by Cathy Kelly
‘You look worn out, love,’ said her father.
‘A maternity nurse would be a brilliant idea,’ ventured Jean.
Sam held it together to speak civilly.
‘We can’t afford a maternity nurse. I wish we could, but we can’t. We just have to manage like everybody else does, which is messily.’ What she’d liked to have said was: ‘if you were like a normal mother, you’d be around here all the time helping us, folding the endless baby clothes, doing something,’ but she didn’t, because what was the point?
Her mother looked distinctly uneasy when they trooped quietly into India’s little nursery. All the paraphernalia of a baby made it clear that this was a much-adored child. Ted and Sam had worked so hard on making the nursery beautiful, and even though their initial colour scheme had been the careful whites and yellows of would-be parents who didn’t know what sex their baby was going to be, they had since branched out. The room now burst with colour – turquoises and purples, beautiful pinks and glorious sea-blues, sap greens, all coming from the flowers, giraffes, elephants and rabbits that Ted had pasted onto the walls. It was like a living zoo.
India was asleep in her crib, lying on her back, thumb close to her rosebud mouth.
‘Isn’t she adorable,’ her father sighed. ‘You said she smiled yesterday?’
‘Absolutely,’ said Ted, ‘and no, it wasn’t wind.’
Both men laughed quietly, but Jean was merely staring into the cot.
‘That’s a sturdy piece of furniture,’ she remarked. ‘You could have had your old cot, Samantha, and saved some money.’
Sam blinked in astonishment. Her mother had looked at India and this was all she could say: save money and use an old cot?
The rage bubbled up in her.
It was not her fault she was hopeless at motherhood.
Sam knew nothing about how to be a mother. Simply nothing.
And the reason for that was in the room. Genetics.
Her father had passed along all his wonderful parenting genes to Joanne while Sam had been left with her mother’s faulty genes, the ones that would have decimated evolution had they been widespread in the population.
Sam turned and slightly rudely made sweeping-out hand gestures to her parents. A smile still nailed to her face, she whispered: ‘Let’s go. She needs her sleep.’
‘Fine.’
Downstairs, Jean perched on a chair and the dogs, who knew her of old, kept away.
‘When are you thinking of going back to work, Samantha?’ she asked.
Sam, her father and Ted all gasped.
‘Not yet,’ said Ted hurriedly.
‘Well, you want to hold on to that job. Your replacement must be handling the credit card crisis rather well – nothing in the newspapers. Mind you, they’re all full of that dreadful property investment man who’s conned so many people out of millions. Police reports say the wife isn’t involved, but honestly, how stupid could she be. Of course she knew.’
Sam had barely registered the story on the news: the outside world had so little impact on her life, but she wanted to argue that nobody ever knew the real side of any story. From the outside, their childhood had looked perfect, after all.
‘Tea?’ said Ted, desperately.
‘No thank you. I have a lot to do,’ said her mother, not really lowering her voice. ‘Do enjoy the savoy cabbage,’ she said, and with a frosty smile, she headed for the door.
‘I’ll drop over tomorrow,’ Sam’s father said, hugging her. ‘I’ll text first and you can tell me what would be good. You could have a sleep and I’ll be on baby duty.’
Sam leaned against her father, feeling his warmth and strength.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered, ‘Thank you.’
‘Lie down, Sam,’ Ted said when they were gone.
Mutely, she did just that. But she couldn’t rest, couldn’t concentrate on the TV show.
Thoughts of her first period earlier meant she found herself remembering that very time. Not that she’d known much about periods, mind you. Her mother’s version of the mother-daughter talk was to give her a booklet on menstruation when Sam hit twelve and leave Sam to it.
‘You might find this useful,’ her mother had said with a hint of distaste as if the female body and its menstrual carry-on was not suitable for any conversation.
When the thirteen-year-old Sam had found blood in her knickers, she’d been at home, scared and with only Dad and Joanne there. She wouldn’t, couldn’t, ask her father what do to. So she’d stuffed toilet roll into her knickers and had braved her next-door neighbour’s house, where a lovely woman with grown-up kids and grandkids lived.
All her fears had come out in a flood of tears.
Mrs Maguire had provided clean knickers, sanitaryware and made it all seem entirely normal. A hot-water bottle on her belly, and a seat curled up by the fire with the family’s cat had helped too.
‘Don’t tell my mother,’ Sam had begged. ‘Please.’
‘But where does she think you are?’
‘She’s not home. She’s working late.’
‘This is important, she’d come if you phoned her,’ said Mrs Maguire, somewhat doubtfully.
Sam thought of her friends’ mothers who had jobs and how they somehow made their children come first in spite of it all. Her mother was not of that tribe.
‘She wouldn’t, Mrs Maguire,’ said Sam. ‘She’s busy.’
And Mrs Maguire had wondered again about her coldly polite neighbour who looked after other people’s daughters but had not managed to teach her own child that real mothers would walk through fire for their own daughters, job or no job.
Ginger
Ginger parked the car on Great-Aunt Grace’s drive, got out, admired the lawn which did not have a single daisy on it, and then rang the doorbell.
As usual, nobody replied. Being increasingly deaf, Grace tended to have the TV volume turned up to an eardrum-splitting level which only other deaf people could stand.
‘I don’t know how the dogs stick it,’ Mick said whenever he visited.
‘They’re deaf too,’ said Declan. ‘Or they are now.’
Grace had been the major female figure in Ginger’s life as a child and she had been wonderful, even if she had never been blessed with children herself.
When it came to picking up the Reilly kids from school or helping them with homework, Grace, recently widowed, had been there.
Ginger gave one more blast on the doorbell because she never wanted to startle Grace by turning up unannounced.
Cloud and Pepperpot, two overweight cockapoos, did not arrive at the door barking madly and when Ginger pushed open the letter box and yelled again, no furry friends leapt up to sniff hello.
She could hear loud TV blaring from the living room and reckoned it was the QVC jewellery show, Grace’s favourite.
Ginger got her house keys out of her bag and opened the door, feeling, as she always did, the fear that dear Grace would be laid out on the parquet flooring of the kitchen having had a heart attack.
Although, really, Ginger thought, as she shoved the door open and found herself standing in what was the only entirely clear area near the door, if her great-aunt was lying on the floor, it would be from being concussed by a falling box.
Grace was a hoarder. Not a common-or-garden person with a closet stuffed with too many pairs of shoes or handbags or sweatpants. No. Grace was a hoarder of epic proportions with added shopping-channel-aholism. When the fruits of her late-night shopping arrived, she got the postman or the delivery man to shove the box into the closest available space. Consequently, the entire downstairs was like the Argos warehouse with boxes everywhere, many of which were unopened.
Ginger worried desperately about her great-aunt, but nobody else seemed to: ‘She’s happy,’ Ginger’s dad said.
‘
Ah, she likes a bit of shopping,’ said Declan.
‘Bit of shopping? It’s like a warehouse in there,’ protested Ginger. ‘Besides, the house could be falling around her with rot and she wouldn’t know.’
‘That house is in perfect condition, worth a fortune: three thousand square metres, gas heating and a conservatory, and not a speck of damp. Grace won’t let it rot and neither will I – I check on her, you know,’ Ginger’s father always said, upset at the thought that he would let his beloved aunt wither away in her home. She had helped him rear his children and he owed her forever for that. ‘And she has Esmerelda.’
‘Who is just as bad when it comes to shopping,’ sighed Ginger.
Grace’s husband, Arthur, had died over thirty years ago, when she was fifty-five. For years, Grace had steadfastly helped raise the Reilly children, gone out to see films and to restaurants, and generally socialised. But a bad fall at the age of eighty had made her more housebound, which was when she’d discovered internet and telly shopping and a whole new world opened up.
Because Grace Devaney never saw a fake gold pendant with matching earrings and bracelet that she didn’t like.
Now boxes, opened and unopened, covered the whole house and Ginger worried that emergency services wouldn’t be able to reach her great-aunt if she were ever ill.
‘Aunt Grace!’ yelled Ginger now.
Finally, someone answered.
‘Helloooo?’ said a voice and Esmerelda appeared at the top of the stairs. ‘I upstairs hoovering, I no hear you,’ said Esmerelda, who was a statuesque Romanian lady of incalculable age with jet-black hair and lively make-up, which featured much blue today. Esmerelda cooked, vacuumed between the boxes and, sadly, spurred Grace on in the purchase of electric fly swatters, non-slip wellington boots, sink plugs for travel in Africa and useful kitchen implements neither of them would ever use.
‘I just dropped in to say hello,’ said Ginger, smiling warmly. ‘How are you?’
‘No good, the arthritis. But we order new vitamins. They coming soon. Good for dogs too,’ said Esmerelda, pleased. She looked Ginger up and down. ‘There is new drug we see on telly – make the fat stick to it and not to you. Grace get it for you, no problem. You want?’
‘I’m good for now.’
Ginger was used to Esmerelda’s constant efforts to make her thin, and strangely, unlike if anyone else had suggested such a thing, it didn’t upset her. Esmerelda herself was built like a tank. She merely wanted Ginger thin enough to catch a man and then she could do what she wanted.
‘You no want, it your funeral.’ Esmerelda shrugged. ‘You never get married.’
‘I don’t want to get married,’ lied Ginger.
‘You marry girl if you want,’ Esmerelda pointed out. ‘All is good. Man, woman, love. Who cares if you the gay. All love.’
‘Ah no, I’m fine,’ said Ginger. Neither men nor women were interested in her, but there was no point explaining this to Esmerelda. Ginger retreated to the source of the noise.
As soon as she opened the living room door, two furry creatures threw themselves at her.
‘Hello pooches,’ said Ginger, hunkering down to pet the dogs.
‘Ginger, my dear, how lovely of you to visit,’ said Grace, like the Queen welcoming someone to Buckingham Palace instead of into a large room filled with leaning towers of Pisa of books and old newspapers with pages left opened because Grace wanted to reread them.
Grace herself was a stately woman with bouffant white hair and she wore a fair amount of her shopping-channel jewellery over a chiffon fuchsia blouse (‘on special offer with a pair of slacks!’) and an old cardigan that looked as if Ginger herself – who had no craft abilities whatsoever – had knitted it out of porridge.
‘Give me a kiss, dear,’ said Grace.
Ginger kissed her aunt, inhaling that familiar scent of Mitsouko. Beside them, a few boxes wobbled.
Ginger had to say something. It was a death trap, a death trap made up of clever kitchen implements and jewellery that Grace and Esmerelda would need four more necks each to ever wear.
Ginger rearranged the boxes.
‘You know I worry,’ she began.
‘Oh, stop, please,’ said Grace, but not unkindly. ‘Worrying never gets you anywhere. If I had done nothing but worry all those years ago, would I have survived without Arthur? No, I would not. I made a life for myself and I lived it to the full and that’s what you should do too, Ginger, and stop worrying about other people.’
Grace was into her stride now.
‘I’ll be fine. Myself and Esmerelda and the doggies are perfectly fine here. We have one of those things for putting out fires in the kitchen, you know,’ she added, delighted with herself. ‘I got it out of a catalogue from the weekend newspaper.’
‘There are too many things out of catalogues,’ said Ginger, ‘With this many boxes lying around, the place is a fire hazard. I bet you can’t find the fire extinguisher for a start, and the ambulance people would never be able to get to you if something happened.’
‘You got to me,’ said Grace, ever the debating expert.
‘I know,’ said Ginger, ‘but that’s because I know the pathway.’
Grace laughed. ‘It’s a bit like Indiana Jones in that lovely film,’ she said. ‘I did always like that Harrison Ford man. Very attractive. Still, how are you, seriously?’
She looked at her great-niece with those piercing blue eyes that hadn’t dimmed a bit ever since Ginger had known her. Grace might hoard like a maniac, but there was absolutely nothing wrong with her mental faculties.
‘Has Esmerelda been trying to tell you you should get a man again or go on a diet?’
Ginger laughed.
‘You know, she’s the only person who doesn’t upset you if they say that type of thing,’ said Grace, ‘and she only does it because she cares for you. But nobody has the right to tell you how to live your life, darling. Have a man, don’t have a man—’
‘She suggested “woman” this time,’ interrupted Ginger, grinning.
‘Oh, lovely,’ said Grace delightedly. ‘We could be thoroughly modern and you could have the wedding here. Is that it, because don’t think you can’t tell me because I’m old-fashioned. Rita up the road nearly had a heart attack when she heard her grandson was gay, silly old fossil. She’s a total hypochondriac and doesn’t have an open-minded bone in her body. I mean, who cares who anyone goes to bed with. It’s nobody else’s business—’
‘I’m not gay.’
‘It was just a thought,’ said Grace. ‘You could both wear white dress suits. I have just the necklaces . . .’ She sighed at the beauty of it all. ‘You’re quite sure?’ Grace asked beadily. ‘Because I could go down to Rita immediately and tell her. Invite her to the wedding too! What a hoot! And if she pretends to have a heart attack at an invitation to a lesbian wedding, then I’ll tell people about that fling she had with the window cleaner in the nineteen-seventies.’ Grace tapped the side of her nose. ‘I don’t forget these things.’
‘I don’t want anyone,’ said Ginger.
‘We all want someone,’ said Grace, suddenly sombre. ‘Like I wanted Arthur and he wanted me. Nobody wants to be alone, darling, and Esmerelda, in her beautifully blunt way, is just saying that. She thinks that if you are thin, a man will appear out of nowhere. Nothing is that simple. You need to feel wonderful about yourself and then it doesn’t matter what size, shape or sexuality you are. You’ll find the love of your life. The only thing you have to lose is your emotional baggage. Deal with growing up without your mother and learn that you are not what you weigh, sweetheart.’
For a moment, Ginger couldn’t speak.
Grace could always do this to her: say something so perfectly truthful and real that it reached right into her heart. But she was wrong, of course. If Ginger was thin, then maybe she might have a man. And she’d never
known her mother in the first place.
‘Enough of the philosophy,’ Ginger said, composing herself and determined to change the subject. ‘I just dropped in to see how you were and to discuss what we talked about last time, which is possibly getting rid of some of the stuff . . .?’
At this, Grace looked a little bit shifty. ‘I’m not sure I want to get rid of things.’
‘You won’t be able to buy new things if you don’t get rid of some of the old things,’ wheedled Ginger. ‘There’s really no room for anything else . . .’
‘There’s room for jewellery.’
‘Jewellery is interesting but comes in small boxes. The hall is full of big boxes.’
‘Kitchen things,’ said Grace happily.
She had a terrible weakness for cooking gadgets: slicers, dicers, things that could make soup, things that neatly went into the fridge and made the soup for you. She had them all.
‘Esmerelda’s just as bad as me,’ Grace protested. ‘You want to see her here in the evenings pointing at things on the television, saying, “we want that”.’
‘I know,’ said Ginger, thinking the battle was almost won. ‘Perhaps I could come around soon and look at all the boxes of things you haven’t opened and perhaps consider selling them.’
She knew this was an enormous job. It would require a truck to get the older purchases to any charity shop decent enough to take them.
It was either that, or put half the house for sale on the internet, and Ginger quailed at the thought of photographing everything and trying to sell it online. But it had to be done.
‘I might be out, you know.’
‘No,’ said Ginger, ‘you can’t be out. Besides, I’m going to bring somebody with me,’ which was a total fib.
‘Really?’ said Grace, who loved a party. ‘A pal? Lovely. A man? Or someone to replace that horrible Liza. I heard about it, you know, but we won’t talk about it if it upsets you.’