Have the Men Had Enough? Read online

  Have you been, Mum?

  Are there men about?

  She hasn’t been, of course, but then she goes and Bridget puts her thumb up. Then the washing of the hands begins, the long, slow, careful soaping and rinsing, though Grandma does not let the water run, good heavens, no, she uses only an inch or so, with the plug firmly in. When she’s finished her Lady Macbeth stunt she will leave the little bit of water and invite others to use it. Out she comes, on with the coat again, and this time Bridget and I manage it quite easily. Grandma is looking at the same photograph I’ve been studying. She says she’s sure she knows that person. Bridget is so amused she’s happy to delay. She teases Grandma, asking her if she thinks the lady pretty, if she thinks she’s a good-looker and she howls with laughter when Grandma sniffs and says she looks a hussy, she needs her hair combed. At this rate we’ll never get home.

  It’s ridiculous to call it home. Grandma’s home. It’s a flat, in the next street to ours, just round the corner. Dad pays the rent. It’s on the ground floor of a double-fronted house and theoretically Bridget has the right-hand side rooms and Grandma and the helpers have the left. Up above, but quite self-contained with their own staircase, are two male actors who bother nobody and are very quiet. Bridget has a kitchen, a bathroom, a bedroom and a sitting room and Grandma has the same except there’s a sofa-bed in her sitting room which is really another bedroom where the helpers sleep. But half the time Bridget is in Grandma’s room and the other half Grandma in hers and it annoys Dad. He says it’s a farce maintaining, so expensively, a separate flat for Grandma. He says we could sublet Grandma’s flat and use the money to pay for the helpers. But Mum calms him down. She tells him it’s necessary for Bridget to be, in theory, entirely separate, that she needs this reassurance psychologically.

  Grandma enjoys the short walk home. Every person we pass is hailed as a friend. Don’t I know you, Grandma calls across the street and is ignored. She walks so slowly she hardly moves, examining the ground for money if she is not distracted by people. If she sees a silver wrapper, there’s no chance of getting her past it: it must be picked up, turned over and eventually put in her pocket in case it comes in useful. She says how quiet it is, over and over, sighing, and then if a car door slams or we hear a siren in the distance she winces and says bloomin’ noise. Meeting children is fatal. Grandma’s face lights up. ‘’Ellaw, ’ellaw,’ she croaks, like a parrot, bending to the frightened child’s level, not realising how weird she looks. She asks either if they know any songs or if they would like a sweetie and Bridget loves it, denying angrily that any child could be the least bit scared of Grandma.

  Bridget says we are home. Grandma stands stock still, amazed. We guide her in, to her own kitchen. This contains the clock her father won in a bowls competition, a picture of Bonnie Prince Charlie she got as a wedding present, some brass ornaments she collected herself, and her china cabinet with what is left of her wedding china in it. These objects were brought down from Glasgow when Grandma was brought down. They’re supposed to make this strange kitchen homely. They fail. Grandma hasn’t the slightest idea where she is. All she knows is that the doors are in the wrong place, the bed has gone from the wall, and she can’t find the fire. Still, it looks very nice. Mum painted the walls a deep, warm yellow and covered the floor in brown and white checks. There’s a table, with a patterned PVC cloth on it to catch Grandma’s spills, and the usual cooker and fridge. The Social Services have provided a special chair which is easy for Grandma to get in and out of. Mum was annoyed about that, Bridget triumphant. Mum said we could go out and buy Grandma any chair in the world, for heaven’s sake, so why all this hassle (which Bridget made a meal of, it’s true) to get the DHSS to fork out.

  The kitchen is warm, too warm. Dad usually mutters that it’s like Africa and that Grandma’s own kitchen was always freezing, that she never had any heat on, that she would not approve of all this heat, that she’s spent a lifetime cowering in the cold. Bridget says she certainly has, tight-lipped. Grandma loves the warmth now, there’s no denying it. She acts, on a fine September early evening, as though she has come in from the Arctic. Bridget settles her in her chair and gives her a cigarette and meanwhile I’ve made the tea. Bridget puts the radio on and we talk over it. I would very much like to leave at once – but that’s not how it works. I wait, every week, for Mildred to arrive. Mum used to do it but recently, as the going’s got tougher, she’s got tougher. She tells me to do the handover and adds it’s not much to ask. That’s true. How could I object to handing my own Grandmother over to the woman who looks after her on Sunday nights?

  Sunday is Bridget’s night off, one of her two. The other is variable, according to what dear Mildred will agree to and sometimes she announces that she is Hard Pressed For Time In My Own Life Which Is Not Easy Either and then Mum stays. Mum hates staying. When she voices this hate I say Dad should stay, that it’s Dad who is Grandma’s son whereas Mum is only her daughter-in-law. This exasperates Mum who snaps at me that Dad cannot possibly stay because Grandma’s smoking brings on his bronchitis and anyway how could he dress and undress her and take her to the lavatory in the night. My answer to this is that female nurses do all that for male patients and Mum’s comeback is that Dad isn’t a nurse and it would be embarrassing for Grandma. These niceties defeat me. I notice Dad doesn’t argue. He says he’ll do it but never does.

  The bell goes. Mildred has her own key but on Sunday evenings she always rings the bell because she knows I’m here. Bridget stubs her cigarette out and scarpers, with a quick goodbye to Grandma. She says the same thing every week – I have to go to work – and Grandma tells her to work hard and bring the bacon home. Bridget’s door, across the hall on her own side, closes. She locks it. Grandma is fiendishly clever in the night. She could burgle anyone and get away with it. When she stayed with us she’d go from room to room, quite silently, managing to open and close doors without disturbing us. Now, of course, she thinks it’s morning and the whole point is to disturb people and get them up for work. If Bridget didn’t lock her communicating door Grandma would find her way to her bed and shake her awake at 3 a.m. But she doesn’t shake Mildred. Who would? Who would dare? Bridget can’t bear to think of how Mildred deals with Grandma waking her three or four times a night. Mum asks her has Grandma got bruises? No. Has Grandma been all right in the morning? Yes. Well then, what is Bridget worried about?

  Bridget is worried about Mildred and so am I. Mildred comes in now and says to Grandma, ‘Hello, Mother.’ Grandma looks contemptuous. She turns to me and says nastily, ‘Who is she talking to?’

  Mildred has a thing about belts. She has three coats, a tweed one, a cloth one and a raincoat and they all have belts which Mildred straps viciously round her fat middle. They must be so uncomfortable but then comfort never seems to be high on Mildred’s list of priorities. She makes no concessions to it. She wears her grey hair in a bun which is not only secured by a fierce-looking elastic band but is further anchored with incredibly long, wide steel hairgrips. Mildred reminds me of a jeep, all squat and solid, all weight and rigid lines. She used to be a bus conductress and though she retired long before they came into use she sees Pay-as-you-enter buses, with drivers only, as the true indication of the decline of our civilisation. She treats Grandma exactly like a passenger on a bus and I’m quite surprised she doesn’t give her a ticket when she leaves. Right now, she’s unbuckling her belt and taking her hat off and her coat off and bustling about claiming her territory. Eventually, she plonks her short, stout body down on the chair just vacated by Bridget and asks Grandma how she is today. Grandma, staring disdainfully into space, says she is very well thank you but she has to be going, the men will be coming in and there is their dinner to get. Mildred laughs and says, a gleam in her eye, that it’s bath night tonight. I say I’d better be going. Grandma says she’d better be going too and starts mouthing she’ll go with me and making faces. Mildred says I should trot along and enjoy myself as I’m only young once and
that she’ll soon sort Grandma out: we’ll have those things off in no time and give your back a nice scrub, eh, Mother? Grandma is appalled. I’m beginning to feel like Bridget.

  Often, I say goodbye and kiss Grandma and slip a comforting peppermint in her mouth and then I go out and close the inner door and the outer door and I make a few noises of walking away along the gravel path. But I creep back and crouch near the window and listen. I don’t know what I expect to hear. Hard to hear anything, really, with the radio on. Mostly I hear Mildred droning on. I can’t make out the words but the tone is acceptable. She isn’t shouting at Grandma, anyway. I walk home, thinking how wrong it all is. Grandma should be living with us. But I can’t help thinking, thank God, she isn’t because it would be awful. But at least she is not in a Home and never will be, Bridget says. Mum says nothing. Dad says the present system costs as much if not more than any Home. Mildred gets £30 a night. Susan, who comes every morning, gets £2.50 an hour. Lola who comes three afternoons, gets £2 an hour (she only sits and chats whereas Susan does things). It is all ridiculous, Dad says, and not as though it gave anyone peace of mind.

  Peace of mind. I would say Dad and Stuart and Adrian seem to enjoy peace of mind where Grandma is concerned. Dad hasn’t got peace of mind about the money he’s forking out but that’s different. He doesn’t worry about Grandma. Mum lies awake at night, fretting. Bridget is screwed up all the time with anxiety and pain. The pain is because she alone truly loves Grandma. More, she adores her, thinks she’s quite wonderful, is her champion. She can’t see a single one of Grandma’s faults. I’m talking about before, of course, when Grandma was herself. I love Grandma but not to that extent. Since I love Mum more, I can see, could see, Grandma is capable, was capable, of some meannesses. She was sly and devious and sulky and childish, in many ways, long before she reverted to being like a child. But Bridget saw only Grandma’s kindness and warmth and cheerfulness and sense of humour and bravery, all true, and most of all her hard life. Bridget says Grandma got most of the custard pies around flung at her. And they were mostly flung by men.

  It’s hard to get far questioning Bridget about these custard pies and the men that threw them. How can my Grandfather getting killed be a custard pie he threw? That’s fate, isn’t it? Bridget says she means before her father was killed. Apparently Grandfather gambled, dogs and horses. Grandma had hard times with him. Bridget does not enlighten me about them. Dad says he can’t remember them and he doesn’t know how Bridget knows because she was only six months old when their father was killed. Dad says, to Bridget’s face, that she romances. Bridget says she does not, she says she knows things Dad does not, things Grandma told her. Mum thinks Grandad was probably just your average working-class husband circa 1930s.

  The house smells of Grandma when I go in. The smoke, but it’s Bridget’s and Paula’s smoke too, but also a strange, musty, close smell, not exactly unpleasant – Grandma is kept very clean, but she smells of being old. Just old. She’s forgotten her tartan shawl. I pick it up from the sofa and bury my face in it. Mum comes in and says to give the shawl to her, it needs washing, that she shudders to think how many times Grandma has blown her nose on it and mopped up tea and used it to wipe dishes. She will wash it in Lux flakes and rinse it in Comfort and hang it in the garden to dry in the wind. In fact, she’ll help Grandma to wash it and hang it out herself tomorrow, she’ll love that. It’s perfectly true. Grandma is passionately happy scrubbing things. I look at her, when Mum has her standing at the sink up to her elbows in suds, and I can always see Mum is right. Washing is women’s work. It doesn’t take Grandma back to backbreaking days of unremitting labour, when she had to heat the water in a copper and stand in a freezing wash house, oh no, it takes her back to a house full and never a lonely moment and a sense of purpose. Grandma believes firmly in the good old days and no amount of evidence produced by Adrian, our statistics expert, can persuade her otherwise.

  Adrian comes in. He’s gloomy. He sighs, throws himself on the sofa, then jumps up as though stung. He holds out his hand and there are Grandma’s top teeth, some toast still stuck to them. I laugh. Mum takes them. Adrian tells me it’s not funny, it makes him feel sick. I tell him he’s a tender flower to be made sick by a set of false teeth. Adrian says he can’t help it and that he wishes he didn’t have to watch Grandma eat, it’s so disgusting, she doesn’t close her mouth and the food swills around and he feels like vomiting. It isn’t even just because she’s ill now either, he goes on, her manners were always awful, it was always horrible eating with her and then those mighty burps, they make him feel sick too. Mum says nobody enjoys it but surely he can rise above it one day a week, especially since he never sees her otherwise whereas at least Hannah helps. Adrian is indignant, claims he helps too. Didn’t he clean Grandma’s windows, dig her garden, drive her to the clinic to see the chiropodist? Good heavens, he can’t be accused of not helping, what else do we want him to do. Mum says he could visit her, like Hannah does. For ten minutes every day, just pop in when she’s alone and make her a cup of tea and chat. Adrian says she doesn’t like men, that last time he dropped in she bolted him in the kitchen and he had to wait for Lola to arrive and let him out. We laugh. Very funny, he says.

  Dad shouts down from the sitting room. Bridget has just telephoned. Lola can’t come tomorrow afternoon, her little girl is ill. Mum says Oh God. Dad yells that Bridget cannot possibly get off work, they are two nurses short on her ward as it is. Mum says oh God again. I know she’s going out tomorrow, nothing important, just pleasure. Just pleasure. So I say I’ll go, not to worry. I’ll go straight from school and stay until Bridget gets home. Mum kisses me. Two minutes later, Bridget rings me. She says thanks, petal, you’ve saved my life.

  *

  I arrive at Grandma’s at four o’clock. She calls nothing today thank you as I shout hello from the front door. That means she’s in a good mood. If she’s in a bad one she grumbles that she’ll hello me and where the devil have I been. She’s standing at the sink with a cut lemon in her hand. What she does is squeeze the lemon juice onto her face to improve her complexion, a tip she read many years ago in the Sunday Post. It’s preferable to the eggshell tip. Grandma also read that when you’ve used a fresh egg you should wipe the inside with a finger and coat your face with what’s left on the shell. Usually, she coats it with small pieces of actual shell which harden and are difficult to get off. Grandma’s complexion, her skin, is beyond the benefit of all tips. Her face is like W. H. Auden’s, millions and millions of cragged crevices and all the colour of a used tea bag. I make her tea, light her a cigarette, remove the lemon and sit her down. I say I’ve just come from school.

  Do you like school?

  No.

  I loved school.

  Why did you leave at thirteen then?

  Everyone did.

  No they didn’t. Your sister stayed on.

  I loved school.

  So you say.

  Do you like school?

  That’s that one over, theme song for the day Number One. Luckily, we’re interrupted by the radio or I might have got bad-tempered. Grandma loving school is fishy and gets fishier. Her three brothers and her sister all did stay at school. Her family, by the time Grandma was born in 1908, was nothing like as poor as when her sister Annie stayed on at school, so it’s nonsense to say she had to leave for economic reasons. Yet Grandma is intelligent and well read so there’s no question of her not being clever enough to stay on and follow Annie’s example. What went wrong? She loved school and left at the first opportunity and went as a maid to the manse and there had her greatest day when she took tea one morning, to a visitor, to that Eric Liddell man, the Scottish one in Chariots of Fire. He left her sixpence.

  But Grandma has picked up a horror story on the radio. A rape. A thirteen-year-old on her way home from school was raped three times each by two boys who took her to a nearby waste ground . . . I switch the radio off.

  Isn’t that terrible!

  Don�
�t listen, then.

  Dreadful, dreadful, did you hear –

  I don’t want to hear.

  Two of them, three times –

  Grandma, forget it, please.

  It’s getting worse, the world’s gone mad.

  It has not got worse, we just hear more about it.

  Isn’t that terrible!

  Grandma subsides into a favourite quote about man’s inhumanity to man which leads inevitably on to Culloden. She tells me I would not believe the things that happened at Culloden, it was terrible, terrible. She rolls the word beautifully, stretches it out like a song. The need to distract her from her misery, real misery, prods me to action. I ask her if she fancies a wee walk. She brightens, gets up by herself, says she’s a little stiff from rugby but she likes a walk. Her father took them for walks in the Highlands. The dreaded coat slides on easily, she is so immersed in her story. They went to the Highlands every summer and, oh, what a long journey and, oh, how excited she was and, oh, how she saved comics for weeks before, knowing they’d sit for hours and hours on the train. The holidays were great, the weather great, all the people in the village they went to great, asking you in for cups of tea and exclaiming when they heard you were Charlie Cameron’s daughter. Grandma laughs and laughs, telling me, becomes animated, acts out accents and expressions.

  I think I’ll go to the Highlands.

  Go, then.

  I’ll need someone to go with.

  Go with Bridget.

  My cousin’s asked me to go with him.

  Go with him, then.

  It’ll all have changed.

  The Highlands never change, only the people.

  I think I’ll go to the Highlands.

  I don’t see why they don’t take her. Bridget says there’s no point, she’s looking for the faces she knows and they won’t be there and it will confuse her more. Dad says it’s too far. Last year we went to Greece, the year before to California, but the Highlands are too far. I would quite like to go, to see Grandma’s heritage. Dad says her heritage is the slums of Glasgow (Bridget says not slums, for heaven’s sake) and the Highlands are all romancing. Well, I’d like to investigate the romance for myself. Anyway, we walk, only round the block, and Grandma still goes on about her father and his walking and her mother saying he would exhaust them and reminding him his daughter’s legs were shorter than his. But Grandma was the most like him and quickly grew to have very long legs. Her mother feared she might become a giantess. She used to make Grandma stand up in front of visitors so they could inspect her height and be awed. Another odd story. I am only five foot seven and I am taller than Grandma.