Reality, Reality

by Jackie Kay

  I’m losing weight, and it’s a consolation. Bye-bye, junk food, cheerio, Big Mac! So long, French fries. It is falling off me. I don’t need to lie to the scales any more. I can sing to the scales instead. But something’s missing. I’m not a complete success story. Maybe because the dog’s diet has been a disaster and the dog is still fat? Or maybe, it’d be nice to have someone to cook for. My old friend Ali, what would she like to eat now? Maybe she’d prefer fish and chips to red mullet with lemon and bay? Maybe she’d love sea bream stuffed with fennel? I’m not sure. We were nineteen before we saw a corn on the cob. I was twenty-two before I tasted avocado. Didn’t think much of it in the beginning, but that was because I tried to eat the skin as well. Then I had a terrible time with an artichoke, not a Jerusalem artichoke but the kind that has a heart. I ate the heart but I ate the hair round the heart too, and coughed for a week.

  Maybe I could cook Ali my special Arabic chicken with pine nuts and saffron with a lemon pilaf and a green salad? I’d make sure I didn’t burn the pine nuts this time. What else? I can’t think. I can’t think of anything. I’m tired out thinking about what to eat. It’s exhausting. What a holiday! I’d have been better off trailing around the Vatican. At least I might have got to see the Pope.

  Next week I must go back to work and face the music. I don’t really like my work colleagues. They moan all the time, and they are intensely competitive. It is a whole culture of moaning. Anyway next week, holiday over, back to face the music. Do you want to know where that expression comes from? Someone sits and stares at the radio; someone else won’t take their eyes off the hi-fi; someone fixates on their piano until, what, until the music starts, and it lifts you, and lifts you some more, until finally you are not in your life at all, you’re in another life entirely. That’s what’s going to happen to me when I face the music. It’s going to be so different, so very, very fine. That is really going to happen to me. I’m like, can’t wait.

  These are not my clothes

  These are not my clothes, I tell her. These are not my clothes, but she puts them on me anyway. She says lift your arms – that’s it, over your head, there now, all fresh, as if I were a bloody baby. Everything belongs to everybody here, she says, what’s it matter? These are not my clothes, I repeat. I heard you the first time, she says.

  Then she takes me to the window, and parks me, bit of a wind today, she says, a good drying day. I sit and look out. What I see are the trees waving as if they are asking for help, or as if they are saying we surrender. There is an empty wooden table in the garden with a red umbrella down and not up in the middle because there is no sunshine. And there is a blue pot with some flowers I used to know the name of, but I have forgotten, so I’ll call them forgotten flowers. There are forgotten flowers in the blue pot. And a bench – nobody is sitting on it; the bench is staring straight ahead as if it is watching something, maybe a match. There is a huge high hedge I think or it could be a stone wall with things growing through it. It is difficult to decipher things; where things begin to grow. Further ahead, I see white and purple and yellow small flowers with a very common name which I’ve just remembered: crocuses. Crocuses, crocuses! Round the crocuses is a small wall, a brick high. In the middle of the long lawn and not far from the table there is an apple tree, I think, but no apples and no apple blossom.

  At the bottom of the long garden and through the trees, I can see another house in the distance, faintly, just a little red brick through the trees. And over to my left, and above the high hedge, I can see a slate roof and a cream chimney; and if I try to turn and peer round the corner, more to my left, moving slightly out of my chair, I can see the tree that cries, the one we used to call the weeping willow. I can see a bit of the weeping willow, not all of it because I can’t crane round far enough. And that is my view from the window.

  Yesterday, when she got me from this same place at the window, she said, you’re lucky; we’ve got nice views here. I don’t have my watch any more because they’ve taken it. At lunch, the other day, I saw Hannah wearing my watch, and when I said, Hannah I think someone’s given you my watch, Hannah said very crossly, This is my watch. I went to argue with her and then felt as if something was clapping my mouth shut with such force that I didn’t speak at all for the rest of the day. Life is too short to argue about time. I stared at my watch on Hannah’s arm. Her arm had quite a few bumps on it and a lot of bruising, blue and black bruising. She looked a mess and her hair hadn’t been brushed properly in a long time. She bent to her bowl of soup and ate the soup with a lot of slurping and dribbling. Her nails needed cutting, I noticed, as she brought the spoon to her mouth with my watch on her wrist.

  Today, she comes for me and I assume it must be the same time as yesterday when she came for me. Worked up an appetite, have you? she asks me. I hope you’re not going to be wasting your food today, are you? Think of the children in the famine. When she speaks, she speaks slowly and half-shouts, clearly enunciating her words, as if I were a dummy. She pushes me to the big oval table where all the women and the men are seated already, and she ties a bib round my neck to protect the blouse and cardigan that are not my clothes.

  These are not my clothes, I say to her again, and she says, Change the record, change the record, why don’t you? And she pinches my arm quite hard. The soup is red and the spoon next to the soup is round. The spoon is not square because you couldn’t fit a square spoon into a round mouth. The soup is red because it couldn’t be blue. But yesterday it was yellow, you can get yellow soup and green soup, you know, but you can’t really get black or blue soup. Unless you had a soup made of squid ink, but I doubt that would be very nice.

  The matron in her blue and white uniform, mainly white, but with a blue and white stripe near her wide neck, says Grace and we must all hang our heads. For some of us the hanging of heads is the usual position anyway and there’s no effort at all involved in Grace. For what we are about to eat, may the Lord make us truly thankful, the matron says in a crisp voice, as crisp as that lettuce whose name I’ve forgotten. The matron then raises her head and looks over at me. She can tell I haven’t hung my head and am looking straight ahead. Amen, she says, and stares at me. Of course I know that the matron wants me dead. Amen, I say and stare back at her. It’s my face she always looks at when she says Amen.

  I lift the spoon to my mouth and then put it back to the bowl; I lift it again and put it back to the bowl. I move the soup around the plate so that it looks disturbed; it looks like somebody has done something with it, so that the Matron will not notice that it is undisturbed. None of us talks to each other because nobody now has anything to say. It seems they have taken all the conversation from us. Sometimes, when someone is new here, they will make a bit of an effort and say something like, ‘I used to enjoy watching the snooker, you know,’ or ‘I used to write to my daughter in Ontario once a month,’ or ‘I used to be very good at making shortcrust pastry,’ or ‘I used to go to the baths once a week on a Thursday while my wife was at the hairdresser’s.’ Or ‘I was very involved in politics, you know.’ Sometimes the new arrival will say something like that as if trying to remember who you once were helped. But what I’ve discovered is that it doesn’t help what you used to do, or who you used to be. It doesn’t help one jot. Not one jot.

  There now, she says, back to your lovely view, don’t you thank God that you’re not staring at a brick wall? she says. And she parks me up. I can see the red umbrella which is still down because the sun still isn’t shining, waving in the wind, and the leaves fluttering like lifted skirts or butterflies. Even the crocuses, yes the crocuses, are nodding their tiny heads in the wind. The bench still has nobody sitting on it and has bowed its head too; it is staring at something I can’t see, maybe a book. Maybe the bench is reading a book. Maybe the bench is reading Madame Bovary – that was the name of a book I once read, Madame Bovary. It was written by Flaubert. Maybe the bench is French. The trees are now waving with a great grand gesture, a little over the top sur
ely, as if they were at a football match, and altogether performing a great stadium wave, out of desperation, perhaps nobody has scored in the longest time. The trees are Mexican-waving like an actual goal would be a complete impossibility; perhaps in the whole history of football nobody has actually scored a goal; perhaps Pele and Best never existed, the trees are saying. But strangely, the weeping willow that is just out of view is still, though it must be experiencing the same wind. Perhaps it is too far away for me to see it weeping.

  She comes in a while and brings a cup of tea and a ginger snap. When she comes I tell her these are not my clothes, and she says, shut up about your bloody clothes. You’re getting on my nerves now. You’re like a broken record. Your needle’s stuck in the one groove! She laughs to herself, as if she’s surprised herself by being clever. I shut my mouth tight again and feel the roof of my mouth push down on my tongue until my lips purse. I have money in my purse, I say. Can you get my purse? I’ll ask if I can have a new cardigan bought. There’s a nice girl that comes in once a week with black skin and curly hair and the darkest eyes you have ever seen. She would go out, I’m sure, if I find my purse, and buy me my own new cardigan. I sip at my tea and I nibble at my ginger snap. I don’t dip or plunge my ginger snap into my tea because I’ve seen many others here do that and quite frankly, it is expected of us. I will ask Vadnie to get me a cherry red cardigan the colour of the soup today. I won’t need to explain to Vadnie; I won’t need to say cardigans can be the same colour as soup; she knows that’s the kind of complicated world we live in.

  When she comes to collect my cup, she is surprised to see I’ve drunk my tea and eaten my biscuit. Good for you, she says, well done. I will put a gold star on the board at the bottom of your bed, she says. Now, why don’t you have your forty winks, forty winks in front of a window with a lovely view – get you! she says and laughs. My taking the tea has obviously made her very happy. Perhaps she thinks she’s now winning the match that the bench is watching. I smile up my sleeve because she doesn’t know about the cardigan. She doesn’t know I’ve got a game plan. Game on, I might say.

  I wonder who first decided it should be forty winks, why not fifty or thirty? And why should we all agree that it is forty winks we take when we nap? I try not to take any winks because I don’t trust them. I don’t want to fall asleep in my chair and suddenly end up back in my bed till dinner time. That’s what they do if you take forty winks, wheel you back and lift you onto the bed in the small room with no view. They can leave you there in the afternoon for three or four hours, I think. Of course I’m not certain because Hannah has my watch. The ludicrous thing about Hannah having my watch is that she can’t tell the time, or if she can, she doesn’t realize what the time means. I asked her the other day to prove a point. I said, Hannah, what time is it and Hannah stared at my watch for ages and suddenly shouted six o’clock when it couldn’t possibly be six o’clock because we had just had lunch. Matron glared at me. Don’t keep mithering Hannah about the time, she said, as if I were the one that was being cruel. You don’t need to know the time, anyway. We know the time, and we’re in charge of the time, the time is none of your business. She gave a little incredulous laugh. I looked around me when she said this, to see what the others made of it. I couldn’t believe she had been so blatant, so unsubtle. But nobody registered anything on their faces. Their faces were like the empty bowls, lined and ridged with the remains of things.

  The blue pot in the garden in front of the bench is what I would call an electric blue. The flowers inside it are what I would call dusty pink. I still can’t think of their name but they might be peonies, though I don’t know if they pot peonies or not. The sky, I haven’t mentioned the sky today, have I, is light grey, the colour of doves. She comes again and she says, having a peaceful rest are we? She seems to think there’s two of me. It’s the only thing I’d agree with her about because there are two of me. There’s the one that’s sat on this chair and there’s the one that’s planning the Cardigan. She wouldn’t think for a second that I was capable of planning such an elaborate stunt, or of pulling it off. Though once I get that cardigan on, I won’t be pulling it off. I will keep it on. I will sleep with it under my pillow, my red cardigan, and in the morning I’ll put it over the someone else’s blouse and as long as I can have my very own cherry red cardigan, I won’t mind if it is pulled over the blouse. But it is going to be vital that I don’t only obtain my new cardigan but that I fight to keep it once I have it. I will have to find hiding places.

  These are not my clothes, I say to her in answer to her question about whether or not I’m having a peaceful rest. What is it with you? she says and she pulls my hair very hard. I don’t know. I try to be nice and you just ruin it all the time. You make me do this time and again. She pinches the skin on the back of my neck really hard and yanks my hair again. Do you enjoy it? Is that it? When she asks me that question her eyes suddenly shine with excitement. Do you enjoy it? We enjoying this, are we?

  I keep my mouth clamped shut, clamped like a flower that won’t open, when I look out at my view or like a car, clamped like a car parked on double yellow lines. The bruises can go from blue and black to yellow and a sort of green you know; they change like traffic lights. If you mix two primary colours, you get another colour. I used to know them all: blue and yellow makes green, and red and blue makes purple, but before you know it when you think of colours you are back to bruises. She has gone now and left me to look at the view. When Vadnie comes, I will take money from my purse and I’ll tell her to tell NO ONE that she is buying me a red cardigan and to bring it in a nondescript bag.

  She takes me to dinner; it must be six. She parks me up against the table. She has a look on her face I can’t quite read; perhaps it is defiance, or maybe hatred, or maybe just insouciance. A bit like the expression the bench has on its face when it is not watching the match, waiting, just waiting. Perhaps she thinks I’m going to tell somebody. But then I look at the others round the table, many of us are colours we should not be: and as far as I know nobody has said anything. I’m certainly the one who she should most fear because I’m the one who still has my marbles. My marbles are many-coloured, like great and glorious eyes. I didn’t like it when you had to give away your marbles when an opponent hit them, and I don’t think I liked putting my marble in the big circle either but of course I can’t vouch for that because I can’t remember the kind of child I was, or indeed, if I ever was a child. There is a good chance that I never was a child. There’s a high chance that I never had a past at all. Before she brought me to dinner, the bench had finished reading Madame Bovary and had started reading A High Wind in Jamaica. The bench, because it was windy, decided it wanted to read things with wind in the title but the bench was too old and too sophisticated for Wind in the Willows and, and the bench looked up its wooden nose at Gone With The Wind.

  The nurse brings me to the table; she and the matron exchange a look. I think there are tears in my eyes, and that they are running down my face, though I would not want or wish them there. The matron comes up and whispers, Go Easy or you’ll get us into trouble. It chills me. I know now for certain that the nurse and the matron are in cahoots with each other. I used to simply think that the matron was cruel because she gave me those looks at Grace, but now I know she knows it is a whole different game of marbles. I might have to ask Vadnie to also get me a pair of slacks. A pair of navy blue slacks. If I were dressed head to toe in my own clothes, I might have a chance of getting out of here. Vadnie might not know that slacks means trousers, any person under fifty might not know that, just like they might not know what a kimono is or a caftan or a twinset or a rain hat, or even a sou’wester or a flapper dress. Mind you, they all know about ponchos these days. I was surprised when my son last brought my granddaughter, Abbie, that she was wearing a poncho. So . . . I might have to say, Vadnie, with the money from my purse, could you also buy me a pair of navy blue casual trousers size ten? The matron says, For what we are about to rece
ive will the Lord make us truly thankful, and when she lifts her head she looks over at me right away to see if I have bowed my head. I have cried, that is probably evident, but I will not bow my head. This time, the matron smiles at me. She does not scowl. She smiles. I wouldn’t say that it is a sarcastic smile, or a nasty smile or even a false smile. It looks to me as if the matron has just smiled a genuine smile. I can’t think what will be happening to me next.

  The dinner is stew, beef stew, I think, but it might be lamb, some kind of meat anyway with little diced carrots in it, and potatoes. The matron eats her food with the confidence of someone who has lovely things from the delicatessen saved in her locker. There are little bits of gristle on the meat and tiny lumps of undisclosed jelly in the gravy. Some people are eating. The matron is still looking at me and still smiling. You know that if you don’t eat your food at the table, you’ll have to be transferred, she says. You know what that means, don’t you? I pick up my fork and shovel some of the ghastly gristle into my mouth. I don’t want to be transferred; if I am I won’t see Vadnie and I won’t be able to get my cardigan. All of these places are as bad as each other. Vadnie is what makes this place bearable, just.

  After dinner, I’m parked in front of the television. Peggy is asked what she would like to watch because Peggy always says I don’t mind and then the matron says, well let me choose for you and so we all watch Matron’s programmes. Anything after nine that involves a killing, that’s for me, Matron always announces proudly, as if she possessed a particular talent for self-knowledge. Who do you think did it, Margaret? Matron always asks me, because she knows I’m the only one in this place that can work things out, who still has her marbles. Too many red herrings, I say and nod meaningfully. A red herring, dried, smoked and salted, drawn across a fox’s path, destroys the scent and faults the hounds, I say, suddenly remembering a piece of knowledge. Ssssh, says Matron irritably. It’s a long time since I had a piece of herring, a long time since I had any fish at all. I try and think of names of fish whilst watching Morse to amuse myself: cod, haddock, hake, salmon, tuna, mackerel, herring, plaice, sole, what’s the one that they cook the tail . . . monkfish, mullet, John Dory. Its name was doré the French for golden long before the John came along. It has an oval black spot on each side said to be the finger marks of St Peter when he held the fish to extract the coin. Isn’t the Bible fascinating, I say to no one in particular as Morse plays a piece of Chopin. At least I think it is Chopin.