One Hundred Names (Special Edition)

years. She’s a great woman. A bunch of selfish good-for-nothings her children turned out to be. To hear them talk you’d think they think they’re royalty. Far from how they were reared, I’ll tell you that. She had a fall is all,’ she said angrily. ‘She tripped. Who doesn’t take a tumble now and then? But oh no, it was off to the nursing home for poor Birdie just so that lot could sell that house and spend the money on another skiing holiday.’ She grumbled to herself, her mouth moving up and down angrily, her false teeth sloshing around inside.
    ‘Do you know which nursing home she’s in?’
    ‘St Margaret’s in Oldtown,’ she said, sounding angry at the whole of Oldtown.
    ‘Have you visited her?’
    ‘Me? No. The furthest I can get is the shop at the end of the road and then I have to figure out how to get back,’ she laughed, a wheezy sound that resulted in a cough.
    ‘Do you think she’d see me?’
    Agnes looked at her then. ‘I know your face.’
    ‘Yes,’ Kitty said, not proudly this time.
    ‘You did the show about the tea.’
    ‘Yes, I did,’ Kitty brightened up.
    ‘I drink Barry’s,’ she said. ‘So did my mother. And her mother.’
    Kitty nodded solemnly. ‘A good choice, I believe.’
    Agnes’s eyes narrowed as she made a decision. ‘Tell her Agnes said you were all right. And that I was asking after her. We go way back, me and her.’ She looked off into the distance again, reflective. ‘You can tell her I’m still here.’
    When Kitty was leaving, the door next to Agnes’s opened again and four kids came firing out as if from a cannon, their mother quickly following to shout her orders. Agnes called out, ‘And tell her they cut her rose bush down. Butchered it, they did.’
    Mary threw Agnes a look of absolute loathing and Kitty smiled and lifted her hand in a farewell. En route to her next destination, Kitty looked at the two names she had visited that day. Sarah McGowan and Bridget Murphy.
    Story theory: people who have had to move home against their will?
    That was definitely a theme she could relate to. Her and Colin Maguire.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    Due to a very limited bus service to Oldtown, Kitty had no choice but to get a taxi and with a driver hailing from the opposite side of the county, a fact he pointed out many times, they had to stop three times for directions as they drove down a series of country lanes that seemed to get ever narrower. In the heart of the countryside they finally reached St Margaret’s, a 1970s bungalow that had been extended on all sides to meet its new requirements as a nursing home. The south-facing conservatory to the right was set as a dining room, an extension to the left and then further to the back filled with couches and armchairs. The gardens were extensively landscaped, with benches placed all around and colourful hanging baskets hung from the sides of the house. If she ever saw her again, Kitty would be sure to tell Agnes that her friend Bridget was in a good place. It was 7 p.m., only thirty minutes of visiting time remaining, and having not had the greatest luck so far with hunting down her subjects, Kitty was really hoping Bridget would agree to see her.
    She asked at the desk for Bridget Murphy and waited while a stern-faced nurse, her hair in a severe bun, checked the visitors’ book. Kitty squirmed as she watched her, trying to figure out how to tell her she wasn’t expected and figure out her best way of manipulating the situation. To her right was the common room, busy with visitors, and on-going chess games. A middle-aged woman with dreadlocks was in the centre of the floor forcing three old men, one using a walking frame, another wearing hearing aids in both ears, to play Simon Says.
    ‘No, Wally!’ she screeched with laughter. ‘I didn’t say “Simon Says”!’
    The old man with the hearing aids looked confused.
    ‘You have to sit down now, you’re out of the game. You’re out of the game!’ she shouted even louder.
    She abandoned the two remaining men standing with their hands on their heads and came to the common room door. ‘Molly,’ she called, looking Kitty up and down as though surveying the competition, ‘where is Birdie?’
    ‘She’s having a lie-down,’ a young nurse with blue hair and blue nail varnish responded in a bored tone, without looking up from a chart.
    ‘Should I go to her room?’ dreadlocked woman asked. ‘I’ve brought my angel cards I was telling her about.’
    Molly