Twenty-three minutes after I’d posted my introduction to Oakmere Lodge, I discovered the principal disadvantage of social media: people could read it.
For the first ten minutes, nothing happened, and I watched the screen with the mild disappointment familiar to anyone who’s posted something they consider amusing, only to discover that the rest of humanity has more pressing concerns.
Then Lorna liked it. Lorna likes almost everything I put on Facebook. I once posted a photograph of a parking ticket, intending to send it to my son Gareth but pressed the wrong button. Lorna liked that as well.
And a minute later, somebody called Susan Wilkes added a laughing face. I didn't know Susan Wilkes, but Facebook assured me we had three mutual friends, which seemed sufficient evidence that she existed.
Then another reaction appeared, then another. Then my phone vibrated.
Gareth had sent me a message.
“What have you done?”
I considered this unnecessarily dramatic. I had written about a care home, not invaded Poland, but before I could answer, another notification appeared. Lorna, my distant wife, had commented beneath the post.
“You made it sound as though the motorbike knocked my leg off. It didn't. They removed it in hospital three days later.”
Of all the things I had written about my wife, apparently this was the one requiring public correction. I typed:
“I'll issue a correction.”
Three dots appeared immediately.
“Don't be sarcastic!”
Thirty-seven years of marriage has taught me that sarcasm doesn’t require the participation of both parties. I put the phone down, but it vibrated again.
This time someone had shared the post. I picked it up to look, and then came another share, then a comment from a woman whose profile photograph showed her holding a small dog.
“My mum is at Oakmere. This is hilarious.”
Underneath, somebody had asked:
“Is Halfway Arthur the man in the brown cardigan?”
I stopped smiling. There are moments when an amusing idea begins to reveal administrative consequences. This was one of them.
I was searching to see whether Facebook had a button marked "I didn't think this through" when somebody knocked on my door. It was not the polite double tap used by Shanice when she came to check something, nor the uncertain scratching sometimes produced by residents who had reached my door without necessarily intending to; they were three firm knocks.
A pause. Then three more.
I knew who it was before I opened it.
Val stood in the corridor, with Jean beside her. Val held her phone in both hands. Jean held nothing, which somehow made her more threatening.
“I've seen it.”
“Good morning, Val.”
“Don't good-morning me.”
Jean looked at me.
I withdrew the good morning.
Val raised her phone until the screen was inches from my face, my words staring back at me.
“Moaning Val.”
She’d enlarged them.
“I can explain…”
“I'd like to hear that.”
This was unfortunate because I’d only said it to gain time.
Val stepped past me into the room, with Jean following at a more measured pace and sitting in my spare chair.
I remained standing.
My room isn’t large. It contains a bed, a wardrobe, the small desk from which I had apparently launched a community crisis, two chairs and a television I rarely watch. With Val in the middle of it and Jean occupying the chair nearest the door, it suddenly seemed much smaller.
Val began by objecting to the word moaning. She did this for several minutes and with enough supporting evidence to undermine her case.
I allowed her to continue until eventually she reached the real grievance. “You wrote more about Doreen.”
I’d prepared myself for accusations of cruelty, invasion of privacy and possibly defamation.
I hadn’t prepared for a word count.
“Did I?”
“Four paragraphs.”
“I didn't count them.”
“I did.”
Of course she had. According to Val, I’d mentioned Doreen's coffee, blood pressure, red mug, conversation with the lift operator and views on Wagon Wheels. Val, despite having lived at Oakmere for six years and eleven months, had received only her chair, a draught, an incident involving custard and a complaint about Mr Patel's sarcasm. She regarded this as editorial bias.
I glanced towards Jean for assistance. Jean raised one eyebrow. It was not assistance.
“You could add something,” Val said.
“What?”
“I don't know. You're supposed to be the writer.”
Before I could answer, a voice travelled along Willow Walk.
“I don't mind Decaf. I just think it sounds a bit boring.”
Doreen hadn’t yet reached my door, and by the time she appeared, three other doors had opened behind her and Arthur was standing in the corridor holding one slipper, although whether this had anything to do with Facebook was impossible to determine.
Doreen carried her red mug. She entered my room, saw Val and stopped.
“Oh. You're here.”
“I live here.”
“Not in Colin's room.”
Doreen sat on the edge of my bed.
Nobody asked me.
It became apparent that she had already discussed her nickname with several residents and concluded that Decaf Doreen posed insufficient danger. She had alternatives: Dangerous Doreen, Daring Doreen, and, after some thought, Doreen the Destroyer.
I rejected all three.
Doreen took a drink from the red mug and accepted the decision with surprising good grace.
Val didn't. “At least he gave you four paragraphs.”
Doreen looked genuinely surprised. “Four?”
“If you count the short ones.”
Doreen smiled.
Val's morning deteriorated further.
I began to understand that the nicknames themselves were not going to be the problem. Status was.
Until that morning, Oakmere had operated according to an informal hierarchy based upon length of residence, proximity to the best chairs, success at bingo and whether Shanice remembered how you took your tea. I had accidentally introduced column inches and by half past eleven, residents were comparing them.
I escaped from my room on the excuse that I needed coffee. This was only partly true. Willow Walk had changed while I had been inside.
Two residents were looking at a phone outside the lift, while another called across to me to ask whether I was “doing everyone”. I said no, which produced visible disappointment.
Arthur had acquired his other slipper and was now moving slowly towards the lift.
“Morning, Colin.”
“Morning, Arthur.”
“Someone says I'm on the internet.”
“You are.”
He thought about this. “Why?”
“I wrote about you.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“What did I do?”
“You were standing beside the picture of the sailing boat.”
Arthur turned and looked back along the corridor as though hoping the boat might still be there.
“Was I?”
“Yes.”
He nodded. “Sounds like me.”
The lift arrived, and Arthur stepped inside.
“Where are you going?”
He looked at the buttons. “I'll know when I get there.”
The doors closed, and I walked downstairs.
The post had now travelled ahead of me.
Near reception, two members of staff stopped talking as I approached. Shanice grinned and asked whether she should start charging for interviews. In the cafeteria, I found Fred sitting at a table with a screwdriver beside his tea.
He waved me over. “Fire-Drill Fred. That's me, isn't it?”
I admitted it was.
He seemed pleased.
This was the first positive reaction I had received all morning.
Then he wanted a correction. According to Fred, only two of the three evacuations had technically been his fault. The electric blanket had belonged to Elsie Morgan, and Fred considered ownership more important than the fact that he had plugged it into an extension lead which subsequently melted.
I told him the story would remain as written.
“Fair enough.” He drank his tea. Then he asked whether I owned a smaller screwdriver.
I looked at the one on the table.
“What for?”
“Toaster.”
I left.
On the way back towards reception, Dorothy Bell intercepted me.
Dorothy was less concerned about what I had written than what I hadn't. She had been omitted entirely, and this was apparently unacceptable. Dorothy has attended almost every Oakmere funeral since she moved in. She regards this as a civic duty and can discuss the relative merits of Derby's crematoria with an authority normally associated with people who work in them. “I've been to eleven this year,” she told me.
“Why are you counting?”
“I'm not. I remember.”
“You missed Mr Pritchard.”
“I was ill.”
“Doreen said people noticed.”
Dorothy stiffened.
“I sent flowers.”
“After the funeral.”
“I was ill.”
She appeared particularly irritated by the suggestion that poor attendance at funerals might damage her reputation.
She wanted to know whether she could be in the next instalment.
I told her there might not be one.
Her expression changed. “Why not?”
“Because everybody's complaining about the first.”
“I'm not.”
“You're complaining that you're not in it.”
“That's different.”
Before I could establish how, Bernard Shaw joined us.
Bernard had heard that residents were unhappy and, as a former councillor, regarded unhappiness as a natural resource, and within minutes, had transformed my Facebook post into a constitutional issue. He believed residents had a right of reply.
I asked who had appointed him to represent them.
Bernard reminded me that he had been elected.
I reminded him that this had happened in 1998 and to a council ward which no longer existed.
He said democracy did not expire.
I pointed out that his ward had.
He called that administrative.
By then Dorothy had wandered away, presumably to find somebody more likely to put her in Part Two.
Bernard continued explaining representation until a washing machine beeped in the laundry room. He checked his watch. “I'm late for my surgery.”
That was how I escaped. By the time I reached the lift, I had learned something important. Twenty minutes earlier, several residents had wanted me to stop writing about Oakmere, but now they were worried that I might.
The lift doors opened, and Eddie reversed out on his mobility scooter. I flattened myself against the wall. He passed without acknowledging me, then stopped several yards away and turned.
“Colin.”
“Yes?”
“Someone says you've put me in the paper.”
“Facebook.”
“What?”
“Facebook.”
He cupped a hand behind his ear. “The Derby Telegraph?”
“No.”
“Good.” He drove away looking satisfied.
I didn't know what had been settled.
My phone vibrated. Another message from Gareth.
“Mum says there's a row.”
I looked around. Bernard was disappearing towards the laundry. Dorothy had cornered Shanice. Fred was walking towards the lounge with a screwdriver. Somewhere above me, Val was almost certainly counting paragraphs.
I typed:
“There isn't a row.”
Then deleted it.
At that moment, Shanice appeared. “Mr Patel wants to see you.”
There are words capable of transporting a seventy-one-year-old man straight back to school. Those were among them. I followed her to the office.
Mr Patel sat behind his desk with his computer screen turned slightly away. There were two chairs opposite him and several folders marked CONFIDENTIAL on a shelf immediately beside a wall through which I had previously heard an entire discussion about Mrs Talbot's constipation.
He gestured towards a chair. “Colin.”
“Mr Patel.”
“We need to discuss Facebook.”
I sat, and for several seconds, I allowed myself an optimistic thought. Perhaps this was it. For twelve months, I had tried to persuade Oakmere that I didn’t require twenty-four-hour care. I had passed assessments, answered questions, signed forms, and demonstrated that I could walk unaided from one end of a corridor to the other without collapsing or becoming confused about why I’d started.
None of it had worked. Perhaps publicly calling one resident Moaning Val would succeed where medical evidence had failed. I almost smiled.
Mr Patel noticed. “This isn't funny.”
My smile disappeared.
He told me that reception had received three telephone calls from relatives. One wanted to know whether her mother was Decaf Doreen.
She wasn't.
Another wanted to know whether Oakmere really had a notice about cannabis.
It did.
The third had complained about residents being mocked online. That sounded more serious.
I asked which resident.
Mr Patel looked at his notes. “Val.”
“Her daughter?”
“No. Her niece.”
That surprised me. “Val doesn't have a niece.”
“I know.”
We considered this. Oakmere occasionally produces questions which are safer left unanswered.
Mr Patel folded his hands on the desk. “However, there has been another development.”
I waited.
“Our regional office has seen your post.”
That was less encouraging. “How?”
“Someone sent it to them.”
“Who?”
“They don't know.” This was one of the more remarkable things about management. The higher it travels, the less information it appears to require.
“What do they want?”
Mr Patel hesitated. “They liked it.”
I stared at him.
He didn't look pleased. Apparently, the regional office believed my account presented Oakmere as warm, lively and full of personality.
I thought about Fred and the toaster. “That wasn't quite what I intended.”
“I gathered.”
“So, they aren't asking me to remove it?”
“No.”
“They want me to continue?”
Mr Patel sighed. “Yes.”
I had reached an age when surprises generally involve medical appointments or things arriving in brown envelopes. This was new.
Mr Patel opened a drawer and took out a blue lanyard with a plastic card attached. He placed it on the desk between us.
I looked at it. The photograph was taken when Lorna and I first arrived at Oakmere. I looked exhausted and slightly bewildered. At the time I had assumed both conditions were temporary. Underneath the photograph were the words:
COLIN BRIGGS
RESIDENT SOCIAL MEDIA AMBASSADOR
I read it twice. “What’s this?”
“A temporary initiative.”
“No.”
“You haven't heard what it involves.”
“I don't need to.”
“Regional thought it might encourage resident engagement.”
“I’ve spent twelve months trying to persuade you I shouldn't be a resident.”
“I know.”
“And you've given me a job.”
“It isn't a job.”
“It has a badge.”
“It's a lanyard.”
“That makes it worse.”
He pushed a sheet of paper across the desk. At the top were the words:
GUIDANCE FOR POSITIVE RESIDENT-LED SOCIAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENT
I didn't read further. There are documents whose titles contain enough information to make the rest unnecessary.
“You don't have to do it,” Mr Patel said.
“Good.”
“Although regional would be disappointed.”
“I'll try to live with that.”
He nodded.
I stood.
“Your post has been shared one hundred and eighty-seven times.”
I sat down.
“What?”
Mr Patel turned his monitor. The number was there. One hundred and eighty-seven. I had never knowingly produced anything that one hundred and eighty-seven people wanted to pass to somebody else. I leaned closer. Comments were still appearing beneath the post. Former staff had found it, and relatives were tagging other relatives. People with no obvious connection to Oakmere were asking for another instalment.
Someone had written:
“This is better than television.”
Another:
“My dad lives there. Please keep these coming.”
Then I saw:
“My grandmother is at Oakmere and says she knows exactly who Moaning Val is.”
I looked at Mr Patel. “Does Val know about that?”
“Not from me.”
For the first time that morning, we were in complete agreement. When I returned to Willow Walk, the corridor was quiet. Arthur was nowhere to be seen. Doreen's door was closed. No one was waiting outside mine, so I went inside and shut the door.
The sudden silence felt strange. An hour earlier, I had wanted everybody to leave me alone. Now that they had, the room seemed larger than necessary. I put the lanyard on my desk, then I moved it beside the lamp.
My phone rang: Gareth. “What have you done?”
“People keep asking me that.”
“Mum says you've upset half the building.”
“Your mother hasn't lived here for twelve months.”
“She's getting messages.”
“That's her problem.”
“She thinks it's hilarious.”
“That isn't what she told me.”
“She wouldn't.”
I looked at the lanyard.
Gareth asked how many people had read the post.
“I don't know.” This wasn't entirely true. I had checked twice since leaving Mr Patel's office.
“You sound busy,” he said.
“I am. Everybody keeps bothering me.”
He laughed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Then don't laugh.”
Another knock came at the door. I looked towards it.
Gareth heard. “See? You’re popular.”
“I'm not popular.”
“When are they letting you out?”
The question arrived without warning. I looked around my room. The bed. The desk. The wardrobe. The view across the car park. The small collection of things that had gradually stopped looking temporary. “I don't know.”
“You still want to leave?”
“Of course I do.” I answered immediately.
There was a pause, then another knock.
“I've got to go.”
“Busy?”
“Annoyed.”
“Right.”
I ended the call. The knocking came again, and when I opened the door, Val stood outside. She was carrying three sheets of lined paper.
“What now?”
“I've made some notes.”
“For what?”
“The next one.”
“There isn't going to be a next one.”
Val looked at me with the expression she usually reserved for catering decisions. “Of course there is.” She handed me the pages.
At the top of the first sheet, in large capital letters, she had written:
CORRECTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR PART TWO
Below it was a numbered list. I read the first item.
1. Doreen is not as interesting as you seem to think.
I looked at Val.
She looked at me.
Further along Willow Walk, a door opened, and Doreen's voice carried down the corridor. “Colin! Have you thought about Dangerous Doreen?”
Val closed her eyes. Behind Doreen, another voice called out that if I was doing another one, I should come and speak to Margaret because there were two sides to that engagement story. Then someone else shouted that Bernard had no right to speak for everybody. A third voice asked whether I wanted to hear what really happened at the Christmas party in 2023.
Val pushed the papers more firmly into my hand. “You'll need those.”
I stepped back into my room. On the desk, my phone vibrated with another Facebook notification. Beside it lay the blue lanyard I had absolutely no intention of wearing. I sat down, and for a few seconds, I listened to Oakmere continuing without me on the other side of the door.
Then I opened Facebook. The post had been shared again. I looked at the blank document on my screen.
Perhaps one more wouldn't hurt.
