Welcome to part four! Sorry for being MIA – what can I say! Enjoy xoxox
—
The grounds of Corvid House look like it always does, except for the new addition of Ella who always arrives before me and waits by the entrance to greet me with that killer smile of hers. Sometimes it takes me all my effort not to run up the path, moth to a flame.
“Beautiful day!” she looks up at the sky.
“It is. Shall we?” I open the door and let her through first. We walk in sync.
“Well, this is my last day shadowing. Time flies when you’re having fun.”
“I can’t believe you find this fun.”
“Well, it’s fun with you.”
On Sunday evening, after my last shift of the week, Ella invites me out for a drink before we parted ways. I usually say no to such offers, but I find myself accepting which surprises me. She instructs me to meet her in a dive bar tucked away out of sight just off the high street which turns out to be as grubby as anticipated with dark interiors and a befittingly unwelcoming atmosphere. The floors are sticky, and the walls bear ripped flyers and graffiti containing foul language. I feel all eyes burning into me as I walk onwards through the room to where Ella sits. My instinct is to leave, and then she looks up at me and the room suddenly seems brighter.
The first thing I notice is how nice she looks with her hair down. Usually in a tight bun, her hair flows like honey past her delicate shoulders. I want to reach out and touch it.
Ella grins her white perfect teeth, “Violet! My favourite co-worker and flower. I’m glad you came. Drink?”
I nod; my mouth suddenly dry as she orders two glasses of red wine.
“You don’t speak much.” She takes a sip, savouring it on her lips and staining them like a red rose in bloom. “I’ve been with you all week, but I feel like I still know nothing about you.”
“I’m not big on small talk.” I hope I haven’t read Ella wrong. I have no intentions of swapping asinine gossip like we’re at some kind of slumber party.
“Me neither. So tell me something real. Why do you work the job you do? It’s not easy, and it’s definitely not lucrative.”
I shrug, “because I care about people.”
“Yeah? And you want to make a difference to people’s lives?”
“Something like that.” The wine snakes down my body leaving a warming trail, “I do what I can.”
“You do plenty. This week for example, you have gone above and beyond.”
“It’s nothing, really.”
“I mean it. Someday I aspire to do what you do. All of it.”
Ella looks at me as if there is no one else in the room. I feel a sudden desire for her approval that surprises and startles me. I’m not typically someone who cares about the opinions of other people, let alone near strangers.
“I’m no martyr. My clients enrich my life too, more than they will ever know.”
“You’re too humble. I see you, Vi. Even if no one else does.”
—
It doesn’t take long to become fond of Cathy. I try to find the good in all of my clients but inevitably some are more favourable than others. Most of my clients are on death’s door or thereabouts, but Cathy seems very much alive to me. She exudes joie de vivre which I admire greatly. She isn’t full of self-pity and bitterness, despite her circumstances. Perhaps one day this could be me.
“You seem different lately,” Cathy tells me as I water her many plants that fill the apartment. She was a keen gardener in her prime, as well as a poet and activist and a number of other things. I discover some small new detail about Cathy with every visit as if I am unlocking a new chapter of her life each time. It’s as if she has lived a hundred lives. Some people barely live once.
“Different?” I ask whilst spritzing a Golden Pathos that is quickly spreading along the kitchen countertop like wildfire. It fills me with pride to have played a part of its growth, and what a novelty to experience new life in a job like this.
It is only 8am but Cathy has already washed, dressed, and made herself breakfast of poached egg atop wholewheat toast with salt and cracked black pepper. She nurtures herself as much as her plants. On bad days her knees make it impossible, but on good days she can take tasks slow and steady. Today is a good day.
“Yes.” She smiles from behind the book she’s reading, “You seem happier. You’re absolutely glowing, my dear.”
“I just like being here. You’ve made a lovely home in such a short time.”
But I am only partially telling the truth. I make Cathy a pot of tea while she enjoys Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman before leaving the grounds of Corvid House for the time being. I would be back at lunch, but until then, I am needed somewhere else.
—
Ella lives in a bedsit on the bad side of town. On the street outside with its graffiti and abandoned shopping trolley, I look around before slipping through the front door into the lobby and tiptoeing quickly up the stairs to the second floor, flat 2b. The hallway has a distinctive smell of urine and marijuana and somewhere in the building a child cries, and a father shouts, and a dog barks. Ordinarily I wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like this, but Ella isn’t ordinary.
I give one firm knock followed by three small ones in quick succession. Ella doesn’t usually answer her door, so we decided on a knock pattern that she could recognise as mine. I count ten seconds before the door open slightly and there she is: bed-headed and sleepy. Serene. Beautiful.
She smiles and it’s like the sun peeping from behind a cloud, bathing me with warmth and light, “Morning, angel.”
“I brought coffee.”
“Get in here, you.”
She smiles and holds out her hand for mine before pulling me in and closing the door behind us. In that moment, we are the only people in the entire world and nothing else matters.
A lot has happened since that first drink with Ella, even though it has only been a few weeks. In a way it feels like a lifetime ago and I can barely remember life without her. I don’t know how it happened but that night I walked her home and I found myself making inane small talk outside under a street light because I didn’t want the night to end and her to leave. I suddenly understood why people spoke about the weather like it was important. My chest burned partially with three glasses of red wine but also with lust, not that I realised it at the time, having never before experienced either. And then, unable to escape the inevitable, I said goodnight. And she said goodnight. We were both close then, smiling like idiots, neither of us wanting to move, and suddenly we were kissing, hands exploring each other’s bodies. We stayed as one all the way up the grimy stairs and into her room. I didn’t emerge until two days later, when I had to go back to work.
Ten minutes later, I sink into Ella’s embrace, gasping for air, heart pounding. I feel her breath on my neck and taste her on my lips. When I look up, she’s smiling her perfect white teeth.
“What?” I want to know what’s on her mind. Every single thought, big and small. I want to devour her whole, body and mind and soul.
“You just make me happy. No, but I mean it. You make me feel more alive than ever. It’s like, together, we are invincible.”
“I think so, too.”
Ella sighs contentedly. “Did you say something about coffee?”
“Yes, here,” I lean over and grab two coffees in a cardboard holder from the dresser, handing one to her. “I’m afraid it will be lukewarm by now.”
Ella takes a sip, and I watch coffee glisten on her lips, wishing I could lick it off. “It’s perfect. Thank you, angel.”
We spend another hour in bed in perfect, comfortable silence, lying skin to skin, limbs intertwined, fingers laced together. I could still hear Ella’s words buzzing in my brain. Alive. Invincible. I have never experienced such a connection with anybody, and the feeling is intoxicating. But I’m not just attracted to Ella, I care about her deeply. She is like no one else. I am certain I could live a hundred lives and never meet another Ella.
I check the time and with a heavy heart spring out of bed, pulling on my underwear before scrambling into my trousers which I uncharacteristically left in a heap on the floor and now they are crumpled. I brush them down, but it’s no use. It will serve as a pleasant reminder, at least.
Ella pouts, her arms stretching out in my direction, “No, please, stay.”
I avoid reaching out to her, instead strapping on my bra and zipping up my work tunic. “I can’t, I have to get back to Cathy. I wish I didn’t have to, but I must. Can I see you tomorrow?”
“I’d love that, but I’m working.”
“The perils of being co-workers; we are rarely off at the same time.”
“But we wouldn’t have met otherwise.”
“That’s true.”
I slip on my shoes and kiss her on the mouth. How easy it would be to climb back into bed and forget all about Cathy and absolutely everything.
“See you soon.”
“I hope so.”
From the doorway, I steal one final glance of Ella in bed. She resembles a siren on a rock, naked from the waist up with her perfect breasts exposed and collarbones smiling from under her golden hair that fell in soft waves, luring me in.
A week later I enter Cathy’s apartment like any other work morning and the place is dark and silent. I called out, but no answer comes. It is unusual, but I figure she must be having a bad day, possibly the wet weather had aggravated her knees again. I hated to think of her in pain.
Wanting Cathy to sleep in as long as possible, I go into the living room and open the curtains to let the light in before waking her. I also water her plants, straighten up the pile of books beside her arm chair and plump up its cushion.
In the kitchen, I add a drop of vinegar to a pan of water and bring it to a simmer on the stove before stirring to create a gentle whirlpool and slowly tipping the egg into its centre. While that cooks, I pop two slices of wholewheat bread in the toaster and switch the kettle on to make a pot of tea. The eggs come out perfect and I sit them atop hot buttered toast while the tea brews. Proud of my efforts, I can’t wait to see her face upon receiving them.
With nothing else to do and no more time to spare, I creep towards Cathy’s bedroom. I would take as much care as possible to help her get ready for the day and then settled into her favourite chair with a pile of books and favourite breakfast. Hopefully it will make a bad day just that little bit better. It is the little things like this that bring me the most satisfaction in my job. Making a difference matters.
Inside the bedroom, Cathy is sleeping on her side facing away from the door. I can only see her outline silhouetted the darkness under a blanket and a puff of white hair resting on the pillow. The air is stale and carries a slightly sour smell, but it’s nothing that opening a few windows couldn’t fix. I make a mental note to give the place a quick clean around once Cathy is settled in the living room.
“Good morning, Cathy. How are you feeling? How are your knees?”
A morning person, Cathy is usually up before I arrive and so I have little experience of waking her up, but something doesn’t seem right. I decide I will check her log book later to see if night’s care staff have written anything of note. Perhaps they gave her an extra pain killer or something to help her sleep.
Reaching Cathy’s bedside, I gently shake her bony shoulder with a careful hand, but she feels stiff and cold to touch. My entire body tenses and I hold my breath.
“Cathy?”
I know before I see her face, but it still comes as a shock. When I roll Cathy back, I gasped at the sight of her – eyes slightly open but only the whites exposed, jaw slack, skin sallow and strangely wrinkle-free.
“Oh, Cathy.”
My body feels frozen, my mind blank. I let in the police and the undertakers, as is protocol, and let them do their jobs while I sit in Cathy’s armchair flicking through Leaves of Grass but unable to take in a single word. She has finished it before as the pages are annotated until the very end in what I recognise as her handwriting, but she would never finish it again. I put it in my bag when no one is looking and wish I had room to fit in all house plants, too. What would become of them? Would they wither and die without my love and care? The thought alone upset me almost as much as the loss of Cathy.
Bored-looking undertakers carry Cathy’s veiled body out of the apartment without fuss or feeling, and white-hot rage builds up inside of me; a sense of disloyalty in letting strangers take her away. I tell the police I will lock up and sort everything else and they leave without so much as offering condolences. It’s just another call out for them, and they looked entirely disinterested in staying any longer than necessary. I’m sure they expected me to feel similar and go about my day like business as usual, but I wanted to scream in their faces. Did nobody care anymore?
I fill out Cathy’s log book with impotent rage. What was the point? What did filling out a stupid log book matter? I couldn’t stand the idea of Cathy’s wonderful life previously filled with plants and poetry and passion reduced to boring administration tasks. Her possessions would be scavenged by family for the best bits like vultures picking at a carcass, and the rest ditched at a charity shop, no doubt. A gust of wind from no discernible source rushes through me to my bones and I suddenly have a strange feeling that I’m not alone in this apartment. And yet, I feel calm. Comfortable. In good company.
When my mother died, I suppose my father or maternal grandmother organised the paperwork and made arrangements for her possessions. I hadn’t considered such issues at the time, being too young and too wrapped up in my own selfish grief. I wasn’t given a keepsake except a clean bill of health for a good while, which was better than any material object. But now I have this overwhelming idea that fragments of my mother are still everywhere. In used books on new shelves, vintage dresses in new wardrobes, old letters stuffed in drawers, and also within me. I live and breathe her. Does anyone truly die? Not if they were loved in life. I keep my mother alive. I will keep Cathy alive, too.
Before leaving, I pour away the tea which had developed a skin and scrape the eggs into the bin, watching their swollen bellies burst open and guts spill out as they hit the bottom. A needless death. A waste of sustenance.
Kate Armitage 
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