“They’re just volunteers.”
Gethin is shaking his head. “Never run a project on volunteers. It’s bad business. You pay them, then you can rely on them.”
“What about Mrs Jenkins and Cynthia?” a man I don’t know asks.
“We’re not inviting them.” Gethin snaps back. “It’s bad enough we have to look at them all day here.”
“They won’t agree,” the man explains.
The lady with the short sliver hair stands up and starts counting heads around the room. “I’d say we’re between ten and fifteen per cent of the residents. That gives us a stronger voice. She won’t want us complaining to her managers.”
“The managers will side with her. They don’t care and they won’t want to lose the profit they make on the side.” The same man argues back. And I rather agree with him.
“Don’t write to the managers,” Shirley now says, looking like she’s just had a bright idea. “We write directly to the governors of Cotes Care Homes. I have a list of them somewhere. One is a vicar, and one is a consultant. We have a fair case. They won’t want to look like they’re exploiting us.”
DeNiro adds, “And send a copy to the local papers. That will force their hands.”
Raff and I look at each other across the room; he has the same baffled expression that must be on my face.
These people!
They might be elderly, some of them might be disabled or even sick, but, my God, when they pool their knowledge and experience, they are a formidable force.
“The only question.” Bill turns to me. “Will you do it?”
“I have to ask Evan Kendric. It’s his house.” Now that this is becoming a serious set up and they want to pay, I don’t need them to pay me but maybe the volunteers should be paid if this is going to become a regular thing.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Thursday 6th December Kendric House
Evan and Haneen not only agree without question, they also help. Evan tasks Ricky with looking up health and safety arrangements. Haneen co-opts Meredith and Rhian to help me.
No money, though. The teenagers will earn credits towards their own projects.
Meredith, not really a teenager, more like early twenties, is hoping to become a caterer. That’s why she’s excited to come shopping with me; one day, she hopes to be promoted to deputy manager in Haneen’s takeaway shopGift for Gravy. With her local knowledge, she charms the baker into delivering the bread we want, three times a week. Then she takes me to a dairy farm where we get fresh butter, goat’s cheese, and eggs.
That afternoon, it’s an even bigger success. Eighteen people gather round the table to eat drink and tell stories.
The following Saturday it’s twenty-four.
This time Alex and the professor offer a show. They rig up a projector to show slides of one of the murals which is being restored. It shows a beautiful woman in a long blue dress ridinga horse with a man on one knee before her offering a rose. According to the professor’s research, it’s an old Welsh legend about the unrequited love of an ancient poet.
“This is the story of Hywel ap Einion Llygliw,” the professor explains. “This humble man was also a romantic poet. His dreams went far beyond the borders of his poverty and simple life. He dreamed of better things, of beauty and joy and of being rich. Sadly, for Hywel ap Einion Llygliw, his dreams turned to pain. One day, he happened to see a lady who made his dreams of beauty seem plain by comparison. Lady Myfanwy. Never before had he seen a woman so exquisitely beautiful, her walk so graceful, her clothes so elegant.”
A move across the table draws my attention to Raff. When he catches my eyes, he gives me a surreptitious wink.
I glare at him for this cheeky reference to my so-called beauty.
“Seeing Myfanwy fired his imagination,” the professor continues. “It lit his heart. What was a romantic to do in the face of such a vision? He instantly fell in love with her.”
The professor really has a way with a lecture. For a split second, I wonder about how he, once a nineteen-year-old student, fell in love with my mother. But then…
“But Myfanwy was a rich lady. She was the daughter of a Welsh nobleman.”
I keep my eyes fixed on the slide in case Raff is going to mime something about me being the daughter of the professor. My father certainly knows how to hold an audience. Everyone is hanging on his every word.
“Hywel was far beneath her, so she turned him down. He wasn’t defeated. He was too much in love to give up. He was a believer in the adage, if at first, you don’t succeed…” The professor pauses waiting for his audience to complete the line.
