Wife in the North

by Judith O'Reilly

  Monday, 23 April 2007

  Mothers and sons

  Yesterday was blissful. I only realized how blissful when I woke myself up laughing. Have no memory of why I might laugh in my dreams, but I like the idea of laughter in the dark. I fell in love with my husband for any number of reasons – one of them a habit of laughing in his sleep. I presumed, of course, that he was not laughing at me. I had not realized that I could snatch the habit and make it mine. I spent a spring yesterday with my six-year-old. Him and me. Just me and him. Innocent in gardens. We watched the sea spill down stone stairs, chased each other through avenues of pink-blushed blossom and cast coin wishes. He wants to live in a castle; told out his wish and made a listening stranger laugh. As for me, I cannot tell my wish. The day moved on; we plunged back into another Eden, took a jar and microscope and watched insects turn to monsters. Naturally, we tamed them and set them free.

  Tuesday, 24 April 2007

  Publish and be damned

  I was called to the vicarage by the sea, in sight of the castle, for tea with the apple-cheeked Vicar. Tea and a ‘dressing down’ from the Vicar. She said she presumed I would not write about the conversation we were to have. I said: ‘I reserve the right to blog what I want to blog. I’m a journalist and this is most definitely not an off-the-record conversation.’ She looked shocked. Continued on regardless. Explained that she had called me in to discuss the ‘impression’ I am creating in my blog. Did not shout at me or rant but handed me a cup of tea and said: ‘Sugar?’ Sat back resolute in her armchair and told me of the upset of ‘teachers, helpers and some mothers’ as well as those ‘outside the school’, because I dared to say out loud in cyberspace that my son was bullied.

  I thought: ‘Does this make me the blogger the Church tried to silence?’ There must be a commandment somewhere: ‘Blog not’ or ‘Put not thy blog before thy God.’ Something like that. I think she was misguided. I think it more likely that God has a blog now. More apposite these days than a couple of stone tablets.

  I believe she had a plan – ply me with straight talk and tea and explain why I had got it so very wrong. For my own good. Thought, no doubt, it was her shepherd’s duty to the school and that she was helping me, a stranger to these parts; that I would listen, gasp, droop, bow my head. ‘Mea culpa.’ I was to ask for her advice. She would give it. I would take it. She would say: ‘Bless you, my child.’ It would be very civilized. I am not civilized. She said: ‘I think you are the most difficult person I have ever had to talk to.’ I said: ‘You must have had a very sheltered life.’ I should not have said that. That is the sort of thing a difficult person says. Obviously, I am not difficult. Life was so much simpler when you could denounce someone from the pulpit.

  As a Catholic, I am used to being told what to do – by the Pope, for instance. But who listens to the Pope? Not me. The last time I was taken to task by a religious, I must have been ten. There were slimy butter beans on the waxed, blocked wood floor beneath the Formica table in the dining hall of my Catholic prep school. Despite the poor, starving children in Africa and strictures to clear our plate, an ingrate had finessed the beans on to the floor. When they were spotted, the head teacher, a ‘take-no-prisoners’ nun, made us all stand in a line of shame along the corridor outside the classrooms in a bid to identify the culprit. I had eaten my beans. I did not enjoy standing there. I felt it unjust. I am old enough now to refuse to stand in any line of shame. Particularly if it is a line of one.

  It is always difficult when someone is nice and very clearly a good person. You do not want to upset them by telling them to mind their own business. That is the way nice people get to say hurtful things. She was, she repeated, concerned about the impression I am creating. I have always found that the word ‘impression’ is used when the facts do not quite fit what it is someone wants to say. I began to regret that I had brought chocolate biscuits to eat along with tea.

  Apparently, she told me, there was worry hereabouts that I am bringing the ‘reputation’ of a very lovely school into disrepute. (That would be because of the blogging. Obviously, it is not the bullying bringing the school into disrepute. It is my jumping up and down.) She is a governor at the school; she admitted it was a ‘difficult time’ but said I was making it seem like a ‘zoo of little animals’. I said I shared her high opinion of the school. That did not mean to say we did not have a problem.

  I said I thought she should be more concerned with the bullying and my son’s welfare than with my protests. Prompted, the Vicar asked about the welfare of my lonely child and what was being done. Went one better, said: ‘And what about you?’ I felt the tears come and bit my lip, thought: ‘I will not cry in front of you.’ I admit I was touched by her enquiry. Felt it a pity that we were not closer. A shame that the nice Vicar, sitting in her nice vicarage overlooking the beautiful sea and the spectacular castle, had at no point in the previous year and a half invited a desperately lonely mother of three, struggling in any number of ways, over for a cup of tea and some serious girl talk. I said: ‘Are we all right?’ as I walked out the door. She hugged me in a vicarly sort of way and said: ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you still think I am the most difficult person you have ever met?’ She said: ‘No, not now.’ I do believe she was right the first time.

  Wednesday, 25 April 2007

  Mother mine

  My mother is with us for a few days because my father was called away to Ireland. My mother said: ‘I can manage.’ Words which put the fear of God into me. She cannot manage. I said: ‘Of course you can.’ Then we went to pick her up. She is sleeping in our bedroom; we are in the study. Last night, she got lost in our bedroom. I am not sure how long it took her to find the bed again. She said: ‘It’s very dark in there.’ She is blind. I am sure it was.

  I love my mother. I love her as my mother. I love her as my new child. When she visits, she still wants to do things for me. Folding clothes, washing up. Sometimes, I wash clothes so she has some to fold. I do not tell her that. Yesterday, I went to sit with her on the sofa. She said: ‘I wish I could do more to help. You need help.’ I said: ‘Mum, I have help – I have Girl Friday and she’s great. You don’t need to do anything for me. You have done enough.’ She said: ‘I want to do more.’ Her face crumpled, pinked up, and her traitorous eyes wept out their salty frustrations. I do not expect my mother to help me any more. It is my mother who expects to help me. It is my mother who feels let down when she has to sit down.

  It takes some time to realize when you are a child that your parent has become your responsibility. When we are out, I do not know whether to run after the four-year-old in case he flings himself into the road or stay with my hesitating mother for fear she trips and falls. I hover, equally useless, between the two of them. Today, I took the baby and the four-year-old to a little play park in sight of the castle. My mother sat on a bench and the children sat on the swings. When we finished, we walked past the cricket green and stood by the road. I am pushing an oversized buggy; the baby has refused to get into it and is clamped to my hip with my left arm wrapped around her. The baby’s refusal to cooperate leaves me with one free hand. I realize that I cannot cross the road with my four-year-old, buggy, baby, mother and her white stick. I think about getting the four-year-old into the buggy, but I could not then manoeuvre it down the pavement and up the other side. I think about getting my mother into the buggy, but she would never get out of it again. I think about climbing into the buggy with the baby, dangling a leg either side, getting the four-year-old and my mother to hold on and straddle-walking it across the road. I decide that would kill us all. I abandon the buggy. I think: ‘I will cross the road with everybody and come back for the buggy.’ I start doing a complicated minuet. I hoik up the sliding baby, arrange my blind mother on my free arm and instruct the four-year-old to take granny’s hand. Suddenly, a stranger waiting for a bus says: ‘Let me help.’ And I do. I let her help.

  Thursday, 26 April 2007

  Bluebell wood

  Spring is hau
nting me. You think you have it down pat. This is spring: chicks and lambs, the pastel prettiness of an Easter card. Tulips triumph while cherry trees plant loud lipstick kisses on the sky and spindly, yellow rape washes through fields.

  Now, now … bluebells crowd the mossed trees, gathering in shady places. I am used to city lands and tales of dark and streetsome terror when a woman walks alone. In a bluebell wood, you hear a movement in the crisp and wintered leaves and turn your head to catch nothing. You move through the narrow purple lines of nodding bells and think you catch them whispering. Whispers crowding out the truth; no one is there. I have always imagined bluebells to be the colour of a broken heart. Not that my heart is broken. Not now. My heart has been broken in its day like all good hearts. I think it mended. At least, its odd and purple pieces have been pushed back together, the torn seams sewn with clumsy stitches, and it ticks on yet.

  The country is full of seas. The prairie crops, grasses, bluebells on a wooded hillside move as the sea moves. This suits me. The feeling I have had most often since I moved here is much as I imagine drowning to feel: the struggle and the fear. Driving today, I gripped the wheel as you would if you were in an ocean and held on to a floating wooden spar. I understand her reasoning, but I find myself lowered and strangely hurt by the busy little vicar body who took it upon herself to tell me I am Not The Most Popular Girl In School; that I am the Mother Who Blogged and that I should know that this is not a good thing. The bluebells know it. Salt water fills my mouth as I slide beneath the heavy waves.

  Friday, 27 April 2007

  The sound of gunfire

  I thought I had sensed a change in the mood, a softening after Easter, till the Vicar pulled me in. Was I fooling myself? My child was hurt and bullied. Fact. Hurt in a variety of incidents. Fact. Hurt when other children turned their backs on him. Fact. Not the sort of facts you want around you. But real, damaging and out there. Fact. Fact. Fact. When a child hurts, a mother feels the pain. More fact. She thinks: ‘What can I do? My child is hurting. I must make it stop.’ Shame on me. Shame. Shame. Shame to make such a blogging fuss. A mother will, of course, defend her child, but I could have been more British. Had a quiet word. It would have been sorted out. I thought about it. And then I wrote about it.

  I blogged again, and once again. It got to be a habit. I made sure in my blog that everyone knew that staff had acted swiftly and with consummate professionalism. As keen to turn things around as they would be if my child was their child. In a way, my child is their child. They have introduced a friendship bench and buddies, more supervision in the classroom and directed play at break time. They are bringing in a behavioural expert and a new anti-bullying policy. I could not have asked for more. I am grateful for every moment of thought they have put into turning things around. I could weep over them with gratitude each time I see a casual kindness to my child, a word, a sticker, a small hand taken and held.

  As for whether it will work, I hope so. It seems to be. In the last little while, my son has not said, matter-of-factly, that he spends his break time watching others play. I think, ‘all being well’, ‘fingers crossed’ and ‘let’s hope so’, it should ‘come good’. My son is too small to ignore his feelings of hurt when children do not want to play with him, or when some child kicks out. Luckily, I am older. Old enough to enjoy certain ironies. To pretend I have not noticed a reluctance to reply to an everyday question, or snubs and coolness from women who would spend smiles on me quite happily before. That there are women who do not pass the time of day as they might have done. Among them, the Patient Mother, whom I thought might be a friend. I can understand that chill – I know she thinks very highly of the school for what it does for her daughter. As for the rest, luckily, I am a grown-up and not a child. If I were a child, I might tell my mother. Then there would be trouble.

  Saturday, 28 April 2007

  Gathering nuts in May

  I do not think I will ever look a lamb chop in the face again without a frisson of guilt. Gathered in a corner of a field were the sheep and lambs huddled together behind metal hurdles. Texel-cross lambs. Born to Beulah and Cheviot ewes ‘put to the tup’ by Texel rams. I like that phrase ‘put to the tup’. I may use it again. I may use it in my private life. I doubt my husband knows what it means. I may have to explain it to him.

  The sheep knew something was up. Two men chivvied out the ewes and scooped up days-old lambs. They were not scooping them up for a cuddle and an ‘Ah. Look. It’s a likkle, itsy-bitsy sheep’ moment. Those moments are rare in farming. I hope. In any event, you do not want to be there when they are happening.

  A man would sit the lamb in his arms with its front legs held up and out of the way. The lamb, if it had any sense, was suspicious at this point. The Sheep Farmer then clipped its ear with a plastic tag. So far: not good for the lamb, but not particularly bad either. Then he would slide a rubber ring, held wide apart with a steel tool, up the little lambikin’s tail. This ring cuts off circulation to the tail, which drops off about five days later. According to the Sheep Farmer, this is necessary, or the muck gets caught in the fleece around the lamb’s bottom; flies are attracted to it, lay their larvae, maggots hatch and eat the lamb. Yuk. You would not wish that on your worst enemy. Occasionally, before he rings the tail, he has to snap it away from the lamb’s bottom and rip a cork of muck out of some place you wish you had never seen. If you do not do this, the lamb can get blocked up and die. It is, however, a process that makes the spectator go: ‘Eeeurrgh.’ Or maybe that is just me. He nods towards the nugget and says: ‘Fancy a toffee?’

  It is not exactly the best day of the lamb’s life so far, but it could be worse. Could be, and is about to be, very much worse. The Sheep Farmer looks at the lamb. The lamb looks at the Sheep Farmer. He slips another ring on the tool and forces the rubber apart. The ring widens. The eyes of the lamb widen. My eyes widen. He slides the ring over the lamb’s nuts. He lets it go. The lamb’s nuts are now caught in a ring which, like that around its tail, will cut off circulation. The nuts drop off, one to two weeks later. By the time the lamb is painted with the Sheep Farmer’s mark and lowered to the ground, he is not the lamb he was. He trots away, staggers, lies on the ground and bleats. He bleats: ‘Fuck. I knew this was going to be a bad fucking day when I saw that dog.’ It takes him about half an hour to recover. You would think it would take longer. It would take some men I know a lifetime. It would take them a good thirty years to get over losing the tail, let alone the good stuff. It used to be even worse for the lamb. Years ago, instead of the ring, shepherds would use a special knife to cut through the scrotum skin and then extract the testicles. If it was difficult to get them out, the shepherd who really loved his job (frankly, you would have to) would clamp them between his teeth and pull them out. He would have to suck a toffee to get rid of the taste of sheep nuts. Occasionally, lambs would die if the shepherd had a mouth disease. How unlucky can one lamb be? You get castrated by a loner; he takes your nuts, gives you bad breath and it kills you.

  Sunday, 29 April 2007

  RKO landscape

  Idle, city cynic that I am, here I am constantly taken by a shake-your-head-and-pinch-yourself surprise. Out and about, I think: ‘Beauty. Simply. Beauty.’ Beauty will not be ignored, despite my best and busiest endeavour, and I never said, could never say, this was not a beautiful land.

  There are days. There are places which are as if they have been painted by a master. You want to reach out to touch the bulked white cloud to see if it is still oil-wet. You think that the mellow green of the grasses, the grainy sand, the ironed grey of the sea – how do these colours know the exact shade of a masterpiece? They do. Each time different. You breathe in. You expect the smell of garret and wiped cotton rags, not spring iced air. I drove across a moor, the Cheviot hills in the distance; the heather, brown, burgundy tinted; the whole tufted with straw grass. You would think a hand had moulded the land, its curves caught with all the perfection of a sleeping Eve. I slowed the car, then stopped.


  An iron TV transmitter stood splayed in the emptiness. I am sure I have seen a giant monkey climb it and roar out his black-and-white frustration. I watched the skies. I started to look across the perfect moor to catch a glimpse of angry ape. No biplanes, no ape. My only companion was a white-bottomed deer which turned to look at me, listened to my Amy Winehouse and liked her. It listened a while longer to her urban beat. Then, casually, leapt a fence to disappear back into the painted forest.

  Monday, 30 April 2007

  Living and learning

  Had another German lesson today. I like my German lessons. They make me feel as if I am twelve again. I am tempted to plait my hair so tightly my head hurts and blow bubbles with pink gum. I can now order beer. ‘Ein Glas Bier, bitte.’ I do not drink beer; I had better not go to Germany this week. Next week, I will learn how to order coffee and white wine. Then I can go.

  Tuesday, 1 May 2007

  Birdsong

  I wish I could name the birds as they spell out the season’s songs. A fluted, chiming symphony of half-familiar notes. A trill, a chirruped melody from rain-drenched leaves, a brushed percussion coo half-hidden in soft and drifting air. They talk to one other as the mauve light fades. Then washes back, gold this time. Their voices lift, remark, keep time. Birdsong marks out a mellow soundtrack to my busy life. I have to stop. Awhile. I have to pause to listen. Then, it comes again. Sweeter for the silence that went before.

  Wednesday, 2 May 2007

  TV or not TV

  The children lost TV. Note, I say ‘lost TV’ not ‘lost the TV’. They lost permission to watch TV because of some dark crime they committed which I cannot now remember. It must have been a good one, because I unplugged the video and DVD player to ram home the point. I was not at all influenced by my mother’s observation on her most recent visit: ‘You let them watch a lot more TV than you used to, don’t you?’ I denied this and promptly issued my fatwa. I would have shoved the set itself into a cupboard but I might run mad if I lost BBC News 24, so I hid the zappers in case temptation struck.