Days Like These

by Sue Margolis

  “So, can I take the necklace to school?”

  Mum says she’d rather Rosie didn’t because it might get lost.

  “Is it worth lots of money?”

  “No, darlink. But it’s still very precious.” She says that Rosie should only wear it on special occasions. “When you go home, I think you should let Mummy look after it.”

  “OK.” But she insists on wearing it for the rest of the day. “And, Nana … thank you.” With that she throws her arms around her great-grandmother.

  “My pleasure, darlink. May you have the health to wear it and the strength to tear it.”

  Rosie looks confused but doesn’t say anything. She’s used to her nana’s strange sayings from the olden days.

  We leave Rosie to get back to her unboxing and head downstairs.

  “You just did a wonderful thing,” I say, tipping Führer spray down the kitchen sink.

  “I always meant for you to have it after I died. Are you angry with me?”

  “What? Of course not. It’s a child’s necklace. Rosie should have it.”

  “Just make sure she looks after it, that’s all.”

  “I will. I promise. I’ll speak to Abby when she gets back.”

  • • •

  When Sam finds out that Rosie’s been given a special present, he’s not best pleased. “It’s not fair. Why should she get something precious and not me?”

  I explain about Rosie being scared of Hitler and how Nana thinks the Jewish star will protect her.

  “You mean like a lucky rabbit’s foot?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Well, Dad says only stupid people believe in rabbits’ feet. He says it’s just superstition. I agree.”

  “And you’re probably right. But will you please do me a favor and not share your opinion with Rosie?”

  “’K… .”

  “No, that’s not good enough. You absolutely have to promise.”

  “Fine. I promise.”

  Even though he’s only just finished his breakfast, I shove a packet of prawn-cocktail-flavor Monster Munch into my grandson’s hands to say thank you.

  • • •

  It’s been sheeting with rain all night and it still hasn’t stopped. At eight o’clock I got a call to say that Sam’s football practice had been canceled. Rosie said that as Sam wasn’t going to football, she wanted to skip her swimming lesson and stay home, too.

  “But your mum and dad have already paid for your swimming lessons. You really ought to go.”

  “But it’s just this once. I’d rather stay here and do stuff with you and Sam. We could play Jenga.”

  I didn’t take a lot of persuading. Jenga was fun, whereas drinking stewed coffee in the municipal poolside café while my hair and clothes soaked up burger and fries smell was not.

  While Sam went to find the Jenga box, Mum made a start on a cheesecake. Estelle Silverfish was dropping by later.

  • • •

  We’ve been playing Jenga for over an hour. Rosie’s cross because Sam is more dexterous than she is, and she’s getting more and more frustrated that she can’t move the bricks without the tower collapsing. She tells me to go away when I offer to help. She wants to beat Sam on her own. I admire her grit, but I know it’s going to end in tears. When her clumsiness destroys the tower yet again, she starts throwing Jenga bricks around and kicking Sam.

  “Hey—what was that for?”

  “I hate you.”

  “Why? Just because I’m better at Jenga than you and you’re a stupid mal-co.”

  Mal-co. Bully-speak. Short for mal-coordinated. Despite being banned, it’s commonly used at the kids’ school, typically during a football match when the goalie misses an easy save.

  “I am not a mal-co,” Rosie yells. She leans across to hit her brother, but I manage to grab her arm.

  “OK—Rosie, that’s enough. You need to calm down. It isn’t Sam’s fault that he’s older than you and he’s got a steadier hand… . Sam, that word is nasty and unkind. You are never to use it again. Do you understand?”

  “But she said she hated me.”

  “I know. That doesn’t give you an excuse to call her names.”

  “Yes, it does.”

  “You’re a mal-co, too!” Rosie said.

  “Rosie, did you hear what I just said to your brother?”

  “Don’t care. He is.”

  At this point Mum appears, wiping her hands on her apron. “Vot on earth is all this noise? What would your parents say, hearing you shouting like this? You both deserve a smack tush. Now both of you—go to your rooms. And don’t expect any lunch.”

  In all the time my mother has known her great-grandchildren, she has never raised her voice to them. So taken aback are they by her scolding that they make no attempt to argue. Glaring at each other, they leave the room.

  “Mum, you were brilliant.”

  “What can I tell you? I’m a natural disciplinarian.”

  “No, you’re not. When I was growing up you left all that to Dad.”

  “That’s all you know. I used to send you to bed without supper.”

  “Once maybe.”

  “More than once.”

  “But we can’t let them miss lunch.”

  “Why not?” Mum says. “It will be good for them. Bad behavior deserves consequences.”

  “I know. But you can’t starve them.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. They’re not going to starve. OK, I tell you what … They can have bagels for lunch, but no smoked salmon. Just cream cheese. How’s that?”

  My mother remembers when the average weekly wage was twenty pounds and smoked salmon cost a pound a pound. To her it will always be a luxury.

  “Fine.” The kids prefer cream cheese anyway.

  But in the end no further punishment is required. Sam and Rosie manage twenty minutes in their rooms. They come down looking sheepish and full of apologies. “We’ve made up, so please don’t send us back to our rooms.”

  Mum pretends to be weighing up their request. “I’m not sure.”

  “Please?”

  She shrugs. “Fine. But no more fighting.”

  “’K.”

  “Now come here for a kiss. Then you give your grandma a kiss. She’s doing her best to look after you. I won’t have you upsetting her.”

  Without the kids seeing, I mouth a thank-you to my mother.

  Kisses and hugs done, I suggest the kids do their homework before lunch. My motive is purely selfish. I have my sights set on sitting down with a cup of coffee and the Sunday papers. The children have other ideas. While they were upstairs they hatched a plan. They want to teach Mum and me how to play Minecraft. I’m instantly looking for an escape route. To me, computer games—even highly sophisticated ones—seem arid and monotonous. I would much rather escape into real-life drama—albeit fictionalized. I need characters to care about, to root for—even ones in some crappy soap or a made-for-TV movie. I see nothing mind-enhancing about pitting my wits against brutes and beasts in some cartoonish virtual world.

  Mum seems to be intrigued and raises no objections. Meanwhile I make my excuses. I really need to put in a supermarket order. The carpets need a good Hoover. But they’re not taking any notice. Sam’s PlayStation is all set up and ready to go. Sam and Rosie climb onto the sofa and squeeze in between Mum and me. “OK, watch this.”

  A strange terrain appears on the screen. We have entered some kind of barren robot world where the trees, hills and even the sun are made up of cubes.

  “Couldn’t they have made it a bit more realistic?” Mum says. “I thought these computer people were meant to be clever.”

  “They are clever,” Sam says. “Just keep watching. OK … so during the day we collect resources. At night we fight baddies.”

  Mum is leaning in. To show willingness, so am I. “What sort of baddies?” Mum says.

  Rosie explains that there are exploding zombielike creatures called Creepers who attack at night. “So we need to build a
house quickly, before dark.” Soon they have my mother left-clicking the mouse on a tree trunk to make wood.

  “Ha! Well, will you look at that? It’s all very clever, Judy, don’t you think? Can I do it again?”

  Once Mum has gathered enough wood, the kids have her building something called a crafting table. Soon she’s making spades and pickaxes and burning wood to make charcoal. She’s oohing and aahing. The children are laughing—tickled that she’s enjoying it. I’m trying really hard to work up any enthusiasm. The kids pick up my antipathy.

  “Gran’ma thinks it sucks,” Sam says to his sister.

  “I don’t think it sucks exactly… .”

  “But it’s so exciting,” Rosie says. “Why don’t you like it?”

  “I guess I just don’t see the point. Are you disappointed that I don’t like it much?”

  “Uh-uh. Mum doesn’t get it, either.”

  My mother, on the other hand, appears to be hooked. “Right, so how much time do we have left to finish the house? I don’t want the baddies getting us.”

  I’m baffled. I can’t begin to explain why my mother has taken to Minecraft. Maybe it’s more about her enjoying connecting with the kids. Meanwhile I am desperate for the phone to ring, for somebody to knock at the door—anything to take me away from this. So when Mum says the cheesecake should be done by now, I’m on my feet before you can say sour cream topping.

  “Stay where you are, Mum. I’ll go and check on the cake.”

  I leave the cheesecake to cool. The bundle of Sunday papers is still lying on the doormat. I shove it under my arm, head upstairs to the bedroom and close the door.

  • • •

  Estelle Silverfish arrives just after three. “Look at me. I’m drenched. I only walked from the cab to here and I had an umbrella.” Estelle Silverfish shares my mother’s fondness for exaggeration. Brian used to call it tabloiding. She has a few spots of rain on her leather coat. Mum takes the umbrella while I help Estelle Silverfish off with her coat. I hang it on the coat stand in the hall. Meanwhile I can hear her asking Mum if she thinks the water will stain.

  “You didn’t Scotchgard it?”

  “I forgot.”

  “How could you forget? The first thing you do when you buy leather is Scotchgard.”

  Unlike my mother, who values comfort and practicality over style, Estelle Silverfish is all about style. Over the years, if she’d had the inclination, Mum could have looked as elegant as Estelle Silverfish. She had everything going for her. She was just as slim and attractive. Dad used to say she was way more attractive, that she had prettier eyes and higher cheekbones. But fashion never interested my mother. If she’s neat and tidy, she’s satisfied. Dad adored Mum as she was and always encouraged her indifference to things sartorial—on the grounds that it saved him a fortune.

  Today Estelle Silverfish is wearing knee-high suede boots with a kitten heel and a rust-colored tunic over skinny charcoal trousers. She’s pulled the outfit together with a double string of rust-colored beads and matching earrings. Unlike Mum, she isn’t naturally thin. When you ask her how she keeps her figure, she laughs and tells you she hasn’t eaten since 1979. Phil Silverfish, on the other hand, weighed nearly two hundred and eighty pounds when he died. The three junior Silverfish—two boys and a girl—are also overweight. “Estelle’s a feeder. What can I tell you?” Mum said when Naomi Silverfish got a gastric band. “She can’t enjoy eating, so instead she force-feeds her family.”

  Mum disappears to fetch the new spring coat she finally bought. I’ve seen it, but she’s been desperate to show it off to Estelle Silverfish. She comes back wearing the three-quarter-length camel coat, which is slightly too wide on the shoulders and too long in the sleeve. I’m less than keen, but I wouldn’t say anything for the world. Estelle Silverfish is looking as if she’s struggling to find something polite to say. But Mum doesn’t notice because she’s too busy giving us a twirl.

  “So go on. You have to guess. How much do you think I paid for it?”

  “I don’t know,” Estelle Silverfish says. “A hundred.”

  “Ten.”

  Estelle Silverfish’s eyes widen. Even she can see it’s worth more than ten quid.

  “It’s secondhand, but it’s hardly been worn. I got it on eBay. You won’t have heard of it because you’re not online, but you can buy and sell anything. I was surfing and I just stumbled across it. I even opened a PayPal account.”

  “A what?”

  “It’s for people who do a lot of Internet shopping. You wouldn’t understand. So, what do you think?” Mum turns back the sleeves and gives another twirl.

  “It’s very practical.”

  She hates it.

  Just as we’re sitting down to tea and cake, the kids burst into the kitchen demanding snacks. While I go in search of nuts and raisins, Estelle clucks over the children: how they’ve grown, how Rosie looks just like one of the daughters in Fiddler on the Roof, how with those big brown eyes Sam’s going to break a few hearts when he gets older.

  Once the kids have disappeared back to their rooms, I congratulate her on her granddaughter’s upcoming nuptials.

  “What can I tell you? Both girls are wearing trouser suits. How’s that going to look in the photographs? I’ve offered to buy them wedding dresses. They don’t want to know.”

  “You need to pull back,” Mum says. “It’s their day, not yours.”

  “I know, I know. But they’re both such beautiful girls. Would it hurt them to wear dresses?” Estelle Silverfish places her hand on my mother’s. “Frieda, please change your mind and say you’ll come to the wedding. I really want you to be there … for moral support.”

  “You need my support because the two brides refuse to wear dresses?”

  “It upsets me what people will think.”

  “People will think they’re lesbians.”

  “Fine. But I’d like you to come anyway. You’re my best friend.”

  Mum makes her misery face. “I don’t know. I don’t have the energy I used to have.”

  I remind my mother that for over a week she’s been preparing three meals a day for four people. “You have plenty of energy.”

  “That’s what you think.”

  “It’s what I know.”

  “You don’t know how I feel.” She turns to Estelle Silverfish. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Good. And I’ll keep on nagging.”

  I leave them to gossip, but not before I’ve helped myself to a second slice of my mother’s sour-cream-and-vanilla-infused cheesecake. Back in the living room, I’m chowing it down and eavesdropping.

  The pair of them is cackling. That’s twice I’ve caught my mother laughing today. “He looks nice,” Estelle Silverfish is saying. “I like a man with a strong chin. Nice eyes. I’d say he’s a kind, reliable sort… . Calls himself Big Max.” The cackling gets louder. “Omigod, this one’s wearing a gold chain … No, I don’t like the look of him … too flash. And look at his nose hair.”

  “That’s not nose hair. It’s a bit of schmutz on the screen.”

  “I think I like Big Max best. I wouldn’t mind giving him a try. So what do I do now? I read somewhere about how you need to poke people?”

  “No, you message him on the Web site… . Here, I’ll show you. ‘Hello… . My … name … is … Estelle. I … am … seventy-five years young… .’”

  “Good idea to lie about my age. We don’t want him to think I could keel over any minute. OK … you need to tell him I am a widow, well preserved, a size ten … that I’m in good shape … have all my own teeth … that I’m not on too many pills … just a blood pressure tablet and the occasional Tums.”

  “Very sexy.”

  “You’re right. So maybe I won’t mention my hip operation?”

  “Best not.”

  I must have dozed off, because the next thing I know, Mum and Estelle Silverfish are waking me up with another cup of tea. Estelle perches on the sofa, practically next to my head, the la
ptop on her knees.

  “So, Judy … your mother and I … we’ve been on the computer and we’ve found a couple of chaps you might like.”

  “No. Not this again.”

  “Just listen,” Mum says.

  I sip my tea and decide the easiest thing to do is to give Estelle Silverfish the floor and let her words wash over me.

  “One’s bald, but he’s got a nice face and at your age you can’t be too fussy.”

  “I’m sorry—bald or not—I’m really not interested.” So much for letting her words wash over me.

  “Maybe not, but why don’t you just take a look at their profiles?”

  “Honestly I’d rather not.”

  “What did I tell you?” Mum says.

  I try to stay calm. “Look, I know you both mean well, but I’m not ready to start dating.”

  Estelle Silverfish looks at Mum. “What do you do with her? She’s such a good catch. Nice figure. Trendy haircut. Her face is holding up.”

  “I’ve told her. She won’t listen to me.”

  Estelle shrugs, looks at her watch and says she has to run. Her son and his wife are taking her out for Chinese. “The rain has stopped, so I’ll take the bus.”

  She fusses over her leather coat, which appears to have a couple of watermarks. She’ll show it to her dry cleaner, who apparently worked miracles on her silk blouse.

  “So,” Estelle Silverfish says to Mum, lowering her voice. “You’ll let me know if I get a message from …” She mouths the words “Big” and “Max.” She has no idea I overheard her and Mum while they were on the dating Web site.

  “Will do.”

  After Mum has seen Estelle Silverfish out, she starts on me again: “What’s wrong with you? Why are you so against entering the world of the living?”

  “I’ve told you, I will think about dating when I’m ready. And anyway—what about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “You’re happy enough to sort Estelle out with Mr. Whopper or whatever his name is, but since Dad died you’ve never even looked at another man.”

  “Don’t you know it’s rude to eavesdrop?”

  “I couldn’t help it. The two of you were cackling like Macbeth’s witches.”

  “Well, maybe if I’d had a mother giddying me up and nagging me, I would have started dating again.”