by Sharon Maas
Dad’s ghost still hung over us. It was his liver. In his youth, he’d had hepatitis while travelling in South America, and then the alcoholism of his final years. Liver cirrhosis in your early forties isn’t a pleasant way to go. He’d left the chaos of his financial mismanagement for Mum to sort out. She’d been struggling to do so ever since, and it seemed to have no end.
* * *
Gran was bursting for a wee, and naturally Mum had not yet bought the potty she’d said she would. She seemed to think these things would materialise out of thin air. So our first challenge presented itself: to get Gran up the stairs to the bathroom. She could shuffle slowly on level ground with a stick or an elbow to cling to, but stairs were a major problem. Mum and Marion each took one arm, and with Gran squashed between them, began the slow climb upwards.
I lugged the suitcases into Gran’s room. When she was halfway up Gran stopped, called my name. I stepped back into the hall. Gran was looking down. She hooked her eyes into mine again.
‘One year,’ she said.
‘What?’ I had no idea what she was talking about.
‘One year! At the most. Mebbe six months if you lucky. This ol’ body in’t got far to go. Just in case you was wondering.’ She cackled, turned away and continued up the stairs.
* * *
Gran lay down on her bed and immediately fell asleep. It was as if sunshine entered the house, dissolving a mist of darkness. Mum and Aunt Marion enjoyed another long embrace, right there outside Gran’s door. Mum, half the size of Marion in width and a head shorter, burrowed her face in her younger sister’s voluminous breast. A slight tremble rippled through her. Aunt Marion massaged Mum’s back with a gentle circular motion, as if rubbing strength into her.
They pulled apart, silently looked each other in the eyes for another eternity, then fled into the kitchen, still holding hands. I followed them.
‘I’m sorry to do this to you, Rika,’ Aunt Marion said as she poured water into the coffee machine. ‘Really, really sorry. But …’
‘Don’t apologise! Please don’t! I’ve felt so bad all these years, leaving her to you. Now it’s my turn. Inky, see if there’s any of that cake left from yesterday.’
It was some kind of whole-grain-nut thing Mum had brought back from her health food shop, and indeed, I found two crumbling pieces in a paper bag in the fridge. I took it out, put it on a tray with some plates, cups, spoons, milk and sugar, and carried the lot of it into the living room, where our dining table now stood. We’d had to rearrange the furniture to make room for it, taking out one of the sofas. That was now crammed into the junk room upstairs, shoved in with all the extra stuff we’d grown out of but never actually thrown out due to lack of time, or, more probably, motivation. The junk room was actually our third bedroom, and would have been useful as such, now that Marion was staying for a week, but then we’d need another room for the junk, which we didn’t have. So Marion would be sleeping in Mum’s room, Mum with me in mine.
They came in with the steaming coffeepot, still discussing Gran’s toilet arrangements.
‘If you can get a commode she’ll be all right,’ Marion was saying as she took her seat at the table. ‘You just need to empty it out regularly. But between you and Inky, it won’t be a big problem.’
‘It’s bathing her I’m worried about,’ Mum said. She poured three cups of coffee. ‘We’ll have to get her upstairs for that. And we don’t have a stand-up shower, only the bathtub; she can’t climb into that.’
‘Oh Lord. Mummy’s got to have her daily shower. What about this extension you were telling me about?’
‘It’s only theoretical,’ Mum said. ‘I was thinking we could add a room. Right there.’ She waved vaguely towards the garden. A bathroom extension, if one ever came, would have to go there; it was either that or next to the kitchen, which just wasn’t practical. Mum and Marion discussed the possibilities for a while, even getting up to inspect the house. Marion suggested putting up a wall through the middle of the living room, so Gran’s room would be right next to this fantasy extension, and the dining room back in its original location. There wasn’t much I could add to the conversation. I knew it would never happen. Finally, after all the visionary plans were made, Mum confirmed my assessment.
‘It’ll never get done,’ she sighed. ‘How’m I going to pay for it?’
‘I thought the Government took care of that kind of thing? That’s what Neville said.’
‘Not for Gran. She just arrived in the country. She hasn’t got permanent residence. I just don’t see them investing in her as an immigrant. And,’ she added, ‘It wouldn’t be fair on the British taxpayers.’ After a moment of silence, she added, ‘I just can’t afford it.’
They both sipped their coffee and ruminated.
‘What I’m wondering,’ Mum said after a while, ‘Is what Mummy’s going to do all day. Inky and I are both working. Won’t she be bored?’
‘Mummy, bored? Not on your life. You know her saying: ‘Only boring people get bored. Interesting people make their own entertainment.’ I bet you, in a week she’ll own the place.’
That was exactly what I was afraid of. I sipped at my coffee, dipped a piece of the nut cake into it and fished it out with a spoon, hanging on to every word they spoke. This was my life they were talking about, my world that was about to be shredded by a high-maintenance battle-axe. And nobody had ever once asked me.
‘But she had that exciting social life back in Georgetown. The politics. The Unions. All her friends, the women’s associations, the Old Girls Union…’
‘You don’t think she’ll have that here? Half of Georgetown emigrated to the UK in the last thirty years, the other half to North America. She can’t wait to catch up with old friends over here. She’s got an address book, so thick.’ Marion held up thumb and finger, an inch apart. ‘But you know what? Get her a computer. A laptop. Internet. That’ll keep her busy.’
‘I can’t afford a new computer.’
I spoke for the first time.
‘She could use your laptop, while you’re at work, Mum.’
Mum snapped her answer almost angrily, unusual for her. ‘No way. Out of the question. I’m not having Mummy poking around on my laptop.’
I realised why, right away. She was afraid Gran might read her private mail, find all those exchanges with her creditors, and discover the terrible secret of her debt. And immediately I knew, vaguely, the way one picks up on things over time without having them actually spelled out, that Gran’s incorrigible nosiness, more than her bad temper and bossiness, was the bone of contention between the two of them.
Mum’s flight from Guyana so long ago, and her decision never to go back all these years – decades – had something to do with Gran, that much I knew; but not the details. Mum’s break-away was a Quint family thing – taboo. I never asked why, Mum never offered an explanation. It was just one of those things, a fact of life. But, meeting Gran, picking up on clues, I now had an inkling. She was the reason. She must have done something unforgiveable.
It used to be, when I was small, that I asked to see my Granny. She was the only one I had, and I knew what grannies were like. Everyone else had one; all my friends. They cuddled you on their laps, hand-fed you with cake and spoiled you silly. Dad had been an orphan, growing up with an aunt in Northumberland, so there were no grannies from that side. And so I had clung to my romantic notion, created from those grannies I did know or had read about, and Gran had fed those fantasies. She and I had exchanged such letters! I’d written her one after the other as a child, told her everything, all the things I couldn’t tell Mum. And she’d always written back, warm engaging letters that had won my little-girl heart.
I’d made a dream Granny of her, and wanted to make it reality, visit her. But Mum always said no. We couldn’t afford it. And then I had grown up, and no longer asked to visit, for I had more ambitious dreams than soft-bosomed cake-baking grannies. The letters had long stopped flowing back and forth.
Now, I hadn’t written to her for at least six years. As far as I knew, she and Mum had never corresponded; not once in thirty-odd years. This whole visit had all been mediated and negotiated through Marion.
‘But your laptop stuff is password protected!’ I protested now.
‘You don’t know Mummy. She’d hack into my account.’
I thought of Gran and said to myself, no way. She’s much too old. But Marion seemed to take the notion of Gran as an IT hacker as a serious possibility.
‘Yes; I wouldn’t trust her with your private files. But you could maybe buy one on instalments,’ she suggested, and I laughed to myself. As if any company in the world would ever give Mum credit. But Marion couldn’t know that.
‘Or better yet, I could get Neville to buy it. Why not?’ Mum said.
We all looked at each other then, and laughed in unison. Of course, Uncle Neville would have to buy Gran’s new laptop. It was only fair, and he’d do it out of guilt.
Neville was one half of the bundle of trouble (Mum’s description) that came after Marion. ‘Obnoxious twins, Gran’s darling boys,’ Mum had said. The other twin was Norbert, who lived in New York City.
I’d met Neville a couple of times, but Norbert only once in my life. I was nine, and we were temporarily rich at the time. Dad, Mum and I had gone to visit friends of Mum’s in America – my Uncle Matt, actually, Mum’s godfather – and Mum had thought it her duty to visit her brother. It was a mistake; a big one. I don’t know what happened, but we didn’t stay longer than a day; from my childish point of view it had all been one of those stupid grown-up arguments about money. We hardly ever spoke about him at home, and once when I’d asked about him, all Mum had said was, ‘He’s just like Neville, only different. Worse.’ That told me everything.
Uncle Neville lived in Birmingham. He was a solicitor, stinking rich, and he had actually offered to take Gran in – of course he would! – but unfortunately his wife Monica was a hard-working solicitor herself and wouldn’t have the time to give Gran the care she deserved, and a professional carer was out of the question. The same was true for Norbert’s wife in New York; Norbert being just as willing to take Gran in, were it not for his wife’s stressful schedule. Norbert was an attorney, also stinking rich. The two of them were in competition to see who could best provide for Gran in other, non-caring ways – i.e. money. Both of them had promised to pay Mum monthly support to cover Gran’s expenses, and one of them had paid her travel expenses to London, the other Marion’s. Norbert had paid for Gran’s new convertible wheelchair, the one she had travelled with. So it was Neville’s turn to be generous.
‘Why don’t we get Neville and Norbert to pay for the bathroom extension?’ Marion asked. ‘It would be peanuts for them.’ But Mum shook her head.
‘Never. They’d say it’s just a trick of mine to get them to finance my home improvements. And anyway, can you see the two of them collaborating to buy anything together?’
That was another family thing: that Neville and Norbert weren’t on speaking terms, and hadn’t been since they were teenagers. A strange situation for twins to be in, but then the Quints – at least, this branch of the family – were all weird, with the shining exception of Marion, and, apparently, Granddad, while he was still alive. But at least Mum’s weirdness was somehow cute, whereas Neville and Norbert – well, the least said of them the better. Except that now, Gran, with all her own weirdness, was all geared up to occupy a huge chunk of my life, and I’d better develop some survival techniques.
‘How ill is she, anyway?’ Mum asked then. ‘Does she need to see a doctor soon?’
Marion shook her head. ‘She’s frail, but not ill. Nothing’s wrong with her except general wear and tear. And as you may have noticed,’ – she chuckled wryly – ‘her mind’s as sharp as a needle. Plenty of life force there. She’s got a good ten more years to go.’
Mum squirmed, grabbed the coffeepot and began to top up everyone’s cup. Marion placed a hand on Mum’s shoulder, and rubbed it.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll take her back when I can.’
But Mum instantly pulled herself together.
‘I’ll be fine!’ She said brightly. ‘And I’ve got Inky as back-up. Inky’s a jewel.’
‘I was just wondering,’ I asked casually, ‘Does Gran have – you know – powers? Like, knowing the future, or reading people’s minds, stuff like that?’
‘Ha!’ Marion chuckled again. ‘Times, I really think she does. She’ll say something uncanny, turns out to be true, and you have to ask yourself, how does she know? But of course she doesn’t. Not really. She’s just good at guessing. That’s her thing. Trying to impress.’
I nodded in agreement. She’d just been guessing around, trying to make an impression.
‘Yes, and she’ll stoop to any …’ Before Mum could finish the sentence, Marion broke in.
‘And stubborn as a mule. Once she’s made up her mind about someone or something she won’t give up. She won’t give up anything that’s hers. Wait till she unpacks her bags. You’ll see… And that’s just a fraction of it. The rest we had to box and ship over. It’ll arrive in about a month.’
‘What! More stuff! Where am I to put it!’
‘In the junk room, Mum. Where else?’
‘But I was about to clear out the junk room, make an office!’
‘Ha! You’ve been saying that for years!’
‘But I really am going to do it – soon! I can’t put any more stuff in there!’
‘And even then it’s not everything,’ Marion continued. ‘There’s a whole lot we had to leave behind – Daddy’s old Berbice chair, other furniture, big things. They’re all stored in Lamaha Street, in Aunt Evelyn’s old room. And boxes and boxes and boxes of junk. All Daddy’s office files. Mummy refused to sell it or give it away or chuck it out. She clings to everything, especially if it belonged to Daddy. It’s like she keeps him alive that way. She seems to think she’ll be going back home someday. I had to leave her that dream; the house is too big for Evelyn and she wants to move out and rent it out. If only we had the money to renovate it … Mummy said …’
Perfectly on cue, a loud banging interrupted her. We all looked up.
Gran stood in the open doorway, walking stick in hand. She banged it against the wooden floor one last time and then, assured that she had our undivided attention, said:
‘Where the telephone? I need to call the police about that suitcase. Somebody must be teef it and I need to report it.’
I looked from Marion to Mum. ‘Teeth?’ I asked.
‘“Teef.” Thief,’ said Mum. ‘It’s a verb in Guyanese.’
* * *
That evening Mum called together what she called a Family Council. She had something to tell us, she said. Once we were all seated around the dining table she launched into her spiel. This was a different Mum to the one I was accustomed to. She was authoritative, determined, and very, very serious.
‘I just wanted to say,’ she said, in this new, stern voice, ‘that I want us all to get along, especially you and me, Mummy.’
She looked straight at Gran, who was doing her best to pretend she wasn’t listening, flipping through a TV magazine she’d picked up along the way.
‘Mummy! I’m talking to you!’
Gran looked up then, closed the magazine with some reluctance, and scratched her head.
‘Is what?’
‘This is an experiment. It can only work under one condition. I’m sorry I snapped at you yesterday but that could happen more often if you don’t keep to the rules. Just one rule, really. This is a fresh start; a new beginning. I want a clean slate. The past is past: done with. Whatever happened then has no bearing on now. I want us all to try hard to live in the present, and just get along. Is that understood?’
‘Yeah, but…’
‘No buts, Mummy. I really want this to work. I really want you to be here. I really want us all to live in peace with each other. That can only hap
pen if we don’t rake up the past. It’s swept up and thrown away. Gone. This is now.’
Marion fidgeted in her chair.
‘That’s all very well, Rika, but Mummy…’
‘I said no buts, Marion. Please. That’s all I have to say, short and simple.’
She pushed back her chair, stood up, and left the room. The three of us were left staring at each other. Then Marion shook her head as if in regret.
‘If that’s what she wants,’ she said. ‘Mummy, did you hear? You got to keep your big mouth shut!’
Gran cackled. ‘Not possible!’ she said.
CHAPTER TWO
INKY: THE NOUGHTIES
The next morning Gran’s missing suitcase arrived, bright and early, just as Mum had predicted. It was immediately obvious what had caused the delay; it was a battered old thing, and it seemed both of the flimsy locks had broken, spilling out the contents. The airport staff had done what they could to fix matters; the case still gaped two inches open, but it was swaddled in several layers of cling-film and bound with security tape. Gran was both furious and ecstatic. Furious because, as she said, ‘Somebody coulda teef her tings’, and ecstatic because, well, there it was, safe and sound in the hallway, and Mum signing for it. Gran commanded the delivery guy to haul the case into her room. That done, she slammed the door and disappeared.
After an hour she reappeared in the kitchen where I was finishing off the last of my breakfast pancakes.
‘Come, Inky. I gotta show you somet’ing.’
No peace for the innocent; I gobbled down the last bit of pancake, shoved the plate into the dishwasher, and followed Gran back into her room.
‘Shut the door,’ she said, so I did. The open suitcase lay on the carpet, and all around it were various articles; big books of some sort; albums. No wonder the case had not held. Some of the albums were still wrapped in items of clothing; petticoats, blouses, a scarf or two. A couple of knickers and bras, old-lady-grey cotton underwear, were strewn amidst the jumble.