Here’s a paper hat for you to wear, Agnita says, we’re having a party.
She claps her hands together as if it’s the most exciting thing she can think of, sitting round with a group of coffin dodgers reminiscing about their long ago happy memories that they are probably making up anyway. They’re probably lying, I try to say but I think only the ‘lie’ bit comes out. Agnita looks puzzled. No lie, she says, it really is party.
Duh, I want to say. Like the kids do, when someone doesn’t get what they’re trying to say. Duh, you don’t even know what I’m saying, but what comes out is a load of nonsense in a sing-song tone, it’s all I can manage.
Carols, she says, do you want to sing the carols and then she’s off and it’s all silent night only in Dutch or German or something. I used to speak German, I want to tell her. I was quite good at it, A grade at A-level. I didn’t mean my arm to jerk out, I wasn’t even thinking about Hitler, I don’t know why she got so upset. It was nothing like a Nazi salute. Obviously a bit of a spasm or something, probably I’ve been sitting too long in one position and whose fault is that? Not mine, I’m not one of the carers who’s supposed to check on how the poor old people are sitting, that’s for sure. I’d jump off a bridge rather than work here.
Anyway, I know Agnita speaks Dutch not bloody German and it wasn’t a Nazi salute but it’s obviously a sensitive thing for her.
I am from the Dutch West Indies, she says, and I think, big news.
I shrug my shoulders but I don’t mean I don’t care, I’m just trying for sarcasm because that is the most dignified thing I can muster right now. It seems like everything I do is misinterpreted.
I’m not sure if you even deserve a hat and a Christmas party, Agnita says, and I want to tell her that’s fine with me but she doesn’t understand. I’m not having a good day.
Here, she says and she tries to fit this stupid gold hat on my head, a small cone shaped hat.
I can do it, I try to say but that causes quite an amount of spit and I can see her wipe her hands when she thinks I’m not looking, as if she had touched something disgusting like rat pee, not just my ordinary spit that won’t stay in my mouth.
I’ve got some sympathy about the spit thing, only I don’t want her to know that. I used to hate the bodily fluids associated with teaching. Children with mucus pouring from their noses or wiped on their sleeves. I almost wish I had been kinder now that I’m like them, but I guess the fact is no one likes a spitter, young or old.
But I can’t wear the hat. There’s something cruel about expecting old women with wrinkled faces to wear hats that look like witches’ hats.
No, I say, no, and I give a big heave and a push so that she gets exactly what I’m saying.
Well OK, she says, only all the others will be wearing them and I can’t believe you want to be the odd one out.
You’d better believe it, I think, because it’s true. I smile and she gives me what they used to call a sideways look and I think, maybe she heard what I thought.
*
The dining room is a scene from hell. A medieval tableau of despair, complete with the obligatory smell of cabbage and disinfectant.
Happy Christmas, call the ones who can talk. Isn’t this lovely? I hear one of them say.
No it’s not, I say, but it’s just a growl.
Agnita puts my wheelchair at a table full of the usual no hopers. I look around for Jackie but she’s not here yet.
Hallo, says an old woman whose skin looks like some kind of science fiction fruit, haven’t they done this nicely? Aren’t they good to us? She goes on as if I was agreeing with her. I try to stare her out, we used to do that at school and I was good at it. Fat girls are often good at unpopular sports. She doesn’t notice at all, just goes on trilling and nodding her head like someone’s pet budgie. I think there will be mince pies later, she says, and maybe some games, oh I can’t wait.
I decide to talk anyway, whether I can be understood or not. I should think there would be bloody mince pies, I say, after dressing us up like silly arses and interrupting our afternoons. It’s just a load of spitty nonsense by the time the words get out of my mouth but I feel better for saying them.
There are two others at my table apart from Ms Budgie. A very fat woman with a small line of saliva dribbling down from the corner of her mouth and a tiny old man, like one of those shrunken heads they used to have in history books only shrunken all over. I think he’s the one who did the impromptu dance the other night when they talked about activities. He is wearing a small sparkling trilby hat, and it seems oddly fitting. If he could understand me I’d ask him if he could tap dance too.
Ladies and gentlemen, he keeps saying, ladles and jelly spoons. He seems happy though, smiling and clicking his fingers to a tune only he can hear.
Hello, says the fat woman, have you been here before? They’ve done it nicely, haven’t they? She nods towards the tree in the corner, and then sweeps with her hand to take in the paper chains and tinsel draped around the room. I’d like to get into a chat with her about religion and the insidious way it creeps into our lives in the guise of naked consumerism but I growl instead. It has much the same effect.
The last twenty years or so I have ignored Christmas completely. Jenny always asks me over but I don’t go. Now that I can’t go any more, even if I wanted to, I can’t help wondering what it might have been like. Donations to charity, that’s all she ever wants so I’m sure it wouldn’t be a barrel of laughs.
Oh, thank you for this Oxfam goat, I imagine her saying, here’s some money towards a drainage ditch. The thought of it makes me laugh, and I’m spluttering lukewarm tea all over the place. My tablemates look away. I hate the bloody tea in this place. They give it to me in a plastic beaker with a lid, the kind you give to toddlers. I could manage a proper cup, I know I could, I’d just need a bit of guidance at the elbow but they haven’t got any time for that. It makes me cross, the bloody beaker and I try to fling it on to the floor. It’s not my fault that it hits Ms Budgie and it’s certainly not my fault that the lid comes off on impact. They should make them screw on tighter, we’re old and helpless and we need proper equipment.
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, Ms Budgie trills. She sounds like one of those talking dolls that Jenny used to want. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, my best dress too. Look at my best dress, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
I wish with all my heart that I could make myself understood. Never mind the heart to hearts with my daughter, the only thing I’d want to say right now is, oh my gosh, I never, ever would have realised that was your best dress. It’s true, I wouldn’t have. It’s like a cliché dress, a dress they would use to dress a generic dowdy old woman. Navy crimplene, or whatever they use instead of crimplene these days. I hate her dress with a vengeance and suddenly I’m glad about the tea. I wish I hadn’t drunk any of it so that more of it could have splashed down her front. She’s crying now, and the staff are all over her and looking at me with narrowed eyes.
It wasn’t her fault, Ms Budgie says, she didn’t mean to. Oh dear, I don’t want to spoil Christmas, oh dear, I’ll be fine.
She dabs at her heaving bosom with serviettes patterned with holly.
Don’t you worry, she trills over to me, don’t you worry, it wasn’t your fault, I’m always a bit emotional in the festive season. Brings up a lot for us oldies, doesn’t it dear?
She holds the serviette to her face and a couple of members of staff pat her in a reassuring way, throwing evil looks in my direction. I wish I had a dog to stroke or something to soften my edges a little. Like Richard Nixon in that TV interview. Sorry, I try to say, not that I really do feel sorry or anything but it seems like the right thing to do. I remember why the navy crimplene dress seems familiar. I think I had one a bit like it in my fat days, before Alain. Poor me, I think, poor me wearing that sort of stuff when I was young and pretty. Prettyish. I can’t help it, the thought makes me sad and I start crying. I’m discreet about it, the old tears rolling down the fa
ce business, nothing dramatic. I’m not like Ms Budgie, I’m not looking for any attention, I can’t help it, that’s all.
I have to decide fairly quickly whether to ask for a tissue or let the snot run down my face. I can’t quite reach the serviettes. I’m sniffing like a hound and trying to decide when I feel a tiny tap on my arm.
There you are, my dear, he says and it’s the tiny sparkly man, holding out a Santa serviette in his shrunken hand. It’s more like a dainty claw than a hand but I’m very grateful.
Ssh, I try to say to him, just to let him know that it’s our secret, my tears, but ssh is one of the things I shouldn’t even attempt. I spray him with spit and he wipes his lapels without looking horrified.
The staff are too busy with Ms Budgie to notice. I’m elated to have got away with it. Crying in public is a top hobby here and it’s not one I want to join in with.
Keep away from the s words, dear, Mr Sparkly Hat says in a quiet voice. Don’t annoy them, and try to get your nearest and dearest to bring you in some spirits. Brandy, whisky, doesn’t matter what. We all have our dreams, my dear.
I can’t help laughing, and of course that makes the staff still comforting Ms Budgie turn and look at me as if I have just drowned a bucketful of puppies. It’s Kelly with the complicated hair and Abi with the purple streak and neither of them have ever liked me.
I’m not laughing at her, I say, it’s him, he’s funny and I point to Mr Sparkly Hat but he’s looking off into the distance at the other end of the room. Glazed, that’s how he looks, glazed as a carrot. They don’t understand what I’m saying.
Fancy trying to put the blame on Trevor, I hear one of them say, and the other one, Abi, speaks directly to me and says, now, now, now, I don’t think it was Trevor that threw the cup, do you?
Don’t be cross with her, says Ms Budgie, still dabbing at her breasts, she can’t help it, my mother went like that at the end, doolally, she’s probably unhappy inside too.
Aw, Kelly says, patting her complex hair as though it was a pet, aw listen to you. You’re a saint, d’you hear me? Isn’t she a saint, Ab?
She’s a saint, Abi agrees and they both turn and look at me to make sure I’ve heard. There are times when not being able to talk doesn’t stop a person from trying and this is one of them.
I’m not fucking unhappy inside, I’m fucking unhappy outside and it’s your fucking fault, I shout at Ms Budgie. She flutters her hands but it’s clear she has no idea what I’m saying. No one does but they can tell I’m angry.
I’m sorry almost straight away. I mean, I do know it’s not her actual fault but part of me still feels that she shouldn’t be such a sanctimonious bitch if she wants to avoid the slings and arrows of this miserable world.
Abi and Kelly give each other a look.
I’ll do it, Abi says and she pulls my wheelchair back from the table more roughly than she needs to. She whirls it round and I get the old fairground feeling for a moment, then she pushes me over into the corner by the doors. She bends down, purple streak flopping over her eyes. Close up it’s clear that her eyebrows are completely drawn in, there’s nothing underneath at all. Maybe the purple hair is a wig, maybe she’s had cancer or something. I’m deciding to be nice on account of the possible cancer when she bends over and talks right in my face.
Right, she says, I’ve just about had enough. Poor Mary, tea all down her best frock. What would the world be like if we all had our tantrums whenever things didn’t go the right way, huh?
She looks at me as if she is really asking a question, which is ridiculous because she knows I can’t talk. I point to my mouth with my good hand to remind her.
Oh I know all about that, she says, waving a dismissive hand, but some of us can see through you all the same.
That’s not fair, I want to shout, but I don’t because there is absolutely no point. How dare she speak to me like that? As if I want to be in here any more than she wants to be looking after me. Less in fact, at least she gets paid for it. I count to ten to try to calm myself down but it doesn’t work, the unfairness of it, being told off by someone young enough to be my granddaughter. Someone with no eyebrows and a purple streak, it’s not fair. And I can’t stop them then, the tears that burst out like I’ve been holding them back for days, which I mostly have. Once I start, I can’t stop. OK, there’s no need for the waterworks, Abi says, come on now, it’s not that bad. Let’s go back and join in the fun with the others, she says, we’ll say no more about it.
Silly little bitch, as if that would make me feel happier. I wonder if they have to have any qualifications at all to work here. I guess not, but even thinking that doesn’t cheer me up in any way at all. It’s like a switch has been thrown, and I can’t stop crying. I haven’t cried like this for a long time. It’s baby crying, abandoned crying, the sort you do when someone dies or when there’s no hope. Locked in a prison cell in a foreign country, that sort of crying. As I get into the rhythm of it I find it easy, simple, something I learned how to do long ago. I picture myself with a baby in my arms, locked out of my house, crying like this. I see Christmas decorations from long ago in a room I had decorated in brown and yellow, and a baby in one of those canvas chairs on a wire frame. I’m crying like this then, too, only I’m in such a bother right now that I can’t quite remember why.
Abi is squatting down next to my wheelchair. Come on, she says, I didn’t mean to upset you like this. She’s holding out another tissue and I take it and hold it over my face but it won’t stop. I’m heaving like I’m going to throw up and Kelly has come over now, one of her plaits is coming slightly undone but she’s still wearing a hairband with a pair of furry antlers attached.
Come on, she says, Abi didn’t mean, and then Abi chimes in and says, Kell, I didn’t, I was just saying.
I give some kind of regal wave to show that I have forgiven the poor fools, and that in fact there are much sadder things in my life than them and their drawn on eyebrows. My sobs are slowing down but I’m in that stage, I remember this too from long ago, that stage where if someone said something, anything, that could set me off, I’d go right back into extreme crying again, nought to sixty in a fraction of a second.
Would you like some water, one of them says. I think it was Kelly. Shall I get you a mince pie?
Do they teach you any people skills at all, I want to ask, or did you perhaps complete your scanty training in a kennels? This strikes me as funny, really funny so I’m off again only this time it’s laughter which should cheer them up only I don’t think they can tell the difference.
They’re both standing there looking all concerned and shuffling from one foot to the other. They’re looking round a lot too, and I guess that they don’t want to be told off by whoever is in charge of this zoo, and that means I’ve got the upper hand for once. I let them push me back into the room. Let’s join the party, they say and although it’s the most pathetic party I’ve ever been to, for some reason I want to be there, I want to be with people, even these wrinkled old half-dead ones.
We go back to the table and Ms Budgie is full of smiles.
Oh, she says, I was hoping you’d come back, I’ve saved you a mince pie. Mary. I must remember to call her Mary in my head and stop with the budgie stuff, just in case there’s a miracle and I can suddenly talk again and all that comes out is nonsense. I incline my head, channelling a royal personage again. It’s getting to be a habit. I try to look grateful for the mince pie, although it’s definitely shop bought and the pastry is as dry as everything else around here, Mary included. I make a nice face though, or at least a lopsided version of a nice face, and it’s then that Jackie comes over.
Hi she says, as if we were at a real party, maybe a cocktail party or a reception on a cruise ship. Isn’t this nice? And she sweeps her arms round to take in the whole sorry scene but suddenly she’s right, it is nice, it’s like she’s turned a light on to it or something.
Hello Mary, she says, how’s that hip? Hip? It never occurred to me th
at Mary had a hip, not a hip that needed asking after. I listen in, trying to look concerned. Gives me a bit of gyp, she says, mainly in the mornings. Gyppy hip, says Trevor, the tiny sparkly man on the other side of the table, hippy gyp. We all laugh although I for one am not sure why.
Sit next to me, I’m thinking. There are two empty chairs, one between me and Mary and one between Trevor and the extremely fat woman. I think she is called Pam-Pam only I would never say the second Pam even if I could talk, it’s a ridiculous name for a woman who is not only grown but overgrown. Sit next to me Jackie. I must be going backwards, winding back like an old movie because I do the visualisation thing, like I used to do at a disco, say, if I wanted someone to ask me to dance. You have to imagine it happening, will them to do what you want them to do, concentrate and visualise. Sit next to me Jackie. Go on go on. It works this time because she does, she sits next to me and I almost clap.
What was going on over there with you and Abi and Kelly? Jackie says, I was on my way back from physio, that’s why I’m a bit late to the party, I think I saw you crying, she says.
It’s a bad day for the words today. It’s a bad day for the words every day. They’re stuck in my throat and a growl is all I can manage. I can’t imagine how I said the Proust thing the other day, and I’m furious that I used such a precious resource to say something so stupid. In the end I settle for a nonchalant wave, to give the impression that whatever happened in the corner with the carers, it really wasn’t important. I want to imply that I could use words if I wanted to, I just can’t be bothered to waste them on something so trivial.
Hello, My Name is May Page 8