It is September 2039 and the residents’ lounge of the AFCB Sunset Retirement Home is nearly full as tea time approaches.
Most of the residents are dressed in beige cardigans, save for Table in his customary Hawaiian shirt and Al Gard who is sat in the corner in his seafarer’s duffle coat. The lounge itself is bright and sunny although there are some red stains on many of the chairs and there is a faint smell of urine.
The garden too presents a mixed picture: the lawn is pristine but at the far end there is only a tatty garden shed with empty borders on either side. Redhouse and Derek are standing by the window.
“Do you ever think they will knock down that old shed, fill in the corners and build a summerhouse?” Redhouse asks.
Derek sighs deeply and says “The only way to build a summerhouse is if it is economically viable. The commercial reality is that you need multiple student units to pay for it and they don’t want to be living next to an old people’s home”. At which several residents pitch in to say that they’d love a new summerhouse prompting to Derek to repeat his point over and over again.
Rob Trent diplomatically tries to change the subject: “The tea trolley is late. I wonder what the problem is?”
“Hrmm” says Neil Dawson “I’ll tell you what the trouble is. Training, that’s what the trouble is. They may have built that new Catering College out at Canford but while you’ve still got people’s mates working there you’ll never achieve anything.”
“… return on capital …” says Derek “…new ideas…” says Neil “… multi-occupancy 365 day use..” says Derek “…emotional intelligence…” says Neil. Ken Bailey’s Ghost held his head in his hands, it was going to be a long afternoon.
At that point the sound of the tea trolley came from the corridor. The minority who were still able to hear it held their breaths. For, truth to tell, the afternoon tea trolley had been a constant problem since that nice boy Marc left. How he had made them smile going round and round in circles with the trolley! After him came Junior, also nice, but always going off sick. Then there was that nice little boy Ryan who had been so good until he started going for job interviews at other homes and seemed to lose interest. Last week came the final straw when Jordon crashed the tea trolley into a door.
Fortunately the trolley arrived without incident and after the normal scrummage they all settled down quietly to drink their tea and eat their cake. All except Al Gard that is, who had pulled a bottle of red wine out of his duffle coat and was rather noisily slurping it out of his saucer, spilling some on his chair all the while.
After the tea and cake the residents settled back in their chairs. With alarm, Wallmouth noticed that David Whitehead had a dreamy expression on his face and his right arm was twitching. Wallmouth knew the signs. David was about to play air guitar then launch into his anecdote about how he met David Bowie. After that they would all be at it, talking about sharing taxis with Debbie Harry or helping Madness find their way across the Glen Fern Road car park. It would never end.
Desperate to change the topic, Wallmouth cleared his voice and said: “you know, sometimes I think was better here when the home belonged to Mr Mitchell”. At first this drew an angry response from Al Gard but after a while the red wine took over and he fell asleep. Others were more measured.
“He had a terrible temper on him” said Corfe Red. Remember the time when Fritter said he thought the scones were undercooked? “Undercooked?” Mr Mitchell screamed “Well if you don’t like them you can feck off up the road to the Shangri La retirement home and cook them yourself”.
“Well we did have some nice trips with him” someone else said “remember the time he took us to that place in Southampton by the river with the statue of that old gentleman with the short legs?”
“Well I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life” someone replied “the way that Mr Mitchell took us out the back door and bundled us onto the coach before driving away quickly. It was as if we hadn’t paid for our cream teas”.
The room fell silent again. Billy the Kid, who hated silence more than anything except liver, chipped in:
“So do you think the government will have sorted Brexit out by Christmas?”