Nobody
is listening.
“Bloody
darkies. It’s always the darkies. What are they doing for England, eh? Nothing…”
she bickers to the empty seat opposite, eyes haggard and edged with stress, darkened
from the seemingly endless days in this cozy tomb of hers.
She
is not long for this world.
The
walls and ceiling of her bungalow are a hideous mottled yellow from a lifetime
of slow-drifting cigarette smoke - not hers, her husband, Errol’s. He was a
heavy smoker, but she never minded him smoking one bit. He passed on thirty
years ago or more, bless him. There are scrub marks in one corner of the room;
a former attempt by her younger self to scour away the faded lemon coloured sky.
She hasn’t noticed the yellowness for a long time now.
“…bloody
everywhere and they should get jobs, the lowlifes…”
Everyday,
in her calmer moments she tries to recall Errol; his personality, things he
said, their times together. She tries to maintain him in her steadily disappearing
mind. Sometimes she can summons a perfect image of him, sometimes entire
moments, conversations, weekends away together. In all those figments he is
perfect, clean-shaven with his hair combed and gelled back, shirt neatly
pressed with polished cufflinks like a gentleman fit for attendance with the
Queen. Even recalling his time dying, yellow cheeked, in that god-awful
hospital bed he is somehow perfect looking. But then at other times she can
barely recall his face, let alone what they did in the summer of ‘67 with the
Smythes down in Cornwall. Over 50 years of marriage slipping slowly through
her mind’s fingers.
“What’s
wrong with ‘em, walking around with guns and knives,” she continues. “I’ve read
th’papers and it’s always the dark skinned ones – bloody blacks…”
These
moments of forgetfulness are more edged with terror than sadness, especially
when seated, here, alone, in her cavernous house. So fear sometimes overtakes
her in the depths of the long, melancholic, tea-soaked afternoons. Today,
however, seems to be a good day and her memory is functioning clearly. Seems to
be. But breakdowns can come at any time.
“…this
certainly isn’t a safe neighbourhood anymore...”
She
stops her diatribe briefly; white bubble-specked spittle at the corners of her
downturned mouth and her sigh fills the room, not for the first or the last time
today. The curtains undulate gently with the sliver of breeze pushing through
the window that has been ajar since spring started.
“Those
new ones across the road,” she razors, pointing a bony purple veined finger, “I
don’t like them. Carl say’s they’re Arabs, but they’re just as bad as all the
other darkies, if you ask me.”
It’s
not that she’s racist – not truly racist – it’s just that she is terrified and
this is its manifestation. This is the stress of age and fear of the end taking
form; a metamorphosis into this bleak, rambling, blur of enmity.
Along
the mantelpiece runs photo after photo of family and friends, some alive and
well, some not so alive, some decades gone; Errol for example. More sit cluttering
the small table next to the armchair, staring out from the table at the window
and the world beyond, trapped, much like she is. One photo, in a gilded frame,
is of her and Errol standing on a stretch of Whitby Pier on a hazy autumn day,
a rainbow stretching and yawning its way across an otherwise dull sky. The line
of the horizon beyond the two figures is a mirror of her expressionless mouth
as she picks it up and stares at it intently, conjuring the memories of an age
bygone. Their smiles are winsome and
buoyant, a morbid juxtaposition to that seated in the tatty, crochet laden
armchair now. Moments later that peculiar feeling of remembrance sweeps over her
and she recalls the wonder of the day and the photo comes to life as intangible
memories flood her. The fish and chips upon the shore. The afternoon in the penny
arcades. The ever-present seagulls cawing in the distance. And the tiny dusty
bed’n breakfast where they enjoyed the sleep-in the next day. It’s all there
for her, somehow brought up from the depths of her hippocampus and beyond. Her eyes
water, just a touch and she places the photo lovingly back on the table.
“…we
should never have let them in, they take take take…” her rant continues briefly
with a shake of the head and a sniff. “Never…” Another sigh.
Next
on the table is a photo of her as a girl picking berries with her Grandmother
Beryl along the bramble and hedgerows in the North. They’re standing in a field
that stretches off into the distance with woodlands beyond. The sky is that kind
of radiant blue you can only find in forgotten old photos. This photo isn’t
forgotten, however – not yet. And to prove it she grabs it with two desperate,
unsteady hands and tries to recall that day too. It is perfect and she feels
her cheeks redden with the heat of the sharp early-summer sun. The smell of hay
from the field fills her olfactory senses and Grandma Beryl’s dress rustles and
flaps in the soft breeze. Great chestnut horses flick their tails placidly in
the distance. The raspberry and blackberry brambles are so full of berries you
can smell the sweetness in the air. Her fingers are young, plump, purpled with
juice. It truly is wonderful and so realistic. The last time she tried to
recall the day in question she couldn’t even recall her Grandma’s name. That
was followed by her forgetting why she wanted to remember in the first place
and confusion then consumed her further as she held the strange photo containing
two unrecognizable people from long ago. “What am I doing? Who are these
people?” she had mewed to the lamp stand, perplexed. “Uh, uh, Errol! Errol!
Where are you?” she called turning to look at the door, but a shadow, somewhere
in her mind, secretly knew he wouldn’t be walking through with his
what-is-it-dear look on his handsome face. But today – no problems for the
diminutive old woman.
She
jerks and continues her vociferation.
“Mrs
Gabbison is gone now. Replaced by bloody blacks. Mr Barlow at number 23 is gone
and their house is now filled with some strange Turkish family that can barely
speak a word of the Queen’s. The children play in the streets until 1am. I’ve
heard them at all hours...”
She
tuts and then exhales. She hasn’t had a visitor for days – in fact, she doesn’t
even remember who that last visitor was. Something stirs in her, some kind of ... anticipation, something shining on the edge of her mind – something good. Her
flat mouth curves upward at the edges momentarily before she mutes it and her
rant ignites further.
“I
mean, they leave me here all alone, weeks and months at a time.”
She
looks to her window, curtain still dancing in the soft breeze. She always
leaves a window open this time of year, always has, but she has been warned by neighbours
and well-wishers before that leaving it open till God-knows-when in the morning
is just inviting trouble.
“What
if one of those Turkish louts from next dear were to break in here and mug me –
or rape me and leave me for dead, eh? That’s what happened to Jenny Garrison.”
Jenny
Garrison is a character from a movie she watched a fortnight previous. She is
right though, her neighbourhood used to be safe; the families were good,
everyone knew each other. There was never a thought of any drugs, apart from
the drinks and fags down the local, maybe a Disprin for a headache. As for
guns, well this is England, not bloody Colombia. Nowadays the pages are
splashed with violence and youths doing all kinds of terrible things around her
beloved Britain.
Despite
these random rants of bigotry, she is in good form today and her memory is functioning
well. But attacks can come at any moment and leave her wasted and exhausted.
She
grabs the next framed photo off the small table with a grey wrinkled hand. It trembles
slightly, but jitters are completely normal at her age. She focuses in on the
image, hard, eyes squinting slightly and the new silence mounts as her thoughts
grapple at nothingness. This fellow in the photo has dark skin.
Unbeknownst
to her, a man she would describe as ‘ethnic’ stands downstairs and knocks
softly at her front door before digging his hands into his pockets. He waits,
looks up and down the street and knocks again, slightly louder this time. She, of
course, hears nothing. He waits some more and then inspects the street again
before checking the door handle. It's unlocked. He smiles.
“Who
is this then?” she blurts, picture in hand. “This isn't mine! Someone has been
in here planting photos to fool me. They’ll be in here to rob me next! Errol!” Like
an avalanche it comes and she hurls the portrait across the room with surprising
strength and it crashes into the ornate plate hung on the wall, pieces of glass
and porcelain falling to the carpet.
The
man, in her hallway now, blankly looks up the stairwell and then softly pads
down the hallway towards the lounge area; towards the old woman; he’s been here
before.
“Someone
is trying to rape me!” The woman screams from the chair whilst the man stands
behind her, unseen in the doorway. “Errol! A black man is coming after me!”
The
man’s eyes water as he watches her shout. He breathes deeply, gathering his wits
and raps loudly on the deer frosted-glass door to the living room.
The
old woman jerks around, terror in her eyes and she stares at him whilst her
mind searches behind the scenes for something to prompt her recognition. The fear
rages and then slowly, knowledge floods her mind, sweet, soothing knowledge,
that this man in the doorway is no rapist, he is her Grandson, Carl.
“Carl!”
she says sweetly, the smile erupting from her face like the sun cutting its way
through dark clouds. “Carl, sweetie!” She personifies love.
“Hey,
Gran, what’s the matter? Are you okay?”
“Yes.
Yes. I was just – ” she looks at him and then at the picture of him lying
amongst the shards of a broken plate on the carpet. “just, ah – ” Confusion
threatens her frailty again.
“It’s
okay, Gran. It must’ve fallen off. Don’t you worry, I’ll clean it up,” Carl
says softly.
He
walks across the room and picks the picture with the glass now split down the
middle. He places it gently back on the table next to her armchair and smiles.
“There.
All better, right?”
“Yes.”
She beams. “Carl, how are you dear?”
“Fine,
fine. Look what I have brought you.” He presents her with a jar of apricot jam.
“Straight from Annika’s kitchen to you, Gran.”
“That’ll
be lovely, thank you.”
“Shall
I make us some tea and toast for afternoon tea?”
“Oh,
yes,” she chimes. “Thank you, love.”
He
walks through to the kitchen and places the jar on the bench next four others
sat there. He opens the cupboard and there are dozens more jars of preserves
and relishes, some half eaten, some unopened. He brings her a jar of jam or
relish every time he visits her, which is basically every day on his lunch
break, if he can escape his busy office.
He
walks back through to the lounge with a tray full of fruit toast, blackberry
jam and tea.
“Oh,
looks lovely!” she says, chuffed, all traces of the rambling bigot well gone.
“Does,
doesn’t it. It’s like the jam you used to make! Not quite as good though.” He
sends her a sneaky smile. They sit there quietly and comfortably munching on
toast and sipping at tea.
“Gran,
tell me about that time you went to Whitby with Grandad,” he asks.
“Whitby?
Well, I’m not sure if I can remember, dear… Oh, yes.” The elderly woman then chuckles
warmly before launching confidently into her story. Not a detail is missed, not
about the sky, the seagulls, how handsome his grandfather was or the wonderful bed’n
breakfast the next day. She recounts every subtlety with a radiant smile.
Later,
after the centimeter of tea left in the bottom of the cups have cooled, he asks
her what her grandmother was like, as he always does.
“My
grandmother. Well that’s your . . . Great Great Grandmother Beryl. Ooh, she was
lovely.”
“What
did you do with her?”
“We
used to go berry picking up north every summer, we did,” she intones before
launching into the same story she unknowingly delivers to him every day. This
act of kindness, this fractional sacrifice of Carl’s, is his service to his
heritage and he sits there with his smile mirroring hers as she glows and escapes
her dreariness for an hour. Carl has his grandmother’s mouth. He has his
Grandfather Errol’s nose too.
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