Reality, Reality

by Jackie Kay

  Still it is not an absolute necessity to get on with the people you work for, especially not when they are your boss. When you do get on with them, they can let you down even more. Vadnie remembered the woman she cleaned for in St Elizabeth in Jamaica saying, ‘Very sorry, Vads, but you’re no longer needed. You did such an excellent job and have been like family to us, but . . .’ And what was the real reason? The details of the thing had gone, but the hurt was still there. That was the interesting thing about hurt. All the vocabulary can go, all the words said and heard, and yet the pain persists in your heart, slow and heavy. The worst hurts were wordless, or at least they became wordless. A lot of the old people in Sunnyside Home for the Elderly didn’t speak, or if they did speak they didn’t make that much sense. They seemed in their own world, a lost world, a vanquished world. They didn’t have many places like this back home. The family took the elderly in and that was that. Imagine the planning: building these big houses to incarcerate all the old mummies and daddies, imagine the spreadsheets and architectural blueprints, to hide away all the old grandparents. Imagine inventing these places for them. Even if Sunnyside did have a nice garden, it was still a kind of hell. All of the grandmas and grandpas lined up to look out of the window! They were never allowed out to take a little stroll. Once Vadnie asked Matron if she could take a stroll with one of the women, Margaret, and Matron said, We are not insured to allow them to walk about in the garden. Would you pay if she fell over? Would you pay all the damages? Something like that. Vadnie said, Yes, it’ll be fine, she won’t fall over, she is quite steady on her feet. But Matron shook her head and said, So you think I’m paying you to go strolling around the garden? You must think I was born yesterday. Vadnie stopped to consider this seriously for a moment, the idea that the matron could be born yesterday and then grow in such a short space of time into such a nasty old woman. Not possible! Nastiness needs time to build up.

  Today the morning had started with Vadnie saying to herself, Time to get up, Vadnie Marlene Sevlon. Preston was up and out and had not brought her the usual cup of hot tea. The girls had already grown up and left home. Grace was the first in the family at university. Sometimes, she’d find herself doing a big shop and telling people the family was coming home, that’s why her trolley was suddenly loaded. Today nobody was there and nobody was coming home and she felt suddenly tired. Odd times at the Sunnyside Home for the Elderly, she’d found herself having to take a ten-pound note or two to help her get by because they didn’t pay her enough and because the old people were not going anywhere anyway and none of them would miss it and because she was the only one in the place who was kind so deserved it and because she tried to do good things with it, often buying them little treats, and sometimes even buying them clothes. But today the day didn’t feel right from the word go. When she arrived in Sunnyside, Margaret, her favourite of the old people and the most with-it and the one who took the most interest in Preston and the girls, implored her to buy her a cherry red cardigan. She was in some distress. ‘Would you manage to buy me a red cardigan,’ she asked, her voice shrill, anxious. ‘I’ll try my best,’ Vadnie found herself saying. ‘Tell me your size.’ And Margaret looked happy, happy as she’d ever seen her. She was sure that the matron and the other one didn’t treat them well; Vadnie thought they might even be abusive but she never saw anything with her own eyes. Recently, though, she had made heavy hints about the authorities, and she had sat at home glued to a documentary about a whistleblower. (She had never heard the term before.) ‘I might blow the whistle,’ Vadnie had thought to herself. ‘Tell me,’ Vadnie said to Margaret quietly, ‘won’t you tell me if they ever lay a finger on you?’ Maybe one of them overheard; Vadnie didn’t know how it had all started. But at the end of the day that had started strangely, Vadnie found herself dismissed. After twenty years: dismissed. And the thing that distressed her most was that she wouldn’t be able to return with Margaret’s cherry red cardigan. She wouldn’t be able to tell Margaret how Preston was, how Ladyblossom, Grace and Marsha were doing. They might as well all be dead.

  On the way home Vadnie felt the breeze on her face and the strange feeling turning into Oliphant Street that violence was in the air. She walked slowly, heavily. She had a tight feeling across her chest. She was sweating. She stopped in the DIY shop and bought a new plug and a new packet of fuses. ‘My husband used to be an electrician,’ she told the woman, ‘yet could I get him to fix a plug?’ The woman in the shop laughed. ‘Mine is a carpenter – ditto!’ She paused. ‘You said “used to”,’ the woman said. Vadnie nodded slowly, ‘Yes, he passed away a few weeks ago. He’s buried up the road there in Willesden Cemetery.’ ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ the woman said. Mrs Vadnie Marlene Sevlon dabbed at the sudden tears falling down her face. ‘He was a good man, a terribly good man,’ she said.

  The Winter Visitor

  I can almost see her: she is standing by the window looking out at the snow falling. She looks at her watch. It is January. She puts some lip gloss on her lips so that they don’t crack in the eight below freezing temperature outside. Though it is night time now, and the moon is blurred behind the snow fog, she puts on her thick, grim coat, long gloves, hat and boots. There is nothing I can do or say that will stop her coming. She wants to be here by morning, before I’m even awake. Her suitcase is already packed, a small hard suitcase with a few clothes for her stay. Though she plans to stay for months, she has packed very little: very few toiletries, just a toothbrush and a comb, a few pairs of knickers, tights and a couple of long thick skirts. She smiles a tight dry smile. She is coming for me and there is nothing I can do.

  She walks through the night, carrying her suitcase. She has an almost uncanny sense of balance, and so the slipperiness of the snow does not faze her as it would me. She walks with the determination of someone on a mission, up through Rushholme, turns right into Pratt Lane, turns left into the Princess Parkway, turns right into Mauldeth Road, turns right again into Barlow Moor Road. Her long boots have good grips. She knows she is close. She can see her own breath flare out of her mouth. She’s come to me before, so the streets, even in the snow and the snow-lit dark are not new to her. Over the years, she’s come like this, no planning, no date in the diary. She just turns up – first thing in the morning – punctual and precise. The last time was three years ago, and I was certain then, when she left, that I’d never see her again. Perhaps she enjoys the fact that she comes unannounced; she’s terribly arrogant. It’s difficult to tell because she says very little. Maybe the interesting question is why I have her, why I let it happen, time and time again. I genuinely don’t know the answer.

  I wake. That’s something I suppose, I wake. I wake though I’m not sure if I’ve slept. I’ve been in and out of the ether all night, and quite a few times I got up and looked out into my street. One time I saw a black cat walk across the street. It looked so black in the white snow. It looked like it owned the place. Another time I got up for a glass of water. I’d clearly drunk a whole glass already but had no memory of doing so. Another time I stared at a pile of books and tried to read their titles. I’ve not eaten anything since I’ve woken. I know I should get up. But my body feels heavy, leaden, and I can’t manage it. I try and sit up, and pull a book from the bedside table, but the words swim in front of my eyes and I can’t read. None of it makes any sense. I’m starting to feel frightened. I daren’t call my mother because she will recognize the thick sound in my voice, the sound of my own fear. I don’t want to talk to anybody. I’d like them all to leave me alone.

  When I wake again, I know she is in the house. I sit up in my bed and listen. There are noises down stairs, a battering of saucepans and a clattering of cutlery. She knows this sort of noise sets my teeth on edge. I fold my pillow over the top of my head so that it covers both ears. I can scarcely breathe. The truth is I’m terrified of her. I know that with her arrival, nothing will be possible. She won’t let me out to see friends; she won’t let me use the telephone; she won’t let me read,
or let me sleep. She seems to already have me doing her work just before she gets here, because yesterday I found reading difficult, I think. It’s all a sort of jumble. She is fanatical about sorting out cupboards, but we both know it is not to do with order. There are other motives, stranger and more difficult to pinpoint.

  I take the pillow off my head and listen carefully. I can hear nothing. The house is as silent as snow. It’s cold, very cold, even underneath the duvet, and it is early. I look at the face of the clock on my bedside table. It says it is seven in the morning. Why does she insist on coming so early when she knows I’m a late riser? The whole day is stretched out ahead like a field of frozen snow. The banging starts up again. I ought to get up and go down the stairs and confront her, but I can’t. I try lifting a leg and pulling myself around, but I can’t make it. I lift my leg back under the covers. The only place is the bed, and the wall facing the bed. The only thing when she comes is to lie still, and quiet with my face to the wall. I can keep it up for the longest time, while she is downstairs, pulling things out of the cellar, yanking cupboards and cabinets open and chucking things away. Last time she came, she found a box of my old love letters and shredded them. I don’t think she even wants me to have a past. A time ago, I found out my lover was unfaithful. It only takes one infidelity to alter the landscape of love beyond all recognition. Frankly, it was a relief she shredded the lying love you, love you, love you, but she wasn’t to know that.

  I don’t really care what she does when she comes. Perhaps she is trying to get me interested. I’ve noticed that the wallpaper in this bedroom is thick and that when she comes I’m prone to peeling little bits back. The other thing I do is picking at my lips. In this weather my lips chap easily and so the constant peeling them does not help, but I can’t stop. I find my hand there and I try and take it away. I wonder how long it will be before she comes up here and says something. She’s got a nerve, coming in and going straight for the utensils. I hear the kettle whistle. I’m not hungry which is just as well. The sight of her takes away my appetite. There’s something so appalling about her features. It is not too much to say they revolt me. I despise her. There. I’ve said it. I despise her; her long skirts, her long back, her grim smile. She is an abomination.

  I hear her feet on the stairs. There’s nowhere for me to go and I can’t get up. I hide under the covers listening to her footsteps getting closer and closer. She is coming for me. If I could shout Help I would. If I knew shouting Help might help I would. I hear my bedroom door open. It needs oil, the door. I live in a house that frightens me and I have not even done the simplest of things to stop myself being frightened. I have not bought oil for the door. I know I should struggle up so that at least I am in a sitting position, but I can’t. ‘Get up,’ she says. ‘Sit up.’ I lie cowering under the sheets. Three years. I feel so disappointed. She pulls my duvet back. ‘Sit up. You must eat. I’ve brought you some porridge.’ She helps pull me up and I stare at her blankly. ‘You must eat.’ She puts the tray down beside me. She knows I don’t like her porridge, cooked with salt and not with sugar. ‘I will feed you if you won’t feed yourself,’ she says.

  And she is not joking. The last time, she sat across my chest and force-fed me. She sits at the edge of the bed, waiting. Slowly, I pick up a spoon and try and shovel some of the sludge into my mouth. Some people have no food, she says. Some old people are snowed in and have no food at all. Get that down you. She looks at me with total contempt. It is hard to swallow. It is the most terrible thing. ‘How long have you come for?’ I ask her. I can’t stop my voice trembling. ‘I’ve come for as long as it takes,’ she says. ‘I never come for any less than it takes,’ she says enunciating each word as if English was a foreign language to her. ‘For what?’ ‘I’m here now. It’s a little late for that.’ She walks to my bedroom windows and yanks open the curtains. The daylight advances without mercy. Soon she will tell me I’m lucky to have a roof over my head. The snow is bright on the ground, thick. There’s a pinkish light where the sun hits the snow. ‘Later, we must walk out in the snow. You have boots?’ ‘I can’t go out,’ I say. ‘I can’t go out.’ ‘Drink your tea,’ she says. ‘I have let you have a sugar. We will see later about going out on a walk. You will see the snow on the trees and the frozen lake. Down the hill, there are people sledging on FOR SALE signs. There’s the recession for you. You are lucky to have a roof over your head.’ She hasn’t changed in three years. Her hair has some grey in it, but so does mine. We are both middle-aged now. Her face is perhaps a little more lined. There’s a tightness around her lips and eyes. Just looking at her makes my skin tingle, my chest heave, my heart heavy. Behind the sockets of my eyes are small barrels full of salt water. My eyes are stinging. I feel so full of regret. What is wrong with me that I cannot assert myself.

  When I’ve eaten as much of her porridge as I can, she picks up the tray and says, ‘You should wash now.’ I find myself in the bathroom with a cloth; I find my hand taking the cloth over my face. She’s standing behind me and I can see her reflection in the mirror. ‘Good,’ she says. ‘The cold water is best. Don’t forget teeth!’ I look at my toothbrush holder with some horror. Her toothbrush is already in there along with the paste she likes, the fennel toothpaste. Her small black toilet bag is on the floor next to the sink. It contains a razor, and an Elastoplast. I know that she regularly shaves her moustache, from the marks left around her top lip.