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‘When? I need date.’ Hanna blocked the doorway, preventing him from evading her questions.
To the left of the lobby, the dining room was laid out ready for lunch. Each table was set with proper cutlery, linen napkins and vases of fresh flowers. No matter how bad things had got, the staff team hadn’t let the residents suffer, and that just made him feel even guiltier. He really needed to do something – he just didn’t know what.
‘I honestly don’t know,’ he said, with a shrug. There wasn’t any point in lying to her. ‘I’m struggling to find a solicitor to help me with the case.’
‘Not good enough. You have money, yes?’ She looked him up and down, assessing his branded clothing. Hugo Boss polo shirt, Nike cargo trousers and top-end trainers. ‘You footballer. You earn big salary. You pay staff.’
The sinking feeling that had haunted him since his diagnosis in June returned. Everything tightened within him – his stomach, his brain, his throat – and he had to fight back the emotion threatening to surface.
Maybe it would be easier if his body ached or flinched with pain occasionally. If his precision when striking the ball wasn’t so effortless, it might soften the blow of losing his career. In twelve years of playing professional football, he’d never suffered from repeated injuries like some of his teammates. He’d trained eight hours a day, six days a week, enduring cardio sessions, strengthening exercises, shooting drills and hours of practising free kicks, and his body had never once let him down.
And then, out of the blue, the GPS vest they wore during training to monitor heart rates and recovery times had flagged up an irregularity. Further investigations had resulted in a diagnosis of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy – HCM, as it was more commonly known. A condition that thickens the walls of the heart muscle and can affect the heart’s electrical system.
Whether he was born with it or it had developed with age, the doctors couldn’t tell him. The only thing they could be certainabout was that his career was over. Extreme exercise could cause his heart to stop at any moment and result in sudden death, and that wasn’t a risk that the club or the Football Association was willing to accept. So, despite never having had any symptoms, or even a twinge in his chest, his dream was over. Just like that. And he had no idea how to deal with it.
‘I’m no longer a footballer,’ he said, swallowing back the pain in his throat. Even saying the words aloud hurt. ‘I’m unemployed.’
And it wasn’t just professionally that he’d been sidelined. Prior to his diagnosis, Ainsley had been the perfect girlfriend, loving and loyal. Post-diagnosis, she’d become ‘unsatisfied with where the relationship was heading’, which had been news to him. He hadn’t wanted to believe that the change in her feelings was linked to his career ending, but it was hard not to draw that conclusion, especially as she was now dating one of his teammates.
Hanna gave him a disdainful look. ‘You tell me you have no savings?’
He was embarrassed by the line of questioning. ‘Not enough to cover the salaries of the entire staff team and ongoing expenses of running a business, no.’
He’d stopped any unnecessary spending the moment he’d been forced to retire. He’d never been stupid with money; he’d always kept within his means, but that was a moot point when faced with someone who hadn’t been paid for five months and whose annual salary was less than he’d earned in a week as a footballer. She had every right to be fed up.
If he’d known that his career would be cut short, he’d have made different decisions. As it was, he’d invested most of his earnings, just like the financial adviser had told him to. He’d bought a house in Leeds, bought shares in various companies and paid heavily into a pension scheme, knowing his retirementwould come earlier than in most professions. He just hadn’t anticipated it being at the age of twenty-nine.
Much to the horror of the financial adviser, he’d also bought his mum a house, paid for his two younger siblings to attend university and bought them flats to help them get ahead in life. These didn’t constitute ‘sound financial decisions’ apparently. It was ‘lost money’. But maybe if the bloke had experienced the upbringing Calvin had, he might think differently. His dad had left when he was eight – disappearing back to Jamaica – forcing his mum to work several jobs to put food on the table. If it hadn’t been for Granny Esme and Great-uncle Bert stepping in to help when things got really bad, life would have been a lot worse. There was no way his conscience would allow him to earn shedloads of money and not help his family out.
But just as Uncle Bert’s wealth was tied up in investments and property, so was his.
‘How you expect us to pay bills?’ Hanna wasn’t letting him off the hook.
He frowned. ‘I thought you lived at the care home?’
‘Me live here, yes. Natalie, too. We get fed, we not live in gutter. But you think we don’t have bills? Natalie have baby, she use food bank for nappies and clothing.’
His stomach dipped. Natalie was the other nurse and she worked nights; she was also trying to support a nine-month-old baby single-handedly. ‘I didn’t realise Natalie was using a food bank,’ he said, ashamed to be standing there in his expensive clothing when one of the nurses was reliant on handouts. He knew first-hand what it was like to rely on charity, and it wasn’t a good feeling. ‘I’ll get her the stuff she needs for the baby.’
‘What about other stuff?’
There was more?He might as well hear the worst of it. ‘What else is on your list?’
Hanna read through the items. ‘We have no maintenance person to fix broken things. No admin person to run place. No activity coordinator to keep residents happy. And CQC rating is poor. If no better by January, place get closed down.’ She made a slicing motion across her neck. ‘Dead in water. What happen to residents then?’
He didn’t like to point out that the place might have to close anyway, regardless of another inspection. There were only three options available to him. Sell the business. Liquidate it. Or take over running the place – something he had absolutely no intention of doing, even though his uncle had presented it as an option in his will. Calvin was utterly bemused as to why his uncle thought he had the right skill set to run a care home. He didn’t have the aptitude, abilities or experience. All he knew how to do was kick a bloody football. But he didn’t feel it would be helpful to enlighten Hanna about the precariousness of the care home’s future. Not yet, anyway.
Until yesterday, he’d never heard of a CQC rating. He now understood it to stand for Care Quality Commission, an assessment of the care-home standards. Standards they were failing to meet, putting the residents at risk, which was adding to his feelings of inadequacy.
‘And we have no hairdresser or chiropodist,’ Hanna continued, shaking the list at him. ‘They not get paid, so won’t come. Residents begin to look like werewolf. Long hairs and nails.’ She made a claw with her hand. ‘Residents also need physio. We have bedbound patient, Priya. Priya need physio to stop bedsores.’
He rubbed his forehead, desperately trying to calculate how much he had in savings. Was it enough to pay for physio visits? If not, he’d have to cash in one of his investments; he couldn’t let the situation continue. ‘I’ll sort something out, Hanna. I promise.’
‘Good. And soon. Situation not acceptable.’ She took a step closer and pinned him with her heavily kohled eyes. ‘And we need two more nurses.’ She gave him the V sign, emphasising the need for two extra people, but there was no mistaking the intention behind her rude gesture: she was making a point. ‘Two. Okay? No cover for sickness.’
And with that she marched off, leaving him feeling like he was standing on the brow of theTitanic, watching his life sink into the icy-cold Atlantic below.
He’d thought his life couldn’t get any worse.
