by Stibbe, Nina
Our mother and my sister were bags of nerves and couldn’t settle. Our mother unusually optimistic, and my sister worryful as ever.
There were a few doubts on the horizon but I think we all truly believed that, once the kitchen was all done and dusted, Charlie Bates was contractually obliged to arrive in Whisper the Saab with a load of suitcases and a stuffed wolf (or something manly and unusual) and maybe a few presents for us. And we’d celebrate with Seven Stars Around the Moon – the Chinese feast for four people from the Red Rickshaw, but ask them to substitute the pork balls with a plain chicken drumstick (Charlie being funny with foreign food and the pork balls being pure blobs of fat in batter). Our mother looked in the lane for signs of Whisper’s arrival, longing for a pat on the back from Charlie for her decisive and trouble-shooting action, followed by some ‘So I said, then she said …’
However, by about ten o’clock that Thursday my doubts became grave and I found it difficult to go along with the supposition any longer. As a rule our mother sat in her own sitting room with its special atmosphere, blazing logs and music, but on that day and for the next two she hung around in our ‘playroom’, chattering nervously and making little nonsensical plans. My sister and I watched telly and read comics and did our utmost to steer her off or ignore her, but it was difficult – she kept having thoughts and ideas.
‘As soon as Charlie has moved in, we’ll get a new fence around the paddock and make it like racecourse railings and we’ll put duck eggs under the broody hens and have ducklings.’
My sister and I – working steadfastly at our origami at that point – nodded and changed the subject and then I accidentally made a paper duck.
‘Look – a duck!’ shrieked our mother. ‘And just as I was talking about hatching ducklings. It’s an omen.’
She didn’t mean it – she was cleverer than that, but was befuddled by the mix of hope and fear and probably hunger.
‘It’s a cocked hat,’ I said, bringing her back down to earth.
Mrs Bates’s kitchen had been fitted, that much we knew. Our mother had driven past twice during the working day and sent me on my Raleigh Rustler towards the end of the afternoon. Mr Lomax’s van had been there on all three occasions and you could hear drilling noises. After 5 p.m., our mother had telephoned Mr Lomax, who’d said the work was complete save a couple of hinge caps for the new swing doors. And though she’d paid in full in advance, there was a few quid outstanding due to price increases and that he’d drop the bill in.
So Thursday slipped by, then Friday and Saturday, and we heard nothing from Charlie Bates. I won’t even write about it, except to say our mother sat in her wardrobe for a while, in the space she’d made for Charlie’s suits etc.
Then, on Sunday morning, I heard the front door’s alarming buzz in a pause in the monstrous clanging of church bells. When I opened the door I saw Honey, our mother’s ex-poodle, standing there by the ornamental barrel on three legs, the fourth at an angle – her hip out of joint.
I picked her up and clicked her leg back and dodged her licky face. She smelled of Mrs Bates’s Tweed by Lenthéric.
‘What does it mean, Lizzie?’ our mother said, and before I could respond she repeated, ‘What does it mean?’
She took Honey from me and inspected her, turning her over and around and asking repeatedly, ‘What does it mean?’
My sister appeared. ‘Oh my God, Honey’s back, what does that mean?’ Which wasn’t helpful.
‘Maybe Mrs Bates doesn’t like poodles,’ said my sister.
‘Of course she likes poodles, they’re her favourite dog – she’s always dreamed of getting an apricot poodle,’ said our mother, beginning to sound distressed. ‘That’s the only reason I got her.’
‘Do you mean to say you got Honey to trade for Charlie?’ my sister asked, a little sadness in her voice.
‘Why else would I buy a fucking poodle?’ our mother snapped.
We three all sat on the settee in front of our newest mural (cigarette adverts: Rothman’s, Silk Cut and Gauloises).
My sister said, ‘So it looks as though Charlie has returned Honey.’
‘But why,’ I said, ‘when Mrs Bates clearly liked her so much?’
Our mother just watched and listened to our inane and skirting discussion.
‘Why do you think?’ said my sister, meaning ‘Don’t put the ball in my court.’
When I could stand the waiting no more I said, ‘It’s a sign – a sign that he doesn’t want to go along with the plan.’
Our mother screwed up her eyes and you could see her throat moving in her neck.
‘He’s saying, “Have your poodle back, it’s over.” That’s how I see it,’ I said.
‘Do you think he’s saying that?’ said our mother, and Honey jumped up on to the settee and our mother batted her off.
‘Yes, honestly, I do,’ I heard myself say. I’d never been an outspoken person before then, but it felt good being honest and direct.
‘Ring him,’ our mother said. ‘Would one of you please ring him.’
My sister rang, which was very good of her. But she was the eldest and it was the least she could do, seeing as I’d done everything else re Charlie Bates up to that point. All the cycling and spying and speaking.
‘I’m ringing to find out why you brought Honey back,’ my sister said into the phone.
‘Yes, it does that … yes, but not very often … I don’t know, perhaps it’s a weakness in the breed.’ My sister went on like that and our mother and I were puzzled and kept looking at each other and frowning.
Then she said, ‘I see, all right … All right, I’ll tell her.’
My sister got off the phone and told us that Charlie had brought Honey back because of the defective hip joint. Honey jumped up on to our mother again and this time our mother petted her.
‘And he’s unhappy about the Liberal candidate going in and tarting the kitchen up without his say-so, and –’ she said, with a pause ‘– and it sounds like he has ended the relationship.’
Our mother didn’t cry, but gazed into the middle distance and did some elaborate blinking and swallowing.
I’m ashamed to say I did cry, just a few tears, not for us or our mother, but for the kitchen that had been installed and the pan carousel and the whole clear-headed venture going unrewarded – it being all for nothing. And for Honey being dumped back with us, and our mother not even liking poodles, actually thinking they were ridiculous, but getting one as part of the campaign. And for Mrs Bates, who had always dreamed of getting one.
‘It’s clear now,’ said our mother, ‘with hindsight I shouldn’t have sent Mr Lomax in to do the kitchen. It was stupid, stupid, – but it seemed right at the time.’ She lit a cigarette and exhaled through her nostrils and said, still gazing at a place on the wall (where a hairline crack made the shape of a honking goose), ‘I’ll know next time.’
My clever sister said some of her wisest words. ‘Mum, I’m glad you got Mr Lomax to finish the kitchen. Now you know the score.’
And whatever the score was, she had lost. Anyway, she didn’t cry or moan, the way she did over Mr Dodd or our homosexual father or losing Bluebell. She drank quite a lot and spilt a glass of Scotch and ginger on my painting (still life with dog bowl) and she reminisced about how great Charlie was and that he never sat down to urinate like other men did (against popular assumption) and that only well-endowed men can actually stand up, like the coalman, and produce a decent flow. And telling us this she began a historical play.
King (Jack): My daughter will choose her prince.
Prince (mother): No prince can urinate without a seat.
Princess (me): Pray elucidate.
Prince: He will spray and splash his silken stockings.
Princess: I want a prince who can urinate standing but without spraying his garments.
Prince: There is not in this land such a prince.
King: Nor in any kingdom beyond.
Princess: Then I do not wan
t a prince.
Little Jack’s new teacher, Miss Benedict (the replacement for Mr Dodd, who’d left due to nerves), rang for a chat to discuss Little Jack’s demeanour (that’s what she said). Our mother was too busy to speak to her at that moment in time, so the new teacher called round in person on her way home. They sat at the kitchen table and my sister and I listened under the window.
‘Jack has been very anxious recently and I wanted to put you in the picture,’ said Miss Benedict.
Our mother hated it when people said things like ‘put you in the picture’.
‘What picture?’ asked our mother.
‘About the donkey,’ said Miss.
‘The donkey?’ said our mother.
‘Bluebell,’ said Miss.
‘Oh, Bluebell the baby donkey,’ said our mother, wistfully.
‘Yes,’ said Miss, ‘Jack has been quite preoccupied about Bluebell’s imminent arrival.’
‘We’re not getting Bluebell after all,’ said our mother.
‘Oh, I see,’ said Miss, jolting her head (in a dramatic and sarcastic manner). ‘And is Jack aware of this change of plan?’
‘I’d assumed so, but I’ll speak to him and make sure he’s fully in the picture,’ said our mother, and her voice gave way slightly.
‘Are you all right, Mrs Vogel?’ asked Miss.
‘Yes, I’m sorry, I’m just –’ voice cracking again ‘– just a bit sad about it.’
‘About not having the donkey?’ said Miss.
‘I know, it sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?’
‘No, not at all, I think I’d be disappointed too,’ said Miss, suddenly sympathetic.
‘That’s kind of you to say.’
‘Perhaps Jack has picked up on your feelings,’ said Miss.
‘Perhaps,’ said our mother.
Miss Benedict said that our mother should feel free to drop into school and let her know of anything she thought might affect Little Jack. Any domestic disruption (such as nearly having a baby donkey but then not having one, for instance).
Our mother thought for a few seconds and told Miss Benedict a true thing about her mother, our grandmother (whom we hardly ever saw due to the fact that they disliked each other intensely and when we did it wasn’t very nice except for the cakes). The thing was that our grandmother had splashed out on a pair of red boxing gloves for Little Jack, hung a punchbag in the garage and egged him on, in the hope that it would ward off any homosexual tendencies. Miss Benedict seemed deeply uncomfortable with that. She paused, then said, ‘Well, do come into school any time to talk.’
‘Thank you for calling in,’ said our mother, nicely.
We crouched down and watched Miss Benedict drive away slowly in a brown Vauxhall Viva. Then popped up again to see Jack come out of the larder.
‘Jack,’ said our mother, ‘you do know Bluebell isn’t coming, don’t you?’
Little Jack nodded.
Our mother stroked Little Jack’s hair then, and he leant his head on her arm for a moment.
It was a bit embarrassing, but Jack seemed to like it.
15
The idea of the family reunion came to my sister at a family event. We rarely attended these, partly because we weren’t often invited and partly because we hated them. But, for whatever reason, we had attended on this occasion.
Our mother had been very unhappy after all the Charlie stuff and nothing seemed to help. She’d been to Steiner’s hair salon on Horsefair Street and Geraldo had taken three inches off. She’d tried a ponytail and white nail varnish, she’d donated some books to a library including The Severed Head, a play script with a rare signature inside, but nothing had made any difference.
We knew not to try to introduce Mr Oliphant yet, it being too soon after the Charlie/Lilian/Mr Lomax tangle, and we’d put the Man List on the back burner. And we were stuck for something to do, when we suddenly attended this family party. We arrived very late and missed whatever the thing was (the christening of a little cousin?) but arrived in time for the bit at the house for drinks and bits of bread and salmon and flaky pastry and nuts.
To be honest, it was a reversal of roles for my sister and me on that day. I could sense the antagonism towards our mother and felt dreadfully uncomfortable. My sister, on the other hand, was keen to get our mother back into the family fold. We stood to the side and talked quietly. My sister reminded me that I’d always thought of the family as ready-made friends who must surely have some affection for her deep down and as ‘minerals to be mined’, which I’d apparently once said but didn’t sound at all like me.
I wasn’t sure. ‘Look around the room,’ I said. ‘Which one of them even likes her?’
Two women were talking about vegetables. One was saying she’d had a glut of runner beans and the other was asking if you had to blanch them before freezing and the first one wasn’t sure. They were our mother’s sisters-in-law.
‘They like her,’ said my sister, and she reminded me of two incidents in which each of the sisters-in-law had been exceedingly kind.
One of the sisters-in-law had come to stay for a night when our mother had driven (accidentally) off a bridge at midnight. I shan’t go into detail except that this aunt-in-law had arrived and been so kind it was almost troubling. She’d cleaned the house from top to bottom and groomed Debbie with a shoe brush and said lovely, soothing things to us. When our mother returned, with a J-shaped scar on her forehead, the aunt had said, ‘I don’t know how you cope on your own, Elizabeth.’ And it was the nicest, most supportive thing anyone had ever said to her and she had to swallow hard and look away to stop herself from crying with gratitude. Which was a shame, because it looked so rude.
The other sister-in-law had come rushing out to Shearsby Bath in her Hillman Imp when my sister hurt herself falling off a pony. She could easily not have bothered but she did bother, even though it was miles away and petrol being so expensive and she had her own little children too. And she was nice and made nothing of her trouble. I seem to remember her buying us a round of Toffee Crisps on the way to the infirmary.
My sister reminded me, forcefully, that our well-established unpopularity within the family was a result of us having slipped out of the loop due to the divorce and not that they didn’t like us as people.
‘They just don’t like what we’ve become,’ she said, ‘feral and manless.’
It was a vicious circle, she said, a circle that we just needed to break.
Plus there was an unmarried brother of a sister-in-law who was very practical and loved books and might do for the Man List.
In the end I consented to give it a go, but we agreed also that we would sidestep our maternal grandmother – a prickly woman, as previously mentioned – who seemed to like making people feel bad about themselves, which was easy with our mother who had failed at marriage, had two abortions and a miscarriage, a drink problem, an addiction to prescription drugs and who, for some reason that I can’t explain, had a habit of storing stemware upside down in the cupboard – a thing which always infuriates the well-bred.
Then, just as we’d finished discussing and agreeing, a tipsy uncle or an aunt or a cousin in a group of uncles and aunts and cousins mentioned a pending holiday, saying, ‘We’re all off to Dorset.’
My sister butted in and asked, ‘Oh, Dorset, lovely, where exactly?’ and ‘When?’ and ‘What’s the name of your house?’ and so forth, and the tipsy aunt or uncle or whoever told her all the charming details.
On the way home our mother said what cunts they all were. My sister objected. Our mother stuck to her guns and gave examples of their cuntishness. Little Jack joined in with our mother and said that an uncle had said nasty things about our father. ‘What did he say?’ our mother asked.
‘That dad was a bloody disgrace,’ said Little Jack.
Our mother was furious then and we sped home. ‘The fucker, how dare he!’ she ranted, as we flew over the very bridge she’d driven off the year before and got the J-shaped cut.
‘He shouldn’t have said it in front of Jack,’ snapped our mother.
Back at home, my sister told our mother that we’d been invited to join the group of uncles and cousins and their various offspring on the holiday – not really expecting her to believe it or be prepared to actually go to Dorset at such short notice, but to feel a bit better about them and have nicer feelings towards them.
But she did believe it and she was prepared to go and so, can you believe it, we went. We asked a lady at Merryfield’s bakery (the only nice person for miles around, bar the doctor and Mrs C. Beard) to feed the ponies and she was delighted. And we asked Mrs C. Beard to have Debbie but she wasn’t delighted, so we went back to the lady who was delighted about the ponies and asked her to have Debbie as well and, lo, she was delighted about that too.
‘We’ve been invited, at the last minute, to stay in a holiday house with our family,’ we told her, ‘in Dorset.’
‘Well, you don’t want to miss out on that,’ said the nice lady at Merryfield’s. ‘It’s important to get together.’
And in our excitement, we sort of believed we had been invited too and it was the most wonderful feeling – to have been included – and we all felt marvellous about it. Our mother was cheerful as we packed and bought us new stripy beach towels from Woolco on the way, and I used deodorant for the first time in my life – Three Wishes ‘Woodland Fern’ – and the smell was glorious and fresh and I reapplied it when the smell wore off until my armpits were white.
My sister hated the cold strangeness of my aerosol and preferred Mum roll-on, the blue version, same as our mother. I would have loved all three of us to use the same, but I found the roll-on sticky and not so invigorating. My sister packed a camera that might have been Charlie’s that she’d discovered in the garage, and Little Jack packed a torch and some tins of Scotch Broth which he loved at that time.