by Moira Murphy
The day passed, with no significant changes. I stayed with my mother until it was time to go home for the children coming from school.
The night passed as it had before; we had tea, I cleared the dishes, the children did their homework and I continued to ignore the catastrophe that was my bedroom and the sludgy swamp in the bottom of the bath.
The next morning I again woke at 6am and struggled my way out of the sleeping bag. I was again relieved not to have had a call about my mother so I rang the hospital. I was told her condition had improved slightly and that the doctor was happy that she appeared to be stabilising. I hooked the dog to her lead, sneaked quietly out of the door and once again ran to St Augustine’s. The nuns were there as before but the bag lady wasn’t. I thanked the statue of Jesus on the Cross for sparing my mother’s life for another day. Father McCaffrey came out as before to prepare for seven o clock mass and he saw us and came over. He stroked the dog and said prayers were still being offered up for my mother. I told him about the doctor’s latest report and he was pleased to hear it. He said he hoped to visit my mother later that morning.
It was peaceful in church; calm. I decided I had time to stay to hear Mass and still be home in time to get the children up for school. A few people came in, six or seven: stalwarts, a puny congregation, tried and tested believers. They looked non-plussed at me and the dog. Perhaps if she had been a St Bernard… The responses were thin, feeble and the Mass was over in about twenty minutes. He didn’t hang about Father McCaffrey. Perhaps the bookies opened earlier on a Wednesday. I walked home and as I did so I felt different. It was a feeling I couldn’t put my finger on.
I was due at work, I couldn’t go. I had to take some time off. I rang Ian and he was, strangely enough, sympathy itself. He said I wasn’t to worry about work I had to think about my mother and I was to take as much time off as I needed. He said he would get a temp in. He was being so uncharacteristically nice and I was feeling so fragile, I felt like crying.
I saw the children off to school and tidied the house before making my way to the hospital. Father McCaffrey was already with my mother. He had his back to the door and I waited in the doorway. He was reading something to her which I assumed was probably either a comforting passage from the new testament or else the news from the church bulletin, but which turned out to be the racing form from that morning’s newspaper. He was telling my mother he fancied Catherine the Great in the 3 o clock at Aintree.
“Ah, Joanne,” he said cheerily, as I walked in. “Your mother and me were just discussing Catherine the Great and hoping she is as great at Aintree as she was on her last time out at York. Isn’t that right Gwen? Well, I really must he going,” he said, as he hauled his heavy frame out of the low, easy chair, “the poor sick won’t visit themselves and Mass won’t say itself. Now you take care, Gwen, d’ya hear? I’ll call again. Bye now, Joanne, and don’t forget you and the dog are welcome at Mass anytime.”
I sat with my mother until lunchtime when I went to the café for something to eat. Afterwards, it being a lovely day, I walked out of the rear doors and onto a grassed area which was prettily dotted about with flowerbeds and wooden bench seats. I’d picked up a magazine from the shop in the foyer and I sat on one of the benches flicking through it. The sun was warm, butterflies and bees flittered noiselessly about their business, background voices were carried into the distance by the slight breeze which tickled the pages of the magazine on my lap.
The next thing I knew, a hand was gently tapping my shoulder and someone was asking if I was okay. I’d nodded off. I squinted against the glare of the sun and into a man’s face. He seemed both concerned and amused and while he wasn’t the most handsome man I’d ever seen, nevertheless, it was a nice face looking down at me. But I didn’t dwell on that. I looked away. I blushed and mumbled and cringed at the thought of how ridiculous I must have looked.
“It’s just your purse was on the bench beside you and you never know who’s knocking about,” he said, affably.
That had never happened to me before. I mean you prepare to go to sleep, you don’t just sit down on a park bench and nod off. Old people do that. When he’d woken me my head was back and my mouth open so obviously not a pretty sight. I stood up quickly, said I had to be somewhere, grabbed my purse and the magazine, hurried inside and mentally filed the episode under ‘another moment best forgotten in the Life of Joanne.’
That night I took the children to see a film and we went for a pizza. I thought it might cheer them up and they pretended it had.
I told them while Gran was in hospital it was possible I might not always be home when they came from school so I needed to know they were being sensible and mature and not fighting and squabbling all the time. I needed to know I could trust them to behave. Josh was allocated the job of taking Millie for her walk on the green behind the house and to clean up after her and Lucy was to start the tea, “Don’t worry about us, Mam,” they said, “we can take care of ourselves. You just concentrate on looking out for Gran.”
And that’s how it was during the next few days. There wasn’t a cross word between them and even the dog seemed calmer.
It transpired that, while taking the dog for her walk Josh had made a new friend, Leo.
Leo was nearly fifteen, tall for his age and with a quiet confidence. Leo also walked his dog, Tigger, on the field behind the houses and Leo and Tigger were now quite often to be found in our kitchen when I got home. Apparently Tigger was called Tigger because he could jump up and down on all fours. Tigger could do all sorts of tricks and Leo was teaching Josh to do the same with Millie. She could now sit up and beg and was in the process of learning to roll over. She loved it and I was more than impressed. Perhaps she had a brain after all.
Lucy had taken quite a fancy to Leo, she asked me if I thought he was nice. I said I thought he was very nice and she grinned happily.
As well as training Millie, Leo and Josh had been busy making up raps. “Listen to this, Mam, you’ll be amazed,” said Josh, as I got back from the hospital one afternoon. And Lucy, who would normally have viewed any effort of Josh’s with scornful disinterest was in the throes of it, accompanying Leo with the backing beat as Josh, his baseball cap on backwards and wearing his baggy jeans and T shirt – in the style of his hero, Eminem – sang – or rapped, or just yelled really:
Spinning round the yard in a shopping trolley,
didn’t know that school could be such fun,
they sent me out of class cos I didn’t have a pencil,
are they mad, or is it me, or is EVERYONE?
Sitting on the toilet hoping they won’t miss me,
got a big red ring around my arse,
I’ve been here for hours, so they haven’t missed me.
School, what-a-bore, what-a-drag, WHAT-A-FARCE.
Saw a girl standing in the corner of the school yard
not exactly pretty, in fact she looked a bit queer
thought I’d do her a favour and ask her to a movie,
she looked me up and down and then she said, NO FEAR.
I want to get out
I just want to shout
I want to be free
Free to be ME
I just want to sing
Do my own thing
I want to be free
Free to be ME.
“Well mother, cool or wha’?” Josh asked. For some reason, when Leo was around, Josh had started calling me mother.
“I’ll say. It was great,” I managed, with forced enthusiasm. Oh well, it keeps them off the streets, I thought.
28
RECOVERY AND DISCOVERY
We were still going to early morning Mass, me and the dog, after I’d rang the hospital to check on my mother, who thankfully continued stable. I needed to do something and praying seemed as good as anything, anyway, I liked
being there. My mother had tried for years to get me to like going to church, but it had been a losing battle, yet now I couldn’t stay away. I liked the tranquillity and the dog couldn’t believe her luck what with early morning runs and the attention which she was now getting from the meagre congregation.
I was still answering the phone to well-wishers and visiting my mother after the doctor’s had finished their rounds.
The bedroom was still uninhabitable, but I couldn’t seem to muster enough energy to care let alone do something about it.
Then one afternoon when I was at the kitchen sink, I noticed Leo sitting on our garden wall with his head down. He didn’t have Tigger with him which was unusual. I went out.
“Shouldn’t you be in school, Leo?”
“We finished our mocks this afternoon, so we were allowed home early,” he said, still with his head down.
“Oh, wait till Josh finds out, he’ll be sooo jealous, he’d love an early finish. How do you think you’ve done… in your mocks?”
He shrugged.
“Is something wrong, Leo?”
“Tigger has gone. My mother told my dad he had to get rid of him, or else she’ll leave him. She never liked Tigger, said she could smell him all over the house. But that’s not true. Tigger doesn’t smell, he’s a clean dog. I keep him clean.”
“Where’s Tigger now?”
He shrugged, “At my grandma’s, till they decide what to do with him.”
“Well you’ll still be able to see him.”
“But it’s not the same.”
“You can come round here whenever you like to see Millie, but I suppose you already know that.”
“But it’s not the same,” he said, as he pushed himself from the wall and walked off, his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched.
The next morning I had a call from the hospital. My mother had come round and was asking for me! Oh-My-God. This was the best possible news. I scribbled a note for the kids, grabbed my car keys and took off.
Not only did my mother not die but when I got to the hospital, apart from a tube still attached to a vein in her hand and one up her nose which they said would be out by the end of the day, the bleeping machines were gone and she was sipping tea through a straw. She looked wonderful; alive. I kissed her and held her hand and stroked her hair. We didn’t say anything for ages; didn’t need to.
I couldn’t wait to get home to tell the kids the good news and, although I kept it to myself, I couldn’t wait to go to church to say a prayer of thanks. I’d been feeling all along there was help coming from that direction.
The next few days were euphoria tinged with a bit of sadness, euphoria over my mother’s recovery and sadness over poor Leo missing his dog. He looked so hunched and miserable and although he still came round with Josh, he wasn’t the same. His gloom had rubbed off onto Lucy and Josh and their enthusiasm for making up songs just wasn’t there anymore. They just sat around in the kitchen; deflated. I felt myself being angry with his mother yet I knew I was being a hypocrite. It wasn’t so long ago that anybody could have had Millie.
A couple of days later while Leo was upstairs with Josh and Lucy, Arnie, Leo’s dad came round and introduced himself. I wondered how a father and son could be so different but I liked Arnie immediately. He had a kind face, open and friendly. I thought if I’d had a brother I’d have liked him to be exactly like Arnie. He asked about my mother and we chatted for a while.
Then Arnie said, “Can you call Leo down, Jo, I’ve got some news for him.”
“I hope it’s news about Tigger, poor Leo is really missing him.”
“Him and me both, Jo. But not for much longer because, I was so fed up with listening to Mandy’s rantings, trying to justify getting rid of the dog, that when she said I should choose between her and getting the dog back, okay, I hesitated. Not for long mind, only a couple of minutes or so, but Mandy said as far as she was concerned it was 1 minute and 59 seconds too long and if I had to think about it, even for that one second then she was out of there. And so she’s packed her bags and gone to her mother’s. Ironically though, that’s where the dog is, so we have to get him back.”
Leo heard his dad’s voice and came downstairs.
“Well, kidda,” said Arnie, ruffling Leo’s hair, “there’s good news and bad news. Your mam’s packed her bags and gone to live at grandma’s, which is the bad news, but that means we can get the dog back.”
Poor, Leo. Delighted though he was to get Tigger back, he hadn’t wanted his mother to go.
“She’s only at your grandma’s, you’ll still be able to see her,” I said, with a sense of déjà vu.
“But it’s not the same,” he said, reinforcing that sense.
The next night, after a sleep-over at Leo’s, Josh came back and said, “Mam, you know Arnie? Well he’s a really good bloke. You could do a lot worse than him I can tell you. I’m not kidding, Mam, he makes a great Pot Noodle with Butterscotch Angel Delight for afters, much better than the rubbish you make; broccoli and cabbage and stuff. ‘Get that down ya, kidda,’ Arnie said, ‘and don’t let anybody tell you Arnie Stoker can’t cook!’”
“What do you mean, I could do a lot worse than Arnie?”
“Well you know, you two could get together, innit. Dad’s not here now and Mandy’s done a runner.”
“Don’t even think about that, Josh, it’s not going to happen. Pot Noodles or no Pot Noodles.”
The kids were once again writing and performing their raps and I was once again their audience:
Join the army
Are you BARMY?
Do the garden,
I beg your PARDON.
Help your dad
You must be MAD?
Wash that dish
You WISH.
Clean up that sick
You’re taking the MICK.
Make a meal
Are you for REAL?
Earn some pay
No way HO-SAY
Get out of bed
You’re off your HEAD.
Get in the bath
You’re having a LAUGH
Go to school
Do I look like a FOOL?
Put out the trash
Where’s the CASH…
Instead of dreading my hospital visits, I now looked forward to them. It was great to see my mother getting better day by day. I thought she’d be itching to get home, but she wasn’t, she seemed quite happy to stay where she was, for the time being anyway.
Then one day, while Sadie and I were visiting, one of the nurses came in with a posy of flowers, little pink rosebuds mingled with Gypsophillia, and a card which said, ‘These roses reminded me of the colour in your cheeks, but there were no flowers in the shop that could match the blue of your eyes. Hope you like them and my very best wishes for a speedy recovery. Your friend, Ian McAllister.’
Ian McAllister! My horrible, foul-mouthed boss! Why would he send my mother flowers with a message which brought even more colour to her cheeks! What was going on there?
I told my mother I’d be back shortly and I went outside to ring Ian ‘perv’ McAllister.
“My mother, Ian, has just been given a posy of flowers, from you, with, it has to be said, a pretty personal message attached. What’s that about?” I asked, accusingly.
He sounded offended. “Honest, Jo, there was nothing sinister about it. I was really pleased when you said your mother was recovering and I sent the flowers to cheer her up. That’s all. You see, about a year or so ago, your mother called into the office and gave me loads of dry cleaning vouchers which had been given out at an Age Concern do. Your mother said it was ridiculous giving pensioners dry cleaning vouchers, they’d never use them and she had gathered them up and brought them in for me because she knew I a
lways wore suits and she said it must cost me a fortune in dry cleaning bills. Honest Jo, that was the most thoughtful thing anybody has ever done for me and I never forgot it.”
That was the most thoughtful thing anyone had ever done for Ian? Poor Ian.
“Sorry, Ian,” I said, contritely, “I’m a bit all over the place at the minute what with one thing and another. My mother loved the flowers, thank you. They’re lovely and they have cheered her up loads.”
The next few days were spent arranging visitors for my mother so as not to have too many at any one time. Father McCaffrey kept popping in and Sadie was there at some point most days and of course Lucy and Josh wanted to see their Gran and she wanted to see them. Alison managed a couple of quick visits and there were my mother’s friends from Age Concern and Autumn Leaves and her neighbours.
Then one day my mother had a surprise visitor. He bowled in on his bandy legs clutching a box of Milk Tray and a bunch of freesia.
“Gwendoline Griffiths! You look as pretty as a picture sitting up in that bed. And with those roses in your cheeks and those bluebells in your eyes you put all of these flowers to shame,” he said, sweeping his arm in the direction of the vases around the bed.
I had to hand it to Sam Pickles, for an old sea-dog, that was some chat-up line.
He said he had come as soon as he had heard she was in hospital. He’d been out of the loop for a while (his phrase, not mine) as he hadn’t been well himself: a touch of Bronchitis.
He leaned over, kissed my mother on the cheek and whispered something in her ear, which made her blush.
“Get away with you, Sam Pickles,” she said, laughing, “you could charm the birds from the trees, you could.”
My mother became a girl again when Sam was around. Even I had to admit that. Before he left, my mother took his hand and said, “Please call again, Sam. I can’t tell you how nice it has been to see you.”
So it seems Sam was back on the scene.