by Angela Huth
She’s got tons of ideas about what’s good and what’s bad for me and she’s pretty fierce about them. Fizzy drinks, McDonald’s food, crisps – all that sort of ordinary stuff I’m only allowed, like, not very often. She’s always trying to get me to eat fruit – our kitchen table is like a fruit stall – and fish, which I hate. She’s very good at puddings, though. We have chocolate pudding some Sundays which sort of rises up out of a sauce: ace, that.
I can’t really grumble much about Mama. She’s nearly always there – at home, I mean. A lot of my friends’ mothers work in offices and companies and they’re never there, and they never have time to help or to listen. Mama does listen, always. Elli’s Mum, apparently, when she is home, is always frantic, and always on the telephone. So I’m lucky, there, having a mother who works at home. Her work is finished by the time I get back from school so we have really nice times at tea. She tells me what’s gone wrong and how silly she’s been about something, and makes me laugh. She’s absolutely useless about technical things. When her mobile rings, which is only when she leaves it on because she doesn’t really know how to turn it off, she rushes about picking up a camera or the video thing – absolutely pathetic. She thinks everything to do with computers and the internet and stuff is boring, and hates people talking about it. Well I suppose that’s just better than Elli’s Mum who gets a hundred e-mails a day and is always surfing the net. Yes: I think it’s a bit better, Mama’s way, though she could try harder about machinery things. I’m always telling her she’s an old fuddy duddy, still jellified (one of my best new made-up words) in the past. She says she doesn’t care.
Sometimes Mama does drive me bananas, going on about things that she likes, trying to get me to like them. Once she got very cross and said I didn’t know the difference between a chaffinch and a daffodil. Which was, like, daft. I know daffodils perfectly well. Hyde Park is stuffed with them, isn’t it? And we’ve got a few in our garden. I said I don’t know how you expect me to know about chaffinches if we don’t have any here. Next thing: she buys this hideous bird table. ‘That’s so ugly’, I said – and she did laugh. So now what happens? I have these bird lessons at breakfast. What’s that, Sylvie? The blue and yellow one? Blue tit, Mama. No: a great tit. I keep telling you, the big one is … oh honestly. She’s a pain about birds.
But altogether? Altogether I’d say I’m mega lucky with Mama. I mean you can rely on her. She’d never, ever let me down. She’s never, ever late. In fact I discovered that when she comes to fetch me from somewhere, she arrives so early, so’s not to be late, she has to wait. She says she likes that. Weirdly, she likes being shut in the car listening to Radio 3 or whatever. Then, if something goes wrong, she’s the best at giving advice. She always understands, even if she doesn’t agree. Sometimes it’s quite spooky how she knows I’m worried or not happy or something, and she manages to find out what it is without actually asking me questions. She’s not cross very often, and she forgives me a lot. Papa says she spoils me. Well, she does a bit. No so much with presents, though she’s very good at surprise presents – she remembers things I say I like and then suddenly they appear. But Elli says she spoils me with time. I’m not sure what that means. But I think it means that even if she’s tired in the evenings, and busy, she’ll always make time to help me with my homework, or my piano practice or things like that. Perhaps I take that for granted, though I don’t think I do now I’m older, since Elli pointed it out. Really I think I’m lucky having Mama as my mother. Despite her funny ways I think she’s the best. But then I suppose most people think that about their mothers. Except Elli.
Papa! Well, Papa. He’s weird, too, in different ways from Mama. His trouble is he concentrates so hard on whatever he’s doing that it’s very difficult to get his attention if he’s in one of his concentrating moods. So he’s sitting in the kitchen reading the newspaper about some war or something, and I ask him a question and he simply doesn’t hear, which can be annoying. He gets cross about different things from Mama. Like my room. He says it’s a tip, and he won’t read to me till it’s cleared up. Sometimes he says it’s a bloody disgrace. When I was young he didn’t swear in front of me. Now he quite often does, though not any of the really bad words that Harry told us about at school. He’s absolutely wonderful, Papa, at reading to me. He apparently began when I was a baby, and went on years after I could read to myself because I always ask him to. He’s so good, doing different voices and everything. I like the Roald Dahl books best, though we’re on to Little Nell at the moment. I think Papa is very clever. He’s got a clever face, especially now his hair is going a bit grey at the sides. He doesn’t, like, go on about his cleverness, but I think people can feel it. Sometimes I look at the faces of people he’s talking to, and they look really impressed. Once he wrote a play when he was young that nearly made him world famous. He’s got framed posters saying all about it on the walls of his study, his name pretty big. I’m very proud of him except when he dances. When my twin cousins had a disco when they were sixteen, they asked people of all ages, even ten year olds like I was then, and everyone was supposed to dance. Mama, luckily, didn’t – and she’s a proper dancer, goes to lessons. She said she couldn’t cope with the music. But Papa! He, like, squirmed. He moved about wiggling his arms like an octopus, and humming. I wanted to die. On the way home I said never, ever – please Papa never ever do that to me again. He told me not to be so critical of other people’s enjoyment, and anyhow there had been plenty of other fathers dancing. I said yes but you were the worst. We haven’t been to any more of those sort of parties, thank goodness. I dread Papa making such an idiot of himself again. I expect he will at my wedding or something.
Papa and Mama together are pretty good. I wouldn’t want them to be divorced – lots of people in my class have parents who are divorced, and some of them have horrid step-parents. But I don’t think Mama and Papa will divorce now. They’ve been married fifteen years, and they’ve got me, and they don’t squabble much. I think they’re happy actually. They laugh a lot, and they thank each other for things, everyday sort of things like when Papa puts the rubbish out or Mama finds his scarf which he’s always losing. They’re not at all lovey-dovey which I think is brilliant. I’d hate them to be soppy, kissing and stuff. They agree about a lot, including improving my mind. I tell them when I have children I’m absolutely not going to do anything to improve their minds. They said you wait. But to be fair they don’t bang on too much. Just subtly try to inform me now and then. I always know what they’re up to.
Funnily enough, they don’t seem to invite lots of people here. Elli says her parents are always having dinner parties and she has to have cereal in front of the telly upstairs. They go out about once a week, sometimes Papa on his own, a work thing, and I have fun with Mama. She says dinner parties are too much of a palaver, and she hates cooking, so it’s very rare that even two people come round. Like tonight. Some old friend of Papa’s and horrible Carlotta. Mama looked a bit spinny when I got back from school, shelling prawns and whizzing about, dropping things, so I laid the table for her. I picked all the pansies from the tub and arranged them for her. She likes that sort of thing. She gave me fish fingers and carrots and chocolate yogurt on a tray in the study and said I could watch telly till nine. So that’s cool. It’s a bit like Elli’s sort of evening, but much nicer. I’m even allowed a bit of Toblerone so long as I promise to eat it before doing my teeth. Which I did promise. I’m always making promises. Both Mama and Papa like it when I do, and they believe me.
GWEN
Right from the beginning, with the Grants, it was easy (I was nervous they might not want to take on someone of my age – though I didn’t admit what it was). At the interview with Mrs. Grant I made myself plain. ‘I’d be grateful if you’d call me Gwen,’ I said. ‘Everyone calls me Gwen – and I’ll call you Mrs. Grant’. She agreed at once. At that very first meeting we discovered we had a lot of opinions in common: the demarcation between employer and employee, for i
nstance, no matter who they are. Mrs. Grant told me that when she was younger she worked in publishing and was very careful always to refer to her boss as Mrs. Whatever, even though they were almost the same age. Course, it’s not like that now. Christian names all over the place, today, soon as you meet someone. Call me old fashioned, but my hackles go up if someone calls me Gwen when we’ve only just met, with not so much as a by your leave. Mrs. Grant feels just the same way.
It was lovely discovering we had lots else in common, too. My previous lady (Mrs. What’s-It – I can never remember the double-barrelled bit) in Holland Park, she and I came from different planets. I only stayed the five years because her husband was so ill. But Mrs Grant, she likes a polish and a shine, just like I do. She likes things done nicely. She likes the day to start with a tidy, though she never wants the place to look unlived in like a waiting room. Course, I know just what she means. I never go into her studio, except once a month to hoover: she says it’s far too much of a mess and she keeps it as she wants it herself. This may seem peculiar, but I believe it’s a good idea to fall in as much as possible with your employer’s ways: it must be difficult for them. It didn’t work, my method, with Mrs. What’s-It and I took a lot of rudeness from her. But with Mrs. Grant, from the very beginning I tried to make relations between us easy for her, and we’ve never looked back. I said ‘Mrs. Grant, if there’s anything I do not to your liking, you only have to tell me. I’ll not take offence, like some’, I said. Turned out she doesn’t like the cushions on the sofa standing on their points – like a chorus line of ballet dancers, was how she put it, which made me chuckle. She also doesn’t like objects – ashtrays and boxes and so on – placed on the diagonal. She said it disturbs her sense of symmetry. For myself, I’ve always rather fancied an ashtray put not quite straight – gives it a bit of character, I always think. That’s what I do in my living room at home. But of course at the Grants I do what Mrs. G likes. I’m so used to it now I rarely make a mistake.
I’ve got to know them all pretty well, now. Nine years: you do. In a way I think of them as my family, what with Ernie hardly ever home and Jan up north – not that we were ever close, mother and daughter. Mrs. Grant I know best of course. Sometimes I feel I can read her like a book. She’s very quiet, and kind, and, my, she’s considerate. A little vague, perhaps – but aren’t we all? Forgets things, gets a bit panicky when she’s a long list of things to do. When she comes down for her morning cup of coffee is the time she’s most abstracted. It’s almost as if her mind’s still on her business upstairs and she doesn’t want the spell to be broken. She never talks about her work, mind. I’m just sometimes shown the finished product before it goes off and I can see what a talented lady she is. Modest with it. I don’t think she ever believes my compliments, or anyone’s. And then she does move so well, so gracefully. You should see her coming down stairs, a pleasure to watch. Rather stately somehow, even when she’s only wearing jeans and a shirt. Very straight back. She once told me that at her school they had lessons in deportment. They had to walk about with a pile of books on their heads. Don’t suppose there’s much of that around now. She only met Ernie once – he was home on leave and came to pick me up from work in his car, but they got on beautifully. He said I was very lucky to have such a good employer. I said don’t be stupid, Ernie: I know that. Jan she’s never met and I don’t suppose ever will. Jan’s not one for making an effort to come and see her mother, and I’ve only had one invitation to Yorkshire in ten years. But I think Mrs. Grant feels she knows them all, and that includes Bill, though he passed away two years before I came to the Grants. She listens to me chattering on, doesn’t say much herself, but always sympathetic. Always interested. The way I know about her is not so much from what she says, but from her body language, as they say. She’s very expressive eyes and she’s very calm. But just occasionally she frowns, and her fingers play up and down on her mug. Once – I was very late on account of the dentist – I came in and heard her playing the piano. I know she never likes to play to anyone, and she stopped as soon as she heard the door. But my goodness was she storming away! Very loud. Angry, like. I was quite disturbed. I realised later it was about the time she heard her father had cancer.
Mr. Grant I know less well, of course. But from what I can tell he’s the sort of man the English do best. A lot in common with my Bill. Very upright, dignified, charming, always a twinkle in his eye. As courteous as you could want. He’s not old-fashioned, exactly, but always nicely turned out, none of those T-shirts on a week day that so many men fancy these days. And it’s my private belief he’s something of a passionate man. Passionate at the desk, passionate in the bed as they say – well, as Bill used to say. I’m never quite sure what it is exactly Mr. Grant does in his office – though it must bring in a certain wage – but up in his study it’s my guess he’s a passionate at his desk, writing away. When I come on a Monday morning his waste-paper basket is overflowing with bits of screwed up typing paper. It’s all over the floor. As for his desk – well. Mrs. Grant says he writes plays, and they’re very good. To my knowledge he’s only had one put on but he keeps at it. Very determined. Sometimes I go for days without seeing Mr. Grant, he’s off so early. But when we do run into each other he’s always full of appreciation. ‘No one like you for polishing the fender, Gwen’, he’ll say, ‘and definitely no one like you for ironing a shirt’. He’s promised that on my next birthday (I think they’ve guessed what it is – God forbid!) – we’ll all go for a meal and see The Mousetrap, something I’ve been wanting to do for I don’t know how long.
Sylvie: Sylvie is something else. A nice enough girl, but moody, headstrong. Not particularly spoilt, though she’s got every toy and gadget you can think of. Eighty three stuffed animals in her bedroom – I counted them. As for her bedroom itself, it’s a tip. I can only hoover when Mrs. Grant has insisted she clears up, about once a month. She’s stuck things all over the walls, too, so you can hardly see the pretty wallpaper which she told me was soppy. Over her desk she’s stuck up a list of words. I can’t help reading them because they’re in such big letters. Apparently they are her made-up words. Mrs. Grant told me she slips one occasionally into her school essays to see if her teacher will notice, and she hardly ever does.
There’s no denying Sylvie’s a charmer, like her father. One of her smiles, with her head tipped on one side, and she can have anyone eating out of her hand. At the moment she’s got those train tracks on her teeth, but I reckon she’ll be a beauty like her mother one day, and go somewhere in the world. She’s got all these scatty ideas, and more than her fair share of energy and imagination. I reckon Mr. and Mrs. Grant will have trouble on their hands in a few years time, once she’s in her teens, just as I did with Jan. But she’ll come through. She’ll be all right in the end. Once she ran down stairs and flung her arms round my neck and said I was the best. You can’t help being won round by something like that. I said to her mother, I said ‘One day Sylvie’ll have her name in lights, mark my word’. Pity she didn’t have any brothers or sisters, really. I believe there was some trouble, though I didn’t enquire. Still, they’re a good family. I’d like to think I can keep working for them till my bones force me to stop.
BERT
God it’s good to be home. Can’t think why I dithered for so long. New York’s all very well for a while. Exhilarating in a way that London isn’t. But for real life…
Was a bit depressed when I came into the house. The tenants have taken their toll. Nothing specific – just an air of acute shabbiness which wasn’t there when I left. Though I suppose, nearly ten years ago, that’s not unreasonable. There was an unpleasant smell – a clash of old smoke and chemical air freshener. I opened all the windows, looked through all the cupboards. In the kitchen everything appeared out of date, overused. I suppose I’ll have to re-equip the place: new machinery, new curtains and covers. In fact the whole house could do with re-decorating. And I’ll have to buy a car and apply for residents’ parking,
all very tiresome. It’s not that I haven’t the money – I’ve more money than I need to spend. It’s just all very boring when there’s no one to help, to advise. All the same, I’m overwhelmingly glad to be back.
The first morning home, not a thing in the fridge, I behaved like a New Yorker and went out to breakfast in the King’s Road. It was a warm sunny morning so I sat at a minuscule table on the pavement with my cappuccino and indifferent croissant, and felt a bit bleak. I took out my engagement book – nothing but empty pages, of course, since landing in England – and looked at the list of people whose telephone numbers I transfer every year, no matter for how long I haven’t seen them. Dan was at the top, his permanent place. He was the one I most wanted to see, I thought. My oldest friend. Great stretches of absence never made any difference to us. We’d just take up the reins again. He was always good at précising the time lost between us. I was never much good at that. I find it difficult suddenly to describe the most important thing that’s happened in the last few months, let alone years. So I just murmur about still being a bachelor, hope fading, well-paid job in air-conditioned Manhattan, and he gets the picture. I wouldn’t want to bore him with the ins and outs of strategic marketing for the oil company. So from me he gets merely tiny flashes of illumination in my life – an amazing weekend in the Hamptons, or the skiing trip in Colorado. His apparent deep interest sometimes spurs me to a few details.