Читать книгу How Many Camels Are There in Holland?: Dementia, Ma and Me - Phyllida Law, Phyllida Law - Страница 7

Well, I made it. Just. The flight was frightful. Approaching Glasgow, the big Boeing 707 started to bounce about like a ping-pong ball. We thumped to the ground and juddered to a halt in a puddle the length of Loch Long. The pilot apologised. ‘It was like handling a light aircraft,’ he said. The rain was horizontal and my hired Fiesta kept doing the ‘pally glide’ as the wind hit her about. Then I got stuck in Gourock behind a parade of Boy Scouts going to the war memorial very slowly, kilts dripping, bagpipes wailing and water-logged.

It was dark when I reached the ferry and the queue was enormous. I rang Mother from the phone box to tell her I might have to stay the night at the hotel along the coast that looked like a set of shelves and I’d catch the early ferry but she’d left the phone off the hook again. She will do that.

Anyway, I stopped trying as the queue started to move, and I squeaked on last, into a spot where salt water smashed over the car at regular intervals with such a thwack I didn’t dare go to the loo. Out on the loch there was sheet lightning. Weird. A bit like the Northern Lights only blue and with rumbling thunder.

Sometimes it seems that news of the death of a contemporary gives a spurt of renewed energy to the ancient hearer. They have won. They are still here. I had knelt by Mother’s chair to tell her about Uncle Arthur’s ‘passing’. She took the news with calm acceptance and stroked my head gently, seeming more concerned for me.

I suppose she’d had quite a few rehearsals. He had been in and out of hospital and lately it’d been many long weeks. I think she had grown accustomed to his absence.

But the thought of her on her own was really dismaying. They’d propped each other up. His brains were hers. Who would she shout at to ‘open a bottle’? Who was going to find phone numbers and check the grocery bill?

I found out later that we were the last ferry to dock that night. The next one had to spend the night plying up and down the loch till the storm subsided, and two caravans got whisked away from Gairletter Point and dumped across the water at Kilcreggan. A third swayed about in the middle of the loch for a day or two with its wheels in the air.

Haven’t found out about the funeral yet.

Ma and I were sitting watching the TV on Wednesday night when the phone rang. It was Stew-art from Falkirk sending his condolences and saying there was a parcel waiting for me on the porch.

It was Sophie. She had come up the path and peeked through a gap in the curtains to see Ma and me transfixed by Delia Smith. Not daring to disturb the peaceful scene, she actually went down the road to the phone box and asked Stewart to ring us.

It has raised our spirits greatly, which reminds me: I must check on the booze supply. Mildew will arrive tomorrow so I’ll pick her up from the ferry and we’ll do a major shop at the Co-op. Sophie is in charge of décor: the sitting room is in need of attention as the minister is to give his peroration there after we get back from the ‘creamer’ in Gourock. Family will go over the water and we’ll be back for the village party.

Mrs Waddell is going to stand on her head. She was a PE teacher and will stand on her head anywhere without notice. I can’t wait.

Dear Em!

It would be good if you phoned around 6 p.m. when I fully intend to be thoroughly inebriated and Ma will have had her G and T. She is remarkable really. Tonight she is cooking a new recipe she found and wishes me to sample and pass comment. I don’t like to tell her I have had it every visit for the last couple of years. It is fillet of fish – I think it is cod – and she bakes it spread with tomato ketchup.

I know. Sounds disgusting.

Sophie and I will contribute to the funeral baked meats. Looking up Mother’s recipes in the old filing box I found this re game: ‘Daudet compared its scented flesh to an old courtesan’s flesh marinated in a bidet.’

She did it. Mrs Waddell. In the middle of Rev. John’s eulogy she sidled up to me and whispered, ‘Shall I do it now?’ and she did it. She tucked her tweed skirt between her legs and up she went. Just like that. It was a great success. Such a useful talent. Besides which she knits toys. I have a spectacular policeman and a very good Shakespeare in pink and green with waggly legs and a tragic expression.

Rev. John was a star. He was utterly unfazed and very funny about Uncle Arthur and the price of soup in Heaven. The village was there, of course, all the chaps in their black ties, and one nurse from the ward brought her husband in a kilt. Mother was very gracious.

‘He had the time of his life in hospital,’ she said. I blew my nose. He was vitriolic to the doctor, rude to the old man opposite and insulting to the nurses. A couple of pills for depression, and they all got a handsome apology, or so they say.

Mrs Pennycuick (the one who can’t reverse in her car) came with a photo of her new grandchild. Mother peered at it with her monocle, cooed a lot and asked how old the puppy was.

There was a bit of a panic when wee Mrs Wishart asked for a sherry and we had none. Mildew saved the day by mixing Southern Comfort with the dregs of some posh dessert wine she found. Apparently it was delicious.

After a noisy search in the herb department, she found a quarter-bottle of rum behind the Branston Pickle. We must always remember to keep some, as Eric the builder drinks nothing else and he has been so brilliant. He came along immediately when Uncle A pulled the radiator off the wall. The other booze held up very well, which was a blessing as Ma made me promise not to put a kettle on. Too much trouble. ‘Open a bottle!’ she used to shout at Uncle A. ‘Open a bottle.’ And there, helpfully, is the handle he hung on to when going into curtsy-sitting to view the ‘cellar’ (i.e. a box under the stairs).

They used to shout at each other a lot and I think they enjoyed it thoroughly. ‘How do you find your mother?’ he asked me, last time I was up.

‘Not good,’ I said. ‘She hasn’t slept well, she felt sick this morning and she says you’re a shit.’ He fell about.

I always loved his silent fits of giggles. They were the best bit when I was young, for he wasn’t cut out to be a stepfather. He distrusted the young and treated them like unexploded bombs, which always indicates, I think, a misspent youth on the part of the critic, tho’ it must be frightful to inherit prefabricated children. I was thirteen and away at boarding school when Mother married Uncle Arthur, and affection only blossomed between us when I could cook. And drive a car. I drove him across London once and he never quite recovered.

Why do funerals make one HUNGRY? I have just wolfed a huge slab of flapjack. Mother went to bed flattened but pleased ‘the party’ had gone so well, and she isn’t wheezing very much at all now. She always used to get bronchitis on any large family occasion. My childish heart got very heavy when I heard her clearing her throat and checking on her breathing. She gave up smoking years ago, but what I didn’t know was that saltwater is very bad for people with ‘chests’ and what is more Ma used to plunge into the loch every day. Dorothy-next-door and her husband both had emphysema and the doctor told them they should move inland and as far from saltwater as they could go. Too late. I can’t move Mother again. Anyway, she’s safely tucked up now. Last night there was a glorious burst of wheezing hysterics from her room when Soph pinned her down to remove some visible whiskers with my eyebrow tweezers. And then, after a peaceable silence, there were yelps of laughter from Soph, as Mother, hoping for an early bed, said suddenly, ‘Time is on the wane as the man said when the clock fell on the baby.’ (Wain is Scots for ‘baby’.)

How is it that elderly people are so surprisingly cheerful about death? I remember dreading to tell Gran that Aunt Min had died but it seemed to give her a new lease of life. I suppose shock comes into it. Or George Mackay Brown’s ‘undersong of terrible holy joy’.

Em rang. We are keeping all the details till later. Told her the flowers were fabulous and so they were. Soph found an eccentric amount of tins, jugs and enamel basins to fill the cottage. Em gutted, of course, but Uncle A would have thought it mad to board a plane from America even if she could, and he wouldn’t have hung around for anyone. He was fed up last time I saw him in the garden here. He was standing, stick in hand, fastidiously dressed, tie neatly knotted, smelling of Vetiver. ‘There’s no decency left in the world,’ he said, and left for lunch with Jim Thomas.

I know we’ve done the easy bit. Tomorrow is another day. Who said that? Shakespeare? Scarlett O’Hara? Soph has to leave tomorrow, so I’ll drop her at the ferry, have a quick sob, and go into the solicitor’s with Uncle A’s attaché case. He told me it holds everything and in perfect order. I don’t doubt it. He had a degree in financial integrity.

Got to go to bed.

Peerless morning. Typical. Waved Soph off on the ferry, slicing its way through satin smooth water. Did a big shop at Co-op and called on the solicitor. (He’s the one who defended a guy who wore a balaclava and stood in the queue to rob the bank on the corner of Argyle Street.) It took relentless bullying by both of us to get Uncle A to sign his will. What is it about men and wills? They think they’re going to snuff it while signing, I suppose. Must check Mother’s. Where on earth will it be? Perhaps I needn’t tell her that I saw Uncle A’s latest bank statement. He had precisely £309.56 left in the world. No wonder he worried about the price of soup.

Came home to a quick lunch of leftovers. We dipped all the sandwiches in beaten egg and fried them. Delicious. Still tidying up. Found a copy of J. B. Priestley’s Delight lying face down in the bothy. It was a bit rumpled but it had fallen open at a passage in which he said the book was a penitence ‘for having grumbled so much, for having darkened the breakfast table, almost ruined the lunch, nearly silenced the dinner party – for all the fretting and chafing, grousing and croaking, for the old glum look and the thrust-out lower lip’. Uncle Arthur to a T.

Uncle Arthur had a stutter quite as bad as good King George’s. This made chatting rather hard work at first, and I never sat and questioned him in a companionable way. I knew he had followed his father into the egg trade, because he had an obscure relative who marketed eggs on the hoof, as it were, by driving flocks of geese, turkey and hens across Russia, wearing little shammy-leather bootees to protect their feet. He would herd them onto ships, where, safely ‘cooped’ they laid their eggs for weeks all ready to be sold on arrival. And he had a scary aunt Dodie, who taught English to a posh family in ‘Leningrad’ and was paid in Fabergé eggs.

She auctioned them for the Free French and they made a fortune, unlike the eatable variety. I don’t think there was much money in eggs. During the war, of course, they were nationalised. Uncle Arthur remained attached throughout the duration, and enjoyed his business life. ‘He’s a man’s man,’ Mother would say, and ‘What did you have for lunch today, dear?’ There was always ‘lunch with the boys’. Beef olives seemed popular. I’m not sure what they are. Nothing to do with olives.

I met him once, Priestley. He came to the Glasgow Citizens Theatre during rehearsals for one of his plays. Was it Mr Gillie? No, that’s thingummy whatsisname – Bridie. We all had lunch and he seemed really affable. Glorious voice, and the pipe, of course. I nearly ran him over outside Stratford once. He was crossing a country road near his home, Kissing Tree House. You have to love someone who lives in Kissing Tree House.

I’ve got a part in Peter’s Friends. Things are taking shape. Life is beginning to look almost manageable. They are fine about missing the read-through. I’m not the only one, but I shall be three days late for rehearsal. Make-up and Wardrobe will ring me here but I’m not on camera till Monday next, which gives me a bit of breathing space. Mildew will have to take me through lines on the plane. It seems most of my stuff will be shot in one week because of the location. Brilliant. I could be back up here in less than two weeks. Then I want to move Ma downstairs to Uncle A’s room. Much easier for her and a straight run to the loo. I will get rid of the old sad wardrobe, the bed and that distressing chest of drawers. I’ll have to borrow the blue van. The room will need repainting. Magnolia? Boring? Different curtains and decent lampshades. Wish I could start now but that would be rude.

Sleepless night. I’d forgotten about the car. Mother can’t and shouldn’t drive it. There’s still a rusting scrape on the offside door. She was driving home one evening and, thinking the lighthouse was an oncoming car, she pulled over and fell into a ditch. I decided to drive it back to London and get rid of my mine. Now, at breakfast, Mildew points out that I’ll need the car when I get back here. CURSES.

Passed the Glory Hole on my way into Dunoon and, seeing it was open, wandered in to snoop and enquire about what they think they might take from the pile of stuff we’ll need to shift. Anyway, there was Mrs Beggs, the good and glorious.

I think it was the minister’s wife who told me about Mrs Beggs (the good and glorious). Apparently, she ‘looks after people’, and when I timidly sketched out my situation, she understood immediately and offered nights for the week I’ll be away. I didn’t ask, she offered. That means Mother will have Marvellous Marianne in the morning and Mrs Beggs at night. Result! Beggsie can come to tea tomorrow, but Ma knows her well of old when she used to run a bakery in Dunoon, so that doesn’t worry me. What does is that she’ll have to sleep in Uncle Arthur’s gloomy bedroom. I explained. Fine. I love her.

It was a wild morning. Window wide, polish akimbo, Marigold gloves and Frish. I took all the linen, curtains and coverlet to the laundry. The coverlet is really nice and at least the curtains will smell fresh. I’m going to throw away the electric blanket. It’s got a huge brown singed corner where Ma left it on and it caught fire. Pong was frightful, but nobody died.

That white tray-cloth with the crocheted edges will cover the top of the dismal chest of drawers and then a jug of fresh flowers – no, they won’t last. I’ll get a pot of something. An African violet perhaps. Mildew says the dingy drugget is a hazard.

Glory Hole? I’ll clean the carpet. Bex Bissell is on the shopping list. Feathers keep bursting out of one of the old yellowing pillows. I’ll stitch it into a clean pillow case but it should be cleaned. It’s disgusting.

Mother, thank heavens, barely noticed the disruption. We gave her coffee sitting in the doorway of the shed, out of the sun, before her morning walk. I shouted at her as she trotted down the path with Marianne, waving her stick, ‘You haven’t got your distance glasses on, Mother.’

Good word for Scrabble, ‘Drugget’.

Hat on backwards today

‘Don’t worry, dear,’ she said. ‘I’m not going any distance.’

Turning our attention to larder and fridge: we’ll do a basic shop at some point but I think a visit to the Oyster Bar on Loch Fyne would do us good, whatever the weather. Smoked salmon and a piece of Bradan Rost are on the list and they will keep. I could make a kedgeree before I go. It will have to be Dunoon for a piece of ham. If I boil and bake it, I can use the stock for lentil soup and put some in the deep freeze. Lentils go off so suddenly and start to bubble volcanically. I suggested a pot of mince but Ma isn’t keen. Indigestible, she said. She asked for mushrooms on toast for lunch and I made it, with supervision, as she used to do, with cream and nutmeg.

Must get more cream. I’ll get peppers, tomatoes and anchovies for that Delia Smith recipe. And garlic. Uncle A forbade it. Ma used to try and sneak it into everything, tucking it under the leg of lamb or near the bone. ‘He’ll never know,’ she’d say. He always did. He hated it so much I gave him a handsomely illustrated book on garlic for Christmas one year. Lovely photos. That was where I got the tip to push a clove up your bum if you had piles. Nor would he eat avocados. He said they tasted of soap. There are some days when I agree. He thought he didn’t like Brussels sprouts either but Ma used to put them with soft boiled potatoes and create a sort of beautiful pale green mash, which he loved. If he asked her what it was she’d say, ‘A whim-wham for a goose’s bridle’, which was always her lie about rabbit when we were kids.

I’ll buy a couple of packets of Jus-Rol pastry for a ‘perhaps pie’. And two dozen eggs as I bet she’ll make us a soufflé on our last night. It always makes me sad. A soufflé. She always made one for supper the night before I left for boarding school. Followed by apple crumble. She saved the fat and sugar specially. I’d just have liked baked potatoes and salad. There’s tons of cheese. In fact, I’ll grate all the dry old bits of this and that and make potted cheese.