by Laurie Fox
We’ve got heart,
Miles and miles and miles of heart.
When you’re flying high in the air
Brave Hearts is there from the start.
For us, flying’s an art!
You’d think, after all these years, that Berry and I would be immune to the jingle’s charms. Not so. After we boarded the plane and settled in to our spacious seats—bottles of Evian and fresh-baked brownies at our disposal—the flight attendants gathered in the aisle and hovered over us wearing sappy grins. A male steward “just happened to have” a harmonica in the pocket of his pressed khakis, and he sounded an introductory note: Hr-rum! The crew ambushed us with two rounds of the jingle, in three-part harmony no less. When they arrived at the fourth line, they hastily substituted whistling for the name of their competitor. Berry and I broke out in cheers; we loved a good prank.
The remainder of the flight was uneventful: Berry buried her head in Stephen King’s Carrie, while I busied myself with worrying, a very poor use of the imagination. Shaking off my fears, it seems, was becoming a full-time job. For the bulk of the trip, I tormented myself by fantasizing about being trapped in a fireball of jet fuel and steel, plunging headlong from the sky. I worried about Berry’s rickety self-esteem; I fretted about the state of my marriage; I dreaded seeing Great-Nana in a deteriorated state. As for Mummy and Daddy, they were evergreen presences in the worry province of my mind. I was a Hall of Famer myself.
The jet touched down with an emphatic thud. The thud being prophetic at best, I grabbed my daughter’s hand and wrung it with love. She shook me off, blowing me a patronizing kiss.
“To Granny’s, to Granny’s,” I sang poorly but with a lilt. Berry pulled a sour face. She hated it when I lifted idioms from children’s books. “Talk like an adult,” she ordered, “or don’t talk.” Berry was a wounding little brat, but I couldn’t help adoring her. I never blamed her for the hurt she caused; it was easier to dump my frustration on my own mother, who could take it.
We took a minicar from Heathrow directly to the sanitarium. Why we didn’t freshen up at the hotel first is a mystery. Perhaps we couldn’t wait to get a dose of Great-Nana’s fabulousness—no doubt we were in serious need. Just in case it was Nana whose spirits needed brightening, I wore a loden-green tweed suit of forties vintage, with bright emerald tights and olive-suede desert boots, while Berry’s hairy legs were partially cloaked in black fishnet stockings, her feet clad in gladiator sandals. My daughter’s bantam figure was sheathed in her all-purpose uniform, the extra-large tee. This one bore the message: FREEDOM’S JUST ANOTHER WORD FOR NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE. Berry’s look was completed by a white, boiled-wool coat on which she’d sprayed zebra stripes. We both wore berets encrusted with a medley of buttons. Subtle we were not.
Dr. Deepak Wolfe met us at the clinic’s front gate, a wrought-iron affair that was flung open in a cavalier fashion, as if tempting the patients to escape. Like his name, Wolfe was a heady blend of East Indian dark good looks and British idiosyncrasy. In each hand he held a saucer on which a teacup of Earl Grey wobbled.
“Come,” Wolfe said. Taking our teas, we followed him down a path of flagstone steps, banked on each side by a meticulously mowed lawn of inspiring dimensions.
“This is just like in the movies!” I whispered to Berry.
“This is the movies!” Wolfe enthused.
Berry and I were directed to sit on a rock-hard bench in the lobby, our teacups set before us on a standing tea tray with the initials A.S.S. inlaid in mother of pearl. All-Saints Sanitarium. Berry stifled a hiccup of a giggle, while I uttered a staccato “Ha!” Dr. Wolfe sat opposite the tray on a punishing high-back chair. “Nothing is padded here,” he explained. “We wouldn’t want to make our guests feel like they were problems.”
“Problems?” Berry echoed.
“You know, off their trolleys.”
Berry stared straight ahead, stone-faced.
“Honey,” I said, “he’s on our side.” Then to Wolfe: “My daughter identifies with the nutcases.”
“Bully for her.” Wolfe clapped good-naturedly, a dot of perspiration on his brow.
“Doctor Wolfe,” I began again.
“Call me Deep.”
“Sorry?”
“Deep, for Deepak. Not to be confused with you-know-who.”
“Oh-ho!” I stammered. He folded his linen napkin into a tiny turban which he propped on his head. “You mean you’re not a guru?” I teased, sounding crushed.
“Not if you ask my wife. She thinks of me as one of the guests.”
“Guests?” I repeated.
“Our preferred term for patients,” Wolfe explained, removing the napkin. “Has the ring of a grand hotel to it.”
I took a generous gulp of the Earl Grey and managed to dribble it down my chin and into a bra cup. Wolfe patted my chest with a linen napkin from the tray, and I flushed with a faint sexual heat. Dr. Wolfe was a smallish man, almost jockeylike, with a huge disproportionate head that sat upon hunched, narrow shoulders. His hazel eyes had the boiling intensity of Ben Kingsley’s and his glasses fogged up when he got excited, which appeared to be most of the time. The mouse-brown gabardine suit he wore was dated, loose-fitting; it washed over him like a drab wave. I found Wolfe’s bagginess attractive, save for his shoes. I’d never been fond of those Birkenstocks that progressive shrinks find so unassuming. And it was winter, for God’s sake.
“Doc-tor Wolfe,” I said, with greater definition.
“Deep,” he corrected.
“May we see her now, Deep? May we see Berry’s great-great-grandmother?” I stood up, tried to show a little backbone.
“No,” Wolfe said tersely.
“No?”
“That was a joke. A very unfunny one,” he added to himself. During this exchange Berry had pulled a red Magic Marker from her army knapsack, and set about drawing a scary monster on her tea napkin.
“Brilliant,” Wolfe whispered, now fingering the artwork. “What have we here, a princess?”
“Hardly,” she upbraided him. “It’s a picture of my inner brain-works.”
“As opposed to your outer brainworks, I suppose? Perhaps you’re right, Berry, but I highly doubt it.”
“What?” she snapped, and threw him a dirty look.
“Well, I believe your psyche might look something more like this.” Wolfe produced a felt-tipped pen from his roomy jacket and began marking up his own napkin. With broad strokes he sketched a cookie-cutter princess, one begowned and bejeweled with stiltlike high heels and a conical hat. Berry commented by pointing a finger at her mouth. Undeterred, Wolfe dipped the napkin in his tea; we all watched the ink bloat, the lines fatten. The end effect was wonderful, an abstract mess of a princess.
Wolfe wrung out the napkin and began stuffing the damp thing in his jacket pocket. Then he turned to Berry and said: “Sorry, would you like it?”
A budding smile parted her lips. “It’s me, totally,” she told him, and accepted the cloth, spreading it out on her lap to admire it.
After this exercise in bonding, Berry and I got our way. Wolfe escorted us to Great-Nana’s “flat,” really a room off a poorly lit, mile-long hallway in a mansion that must have been grand in its youth, even stately in its adolescence. Today it was merely substantial. As Wolfe rapped lightly on Great-Nana’s door, Berry and I sucked in our breath. We were prepared for anything—anything but her demise.
“Enter at your own risk!” Great-Nana cackled, and we exhaled twin sighs of relief. The two of us stuttered into an oxygen-deprived chamber with its shades drawn, its contents littered in every direction. Great-Nana had reproduced the same anarchic look she’d achieved so long ago in her own house. As before, there was no clear surface on which to sit, just layers created by her beloved bibelots—a stuffed robin here, a kaleidoscope there, a silver heart locket with a tiny photograph of a fair-haired girl.
When my gaze settled I spotted Great-Nana in the far corner, a cloudy figure at best. In place of
the robust redhead I’d known in my youth, I saw a limp gray thing confined to a wheelchair. She still had that impressive pillow of a bosom, and eyes that suggested they’d been privy to miracles—I’m hard-pressed to convey how the light moved through the iris rather than stopping cold. But the body had dwindled, the face wizened, and instead of encountering the embodiment of vitality, I found myself in the presence of a ruin.
“Wendy Darling! Berry Darling!” With diminished bravura, Nana extended her arms; they remained suspended in the air for us to fill.
Berry approached, unsure of herself, her heavy backpack propelling her forward. Helplessly she grabbed on to Nana, seizing her elbows. “Triple,” she said in a hush.
“Goodness, child. You’re damaging the merchandise.”
But Berry refused to release her, her affection for Great-Nana a force to behold. Smiling, I tasted the envy rising in my throat. Eventually I forced my way in and embraced my great-grandmother.
“Of course the merchandise is already damaged,” Nana said, waving us off. “But it’s priceless nonetheless.” She patted her bosom, enjoying the fact that she could still advertise her best feature.
“Yes, Nana,” I said. “How could we forget.” I turned around to address Dr. Wolfe, but he’d yielded the room to us Darlings.
Berry drew two folding chairs up to Great-Nana’s wheelchair while I lifted the window shades—both windows had been padlocked, I noted.
“What’s up with the windows?” I asked Nana. She gave a wink that suggested nothing in particular. “Nana!” I shouted in her face. “The windows.”
“It’s an experiment,” she explained. “Dr. Wolfe wants to see if I can imagine flying without actually, you see, having to jump. He’s that way, you know.”
“What way?” I asked.
“He prefers that we use our noggins.” She smiled vaguely at the ceiling.
I took the chair on the left, and Berry seated herself to the right of Great-Nana. The three of us succumbed to silence then, searching our respective kindred faces. We gave the ancestral ghosts a few minutes to emerge and take snapshots—after all, three generations were represented here.
“I’m flummoxed,” Great-Nana said finally.
“That we’re here together,” I said.
“No!” Nana shrieked. “That Jane’s missing all of this. Where is she, the little twit? I cherish my daughter but she insists on living so—far away. Which isn’t very considerate, is it, Berry?”
Berry’s head grew heavy, hanging down at her chest; she set her teeth in a thoughtful underbite. “No,” she whispered. “I guess not.”
“Stuff her. Jane’s not considerate of others. Look what happened to her daughter.” We all got a chuckle at Mummy’s expense.
“Nana,” I interrupted, “do you have some idea of where Jane is?”
“I have loads of ideas. But no, I was only speaking of her character, not her location. Sometimes I can’t imagine how a person could do such a thing to her own mother . . . and then I can.” She fell silent again, turning the wheelchair away from us. Her slippered feet tap-tapped the chair’s footrest as she fooled with her dressing gown, tying and untying the satin ribbon at her neck. Her hands shook as they patted down her nest of gray hair; it still had a tangerine cast to it. Then, to make a point, Nana positioned the wheelchair to face us. “Berry,” she said soberly. “You’re traveling light these days?” She shot me a look that could skin a chicken.
I dipped my chin, indicating no, Pan had yet to enter my daughter’s life.
“Oh dear. Oh dear.”
“What is it, Triple?” asked Berry.
“Here we go again,” said Great-Nana. “Wendy, my handbag.”
“Sorry?”
“Handbag, please. We’re getting out of here.”
“Is that wise?” I asked. “You seem a little . . . tired.” Though I was not one to collude with doctors, Great-Nana was ancient and I didn’t want to wear her out.
“Don’t ruin things, Mu-Mu,” Berry said. “She just wants to go out on the town. Right, Triple?”
“Right-o,” Great-Nana said.
We stuffed her leaf-embroidered handbag with pill bottles and outfitted her in a wool-felt kelly-green coat. To finish the job, we bundled her shoulders in a fringed shawl and affixed a pointy woolly hat to her head. So the Darling penchant for the odd chapeau had originated with Nana!
DEEPAK Wolfe entertained the peculiar British confidence in the restorative powers of the outdoors, and with his blessing the three of us made our way to the village of Cooke. He’d agreed to let us borrow his Saab hatchback as long as Great-Nana was forbidden from taking the wheel. Her taking the wheel, I’d assured Wolfe, was an impossibility: Nana would be far too busy talking to consider driving. But I hadn’t counted on twisting my neck the first time I wandered into the wrong lane. “Shit!” I cried. “These English roads have got me confused.”
“Move over, dearie,” Great-Nana said.
“Let’s sit this out a minute,” I cautioned, and stopped the Saab in the dirt bordering the left lane.
“It’s obviously my turn to drive,” said Nana. “It’s been my turn for the last twenty years. Don’t take it away from me, from us.”
I sat rigidly in the driver’s seat, refusing to give it up; my neck told me any sort of movement might be trouble. In the passenger seat, Nana began humming those five notes “tooted” by the mothership in Close Encounters—how could she know what they meant to me? Berry, who was crammed into the back with the folded-up wheelchair, whistled along, amused by the generational dynamics. She seemed—patient.
“We could split the difference and let me drive,” Berry volunteered when it was clear that we were going nowhere.
“Yes, let the girl drive if you’re not going to permit me the honor,” Great-Nana said. “So it’s not the logical thing to do. Logic can be a bloody nuisance.”
“Right on, Triple!” Berry cheered.
I could see the headline in the Times—YOUTH, WOMAN, AND WOOLLY-HATTED DOWAGER IN TRAGIC, ILLOGICAL ACCIDENT—and summoned the strength to get back on the road. Someone, I reasoned, had to be the adult: I was, by default, that person.
There were no further incidents on the drive into town; my two passengers grumbled but behaved, and a spell of calm descended on the external world. I was taken in by what I could see head-on: the verdant fields and hillocks, a graceful weeping willow.
The village of Cooke was one of those cultural backwaters where the children grow up bored and go bad, and the adults prepare for old age prematurely. To tourists like us, it was paradise. Church, chemist, baker, butcher, stationers, tea room, grocery shop, newsagent, video shop, pub—what else would one need on the way to the grave?
Our glee was palpable and expressed immediately upon arriving: Great-Nana flung open the passenger door and shrieked, “Air, glorious air!”
I searched my door panel for one of those electronic lock buttons, failing to realize that a button was unnecessary. Great-Nana was poignantly stopped in her tracks. Without her wheelchair, she was an invalid; no small wonder that she’d taken up flying again.
“My chariot!” Nana ordered and Berry hopped to. She unfolded the wheelchair and installed Great-Nana as masterfully as if she’d been her longtime assistant. Berry’s actions floored me. Had I missed a rare submissive streak in her character? Could it be that my daughter was generous?
The three of us stood in a line at the curb facing the high street. Great-Nana pointed to a folksy sign that read SCONEHENGE and the decision was made to pop in to the bakery. As we entered the shop, Nana sat erect in her wheelchair. She winked at the man behind the counter as if she were a regular, which gave me a certain chill. Not to worry, I told myself, she’s a winker.
“Gaston!” she called to the elderly man. His white uniform shirt, with Gus embroidered in blue thread above the pocket, told a different story. “These are my pretties,” Nana announced, “Wen-dy and Ber-ry. Gaston, give us the sordid biscuits, the whole
lot of them, would you?”
I smiled, remembering this venerable family pun: growing up, we all called assorted biscuits sordid biscuits—what makes sense to a child’s ear. Gaston selected three of each cookie the shop offered, and piled them high on a plate. “Three coffees,” I added.
Great-Nana snapped open her handbag and shuffled through a deep inventory of junk. She withdrew something shiny and pocketed it in her coat. “Wendy, pay the man, would you?”
We took our seats at a wobbly table near the window and ate covetously, like refugees, our lips dusted with confectioners’ sugar. The moment Gaston’s eyes were off her, Nana withdrew a silver flask from her coat pocket and spilled something from the vessel into her mug. I smiled knowingly. Nana always said that drinking in moderation took the edge off altered states.
Thoughts of Daddy came to mind. “Has Dudley been by to visit, Nana?” She squinted at me, preoccupied. “Nana, have you seen my father?” I repeated.
She took a long drag from the coffee, holding the mug in both hands like a child, then peered over its rim for what seemed an inexcusably long time. “Not for donkey’s years,” she said finally. “Isn’t he handsome, though? Isn’t he the dog’s bollocks . . . ?”
After polishing off her gypsy cream and chocolate digestive, Nana insisted on getting a haircut. We marched into Betty’s Beauty Mark like Dorothy & Company entering the Emerald City. The salon’s habitués, mostly in their sixties and seventies, must have appeared as youngsters in Great-Nana’s eyes, for she called them girls and quickly began to dominate the proceedings.
The ladies were mesmerized by Great-Nana’s rhetoric—she spoke surreally of “those crocodiles in the House of Commons!” and called Thatcher “That scandalous buccaneer!” Notwithstanding, she addressed the denizens of the salon as Honeybunch or Precious, and managed to compliment each with something unique: “You smell precisely like plum pudding.” “You have that chic Princess Margaret thing going for you.” “If she hadn’t met a sticky end, I would think you were Jean Seberg in the flesh.”
