No! I Don’t Need Reading Glasses!

by Virginia Ironside

  There’s a peculiar ease about being with people we’ve known in childhood, even if we haven’t seen them since. Because although we’ve been changed and shaped by life’s subsequent experiences, we remain essentially the same. Gilly, who was the netball captain, was dressed now in a designer suit rather than navy gym shorts, but she still bounded energetically into the house with the ease and poise of a natural athlete. And Emily, the class brainbox, might have settled down to make jam in her retirement, but she’s still the only one of us who can remember everyone’s names, the names of their parents or nannies, and even the dates of their birthdays.

  A successful reunion is like a family get-together. They say that fate chooses our relatives, but we choose our friends. And fate, because we are powerless over who we end up in class with, also chooses our school friends. We were thrown together – the good, the bad and the ugly – and whether we liked it or not we had to get on with each other.

  No one I know really liked their old school. Nor did the girls from ours, which was, according to most other people’s accounts of their own schools, remarkably civilised. The food was inedible, there were only two loos for 140 young girls, but it was run on liberal Froebel lines, there were no punishments except being sent to the headmistress, and we called the teachers by their Christian names.

  Yet, amiable as it was, we all bonded together in a loathing of school as a system and, as a result, we tolerated even the worst of each other’s characteristics – something we rarely do as adults.

  Crowning moment was down to Marion. She couldn’t resist doing her old jug-of-water-passing trick on me, with the result that I was completely soaked. Luckily, knowing the state of Marion’s chairs and having sat, frequently, in patches of honey and jam and found my elbows sliding on pools of drying yoghurt on her table, I hadn’t put on my smartest clothes, so nothing was spoilt.

  There were endless cries of ‘But you look just the same!’ and then the odd cry, to me, of ‘But you, Marie, really do look just the same!’ so I had to fess up about the facelift, whereupon they all got out their pens and notebooks begging for Mr P.’s details. Most pleasing.

  We broke up at about four o’clock, and everyone was terribly affectionate, all clutching each other and hugging and saying ‘I love you’ as if we were never going to see each other again.

  Which is, of course, probably true.

  9 August

  We had a very quick emergency evening Residents’ Association meeting because the hotel developer man was so anxious to meet us. I don’t think he yet knows that there’s a 560-signature-strong petition waiting at the council.

  He arrived – Ross Shatterton by name – with a whole retinue of designers, architects and personal assistants, and was extremely ingratiating and charming to everyone present. We all took an immediate dislike to him. Penny pursed her lips. James and Ned raised their eyebrows at one another. Father Emmanuel stared at him as if he were destined for the burning fiery furnace and Sheila the Dealer wore an expression that would have made the most penurious drug addict pay up. Tim looked cagey, Sharmie and Brad’s expressions were totally blank, and only Marion gave her beaming smile. Ross (‘Call me Ross, guys!’) looked about twenty-five, with a shaven head and ring in one ear, and it was clear that he thought he was going to coast through the meeting charming the socks off a bunch of cantankerous complainers and then sail out, job done.

  How wrong he was.

  He gave us what he called a ‘snapshot presentation’ with slides and photographs, and drawings which made our triangle of green at the top of the road look like a naturalist’s paradise, the blue skies teeming with birds, huge bushes surrounding the hotel, dogs jumping about – I wouldn’t have been surprised to see he’d featured the odd rare rhino just to emphasise the thorough eco-ness of the plan – and he swore it would ‘raise the tone of the neighbourhood’, a phrase that made Sheila the Dealer’s hackles rise at once.

  ‘Bollocks!’ she yelled, through a cloud of smoke at the end of the table. ‘What’s bleedin’ wrong with the neighbourhood as it is now, might I ask, Mr Shitterton or wha’ever your name is?’

  Ross gave what he thought was a charming laugh and looked around at all of us as if to say, ‘I know this woman’s mad, we all do, but we’re just humouring her.’ We all stared stony-faced at him. Even Marion’s smile was fast fading. He was on his own.

  ‘What I mean is,’ he stammered, ‘that it could raise the tone of the neighbourhood even higher. And if anyone of you are worried about parking …’

  ‘We certainly are,’ said Tim, in a loud voice. ‘We can barely get a space in this, our own street, as it is.’

  ‘Well, we have plans to build an underground car park to house fifty cars. And as members of the Residents’ Association committee we would of course be very happy to allocate you free places if that would make your lives easier …’

  ‘You tryin’ to bribe us?’ screamed Sheila the Dealer. ‘Because it don’t cut no ice with me. ’Arf the street don’t even ’ave a car, so don’t pull that one!’

  ‘No, no … but I think you will like the design of the building. The interior will be entirely of marble, and it will only have forty rooms. It’s more of a boutique hotel …’

  ‘Forty double rooms,’ corrected James. ‘In other words eighty people. That’s a hell of a lot. By the way, you will accept gay couples, won’t you?’

  ‘Well of course,’ said Ross. ‘That is the law …’

  ‘Gay couples?’ muttered Father Emmanuel to himself. ‘Homosexuals?’ He shook his head in a way that seemed to imply that all gays were doomed and damned.

  In the end Ross greasily told us what a pleasure it was meeting us and gave us his mobile number so that, ‘if any of you have any concerns you can be in touch with me twenty-four seven!’ and took his ‘snapshot presentation’ kit, his portfolios and his entourage of assistants off to ‘another meeting.’

  He left the committee even more determined to make a stand against the hotel than before.

  ‘Twenty-four-seven! I like that!’ said Sheila the Dealer, lighting a fag from the burning stub of another. ‘What the ’ell does that mean? I’ll try ringin’ ’im at four in the mornin’ to ask ’ow late the knees-ups will go on for and wevver they’ll be servin’ pie and mash in their fuckin’ dinin’ rooms! Heehee!’ And she started coughing and wheezing.

  Just starting the front of Gene’s jersey. Hope the elephants look better on the front than they did on the back. They seemed to have trunks coming out of their bottoms.

  10 August

  Rather a sad Skype with Gene. He said his classmates are laughing at his accent.

  ‘They keep asking me to say Harry Potter, Granny,’ he said. ‘I don’t like it. And when I say I don’t want to say Harry Potter they say, “Listen to the way he says I don’t want – isn’t it cute?” I don’t want to be cute.’

  ‘You’re not at all cute, darling,’ I said, indignantly. ‘You’re the least cute person I know.’

  This of course was a great lie. Gene is the cutest, cleverest and kindest child in the universe. Really.

  Gene smiled. ‘It’ll be great when you come over, won’t it?’

  It certainly will.

  11 August

  After Sylvie had reserved a place for Archie at Eventide, we had to wait for someone to die before he could move in. It does all seem utterly macabre, despite the fact that the decision is totally rational. Luckily, a place became vacant almost at once (in a darkly curious way I couldn’t help wondering who it was), and we’re moving him in next week. We’ve talked about it with him for a couple of weeks now, and he seems to understand, but of course you never know. One minute he’s quite accepting and stoical about it, the next he says he’s perfectly okay and doesn’t need to move, but sometimes he’s pitifully begging us to let him stay at home, and saying he’ll try to be better. It’s agony.

  15 August

  Just back from staying a couple of days with Penny at her bungalow in
Suffolk. On Saturday, I said I was going to pop down to the shops – the high street is packed with all kinds of places you don’t find in London, like a shop that only sells pet food, and the store which is stuffed with racks of practical jokes – packets of Itching Powder and Sneezing Powder and Floating Sugar Lumps. I always stock up for Gene. I’m keen, too, on the Cats’ Rescue Centre which has offered up, in its time, a wonderful set of Victorian dinner plates and even a rock’n’roll skirt, complete with netted petticoats. Not to mention the famous Cats’ Rescue jacket that I bought all those years ago, which still comes in useful on a nippy day.

  Penny had said she had to do some cooking and then she’d pop out when I came back, leaving the door on the latch, but as I’d been so long browsing and shopping in the town I wasn’t surprised to find her gone when I returned. I called and called, but no reply. After such a lengthy shopping spree, I staggered to my room, unpacked my enormous pile of loot, hopped into bed for a quick afternoon doze and fell asleep.

  When I woke an hour later, I looked around the house and was very disturbed to find Penny still not back. Clearly, she had gone out and died. She’d had a heart attack in the vegetable shop and died. She’d fallen, foaming at the mouth, outside the grocers and died. What on earth was I to do? I had a vague memory that I’d kept her brother’s phone number somewhere in case of emergency … at what point should I phone him? Or, even, the police? And how would I get my car out of the drive since hers was blocking mine in?

  Shaking, I returned to my room to look for my address book and as I stumbled out into the hall again, I heard a noise. There was someone in the sitting room – obviously a concerned young policeman come to tell me the bad news. He’d been trained for such moments. It was the bit of his job he liked least. Bracing myself for this frightful confrontation, I opened the door and was astonished to see not a policeman standing with his helmet in his hand and a serious but compassionate expression on his face, but Penny, white-faced and trembling on the sofa.

  She stared at me as if she’d seen a ghost. ‘But I thought you’d died!’ she said, as she rose, shakily, to her feet. ‘You never came back from the shops and I was so worried! Where have you been?’

  It turned out she’d had a brief kip in a hammock at the side of the house, and was out for the count when I returned. Finding no one in the house when she woke, she’d assumed exactly the same about me as I’d assumed about her.

  ‘But I was just going to phone Jack! And then I remembered he’s in New York and I don’t have his number, and I didn’t know what to do …’ she said. ‘And I’d already in my mind told him it was fine, that I’d pay for the transportation costs of your body back to London and he could pay me back later!’

  We roared with laughter and opened a bottle of wine.

  17 August

  I’ve just got back from one of the most draining days of my entire life.

  I drove down to Archie’s in the morning, and then Sylvie, Harry and me went round Archie’s bedroom while he was in the shower, collecting things we thought he’d like in his new home. We’d decided to take all his precious objects – his favourite chair (and get rid of the one in Eventide), and we gathered up a pile of dictionaries, the full set of Anthony Trollopes and the photograph albums. Harry had already gone through his drawers on the sly, selecting bits and pieces. We can, of course, always return to get anything he particularly wants.

  When Archie was dressed, Sylvie said, ‘Come on, Daddy. We’re going to take you for a nice stay at this special hotel.’

  Archie looked pleased and was quite cooperative in packing. We’d decided that that was the best approach, to pretend it was only temporary and hope that by the time he’d settled in, he’d have forgotten about his old home. We dithered about the loden coat, but then Sylvie remarked that as he’d probably insist on wearing it just to go out of the house, there was no way we could leave it behind, tempting as it was.

  Everything went swimmingly until the last minute, in the porch.

  ‘I’m not going,’ he said, firmly. ‘I’ve changed my mind.’

  He stood there in the sun, so brave and bold on the steps of his home, still, as Sylvie had predicted, in his strange loden coat – even though it’s August he insists on wearing it, like a child with a security blanket. His hand was on one of the lions by the front door and he looked so noble and so like the old Archie, I thought my heart would break. To make it worse, Hardy was whimpering and cowering, looking at all of us accusingly and occasionally breaking into an anxious bark. He obviously sensed something disconcerting was about to happen.

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Harry, efficiently, taking his arm firmly. ‘No going back now, old chap. It’s all organised. All booked, and sorted. All done and dusted. Roger and out.’

  Archie looked uncertain. It was a battle of wills. At first, it seemed as if he was going to hold on there and make a final stand when, before my eyes, you could see everything crumbling. Suddenly he turned from being a brave old home-owner to a frail old man, almost child-like. He almost seemed to lose height as I looked at him. His lower lip quivered and he allowed Harry to help him down the steps. ‘I don’t want to go,’ he kept saying, muttering. ‘But if you say I have to … I don’t want to go … please don’t make me go … Where’s Philippa?’

  This agonising talk went on until we got to Eventide, when Archie flatly refused to get out of the car.

  ‘Where are we?’ he said. ‘I don’t know this place! I want to go home!’

  But again, Harry managed to cajole him out of the car and I took Archie for a cup of tea in the dining room, keeping up an endless patter of jokes and nonsense, while Sylvie and Harry did all the paperwork and sorted out his room to make it look as much like home as possible.

  It was still light when they finally reappeared at supper time, and some sort of kindly carer figure, who had obviously seen all this hundreds of times before, led Archie to his room and settled him in. We looked in to say goodbye. Archie was sitting, already changed into pyjamas and dressing gown, even though it was only six o’clock, clutching a mug of tea.

  He looked utterly confused.

  ‘When am I having my operation?’ he asked. ‘Where is the doctor?’

  ‘You’re not having an operation,’ said Harry. ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘We’ll come to see you tomorrow,’ said Sylvie. ‘Have a lovely time.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ called Archie. ‘Don’t leave me! I want to come with you! Please don’t leave me!’

  But the kindly carer figure ushered us out, winking – which seemed horrifying in a way, though obviously it was only meant to reassure us. ‘He’ll be fine. You ring up in a couple of hours and you’ll find he’s settled in nicely. Lots of them are far worse. Don’t worry about a thing.’

  And we all drove off, feeling like murderers.

  Oh God, I hope this never happens to me! I couldn’t bear Jack to have to go through what I went through today. I think I shall have to check up that I still have my stash of sleeping pills to take the minute I feel as if I’m going off my head.

  I feel such a mixture of relief and betrayal and satisfaction. It’s so hard when you have all these conflicting feelings rushing around you at the same time, all competing for attention. First you feel relieved, and are just sinking into a chair with all the warmth of the emotion of feeling you’ve Done the Right Thing washing over you, and then Guilt comes stomping in like an uninvited guest, asking how you can possibly be sitting back and having a cup of tea when you should be scourging yourself with birch rods for being so cruel and deceitful to a poor old man. Then Sense bangs on the window and insists on joining the party saying, ‘But you couldn’t have done anything else, could you? He’d have done the same to you if it had been the other way round,’ then a Warm Glow starts creeping in telling you what a wonderful person you are and you start to feel relieved again and are about to sink back in the chair, but unfortunately Guilt’s already sat itself down and is sitting there with a be
d of sharp nails on its lap waiting for you to plonk yourself down on it.

  Anyway, we did it.

  I went to the kitchen, poured myself a huge glass of wine, gulped it down in one, standing up, and then poured myself a second one. Booze. What would we do without it?

  18 August

  Thank God Sylvie rang last night and said that Archie was fine. She’d even spoken to him on the phone and he’d sounded absolutely normal. He said the service was excellent and he’d just had a very good meal, and he didn’t mention his old home once. Curiously, although this is very reassuring, it’s acutely sad that he is able to forget in such a little time. A few hours of agony – and then his past is completely obliterated. Oh, I do hope it is. I couldn’t bear him to go on suffering.

  20 August

  Spent the morning working on the August painting of the trees – a bit difficult this one because it’s pretty much the same as July, so I’ve done them from a completely different angle. I must say the false acacia, with its yellowish leaves, is one of the prettiest trees in the world. Wish I had one in the garden.

  Drove down to see Archie. Apparently he had a series of mini-strokes just after he moved in, and he’s anyway worse than they thought, now they can monitor him properly, so he’s been moved into Sunset. It’s a long drive to Devon and it was pouring with rain and to make matters worse, just as I got on to the motorway, I discovered I’d got something stuck between my teeth. However much I sucked and hissed and even picked at it with my finger, it wouldn’t budge. Funny thing about teeth. I really can’t eat spinach any more, for instance. It’s curious, actually, becoming the person one used to find so unappetising when one was young.