by Jackie Kay
Hannah, sitting next to me with my watch on, says six o’clock! Shut up with your six o’clock, the nurse says to Hannah. Six o’clock, shouts Hannah like she’s choosing to be a parrot for the day. Do you want to be transferred, Hannah? the nurse says. Is that what you want? Six o’clock, Hannah says again and the nurse almost runs at her. Careful! says the matron, pressing pause on the remote control. The nurse wheels Hannah out of the television room and away. (That was the last time I ever saw Hannah.) When the programme finishes and the killer is uncovered, Matron switches off the main light and leaves on just the side lights. Who is for bed? she asks almost pleasantly.
Quite a few of us put up our hands. We are all for bed really. We will all be for bed all the time eventually. Soon enough, if we are not sorry, none of us will even have our special view at the window. Every day I take in as much of it as possible. She parks me and lifts me off the chair and onto my bed. I have not been changed today and these are not my clothes, I say. The nurse pulls out the sodden pad from inside my paper pants and chucks it into the waste bin. Somebody’s been busy today, she says, and shoves another pad into me. At least I’ve got a fresh pad to go to sleep in, I must be thankful for small mercies. Sometimes, she deliberately sends me to sleep with the one I’ve had in all day and when she comes next morning she says, Oh dear – did I forget to change you last night? There are sores on my legs, not a pretty sight. Painful too, but I try and ignore the pain of things, especially if I am at the window. I am given my pills, I swallow them, bitter red and yellow and white and pink pills, and lie on my pillow which is not fresh, not as fresh as my pad, and try and count sheep. I lie wondering why it was sheep they told us to count, whoever it was who chose that first, and why not cows, or goats or donkeys or dogs or pigs or horses or geese or llamas . . . why not llamas? And then I must have fallen off.
I dream I am a young woman again wearing a pleated skirt and a red cardigan, and my hair is long and thick and brown and stretches all the way down my back, so long I could sit on my hair if I wanted to. In my dream I’m amazed that my hair could ever be so long. Even in my dream, I must somehow realize that I am now an old woman with cropped grey hair.
In the morning, Vadnie is there, smiling. She has a wide and lovely smile. How are you, Margaret? Vadnie! I say struggling up on the bed as she brings me my cup of tea and my bowl of porridge. We never eat breakfast in the dining room – only lunch and dinner. Vadnie! I say urgently. We don’t have much time. Would you be able to find my purse? It is right at the back of my locker underneath my toilet bag? The last time my son came to visit I told him to put it there. Vadnie looks at me a little sadly. It’s not there, she says, Don’t you remember we looked for it last week? Well, it has to be somewhere, I say, a little crossly. Look again. Vadnie bends down and opens the locker. It is not this, she says, holding up my toilet bag, and not this, she says, holding up a letter, and not this, holding a magazine my son bought me. What is it you want to buy? Vadnie asks me. Tell me. Maybe I can help? I want to buy a red cardigan, I say, and a pair of slacks. A pair of what? Vadnie says. A casual pair of trousers, size ten, in navy, I say. And I don’t want anybody else to wear them, I want them hidden in my locker so they don’t get taken away and when they need washing I only want you to do it because you are the only one in this building I trust. Vadnie smiles as if I’ve told her this before. I will get what you want and when you find your purse you can pay me back, she says. When my son comes, he’ll give you the money, even if I don’t ever find my purse. I think Nurse has stolen my purse, I whisper to Vadnie. Vadnie looks to the door, alarmed, sssshhhh, she says, though I can tell she doesn’t doubt me. She knows what the pair of them is like. She’s got the measure of Matron and Nurse.
After breakfast, Vadnie wheels me to my view, my, my, she says, it is windy today and no mistake and look how the rain is falling. The tallest tree on the east is waving right over to the west, I say to Vadnie and she nods. And look how the blossom is on that lovely tree at the bottom, she says pointing, and I gasp. I cannot believe I have missed the blossom, sitting here as I do day after day. Somehow I was concentrating on looking beyond to the space in the hedge where I can see the red brick and I just missed out the blossom. Isn’t it sort of delicate like? Vadnie says, smiling. It’s like you, Margaret, frail and beautiful. It’s like lace. Here, who are you calling frail? I say to Vadnie jokingly, and laugh a little because I feel not only is Vadnie back, but I’m back. She is the only one in this place who really knows me. This godforsaken place, I should say. But I don’t because today is a Vadnie day and so it doesn’t feel godforsaken. It feels blessed, blessed as blossom. Once, long ago, when I gave birth to my son, the midwife was called Blossom, I tell Vadnie. You remind me a little of Blossom. One of your daughters is called Ladyblossom if I remember right? That’s right, Vadnie says. I kind of liked that name. Where was she from, Blossom? Vadnie asks me, and I surprise myself because I’ve remembered the answer: Barbuda, I say. Blossom was from Barbuda. That so, Vadnie says. And then she says, I’ll leave you to your view, don’t forget to look at that blossom now and I’ll try and get your red cardigan and what do you call them, slacks?, in my lunch time and if not then, then I’ll bring them next time OK? Sure now? OK?
She’s holding my hand and patting it softly. It is only when she is here that you remember what it is like to be touched in a nice way. I pat the back of her hand too. OK, I say, OK. I firmly believe she will be back with my red cardigan and my navy slacks tomorrow. I don’t remember being as excited about anything in a long, long time. The rain isn’t falling in a straight line. It is falling in slants and it’s almost hard to see that it is actually raining. You have to stare out the window very hard to see the movement of the rain. If you look near the ground you see it, the sky’s great tears. It might be miserable out there; but inside my head it’s not raining, not raining like it is on the empty table and chairs with the red umbrella that is still not up, though they could put it up to keep the table dry if they wanted to, and not raining like it is on the bench which is not watching the match any more because it has been called off because of the rain, so the bench has nothing to do except face the weeping willow and weep. The grass however is really benefiting from the rain and is a deeper green than before. The grass is actually greener on the other side. I’d like to share this joke with somebody, but there is nobody to share it with. Iris has fallen asleep deep into her chest at the viewpoint next to me and Harry too is asleep with his head back and his mouth open. I’m awake watching the green grass, the green green grass of home. Who was it who sang that again? Him with the handsome face and the funny name? Was it Engelbert Humperdinck? No, no it wasn’t. It was Tom Jones. He hasn’t got a funny name. His name is quite ordinary, though he does have a handsome face. So did Humperdinck have a handsome face. What was his song? Release me (And let me love once again!). Nurse arrives to take me to lunch. And how are we today? she asks of the two of us, the me who is here and the me who is not here. We are fine, I say and Nurse looks like you could have knocked her over with a feather. Oh yes, we are fine and dandy, we are quite spiffing! I say just so she can be sure she heard right. Well, this makes a change! Nurse says. No whingeing today, eh? She tugs my hair. No crying, no complaining? Nope, I say, moving my head elegantly out of her way and shaking it, proudly tilting my chin, so that it is up in the air and my head is a little back, No, certainly not. We are fine today because our lawyer is arriving at noon. Come again? says the nurse, looking, I must say a little apprehensive. You heard the first time, I say, using my deep voice. You better get a smart suit, lady, because you are going to court!
Matron says Grace, for what we are about to receive malarkey again. I feel slightly giddy, as high as a kite, as if somebody had just given me a small glass of bubbly. I know I’ve put the wind up the nurse, that’s for sure. I lift the spoon to my mouth. It is tomato soup again. Cherry red tomato soup, the same colour as the cardigan that Vadnie is going to be bringing me tomorrow. This soup i
s actually very woolly, I say and Matron looks at me in a calculated fashion, as if she were trying to second-guess me. It is certainly true, that if people are your foes, it is best to keep them on their toes, I think to myself and want to share this joke too, but there is nobody around of the calibre to appreciate it. I will save it for Vadnie when she comes with my brand-new clothes. Or perhaps I will tell my son when he comes to visit with Abbie. But he, I know for sure, will look at me with pity and disdain, and say, Don’t you get fed up talking in these silly riddles? and I’ll say, My boy these riddles are saving my life, and he’ll roll his eyes because he has no idea, he has absolutely no idea. None of them have. None of them have a single clue what this place is really like. Not a single clue. Not one iota. After lunch, I’m parked at my viewpoint.
It comes as a complete surprise, the little red robin that arrives from nowhere to sit on the bench and the black bird that comes to sit on the empty table under the red umbrella. I’m breathless with excitement. And almost exactly at the same time, a thrush flies over the hedge and into the garden of the house next door where I understand a family live. It was quite something to see how it swooped and curled in the air before heading there. The three birds reminded me that I, when I first came to sit here, used to hear the bird song and I couldn’t remember if the sound I was hearing was the song of the blackbird or the thrush. But I took it as communication anyway. I imagined those birds looking in at me with their beady, birdy eyes, looking in at me looking out at them. I imagined, like the birds in a children’s fairy tale, the gallant birds leading me to safety. Today it is not the word wind I will use for my viewpoint game, or fish, but bird. And not books, but songs. Pack up all your . . . how does it go again . . . something and woe, here we go, to and fro, Bye Bye blackbird. Is it that? Is it something like that? Yes, wait a minute, Margaret. Pack up all my care and woe / here I go / Singing low / Bye Bye Blackbird / where somebody waits for me / Sugar’s sweet so is she / Bye Bye Blackbird. Something like that.
Nurse comes and says abruptly, is that you singing to yourself, Margaret? And I say, yes, that’s me singing to myself. By the way, she says smiling. Vadnie won’t be coming in today. She waits for me to say something. I thought I’d better tell you. We had to let her go. We found out she was stealing from people. The bench can’t think of any more songs with birds in it. Not a single song. What does the bench look like under the moonlight. Moon. Songs with the word moon. Why can’t the bench think of things any more? ‘She won’t be coming back,’ Nurse is saying to me. Who, I say to her, who won’t be coming back?
The First Lady of Song
My father wasn’t thinking of me when he kept me alive for years. I was my father’s experiment. At the end of this long life, when my skin is starting to show its age, finally, and my hair has the shy beginnings of grey, I need to speak. I’ve got out of the way of talking. It’s so much easier to sing, Da dee dee dee di deeeee. Talking, I always trip myself up, make some nasty mistake. It’s had the effect of people thinking of me as crazy, doo– lah–li–lal. I’ve learnt to talk lightly about things, just skimming the surface, in case I found myself in trouble. It is difficult to know where to begin – doh ray me fah so lah ti doh – for me there was no real beginning. I knew nothing of what was happening to me. One day, I was my old self, those years ago, carefree, spontaneous, and loving; another day, those qualities had gone. When I was first drugged, I fell into a coma, apparently. I was in that coma for a week; my father told me when I came round. He seemed delighted about my coma, he smiled, patted my head, and said, ‘I think it’s worked; it’s a miracle.’ I fled. I left my father, my mother, my sisters and brothers. I never looked back, and he never found me. Back in those early days, I had a different name. My name was Elina Makropulos. I’ve had many husbands, countless children, grandchildren, greatgrandchildren. Some of my children are a blur, but the pianos are vivid – the babies and the uprights, the ebony and ivory, the little Joes.
I remember time through music – what I was singing when. How I loved those Moravian folk songs, how I lost myself in those twelve-bar blues, how I felt understood by those soaring arias, how beautiful ballads kept me company, how scatting made me feel high. For years I’ve been singing my head off, singing my head off for years. When I sang Elina’s head off, Eugenia came. When I sang Eugenia’s head off, Ekateriana came. When I sang Ekateriana’s arias, Elisabeth came. After Elisabeth I was Ella. My favourite period was my Ella period. Every song I sang had my own private meanings: ‘I Didn’t Mean A Word I Said’, ‘Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall’, ‘Until The Real Thing Comes Along’, and even ‘Paper Moon’. I’d lived so long, nothing was real. Ella seemed to be cool about that. Bebop, doowop! Eeeeee deee dee dee dee de oooooooooh dahdadadada bepop doowop brump bum bump.
Now, I’m Emilia Marty. I’m in the middle of being Emilia Marty. I’ve returned to being a classical singer, my first love. My voice is deeper now. I’ve sung about every type of love through all the years. Back when I was Elina Makropulos, my skin was pale, perhaps a little translucent. As the years went on, I got darker and darker. Now, my skin is dark black. Emilia Marty has dark black skin. I’m rather in awe of it. It is not transparent, it is not translucent, but it is shimmering. I wear a great dark skin now, like a dark lake, like a lake at night with a full moon in the sky. Way back in the days when my father first drugged me, I remember seeing the last moon I ever saw as Elina Makropulos; the last moon before I fell into a coma. It was a new baby moon, rocking in its little hammock, soft-skinned, fresh. Or it was the paw of a baby polar-bear cub, clawing at the sky. Or it was a silver fish leaping through the deep, dark sea-sky. That’s the only other thing that’s accompanied me on my long journey, the moon. The moon has never been boring! I wrote a song for it back in my Ella days: Blue Moon, I saw you standing alone.
I’ve been lonely with my lies for years. I told none of my many children the truth about their mother. I didn’t want them to carry the burden. I wanted them to think that they had an ordinary mother who looked good for her years, who was pretty healthy perhaps. Every time I ran into an old friend or acquaintance who said, ‘It’s remarkable, you haven’t changed a bit,’ I smiled grimly and knew that they were telling the absolute truth. None of them knew that it was the truth, or how uncanny their little clichés were for me. ‘You don’t look a day older than the last time I saw you,’ ‘Your skin hasn’t got a single line,’ these were sickening sentences for me. The only change for me was my skin gradually darkening, yet nobody noticed this. Nobody lived long enough!
I’d sing my children lullabies, and chortle to myself when I got to Your daddy’s rich and your ma is good-looking knowing full well that daddy would die first and so would baby, and that the person who should really want to cry was me – Hush Hush, little baby. When nobody knows who you truly are, what’s the point in living? We’re not alive to be alone on the planet. We’re alive to share, to eat together and love together and laugh together and cry together. If you can never love because you will always lose, what reason is there to live? I have lost husbands, daughters, and sons. When my father used me as his experiment I don’t imagine he ever thought properly about the life of grief he was consigning me to, the grief, handed down the long line of years, a softening grey bundle of it. After a while, I stopped loving anyone so that I wouldn’t be hurt by their death. If you are certainly going to outlive all your family and your friends, who keeps you company? Only the songs knew me – only the songs – the daylight and the dark, the night and the day. Perhaps he might have thought of it as a gift. There is no way for me to go back and unpick the years to find out what my father hoped for me. The truth is more uncomfortable, I think. He didn’t consider me in the equation. I was his experiment. He didn’t know if it would work or not. Even now, all this time away, I can’t stop myself from wondering. I cannot fathom my father.
I have not loved for so many years, I can’t really be sure of how it feels, if it is good or if it is frightening. If it
is deep, how deep it goes, to which parts of the body and the mind? I have no real idea. My biggest achievement was getting rid of it altogether. What a relief! I remember that. The sensation of it! The day that I discovered I could no longer love. It was like a lovely breeze on a hot day. It billowed and felt really quite fine. I remember when, some time ago, I stood, a young woman at the grave of my old son, and not a tear came. I said to myself, ‘He was tone deaf that one, he could never sing,’ and laughed later that night, drinking a big goblet of wine. Years later, I remember being at the funeral of my old daughter, a vicious tongue she had, that one, I said to myself and threw the rose in. So, goodbye, dear. I tried to remember if I had ever taken pleasure in any of her childhood, in reading her a book, or holding her small hand, or buying her a wooden doll. And though I had done those things, I think, I could not remember getting any pleasure. I could not remember getting anything at all.
