by Neil Rowland
The big idea was for Mum to set up home around the corner, to be near to her family, or at least my branch of it, in case of any health emergency. Nobody envisaged that I would have to be wired into the national grid. After the break-up of my marriage and family upheavals, we haven’t been seeing much of the old girl. The kids haven’t been popping by regularly after school or college as I envisaged. I don’t know how to twist their arms. Big Pink is a gloomy haunted house these days. She can rightly consider herself neglected.
This is the unfortunate woman who had to endure my Hendrix phase as a teen; who struggled to make any sense of Dylan’s adenoidal (and increasingly larynx ruined) vocals, never mind to unpack the meaning of his lyrics, their relevance and allusiveness. That isn’t to begin talking about the revolutionary politics and hippie philosophy of the period, interspersed with Lizzie’s alarming readings about female mystiques and eunuchs.
In contemporary times Elizabeth is more inclined towards the Sex is Destiny thesis. Man, she threw out all those rad-fems after she found that magazine husband of hers. Could you imagine Susan Sontag marrying a keen amateur photographer and reading romantic novels with pornographic angles? You can’t help feeling betrayed and looking back at our joyfully subversive youth with some bitter irony. Mum’s bewilderment at her behaviour - which is the decision to divorce me and throw me into the trash can of history - is still as thick as pea soup; because she adored Lizzie like a Victoria sponge from Marks and Sparks. She couldn’t get enough of that clotted cream accent. She was flattered by Lizzie’s guileless girly attention, those innocent green eyes, as she reminisced at length; going on about her past life and family history. These memories and anecdotes of hers would be as labyrinthine as a Brazilian soap-opera, yet Lizzie encouraged her into a fresh episode and couldn’t get enough. Mum didn’t realise she was being heard out of sisterly solidarity. She contributed to Lizzie’s vox-pop feminist sociology project. It’s true that Lizzie was endlessly sweet and tolerant. Obviously there’s a limit to everything.
Constance is eighty years old already and has been in Bristol for half a century. Amazing statistics when I still remember her sending me out with a packed lunch for school. She moved to this city after my father’s death. My Dad you understand had a lethal coronary, when my brother and I were still little kids. At first Mum attempted to take on Dad’s old job to support us: to fill his bread earning boots, and go to work on the land. The yeoman farmer character, who seemed to own all the farms around there, refused her offer. Obviously this guy wasn’t the Glastonbury Festival kind of farmer. He didn’t want any Soviet style female worker heroes picking his strawberries or pulling up his ‘tatahs. Not enthusiastic about sexual equality at work, this yokel blimp just turfed us out of our cottage. It was like the bad old days of Victorian rural poverty and starvation, when people dragged themselves on to ships to America. That’s what the SS Great Britain was still like in those days, before the post war social revolution kicked in; before the Sixties shook up this society. It was a kind of class-divided military boot camp, with no social mobility, so the poor were ashamed of their station and unable to change it. Bringing us two boys up on her own, deprived of work or a home, Mum had no choice but to decamp to Bristol.
As Lizzie used to point out, they’d throw young girls into lunatic asylums then - as close to us as the Sixties - for getting pregnant outside of marriage. The authorities had the power, or the moral degradation, to say a girl was mentally unsound, if she gave birth alone. Single mothers were criminalised and social conformity was linked to sanity, Lizzie explained. So don’t listen when they say the radicalism of the 1960s didn’t change society. All our freedoms and liberties are as fragile as this bloody valve lodged in my heart, I’d argue. The forces of reaction and control would snatch them away if possible. Some days I think that John and Yoko had a point when they decided not to get out of bed.
Mum fell back on the generosity of an old friend, to lodge us in Bristol. Peggy fed us all for months until our mother could find employment. My brother and I stared out of the bus window on the way, with Connie gripping our one-way tickets as if setting off for Hong Kong. But Aunt Peggy was waiting at the station to greet us, with a bunch of tulips in her hand, cut from her own garden. Tulips had romantic associations for aunty, as they were the favourite gift of her first sweetheart, a carter who was holed in the trenches. For her they were a flower of sexual love and remembrance, rather than poppies. This woman was touching forty three and worked as a packer in a chocolate factory, but she was a fascinating and even alluring woman to me. She was all smiles, fancy gloves and pretentious petticoats, I recall. From the beginning she lived on a different planet in Bristol, more sophisticated and exciting than I’d known before. Somehow as we jumped off at Bristol bus station she was inviting us to this exotic new planet. Then the river and the waterways were heaven to my brother and me.
Mum’s first job was cleaning the house of a glassware importer, here in Clifton. For more than a year she had to keep the guy at bay with a window pole. Eventually he lost his breath and decided to stop chasing. But Mum was out the door of course. Fortunately for us she was offered a job at Rolls-Royce. No, nothing to do with designing jet engines, just working in the canteen. Not a glamorous position over all, but certainly more glamorous than her previous one. After years of service and being a well-known character at the company, she was promoted to supervisor in the restaurant. She would bring food home some evenings. So there was no chance of us going hungry in those days. That danger started when Lizzie and I began a family and decided we’d better get married. This was when our saliva glands began to feel the squeeze.
My elder brother Oswald started work as soon as he left school. He was required to bring an extra income into the house, although I personally never enjoyed a penny of it. He would come indoors on a Thursday evening, grinning, putting his boots up on the coffee table, waving a brown packet in front of my eyes, which contained a worker’s wages then. On the other hand, did he ever attend the longest party in history, did he hell. Mum took a mortgage for a little house in Bedminster, so she required my brother’s contribution. I guess he was resentful that I’d stayed on in education; that I contributed nothing; that in fact I was a net-drain on national resources as a lazy long-haired student, listening to that crap music and sticking my nose into boring books, “talking shit”.
Elizabeth enjoyed teasing me about my home situation. I was bound to get a degree of ridicule from girls - especially nice brainy girls like Lizzie - with a brother like Ossie. I still cringe at his misjudged efforts to seduce her - his man of the world walk and talk back then - though she just encouraged him ironically. He didn’t get that of course, or didn’t want to, that she found him as sexy as a baboon’s arse. Lizzie wasn’t a snob and she hasn’t turned into one. That’s in contrast to her parents, compared to whom the Nixons were a pair of free thinkers. It’s become more acceptable to sneer at people who are poor or less privileged, but she never has. In that way she didn’t live through those radical times without any effect or impact.
To be working class at university had some cachet for a guy then. There’s only one class at university. At first we spent nights together, or just an hour or two between seminars, back at her shared flat. She comes from Taunton. She knew that the accent was seductive, not just for my Mum. By then every guy was out to impress her.
Mum needed a lot of persuasion to move into this place in Clifton. She regards the Clifton district as a little under Nobs’ Hill, to be honest. It must be related to her memories of that volatile glass maker. I assured her that she’d be closer to Elizabeth and the children up here, as well as more comfortable. I painted her a picture of life here worthy of a biscuit tin lid. But it was another flat promise. If she wants to see Elizabeth these days she’d need a pair of binoculars.
Looks as if my account is also turning into a Brazilian soap. I guess it’s something they do well, like the foot
ie.
I await some response after plunging my finger into a rusty chime. I visualise the minor alert of flashing lights and sirens triggered within my mother’s apartment, to alert her to the fact of a caller or, thinking darkly, a mugger. There’s a security system for the building as a whole - as it largely shelters the elderly - but Mum is nervous and suspicious about technology. Lately I’ve begun to share those fears.
I expect to idle under the porch for a while, casting my eyes over the honeysuckle and rose filled front garden, which is aimed at pleasing them like a sentimental lyric. My mother’s knees are not good and her hearing is less acute. I have to allow her more time to navigate the complicated emporium. At last, after a percussive interlude, she puts her features around the edge of the door. A fixed expression of dire suspicion changes into one of recognition. From her look she nurses a wound of neglect, but at least she still recognises me. She’s definitely unhappy about the recent twists of the soap opera. Mum isn’t old fashioned about these moral questions, she predates fashion.
“Oh, it’s you boy,” she greets me, unhooking chains. It’s like Leeds Castle. “Come on in then, come on in. Don’t hang around out there.”
“How are you then, Mum?”
“I’m all right, Noah. Just battling on against old age,” she informs me.
“You’re looking well, at least, Mum,” I observe.
“How are you these days, Noah?”
A quick inspection offers discouraging signs. Somebody definitely punched a hole through my portrait in the attic - this is written across her face. But even the Love Generation has to grow up.
“You’re a bit pale and drawn, boy, aren’t you? What’s the matter? Don’t you get any fresh air these days?”
“I definitely had the wind taken out of me,” I reply. “The heart attack didn’t help.”
“You seem to be in such a mess these days,” she remarks.
After shutting up she allows me to kiss her and trundles off, towards her own apartment. Navigating a musty, brass-fixtured, red carpeted hallway, I keep half an eye for Norman Bates or Edgar Allan Poe. Fortunately they don’t jump out, although a few of her fellow tenants do a good impression. The space is cluttered with the excess heirloom furniture of residents. It’s a type of warehouse for the autumn years, with enough timber to build a Tudor battle fleet.
Safely inside, away from any snoopers or psychopaths that might have inveigled their way inside with me, we give each other a bear hug. This is by way of apology for not calling by in an age. In the clasp I feel her sturdy, solid boned frame with its low centre of gravity, and she rests her large solid head into my chest. She’s built like a gun carriage is my mother. I can’t imagine having enough strength to leave an impression on her. She grasps my hands, squeezing and turning them over, as if trying to rub extra vitality into them.
“Let’s have a mug of good strong tea,” she suggests.
“You’re the expert there,” I joke.
“I’ve got a nice bit of cake for you as well. I baked it this morning, Noah. You need a lining for your stomach.”
“Sounds good,” I say. At least there’s no need to worry about my cholesterol.
“You haven’t visited for weeks,” she complains. “What happened to those grandchildren of mine?”
“I’m expecting Angela to be here soon,” I inform her.
“You don’t take sugar, do you? Very sensible. You need to watch your weight. You being so thin and you’ve got a podgy tummy. No my love, I can manage on my own. I’m all right if I keep on my feet.”
“Sure you don’t need any help, Mum?”
“Sit down and relax, my boy.”
Her glance is misty these days, but in youth it hypnotised like the exotic dark of a deep cave. Her once black hair is now candlestick silver, pinned tightly across her scalp in a bun. My daughter’s inherited these tints and tinctures.
When I was young I wished to inherit such exotic darkness myself - it would have fitted into my own preferred image, somewhere between the Parisian left bank and alternative Hollywood anti-heroes. Unfortunately I take more after the Sheer side of the family.
Constance releases me and makes for the kitchen with poor balance. Yet she still has the solid deportment of a canteen supervisor at Rolls-Royce. I can see her bowling between the tables, barking encouragement through noise and steam.
The interior of her flat is crowded with furniture and heirlooms too. In the end we offered big money to a team of Sherpas, who had to ferry everything up Nob Hill. The rest of the family felt their rights trampled. So I didn’t put myself at the top of the hit parade. My brother wasn’t getting in close around the jukebox to hear my favourite tune. This was the kind of selfish and rash decision he expected from a long haired hippie with dicey views. Even though I have the signs of success, Oswald still regards me as a penniless student, with pockets as big and empty as my ideas.
Ossie continues to live in our native Bedminster district. You couldn’t force him out of that area if you deployed a tank regiment. He’d probably die of exposure if you dropped him into Devon. Ossie and his family are still in their house, just one street away from where our Mum used to live, before Noah interfered and persuaded her to leave forever. Ossie was absolutely hopping mad, to be honest.
We arranged a viewing of the apartment together, Mum, with my brother and me. She turned the place over grimly, while Ossie conducted a guerrilla campaign against the agent. The guy was sound but Ossie felt he was dealing with a gentleman thief or a geriatricide, or is it a ‘geriatriapath’?
As Mum had fungi blooms in her old kitchen, she decided to etch her signature into the contract, not surprisingly. She was moving on a promise, to see more of Elizabeth and the children, as well as Ossie’s brood. This was like getting a wing of Kensington Palace rent free.
From the direction of the kitchen there’s a clattering and breakage.
“You all right, Mum?” I call.
“You stay where you are,” she answers.
“I’m not helpless.”
“You’re not a well man.”
She’s taking a different line from Corrina. Our mother’s never had a light touch. She’s lived in a comparatively small world, but she’s ruled over it like Queen Ann.
I take time to recompose myself, casting my eyes over the reliquary. I’m left with my thoughts, but I don’t like them. Corrina roars back into the mind’s eye again. How could I pretend to miss her? I try to absent myself in the ticking of our grandfather clock. I attempt to relax within the sunshine entering through French windows. But I tend to sink into the armchair, as if into a depression. My loins still feel like a squeezed sponge.
“Are you still all right? I’ll be with you soon, Noah.”
If she breaks another cup I shall be drinking directly out of the pot.
Ossie’s family allow Mum to feel loved and wanted. They always create a cushiony background of noise and vitality. My children are more often out of doors and our house is like a John Cage piece, in which the environment and atmosphere forms the composition, so that you merely hear a door being slammed.
Luke gets along with Grandma better than the other two. It seems a bit of a miracle but they somehow mix well. Perhaps he also reminds her of Liz. Anyway he’s rarely to be seen around Con’s flat. You’re more likely to see the Buddha jogging around the park. Angela says that she finds her grandma hard work - as if that is the ultimate negative. In truth they have a strong resemblance to each other. They are both stubbornly single minded; so loathe to hear a single word of criticism. Then there is the physical resemblance.
We’re still waiting on Andy Warhol. I tell my daughter that Grandma can be good company, recalling childhood evenings of dance music. She doesn’t listen; so a bloody mind and small dark features are not the only features they share. My brother and
I were grateful for any high spirits in that house, I can assure you.
Finally Constance hobbles back from her kitchenette, clutching a tray holding a large cosied teapot, a couple of surviving cups and a plate holding breezeblocks of cake. The stocking bandages around her arthritic knees give her the look of a hardened rugby player, coming back for another punch up following a sin binning. But she ignores her doctor’s gift of a walking stick. This varnished cane is propped in a corner, more used as a warning against a defecating moggy, which has stolen a soft spot in the old folks’ back garden.
After she plonks down the tray, with a dangerous rattle and roll, and arranges our tiffin across a nest of tables, Constance begins to beat around in the undergrowth of my life.
“How are you bearing up, Noah?” she enquires. She groans with satisfaction and relieved effort, lowering herself into her formidable old armchair, which has travelled the many years and a few miles with her.
“Not too bad, considering,” I answer. It is unlikely that I am going to confide in Mum, if I am unable to talk frankly with close friends.
“Taking all your medicine, are you?”
“Oh yes, Mum, I’m being a good boy.” Neither of us is virtuous in that respect.
“That big house up there, with those growing children to take care of,” she tells me. She arranges herself into an ancient dent.
