Staunch

by Eleanor Wood

  She decided to come on the trip at the last minute. She lived in Germany and Hong Kong, and now divides her time between the UK, Australia and Cyprus. But she had not set foot in India since she left at the age of two. She had no memory of living there.

  She is one of the few people in my family never to have been divorced. She met her husband when they were still at school. They travelled the world and had a fabulous life together. Then when he became unexpectedly ill, she spent many years looking after him, until he died a few years ago.

  She’s only in her early seventies and I cannot stress enough that she is a very hot woman. She could definitely get herself another dude if she wanted to. But she adamantly doesn’t want to. She does not want to look after another man. I can understand this.

  She has incredible friends, goes to every art exhibition in London and sees every film, and travels a great deal. She makes it look fabulous. I would happily emulate her life when I am in my seventies. In fact, our lives are not that dissimilar now, only she has more time for fun than I do. I only wonder if I would be sad to miss out on the bit in between, with the husband and the children. She now has grandchildren who bring her a lot of joy. It would be a shame not to have that.

  While we’re away, I tell her more and more about the ongoing saga with The Lecturer. She is appalled.

  ‘No, Ells! Do not put your eggs in that basket. Do not put one single, solitary egg in that basket.’

  The thing is, whenever I tell anyone about our relationship, it sounds a bit lame. I don’t even know how to refer to it – I’m certainly not permitted to call him my boyfriend, but saying we’re ‘just friends’ doesn’t sound quite correct either.

  I argue the case for him anyway. I’m not even sure why. I can barely even justify our relationship to myself. Even my therapist says she has no idea what exactly I get out of it.

  Still, I tell Ann that he’s supposed to be coming to stay for the weekend when we get back, and I’m hoping we can ‘discuss our relationship’.

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake. Why do you need to discuss your relationship? That’s not a good sign. You shouldn’t have to discuss it. That all sounds like very hard work.’

  Again, I know she is right. This really strikes a chord with me, despite what I’ve been trying to tell myself – all my ‘proper’ relationships, where we’ve both really been in it together, have not been this much hard work.

  Ann’s advice means a lot to me because, I discover, we are very similar in many ways. We are a great tag-team on the trip, making sure that we each have some alone time, which is necessary for both of us – I go swimming in the sea, she lies by the pool and reads. Then we drink beers together and hang out on the balcony, chatting.

  We have similar interests and temperaments, but as the trip goes on, I realize she is a lot braver and a lot more straightforward than I am. Maybe it’s a part of staunchness that comes with age – maybe you get tired of the bullshit and of making things more palatable for other people. I hope so, as I would like to be more like her, in this respect and many others.

  I’ve been working in therapy at trying to speak my mind more, worry less about what other people think, overcoming my outsized fear of conflict. Sometimes now in these situations I try to think of Ann. She has become one of my barometers.

  She has no time for small talk, one of the other ways that she can seem intimidating. But, more satisfyingly, you can go right into the big subjects with her and she doesn’t turn a hair. She and I take to going for long walks together, just the two of us, on the long roads into the nearby towns, that are full of tuk-tuks, mopeds and cows. It’s about the walking rather than the destination. We walk as far as we can go along the road, stop in town for a lime soda, then walk back again, talking continuously.

  ‘Did you ever experience any sexism in the workplace? Do you think your daughter will marry her girlfriend? Do you mind both of your children living in Australia? Did you know you would marry your husband when you were teenagers at school together?’

  She is also the family truth-teller. I have a weird compulsion to make every bad thing that has ever happened to me into a funny story. I definitely get this tendency from my grandmother, who has passed it down to all of us. Ann has no time for such rose-tinted spectacles and for that I have the greatest respect for her.

  It’s through her that I get to the bottom of a lot of the family myths. When Nan tells a story, it’s invariably the sunny side. She’s told them like this so many times she believes it: everything was lovely, it all worked out fine in the end.

  ‘It didn’t happen quite like that, Dot,’ Ann will say gently.

  She will tell the real story, factually and calmly, and everyone will remember that, yes, that is how it actually happened. It doesn’t cause a row; nothing bad happens.

  I vow to stop putting a spin on things, which sometimes I do without even really knowing why. It certainly doesn’t do any good. I not only want to be more staunch, but to give my time and energy only to the things that actually matter – in short, I want to try to be a bit more like Ann.

  October 1948

  A few months after Rose moved down to London by herself, the family followed behind her, as soon as they could. Initially, they moved into rented rooms in Chiswick along with Dolly’s sister and her family. Then they received a British Legion grant being offered to re-settlers to help them buy a house: £250 to act as a deposit.

  Dolly and Chum bought their house in Acton, West London, for £2,000. That obviously seems ridiculous compared to London house prices today, but Nan reminds me that this was a huge amount of money to them at the time. I remember that house as being enormous – as children, my cousin Nic and I would use the three storeys’ worth of staircase as the perfect backdrop for us to perform choreographed renditions of ‘It’s a Hard Knock Life’ – but when I see pictures of it now, it looks small compared to my memories. It was a very nice, ordinary terraced house in a nice quiet street off the main high street.

  Ann and Sam, the two youngest children of the second marriage, have lives very different from their older siblings. They grew up in a completely different culture on the other side of the world.

  The older children were brought up as the little prince and princesses of the Raj. Their childhood was full of servants and afternoon teas being served on the lawn. Ann was two when they left India, and Sam was the only child to be born in the UK, unlike their older siblings. So Ann and Sam had a typical upbringing in 1950s West London. Their house was opposite the park, where they would go to the fair when it came to town; they went to the ordinary local school and went into town on a Saturday, and occasionally got a bus into the West End. They certainly didn’t have servants.

  Despite having English surnames and RP accents, we were essentially an immigrant family. Not only was the UK totally foreign, and this whole new life took a lot of acclimatising to, but the Indian customs of the family remained. There was curry for lunch every Sunday and Dolly would go on shopping expeditions to Southall to get the exact right type of Brinjal pickle, which you just can’t get in an English supermarket.

  To this day, the family slang is still sprinkled with the odd Anglo-Indian word or phrase. When I was little, I always assumed everyone understood what they meant. Nan would ask me if I wanted unda bunda (egg) for breakfast, and tell me to juldi (hurry up) and get in the gussel (bath). She would sing me Indian lullabies that she remembered from her ayah, that I still know word for word. In fact, it’s only on our trip to India that I learn what some of it actually means.

  When I think about it now, the staunch resilience – particularly of Dolly and Chum – makes me feel somewhat ashamed of my own inability to get my shit together. They had to take jobs where they could, and they worked hard and without complaint.

  Some elements of living in London must still have been baffling. Someone smashed the pot plants that they put outside in the front garden for no good reason. They were robbed when a man knocked at the door, asking
for directions – Chum asked him in and got out his A–Z – while an accomplice broke in at the back and grabbed Dolly’s handbag and everything else they could get their hands on. Still, the family became a part of the community. They made great friends with the Indian family who lived next door, as well as all their English neighbours. Nan’s brother Bill got together with Polly, the girl who lived across the road.

  Chum found a job working in the office of Smith’s clock factory. Nan says he hated his job – although you’d never have known it – but his great joy was playing for the factory hockey team and occasionally going out after work to play darts.

  Even Dolly, who had never cooked a meal until the age of forty-two, helped to make ends meet by working as a tea lady. She’d go out every morning at ten o’clock to take tea and biscuits around a local office, where a neighbour had got her the job.

  In a practical sense, life was pretty tough, but Nan – and I don’t think it’s just her rose-tinted spectacles talking – remembers this as the happiest of times. They were all so grateful to be alive, to be together and to have a roof over their heads.

  ‘Honestly, I can never remember any of us feeling unhappy in that house. I think it was because we used to do so much as a family. We’d play cards in the evenings, play big games of Crown and Anchor. Of course, there was no television. We just entertained ourselves as a family. We all just got on. We made the best of it and it was honestly a very happy time.’

  I vow to try to remember this more.

  Present Day

  Anjuna Market is in northern Goa. It’s a legendary tourist spot and hippie mecca, founded by hippie Western tourists in the Sixties and, according to Lonely Planet, it’s ‘as much part of the Goan experience as a day on the beach’.

  Of all the Goa hotspots, this is the one that has been recommended me the most, by a few friends and my cool youngest cousin, Carrie. Carrie knows me very well and we have similar taste in things – so when she texts me saying I will LOVE it and absolutely must go, I really, really want to.

  Going to a vast market with Nan and Rose, who can’t walk too far, doesn’t necessarily sound like the best idea, and Ann despises shopping (it bores the shit out of her). However, they are all invariably up for an adventure – whatever it looks like – so we decide that, if I really want to go, then all four of us are going together.

  ‘We can always find somewhere to sit and have a drink while you look around, Ells,’ is always Nan’s pragmatic, and quite generous, plan.

  The market is held every Wednesday and I can’t wait. However, I have to. The first time we attempt to go on a Wednesday, Rose has an upset stomach and Nan is tired out, so we spend the day at the hotel instead and vow to go the next Wednesday. This sort of slowing down and going with the flow is one of the lessons this trip is teaching me. If it were just me, I always want to do all of the things all of the time. I cannot do enough things and I cannot do them quickly enough. I am beginning to realize that the world does not end if I am not constantly occupied. In fact, becoming comfortable with a more sedate pace is a great gift.

  Everyone we speak to suggests going to Anjuna as early in the morning as possible, as it gets very hot and crowded as the day goes on. Of course, this in itself is quite the mission, considering how long it takes us to get ready and have breakfast every day.

  Of course, on the designated day, I come back from my early morning yoga class to find the usual getting-ready chaos going on. Rose is still in the shower and Nan is debating which of her half a dozen pairs of identical white Capri pants to wear. Ann is sensibly on the balcony, reading her book and drinking tea, staying well out of the fray, like some sort of Yoda-like figure.

  By the time we finish breakfast and are finally ready to go, it’s nearly eleven o’clock. Anjuna is a good couple of hours’ drive away, traffic and cows in the road permitting. We finally get a driver organized and bundle into the car.

  As we head north of Panaji, the vibe changes. North Goa looks more like somewhere I might come on holiday if I were with my most-fun girlfriends. Driving through the beach towns of North Goa, there are posters everywhere for beach parties and live bands, signs advertising cheap massages, many fairy lights and bearded Western hippies in sarongs. In short, it’s my kind of place.

  They are all heading down the dirt track in the same direction, like stoned lemmings. Market stalls start to spring up as the track gets rougher. This is Anjuna Market. It’s exactly like arriving at Glastonbury.

  By the time we get there, the sun is beating down fiercely and the market is packed full of people. Our driver drops us off in a makeshift car park on the edges, along one side of which is a long row of mopeds and cows. We follow the flow of hippies – Rose with her walking stick, Nan holding onto my arm – and head into the market.

  The first person to approach us is a sketchy-looking old man with a beard. Before we know what is happening or have the chance to stop him, he is sticking a long, sharp needle-like implement into Rose’s ear and pulling out reams and reams of earwax, which he wipes off onto the heel of his own hand before going in and digging again.

  ‘Look! Look how much!’ he keeps exclaiming, pulling more and more frankly ludicrous amounts of wax out of Rose’s ear and showing it to us in his hand.

  It’s hypnotic. It’s like magic. I am amazed that much detritus could be in there. No wonder her hearing is so poor, which is a problem that she finds deeply annoying. However, despite her poor hearing and walking stick, I don’t think the earwax man counted on Rose having quite so many wits about her. She is, in fact – unlike me – the last person he should have picked to try to pull off a typical tourist scam like this.

  ‘Hang on just a minute,’ Rose says loudly, while I’m still transfixed by this spectacle. ‘I’ve got my hearing aids in. All that muck can’t possibly have come out of my ear. You couldn’t get that thing in there if you tried.’

  The earwax man initially starts to argue and demand money, but Rose has a loud voice and the staunch air of unfuckable-with-ness that only comes with age. A small crowd has gathered, and their initial enthusiasm has turned to chuntering. The earwax man makes a run for it.

  I think to myself that he should probably just have asked me for money and I’d have given it to him. He didn’t really need to have gone to all the bother of the elaborate earwax pantomime. However, I just keep quiet.

  The stalls here are much the same as everywhere else. Lots of jewellery, kaftans, big tasselled throws and various knick-knacks. Rose and I are the two of the group who enjoy buying a surplus of Indian souvenirs the most. Ann is not the least bit interested and Nan just likes the attention of getting involved and looking at things, then I get embarrassed when she fails to actually want to buy anything, so Rose and I have to buy even more to compensate for her. I feel guilty and beholden every time.

  ‘It’s their job, darling,’ Nan shrugs, with the attitude she sees as only sensible. ‘They’d be there on their stalls whether I’m there looking at things or not. I’m not obliged to buy anything.’

  I guess she’s right, but I can’t shake the feeling of guilt that follows me everywhere I go. I feel like, when people are so keen for you to spend money on their stall, I should be careful not to get their hopes up. As so often in life, probably people care about what I’m doing a lot less than I assume they do.

  I trail around with Rose, helping her pick out endless presents for her son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren, while my nan and Ann get increasingly bored. They eventually suggest finding somewhere to sit down and get a drink, while I go off and explore on my own.

  For the first time on this holiday, I unexpectedly feel like I’ve been set free. I’ve been in the slow bubble of an alternate universe, away from everything, and it’s been perfect. But here, unexpectedly, I am reminded of being back in my own life – and I realize it’s actually a pretty good feeling.

  I feel utterly at home here and I find myself wondering what it would be like to be here with my friends,
to have a totally different sort of trip. I wonder what it would be like to be here with The Lecturer and I’m not sure. I can’t imagine him in India, with his pale skin and his old cricket jumpers, but then he can be very unexpected sometimes. I send him a picture of the chaos here – the hot, dusty mixture of hippies, mopeds and cows – and wait for his pithy response. We both like to play up to our respective stereotypes. Then I put my phone away and go exploring.

  So, just for an hour, I go off and I have the sort of holiday that I would have if I were here alone. I am in my element. Everyone is so friendly and it’s lovely to wander around in the hot sunshine, chatting to the stallholders and hippies. I buy a bumper pack of cut-price incense, which I am constantly burning at home. I buy a little brass owl for The Lecturer, in reference to a silly long-ago joke that he has probably forgotten but still makes me laugh. I’m not sure I will even give it to him, but I buy it just in case.

  I buy a couple of unbelievably cheap and lovely Indian summer dresses. I know I won’t be able to wear them again for months at home, but I reason this will give me something extra to look forward to when I’m back in the midst of a grey British winter. Maybe I’ll wear them around the house to cheer myself up.

  I buy a ring from a lady who tells me this is her first sale of the day and will bring us both good luck. She seems so delighted about it, I choose to believe her. I wear it so often when I get home, eventually I just get a tattoo of it. I like to think it’s perpetual good luck.

  In an incredible coup, I find a stall selling crystals. Amid all the other hippie tat I’ve been buying all over the place, these are the first I’ve seen in India. At home, I have them dotted around my house, usually small purchases I have made because I have been having a bad day and automatically head to the local new-age shop to try and buy myself a little bit of good fortune. As if it’s that easy.

  The young guy running the crystal stall is wearing a tie-dye T-shirt and an air of extreme enthusiasm. On learning that I am British, he asks me if I’ve ever been to Glastonbury, to which I reply, ‘of course, every year!’.