Life was good. Dorothy and I danced the days away. I had enough money to party without worrying about the wolf at the door. And, Dorothy… well, Dorothy was Dorothy. I’ve never known another woman like her. To say that she followed my lead wouldn’t be accurate; she was miles ahead. We joined everything; Dorothy even joined the local women’s football club. And she was good. I can’t remember seeing a better player.
And don’t get the wrong idea about Dorothy: she was pretty. So pretty that I was the envy of the neighbourhood. Would Dorothy like to come to this? Would Dorothy like to come to that? Well, she always would, but I always came too. Dorothy only wanted to go if I went, even if it was to cheer from the sidelines.
And, although I don’t like to make a big thing of it, I was handsome in a rugged sort of way – and I liked the girls (my word, how I did), but why should I look further than my Dorothy? And why should she look further than me? Exactly: we were happy, fulfilled and, although I’m repeating myself, life was good. Edmund and Dorothy Goodchild were envied the town over. You’d expect that, wouldn’t you?
**********
We admitted Dorothy Goodchild in December, just before Christmas. It was really sad, a time of revelry – but it wasn’t a happy time for Dorothy or for her husband. I gather she’d always been the belle of the ball. But, now, she wasn’t. You could tell she had been a great beauty, but now, she was very pale. And she stared straight ahead of her. And she rarely spoke, mostly nodded or shook her head. Just that staring, washed-out face; it was unnerving, really, but I never thought that she suffered. Her husband suffered more. If you asked her about the ‘good times’ – that’s how her husband referred to them – she’d smile but never speak about them. Yes, her calm, lifeless beauty seemed as if it were a mask fitted on the wrong face. It was more appropriate to a dancing queen – which she had been.
She came to Old Lodge Nursing Home in December, as I said. I don’t know what caused the stroke. Some people bounce back from a stroke – my father did. Dorothy didn’t. She spoke, when she did, from the side of her mouth and her face slanted sort of sideways.
But Edmund’s love for her shone through. The other guests of the home loved him. He would come in every day as if they would never be separated – and perhaps they never will. Of course, he could never look after her at home, but he seemed to be separated from her only at night. Perhaps it would have been nice if they could have had a room together. But he was hardly a suitable person for a nursing home, even if his wife was.
Edmund was a popular visitor in more than one way. He was very good-looking. My word, some of our guests couldn’t take their eyes off him, the female ones that is. But everyone admired his devotion; they thought he could hardly have had any life of his own. I mean, what did he do when he got home? Make himself some tea – baked beans or boiled eggs would have been about the limit, I guess, and he always had his lunch in the home. He ate well.
He was often in the kitchen. He shouldn’t have been of course, but no one felt they wanted to tell him that. I remember he advised them what would be best for his wife. Surprisingly, the cooks didn’t seem to mind that, but he did it so politely. He was quick to tell them they knew their job and he was just a troublemaker. He wasn’t, and they didn’t think he was. As I say no one took exception.
I remember one girl – a very pretty girl – that he always spoke to. She was actually one of the nursing staff, but she had heard that Dorothy liked scones. Apparently, her sister had made them for her – and they were special ones. He told the girl how to make them. His sister-in-law had told him.
And the girl was frequently with Dorothy, and she gave her the scones she had made. She made them nearly every day. But, funnily enough, I never saw Dorothy eating them. But then I had other guests to look after; I couldn’t be around Dorothy all the time. I saw Edmund eating them; yes, I did, several times. Anyway, who cares about the scones?
Dorothy began to go out in her wheelchair. That was a good sign: well, Edmund took her out, and the girl who made scones went with them. What a rock he was for Dorothy. Although she did not show much pleasure in the “walks”, well, in anything really.
The other guests were really concerned for him. Well, maybe they just loved Edmund and didn’t think he had much of a life. Which, he didn’t of course.
**********
I know they think I am a vegetable, that I don’t think, speak – or dream. But I do. Very definitely, I do all those things. I wake up in the morning, knowing that Edmund will arrive and I… well, I think, this is another day without promise, without a future for me.
I do remember our wonderful days together, at a time when he was everything to me when I was everything to him. It was because we meant everything to each other that life meant so much. Now, it seems, he continues to mean a great deal to those around him – to the guests and to the pretty girl who makes him scones – yes, I don’t deceive myself that she makes them for me.
But he does not arrive with delight, seeing me as his morning awakening. How could he, and how could I blame him for that? I am not what I was – and he is the same to others. But to me he is just always there, always at my side. It is almost as if (this sounds terrible I know) he would make me happier by leaving me alone for a while. Perhaps for a long while. It would disappoint all those in the home, including the nurses and, of course, the guests as they are called. And I know he is sacrificing his life for me. But…’
**********
The days became longer and stretched as if all were one long day for Edmund – coming in, sometimes, as early as seven o’clock in the morning, when he would get breakfast cooked by the kitchen staff. And, when Dorothy was made ready, he took her out, increasingly with the girl nurse who admired him as much as anybody – more perhaps. Maybe the relief of having someone to talk to relieve his burden of an unresponsive wife, although he never showed any signs of that burden. He just chatted, very friendly, to the girl and continued to live his sterile existence.
Well, that was until the day the nursing home experienced the only major event since my husband and I had taken it over.
They had come back from their walk and the girl had gone off to make scones – and I noticed she had made some other cakes – perhaps to whet Dorothy’s appetite. I don’t know whether it did or not but that wasn’t the important matter. What caused such anxiety – and horrified me – was that Edmund looked very pale. Very poorly.
I hadn’t paid them much attention until Dorothy slumped back in her chair – and Edmund grasped his throat. Our medical staff rushed to them. But Dorothy just looked asleep. Edmund was clearly very sick indeed.
**********
‘Why didn’t he listen? Perhaps he hadn’t put his hearing aids in. He was so careless about that, and I kept telling him he would get something wrong as a result.
I watched it all; well, of course I did. My future life depended on it. I liked Edmund, but even more, I liked the idea of a comfortable life with someone who was obviously very fond of me… I couldn’t help feeling that he was sick of coming in every day. I wondered if he did it to see me. Of course, he couldn’t make that obvious.
And now? Well, the scones and cakes that were to provide me with a future husband had deprived me of one. And Dorothy? I don’t think she even ate one, although she put on one of her usual dying swan acts. I hadn’t wanted it to appear that Edmund and I were becoming close – although we were – but I had clearly told him not to eat any of the scones or cakes that day.
If it had been Dorothy, no one would have worried too much. No great investigation would have been made – it all would have been put down to her weak heart. That was what I was relying on anyway.
‘But, in my final days at the nursing home – there weren’t many before they took me away – Dorothy seemed a new person. She even began to walk unaided. And I heard that she was thinking of leaving the nursing home and going back to the home she had shared with Edmund. Without Edmund it would have been a colourless place. But, maybe Dorothy had changed the way she thought about her husband – although that wasn’t justified. His devotion was genuine. Why should he not enjoy the company of a pretty girl who apparently adored him. Because I am pretty, and many men would have loved to marry me.
But I won’t be when I get out of this hole.
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