Have the Men Had Enough?

by Margaret Forster

  Mum tells Alistair and Jamie I will read them a story. I certainly will not. Luckily, Adrian comes in. He is quite willing to play football with them. Up and down the almost dark garden they go, screaming, yelling, Adrian like a great cart horse. How Grandma would love to see, to hear. That is what boys are meant to do. She feels secure when football is mentioned in any shape or form. Work and football, those she understands. Instead, she is sitting with Mrs O’Malley, vaguely uneasy, waiting, longing for delivery. It is not right. I say so to Mum. Mum says if one more person brings right into anything she will scream. I accuse her of preferring to look after loathsome Alistair and Jamie to looking after Grandma, lovely Grandma. She looks me straight in the eye and says, ‘You are quite right. I do prefer looking after Alistair and Jamie. So?’

  And she does. Listen to her, putting them to bed, the shrieks from the bathroom, the laughing, the chasing up the stairs and now the hush as she reads to the little darlings all cuddly in their pyjamas, smelling so sweetly of soap. One, two, three, aaah. Well, it isn’t like that putting Grandma to bed, I admit. No fun in the bath with her. We can’t get her into the bath, haven’t been able to for months now, not even with all three of us – me, Bridget, Mum. She won’t bend her legs, she’s forgotten how to step into a bath or anywhere else. It’s all-over washes for Grandma and pretty disgusting, yuk, the secrets of that flannel. When we wash her hair she screams we’re murdering her. Close your eyes, we say, and she opens them wide. Bend forward, we urge, and she tilts her head backwards. No wonder we take turns, no wonder we only do it once every two weeks. And no one can read anything to Grandma. She interrupts from line two or wishes someone would turn the radio on or goes to sleep or gets up and goes away. Why do I blame Mum for preferring to put to bed the odious Alistair and Jamie? I am getting like Bridget.

  That’s a terrible thought. I don’t want to be like Bridget. Oh, I’m quite happy that I look a little like Bridget. She has quite dramatic looks, with all that very black thick hair and strong colouring, and from her Jane Fonda figure nobody would know Bridget was forty-three. I’m glad to be quite tall like her instead of small like Mum and I would like, when I am her age, to have an absolutely flat stomach instead of Mum’s plumpish body. There is nothing wrong with Bridget’s looks. But I do not want to be like her. She is frenetic and exhausting and it makes people nervous and tired. What is she like on her ward? I can’t think. Maybe, in the hospital, she is different. And that’s another thing: I don’t want Bridget’s sort of life. She works nearly all of it and, however satisfying that is, I want something else too. Bridget has no other interests except work. She isn’t even interested in her flat, has no domestic instincts. She never cooks, never decorates. She never goes to the theatre or to the pictures. When she’s not working she just seems to sleep. Grandma is her only out-of-work interest. She has no friends except us. I would hate her life. I would hate Mum’s too but I would hate Bridget’s more. Neither of them ever does anything different. Both of them chug along on fixed lines.

  Mum says if it wasn’t for Grandma her life would be just opening out. She says she says this without bitterness or resentment or because she is making excuses, but I don’t believe her. How would her life be opening out? Where would it be going? What would she be doing with three hours three afternoons a week, alternate Saturdays, and every Sunday. She says that is not the way to look at it. She is tied, she says, by the responsibility. She is the back-up. Bridget works, Charlie works, she is the one at home without whom the system would not operate and this means she cannot go back to work as she would like to do. Her face flushes as she goes over how many times she has had to step in and take over because Susan doesn’t turn up or Lola is ill. She thinks I’m unfair, that I fail to appreciate what she does, that I underestimate her contribution to Grandma’s welfare. She says that instead of being so self-righteous, I could help more myself. I ask what about Adrian?

  Adrian does nothing and my dad hardly anything. They both protest that, of course, they care about Grandma etc. etc. but they do nothing for her. Adrian, teasing of course (oh, of course) says it’s women’s work, that Grandma doesn’t like men looking after her. He says he does his bit in providing that background Male Presence she finds so comforting and asking her if his tea is ready. And he laughs at her jokes and her antics. I hate the way he does that. Grandma shows off when Adrian is there, getting sillier and sillier, and his laughter is patronising. He treats her like a Good Turn and is only seconds away from presenting her to his friends as My Batty Grandma from the Funny Farm. Why can’t he do something useful like collect her on the days she comes here? She would like to walk down the street on her tall grandson’s arm. Why can’t he sit and make her tea for an hour if he’s so fond of her?

  What I think is this:

  If, as Mum says, we are all in this together

  then there has got to be a fairer sharing out of labour.

  If Grandma finds the Male Presence comforting,

  then give her more of it.

  If she gets more of it, she might get over

  her general fear of all men.

  Then the women would be freer.

  *

  Alistair and Jamie are still here. I’m glad to get out of the house and go to Grandma’s. It is not our day but Lola has rung to say she doesn’t feel one hundred per cent. Mum mutters who does and her face falls. Lola is getting more and more inclined to ring up at the last minute and tell us she’s indisposed. She whines. She lists all her ailments and drives Mum mad. Really, Lola is hopeless but she’s the longest-serving helper and Grandma is used to her. She is Spanish and every time she arrives at Grandma’s she says good afternoon in Spanish first and Grandma cracks up with delight and repeats it and tells Lola how she is descended from survivors of the Spanish Armada. Ships are supposed to have been washed up on the coasts of Scotland and the sailors married and that is why Grandma is so dark. Lola gets this saga every time and every time she manages to respond appropriately. For that alone she is valuable. But Mum suspects she is phasing herself out. Lola is really too good to be looking after old ladies, too talented. Twice last week Grandma spilled tea over herself and Lola actually had to do something for a change – she made a meal out of having to change Grandma. She likes to talk to Grandma but that’s all. And she’s not desperate for the money, as Susan is. Lola’s circumstances are mysterious, but we don’t get the impression she is worried about finance. We think she sees her afternoons with Grandma as a kind of charity work; it makes her feel good. The paltry sum she gets is beside the point. Bridget thinks she’s a pain.

  Mum says it’s up to me. I can stay with Grandma for two hours or bring her along. It’s my choice. I think I’ll stay there. This will mean deadly boredom for two hours and it’s not as good for Grandma – she benefits from the short walk to our house and the excitement of going out, anywhere, is beneficial too. Also, at home it’s easier for me. I can slope off. Stuck in Grandma’s kitchen, there’s no escape. There’s no possibility of real conversation and five minutes will seem like five hours. But I will put the radio on, and pretend to be listening to it and Grandma will talk all the way through but be indignant if I tell her to listen properly. Television is useless. She thinks anyone on the screen is real and shouts hello and waves and is furious when they don’t wave back. She says she wishes they would go away if they’re just going to treat her like dirt.

  I put my key in the lock. It won’t turn. I try again, check it’s the right key. It fits and does in fact turn but it doesn’t open the door. I push, the door gives slightly in the middle, enough for me to realise it’s bolted top and bottom. At first, I’m alarmed. I’ve read about burglars bolting front doors as soon as they get into a house. The thought of Grandma confronting a burglar . . . I go round the side of the house, to the back door, for which we have a key, too, kept on the same Downing Street key ring but rarely used. The back door opens, to my relief. I start shouting, ‘Grandma, it’s only me, Grandma, it’s Hannah,�
� as I go in, not wanting to frighten her because I’m coming from the wrong direction. There’s no sound. The back door opens into a little hall, with Grandma’s internal kitchen door opening off it. I try to open the door but, though a crack appears, I can’t push it open. I know there are no locks on this door, no bolts. Then, with my ear to the crack, I hear breathing. Grandma is surely behind that door. What is going on? ‘Grandma,’ I keep saying softly, over and over, ‘Grandma, let me in, it’s Hannah.’ Eventually, she replies. She says someone has put a lot of rubbish in front of the bloomin’ door and it isn’t her fault, bloomin’ nuisance, they’re all the same these days. There’s some scraping and clattering and the door opens wide enough for me to see Grandma’s cross face. The minute I see her, I relax. Adrian would laugh. She does look funny, brows furrowed, mouth screwed up like a prune as though she’s about to give someone a prim kiss. I get one arm round the door and dislodge a cushion and then I can just squeeze through the wider opening.

  I stare in amazement at the barricades. Behind the door I’ve just come through Grandma has pushed the kitchen table and on top of it wedged a chair, and keeping the chair in place are two cushions (three, but I knocked one down). In front of the other door, into the living room, she has piled a footstool and another chair and several pans. I dismantle them. Grandma says she doesn’t know what someone has been doing but when she gets them will give them biff. In the living room the door into the bedroom is open but the other, into the body of the house, has a wonderful collection of goods blocking it. There’s a shopping trolley, the sort that has wheels, into which Grandma has put a cabbage and a bag of potatoes, and a coat stand, one of those heavy wooden ones you see in restaurants, and then a great many coats. I remove it all and go into the hall. Grandma doesn’t follow. She whispers that I should be careful, that she has heard men, and that there’s no knowing. I want to check the front door. It’s a very solid, old door and there are two sets of bolts, one running horizontally at the top and one vertically at the bottom. They’re both rammed home. I struggle to unbolt the door, marveling at Grandma’s strength. It’s so long since the bolts have been used that the paint scrapes off as I tussle to get them back.

  It takes me twenty minutes or so to sort everything out and return things to their places. I wonder if Susan came? It’s no good asking Grandma. Maybe she has been on her own for four hours instead of one, maybe that’s the explanation for the panic she must have felt. And was there a man? Did someone call? Did someone look through the window? I try to find out. I ask Grandma if she has had a gentleman caller.

  There’s men about.

  Did a man ring your bell, Grandma?

  What bell?

  The door bell.

  I haven’t got a door bell, a knocker’s good enough for me.

  The knocker, then, did a man knock on your door?

  Which door?

  The front door.

  I haven’t a front door, what are you on about?

  The back door, then.

  What about the back door?

  Did a man come to it?

  There’s men about.

  There are other signs of agitation. The tea pot has cold water and an ice cube in it. There’s a puddle of washing-up liquid on the floor in front of the sink. Sugar is scattered in a long trail from cupboard to fridge. I realise it’s very cold and feel the radiators. They’re freezing. I go to the boiler and find it’s been turned off. I say, aloud, that the heating has been switched off and how cold it is and Grandma says ‘Cauld blaws the wind frae east to west’. Reciting Burns puts her in a good mood. She says listen to this, it will make you cry, and she launches into ‘Highland Mary’. I say it doesn’t make me cry, it makes me laugh it’s so maudlin and awful. Grandma says get awa’ wi ye but she’s happy. She suddenly says what pretty blue eyes I have and I know that is a cue for ‘The Blue-Eyed Lassie’. I’m right. She asks me if my name is Anna. I say nearly, come on, you know what it is, it’s Hannah. Grandma says that’s a pity because she knows a very nice poem about Anna which would just suit me, ‘Anna thy charms my bosom fire’ – pause for Grandma to have hysterics – but it is no good if I am not Anna, what about Jean, there’s a lovely one about Jean, Bonnie Jean. ‘There was a lass and she was fair . . .’

  I’ve got the heating back on. I’ve made some hot, sweet tea and found a biscuit. Grandma’s flat is now tidy and she’s settled in her armchair with her feet up and her tartan shawl over her shoulders. I feel shaky. Grandma is perfectly all right and everything is fine and nothing has happened and she’s already forgotten but I feel shaky. She’s never done this before, she’s never barricaded herself in, and I hate to think of the fear which must have prompted it. It’s not right that she’s on her own and afraid. I drink my own tea, thinking, worrying, feeling like Mum, and then, as I look up, straight into Grandma’s eyes, there’s one of those moments. We stare at each other, there’s real contact, and yet again I’m helpless, what can I do with it? Quickly, before it goes. I don’t speak but Grandma herself breaks the spell.

  Are you married may I ask?

  Grandma! Of course not, I’m seventeen.

  Plenty of girls are married at seventeen.

  Not today, they aren’t.

  I’m o’er young, I’m o’er young, I’m o’er young to marry yet –

  Is that another stupid Burns?

  You watch your mouth.

  Sorry.

  I’m o’er young, ’twad be a sin to tak me frae my mammy yet –

  And she marries him and dies I bet.

  Wrong, she does not.

  Makes a change, then.

  But if ye come this gate again I’ll aulder be gin simmer, sir. The hussy.

  Sexy Burns.

  Don’t be disgusting.

  Sorry.

  Are you married yet?

  She doesn’t know me. This is the first time she hasn’t known me. I ask her my name and she says I must be in a bad way if I don’t know my own name. Clever. I ask her what her name is and she says it’s none of my business and she doesn’t hold with all this first name carry on, it’s ridiculous. I wish Bridget would come. I wish I had taken Grandma along home, but it’s too late now. So I sit it out, watching the clock. Grandma is desperate to talk. She asks me how my family is and I ask which family and she says as many as you’ve got. Cunning. I ask her how her family is. She says she doesn’t know, they’re all good but she hardly sees them. Bridget arrives, like a whirlwind, all flying hair and nurse’s cloak. Grandma’s face lights up, as it always does. At least she knows Bridget.

  Bridget has brought kippers for supper. Grandma says she had kippers for lunch and she’s tired of kippers, kippers, but she’ll eat them up if there’s nothing else. Bridget reminds her that she is the cleanest kipper eater in the world and Grandma agrees and wonders why everyone can’t clean a kipper like she can. She says to Bridget, nodding in my direction, has she got a kipper to spare for her friend here. Bridget looks startled and asks which friend, does she mean Hannah? Grandma says of course she does, who else, she’s not daft, they don’t need to come and take her away yet, she just wants to be left in peace. And she shuffles off, mouthing she needs the bathroom. I relate the afternoon’s drama to Bridget. Bridget is an annoying person to tell things like that to. Instead of discussing Grandma’s mental condition and responding to my alarm, what she does is concentrate on who the man can have been. Was it a window cleaner or the gas man or someone collecting for something . . . It makes me scream. Bridget is emphatic that there must have been some man, that Grandma’s paranoia could not have been triggered off by nothing. When I say it seems to me that this is the point, she is imagining things, Bridget is quite sharp with me. I am fussing over nothing and of course there must have been some man around, good heavens her mother isn’t mad, only a little confused. She thanks me rather stiffly. I tell her Lola may not be coming tomorrow either. Bridget rails against the useless Lola, money for jam, should be ashamed of herself. I say Mum thinks she is
going to give up. Good, says Bridget, she’s a pain, good riddance.

  I think about Bridget’s attitude on the short way home. She feels Grandma is slighted. Bridget can’t bear her to be criticised. She wants everyone to praise, adore, love and worship Grandma and most of all to agree she’s only a little bit confused which is perfectly natural in view of her age. Of course, Grandma is all Bridget has to love. It’s no good saying she has us; it isn’t the same. Bridget is all to Grandma and Grandma is all to Bridget. What will happen? How long can Bridget go on pretending? Mum says until there is a crisis and, when I ask what would you call a crisis, she refuses to elaborate. What does she mean? Does she mean Grandma might come to some harm? Or harm others?

  I have to tell them what’s happened when I get home, though I would rather not. I tell them at supper, when Alistair and Jamie are in bed. The first thing Mum asks is why I didn’t tell her at once, good heavens that was four hours ago. Dad says that is it, the sign he has been waiting for, and surely even Bridget will recognise it. I say she does not. Bridget said it was nothing. Mum looks at Dad. Dad sighs. He says he will go and see Bridget. Mum says good, but no scenes please. Mum tells him to try for a compromise, to suggest Grandma goes to the Day Centre each afternoon or at least on Lola’s afternoons if Lola goes on being unable to come. Mum tells him not to rush it, to remember how very sensitive Bridget is. Dad mutters that he’s getting rather bored with Bridget’s sensitivity. Adrian, who hasn’t spoken, only wolfed his food, chooses that moment to say, ‘Poor Dad.’ What, I say, What? Poor Dad? What about poor Grandma, poor Bridget? Mum tells me not to start, Adrian says Dad never gets any sympathy, and Dad says thanks Adrian.