I first met Nell on St Patrick’s Day in 2011. I hadn’t been living in Melbourne long and this trip to the Bupa Caufield residence was my first. As always, I had dolled up and, on this particular day, made certain that there was a splash of festive green in my outfit and an hour of Irish classics in my repertoire.

I wheeled the trolley of sound equipment into the lounge room on level three where there was a modest crowd of guys and gals eagerly awaiting the show. Some were wearing their Sunday best others were in comfy well-worn trackies and slippers. On a few old faces were looks of naive joy and curiosity, some watched on lovingly – perhaps grateful that a new young story had walked into their lives, and a couple of folks, as was usually the case, blinked and stared dully in my general direction. A tinny soundtrack of fiddles was doing it’s best to liven up the room and swarms of bright green four-leaf clover cut-outs hung from the ceiling.

I smiled, introduced myself, and went about chatting lightheartedly to the group when my attention was drawn to a very slim elderly woman laid out regally on a metal-framed day bed. She looked terribly frail but was as alert and present as anyone I. Her face was pinched, the skin uncomfortably reddened by a nasty spread of psoriasis. Her features, though heavily wrinkled, were fine and she had outstanding cheekbones and arresting blue eyes that watched me intently but gave little away. I could tell she had been quite a beauty, there was something of the late Kate Hepburn about her. I noticed her long, twiggy legs laying motionless under the folded tartan blanket on her lap and felt suddenly self-conscious. I beamed a smile her way as I went about my business but she made no such offer in return, only watched on and then groaned as if she was in pain:

‘You’re not going to sing more Irish music, are you?’

Her voice came like a growl, caught me completely off guard and I nervously giggled. ‘As a matter of fact, dear lady, that’s exactly what I’m about to do,’ I said.

‘This is Nell,’ said a buxom ginger-haired carer as she pushed another wheelchaired resident into the room.

‘Hi Nell,’ I said with a mischievous smile. ‘Happy St Pats.’

She groaned again and turned her head away. The carer switched off the Celtic soundtrack and I took the mic in hand and made a more formal address to the mostly appreciative crowd.

In between tracks, which Nell begrudgingly tolerated, I asked her what she would prefer to hear, if there was anything in particular. She shook her head and moped like a sulky teenager. What at first appeared a grumpy bah-humbug reaction to the ditties of St Pats I realised was in fact a melancholic resistance to music in general.

‘There’s nothing I want to hear,’ she said. ‘It all makes me sad.’

‘All of it?’

She smiled weekly and her eyes began to shine with tears. I didn’t press the issue but carried on with the Irish line up, keeping an eye on the fragile lady before me.

The concert was a hit. We cracked a few bad jokes, made fun of the Irish accent, the four-leaf clovers and sang our little hearts out. Nell warmed up, she even laughed out loud, and she held my hand firmly on more than one occasion.

Before I left that afternoon she called out and circled her bony finger around and around, beckoning me close.

‘There is one song I’d love to hear you sing,’ she whispered.

I was all ears. It had been a short hour but there was something about this lady that already had me by the heartstrings.

‘Some Enchanted Evening,’ she said. ‘Some Enchanted Evening, Perry Como.’

That was a tune my grandfather often sang, and I told her so. Unfortunately I didn’t have the music then and there and had never learned the words; however, I did console us both with a solemn oath to sing it for her on my next visit.

That residence became one of many which I visited frequently and Nell really grew on me, she really stayed with me, and I was always keen to return and spend an hour or so in her company. There was something about this lady. Sometimes it’s like that. I wondered whether I saw in her myself – years from now, or whether it was because she was just so arrestingly real and present and frail. She was heartbreakingly human. You get that feeling sometimes, perhaps you fall in love a little and you simply can’t explain it. Well, that’s the way it was with Nell.

I did keep my promise; I learned the lyrics and found myself an orchestral backing track. Admittedly it took a little longer than I had intended and I felt a somewhat sheepish each time I visited without it, but I got around to it in the end.

On the morning of this particular concert I had a belly of excitement knowing that I would finally deliver on my promise. I made my way up to the level three lounge room and pictured her lovely shining face, imagined chatting with her after the show about what the song meant to her and who it reminded her of. The elevator doors parted and the red-headed carer met me in the hallway with a feeble smile.

‘Nell is going to be so pleased with me today.’ I chimed. ‘I finally got my mitts on Some Enchanted Evening.’

The carer laid a hand on my arm and her face went limp. Not the response I had anticipated at all.

‘Darling, ‘I’m so sorry but Nell passed away late last night.’

My cheeks flushed and I recall being taken aback by the lump in my throat, the heat behind my eyes.

I sang Some Enchanted Evening first up that afternoon in spite of the weight of Nell’s absence. We’d only met on several occasions but I had become unusually attached in such a short time. My heart went out to the carers in new ways, people who dealt with this kind of loss on a daily basis, and I thought about Nell’s daughter, Vivienne, who I had met while visiting a couple of months before. I promised myself that I would find out a little more about Nell. Find out perhaps why I felt her so keenly, why she was someone who really stayed with me, and what that song meant to her as a woman at the very winter of her life.