A Day in the Life

It’s nice meeting new people every day.

A girl – her name’s Dolores, they all have name badges, and my eyesight isn’t bad for eighty-eight – brings me in a cup of tea – milk, one sugar – and places it on the night table. It looks a bit weak this morning, but you can’t have everything.

We make eye contact. “How are we today, Emily?” she asks.

They often say that, and I always feel like answering, “I’m fine, but I don’t know about you.” It’s too much trouble, though, and maybe they’d misunderstand, so I content myself with a smile. She smiles back and goes out.

The tea is weak, but at least it’s hot. I finish it without spilling any in the saucer.

A bit later, someone else – or it might be the same one, I’ve forgotten her name – comes to get me up. To be honest, most of the carers in their pale blue smocks are hard for me to tell apart, with their olive skin and black hair. Once, one told me she was from the Philippines. It’s a long way to come, and I’m grateful they’ve taken the trouble.

She helps me wash and dress, which is convenient when you’re a bit stiff in the joints, then puts me in my wheelchair. I can walk after a fashion, with two sticks, but I have trouble getting up from chairs, so it’s a good solution: a pushchair for the elderly, really.

She’s picked one of my dresses at random. The clothes I brought in with me have all fallen apart by now, but a kind middle-aged lady occasionally brings around replacements.

“Do you think Emily’d like this?” she asked the carer last time, holding up a dress. “It’s about her size.”

Mauve isn’t my colour at all, but if I’d said that, I might have got something worse, so I kept quiet. Beggars can’t be choosers. Cicero, or was it Mahatma Gandhi, said that if what you plan to say doesn’t improve on silence, it’s best not to say it – or words to that effect. Profound advice: more people should follow it.

The dress must have been second hand: no price tag or label. I expect I look a fright in it, not that I ever meet anyone I need to impress.

Breakfast, delivered to our rooms, is cereal, an egg, and toast. I eat a little, but it’s hard to get excited about food when you’re my age. Then, when the girl’s collected the tray, I have time to think.

Mornings are my quality time. The carers’ rounds have finished, and I can gaze undisturbed from my French windows at the strip of garden outside. But what really interests me is closer and more personal.

Could anyone count the number of people they meet in their life? Yet they’re all there somewhere in memory, and all in their prime. Many of them had intelligent things to say, a lot more entertaining than the platitudes of my carers and the maunderings of my fellow-residents. That’s why I close my eyes and pretend to be asleep when they take me to the lounge. The TV’s always on, but the programmes are, frankly, rubbish. Occasionally, there’s a film with someone I recognize. They’d be much older now, maybe dead. I don’t pay much attention to the news, it’s too depressing.

I suppose you could say I’ve had an eventful life, not that it would make a memoir. I did well at school, but in those days, university was for the upper classes, and I worked in an office like most girls with some education.

That was how I met Roger, and wasn’t I pleased with my catch! The boss’s son and heir, ex-RAF and extraordinarily good-looking. We married in haste (not that we had to), and you know what that means. It was too bad when I found out about his drink and gambling problems, but you’d be surprised how many men do, and how carefully they cover their tracks. His father put him on a strict allowance – effectively disinherited him – and he took it badly, and...

But what on Earth is the point of raking over old troubles? We had wonderful times going to first nights and to Glyndebourne and things, dressed to the nines and mixing with the best people. Every girl should have the chance to put on a bit of a show sometime in her life. I know I loved it. That’s the kind of thing you want to remember.

My second husband was Charles, who hated to be called Charlie, and I don’t blame him. Not the flamboyant type, quite the reverse – an insurance actuary, to be precise.

I know we had children, though this is where things start to get hazy for me. I think I had two sons, but as for grandchildren – well, ask me another! It’s a pity the tradition of the family Bible, with its register of births and deaths, died out, or I could check.

A highlight was Charles’ posting to Hong Kong, before we started our family. F.I.L.T.H., as the saying goes – Failed In London, Try Hongkong – which is unkind, though certainly true as regards some of the expats we met. That’s where I learned to get along with servants, and people of other races. All you have to do is treat them as human beings. It certainly works with the carers here.

I lost Charles early, to cancer. I don’t want to dwell on that, or on the trials of bringing up a family alone, but on the bright side, once you’ve been through something like that, you can handle anything the world throws at you. And we’ll meet again, they say.

It’s strange when you think of it, but my parents are crystal clear in my memory. Mother would have been a hundred and twelve this year. I recall holidays by the sea with my brothers, or was that later, with my sons? But it really doesn’t matter; whoever I’m thinking of, I’m sure they grew up to be fine young men.

A tap on the door, and visitors are announced: an overdressed woman in her forties and a teenage boy. She calls me ‘Aunt Emily’ and talks to me about people, most of whose names don’t conjure up any associations. I nod and smile in what I hope are the right places. The boy sits hunched over, staring at his smartphone. Then they go, and I relax and let memories of the good times wash over me again.

The time must have got away on me, as they say: I’m being wheeled to the dining room for lunch. Parked at my usual table, I exchange nods with my companions. It’s peculiar how you can share a table with the same three people every day and know so little of their lives. But perhaps it doesn’t matter: we all have our memories.

The menu card is handwritten. Today it’s vegetable soup (rather watery, as it turns out), then beef casserole with mashed potatoes, the diet of the old and infirm. It comes to all of us.

The stew’s palatable but under-seasoned. I ask the waitress for some salt. An officious young woman in a dark blue uniform (it doesn’t suit her colouring, poor girl) notices.

“That’s not good for your blood pressure, Emily,” she scolds.

As if I care, at my age. I smile sweetly, and sprinkle the salt generously on my meal. She tosses her head, but what can she do? My annuity pays my bills; I’m a valued customer, and I’m always right.

Lunch over, I’m moved to the lounge, facing the big TV. I close my eyes, tune out the sound, and return to the remembrance of things past. Not that I ever read the book: far too much effort. One thing I have learned, however, is that the memory of pain is transient, but the memory of pleasure endures. Wouldn’t it be awful if it was the other way around!

A rattle of crockery heralds the afternoon tea trolley, but I don’t look up.

A voice says, “Emily?”

Another: “She’s right out of it, isn’t she?”

Cheeky monkey! I half-open my eyes: a white girl, typical. I say nothing, however; let her think what she likes.

“Would you like a chocolate biscuit, Emily?” the polite one (Margarita, her label says) asks.

Wouldn’t I just? Now I’m on the home stretch, I can afford to pamper myself a little. I take three. Miss Dietician from lunch (I remember that, now) would disapprove, but so what?

I drink the tea and nibble the biscuits, savouring each one. Then I let my mind roam again over my long life. Everyone I’ve known and loved is around me, everyone whose company I’ve enjoyed. Life is wonderful when you’re living it inside your head.