Aunt Bessie Believes

by Diana Xarissa

Bessie flushed and bit her tongue before she could say what she felt.

  “I paid full price,” Doona interjected. “And I think it will be worth every penny.”

  Moirrey looked Doona up and down slowly. “Are you sure you don’t qualify for the discount?” she asked in an incredulous tone. “Well, anyway,” she sniffed, “I suppose the stairs will be good for you.”

  With that she swept her way through the open door, leaving both Doona and Bessie in shock.

  “What did she just say?” Doona choked out.

  “I’m sure I’m not repeating it,” Bessie tried to joke. “And you shouldn’t pay her a bit of attention.”

  Doona smoothed her slightly wrinkled top over her generous hips. “I know I could stand to lose a few pounds,” she admitted, “but I didn’t think I looked that bad.”

  Bessie gave her friend a critical once-over. Doona was somewhere in her mid-forties, with liberally highlighted brown hair and gorgeous, if artificially enhanced, green eyes. Bessie had always kept herself slender. Doona was a few inches taller and maybe forty pounds heavier than her friend.

  “You look wonderful,” Bessie said. “Don’t pay any attention to that horrible woman.”

  “She implied that I wasn’t important enough to remember,” Doona complained. “And that I looked old and fat.”

  “Aye, she did at that,” Bessie grinned. “In between telling me I’m too old to be taking classes and criticising my research efforts.”

  The remark, accompanied by the face that Bessie made, had Doona laughing. With their equilibrium restored, they now made their way through the door into the classroom. Marjorie smiled at them as they carefully selected seats as far away from Moirrey Teare as they could get in the small space.

  Eight plain wooden tables, each with a pair of plastic stacking-type chairs, were arranged facing towards the front of the small and neatly rectangular room. Two windows were spaced uniformly in the wall at the front, but it didn’t look as though they had been washed in a great many years. A glimmer of sunlight from the setting sun struggled to work its way through the years of accumulated grime.

  Between the windows stood a large desk with a comfortable looking chair behind it. Marjorie had placed her box on the desk and was busily unpacking it.

  “I think everyone will agree that I should have that chair,” Moirrey said, rising to her feet from behind the front table on the left side. “I do have a heart condition, after all.”

  No one spoke as she pushed the hard plastic seat she had been using to one side and then carefully rolled the cushioned chair into its place. Bessie exchanged looks with Doona as they settled into their own seats at the very back of the classroom on the right side. The silence in the room was just becoming unpleasant when another face that was familiar to Bessie appeared in the doorway.

  “Oh goodness, I’m not late, am I?” the newcomer demanded. “Only traffic was all in a tangle around the school and then I lost track of where I was going and missed a turning and had to go back around again.” She laughed. “Oh well, I’m here safe and sound anyway.”

  Bessie smiled at her. Joney Quirk was almost always slightly flustered; it was a part of her personality that sixty-plus years of life hadn’t managed to change. She’d been a teacher for many of those years, teaching reception classes full of four- and five-year-olds who probably didn’t notice that their teacher was always mildly atwitter. She was pleasantly plump and casually dressed. Her grey hair was tucked, as always, into a neat bun and her brown eyes sparkled with both intelligence and fun behind lined bifocals.

  Moirrey sighed loudly. “I wondered what we were waiting for,” she said grumpily. “According to my watch we should have started three minutes ago.”

  Marjorie looked at her own watch and shook her head. “According to mine, it’s still a few minutes to seven. Hopefully, our other two class members will get here in that time.”

  Moirrey sighed loudly again. “Perhaps I should have my driver stop at everyone’s house and collect them all next week?” she said sarcastically. “Since getting here on time seems to be such an issue.”

  “You’re rather preaching to the choir,” Doona pointed out. “We’re all here on time.”

  Moirrey opened her mouth to reply but was interrupted by a man rushing through the door.

  Henry Costain was red-faced and apologetic. “We had a late tour bus,” he explained. “Pensioners over from Morecambe who were so excited to see the castle that I just didn’t have the heart to rush them.”

  “And inconveniencing all of us was, presumably, perfectly acceptable?” Moirrey demanded petulantly.

  “Oh no, of course not,” Henry stammered out. “If traffic had been a bit better I would have been here on time anyway, but getting around Douglas was a nightmare.”

  Bessie smiled sympathetically at the man, determined to soothe his ruffled feathers. Henry was a sweet bachelor in his mid-fifties. He had thinning grey hair, muddy brown eyes and a physique that tended to run towards chubby.

  Not often the smartest man in the room, he was kind-hearted and a very hard worker. He had started working for Manx National Heritage as soon as he had left school and he was very popular with locals and tourists alike, always cheerful and happy to show people around at whichever site he was working. Additionally, he was always full of lots of specialist knowledge that he had accumulated over the years.

  “Are you working at Castle Rushen at the moment, then?” she asked him.

  “Oh, aye,” Henry flushed even more. “After all the trouble at the Laxey Wheel last month the boss thought I could do with a change. Not that anyone blamed me for anything....” he trailed off.

  “I should think not,” Bessie said stoutly. “Anyway, Castle Rushen is so beautiful in the spring, it must be wonderful to be there.”

  “It is, aye,” the man beamed. “It’s just the commute that’s a bother, although I know most people across have it much worse.”

  “We do get rather spoiled here, don’t we?” Doona chimed in.

  “I hate to interrupt this lovely bit of catching up,” Moirrey said in a poisonous voice, “but I came here to learn beginning Manx, not find out what the little man who picks up rubbish at the heritage sites has been doing with his time.”

  Henry flushed again and looked agitated. “I don’t pick up rubbish,” he muttered under his breath.

  “Okay, then,” Marjorie spoke loudly to forestall any further conversation. “Let’s get started on learning Manx, shall we?”

  “I thought we were waiting for one more,” Bessie said, happy to be annoying Moirrey.

  “I think we’ll get started,” Marjorie answered her. “We don’t want to waste valuable class time.”

  Marjorie passed out a small pamphlet with basic Manx words and their English translations, as well as several photocopied sheets with more vocabulary on them.

  “Manx Gaelic is a Goidelic language, that is, it comes from Primitive Irish. Modern Irish and Scottish Gaelic share the same roots. I’m sure you’re all aware that the Manx language suffered a decline in....”

  “Pardon me,” Moirrey interrupted. “I thought this was a language class, not a history class.”

  Marjorie flushed. “I thought it would good to start with some basic background into how the language developed,” she said, a bit defensively. “If you’re not interested, we can just dive right into the language however.”

  Everyone exchanged glances, but no one was willing to challenge Moirrey. Bessie, of course, knew the history of the language well enough to teach a course on it herself so she didn’t argue, even though she was annoyed that Moirrey was upsetting Marjorie.

  “Okay then, we’re going to start with the basics,” Marjorie began again. “The focus of the class is on ‘Conversational Manx’ rather than on reading or writing in the language. I encourage you to take notes of how the words are pronounced rather than worrying over exact spellings, at least at this point.”

  Bessie pulled a pencil from her
handbag and set it on the table in front of her. She smiled to herself as she recalled doing the same at every class she had taken in the difficult Gaelic language. Maybe this third attempt would be enough to get her competent enough to move up to the “Intermediate Manx” class that Marjorie was teaching next.

  “Fastyr mie,” Marjorie said to the class.

  “Fastyr mie,” the class chanted back to her.

  “Very good,” Marjorie smiled. “That’s ‘good afternoon’ or ‘good evening.’”

  For the next fifteen minutes or so Marjorie took them slowly through a range of greetings. Then the class was instructed to walk around and exchange polite conversation with one another for a few minutes in Manx. Bessie laughed as she said “good afternoon” and “how are you” politely to the other members of the class, who, for the most part, supplied the appropriate responses.

  “Honestly, Henry,” Moirrey exploded as the session continued. “I said ‘kys t’ou,’ you’re supposed to reply ‘ta mee braew,’ not ‘quoi uss.’” She sighed dramatically.

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Teare, really I am. I just got confused, like, and mixed up my sentences.”

  Moirrey rolled her eyes and flounced away from him, heading straight for Doona, who was sitting on her own, having just finished her chat with Joney. Doona turned her head and silently mouthed “help” towards Bessie, who was busily stumbling over her words with Marjorie. Doona was saved when the classroom door suddenly burst open.

  “Oh my goodness, I’m so very late, I’m so very, very sorry.”

  Bessie looked at the stranger curiously. She had never seen her before. The woman was very young, maybe in her mid-twenties, with long, blonde, windblown hair and pretty blue eyes. She was slim and well dressed, but she looked frazzled.

  Doona was closest to the door and she leapt up to greet the new arrival. “No worries,” she told the woman. “I’m sure Marjorie understands, don’t you, Marjorie?”

  Marjorie laughed and walked over to the pair. “Of course I understand. Kys t’ou?”

  “Oh, um, ta mee braew, I think.”

  Marjorie laughed. “Very good, I don’t think you’ve missed anything.” She turned to the rest of the class to perform the necessary introductions.

  “This is Liz Martin. She’s my next-door neighbour, and I’ve been teaching her Manx over the garden fence for the last few months.” Marjorie introduced each of the others in turn, getting to Moirrey last.

  “So nice to meet you,” Liz said politely.

  “Where are you from, dear?” Moirrey asked.

  “I grew up in Bolsover,” Liz told her. “But I met my husband at uni in Liverpool. He works in banking and got transferred here in January.”

  “So many banks suddenly seem to have forgotten that we have many talented men and women living here who need jobs,” Moirrey sniffed. “If I was in charge of the work permit committee there would be a lot fewer people like you coming over here and taking jobs away from the native Manx people.”

  Liz looked at Marjorie uncertainly. “I don’t work, actually,” she said in an apologetic tone. “I’m at home with the kids.”

  “How many children do you have?” Bessie asked, smiling kindly at Liz.

  “Two,” Liz beamed. “Jackson is two and a half and Kylie is sixteen months.”

  “I’ll bet they’re a handful as well,” Bessie said. “You must have pictures?”

  Moirrey sighed deeply. “If this is what every class is going to be like, I can’t see much point in my being here,” she grumbled loudly.

  Marjorie flushed and swallowed visibly before she spoke. “Let’s get back to our conversations, then,” she suggested. “Has everyone had a chance to talk with everyone else? We’ll leave Liz out of this round.”

  A few minutes later everyone had had enough of trying out their very basic greetings and Marjorie called them back together. “Let’s work through talking about drinks and drinking and then we can take a tea break and discuss what we’re having in Manx.”

  Bessie took careful notes, writing her own unique phonetic pronunciation guide to each word or phrase as Marjorie took them slowly through them.

  At one point Doona leaned across to glance at Bessie’s neatly written notes. “What on earth does that say?” she hissed at Bessie.

  “By vie lhiam ushtey,” Bessie whispered back.

  “Really?” Doona peered more closely at the paper and then shook her head.

  She began to speak again, but was interrupted by a loud “shhhhhhh” from Moirrey. Silenced, Doona rolled her eyes at her friend instead and the pair struggled to choke back giggles as Moirrey glared at them.

  Another fifteen minutes ticked past before Marjorie announced that it was time for a tea break.

  “Oh, thank heavens,” Bessie exclaimed.

  “I hope there are some chocolate biscuits to go with that tea,” Doona said as everyone rose from their seats to gather around the tea table in the left front corner of the room.

  “I hardly think you need biscuits,” Moirrey said to Doona in a disapproving tone.

  “Oh, I definitely do,” Doona answered, sharing a wry smile with Bessie.

  “So do I,” Joney said, smiling at Doona. “Chocolate makes life so much better.”

  While everyone waited for the kettle to boil, Liz, at Bessie’s insistence, pulled a few snapshots of her children from her handbag and Bessie, Doona and Marjorie cooed over them. None of the three had any children of their own; indeed, Doona was the only one of the three who had ever been married. Even though Doona had tried matrimony twice, she was currently single and remained childless.

  Joney pulled out a few snapshots of her newly arrived granddaughter, her first grandchild, and everyone fussed over those as well.

  “I just wish Peter were here to share the joy with me,” Joney said, sniffling slightly. Peter, her husband of many happy years, had passed away a year earlier.

  Bessie patted Joney’s hand. “He’d be ever so proud of that little one,” she told Joney. “Every time I saw him anywhere he always bragged about his children. I’m sure he’d be even worse with the grandbaby.”

  Bessie never minded not having children of her own. Instead, she had happily taken on the role of honourary maiden aunt to just about every child in Laxey. Once those children reached school age, parents could count on every one of them running away to “Aunt Bessie’s” at least once in a while. Bessie usually had biscuits, frequently had cake and always had a sympathetic ear for children who felt misunderstood or under-appreciated at home.

  In all of her years of opening her doors to the neighbourhood children, there had only ever been one child that she’d ever asked to leave. Disagreeable and difficult even as a teen, Moirrey Teare had never forgiven Bessie for the slight, a fact that bothered Bessie not even the tiniest bit.

  As everyone fixed themselves cups of tea and selected a few biscuits to pile on their plates, Moirrey set her handbag on the table and began fishing bottles of tablets from deep within it. Doona’s jaw dropped as she counted nine different bottles, each with its own neatly typed label from the local chemist.

  Moirrey looked up from her collection, appearing surprised to find herself the centre of attention. “I did mention that I have heart trouble,” she reminded the others. “I’m kept alive thanks to modern medicine and this collection of tablets. They have to be taken in the right order and at exactly the right times or I could die.”

  Bessie and Doona exchanged looks, but both kept quiet.

  “But why do you carry them all around with you all the time?” Liz asked. “I mean, why not just put the ones you need into one of those little carrying cases and leave the big bottles at home?”

  Moirrey shook her head. “I like to keep track of my tablets myself,” she replied. “And the best way to do that is to keep them all with me.”

  Liz looked like she wanted to argue, but she took a sip of tea instead. Everyone watched with bizarre fascination as Moirrey lined up the bottles in some orde
r that, presumably, had significance for her. After they were all perfectly aligned, Moirrey counted them a couple of times. Finally, she opened the first bottle, removed a tablet and washed it down with a sip of tea. She skipped over the second bottle, retrieving a tablet from the third. This one too she swallowed with her tea. Then she skipped all the way to the very last bottle, removing two tiny tablets from it. These were quickly dispatched with the last of Moirrey’s tea. She frowned as she held up the empty cup.

  “I need a refill,” she said crossly.

  Marjorie was quick to pour more tea into the proffered cup. Bessie finished her own drink and smiled at Marjorie.

  “Please, may I have some more tea?” she asked politely.

  Moirrey’s frown deepened as she added sugar to her tea.

  Bessie said a loud “thank you” as Marjorie passed the now full cup back to her. Moirrey nibbled a biscuit and ignored the interchange.

  After Moirrey finished her second cup of tea, she opened her handbag fully and, with a sweep of her arm, brushed all of the bottles of tablets into it. One managed to escape, bouncing off the table and rolling across the floor. Doona quickly picked it up and returned it to its owner.

  Moirrey took it with a suspicious look on her face. She opened the bottle, checking its contents, before closing it tightly again.

  “You’re welcome, I’m sure,” Doona said tightly.

  After an uncomfortable silence that lasted several minutes, Marjorie cleared her throat. “Okay, let’s try practicing our conversation about drinking,” she suggested. “Everyone take a turn to talk to everyone else and try out at least three or four of our new phrases.”

  As Bessie stood up to grab her notes, Marjorie gave her a wicked grin. “Don’t use your notes,” she told the class. “Let’s see how much you can remember from earlier.”

  Bessie frowned ruefully. She didn’t remember much. The next twenty minutes were a blur for Bessie as she struggled through a conversation with each of her classmates that only seemed to reinforce how little she could recall. One thing became almost immediately apparent to her. Young Liz was going to be the class star. Her Manx sounded fluid and effortless, especially compared to Bessie’s hesitant and garbled struggles.