8
James
‘This is a bit of a change of tune isn’t it, love? Last time I spoke to you, you didn’t even want to leave your room and now look at you.’
I smile at the lady with the clipboard standing next to the coach that is going to take some of the residents to the Botanical Gardens in Birmingham. I hope my smile will be enough so that she will stop talking to me and let me just get on the bus.
‘Well, whatever changed your mind, you really are in for a treat,’ says the lady with the clipboard. ‘The Botanical Gardens are an absolute delight. You’re going to love them. Actually, if you’re interested in plants, you might like to know that we’ve got a gardening club. It’s every Wednesday morning in the rear gardens straight after breakfast. A lovely man called Nigel runs it – he works at the garden centre up the road – his uncle is a resident here. He’s ever such an interesting chap. I can put your name down if you like.’
‘Okay,’ I say, even though I am not even a little bit interested in gardening, ‘I will come to your gardening club. Can I get on the coach now?’
The lady with the clipboard laughs as if I have made a joke. ‘Of course, love,’ she says, ‘be my guest.’
The reason I want to get on the coach quickly is because I want to get a seat next to Danny Allen.
If I get a seat next to Danny Allen, I can ask him why he is telling people that he does not know me when he does.
I know that since The Incident my memory does not always work like it should.
I know that sometimes I forget what I am saying or someone’s name or what the right word for something is.
I know that in the past I have even forgotten to turn off the grill when I was cooking bacon for a sandwich and nearly burned down the house.
I suppose what I am trying to say is that I know that sometimes I make mistakes and get confused and muddled up. But I am not muddled up about Danny Allen.
The Danny Allen who works here at Four Oaks is the same one I went to school with. I told Martha this on the phone when she called on the night Danny Allen said he did not know me.
‘Danny Allen from your year at school is at Four Oaks?’ she asked, sounding very surprised. Even though Martha went to King’s Scrivener Girls’ School, she knew who Danny was because the girls’ school and the boys’ school used to do lots of activities together.
‘Yes, Danny Allen from my school. And he is pretending not to know me.’
‘Hold on, you’re telling me that Danny Allen from your year at KS is a resident at Four Oaks?’
‘No,’ I said, wishing she were here with me so I could explain things properly.
‘Is he a doctor?’
‘No, he’s one of the carers here.’
Martha laughed like I had just made a joke, even though I had not. ‘Sweetie, you must be mistaken. You must have him mixed up with someone who looks like him. The Danny Allen we knew at school is most likely stuck in a lab somewhere creating a cure for cancer or writing speeches for the prime minister or doing whatever it is you do when you’re someone like that. Come on, James, you remember what Danny was like, he was brilliant just like you. Chances are, this guy you’re talking about is just someone who looks a lot like him.’
This made me really annoyed because I knew I had not made a mistake. I told her about how I had said, ‘Sic parvis magna,’ to him and I felt sure that he had understood it but all she said was, ‘Well, if he’s there next time I visit, point him out so I can say hello because as I remember, he was quite the dish.’ She said it in a way that meant she was joking, which made me feel like not talking any more. It also made me want to prove to her that she was the one that was wrong, not me. That is why when I saw Danny’s name on the list as one of the carers going on the trip to the Botanical Gardens in Birmingham, I decided I would go too. I would go on the trip, sit next to Danny Allen on the coach and make him tell me why he was pretending not to know me. And then when he tells me, I will tell Martha and she will have to say sorry for making me feel like my head is not working.
Because the lady with the clipboard has talked to me for so long, lots of the other residents have been able to get on the coach before me. So when she finally lets me go, I push in front of a young man with a bald head and scramble up the steps on to the coach. The bald-headed man swears at me and tells me to wait my turn. I ignore him. Being in front of him means that at least he will not be sitting next to Danny Allen, so he can swear all he likes.
I spot Danny at the back of the coach, sitting in a window seat. It is good news. The space next to him is empty. But before I can get there, a man with a big ginger beard stands up and takes the seat next to Danny.
‘You’re all right, you are,’ he says in a booming voice as he puts an arm around Danny’s shoulders. ‘I like you the best out of all of them.’
Because of the man with the big ginger beard, I have no choice but to sit down next to a young woman in a purple bobble hat. She smiles at me and holds out her hand. ‘Hello,’ she says, squinting her eyes as if she is really concentrating, ‘my name is Vicky.’
I do not say anything to the young woman in the purple bobble hat. Instead I smile politely and then try and forget all about her while I keep an eye on Danny Allen.
The young woman in the purple bobble hat makes forgetting all about her very difficult because she keeps asking me questions.
She asks me what my name is, and how long I have been at Four Oaks, and if I have ever been to the Botanical Gardens before. And because I am concentrating on spying on Danny Allen, I keep my answers short. I say, ‘James,’ ‘One and a half weeks,’ and, ‘No.’ I have a lot of problems with that last answer because the truth is I cannot actually remember if I have been there before – I might have because it sounds exactly like the sort of place my parents would enjoy visiting – but since that would need me to say more than a couple of words, I just say no.
The young woman in the purple bobble hat stops talking to me after I say, ‘No.’ Instead she takes out a pack of Polos from her jacket pocket and pops one into her mouth without offering me one. Soon I can smell her minty breath in the air and it makes me wish I had some Polos of my own.
When we arrive at the Botanical Gardens, the lady with the clipboard stands up and says, ‘Right, ladies and gents, it’s just after eleven. If you’re able, please make your way off the coach and follow any staff member towards the reception.’ The man with the ginger beard who took my seat next to Danny has been talking to him nonstop the entire journey. I cannot tell if Danny Allen has been bored by what the man with the ginger beard has been saying but I know I definitely have been because nothing he says makes any sense. It is all … what is that word when people do not make any sense? I cannot remember right now but anyway, he is that.
We wait a long time in the reception at the Botanical Gardens because some people need the loo. Danny and some of the other carers have to go and help them. They are gone for quite a while. In the end the lady with the clipboard has to send a carer with blond hair to find out if they need help. When the carer with the blond hair comes back with the others, she is really pink in the face.
Next the lady with the clipboard says, ‘It’s eleven thirty now, let’s all try to stick together but if for any reason we do split up, let’s meet for lunch by the bandstand at one.’ Danny is pushing an elderly lady in a wheelchair while the man with the ginger beard talks to him. The elderly lady is not saying anything. I’m not sure she is even awake. We walk along the corridor to a set of double doors. There is a sign above the doors that says, ‘Hot House’. The lady with the clipboard opens the door to let us all through. I feel a gust of warm, wet air on my face and that is when I remember that I have been here before.