That Girl and her Fairy Godmother

urrrgh...

I asked if it would be possible to get back to the holiday park for an hour to say goodbye to all the great people I'd worked with over the summer, but sadly there was no one that could stand in for me and then it would take at least three buses to get back there. Denied the power of Facebook, I sent text messages to four of them asking that they relay my love to all the undergraduates heading back to their various universities.

This was done and many of them sent messages back asking that we stay in touch. I thought about all of those clever people and how this was just a summer job to them while I would probably do this kind of thing for the rest of my life; wouldn't be so bad.

I knew that I would miss their clever conversation, their smart humour, the new things they had introduced me to. The BBC comedies on iPlayer, the American comedies on Netflix and Prime while they scorned the soaps and reality TV that were required viewing among the Bitches. I was very conscious that my horrible lazy London accent was receding, and I was sounding so much more like them and the guests around me even.

The window rattled as Storm Albert smacked into the Kent coastline, making me feel just a bit lonelier. I finished my tea and walked towards the kitchen to put away the mug before undertaking my hourly check of the various sitting rooms before dinner was served.

I walked into the large room to find Andrea, a very sweet but occasionally overly dramatic old darling complaining of severe chest pains and it really didn't look like she was acting this time.

"Sit down for me Andrea," I said, silencing the woman and giving her the first aid 'once over' I'd been taught on the one-day course early that summer. I saw all the signs that the old lady was having or at least about to have a heart attack and pressed the panic button on my belt radio. It bleeped as I went over what they'd taught me again; chest pain, shortness of breath, dizziness, and Andrea looked really scared.

"Wassup Trace?" came to voice of the receptionist Gill.

My training all came back to me and I responded using the shorthand that I knew wouldn't panic Andrea or her friends sat around her.

"Possible AMI in West Lounge," I said with a positive lift in my voice, "I'll need the AED Gill?"

In English that was an 'acute myocardial infarction' and I needed the 'automatic electronic defibrillator'.

"I'm on my way Trace, I'll call it in."

By the time Gill arrived Andrea was lying on her back unconscious and with her blouse open as I had gone into proper first aid mode, the cracking of her ribs as I started chest compressions far worse than the teacher had described them. Gill tore open the cover of the lifesaving machine and I followed its instructions and the basic training I'd had. The paddles were attached, and I continued the CPR then once instructed by the calm, quiet, electronic mid-Atlantic voice pressed the 'shock' button and watched as Andrea almost bounced as the electricity coursed through her.

Another two members of staff had arrived, and wheeled screens were put around us as the loud, scary but equally comforting siren wail of the paramedic two-tones turned into the drive and parked outside.

The medics prepared to take over, keeping Gill and I at our posts until their much cleverer machines were attached to Andrea, who seemed to be coming back from wherever she might have gone.

"Well done Sweetie," said the first paramedic, a girl that looked only a few years older than me wearing a tight green leather motorbike suit that seemed to both announce her profession and her femininity.

"Thank you," I said as the second crew arrived and took over.

"Tell me what happened Sweetie," said the biker. I explained what I'd seen, what I'd done and the responses from the now barely conscious and confused Andrea. "Sit down Tracy," said the paramedic taking me to one side happy that our joint patient was being cared for and the wheelie stretcher prepared for her rapid move to A&E, to Accident and Emergency.

The paramedic had her notepad out and was talking when the centre manager arrived looking flushed and slightly panicked still in the clothes she had worn in the on-site gym.

"You the boss?" said the paramedic with a big smile. The manager smiled back and nodded, "excellent, you might want to consider a bit of a bonus for young Tracy here," the paramedic grinned and nodded at me now sat on the sofa where the patient had been, "she has literally brought Andrea back from the dead," she put a hand on my shoulder, "yes sweetie, Andrea has a bit of a long road to recovery but if you hadn't done what you did, she'd be leaving here in altogether different circumstances. Well done!" She beamed a grin at me and gave my shoulder a bit of a shake.

"Well done Tracy!" said the centre manager stepping across to stand next to me.

I felt slightly lightheaded now as the import of what had just been said hit me.

The manager sat next to me and put an arm around me,

"S'alright honey," said the paramedic biker, "Take a deep breath..."

I was the hero for the rest of that week, and everywhere I went I was congratulated by staff and client alike. OK, I didn't get a bonus like the paramedic had suggested but I was sent on a proper first aid course for which I received one of those upside down nurse's watches that clipped to my shirt.

The watch was the coolest bit, cooler even than the extra £28 a month I got for being first aid trained, and I wore it with way more pride than the new badge holder that announced I was a 'qualified first aider'.

Andrea's daughter came to the centre a week later and asked to see me, taking me in her arms and hugging me and weeping quietly into my shoulder until her husband lifted her away and handed over the flowers and chocolates they had brought with them. I put the flowers in the staff room and shared the chocolates with the staff and my lovely oldies.

PA to Mrs D.

As the the autumn leaves began to fall in earnest, I was called into the office on a crisp, bright but very cold morning.

"Ah Tracy," said Carol the HR manager with a smile, "I've got a very special job for you..."

"Special?"

"Special, Tracy you are one of the most natural carers I've ever met. You work the hardest and often above your pay grade and over your time, you don't grumble like the other girls, you get up to your eyeballs in the worst of it without a word and everyone loves you for it; I have a very special job with a very special guest and I know you'll do brilliantly."

And so I was introduced to Mrs Dorothy Dixon, the 95 year-old lady famed throughout the centre as being the nicest, friendliest and most canny of any of our regular visitors. She was revered not only as the lovely Mrs D but also as the World War Two veteran of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force that had served at a fighter station just down the road, through the Battle of Britain and throughout the war, and I was going to be her new personal care assistant while she stayed with us.

I was introduced to her by Carol the HR Manager as 'Our lovely Tracy' and as soon as she extended a hand, looked me up and down and smiled I just knew that we were going to get along.

I was originally tasked with being there first thing in the morning and to help her dress but she was far too fit and independent for any of that nonsense. Instead I would bring her breakfast, depending on what she had ordered the night before. Then it would be out for a mid-morning walk along the coast arm in arm, the idea of a wheelchair abhorrent to this fiercely healthy lady, lunch out, then dinner in her room if she preferred it to dining with the other guests in the restaurant. If she did choose the restaurant I had to join her -- OK, the staff canteen wasn't bad but nothing like the expensive and extensive cordon bleu that the 'special' residents had. The other bonus was a corporate mobile phone and a corporate credit card because Mrs Dixon liked to travel, and I would need to accompany her. We went everywhere along the southeast coast and even though she was in her nineties I'm sure that I flagged before she did most times.

Then it was seeing her to her bed, although more often we just sat and chatted into the night, with a few sips of her special port and a final 'night-night Mrs D' and a wave of my fingers. My eight-hour days had disappeared and while I was on a special rate, I would have spent my spare time talking to Mrs D anyway. By the end of the first week the wave of the fingers had a kiss on the cheek added, totally by accident on my part as I was a bit sleepy and so very comfortable with her and although it was bound to be against company policy it became the norm.

Mrs Dixon had the same kind of feisty personality that my late Great-Grandma had, a sharp responsive and intelligent woman that would growl at anyone who dared to talk to her like she was a geriatric idiot without full control of her marbles. Great-Gran had been one of my all-time favourites and I was heart-broken when she died and I soon I was enjoying that self-same relationship

I just loved Mrs D's honesty and her stream of advice while she loved what she called my maturity, honesty and hard-work ethic, and in hindsight my evident need for that older mature advice giver.

We could talk to each other about anything, from clothing to relationship advice and we did - for HOURS. In to our second week Mrs Dixon got cross as a waitress instantly started talking 'to' me and 'down' to her in that awful 'does she take sugar' voice because she was obviously out with me, the uniformed carer.

"Perhaps next time you can wear 'civvies'?" she said after the waitress had backed away, duly educated in customer care by Mrs D.

"Civvies?"

"Civilian clothes Darling, I'll talk to the centre manager about it."

"I'm not sure that I have anything smart enough to wear out with you Mrs D."

"What kind of clothes do you have?"

"Oh," I said, "Just the usual, leggings, skinny jeans, and some tops; it's all a bit old and a bit scruffy." I mainly had jeans and sports clothing that I wouldn't have been seen dead in around this place, and didn't hint at the rest -- slutty stuff that held too many bad memories and I was too embarrassed to mention let alone wear; what the crew called 'pulling gear'. I certainly never wore it out with colleagues from the holiday centre and realised that I'd only worn my uniform, jeans or grey sweatshirt and matching pants for the six months I had been there.

Mrs Dixon looked at me and came to a decision.

"Well!" she said, "Let's get you something that you would be happy to wear out with me then."

"But..."

"Don't worry about it Tracy Darling, my treat."

We finished our coffee and walked along the reasonably well appointed town centre and the kind of ladies clothes shops that I would never have been thrown out of a year before; I wasn't convinced that I could have afforded much more than a few pairs of tights from a place like that.

I stood there with Mrs D feeling like Julia Roberts 'Pretty Woman' on Rodeo Drive and convinced I'd be asked to wait outside while the older lady shopped.

Mrs Dixon was approached by a sales assistant and she instantly pointed to me and even more of that film came up.

"I'm after a couple of daytime outfits that are as beautiful as my good friend Tracy here. Tracy Darling, what size are you?"

"I'm a sixteen," I said.

The salesgirl shook her head; shit! she'd straight through me; she was bound to call the police. 'Young girl cons old lady into buying her clothes', job and good name gone, have to go back home to that...

"Not sure about that Miss," she said looking me up and down, "You might wear a 16 but to be honest you look like a twelve."

OK, my uniform was rather baggy now, but still.

She wandered off around the shop and returned with a collection of clothes, all with those square size markers around the hooks - 12.

My diet at home had been terrible, we lived off of processed food and fast food and seeing as I took no exercise I'd had quite a considerable belly on me and an arse to match when I arrived.

The Assistant handed over black slacks and something I hadn't had since I'd left school, a blouse.

I took the clothes and went into the changing room and put them on. The trousers fitted quite nicely and even that self-deprecating housing estate girl in my subconscious had to look with some pride at the arse that had shaped up with my regular free gym and pool use and was shown off so nicely by the tight black cotton. I pulled on a very simple but well-tailored cotton blouse in a mid-green and stepped out into the shop feeling great and Mrs Dixon beamed.

"THAT'S better!" she said and I couldn't hold back a smile of satisfaction. I noticed that the shop assistant held up a pack of string panties that she put on the counter mouthing the word 'line' to me with a cheeky grin. "And look at that smile!" said Mrs Dixon, "that was worth every penny! Here," she reached around my neck and as I looked down it was to see a string of white pearls around my neck and under my collar. While she was there, she also undid a button! "Only plastic costume jewellery Darling but really sets the whole thing off."

That was followed by another shorter skirt, more blouses, a cardigan, black plain slip on shoes and the same with a bit of a heel and my favourite purchase ever, a tan raincoat that the assistant didn't do up but pulled around me then tied off with the belt. I put my hands in my pockets and it looked so fucking cool and sexy I almost wanted it to rain. It wasn't until I got back to my room and checked I found it was an honest-to-God Burberry! That one item had probably cost more than my entire wardrobe for the last ten years!

There were several more shopping trips to follow, which included not only the make-up that would match my new clothes but advice from the ladies in the shop on how I should best apply it, followed by a little more from Mrs Dixon.

On Remembrance Sunday we taxied to the small village we drank our coffee in and I dressed in my new Sunday best, all finished off with my raincoat and the matching scarf I'd bought from Amazon.

As we stood at the small war memorial Mrs Dixon opened her handbag and brought out a row of very old looking but very shiny circular and star shaped medals that she pinned through the black wool coat she had on.

As the young Air Cadet in blue said the words 'they shall not grow old as we that are left grow old' I saw the first of my new friend's tears and Mrs D's wartime service she had talked about became very real - as real as the names listed on the memorial to the Airmen and women that she had actually known that had been killed serving at a fighter station not a mile from there.

In that moment of understanding I stepped closer and took Mrs Dixon's arm and stood straight. It didn't stop Mrs Dixon's occasional tear but she stood her ground taller than before and for the whole two minutes silence.

After the small parade where Mrs Dixon had her hand shaken by many of the much younger veterans who recognised her medals, especially the three campaign medals, we both retired to our usual, almost empty, coffee shop. Mrs Dixon talked more of when she had been here during the war, and when she returned years later with her late husband.

It was getting very emotional and Mrs Dixon shook herself out of it,

"So, is there anyone on your radar Darling?"

"Oh no Mrs D," I said with an embarrassed shrug.

"No one?"

"Not since the summer," I said sipping my latte, "There was a really nice boy working at the holiday park, guy called Greg," I will confess that I gave a bit of a shy giggle.

"And I trust you two didn't get up to anything?!" she laughed letting me know she wasn't serious.

"Nothing at all Mrs D!" I said, "Well, he never asked me and I... err... I never got around to asking him."

"Life's too short Darling Girl," said Mrs Dixon patting my hand, "you should ALWAYS be ready to jump in when you need to!" the old Lady stared off into space, "spit it out girl! That's what my old WAAF instructor used to say."

"Oh, I wasn't in his league Mrs D, he's a university student and I'm just..."

"Codswallop!" she snapped back, "he'd be lucky to date a gorgeous girl like you!" she leaned forward, "he was probably just as nervous as you and thought that he wasn't in YOUR league!" she sipped her coffee, "as a very wise man once said, you should always chat to the most beautiful girl in the room, because she's probably the loneliest." She took my hand and squeezed it, "jump in Darling girl!"

I took a deep breath, the last time I 'jumped in' I was the laughingstock of an entire community for a week, that I had since cut myself off from.

"I... err... have a bit of a bad record with 'jumping in' Mrs D." The old lady gave me an inquisitorial look that I was never able to resist, "Well I... well..." Mrs Dixon raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips and I gave up, broke eye contact and told it all, including the visit to the contraception and STD clinic, the three arrests, the ridicule even from friends and family, finally the threats written on almost every wall I looked at; I never mentioned my shame which while unspoken was obviously quite evident.

By the time I'd finished I could feel the odd tear run down my face. The look on Mrs Dixon's face was horrified, and I was worried that I had ruined any kind of respect that the lady might have had for me.

This made my bottom lip wobble and I fought to control it, just as the old lady sprung to her feet with a speed and energy I didn't know she had. Far from storming out or smacking my face Mrs Dixon was arms around me and hugging me.

"Tracy," she said drying my eyes with a napkin, "for Christ's sake sweetheart!"

I looked up at her then dropped my eyes with the special kind of shame that only I could endow it with. I gave a most unconvincing chuckle, even resorting to the estuary English I had grown out of,

"But it don't matter Mrs D, it was just a few shags, me and my boyfriend weren't in love or anything..."

I all but broke down at the end mind you, and Mrs Dixon hugged me through the last few shamed shoulder heaves before resuming her seat,

"It bloody does matter honey," the lady leaned forward and gently took my hand, "they got you drunk and then raped you!"

"Yeah, but it was just sex..." I said, "and I must admit that I wasn't a stranger to it, I had a bit of a name as an easy girl." I tried to smile and joke my way out of Mrs Dixon's supportive look I didn't feel I was entitled to, "I liked to make love," I said still with dropped eyes not brave enough to make contact with those watching me now with compassion.

"Love and sex are two different things Darling," she said gently patting my hand now resting in hers, "I think the trouble is you've never differentiated between the two." The lady leaned back in her chair and waved to the waitress indicating that we'd like two more lattes, then leaned forward conspiratorially, "No Tracy, I think you thought people would like you more if you 'had sex'..." she said with a gentle finger under my chin and raising my face to look her in the eye, "love isn't like that; love isn't just shagging, love is wanting to spend every waking minute with your man," Mrs Dixon stopped, considered something, then spoke again, "or your woman if that's your thing."

"Why Mrs D," I said with a gulp and hoping to divert the attention away from my mistakes, "don't tell me you've played for the other team?"

The old lady smiled and saw my ploy and was kind enough to go with it,

"it's fair to say that I have dabbled with other side of the bed on a few occasions," she grinned, "and for a time I think that what Diana and I felt for each other was love," the old lady looked wistfully into the distance, straight through the wall of the cafe and into the past.