Lesson 7
My boss at the hairdresser’s knows that I need money. And she knows why. Nothing sinister, I guarantee. So, I am grateful when one of her clients calls me over, when she is having her hair shampooed and set in the salon.
Mrs Y is an elderly lady, in fact she tells me she is 79, before I have even asked if I can get her a coffee. I sit beside her and she tells me that she has been delicate since the birth of her daughter, who is now 40. Complications led to her having a heart monitor fitted and part of her colon removed, and she now has a colostomy bag.
Since her husband passed away, she needs staff in her house, so that she is not in the house alone. Someone is needed every Saturday evening and to sleep over until Sunday morning. All I would need to do is to take her dog, a sweet- faced cockerpoo for a brief walk, then keep Mrs Y company and cook her some supper, before I make some cocoa and see her up to her bedroom. Then clear up in the kitchen and sleep in the bedroom next to Mrs Y.
It pays well and she mentions that Josie in the Hairdresser’s has given me a glowing recommendation. I debate for five minutes or so, then I agree to turn up at the house the next morning, (Sunday), with a view to meeting her general factotum for an interview, before starting the following Saturday at 6.30pm. When Mrs Y leaves, Josie gives me the heads up, Mrs Y is a bit spoilt, is the granddaughter of Winston Churchill and can be a real madam. Way to sell the job, Josie!
When I get home at lunchtime on that Saturday, I mention it to my other half. I have a few tears, as I am so tired and I miss being with my family already, let alone being separated from them on a Saturday evening. But my debts won’t clear themselves, even if I am doing four jobs already.
I venture up to the Manor House in Insley the next morning to meet MJ, who is a delight to talk to and who talks candidly about what a great time he and Mrs Y have. They go to Ringwood for a Chinese Buffet if he can’t be bothered to cook Sunday lunch, or they sometimes go to a local pub, or the Harbour Cliff Hotel in Highcliffe and sit and read papers from coffee time, through lunch time to evening meal or cream tea, whatever they want. It sounds like a nice life if you can get it.
He shows me around the house, especially all of the locks and bolts, explains the house alarm and how to lock the electric gates when we retire for the night. I find it hard to concentrate, because I am noticing details in all of the rooms and how 1940’s the décor is, although it is not old, but in the style of. Such a lot of Art Nouveau and delicate touches, such as the stained glass in the arch above the stairwell and the cascading arches in the master bathroom, over the huge bath, with jacuzzi jets and mood lighting.
The sun looks as if it is blessing the house, streaming through the window and catching the dust beam fingers in sparkling patterns. As all of the rooms overlook the parkland that the Manor House stands in, the scene from every window is bucolic, deer scattering as a tractor is driven across the velvet swards of grassland, cows move lazily in the fields behind the copse at the end of the pasture and the warmth of the September Sunday morning seeps through the very bricks.
Then it was out into the garden, across two of the lawns and down a path next to the prolifically flowering rose bushes. Roses of every colour and several scented ones too. Mixed with the lavender and the rosemary between the rose bushes and climbing types, entwining with the clematis and honeysuckle along the wall that acted as a background to the beautiful flower beds. And the scent is fabulous. If only it could be bottled!
We come upon a cabin, very nicely done out, with soft chairs, bookcases full of books, and a small stove and kettle.
Then we turn round to the main event – a heated swimming pool! It looks so inviting, the sun glimmering on the water and I realised then what a haven of beauty this house is. I am assured that we could make use of it, all I have to do is leave him a message on his phone or come and look in the Diary of House things. If there was nothing in there for that day, pop my name in and use it.
And so began a lovely nine months of being company for Mrs Y, a dear old lady, who had a party for her 80th birthday and then discovered she was really only 79… Marching bands, several distinguished RAF senior officers and even more retired ones came along. It seems that her husband was one of the few that we owed our victory to in the war. I saw one of his logs, the flights recorded and some of the comments, he flew in the Battle of Britain and his wife was so proud of his participation, even 60 years later.
I swam in the pool regularly with my children from September to November and then again from May to September, and I hope that it made up to my kids in some way for me not being there on a Saturday night. I learned how to make scrambled eggs and omelettes, martinis and a lot about Mrs Y. She was a published author of children’s books, particularly horse adventures. They were good too. There were first editions of them on the bookshelves in the cabin by the pool.
She and her husband went to a lot of parties with film stars before, during and after the war, David Niven once accidentally left the handbrake off and drove a staff car into the ornamental pond. Then another time, he went skinny dipping with three other actors each with a Santa Claus hat on in the middle of summer. And not on their heads. She swore me to secrecy about who the others were. Shhh
