Pine Cones and Other Short Stories

By Mary Brooks

Another entertaining selection of short stories by author Mary Brooks.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Oct 13, 2015
• ISBN: 9781514441282

Book preview

Copyright © 2015 by Mary Brooks.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 10/06/2015

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Contents

The Bethany Bake-Off

Budapest

Bulls

Bullying

The Burglary

Camping

Fish Soup

Heroin

Music of the Night

No Entry

Off Course

Old Wives’ Tales

Pine Cones

Princess Leia

Purple

The Sergeant Major

Success

Terry

The Highlight

The Passport

The Writer

Thespian Friends

The Bethany Bake-Off

W e have to eat every cake, pie, and scone. We have to search the rubbish bins, wash all the dishes, and check the sink, leftover jam and cream, and jars of jam and icing.

What a mess!

You are exhausted, aren’t you? And the day now has two essential aims—to find the best cook and to find the earring.

You are the matron of Bethany Lodge, a closed nursing home for ladies with dementia. Some are still functioning fairly well, and this includes Suzanne and Peach. Suzanne’s dementia takes the form of loss of short-term memory and her inability to find her way around in the outside world, plus she has no family with whom she can live. Unfortunately, she has lost the urge to eat and seems to have no taste sensation, so food has no appeal to her, however handsomely it is presented. The cook does his best. Her one friend brings cheeses and chocolates, which used to be Suzanne’s favourites, but you are so worried about Suzanne’s weight loss that you get the staff to ensure she drinks some protein-reinforced milkshakes daily to maintain her strength.

Suzanne can recite poetry, especially Shakespeare, and can explain the details of her family tree back to the convicts. When Letitia visits, when she can, you often find them discussing a book Suzanne once read or find Suzanne talking with disdain about the crazy antics of other residents. But you know Suzanne will never manage to survive on the outside.

Letitia’s job takes her away for a month at a time, travelling to real estate conferences overseas and interstate. But you know she visits Suzanne whenever she can. She is Suzanne’s closest friend when growing up. Suzanne’s other friends don’t visit any more. Suzanne never misses any of them because she forgets what happened this morning and confabulates to make up a supposed memory. She forgets you told her about the bake-off.

Of all the residents, she probably has the best chance of winning because she remembers all her old recipes and how to cook. You know you’ll have to watch her carefully because she will forget to check the oven once the cake is in it and forget to turn it off later. Letitia is coming too, and you know she is bringing the chocolate icing and coconut. Bethany is supplying the flour, milk, eggs, and margarine and is making recipes available to the carers.

‘Can I bake a cake?’ asks Suzanne after having been told about the bake-off several times over the preceding weeks and even this morning. You tell her yes and give her a recipe for a simple butter cake, and you tell her Letitia is bringing the icing.

Peach is fifty-four and rather young to have dementia. Her husband, Fred, and eldest daughter, Sybil, are coming to help her; Peach forgets how to cook and needs a lot of help. Sybil will guide her through each stage of making pumpkin scones, and her husband has brought the mashed pumpkin for his wife’s favourite recipe. The three of them will make a formidable entry in the scone section.

‘Hello, Fred and Sybil,’ you say. ‘Peach is wandering around the garden. She has forgotten you are coming and thinks it is time for church. Good luck with the competition.’

You are aware Peach is quite agitated today, and Fred and Sybil will have their work cut out to keep her in the kitchen. You see Sybil helping her mother stir and knead the scone mixture as though Sybil were the mother and Peach were a young daughter. Fred gently directs her back to the kitchen when she wanders off, trying to find the church.

Your favourite oldie is Muriel, now eighty-one and always smiling blankly. Very few of the residents smile. Muriel always expects her mother to come and take her home from school. She happily tells this to everyone who will listen, and she sits expectantly by the window most of the day.

You have chosen the early afternoon for the bake-off because many of the residents get irritable and more confused around dinner time and you have to have extra staff then to cope with them.

Muriel’s sister is seventy-five and still very lively and intelligent, and she is helping Muriel bake cupcakes. Muriel is making butterfly cakes—cupcakes with the top scooped out, cream filling the hollow, and the top cut in two and placed in the cream-like butterfly wings.

There are three categories in the competition—cakes, pies, and scones. Six staff members and eight family members and friends are helping the eight residents with the cooking. You have made it clear that it doesn’t matter how much each resident contributes but it is preferable if the helper involves them as much as possible. There are six ovens.

You are wandering around, supervising, when one of the nurses notices that you have lost an earring.

‘Oh my goodness, it could be anywhere. Please help me find it,’ you announce to all the staff and visitors. ‘It was my twenty-first birthday present from my parents.’

It becomes necessary for all the staff to search the residents’ aprons and pockets. A sparkling diamond will draw their attention to it, and it is no use asking them. You personally check all the rubbish bins, and now the entries are in the oven.

You and one of the staff members begin checking any leftover dough or half-empty packets of sultanas or jars of jam. You both supervise all the washing up and search the sinks.

There is only one conclusion—the ring has been baked in one of the cakes.

Although you are worried about it, you have to make sure all the residents are cleaned up and seated, waiting for the entries in the competition to finish