by John Clanchy
The next day, Toni came round after she’d finished her job at Woolworths.
‘Well,’ she said, without even saying hello. ‘Did you?’
‘Did I what?’ I said. Though I knew. I was only being difficult.
‘Ooh, Laura –’ she said. ‘You know as well as I do. Kiss him, of course.’
‘Yes,’ I said. But I wasn’t going to tell her if she asked me how.
‘How?’ she asked me.
‘With my mouth,’ I said.
‘Ooh –’ she said again. She was getting really frustrated. ‘You’re not going to tell me, are you? You promised you would. Afterwards, you said.’
‘I promised I’d tell you whether, not how.’
‘I’m your best friend.’
‘It wouldn’t be fair to Philip.’
‘Philip? ’ she said. ‘What’s Philip got to do with it?’
Toni’s like that, so when she wanted to know if Philip had asked me out again, I told her yes, and I liked him a lot. And she looked at me and didn’t say anything at all for a long time after that. So I put on some K O Я N, and we just lay on the bed and listened to that for a while. We didn’t have any homework to worry about or anything because it was mid-term break and we could do it all next weekend instead, except Mum, I knew, would make me read books even though it was the holidays. But, depending on the book, I don’t mind that so much. I’m like Philip – Mum’s Philip – in that way. I enjoy going through his books, even though a lot of them are boring and technical and Law and that, but not everything – he has fiction and biography and history and poetry and comedy – I suppose that’s where he gets a lot of his stupid jokes. Like he was telling this particular joke at dinner the other night – I normally don’t like jokes … or I do, but not ones that are written down and come out of a book and have a punch line and that. I like jokes more that happen when you’re talking and that come out naturally, when people make them up while they’re talking. And Mum’s the same. Anyway Philip was telling this joke, and in the end it wasn’t all that funny by itself, but what happened after was.
We were having dinner, and we were all there, which is unusual because Mum mostly feeds Grandma Vera separately now, by herself, because it’s quicker and Grandma Vera doesn’t sit at the table then and dribble and spit in her cup and burp all the time and put everyone off their own food. But this was the term break and so Mum wasn’t rushing and she could sit next to Grandma Vera and help her with her food and she’s always saying she’d like it to be that way all the time, three generations around one table or something historical like that, but she just couldn’t manage it any more. Anyway Mum had just asked me if I’d had a nice time at the movie with Philip and I’d said yes, and could he come round one afternoon this week, when we didn’t have school, and listen to music in my room, and Mum said, ‘Yes, of course,’ but as she said it, she gave me that look that means I know what I’m saying, but do you know what you’re saying? and makes you think again. And I know what she means. She means, if Philip comes round in the afternoon, he’ll meet Grandma Vera, and how do I feel about that.
‘I’ve already told Philip,’ I say to her then. ‘I told him Grandma was sick.’
‘Sick,’ says Grandma Vera and pats Katie’s hand. Katie’s sitting on the other side of Grandma from Mum. ‘Sick,’ she says again and shakes her head like she’s just heard Katie’s got leprosy or leukemia or something.
‘But did you tell him how she was sick?’ Mum says.
‘Yes, I told him she had Alzheimer’s.’ Which might seem a strange thing to say while Grandma Vera’s there with us, but Mum encourages us to talk openly together, to share, like this. And anyway she says that anything you say to Grandma Vera now is lost as soon as you say it and words like Alzheimer’s don’t mean anything to her.
‘And what did Philip say then?’ Mum wants to know.
‘Well,’ I say, ‘that was the amazing thing, because I only told him just before he was leaving, and I’d been waiting and waiting to tell him but I didn’t know how, and he mentioned something about his family and I blurted it out about Grandma Vera, and he just said, ‘‘My grandfather’s exactly the same. He can never remember my name either. He keeps calling me George who was his son who was killed in the Second World War about a hundred years ago –’’
‘Well, there you are,’ Mum says. ‘You see, it’s not so –’
‘Maybe we should get them together,’ Philip says then, breaking in on Mum. ‘They could sit around and talk nonsense to one another all day long. Which reminds me …’ he says, and starts telling this joke about an old couple both of whose memories are going at the same time and they agree they should write everything down so they won’t forget. ‘And one night,’ he says –
‘Is this clean, Philip?’ Mum says. She’s thinking about Katie.
‘Perfectly. It’s absolutely sanitary, which is more than you can say about the couple themselves. Anyway they’re watching TV one night and the woman says ‘‘I’d love some ice-cream.’’ ‘‘Fine,’’ the man says, ‘‘I’ll get you some from the fridge.’’ ‘‘Write it down,’’ she says, ‘‘you’ll forget.’’ ‘‘Forget ice-cream?’’ he says. ‘‘Don’t be silly.’’ ‘‘But I want topping,’’ she says. ‘‘Okay, you can have topping.’’ ‘‘And strawberries. You’ll need to write it down.’’ The man makes a face and disappears. He comes back from the kitchen ten minutes later with a plate of toast and fried eggs and tomatoes. The woman looks at it and says: ‘‘Now see what you’ve done. You’ve forgotten the bacon.’’ ’
Mum groans at this, and I’ve been practising all the time he’s been telling the story so that at the punch line my face doesn’t change at all and I just ask Katie to pass the salt, but Philip’s pleased with himself anyway. And he’s the one who’s doing all the grinning and he even turns to Grandma Vera and says, ‘No bacon, eh, Mother?’ And you’ll never guess what she says back. She says:
‘Yes, please. Bacon, please. Like it. Like bacon.’
And Philip’s mouth drops open, and Grandma Vera pushes her plate and looks at Philip, and he starts to say, ‘No, no, it was just a joke, Mother. You see, there wasn’t really any bacon, it was just –’
‘Bacon,’ Grandma Vera says, and pushes her plate a bit more.
‘Christ,’ Philip says under his breath.
‘Now be civil, darling,’ Mum says. ‘You brought up the subject of bacon in the first place …’
‘Bacon,’ Grandma Vera says.
‘And now Mother would like some,’ Mum says.
‘Yes, please,’ Grandma Vera says.
‘And so would you make her some, please? You’ll find some rashers in the door of the fridge, second shelf down. Two pieces should be enough.’
And Katie and I of course are cacking ourselves stupid by this time, and Philip’s face is as black as a storm cloud, and he doesn’t know what else to do, so he stands up and gets a fry pan out of the cupboard and gets the bacon out of the fridge while Mum’s saying: ‘Put your own soup back in the pot, darling, so it doesn’t get cold while you’re cooking.’ But Philip doesn’t say anything. And Mum gives us a warning look then, but we can see she thinks it’s funny herself and so for the next five minutes while Philip’s cooking the bacon, there are just these loud splurts from Katie and me, and Katie does it in her water at one point and her splurt goes flying everywhere, and Mum gets upset then and says, ‘That’s enough.’
But Grandma Vera’s just as bad as Katie and me, because she whispers ‘Prick Philip,’ and Mum pretends she doesn’t hear, like she sometimes does when Katie and I are out and misbehaving and she fakes it that she doesn’t notice and thinks we’ll get tired ofit and stop, but we never do. ‘Prick Philip,’ Grandma whispers again, and that’s all right because Philip’s way over near the stove and will never hear her, until Katie goes:
‘Purrr-ickkk Philip!’
And Philip jumps around as if he’s been hit by a barrel of burning fat and looks at Mum and
says, ‘What did she say?’
‘Prick, Philip,’ Mum goes, as calm and quick as anything. ‘Katie’s asking you to prick the bacon for Grandma. That’s how she likes it.’
And poor Philip. He looks bewildered like he’s starting to hear things inside his head and doesn’t know what’s going on.
‘Oh,’ he says, and All right,’ he says, and gets a long-handled fork from the drawer and starts jabbing at the bacon with it, but it’s obvious he doesn’t know how to or even whether he should be doing it. Mum does nearly all the cooking except sometimes Philip barbecues on the weekends. Philip’s turned back to the stove again now, and that’s when Mum gives Katie the filthiest look and says, ‘Eat your soup, Miss,’ and her look’s so foul, blacker even than Philip’s, that Katie doesn’t say, Drink it, don’t you mean?, although I can see her lip’s quivering to say it. In fact everyone’s quiet while the bacon’s cooking, Grandma included.
By the time Philip’s finished, he’s beginning to see the funny side. The black’s gone out of his face now, and I don’t mind Philip so much sometimes, because at least he can see a joke, even if it’s on him. And these are the sorts of jokes I prefer, not ones that are all set up and fixed, and they’re always the same thing over and over. Like the old one about the yoghurt, and the person who’s got the Alzheimer’s finds a note on their fridge from their daughter or someone that says For lunch eat one of the yoghurts in the fridge, and the daughter comes home from work and says to her mother, ‘Did you eat a yoghurt for lunch?’, and the mother can’t remember, so the daughter goes to the fridge and all the yoghurt containers have gone, a dozen of them, and she goes to the garbage bin and finds the empty containers are all there, and the mother’s eaten them all because every time she passed the fridge she saw this note telling her to eat a yoghurt for lunch. Only we’re not allowed to tell this joke while Philip’s around because that’s exactly what happened to Grandma Vera with her medicine and Mum came home and found her unconscious and had to get an ambulance. But she’s never told Philip, and she doesn’t want the joke mentioned in his presence in case he starts thinking.
Anyway Philip finally gets the bacon back to the table and puts it on the hotmat in front of Grandma Vera and he’s laughing out loud now, and I know that means he’s already thinking inside his head how he can tell this story at work tomorrow. And Grandma Vera just looks at the bacon as if it had appeared from outer space, and says:
‘Stinks!’ and pushes it away. ‘Hate bacon,’ she says.
And then the joke starts to go sour, and it’s Philip’s turn to splutter, and Mum, I notice, doesn’t look at him. She looks at Grandma Vera instead and says, ‘Mother, why are you doing that?’
Grandma Vera has broken her bread up into small pieces and is picking up each piece in two hands and holding it up above her head and then bringing it down slowly to her mouth again – like it really is space food coming through the ceiling, and bits of food and crumbs are going everywhere.
‘It’d be much easier if you just ate it straight off the plate,’ Mum says. ‘Or if I fed you, wouldn’t it? Here, let me help you.’
‘No –’ Grandma Vera shouts and pushes Mum’s arm away.
‘Mother, please,’ Mum says, and I know she’s saying it as much for Philip’s sake as her own.
‘It means,’ Katie says, ‘she wants to go to church.’
‘It what?’ Philip says.
‘Grandma Vera,’ Katie says. ‘She’s saying she wants to go to church.’
Katie doesn’t even look up when she says this. She’s buttering her own piece of bread.
‘But, darling,’ Mum says, ‘how can you possibly know that?’
‘It’s obvious,’ Katie says, putting bread in her mouth.
‘Is that right, Mother?’ Mum says. ‘Do you want to go to church?’
‘Church,’ Grandma Vera says. ‘That’s a good idea.’
‘It’s like the fish in the lake,’ Katie says. She picks up her spoon and puts it in her soup. ‘You can’t see them, but they’re there. Talking to one another all the time. With their fins. They know what they’re saying.’
‘Darling, what … ?’ Mum says to Katie.
‘Just because you can’t see them. They’re still there. Under the surface, that’s all.’
I see Mum shrug her shoulders at Philip.
‘Grandma Vera always means something,’ Katie says. ‘You just have to listen properly.’
‘I see,’ says Mum, but I don’t know if she does. Any more than Philip or me. ‘Well,’ says Mum, ‘we can certainly go to church, Mother, if that’s what you want.’
And she says it so nicely but I know what she’s thinking, and I see the quick face she pulls at Philip.
‘However …’ Mum says to Grandma Vera, ‘you’ll have to follow the rules of the service this time, Mother, and not go wandering all over the altar while the priest’s giving the sermon.’
‘Or chasing the man with the plate,’ Katie shouts. ‘That was so –’
‘Katie!’ Mum says. ‘Please keep your spoon over your plate. That way you won’t drip your soup on the cloth.’
‘Or –’ Katie’s in hysterics now, she’s not listening to Mum. ‘Or standing up and starting the hymn,’ she splurts, ‘when everyone else is kneeling down –’
‘Katie! I won’t tell you again.’
Katie bends over her soup again, but her face’s red and about to splurt and I can tell she won’t be able to eat for ages, and Mum’s wishing she’d never even heard the word church, and I bet if she didn’t say anything, Grandma Vera would never think of it again. But Mum will take her to church, I know, because she always does what she thinks is right for Grandma Vera. No matter what.
One place she does have to take her this week is to Dr Gerontics because Grandma Vera had a fall and, even though Dr Lazenby came, he said he couldn’t tell if she’d fainted or had a seizure or what, except she wasn’t paralyzed or anything but Mum ought to take her back to the specialist. To be on the safe side. Whatever that means. ‘Safe side for him,’ Philip said, ‘safe from a negligence suit.’ But Mum said he was only trying to help, and we shouldn’t be so critical. Anyway, what it means is, we have to go and see creepy Gerontics again. And this time I can’t get out of it – I have to go because Grandma Vera’s always calmer when I’m there. Mum says it’s because somehow she remembers the first time, and she thought it was me not her that had to see the doctor. Well, she doesn’t remember it so much, but she associates me with Gerontics and she doesn’t cause nearly so much trouble if I go. Normally I get out of it because I have school and sport or music lessons after, but this is mid-term break and I don’t have any excuse, but when Mum tells me she wants me to come with her and Grandma Vera to see the white man in the coat – that’s what Grandma Vera sometimes calls him because she wouldn’t remember Gerontics or even his real name – I say to Mum:
‘Okay … I’ll come but only if you tell me something.’
‘If I can,’ she says.
‘But it’s got to be the truth.’
‘I always try and tell you the truth, Laura. You know that.’
‘Yes, but sometimes you leave bits out.’
‘What do you want to know?’
‘That first time we went to see Gerontics, when you went back at the end and left Grandma Vera and me outside, what did you talk about?’
Mum looks at me for a long time, as if she’s trying to decide something, and I wonder if she’s deciding which bits to leave out.
‘I wanted to ask him something that had been worrying me at the back of my mind.’
‘Why, were you sick as well?’
‘No, but I wanted to know – if this disease often ran in families – what were my chances in getting it, later on?’
‘If you had a mother who got it –’
‘Yes. What the chances were.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘At first he tried to fob me off. I shouldn’t be worried about a thing
like that –’
‘A pretty young woman like you.’
Mum laughed then. ‘Laura, you’re wonderful,’ she said.
‘And what did you say to him?’
‘I said I might be young now, but I’d be old one day and I wanted to know. Well, he pulled a face at that –’
‘The lemon one.’
‘And he said that figures were very deceptive, they were merely averages, statistical indices, nothing could be deduced from them about any individual … there were a lot of factors involved, environmental as well as genetic –’
‘Blah-de-blah.’
‘Yes, but I said I understood all that, and in the end I left him no choice. I wanted to know. One in five, he said, and then he thought for a second and said: Or better.’
‘Or better –? What did he mean?’
‘One in four.’
Mum and I laughed at that, but halfway through – while we’re looking at each other and still have our mouths wide open – we get embarrassed for some reason, and just stop. Which must have looked pretty stupid, and neither of us knows where to look then. But that’s when I keep my side of the bargain and tell her, ‘Okay, I’ll come with you to Gerontics,’ and I’m glad I do because she looks so pleased and kisses me on the side of the head, and doesn’t say anything. And I think I’ll even put up with Gerontics for my mother, and start to get all soppy about myself and how martyrous I am and imagine myself marching into Gerontics’ room and saying, No thanks, I really prefer to stand, when he’s rushing round trying to get four hundred chairs under my bottom. But I’ll wear my sleeping bag or one of Philip’s shirts that’s miles too big and doesn’t show anything.
On Wednesday morning, when we do get to Gerontics’ place, the first thing Grandma Vera says is: ‘Home, now.’
‘Soon,’ Mum says.
‘Home now.’
‘Soon.’
It can go on like this for twenty minutes. It’s like something gets stuck in Grandma Vera’s brainbox and the record keeps turning but the same sound comes out, over and over, and if Mum ever gets sick of it and doesn’t answer, Grandma Vera gets more anxious and upset and starts yelling or crying, so Mum just goes on answering and answering and I don’t know how she does it without going mad herself. Like at home Grandma Vera will follow Mum around the kitchen when she’s cooking and she’ll pick things up that Mum’s just put down, and it’s like Grandma Vera’s trying to let us know she’s all right, she’s still there inside, but she might ask the same question twenty times in five minutes. Like she’ll hold up the milk carton, and say ‘Milk?’ And Mum’ll have to say, ‘Yes, Mother, that’s milk.’ And it goes on and on. ‘Milk?’ ‘Yes, Mother, that’s the milk.’ ‘Milk?’ ‘Yes, Mother, that’s the milk.’ ‘Milk, Miriam, milk.’ ‘Yes, Mother, you’re holding the milk.’ Or sometimes Mum might say, ‘That’s milk you’re holding, all right.’ It’s just lucky Mum’s a language teacher.
