Have the Men Had Enough?

by Margaret Forster

  *

  Mrs O’Malley rang while we were having breakfast. Grandma had had a very disturbed night and she just thought we ought to know. Also, she had wet her nightdress, but luckily not the bed. She justthought we ought to know that, too. She made it quite clear that she was not complaining about this – ‘It is what I’m paid for,’ she said – so that was an improvement on Mildred, but she did wonder if maybe it was because the Day Centre had been too much for her. I said maybe it had been, that it was only an experiment anyway. Mrs O’Malley promised to report at the end of the week on how Grandma was.

  Charlie had come with us on the first day only as a gesture of family solidarity. I took her on my own today. I went along early, to allow for taking her to the lavatory and getting her coat on and manipulating her into the car. Susan was still there. She usually leaves at 1.30, after giving Grandma her lunch but although it was nearly quarter to two she was sitting at the kitchen table drinking tea and talking to Grandma. It was a quite deliberately set-up scene. Susan had her hand in Grandma’s and was talking to her in a crooning, sickly-sweet way, as some people cannot help doing to babies. ‘You’ve got lovely hair, darlin’,’ she was saying as I let myself in. ‘It’s just like my mammy’s was afore she died. Aw, I loved my mammy,’ Susan was saying, ‘just like I love you, darlin’, you sweet thing you, your Susan loves you and treats you nice, eh?’ There was a pretend jump as I walked in and an utterly false, old Southern ‘I do declare, Missus McKay,’ straight out of Gone With The Wind. One baby was smearing jam over the other’s mouth – they sat side-by-side in a twin buggy, strapped in, the jampot between them and sodden rusks matted into the rug over their knees. ‘These is my nephews,’ Susan said. ‘Mrs McKay here, she does love kiddies don’t you darlin’?’ Grandma rolled her eyes and Susan laughed, pausing only to tell me what fun they had sure been having.

  Bridget thinks Susan steals. She maintains it is Susan who takes the cigarettes and that they don’t get lost at all. I really cannot bear it when Bridget starts on this. I dare not say, ‘What does it matter, anyway?’ Bridget sees this ‘stealing’ – we are talking about a few cigarettes a day – as an act of aggression towards her mother. She thinks it is monstrous of Susan and is always wanting to ‘have it out’ with her. Or lay a trap. I refuse to discuss it – Susan is welcome to the cigarettes, if indeed she is taking them. Bridget also suspects the babies she brings with her are fed on Grandma’s sugar, Grandma’s biscuits, Grandma’s jam. I pointed out that as I paid for them and I did not care, there was no need for Bridget to do so. Bridget said it was the principle. Grandma never stole and she was poorer than Susan. But then, as we all know, Bridget sees her mother as perfect.

  I told Susan where we were off to. Her face went grave. ‘She won’t like it,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘She’s happier here. You don’t know how they is treated there, no sir.’ I said I did know and that Grandma had loved it and it gave her some company and an outing. Susan turned to Grandma and said, ‘Did you like the Day Centre, darlin’? You can tell Susan.’ Grandma asked who Susan was. Susan did another full-bellied laugh. ‘She says that to me sometimes,’ she gasped, clutching her great belly. ‘She says who is Susan and I say Susan is me and I’ve been lookin’ after you every day nearly for three years and you say who is Susan.’ Grandma said she looked after herself. ‘Of course you do, darlin’,’ Susan said. Grandma said was anyone going to make a cup of tea or did she have to make it herself as usual but, oh yes, we would want a cup when she had bloomin’ well made it.

  Susan helped me get Grandma ready. I could have done without the help. The more Susan talked, the more confused Grandma became until she was sure Susan’s so-called nephews were Susan’s own children. ‘Give them a penny,’ she told me. I said they would only put money in their mouths. ‘Then give it to their mother, where’s my bag, I’ve plenty of money, the poor bairns.’ I gave Susan ten pence. She ostentatiously slipped it back to me. It was hard to know which would be more embarrassing, accepting it or insisting she kept the wretched coin. Finally, we got outside and Susan trundled off, the ‘nephews’ screaming now that they were deprived of jam. The screaming worried Grandma and I wished Susan would get a move on and round the corner where she would doubtless have her own way of stopping the noise.

  When we pulled up outside the Day Centre, there was plenty of room. We were either ahead of or behind the van delivery of disabled attenders. But, although there was nothing at all in sight to alarm her, or even to indicate what this place was, Grandma refused to budge. She said her legs were stuck and she would have to go home. It was no good saying that if her legs were stuck here they would be stuck when we got home – such subtleties of reasoning were a waste of time. I stood looking down at her, the car door wide open, thinking. Grandma said it was bloomin’ cold and she wished people would shut the dratted door because they were letting the heat from the fire out. I fingered the ten pence piece Susan had returned to me. Grandma was staring straight ahead, rigid. Carefully, I bent down and placed the coin about a foot from the car door. The sun made it shine most satisfactorily. Then I stood back. The shadow of my presence removed, Grandma turned to see where I had gone. The coin stood out quite unmistakably on the dirty pavement. ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, and pointed. ‘Look at that money – somebody’s dropped it, will we take it to the police station?’ I did not move. I said, ‘It’s only ten pence, not worth picking up.’ ‘In the name of God!’ Grandma raged and struggled to be free. She swung her legs out of her own accord, muttering that it was all right for some, easy come, easy go, but if you looked after the pennies the pounds would take care of themselves and she never thought to see the day when silver wouldn’t be worth picking up. I gave her a helping hand up and steadied her while she bent to pick up the ten pence. She clutched it triumphantly. ‘Will we take it to the police?’ she asked. I closed the car door and without replying led her into the Day Centre where she approached each person she met in the corridor with the coin asking if it was theirs. Her face was flushed with the excitement of it all. I left her with the same woman as the day before.

  On the way home I pondered on Grandma’s love of money. She was the least greedy of women, the least avaricious, but she had, where money was concerned, a certain Scrooge-like attitude – there is nothing mean-spirited about Grandma, she would give anyone who needed it all her help without stinting, but she likes to handle money even now, to handle it and gloat over it and appreciate its worth. Probably, if she hadn’t had this character trait, she would have gone under during the worst stages of her widowhood. Bridget is always wondering how on earth Grandma managed on her miserable widow’s pension, how did she keep out of debt and never beg? There were her elastic savings of course, the hundred pounds she had when she got married. She would laugh and say their father married her for her bank balance, and in the thirties it was indeed quite a sum. But this hundred pounds, in her own account of how she brought up her family, was like the loaves and fishes. Everything, it seemed, came out of these savings. She had a genius with money, far beyond the grasp of most women of her class and education. Charlie, who, it goes without saying, knows where he inherited his own financial flair, was astonished to discover how very well his mother had managed her pitifully small nest-egg when he took over her affairs. She had a few useless war bonds which she ought to have cashed but otherwise she had bought Premium Bonds and had won small sums with them and then invested her winnings – £50, twice – in National Savings Certificates. She liked to handle money and to handle figures. Nothing made her angrier than contempt for finance. ‘Money makes the world go round,’ she used to say and when, being provocative but meaning it, I would say surely it was love that made the world go round she would say, ‘Don’t you believe it.’

  It was just possible that dropping a coin outside the car door would always get Grandma out of it but the thought of such endless subterfuge wearied me. Everything is becoming a game – games to get her up, games to feed her, games to make h
er go to the lavatory. Playing games to that extent is depressing. As I drove home, I wondered if games, tricks, could do any damage. What was Grandma saying when she announced her legs were stuck? She was saying, in the only way she knew how, that she did not want to go to the Day Centre. Was this something she should be helped to overcome? Or, instead of responding with sleights of hand, should we respect her wish? Charlie was the only one with no doubts. When I tried to discuss it at supper, he said of course it was better for Grandma to have company, to be occupied, to be watched over, to be somewhere light and bright instead of stuck in her kitchen on her own from 1.30 to 3.30 until I collected her. He said, with conviction, that it is in her interests to go to the Day Centre – she isn’t safe, alone any more. She needs only to trip and fall and lie there for two hours for us to realise this.

  It is a funny thing, but Grandma never has fallen. I do not believe that she fell when Mildred found her on the floor – I think she chose to lie down because she forgot how to get into bed. She has never fallen during the day. She is large and ungainly and unbelievably clumsy but it is quite remarkable how this has never led to her falling or breaking things. She used to say it was because she was so slow and that may indeed be the explanation. She does do things very, very slowly, with great evident anxiety. Her own rooms used to be a maze of potential traps – all kinds of objects awkwardly positioned – but she never fell into them. My fingers would itch to clear out all her junk and make more room for her but she would not hear of it. She liked clutter. Her flat down here is much better designed – there are no standard lamps with trailing wires of the lethal sort she used to love – but, even so, she drags bits of furniture into different places, never happy until getting from one end of the room to the other is an obstacle race.

  I find I think about Grandma all the time now. I daydream, I worry, I envisage the future. It would really be much better if I had her here, as usual, drinking tea, or not drinking it, and rambling on. As Bridget would say and Hannah endorse, what is all the fuss for?

  Hannah

  ADRIAN AND I take Grandma to the chiropodist at the clinic. She, the chiropodist, would come to Grandma’s home but it makes an outing for Grandma so we keep taking her. And it is what Mum calls a nice little job for Adrian. He does the driving. (Adrian is very proud of having passed his driving test first time last year.) He does the driving but for reasons unknown to me he cannot do the taking-into-the-clinic-and-divesting-of-stockings. Mum says Grandma would be embarrassed if Adrian took her stockings off. It would mean fiddling with suspenders – Grandma cannot be parted from her suspenders – and Mum says that is too much to expect. I can’t see why but Mum also keeps saying Grandma would mind. How this could be proved I don’t know. But I go as well, to be the stocking-taker-offer. Women’s work, again.

  Adrian has no idea how to get Grandma into the car. He just stands there, helpless, saying why can’t she sit down and Grandma stands, equally helpless, and they stare at each other and Grandma asks Adrian if his name is Duncan. He says no, of course, and she says that’s a pity because she knows a poem about Duncan Davidson that puts her in mind of him and it goes etc. etc. I say if we stand here any longer, we’ll miss the appointment. Then I show off. I point to the floor of the car and tell Grandma to pick that sweetie up, it’s going to waste. She bends slowly and, when she’s nearly there, reaching into the front of the car, I put my hand on her head to protect it from getting knocked and I push her bottom sideways and she half-falls into the car and I lift her legs to join the rest of her. Mission accomplished. Adrian is aghast. He says I’m cruel. I tell him to shut up. He hasn’t the faintest idea of how to manage Grandma.

  He drives slowly, as though he had a cargo of porcelain. Grandma asks how long will it take. Adrian says five minutes. Grandma is startled. She says it’s a deal quicker than the train. I tell her she’s going to the clinic to have her feet done. Grandma says her corns are terrible but there’s no point in having anything done because the damned things just grow again and it’s a waste of time. By now we are at the clinic. Easier getting her out than in. Even Adrian can do it. A group of his friends is passing as he helps Grandma out. When one of them says ‘hello’ Grandma shouts ‘hello’ too and the friend laughs.

  How’s your mother?

  Sorry?

  She thinks she knows your mother.

  I do know his mother, and his father.

  Bad luck, Grandma, Luke hasn’t got a father.

  What nonsense, everyone has a father.

  Luke’s mother doesn’t know his, he was a test-tube baby.

  Adrian!

  Poor wee soul, you never know the minute . . .

  Come on Grandma, concentrate.

  The cheek of it.

  Hi, Adrian.

  Hi, Ben.

  Hello, hello, how’s your lady friend.

  Pardon?

  How’s your mother?

  Adrian is sweating, but the friends pass on. By now Grandma is on the pavement and upright if not yet walking. We then have the exaggerated shivers as she complains about the non-existent, terrible cold. This is followed by a similar performance of gasping and blowing as she complains about the awful heat once we are in the clinic. Adrian says he’ll wait outside. Why not, I say to him, God knows you’ve done your bit.

  Grandma does enjoy the clinic, there’s no doubt. She nods and smiles at the other two people waiting and assures them she knows their mothers. They both, one man, one woman, stare at her blankly. They are old too, but clearly in full possession of their mental faculties and proud of it. Grandma whispers, perfectly audibly, that they are a miserable lot, she doesn’t know what is the matter with them, but never mind. She starts to sing ‘Green Grow the Rashes’, and when she gets to the line, ‘My arms about my dearie O’ she puts her arms round me and I put mine round her and we both laugh. She’s still in high good humour when her name is called. She struggles up, quite excited, and I go with her and take her stockings off for the chiropodist. Her feet are like deserted battle grounds. They are covered in discoloured lumps and bumps, the flesh stretched over them scaly and blue. Her toes bear no resemblance to any toes I have ever known. They are huge and twisted into strange shapes. I could cry looking at Grandma’s feet but she is looking down at them affectionately.

  I sit outside. I suppose the chiropodist wouldn’t mind if I stayed but when she asks would I like to wait outside, I always obey. I can hear every word. The chiropodist asks Grandma if she’s been having any trouble at all with her feet. It seems a stupid question to me when she’s confronted with all the evidence of the trouble Grandma has with her wretched feet. I wait to hear Grandma begin on the litany of foot trouble, but no.

  No trouble at all, thank you.

  Not with this big corn?

  Don’t you bother with it, I’ve had it years.

  I think I can ease it a little.

  They all say that, they’re all wrong.

  Did you walk here?

  I did, I like a wee walk.

  Are your shoes comfortable?

  They are, lovely shoes, I got them at the Co-op.

  Have you lived in London long?

  I’ve never lived in London, never left Glasgow.

  (–long silence–)

  Does this toe joint hurt?

  Sometimes but I just bash it.

  Walking doesn’t cause any problems?

  No trouble at all, thank you.

  I go back in to put the stockings on. The chiropodist explains to me what she has done and what she will do next time. She refers to Grandma as ‘she’ and ‘her’, as though she was an idiot. When it comes to putting Grandma’s shoes on, I have difficulty. They’re very old shoes. They’re made of brown leather, the sort that are laced and have good strong soles. The leather is very worn. In fact, there’s a small hole, rapidly widening into a tear, where Grandma’s largest bunion is pushing through. The chiropodist watches. She says maybe ‘she’ needs some new shoes. Grandma flares up. She says these
are good shoes, they cost a fortune, there is nothing the matter with them. I’m sweating. Grandma is not helping. She holds her foot rigid, won’t even attempt to bend her toes. One shoe is on and laced but I can’t get her left foot into the other. All this pushing and shoving is useless. Grandma is getting angry. She starts kicking her foot deliberately so that the shoe flies across the room.

  One, two, buckle my shoe.

  Grandma, behave.

  You mind yourself.

  You mind yourself, keep your foot still.

  I like a wee jig now and again.

  Not when you’re putting your shoes on.

  We need a fiddler, though.

  Well, there isn’t one.

  Where did my father’s fiddle go? Who stole it?

  I haven’t the slightest idea.

  Look, then.

  Grandma, don’t be ridiculous, keep your foot still, please.

  One, two, buckle my shoe.

  The chiropodist has retrieved the other shoe and comments sympathetically that she does feel sorry for me. Now I am angry. I snap at the chiropodist. Then I hand Grandma her shoe and I stand up and I tell her that if she doesn’t hurry up, the men will be in for their tea and nothing ready. She proceeds to put her own shoe on, stumbling only over the tying of the laces which I bend and do quickly.