Dream a Little Dream (21 page)

‘Yes. That’s what you said then,’ he laughs. ‘And Aunty Jackie took you to Jersey a few years ago, remember? And you went to Tenerife with Aunt Corrie, Uncle Mick and the kids. Actually, Nan, you’ve been on more holidays than most of my mates.’

Ethel doesn’t say anything. Instead she sits back in her armchair and bites her lip, looking worried.

‘It’s all right, Nan,’ Sam says quietly. ‘We all forget things sometimes. It’s no big deal.’

He looks at us both with a sorrowful look in his eyes.

I’m guessing this isn’t the first time Ethel’s found herself in a forgetful situation, although it feels like quite a huge chunk of her life to have a sudden mental block about. She thought she’d been sitting here quietly, uncared for, while life continued without her – but in actual fact she’d been having the time of her life in The Magical Kingdom as the family she’d spent decades pouring love into fussed around her.

How sad for her to forget those happy memories and replace them with nothing but emptiness.

‘They were going to take me to China,’ Ethel whimpers, staring at the laptop on her side table that’s taunting her with images of grandeur that we won’t be able to take her to see.

The whole thing is so awkward it makes me want to cry.

‘Sorry about this,’ Sam says to the two of us, visibly embarrassed.

‘It’s fine,’ I say kindly. I can’t help but feel for Ethel. Sod
Grannies Go Gap
, it’s horrible to see someone as lovely as her so confused as memories meanly decide to play hide and seek with her.

‘It’s been a pleasure to meet you, Ethel, regardless,’ says Real Brett, going to her and placing a hand over hers. ‘Sounds like you’ve already had some amazing adventures.’

‘It does, doesn’t it,’ she sighs, her free hand gripping the top of his as she squints and looks into his eyes, searching them for kindness – which he gives, making me feel a wave of gratitude towards him.

‘And you know, Disney World is pretty huge,’ he says, lowering his voice. ‘I’ve no doubt Samuel would’ve seen you and all the family stood around having your photos taken with Mickey Mouse.’

‘I hope not,’ she grumbles, her face screwing up at the thought. ‘They made me wear those stupid ears – and the water made me hair go all fluffy. I looked a right state.’

‘You looked great, Nan,’ Sam says, rolling his eyes at her comment. ‘Women, hey? Always fishing for compliments.’

None of us laugh as Ethel’s delightful grandson becomes more unattractive by the second. What a pig.

Real Brett gets to his feet, and sighs.

‘Right, I’m guessing these two have to get back to searching for their next TV star,’ Sam says with a hint of mockery, looking at me and Real Brett while raising his hand up towards the door.

‘Yes!’ I start, picking up my coat and belongings and throwing Ethel a sympathetic smile.

She ignores me, and instead gets up and walks past us both to the wall of photos and memories. With a sad face she looks at each of them more closely, her face showing glimpses of either recognition of the moment captured or complete befuddlement – as though it might as well be someone else in the picture. It’s heartbreaking to watch.

Real Brett tugs on my hand to stop me from staring, but the moment is so tragic it’s difficult to walk away from. Quietly we go to the hallway and collect our shoes from the immaculate Sainsbury’s bag Ethel had laid out for us when we first arrived.

‘Thank God I turned up when I did,’ exhales Sam in bewilderment, watching us as we put on our footwear, before opening the front door for us to leave.

‘Yeah …’ is all I can manage to muster up in reply.

‘Bye, Ethel,’ calls Real Brett.

She doesn’t respond.

The door is shut on us as soon as we’re through it.

I exhale loudly as we start the short walk to the station – feeling every kind of crappy.

‘You okay?’ Real Brett asks.

I shrug my shoulders in reply.

‘Not a great start,’ he admits, sucking in his bottom lip.

‘Doesn’t it make you want to send her to China anyway?’ I ask, somehow hoping it’s a possibility. ‘Pretend she’s never been to those places and film her regardless?’

‘What, lie?’

‘Maybe,’ I mumble.

‘I’d love to,’ says Real Brett, leaning into me and giving my elbow a slight nudge with his. ‘But can you imagine the fallout if the press found out the delightful show you created, that’s meant to be about enlightenment and discovery – no matter your age, is actually all staged? It would be awful and would send out the opposite message.’

‘True,’ I huff sadly, gutted that we can’t make it work for dear Ethel.

‘Sweet lady, though,’ he nods.

‘It’s made me think. I don’t think someone so old could realistically be up to doing more than the one destination. I know I said about them having this whole big excursion like they’re on a gap year but I think that would be too much. Perhaps it’s best to limit it like I said we might in my pitch …’ I mumble, unable to remove the frown that’s invaded my forehead.

‘Wow …’

‘What?’

‘One knock and you’re out?’

‘I’m not dissing the whole idea, I just think it needs to be refined and worked on.’

‘I hear what you’re saying, and I think it might be something you tailor to each of our cast – but, let’s wait to find them first. They aren’t all going to be like Ethel,’ he says shaking his head. ‘I know ninety-year-olds who are out and about like they’re in their teens. It’s just about finding the right people to take part.’

‘Maybe …’ I mumble, putting my hands in my pockets and feeling like a sulky teenager who’s not had things go her way.

Not for the first time, I wish Real Brett were Dream Brett. I’d do anything for a little comfort right now – for him to grab me by the waist and snuggle me into his strong chest while I grumpily brood over our encounter with Ethel, my worries about the task I’m taking on and my feeling that it’s something I’m incapable of pulling off.

‘When are your quiz nights, then?’ Real Brett asks, cutting into my woes while looking down at his perfectly polished black leather shoes as they hit the concrete slabs of the pavement beneath our feet.

‘The
pub
quiz?’ I ask, unable to stop a slight high-pitched squeak from entering my voice.

‘Yeah …’

‘Wednesdays. In a little place near Bethnal Green,’ I offer, feeling my nostrils flare as I reluctantly relay the information.

‘Oh, right.’

‘You don’t have to come,’ I shrug as I shake my head – trying my best to put him off, without making it seem like I’m rudely revoking the invite I gave him less than an hour ago. ‘It’s probably a trek or whatever.’

‘No, no … I love a good pub quiz,’ he says with a decisive nod. ‘I’ll come. I’ll see when I’m free.’

‘Great,’ I say, hoping I sound a little happier with his answer than I’m actually feeling.

Carly is going to piss her pants when I tell her he’s coming. Hopefully not literally … I mean, I hear pregnant ladies can do that. I love her, but that’s something I do not need or want to see.

Unless she’s being a totally cheeky cow, then it would serve her right.

‘Okay, round two,’ I say to Real Brett when he arrives the following Monday morning.

I couldn’t actually sleep over the weekend because I’d started worrying about whether anyone would message in who fit the criteria we were looking for in a case study. So, this morning, I got up far earlier than normal, wandered to The Barge Café and sat inside nursing a latte, before dawdling into Soho. I arrived a whole hour earlier than necessary and have since been scrolling through the dozen (yes, that’s twelve) emails that had arrived with
Grannies Go Gap
in the subject box. Albeit most of them were just from complete chancers who were looking for a freebie holiday – one lady was in her thirties and I’m pretty sure the photo she’d sent in was of her on a sun lounger somewhere abroad with a cocktail in her hand (she clearly thought it was some kind of competition), but one (one is better than none – for now) caught my attention immediately.

‘This time it’s come directly from Age Wise, so I’m hoping there won’t be any confusion,’ I say, my mind with Ethel as I look down at the piece of paper in my hand that I’ve already read several times over.

‘Carry on,’ Real Brett says with a smile, finding his way out of his coat as he listens.

‘Julian is seventy-eight and lives in an old people’s home in Kent.’

‘Old people’s home?’ he interrupts, his face tensing, clearly worried that we’re about to suffer from a repeat performance of last week.

‘Yes, but he’s totally able and capable, apparently. Just didn’t know what to do with himself when his wife died a couple of years ago, so he checked himself into a local home.’

‘No family?’

‘One son, but he moved to America in the nineties – Julian didn’t fancy going there and he didn’t fancy coming back here.’

‘So sad,’ Real Brett frowns. ‘I couldn’t imagine doing that with my dad.’

‘No …’ I agree.

I decide not to share that my mum would be a different story, I couldn’t cope with spending every day with her and having her in my home picking out all my failures, but my dad … Well, it’s highly unlikely I’d let him go into a home if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.

‘I couldn’t let him down like that,’ Real Brett adds.

‘Well, it sounds like Julian rather enjoys being there,’ I say, wanting to dispel Real Brett’s doubts of the place that’s apparently given our next candidate a new lease of life.

‘Really?’

‘Makes sense,’ I brood with a smirk. ‘Most homes are filled with old women – any guys in there are hugely outnumbered.’

‘As close to the old “if I were the last guy on earth” scenario as anyone’s ever going to get,’ he laughs.

‘Exactly,’ I say, laughing along with him. ‘Apparently, he
loves being the centre of everyone’s attention and really brightens up the place.’

‘Want to go meet him?’ Real Brett asks, taking off his beanie hat, gently shaking his head and running his fingers through his short hair so that it’s swept back away from his face. ‘See if there’s more to his popularity than the fact he’s the only male in the place?’

‘Definitely,’ I nod without hesitation, turning my back on Real Brett and busying myself with Jonathan’s diary.

I did not find the way he just whipped his hair around mesmerizing at all.

Not even in the slightest.

Although I might’ve forgotten to breathe as I watched.

That afternoon as I ring the doorbell of Bramble House in Welling, I can’t help but take an audible deep breath as unexpected nerves start to build. I thought finding people to fly around the world to far-off locations was going to be the easy part in all this, but having met Ethel and realizing that my target cast might come with a list of problems (both mental and physical) that I hadn’t even thought about, my confidence is starting to wane.

‘I’ve got a good feeling about this one,’ whispers Real Brett, nodding at the door.

I’ve no idea whether this is something he truly believes or whether he’s spinning me some upbeat line, like I saw him do with Ethel about Walt Disney World being seen from space, but either way it helps relax me the teeny tiniest of fractions and I find myself grateful that he’s there by my side and that I’m not having to do all this with Poutmouth Louisa instead.

Who’d have thought I’d ever find myself expressing that … gratitude for Real Brett.

Huh.

‘You must be Sarah,’ beams a skinny girl in her twenties as she opens the door. She doesn’t look like she should work in a care home for the elderly. She’s top to toe in baggy black clothing, has blood red hair and has seriously overdone it with the kohl eyeliner. Nonetheless, her smile is infectious and it’s clear to see she’s a sweetheart despite her gothic-inspired exterior.

‘Fiona?’ I ask.

She nods in reply. ‘I’m the one you spoke to earlier on the phone.’

‘Great. This is my colleague Brett,’ I say, narrowly avoiding calling him by the full name I’ve given him, and watch as they exchange a formal handshake.

‘Want to come through?’ she asks, letting us in before closing the door behind us and securing it with several bolts and locks.

‘Wow,’ says Real Brett under his breath.

‘Worse than it looks,’ she says, rolling her eyes mercifully. ‘A few of the guests here get a little confused at times and tend to want to venture outside late at night. It’s best we find them trying to pick the locks here than wandering lost outside in their nighties and rollers.’

‘Fair point,’ grumbles Real Brett.

‘Does he know we’re here?’ I ask, moving our attention back to the reason we’ve come – keen to see if Julian is going to live up to the mountain of expectation that I’ve placed on him in the few hours I’ve known of his existence.

‘Of course, I couldn’t just spring something like this on him. Not that he’d have minded,’ she winks. ‘He’s just helping clear up after lunch.’

We walk into the dining room to find Julian flamboyantly waltzing around the room to classical music and twirling between the groups of tables while picking up empty bowls and stacking them on a trolley as though he’s one of the staff and not one of the inmates.

And he’s not alone.

Seven women are still sat at their tables sipping on cups of tea whilst watching him. He is, without doubt, their entertainment.

‘Julian?’ calls Fiona, cutting into his performance and grabbing his attention. ‘This is Sarah – the lady we talked about, and Brett – he works with her.’

‘Oh!’ says the dancing man, dropping his arms and lowering his heels, seemingly startled at being cut short.

Julian puts down the last of the bowls on the trolley and strides over, straightening out his gingham flat cap as he approaches. He is shorter than average (although that could be down to his age – has it actually been scientifically proven that people shrink as they get older or is that just a myth?), has a head full of white hair, a nose that looks like it’s never stopped growing (complete with wispy hairs to match those sprouting from his ears) and a twinkle in his sparkling blue eyes that explains why he’s everybody’s friend. Even before he opens his mouth to speak I know that I’ve fallen utterly in love with him and want to adopt him as my new granddad.

‘Lovely to meet you both. I’m Julian,’ he says with a nod and a fancy flurry of his hands.

‘We guessed,’ I grin, feeling like a little girl entranced by his wonderful persona.

‘Want to sit down in here and talk?’ asks Fiona. ‘I can grab you some tea and biscuits. Won’t be a second.’

‘Great,’ I say to the back of her flaming head as she walks straight out without waiting for an answer.

‘Sit, sit, sit,’ beckons Julian, pulling out a chair for me and willing Real Brett to do the same for himself. ‘Annabell from Age Wise called me yesterday and asked if she could put me forward for this – I’ve never done anything like it before,’ he admits, adding a grave tone to his voice – although I think it’s more for theatricality than to express his own concerns.

‘Neither have I,’ I whisper, unable to wipe the grin from my face. ‘This is actually the first programme I’ve ever developed. I’ve no idea what I’m doing.’

‘New for us both then,’ he says, raising his eyebrows before looking at Real Brett expectantly.

‘I have done this before and I do know what I’m doing,’ he confesses.

‘Well someone has to,’ Julian replies with a shrug, winking at me.

‘Before we get started,’ I say, taking a deep breath. ‘I just need to ask you one question which you must answer truthfully.’

‘I’ll do my best …’

‘Have you ever been outside the UK?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure? You’ve never been on a plane?’ I ask in the slowest and most coherent manner I can muster without it bordering on patronizing or rude.

‘No,’ he says adamantly. ‘Flo had a thing about planes.’

‘Flo?’ asks Real Brett, allowing Julian the chance to open up on his own without us prodding him too much.

‘My wife,’ Julian says without a flicker of emotion other than delight at uttering her name. ‘A fine woman who insisted we kept our feet firmly on the ground at all times.’

‘So you’ve never holidayed in France or gone on a Mediterranean cruise?’ I question further.

‘Wish I had – those things look great. But no, no we never did any of that. Flo had relatives in Scotland so we used to go up there whenever we got the chance – immerse ourselves in the Highland fling.’

‘You’re quite the dancer then?’ asks Real Brett.

‘Oh, yes. We met through our love of dance. Blackpool ballroom in the summer of 1955,’ he remembers, closing his eyes and returning to that moment as though he’s in a Hollywood film about to leap into a black and white flashback of that important day as they enchantingly waltz around the dance floor. ‘We were both competing.’

‘So you were both professional dancers?’ I gasp, instantly loving the romantic visions that it triggers off in my imagination of floaty fabric sashaying from elegant bodies as they glide around the majestically lit dance floor.

‘Well, I could show that Craig Revel-Horwood a thing or two, that’s for sure,’ he says under his breath before giving a cheeky wink.

‘Didn’t you travel the world with that, then?’ asks Real Brett.

‘Could’ve done. Should’ve, I guess. I’d worked hard to get to Blackpool and that was meant to be the start of everything – but Flo had an elderly mum back at home
who she didn’t want to leave and I didn’t want to leave Flo. So I didn’t,’ he pauses. ‘I followed Flo, the love of my dreams, up to Scotland, where she cared for her mother and I worked as a porter in a hospital. We stayed up there until her mum passed – then we moved down here.’

‘Didn’t you ever regret not continuing with your dancing?’ I ask, wondering how it would feel to work so hard for something and then just give it up one day because I’d met someone I liked the look of. I don’t know if I could ever be so selfless – maybe that’s why I’m doomed to a life of being referred to as the jilted ex.

‘Regret? There was nothing to regret,’ says Julian, shaking his head vigorously.

‘Really?’

‘Absolutely. I’d sooner pirouette my girl around our living-room and receive her full love and attention than perform for some know-it-all judge in a penguin suit,’ he declares.

‘Nicely put,’ smirks Real Brett, raising his eyebrows at me before nodding in agreement with Julian.

‘I want to show you something. Do you want to come up to my room?’ Julian asks, looking directly at me.

I look at Real Brett, unsure whether it’s entirely appropriate to go into a pensioner’s room.

Just as he catches my eye, Julian cuts in.

‘Don’t worry, you’re allowed. There’s no rules about girls being in my room,’ he winks. ‘They think we’re too old for that …’

I blush as a laughing Julian leads us up a set of stairs (I resist getting too excited about this meaning he’s fit enough to tackle them), down a long corridor and into a room
that’s probably the size of my bedroom at the flat. Not large enough to swing a cat (why would you ever want to), but spacious enough to make you feel like you’re not existing in a box.

Nevertheless, the sight of it seizes my heart.

What strikes me immediately is the stark contrast between Ethel’s home and Julian’s room in the care home. Ethel had every possession surrounding her in a place that was undoubtedly hers – filled with memories of the decades past (even though she failed to recall a large chunk of them). But here, Julian has a small wardrobe for his clothes – one dresser to keep and display his treasured items, a single bed and a bedside table. It’s stark, barren and lacking in any sort of personality or warmth.

It’s not Julian.

It’s a room in a home, waiting for its current inhabitant to move on to whatever comes next before it can be filled once more with a newcomer preparing for their last days to be spent in that same room, sleeping in that same bed.

I wonder how many occupants that bed has had since being here …

I can’t help but feel sad at the thought of a lifetime of living being whittled down to this.

‘Here’s what I wanted to show you,’ Julian says, grabbing something from his bedside table and holding it out for us to look at. ‘A picture of my Flo. My girl.’