Flying Under Bridges (13 page)

‘I hope
so.’

‘Yes,
but you see…

Fact
—
during the 1970s and 1980s, industrialised countries
experienced unexpectedly large declines in mortality among the elderly,
resulting in larger-than-projected numbers of the very old. In the United
States, the so-called frail elderly group, aged 85 years and older, increased
nearly fourfold between 1950 and 1980, from 590,000 to 2,461,000. Given the
high incidence of health problems among the very old, such increases have
important implications for the organisation and financing of health care.

‘Our
budget is very limited…’

Fact
—
the elderly now constitute the largest single client group
using personal social services worldwide. In all advanced industrial societies,
the proportion of infirm elderly is on the increase and, although they
constitute only a small minority of the retired population, their claim on
social services is disproportionately heavy.

‘Obviously
we want to help but we have very limited resources. Does your mother have any
money?’

‘No.’

‘None
at all?’

‘None.
It’s all been rather sudden. My father… no, none.’

‘It’s
just that there isn’t a vacancy in the local council homes at the moment. Maybe
in three or four months—’

‘Three
or four months? Look, my mother worked all her life, I mean, not in a job as
such but—’

‘Mrs
Marshall. Let me explain to you that half of all personal social service
expenditure in this county is spent on the elderly. We are doing the best we
can but the numbers just keep going up. There are too many frail old people and
not enough places.’

Fact
—
improvements in health care are reflected by the increase in
longevity for people in England. Life expectancy increased from 68 years in
1961 to 71.8 years in 1985 for males, and from 73.9 years to 77.7 years for
females.

The
young man warmed to his theme. He had obviously done his homework. A social
degree in getting old and getting stuffed. ‘I suppose it’s a sign of society
doing well, isn’t it? People living so long. Did you know that in ancient Rome
and medieval Europe the average life span is estimated to have been between
twenty and thirty years? Life expectancy today has expanded in historically
unprecedented proportions. The chances of surviving to be over sixty-five are
quite staggering.’

‘What’s
the point if you’ve got nowhere to go?’

‘Of
course, if you could go privately…’

It was
money. It was all about money. ‘How much are we talking about?’ I asked.

‘Minimum
— three hundred and fifty pounds a week, all-in. It’s very nice. They have
regular meals, get their laundry done, bit of entertainment…

‘That’s
a lot.’

The
young man was running out of steam. ‘Chiropody…’ he faltered as we said
goodbye. I went back to Mother’s bedside.

The
nurse was nice. She sat stroking Mother’s face.

‘Shame,’
she said. ‘All that experience in there. All that life. Will she be going home
with you?’

‘I don’t
know. I mean, I wanted to…’

‘I
know. People don’t any more. Everything’s changed.’ She leant down to the bed
and spoke to my sleeping mother. ‘What happened to the family, eh, Lillian?’

The
nurse went home. She went home without Mother and felt fine. I sat beside my
old mum and looked at her. Martha had sent fruit, so I cut open an apple.
Before I ate it, I examined the thing all over. A miracle. I realised I was
looking for a miracle. And that’s what you can do, Inge. That’s the choice. You
can sit and wait for a miracle or you can get up and do something by yourself.
It was all I was reduced to.

Tell
Shirley I love her. Tell her I’m sorry. Tell her I am trying.

Love,
Eve

Chapter
Eight

Two very funny removal men
arrived early on the Saturday morning of Inge’s move and managed to be funny
all day long. Every time Inge came into the room, one of them would start a
mock racing commentary.

‘And
Inge Holbrook is coming up on the outside. She’s looking good, carrying a
small packing case…

Or if
one of them lifted something particularly heavy, the other would present him
with a medal that was accepted with a thick Russian accent.

‘Comrades,
I am proud to be a member of de Russian vomen’s team. I tank god for vodka,
vomen and steroids. Tank you, tank you.

Hilarious.
Inge smiled and smiled. They played shot-put with the tea bags, relay races
with the sugar spoon. Not for one minute did they just let her be a woman who
was simply moving house. They couldn’t seem to forget who she was or get used
to her presence in the room. She let ride the jokes, she even let ride hearing
one of them on the mobile telling someone to ‘guess where he was’ and she let
ride how long it all took. By the time the men left, Inge, friend of the
people, was exhausted and the flat was empty. Her home had been packed and
taken away and Inge was afraid. She looked at the large, empty loft, all set
for the next
professional couple.
For people on the up, people with
careers, places to go, people to see.

Inge checked
her watch. There wasn’t much time before the truck would be heading off for
Edenford. She shook herself into action. There was no point in getting
sentimental. She was doing the right thing. Kate was sitting on a folding
chair, waiting in the hall. She had a compact camera in her hand.

‘Come
on, grumpy, smile!’ she commanded, as Inge appeared in the doorway. Inge
grinned as Kate flashed a quick snap.

‘Do you
have to immortalise everything?’ Inge enquired.

‘Absolutely.’

‘Do you
know what this move has cost in shifting photo albums alone? Thank God we never
had children.’ Inge gently put her hand under Kate’s shoulder and helped her to
her feet. Kate rose slowly and reached out to stroke Inge’s face.

‘Your
children would have been beautiful.’ The two women smiled at each other. ‘You’ll
be glad of them. The albums.’

Inge
felt the tears rise behind her eyes but she wouldn’t let them flow. ‘Yes, yes I
will. Now come on, you old camera bag.’

Edenford
lay about an hour south of London if you put your foot down, but Inge took her
time. Kate slept as they drove and she didn’t want to disturb her. Kate the
lovely, Kate the cursed, secret Kate. Truth be told Kate was perhaps not the
prettiest woman in the world. She carried the light tan colour of her Caribbean
roots, with dark, curly hair and deep, brown eyes. Nearly fifty, her face was a
little too lined and perhaps a little too round for real beauty. Inge tried to
remember what it was she liked about her. Why she was turning her life
upside-down for her. It was something indefinable. Kate was a person so filled
to the core with life that it made everyone who met her feel good about
themselves. That was her skill. Making others feel worth something. When anyone
spoke to her, she would concentrate so fiercely on what they were saying that
for a short while the speaker would believe their own significance. She gave
Inge significance. It was a great gift.

A tone
deaf version of the ‘William Tell Overture’ began bleating from Inge’s mobile.
Her stomach tensed for no reason. It was ridiculous. Inge grabbed the phone off
the dashboard.

‘Hello?’

‘Darling,
it’s Barry. Well, tell him I’m not accepting that. Unless we get the extra
thousand he can forget it.’

Inge
waited. She had had this call almost every day of her professional life. Barry
Trancher, her agent, would call her and then carry on the rest of his business
as if he hadn’t. He always spoke partly to her and partly to anyone who
happened to be in the room with him. It had taken some time to get used to.

‘Hello,
Barry.’

‘Where
are you, darling? I can never find you. You must tell me where you are,’ his
slightly high-pitched voice whined at her.

‘I’m
moving, remember?’

‘Of
course you are. Helen, send Inge flowers … don’t know… moving sort of
flowers.., no, not emotional ones … what the fuck is an emotional flower?
Moving… you know… house … flowers. Honestly, you can’t get the staff.
Moving, that’s lovely. Now, I’ve had a call from contracts at the BBC about the
new project—’

‘Don’t
even go there.’

‘Darling,
I have to. I know it’s the business side of things and you hate that but—’

Inge
laughed. ‘No, Barry, that’s the name of the show.’

Barry
coughed and moved on. ‘Well, obviously I know that. Now, we can go one of two
ways with this. We can go for the kind of all-in contract you’ve had before,
you know, you work for the Beeb, they pay you, you do whatever they ask or…
well, tell him I’ll call him back. I don’t care if he is in sodding
Marrakesh… or we can go contract by contract. Now because this is a game
show—’

‘Sorry,
Barry,’ Inge interrupted. ‘Game show? I thought it was a documentary?’

‘Doco?
No, no, it’s a game show.., with the…’ Inge could hear Barry desperately
rummaging through paperwork in order to remember. ‘… kids … that’s it…
kids.’

‘What
kids?’

Barry
tried to be calm. He had clearly thought this was going to be a quick call. ‘The
ones, Inge, who are going to take part.’

‘I’m
sorry. I was told it was a documentary with members of the public getting fit.’

‘No,
no, that’d never work. No, it’s a game show where teams of the public and/or
celebs watch kids trying adult sports and guess which one will win. You do
interviews with the kids and they say cute things, but if they get a bit
cheeky, you say—’

‘Don’t
even go there.’ Inge had had enough. ‘Barry, this is ridiculous.’

‘Please,
I haven’t even done the money yet. Coffee, where the hell is my coffee?’

Inge
waited for Barry’s coffee. ‘Not the money. The show. All they have is a title.
They don’t actually have anything to broadcast. I’m not a bloody comedian. I
can’t afford to—’

‘You
can’t afford not to do anything. Inge, I deal with this night and day. You have
to understand that things have changed. I have clients, established clients,
who can’t even get their calls returned. Just let me get you signed up and we’ll
worry about what you’re making later when you’re actually making it. Well, what’s
he doing in Marrakesh? Sweetie, I’ll call you back.’ Inge’s phone went dead.

‘What
shall I do, Kate?’ she said out loud.

‘Quit
and have a life,’ replied Kate from behind her closed eyes.

‘I
thought you were asleep.’

‘No, I
merely lie dormant waiting to plague you.’

‘Good.’

Inge
and Kate drove on to their new life and a silver Volkswagen Golf followed close
behind.

Edenford
was almost certainly unprepared for its new inhabitants. Of course it was
generally known that TV’s Inge Holbrook had grown up there, but no one had ever
imagined she would come back. It wasn’t that sort of place. Throughout recorded
time in the town, anyone who had gone off and ‘done something in history’ had
done so without ever finding the need to return. The town had done its bit over
the years. In the old people’s day centre, down by the river, the fading ladies
and men would often gather over a Peek Frean and mutter, ‘The town never really
recovered from the war. We gave then. Those fine young men who marched up the
High Street. Not one of them ever returned.’

Strictly
speaking this was true. One hundred and thirty-four men were listed on the War
Memorial as having the excuse of death for staying in France after the great
conflict of
1939—45,
but the fact was that a hundred and thirty-nine
Edenfordians had originally joined up. No one ever mentioned what happened to
detain the other five.

The
town was perched on a large, cobbled hill above the banks of the River Eden. It
boasted a decent theatre, a leisure centre, a celebrated golf course, the
largest Conservative Association membership in the south-east and more estate
agents than a brief glance at the population might suggest was sustainable.

Inge’s
parents had bought their house when they got married. It had cost £3,000 and
was considered expensive. Built in the 1850s, it had a doll’s house look about
it. Square front, door in the middle and high sash windows on either side on
two floors. A white picket fence enclosed the front garden, which was a mass of
country flowers. Lavender, hollyhocks and wild poppies vied for space and made
any reckonings on the central sundial an impossibility. It was not a place to
keep time but to let it flow gently past. Inge had been happy here as a child
and she hoped to feel safe coming home.