Hard Word

by John Clanchy

  Anyway, when he’s got his proper voice back, he tells us that Mum and he thought they wanted to explore some ideas with us about the best care for Grandma Vera, and nothing’s decided yet, and we all have a say in this, not least of all Grandma Vera, whom we’re to talk to later, and everybody has equal rights in this and nobody’s going to force anything on us against our own will – like a flat at the back of the house, though Philip doesn’t say this, I just think it – and blahdeblahdeblah, till Katie yawns and says, ‘Is that meringue?’

  And it’s Philip’s turn to land on a branch with his eyes like a startled parrot. ‘What?’ he says.

  ‘In the blue dish,’ Katie says. ‘Is that meringue?’

  And, just from looking at him, I know Philip wants to say Fuckkk, why do I bother? but he doesn’t, he just swallows and says, ‘We’ll come to the meringue in a minute, we just need to finish this piece of family business first,’ and I ask him how can we finish it when we haven’t started it yet because he’s talking so much, and he starts to look then like he’s swallowed a meringue whole and can’t get a word out past it for a moment, and that’s when Mum says:

  ‘It’s about Grandma Vera. Philip thinks …’ And Mum’s looking at him, and being very careful now. ‘Philip’s proposing …’

  ‘That we put Grandma Vera in a home,’ I say. ‘Philip’s always thought that, and I now agree with him. And it’d be best for her, so long as it’s near here and we can visit her every day.’

  And there’s silence. And Philip’s looking at me as if I’ve just said we can’t bomb Denmark because it’s Sunday, but we could do a naval blockade of Vladivostok.

  ‘But, darling,’ Mum says. ‘You’ve never said anything about this before.’

  ‘Well, that’s because you’ve been too busy playing Mother Teresa to ask.’

  ‘But when we discussed bringing Grandma Vera here, you were all for it.’

  ‘That was then, Mum. That was nearly two years ago. She’s much worse now, and we’re all running round in circles trying to plug all the holes that appear every time she moves, and it’s not just us, she’s getting more and more distressed, and inside she knows what’s happening to her.’

  ‘But she hates the idea of a home. She’s always hated it.’

  ‘That’s all changed, Mum. You must have felt it. She’s with us less and less every day. And she’s knows she’s fouling … everything up for us, and that’s what’s upsetting her.’

  ‘Darling,’ Mum says, ‘I don’t know how you can say any of that. With any certainty, I mean.’

  ‘What’s she been saying to you recently? What did she say yesterday after –’

  ‘ ‘‘Bad girl, bad,’’ she just kept saying …’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘ ‘‘Home, now. Home – now.’’ ’

  I don’t say anything to Mum then. I just look at her. Till it hits her.

  ‘Oh, no, darling, you’re wrong,’ she says. ‘She doesn’t mean that at all. It’s what she often says, you know that. When we go out, when we visit the doctor, she wants to leave, to go home. It’s just an anxiety phrase – separation anxiety, it’s called.’

  ‘Home, now,’ I say. ‘It’s different. She’s saying it in a different way.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘She’s giving you permission.’

  ‘Darling, that’s just wrong.’

  ‘Well, why are we having this meeting, then?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What’s the point of this meeting?’ I say again. ‘If nothing’s going to change. If you’re not ever going to put her in a nursing home, what are we discussing?’

  Mum looks at Philip then.

  ‘Well, we are actually discussing putting her in a home,’ he says. ‘It just takes a while for it to … crystallize, to sink in, I suppose. And don’t be so tough on Miriam, Laura,’ he says.

  And normally, if anyone said this, I’d tell them to mind their own business, but when Philips says this and he puts out a hand to Mum and she takes it for a second, and I see she’s upset and grateful he’s done this – when he’s like this and protective with Mum and touching her like that and not pashing on in the kitchen pretending he’s eighteen instead of about a hundred and eight, well, I change my mind about Philip. And right at the moment he does look very young just sitting there and holding hands with Mum, and I find I like him a lot, so much in fact I could kiss him, and he is handsome and that, and I can even see why Mum’s keen on him, and I realize this is hard for both of them and everything’s upside down at the moment, and it’s like we’re the parents, Katie and me, and Mum and Philip are asking our permission for something, like whether they can get married or something, so I decide to sit up straight and be mature and not such a poop, and help instead of being a difficult young woman – for the moment anyway – though Katie’s still breaking bits off the edge of the meringue, and Philip’s still talking.

  ‘Of course,’ he says, ‘we’d all rather Grandma Vera stayed here with us, right to … the end. But, as you saw yesterday, we’re finding it impossible to cope, both with meeting Mother’s needs, Grandma Vera’s, I mean, and with our own. Now the idea of the nursing home is mine, and I take full responsibility for it …’

  Mum is going to say something, but Katie beats her to it.

  ‘But she’ll be lonely in a home,’ Katie says. And she won’t have us –’

  ‘Do you think?’ Mum says, and I can see how divided and uncertain she still is about all this. So I say:

  ‘She doesn’t have us now most of the day, Kat, and she hardly notices we’re away. You and I are at school all day, and Philip’s at work and hardly sees her, and Mum’s teaching three days a week, sometimes more, and –’

  ‘And she can’t have Yogi to play with when she wants to,’ Katie says.

  ‘She didn’t have her last night,’ I say, and Katie pokes her tongue out at me, and picks at the meringue.

  ‘Anyway,’ Philip says, ‘unless anyone’s absolutely against it …’

  And he pauses then and glances at Mum but she’s got her head down and her hands are open on the table in front of her like all those Muslims you see on the TV in the mosque whenever there’s a riot somewhere, or Salman Rushdie’s about to be killed, or something. So when she doesn’t look at him, Philip goes on:

  ‘I think we should at least look around. We’d have to do it anyway soon, in case Grandma Vera got very bad suddenly – and medically we couldn’t manage her here.’

  ‘Anything …’ Mum says, and it’s like she’s strangling herself in getting the words out. Anything we did decide on … it would have to be very close to here.’

  ‘Of course,’ says Philip. ‘Of course, darling, you’d want to be there every day, and Katie and Laura would want to go too.’

  ‘We could go there on our way to school,’ Katie says in her first bright note.

  ‘And who knows,’ Philip says, and he is – I have to admit this – in charge of the meeting now, and I like him for what he says to Katie, ‘We may even find a place that allows pets. We’ll look around anyway. Nothing’s definite yet.’

  And when he says this last bit, he’s not announcing it to us or saying we can change our minds if we don’t like it, he’s not even talking to Katie and me at all, because the decision’s really made – and it’s the right one and I’m glad he’s done it and I think he’s really mature and all that – but it’s actually Mum he’s talking to, and still persuading, and making it easier for her. But I wonder really if he dreamed this up himself because he didn’t say anything about it after the barbecue, he was just glad the thing was all over, and it was Mum – in the park and back here at home when we cleaned up – who was doing all the thinking. But this is what it’s like with parents, you never know what’s going on in their heads from one moment to the next. It’s hardest for Mum, though, because I know what it’s like myself. You think about something, and you decide the best way to do it is like this or like that, and y
ou think that’s over, then when you tell someone else and you hear yourself saying it, you suddenly think, no, that’s not right, that’s crazy, and what could I have been thinking about? And I’m sure Mum’s like that now, listening to Philip talk, and even if last night she thought this was the best solution for everyone, now, this morning, listening to it all, she’d be going, What? Put my mother in a home? Over my dead body.

  ‘Can I have the meringue now?’ Katie says.

  ‘There is one other thing,’ Philip says. And he’s starting to get bossy and important again, so I say, ‘You’re supposed to say, Item on the agenda.’

  ‘Thank you, Laura,’ he says. ‘That’s very helpful.’

  ‘How would you two girls …?’ Mum says, and she’s still sounding strange, and I can see she’s worked herself up to this, and wants to get it out and over as soon as possible. ‘How,’ she says, ‘would you feel about having a … ?’

  ‘A what?’ says Katie. And even her hand’s frozen beside the meringue.

  ‘A little brother,’ Mum says and goes red and gulps like she’s about fourteen, but this time I’m the one who nearly faints.

  ‘You’re not –’ I say. And I can see immediately she is. And she will. And I think, Yeeeech. My own mother. How could she do this to me? And oh, yes, I can just see myself saying to the kids at school, My mother’s going to have a baby – joke! and I’m fifteen – and they’ll go, You what? and you’re crazy, Lolly, she couldn’t, it’ll be a mongoloid or something, she must be at least sixty – and how am I ever going to tell Toni, she’ll never let me forget it. If my mum told me she was going to have a baby, Toni’ll say, I’d have to go, Oh, yes, and what was it – immaculate conception? Because my Dad wouldn’t know how … And then there’s Philip! Imagine if Philip ever found out my own mother was going to have a baby. And he’s coming here, to the house! Oh, Christ, I’m going to leave home. I’ll phone Philip, and tell him I’m sick, or Mum is. I’m never never never going back to school. Ever.

  ‘Of course,’ Philip’s saying, ‘we’re not entirely sure yet.’

  This is the trouble with Philip. He’s so wishy-washy. He never says anything definite. First, Grandma’s going into a home, then she’s not, or maybe. And next Mum’s preg – See, I can’t even say the word. It’s so disgusting. And then she’s not, or maybe. He never makes up his mind, Philip.

  ‘I am,’ says Mum.

  ‘You are what?’ says Katie, and I’m glad she says it because I can’t speak.

  ‘Sure,’ says Mum. And it’s going to be a boy. What do you think, Laura?’

  And all I’m thinking is, if she says she’s going to call it Philip, I’ll kill her.

  ‘I have to make a phone call,’ I say. ‘It’s urgent.’

  And then she looks at me and she sees something in my face, and understands, and she’s my mother after all, and she looks suddenly hurt and about four years old, and says:

  ‘Aren’t you pleased for me?’

  And what can I say to that? ‘Yes,’ I say.

  ‘I’ll be able to play with him, won’t I, Mum?’ Katie says.

  ‘Yes,’ says Mum, but still looking over Katie’s head at me.

  ‘Sure?’ she says to me.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘And so Grandma Vera can have Yogi after all,’ Katie says, ‘cos I’ll have –’

  ‘Well, we don’t know for absolute sure yet,’ says Philip who’s starting to fidget, and look around for his paper because he realizes no one is listening to him any more, if they ever were. ‘We’ll have to see what the tests say.’

  ‘Laura?’ Mum says. She’s still watching my face, and I can’t look away.

  ‘It’s just a bit of a shock,’ I say.

  And then she says something that shocks me even more:

  ‘I’ve thought about it and thought about it, Laura, but these two things – they’re not connected, I’m sure of that, if that’s what you’re thinking. They just happened this way …’

  And I don’t have a clue for a while what she’s talking about. ‘Grandma Vera and the pregnancy,’ she says, when I finally ask her. ‘I wondered whether I was just making a convenience of Grandma Vera, getting her out of the way because –’

  ‘Oh, Mum,’ I say then. ‘Don’t be crazy. Nobody’d ever think that.’

  ‘I keep telling you, Miriam,’ Philip says, ‘you’re too fastidious. In conscience. The thing never even occurred to you till after we’d discussed the issue of Mother and a home.’

  ‘Not consciously,’ Mum says. ‘But –’

  ‘You’ll probably believe it anyway,’ I say then. ‘Just to punish yourself.’

  She looks at me sharply to see how I mean this.

  ‘Yes,’ she smiles back. ‘I probably will.’

  ‘Well,’ says Philip. ‘If there’s no other business …’

  ‘You can make your call now,’ Mum says to me. And this tells me, if I didn’t already know it, how smart she is, and how much I love her.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I say. ‘There’s no need now.’

  Miriam

  Expect the unexpected. Isn’t that what all the management gurus say now, the corporate trainers? And it’s true enough in a way, I suppose. The things you anticipate with most dread never happen, but the trivial is always there, waiting to rise up from nowhere and bite the backside from under you.

  It’s Monday, my first class for the new half-term and I’m already dreading it, dreading having to face Ted Coster and Pam Richter and start the struggle all over again to get Sorathy released for classes. At least Mother’s recovering, according to Dr Lazenby anyway, though to me she seems even more vacant than ever, and adrift somewhere. She’s scarcely left her bed these past two days.

  ‘Deep shock can do this,’ Dr Lazenby says. ‘She’ll come out of it when she’s ready.’

  In my pigeon-hole in the staff room, there’s a note which I snatch up and read on my way to class. It’s from Pam Richter, asking me to call in at her office in the coffee break. Here we go, I say, and stiffen my back for Officer Coster. I’m glad, I catch myself thinking, that I have my hair up this morning.

  But it isn’t Ted Coster who’s waiting by the door of my classroom.

  ‘Sorathy!’ I say, and look around for a blue uniform, a guard. There is no one, only students chatting happily as they move in and out of the rooms. ‘What are you doing here? Come in, come in,’ I say, dragging her by the arm and pulling her into the classroom before anyone can come and snatch her away.

  There are cries of welcome from all round the room, but I wave a hand at them and focus on Sorathy.

  ‘How is it you’re here? How did you do it? I thought I’d have to come –’

  ‘There is no problem,’ she says.

  ‘But you were so late. Mr Coster –’

  ‘It is the weekend,’ she says. ‘It is Saturday. Mr Coster is not on the gate or in the guardhouse when I get back. It is a lady officer.’

  ‘And she … ?’

  ‘She is very nice. She pick up My Huoy and talk to her while I sign the book. You have to sign the book when you go out and when you come in. And she sign it after you.’

  ‘But the time –?’

  The whole class, I’m aware, is hanging on every word. They will have heard the story of My Huoy’s disappearance by now, I realize, either from Njala or from Sorathy herself.

  ‘The lady on the gate,’ Sorathy says, ‘she has to write down the time, but I tell her about the barbecue and then she say to me: ‘‘What is the time now?’’ and I say, ‘‘I do not know.’’ And then she say her watch often wrong, what time am I due back? I say three o’clock, and she say that must be the time then, because she know I am always on time. And so she put it down. But when I get to my room and look at my clock, it is already four-thirty.’

  There is a roar of approval and delight, and we settle to the shambles of a class. Except, in the event, it’s anything but a shambles. This morning, they insist, they want n
o grammar, no exercises, no drills. Instead they have dozens of questions arising out of the barbecue. Questions of social etiquette, linguistic etiquette. Who greets whom, and how, at an Australian party? How do you address Philip if he is a man you haven’t met before but you call his wife Miriam even if she is your teacher? When people come to your house, how do you greet them – for dinner? For a barbecue? If you serve people drinks before dinner, how – in Australia – do you get them to the table? We practise the phrases, we role-play, we act out scenarios.

  ‘Less imperative,’ I say to Maria at one point. She is seating guests round her dinner table – Njala, and Shamila (Njala’s husband in this exercise), Sorathy and Hué (Sorathy’s husband).

  ‘You,’ Maria says to Shamila. ‘Sit here!’

  ‘Still too imperative, Maria,’ I tell her. ‘Not Sit! You say Sit! to a dog –’

  ‘What if he look like a dog?’ Maria says, and they fall about. Maria still has all the skills of a market woman. And a natural clown.

  ‘Okay,’ I say, when they’ve quietened again. ‘Now Hué – she’s Sorathy’s husband, remember. What do you say to him?’

  ‘You sit here next to me,’ Maria says to Hué. And then, turning to the class, she says, ‘He is verrry handsome.’

  Again I wait for them to settle.

  ‘It doesn’t matter whether you put you in front of it, Maria,’ I tell her. ‘You’re still using the imperative form of the verb. And it’s not appropriate. Try something like this: “Hue,”’ I say, acting Maria’s part, ‘ “I wonder … would you like to sit over here, next to me?”’

  ‘It is more subtle?’ Maria says.

  ‘It is more seductive,’ I say.

  ‘Aaaah –’

  ‘What …’ Maria says, ‘if he says no?’

  ‘Then,’ I say, ‘you say Sit! ’

  They laugh. The first hour flies. We are all happy for Sorathy. It is all so carefree, I think, looking at Sorathy’s face. She is smiling at some foolery of Maria’s, though – as always – with more restraint than any of us. And I am thinking of this with a little sadness, when the second dread of the day hits me, and I curse silently and sneak a look at a roster I have in one of my folders – and there I find my worst fears confirmed. My obsession with Coster, with facing Pam Richter has driven this other horror completely out of my mind. I hadn’t even expected Sorathy to be here today. But she is, and I can think of no way of avoiding what must happen next.