TWO WOMEN STOOD outside in the shadow of the overhang from the walkway above, for Mrs Davies lived on the ground floor of a block of council flats; a mixed blessing, for although it meant she had no stairs to cope with and need never worry whether the lift had been put out of order yet again, she was a sitting target for hit-and-run bell-ringers, letterbox rattlers, window-bangers and dog dirt. And worse. So far she had been lucky, but she knew better than not to keep her door on the chain.
The older of the two women spoke: ‘Good afternoon, dear.’
‘Yes?’
‘We’re from the Social Services.’
‘Yes?’
‘May we come in for a moment?’ She was a pleasant-spoken woman in late middle-age, carrying an official-looking briefcase as well as a handbag, from which she produced a plastic-covered card with her picture on it. She showed this to Mrs Davies, who could just make out the likeness in the bad light of the overhang and through the narrow opening of the door.
‘Just a minute, just a minute.’ Flustered, she closed the door and slipped off the chain, then opened it again. ‘The Social Services, is it? What do they want?’
‘Nothing to worry about, dear. In fact, quite the reverse. Good news, we think you’ll find.’
‘Good news? Is it me allowances?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Well, you’d better come in.’
‘Thank you.’ Smiling, the woman stepped inside. Mrs Davies made her way back into the sitting room, where Radio 2 still sniggered away in its corner. The two women followed her, the second much younger than the first, a pallid girl with long brown hair reminiscent of the late John Lennon’s, and carrying a zipped-up tote bag.
The older woman said, ‘This is my colleague, Mary. I’m Mrs Black from the DHSS, group OAP B22 – that’s a special group you won’t have had dealings with before, which is why we’re here. May we sit down?’
Mrs Davies dropped into her own chair and the others sat on the hard chairs by the table. Radio 2’s announcer said it was three o’clock.
Mrs Black looked round the room. ‘What a nice place you have here. Really cosy. Have you been here long?’
‘Since they was built. He had his disability, see, from the war. We was one of the first.’
‘You must have seen some changes.’
‘Changes? You wouldn’t believe! When me and Mr Davies moved in there wasn’t a tree nor a blade of grass. All builders’ rubble it was and the plaster hardly dried out. Still, we was glad to get here. Bombed out me and the boy was, while my hubby was serving. In the Middle East, he was, Alamein, all that, Italy. Then right at the end he got his disability. Crossing the Rhine, that was. Months he was in hospital. He never got over it, not really.’
‘Is this him?’ Mrs Black rose and picked up a photograph frame from the mantelpiece. A bright, terrier-faced man with a forage cap acutely angled over large ears looked back at her.
Mrs Davies eased forward in her chair. ‘That’s right. And that’s the boy.’ She pointed to another frame from which much the same terrier face regarded her, but bare-headed.
‘He’s like his dad.’ She replaced the picture.
‘They all say that. I never saw it myself.’
‘Does he live nearby?’
‘No. Wolverhampton. He’s in electricals, married with three kiddies. There’s pictures in me bedroom.’
‘I’d love to see them. Mary, would you … that’s if you don’t mind, Mrs …?’ She rustled apologetically among the papers in the briefcase.
‘Davies, dear, Mrs Annie Davies.’
‘Of course. Here we are.’ She drew an official-looking form from the folder.
‘You go and get them, dear – in me bedroom, by me bed.’
Mary got up and went out of the room.
‘So you’re all alone now?’ Mrs Black sighed. ‘It’s hard, isn’t it. I’m a widow myself, twelve years it is now. You never get used to it. Still, I expect you’ve plenty of friends, living here so long.’
‘I did have. But most of them’s passed away. They’re a funny lot live here now, not like the old days. Then it was all neighbourly, help each other out, now most of them wouldn’t hardly give you the time of day. All sorts, we’ve got now. I never go out after dark, specially wintertime. Keep me door locked.’
‘Very wise, dear. It’s only common sense these days.’
Mary came back with the photographs. Mrs Black studied them, smiling. ‘Oh very nice, dear – what a lovely family! The little girl’s the image of you, isn’t she, and what lovely hair. You must be proud. I expect they visit you, do they?’
Mrs Davies’s faded eyes filled and a tear or two rolled slowly into the pouches beneath. ‘Easter two years ago, it was. He can’t spare the time, and now with the price of petrol … He writes, though. He always writes for me birthday, sends me a card. I’ve kept them all, they’re in that old toffee tin, dear, if you’d like to see.’
Mary got up again and brought the tin, and they studied the cards and the old snapshots and the bunch of squashed artificial flowers from the hat Mrs Davies had worn for the boy’s wedding and the In Memoriam notices she’d put in the local newspaper each year for a time after Mr Davies passed away and the brooch her Gran had left her and a pair of shoe buckles she didn’t know where they’d come from but they were pretty, with sparkling stones, although no one wore things like that nowadays.
‘You could get a few bob for those, dear,’ said Mrs Black, turning them to and fro so that their paste caught the light.
‘I dare say. But I’d not want to sell them, not just for a pound or two. It wouldn’t be right.’
‘Well, that reminds me.’ Mrs Black put them back in the toffee tin and shut the lid briskly. ‘We mustn’t waste any more of your time, Mrs Davies dear. And we’ve other calls to make. Let’s get down to business.’
Mrs Davies looked apprehensive.
‘Now I told you it was good news, didn’t I? I just need you to fill me in with a few details. Let’s see …’ She opened the briefcase and spread the papers it held over the table. ‘Now you’re in receipt of the ordinary retirement pension, right? And supplementary, right? To the sum of – how much?’ Mrs Davies told her. ‘Right. Now because of your husband’s disability it seems they’ve been underpaying you since six months after he passed away.’
Mrs Davies gaped.
‘Yes, dear. You wouldn’t credit it, would you, all those hundreds of clerks and files and computers and I don’t know what-all, and they can make a mistake like that. Now he passed away when?’
‘1976 it was, October. He was in hospital from the March.’
She consulted the documents. ‘That’s right. October. So it’s due from April 1977. That’s ten years due, Mrs Davies.’
‘Well I never!’
Mrs Black beamed. ‘I told you, didn’t I? It’s ever so nice when we’re able to bring good news like that. People think the poor old DHSS is just for probing into people’s business and hasn’t got no heart, but I tell you, dear, we do care, especially workers like me and Mary in OAP B22. It’s a specially caring department, isn’t it, Mary?’
Mary spoke for the first time. ‘That’s right.’
‘I wonder.’ Mrs Black paused. ‘I wonder if we could celebrate with a cup of tea? To tell you the truth, I’m parched.’
Mrs Davies surged in her chair but Mrs Black laid a hand on her arm. ‘No, you stay right there, dear, don’t you stir. Mary’ll make it, won’t you, Mary, if you just tell her where everything is. The kitchen’s through there?’
‘It’s in a bit of a pickle. I wasn’t expecting … The tea’s in the caddy on the shelf, the Coronation caddy … the sugar, the milk …’
‘She’ll find them. You just sit and let us give you a treat.’
‘You’re ever so kind …’
‘My pleasure,’ said Mary and went out to the kitchen.
While she was gone Mrs Black encouraged Mrs Davies to talk about her life. She knew from many years’ experience that if old people had not withdrawn into a carapace of silence, as some did, then their prime need was to talk, to reach back into the past when everyone was alive and kicking, and relive in speech the days when their bodies were vigorous, fulfilling all demands,...
