‘It seems we’re at an impasse,’ said Carol.
‘Seems like.’
‘I wouldn’t like to be you, pet, when Janelle finds out you had a chance to get me inside the gates of Clarence Gardens and you blew it.’
Jodie sucked in a breath. ‘Carol! You wouldn’t!’
Carol laughed. ‘Now, Jodie, stop acting like the world is ending, just because I’ve asked you to be kind to someone. Go see Will this afternoon.’ She had her hand on Jodie’s again. ‘For me. Please.’
Jodie sighed. Carol had opened her home to her, fed her tea and biscuits and meat-and-three-veg dinners, and this was the one thing she’d asked in return. She put her free hand over the chasm in her chest where her heart lay bruised and inert. Something stirred there. Was it gratitude? Love for her great aunt? A death roll? She didn’t know.
Maybe it was shame. She had left an injured man to hobble off on his own.
Jodie wasn’t sure what would happen if she rejoined the world. Did stuff. Let herself be relied upon. She’d found comfort in seclusion, but maybe Carol was right. She’d grown too comfortable.
She pushed the biscuit tin away and made a decision. ‘I accept your terms,’ she said. ‘I’ll go see the publican this afternoon.’
‘That’s my girl.’
Because the threat of Janelle’s involvement was still lurking, she added, ‘But first, let’s check out this place Mum wants you to move into. Give me ten minutes to shower.’
Clarence Gardens was not awful. A modest row of self-contained villas in a reddish brick lined either side of a narrow, landscaped cul-de-sac, and where the rows met was what must have been the property’s original house, a two-storey building with a little more age on it than the villas. When they’d parked and made their way into the main building, they were welcomed by an on-site manager, who took them on a tour. In the house, they found a lounge and dining room on the ground floor set up for communal use, a library space in a nook under the stairs with a desk and computer, and a half-door to a reception area where a bell sat next to a handwritten cardRing Bell For Assistance. Upstairs were two high-care rooms, according to the paperwork Jodie had brought along with her, but Carol refused point blank to go view them.
Behind the building were raised garden beds where tomatoes and flowers were growing. Park benches sat under trees. The place reminded Jodie a little of the sort of old-fashioned boarding school she’d read books set in when she was young.
The manager, who was a gaunt fellow with a habit of rising and falling on the balls of his feet as he talked, brought their whirlwind tour to an end by inviting them to stay as long as they liked, making a long speech about means-tested care fees and government rebates, and then leaving them to it.
‘What do you think?’ Jodie said.
‘It’s all right, I suppose, for anyone who doesn’t already have a perfectly good home of their own.’
‘But no mowing, Auntie Carol. No steps to climb up and down.’
‘And how would I get to the Historical Society? To my meetings at the pub? To the bakery? On Lillypilly Street, I’m so close to everything.’
‘Don’t taxis offer special rates for seniors?’
She snorted. ‘How many taxis do you suppose there are in Clarence?’
Carol sounded irritated and a little tired. Perhaps their morning tour had been more of an emotional hurdle than Jodie had considered … ironic, since she was an expert on emotional hurdles these days.
Their pace as they returned from inspecting the garden had slowed to a moody inertia. ‘I’m struggling in this heat,’ Jodie lied. She fanned her face with the Clarence Gardens newsletter sign-on form the manager had offered to Carol, which Carol had studiously avoided taking. ‘Let’s sit inside out of the sun for a minute before we head home.’
They made their way up a short ramp that led to the back door of the house, and found the lounge and dining area they’d seen earlier. Sofas and reading chairs were arranged in groups, and a few tables were in use by the windows, with a jigsaw puzzle underway on one and a game of cards happening at another. In a homey kitchen area to the side, three women were sitting at a large old pine table with a man who had marked curvature of the spine.
‘I didn’t see an exercise area, did you, Carol?’ Jodie said, eyes on the man. Osteoporosis? Disc degeneration?
‘No idea, pet. I was too busy reading all the rules. Signs everywhere, did you notice? No parking of mobility scooters in front of the house, no dog-earing pages in the library books, no pinching of other people’s tomatoes. It’s all very draconian.’
Jodie let Carol grumble on while she considered the man. Lumbar decompression, gentle back extensions, heat application … old age was no time to be ignoring the therapeutic benefits of physica—
‘Oh, crap,’ said Carol.
Jodie looked at her, then back to the group of people in the kitchen, who were now all looking up. One of them, a tall woman who had the same masterful demeanour as Dorothy inThe Golden Girls, was waving.
‘We’re being summoned,’ Jodie said. ‘Will we pretend we’ve not seen them?’
‘Too late,’ said Carol.