My Mother My Mirror

by Andrea Kitt

  By the end of the holiday I had more-or-less decided that the next time I went somewhere I would like it to be with an adult, preferably Tim. The thought of having all that safety and warmth on holiday with me, instead of being the responsible mother who had to worry about everything and look after her own body as well as someone else’s... well, I just felt I’d had enough of it. I was aware of a slight edge of desperation in the way I was spending money on Simon – because I knew that he would soon be going back to his dad, and I wanted to prove to him that I loved him. And he was just sitting there lapping it all up, because I had always been the looker-afterer and he had always been the child, but really he wasn’t any more, and I was getting older, and I could do with some support! So I was glad we had gone, and I was glad it was me deciding that this was enough for now rather than him pushing me away... All in all, it felt like a natural conclusion.

  45

  Retirement Homes

  My client work was erratic, and I was getting tired of continually having to sell myself. Also, it wasn’t such a growing edge for me any more: I had proved I could do it, and had experienced great satisfaction and fulfilment, but I was ready for a new experience, and certainly for a more reliable income. Tim suggested I apply to work in the care home where he had been working, so I did, and was accepted.

  It was challenging at first. I was in a completely new environment, wearing a uniform and trying to obey a multitude of instructions. Some of the other women were scary: they had been there for years and seemed to enjoy bossing me around, with an undercurrent of disapproval at my incompetence. They had a policy that couples weren’t allowed to work together, which was a great shame, but on the rare occasions when they couldn’t find anyone else and I got to work with Tim, I loved it. He was completely in his element: familiar with all the old folk, kind and warm and jokey, strong enough to help them in any way they needed, and able to amuse a whole room-full at once, which was something it took me years to find the confidence for.

  By now Tim had achieved something he had been planning since I first knew him, which was to bring his elderly mother down from Manchester and buy a home for them to share. After much searching, they agreed on a bungalow in the riverside village of Stoke Gabriel, six miles from Torbryan, and settled in together. We soon got into a pattern of two nights at his place, two nights at mine then two nights off, with the understanding that at some point in the future I would move in with him.

  From time to time he needed a break, so he would take his mother to our workplace to stay for a few days, which gave me an extra special chance to get to know her. Hazel was similar to Tim in some ways: warm, tactile and sympathetic, with engaging grey-green eyes. She was by this time becoming quite confused, and would sometimes call me to her room in the evening and tell me how distressed she was that Tim had left her there... When would she be able to go home? I explained that Tim was simply feeling tired and needed a few days off, and she was delightfully responsive: just a hug and a few kind words, then her eyes teared up with gratitude and she told me she would now be able to sleep in peace.

  Judy found a new boyfriend who spent a lot of time staying with us; then she made friends with his family and began to spend some of the time at his house. I still cleared up after her a lot, but we rubbed along together OK. In the holidays she would often find a job, but it was terribly frustrating for her, and annoying for me, trying to get her to and from work as well as meeting all the demands of her social life. So with Tim’s help and a great deal of self-determination she took driving lessons, passed her test and bought her first car... What an amazing moment, when she drove off all by herself! My little girl was finding her wings.

  Carmen offered me another snorkelling holiday: she wanted to go somewhere warm in the cold months of early 2011 and asked if I would be her companion. I um-ed and ah-ed a lot. We hadn’t been together for a whole week since I was about eighteen: I had always kept her at arms’ length, rationing visits and making sure I could escape when I needed to. But I would love to visit a coral reef again, and she was offering to pay. Was I ready for this? I told her I was, then I wasn’t; then when I finally said that I was, she said she wasn’t prepared to risk it unless we saw a therapist together beforehand, just to check out how we both felt about the whole venture.

  The therapist was slightly overwhelmed: Carmen and I had both done a lot of this sort of stuff, and had a tendency to take over. The moment that stands out for me was when I did something I had never done before in my life: just for a minute or so, I shouted at her face-to-face and told her what a stuck-up, superior bitch she was and how all my life I had wanted to love her but had been unable to because of her self-obsession, that she had allowed me to think that there was something wrong with me but that it was NOT MY FAULT! She hated it. It was very brief, but for me, deeply satisfying.

  And somehow now that the worst had been expressed, we decided we were ready to go. After the sickness I had experienced with Simon we made great efforts to find somewhere safe and hygienic, and ended up in a grand hotel on the beach in Sharmel Sheik. I spent a happy week reacquainting myself with my fishy friends, and apart from one funny moment Carmen and I got on fine, though unfortunately she had to spend an awful lot of time in her room resting: recovering from the journey, then from any little excursions we took to the beach or town. I’m sorry to say that this pattern of stress and rest is becoming familiar to me too as I get older.

  When I got back, Tim told me his mother had died. He had found it increasingly difficult to care for her in the five years they lived together. Although they basically had a good relationship, it was hard when it was just the two of them day after day. Towards the end he had developed shingles, then she had gone to hospital and then into a nursing home. Now he had to deal with the funeral, the distribution of her belongings and readjusting to life without her. I did my best to help him with it all.

  Judy ended her education and began to work full time, so I was no longer granted the tax credits allowed to a single mother. Tim and I looked at the figures long and hard, and decided that I simply couldn’t afford to live in Torbryan any longer, so now was the time to move in with him. We had been happily dreaming for some time about which room we would sleep in and where I would have my desk and so forth, and of course I had been there quite a lot, sometimes helping care for mum, more often just supporting him.... so it was quite an exciting prospect. Nevertheless, I had been in my little cottage for eleven years and I was going to miss it.

  I remember the spring of 2011 being particularly poignant. Although most of the front garden was now grassed over, a mass of colourful surprises still burst through the lawn and under the hedges every year: clumps of snowdrops, followed by gold and purple crocuses, primroses, daffodils and bluebells. This was such a special place – and I had stayed here for longer than anywhere else in my life. I gazed out of my window and wept.

  But by the time autumn came and I was ready to leave, I had done most of my grieving. With Tim’s help I packed and sorted, chucked and cleaned, filled in holes and touched up paintwork until it was as good as it could be, then said goodbye to Edward and Hazel and left.

  The bungalow was a bit of a challenge. I had tried to encourage Tim to find an older house, something I would feel more at-home in, but after a great deal of searching he and his mum had agreed on this one, and he liked it. To Tim, practicality was paramount; to me it was beauty that was all-important. When I lived in Ipplepen I had never managed to make my bungalow feel like home however much I painted it and personalized it; but this was a new situation... Tim told me we would probably be able to move after two or three years, but for now I must make the most of it.

  One good thing was that it was very light. The sunshine poured in through the great big French windows at the back of the house and made the living room bright and warm. I painted this and the dining room and hallway in a deep, rich yellow. I brought in some furniture, and hung a lot of hangings on the walls, put velvet curtains
in the bedrooms and rugs on the floors. Tim was happy for me to do what I wanted so long as there were certain areas just for him, such as his immaculately ordered workshop and his office in what used to be his mother’s bedroom. He had much higher standards of tidiness than I did, but I tried to take this as a positive thing and welcomed a reason to be more neat and aware.

  We had another bedroom for our wonderful super-king bed, while the third one was where Simon or Judy could stay and was full of all my books and files, pictures, ornaments and musical paraphernalia. I had thrown an awful lot out before I moved, but I remember sitting in this room after I had arranged everything and looking fondly at the colourfulness of it all, terribly grateful that I had at least hung on to my most important possessions. I very much needed an island of ‘me’ now I was living in someone else’s house.

  The kitchen area required all sorts of hilariously complicated negotiations about who had which cupboard and owned which piece of cutlery. Tim was good at adapting to another person’s environment, but when it came to sharing his own space he was quite scared and had to make a lot of divisions and rules. I knew him well, and was happy to play along; mainly I just found it funny and an enjoyable reason to tease him from time to time. The brilliant thing was that in the end neither of us took ourselves totally seriously; but its also true that we were domestically quite different. I found it easy to share, whereas he had had very bad experiences: being forced to share with his little brother who destroyed any toys he could get his hands on, then being at school with nothing of his own but a tuck box, and even that being invaded. He had a strong need to be in control of his possessions, and almost always had one or two duplicates hidden away just in case. And of course he had never had any children to bless his life with chaos.

  So I found the bungalow a little sterile and the rules a little silly, but I adapted and hoped we wouldn’t be there forever. I so much wanted it to be happy-ever-after. I loved him; he had a house; I felt safe.

  And then I met Mick.

  46

  Mick

  In November 2011 I went along to an open-mic evening in a pub in the village of Stokenteignhead with David, my guitarist friend. After sitting listening to other people for half an hour or so, our turn came round and we shuffled up to the front with music stand and song sheets; we made ourselves comfortable and I sang three or four songs to his skilful accompaniment. After we had finished and as I was going to the bar for a drink, a tall man approached me. He told me he was impressed with my lyric writing, and that he had written a lot of good tunes but they needed words to go with them, so perhaps I could help. I was suspicious, but a little bit hopeful. I wanted to make musical contacts: he might possibly be useful. Then he asked for a copy of my CD, so I went out to the car and got him one. David muscled in possessively and wanted to know who he was. Soon after that we left.

  I had given Mick Avis my phone number. A few days later he called me, and we had a nice chat. He told me which website to visit to listen to some of his songs. When I did I was surprised how much I liked them. Then we arranged to meet in a pub at the end of my working day.

  The Passage House Inn was decorated ready for Christmas, and the bar area was full of loud Christmas music, so we found somewhere to sit way down at the other end of the restaurant in the corner. Mick had photos of his house to show me, as part of a general introduction. He was proud of all the building he had done to restore this tumbledown moorland property into something sturdy and beautiful. My mind flashed back to the bungalow, and I thought how much I would prefer the old cottage where he lived with his partner, Penelope. He had three grown-up children, two of whom played in his band. He told me all about his musical aspirations and achievements.

  Being me, I told him very openly about myself: my creative frustration and longing to find someone to make music with, since David was a loyal accompanist but found it almost impossible to be spontaneous; my strong relationship with Tim and the challenge of living in his bungalow; the good connection I had with my children and how hard it had been with their father. I spoke from my heart, and by the end of the evening felt a little light-headed from being listened to so attentively. But one thing was for sure, and I told Tim as soon as I got home: there was no need to fear, I definitely didn’t find this man attractive.

  Next came Christmas, so we left it for a couple of weeks and got in touch afterwards, then Mick came down to the bungalow and we spent the afternoon sharing songs and tunes. I was alert to any signs that he might dominate me, and once or twice when I started to feel overwhelmed by his powerful guitar playing I asked him to stop and play something I could more easily sing to, which he was happy to do. One way or another, we began to discover areas in which we could musically meet. He played some tunes of his that had long been waiting for words and I managed to think of a few lines; I sang one or two of my songs and he accompanied, though he was obviously more at home with the rocky ones than the more gentle ones, being basically a rhythm guitarist.

  Best of all, towards the end of the day we began to do some improvised songs, like I occasionally did with Simon, picking random subjects and making up the words as we went along. I had recently been to a week long Improvisational Comedy workshop at Leela in which we were taught how to live on this glorious edge of moment-to-moment creativity, and it was thrilling to find someone in my everyday life who was willing to give it a go.

  It’s a tall order, to expect oneself to come out with something brilliant and completely spontaneous moment by moment, but so exciting when it works. Perhaps its a throwback from days when I couldn’t even string three words together without feeling agonisingly self-conscious, perhaps its part of my endless aspiration to go higher, deeper, freer... but whatever it was, Mick seemed to be excited by it too, so by the time he left we both felt there was interesting potential for further exploration.

  For a while he came about once a fortnight. I suggested I go to his house, but he said this wasn’t such a good idea, and it slowly came out that his relationship with Penelope wasn’t quite as rosy as he had first implied. He was deeply impressed with the way Tim and I could communicate so openly and express our feelings freely without blame or comeback, and admitted he was struggling with his partner and felt he had to swallow a lot of feelings because she was so reactive and unwilling to take responsibility for her part in things.

  We began to go for walks from time to time down by the river – Mick was very keen on walking – and he would tell me about himself, saying he had never told anyone these things before. He had felt alone for most of his life, in his eighteen-year marriage and then his twelve-year relationship with Penelope, which started with great excitement as they joined forces in house restoration but now made him feel as if he was walking on eggshells. He was cautious and respectful, but obviously hugely relieved to find someone to confide in. It seemed it was finally becoming unbearable for him to keep his pain to himself, and I was happy to listen and offer bits of wisdom from my own experience and my therapeutic knowledge.

  On several occasions Simon came to join us, and we had a great time. Mick struck up a good, strong rhythm on his guitar and Simon was immediately able to figure out what he was doing and join in, then I would find some words and we would be away. We sang a hilarious song about a man who was removing moss from the next door roof, and another one about the lonely coffee table, and another about Mick’s socks.

  That evening we went to an open-mic in Totnes. Mick and Simon had prepared a few possible chord sequences; we asked the audience for subjects and ad-libbed about hamsters, bicycles and the USA. It went remarkably well.

  A couple of weeks later the three of us went to our nearest beach together; Tim said he would prefer to stay at home as he had jobs to do on his car. It was only March, but a remarkably warm, sunny day. Mansands was wild and lovely. We sang about the rocks and the ocean and the wild spinach, which I collected by the armful. At one point I took Mick by the hand and danced him around on the sand. He was shy, bu
t rather thrilled. We clambered over the rock pools and explored the caves, where Simon experimented with different sounds of dropping and clapping and making echoes with his voice. He said he would come back and record them some time for the collection of samples he used in his electronic music.

  Sometimes when Mick came, Tim was out. Even if he wasn’t, he would generally leave us alone whilst he got on with jobs around the house and garden, perhaps joining us later for some food and a chat. Mick kept telling me that if we were going to make music together he thought it was a good idea for us to get to know each other, so we talked, and we talked... And then we sang and played, and then we talked some more. I asked David to come along once or twice but it didn’t work with the three of us: Mick found David too conservative and controlling, David found Mick a bit flighty and suspected him of fancying me.

  A lot of glancing went on. When we sang together we would inevitably look at each other from time to time, and with the power and expression of the sound and the words, and the energy that flowed from one to another as we took it in turns to lead or to support, an excitement grew between us that I wasn’t quite sure how to handle.

  He told me he was a bit too fond of me; I said that was OK, it made life interesting. Once or twice we held hands on our walks or had a hug. We talked a lot about Tim and Penelope, and what was acceptable behaviour considering our commitments. We hoped that at our age and stage it was possible to ‘have your cake and eat it too’ – meaning we didn’t want to leave our partners but we did want to enjoy each others’ company, and because we were older and sex wasn’t an issue any more it should be possible to do both. He often told me that whatever happened, he never wanted to lose my friendship: that he was prepared to be my friend on any terms that worked for me.