Читать книгу Tripping Over - John Hickman - Страница 12

‘At four foot nothing your gran weighs the same as a baby mammoth,’ Mum told me. ‘And with those enormous breasts of hers and tiny feet she has a tendency to waddle and topple.’

Gramps described her as, ‘My lovely rotund lady with her continuous, nervous sniff.’

‘Trouble is, John,’ Gran would say to me with a giggle, ‘my feet are too small for my body.’

‘When she stumbles, which is often, she blames her bunions,’ Mum said.

But all things considered I felt the real issue was higher up, her not being able to see down to where she stepped.

Gramps was opposite to Gran. ‘Tall and thin as a needle,’ Gran said, ‘and his lovely black hair is thinning so much he wears it slicked back to hide his bald spot.

He smokes un-tipped Senior Service cigarettes, when he can afford them. Otherwise he rolls his own.’ Gran was thoughtful for a moment before she continued. ‘If he must smoke it’s a pity he doesn’t like the tipped variety. I’m sure they’d be better for his health. Come to think about it, his constant smoking contributes to his lack of weight. That and his heavy work on the railways as a porter and then a guard, I suppose.’

Gran and Gramps taught me to be wary of pious or devoutly religious people because as Gramps put it, ‘They’re not quite right in the head.’

Gran agreed. ‘Somehow they’re different to the rest of us.’

At the meal table I noticed Gramps folded his nicotine stained fingers of his right hand under his left in an effort to hide his embarrassment. Mum had bought him a small cigarette holder to help minimise the nicotine stains but Gramps apologised. ‘I’m sorry, love, but I can’t come to terms with it.’

Mum wasn’t surprised. But I asked, ‘Why?’

Gramps looked embarrassed. Gran explained, ‘Your gramps grew up in a time when a man was happy to be fed, care for his family, and take a job—any job. He’s unlikely to change his attitudes and that reflects in his daily life.’

‘None of our family has ever pursued good health but then no one ever goes to a gym unless they’re a professional athlete. We only ever jog or run anywhere if we’re late for work, or have a bus or train to catch,’ Gramps explained with a half laugh. ‘I cycle to work on an ordinary black-framed bike with a large wicker basket on the front. It’s good enough for me. I don’t need anything fancy. I wear cycle leg clips to keep my uniform trousers from flapping into the well-greased chain. And when I return home from work I hoist my bike crossbar up onto my shoulder and carry my bicycle up a single flight of stairs to our flat on the first floor at 8 Barlby Road.’

I’m sure the concept of riding a bicycle in a stationary position for exercise purposes would have caused Gramps great merriment, as would have aerobics, step aerobics, step jump, pump, power pump, step, step attack, or hip hop. Gramps may have preferred the gentler approaches of yoga, Pilates, tai chi, or moving slowly beneath the spread of an old oak tree after a day’s work.

Most people smoked but Gran and Mum never did. Otherwise my family were ordinary people in their habits who drank and ate pretty much whatever they could afford.

I never knew about the origins of my grandparents on Dad’s side and even less about Mum’s side of the family. They were born in the late 1800s in the slums of Notting Hill, London. Otherwise they were never mentioned.

When I asked Gramps, he said, ‘Oh, them. Don’t concern yourself. They weren’t worth knowing, were they, Girl?’ Gramps often called Gran, ‘Girl.’

‘None of them were,’ Gran sniffed.

Whereas Dad was an only child Mum was ninth in line. But that particular father wasn’t keen to hang around. Mum never met him.

‘He was as much use as a cardboard spanner,’ Gran said.

Gramps told me, ‘The world is set for major problems the way life is unfolding after the war. It might be over but it isn’t done with yet. Mark my words young, John, the only thing wrong with the death penalty, is it’s not used often enough.’

Gran added, ‘I know we’re supposed to be charitable but after starting two World Wars I still say the only good German’s a dead one!’

‘You can add Japanese to that list, Girl.’

My grandparents’ backgrounds were working class. Both grannies worked as charladies cleaning other people’s houses. Their lives were uncomplicated. Provided there was food on their table, coal to burn in their hearth, and a clean bed to sleep in, they were happy.

‘It’s a nice change after the shortages of war,’ Mum said over a hot, sweet cuppa during a visit to Barlby Road.

‘Nice not to be rationed, love,’ Gran reminisced. ‘Those ration books were a nuisance.’

‘What’s rationing?’ I wanted to know.

‘Rationing meant we couldn’t get rationed goods,’ Gramps explained. ‘All the good things like butter, ice cream, eggs, meat, and even milk were rationed.’

Gran smiled at me. ‘You were lucky never having to wear a gas mask because you were too young.’

‘What’s a gas mask?’

‘It was to protect people should Hitler drop bombs with poison gas in them,’ Gran replied.

‘Gas masks came in a tin with a strap to sling over your shoulder, didn’t they, Girl?’

‘To make sure your mask fitted properly,’ Gran continued, ‘you strapped it tight over your face and plugged off the air intake.’

Gramps smiled. ‘If you turned blue and your eyes disappeared from their sockets you knew it was a proper fit. We hated the damn things especially their awful rubbery smell.’

When I screwed up my face, they laughed at me.

Gran and Gramps led a cash existence. They never had a bank account. Their bills were paid, as they were due from little jars and tins on their mantelpiece; the ‘rent’ jar, the ‘insurance’ jar for the Prudential man who collected one penny a week, the ‘food’ jar, the ‘electric’ jar. Those jars drove Dad mad. Small differences between his thoughts and theirs became bigger ones. Unspoken resentments often chilled the air.

Gran and Gramps believed those jars provided a measure of comfort, a kind of caution for those who had known hard times and feared their return.

Gran filled her large kettle with water from the tap to have a cup of tea. ‘We expect little or nothing from life and so far have been suitably rewarded,’ she said with a chuckle. ‘But we’ve learned the secret of true contentment is not so much getting what we want, but appreciating what we have.’

‘That’s right, Girl,’ Gramps added, ‘we feel privileged to have friends, family, love and a healthy grandson,’ and he gave me a big wink. I tried to wink back but couldn’t without both eyes closing, which caused Gran and Gramps great amusement.

I tried to get Gramps to tell me more about Dad.

He shook his head. ‘Your dad went to war and fought the big fight and wants more,’ he said, ‘in that regard we’re different your dad and I.’

‘Do you think there’s another reason why Dad changed his name?’ I asked.

Gramps and gran exchanged looks. ‘You’ll have to ask your dad that,’ Gramps said.

That worried me even more because I loved them both.

I was fearful Dad’s reason was to gain separation between himself and Gramps because he disliked what his father was and had remained.

When Dad collected us for home he stopped long enough for a cup of tea. Gramps asked me to show Dad my wink, but when I did, Dad was unimpressed. I don’t believe he saw my inability to close one eye independently of the other as amusing as my grandparents had.