspect a pensioner?

‘Remember this, Faith. We only have one chance, ’ said Hope one night as we sat in her bedroom, talking. ‘If we do anything to put Lorraine on her guard, she’ll be on to us like a poultice. Whatever we do must be quick, clear and unequivocal. ’ She talks like that, you know; the Cambridge professor as was. ‘And public, ’ she added, with a sip at her tea. ‘Most of all, it must be public. ’

All very well, I suppose; but what public did we have? We hardly left our rooms any more, except for meals, which were dull and unappetizing, and for our monthly check-up with the Meadowbank nurse. News of the outside world came from Tom, Chris and occasionally the staff hairdresser (who offers three approved styles, all of them identical, and a range of unappealing treatments such as corn removal and lymphatic drainage). We always have an Open Day in January, but at this rate of deterioration Mrs McAllister might not last the month, let alone till next year.

We racked our brains, but nothing came. Easter approached; Lorraine had a little party to celebrate her promotion to deputy supervisor; after which our movements became even more restricted, with long application forms to fill in for the most elementary requirement, special times of day allocated to visiting and all our favourite TV programmes forbidden on the grounds of unsuitability.

Then came my brainwave. I have to admit that I sat on it for a while, hardly daring to imagine we could carry it off. Hope was the one who should have thought of it, I told myself; clever Hope, with her BBC vowels and fierce independence. But in those last few days Hope had begun to fade. Not like poor Mrs McAllister, and not in any way that the others would have noticed; but I could see it. She retained her dignity, of course; she was calm as ever; talked to Mrs McAllister, who called her Maud and wept on her shoulder; always took care of herself; never wandered around in her dressing gown during the day, as so many of them do; but I could see that there was something missing in my old friend, that spark, perhaps; that cheery gleam of revolt.

Then it happened. I was watching Chris fix the smoke alarm (Lorraine had caught Mr Bannerman smoking in the toilets again). It was one of Maureen’s days in the home, and Lorraine was on her best behaviour. So was Chris; working in silence, not looking at me; not even whistling. Usually he talks; about football; television; his little girl, Gemma; his mother-in-law; his ex-wife; his garden; his nights out with the lads. Today Lorraine’s shadow was over him, and he started guiltily at the sound of my voice.

‘Tea, Chris? You haven’t had a break all day. ’

‘Sorry, Butch. ’ It sounded almost right; but I knew Chris, and I knew it wasn’t. ‘Work to do. Gotta test this when it’s done. ’

‘The smoke detector? ’

‘That’s right. ’

‘Good idea, ’ I told him. ‘Don’t forget the staffroom. ’

He smiled at that, as I knew he would, but made no comment. Lorraine enjoys her Silk Cuts, and I was prepared to bet that some regulation or other would ensure she continued to enjoy them. As for the rest of us, if Lorraine could have installed pleasure detectors in every room, I reckoned she would have done it already, and cut off the supply. I said as much to Chris, and watched his smile turn into a grin.

‘You might say that, Butch, ’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t dare. ’ And it was then – right then, on the word dare – that I had my brainwave.

The Meadowbank governors (great sticklers for rules) insist on a complete fire drill at least twice a year. It’s just like school, really: the alarm goes; we line up on the grass; someone keys in a number code to the alarm box so that the fire brigade doesn’t actually have to turn up and two of the duty staff run round the building checking all the rooms while Maureen stands by, ‘reassuring’ everyone in her most Wagnerian tones (Now then, dearie, don’t panic. It’s just a drill, remember. I said it’s JUST A DRILL! ), spreading confusion as a sower spreads seed.

It’s quite funny, really; however much warning she gives, some people always forget; or they’re not wearing their hearing aid; or they’re on the toilet (and at our age, sweetheart, that takes time! ) or they’re watching TV and don’t want to leave. Last year it took us nearly half an hour to clear the building, and that was with the best effort of every staff member on the team. Someone forgot to key in the code; with the result that the police and the fire brigade turned up, and we were all subjected to a lecture of nursery-nurse severity by Maureen, telling us that if there had been a real fire we would all have been burnt alive.

Now, with the installation of the new smoke detectors, there would have to be another fire drill. I guessed Lorraine had insisted upon it; it would be an excellent opportunity for her both to exercise her authority in front of Maureen and to cause as much disruption and unhappiness as possible among the residents of the home. It would be public, I told myself; and in the noise and confusion, maybe – just maybe – Hope and I would have our chance.

I suggested it to Hope later that evening. She had been with Mrs McAllister, who was having one of her bad days, and although Hope remained as patient as ever, I could see the strain beginning to show. But Lorraine was off duty – dim Claire was at the front desk, chewing gum and reading Goodbye! magazine – and we made a nice enough evening of it, with a stack of travel brochures (that week we were doing Italy), a couple of biscuits filched from the kitchens and a lot of imagination.

‘Where to tonight? ’ said Hope, stretching her back so that it popped.

‘I thought we might do Rome. ’

She shook her head. ‘I’ve had enough of antiquities for one day, ’ she said wryly. ‘Give me something – pastoral. ’ And so I obliged: planned routes – London–Paris–Milan–Naples – and then by boat to the islands – Sicily, Ustica, Pantelleria – to orange groves and bright misty mornings and fat purple olives and salted lemons and anchovy toasts and boisterous wines and lithe young men of heroic beauty and snowy egrets flying in that impossible sky. It’s our kind of travel, and I have learned to describe it so that Hope can see it as clearly as I can myself. I don’t suppose we’ll ever really go to those far-off places; but we do dream. Oh yes, we dream.

Hope was lying on her bed, eyes closed, enjoying one of my best sunsets and an imaginary glass of Sicilian red.

‘This is the life, ’ she said, but in such a wistful voice that I felt quite alarmed. Usually she joins our little game with great good humour, inventing outrageous details to amuse me (young men swimming naked on a deserted beach; a fat woman aquaplaning as a brass band plays a Souza march). This time she lay passive, not smiling, but straining – wantingso hard – to be there, and I knew she was thinking about Priscilla. Priscilla and the box of postcards – that last, broken link between herself and her vanished daughter.

‘At least I know she’s still all right, ’ said Hope, whenever she received one of those infrequent postcards. ‘Imagine not knowing. Imagine losing her altogether, like Mrs McAllister’s Peter—’

As if she wasn’t lost already, I thought. Selfish, silly Priscilla, too lost in her own complicated affairs to think of anyone else. ‘She’s getting worse, you know. I saw it today. She’s giving up, poor old thing. ’

‘Perhaps not. ’ I was thinking of my plan: the risks; the timing; of what we’d lose if it didn’t work. But my heart was beating fast; my breath caught; sixty years ago, dancing used to feel like this.

Hope picked up on it at once. ‘Why? ’ she said, sitting up. ‘Have you thought of something? ’ I told her; and little by little I saw her face change, come back into focus like a Polaroid, like a face on the water.

‘Well? ’ I said. ‘Do you think it might work? ’

‘Yes, Faith. ’ She nodded. ‘I really think it might. ’

It was the next morning that Lorraine announced the fire drill. We’d been awake most of the night, Hope and I, talking and planning like naughty schoolgirls; pillows in our beds arranged to look like sleeping bodies in case someone (Lorraine, who else? ) came round and looked through the peephole.

Now, Lorraine addressed us all in her best official voice, announcing the drill for precisely two o’clock that afternoon. A few groans accompanied the announcement; it was the time when most of us would have been listening to The Archers.

Lorraine looked reproachful (Hope and I guessed she must have planned it this way) and treated us all to a little lecture on how selfish we were, how much work she did on our behalf, and how she was really the only one who cared enough about us to ensure our safety from smoke, fire and electrical hazards.

‘Now Maureen has told me what a very poorresponse she got last time there was a fire drill, ’ she went on. ‘I hope that this time you’ll really make an effort, and evacuate the building in ten minutes or less. Otherwise’ – and she gave that smile of hers, nothing but teeth, and false all the way up to the eyes – ‘I might have to Take Certain Measures. ’ A Lorraine phrase, that, if ever there was one, and she was looking right at Chris as she said it.

Well, Hope and I both knew what that meant. Lorraine had been looking for an excuse to get at Chris ever since he complained to Maureen about Mrs McAllister. I could see he knew it too; his mouth tightened and he looked away. Ten minutes was an unfair, impossible time, and Lorraine knew it.

I looked at Hope, who was smiling serenely ahead, and Mrs McAllister, on my other side, sitting in one of the Meadowbank chairs, her face all squashy-looking without her teeth.

‘Now I expect anyone who can walk to be out of the building in the first five minutes, ’ continued Lorraine in her brisk voice. ‘Then we’ll handle the rest of you, just as we did last time. What I don’t want to see is people trying to bring bags and coats and God knows what with them. Leave all personal possessions in your rooms. D’you hear? In your rooms. Don’t worry. This isn’t a real fire. Your things will be perfectly safe. ’

I suppressed a little smile. My legs may be no good, but there’s nothing wrong with my brain. I’d caught that look, the sideways glance towards me in my wheelchair. I knew what she was thinking, and I fingered the tapestry cushion in the small of my back, where I still keep my few remaining valuables.

Nothing much, you understand. A few pieces of jewellery, too good for everyday wear, that I’m keeping for Tom’s little girl. A small bundle of banknotes (we’re not supposed to have money, but it’s nice to have it from time to time). There’s no real way to keep a secret, here at the Meadowbank Home, and I suppose most people know about the cushion by now, but they’d always turned a blind eye to it before – after all, what harm could it do to let me hang on to a few bits and pieces?

Lorraine was different, of course. I’d seen her eyeing up my wheelchair a few times before, though I’d never given her a chance to get a look at the cushion. This was her chance, though; the fire drill, the thinly veiled excuse about leaving personal items in rooms, and I could see that her little eyes fairly lit up at the thought that she might finally get her paws on something worthwhile.

‘When you’re all lined up outside, Chris and I will check the building. No one is to move until it’s all been checked. ’

She handed Chris a set of passkeys. That, too, was like her. Most of the time she never seemed to notice Chris at all; but now, with thieving on her mind, she wanted him near, a handy scapegoat if things went wrong, and a likely suspect if anyone complained of valuables going missing.

Hope reached for my hand and I felt the brief pressure of her fingers against mine. On my other side, Mrs McAllister was mumbling anxiously to herself, her old head nodding repeatedly as if to underline a point. I reached for her hand too, and felt it tighten on mine like a frightened child’s.

‘What’s happening, Maud? ’ she whispered, her eyes red-rimmed.

‘It’s all right, ’ I said to her, hoping it was.

The minutes leading up to two o’clock were agonizing. It took all our patience to wait as if nothing unusual were about to happen. Maureen arrived at twenty to, and settled into her office for a cup of coffee and a cigarette. Lorraine joined her; I could see them through the glass door, talking and laughing like old cronies. Once they looked out, both together, and I was sure they were talking about Hope and me; but I pretended not to notice and they looked away again.

For twenty minutes we played chess (Hope always wins) and then we just waited in the common room, declining Chris’s offer of tea (I’d have loved to accept, but when you get to my age an unscheduled toilet stop at a crucial moment can sometimes lead to disaster). Instead I listened to the wireless and tried hard not to worry. I already knew that a great deal would depend upon Chris’s co-operation, and I’d gambled that it might be better not to tell him too much beforehand – he really needs this job, and he’s wary enough of the management as it is.

Then it came – just as the theme tune for The Archers was coming on – and I felt a sting of excitement so powerful that it almost overrode my fear. A braying, whooping siren that set my teeth on edge. ‘Time, Hope, ’ I whispered, and she stood up and felt carefully for the handles of my wheelchair.

I kept an eye on the office door. It was still closed. Maureen and Lorraine were taking their time, it seemed, which suited me just down to the ground. In any case, Maureen was here to supervise – I doubted whether she would take an active part in the proceedings – and Lorraine was too fond of her dignity to bother with the evacuation process. She left that to the orderlies – three per shift, in this case Chris, Denise and Sad Harry.

Ten minutes, she had said. I guessed twenty. Time enough, in any case, for Lorraine to have a good look round.

Chris was overseeing the mê lé e. If he was nervous, there was no sign of it. His voice was pleasant, strong, not too shrill and without that hectoring note that Lorraine and some of the girls always seem to adopt. ‘You know the drill, folks. Everyone out on the lawn. Ten minutes – it’s a lovely day – Mrs Banerjee, do you really need that third overcoat? Come on, Mrs Swathen, if you think that’s loud, you should hear Metallica play at Wembley. This way, everybody – ten minutes – no, not you, sweetheart, you get carried over the threshold, how sexy is that? ’ It was nonsense, and most of us knew it. But comforting nonsense nevertheless; and even the oldest, most baffled ones reacted to it, moving gradually – the ones who could – towards the double doors and Chris’s voice.

I was supposed to stay put. Hope was supposed to wait too, until the rest of them had gone, and someone was free to guide her out. Neither of us obeyed orders, however. As soon as Chris wasn’t looking, Hope guided the wheelchair, swiftly and confidently, back up the corridor.

On the left, two doors before mine, there is an airing cupboard. It’s a large cupboard, lined with shelves on which stacks of sheets, blankets and pillows are stored. Now, instead of going to my room, Hope stopped at the airing cupboard and opened the door.

I looked left and right. No one was watching. Chris was at the exit now, surrounded by residents. Denise was outside, forming a queue. Sad Harry was trying to explain to Polish John why the drill couldn’t wait until The Archers was finished and Mrs McAllister was wandering vaguely about the common room, wailing – Is there a fire? – until one of the others (it was Mr Braun) took her arm and led her to the door.

‘Coast’s clear, ’ I said, and Hope pushed me into the airing cupboard, chair and all. Then she moved me out of my chair (I can help, when I want to, using my arms) and on to a pile of blankets, then she turned – manoeuvring the chair with difficulty between the stacks of shelves.

‘Two doors on the right, remember, ’ I whispered.

Hope gave me her Cambridge look. ‘You think I’m senile? ’ she said. ‘I know my way about this place better than you do. ’ And at that she wheeled the chair – tapestry cushion and all – smartly out of the cupboard, closing the door behind her. The whole process had taken five minutes thus far – we’re not fast, you know, but we do get there in the end – and I guessed that the lobby would be more or less clear.

By now only the residents who needed help in getting out – myself and Hope among them – should still be in the building, waiting patiently for someone to guide or carry us to the assembly point. Lorraine was on duty; Maureen would be observing, and the rest of them would be racing round to check the rooms, to ensure that no one had forgotten, orfailed to hear, or decided to go for an unscheduled toilet break.

The siren – a kind of whoop-whoop-whoopelectronic noise, not what you’d call a fire bell at all – had fallen silent. In the corridor I heard the clopping of footsteps on the carpet and recognized the sound of high heels. I held my breath – by rights Lorraine ought to check the cupboards as well as the rooms, but I was counting on Hope to divert her.

‘Lorraine? ’ Good. Right on time. Hope’s voice, muffled and uncharacteristically querulous, reached me through the thickness of the door.

‘Good God, what are you doing here? ’ Lorraine’s voice was needle-sharp.

‘Lorraine? Is that you? Is there a fire? ’ said Hope, in a voice so like Mrs McAllister’s that I had to bite the inside of my mouth to stop myself from laughing.

‘No, you silly thing – where’s the orderly? – oh, come with me, ’ said Lorraine impatiently, and I heard the sound of her high heels receding towards the lobby, with Hope’s softer footfalls in pursuit.

I smiled. So far, so good. It would take Lorraine a few minutes at least to get Hope outside. Longer, perhaps; Hope was under instructions to delay Lorraine for as long as possible, and I was counting on her to be as imaginative as she could. That left Chris to check the rooms – and if only I could get to him before Lorraine came back, I was pretty sure I could make him listen.

If. I used the shelving to move myself towards the door, and, balancing on a pile of sheets, I managed to get it open without falling over. I looked out into the corridor. It was deserted.

I called softly. ‘Chris? Are you there? ’

No one came. I wondered how long Hope could hold Lorraine before my absence was noticed. I called again. This time I heard the sound of footsteps from the locker room across the hall; no clip of heels this time, but the soft, fast steps of someone wearing sneakers.

‘Chris! ’ I waved my hand at him from inside the cupboard, and a moment later he was running down the passageway towards me.

‘Hey, Butch? ’ He looked concerned. ‘You OK? ’

‘In here. Quick. Before she gets back. ’

For a moment he hesitated.

‘Please, Chris! ’

He cast a rapid glance up and down the passage. Then he sighed – OK – and stepped into the airing cupboard. ‘You know, Butch, there are easier ways to get me to yourself. What is it? ’

As quickly as I could, I told him.

When I got to his contribution, he shook his head. ‘Oh no, ’ he said. ‘If I do that I’m toast. ’

‘You’re toast anyway, ’ I said, and told him about Lorraine and the tapestry cushion.

‘You and me both, ’ said Chris, when I finished. ‘Except you’re too damn old to be dragged off to gaol, and nowadays all I have to do is sneeze—’ He paused, pricking up his ears, then lowered his voice still further. ‘It’s OK, ’ he said. ‘It’s not too late. I’ll just carry you out – tell Lorraine you needed the loo – and there’ll be no trouble for either of us. She wouldn’t dare go through your stuff anyway—’

‘She would, ’ I said. ‘She’s done it before. ’

‘Really, Butch—’

‘You know she has. She’s been pinching stuff since she first arrived. Hasn’t she? ’

Chris turned away and said nothing.

‘Hasn’t she? ’ Pause. ‘You know she has. And you know where she keeps it, don’t you, Chris? ’

Chris sighed. ‘What is this? ’ he said. ‘Some kind of inquisition? ’

‘Vee heff vays, ’ I said, sounding (I thought) rather a lot like Mr Braun.

Chris shook his head. Reluctantly, he grinned, though I noticed he still wouldn’t look me in the eye.

‘You’ve got to stand up to bullies, ’ I told him. ‘You can’t go around just hoping they’ll tire of it and leave you alone. They never do. It makes them worse. You should never have let her get away with it the first time, Chris. We’d have stood up for you. Now she thinks she owns you. Thinks you’ll do whatever she wants. But you’re not like her, are you, Chris? I know you. And you’re not a thief. ’

He turned round at that, rather abruptly, and his usually open expression was bleak and complicated. ‘But I am a thief, ’ he said in a flat voice. ‘You know it, she knows it—’

‘Rubbish, ’ I said. ‘You don’t judge a man on the mistakes he’s made. ’

‘Then how the hell do you judge him? ’ said Chris, not caring who heard him now and furious, furious as I’d never seen him before. Oh, not with me – I could tell that from the look in his eyes. With himself, maybe; or with the world that reduces people to pages in a file, names on a list—

‘Chris, ’ I said. ‘I don’t judge. ’ And in the silence that followed – rather a long silence – he put his face in his hands and just sat there on a pile of towels, breathing heavily, not talking, until I started to feel anxious about him and touched his shoulder to make sure he was all right.

‘All right? ’ he said, looking up at last. ‘Yeah, sure. I’m just fine. ’ He told me then what I’d suspected before. ‘You were right, though, about my knowing where she keeps the stuff. She hides it right under my nose. It’s her way of getting back at me for that complaint I made, you know, that time with Mrs McAllister. ’

‘But if you just help me, ’ I protested, ‘then we can catch her red-handed. None of us will ever have any trouble from her again. ’

He looked rueful. ‘I haven’t told you where she hides it. ’

‘Where? ’ I said.

‘In my locker. ’

Ah. Of course. I hadn’t thought of that. Lorraine, of course, has the master keys, and with them, access to all the lockers in the staffroom. Easy for her to stash whatever she has stolen; easier still for her to plant something in Chris’s locker to incriminate him.

‘And she would, too, ’ Chris said when I told him. ‘She’s just dying for me to step out of line. She’s got me snookered, Butch; I can’t keep my eye on that locker all the time, and she knows it. All it would take is one spot check—’

There was another silence, punctuated only by the clacking sound of Lorraine’s high heels in the corridor outside.

‘There she is, ’ said Chris bleakly. ‘Time’s up. ’

As I said, I don’t have many things of my own any more. Possessions – even such trivial things as a book, a cup, a box of photographs – are doubly precious for being in short supply. And the things inside the tapestry cushion – my anniversary pearls (not real, of course, just cultured, but I love them so), my mother’s little gold brooch, the engagement ring that has grown too small for my swollen fingers – are not just precious in the ordinary way. They are what’s left of my life; proof, if you like, that I lived at all. And all this time I’ve kept them safe; for Tom; for the children; but most of all to keep some part of myself secret, private, in this place of routine intrusion and casual indifference.

But things, after all, are only things. If we confronted Lorraine with the truth, I’d keep my things, but I’d lose my friend. And if there’s anything I’ve learnt in this place, it’s this: that a good friend rates higher than pearls.

I smiled at Chris. ‘Let’s go, ’ I said. ‘Our ten minutes must be nearly up. ’

He looked surprised. ‘You’re letting her get away with it, then? ’

‘Don’t worry. ’ I shrugged. ‘It’s mostly junk. ’

He almost smiled. ‘Butch, ’ he said. ‘I never knew such a respectable old lady could tell such barefaced lies. ’

I gave him a look. ‘Quit soft-soaping me and take me outside. ’

He picked me up then – not cheerily, but with ease – and carried me out into the corridor. Lorraine was there, checking bedroom doors. I saw that she was just two doors away from my own bedroom, and the expression on her face as she saw me was pure poison.

‘What’s this? ’ she said.

Chris shot her a nervous glance. ‘Sorry, ’ he said. ‘Wrong door. I think Faith just got a little confused. I’m taking her outside now, OK? ’

Lorraine gave him a look of contempt. ‘Hurry up, ’ she said in an icy voice. ‘I need you here. ’

It took Chris thirty seconds to get me out into the open. The others were already outside, sitting or standing on the grass; Mrs Swathen was complaining loudly about the disruption; Maureen was looking at her watch; Hope was reassuring Mrs McAllister.

‘Gotta go, Butch, ’ was all Chris said before running back into the building, his passkeys rattling at his belt.

I saw Hope’s face turn towards me.

‘I’m sorry, ’ I whispered. ‘It didn’t work. ’

Later, I would explain to her. I knew she’d understand. After all, the things we had lost – and they were, after all, only things – were of such little importance when set against our friend’s dilemma. Things can usually be replaced. People, on the other hand—

Suddenly, the alarm went off again. Louder, this time; the whoop-whoop-whoop of the siren now joined by an urgent and unfamiliar wailing sound. It was the new smoke alarm.

We looked at each other in surprise (all except for grumpy Mr Bannerman, who just turned off his hearing aid and sat down on the grass).

Poor, dried-up Mrs McAllister, who had calmed down a little under Hope’s influence, gave a squeal.

‘Fire! ’ she shrieked, and I was about to point out (I’d lost count of how many times I’d already done so) that it was only a drill, and nothing to be worried about, when I saw the dim yellow flicker at one of the windows and knew that, somehow, Mrs McAllister had got it right.

‘Good God, ’ said Mrs Swathen. ‘I thought it was supposed to be a drill! ’

A murmur of anxiety went through the assembled residents as Maureen, Sad Harry and Denise went around trying to reassure them. Mrs Swathen began to complain about all the things she had left in her room; Polish John said it was just like the war; Mr Braun observed that he always liked a nice fire; Mrs McAllister began to cry again and Hope and I held hands very tightly and whispered – Chris!

The flames were quite visible now through the passageway window, heating the frosted glass and turning it black. My room was on the other side, opposite the staffroom; difficult to tell from outside where the fire had started. There was still no sign of either Lorraine or Chris.

Sad Harry, ignoring procedure, ran for the main doors, but they wouldn’t open. ‘Must be jammed! ’ he yelled, punching at the entrance pad with no success.

‘An electrical fault, ’ suggested Hope in her calm voice.

‘Sabotage, ’ said Polish John with dour glee.

‘Lorraine! ’ yelled Maureen in her most Wagnerian tone. ‘Lorraine, can you hear me? ’

From the far side of the building came a faint tinkle of breaking glass.

‘Lorraine! ’

‘In here! ’

Maureen moved with as much speed as her bulk would permit towards the source of the cry. For obvious reasons, Hope and I stayed put. A minute or two later, Chris came running out by a fire exit, looking sooty and dishevelled, but laughing silently, one of the Meadowbank fire extinguishers in his hand.

‘Where’s Lorraine? ’ I hissed at him.

Chris said nothing, but only grinned.

Later we pieced together the sequence of events; but for the present we could only speculate and listen.

Of course, you can’t always trust an eyewitness account. If you’d believed some of the stories that went around afterwards, then you might have been forgiven in thinking that we had survived something in the nature of a Towering Inferno. In fact, by the time the fire brigade arrived, some five minutes later, the blaze, such as it was, had already been put out, leaving nothing but a few cracked windowpanes and some scorch marks up the walls to show that it had ever been.

It seems to have begun in the staffroom. A cigarette, said the fire chief, left to smoulder near a pile of newspapers, seemed to have been the source of the fire, which had spread quite rapidly to curtains and cushions on the sofa by the window. A small fire, certainly not large enough to account for the degree of panic shown by certain members of the Meadowbank staff, not least a Miss Lorraine Hutchens, care administrator, who was discovered hiding inside a wardrobe in the bedroom of one of the residents, having tried the door (or so she said) and found it jammed. Good thing the handyman had been around; his quick thinking (and judicious use of a nearby fire extinguisher) had ensured that the fire failed to spread to other parts of the home.

‘Anyway, love, ’ said the fire chief reassuringly, as Lorraine was escorted out of the building, ‘that door’s made of solid wood. There’d have had to be a real blaze to do any harm to it, and it’s hardly even scorched the paint. I reckon you must have smelt the smoke and panicked. Happens all the time. ’

Lorraine, still shaken but gaining resilience with every step, gave him a killer look. ‘I never said the door was jammed. I said it was locked. There’s a difference. ’

Maureen’s eyes narrowed. ‘Locked? ’ she said.

Lorraine’s cold gaze came to rest on Chris. He’d been standing quietly next to Hope and me, eyes on the ground. Now he glanced up, briefly, at Lorraine. The grin was gone from his face, to be replaced by an unmistakable expression of guilt.

Next to him, I saw Hope reach for his hand. There was a small sound of metal against metal that went unnoticed by all except Hope and me. Then Hope put her hands back into her lap. Again, that sound; and then she put her hand over one of mine, and I felt something cold and toothy press into my palm.

Meanwhile, Lorraine was speaking to Chris. ‘I warned you, ’ she said. ‘Did you think it was funny, eh? Did you really think you could get away with a stunt like this? ’

Chris said nothing. So blessedly talkative in ordinary circumstances, he still clams up when anyone in authority addresses him. Instead, he shot a sideways glance at me, looking guilty and slightly sick. There was a smudge of soot on one of his arms, at which he rubbed nervously.

Lorraine took another step. ‘I’m talking to you, ’ she said loudly. ‘What was it, some kind of a joke? Or did you have something else in mind – what was it, going through lockers while I was out of the way? Looking for valuables in the rooms? ’

That was more than Hope and I could take. ‘You leave him alone, ’ I told Lorraine, and she turned and gave me one of her most poisonous looks.

‘You keep out of this, dearie, ’ she said. ‘That door was locked, and there’s only one other person here who could have locked it. Isn’t there? ’ She glared at Chris. ‘You saw me give him the keys. Didn’t you, Maureen? ’

Maureen nodded.

‘Only he could have locked the door. ’

Once again, Maureen nodded as Lorraine’s peculiar magnetism began to reassert itself. Her face hardened; her small eyes grew smaller. ‘Well, did you? ’ she said.

There was a pause. Under Maureen’s scrutiny Chris looked more wretched than ever.

Then Hope spoke up, not loudly, but in that Cambridge voice of hers that seems naturally to command authority. ‘He couldn’t, ’ she said.

‘Why not? ’ said Lorraine with scorn. ‘Because he’s a friend of yours? Well, let me tell you—’

‘No, ’ I told her. ‘Because I’ve got his keys. ’ I pulled them out of my coat pocket. ‘I saw him drop them when he carried me out, ’ I went on. ‘I called after him, but he didn’t hear me. ’ There was a pause, during which Maureen stared at Lorraine, Lorraine glared at Chris and almost everyone else looked at me with the keys still in my hand.

I held them out to Lorraine. ‘Here you are, ’ I said with a smile. ‘Oh, and Maureen—’ Maureen was watching me now, her expression slowly veering from astonishment to a kind of grim understanding. ‘I had a few things hidden in a little cushion, back in my room. I’m sure they’re safe, but do you think we could check? I mean, I’d trust Chris with my life, of course—’ I gave Lorraine my sweetest smile. ‘Which room did you say you were trapped in, dear? Now fancy that. What a coincidence. Well, I’m sure my things would have been perfectly safe with you. What’s that? ’ Lorraine made an inarticulate sound. ‘Oh, you’ve brought them with you. How very kind. And how clever of you to guess where I’d hidden them – my pearls, my engagement ring, my mother’s brooch – oh yes, and the money. Two hundred pounds. What a relief. How nice to know that there are still some decent, honest people left in the world. ’

Still smiling, I slipped my possessions into the pocket of my coat. I’d gathered quite a little audience by then; Sad Harry with something suspiciously like a smile on his face; Claire almost forgetting to chew her gum in her astonishment; Mr Braun; Polish John; Mrs Swathen, who can be as clever as the next person when she really puts her mind to it, now staring at Lorraine as if she’d never really seen her before; Maureen, her doughy face frozen behind a furious smile; Chris, looking dazed; and behind him the firemen, five or six of them; young men, grinning; turning off the flashers on the unneeded fire engine, checking the building for stragglers, faults, electrical hazards, anything that might endanger the residents of the Meadowbank Home, now waiting quietly on the grass.

It took almost an hour for them to clear the building. It was a warm day, sunny and bright; there were daisies in the lawn and bumblebees in the azalea hedge alongside. Polish John started a game of cards with Sad Harry and Mr Braun; Mrs Banerjee took off one of her overcoats and Hope and I talked quietly while Lorraine and Maureen took their conversation (by now it was getting quite animated) to the car park by the main gates where they thought they couldn’t be overheard. They could, though – at least in snatches – but we politely refrained from listening, except for the part when Lorraine told Maureen to stuff her effing job, it wasn’t paying more than effing peanuts anyway, and who the hell wanted to spend their lives in a pit like the Meadowbank Home, you know what they call it in town, eh? The effing Morgue. How d’you like that, eh – dearie?

And so on. Worse than Mr Bannerman on one of his bad days. Anyway, there was little doubt in my mind even then that that was the last we’d see of Lorraine. Across the grass, Chris was pretending not to overhear, but the smile on his face gave him away.

Of course I knew he’d locked her in. I was willing to bet he’d lit the fire in the staffroom, too; making it look as if one of Lorraine’s eternal Silk Cuts had started the blaze. I guessed he had immobilized the front doors, and I was sure that it was he who had omitted to key in the fire-drill code, so that news of the emergency had been relayed straight to the fire station.

‘Good thing too, ’ said the fire chief as he emerged from the building with the last of his men. ‘Just goes to show you can never be too careful with those things around. Good job you had that smoke alarm. ’

‘Time to go in, ’ bugled Maureen from the car park. ‘Is everyone here? Did everyone hear me? I said time to go in! ’

A murmur, almost of protest, went through the residents on the lawn. Sad Harry stood up reluctantly from his game of cards. Denise looked up from the daisy chain in her lap. Mr Bannerman turned his hearing aid on again. Mrs Banerjee took off another of her coats and Hope said, ‘Where’s Mrs McAllister? ’

For a second we all looked at each other. It was typical of Hope to have noticed the one thing that none of the sighted ones had taken in. Anxiously I scanned the grounds for signs of Mrs McAllister, imagining her lost and wandering, or worse, halfway down the busy main road in search of some place or person that hadn’t existed since before the War.

‘Mrs McAllister! ’ bellowed Maureen. ‘We’re going in now, dearie! ’

Still, no sign of Mrs McAllister. I looked at Hope. I was beginning to get a bad feeling – a premonition, if you like – and imagined the old lady collapsed behind the angle of the building, toothless mouth caved in on itself, one hand flung out like a dry branch on the gravel path …

Well, it just goes to show that you can’t trust those premonitions.

Just as I opened my mouth to speak she rounded the building, arm in arm with one of the firemen, a cheerful-looking young man of twenty-five or thereabouts, tall and dark and rather muscular in that understated way that firemen often seem to have (yes, I know I’m seventy-two, but that doesn’t stop me noticing, does it? ). Anyway, he must have said something hilariously funny, because Mrs McAllister was cackling away like a mad hen. I hadn’t seen her this cheerful since that day in the lobby when Lorraine had told her Peter had died, and it brought a lump to my throat to see her this way; so old; so small; but clinging to the fireman’s arm like a monkey and laughing fit to split.

‘Where have you been? ’ said Maureen disapprovingly.

The young man grinned. ‘Training for the fire brigade, ’ he said, detaching Mrs McAllister’s hand (with some difficulty) from his arm. ‘I’ll give you this, Norah’ – can you believe it, I never knew Mrs McAllister’s first name was Norah – ‘you’re a hell of a sprinter. ’

Mrs McAllister laughed again. She peered up into the young man’s face (her own face was about level with his belt buckle) and took his hand in one of hers.

‘I’m so glad you came, ’ she said brightly. ‘Now you can meet all my friends. This is Faith – and this is Hope. ’ She waved at both of us, birdy-eyed with excitement. ‘They’ve got me through some hard times; they’ve been very good to me, you know. ’

‘Don’t be silly, ’ said Hope bracingly. ‘Now – suppose you introduce us to your friend. ’

‘My friend? ’ Mrs McAllister laughed again. I don’t think I’d ever seen her laugh as much; it made her young again. Her eyes shone; she skipped and danced; her toothless mouth was merry with wrinkles.

She took the young man by the hand and led him to the patch of grass where Chris and Maureen and Denise and Sad Harry were waiting to lead us back into the Meadowbank Home.

‘This is my son, Peter, ’ she said. ‘He’s a fireman, you know. ’