by Máire Fisher
I flopped into the armchair opposite her. She’d colonised the couch like she always does, spreading her tissues and her Vicks and her Rennies and her hand cream and her Woman’s Value and her reading glasses and her pen for doing the crossword.
‘There are things I’ve been wanting to say to you, Bo-neeta.’
I dug my toes into the pile of the hooked rug at my feet and concentrated on saying nothing.
‘Certain matters simply can’t be swept into the closet,’ Gran said. ‘Heaven knows, you can’t rely on your mother for this sort of thing.’
Her fingers flew, and for a while the only sound in the room was the click-click-click of metal needles between her white soft hands. Soft wrinkles on soft skin. Holding her hand is like holding a frog – only frogs are nicer creatures. I try not to touch her, but sometimes, when she has a faint spell, I have to help her to the bathroom. She only has faint spells when Dad is around.
‘I’ll get straight to the point,’ she said. ‘None of this skirting around the bush. It’s those boys. Sean and what’shisname.’
I stared at the blankness of the cream wall behind her. If I gazed at it long enough, a magic door would melt into it and open wide. She started knitting again, her busy hands flickering, the shiny spines of her silver needles flashing.
‘You’re getting too old to be running wild with them.’
Her smell filled my nostrils: old lady, old clothes, musty shoes and the sharp pepperiness of her skin.
‘I’ve noticed your body changing.’ Gran paused, I’d like to say delicately, but that word isn’t in her vocabulary. ‘And I see that your mother is letting you use those tampons. I don’t know what’s wrong with a good sanitary towel, but no doubt she knows best.’
I stared at the wall even harder. If I looked at her, I’d see her cold-as-iron eyes, her pincer-lipped mouth, see poison words, steaming poison gas, rising mustard-yellow from her mouth.
‘I’m sure your mother has told you what it means to be a young woman.’
No way was I going to tell her about how my mom had hugged me – how we’d talked about boys and dating and the love between her and Dad.
Gran stopped knitting and spoke sharply. ‘Look at me and pay attention.’
I dragged my eyes to her face.
‘Boys are going to want to do certain things. It’s the way they are.’
Gran’s dentures were a strange stained yellowy colour. She’d resisted having anything done about them, but had finally agreed to let my mom take her to the dentist. She was being fitted for new ones next week. Instead of looking into her eyes, I watched the snippy movements of her mouth, listened to the wet sucking noises she made as she spoke. She rummaged in her bag and pulled out a pair of nail scissors. Snick-snick-snick went the small silver blades and lengths of dirty green wool dotted her lap.
‘As for you, Bo-neeta.’ Gran’s hands slowed and she glanced up at me – a sharp, quick, almost gleeful look – ‘Well, let’s just say I’ve always thought there’s a lot of your mother in you. A bad apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Girls develop so fast these days,’ she said. ‘I suppose we should be grateful you’ve taken longer than most.’
I hunched forward, pulling my neck into my shoulders.
‘Yes, boys can’t control … certain urges. Even your father, poor man.’
‘What do you mean?’
It always happened like that. I knew, I knew I should keep my mouth shut. She prodded and poked and needled and jabbed until she pushed the right button, forced me to fight back.
‘You don’t know?’ Gran breathed in, and the air whistled around her dentures. ‘Your mother obviously hasn’t told you the circumstances …?’
Her words slipped like razors into my mind, cutting my life into pieces. ‘Well, I’m not surprised. What she did wasn’t something any young girl would be proud of.’
‘Stop,’ I said. I stood up and backed away from her. ‘I’m going, before you say anything else.’
‘I’m sorry, Bo-neeta, but it has to be said. You’re getting to be a woman now and it’s your responsibility,’ Gran said, ‘to know how to behave with boys.’ She spoke fast, her words pouring out in a spray of saliva. ‘You can’t play around with them, tease them, lure them on. Because if you do, you’ll land up like your mother and some poor boy will be tied to you for the rest of his life. Dirty laundry always comes home to roost, you know.’
‘I said stop!’ I yelled. ‘Shut up you hideous, horrible woman! You’re just jealous, because Dad loves Mom, and he loves me, and you can’t have him all to yourself.’
Everything paused and became all blurry, like slow motion in a movie. Into the dead silence came a loud thumping sound. I looked around to see where it was coming from. And then I realised it was my heart, pounding.
Gran’s mouth gaped open, shut, and then opened again. ‘Well, I never!’ She spat the words at me, and with them … she spat her dentures. They landed at my feet with a muffled thud and sat there smirking up at me. Purpled plastic gums and large square yellow teeth. I grabbed them.
‘Bow-neehya,’ Gran gargled. ‘Gi mee dhoze bah.’
The teeth sat slimy and wet in my hand. A rank smell rose from them. Eau de Grandmother – fully distilled.
There was no magic door in the wall, no way to escape from her. Nothing would ever make her change. All the digs at my mom made sense now. And from now on, whenever she made them, she’d be sliding glances at me from the corner of her eye, knowing that I understood.
‘Bow-neeehya!’ Gran’s lips had thinned to a wrinkled pink line, dimming the furious black hole of her mouth. She was struggling to stand and her cheeks flared red from the effort. ‘Geh mee my stchick.’
I walked from the room.
‘Bow-neeehya! Cerm bah!’ she slurred after me.
I went into the kitchen.
‘Bow-neeehya!’
I placed the dentures on the counter next to the sink and washed my hands with a green dollop of Sunlight dishwashing liquid.
‘Bow-neeehya!’
I opened the drawer and took the meat tenderiser Dad used to smash steak into red pulp. I took a deep breath and raised it above my head. I pounded down – once, twice. On the third blow the dentures snapped with a brittle crack. Two teeth sheared off and ricocheted against the breadbin.
‘Bow-neeehya!’
I tore four squares of paper towel from the roll hanging over the kettle. I picked up the bits with a pair of tongs and wrapped them in the paper towel.
‘Bow-neeehya!’
Her voice faded as I walked down the passage to the bathroom. Her support stockings billowed pink and fleshy from the shower rail. The water in the bowl soaked into the white wadding and her broken jaw leered through in a gap-toothed grin. I poked at it with the toilet brush and piled toilet paper on top of it with each flush. I flushed the toilet four times.
At the end of a day like this in Kalk Bay, blue fades from the sky and the mountains become inky shadows. Fishermen call naand to each other as they climb into their rattling cars. In our house, Dad is on the phone trying to get hold of an all-hours plumber. Gran has had four faint spells since they got home. Mom is going to try and change the dentist appointment.
And I have to stay here in my room, until I’m ready to apologise.