THE TOWER ROOM
Page 2
Three weeks after her first visit to Tower House Emily moved in, thanking heaven for her comfortable index-linked pension and the nest egg the sale of her house would provide, enabling her to choose a home like Tower House, with its large airy rooms, well-tended gardens, good plentiful food and caring, well-paid staff. She shuddered, remembering the first place on her list, with its ineradicable mingled smell of stale urine and cabbage, its cramped shared rooms and the serried ranks of silent old people regimentally lining the drawing room. Nor had she been drawn to the chilly, impersonal block of flats she had inspected at the other end of town.
‘I've a lot to be thankful for,’ she reflected, looking round the charming drawing-room that first night, still savouring the well-cooked lamb chops and lemon souffle she'd had for dinner. The other residents seemed friendly and well-intentioned without being encroaching. They ranged from the frail but very alert old gentleman in a wheelchair playing a brisk game of scrabble with a plump woman who only seemed to have the use of one hand, to others, nearer Emily's own age, who looked more like well-heeled guests in a small but good hotel.
They had all welcomed her politely and she was impressed by the friendly manner in which they included her in conversation during dinner. Not dragging her into discussions about topics as yet beyond her knowledge, but tossing the odd friendly word to her so that she felt much less of a newcomer than she had anticipated.
In spite of this friendliness she sensed a kind of watchfulness about them which seemed to intensify as she stood up and announced quietly to her neighbour that she thought she would go to bed early tonight.
‘Oh… well, yes, yes of course…’ stammered Mrs. Playfair, a pleasant widow in her mid-seventies. ‘I do hope you'll sleep well.’ Her pretty face creased in a worried frown but she said no more though Emily felt her watching as she left the room.
Up in the Tower Room at last she shrugged off the momentary unease and stood at the open window, breathing in the scented night air, caressing the panelled wooden shutter with the hand of a lover. Nothing in her life had prepared her for this sensation, this whole-hearted giving of herself and to a room, of all things!
At nineteen she had thought herself in love with a young sailor called Francis, but by the time he was torpedoed in the Atlantic she had fallen out of love with him and felt a guilty relief that she need not hurt him now.
There had been a few other men over the years but no-one had stirred her senses or touched her heart enough to challenge her career and as she had never felt any maternal urge there had been no need to settle for a compromise.
She slept wonderfully and while she slept she dreamed of India, endless scorching days, colours so vivid they seared her eyes, jostling multitudes of dark-skinned people, clanging, cacophonous noise and incredible steamy smells. She was so utterly happy that when she woke she thought she must have died and her first thought was a faint trace of regret that she should lose the Tower Room so soon, then India dissolved around her and she squinted short-sightedly and recognised her grandmother's writing desk and the tower window.
Half relieved, half disappointed she lay back on her pillows and wondered. Why India? Not a place she'd ever visited, not a place she'd ever wanted to visit, come to that. No tradition of Indian service in her family either, her grandfather had been in the Boer War and her father in Flanders but otherwise there was no history of foreign travel. Apart from a couple of package tours she'd spent most of her leaves exploring Britain, efficiently "doing" Scotland, Ireland and Wales, followed by region after region of England. She had no facility with foreign languages, her work had been in statistics, and the heat made her come out in a rash. So why India, now?
One of the major delights of the Tower House residents was the luxury of early morning tea and now Emily's tray arrived brought in by Margie, the West Indian maid, peering anxiously round the door. She seemed surprised but pleased at Emily's cheerful ‘Good Morning’ and putting the tray on the bedside table, bustled about opening the curtains and plumping Emily's pillow.
‘Thank you my dear’ protested Emily, ‘That's very kind of you, but I'm not an invalid, you know.’
At breakfast her fellow guests all evinced the same rather surprised relief at her cheerful composure and she thought perhaps that other new residents went through a kind of settling-in phase, missing home, missing their families maybe. Satisfied with this explanation of a very small ripple in her new pool Emily launched herself into the life of Tower House.
